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MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. URBAN,-Permit one of the oldest of your living correspondents to ask if any of your readers can produce a copy of a pamphlet of 1717, attributed to Defoe, whom we all know, or to Paterson, the founder of the Bank, less known as a writer than he deserves. Its title is, Fair Payment No Sponge; and a copy of it is said to have been sold in London at Messrs. Sotheby's within two years. The subject is the redemption of the National Debt, which it advocates. It was a rejoinder to a pamphlet of Broome, entitled, No Club Law; a title suggested by Paterson's book in defence of Walpole's Sinking Fund. The last-mentioned work was entitled, Proceedings of the Wednesday's Club in Friday Street ;-which contains the best account extant of the formation of the Bank of England, and some abstruse calculations in favour of the measure of redeeming the National Debt. The object of the present inquiry is to complete a collection, now in the Press, of the writings of Paterson.

Yours, &c. S. BANNISTER. MR. URBAN,-There is a trifling point connected with Shakspere's Taming of the Shrew, which, so far as I am aware, has hitherto escaped remark. It is clear that in the sixteenth century the word shrew was pronounced as if written shrow: indeed at the present day the people of Shropshire always call their county town Shrows-bury. This manner of pronunciIation will give the closing lines of the drama the merit of forming a rhyme, and they are so singularly weak in themselves as to stand in need of every advantage they can fairly lay claim to.

The lines will then run as follows:Hor. Now go thy ways: thou hast tam'd

a curst shrow.

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.

So also the closing lines of act iv. scene 1. He that knows better how to tame a shrow, Now let him speak, 'tis charity to shew.

And again, in the widow's speech to Katharine in the last scene :Your husband being troubled with a shrow, Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe.

I may remark, before I conclude, that the same peculiarity is observable in the word show, which, though written indifferently as shew or show, is always pronounced as show. Yours, &c. F. J. V.

Mr. Edward A. Freeman requests us to mention that Dr. Thurnam and he hope, in the course of the month of July, to open a very remarkable tumulus on Uleybury near Dursley, in Gloucestershire. It was opened about 30 years ago, and was found to contain a giant's chamber with thirteen skeletons, one of them in a sitting posture. It is thought, however, that a more scientific examination than was then possible is highly desirable. It will probably take place shortly after the Cambridge Meeting of the Archæological Institute, when Mr. Freeman hopes to be able to announce the exact day. He will be very glad of the company of any persons interested in such matters.-Some further notice of this matter will be found in our Report of the last monthly meeting of the Archæological Institute.

At

At the meeting of the Archæological Institute held on the 5th Nov. 1852 (see our vol. xxxvIII. p. 621), attention was drawn to two sepulchral effigies of the 14th century, supposed to represent members of the family of Cheyne, which were removed from the Church of Chenies, co. Buckingham, at a repair some years since, and had been discovered by the Rev. Mr. Kelke in the beer-cellar of the adjoining manor-house. Viator now informs us that on a recent visit to the spot he was sorry to find these effigies still in the same lamentable position, much defaced from the damp of the cellar. the same time that they were removed from the church, the like bad taste seems to have suggested the separation of all the stones bearing brasses from the graves to which they belonged, and their assemblage together in one group in the centre of the chancel. The consequence has been, that they have suffered very considerably from the frequent treading that has passed over them. The monuments of the Russell family at Chenies are in good condition; but the preservation of memorials of a more ancient date has not been regarded. Some armorial bearings in the eastern window of the south aisle are in a confused and disordered state.

ERRATA. Vol. XLI. p. 552, col. 2, for Sorby read Sotby.

P. 553, for Rochford Town read Rochford Tower.

P. 668, col. 2, line 13, read Sir Matthew Wood, Bart.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

AND

HISTORICAL REVIEW.

THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF FINLAND.

Note. This paper was written twelve years ago for one of the great English reviews, for which the author had composed several articles on Northern literature, &c. It was intended as a warning to England, an appeal for Finland and the North, and for the holiest interests of Great Britain and the West. But the apathy in England at that time, and the belief in the "magnanimity of the Czar," were universal. The article was rejected.

I have just re-discovered it among a mass of old papers, and it may now interest the British reader.

In thus giving it to the press I do not change one word.* I would only add, that the Russification of Finland during these fourteen winters has been rapidly increasing, and that the peril to the rest of Europe is consequently so much the greater. We have not a moment to lose in restoring that noble Duchy to our Northern alliance against the great oppressor.

SOME four or five thousand winters agone, the world was as fair, though not so delved and digged, as now. Game abounded in the forest, fish leaped in the stream, and the laughing landscape invited the wandering warrior to pitch his tent amid its glories. Then, from the cradle of the human race, the high table-lands of Central Asia that bright point where all the lines of earliest poetry and mythological tradition find their common centre -issued tribes and clans destined to rough-hew the path of a future loftier civilization, chiefs trustingly led out into the wilderness by the hand of Providence to colonize, and clear, and cultivate. Northward, and westward, and southward flowed they on, land after land occupied by their peaceful hordes. First came FLINT-using tribes of huntsmen and fishermen, the sharpshooters or back-settlers of the great occupation; then the COPPER-armed races of an advancing mastership over the earth; and lastly, kindreds whose hands could smelt and smithy IRON, that most important of all metals

in the history of mankind. Thus by rapid sweeps spread they their dominion, and in the limit of their sway was included a large portion, perhaps the majority, of our present Europe.

The names of these our primitive European settlers have undergone many changes in proportion as they have inspired hope or fear in the bosoms of other hordes their neighbours; but we see their descendants still among us, and know them as Laps and Finlanders (in their own speech, Suomalaisen), subdivided into many stems, and still stretching from the eternal snows of the most northern north, down in a belt of settlements to the east and south of the Baltic as far as Hungary.

But these first tribes possessed mental features peculiarly contrasted to those of their Keltic, and Gothic, and Thracian, and Slavic after-comers. They were not robber-races nor swordwielders; nor were they driven by a thirst of blood and conquest to gain or regain settlements in more fortunate

* We have found some compression and omission necessary from regard to our available space.-Edit.

climes. Though brave, they were yet backward; to him who asked, gave they; before him who took, they retired. A certain mild melancholy, a certain consciousness of inward qualities far outweighing any outward advantage, and an indomitable patience, hardihood, and industry, have always been their characteristics. Thus, with some few exceptions, when their innate heroism has flashed high and burned bright against their foes, they have retired step by step northward, northward, northward, sometimes battling with, but more frequently giving way before, the decrees of fate, until we now find them in their final home, busily moss-draining and fire-clearing as their fathers before them, and recalling in their mythological songs the mighty men of old and the spirit of the past.

St. Eric the Ninth, King of Sweden, excited thereto as much by the necessity of putting a stop to the plundering incursions of the North and East Baltic heathens as by motives of religion, commenced the colonization and Christianization of Finland about seven centuries ago. The force of Paganism and the bravery of the inhabitants rendered this a difficult task; but the measures taken for that purpose were mostly of a mild character, and within a not very long period we find the Finlanders believers in Christ, and sincerely attached to the Swedish rule. By degrees letters and civilization were spread among the people, and the various clans and district governments (kihlkunnat) of the native Fins rapidly subsided into one extensive province, the most valuable of all the possessions of the Swedish crown.

But almost coeval with these events we find the Russians endeavouring to spread their power to these northeastern Baltic lands, and disputing with Sweden the right of conquest. As early as A.D. 1042 Wladimir Jaroslavitsch, Prince of Novgorod, led an expedition against the Jemer (Hämäläiset), a Finnish tribe to the east of Lake Ladoga.* In 1187 the Karelians, instigated by the Russians, plundered

* Finland's Forntid. Af G. Rein. + Idem, p. 6.

§ Geijer. Svenska Folkets Historia. || Idem, p. 108.

and burned Sigtuna, the ancient capital of Sweden, and murdered Johannes the archbishop; and in 1198 Abo, the capital of Finland, was plundered by a Russian force. But, omitting all mention of intervening incidents, we would merely observe that Finland was yet again conquered by Russia in 1741, and was only recovered by the influence of diplomacy.

Thus even the most careless observer will perceive that the importance of Finland for the political aggrandizement of Russia was felt from the earliest times. This was particularly and most prophetically understood by that great king and illustrious hero, Gustavus II. Adolphus. When the victories of Jacob de la Gardie had enabled that monarch in some degree to dictate the terms of peace to be granted to that power which he characterised as "all of them bearing an innate hatred to every foreign nation, and upblown with pride,"§ he thus wrote to his mother and the council:

The fortresses of Kexholm, Nöteborg, Jama, Kossorie, and Ivangorod [on whose possession he continued to insist as a sine qua non for the establishment of a settled understanding], were as it were the keys of Finland and of Lifland, and shut out the Russ from the Baltic: should the Russ gain back Nöteborg or Ivangorod, or both, and afterwards come to know his own

power, the convenience of the sea, and the many advantages to be derived from the streams, and lakes, and shores, which he has never yet considered or properly emFinland at every point, and yet better in ployed, he could then not only attack summer than in winter, which he had never yet understood, but also in consequence of his great force he could fill the East Sea with vessels, so that Sweden would be in perpetual danger: the king, on his journey to Neva, had himself examined the possession, and had found how necessary it was to obtain a safe border against Russia.

And again, in his speech to the Diet after the peace in 1617, he thus expressed himself:

It was not one of the least of those benefits which God had shown to Sweden, that the Russ, with whom we had lived of

Helsingfors, 1831. Part i. p. 3. + Idem, p. 6. Orebro, 1832-6. Vol. iii. p. 105.

old in an uncertain state and most dan gerous position, was now obliged to abandon for ever that den of plunder whence

he has before so often disturbed us.

A

most dangerous neighbour was he; his possessions stretched from the Baltic to the Northern Ocean and the Caspian Sea, and approached the Black Sea itself. He had a powerful nobility, plenty of peasants, and populous cities, and could send great armies into the field. Now, however, this enemy could not put a boat into the Baltic without our permission; the great lakes of Ladoga and Pejpus, the river Narva, thirty Swedish miles of broad morass, and strong fortresses, part us from him. Russia is shut out from the East Sea, and I hope

to God that over that brook the Russ will not hop so easily.*

Yes! at that period the ground on which stands Petersburgh, that armygarrisoned capital

where now wide earth It's mortgag'd crowns all humbly sendeth,†

was then the soil of Swedish Finland, and on the border Gustaf raised a stone with the national arms, the Three Crowns of Sweden, and the inscrip

tion :

Huc regni posuit fines Gustavus Adolphus

Rex Suecorum, fausto Numine, duret opus.‡

Alas, for Sweden and for Europe! Gustaf fell, and the boundary-stone of the great liberator is now replaced by the palace of the Czar, the guardencircled halls of the King of Poland, of Finland, of Moldavo-Wallachia, the gate-keeper of Germany, Scandinavia, Persia, Turkey, China, and of British India!

But it is not here our intention to enter into all the details of FinnoRussian affairs. We have not to do with the past, but with the present; and shall therefore take up the question from a point of view quite near at hand.

The consequences of the last ruinous campaigns in Finland are well known. The premature resistance and

unhappy obstinacy of the honourable and unfortunate Gustavus IV. Adol

phus-a king betrayed by his own nobles-against the great tyrant and house, by his court, his army, and his his Milan decrees, threw him, unsupported, into the claws of the northern eagle. Alexander, as ally of Napoleon, but without any declaration of war, nay, in the midst of professions of peace and security, invaded Finland, took possession of its capital, bought § the impregnable Sveaborg, Finland's Gibraltar, and with eager hand placed

upon

of "The Grand Duchy of Finland." his brows the glittering diadem Since that memorable event, a succession of stirring incidents at home and abroad, a feeling of profound melancholy and despair at the loss of their "dearest shield," and the policy of the Swedish government in holding out the politically valuable quasi acquisition of Norway as an ally as infinitely more valuable than the recovery of Finland as an integral part of the kingdom, have all concurred to bring about in Sweden and elsewhere a long trance of inactive regret as to Finland and all its concerns. But this period has happily come to an end: public attention has once more been directed to a subject so important, and we are now assured that it will be allowed to sleep no more.

The individual who has the principal merit of having broken the ice on this question is Israel Hwasser, a medical professor in Upsala, and in past years long resident in Finland. This gentleman entered upon his task with his customary energy, zeal, talent, and originality. Possessed of a fine imagination and great reasoning powers, he produced a work abounding in noble passages, and which will always remain a monument of his genius, high principles, and commanding views.|| But unfortunately this work was dangerous, in its tendency, to the very

* Geijer. Svenska Folkets Historia. Orebro, 1832-6, vol. iii. pp. 108, 109. †These two lines are from Teguer's beautiful poem "Axel." Thet Svenska i Ryssland Tijo ahrs Krijgz Historie. Aff Joh. Widekindi. Stockholm, 1671. 4to. p. 929.

§ Some curious documents have lately been published in Russia relative to this transaction. The writer, the Russian General Michailoffskij-Danileffskij, has been disgraced for his pains.

Om Allians-Tractaten emellan Sverige och Ryssland ar 1812. Politisk Betraktelse öfver Nordens nuvarande ställning. On the Treaty of Alliance between Sweden and Russia, in the year 1812. A political meditation on the present position of the North. By Professor Israel Hwasser. Stockholm, 1838, Sm. 8vo. pp. 109.

cause he had undertaken to defend. Loving Finland and wishing its prosperity on the one hand, and carried too far by his admiration of the policy of Charles XIV. John in 1812 on the other, he brought forward the extraordinary assertion that, in this case, "all that is, is best," and that Finland was now an independent state under the protection of Russia, and to become separate therefrom must violate its own constitution and the eternal rights of its Russian chief. This was the dangerous, politically immoral, doctrine which has given rise to the whole discussion now carried on in Sweden.

Like the dog in the manger, Russia had long been anxious that Finland should rather be independent (that is, for such a small state, nothing, or worse than nothing) if it could not be Russian. A hundred years ago the Empress Elizabeth, in a manifesto dated Moscow, March 18, 1742, made the following declaration :—

At the same time and from the best

intentions, and as we besides do not wish to acquire a single foot of foreign soil, we would willingly permit and would in every way advance the plan that the said Grand Duchy of Finland, provided it were inclined to free and extricate itself from the rule and jurisdiction of Sweden, that it might for the future, as now has happened through the selfishness of some individuals, preserve itself from the dangers of a de

structive war and the terrible calamities resulting therefrom, may constitute itself and remain a free country dependent upon neither, under their own form of government established by themselves, and on such a footing, and with such rights, privileges, and immunities, as may serve to serve to their own advantage and eternal defence, as may best suit their own desires, and as they themselves may wish it to be. And in this are we willing to protect and support them in this their new undertaking, whenever circumstances may require, to assist them with our troops when and to as great a number as they themselves may ask.*

In 1788, when faction had paralysed the campaign of Gustavus III., this manifesto was again distributed through the Finnish provinces. At the same time Frederic the Great and Catharine had guaranteed the anarchical

and suicidical Swedish and Finnish constitution of 1720, in a secret article of their alliance of March 30, 1764, and in a public article in that of October 2, 1769. We must remember that in this same treaty of 1764 these two powers had also guaranteed the still more anarchical Polish constitution, a political act which was followed, on the 5th of August, 1772, by the first partition of Poland. Nor was a similar fate at all improbable for Sweden at that period. It is said that Frederic had laid claim to Pomerania, and Russia to Finland, as the groundwork of this intended first partition of Sweden.

Professor Hwasser, and some other later writers, have begun to render fashionable what we consider to be simply a cowardly and unmeaning jargon-that the possession of Finland, and especially of its Baltic sea-coast, is "necessary" for Russia as its "natural border," and that there never could have been a solid peace in Scandinavia until this great object was gained; while, now that it has been accomplished, the happy North need never expect to hear the trump of war again from a power so inimical to plunder, conquest, and astute and spoliating ambition, as the government of all the Russias! Nay, such is the language frequently employed about this said "natural boundary," which the foundation of the modern Petersburgh first rendered really practicable, much less necessary, that we might sometimes be almost afraid that the Swedish and Finnish heroes, who so long and so gallantly defended their country, were actually and wickedly fighting against nature, and opposing the simplest and most express designs

of heaven.

Accordingly, this is an argument so sublime, or so ridiculous, that there is scarcely any answering it. Province after province, river after river, district after district, country after country, are declared "necessary " for the existence of Russia, as forming its "natural boundary," and as assuring to neighbouring nations a most lasting and most truly solid "peace!" Where then shall we stop? Certainly not at Tornea and the Isles of Aland; for the whole of Finland is open to incur

Om Allians-Tractaten, &c. (Review of) in "Litteratur-Bladet " for November and December, 1838. By Professor Geijer. 8vo. pp. 40. Stockholm, 1838. p. 219.

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