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Board of Trade into such accidents as are brought under their notice are made without authority, and are conducted in private; and they can only be made public by being laid before Parliament, which is done at irregular intervals. These Reports contain much information on the subject of railway accidents; but appearing, as they do, long after all interest in the subjects of them has ceased, they form an uncondensible mass of detail, too bulky for criticism and too dry for perusal.

It is very easy to say with Sterne, that they order this matter better' in France. But in France the Government controls the butchers and bakers, as well as the press and the railways; and it is itself controlled by the mob, for whom it is obliged to find food in periods of comparative scarcity, and work in times of expected tumult. This state of things would not so well agree with the constitution and temperament of Mr. John Bull. There is, however, one respect in which we might copy from the great French nation with advantage, and that is in the more equitable distribution of responsibilities and punishments between the higher officers of railway companies and their subordinates. Both our law and our practice are seriously at fault in this respect. An overworked, an inefficient, an unlucky servant, or one provided with insufficient appliances, may be punished severely for an accident which occurs more through his misfortune than his misconduct; whilst the officer who ought really to be considered responsible, may escape without punishment, and even without blame. In Scotland the engine-driver of a goods train was committed to prison not very long since, on the prosecution of the procurator fiscal, for running into a passenger train in a tunnel, although he could not have seen it in sufficient time to enable him to stop his own train; and he underwent, if we remember right, two months of imprisonment for an accident which was caused by a want of telegraphic communication for signalling the trains one at a time through the tunnel. In France, when a similar accident occurred some little time afterwards, the manager and engineer of the railway were severely punished for not having provided the tunnel with a telegraph for the protection of the trains.

While setting forth the reforms that might be made by the railway companies, we would also warn travellers that they are, in fact, more to blame in the matter of loss of life, though not in the matter of injury, than their carriers. The number of those who are killed by the companies amounts to an annual average of 18, whilst the number of those who kill themselves, from imprudence or recklessness, is 21. On the other hand, the

number of those who are annually injured from no fault of their own by the railway companies, averages 350, while the number of those who injure themselves is only 16. These are the averages, at least, which the returns before us afford.

We will not attempt to caution passengers against entering or leaving trains in motion, because we know how little effect it would have upon this foolish practice; but we would impress, if we could, the spirit of the lesson which we saw printed in different languages in a railway carriage in Holland, a few years. since: You are requested not to put no heads nor arms out of te windows.' On some of our older railways the lines of rails are nearer to each other than on the more modern ones; and there are gate-posts, bridges, tunnels, sheds, walls, water-cranes, tanks, and signal-boxes, in different parts of the country, nearer to the carriages than is consistent with the safety of people who protrude their heads from the carriage windows. We would add, further, that the great and very natural disinclination that exists on the part of the public to make use of the footbridges which have been constructed at some stations, does much to prevent the multiplication of these bridges, which are, in spite of the extra trouble which they cause, very necessary in many instances to safety.

The sum of our conclusions may be stated in a very few words. The means of railway control which may best be made available for the benefit of the public are competition and publicity. Competition produces convenience, and publicity precaution. By a judicious encouragement of competition, or in other words, by preventing those further combinations from being made legal which would tend to neutralise this valuable resource, as much accommodation may be obtained for the public as they can reasonably expect, and more than they could get in any other way. Publicity would be gained by the Government's placing at once at the disposal of the press and the public that timely information as to the true causes of accident which they have a right to possess. Responsibility would then be attached to the higher officers of railway companies; error would be exposed, and truth proclaimed; warnings would be afforded, and instruction imparted; the lessons of experience would be prominently set forth, and would, in a greater degree than at present, be practically enforced; and an increased measure of PRECAUTION, upon which safety principally depends, would, without doubt, eventually be ensured.

ART. II-Autobiography of Miss Cornelia | nor very liberal in their revelations. Miss Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess Knight had the character in her generation Charlotte of Wales with Extracts from of being an extremely cautious person, and her Journals and Anecdote-Books. Two her caution exhibits itself curiously enough vols. London, 1861. in these volumes; for while at one time she notes down, in the most tranquil and matterMORE than twenty years ago the world was of-fact way, circumstances which any one who scandalised by the appearance of the Diary was interested in the personages concerned Illustrative of the Times of George the would forget if they could, or commit at all Fourth,' which made public such strange events to their memory alone, she seems at revelations respecting the Court-history of other times embarrassed by the delicacy of the Regency. The book was condemned by her own secrets, and chronicles them with public opinion, with an universal and right- much apparatus of mystery. She reminds eous expression of disgust. The compiler, us, occasionally, of that poor comrade of for the sake of earning a little money, had Thistlewood the traitor, who wrote down poured profusely out all the scandal hoarded some political sentiments in prison to please in volumes of ill-natured note-books, and in a fancier of autographs, but could not refrain, numbers of confidential and careless letters, through habit, from designating Sidmouth deeply affecting the character of some, and and Castlereagh by initials and dashes, though the memory of many more, and in especial he was going to be hanged next morning. that of a benefactress. But it would proba- But the general impression produced by the bly have been dismissed with more of con- present diarist is only a trifle less painful than tempt than of hostile notice, had it not also that left by her predecessor. She is condeeply affronted two classes of readers, usually stantly imputing, often by such quiet insinuaopposed to each other-those who thought tion as is not readily detected, low or crooked Conservative principles engaged in the de- motives to almost every person concerned in fence of the character of George IV., of the Princess Charlotte's affairs. Traits of the which singular sect there were still a few living worst description are recorded with such disin 1838; and those, more powerful in that passionate tranquillity, that it is only on day, who had more or less committed them- reflection and second reading that we become selves by their advocacy of the unfortunate conscious how very base, and even shocking, Queen Caroline. Twenty years more have are the conduct or sentiments thus calmly pretty nearly disposed of both these classes, ascribed. It is therefore one of those books and indeed of all who take any interest in of scandal of which it is impossible not to the intrigues of Carlton House, and Warwick regret the publication; such as do but cause House, and Connaught Place, except as mat- unnecessary annoyance, if not to the living, ters of historical gossip, or who care for the to those who cherish the memories of their accurate distribution of posthumous contempt dead, while they add absolutely nothing to between the unhappy couple whose sordid our knowledge of any fraction of history worth quarrels were once affairs of State, and puz-knowing. But as such books will always zled the wits and almost broke the hearts of continue to be published while money is an statesmen who had nerve to confront Europe object with families into whose hands they in arms. It is therefore with comparative have got,' and will certainly be read when indifference that we find the favourite tattle published (Miss Knight has already reached of our grandmothers once more revived by a third edition), we must content ourselves the publication of these relics of Miss Cor- with entering this, our conventional protest, nelia Knight, or Ellis Cornelia Knight, as she in opposition to the arguments by which Mr. signs herself; Lady-companion, as she ought Kaye justifies the publication, and proceed. to have been styled-under-governess, as people would persist in styling her to the Princess Charlotte during the eventful years of her life 1813 and 1814. Not that we would commit the gross injustice of comparing Miss Knight to the diarist in question. We cannot believe that Miss Knight intended her so-called Autobiograpny for publication, though her editor, Mr. Kaye, gives reasons for thinking she did; and, at all events, she did not betray, or enable others to betray, the confidences made to her in correspondence, by keeping and docketing private letters. Nor are her remains satirical in style,

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Miss Knight was the daughter of Admiral Sir Joseph Knight, an officer of well deserved reputation. She made the acquaintance, as a girl, of Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, and other celebrities of the age' She attained in her day considerable reputation as a lady of extensive learning and manifold accomplishments.' Mrs. Piozzi calls her 'the far-famed Cornelia Knight.' She wrote 'Dinarbas, a Sequel to Rasselas,' and 'Marcus Flaminius, a View of the Military, Political, and Social Life of the Romans,' a novel in two volumes, which, as Mr. Kaye rather satirically remarks, being in the stately classical style, hit the

taste of the age.' But judging from these | whom she cautiously terms 'a singular mixremains alone, and not having read either ture of right and wrong.' She only informs Dinarbas or Marcus Flaminius, we should be us that she left Sicily in company with the inclined to suspect that the learning which Hamiltons, with Lady Hamilton's mother gained her celebrity did not reach much Mrs. Cadogan, Lord Nelson, and the Queen beyond the standard required for astonish- of Naples, on the 8th of June, 1800, for ing' persons of quality. It did not certainly Leghorn; and proceeded thence to Ancona, preserve her from startling historical mis- which place they reached after a difficult and takes, or from a pertinacious inability to spell somewhat romantic journey. She reached foreign names (which her editor has not taken Trieste by a different ship; but there rethe trouble to correct), and to scan either joined the Hamilton and Nelson party, and French or Latin verses.* proceeded with them on what may be called their triumphal route through Germany, by Vienna, Dresden, and Hamburg. They arrived in town in November, when Miss Knight went to a hotel in Albemarle Street with Mrs. Cadogan.' And it is scarcely necessary to say that Miss Knight's account of the journey contains little but a chronicle of the decorous ovations with which it was attended.

Miss Knight's father, Sir Joseph, died in 1775, when she was about eighteen; and Lady Knight, being in straitened circumstances, and unable to obtain a pension, went with her daughter to live on the Continent. They dwelt a good deal at Rome, where Miss Knight picked up an amount of knowledge of the personages and ways of its curious Court very rare with English people, and which furnishes the most amusing portion of her foreign diaries. She was at Rome when the French agitator, Basseville, was murdered by the Conservative mob, in 1793. In 1798, when Berthier occupied the Eternal City, she and her mother effected their escape to Naples with some difficulty. And here commences that which-when we remember what she afterwards became-is the most curious chapter in Miss Knight's history; over which her editor passes with very discreet forbearance of remark. She and her mother established the closest intimacy with Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy, and with his too celebrated wife. They partook in all the vehement enthusiasm with which the victory of the Nile and Lord Nelson's triumphant arrival at Naples were saluted by the English there. They were also the eye-wittnesses and the partakers of the idolatry evinced by the King and Queen of Naples, and by Lady Hamilton, for the hero who threw himself so unsuspectingly into their arms. She became a kind of deputy poetess laureate for the occasion; added a stanza-Join we great Nelson's name,' and so forth to the National Anthem; and addressed strains commencing, 'Come, cheer up, fair Delia,' to Lady Hamilton, in connection with the great commander. She be came, apparently, the indispensable inmate of that circle. She accompanied them to Palermo, and there Lady Knight died, in 1799; and Cornelia,' says the editor, 'in fulfilment of her mother's dying injunctions, placed herself under the protection of the Hamiltons.' Miss Knight herself tells us nothing of this, nor of the causes which led her to form so close an attachment to her Ladyship,

* See vol ii., pp. 181 and 197.

Now let us turn to the other side of the story. In the summer of 1800, Mrs. St. George, an Irish widow lady of family, was residing in Germany, and familiar with several of its courts. She was young, of much talent, and a very lively power of observation. Portions of her Journal' have been printed by her son, the present Dean of Westminster. We extract from it without comment, which is quite unnecessary, the passages which relate to the sojourn of Nelson, the Hamiltons, and Miss Knight at Dresden :

'Oct. 2.-Dined at the Elliots'. [Mr. Elliot I was playing at chess with Mr. Elliot, the news was British Minister at the Saxon Court.] While arrived of Lord Nelson's arrival, with Sir W. and Lady Hamilton, Mrs. Cadogan, mother of the latter, and Miss Cornelia Knight, famous for her "Continuation of Rasselas " and "Private Life of the Romans."

Oct. 3.-Dined at Mr. Elliot's, with only the thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton, who is Nelson party. It is plain that Lord Nelson totally occupied by the same object. She is bold, forward, coarse, assuming, and vain. Her figure is colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. Her bones are large, and she is exceedingly embonpoint. She resembles the bust of Ariadne: the shape of all the features is fine, as is the form of her head, and particularly her ears; her teeth are a little blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes bright defect, takes nothing away from her beauty and expression. Her eyebrows and hair are dark, and her complexion coarse. Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her voice low, but not disagreeable. Lord Nelson is movements in common life ungraceful; her pose, must resemble what Suwarrow was in his a little man, without any dignity, who, I supyouth, as he is like all the pictures I have seen of that General. Lady Hamilton takes possession.

of him, and he is a willing captive, the most de- | acted Nina intolerably ill, and danced the Taranvoted and submissive I have seen. Sir William tola. During her acting Lord Nelson expressed is old, infirm, all admiration of his wife, and his admiration by the Irish sound of astonished never spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss applause, which no written character can imiCornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of tate, and by crying every now and then, "Mrs. the two, and never opens her mouth but to show Siddons be d-d!" Lady Hamilton expressed forth their praise; and Mrs. Cadogan, Lady great anxiety to go to Court, and Mrs. Elliot asHamilton's mother, is what one might expect. sured her it would not amuse her, and that the After dinner we had several songs in honour of Elector never gave dinners or suppers. "What!" Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight, and sung cried she, "no guttling?" Sir William also this by Lady Hamilton. She puffs the incense full evening performed feats of activity, hopping in his face, but he receives it with pleasure, and round the room on his backbone, his arms, legs, snuffs it up very cordially. star and ribbon all flying about in the air.

Oct. 7.-Lady H- continues her demonstrations of friendship, and said many fine things about my accompanying her at sight. Still she does not gain upon me. I think her bold, daring, vain, even to folly, and stamped with the manner of her first situation much more strongly than one would suppose, after having represent-attitudes, of the acting, the dancing, and the ed Majesty and lived in good company fifteen years. Her ruling passions seem to me vanity, avarice, and love for the pleasures of the table. She shows a great avidity for presents, and has actually obtained some at Dresden by the comInon artifice of admiring and longing. Mr. Elliot says she will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England. . .

Oct. 10.-Mr. Elliot saw them on board [a boat on the Elbe] to-day. He heard by chance from a King's messenger that a frigate waited for them in Hamburg, and ventured to announce it formally. He says, "The moment they were on board there was an end of the fine arts, of the singing. Lady Hamilton's maid began to scold in French about some provisions which had been forgot, in language quite impossible to repeat, using certain French words which were never spoken but by men of the lowest class, and roaring them out from one boat to another. Lady Hamilton began bawling for an Irish stew, and her old mother set about washing potatoes, which she did as cleverly as possible. were exactly like Hogarth's actresses dressing in the barn.'*

They

'Oct.-Dined at Madame de Loss's, wife to the Prime Minister, with the Nelson party. The Electress will not receive Lady Hamilton, on account of her former dissolute life. She wished Now, it may be said once for all, it is to go to Court, on which a pretext was made to open to every one to make such allowance as avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I un- he may think proper for the youth and vivaderstand there will be no Court while she stays. city and slightly satirical turn of the authorLord Nelson, understanding the Elector did not ess of these sketches. But they must be wish to see her, said to Mr. Elliot, "Sir, if there substantially true. They were written down is any difficulty of that sort, Lady Hamilton will knock the Elector down, and on the impression of the moment, and preme, I'll knock him down too." She was not invited in the be- served for no purpose except that of commuginning to Madame de Loss's, upon which Lord nication to her own family. There is no susNelson sent his excuse, and then Mr. Elliot per-picion of intended publication here. Some, suaded Madame de Loss to invite her.

Oct. 9.-A great breakfast at the Elliots', given to the Nelson party. Lady Hamilton repeated her attitudes with great effect. All the company, except their party and myself, went away before dinner; after which Lady Hamilton, who declared she was passionately fond of champagne, took such a portion of it as astonished me. Lord Nelson was not behindhand; called more vociferously than usual for songs in his own praise, and after many bumpers proposed the Queen of Naples, adding, "She is my Queen; she is Queen to the backbone." Poor Mr. Elliot, who was anxious the party should not expose themselves more than they had done already, and wished to get over the last day as well as he had done the rest, endeavoured to stop the effusion of champagne, and effected it with some difficulty, but not till the Lord and Lady, or, as he calls them, Antony and Moll Cleopatra, were pretty far gone. I was so tired I returned home soon after dinner, but not till Cleopatra had talked to me a great deal of her doubts whether the Queen would receive her, adding, "I care little about it. I had much sooner she would settle half Sir W.'s pension on me." After I went, Mr. Elliot told me she

Such men must not be

in their veneration for the memory of Lord
Nelson, have been displeased at their appear-
ance. They are wrong, we think. To get
at the truth about the tracasseries of Carlton
House is of no conceivable importance to
mankind; but that the character of one of the
real heroes of history should be thoroughly
known-known in its weaknesses no less
than its strength-is of very considerable
importance indeed.
painted en buste. Nor is there any fear
that the real fame of Nelson will suffer by
additional exposures of his follies about Lady
Hamilton. As well criticise Samson for his
relations with Delilah. The truth is that
there are marked men in history, though
very few, whose character is of the Samsonic
type-men of unlimited bravery, intense and
contagious enthusiasm, absolute simplicity
and honesty of purpose, and withal the

*Journal kept during a visit to Germany in 1799 and 1800, edited by the Dean of Westminster, pp. 75-83.

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We fear it

merest children, or worse than children, in | scarcely have dared to invent.
point of external demeanour and of personal
weaknesses, whether of the same nature with
those of Nelson or not. Such men were
Wolfe, Seidlitz, Suwarrow (to whom Mrs. St.
George acutely compares Nelson). Such is
Garibaldi. Men like these are always cherish-
ed, as they should be, in popular affection,
and lose little or nothing of their peculiar
popularity after Time has done its worst in
disclosing their failings.

can only remain on record as a proof how
indescribably low the standard, not exactly of
morals, but of moral sentiment, had descend-
ed in ours, at the period in question.

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So, however, it fell out. In March, 1805, Miss Knight was taken into the service of Queen Charlotte, without any solicitation, she says, on her part :

'Her Majesty had been pleased to express a desire that I should be attached to her person, without any particular employment, but that I should be lodged at Windsor, in a house belonging to Her Majesty, with a maid in her service to do the work of the house. Her Majesty added that she would allow me 3001. a-year, and that I should be present at her evening parties when invited, and always on Sundays and red-letter days, and be ready to attend her in the morning when required to do so.'--vol. i.

p. 168.

But the strange part of this Teniers-like bit of history, for our present purpose, consists in the light which it reflects on the real characteristics of the refined Miss Cornelia Knight, lady-companion' a few years afterwards to the Princess Charlotte. We find her, not a young girl deprived of her natural protector, but a demure orphan of forty-two, deliberately attaching herself to the fortunes and society of this bacchanalian citizeness of the demi-monde, and her convenient In this capacity she passed the melancholy mother. We do not insinuate the slightest season of the death of the Princess Amelia scandal against Miss Knight. Though she and final seclusion of George III.; and she must have handled a vast deal of pitch adds some touching details of these events to between Palermo and Albemarle-street, she those already known. In 1813 she was remained undefiled; and far from having any transferred, or rather transferred herself, to imputation cast upon her, she passed for a the service of the Princess Charlotte; but model of decorum, if not quite one of the the circumstances of the change are very most high-minded women in the world, and warily recounted, and not quite intelligibly. the kindest-hearted,' as Lady Charlotte Bury It seems that she had got heartily tired of calls her, in the spirit of Connaught-House the Queen's dreary little society-dull, unpartisanship. Her condescension, and that interesting, and monotonous; every year more of others, to the Hamiltons, was in some de- confined, and ever, from the kindness of the gree veiled by the blaze of Nelson's glory, Royal Family, condemned to listen to all and the services which the boldness and their complaints and private quarrels.' Nor readiness of his Emma had rendered to the does Queen Charlotte seem to have cared British cause. She was attached to them particularly for Miss Knight. But Her by the ties of dependence and gratitude. Majesty had the tenacity of soured old age. Most of my friends,' she says after her Miss Knight could not, therefore, get herself arrival in London, were very urgent with liberated without a most disproportionate me to drop the acquaintance; but circum- amount of finesse and diplomacy. Sir Henry stanced as I had been, I feared the charge of Halford was the agent employed by the ingratitude, though greatly embarrassed what Regent, as it should seem, to effect the lady's to do, for things became very unpleasant.' extradition. He wrote her a most pressing (Vol. i. p. 162.) All this sufficiently ac- letter, offering her among other things, as counts for the indulgence of society towards she asserts, the title of Honourable; and her; but it does not account for the extra-with this letter came two from the Princess ordinary circumstance that a lady, whose antecedents in this respect were so unlucky, was selected, first as the familiar attendant of the stiff Queen Charlotte, next as the lady-companion of that Queen's granddaughter during the most critical years of her brief life. That the travelling-companion of Emma Hamilton should have been chosen, not simply to play propriety in a youthful Princess's drawing-room, but to train her heart and intellect, and watch over her under circumstances of embarrassment and delicacy almost unparalleled, is such a fact as the greatest enemy of courts would

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Elizabeth, one of which was written by the Queen's desire, to give me a hint that the Prince wished I should come forward to assist him . . . . . but adding, that the Queen would not bias me either way. The other letter was a private one, in which she urged me to write a letter to the Queen, showing an inclination to accept, and offering to consider myself still as in her service, or terms to that effect.' The answer she received was unsatisfactory. 'I saw,' she says, that the Queen wished me to take the refusal on myself, that she might not offend the Prince.' She was dreadfully disap

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