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 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 carriers. 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 Charlotte of Wales: with Extracts from her Journals and Anecdote-Books. Two vols. London, 1861. MORE than twenty years ago the world was scandalised by the appearance of the Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth,' which made public such strange revelations respecting the Court-history of the Regency. The book was condemned by public opinion, with an universal and righteous expression of disgust. The compiler, for the sake of earning a little money, had poured profusely out all the scandal hoarded in volumes of ill-natured note-books, and in numbers of confidential and careless letters, deeply affecting the character of some, and the memory of many more, and in especial that of a benefactress. But it would probably have been dismissed with more of contempt than of hostile notice, had it not also deeply affronted two classes of readers, usually opposed to each other those who thought Conservative principles engaged in the defence of the character of George IV., of which singular sect there were still a few living in 1838; and those, more powerful in that day, who had more or less committed themselves by their advocacy of the unfortunate Queen Caroline. Twenty years more have pretty nearly disposed of both these classes, and indeed of all who take any interest in the intrigues of Carlton House, and Warwick House, and Connaught Place, except as matters of historical gossip, or who care for the accurate distribution of posthumous contempt between the unhappy couple whose sordid quarrels were once affairs of State, and puzzled the wits and almost broke the hearts of statesmen who had nerve to confront Europe It is therefore with comparative indifference that we find the favourite tattle of our grandmothers once more revived by the publication of these relics of Miss Cornelia Knight, or Ellis Cornelia Knight, as she signs herself; Lady-companion, as she ought 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, Knight had the character in her generation of being an extremely cautious person, and her caution exhibits itself curiously enough in these volumes; for while at one time she notes down, in the most tranquil and matterof-fact way, circumstances which any one who was interested in the personages concerned would forget if they could, or commit at all events to their memory alone, she seems at other times embarrassed by the delicacy of her own secrets, and chronicles them with much apparatus of mystery. She reminds us, occasionally, of that poor comrade of Thistlewood the traitor, who wrote down some political sentiments in prison to please a fancier of autographs, but could not refrain, through habit, from designating Sidmouth and Castlereagh by initials and dashes, though he was going to be hanged next morning. But the general impression produced by the present diarist is only a trifle less painful than that left by her predecessor. She is constantly imputing, often by such quiet insinuation as is not readily detected, low or crooked motives to almost every person concerned in the Princess Charlotte's affairs. Traits of the worst description are recorded with such dispassionate tranquillity, that it is only on reflection and second reading that we become conscious how very base, and even shocking, are the conduct or sentiments thus calmly ascribed. It is therefore one of those books of scandal of which it is impossible not to regret the publication; such as do but cause unnecessary annoyance, if not to the living, to those who cherish the memories of their dead, while they add absolutely nothing to our knowledge of any fraction of history worth knowing. But as such books will always continue to be published while money is an object with families into whose hands they have got,' and will certainly be read when published (Miss Knight has already reached a third edition), we must content ourselves with entering this, our conventional protest, in opposition to the arguments by which Mr. Kaye justifies the publication, and proceed. 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 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, up, * See vol ii., pp. 181 and 197, เ 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 irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes bright blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a 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 a little man, without any dignity, who, I suppose, must resemble what Suwarrow was in his youth, 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- | voted and submissive I have seen. Sir William is old, infirm, all admiration of his wife, and never spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of the two, and never opens her mouth but to show forth their praise; and Mrs. Cadogan, Lady Hamilton's mother, is what one might expect. After dinner we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight, and sung by Lady Hamilton. She puffs the incense full in his face, but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially. acted Nina intolerably ill, and danced the Tarantola. During her acting Lord Nelson expressed his admiration by the Irish sound of astonished applause, which no written character can imitate, and by crying every now and then, "Mrs. Siddons be d-d!" Lady Hamilton expressed great anxiety to go to Court, and Mrs. Elliot assured her it would not amuse her, and that the Elector never gave dinners or suppers. "What!" cried she, "no guttling?" Sir William also this evening performed feats of activity, hopping round the room on his backbone, his arms, legs, star and ribbon all flying about in the air. Oct. 7.-Lady H- continues her demon- 'Oct. 10.-Mr. Elliot saw them on board [a strations of friendship, and said many fine things boat on the Elbe] to-day. He heard by chance about my accompanying her at sight. Still she from a King's messenger that a frigate waited does not gain upon me. I think her bold, daring, for them in Hamburg, and ventured to announce vain, even to folly, and stamped with the manner of her first situation much more strongly on board there was an end of the fine arts, of the it formally. He says, "The moment they were than one would suppose, after having represent-attitudes, of the acting, the dancing, and the ed Majesty and lived in good company fifteen singing. Lady Hamilton's maid began to scold years. Her ruling passions seem to me vanity, in French about some provisions which had been avarice, and love for the pleasures of the table. forgot, in language quite impossible to repeat, She shows a great avidity for presents, and has using certain French words which were never actually obtained some at Dresden by the com- spoken but by men of the lowest class, and mon artifice of admiring and longing. Mr. roaring them out from one boat to another. Elliot says she will captivate the Prince of Wales, Lady Hamilton began bawling for an Irish stew, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a and her old mother set about washing potatoes, great part in England. which she did as cleverly as possible. They the barn.** were exactly like Hogarth's actresses dressing in 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 to go to Court, on which a pretext was made to avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I understand there will be no Court while she stays. Lord Nelson, understanding the Elector did not he Now, it may be said once for all, it is open to every one to make such allowance as city and slightly satirical turn of the authorthink may proper for the youth and vivawish to see her, said to Mr. Elliot, "Sir, if there substantially true. They were written down ess of these sketches. But they must be is any difficulty of that sort, Lady Hamilton will knock the Elector down, and - me, I'll knock on the impression of the moment, and prehim 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, in their veneration for the memory of Lord Nelson, have been displeased at their appearance. 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. 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 Hamil ton, 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 painted en buste. Nor is there any fear *Journal kept during a visit to Germany in ster, pp. 75-83. 1799 and 1800, edited by the Dean of Westmin merest children, or worse than children, in | scarcely have dared to invent. We fear it point of external demeanour and of personal can only remain on record as a proof how weaknesses, whether of the same nature with indescribably low the standard, not exactly of those of Nelson or not. Such men were morals, but of moral sentiment, had descendWolfe, Seidlitz, Suwarrow (to whom Mrs. St. ed in ours, at the period in question. George acutely compares Nelson). Such is Garibaldi. Men like these are always cherished, 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. เ 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 mother. We do not insinuate the slightest scandal against Miss Knight. Though she must have handled a vast deal of pitch between Palermo and Albemarle-street, she remained undefiled; and far from having any imputation cast upon her, she passed for a model of decorum, if not quite one of the most high-minded women in the world, and the kindest-hearted,' as Lady Charlotte Bury calls her, in the spirit of Connaught-House partisanship. Her condescension, and that of others, to the Hamiltons, was in some degree veiled by the blaze of Nelson's glory, and the services which the boldness and readiness of his Emma had rendered to the British cause. She was attached to them by the ties of dependence and gratitude. Most of my friends,' she says after her arrival in London, were very urgent with me to drop the acquaintance; but circumstanced as I had been, I feared the charge of ingratitude, though greatly embarrassed what to do, for things became very unpleasant. (Vol. i. p. 162.) All this sufficiently accounts for the indulgence of society towards her; but it does not account for the extraordinary 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 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. In this capacity she passed the melancholy season of the death of the Princess Amelia and final seclusion of George III.; and she adds some touching details of these events to those already known. In 1813 she was transferred, or rather transferred herself, to the service of the Princess Charlotte; but the circumstances of the change are very warily recounted, and not quite intelligibly. It seems that she had got heartily tired of the Queen's dreary little society dull, uninteresting, and monotonous; every year more confined, and ever, from the kindness of the Royal Family, condemned to listen to all their complaints and private quarrels.' Nor does Queen Charlotte seem to have cared particularly for Miss Knight. But Her Majesty had the tenacity of soured old age. Miss Knight could not, therefore, get herself liberated without a most disproportionate amount of finesse and diplomacy. Sir Henry Halford was the agent employed by the Regent, as it should seem, to effect the lady's extradition. He wrote her a most pressing letter, offering her among other things, as she asserts, the title of Honourable; and 'with this letter came two from the Princess 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 |