at length decided upon instituting an inquiry into the conduct of the fallen Minister. His papers were seized, and a commission proceeded, towards the end of 1779, to Pombal, whither he had retired, to interrogate him personally. The aged Marquis (he was now in his eighty-first year) exhibited a painful spectacle during this examination. He appears to have lost himself in a maze of quibbles, contradictions, and equivocations, caused partly, perhaps, by fear of the results of the inquiry, and partly by physical weakness, which occasionally cut short his replies. On receipt of the final report of the commissioners, the Queen issued, on the 15th August, 1781, a decree, declaring Pombal guilty of great crimes and deserving of exemplary punishment; but that in consideration of his age and infirmities, and his humble prayers for pardon, he was only to be banished, until further orders, to a distance of twenty leagues from the Court. The publication of this decree inspired the aged statesman with the courage which he had failed to exhibit when in the presence of his judges, and he drew up and published a long memoir, under the title of A Petition to the Queen,' in which he attempted to vindicate himself from the charges made against him, and especially from that of having enriched himself at the expense of his country. The petition was not listened to, and indeed attracted little notice, and the fallen Minister survived its publication only a few months. He breathed his last on May 8, 1782, having almost completed his eighty-third year, in a small and squalid room, which may still be seen, on the market-place of Pombal.

In person Pombal was tall, with a handsome countenance, regular features, and bright and piercing eyes. His voice is said to have been remarkably pleasing. His imperious disposition was tempered by much bonhommie and an occasional rough jocularity. This latter characteristic is testified by several anecdotes, one of which is worth relating. Dom Joseph had proposed that all persons of Jewish extraction should be made to wear, as a mark of distinction, white hats. Few families in Portugal were free from some intermixture of Jewish blood. Pombal one day appeared at the palace with two white hats under his arm, and on being questioned by the King, informed him, that in consequence of the proposed edict, he had provided one for His Majesty and one for himself. The joke had the effect of keeping back the decree. The despatches of the foreign envoys to the Court of Lisbon establish the fact that Pombal was not devoid of that almost cynical frankness which is not an unknown characteristic of eminent ministers and

imperious negotiators in our own day. He has been accused of having greatly enriched himself whilst in office, and his friends have endeavoured to prove that he received nothing beyond the regular income of his various employments. But it is not the less true that he who, as we have seen, began life in but indifferent circumstances, left a wealthy family and considerable estates. It can scarcely be said that his memory is revered in Portugal; true views on political science are making their way there as in other countries, and though his name is not now pursued with the hatred which it once evoked, his claims to be considered a great Minister are looked upon as at least an open question.

We shall conclude this article by producing a literary curiosity, unknown to all but a very small number of our readers a character of Pombal by the author (as we hold him to be) of the Letters of Junius.' In 1773, Mr. Francis (who had just left the War Office) employed his leisure in translating an Essay on Circulation and Credit, by M. de Pinto, a philosophical economist living at Amsterdam. The book was published in London in the following year, under the name of his friend, Stephen Baggs. But the translation and the copious notes added to the text are the work of Francis, written, it will be observed, between the cessation of the Letters of Junius' and his departure for India. At the end of the volume a note is added of nearly ten quarto pages, on the relations of Portugal and Great Britain, in which Francis has evidently introduced the result of his experience and observation, when he formed part of Lord Kinnoul's mission to Lisbon, several years before. The whole passage is extremely curious, but we must content ourselves with extracting the following notice of the Marquis of Pombal:

'All the commercial ideas of the minister are founded upon one general maxim, that trade, in order to be prosperous, should not be free. Accordingly, he has heaped project upon project. and regulation upon regulation; and destroyed a healthy constitution, by confining it to a sickly regimen, and by loading it with prescriptions. He has made it his study to distress foreign merchants, and to drive them out of the kingdom. He has put the vineyards and their produce, the only internal source of wealth to Portugal, under the check and control of a monopoly; and he has confined a considerable part of the Brazil trade to two exclusive companies, the principle and spirit of which is, to make the greatest profits upon the smallest outset or venture. If the Pernambuco and Maranham companies had succeeded, it was his intention to have taken the same care of the Bahia and Rio trade. But the first subscriptions were completed with so much difficulty, that it would have been in vain to attempt new ones. One would think that he meant to contract the commerce of his country,

and to stifle industry at its birth. The event has corresponded with the design. In the year 1759, the fleet from Pernambuco consisted of forty-five ships. In the year 1772, the trade to that settlement employed only eighteen. To support the credit of the new companies, he thought it advisable to issue an edict, which ordered that their actions should be a legal tender, and be accepted, at an arbitrary valuation fixed by the directors, as so much specie; that is, in other words, that the natives, who are constantly the debtors, should remove the burthen from themselves, and impose it upon their foreign creditors. This, however, was an attempt too extravagant to be supported. Such are the general plans, and such the temporary expedients, from which we are to collect an opinion of the minister's capacity. The facts I refer to are notorious. In a country, where the true principles of trade are understood, it is unnecessary to prove that, in theory, no better consequences were to be expected from a system so false and anti-commercial. The Portuguese must be taught by experience.

To form a judgment of his political measures, we should compare the defenceless state of Portugal with the general plan of ambition of the united house of Bourbon, and the particular claims and enmity of the crown of Spain. The independence of Portugal can only be maintained by cultivating the friendship of the other powers of Europe, particularly by confirming the ancient alliance with the only nation that ever has, or ever can engage effectually in her defence. These are essential objects, not to be compared with any temporary advantages, and from which a wise minister will not suffer his attention to be diverted. It is needless to say how little they have been regarded in the political system of the Marquis of Pombal. Upon the whole, it must be admitted, that the proofs of his ministerial abilities are of an extraordinary nature. His commercial experience and information have led him to divide the trade of his country into monopolies. His policy has taught him to provoke the natural enemies, and to alienate the natural allies, of the crown. His two systems correspond and co-operate with each other. In consequence of receiving all foreigners upon the same footing in Portugal, and of laying all foreign trade under equal restraint, it ceases to be a great natural interest to any one nation to maintain the independence of the kingdom. A union of inferior states, in favour of a court with whom they have no solid foundation of alliance, is not to be expected, nor would it be effectual. His country then, with a small internal force, and destitute of all alliance, is left exposed to the invasion of a superior enemy, whose claims are not absolute, and who do not always wait for just or decent pretences to act against Portugal; nor is there a power in Europe, to which his Most Faithful Majesty can say with truth, "It is your interest to protect me."

The last question to be considered is, whether he has made the Portuguese a richer or a happier people than he found them? If he has, it must be confessed, that the means he makes use of would hardly have produced that effect in any other country. If he has not, his maxim, that sovereigns are not to be restrained by treaties from consulting the internal welfare of their subjects, leaves him without the possibility of a defence. If the measures, which he calls expedient,

fail of success, he is precluded from pleading any obstructions that might arise from the engagements of the crown with foreign nations. The conclusion reverts, with accumulated force, against the wisdom and mildness of his administration. Hitherto it has been only marked by the blood of the principal nobility, and universal oppression of the people. There can be no increase of wealth in a country where industry is effectually discouraged, and no man's property secure. There can be no domestic content or happiness among a people, one half of which are spies upon the other. Racks, gibbets, and dungeons are the emblems and resources of his government. It is but the natural consequence of such a government that the Portuguese, with many advantages of personal character and local situation, are the meanest and most degraded people, and the crown of Portugal the least respected, of any in Europe.

'Sir Benjamin Keene, who knew the Marquis of Pombal early in life, emphatically describes him as a conceited and puzzled head. How far the intrepidity of his spirit may deserve the opinion conceived of it, can only be determined by experiment. He may have penetration enough to see into the genius of the people he treats with, and may proportion his own firmness to their apparent want of it. But this part of his character has never been fairly put to the proof, at least by Great Britain. If any farther presumption in favour of his abilities should be drawn from his having raised himself to an absolute dominion over his country, and maintained it so long, it may he weakened by considering, that the government of Portugal is despotic, and that the talents and intrigues which ingratiate a servant with his master are sometimes the least likely to qualify him for the government of a kingdom. He is sagacious; but having seldom the good fortune to reason upon right principles, his sagacity, in many important instances, serves only to mislead him. He has had experience; but ill-considered facts, without principles or instruction, have perplexed his understanding. Of this we see a signal instance in the conclusions he drew from the establishment of one or two great exclusive trading companies in England and Holland. If his zeal for the good of his country be ardent, it certainly is not luminous. He is industrious beyond measure; but his industry, supported by a jealousy of all competition with him, has this dangerous effect, that while he engrosses more of the executive branch than he can possibly support, no one office of the state is executed as it should be, and business stands still. It is also to be apprehended, that, by his excluding the inferior ministers from confidence and information, the kingdom at his death will probably be left without a man in office, in any way qualified to succeed him. This is the common policy of favourites; but it presents no idea of a great, superior mind. Considering his uniform plan of conduct towards the natural allies and natural enemies of Portugal, we may allow him a degree of personal intrepidity, which does no great honour to his discretion. The proofs of it, in his internal government, are more equivocal. It does not seem to require much firmness or resolution to employ an armed force in the oppres→ sion of a poor, spiritless, unresisting people. Tyrants, who have trembled on their thrones, have done it with success.'

ART. VII.-1. Protoplasm or Life, Matter, and Mind. By LIONEL S. BEALE, M.B., F.R.S. London: 1870. 2. Disease Germs: their Real Nature. An original investigation by LIONEL S. BEALE, M.B., F.R.S. London: 1870. 3. Pulmonary Consumption: its Nature, Varieties, and Treatment. By C. J. B. WILLIAMS, M.D., F.R.S., and C. T. WILLIAMS, M.A., M.D. Oxon. London: 1871.

NOT Or the least wonderful of the many marvels that have been, more or less perfectly, brought into clear light by the persevering and ceaseless labours of human intelligence, is the composition of the blood, the thick crimson liquid which sustains the powers of the living animal, and which courses for that purpose, in never-stopping stream, through all parts of the frame so long as its vital activity lasts.

The problem which has been worked out in the composition of the blood of the living animal is the production of a substance containing within itself all that is required for the maintenance and renovation of the various fabrics of the body and for the support of their especial offices, in a form convenient for the circumstances in which the work has to be done. It is liquid because it has to be distributed to the several fabrics that it has to nourish, through a service of branching tubes; and it is complex because it has to contain all the ingredients that are needed for the constitution of those fabrics in their vast diversity,-flesh, membrane, fat, gristle, bone, nerve, and brain.

The blood of the living animal is essentially food which has been compounded by vital elaboration, and in that elaborated state thrown into the actual channels of the living frame, where its work of sustenance has to be accomplished. But not only this. The blood is also, itself, in strict accuracy, an integral part of that living frame.' In the blood, the complex substance has received its ultimate perfection and finish in the impress which endows it with vital condition and power, and has become in the physiological sense a 'living thing.' Of the fact of this endowment with potential life there is no question anywhere; but there is question and dispute as to what the exact process and method of transformation are. A contest is yet waged between antagonistic schools of physiologists, who each assume that they are at least on the road to the inner shrine and explanation of the mystery. The one of these schools insists that life is but a more complicated manifestation and development of molecular and material forces-a property