BUCKINGHAM'S A.UTOBIOGRAPHY..

THE first volume of this work, containing the youth and early manhood of James Silk Buckingham, is pleasant reading, though a little discursive and diffuse, and more than a little egotistical. The second volume is for the most part a spun-out account of the au- thor's voyages about the Mediterranean and the Red and Indian Seas; his ascent of the Nile and journey across the Desert to Cosseir, during which he was stripped stark ; the pleasant life he led in other people's houses at Smyrna, Cairo, and Bombay ; and finally, how he was sent away from India, jealous rivals having brought before the Government the fact of his being with- out the Company's licence to reside, and Tames Silk's patriot- ically refusing to call himself an American, when old Sir Evan Nepean, the Governor, gave him a broad hint to do so. Some nautical incidents or sketches not without interest are scattered through the second volume ; but it is upon the whole weary, flat, and unprofitable. What is worse, we are threatened with-a con- tinuation of it in an indefinite number of volumes. All Mr. Buckingham's books of travels, all his squabbles with the powers that be in India, all his agitation about the tyranny of the Com- pany at home, and the fearful punishment that overtook them at last from the hand of the avenging Nemesis, when by means of books, pamphlets, speeches, and itinerant lectures, he deprived them of their monopoly, and threw open India and China to his fellow countrymen, loom before us. Of these things we had enough when they were living. We are fairly frightened at the threatened visitation of their ghosts.

A main object of this publication is to show to "the humblest of its readers " that there is " no obscurity of birth, no privation of property, and no opposition either of powerful individuals or still more powerful bodies and governments, that may not be overcome by industry, integrity, zeal, and perseverance ; no depth of mis- fortune from which the victim may not hope to emerge, by labour, economy, temperance, and that single-mindedness which regards the faithful discharge of duty as the great object," &c. To much of this as illustrated in the case of Mr. Buckingham we readily agree; he has certainly displayed through life an enduring "zeal and perseverance." The "obscurity of birth" is not so applicable. A paternal ancestor of Mr. Buckingham was an officer in the fleet that defeated the Spanish armada ; another was drowned in the Thunderer man of war; in fact, his progenitors from the age of Elizabeth were " mariners of England." Hi§ father belonged to the mercantile marine, from which he had retired with a compe- tence. The old gentleman was undoubtedly entitled to write him- self " armiger." At all events, he had the externals and the sub- stantials of the grade ; he wore a cocked hat and massive silver buckles, and he bore a gold-headed cane. He enjoyed himself in boating, shooting, fishing, and "took great pride in his fields and orchards, of which he had several." What is still more opposed to our hero's modest intimation of natal lowliness, is the fact that he and two unmarried sisters succeeded to " several hundred a year each." It is true, Mr. Buckingham's property was all lost, through no fault of his own ; still this was " privation of pro- perty," not " obscurity of birth." Be it as it may, his birth took place at Flushing, near Falmouth, in 1786. In mature age, Mr. Buckingham became a man of considerable learning, versed in languages both learned and polite. In early youth—for he never was a child—he seems to have had only a year of boarding-school; the most wretched period of his life. Even this appears to have been given him to wean him from the sea; for in action he was precocious. At three years old, he sat by his father during a boat-race, and on winning cheered till his treble over- topped " the tenors and hoarse bass of the veterans by whom the race was won." At a time of life when young gentlemen of his age and nation were wearing the fool's cap or being put in the corner, James Silk had quelled a revolt of Cornish miners by sing- ing a hymn, and was sailing the wide world over. At ten, he had been "taken by the insolent foe," and carried to Spain ; where he

• Autobiography of James Silk Buckingham ; including his Voyages, Tra- vels, Adventures, Speculations, Successes and Failures, faithfully and frankly narrated : interspersed with characteristic Sketches of Public Men, with whom be has had intercourse during a period of more than fifty years. Vols. I. and If. Pub- lished by Longman and Co. was engaged in a sentimental adventure—dashed on his part, it is to be feared, with a little of what is called " cupboard love." " The governor or superintendent of the prison had a handsome and dark- ' eyed young daughter about my own age—a little past ten years old—but in Spain girls at ten are as mature as English girls at sixteen. She occasionally attended the prisoners with their food, and conceived, as she afterwards con- fessed, a violent passion for me, which she found it impossible to control. I may observe, that even in England I was considered to be a very handsome boy ; and the charm of a clertr complexion, rosy cheeks, light blueeyes, and light brown curly hair, so unusual in Spam, made me appear, it would seem, i a perfect Adonis in her love-seeing eyes. She therefore revealed to me her inmost thoughts in her own impassioned language, which I had learnt du- ring my voyages to Lisbon in conjunction with the Portuguese, and which I now sufficiently understood to comprehend every one of her burning phrases, impressed as they often were by kisses of the most thrilling intensity. By her kind hand I was furnished at every meal with all the delicacies of her father's table, of which she contrived to abstract some portion daily ; and, with an ingenuity which left all my inventive powers far in the rear, she contrived twenty times a day to find some pretext for calling me out of the room for some pretended message or errand, to get a squeeze of the hand only if others were near, or if in any passage where we were not likely to be seen, a warm and fond embrace, by which she pressed me to her bosom as if ne- ver intending to relax her grasp, and kisses and tears rained in equal abundance.

At length the fascinated senorita actually devised a mode of escape for me, and offered to accompany me in my flight. But, though I was scarcely less enamoured than herself, I had yet sufficient prudence left to think where we should go to escape detection and capture; how we should sub- sist, even if we were fortunate enough to elude discovery ; and how I could answer to her parents and the authorities for yielding to an elopement under such hopeless circumstances. I was obliged therefore to temporize with my tender-hearted Donna Isabella Dolores, (for such was her name,) and, under pretence of waiting for some safer opportunity, to procrastinate and defer what I had not the courage or the cruelty to oppose."

This affair was put an end to by the same motive that prompted part of the lover's tenderness. The Dons, finding the keep of the crew greater than any profit that was likely to accrue from them, determined to get rid of them all. Accordingly, they were marched to the frontiers of Portugal, and turned adrift in the territories of our ancient ally ; whence Master Buckingham made his way to Lisbon, where he had already been thrice, and finally reached home.

Disastrous chances and moving accidents had no effect on our hero ; but they frightened his mother. He was induced for a while to live at home at ease. He had no vocation for the church; the rogueries of the law were distasteful; at last he went to a bookseller at Devonport, called in those plain-spoken days Ply- mouth Dock. In this as in every other period of his life, so far as these volumes go, Mr. Buckingham seemed determined to take his

full share of pleasure, let drier business fare as it would. •

" On one occasion during this period, between 1798 and 1800, I dined with a naval party at the Fountain Hotel, in Fore Street, in which were three of the most remarkable naval heroes of the day—Lord Nelson, Sir Edward Pellew, (afterwards Lord Exmouth,) and Captain Jeremiah Coglan, a sort of fire-eater, as he was called, who had done more daring things than any man of his rank and length of service, Sir Sydney Smith alone perhaps ex- cepted. The theatres, too, of Plymouth, and Plymouth Dock, which were continually filled with naval officers in the boxes and sailors in the gal- leries, and at which naval pieces and sea-songs were in constant request, alt aided to increase the spell [of a passion for the sea] under which I seemed to labour."

The theatre led to an acquaintance with the manager and thq green-room; and this led to a desire to excel in dramatic poetry. As a preliminary study, Mr. Buckingham read the principal Eng= lish dramatists, and then wrote " The Conquest of Circassia," which he offered to the manager. His friend was evidently a diplomatist out of place. " It was with him about a month, and was then returned to me, with the highest commendations on its excellence, whether sincerely or not I had no means of testing, but with the observation, that to put such a drama pro- perly on the stage would require an outlay of from 3001. to 500/., to do jus- tice to its scenery, costume, and decorations, and that only a first-rate Lon, don company could furnish the requisite amount and variety of talent to perform it well,"

At fifteen, a change came over the spirit of our hero. "Having for some time led a life of as much gayety as was possible in the position in which he was placed," young Buckingham began to think of misspent time and other matters.

" I thought of my dear indulgent mother, and felt that I had disregarded her wishes and injunctions in feeding rather than repressing my inclination for a sea life; and that in the hours spent with young officers at the Foun- tain and Prince William Henry, (the latter the favourite hotel of the young Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William the Fourth,) as well as in the boxes and the green-room of the theatre, I had misapplied many precious hours which could now never be redeemed."

He took to reading divinity and metaphysical theology ; he became a convert, and even preached in a conventicle. But this did not last long. Having quarrelled with his master, he again proceeded to sea. This time, however, he was in a man-of-war instead of a packet commanded by a family friend; and he finally wound up the service by deserting, having been so much shocked by witnessing floggings that he could not remain any longer. The remainder of his time till he was nineteen he spent on shore, following his own sell-will : indeed, the whole of his early career is resolvable into that. He then married ; having succeeded to his share of the family property on the death of his mother. It was settled that the young married man should go into business in the book, chart, and nautical instrument line. As the trustees said the property could not be realized immediately, and Mr. Buck- ingliam seems never to have waited for anything, it was suggested that he should start upon credit, paying for the stock and furni- ture when the property was sold. How one of two trustees could. manage to sell the property and get possession of the proceeds to use them in a smuggling speculation of his own, we do not exactly understand. However, so it was ; and before he was of age James

Silk Buckingham was a ruined man, with the prospect of a family.

The conduct of Mr. Buckingham during this dark period of his career is worthy of all credit, and it does show to every poor and struggling man what may be done by steady industry and resolu- tion, with good health. He started for London alone, to get an aintment in the mercantile marine through his brother-in-law.

I I

10, connexion, however, was absent at sea, and Mr. Buckingham found himself in London a penniless adventurer. A situation as clerk he could not obtain, even at the lowest salary ; and he de- termined to turn to account such knowledge of printing as he had picked up at Devonport. accordingly offered myself as a compositor at various offices ; and at length, after many sickening refusals and delays, I obtained employment at the office of Messrs. Evans and Buffey, in Budge Bow, near the Mansion- house; great printers for the lottery-offices, then in full activity. Here the hours of attendance were from six in the morning till eight at night; the office dirty, the men dissipated, coarse, and boisterous, and regarding me as an unqualified interloper, greatly inferior, no doubt, in manual dexterity to the London-bred workmen in constant practice. I was scowled upon by some, and shunned by others; which last was the greatest favour they could confer on me. At this occupation, mainly from my own want of habit and skill I could never earn more than twelve or fourteen shillings a week ;

I yet contrived to live on this, miserably enough indeed, and send at the end of each month a one-pound Bank of England note to my wife in Cornwall. "I became, however, so sick of London life, London workmen, Loudon fogs, and London noise, that I determined to go into the country ; and having heard that there was a great printing-office at Oxford, where Bibles and Prayer-books only were printed, with better wages and cheaper living than in London, I set out one morning outside the stage-coach for Oxford.

" At Oxford I was fortunate in obtaining a single bedroom, a garret in a poor tailor's house, for Is. 6d. a week ; and as I had by this time learnt to breakfast on a penny loaf and a basin of milk, with potatoes and a little butter without flesh meat for dinner, milk and rice boiled for tea and supper united, and animal food only on Simdays,—a single mutton-chop being deemed amply sufficient,—I had brought my expenditure down to ten shil- lings a week, including lodging, food, and washing ; and obtaining work immediately at the Clarendon printing-office, at fixed wages of twenty shil- lings a week, I was comparatively rich, and could now send a one-pound bank-note every fortnight to my wife in Cornwall, instead of every month only."

This struggle with necessity did not long continue. Mr. Buck- ingham's brother-in-law returned, and procured him a berth as first mate in a ship bound for the West Indies. After a second voyage, he was raised to the rank of captain; and the remainder of the first volume as well as all the second may be said mainly to consist of a narrative of his voyages, sprinkled with social sketches, and so far autobiographical that James Silk Buckingham is always prominent, but still not biographical in the proper sense of the word. The earlier part also has much matter that does not very closely bear upon the life or adventures of the author. In fact, the book to a considerable extent is a series of social sketches and il- lustrations of manners at the close of the last and during the earlier part of the present century. In this point of view, the book pos- sesses quite as much interest as in its autobiographical character. Indeed, we prefer the pictures of the oldfashioned manners of Cornwall sixty years ago, the sketches of nautical men and their doings with their prize-money during the war, and the stories of London life about its close, to the scenes in which the author figures as principal actor. In some sense, indeed, the higher so- cial sketches may be considered indirectly autobiographical ; for they indicate the activity and animal spirits, the self-possessed pleasantry and plausibility, requisite to carry a mate or skipper into the society which Mr. Buckingham attained abroad and in a lesser degree at home.