Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 by Various

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In 1859, he was reinstated in Parliament, by the electors of Birmingham,
of whose manufacturing interests he had always shown himself a
consistent and ardent friend. For this constituency he is now member. He
has been twice married; first, to the daughter of Jonathan Priestley,
Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who died in 1841; and secondly, to his
present wife, the eldest daughter of W. Leatham, Esq., of Wakefield,
York.

His career of nineteen years in the House of Commons has been a series
of successful efforts, not only contributing to his lasting fame as an
orator and legislator, but achieving many important modifications in the
commercial system and in public sentiment. He has been the life of the
radical party, leading them on in their crusades against existing abuses
with fearless audacity, encouraging them to renewed contests, animating
them by the hopefulness and enthusiasm of his own soul, and by his lucid
logic attracting new converts to his views with every year. The Radicals
who, when he entered Parliament, were a mere handful, are already
assuming, under the vigorous lead of Bright, Cobden, and Villiers, the
proportions of a systematic and powerful element in the lower house.
Caring little for the impotent sneers of an aristocracy in its dotage,
and mindful only to advance systems of popular improvement and
alleviation, he has become a nucleus around which has gathered the
extreme wing of the liberal party. The last century beheld the
profligate Wilkes and the shallow Burdett at the head of the ultraists;
our own time is more fortunate in superseding vicious and unprincipled
radical leaders by men more virtuous and ingenuous. The great
manufacturing towns and districts, composed mainly of the lower orders
of society, and devoted to the interests of commerce, as opposed to the
narrow demands of the agricultural interest, have, owing in a great
degree to Mr. Bright's exertions, become pillars of his party. Lord
Palmerston, than whom a more sagacious politician does not or has not
existed, testified his knowledge of the influence of the Bright party,
by offering Mr. Cobden a seat in the Cabinet, and afterward by sending
him as special agent of England to negotiate a commercial treaty with
France.

John Bright has always shown himself a staunch friend to the prosperity
of the United States. Whenever an opportunity offered in which to
propose this country as an example worthy of the imitation of his own
countrymen, he has never failed to urge the superiority of our system.
His political ideas, approaching to republicanism, and abhorring the
dominance of hereditary aristocrats, and a political Church, have found
their theories realized in the admirable machinery of our own
government. Untainted with that jealous prejudice which appears to
animate many of his fellow-citizens, he can discern, and is ready to
acknowledge, the superior efficacy of the principles which underlie our
Constitution. No one has, of late, been more earnest in denunciation of
the irritating policy of Great Britain toward America, than Mr. Bright.

His personal appearance is that of a hearty, good-natured, and yet
determined Englishman, and both his form and face betoken the John Bull
as much as any member of the House. His morals are of a high order, his
honesty proverbial, his courage undoubted, his social character amiable,
and calculated to make him welcome to every circle. It is said, that
although opposed in the extreme to the political doctrines of Lord
Derby, his personal relations with that aristocratic nobleman are not
only friendly, but intimate; and that, after abusing one another lustily
at Westminster, they retire together arm in arm, chatting and laughing
as familiarly as if there never had been the least difference of opinion
between them. Like Fox, in this particular, he never allows his partisan
views to interfere with his social relations; and although he is a
fierce and bitter antagonist on the benches of Parliament, no one is a
more constant or a more zealous friend in private life. His efforts have
always been enlisted in behalf of the education of the masses;
conceiving that this is the foundation of a thoroughly popular political
system, such as he is desirous to introduce into the British
Constitution. Bred among a timid and peaceful sect, his opposition to
wars has been determined and earnest; and he was one of those who, in
1854, sent a deputation to the Emperor Nicholas to urge an abandonment
of his war policy, and the maintenance of peace, as the duty of a
Christian race. He is, however, rather fitted to be a reformer and
agitator than a statesman. He has all that enthusiasm, all that energy,
all that courage, all that stubborn perseverance in the pursuit of his
purpose, which distinguish the characters of those men who have
conducted the great revolutions of society to a successful issue.
Perhaps he would be found deficient in judging how far to proceed in
innovation; but this, though an important, is not an essential element
in the composition of the mere reformer. It is for him to lead on the
people to great and startling changes, to overturn tyrannies, to break
down old forms, to inculcate novel precepts, to regenerate public
sentiment. These rather require an impetuous spirit, a bold heart, an
active and restless mind, than calmness, judgment, and deliberation. It
is when a new polity is to be erected, when revolution has passed away,
and the crisis reached and left, when a constitution is to be framed,
and new principles are to be brought to their test, that the steady
process of a sound judgment is called into requisition. Then it is that
the reformer yields to the statesman; that impulse retires before
reason; that passion and confusion become subordinated to the elements
of order and the authority of intellect. Many have been both the
reformers producing and the statesmen correcting, revolutions; minds
which, with the fire of enthusiasm, and the hot impulse of indignation
at wrongs done, have united a judicious discrimination, a cool faculty
of reflection, and the power of separating the benefits from the evils
of revolution.

It is certain that Mr. Bright would be a fearless and zealous reformer;
it is doubtful whether he would not give place to others in the
after-work. Well qualified to lead an enthusiastic faction to a crusade
against precedent and authority, he has thus far failed to show himself
capable of conducting an administration. Among the statesmen of modern
times, honesty and enthusiasm are not qualities which control the policy
of the state. Compare the crafty demeanor, the dubious expressions, the
cautious statements of Earl Russell, with the plain, rude, blunt
harangues of Mr. Bright, and we perceive the qualities which have
elevated the former, and those which have kept the latter in the
background. Lord Russell thinks what is for his interest to think; Mr.
Bright thinks what that homely monitor, his conscience, urges on him.
Lord Russell might adopt all the consequences of universal suffrage, and
the principles of free trade, if he could still sit at the
council-board, and dictate dispatches with a double meaning to foreign
governments; but he fears to go beyond, though he nearly approaches, the
line which separates the popular from the unpopular reformer.
Expediency, on the contrary, forms no part of Mr. Bright's creed; and,
not being a scion of a noble and illustrious house, nor having attained
a position in the state which might have made him a conservative, he has
no hesitation in announcing his opinions in favor of universal suffrage
and free trade, in opposition of a dominant aristocracy, and in defiance
of a religious establishment, and dares with provoking coolness the
retaliation of the great and powerful of the land.

Mr. Bright's oratory is of a fresh, vigorous, and versatile character,
and never fails to draw a multitude to the House when it is announced
that he is to speak. Unlike the hesitating and timid delivery of
Russell, the rapid jargon of Palmerston, the rich and graceful
intonation of Gladstone, or the splendid sarcasm of Disraeli, his
eloquence is bold, masculine, and ringing, and gives a better idea of
intellectual and physical strength than any other speaker in the House.
Although blunt, and careless of the feelings of others, there is a
certain elegance in every sentence, which softens the rude sentiment
into a vigorous anathema. Accurate in fact, naturally easy in delivery,
bitter in irony, and ingenuous in argument, few are ready to meet him on
the floor of the Commons. He is a fair specimen of what we hear called
'the fine old English gentleman,' without the ignorance, the bigotry,
the awkwardness, and the peevishness, which go to make up the characters
of a large proportion of the country baronets and gentry; that is, he is
hearty, cordial, and merry, entering with enthusiasm into whatever he
proposes to do, and determined to leave no stone unturned to accomplish
it. If he should live to see the day when his countrymen shall adopt the
views of which he is the foremost champion, no honor of the state will
be denied him, and his name will rank with those of William of Orange,
and Lord Grey, as the regenerators of the British Constitution; and if
he does not, he can not but be respected, as Milton and Sidney are, by
future generations, for his honesty, his patriotism under difficulty,
and his fearless spirit.

* * * * *

THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.

(CONCLUDED.)

THE CHINESE IN MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

The reader who would ascertain by the map whether it was likely that at
an early period intercourse could have taken place between Eastern Asia
and Western America, will have no difficulty in deciding on the
geographical possibility of such transit. At Behring's Straits only
forty miles of water intervene between the two continents, while routes
by the Aleutian Islands, or through the Sea of Ochotsk, present no great
difficulties, even to a timid navigator. And the Chinese and Japanese of
earlier ages were by no means timid in their voyages. It is only within
two centuries that their governments, alarmed by the growing power of
the Western world, and desirous of keeping their subjects at home,
prohibited the construction of strictly sea-worthy and sea-faring
vessels. Even within the memory of man, Japanese junks have been driven
to the California coasts.

Impressed by the probability of such intercommunication, Johann
Friedrich Neumann, a learned German Orientalist, while residing in
China, during the years 1829-30, for the purpose of collecting Chinese
works, after investigating the subject, published its results in a work,
subsequently translated by me, under his supervision. Among the first
results of his inquiries, was the fact that 'during the course of many
centuries, the Chinese acquired a surprisingly accurate knowledge of the
north-east coast of Asia, extending, as their records in astronomy and
natural history prove, to the sixty-fifth degree of latitude, and even
to the Arctic Ocean.' From the Chinese _Book of Mountains and Seas_, it
appears that the Esquimaux and their country were well known to the
Chinese, and that in the sixth century, natives of the North and of the
islands bordering on America, came with Japanese embassies to China.
When it is borne in mind that the early Chinese geographers and
astronomers determined on the situations of these northern regions, with
an accuracy which has been of late years surprisingly verified by
eminent European men of science, and when we learn that the Year Books
or annals of China continually repeat these observations, and that their
accounts of the natives of the islands within a few miles of the
American shore are as undoubtedly correct as they are minute, we
certainly have good reason for assuming that their description of the
main land and its inhabitants is well worthy, if not of implicit belief,
at least of an investigation by the savans of the Western World. Be it
borne in mind, also, that during the first eight centuries of our own
Christian era, a spirit of discovery in foreign lands was actively at
work all over the East. In the words of Neumann:

'In the first century of our reckoning, the pride and vanity
induced by the Chinese social system was partly broken by the
progress of Buddhism over all Eastern Asia. He who believed in the
divine mission of the son of the King of Kaphilapura, must
recognize every man as his brother and equal by birth; yes, must
strive (for the old Buddhism has this in common with the Christian
religion) to extend the joyful mission of salvation to all the
nations on the earth, and to attain this end must suffer, like the
type of the God Incarnate, all earthly pain and persecution. So we
find that a number of Buddhist monks and preachers have at distant
times wandered to all known and unknown parts of the world, either
to obtain information with regard to their distant
co-religionists, or to preach the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to
unbelievers. The official accounts which these missionaries have
rendered of their travels, and of which we possess several
_entire_, considered as sources of information with regard to
different lands and nations, belong to the most instructive and
important part of Chinese literature. From these sources we have
derived, in a great degree, that information which we possess
regarding North-eastern Asia and the Western coasts of America
during centuries which have been hitherto vailed in the deepest
obscurity.'

The earliest account, given of extended travels on the North-American
continent describes a journey from Tahan or Aloska to a distance, and
into a region which indicates the north-west coast of Mexico and the
vicinity of San Blas. The following is a literal translation made from
the original Chinese report, by Neumann:

'THE KINGDOM OF FUSANG, OR MEXICO.

'During the reign of the dynasty _Tsi_, in the first year of the
year-naming[E] 'Everlasting Origin,' (Anno Domini 499,) came a
Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister name of
Roci-schin, that is, Universal Compassion, (_Allgemeins
Mitleiden_: according to King-tscheu it signifies 'an old
name,[F]') to the present district of Hukuang, and those
surrounding it, who narrated that 'Fusang is about twenty thousand
Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the
middle kingdom. Many Fusang-trees grow there, whose leaves
resemble the Dryanda Cordifolia;[G] the sprouts, on the contrary,
resemble those of the bamboo-tree,[H] and are eaten by the
inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is
red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen, which they use
for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff.[I] The houses
are built of wooden beams; fortified and walled places a unknown.

'THEIR WRITING AND CIVIL REGULATIONS.

'They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from
the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no
wars, but in the arrangements of the kingdom they have a northern
and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the
southern, but those confined for greater offenses in the northern;
so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in
the southern prison, and those to the contrary in the northern.
Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to
marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of
eight years, sold for slaves; the girls not until their ninth
year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly
was held: it must be in an excavated place, (_Grabe_.) There they
strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell, as if he were
dying. If the offender were one of a lower class, he alone was
punished; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his
children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it
attained to the seventh generation.

'THE KINGDOM AND THE NOBLES.

'The name of the king is pronounced _Ichi_. The nobles of the
first class are termed Tuilu; of the second, Little Tuilu; and of
the third, Na-to-scha. When the prince goes forth he is
accompanied by horns and trumpets. The color of his clothes
changes with the different years. In the first two of the ten-year
cyclus they are blue; in the two next, red; in the two following,
yellow; in the two next, red; and in the last two, black.

'MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

'The horns of the oxen are so large that they contain ten bushels,
(Schaeffel.) They use them to hold all manner of things. Horses,
oxen and stags, are harnessed to their wagons. Stags are used here
as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and from the milk of the
hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang tree keep good
throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds; from
the latter they prepare mats. _No iron is found in this land; but
copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a
medium of exchange in the market._

'Marriage is determined upon in the following manner. The suitor
builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one
longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning
and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not
inclined to marry him, he departs; should she he willing, it is
completed. When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the
death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five
days; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles
or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before
an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourning
clothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not
busy himself for three years with state affairs.

'In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of
Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming 'Great
Light,' of song, (A.D. 458,) five beggar monks, from the kingdom
Kipin, went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha,
and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the
people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their
manners.'

Such is the account of Mexico, as given by the old Buddhist monk
Hoei-schin. What is there authentically known of ancient America and its
inhabitants which confirms his account?

In the Fusang tree we have, according to the opinion of Neumann, the
_Agave Americana_ or Great American Aloe, called by the Indians Maguey,
which is remarkably abundant in the plains of 'New-Spain,' and which
supplies so many of the wants of its inhabitants even at the present
day. An intoxicating drink, paper, thread, ropes, pins, and needles,
(from the thorns,) and clothing, are all furnished by it, so that a
traveler, observing the ease with which these are obtained, declares
that in Mexico the Maguey plant must first be exterminated ere the sloth
and idleness which now so generally afflict them, can be checked. Such a
curious plant, supplying to such an extent, and so exclusively, so many
of the needs of life, would naturally be the first object noted by an
explorer.

Very remarkable is the observation that 'in this land no iron is found,
and that copper, gold, and silver, are not prized;' from which we may
infer that they were known, and probably abundant, and that they 'do not
serve as a medium of exchange in the market.' It is needless to point
out the fact that this was the case not only in ancient Mexico, but also
in Peru, and that these were probably the only countries on the face of
the earth where 'the precious metals' were held in such indifference. Be
it observed that the monk Hoei-schin says nothing of the abundance of
gold and silver; he simply remarks as a curious fact, that they were not
used as a circulating medium.

In commenting on this record, Neumann judiciously reminds the reader
that the information given by Hoei-schin and other Buddhist travelers,
goes back into a period long anterior to the most remote periods alluded
to in the wavering legends of the Aztecs, resting upon uncertain
interpretations of hieroglyphics. One thing we know, that in America as
in Europe, one wave of emigration and conquest swept after another, each
destroying in a great measure all traces of its predecessor. Thus in
Peru, the Inca race ruled over the lower caste, and would in time have
probably extinguished it. But the Incas themselves were preceded by
another and more gifted race, since it is evident that these unknown
predecessors were far more gifted than themselves as architects. 'Who
this race were,' says Prescott, (_Conquest of Peru_, chap. i. pp. 12,
13, ed. 1847,) 'and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme for
inquiry to the speculative antiquarian. But it is a land of darkness
that lies far beyond the domain of history.'

But as the American waves of conquest flowed South, it is no extravagant
hypothesis to assume that the race of men whom the monk encountered in
Mexico may possibly have had something in common with what was afterward
found further south, in the land of the Incas. One thing is certain;
that there is a singularly Peruvian air in all that this short narrative
tells us of the land 'Fusang.' Fortified places, he says, were unknown;
and Prescott speaks of the system of fortifications established through
the empire as though it had originated--as it most undoubtedly
did--with the Incas. Most extraordinary, however, is the remark of the
monk, that the houses are built with wooden beams. As houses the world
over are constructed in this manner, the remark might seem almost
superfluous. It is worth observing that the Peruvians built their houses
with wooden beams, and as Prescott tells us, 'knew no better way of
holding the beams together than tying them with thongs of _maguey_.' Now
be it observed, that the monk makes a direct transition from speaking of
the textile fiber and fabric of the maguey to the wooden beams of the
houses--a coincidence which has at least a color of proof. It may be
remarked, by the way, that this construction of houses 'tied up,' was
admirably adapted to a land of earthquakes, as in Mexico, and that
Prescott himself testifies that a number of them 'still survive, while
the more modern constructions of the conquerors are buried in ruins.'

Most strikingly Peruvian is the monk's account of 'the Kingdom and the
Nobles.' The name Ichi, is strikingly suggestive of the natural Chinese
pronunciation of the word Inca. The stress laid on the three grades of
nobles, suggests the Peruvian Inca castes of lower grade, as well as the
Mexican; while the stately going forth of the king, 'accompanied by
horns and trumpets,' vividly recalls Prescott's account of the
journeyings of the Peruvian potentate. The change of the color of his
garments according to the astronomical cycle, is, however, more
thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the institutions of the
Children of the Sun than any thing which we have met in the whole of
this strange and obsolete record. 'The ritual of the Incas,' says
Prescott, 'involved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as
ever distinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian. Each
month had its appropriate festival, or rather festivals. The four
principal _had reference to the Sun_, and commemorated the great periods
of his annual progress, the solstices and equinoxes. Garments of a
peculiar wool, and feathers of a peculiar color, were reserved to the
Incas. I can not identify the blue, red, yellow, and black, but it is
worthy of remark that the rainbow was his special attribute or
scutcheon, and that the mere fact that his whole life was passed in
accordance with the requisitions of astronomical festivals, and that
different colors were reserved to him and identified with him,
establishes a strange analogy with the narrative of Hoei-schin.

'Of this subject of the cycles and change of colors corresponding to
astronomical mutations, it is worth noting that Montesinos[J] expressly
asserts that the Peruvians threw their years into cycles of ten; a
curious fact which has escaped the notice of Neumann, who conjectures
that 'it may have been a subdivision of the Aztec period, or have even
been used as an independent period, as was indeed the case by the
Chinese, who term their notations 'stems.' It is worthy of remark,' he
adds, 'that among the Mongols and Mantchous these 'stems' are named
after colors which perhaps have some relation to the several colors of
the royal clothing in the cycles of 'Fusang.' These Tartaric tribes term
the first two years of the ten-year _cyclus_, 'green and greenish,' the
two next, 'red and reddish,' and soon, yellow and yellowish, white and
whitish, and finally, black and blackish.'

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