Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 | Page 4

expected not to stand out in inconvenient
dissent from the ordinary rules of the house. We walked into the garden
under the care of the mother-superior, and saw their little burial-ground,
marked with low wooden crosses inscribed to Laura, to Perpetua, to
Mary of the Seven Dolours, and other such names, indicating so many
unfortunates who had here found a rest from their troubles. We
likewise visited the chapel, the body of which is arranged for the use of
the sisterhood; while a wing running off at the side of the altar, and
concealed from view, is provided with seats for the penitents. The
whole establishment is characterised by remarkably good taste. There is
here a more cheerful tone than in the Great Windmill Street institution.
The Sisters spoke, as usual, of being entirely happy--that unaccountable
phenomenon to a Protestant mind.

We do not need to inform the reader, that conventual establishments are
not now so thin-sown in England as they were a few years ago, or that
they occasionally draw into their circle individuals who started in life
with very different prospects before them. The whole subject is one
worthy of some inquiry, as a feature of our social state, by no means
devoid of political importance; and it is for this very reason that we
draw attention to the subject. Instead of contemptuously ignoring such
things, let them, we say, be made known and investigated in a calm and
philosophical spirit. It is for want of a steady comprehension of facts of
the kind here adverted to, that an illusion is kept up respecting our
existing social condition. It is heedlessly said, and every one repeats the
error, that the age is a hard, mechanical one, which shines only in
splendid materialities; but is it compatible with this notion, that there is
ten times more earnest religious feeling of one kind and another than
there was thirty years ago; that antiquities, mediæval literature and
architecture, are studied with a zeal hitherto unknown; and that such
mystical writers as Carlyle, Tennyson, and Browning, carry off the
palm from all the calm-blooded old-school men of letters? We rather
think it is the most romantic, supra-material age that has yet been seen.
The resurrection of conventual life, in some instances Catholic, in
others Protestant, appears to us as one of the facts of this unexpected
reaction, which doubtless will run its course, and then give place to
something else, though not, we trust, till out of its commixture of good
and evil some novelty hopeful for humanity has sprung.

THE LATE EMPEROR OF CHINA.
The announcement of a work by the late Dr Gutzlaff, entitled the _Life
of Taou-Kwang, late Emperor of China, with Memoirs of the Court of
Peking_,[1] excited a good deal of expectation; but for our own part,
now that the book is published, we must confess our disappointment on
finding it not a well-constructed memoir, but a volume bearing the
appearance of a collection of materials put together just as they came to
hand, with a view to re-arrangement. Declining health probably
prevented the author from perfecting his plan, and hurried his pages to
the press; death has now removed him from his labours. But a

collection of authentic historic facts is valuable, however loosely
embodied; and few writers have enjoyed such favourable opportunities
as Dr Gutzlaff for obtaining them.
Referring first to the personal history of Taou-Kwang, we find that his
education was more Tatar than Chinese. He was one of the numerous
grandchildren of the imperial house of Keelung, but without any
expectation of filling the throne, as both his mother and paternal
grandmother were inferior members of the imperial harem. The
discipline under which the royal family was trained, was of the strictest
kind. Each of the male children, on completing his sixth year, was
placed with the rest under a course of education superintended by the
state. Though eminent doctors were engaged to instruct them in
Chinese literature, yet archery and horsemanship were considered
higher accomplishments, and the most expert masters from Mongolia
and Manchooria trained them in these exercises. They were treated as
mere schoolboys, were allotted a very small income for their
maintenance, were closely confined to the apartments assigned to them,
kept in entire ignorance of passing events, and allowed little intercourse
with the court--none with the people. Not till each had passed his
twentieth year, was there any relaxation of this discipline. Taou-Kwang
was about this age when his father ascended the throne, in consequence
of the somewhat capricious appointment of Keelung, who abdicated,
and soon after died. The new emperor surrounded himself with
buffoons, playactors, and boon-companions. The debaucheries,
jealousies, and cruelties of his reign, remind us of what we have half
sceptically read of Nero and Caligula. But