judgment
in consequence, that I made myself sure they would sooner or later run
their heads into some egregious folly.'

It is satisfactory in every point of view that Britain should be
at peace with China and the Affghans. War is an evil in all
circumstances. It is a great evil even when just; it is a great evil
even when carried on against a people who know and respect the laws of
nations. But it is peculiarly an evil when palpably not a just war,
and when carried on against a barbarous people. It has been stated
in private letters, though not officially, that a soldier of the 44th
was burned alive by the Ghilzies in sight of the English troops, and
that on the approach of the latter the throat of the tortured
victim was cut to ensure his destruction. And it is the inference of
an Indian newspaper from the fact, that such wretches are not the
devoted patriots that they have been described by some, and that
the war with them cannot, after all, be very unjust. We are
inclined to argue somewhat differently. We believe the Scotch under
Wallace were not at all devoid of patriotism, though they were
barbarous enough to flay Cressingham, and to burn the English
alive at Ayr. We believe further, that an unjust war is rendered none
the less unjust from the circumstance of its being waged with a
savage and cruel people. The barbarism of the enemy has but the effect
of heightening its horrors, not of modifying its injustice. It is
possible for one civilised man to fight with another, and yet retain
his proper character as a man notwithstanding. But the civilised man
who fights with a wild beast must assume, during the combat, the
character of the wild beast. He cannot afford being generous and
merciful; his antagonist understands neither generosity nor mercy.
The war is of necessity a war of extermination. And such is always
the character of a war between wild and civilised men. It takes its
tone, not from the civilisation of the one, but from the cruel
savageism of the other.

_December 3, 1842._

PERIODICALISM.

The poet Gray held that in a neglected country churchyard, appropriated
to only the nameless dead, there might lie, notwithstanding, the remains
of undeveloped Miltons, Hampdens, and Cromwells,--men who, in more
favourable circumstances, would have become famous as poets, or great
as patriots or statesmen; and the stanzas in which he has embodied the
reflection are perhaps the most popular in the languag