Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram, Wayne Hammond and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCX. DECEMBER, 1849. VOL. LXVI. CONTENTS. THE NATIONAL DEBT AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE, 655 MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART II., 678 SPAIN UNDER NARVAEZ AND CHRISTINA, 704 THE GREEN HAND--A "SHORT" YARN. PART VI., 723 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH, 741 FREE TRADE AT ITS ZENITH, 756 INDEX, 779 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCX. DECEMBER, 1849. VOL. LXVI. THE NATIONAL DEBT AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE.[1] [1] _A Financial, Monetary, and Statistical History of England, from the Revolution of 1688 to the present time._ By THOMAS DOUBLEDAY, Esq. London: 1847. _Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange._ By JOHN FRANCIS, Esq. London: 1849. The idea of associating history with some specific locality or institution, has long ago occurred to the skilful fabricators of romance. If old walls could speak, what strange secrets might they not reveal! The thought suggests itself spontaneously even to the mind of the boy; and though it is incapable of realisation, writers--good, bad, and indifferent--have seriously applied themselves to the task of extracting sermons from the stones, and have feigned to reproduce an audible voice from the vaults of the dreary ruin. Such was at least the primary idea of Scott, incomparably the greatest master of modern fiction, whilst preparing his materials for the construction of the _Heart of Mid-Lothian_. Victor Hugo has made the Cathedral of Paris the title and centre-point of his most stirring and animated tale. Harrison Ainsworth, who seems to think that the world can never have too much of a good thing, has assumed the office of historiographer of antiquity, and has treated us in succession to Chronicles of Windsor Castle, the Tower, and Old St Paul's. Those of the Bastile have lately been written by an author of no common power, whose modesty, rarely imitated in these days, has left us ignorant of his name; and we believe that it would be possible to augment the list to a considerable extent. In all those works, however, history was the subsidiary, while romance was the principal ingredient; we have now to deal with a book which professes to abstain from romance, though, in reality, no romance whatever has