THE GALAXY. VOL. VJJ.JANUARY, 1869.No. i. CIPHER: A NOVEL.PART SECOND. CHAPTER VIII. TRANSPARENT MASKS. A KNOT of young men in various costume lounged in the hail of Mrs. Minturns handsome house, and discussed the masquers who passed before them into the drawing-room, with a freedom characteristic of their condi- tion. Three female figures descended the stairs, and were joined at the foot by a domino, who waited to escort them. A Cleopatra ! said a Charles II. among the flcvzeurs, in an audible voice, and very well got up, too. See the golden asp upon her right arm, and the string of pearls upon her left. The crown, the starry veil, the royal robesall correct, fair sister, but tell me, is it Marc Antony to-day, or another? The Cleopatra thus attacked threw an angry glance upon the questioner, and passed quickly on. Nothing daunted, the merry monarch continued his re- marks. And a mermaid ? NoUndine, by the string of coral, but, in a lower voice, I had not supposed any woman in this city would have the effrontery to crown herself with water-lilies and wear pearls for her only ornament. She must be very newor, very experienced. Probably the latter, for the innocence of a woman of the world is a great deal more natural than nature. Mais voild! la Jolie ~etitc marquise / See the ravishing little waist displayed by the long points to her bodice, and the coquetry of that tiny patch just in the dimple of the chin, and the round white arms, and th~ turn of the neck You may wait, my friends, for whom you willI go to see if Za marguise will not play Louise de Querouailles to my Charles II., for an hour, at least. As the gay speaker separated himself from his comrades, and followed the object of his admiration into the drawing-room, he was joined by Mephistoph- eles, who had stood silently listening to his remarks, and who now said, as he passed his arm through that of the king, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1569, by SHELDON & COMPANY, in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 1 6 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Your majesty and I are old friends, and should hunt in couples. The deuce we are! retorted Charles, eyeing his companion askance. Just what I remarked, and a very pretty deuce we make; deuce-ace, if you will, for unlike most couples, we are two in one, or one in two, as you please. Go look for your Faust, I will none of youmy familiar never showed himself in company, said Charles, shaking off the grasp of his companion. That was because you were still running through your days of grace, re- torted Mephistopheles. But now you have come under authority, and are only out on leave to-night. It is I who am king, andvivat Rex. Tout bien / Come, then, and advise me how to penetrate the incognito of the little marquise, said Charles, recklessly. I will advise you to let her alone, or at any rate to say nothing for which you will be sorry when you meet her unmasked, said his companion, signifi- cantly. Try your gallantries on the Cleopatra if you will And leave i~ rnarquise to you! Thank you. Mon diable / I am a wor- thier pupil than that. Compare notes with Cleopatra yourself; or see if a Becky Sharp does not lurk beneath those water-lilies ; but leave my love to me. The party had by this time reached the upper end of the long rooms, where stood the hostess in the dress of Dame Quickly, but without mask. As each guest bowed before her he presented a card bearing both his real and assumed title. After glancing at these, Mrs. Minturn dropped them into a vase zeal- ously guarded by a roguish Cupid, who, with drawn bow and warning cry, men- aced all who ventured to approach too near. After a few words of compliment, the party moved on to make room for other guests, and the royal Stuart approached the Marquise with a low bow and a request that she would favor him with her hand for a valse-quadrille in the ad- joining ball-room. The Marquise hesitated, but after glancing at Cleopatra, who nodded assent, she silently accepted the proffered arm. Mephistopheles, at the same moment, addressed to Undine a request to promenade through the rooms with him, offering to give her a lesson in reading disguises which she should find of use through all her future life. Cleopatra motioned her to accept, and herself taking the arm of the domino who remained in attendance, slowly followed for a few steps, and then said, in a low voice: Go, now, and find some one else. I will take care of myself. All, right, my lady, replied Mr. Livingstones thick voice; only dont let the men be too free. Theyll say things from behind their masks that they wouldnt dare to say without them. Not to me, said Cleopatra, haughtily, and each went a separate way. CHAPTER IX. A D EU X TEMP S. In the ball-room the frenzy of the galop had subsided into the passionate tenderness of the waltz, and the band, led by a musician, rendered, with such fidelity and abandon, the wild heart-break of the Sophia waltzes, that one in- stinctively feared to see the whole place a necropolis of swooning and dying princesses. JJrawn KiNG ChARLES AND THE MARQUJSE.Page 7. 1869.] CIPHER. 7 Francia, in her charming costume, d la Pomj5adour, her supple waist encir- cled by the arm of the King Charles, his breath upon her cheek, her right hand pressed close to his heart, floated round and round the room in a strange ec- stacy, wondering how she had lived so long and never before felt the joy of life; wondering, too, at the passionate impulse of tears that almost suffocated her. The music ceased with a long, piercing strain, that might have been the wail of the lover as his royal mistress fell dead at his feet, and Francia, blind and hreathless, allowed her partner to support her for a moment longer in the em- hrace which we all consider so eminently proper while the motion of the dance continuesso very shocking a few minutes later. I never shall forget this xvaltz, murmured King Charles. Nor I, for I never enjoyed one half so much, said Francia, guilelessly; and behind his mask the merry monarch smiled a meaning smile. Let us promenade a little, said he, and led the way to the cool shadow of the conservatory. Do you believe in magnetism, Marquise ? asked he, seating his compan- ion upon an ottoman and throwing himself upon a footstool at her side. I dont know anything about it, said Francia, wonderingly. Then take your first lesson of me, ma belle. It was a powerful magnetism that drew me to you the first moment my eyes rested upon you; it is that same magnetism that made our waltz to me the very culmination of my life; and, tell me, Marquise, may I be very frank, very hold? Yes, murmured Francia. It was that same magnetism that wrought upon you when you said you never had enjoyed a dance so much. He took in his the soft, white hand that Francia had nervously ungloved when she first sat down. I must see your face, I must hear your name, here and now, murmured he, half beseechingly, half imperiously. The little hand grew cold, and trembled in his grasp, hut it was not with- drawn, nor did the bewildered girl resist, as with a quick movement her com- panion untied the ribbon confining her mask, and suffered it to drop into her lap. The face thus disclosed was indeed one worthy of a monarchs admiration; and just now, with cheeks and lips at their brightest, eyes at their bluest, and the perfect shape of the low white forehead displayed by the coquettish backward roll of the hair glittering xvi thgolden powder, Francias fresh beauty ~it for masked ~A was so bewilderino~ tlnt hardly an extravagance her mirer to murmur, 0, that I were indeed a king, that I might, with some faint hope of success, offer my throne to the Queen of Love and Beauty! Francias head drooped lower and lower, while the carnation deepened on her cheeks, and even the nape of her xvhite neck flushed rosy red, but, alas not with indignation. His bold eyes devouring her heauty, Charles grasped again the band she had xvithdraxvn, and murmured, Tell me xvhat to call you, my queen. A sharp step rang through the ante-room dividing the conservatory from the other apartments, and Francia, snatching away her hand, hurriedly replaced 8 THE GALAXY. [JAN., her mask. It was not yet tied when a knight in golden armor stood before her. Excuse me, sir, said he, haughtily, to King Charles, who had risen to his feet; but this young lady is a relative of mine, and I am desired hy her friends to conduct her to them. If the young lady desires to exchange my company for yours, I shall of course submit to her wishes, otherwise I shall claim my privilege of leaving her under charge of the lady from whose side I took her, retorted the quasi mon- arch, with right ki ugly imperiousness. The knight hesitated an instant, then turned his hack upon his rival, and said in a low voice, Francia, come xvith me. The girl arose, but before she could accept the arm offered her by the knight, her late partner interposed, May I not have the usual privilege of a gentleman who has been honored with a ladys hand in the dance, and escort you to your c/~qperone? asked he, in a voice so exceedingly guarded as to betray the irritation of his feelings. Francia hesitated, half-turned toward the last speaker, then again to the knight, and whispered, I will go directly to Claudia, Fergus, and you can come, too. You will do as you choose, was the stern reply ; and Francia, her eyes f~llecl with tears, took the arm persistently offered by her other cavalier, and walked away in a very different mood from that of a few moments before. May I ask the name of that young man incjuired King Charles, still in the tone of elaborate courtesy, so significant to a practised ear. He is my cousin, faltered Francia, instinctively answering the question her companion had not chosen to ask. Cousins have strange privileges, it appears to me, said the King. Sweet ones, too, sometimes, if I am rightly informed. Fergus has always been like a brother to me, murmured Francia. Very like a brother, as I have found them behind the scenes, said her companion. But may I not resume the inquiry you were about to answer when this peremptory cousin-brother of yours interrupted us Mv name ? Mrs. Minturn can tell you. Ah, here is Neria. The Undine ? But there is Cleopatra in the next room, with a crowd of courtiers about her. XVill you go to her? Yes, if you please. S And as she answered, the poor little marquise cast a timid look over her shoulder at the stately form of the golden knight who now stood in the door- way of the ball-room watching her movements. Mozisleur le COZISZ,i appears to doubt either your word or my honor, said King Charles. bitterly, as he followed her eyes. Francia made no reply, but hurried on, and in another moment stood beside Claudia, who received her with a little nod, and ~vent on talking to the three gentlemen, who all claimed her attention at the same moment. King Charles, with a loxv how and a murmured word of thanks left her here, and went to look for Mrs. Minturn, with whom he was an especial favorite. While Cleopatra and her courtiers flashed their javelins of wit and badinage over her head, Francia remained for some moments in a bewildered reverie, through which the waltz, the conservatory, the strange bold words of her late 1869.] CIPHER. 9 partner, and the displeasure of her cousin mingled confusedly. Recovering a little, she raised her eyes, and timidly explored the room for Fergus. He xvas promenading with an elegant Diana upon his arm, and although he passed and repassed the spot where Francia stood, never by any chance turned his head toward her. How vexed he is, and how much I shall have to say before he will be kind again, thought Francia, and over the glitter of the ball-room and the flush c~ her innocent gayety came a dark mist, a chill, like that when upon a summer ~fternoon , great white clouds of fog come rolling over the sea and wrap earth and sky in their mantle of bleak despondency. She sighed heavily, and the domino who, although dismissed by Cleopatra in the first of the evening, had soon returned to hover near her, offered his arm. Tiresome, aint it, said he, in a low voice to the drooping little margi/ise Never mind, theyll have supper in a few minutes, and that will pay for all. If it wasnt for the suppers I couldnt stand this sort of life. I xvas not tired until just now, said Francia, accepting the proffered sup- port. Neria approached with Mephistopheles. And here we come, said he, to a group whose disguises I will not venture to penetrate, and even could I do so, I shrewdly suspect you are better able to describe to me than I to you the graces and virtues adorning it. I hope you have been as correct in all your intimations as in this, said Neria, playfully. Do not doubt it, and I am glad to have been able to illustrate to you my remark of a previous occasion, that there are, after all, very few wolves in this so much maligned society of ours. The latter part of the remark reached the ear of Cleopatra, who turned sharply round Ab, it is you, said she, quickly. Great queen, who can withstand your penetration. It is the humblest of your slaves, said Mephistopheles. Malice avers that Lucifer was an ally of yours in the old times, and, accord- ing to his wont, deserted you at the last, suggested one of the courtiers. Malice was, then, as stupid as she generally is, said Mephistopheles, coolly; for it was Cleopatra who deserted me. A swift glance passed between the Queen and the speaker, and each turned to another companion. At this momenCMrs. Minturn approached on the arm of King Charles. Pardon the mcuivais goz2l of an introduction cit vzisque, said she, aside to Claudia; and allow me to present my cousin, Rafe Chilton. He begs your per~aission to take Miss Vaughn down to supper. Certainly; I will let her understand that I sanction the movement, although your drawing-room is sufficient guarantee for any of your guests, replied Clau- dia, in the same tone, and Mrs. Minturn rejoined aloud, \Vill your majesty permit me to introduce a brother monarch, hight Charles of England. Cleopatra, with a regal inclination of the head, extended her hand, which Charles made a feint of raising to his lips As he lifted his head their eyes met, and while Claudia remembered the saucy query, Is it Marc Antony or another, THE GALAXY. [JAN., to-day? which had intercepted her entrance to the drawing-room, Charles saw that she remembered it. Generosity is a royal prerogative, said he, in a low voice. So your majesty found it when Louis Quatorze filled your exchequer with French gold, retorted Cleopatra, in the same voice. Charles laughed. Let us forget all that we should blush for in our former lives, said he, and begin our acquaintance from the present moment. Agree ; and unless we are better than most of the people about us, we shall, in the next hour, have accumulated a new stock of blushing matter, and shall have to begin over again, said the Queen. That can hardly be, for Cleopatra of to-day has preserved all the grace and none of the foibles of her prototype, said Charles, courteously. And the merry monarch of England has certainly freed himself from the reproach of having Never said a foolish thing, replied Cleopatra. Do not force him to believe, also, that he has never done a wise one in seeking the honor of an introduction to your majesty, suggested Charles, with a royal audacity which did not injure him in the estimation of the lady he ad- dressed. Nous verrons, said s1~e, laughing. May I ask your majesty to present me to the young lady at your side, and allow me to escort her to the supper-room ? pursued the King, with easy grace. Mademoiselle, allow me to present King Charles the Second, of England, a monarch whose reputation is his best introduction, said Claudia, turning to Francia, who bowed without speaking. A breach of faith, royal sister. We had agreed to leave our former reputa- tions out of the question, said Charles, meaningly; and Cleopatra, slightly abashed, made no retort. CHAPTER X. CHEZ MADAME LIvINGsToNE. THE world had been informed that it would find Mrs. Livingstone at home on Thursdays, and on the first recurrence of that day, after the fancy party, we shall see collected in her drawing-room nearly all the persons to whom this his- tory has introduced us. Mr. Vaughn had looked in, and without in the least meaning to do so, dwarfed the younger men by the polished ease of his manner, his dignity, and the knowledge of the world for which he was remarkable. Fergus, seated near the elegant Miss Winchendon, was evoking that young ladys most gracious smiles, and rewarding them with a satirical dissection of their absent friends, mingled with covert compliments to herself. Francia, who had not seen her cousin since the ball, watched this by-play from the corner of her eye, and grew more and more incoherent in her answers to the fashionable gossip with which Mrs. Minturn kindly tried to entertain her. But as that lady rose to go, the drawing-room door was thrown opento admit 1869.] CIPHER. II Dr. Luttrell and Mr. Chilton; and as Francia noted the sudden frown clouding her cousins face, a wicked impulse to brave the anger she despaired of soften- ing, seized upon her, and she returned Mr. Chiltons bow with a smile that at once brought that young gentleman to her side. Dr. Luttrell paused heside his hostess, who was, for the moment, disengaged. Where is Mrs. Luttrell ? asked Claudia. Where I am not, returned the husband, concisely. And always? When it can be so arranged. Your honeymoon closed yesterday, said Claudia, with a bitter-sweet smile. A thing without beginning is also without end, retorted her guest, coldly. As, for ekample, the love a man professes to the woman he wishes to marry, suggested Mrs. Livingstone. I have, in my life, professed love to only one woman, and shemade a worthier choice, said Luttrell, suffering his eyes to rest, with quiet scorn, upon the stout figure of Mr. Livingstone, who stood, with his hands beneath his coat- tails, upon the hearth-rug, discussing politics with Mr. Murray. Claudia winced a little, but recovered herself cleverly. Ah said she, nonchalantly. Who would suspect you of a petite Izistoire? You shall tell it to me some day. Just now I must go and talk to Mrs. Burton; and you, let me see ?you may bring Neria and the musician together, and get them into a conversation about art. They are counterparts and ought to find it out. She glided away as she spoke, and seated herself to listen, with smiling in- terest, to Mrs. Burtons narrative of her struggles with her last cook, until she could adroitly contrive to entrap another matron into the conversation and herself withdraw imperceptibly to more congenial companionship. Dr. Luttrell watched her, with a singular expression in his tawny eyes, not unlike a tiger, who, from the jungle, watches a stately doe surrounded by her courtiers, and says in his heart, Theirs to-day, mine to-morrow, if I will. Then he turned to look for Neria and the musician, who sat a little way from each other; she listening with grave attention to the chat between Fergus and the brilliant belle, he apparently absorbed in reverie. Dr. Lutti~ell placed himself between them and began to talk opera. CHAPTER XI. RIX2E~ PAX, ET THE last guest departed, and as the door closed behind her, Fergus turned to Neria, saying: Now, Neria ,give me a little real music after the miserable tinkling of that Percy do they call him ? I am perfectly sick with it. Then I am quite sure I could not please you, monsieur, said Neria, gaily; and I must go directly to my room and dress for our drive. Are you coming, Francia? In a minute, replied that young lady, affecting to be busy in arranging 12 THE GALAXY. [JAN., some flowers upon the table. Neria left the room, and Fergus, with anab- stracted look, was following her, when a timid voice recalled him. Did you see this rose-camelia, Fergus ? No, is it remarkable? asked the young man, coming slowly toward the table. I dont know. It is very pretty. I see. Is that all you have to say? Arent you going to drive with us? Not to-day. You have not been here lately. I am flattered that you should notice my movements so closely. Francia blushed scarlet, and bent lower over the flowers. You have not been without company, however, pursued her cousin, I see that Mr. Chilton has established himself here upon a very familiar footing. You will be much improved by such association. 0, Fergus, dont speak in that tone. How have I bifencled you? Offended me? Not at all. I was speaking of Mr. Chilton in terms of the highest commendation, was I not? Please, Fergus Tell me what I have done, and let me say I am sorry, and then forgive me. The clasped hands, tender blue eyes full of tears, quivering rosebud lips were very pathetic, and a half smile softened the stern lines of Ferguss mouth; but he said, coldly: I have no right to be offended; but I will own I was rather surprised at your conduct the other night. What conduct? faltered Francia. In the first place~ dancing round-dances half an hour with the same part- ner, and he one of the most notorious profligates about town; then wandering off into the conservatory with him, allowing him to unmask you, to take your hand, to say I dont know what to you. I did not try to listen, although I could not help seeing. Then, when I came to extricate you from your ridicu- lous and indecorous position, you absolutely refused to accept my guardianship, and clung to your new acquaintance as if he were a lover. Afterward you allowed him to take you down to supper, and danced with him. Only a cotillion, interposed Francia. You danced with himno matter what, pursued Fergus,. severely. And now, the next time I see you, this fellow is at your side, offering hi~ insulting attentions in so conspicuous a manner that every person who goes away from here to-day will have a sneer for you the next time your name is mentioned in their company. You can do as you choose, or as my uncle chooses, I sup- pose, but you will excuse me if I say that I can give neither respect nor con- fidence to a young lady, who deliberately encourages the attentions of a liber- tine like Rafe Chilton. If Claudia and Mr. Livingston encourage his coming to the house, they cannot believe him so very bad, said Francia, with some spirit. I do not undertake to regulate my sisters affairs, said Fergus, coldly; nor do I wish to discuss her movementsthey do not concern either you or or me. I was only explaining to you the reason of the change in my manner, which seemed to annoy you. 1869.1 CIPHER. 3 I was not annoyed, Fergus, I was grieved. The young man trifled a moment with the toys upon the table, and then said, reproachfully: You do not find Neria running into such follies, although she has the same opportunities. Neria isnt so gayso So thoughtless as you. That is true enough; but to be thoughtless in these matters is something more then a foihle, Francia. It is to estrange your friends, to injure your own prospects, to give foul tongues an opening to meddle with your name. Mr. Chiltons acquaintanceship is enough to ruin any woman s reputation; but if you choose to cultivate it, of course it is no affair of mine. Good morning. Good mornino said Francia, in a tone as cold as his own, and with spark- ling eyes and heightened color, she walked toward the window. Fergus went to the door, but his gloves still lay upon the table where he had placed them while speaking. He returned for them, waited to put them on, and was again moving toward the door, when a soft voice whispered: Fergus He silently turned and looked toward Francia. Fluttering, blushing, tearful, she glided to his side, and sxveetly looked into his face. He took her hand, whispering: ~vVhat is it, Franc ? I am so sorry. I wont if you dont want me to. Please, dear Fergus! 1-le put his arm about her slender waist, he laid his hand beneath her rounded chin, and raising the rosy face that fain would droop, he looked deep, deep into those blue depths of her innocent eyes, and thenhow does it go? Rix~, faa, et what comes next? Fergus stayed to dinner, and spent the evening. When Francia went to her room that night, she stood a long time looking from the window ; and, as she turned away, murmured half aloud : But he is my cousin, almostjust like a brother. CHAPTER XII. CHECK TO THE QUEEN. THE winter went on, and went by. March had come, with its chilling winds and cheering sun, its raw certainty and its sweet promiselike a hoydenish girl of thirteen, whom we endure and even admire, in faith of the future. It was evening, and Mrs. Livingstones drawing-rooms were moonily lighted by hanging lamps with alabaster shades. In the iDoudoir at the end of the suite of apartments sat the lady herself, deep in a game of chess with Dr. Luttrell. In the next room, Francia, nervous, half-unwilling, and yet not quite unpleased, listened to the low-voiced conversation of Mr. Chilton, xvhile the master of the house, dozing in an arm-chair near at hand, played propriety to the t~te-d-h~te. In the drawing-room beyond, Neria, at the piano, softly played 0 Bel Alma; and Percy, standing beside her, improvised a dreamy accompaniment. But the story that the musician told, the question that he asked, and the ten- der, mournful denial that Neria returned to his petition, are not now our con- 4 THE GALAXY. [JAN., cern. These are of the secrets that the ange is keep and men do hut guess. Let us rather watch the far from angelic game so skilfully played in the boudoir. Check! said Dr. Luttrell; and Claudia, who had been dreaming over her game, suddenly found both king and queen menaced by an audacious knight, who had quietly approached, under cover of a man~uvre for the capture of a pawn. 0, but I cant lose my queen ! exclaimed Mrs. Livingstone, examining the situation with dismay. Dr. Luttrell silently leaned back in his chair and watched her. From be- tween his half-closed eyelids gleamed strange green and yellow lights, flashing, sparkling, changing, like the great diamond on his breast. His thin lips smiled; but it was not a smile pleasant to look upon. Can you save her? asked he, quietly, when Claudia had gone over every possible combination of her few pieces for the twentieth time, and at last placed a reluctant finger upon the king. No; but the game is lost. How could I have been so stupid ? Whom the gods doom, etc.it was fated that I should conquer, and it would have been useless for you to resist, had you been ever so diligent in your efforts. You are a fatalist, then ? Are not you ? No, I will not give up my free will. In this case, if I had chosen to attend to my game, I should not have lost it. It was fated you should izot choose to attend to it. It is very easy to reason after the event. But, warned by experience, the next game we play I will play with such care as to thwart fate, if she has decreed another stupidity on my part. Then you will again be the servant of fate, who will have decreed just the pains you take to tlmvart her. This is fearful, exclaimed Claudia, passionately; this idea that, xviii as we may, struggle as we may, we are blindly hurried on by an unknown power, perhaps to good, perhaps to evilat any rate toxvard a hidden end. What be- comes of moral responsibility, of conscience, of any effort toward self-con- quest? They go down before the iron keel of destiny, who bears us on, resisting or unresisting, blind or open-eyed, to what you truly call the hidden end. Then why should men be punished for crime? They should not. There is no crime. A man does that to which his tem- perament impels himthat which his destiny has pre-ordained from the begin- ning. He is no more accountable for the results than is this bit of ivory for your lost game. He fillipped the captured queen as he spoke, and her head roiled across the hoard and dropped at his feet. Claudia put aside his apology xvith a smile, and said: Like her mistress, she feels that in losing the game she loses all. She has escaped destiny noxv, at any rate. No, for destiny decreed that she should thus fall; also has decreed that, in spite of her attempt at self-destruction, she should be restored to all her former beauty and usefulness, said Dr. Luttreil, as he smilingly put the broken piece in his pocket. 1869.] CIPHER. 5 Claudia looked at him with flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes. But this matter of destiny, said she. Are you resigned to be thus blindly impelled hither and thither, and to feel all effort and resistance a useless strug- gle? Does not this belief deprive you of all interest in life? Not at all. Life to me is an interesting novel, of which I am the hero. Fate turns the pages, and I read as fast as I am permitted. It is far less trouble and much more exciting than your idea of writing the book yourself. Author- ship is not my rule. At least you should never be angry with those who disappoint or thwart you, said Claudia, in a low voice. To the philosopher, disappointment is a word without value or meaning, re- turned the other. It is folly to try to guess what is written on the other side of the page ; but if you will do so, and find you have guessed wrong, why, there is an end of itwhy be disappointed? What ir~ust be, will be; and why vex yourself by quarrelling with destiny? When you chose to marry Mr. Livingstone instead of me, you thought you decided for yourself; hut you did not, and I knew you did not, and so felt neither anger nor sorrow; neither blamed you nor loved you the less, for I knew that you accepted this necessity of fate as unwillingly as I did. I knew, too, that this marriage ceremony would prove no solvent to the secret affinity which must forever hind our souls together, let our tongues belie it as they may. He fixed his gleaming eyes on Claudias face. She returned the look defiantly. You have no right to say that, replied she. Since I was married I have never spoken a word to you that should prove that I remembered Nor I to you; but have you not known it ? No, said Claudia, desperately. Luttrell smiled. Say no, if you will, but do not try to think no, returned he, quietly, for nothing is so weakening as self-deception. But I will notyou shall notI, at least, am no fatalist, and will not have my free will thus quietly taken out of my hands, persisted Claudia. I do not choose to remember or to know more than that Dr. Luttrell and his xvife are pleasant acquaintances of Mr. and Mrs. Livingstone. Dr. Luttrell smiled and bowed, hiding his shining eyes with their drooping lids. Claudia waited for denial, for argument; but none came. She nervously re- placed the chessmen in their box, and glanced toward her late adversary. His face wore an expression of regret, of mortification, perhaps, but he did not raise his eyes. I should have said friends, instead of acquaintances, said she, softly. The first is the better word, replied Luttrell, coldly. Then you do not wish me for a friend, said Claudia, wounded beyond her self-possession. I do not believe in friendship, returned Iuttrell; we have acquaintances more or less intimate; we have passions and affinities ; but friendship is to me a word without meaning. You are cynical, said Claudia, bitterly. Not at all; I am philosophical, and it is one of my philosophies to talk as THE GALAXY. [JAN., little as may be of myse~ or of my own experiences. Do you notice how heav- ily the air of these rooms is charged with electricity? Claudia glanced at him inquiringly. I mean the moral atmosphere. There is enough passion, intrigue, hope, despair, restlessness circling about our heads to furnish matter for a score of romances. Claudia slightly moved her position so as to command a view of the draw- ing-rooms. It was the moment when Percy and Neria, standing hand in hand, looked fare- ~vell into each others eyes. Rafe Chilton had drawn his chair close to Francia s side, and while toying with her fan, murmured behind it words to xvhich she list- ened with blushing, half-averted face and down-dropped eyes. Mr. Livingstone, aroused from his nap, studied the stock-list with frowning brow and muttering lips. Unseen by all, Mr. Vaughn and Fergus Murray stood just within the door- way, the keen eyes of each taking in the tout e;zsembte of the scene, and each drawing from it his own conclusions. I see, said Claudia, in a low voice ; and rising, she xvent to greet her guests, and to break up the too obvious ate-u-tate between Francia and a man whom she knew both her uncle and her brother disapproved. CHAPTER XIII. FRANCIA S MISTAKE. WITH slight notice of his sister or the rest, Fergus passed into the other room, and standing beside Neria, said impatiently, When are you going home, I wonder? To I3onniemeer? Yes, I am tired of stumbling over that mooning Percy every time I come here. As for Chilton, I am afraid th~t some day I shall take the trouble to im- part to him my opinion of himself; and that might lead to unpleasant results. Neria placed her cool hand upon his. Dear Fergus, said she, cannot you make your circle of tolerance a little larger ? One is so much happier in charity and love with all men. And it grieves ~s when you are ill-pleased. I cannot flatter myself that my words are so important, said Fergus, sul- lenly. You wrong yourself and us in saying so; us, by doubting our love and sympathy, and yourself in refusing to accept this love and sympathy, which would, admitted to your life, render it so much more peaceful and beautiful. Others are not like you, Neria, said the young man, in a softer tone. All here are like me in caring for you, Fergus. How much does Francia care, xx hen she encourages that profligate fellow, after the expression of my disapprobation; after her own promise to give up his acquaintance? asked Fergus , gloomily. Neria looked troubled, but presently answered checrily, Franc is so charming and so much admired, that xve must be reconciled to seeing a good deal of homage offered at her shrine, and sometimes by un 1869.1 CIPHER. 7 worthy worshippers. It does not harm her, and by-and-by she xviii be tired of her position as divinity. We women have four seasons like the year, and it is spring-time with her yet. Some womens spring-time has all the freshness of hers without its crude- ness, said Fergus, smiling into Nerias eyes. But not the rich and glowing promise, returned Neria, half sadly. See, Mr. Chilton is going. That is a pityfor Francia. Noxv, Fergus, dont be cross with the poor child. You have not been kind to her for some xveeks. Because she has allowed Chilton to haunt her like her shadoxv. To be unkind to her yourseW is only to make his courtesies seem the more agreeable. She is coming in here, and I shall go away and leave you to make friends. We go home next week, and it is quite time you were on good terms ag4in. Be gentle and careful. Francia approached with a nervous smile upon her flushed face. I thought Mr. Percy was here, said she to Neria, but glancing timidly at Fergus while she spoke. He went away a few moments ago. Sit down, dear, and sing us that little barcarolle, wont you? Fergus has not heard it. Francia seated herself played a simple prelude with faltering fingers, and tried to sing; but in the first notes her voice trembled, broke, and in a sudden burst of tears she ran away from the piano, and sought shelter in the deep bay- xvindow. With an expressive glance at Fergus, Neria went into the other room, and seated herself near Vaughn, who was carrying on a desultory conversation xvith Mr. Livingstone. Fergus hesitated a moment, and then followed Francia, xvho crouched sob- bing upon an ottoman. Franc said he, softly, as he seated himself beside her. No answer. Dont cry, Francia. Im not angry. But you will be. No, I wont. I suppose you couldnt help his coming. N-o-o. But you need not have let him whisper in your ear. A fresh burst of sobs. 0 Franc, I wish you would be more xvomanly; show a little more dignity, or at least a little more regard for me. There, I knew you would. Would what, child Would scold. And you will be so angry. No, but I am not angry, and not going to be, only sorry. I love my little cousin too much to be really angry with her. I dont think you have loved me very much this last month, murmured Francia out of her handkerchief. It is because I love you so well that I have been sorry to see youwell, I wont say any more. So you thought I didnt love you, little girl ? Yes. Well, I never thought you didnt love me, so you see I was the wiser of the i8 THE GALAXY. [JAN., two. Now I xviii tell you what I shall do to prevent any such mistakes in fu- ture. I shall tell all the world that I love you and you love me, and that you are my own little Franc, and no one else is to come within six feet of you, or to speak to you any lower than they would to Mr. Livingstone. Then I shall send you hack to Bonniemeer, and keep you safely there until I have a nice little cage all ready for you here or somewhere else; and then I shall come and bring you to live in it forever and a day, andhow do the story books end? Lived happy all their lives, isnt it ? lie put his arm round her as he spoke, and drew her close to his side, but even in the dim light xvas startled to see the pale face and wild eyes she raised to his. 0, Fergus, Fergus cried she. Why did you not tell me sooner? How could I knowandand I am engaged to Rafe Chilton. Fergu s started to his feet, and looked doxvn with terrible eyes upon the fair young face, that seemed to wither beneath his gaze. I would not have believed, said he, at last, that you could sink so low. Forget from this moment, as I do, that any other tie than our unfortunate rela- tionship has ever draxvn us together. He left the room, the house, without another word; and Francia, sinking upon the floor, child-like, cried herself to sleep. So Neria found her an hour later when Vaughn, the last of the guests, had departed, saying to his ward as he bade her good-night, I have something to say to you to-morrow. Will you ride with me at eleven ? Yes, Sieur. CHAPTER XIV. THE PERRY WOODS. 0, BLUE-EYED Katie Coleman, do you remember the summer days that you and I, two merry hoydens in our earliest teens, laughed or dreamed away among the joyous Perry Woods? Now it xvas a butterfly, a tiger-moth, a glittering dragon-fly which we chased, and left uncaptured at the last; now it was the xvhite and yellow violets in the meadoxv beyond the wood that tempted us to the destruction of hose and shoon ; now it xvas the nodding Solomons seal, the purple orchis, the gay columbine, that xve sought upon the hill-side, and though xve lost each a shoe in the meadow, we found xvhole handfuls of ladys-slippers in the wood. And do you remember, Katie, when we pulled the .farmers rad- ishes, and sitting under the edge of the wood, eat the stolen treasure with its clinging soil, and even while the acrid flavor brought tears to our eyes, as- sured each other that it was a feast. Ah, pretty Katie Coleman Twenty years since then, my friend, txventy stages from that idyllian age of golden romance But the sunshine that flecked the turf of Perrys Woods with sheen still glim- mers duskily through my life, and shoxvs me here and there around my feet a flower that, without it, I might never see. And if this blue sky above my head arches also over yours, may it shed all balmy dews upon your path, all peace and love upon your life, for the sake of tbose blithe days bygone. And ifi, my Katie, you now dwell above, as I beneath 1869.1 CIPHER. 9 the sky, I know right well that your pure heart and gentle nature will have led you to other woods and other flowers, fairer even than the sunny memories of youth. So it was to Perrys Woods that Vaughn and Neria rode upon the breezy March morning when he spoke. The sky was a pure bright blue, islanded with great white cumuli. The south wind smelt of violets a-bloom whence it had come. The willow twigs made a wreath of rosy mist along the brook-sidethe brook that warbled loud and warbled soft its spring-tide song. The earliest bluebird of the year praised God from the topmost branches of the elm. The exquisite tracery of twig and branch against the lucent sky was better than foliage, and the springing grass under foot was fairer to the winter-withered senses than all the flush of bloom that should bourgeon the summer. Neria sat upon her white palfrey, and with her smiling eyes seemed to gather in and taken possession of the scene until its charm incorporated itself in her being, and shone forth again, adding a new and subtle beauty to what had seemed finished already. Vaughn looked only at her, and the love of a mans strong nature made his face as that of a god. She turned suddenly, and met his eyesmet and read them, and her sweet face grew pale. He took her hand. Neria, where are the words that I should say to you? I-low can I hope to tell you the reverence and love that has become my life? How dare I ask God to give to me, alone, the pure angel whom he has vouchsafed to mankind You have so little of earth, dear Neria, that I cannot ask you to mate yourself with me, who, alas, am all of earth ; but, sweet, if I may wear you on my heart as a blessed amulet, if I may stand between the world and you, and you shall stand between Heaven and meif I may help you to make others happy, and you ~vill help me to mend much that is amiss in my own lifeNeria, if you will be the angel in my house and in my heart, then can I ask no more of Heaven than to give me life and grace to show continually how I prize its gift. The sweet content of the spring-morning changed on Nerias face to doubt and alarm. Sieur, I have not thought of this, said she, simply. Think of it, now, dear child. I cannot. I must disarrange all the habit of my thought to place you in the position of Of a lover, you would say. I feared it would be so, dear. I am too far away from youin years, in experience, in the circle of life-for you to find my love other than oppressive and unwelcome, said Vaughn, sadly. No, not that, Sieur, but it is so new. May I think about it a little, before I say any more ? Surely, dear, as long as you will, but you may not try to force upon your heart the belief that you can return this love of mine, and so offer yourself a sacrifice upon the altar of self-devotion. If you cannot give yourself to me frankly and fully, Neria, tell me so at once, and we will forget all this, and you shall be again to me a daughter, a trust; something to be loved, and guarded, and reverenced, as Arthurs knights guarded the San Grail, though no man among them dared lay finger upon it. He turned his horses head while he spoke, and they rode slowly home. It was that very evening, as Vaughn sat alone in the twilight of the deserted 20 THE GALAXY. [JAN., drawing-room, that the faint perfume always enveloping Neria, suddenly floated around his head, although he had heard no step, and a slender hand crept within his own. He looked up. Through the shadow of the twilight a fair face shone down upon him, saint-wise. Is it my angel, or the angel of mankind ? asked he, softly. 0, Sieur, do not call me an angel; I am so weak, so ignorant! But if it is true that I can help you a little, let me do it in your own way. It was not the loving confession he would have liked to hear, hut it was ac- ceptance ; and the heart of the man was stirred as with strong wine, while for the first time he took his bride in his arms, and reverently kissed her lips. CHAPTER XV. COMING HOME. THE great content of his new happiness disposea Vaughn to be more indul- gent than even his wont to the wishes of his only child, and although he could not approve or sympathize in her choice, he would not absolutely refuse consent to it. He did not, however, refrain from expressing to Mr. Chilton his views with regard to some passages in that young mans life, and informing him most distinctly that his engagement to Francia must be a conditional one, to be broken at any time when her friends considered him to have failed in keeping the good resolutions that he now professed. Chilton, very seriously in love, and rather proud of bearing away the beauty of the season, as Francia had been styled, found himself very willing to sub- scrihe to even harder conditions than these; and immediately removed his lodg- ings from a hotel to a quiet boarding-house ; reduced h15 allowance of cigars to three ter diem; confined himself in his convivialities to light xvines ; turned the cold shoulder to several of his former intimates ; spent nearly an hour every day in the law-office, whose door-plate bore his name in conjunction with that of a partn6r who did all the work and assumed nearly all the profit of the concern; and, in brieg resolved, as he himself expressed the determination, to try the Falstaffian dodge, e schexv sack, and live cleanly. Nerias consternation and regret upon first hearing of Francias engagement were extreme. Her pure and true instincts had always negatived any feeling of admiration for Mr. Chiltons appearance or manners, and her sympathy with Fergus caused her painfully to appreciate the severe disappointment and sorrow underlying his silent displeasure. She, however, said but little upon the sub- ject, especially to Francia, whom she treated with an added tenderness and delicacy, sufficiently expressed by Francias playful wish, that she were a little girl instead of a great one, that she might call Neria mother. Claudia was content with both engagements. Mr. Chilton was a man of wealth and fashion, and would, of course, immediately renounce the open offences against morality which had somewhat disturbed society in its wish to render him its highest consideration. As for the rest, Mrs. Livingstones standard of life was not very high, and she held the tenet that every young man was either a sinner or a hypocrite. Mr. Murray took snuff and blandly congratulated Vaughn upon his own and his daughters engagement. 1869.] CIPHER. 21 Fergus almost deserted his sisters house, and professed himself absorbed in business. It was arranged that N erias quiet marriage should take place as soon as its preliminaries could be arranged, and that until then she and Francia should re- main with Claudia, while Vaughn vacillated between the city and J3onniemeer, where he was pleasing his luxurious taste by some alterations and new furnish- mrs in honor of the bride who was to be. It was on a joyous April day that he finally brought her home, and, before entering the house, lingered a moment upon the terrace with her, to admire the capricious beauty of the landscape, when all earth seemed frolicking in her girlish glee, and afar upon the horizon line the bright blue ocean tossed its glit- tering foam agaii~st the bright blue sky. Vaughn drew Neria close to his side. My wife, whispered he, tell me that you are happy. 0, so happy said Neria, brightly. Such a heavenly day, and coming home to our own dear Bonniemeer, are enough for happiness. But to be with you in any weather, and at any place, is enough for happi- ness to me, urged the bridegroom, in a tone of half-playful reproach. Neria looked at him a little xvonderingly, and then raised her face heaven- ward with a smile of serene satisfaction but whether evoked by his words or the joyous scene, Vaughn did not dare inquire. Come, spirit, said he, leading her toward the house, I am afraid to let you stay here, lest you suddenly float away and leave me desolate. I will close you within walls, and only allow you to see the sky through non-conducting glass, until you are a little naturalized by sympathy with me. I anticipate that in course of time our natures will become equalized, to a certain extent, at least. You are to elevate and purify me, and I am to strengthen and practicalize you. So shall we both fill more perfectly our places in this world, and in each others hearts. Neria regarded him with a dreamy smile, and softly said, I cannot tell. It is all so new and strange to me as yet, but I am sure that you will be to me what you have always been. 0 no, dear child, but more and better, said Vaughn, eagerly. Do you not feel the change that love has wrought in our relations to each other? But I have always lovedl and reverenced you, returned Neria, xvith the pathetic intonation peculiar to her voice when she found herself perplexed or troubled. Vaughn smiled a little dubiously, and led her into the house. See, now, my ocean waif, the bower I have been building for you, said he, leading the way through a richly-furnished bridal chamber and dressing- room, to the entrance of one of the apartments recently added to the house. Here is a boudoir, where you may, if you choose, fancy yourself still be- neath the sea. He threw open the door and Neria, standinb upon the threshold, uttered a little cry of delight. The arched ceiling, divided into four compartments by heavy mullions, rep- resented in fresco, Venus rising from the sea, surrounded by rosy little Loves; Anon riding his dolphin, and drawing all the creatures of the deep to listen to his wonderful melodies ; the nymph Tyro yielding half coy, half willin~ to the wooing of Neptune, who drew her toward his wave-borne chariot; and last, an exquisite design showing a fair child asleep in a great sea-shell floating upon a smiling sea, and rocked by the tiny hands of Nereids, whose sweet faces and 22 THE GALAXY. [JAN., shining hair floated above the waves, while their gleaming shapes showed fairly through the pure water. From the cornice fell heavy folds of sea-green silk, draping the walls and lying upon a carpet of white velvet, embossed with groups of sea mosses and grasses, with sprigs of coral interspersed. Upon the mantle shelf; itself upheld by sculptured Tritons, lay two-great sea-shells with flowers and trailing vines drooping over their rose-red lips, and between them an exquisite marble grouo. showing Andromeda chained half-lifeless to the rock, closing her eyes to shut out the sea monster, while Perseus stole to her side, and looked with admiring wonder upon her rare beauty. Two or three paintings, gems of ocean scenery, hung upon the walls, and on the itagie lay some rare mosaics, cameos, shells, and sea pebbles. A little book-rack was filled with the poets Neria loved, the volumes bound in silk of the same tint as the hangings of the room. The furniture was of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the chairs and conches luxuriously cushioned with silk of the prevailing tint. A wide bay window let in a flood of morning sunshine, and commanded a wide view of the distant sea. Do you like it ? asked Vaughn, who had watched, with loving delight, the varying expression of Nerias face as she silently made the tour of the little chamber, gathering in all its beauty with her swift and comprehensive glances. As he spoke she came toward him and raised her lips to his with innocent grace. How can I ever do anything for you who are always doing so much for me ? asked she. Do anything for me, darlino? By simply being, you do everything. My white angel, my pure saint, do you not know that it is by thus putting the smallest portion of my love into deeds, that I relieve my heart of this burden of joy which almost cleaves it in twain Neria, you rIo not know, you do not faintly guess how much I love you. And youah, my love, my darling, be a little humanblush when I kiss your lips thus and thus ; droop those pure eyes before the passion of my gaze let those calm pulses beat, and I)ause, and beat again, as mine do when I clasp you in my arms. Neria, love me as I love you And Neria, pale, passive, disturbed, answered in her plaintive voice, I do love you, SieurI love you very much. Vaughn impatiently opened his lips, but left the words unsaid. Taking the slender hands of his girl-wife in one of his, he looked clown into her troubled face for a moment, then smiled a little sadly, and tenderly smoothed her hair. You are tired, dear child, said he come into your chamber and rest a little. I will send tip your trunks, and Mrs. Barlow, the housekeeper, to help you with your toilet. Neria mutely obeyed, but when she was left alone could not rest for wonder- ing why the love that had always seemed good and sufficient in Vaughns eyes, had suddenly grown so inadequate to satisfy him. CHAPTER XVI. THE GREAT ORGAN. A FEW weeks after the weddino-. Francia, who had been allowed to accept Claudias invitation to remain with her a little longer, arrived at Bonniemeer, bringing a letter from Mrs. Livings tone to Neria, in which she mentioned that 1869.] CIPHER. 23 Dr. Luttrell was looking for a quiet house upon the sea-shore where he might spend the summer xvith his wife, who was very much of an invalid, and sug- gested that Cragness would probably stilt him exactly, and give some pleasant neighbors to l3onniemeer. In fact she acknowledged she had already men- tioned the house to Dr. Luttrell, who was much pleased with her description of it, and only waited for her permission to formally apply for it. This suggestion Neria referred at once to Vaughn, without even confessing a certain repugnance i-n her own mind, to seeing strangers installed in the shad- owy rooms so associated in her mind with her old friend and teacher, Gillies. Vaughn. however, who had seldom been at Cragness, and regarded it simply as a piece of property, thought it very well to turn it to account, and in compliance with his advice, Neria answered Claudias quasi application so favorably that in the course of a few days, Dr. Ltittrell himself came down to look at the prem- ises, previous to engaging them. Mr. Vaughn drove over xvith him to Cragness, to the consternation of Mrs. Brume, who was, as she expressed the sittiation, all in the stids a dilemma shared by her lord and master, who, as the gentlemen drove tip, was to be seen at the back door, with rueful face and reluctant arms, splashing a heavy pound- er~ up and down in a barrel half filled with dirty clothes and hot water. Nancy, who, through the mists of her ttib, had seen the approaching visit- ors, found time, before they fairly stopped at the door, to cltitch off the un- comely cap adorning her grey hairs, to replace it with a smarter one, to put on a collar and stern brooch of Scotch pebble, and to tie a white apron about her waist as tightly as if, like a Hindoo dievotee, she sought to ctit herself in twain, by way of penance for her sins. Finally, she wiped her face so vi& orouslv tipon the tliscardecl tow apron as to impart to her features a genial glow, not tinlike that of the sun setting behind a fog-bank. Then she darted to the back door, and, catching Reuben by the arm, said, in a rapid undertone Go round to the doortheres folks And, after all this by-play, the datighter of Eve stood in her door, a minute later, the picttire of innocent surprise, as she exclaimed Well, I declare for it, Mr. Vaughn I dont see how you got up thout some of us seeing you. Vaughn returned her greeting with the debonair manner which made him the idol of his humble neighbors, .introdticed his companion, and mentioned their errand. Mrs. Briine readily accompanied them throuuh the house, not unwilling, per- haps, that her employer should see how faithful she had been to her duties, al- thouji left xv ithout stipervision or control. in the library all stood as it had (lone ti~OO the night when its last master departed thence to voyage tinon unknown seas, with an tinknown pilot at the helm. Over the fireplace, the knight in golden arm or, his face covered with his helmet bars, still guard.cci the secret of the place, and, from ~he scroll at his feet, still faintly glimmered the proud device, [Vex, Ze roy, et le Joy dx A somewhat gloomy chamber, this, said Dr. Luttrell, looking abotit him, with a slight shiver. Decidedly so, assented Vaughn, striding to the window. - The last proprietor and one of the servants died l-iere very stiddenly, I un derstandi, ptirstiedl Luttrell. Was it in this room ? Yes, I believe so. Do such associations disturb you ? asked Vaughn. 24 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Certainly not. I an-i not superstitious by nature, and a medical education blunts ones mind to imaginative terrors very thoroughly. I was wondering wbether there is anytbing unhealthy about tbe place. Mrs. Luttrell, as you know, is quite an invalid. Candidly speaking, returned Vaughn, I should tbink the gloom and darkness of this room would be very depressing to an invalid and wbat affects the spirits is apt to affect the body, especially when tbe latter is unsound. Tbat is true in some cases, said Luttrell, reflectively ; but my wife is not in the least fanciful, and cares very little for tbe moral or imaginative atmos- pbere surrounding ber, so that sbe does not miss the material luxuries to which she is accustomed. Vaughn simply bowed, not choosing to enter into a discussion of Mrs. Lut- trells peculiarities, especially with Mrs. Luttrells husband. What is this, an organ ? asked tbe doctor, penetrating, with his keen gaze, the dusky corner where poor Gilliess familiar was niched into a recess built to accommodate it. Yes, and a fine one, as I an-i informed. Mr. Gillies imported it, at a con- siderable cost, from Germany. Ah? I have done a little in this way myself. Indeed, there are few things I have not tried, and still fewer which I have not found wanting, said Dr. Luttrell, turning the key in the door of the organ and throwing it open. Yes, continued he, this looks like quite a grand affair. I should like to try it, if you will not be bored, Mr. Vaughn. Of course Vaughn was delighted at the prospect, and courteously seated him- self to listen. But the bellowshow is that managed? Does some one outside attend to it ? asked Luttrell, looking about him. Vaughn did not know; but Mrs. Brume, on being summoned, exl)lained that Mr. Gillies, not choosing to be dependent on human aid for his capricious mm- strelsy, had invented a piece of mechanism, and had it attached to the organ in such manner that he could introduce air by his own action. This machinery was set in motion by turning a crank, which she pointed out. Aba, that is easily clone, said Luttrell, seizing the handle and attempting to move it ; but the rusted wheels refused to turn, and when, applying more force, he jerked and pushed the handle violently, it suddenly gave way, and a loud whirring noise within the organ told that some fatal injury had been com- mitted. The organ is faithful to its master. It will serve no other man, said Vaughn, lightly, as Luttrell, half angry, half mortified, begai-i an apology for the mischief he had done. With your consent I will make it serve me, if I send to Germany for the man who built it to repair it, said Luttrell, eyeing, with grim determination., the thing that had foiled bin-i. Pray do as you like with it, if you come here, said Vaughn, rising; but the air of this gloomy room is chill as that of a tomb. Let us go. As chill as that of a tomb, repeated Doctor Luttrell, softly, as he followed his host from the room. A few days later Vaughn received a letter announcing that his late guest en- gaged the house and domain of Cragness, upon terms already specified, and would take possession as soon as the summer weather should be fairly estab- lished. 1869.] CIPHER. 25 CHAPTER XVII. OBI. WHEN Mrs. Rhee left Bonniemeer, just previous to Vaughns marriage, she had gone no farther than Carrick, and still kept up a sort of left-handed connec- tion with her old home through the negress, Chloe, who, in the fine summer days, would frequently creep over the two miles of road, staff in hand, peering side- long at every creature she met, and muttering to herself, until all the children, and some of their elders, were quite sure that she was a witch. Through the old nurse, Mrs. Rhee constantly sent messages of regard and remembrance to Francia, with numerous humble petitions that she would come and visit her, if only for a few moments. Francias kind heart would not allow her to neglect these petitions, and the consequence was that she often called upon the whilom housekeeper, until one day, her father passing Mrs. Rhees cottage, and seeing his daughters pony at the door, entered the little parlor, where he found the young lady seated in Mrs. Rhees lap, while a refection of cake and currant wine upon the table showed how she had been amusing herself In a few decided words Vaughn informed his daughter that he was ready to escort her home, and, when she had gone out, he added to Mrs. Rhee And I do not wish Francia to be upon these terms with you. It is not in woman s nature that you should keep our secret inviolable under such circum- stances. I do not know that I shall always keep it, returned Mrs. Rhee, defiantly. ~You have pleased yourself in marrying, why should I not please myself also? Because you dare not brave my anger, said Vaughn, quietly. Mrs. Rhee looked at his white face and steady eyes, and turned away her head. Vaughn strode to the door, but returned and held out his hand. Let us be friends, Anita, for the sake of the dead, and of the pasta past which no future can undo; hut remember that I am master. The woman took his hand, and kissed it passionately. You are master, said she, and when he was gone gave way to a tropic storm of sobs and tears. So Francia was informed that she was to go no more to see Mrs. Rhee, with- out especial leave ; and soon lost all inclination to do so,in gathering anxieties and apprehensions caused by her lovers irregularities, reported to her by cer- tain officious correspondents in the city; while his own letters grew every week briefer and more unsatisfactory. Old Chloes walks to Carrick remained undisturbed, as were indeed all her other movements ; for Vaughn had advised his new housekeeper that the old nurse was a privileged person, not to be controlled or reproved by less authority than his own or Mrs. Vaughns. It was to Neria, then, that Mrs. Barlow came one day, and, after some pream- ble, inquired if Mrs. Vaughn knew that Chloe was in the occasional habit of leaving the house privately, in the middle of the night, and absenting herself for several hours. Where she went, or what she did during these periods, Mrs. Barlow could not pretend to say, nor had even inquired. If it were one of the maids she would not be long in finding out, continued the worthy woman, but Chloe was different, Mr. Vaughn had said she wasnt under any authority but his own, and perhaps he wouldnt even like to have her watched. She had hardly liked to speak, but concluded Mrs. Vaughn had better know. 26 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Neria quietly assured her that she had clone quite right in speaking, and promising to attend to the matter. disinis~ed the housekeeper, (a worthy, but commonplace woman, whose pride of office had been somewhat wounded by Mr. Vaughns injunction), far better satist-teci with her position and her mistress than she had been inclined to find herself. Shes got a kind of a tact about her, Miss Vaughn has, that sets every- thing straight that she touches with so much as her finger-end, was the deci- sion that evening confided by Mrs. Barlow to James, the English groom, whom Vaughn had long since promoted to the position of body-servant, and who had gradually assumed various other duties which, in an English establishment, would have belonged to the office of steward or major-domo. Youre right, there, Mrs. Barlow, replied James, on the present occasion, and the Squires done a better thing this time than he did before, I can promise you. You knew the first Miss Vaughn, then ? asked the housekeeper, curi- ously. Yes, I knew her, replied close-mouthed James, picking up his cap and leaving the room. It was on the ensuin~ night that Neria, unable to sleep, sat at her window, dreamily enjoying the beauty of the moonlight view, and listening to the distant beat of the rising tide upon the beach. The lox sound of a closing door startled her from her reverie, for the hour was past midnight, and the orderly household had long since retired to rest. Suddenly the housekeepers story returned to her mind, antI she at once concluded that the untimely wanderer must be old Chloe. A sudden impulse to solve for herself the mystery of the nurses nocturnai wanderings, took possession of her mind, and hastily wrapping herself in a dark cloak, with the hood drawn over her head, and protecting her feet from the heavy dew, she glided down the stairs and out at the gardendoor, which, a. she had correctly judged, was the one she had heard so cautiously closed. Outside, she paused a moment to look about her. Far clown the garden path a distorted and crouching figure crel)t along between the roses, and reaching the end, passed through the little gate leading to the grove, beyond which lay the pine xvood and the lake. Swift and silent as a shadow, Neria followed, bearing with her the perfume of the roses and the lilies, that opened wide their chalices to cast incense upon her path, for all Nature loved Neria. as Neria loved Nature. Through the garden and through the dim oak xvood they passed, until at its farther edge Neria paused, and, holding herself in the shadow, watched atten- tively the motions of the old negress, who, advancing to the foot of an oak tree, standing by itself in a little glade, busied herself in removing from its hollow interior an accumulation of brush and leaves. These she laid on one side, and ti-ten, thrusting her arm far into the cavity, groped for a fexv moments, and finally brought out an immense toad. Him she set upon the ground in the moonliTht 6 and, prostrating herself before him, appeared to offer some prayer or supplication. to which the singular deity ungraciously replied by sparkling eyes and swelling throat. Rising to her feet, the negress described, with the sharp-pointed stick in her hand, a circle some three feet in diameter upon the sward, and, baring her head and feet, paced three times around it, chanting in a dim unearthly voice some barbarous rune, ending with a wild wail to which the screech-owl in the neighboring wood shrieked response. The circle complete, the negress placed the toad carefully in its centre, and describing another circle precisely 1869.] CIPHER. 27 similar, took her own position in its midst in an attitude as nearly resembling that of the toad as her form was capable of assuming. She now addressed to him some words, still in the unknown tougue of the chant ; and after waiting a few moments. and finding that he remained motionless, took from her pocket a little vial and poured upon his head a few drops of liquid, which apparently put the poor creature into a state of frantic pain, causing him to writhe, leap, and con- tort himself into every possible shape. Without losing one of these motions, the negress applied herself to imitating them as exactly as possible, and the wondering spectator in the wood knew not whether to find the sight more gro- tesque or horrible, as the swollen reptile and the negress, deformed almost be- low humanity, vied with each other in such gruesome gambols as might fit the familiars of witch and warlock sporting in the moonlight upon some haunted heath. Exhausted at last, the toad turned upon his back and lay apparently lifeless. Still Chloe imitated him, and lay like an ugly corpse upon the sparkling sward. Presently, however, she cautiously arose, and taking the toad in her hands, bathed his head with the abundant dew, and warmed him in her bosom. When he began to show signs of returi.~ing life she moistened her finger in his mouth, and signed herself upon the brow and breast, muttered another unintelligible charm, and finally replaced him in the tree, securely covering him with the dibris under which she had found him. Her next movement was to carefully pluck the grass from the spot where the toad had lain in his final exhaustion, and also that upon which her own head had rested at the same moment. This she carefully wrapped in the leaf of a plant which she had plucked as she came through the wood, and then turned her steps toward home, passino- close beside Neria, whose slender figure was hidden by the trunk of a giant oak. As silently and as stealthily as they had come, the two shadowy figures returned toward the house, and the negress reaching it first, entered, and closed the door. Neria, who was close behind, heard the heavy bolts shot into their places, and remained for a moment in doubt as to her own course, not wishing to let the negress know that she had been watched, and yet seeing no other way of effecting her own entrance. After a moment of hesitation, she glided along the terrace to the window of the little room used as Vaughns private study. This room communicated with her own apartments by a winding stair, and Vaughn had of late converted it into a sleeping-room, averring that his late and uncer- tain hours of retiring made it more convenient. The maidenly instincts which Nerias brief and peculiar married life had not overcome, made her hesi- tate and tremble in tapping at this xvi ndow, and when at last she did, it was so lightly that Vaughn, lying awake to indulge the bitter thoughts which in the daylight he was better able to withstandl, hardlly knew whether the sound were other than the pattering of the vine leaves against the glass. It was re- peated, and draxving aside the curtain, he looked out. Neria, shrinking a way from the xvindow, stood motionless, drapedl in her dlark cloak, her pale face dimly showing beneath the hood, the moonlight sparkling in the dexv-drops that gemmed her drooping head. Vaughn threw open the xvindoxv. Neria! said he, in a hushed voice. Is this really you ? Yes, Sieur. Do you not know me You came so spirit-like it might have been your xvraith. I3ut where are you goingwhat is amiss? 28 THE GALAXY: [JAN., Nothing, Sieur, but I want to come ~ To come in! What, the queen of Bonniemeer and of its master, wander- ing forlorn through the night and begging shelter for her royal head ! exclaimed Vaughn, gay in the sudden revulsion from his first terror. Will you come in at this window, or must I open the hall-door for your majesty? Can I come in at the window? asked Neria, dubiously. Surely. Give me your two hands, put your foot on the ledge in the stone- xvork, andso! He drew her in at the window with the word, and as she lay a moment in his arms, pressed his lips to hers. She smiled, but struggled to her feet. He immediately released her, and asked ,gravely, Why are you out so late, and so thinly dressed, dear child? See, your hair, your cloak, are drenched with dew. Your hands are cold and dampyou are as pale in the moonlight as a true ghost. Explain. Neria sank into an arm-chair, for she was indeed almost exhausted, and told her story as briefly as she might. Her husband listened attentively. The poor olrl creature must be deranged in mind, said he. She is very old, for she was already past middle life when I first saw her. She came here to take care of Francia and me, did she not? asked Neria, a little surprised at his hesitation. No, dear, she was here before. I have always taken care of her on account of past services, and we must still protect her, although it may become necessary to restrain these wanderings. Can you imagine any object in the strange pro- ceedings you saw to-night? None, said Neria, hesitating. None that I can mention with any show of reason, and yet I feltO, Sieur, I felt like one who sees his scaffold built before his eyes. I cannot tell why. I know it is fanciful, perhaps unjust, and yet I feel sure that all these spells and charms were in some way directed against me. She fell into a fit of aguish shivering as she spoke, and raised her face to Vaughn like a little child who seeks protection. He stooped and took her in his arms, gathering her to his broad breast with an impulse of yearning tender- ness not to be withstood. My poor little rlove, my timid nestling ! murmured he, who would harm. you? What creature so monstrous as to wish you ill? Do you not know that my life stands between you and hurt ? My darling, my darling, may I never tell you how much I love you ? Neria nestled into his arms and laid her head upon his breast, with a sigh of content. Vaughns heart gave a great throb. Had the happiness for which he no longer hoped, come to him now of its own sweet will ? Did Neria love him at last, wife-like ? He tried to deny the hope, he tried to (loubt, he tried to reason, and in the end, with a terrible shock, the great love that he had bound down within his heart burst its bonds, and rising in its might, took possession of the man who had striven to deny its God-given life. He pressed her to his heart, he covered her lips, her eyes, her brow, her hair with kisses ; he murmured in her ear every caressing name, every passionate endearment which he had been wont in half-bitter, half-plaintive mockery to lavish upon her picture, her glove, her airy image. But with an unmistakable movement of repugnance, Neria re- pulsed him, and extricating herself from his embrace, hurried to the door of the staircase leading to her own apartments. 1869.] CIPHER. 29 Vaughn followed, and, seizing her by the hand, demanded passionacely, Why do you leave me thus ? Why do you refuse my caresses ? Do you, then, absolutely loathe me No ; 0, no said Neria, faintly. But do not touch me, do not kiss me again 0 let me go, I am faint. She snatched away her hand, and groped for the handle of the door, swayed heavily forward, and fell swooning upon the stairs. With a sharp revulsion of feeling, Vaughn raised her again in his arms, bore her reverently up the stairs, and laid her upon a couch near the open window. Afafo;l of cologne-water stood upon the dressing-table. He applied it to her temples and poured some drops into her mouth. In a few moments she revived, opened her eyes, turned them upon Vaughn, shrank away and closed them again. He took her hand. It was withdrawn. I have broken our pact, said he, \vith stern sadness; but it was hecause I deceived myself. I fancied for a moment that you returned my love, might re- turn my caresses. Even now I will have no doubt remaining between us. Speak plainly and as frankly as you would pray to God. Do you love me; do you think you will ever love me other than as a child loves its father, a sister her brother? Will my caresses ever be other than repugnant to your feel- ings? Neria sat upright, her white face, gleaming eyes, and cloudy hair, giving her the look of the angel of tears and sorroxv. She raised her hands in unconscious deprecation of her own words as she said, 0, Sieur, how can I bear to tell it you, but I fear I never can ; I fear that if we are to he happy at all, if even I am to live at all, you must never again forget what you have promised. Sieur, i pray God that I may die soon, and leave you free to love and marry soon one who will love you as I cannot. 0, I pray that I may die and leave you free. The plaintive tone in her voice deepened to a heart-break, and as she finished speaking, she fell into a passion of tears and sobs, shaking her slender form to its centre. It was thefirst time in all her life that Vaughn had seen her xveep, and he was more terrified than he had been when she swooned. May God be merciful to us both cried he. bowing his face upon his hands, while through his heart thrilled the fierce pang of which a mans tears are born. Presently he took Nerias hand. It lay cold and lifeless in his own. My wife, said he, solemnly, for you are still my wife, to cherish and to guard, if not to love, all this shall be set right for you, if not for me. You will forgive what I have made you suffer, and not blame my broken faith too harshly; for, 0, child, a man is not as a God, and my strength was taxed heavily, heavily. Forgive me, Neria, and show that you forgive, by never in your inmost heart again wishing me the terrible punishment of your death. He waited for no reply, but was gone ; and presently stepping from the win- dow where Neria had entered, he sought the wood, and wandered there until the night was done, the summer night of moon, and stars, and richest halm of dexvy flowers, and dreamy chirrup of half-awakened birds, and wooing whispers of the warm west wind, and solemn diapason of the distant sea ; and yet, the night than which no night was ever blacker, or fiercer, or more blankly starless in the life of Frederic Vaughn. NEW YORK JOURNALISTS. W. H. HURLP~UT. JJ E who has not read certain articles in the New York World, anti occa- jI~ sionally in the Round Table, is in complete ignorance of the calcium Ii Tht style an(l literary illumination which one of our New York journalists throws upon Radicalism in general, and Horace Greeley in particular. It blazes forth in a volume of resonant and fluent words that make a noise in Republican ears, or it is mellifluously tuned to the women of Sorosis, alternately mock- ing and coaxing the good sisters of that wilful society. We admit the practical force and verbal vigor of Horace Greeleys leading articles ; we admire the hreadth of philosophic thought and large style of Parke Godwins we know the judiciousness of Raymonds, the immaculateness of Danas, the dignity and completeness of Manton Marbles, the gravity of God- kinsbut the unique, the brilliant, the unrivalled Corinthian style of one of the writers of the New York World whose articles whip and bewilder and amuse the mind, is a matter for special consideration. Whether he discusses the opera, iKilpatrick, Sickles, Butler, Seward, Sumner, or Grant H. G. or Sorosis art, music or literature, his articles are alike exuberant, unscrupulous, and re- markable. He is the most audacious, familiar, and brilliant of any American journalist, and handles xvith uncommon ease and in a rapid manner, the most diverse subjects; yet probably makes no more permanent impression on the po- litical mind of the country than so much foam upon its shores. The play of the writers mind is all ; its conclusions nothing. He makes a literary sport of political discussions, and elicits sparkle and variety from other journalists. He is one of the few writers who can interest any society in politicsbut his is politics without principles, and he writes to belittle his subject. The partisanship of the YVorld and its unscrupulousness, have not my ad- miration, nor are its political doctors men of my choice ; yet such is the charm of a mind in full play anti of brilliant qualities, that I read the Worlds at- tacks on the noblest men of the Republic simply to enjoy the free work of an untrammelled writer. Mr. Hurlbuts articles in newspapers are what Morins illustrations are for the pictured press of Paris. The French designer who has the most facile style of all contemporary draughtsmen, sketches aspects of Parisian life with an ele- gance, a fineness, and spirit truly uncommon. His work is slight but expressive, rapid but sure; effective at all times yet never worked out to the full limit of the subject ; in a word not exhaustive, but always graphic, always adistic and never prosaic. All this describes the written style of Mr. Hurlbut. He is the Morin of journalists. He cannot be compared with any American writer cr painter. It is true that some of Poes articles under the head of Literati of New York City exhibit many of the same literary traits. Poes review of the Reverend Joe T. Headley might have been written by Mr. Hurlbut. The literary execution of William Ellery Channing,fils, was by a hand that might have played with Grants name as W. H. H. played uith it during the last presidential campaign. But Mr. Hurlbut has only a few traits in common with Poe. A stroneer tem- perament and a more fortunate destiny have given a more generous expression

NEW YORK JOURNALISTS. W. H. HURLP~UT. JJ E who has not read certain articles in the New York World, anti occa- jI~ sionally in the Round Table, is in complete ignorance of the calcium Ii Tht style an(l literary illumination which one of our New York journalists throws upon Radicalism in general, and Horace Greeley in particular. It blazes forth in a volume of resonant and fluent words that make a noise in Republican ears, or it is mellifluously tuned to the women of Sorosis, alternately mock- ing and coaxing the good sisters of that wilful society. We admit the practical force and verbal vigor of Horace Greeleys leading articles ; we admire the hreadth of philosophic thought and large style of Parke Godwins we know the judiciousness of Raymonds, the immaculateness of Danas, the dignity and completeness of Manton Marbles, the gravity of God- kinsbut the unique, the brilliant, the unrivalled Corinthian style of one of the writers of the New York World whose articles whip and bewilder and amuse the mind, is a matter for special consideration. Whether he discusses the opera, iKilpatrick, Sickles, Butler, Seward, Sumner, or Grant H. G. or Sorosis art, music or literature, his articles are alike exuberant, unscrupulous, and re- markable. He is the most audacious, familiar, and brilliant of any American journalist, and handles xvith uncommon ease and in a rapid manner, the most diverse subjects; yet probably makes no more permanent impression on the po- litical mind of the country than so much foam upon its shores. The play of the writers mind is all ; its conclusions nothing. He makes a literary sport of political discussions, and elicits sparkle and variety from other journalists. He is one of the few writers who can interest any society in politicsbut his is politics without principles, and he writes to belittle his subject. The partisanship of the YVorld and its unscrupulousness, have not my ad- miration, nor are its political doctors men of my choice ; yet such is the charm of a mind in full play anti of brilliant qualities, that I read the Worlds at- tacks on the noblest men of the Republic simply to enjoy the free work of an untrammelled writer. Mr. Hurlbuts articles in newspapers are what Morins illustrations are for the pictured press of Paris. The French designer who has the most facile style of all contemporary draughtsmen, sketches aspects of Parisian life with an ele- gance, a fineness, and spirit truly uncommon. His work is slight but expressive, rapid but sure; effective at all times yet never worked out to the full limit of the subject ; in a word not exhaustive, but always graphic, always adistic and never prosaic. All this describes the written style of Mr. Hurlbut. He is the Morin of journalists. He cannot be compared with any American writer cr painter. It is true that some of Poes articles under the head of Literati of New York City exhibit many of the same literary traits. Poes review of the Reverend Joe T. Headley might have been written by Mr. Hurlbut. The literary execution of William Ellery Channing,fils, was by a hand that might have played with Grants name as W. H. H. played uith it during the last presidential campaign. But Mr. Hurlbut has only a few traits in common with Poe. A stroneer tem- perament and a more fortunate destiny have given a more generous expression 1869.] NEW YORK JOURNALISTS. 3 and a less melancholy tone to Mr. Hurlbuts talent, which seems the most care- lessly and freely used of any contemporaries. Mr. Hurlbut appears perfectly indifferent to literary fame, and probably considers American writers very much as Paul Louis Courier considered the members of the French Institute. His pen, so. often running over every ephemeral theme, for an ephemeral sheet, or an ephemeral pleasurewhich no doubt is the more exquisiteis never at the service of a magazine. Did he not say at the Dickens dinner that he never wrote a maga- zine article in his life ? Who that has read his articles but has admitted the sweep and dash of the style, the free handlingas painters would call it. the bold touch ? Although no mans articles are more invariably recognized, none are more original and unexpected in treatment. His alliterative phrases and rich fund of expression, his scriptural allusions, which are the envy or abomination of enlightened or bewildered readers, are the unfailing characteristics of his work. He covers the gravest and heaviest subjects with the very foam of human speech, and freshens the driest mind with the cool, full shock of his style. His sang froici; audacity, playfulness, and fluency give one a shock like the sea-foam of a running wave, and like it, melt away in noise, leaving you not exactly sure of the drift of the matter. In one word, Mr. Hurlbut is the prince of ~ers~fteurs. Only a polished and adroit mind can ~ers~fle. Mr. Hurlbut has a polished and adroit mind. But his knowledge, his experience, are used only as a means to shine, not to warm. The intellectual light that radiates from his work is an ar- tificial light, meant to dazzle and please the luxurious, not to send heat to some freezing little one of our democratic life. Now that I have faintly struck the moral key, which is so easy to strike, and is so often struck, how can I help making a dirge over th~ radical defect of the radical-hating Hurlbut? But the superb scorn of the Corinthian Hurlbut, for what he would call moral mush or moral twaddle, be it ever so delicately made, holds me in aweand when I reflect that the moral element swashes all Amen- ican and English criticism, I hesitate to add the thinnest stream to what may become a deluge. The leopard cannot change his spots, and he is not philan- thropic in his nature ; but he is very beautiful. And it is futile to moralize over ai5erszfteur. He must ~ers~fte your moral phrises until they twang like the dreaded utterances of cant, and become abominable. In place of the homespun things of average men, Mr. Hurlbuts nature is furnished with every foreign accomplishment. He is the Heine of the Ameri- can press; but in the disdain, affected or real, of his intellectual temper, in his moral imperviousness, he may be said to resemble Stendhal, although he is to- tally unlike Stendhai in his style, being exuberant and fluent where Stendhal is terse and abrupt. But in his cold irony and princely disdain, in his intellectual temper, he is comparable to Stendhal, yet in style and taste he may be compared with Th~ophile Gautier. I say he is the Heine of our press, to mark his fron- deur spirit and vivacity of expression. Mr. Hurlbut is cruel without bitterness, and appears to do his professional surgery in the best of humorgenerally at a high pitch of animal spirits. With what vim and raillery he demonstrates Sumners legs and Tiltons limbs! How he glitters in posing his Purple Women ; and with what wit he descants on Women and Waterfalls, Clubs and Panniers! And what a sting he puts in the tale of Females, Fowls, and Feathers. Mr. Hurlbut has a talent for titles and treatment. He is the only artist among American journalists; but an artist at the expense of that benevolence and sincerity which we honor in Horace Greeleyan artist at the expense of 32 THE GALAXY. [JAN., the philosophic spirit and passionate sympathies that clarify and deepen the tone of; and magnetize in Parke Godwins work. The Corinthian journalist, with his polish, and splendor, and efflorescent mind, may mock the old man in the white c6at; but Horace Greeley has never been insensible to the hopes and dreams of generous minds; and he is firm and simple, like a Doric column. It would be possible to place the shining Hurlbut by the side of a literary force that draws upon a true moral fund, and breathes grandeur into a newspa- per article. But I so heartily admire Mr. Hurlbuts special qualities; and so many will assert that they do not correspond with the rules and commandments given among journalists, whereby they can become inoffensive writers, that I am loth to dim the lustre of his work. Mr. Hurlbut, though familiar in his style, is never vulgar. He is skilful, and rapid, and bold; he can provoke without outraging; he can suggest without be- coming prurient. All true writers, aiming to be spirited and light, must have delicate discrimination, and a suggestive rather than an exhaustive or prosaic style. To a literary type like Mr. Hurlbut I would oppose one having affinities with a Rousseau. Rousseau, who often deceived himself was always in earnest; cherishing a vague and spiritual ideal, but still an ideal; yet falling in the mire of actual experience, humiliated, chagrined, but ardent and sentimental ; writ ing the most beautiful sentiments and doing the meanest actions; but by his fervor and elevation of mind correcting and r~deeming his conduct. Mr. Hurlbut seems to be earnest only in not being in earnest; he is never sentimental, his understanding is always dominant, and he appears to aim to re- alize a high and perfect condition of material life, exacting comfort and elegance, and, through his ar~is tic sense, appreciating luxury and beauty as the essentials of well-being. Certainly this is a type closer to Voltaire or Gautier than to Rousseau. Being so uncommon in America, the type is the more interesting. I could describe him as an Asiatic under the garb of a European. I could deepen the tone of my sketch and call him a Barbarian, polished and restrained by European customs and culture, but with the primordial element of the Bar- barian breaking through all in the careless play and cold jollity of his mind; reflecting but little, never sentimental, but flashing and rippling over serious and philosophic things; provoked to eulogize only when his senses are pleased; having his being in music, and painting, and the drama; in elegant spectacles, in sumptuous feftes; a great boy-nature, full of the frolic and juggle of talent, but without tenderness or indulgence ; an irrepressible and ebullient spirit, pleased with the & lat of colors and sounds and the pungency of odors. My sketch suggests a Parisian personalityTh~ophile Gautier; and Mr. Hurlbut is a Th~ophile Gautier, with more fibre and force. Mr. Hurlbut is a Th6ophile Gautier in a democratic society, where the political interests are dominant, and call the most unscrupulous and available talents. Being in New York he writes leading articles on politics and piety instead of art criticisms. No one would call Mr. Hurlbut a thinker; but he is a man of fine under- standing; and under all the glitter and play of his mind you find the hardest sense. Without a basis of good sense there is no wit, and it is not possible to j5ers~/le. The most playful minds, the most railing minds, have the greatest fund of good sense; but it is good sense as the foundation, not as the heavy top of the mental structure. All the great mockers, and railers, and satirists those who put their minds in play upon grave subjectsVoltaire, Swift, and heinewere men of great good sense; and, with the exception of Heine, of more intelligence than imagination. 0 1869.] NEW YORK JOURNALISTS. 33 As every man is called to the exercise of his peculiar nature, and, as it is fatal to interrupt that exercise, the glittering, Corinthian Hurlbut, neither tender nor unselfish, like the noble and lamented Governor Andrew, is yet an admirable type, because he is an example of a man of vital and audacious quali- ties who uses them for the enlivenment of a heavy, and often common society, who is familiar without vulgarity and selfish without brutalityin a word, exem- plifies what art or civilization may do for an essentially barbaric and unchristian naturethe nature of the unspiritualized man. He is one of the most striking types, and if I should lend myself to pictorial exaggeration, it would be easy to paint this polished and glittering personality, radiating with fine animal spirits, insouciant, overlooking human suffering, or refusing to look at it be- cause it is disagreeable rather than because of cruelty and insensibilty of nature. Artistic exclusiveness, which is his characteristic trait, is very different from that obdurateness of the legal mind which persistently remains shockingly un- conscious of the outrage it does to human sensibilities. It may be said that this is the type of a man dangerous or at least demoral- izing in republics, tending to weaken the hold of severe and robust virtues, and substituting social graces for political principles; that he is an offshoot of the eighteenth century; that such play of mind, such raillery, such incessant care not to go below the surface of his subject, but to be plausible, to be skilful, to be quick, to be playfully piquant; to skim the cream of the matter, is foreign to our society, and trivializes the mind of the reader; that its true field of exer- cise is a corrupt society, where philosophers and courtiers alike are indifferent to the people, and egotism is the autocrat of each being. I~t is true that the most illustrious example of this kind of talent and this habit of mind is to be found in the corrupt and purely intellectual ~ociety of the eighteenth century, in France ; in Voltaire, the king of the ~ers~eurs / Voltaire was the king, and Mr. Hurlbtit is the prince of ters~fteurs! Like most men of royal blood, they have more glitter than warmth, and more under- standing than imagination. The inimitable and delightful Denis Diderot would be classed with them, but he had more feeling, more sentiment, more un- forced and abundant geniality than Voltaire, Heihe, or our Asiatic American of the New York World. But I do not share the distrust of the police of poli- tics, or the moral censors of society, for this free frolic of intellect. And after all, men are not made to maintain republics or societies; they are made to put in play all the faculties of their mind and all the forces of their nature ; and I recognize the inalienable right of each man to the exercise of his peculiar talent. The frondeur does as much service as the legislator, and Mr. Hurlbuts worth is the natural balance of the fanaticism that stiffens and hardens the mind. Must we always be harnessed to our political duties, and never think, save to follow Wendell Phillips or the New York Tribune? And must we, at all times, fetch and carry for our political juggernaut? The litidrateur of the World, not saddled with principles, not tempted by the most beautiful saddle of principles, like a wild horse of the Pampas, (I use De Quincys illustration) whinnies over the field of politics, and caracoles, and prances, and runs in full sight of our political gladiators. Think how he amuses us ; think how he lightens our grim work! We believe in freedom! He has more of it than we have. We are in the ranks; but he is a spectator. He is like the gods of the Lotus Eaters, who find a music centred in a doleful song, chanted from an ill- used race of men. But I am carried too far, and I may be doing an injustice to my model. 34 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Prince of g5ers~fteurs he is, yet not a trivial or purposeless writer. If he has been unscrupulous with political names and unindulgent with Purple Women, exposing them under his calcium-light, he was almost tender, he certainly was charitable in his review of Adah Menken. Over the frost -bitten soil of our ascetic life, over the granite of our po- litical faith, runs the loose tropical vegetation of a talent like Mr. Hurlbuts, existing chiefly to give splendor and grace to very sober and serious themes. We are not likely to let it spread too exclusively and hide the very groundwork of our cherished social and political being. Mr. Hurlbut has his reason of being and his right of being, in the genuine- ness and polish of his talent. How delightfully he breaks the gravity of politi- cal gods? How he frolics with our democratic deities How he juggles with our language all this is to say he is a man of wit. The resonance of Mr. Hurlbuts style is equalled only by the elegant fluency of his conversation. He is one of the few men who give to syllables their just value and articulate with charm and precision, without ever bein~ pedantic or artificial. It must be said also that he has written some charming lyrical poems, full, flowing, and sad, like Shelleys. I have often called him a ~ers~fleur. Perhaps I must explain my meaning. The PerK/lear is so uncommon in England or America that we have no word to express the thing. The ~ers~fleur is something better than a mocker and some- thing less than ~t satirist ; for he is neither malicious like the mocker, nor bitter like the satirist. He has not the fund of moral indignation which le.nds dignity and vigor to the phrase of the lrtter, nor is he so un~rracious as the former ; his pleasantries not wounding so much as amusing the reader, and showing the ex- ercise of a mind of fine and responsive temper; but lacking the moral element, it is put in play with entertaining ingenuity upon all subjects for the sole pur- pose of displaying itself, consistent only in treating serious things lightly and trivial things seriously; and this has been the work of the celebrated journalist of the New York World during the last five years. The historian of the American Press will have to say that while the slave was lifting his shackled hands to the North, and the land was agitated with a great moral and political question; while the men of justice and benevolence were sweating with the task of emancipation, and our armies were in the bleed- ing shock of battle, the most brilliant talent of the New York press was used to 5ers~/le the liberators of the slave and the chief saviours of the Republic. Mr. Hurlbut served the Democratic party by his ready fusillade of words poured forth at the need, effective to divert their attention, if not to bewilder po- litical opponents ; was without a rival in the discussion of the purely social side of politics, but sacrificed to dinners and decorum the generous and impartial recognition of exact and equal justice to all men, which is the basis of the fu- ture of These States. EUGENE BENSON. THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. A YEAR ago I happened to be talking with some French friends at a din- ner-table in Paris, about the Reform agitation then going on in England. We admire your great orators and leaders, said an enthusiastic French gen- tleman; yOur Bright, your Beales and he was warming to the subject when he saw that I was smiling, and he at once pulled up, and asked me earnestly whether he had said anything ridiculous. I endeavored to explain to him gently that in England we did not usually place our Bright and our Beales on exactly the same levelthat the former was our greatest orator, our most powerful leader, and the latter a respectable, earnest gentleman of warm emotions and ordinary abilities whom chance had made the figure-head of a passing and vehe- ment agitation, and who would probably be forgotten the day after to-morrow or thereabouts. My French friend did not seem convinced. He had seen Mr. Bealess name in the London papers quite as often and as prominently for some months as Mr. Brights ; and, moreover, he had met Mr. Beales at dinner, and did not like to be told that he had not thereby made the acquaintance of a great tribune of the British people. So I dropped the subject and allowed our Bright and and our Beales to rank together without farther protest. Here in New York, where English politics are understood infinitely better than in Paris, I have noticed not a little of this Bright and Beales classifica- tion when people talk of the leaders of English Liberalism. I have heard, with surprise, this or that respectable memher of Parliament, who never for a moment dreamed of being classed among the chiefs of his party, exalted to a place of equality with Gladstone or Bright. In truth the English Liberal party (I mean now the advanc?ng and popular partynot the old Whigs) has only three men who can be called leaders. After Gladstone, Bright, and Mill there comes a huge gapand then follow the subalterns, of whom one might name half a dozen having .about equal rank and influence, and of whom you may choose any favor- ite you like. Take, for example, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Thomas Hughes, the ODono~hue, Mr. Coleridge (who, however, is marked out for the judicial bench, and therefore need hardly be counted), and one or two others, and you have the captains of the advanced Liberal party. The Liberals are not rich in rising talent ; at least there seems no man of the younger political gen- eration who gives any promise of commanding ability. They have many good debaters and clever politicians, but I see no pony Gladstone to succeed him who used to be called the pony Peel ; and the man has yet to show himself in whom the House of Commons can hope for a future Bright. The great Lib- erals of our day have apparently not the gift of training disciples in order that the latter may become apostles in their time. Like Cavour, they are too earnest about the work and do too much of it themselves to have leisure or inclination for teaching and pushing others. Officially Mr. Gladstone has been, of course, for several years the leader of the party. He is formally invested with all the insignia of command. He is indeed the only possible leader; for he is the only man who has the slightest chance just now of commanding the allegiance of the old Whigs with their dukes and earls, and the young Radicals with their philosophers, their Comtists, 36 THE GALAXY. [JAN., their Irish Nationalists, and their xvorkin~. men. But the true soul and voice and heart of the Liberal party pay silent allegiance to John Bright. H eis,by universal acknowledgment, the maker of the Reform agitation and the Reform Bill. Mr. Disraeli has over and over again flung in the face of Mr. Gladstone the fact that Brinht, and not he, is the master spirit of Radicalism. Of late the Tories have taken to praising and courting Bright incessantly and ostentatious- Iv, and contrasting his calm, consistent wisdom with Gladstones impetuosity and fitfulness. Of course both Bright and Gladstone thoroughly understand the meaning of this, and smile at it and despise it. The obvious purpose is to try to set up a rivalry befween the two. If Gladstones authority could he dam- aged that would he quite enough; for it would be impossible at present to get the Whig dukes and earls to follow Bright, and the dethronement of Gladstone would he the hreak-up of the party. The trick is an utter failure. Bright is sin- cerely and generously loyal to Gladstone, and is a man as completely devoid of personal vanity or self-seeking as he is of fear. No personal question will ever divide these two men. Gladstone is heyond doubt the most fluent and brilliant speaker in the Eng- lish Parliament. No other man has anything like his inexhaustible flow and rush of varied and vivid expression. His memory is as surprisin6 as his fluency. Grattan spoke of the eloquence of Fox as rollino~ in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic. So far as this description conveys the idea of a vast volume of splendid words pouring unceasingly in, it may be applied to Gladstone. A lis- tener new to the House is almost certain to prefer him to any other speaker there, and to reb ard him as the greatest English orator of the present genera- tion. I was myself for a long time completely under the spell, and a little im- patient of those who insisted on the superiority of Bright. But when one be- comes accustomed to the speaking of the two men it is impossible not to find the fluency, the glitter, the impetuous volubility, the involved and complicated sentences, the Latinized, sesquipedalian words of Gladstone gradually losing their early charm and influence, just as the pure noble Saxon, the unforced energy, the exquisite simplicity, the perfect fusion of reason and passion which are the special characteristics of Brights eloquence, grow more and more fascinating and commanding. Perhaps the same effect may be found to arise from a study or a contrast (if one must contrast them) between the political char- acters of the two men. It is a somewhat singular fact that one English county has produced the three men who undoubtedly rank beyond all others in England as Parliamentary orators. The Earl of Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright are all Lanca- shire men. But Gladstone is only Lancashire by birth. 1-us shrewd old Scotch father came to Liverpool from across the Tweed, and made his money and founded his family in the great port of the Mersey. The Gladstones had, and have, large West Indian property; and when England emancipated her slaves by paying off the planters, the Gladstones came in for no small share of the na- tional purchase-money. When the great Liberal orator came out so impetu- ously and unluckily with his celebrated panegyric on Jefferson Davis, a few years ago, some people shook their heads and remarked that the old planter spirit does not quite die out in the course of one generation; and I heard bitter allusion made to the celebrated declaration flung by Cooke, the great tragedian, in the face of an indignant theatre in Liverpool, that there was not a stone in the walls of that town which was not cemented by the blood of Africans. But,

36 THE GALAXY. [JAN., their Irish Nationalists, and their xvorkin~. men. But the true soul and voice and heart of the Liberal party pay silent allegiance to John Bright. H eis,by universal acknowledgment, the maker of the Reform agitation and the Reform Bill. Mr. Disraeli has over and over again flung in the face of Mr. Gladstone the fact that Brinht, and not he, is the master spirit of Radicalism. Of late the Tories have taken to praising and courting Bright incessantly and ostentatious- Iv, and contrasting his calm, consistent wisdom with Gladstones impetuosity and fitfulness. Of course both Bright and Gladstone thoroughly understand the meaning of this, and smile at it and despise it. The obvious purpose is to try to set up a rivalry befween the two. If Gladstones authority could he dam- aged that would he quite enough; for it would be impossible at present to get the Whig dukes and earls to follow Bright, and the dethronement of Gladstone would he the hreak-up of the party. The trick is an utter failure. Bright is sin- cerely and generously loyal to Gladstone, and is a man as completely devoid of personal vanity or self-seeking as he is of fear. No personal question will ever divide these two men. Gladstone is heyond doubt the most fluent and brilliant speaker in the Eng- lish Parliament. No other man has anything like his inexhaustible flow and rush of varied and vivid expression. His memory is as surprisin6 as his fluency. Grattan spoke of the eloquence of Fox as rollino~ in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic. So far as this description conveys the idea of a vast volume of splendid words pouring unceasingly in, it may be applied to Gladstone. A lis- tener new to the House is almost certain to prefer him to any other speaker there, and to reb ard him as the greatest English orator of the present genera- tion. I was myself for a long time completely under the spell, and a little im- patient of those who insisted on the superiority of Bright. But when one be- comes accustomed to the speaking of the two men it is impossible not to find the fluency, the glitter, the impetuous volubility, the involved and complicated sentences, the Latinized, sesquipedalian words of Gladstone gradually losing their early charm and influence, just as the pure noble Saxon, the unforced energy, the exquisite simplicity, the perfect fusion of reason and passion which are the special characteristics of Brights eloquence, grow more and more fascinating and commanding. Perhaps the same effect may be found to arise from a study or a contrast (if one must contrast them) between the political char- acters of the two men. It is a somewhat singular fact that one English county has produced the three men who undoubtedly rank beyond all others in England as Parliamentary orators. The Earl of Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright are all Lanca- shire men. But Gladstone is only Lancashire by birth. 1-us shrewd old Scotch father came to Liverpool from across the Tweed, and made his money and founded his family in the great port of the Mersey. The Gladstones had, and have, large West Indian property; and when England emancipated her slaves by paying off the planters, the Gladstones came in for no small share of the na- tional purchase-money. When the great Liberal orator came out so impetu- ously and unluckily with his celebrated panegyric on Jefferson Davis, a few years ago, some people shook their heads and remarked that the old planter spirit does not quite die out in the course of one generation; and I heard bitter allusion made to the celebrated declaration flung by Cooke, the great tragedian, in the face of an indignant theatre in Liverpool, that there was not a stone in the walls of that town which was not cemented by the blood of Africans. But, 1869.] THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 37 indeed, Gladstones outburst had no traditional, or hereditary, or other such source. It came straight from the impulsive heart and nature of the speaker. His strength and his weakness are alike illustrated by that sudden, indiscreet, unjustifiable, and repented outburst. Thus he every now and then disappoints his friends and shakes the confidence of his followers. A keen, intellectual, cyn- ical member of the Liberal party, Mr. Grant DuW not long since publicly re- proached Mr. Gladstone with this trick of suddenly turning round and firing his revolver in the face of his follo~vers. Certain it is that there is little or no enthusiasm felt toward Gladstone personally, by his party. Admirers of Mr. Disraeli are usually devotees of the man himself. Young men, especially, de- light in him and adore him. Mr. Gladstone is followed as a leader, admired as an orator; but I have heard very few of his followers ever express any personal affection or enthusiasm for him; but it is quite notorious in London that some of his adherents can hardly control their dislike of him. Mr. Bright, although a man of somewhat cold and reserved demeanor, and occasionally brusque in manner, is popular everywhere in the House. Mr. Gladstone is not personally popular even among his own followers. What is the reason? His enemies say that he has a bad temper and an unbending intellectual pride, which is as untrue as if they were to say he had a hoarse voice and a stammer. The obscurest man in the House of Commons is not more modest; and there is nothing un ge- nial in his manner or h~s temper. But the truth is that people cannot rely upon him, or think they cannot, which, so far as they are concerned, amounts to the same thing. His strongest passion in lifestronger than his love of figures, or of Homer, or even of libertyis a love of argument. He is always ready to sacrifice his friend, or his party, or even his cause, to his argument. Add to this that he has a conscience so sensitive that it can hardly ever find any cause or deed smooth enough to he wholly satisfactory; add, moreover, that he has an eloquence so fluent as to flow literally away from him, or with him, and the won- der will be how such a man ever came to be the successful leader of a great party at all. He is always reconsidering what he has done, always penitent for something he has said, always turning up to-day the side of the question which everybody supposed was finally put away and done with yesterday. You can read all this in his face. Furrowed with deep and rigid lines, it proclaims a certain self-torturing naturethe nature of the penitent, self-exara- ining ascetic, whose heart is always vexed by doubts of his own worth and purity, and past and future. Decidedly, Gladstone wants force of character, and force of intellect as well. He is not a man of great thought. Every such man settles a question, so far as he is himself concerned, finally, one way or the other, before long; sees and accepts xvhat the human limitations of thinking are; recognizes the necessity of being done with mere thinking about it, and so decides and is free to act. There is intellectual weakness in Gladstones inter- minable consideration and reconsideration, qualification and requalification of every subject and branch of a subject. But there is also a strong, genuine, un- mingled delight in mere argumentperhaps as barren a delight as human intel- lect can yield to. Last year there were three Fenian prisoners lying under sentence of death in Manchester. Their crime was such as undoubtedly all civil governments are accustomed to punish by death. But there was considerable sympathy for them, partly because of their youth, partly because the deed they had done the killin~ of a policeman in order to rescue a political conspiratordid not seem to be a mere base and malignant murder. Some eminent Liberals, Mr. 3 38 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Bright among the rest, endeavored to obtain a mitigation of the sentence. The Tory Government refused; then a point of law was raised on their behalf, and argued in the House of Commons. The point was new, the Tory law-officers, dull men at the best, were taken by surprise, and broke down in reply. Yet there was a reply, and legally, a sufficient one. Mr. Gladstone saw it; saw where the point raised was defective, and how it might be disposed of. He sprang to his feet, pulled the Tory law-officers out of their difficulty, and upset the case for the Fenians. Now this must have seemed to a conscientious man quite the right thing to do. To a lover of argument the temptation of upsetting a defective plea was irresistible. But most of Mr. Gladstones Irish followers, on whom he must needs rely, were surprised and angry, and even some of his English friends thought he might have left the Tories unaided to bang their own political prisoners. Gladstones conduct was eminently characteristic. No impartial man could honestly say that he had done a wrong thing; but no one acquainted with political life could feel surprised that a leader who habitually does such things, is almost always being grumbled at by one or other section of his followers. There is an obvious lack of directness as well as of robustness in the whole intellectual and pblitical character of the man. I think it was Nathaniel Haw- thorne who said of General McClellan that if he could only have shut one eye he might have gone straight into Richmond almost ~t any time during his command of the Army of the Potomac. I am sure if Gladstone would only close one eye now and then he might lead his party much more easily to splen- did victory. With all his great, varied, comprehensive faculties, he is not a man to make a deep mark on the history of his country. He has to be driven on. Somebody must stand behind him. He is not self-sufficing. His style of eloquence is not straightforward, cleaving its way like an arrow. It goes round and round a subject, turning it up, holding it to the light, now this way, now that, examining and re-examining it. Even his reform speeches are as Disraeli once said very happily of Lord Palmerston, rather speeches about Reform than ora- tions on behalf of it. He is indeed the brilliant Halifax of his ageat least he is a complete embodiment of Lord Macaulays Halifax. A leader with so many splendid gifts and merits, no English parlimentary party of modern times has ever had. Taking manner, voice, elocution and all into account, as is but right in judging of a speaker, I think he is the most splendid of all English orators. Burkes manner and accent were terribly against him; Fox was full of repetition, and often stammered and stuttered in the very rush and tumult of his thoughts; Sheridans glitter was sometimes tawdriness; both the Pitts were given to pompousness and affectation; Bright has neither the silver voice nor the varied information of Gladstone; Disraeli I do not rank among orators at all. Gladstone has none of the special defects of any of these men, yet I am convinced that Fox was a greater orator than Gladstone; I know that Bright is ; while Burkes speeches are, as intellectual studies, incomparably beyond anything that Gladstone will ever bequeath to posterity; and as instruments to an end, some of Disraelis speeches have been more effective and triumphant than anything ever spoken by his present rival. In brief Gladstone is not, to my thinking, a great orator; and I do not be- lieve he is a great statesman. A great statesman, I presume, is tested by a crisis, and is greatest at a crisis. Such was Chatham; such was Washington; such was Napoleon Bonaparte; such was Cavour; such is Bism~rck. All I have seen of Gladstone compels me to believe that he is not such a man. He 1869.] THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 39 is just the man to lead the Liberal party at this time; but I should despair of the triumph of that party for the present generation, if there were not stronger and simpler minds behind his to keep him in the right way, to drive him on and, above all, to prevent him from recoiling after he has made an effective stride forward. One of the great questions likely to arise soon in English political discussion is that of national education. On educational questions I fancy Mr. Gladstone is rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned; taking too much the tone and view of a college Don. His recent severance from the political representation of Oxford may have done something to release his mind from tradition and pedan- try; hut I much doubt whether he will not be found sadly wanting when a seri- ous attempt is made to revolutionize the principles and the system of the Eng- lish universities, and to substitute there (I quote again the language of Grant Duff) the studies of men for the studies of children. Gladstone is a devotee of classical study; and his whole nature is under the influence of ~stheticism, or of what is commonly called sentiment. The sweet and genial traditions of the past have immense influence over him. His love of Greek poetry and of Italian art follow him into politics. With the Teuton, his poetry and his politics he has little or no sympathy; and I think the question to be decided shortly as regards the university system in England may be figuratively described as a question between Classic and Teuton. Gladstone is a profound Greek and Latin scholara master of Italian, a connoisseur of Italian art ; he does not, I believe, know or care much about German literature. Accordingly, he was a devoted Philhellene and a passionate champion of Italian independence; while the outbreak of the recent struggle between the past and the present in Germany found him indifferent, and probably even ignorant. So it was in regard to the American crisis the other day. He knew little of American politics and national life ; and the whole thing was a bewilderment and a surprise to him. If the Laocoon had been the work of a New England artist I think the North would have found at once a warm advocate in Mr. Gladstone. Of a mould utterly different is John Bright, at the very root of whose charac- ter are found simplicity and straightforwardness. By simplicity I do not mean freedom from pretence or affectation; for no man can be more thoroughly un- affected and sincere than Gladstone. I mean that purely intellectual attribute which frees the judgment from the influence of complex emotions ; which dis- tinguishes at once essentials from non-essentials; which sees at a glance the true end and the real way to it, and can go directly onward. Men supremely gifted with this great practical quality are commonly set down as men of one idea. In this sense, undoubtedly, John Bright is a man of one idea; hut the phrase does not justly describe him, or men like him, who are peculiar merely in having an accurate appreciation of what I may call political perspective, and thus knowing what proportion of public consideration certain objects ought, un- der certain circumstances, to obtain. So far as ideas are the offspring of information, Mr. Bright has undoubtedly fewer ideas than some of his contemporaries. He is not a profound classical scholar like Gladstone; he has had nothing like the varied culture of Lowe; he makes, of course, no pretence to the attainments of Mill, who is at once a master of science, of classics, and of belles-leltres. But given a subject, almost any subject, coming at all within the domain of politics or economics, and time to think over it, and he is much more likely to be right in his judgment of it than any of the three men I have named. He is gifted beyond any Englishman now 40 THE GALAXY. [JAN., living with the rare and admirable faculty of seeing right into the heart of a subject, and discerning what it means and what it is worth. Nor is this ever a lucky jump at a conclusion. Bright never gives an opinion at random or off- hand. Some new policy is announced; some new subject is broached in the House of Commons ; and Bright sits silent and listens. Friends and follow- ers come round him and ask him what he thinks of it. Wait until to-morrow and I will tell you, is almost invariably, in whatever form of words, the tenor of his replyand to-morrows judgment is certain to be right. I can remember no great public question coming up in England for the past dozen years in regard to which Mr. Brights deliberate judgment did not prove itself to be just. This quality of sagacious judgment, however valuable and uncommon, would ~ot of itself make a man a great statesman or even a great party leader; hut it is only one of many remarkable attributes which are found harmoniously illus- trated in the character of Mr. Bright. I do not mean, however, to dwell at any length here on the place John Bright holds in English political life or the quali- ties which have won him that place. He has lately been the subject of an article in this magazine, and he is indeed better known to American readers than any other English political man now living. One or two observations are all that just now seem necessary to make. Men who have not heard Bright speak, and who only know him by repute as a powerful tribune of the people, a demagogue ( John of Bromwicham, Carlyle calls him, classing him with John of Leyden), are naturally apt to think of him as an impetuous, passionate, stormy orator, shaking peoples souls with sound and fury. Almost anybody who only knew the two men vaguely and by rumor, would be likely to assume that the style of the classical Gladstone was stately, calm, and regular; that of the popular orator and democrat, impetuous, rugged, and vehement. Now, the great characteristic of Gladstone, after his fluency, is his impetuosity; that of Bright is his magnificent composure and self-control. In- tensity is his great peculiarity. He never foams or froths or bellows, or wildly gesticulates. The heat of his oratorical passion is a white heat which consumes without flash or smoke or sputter. Some of his greatest effects have been pro- duced by passages of pathetic appeal, of irony, or of invective, which were de- livered with a calm intensity that might almost have seemed coldness, if the fire of genius and of eloquence did not burn beneath it. Another remark I should make is that l\Ir. Bright is the greatest master of pure Saxon English now speaking the English language. As the blind commonly have their sense of sound and of touch intensified, so it may be that Mr. i3right s comparative indif- ference to classic and foreign literature has tended to concentrate all his atten- tion upon the culture of pure English, and given him a supreme faculty of appreciating and employing it. Certain it is that his unvarying choice of the very best Saxon word in every case seems to come from an instinct which is in itself something like genius. Finally, let me remark, that the extent of Mr. Brights democratic tenden- cies would probably disappoint some Americans. I may say now what I should probably have been laughed at for saying two or three years ago, that there is a good deal of the conservative about John Bright; that he is by nature disposed to shrink from innovation; that change for the mere sake of change is quite ab- horrent to him; and that be is about the last man in England who would care to make political war for an idea. He seems to me to be the only one English- man I have lately spoken with who retains any genuine feeling of personal by- 1869.] THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 41 alty towat d the sovereign of England. But for his eloquence and his power, I fancy Mr. Bright would seem rather a slow sort of politician to many of the younger Radicals. The Times lately attributed Mr. Brights conservatism to his advancing years. This was merely absurd. Mr. Bright is little older now than OConnell was when he began his Parliamentary career. He is con- siderably younger than Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mill. What Bright now is he always was. A dozen years ago he was defending the Queen and Prince Albert against the attacks of Tories and of some Radicals. He never was a Democrat in the French or Italian sense. He has always been wanting even, in sympathy, with popular revolution abroad. He never showed the slightest interest in spec- ulative politics. I doubt if he ever talked of the brotherhood of peoples. He has been driven into political agitation only because, like Schillers Wilhelm Tell, he saw positive, practical, and pressing grievances bearing down upon his neighbors, which he felt called by duty to make war against. I have many times heard Mr. Bright say that he detests the House of Commons, and would be glad if it were permitted him never to mount a platform again. But if Mr. Bright had little natural inclination for a Parliamentary career, what is one to say of Mr. John Stuart Mills natural disinclination for such a path of life? Physical constitution, intellectual peculiarities, temperament, habitsall seemed to mark out Mr. Mill as a man destined to close his career, as he had so long conducted itin almost absolute seclusion. He is a silent, shy, shrinking man, of feeble frame and lonely ways. Until the general election of three years back, Mr. Mill was to his countrymen but as an oracleas a voicealmost as a myth. The influence of his writings was immense. Personally he was but a name. He never came into any public place; he knew nobody. When the promoters of the movement to return him to Parliament came to canvass the Westminster electors, the great difficulty they had to contend ~vith was, that three out of every four of the honest traders and shopkeepers had never heard of him; and the few who knew anything of his books had a vague impression that the author was dead years before. The very men who formed the executive of his committee could not say that they knew him, even by sight. Half in jest, half for a serious purpose, some of the Tories sent abroad over Westminster an awful report that there was no such man in existence as John Stuart Mill. Did you ever see him? was the bewildering question constantly put to this or that earnest canvasser, and invariably answered with an apologetic negative. I believe the services of my friend Dr. Chapman, editor of the Westminster Review, were brought into pressing requisition, because he was one of the very few who really could boast a personal acquaintance with Stuart Mill. The day when the latter first entered the House of Commons was the first time he and Bright ever saw each other. I believe Cobden and Mill never met. Mill had no university acquaintanceshe had never been to any university. He had no school friendshe had never been to a school. Perhaps the best educated man of his time in England, he owes his education to the personal care and teaching of his distinguished father, James Mill, who would have been illustrious if his son had not overshadowed his fame. Assuredly, to know James Mill intimately was, if I may thus apply Leigh Hunts saying, in itself a liberal education. Following his fathers steps at the India House, John Mill worked there me- thodically and quietly, until he rose to the highest position his father had occu- pied; and then he resio-ned his office, declined an offer of a seat at the Indian Council Board, subsequently made by Lord Stanley, and lapsed wholly into pri 42 THE GALAXY. [JAN., vate life. Of late he rarely met even his close and early friends. Some es- trangement, not necessary to dwell on, had taken place, I believe, between him and his old friend Thomas Carlyle, and I suppose they ceased to meet. After the death of the wife whom he so loved and revered, Mill lived almost always at Avignon, in the south of France, where she died, and where he raised a monu- ment over her remains, which he visits and tends with a romantic devotion and constancy worthy of a Roland. Only a profound sense of duty could drag such a man from his scholarly and sacred seclusion into the stress and storm of a parliamentary life. But it was urged upon Mill that he could do good to the popular cause by going into Par- liament; and he is not a man to think anything of his personal preference in such a case. He accepted the contest and won. Some of his warmest admirers regretted that he had ever given his consent. They feared not so much that he might damage his reputation as that he might weaken the influence of his authority, and with it the strength of every great popular cause. Certainly those who thought thus, and who met Mr. Mill for the first time during the progress of the Westminester contest, did not feel much inclined to take a more encourag- ing view of the prospect. Mr. Mill seems cut out by nature not to be a parliamentary success. He has a thin, fragile, awkward frame; he has a nervous, incessant twitching of the lips and eyes; he has a weak voice and a sort of stammer; he is over sixty years of age; he had never, so far as I know, addressed a political meeting of any kind up to the time of the Westminster contest. Yet with all these disad- vantages, Mill has, as a political leader and speaker, been an undoubted success with the country, and a sort of success in the House. An orator of any kind he never could be. One might call him a wretchedly bad speaker, if his speaking were not so utterly unlike anybody elses, as to refuse to be classified with any other speaking, good or bad. But, so far as the best selection of words, the clearest style, the most coherent and convincing argument can constitute elo- quence, Mills speeches are eloquent. They are, of course, only spoken essays. They differ in no wise from the speakers writings; and I need hardly say that a speech, to he effective, must never be just ~vhat the speaker would have written if it were to be consigned at once to print as a letter or an essay. As speeches, therefore, Mr. Mills utterances in the House have little or no effect. Indeed, they are only listened to by a very few men of real intelligence and judgment on both sides. Some of the more boisterous of the Tories made many attempts to cough and laugh Mill into silence; indeed, there was obvi- ously a deliberate plan of this kind in operation at one time. But Mill is a man whom nothing can deter from saying or doing what he thinks right. A more absolutely fearless being does not exist. He is even free from that fear which has sometimes paralyzed the boldest spirits, the fear of becoming ridicu- lous. So the Tory trick failed. Mill went on with patient, imperturbable, proud good-humor, despite all interruption-now and then paying off his Tory enemies by some keen contemptuous epigram or sarcasm, made all the more pungent by the thin, bland tone in which it was uttered. So the Tories gave up shouting, groaning and laughing; the more quickly because one at least of their chiefs, the Marquis of Salisbury (then in the House of Commons as Lord Cranbourne) had the spirit and sense to express openly and loudly his anger and disgust at the vulgar and brutal behaviour of some of his followers. Therefore Mr. Mill ceased to be interrupted ; but he is not much listened to. That supreme, irrefutable evidence that a man fails to interest the Housethe 1869.] THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 43 fact that a hum and buzz of conversation may be heard all the time he is speaking is always fatally manifest when Mr. Mill addresses the Commons. But the House, after all, is only a platform from which a man endeavors to speak to the country, and if Mill does not always get the ear of the House, he never fails to he heard by the nation. I have no doubt that even the Tory members of the House read Mills speeches when they appear in print; assuredly all intelli- gent Tories do. These speeches, in any case, are never lost on the country. They form at once a part of the really successful literature of each session. They always excite controversy of some kindnot even the great orations of Bright and Gladstone are more talked of. So far they are a success, and there is something in the personal character of Mr. Mill himself; which makes him specially popular with the working classes of England. I doubt if there is now any Englishman whose name would be received with a more cordial outburst of applause at a popular meeting. Work- ing-men, in fadt, are very proud of Mr. Mills scholarship, culture, and profundity. They can perceive easily enough that he is remarkable for just those intellec- tual qualities which the conventional demagogue never has. Tory newspapers and the Saturday Review sometimes affect to regard Mr. Bright as a man of defective education, but it is impossible to pretend to think that Mill is ignorant of Greek or superficial in his knowledge of history. When such a man makes himself especially the champion of working-men, the working-men think of him very much as the Irish peasants of 98 and 48 did of Edward Fitzgerald and Smith OBrien, the aristocrats of birth and rank, who stepped down from their high places and gave themselves up to the cause of the unlettered and the poor. There is something fascinating, moreover, about the singular blending of the emotional, and even the romantic, with the keen, vigorous, logical intellect, which is to he observed in Mill. Even political economy, in Mills mind, is strangely guided and governed by mere feeling. Somebody said he was a com- bination of Ricardo and Tom Hughes somebody else said, rather more happily, I think, that he is Adam Smith and F~n6lon revived and rolled into one. The Pall Mall Gazette found his picture well painted in Lord Macaulays analysis of the motives which influenced Edmund Burke, when he flung his soul into the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The mere eccentricities, the very defects of such a nature have in them something captivating. The admir- ers of Mr. Mill are therefore not unusually somewhat given to exalting admira- tion into idolatry. The classes who most admire him are the scholarly and adventurous young Radicals, who have a dash of Positivism in them ; the ex- treme Radicals, who are prepared to go any and all lengths for the mere sake of change; and the working-men. This is the Triumvirate of the English Liberal Party. Combined they repro- sent, guide, and govern every section and fraction of that party that is worth taking into any consideration. Mr. Gladstone represents official Liberalism; Mr. Bright speaks for and directs the old-fashioned, robust, popular Liberalism of which Manchester was the school ; Mr. Mill is the exponent of the new Lib- eralism, the Liberalism of Idea and Logic. Brights programme is a little ahead of Gladstones, but Gladstone will probably be easily pulled up to it. Mill goes far beyond either, far beyond any point at which either is ever likely to arrive. Indeed, Mr. Mill may be fairly described by a phrase, which I believe is Ger- man, as a man in advance of every possible futureat least in England. But he is quite prepared to act loyally and steadily with his party and its leader on all momentous issues. On some minor questions he has lately gone widely. 44 THE GALAXY. [JAN., away from them, and given thereby much offence; and indeed I am sure there are not a few of the old-fashioned Liberals and the Manchester men who would rather Mr. Mill had never come into Parliament and sat at their side. But on nearly all questions of Parliamentary Reform, and on that of the Irish Church, Mill and his Liberal colleagues will pull cordially together. So, too, on most economic questions, reduction of taxation, imposition of duties and the like. Where a sharp difference is likely to arise will only be in relation to some sub- ject having an idea behind itsome question of foreign policy perhaps, some- thing not at present imminent; and, let us hope, not destined in any case to be vital to the interests of the Party. Only where an idea is involved will Mr. Mill refuse to allow his own judgment to bend to the general necessities of the party. It was his objection (a very unwise one, I think) to the idea behind the system of the ballot, which led him to separate himself sharply from Bright and other Liberals on that subject; it was the idea which lies at the bottom of a represen- tation of minorities, which beguiled him into lending his advocacy to that most chimerical, awkward, and absurd piece of political mechanism which we know in England as the three-cornered constituency. The cohesion of Gladstone and Bright is decidedly more close and likely to endure than that bet~veen Bright and Mill. But on all immediate questions of great importance, these two men are sure to be found side by side. Mill has a deep and earnest admiration for Bright, who is sometimes, perhaps, a little impatient of the Politics of Idea. During the session of i868, I attended a meeting of a few representative Liberals of all classes, brought together to decide on some course of agitation with regard to Ireland. Mr. Mill was there, so were Professor Fawcett. Mr. Thomas Hughes, Lord Amberley, and other members of Parliament; Mr. Fred- erick Harrison, with some of his Positivist colleagues, and several representa- tive working men. Mr. Bright was unable to attend. A certain course of ac- tion being recommended, Mr. Mill expressed his own approval of it, but em- phatically declared that he considered Mr. Brights judgment was entitled to be regarded as authoritative, and that should Mr. Bright recommend the meeting not to go on, the scheme had better be given up. Mr. Bright subsequently dis- couraged the scheme, and it was, on Mr. Mills recommendation, at once Than- doned. I mention this fact to illustrate the loyalty which Mr. Mill, with all his tendency to political ec& ntricity, usually displays toward the men whom he re- gards as the leaders of the party. Mill and Bright are alike warm admirers of Gladstone and believers in him. Indeed one sometimes feels ashamed to doubt for a moment the steadfastness of a man in whom Bright and Mill put so full a faith. Certainly the English Liberal has reason to congratulate himself and feel proud when he remembers what sort of men his partys leaders used to be, and sees what men they are to-day. It will not do to study too closely the private characters of the chiefs of any political band in the House of Commons, from the days of Bolingbroke to those of Fox. The man who was not a sinecurist or a peculator was pretty sure to be a profli~ate or a gambler. Not a few emi- nent men were sinecurists, peculators, profligates, and gamblers. The political purity of the English Liberal leaders to-day is absolutely without the faintest shade of suspicionit never even occurs to any one to suspect them, while their pri- vate lives, it may be said without indelicacy, are in pure and perfect accord with the noble principles they profess. Not often has there been a political trium- virate of greater men; of better men, never. JUSTIN MCCARTHY. A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. Now and then a name becomes durably known in literature through the reputation of a single fugitive poem. Our English lyrical system has, of course, its greater and lesser planets, with their groups of attendant satel- lites. At irregular periods, some comet flashes into view, lights up the skies for a time, and then disappears beyond the vision. Whether, after the comple- tion of a cycle, it will again attract attention and become an accepted portion of this solar family, or whether, being of a transient though garish presence, it will lessen forever upon its hyperbolic skyway, cannot always be determined by observers. And lastly, at the risk of tearing a in etaphor to tatters, I may say that there are scattered through certain intervals of the system, like those frag- ments between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, the asteroidal poets, each of whom we have recognized by a single and distinctive point of light. The one effort of an amateur is accepted by the people, or gains favor with compilers who select and preserve whatever is of lasting value. The result is a wide public knowledge of these kinle~ poems, and of the facts which have attended their begetting; so that I shall not hunt for new matter, or reason too curiously upon my theme. Rather let me associate together a few of the best-known and even hackneyed pieces of this sort, while the reader considers the philosophy of their production and success. One is tempted to borrow a title from the British politicians, who, as every- body knows, called a member of Parliament Single-Speech Hamilton, after his delivery of a sound and persuasive harangue upon the finances, in Novem- ber, 1775. If the essence of fun be incongruity, then the nickname was not amiss, for it was certainly incongruous and odd that a member, who had dozed through silent terms, should jump up at a crisis and add unexpected strength to his party by the eloquence of a trained rhetorician and a wisdom which none dreamed he could possess. I have no doubt that, before morning, at the clubs, hundreds and fifties were offered against his ever speaking again. If so, he must have become as obnoxious to those who took the odds as were the portly old buffers who darkened coffee-house windows long beyond the dates at which the younger bucks had wagered that apoplexy would seize them; for Hamilton, having once tasted renown, did, it seems, essay more speeches, thereby putting the nicknamers and gamesters to confusion; which leads De Quincy to re- mark, with a chuckle over the whimsies of humanity, that the generation had greatly esteemed the man called Single-Speech Hamilton, not at all for the speech (which, though good, very few people had read), but entirely from the supposed fact that he had exhausted himself in one speech, and had been physi- cally incapable of making a second; so that afterward, when he did make a sec- ond, everybody was incredulous, until, the thing being demonstrated, naturally the world was disgusted, and most people dropped his acquaintance. The world is thus jealous of its preconceived opinions, or of rivalry to an established favorite, and will always array the old against the new. It begrudges a chance hand the right to hit the bulls-eye more than once, and measures each successive shot with unkind exactness; so that only those who have the root of the matter in them, and do better and better, are at all advanced by fresh tri

A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. Now and then a name becomes durably known in literature through the reputation of a single fugitive poem. Our English lyrical system has, of course, its greater and lesser planets, with their groups of attendant satel- lites. At irregular periods, some comet flashes into view, lights up the skies for a time, and then disappears beyond the vision. Whether, after the comple- tion of a cycle, it will again attract attention and become an accepted portion of this solar family, or whether, being of a transient though garish presence, it will lessen forever upon its hyperbolic skyway, cannot always be determined by observers. And lastly, at the risk of tearing a in etaphor to tatters, I may say that there are scattered through certain intervals of the system, like those frag- ments between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, the asteroidal poets, each of whom we have recognized by a single and distinctive point of light. The one effort of an amateur is accepted by the people, or gains favor with compilers who select and preserve whatever is of lasting value. The result is a wide public knowledge of these kinle~ poems, and of the facts which have attended their begetting; so that I shall not hunt for new matter, or reason too curiously upon my theme. Rather let me associate together a few of the best-known and even hackneyed pieces of this sort, while the reader considers the philosophy of their production and success. One is tempted to borrow a title from the British politicians, who, as every- body knows, called a member of Parliament Single-Speech Hamilton, after his delivery of a sound and persuasive harangue upon the finances, in Novem- ber, 1775. If the essence of fun be incongruity, then the nickname was not amiss, for it was certainly incongruous and odd that a member, who had dozed through silent terms, should jump up at a crisis and add unexpected strength to his party by the eloquence of a trained rhetorician and a wisdom which none dreamed he could possess. I have no doubt that, before morning, at the clubs, hundreds and fifties were offered against his ever speaking again. If so, he must have become as obnoxious to those who took the odds as were the portly old buffers who darkened coffee-house windows long beyond the dates at which the younger bucks had wagered that apoplexy would seize them; for Hamilton, having once tasted renown, did, it seems, essay more speeches, thereby putting the nicknamers and gamesters to confusion; which leads De Quincy to re- mark, with a chuckle over the whimsies of humanity, that the generation had greatly esteemed the man called Single-Speech Hamilton, not at all for the speech (which, though good, very few people had read), but entirely from the supposed fact that he had exhausted himself in one speech, and had been physi- cally incapable of making a second; so that afterward, when he did make a sec- ond, everybody was incredulous, until, the thing being demonstrated, naturally the world was disgusted, and most people dropped his acquaintance. The world is thus jealous of its preconceived opinions, or of rivalry to an established favorite, and will always array the old against the new. It begrudges a chance hand the right to hit the bulls-eye more than once, and measures each successive shot with unkind exactness; so that only those who have the root of the matter in them, and do better and better, are at all advanced by fresh tri 46 THE GALAXY. [JAN., als after one triumph. A first achievement will be merged, and thought even less of; among equal others of the kind. That was a shrewder fellow, of our own day and country, who took warning from Hamiltons misfortunes, and delivered his single speech at the close of a long Senatorial term, knowing that the loss of an election had put him beyond the perils of anti-climax. Sitting at his deskhe had been a cripple for years and talking off his speech in the most random manner, he was logical and hu- morous by turns, drove black care from the Senate Chamber, and threw a sn- gularly grotesque glamour over the last night of that doleful session which preceded the opening of ~ur civil war. Next morning he left in a blaze of glory for Kentucky, and, so far as I know, was never heard of more. Our business, however, is not with the politicians, but with that superior race, the poets. Not that these songsters are exempted from a common law. If, once in a while, some brown domestic bird varies his wonted piping, and breaks out in passionate and melodious notes; or, when a brilliant-plumed crea- ture, kept rather for ornament than song, seems to have borrowed the throstles minstrelsy..if these venture again, the one must have lighter trills and quavers, and the other a purer and more assured sweetness, or it will be said of each that he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture. Many a second performance has thus been stilled within the hearing of us all. He who has discerned and made available th~ one fortunate moment of his life, has not lived entirely in vain. Multitudes pass through the sacred garden unawares, with their eyes fixed upon illusions far away. Yet there comes to most persons a time when they are lifted above the hard level of common life to the region of spiritual emotion and discovery. The dullest eye will catch glimpses to make one less forlorn; the ear will be suddenly unsealed, and hear the bells of heaven ring; the mouth will be touched with fire, and utter imagi- native speech. Were there not something divine in each of us, a poet would find no listeners. - Thus the crises of passion, joy, and pain, which are inevit- able for all, often raise the most plodding to a comprehension of the rapture of the poet, the devotion of the martyr, the assurance of the leader of his kind. The clear vision demands, and for the moment seems to carry with it, a new gift of expression: Men speak with tongues they never knew before; yet, when the Pentecost is over, relapse into their ordinary existence, and wonder no less than others at what it has been given them to do. A chance lyric composed in this wise, and the sole performance which has interested the world in its author, has frequently seemed to the latter so light a thing that he has neglected to identify hisname with its success. Scores of the ballads which mark the growth of our English poetry, and are now gathered and edited as a portion of its history, have given no fame to the minor poets who sang them, Ere days that deal in ana swarmed Tiseir literary leeches. Doubtless not a few of those notable anonymous pieces, which people love to attribute to some favorite author or hero, have been, could we only determine it, the single productions of amateurs. There is The Lye, for example, which is claimed for Sir Walter Raleigh, and is quite good enough for him to have writtenis better than anything established as his ownyet whose author- ship is still in escrow between Raleigh, Sylvester, and others of less repute. There are some plaintive stanzas, which commence, Defiled is my name full 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 47 sore, and profess to be the lament of Queen Anne Boleyne from her prison cell, but are undoubtedly the work of another hand. The lovers of that sol- dierly canticle, How Stands the Glass Around ? indignant that so lusts and winsome a child should be a foundling, have tried to fix its paternity upon Gen. James Wolfe, because that chivalrous Englisher delighted in it, and used to troll it melodiously across the hoard. This catch, more widely recognized by the second stanza Why, soldiers, why Should you be melancholy, boys? Why, soldiers, why, Whose business tis to die? is indeed the perfection of a soldiers banqueting songnot only pathetic and musical, but with cadences of rhythm so adjusted that it has a pulsing accent at intervals which relate to the drum-beat and the martial tread of ranks. Any poet might be glad to have composed it. We have it, as copied from a half-sheet of music printed about the year 1710. Perhaps it ~vas brought over from the Low Countries by Marlboroughs men; yet there is the ring of Drydens meas- ures about it, and a poet, whose instinct upon such matters is almost unfailing, has declared to me that he would venture to ascribe it to glorious John upon this internal evidence alone. The authors of a hundred comparatively modern ballads and ditties, like The Children in the Wood, Comm Thro the Rye, When this old Cap was New, have left their voices alone behind them; yet each voice seems to have a distinctive quality of its own. Who wrote The White Rose, that darling little conceit of a Yorkish lover to his Lancastrian mistress? The twin stanzas have become a jewel upon the stretched fore- finger of all time. James Somerville laid violent hands upon them, early in the last century, remodelled them, and added three verses of his own, each weaker than the predecessor. It has been the fate of many pretty wanderers to be this kidnapped and rechristened, and sometimes, fortunately, by nobler craft than Somervilles, to be changed to something truly rich and rare. As when John Milton based Il Penseroso upon the verses In Praise of Melancholy, coin- mencing Hence, all ye vain delights and ending Here stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley, Nothings so dainty sweet as lonely melancholy. These have been claimed for Fletcher, since he inserted them in his play of The Nice Valour, but possibly were composed by Dr. William Strode, who flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century. Dr. Strode is also thought to have written a lyric often quoted as Drydens, The Commendation of Music, which contains some delicate lines Oh, lull me, lull me, charming air, My senses rocked with wonder sweet I Like snow on wool thy fallings are, Soft jike a spirit are thy feet. Campbell found the key-note of his resonant naval ode, Ye Mariners of England, in the lines Ye Gentlemen of England, written by Martyn Parker so long before. Burns worked over the old North Country ballad of Sir John Barleycorn, as well as many an ancient Scottish song; and Shakespearebut I need not multiply examples. The rude strong choruses which have sprung up in great campaigns, or at times of revolutionary excitement, have been the offspring of single minds, though verse after verse has been mated with them by the people. Such are the burdens of the French Maibrouck and Ca Ira, 48 THE GALAXY. [JAN., the Irish Shan Van Vocht, and our own grim battle-chorus of John Browns Body yet it would be difficult to prove that they had not growed like Top- sy, without the foriiiality of a beginning. I take it, in brief; that many of the noteworthy anonymous poems were the handiwork of single-poem makers. Artists who have become favorably known by continuous effort are not care- less of their titles to successful work, nor do the book-wrights often permit spe- cimens of the acknowledged masters to be lost. The composers of our most familiar random poems are of several types. First, those whose one inspiration has come from a sentimentlike the love of home, of country, of sweetheart, of wife and offspring. Such have sung because a chance emotion would have vent, and their song has found a greeting in the common heart, independently of much artistic right to consideration. Next are the natural rhymesters, with their sound and fury. If one n~akes verses per- petually, the odds are that he will at some time find something worth to say, or that he will hit upon a theme in which his fellows have a genuine interest; and when these chances come together, the result is a popular acceptation of what is produced, while against the rest of the authors jingles we stop our ears. Again, there are persons of high culture and beautiful thought, who have the gift of expression, but who have neglected its practice, either being sufficient unto themselves, or ~vith their energies so diffused in other walks of life that they have only yielded in a gracious or impassioned moment to utterance of the lays for which we gratefully remember them. A fugitive poem thus depends for its preservation upon an appeal to the uni- versal emotions; or, through its real merits ,gi yes pleasure to cultured minds, who insure it ultimate renown by Ruskins process of the transfer, of correct taste from the judicious to the unskilful. Here and there one combines these attractions, and thus achieves the high dual purpose of art. A lyric of the first kind often allies itself to an air so taking that we can hardly say whether the poetry or the music has made the hit. But some verses, like God save the King, ~ are such utter mouthing that their entire success has evidently depended on the tune. If not, old-time British loyalty was a sentiment beyond modern comprehension. Yet there are happy instances in our own langua~e, more fre- quently among the Scotch and Irish dialects, of perfect music unto noble words; while there are other widely popular stanzas, for which musical com- posers have tried in vain to find a consonant melody, and thus express their very sense. Among poems which are endeared to the people by their themes is that strictly American production, The Bucket of Samuel Woodworth. Without - great poetical merit, it calls up simple idyllic memories to every one who has been a country boy, whether he has gained in manhood the prizes of life, or is still a trouble-tossed wanderer. To most Americans, home has been a place to start from, and only loved when left forever. Yet through the sentiment of home and a pleasant sensuous reminiscence of boyhood, The Bucket has found its way to numberless hearts. And Woodworth, when writing it, was lifted, for perhaps the only time in his life, to the genpine emotion of the poet, yearning after the sunny meadows, the fons s~lendidior vitro, and the moss-covered bucket of his rustic days. He was indeed a tempest-beaten fellow; a printer, born in Scituate, Mass., and a hard-worked, generally unfortunate hack and journalist, from iSi6 down to his death in 1842. Except his one famous song, I can find nothing worth a days remembrance in his collected poems, of which a volume was published in a8i8, and again in 1827. Yet he wrote other pieces 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 49 in the same metre and with as much care and purpose. His patriotic songs during the war of 1812 had a wide reading, as things went thep. All are of the copy-book order; his was a tame, didactic mind; he never wrote but one poem, and that of itself preserves his name. The Bucket belongs to the lower or basic strata of the Parnassus mountainthe emotional (yet here it occurs to me that these crop out again near the apex, as in some lofty dramatic outburst, like Grief fills the room up of my absent child l) and this household poem, without the factitious aid of a popular air, holds a place by its own music and the associations which it conveys. Indeed, I am not sure that the present article was not suggested by a visit made one day to the rooms where a painter has translated into his own form of expression this and another of our simplest primary lyrics. Multitudes are now buying the pretty chromo-lithographs of Jerome Thompsons paintings of The Old Oaken Bucket, and Home, Sweet Home ; nor do I hesitate to say that few more grateful and attractive pictures, within the means of the aver- age country-dweller, can hang upon his walls, than these truthful representations of the birth-place of Samuel Woodworth, and the Sweet Home of John Howard Payne. * The last-named ditty, though still more obviously depending upon a senti- ment, has a world of help from the air to which it was composed. Looking at the stirring life and many writings of its author, it seems strange that such or- dinary stanzas should be the production by which he is known, and here men- tioned as his single poem. Payne was a New Yorker, born in 1792, and, by an odd coincidence, his first essays were contributed to a juvenile paper called The Fly~, published by Samuel Woodworth at the Boston office, where the latter learned his trade. The former was only seventeen years old when he made a famous sensation at the Park~ as Young Norval, following it up with the enactment of all sorts of parts at many American theatres, and soon play- ing as second to George Frederick Cooke. He had taken to the stage for the support of a widowed mother, breaking off a collegiate course at Union. In 1813 he went to England and came out at Drury Lane; then turned author again, and made his first literary success in the tragedy of Brutus, which he wrote fir Edmund Kean, and which still holds the stage. He also wrote Virginius and Therese, and I dont know what, but the facts about Home, Sweet Home may bear telling again. For years Payne was an avail- able playwright and craftsman in the London dramatic world. When Charles Kemble became manager of Covent Garden, he purchased a batch of our au- thors manuscripts for the gross sum of 230; and a play was fished out from the mess, changed by Payne into an opera, and produced as Clan, the Maid of Milan. Miss Tree, the elder sister of Mrs. Charles Kean, was in the first cast, and sang Home, Sweet Home, one of the gems of this piece. It made an astounding hit, was speedily the popular favorite, and even at this day we may say that the air and words are the surest key, on the reappearance of a pet diva, to unlock the hearts of her welcomers. Those who were present will not forget the return of Kellogg to our Academy on the i9th of last October, and the tenderness and grace with which she sang them ; nor the encores of the audience, and the flowers which dropped around her till she seemed like a me- * This, without discussion of the merits of the paintings or the good and evil effects of distributing their lithographic copies among the people. It seems to me, however, that Mr. Thompsons pictures have the feeling and suggestiveness of the songs for which they are named; and the colored prints are the most care- fully finished of those yet produced in this country. 50 THE GALAXY. [JAN., lodious bird in Eden. Sweet Home was only reckoned at 3~ to its author, but was a fortune to those who purchased it. In 1832, 100,000 copies had been sold by the original publisher, and the profits within two years after its issue were two thousand guineas. For all this, it is nothing but a homely, unpoetical statement of the most characteristic sentiment of the Teutonic race. The mu- sic had gained no former triumph; but wedded to the idea of home, and sounded in Anglo -Saxon ears, it became irresistible, and will hold its own for generations. Midst pleasures and palaces is as bad as bad can be, but match it with the assertion Theres no place like Home ! and we all accept the one for the sake ~f the other. Nor is it strange that in Americawhere homes are so transitory and people are like the brooks which go on foreverthis sentiment should take hold as firmly as in the Motherland. It is because our home-tenure here is so precarious that we cling to its idealization. Conversely,,we have little of that itch to possess landto own so many roods of earth to the centrewhich our adopted citizens display. The Yankee undervalues the attainable, and is so used to see land at low rates about him that he can scarcely understand the eagerness with which a Frenchman or German receives his title-deeds to some barren hillside in Pennsylvania or a quarter section along the overland route. Payne was too much of an actor to be a poet. His youthful features, judg- ing from the likeness taken in his seventeenth year, were of a singularly mobile and expressive type. Not long ago, some of his MSS., and a portrait of him in later manhood, were offered for sale in this city, as a part of a virtuosos col- lection. The face there given would readily have obtained a place in Eugene Bensons gallery of those which are beautiful and suggestive. He was, also, too much of a playwright and author to become a great actor; and too niuch a man of affairs to stick to any profession continuously. At last he made a long re- tirement, as Consul at Tunis. and might have produced an epic if he had known how. Before this his employments were as diverse as those of Shakespeare; but the gap between the capacities of two such beings is wide as the arch from pole to pole, though they stand on a common axis of chosen work. As for Paynes one song, it would seem that any stanzas, thus widely known and endeared, have a more than ordinary claim for admission to a collection which aims to present the noteworthy accepted poetry of the English language. So that, while glad to repeat the general approval of Mr. Danas volume, and to acknowledge that it contains, on the whole, the most conscientious, scholarly, and catholic presentation which has yet been madeI am surprised that the critical editor has not, in the case of Home, Sweet Home, so far over- stepped his limit of the truly beautiful and admirable as to admit it. Of course it goes to the rear on the score of poetical defects; but on what ground are introduced the more objectionable stanzas of God Save the King? As the national British anthem? But Home, Sweet Home is the peoples and childrens song of all English-speaking countries, and its very title is a plea for a humble corner in any Household Book of Poetry. Mention of God Save the King suggests national hymns, and we notice that the leading patriotic songs of France, England, and the United States, are the single works of their authors, unless we allow George Saville Careys claim that his father wrote the British national anthem, and give credit to Queen Hor- tense for the words as well as the pretty music of Partant pour la Syrie. For Hortense, with all her faults, was a sweet musician and verse-maker, and exe- cuted other agreeable works; yet in her best-known song most exactly ex 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 5 pressed the courtly, chivalrous vivacity of a people who fight and make love ~ari ~assu, and gayly interblend their patriotism, gallantry, and love of fame. Both the poem and the music have that quality which, refined by culture, so wins us in the minor art of France. Despite their temporary and trivial na- ture they have other claims to the affection of her people than the accident of the Second Empire. After all, they are not quite the thing, and the French Minister of War is advertising for a worthy national hymn. He will scarcely obtain it from a leading poet. Mr. Grant White has told us how national hymns are written and not written, and it is a fact that nearly all which have not grown among the people, have resulted from the glow of patriotism in the hearts of citizen-laymen, with whom love of country was a compelling inspiration. The Marseillaiseis a pre-eminent example of a single lyrical outburst from the soul of an unprofessional poet. It is the real battle-hymn of an oppressed France, and in her struggles for liberty will never be supplanted by any manu- factured successor. After a long suppression, it was again made the national song when Lojiis Philippe gained the throne by the revolution of 1830; but when the Citizen-King forgot his citizenship, he, too, was compelled to flee before its chorus. It is the most historical and dramatic of lyrics. The one flight wInch Rouguet-de-Lisle took was that of an eagle, soaring to the empyrean, and dis- daining a lower reach. When a soldier invades the province of the poet, com- poses such a song at a single heat, and, like the bards of old, summons from his harp the music that shall match them, it is not safe to deny anything to the in- spiration of mere amateurs. The mans whole life was crowded into that night at Strasbourg, and with it all the frenzy and devotion of a bleeding land. Both our American national poems are the compositions of lawyers, who are known for little else which they wrote, outside the judicial reports. Neither seems to have had any sacred fury in his nature that was not evoked by pa- triotism. That which Judge Joseph Hopkinson gave out in Hail, Columbia, was of a sufficiently hum-drum kind. He had the music of the Presidents March as a copy before him, and his verses are little better or worsethan the air. The Judge was born in 1770, and was a spruce young lawyer in the sum- mer of 1798, when war with France seemed imminent, and Congress was hold- ing an excited session at Philadelphia. He wrote his ode at a sitting, for the benefit of an actor, who had vainly exhausted the poets of the theatrical com- pany, in an effort to adopt words to the stilted march then most in favor. Hop- kinson was appealed to on Saturday, wrote the song on Sunday, heard it from a stage-box on the next evening; and it made a great sensation. The citizens joined in the chorus night after night, and the jurist-author found himself re- nowned for life by a rude homily upon Columbia in prose chopped to the metre. He was afterward a member of Congress, then a Judge of the United States District Court, and died within the memory of most of us at the good old age of seventy-two. Francis Scott Key swept the chords more tunefully in his Star Spangled Banner, which has merits that would give it a leasehold, independently of the spirited music to which it was composed. Its obvious rhymes and adjectives haughty host, dread silence, foul footsteps pollution, etc., are little - suited to the naturalism of our later day, but the burden, Tis the star-spangled banner; 0 long may it wave Oer the land of the free and home of the brave I was that which a popular refrain should be, the strong common sentiment of a nation; and Key, for once in his life, expressed the feeling of a true poet. He 52 THE GALAXY. [JAN., died shortly after Hopkinson, whose junior he was by seven years. He wrote some religious pieces, and a few other songs, none of which have outlived their period; though one, On the Return of Decatur, had a brief reputation. It is in the Adams-and-Liberty metre of the Star Spangled Banner, and exem- plifies the sing-song rhythm into which men like Woodworth and Key are apt to fall, and which often commends itself to the popular taste. It is the bacon- and-greens, so to speak, of the feast of song, and not much relished by culti- vated palates. That most original and resonant lyric, the Carmen Bellicosum of Guy Humphrey McMaster, is far removed from these, except by the commom theme of defence of country. Here is a noble chant indeed Trumbull, in his pic- tures, effected no more than this writer has given us with a single dash of the penan interpretation of the very spirit of 76. The Carmen Bellicosum every one will recall its opening verses, In their ragged regimentals Stood the old Continentals Yielding not. occupies a unique position among English lyrics. There is nothing like it in our language; tis the ringing, characteristic utterance of an original man. There is a perfect wedding of sense to sound, and of both to the spirit of the theme. To include a picture often ruins a song; but here we have the knot of patriots clustered upon a battle-hillside, the powder cracking amain, the old- fashioned colonel galloping with drawn sword, and as Rounder, rounder, rounder, roars the old six-pounder, Hurling death, it seems a heavier piece of ordnance, and charged with weightier issue s,than the whole park of artillery in a modern armament. This song will last with the memory of revolutionary days. I know little of its auth@r, save that he is also a lawyer and a judge, presiding over the Steuben County Court in this, his native State. He is now about forty years of age, and must have been quite young when his Carmen appeared in the old Knick- erbocker Magazine. If a stripling attorney will enter the minstrel lists, sound such a potent blast, then withdraw himself to the happy life of a country-gentle- man, nor be heard again through all these years, he also must, for the present, be numbered in our catalogue of the single-poem poets. McMaster is a Scotch or North-Irish patronymic, and the Scotch have ever been in the custom of producing fugitive lyrics of a true poetical quality. These ditties relate more frequently to the strongest of all emotionsthat of love between man and womanthan to the love of home or fatherland. Two of the sweetest will at once recur to the reader. Auld Robin Gray was com- posed by Anne Lyndsay, afterward Lady Barnard, as long ago as 1772, at Bal- carras in Fife. Her father was the Earl of that ilk. She was an elegant, spirited girl, not yet out of her teens, when an old air, set to a loose old song, The Bridegroom grat when the sun gaed doun, gave her a motive for her work. The lassie had learned the tune, in such mischievous ways as our liberal maids doubtless know of in these prudish times, and thought the pensive measure de- served more fitting words. She chose for her text the world-wide plaint that Crabbed Age and Youth cannot live together a theme as ancient in English as Chaucers January and May took the name of Gray from an old herd in 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 53 the vicinage, and wrote as sweet and pathetic a ballad as exists in any tongue The first stanza, When the sheep are in the fauld and the kyt at hame. is now, I believe, the only one sung to the antique tune. From the secQnd, Young Jamie lovd me weel, to the close, the music, written thirty years since by the Rev. W. Lewes, is still most in use. Lady Annes ballad was not given to the public till 1776, and, as it at once became famous, a prolonged dispute arose concerning its authorship. Modesty prevented the authoress from claiming her laurels. How could a debonair youifg maiden own herself familiar with the wanton ditty, The Bridegroom grat? Not till she had been many years the wedded wife of Sir Andrew Barnard, and the shadows of death were close at hand, did she write her letter to Sir Walter, avowing the authorship, and nar- rating at length what I have briefly told. She composed a few other verses, but nothing to compare with the ballad for which we remember her name. There is pretty good warrant for saying that the soldiers darling, Annie Laurie, was the work of Mr. Douglas, of Fingland, who courted Anne, a fair daughter of Sir Robert Laurie, the first baronet of Maxwelton. This was near the commencement of the last century. The song, as it now exists, is generally classed as anonymous in our anthologies; but has been so refined and annealed through various crucibles that the current version is quite different from the two stanzas which Douglas wrote, and certainly more artistic. His are thus given in the Ballad Book, which contains the earliest printed copy: Maxwelton hanks are honnie Where early faa the dew; Where I and Annie Laurie Made up the promise true; Made up the promise true, And never forget will I, And for honnie Annie Laurie Id lay me doun and die. Shes hackit like a peacock, Shes hreistit like a swan, Shes jimp ahout the middle, Her waist you weel micht span; Her waist you wed micht span; And she has a rolling eye, And for honnie Annie Laurie Id lay me dunn and die. The heroines rolling eye cast its glances away from poor Douglas, and she married a Mr. Ferguson, of Craigdarrock, who found some better mode of win- ning a maidens heart than singing under her window-panes. After all, the pleasure is as great in loving as in being loved; and, to put the matter allegori- cally, Apollo, indignant at the slight inflicted by Venus upon his servant, gave him, unawares, a seat in his temple, and ordained that, for centuries, lovers should sing the song of him who sang in vain. What manlier love-poetry was ever written than the verses, To his Mis- tress, of James Grahame, Marquis of Montrose, wherein he vowed Ill make thee famous hy my pen, And glorious hy my sword l The poem itself fulfilled half the pledge. More than two hundred years have gone by, and still no lines are more often quoted than this quatrain from the same lyric: He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all. 4, 54 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Not more famous is the distich, Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, from Dick Lovelaces stanzas To Alth~ea, from Prison ; though the hand- some cavalier left many another ditty to distinguish him from our birds of a single flight. The lines here mentioned are the second example we have reached of the music, real or imagined, of imprisoned songsters; and to them I might add the Latin verses, Iii Dura Catena, attributed to the Queen of Scotscertainly the one poem written by the Fayre Gospeller, Anne Askewe, who was burned at the stake by command of brutal and dying Harry, in 1546. After her last examination upon the rack, she was inspired to utter, in a New- gate cell, the heroic defiance: Like as the arm6d knight Appointed to the field, With tlsis world will I fight, And faith shall be my shield. We can well believe the statement of one who saw the girl led to execution, that she had an angels countenance and a smiling face. Poor Annes verses have been preserved rather for her storys sake and for their religious ardor, than for poetical excellence; and it is noticeable that hymns, and fugitive lyrics ani- mated with religious hope or aspiration, have a fairer chance, other things being equal, of obtaining a continued hearing than almost any classthose appealing to the master passion alone excepted. Reflective poems, tinged with that melancholy which comes to one chastened by the experiences of life, are also widely in favor. I would not live Alway has everywhere made the name of our vener- able citizen, Dr. Muhlenberg, a household word. He wrote it many years since, with no thought that it would ever be used for the devotions of the church, hut has long seen it in the hymnology of most Protestant denominations, and en- countered many pseudo-claimants to its authorship. Among these I knew an old printer, of Litchfield, Connecticut, who imagined he had composed it, and periodically filled a column in the village newspaper with evidence to further his claim. But Dr. Muhlenbergs title cannot he shaken. Another poem, upon a kindred theme, though with the element of hope omitted, was popular with the sad Calvinists of the last generation, but had almost faded out, when an acci- dental connection with the name of President Lincoln gave it a new lease of life, which may continue with the memory of the great Liberator. He was so fond of repeating the monody, 0 why shoold the spirit of mortal be proud? that by some persons he was credited with its composition, until the press rec- ognized the work of William Knox, who died A. D. 1825, at Edinburgh, in his thirty-seventh year. These lines are expressive of a brooding Scotch melan- choly, pitched in a minor religious key, and in certain moods not ineffective as a quaint and forceful meditation upon an ever-pressing theme. Their whole mo- tive is condensed in the terse old formula, All flesh is grass ; but a Sicilian poet, the pagan Moschus, found even this~ an insuflicient image of the hopeless- ness of mortality. Let me give a naked translation (from the wonderful Epi- taph of Bion), of the most sorrowful passage ever constructed outside of He- brew writ: Even the inallowsalas l alas when once in the garden They, or the pale-green parsley and crisp-growing anise, have perished, Afterward they will live and flourish again at their season; 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 55 We, the great and brave, or the wisewhen death has benumbed us Deaf in the hollow ground a silent, infinite slumber Sleep; forever we lie in the trance that knbweth no waking. The drear and homely verses of Mr. Lincolns favorite poem have already gained the suffrage of those gentlemen whose favor is such an omen of longev- ityth~ makers of school-books. I find it in the latest Reader, along with such selections as Lincolns Address at Gettysburo- Reads Sheridans Ride, Bayard Taylors Scott and the Veteran, Whittiers Barbara Freit- chie, and other new-born pieces, which are to the rising generation what the Speech of Patrick Henry, Marco Bozzaris, or Stand! the Grounds Your Own, My Braves ! were to ourselves, a fewit seems a very fewsum- mers and winters ago. Sexagenarians can remember the notoriety given Herbert Knowlesan Eng- lish youth who died at Canterbury in his twentieth yearby Robert Southey, who set him forth in the London Quarterly as a second Kirke White. Knowles was a precocious religious poet, and his surviving verses are Lines Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, to the text, Matt. xvii., ~: Methinks it is good to be here If thou wilt, let us build, but to whom? These will appear in many future compilations; and so will the thoughtful num- hers of our own countrywoman, Harriet Winslow: Why thus longing, thus forever sighing For the far-off, unattained and dim? But a more impassioned and elevated single poem is that fervent composition imagined to have been written by Milton on his Blindness the work of a Quaker lady, Elizabeth Lloyd,* of Philadelphia. These truly noble numbers deserve the attention which they gained upon their first appearance, at which time paragraphists went so far as to call them Miltons own, and credit them to an Oxford edition of his poems. They are not Miltonic in the least, but exhibit a rapturous inspiration, and df themselves have insured their writer a long regard. Occasionally, straightforward rhymes, with a moral, like The Three Warn- ings of Mrs. Hester Lynch PiozziJohnsons Mrs. Thralehave held their own, either for their shrewd wisdom, or for the associations connected with their author. But which of all the asteroids that have passed before our visionwhether tinged with a domestic, patriotic, amorous, or sombre lightwill be longer or more lovingly regarded than the childrens own poem and dearest Twas the Nio-ht before Christmas ? written for them so daintily by a sage college pro- fessor, Clement C. Moore, to wit, long time a resident of this old Dutch city, and deceased (peace to his ashes!) hardly more than four or five years ago. A Visit from St. Nicholas is dear to the little ones for its exquisite fancies and the annual legend, and to us all for our beautiful memories of childhood and home. It is linked with the natal festival of Christendom, is entirely true to its purpose, and finished as deftly as if the author had been a professional poet. Few of those who were his contemporaries, and who know every word of this sparkling fantasia, have heed familiar with the details of his quiet and industri- ous life. He was horn in 1779, and grew up a. studious philologist, as his He- brew and English lexicon, issued in 1809, still attests. Twelve years afterward he was made Professor of Biblical Learning in the New York Episcopal The& ~s * N~w Mrs. E L. Howell. 56 THE GALAXY. [JAN., logical Seminary, and more lately took the chair of Oriental and Greek Litera- ture. Despite all this, and rich besides, he wrote poetry, and a volume of his rhymes appeared in 1844. They were of an ephemeral nature, except the poem which I would have gone far to hear him repeat in his old, old age, and for which my younger readers must always remember his venerable name. Let us not overlook a lyric, of which many have, probably, already thought the Rev. Charles Wolfes Burial of Sir John Moore. No fugitive piece has had a wider or more potential circulation than this school-boy favorite ; yet wbo, besides the men of letters, have troubled themselves concerning its au- thor, or known of other graceful verses by his hand? A few have read the song which he made to the Irish air, Grammachree. It is said that he sang the music over until it affected him to tears, and impelled him to write his equally pathetic lament, in such stanzas as the following: If I had thought thou couldst have died I might not weep for thee; But I forgot when by thy side, That thou couldst mortal he. It never through my mind had past The time would eer be oer,* And I on thee should look my last, And thou shouldat smile no more! But we must here cease our observation of poets who come strictly within the prescribed limits of the telescopic field. I have barely space enough for reference to a few of those whose reputation has been won by life-long devotion to their art, yet of whose respective productions some one piece has, in each in- stance, gained the worlds ear, and often to the neglect of other excellent works. The poems hitherto considered .are more widely known than tlaeir authors while to name a poet of the class to which I now allude, is to start in the mind the key-measure of his representative poem. Examples of this effect are al- ways numerous, and especially in present remembrance of the poets who wrote long agoTime so winnows out and sets apart the general choice, whether it be such coarse healthful grain as that from which jovial Bishop Still brewed his Good Ale Back and side go bare, go bare; Both foot and hand go cold; But belly, God send thee good ale enough, Wlsether it be new or old! or the golden barley ot~ which singing birds like Thomas Lodge and Sir Henry Wotton had fed, ere they warbled such dainty lyrics as Love in my bosom like a Bee, and You meaner beauties of the night. These two, and many another canticle of their period, you can find in R. H. Stoddards most choice selection of English Melodies and Madrigals. Are James Shirley and Edmund Wal- ler popularly remembered by single lyrics? Nearly so, for in the one case the two stanzas of Shirleys Victorious Men of Earth, with the alteration of a couplet, would be in the stately measures of that grandest and most solemn of of our minor poesies, Deaths Final Conquest, The glories of our birth and state Are shadows, not substantial things. while the feeling and theme of the two lyrics are alike, and, though each is per- fect in itself, they read like portions of a divided poem. And Wailers name is still popularly connected with Go, Lovely Rose, and On a Girdle, out of the whole mass of his songs, epistles, epitaphs, and panegyrics, though Pro ~ The blemish in this line would not be overlooked by a poet of Wolfes quality, in these days of mosaic art 1869.] A BELT OF ASTEROIDS. 57 fessor Lowell, in his delightful citation of Dryden, and perhaps animated by that scorn of Wailers truckling which every true and noble poet must feel, says that the latter has lived mainly on the credit of a single couplet in the lines closing his Divine Poesy. The late English period, however, is all that I can glance at. To mention John Logan is to revive the Ode to the Cuckoo, yet tis by no means certain that Logan did not refine this standard poem from the crude metal left by his friend Michael Bruce. His song on a wild old theme, touched by so many mel- odists, The dowie dens of Yarrow, deserves as long a reputation; though of all the Yarrow ballads, that by William Hamilton, Busk ye, busk ye, my bon- nie, bonnie bride! is the nonpareil. Every one has been affected by the sim- plicity, music, and exquisite pathos of Caroline Oliphant, the Baroness Nairns Land o the Leal: Im wearin awa, John, Like snow-wreaths in thaw, John; Im wearin awa To the land o the leal. The author died in 1845, at the ripe age of eighty years, and throughout hei life wrote poetry, some of it humorous, which was quite the fashion in Scotland. The Laird o Cockpen had a wide reading, and is excellent of its kind. There was Susanna Blamire, the Muse of Cumberland, who made sweet use of the border dialect in her ballads and songs. The Siller Crown is always associated with her name: And ye shall walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin yell consent to he his bride Nor think o Donald mair. There, also, is Sheridans granddaughter, Lady Dufferin, who has composed very many lyrics, but is known by her most beautiful ballad, The Irish Emi- grants Lament, sometimes wrongly credited to her sister, Mrs. Norton. The words ofIm Sitting on the Stile, Mary! and the genuine melody to which they are sung, have that about them which will last. Did Dennis Florence MCar- thy or John Francis Waller write Dance light, for my heart lies under your feet, love? I should like to know, for equal authorities ascribe it to one and the other, and it is too graceful an Irish ballad to go a-begging; tis almost as good as the song of Irish songs, Allinghams Lovely Mary Donnelly. Of Thomas Noels Rhymes and Roundelays, published in London, 1841, the poem all know is a strange and grotesque lyric, The Paupers Drive, with its dl7eary burden: Rattle his bones over the stones I Hes only a panper, whom nobody owns. Perhaps Give me the Old, written by R. H. Messenger, a Bostonian, from the theme Old Wine to Drink, etc., should have been included with the class first under review. The New Yorker, James Aldrich, made verses innumerable, but we only speak of two little stanzas, entitled A Death Bed, so curiously like and unlike Hoods We watched her breathing through the Night. The names of three poets, and on whom in the South have fallen their mantles? quickly bring to mind three songs which won them most lovers ; remember- ing the scholar, poet, and enthusiast, Richard Henry Wilde, one finds himself murmuring that soft perfection, My Life is like the summer Rose; next comes Edward C. Pinkneys chivalrous Health ; I drink this cup to one made up of loveliness alone! and with mention of Philip Pendleton Cooke, all think of Florence Vane, which, however, is a close study after E. A. 58 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Poe. The latter is himself constantly entitled the author of The Raven, yet, for true poetical qualities, his Annabel Lee, Haunted Palace, The City in the Sea, and that remarkable dithyrambic fantasy, The Bells, are more valued by the selectest taste. Why does every one speak of the late General Morris as the writer of Woodman, Spare that Tree? Because this lyric, almost as widely known as Sweet Home, has the simple elements of a song proper, and in this respect might not have been so good if the author had been a greater poet. I think it deserves a corner, opposite the other, in any liberal collection of our songs. Hoffmans Sparkling and Bright had a like trick of catching the public ear. The Rev. Ralph Hoyt, who once published a volume of quaint and original poems, is known as the author of Old, and he has been so long silent that it is not wholly my fault if he is not reckoned with the list of contemporaries. Two fugitive lyrics, now in my mind, may belong rather to the classification first made, though why I should here select them, I can hardly tell. One is The Voice of the Grass, Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere! by Sarah Roberts, of New Hampshire. The otherwho is it by ? In Sum- mer when the days were long. Each was composed by a true poet, and is an addition to literature in its unpretending way. But to return for a moment to our main purpose. The fortunate single- poems, before mentioned, were either the spirited efforts of amateurs, or the sole hits achieved by the Quinces and Triplets of their day. If a person of cub ture has made, with easy hand, a chance success; or, if patient dullards woo our gracious Thea until they flatter her into a smile of favor, or steal upon an unguarded moment to catch certain echoes of her voice; all this is nothing in behalf of amateur artnor are they to be placed on a level with the consecrated poets. For the latter can, with certainty, again and again, excel the random work of those who come not in by the appointed door. A large proportion of the minor art of our most approved poets is made up of pieces, each of which, if the only specimen of its author, might have received preservation as an attrac- tive fugitive poem. We need not mention the great names of the past, but can any doubt that such would be the case with Brownings Evelyn Hope, and How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix; with Tennysons. May Queen, Bugle Song, Come into the Garden, Maud; with Longfellows Excelsior; Lowells The Courtin, and To a Dandelion; I3ryant~ The Battle-Field; with those exquisite quatrains by Aldrich, Ah, sad are they who know not love 1 with Bokers Dirge for Phil Kearney, Win- ters beautiful lyric, Loves Queen, Taylors Bedouin Song, and Daugh- ter of Egypt; with Swinburnes If love were what the rose is; or, indeed, with scores of other imaginative and finished specimens of these and other mas- ter-hands ? For I have mentioned the foregoing at merest hap-hazard, as mi- nor productions likely, from one cause or another, to have become endeared to the people or the critical few, and each for itself to have preserved an authors name. Hereafter, more than ever, there will be no royal road to the honors of the poet. It is necessary, in this period, that every cabinet picture or sketch should show the hand of the master, and be a gem of its kind. More is required to make good work distinctive. High technical finish is so well understood, that it is again asked of the poet, not only that he shall have the art of sweet-saying, but that he shall have something to say. Mrs. Browning sings of the great Pan, down among the river reeds, making a poet out of a man; but often I 1869.] THE DREAM-CHILD. 59 wish some power would make men out of plenty of the modern poets. A painter has to look thtough the Old World for his masterpieces, and to sit long at the feet of his elders for the secrets of color and form; but the versiflers greatest models are at hand in every village library, and the contagion which the press brings to our doors constantly leads hundreds to mistake inclination for power, or an imitative knowledge of the tecibtique of poetry for a true inspi- ration. They catch the knack of making such verses as only genius could have invented fifty years ago, and which then might justly have won them laurels. Thus no art is so easy as that of poetry; but in none is it so difficult to achieve a distinctive individuality. It is th~ lowest and highest of arts. In it, more than in any other, amateur work is to be discouraged, as most easily es- sayed, and as fostering dilettanteism and corrupt taste. There is little danger of sending away angels unawares. I was in the studio of a wise and famous painter, who has learned the secrets of the dawn, when a young aspirant came with a specimen of his work, and sought counsel as to his adoption of the painters art as a calling for life. My friend looked at the sketch, kindly talked with the youth of a painters struggles and self-denials, and of the tide con- stantly pressing the finest genius back from its goal, and so sent his listener away with few words of encouragement or hope. Now, said I. you know that boys picture had merit; why did you treat him so harshly? He an- swered, If he has the right stuff in him, this will make no difference; he will paint on, though the ghost of Raphael should warn him to give way; and will succeed in his art. If he has not, I am doing him the highest benefit by keep- ing from him that crown of sorrow which is inevitable for one who has not clearly discerned the true purpose of his life. EDMUND C. STEDMAN. THE DREAM-CHILD. JAM followed by a spirit, In my sorrow and my mirth; Tis the spirit of an infant, Dying almost at its birth, Unlamented, yet how dear, Since, unseen, I know tis near! Would, if only for a moment, As I feel it, I could see, In the light of heavenly beauty, Sitting on its fathers knee It would dry this hopeless tear, Dropping now, it is so near! R. H. STODDARD.

1869.] THE DREAM-CHILD. 59 wish some power would make men out of plenty of the modern poets. A painter has to look thtough the Old World for his masterpieces, and to sit long at the feet of his elders for the secrets of color and form; but the versiflers greatest models are at hand in every village library, and the contagion which the press brings to our doors constantly leads hundreds to mistake inclination for power, or an imitative knowledge of the tecibtique of poetry for a true inspi- ration. They catch the knack of making such verses as only genius could have invented fifty years ago, and which then might justly have won them laurels. Thus no art is so easy as that of poetry; but in none is it so difficult to achieve a distinctive individuality. It is th~ lowest and highest of arts. In it, more than in any other, amateur work is to be discouraged, as most easily es- sayed, and as fostering dilettanteism and corrupt taste. There is little danger of sending away angels unawares. I was in the studio of a wise and famous painter, who has learned the secrets of the dawn, when a young aspirant came with a specimen of his work, and sought counsel as to his adoption of the painters art as a calling for life. My friend looked at the sketch, kindly talked with the youth of a painters struggles and self-denials, and of the tide con- stantly pressing the finest genius back from its goal, and so sent his listener away with few words of encouragement or hope. Now, said I. you know that boys picture had merit; why did you treat him so harshly? He an- swered, If he has the right stuff in him, this will make no difference; he will paint on, though the ghost of Raphael should warn him to give way; and will succeed in his art. If he has not, I am doing him the highest benefit by keep- ing from him that crown of sorrow which is inevitable for one who has not clearly discerned the true purpose of his life. EDMUND C. STEDMAN. THE DREAM-CHILD. JAM followed by a spirit, In my sorrow and my mirth; Tis the spirit of an infant, Dying almost at its birth, Unlamented, yet how dear, Since, unseen, I know tis near! Would, if only for a moment, As I feel it, I could see, In the light of heavenly beauty, Sitting on its fathers knee It would dry this hopeless tear, Dropping now, it is so near! R. H. STODDARD. THE LANMAN SCANDAL. MRS. WILLIAM LANMAN gazed idly out into the faded, sickly sun- shine of the October afternoon, looking herself; sad, faded, sickly. Beyond this look there was nothing very noticeable in Mrs. Lanmans appear- ance. She was a woman of thirty-five or thereabout, with a slender, sunken figure, a pale, pinched face; yet someway her expression of combined physical and mental suffering was interesting: it hinted a capacity for passionate concen- tration, and suggested the temperament which coils itself in an idea to, perhaps, spin a shroud of it. The room which Mrs. Lanman occupied was costly and luxurious. There were fruits, flowers, and books around, with some phials, glasses, and such other belongings as indicated the inmate an invalid. Mrs. Lanmans own appearance bore out this indication. She wore a wrapper of violetfezye, and a little Cluny cap with violet ribbons, both tasteful, and worn with the air of a woman to whom tasteful things are a matter of course. The window by which she sat looked upon a broad, fashionable avenue, where the pale sluggish sunshine lay slant on the opposite house-fronts, and lines of carriages, with elegant, listless occupants were coming and going, coining and going, through the long after- noon. The hours went monotonously as Mrs. Lanman watched. The faint sun- shine shrank away, and a tone of cool, solid purple settled upon the street in its stead. Once in a while Mrs. Lanman turned her face from the window, and lay back for a moment in her easy-chair, pressing her hand to her side with a gesture that was partly as if her stays were tight, and partly as if her heart ached. Then she roused herself and resumed her watch. As the daylight waned she leaned her face nearer to the window, straining her eyes persistently in one direction. By degrees the street grew emptier; a few carriages bowled along as if belated, and in the opposite windows they were beginning to light the gas-burners and pull down the shades. The day was done, the dusk coming on. Mrs. Lanman only took her me- dallion handkerchief and wiped the moisture of her breath from the pane, that she inigh t still see as clearly as possible what should come. It came finally. The sharp, quick clicking of horses hoofs on the Russ pavement, breaking up in an irregular clatter before the door. Mrs. Lanman wiped the pane once more; then, hastily, and peering down, she saw a lady and gentleman dismounting. Even in the waning light she could make them out distinctly enough. The man was middle-aged, a somewhat arro- gant, imposing looking man, with an easy, stylish air. The woman was young; as she sat in her saddle, her predominant expression was of cold, assured com- posure. Her escort drew his gloves, clasped her waist in a familiar, unembar- rassed way, and lifted her to the sidewalk. A groom took the horses, and they turned toward the house. As Mrs. Lanman watched this simple proceeding her face grew sharper and sallower. The gentleman, reader, was her husband Mr. William Lanman; the lady was her guestMiss Gervase Haghe. Miss Haghe, with her heavy habit-skirt gathered in one hand, began to as- cend the stoop; pausing for the opening of the door, she looked up at the sky

THE LANMAN SCANDAL. MRS. WILLIAM LANMAN gazed idly out into the faded, sickly sun- shine of the October afternoon, looking herself; sad, faded, sickly. Beyond this look there was nothing very noticeable in Mrs. Lanmans appear- ance. She was a woman of thirty-five or thereabout, with a slender, sunken figure, a pale, pinched face; yet someway her expression of combined physical and mental suffering was interesting: it hinted a capacity for passionate concen- tration, and suggested the temperament which coils itself in an idea to, perhaps, spin a shroud of it. The room which Mrs. Lanman occupied was costly and luxurious. There were fruits, flowers, and books around, with some phials, glasses, and such other belongings as indicated the inmate an invalid. Mrs. Lanmans own appearance bore out this indication. She wore a wrapper of violetfezye, and a little Cluny cap with violet ribbons, both tasteful, and worn with the air of a woman to whom tasteful things are a matter of course. The window by which she sat looked upon a broad, fashionable avenue, where the pale sluggish sunshine lay slant on the opposite house-fronts, and lines of carriages, with elegant, listless occupants were coming and going, coining and going, through the long after- noon. The hours went monotonously as Mrs. Lanman watched. The faint sun- shine shrank away, and a tone of cool, solid purple settled upon the street in its stead. Once in a while Mrs. Lanman turned her face from the window, and lay back for a moment in her easy-chair, pressing her hand to her side with a gesture that was partly as if her stays were tight, and partly as if her heart ached. Then she roused herself and resumed her watch. As the daylight waned she leaned her face nearer to the window, straining her eyes persistently in one direction. By degrees the street grew emptier; a few carriages bowled along as if belated, and in the opposite windows they were beginning to light the gas-burners and pull down the shades. The day was done, the dusk coming on. Mrs. Lanman only took her me- dallion handkerchief and wiped the moisture of her breath from the pane, that she inigh t still see as clearly as possible what should come. It came finally. The sharp, quick clicking of horses hoofs on the Russ pavement, breaking up in an irregular clatter before the door. Mrs. Lanman wiped the pane once more; then, hastily, and peering down, she saw a lady and gentleman dismounting. Even in the waning light she could make them out distinctly enough. The man was middle-aged, a somewhat arro- gant, imposing looking man, with an easy, stylish air. The woman was young; as she sat in her saddle, her predominant expression was of cold, assured com- posure. Her escort drew his gloves, clasped her waist in a familiar, unembar- rassed way, and lifted her to the sidewalk. A groom took the horses, and they turned toward the house. As Mrs. Lanman watched this simple proceeding her face grew sharper and sallower. The gentleman, reader, was her husband Mr. William Lanman; the lady was her guestMiss Gervase Haghe. Miss Haghe, with her heavy habit-skirt gathered in one hand, began to as- cend the stoop; pausing for the opening of the door, she looked up at the sky 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. brinded with a brief; flickering flush, and said, cooling the enthusiasm of her words by the tone in which she spoke them, I wish these days had no end! Why? asked her companion, laconically. Because I detest the past, and dread the future, she answered, in the same passionless voice. You have no need to do eitherto do the last, at least, he rejoined; and then the door was opened, and they went in. Mrs. Lanman leaned back in her easy-chair as the sound of the closing door penetrated the languid, perfumed warmth of her dusky chamber, catching her breath painfully. When the momentary spasm was over, she rose and rang her bell. A servant came at once, lit the gas, wheeled afauteuil before the grate, and drew the curtains. Will you have your tea now, maam? she asked. Yes, answered Mrs. Lanman; then she added, carelessly, Have Mr. Lanman and Miss Haghe come in yet? Yes, maam, returned the girl ; theyve just come. They was late to- night. Dinner is waitino~ Miss Haghe is dressing, then? Yes, maam; she came right up-stairs. Mr. Lanman is walking about in the dining-room. The girl furnished her quota of information; she had learned sometime since that she was expected to tell these little things when her mistress gave her an Opportunity. Very well, said Mrs. Lanman, quietly; you may bring my tray. Jane slipped back to the kitchen. Its a mortal shame the way he uses her! she remarked to John, who had just come in from rubbing down the saddle-horses. He do seem greatly taken up with Miss, John assented, in his slow, com- fortable way. The cook, who chanced to be Johns wife, was beating a sauceshe beat it with extravagant vigor. Id like to see a man try any such game with me! she averred, with a vicious grip upon her slender ladle. Yes, indeed! said Jane, rather abstractedly, starting on with her mistresss supper of thin toast and weak tea. Set the tray down. You need not wait, was Mrs. Lanmans direction. She was breathing painfully again, leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed. There was a soft pink flush in her cheeks from the reflection of the fire, her thin white hands lay clasped upon her lap, the slender fingers working nervously. All at once she said aloud in the silence, I must speak. The time has come when I must speak. She uttered the words in a heavy, thoughtful way. By-and-by, when she seemed to have pon- dered them, she rose, poured a cup of tea, and drank it feverishly. Then she resumed her seat, closed her eyes, and waited. Once in a while she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Just before eight oclock, a mans step came through the hall, paused before the door, and Mr. Lanman tapped lightly, and immediately entered the room. How are you feeling to-night? he asked, in a measured way. I am better, she said, shortly, in a tone of suppression. You will be able to preside at the table to-morrow night, then? he in- 62 THE GALAXY. [JAN., quired; at~d, without waiting for her reply, he seated himself by the drop-light and began unfolding the papers he had brought with him. I presume so, she returned. Dr. Esham says I shall do better to go out and exert myself some. I am glad to hear it, answered Mr. Lanman, formally, turning his paper. She looked at him fully, then, with her yellowish hazel eyes, and seemed to moisten her lips and throat. That is false, she said, quietly. He glanced up rather quickly. I am surprised at such an expression, he remarked, without showing any excitement, either in his face or voice. He had an attractive facerather thoroughbred than handsome. His eyes were blue, set deep and close together, with a piercing, reticent, but not unpleasant expression, his forehead was full, smooth, and white, his mouth flexible and per- suasive; its muscles showed training. I dont know why you should be surprised, remarked Mrs. Lanman, with hysterical irony, unless it is surprising to hear me speak the truth. The gentleman hesitated a moment. I hope, Emily, we understand each other too well to tear open any old wounds or renew any old contentions, he said, rather unwillingly. The old wounds have ceased to pain you, was her reply; but with me they rankle and throb forever. He smoothed the paper with his shapely, firm-looking hand, and fixed his eyes upon it without speakin~. His wife sat still and thought. She thought what a wretched, wretched life she had had; how she had loved the man before her, what the love had cost her, and what she had been paid for it. She wished as she had wished a great many times before within the past fifteen years that she was in her grave. Then her thoughts xvent over the sea to her child her only childher maimed, miserable boy, dwarfed in body and dwarfed in mind, whom she still loved with the fierce passion which happier mothers feel for their happier offspringloved the better, perhaps, for what he was and for what she had done for his sake. If the boy had been different, she thought, it would have given her a different claim upon the father. She said to herself that there was no road to William Lanmans heart but through his pride. If he could only have been proud of his childthis child of hersit might all have been very different. Was it justicewas it vengeancethat he had been born so? She shuddered, and came back to the present with a thrill of exquisite pain, remembering what she had determined to say to her husband. She wished to say it gentlynot in a way to irritate him or to make any wider breach between them. She walked toward him. William, she began, in a dry, controlled tone, I am very unhappy. Pity me a little. Do not drive tue to despair.~~ He did not raise his eyes. A very slight quiver of impatience played about his mouth. You know, Emily, that such talk simply annoys me, he said. She drew h.er breath in quickly. I have been hoping against hope, she said, in a dead calm voice. You are determined to be tragical, was his answer. What is the use of exciting yourself? it is bad for you. He rose, as if to go. You had better retire now, and ensure your strength for to-morrow. Entertaining a dinner party will tax it considerably. 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. 63 She put her hand out quickly. Dont go yet, William! Dont go quite yet! she said, more nervously than she had previously spoken. 1 wish to know something about the dinnerwhom you have asked, and something about the arrangements? Gervase has given the orders, he replied. I presume the arrangements will he all right. Dont make yourself uneasy about anything of that soit. He moved toward the door. And the guests? she asked. I think I mentioned those who were to be asked, didnt I? I have added CollyerI believe I didnt speak of Collyer. He starts for Cuba, Thursday. And he once more moved to leave her. She had detained him a moment by her pretext, without having advanced her intention. Yet she must speak to-night at once. She was losing the self-control she had struggled so hard for. She was not equal to making her opportunity as well as using it. Her eyes bright- ened unnaturallyher mouth felt dry and hot. Dont go! she gasped, hysterically, following him, with one hand stretched toward him. He looked at her with his pitiless eyes. You are allowing your impulses to wear you out, he said, in a not unkind tone. Why do you not try to compose yQurself? To wear me out! The sooner the better! she answered, bitterly, ex- citedly. I am very sorry to have had this scene, Emily, he said, in a quiet, decided voice. I try to be patientto be calm. I wish you would try to be the same. She fancied there was more feeling than common in his tone, and the tears came in her eyes. I couldI think I could, William, she faltered,~ if you would help me! What can I do? I will help you if I can, he answered. You will? Oh, William! The stormy love that was in her heart con- vulsed her face. She cowered under her own excitement. Ah, me! what she had borne, and dared, and suffered for this mighty love! What she owed to it! What she meant to ask for it! You will help me, William? she repeated, tremblingly. What can I do, Emily? he asked, gravely. I will help you, of course, if I can. Sne put her hand behind her, mechanically, for support, and rested it on the corner of a buhl escritoire. If you would do one thing What is that? he asked, with some manifest surprise that she meant to define her petition. One thing! A power more powerful than will seemed forcing the words from her. She leaned harder upon the brazen corner of the cabinet, shaking slightly; her head dropped. \Vhat can I do ? he asked, again, with unaccustomed gentleness. Then, fully possessed by the power that moved her, she struggled, upright, throwing her head a little back for freer breath. You can save me, she said, slowly, from being an object of pity and de- rision to the world; from being insulted with sympathy as a neglected wife; from being made the subject of a popular scandal. She paused. At the last words her husbands face had darkened. She did not see it. She only saw that she was about to utter her demand. Without a break or quaver in her. voice she made it You cczn send her away I 64 THE GALAXY. [JAN., With his piercing eyes he looked down in her face, with the look by which a physician controls a crazy patient. 1 think you forget yourself; Emily, was all he said. Her paroxysm of excitement was over, her strength gone. She staggered a step back, leaning her whole weight now against the cabinet. You will not? she asked, piteously. No, Emily. Go! she said, desperately, waving him away. I will finish my papers in the library, he returned, unmoved. Good night. He walked through the hall with a quick, nervous step, and opened the library door. The library was a small, octagonal room, with walnut wood-work and sombre panels. kbronze figure upon a malachite table held a shaded drop- light, and a wood fire burned on the hearth. Before this fire, on a low ottoman, sat Miss Gervase Haghe. Upon her lap was an open book and some slips of paper. On the floor beside her lay a German lexicon. With her elbow on her knee and her chin upon her hand, she sat gazing steadily into the fire. Mr. Lanmans rather abrupt entrance startled her. She turned with an appearance of confusionit could hardly have been anything but an appearance, for Miss Haghe was by no means a girl to be easily confused, and said, with a glance at the clock, Why, you have come back too soon! Too soon? he repeated, absent-mindedly, and then, perceiving her mean- ing, he said: You have not done your translation yet, eh? Well, you can finish it while I am reading. He sat down, spread his papers mechanically upon the table, and leaned his face on~is hands. Miss Haghe went silently on with her work. It might have occurred to an observer that there was some spiritual kinship between this man and woman. They looked as though their tastes and ideas might be similar; their companionship congenial and complete. With his wife, William Lanman s superiority was too manifest ; it made him seem, inevitably, arrogant; with Miss Haghe no comparison suggested itself; only a sense of natures fitted to one another. From time to time, as Miss Haghe wrote, she glanced up at her companion. He appeared lost in his thoughts, his face looked tired and suddenly worn. Are you ill? she asked, at length. He did not answer or hear her. His immobility alarmed her; she rose, let- ting the slips of paper she had been writing on, flutter to the floor, and approach- ing him, said quickly, What is the matter ? What has happened to you Nothing, he answered, rousing Nothing. Is your translation done ? Why wont you tell me? she persisted, in a sweet, anxious tone; and she laid her hand lightly upon his head. ~ he answered, taking her hand quickly away as if the slight, ca- ressing touch was more than he could bear. It is nothing. Something has occurred, I am sure, to pain you, she said, sadly. Her voice or her touch unnerved him. He took both of her hands in his, and bowed his face upon them. May Heaven save all others from such errors and expiations as mine! he said, hoarsely. At this moment there was a rustle in the door, and a sound of scraping 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. some ones throat. Neither Miss Haghe nor Mr. lanman started; but he dropped her hands, and they both turned. The intruder was the cook. I beg pardon, Miss Haghe, she hastened to explain. I thought you was alone, maam, and I would just step up and ask you about the jellies for to-nior- row. Gervase Haghe was one of those women who, under any circumstances, have the power of suspending condemnation by the cool equipoise with which they confront suspicion. She confronted Mrs. John. I shall come to the kitchen as usual, at ten oclock, Katherine, she saici, with high tranquillity. I beg pardon, muttered the women, withdrawing. A bold piece! she grumbled, as she retreated to her domain. And him a-kissing her hands ! Miss Haghe picked up her scattered papers, and drew a chair beside Mr. Lanmans. See what you think of my translation to-night, she said. He gave his 4tention to it for a time. Finally they both rose to separate for the night. So you wish to ride in the morning? Mr. Lanman asked. She hesitated. I have, promised Mr. Collyer I would go with him, she said, at length. Oh, very well, returned Mr. Lanman. Do not get too tired. I want you to look fresh and handsome for the evening. The dinner-party, of which mention has been made, was given by Mr. Lan- man to two or three friends who were about sailing for Cuba. There were near a dozen guests invited in all, and the hour appointed was six. It was still lack- ing somewhat of that time when Mrs. Lanman entered her drawing-room. She had bestowed a good deal of care upon her toilet, but she appeared to even less advantage than in her ne~glzg6 in her chamber. She looked ill, old. Her moire antique, with its square-cut waist, and Honiton handkerchieg revealed her sunken chest; her hair drawn back from her face showed how thin and shrunken it was; and some way, although it was her money which supplied the elegancies about her, she had an habitual air of timidity and constraint, appear- ing rather as if she received than conferred the honors of her position. As she entered the room its only occupants were gathered in the bay-win- dow, where the daylight still remained. There were Miss Haghe and Mr. Lanman, and a Mr. Porter, with whose daughter, a very young lady, Miss Haghe was playing backgammon, while the two gentleman overlooked the game. Gervase Haghe was really but eighteen. She looked older, for her expres- sion was definite, with none of the pretty indecision of girlhood; there was even a hard, old look about her handsome mouth, and a thorough self-compre- hension and decision in her violet-grey eyes. She had a face which rarely smiled, but which was by no means unanimated, for it was a transparent sort of face, with clear white soul-light in it. She was dressed simply in a black silk, but she wore a pair of costly diamond ear-drops, and a large brilliant stone in a ring on her finger. 0, dear, youre all ofi! said little Miss Porter, idiomatically, just as Mrs. Lanman walked quietly and unnoticed into the room. Miss Haghe swept the men lightly into one table, and closed the board. Then she happened to perceive Mrs. Lanman, and rising, recognized her p res- ence with a grave bow. 66 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Mr. Lanman and the others also turned. It was a trying moment for Mrs. Lanman, for it was the first time she had had to confront before stran- gers, the woman whose continued residence under her roof had given rise to a most humiliating scandal. Mrs. Lanman had been an invalid for six months, for the exact time, in fact, that Miss Haghe had made one of the household. Now that she reappeared in the world, whose judgments were dear to her, she felt all the humiliation and bitterness of the fact. Her faded eyes glowered in spite of her as they met Miss Haghes tranquil, ha~ndsoine face; she could hardly remove them, so strong was the poisonous fascination of contrasting mentally her own thin, worn features and meagre form with the supple grace and roundness and freshness that be- longed to the girl before her. Her eyes sought William Lanmans, as if expect- ing some concession from him in return for the pain he had given her the night before, or some approbation for her having tacitly agreed to all his wishes in the matter of this party; but Mr. Lanman did not return her glance. She felt a sob rise ;hokingly in her throat, but she controlled it, spoke to the guests al- ready arrived, and then to those just arriving. In a short time all were assem- bled, and the dinner was announced. At the moment that Mr. Porter came to offer her his arm, a little side-scene caught her attention. Gervase Hagh e was talking with a fair, aristocratic-looking young man, who wore a rose-bud in his hutton-hole; or rather, he was talking and she was listening. At the moment that the guests began to move toxvard the dining-room he took her hand, and was about to draw it witbin his arm, in a privileged, satisfied way. It seemed that she neither yielded nor refused; but just then Mr. Lanman and Miss Porter joined them, and a moment later Mrs. Lanman saw the wearer of the rose-bud at- tending to Miss Porter, and her husband quietly taking Miss Haghe in himself. The dinner went on as dinners do. Then came the reassembling in the drawing-room, and talk and music until toward midnight, when all the guests went, one by one, except the fair young manEverard Collyer hy namewho had talked with Miss Haghe, and who now made one of the group who sat around the grate fire. Are you going to give Lake another sitting to-morrow? he was asking of Miss Haghe.. He is very anxious to have you. I dont know, she answered, rather sleepily, looking down at her hand- some hands as they lay folded in her lap. I think you had better do so. The picture ought to be finished, Mr. Lanman remarked. Where is it to hang? Collyer asked. In the library, answered his host, where the Psyche is now.~ I wish I had noticed the precise place, said Collyer. The picture will be finished and hung before my return, and I should like to think of it just as it will be. You can see it now if it will afford you any satisfaction, said Mr. Lanman, with a smile. Cant you show it to him, Gervase ? Certainly, she answered, languidly rising. Collyer followed her with alacrity. They entered the library, and then quickly, almost rudely, he shut the door. A fierceness which had evidently been reprcssed, came to the surface in his fair face, with its clear-cut features and blonde tints. Of course, Gervase, said he, you know that this is a mere pretext that I have made in order to see you alone? 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. 67 I did not know it, Everard, she said, in those innocent, musical tones which are apt not to be true. He looked at her angrily, passionately, worshipfully. Why are you so loth to allow me the very few liberties I take with you ? he asked. Why are you never willing to permit our intimacy to appear? Why do you avoid me so? Above all, Gervase, why do you put me off with such shallow, pitiful reasons in regard to your refusal to become my wife ? She heard him calmly. I am no different, Everard, from what t was when you first knew me, two years since. If I am constrained now, I was constrained then. I have given you all I promised. She had answered him, and he had nothing to allege against the strict accu- racy of his answer, but it failed utterly to satisfy him. I am very unhappy, was all he could say. I am sorry, she rcplied. He paused a moment as if realizing that what he should say next had its full importance, and controlled the excitement he had shown so well that he was cool even to hardness. I can hardly believe that you are sorry, he said. My unhappiness is from a definite cause, and it is necessary or unnecessary. If unnecessary, and you are sorry for it, it is within your power to prevent it. If necessary As he spoke this last word his coolness vanished, the red blood flushed his face. Good heavens, what am I talking of! he cried. Necessary! did I venture even to suppose, Gervase, that it was necessary that your name should be tarnished with so foul a scandal! May Heaven forgive me for the word! his voice faltered with an almost abject penitence. Miss Haghe stood as unmoved as she had done hitherto. It is late, Everard, to find fault, was all she said. ~ervasedarling ! I find no fault, except with myself for adoring you so madly that I am sometimes unreasonable. You knoW that I do not mean to find fault Then, why do you reproach me? Again his face flushed. Only because you are not frank with me. Everard, said Miss Haghe, in her tranquil tone, when you asked me to love you, I told you that my life was blotted by a mystery. When you asked me to marry you, I told you that not only must you not ask, but you must be content not to know why you must not. That is true, he said, moodily. And so I could he content with your silence as long as you chose to impose it, if it was only a matter between you and me. But, Gervase, the world comes in between us, and utters, in my ears, the most humiliating scandal. I never asked your confidence for my own satisfaction, for I trust you and love you; but I do ask it, in order that I may silence the unworthy stories which are gossipped about the woman who is to be my wife. She folded her arms in her calm, imperial fashion, and said, without the slightest show of emotion, They cannot be silenced. Cannot be! cannot be! repeated Everard Collyer. They can he, if you choose! Marry me, Gervase. Marry me, and sail with me for Cuba to-mor- row. Or marry me and remain here in the city if you prefer; but leave this 68 THE GALAXY. [JAN., house; leave William Lanmans protection, and silence the horrid stories that associate your name with his He spoke vehemently; carried away by his own anxiety, he thought she must consent. He was mistaken. She grew ever so little prouder, ever so little colder. I shall not leave this house, or William Lanmans protection; nor shall I, at present, Everard, become your wife. A mortal jealousy for the first time thrilled Everard Collyers veins. His manhood protested against her refusal to explain or justify herself; his plain good sense declared that no woman had the right to peril her reputation through her obstinacy; his love assured him that he ought to be trusted, and his pride subtler than all the restrecoiled at the thought that the woman who was to bear his name and be the keeper of his honor, had been talked about ! Why not U he asked, sharply. With cold, brave effrontery she stood there and read him ; read that he sus- pected her, and was prepared to risk his claim to her. She answered with less spirit: Because the condition of our engagement was that you should be satisfied for a time with mystery. I do not believe in mystery, said Everard, gloomily. I consented wil- lingly enough to your condition, thinking it some mere girls romantic whim. How could I dream that it was going to shield a thrust that pierces my heart ? How could I suppose there was going to be foul scandal about you, Gervase Haghe? No, you could not suppose it. Her indifference seemed unnatural to him. A minute before he had exe- crated himself for a remote suspicion of her. Now his mistrust flamed into fierce, new life. I love you dearly, he said, with passion; better than I love life, but I have pride, Gervase, about the woman who is to be my wife, and you stab it deeply. You suspect me ? ~she a:sked, tranquilly, slipping her ring on and off her finger. He was all unnerved with excitement, and her coolness increased it. I cant leave it so, he said. I cant go away and feel that this sort of talk is going on Of course not, she interrupted, with the slightest degree of scorn. Why, Everard Collyer, you say you have pride. Do you think I have none? You cannot endure to have me suspected! I will not endure that you suspect me! Here is your ring and your troth. It was all said so quietly that through his blinding excitement and pain, he felt that she had made the opportunity for discarding him. Gervase he faltered. We will go back now, she said, in her frozen way. Gervasea moment. Is this a pretext for breaking ou rengagement? For an instant she seemed at loss how to reply. I dont think that can matter much, so long as the engagement is broken, she said, at length. It was all so sudden and unlooked for that he had no words, no thoughts even, at command. He allowed her to leave the room, and he followed her. Stopping, just before he reached the drawing-room door, overtaken by some dim sense of etiquette, he stammered: 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. 69 Say good-night to Mrs. Lanman for me, if you please. She bowed without speaking, and re-entered the parlor alone. Well, Gervase, said Mr. Lanman, have you and Everard got through with your adieus ? Yes, she answered, we have taken a final farewell. 0, dont speak so despondingly, laughed Mr. Lanman; he will be back in two months. I have only spoken literally, said Miss Haghe, with the slightest shrug. We have parted for good and all. William Lanman looked at the girl penetratingly. Why is that? he asked. She glanced toward Mrs. Lanman, whose eyes were fixed upon her. At first it seemed as if that ladys presence would prevent her replying. Then, with a visible struggle for control, she said, Because Mr. Collyer could not endure that my position in Mr. Lanmans family should be talked about! and she laughed a serene, satirical laugh. William Lanman grew a trifle pale, and looked stealthily toward his wife. She had never removed her eyes from Miss Haghe, and as the last words wer~e spoken, a rigidity spread gradually over her white features; her head dropped upon her breast, and she slipped silently from her chair to the floor in a dead swoon. On the following morning old Dr. Eshams chaise stood rather longer than usual before Mrs. Lanmans door, and when the doctor at length came out, his benevolent face looked troubled. Dr. Esham had ushered George Mountjoys heiress into the world, and through her life he had been her tender friend as well as her medical adviser. The time had now come when he felt that in both relationships he owed her a painful duty. He had known for years that Mrs. Lanman was dying slowly of that rare complainta broken heart; and he had hated her husband as the author of her unhappiness. It was principally on ac- count of this dislikewhich he feared might render him violent or unjustthat he so dreaded to carry out the resolution he had formed during that morning visit. However, he had fotmed it, and he was not the man to turn back. About noon that same day, Mr. Lanman was somewhat surprised by the re- ception of a note, stating that Dr. Esham would call on Mrs. Lanman at one oclock, and desired to meet her husband in her room. She has no father to take her part, or brother either; and not overmuch spirit of her ownpoor bairn said the doctor to himselfi, as he sealed this missive, and P11 not see her die of that mans false doings, if it is in my power to stop it! Punctually at, the appointed hour Mr. Lanman was admitted to his wifes room by Dr. Esham, that gentleman having unconsciously pushed his spectacles up and turned back his wristbands in anticipation of the interview. I have come at your bidding, doctor, said Mr. Lanman, in his courtly way. Walk in, sir, said the doctor. Yes, I sent for you. You have, perhaps, some business with me? suggested Mr. Lanman, hav- ing merely bowed fo his wife. Precisely, sir, returned the doctor; sit down. Mr. Lanman obeyed. It is customary, the doctor began, for a patients friends to ask a physi- S 70 THE GALAXY. [JAN., cian his opinion of the case, and the cause of the malady; but as no one has questioned me about Mrs. Lanman, I have determined to give my opinion un- solicited. Mr. Lanman listened quietly, and made no answer. And my opinion is, continued the doctor, waxing warm, that Mrs. Lan- mans constitution cannot much longer stand the strain of such suffering and excitement as she is subjected to No change came over the husbands faceno answer from his lips. His silence rather staggered the, old doctor, who needed the fuel of retorted words to keep up the flame of his intention. But he began again, walking about the room as he talked: Dont think, Mr. Lanman, that anybody is accountable for what Im saying but myself. If Im meddling, Im meddling at no ones suggestion. I dont come here to make trouble, heaven knows I dont; but Ive known Emily Mountjoy longer than you have, and Ive known and loved her father before her, and I cant watch her die without making my prot& st against that which is killing her. Mr. Lanman bowed his head, but still made no reply. I have brought you here, continued the doctor, to ask justice for her! I want you to stand face to face with her, and remember that you swore to for- sake all others for her! And I want you to understand that it is because she is jealous, wretched, neglected, that she is sick unto death. I can do nothing more for her. You can do all. I hope, doctor, said Mr. Lanman, then, at last, that Mrs. Lanman has every care and attention. I do not perceive what it is in my power to do for her. You wish to misunderstand me, sir, said the doctor, hotly. I t is in your power, I suppose, to stop the scandal that is afloat about you? William Lanman turned pale, but he said, quietly enough: I dare say, doctor, that you have meant well, but you have given yourself a needless trouble. It may surprise you to learnsince you have referred to the gossip about methat the occasion for it it is fully sanctioned by Mrs. Lanman. Dr. Esham faced him silently for a minute; then, unconsciously, he raised his fist and shook it slowly, threateningly: Take care, sir; take care, sir, what you say! Women are often fools when they love; they give up their will, and their way, and their money, and all that, just as a man asks for it; but there is one thing, sir, they dont ~~ive They dont give their consent to have their husband bring hishistheir rival, sir under their very roof! Mr. Lanman had lifted his head, and, as the doctor continued to speak, he rose slowly, like a man who is mesmerized. What do you mean? he asked, in a blunted way. I meanI mean, said the old doctor, getting nervous and excited, I mean this Miss Hagh e! And, as he uttered the name, he drew his handker- chief across his forehead, on which the sweat stood in beads. William Lanman put his hands out, as a man who begs to be spared. Doctor, doctor! he faltered, passionately, Gervase H ghe is my own child! Dr. Esham staggered a step backward. At that moment there came a faint moan from the woman on the bed. They had forgotten her. Now they turned to her. Her husband recovered himself. 4 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. 7 You have heard all, he said to her, quietly; do you justify me for speak- ing the truth? Yes, she replied, faintly, I justify you. Why, then, is this relationship concealed ? inquired Dr. Esham, looking bewildered from one to the other. There was no answer for a moment; then William Lanman spoke, hitterly, as if the scandalous charge he had listened to had hurt him mortally: Because, he said, because she, turning toward the sick woman, had a claim upon me, as you have just reminded me, and she claimed the right to have things as they are! But, Emily, said the doctor, anxiously, you have done wrong. She lay there with her arms folded across her hreast, her pale, pinched face looking whiter than the pilloxvs which holstered her up; her eyes were closed, and her blue lips moved as if she was unable to articulate. Presently, though, the words came. Yes, she said, I have done wrongnot wrong as you mean, doctor, hut wrong in a far deeper, guiltier sense. Emily,~ said Mr. Lani~a~,in a tone of cold caution, recollect that things once said are said forever. Do not express anything you may regret. She paused, as if she weighed his words. I am going to speak the truth, she answered, finally. I am going to undo some of the harm I have done. Doctor she put her hand out toward the old man, who came and took it you are my oldest friend. I am going to leave you the legacy of my confessionyou can repeat it to the World. My child, he said, with tears, it is impossible that you have much to confess. She did not appear to have heard him. Do you often see men or women die for love, doctor? she asked, thought- fully. He only pressed her hand. William, she asked of her husband, Is it not better that we should tell all? He bowed his face in his hands If it had only been years ago, he stain- mered. Mrs. Lanman braced herself in the bed. In the emergency the sick woman was stronger than the man. You have little guessed, doctor, she began, that the secr~t of the unhap- piness you have just referred to was rooted in deep injusticeworse than that, in crime The old man started. You are excited, child, he said, do not use such words. I speak the truth, she answered, you shall hear my facts. Years ago, doctor, there was a young and attractive orphan heiress. At the time that I begin to relate her history she had been in society a couple of years, courted, indulbed, spoiled. She was fastidious, and she had not loved. One day one ripe sumptuous summer dayat a college regatta, a gentleman was pre- sented to herone of the collegianswho, though a near relation to her was, up to this time, a stranger. But I cannot talk of myself as anotherI will not allow myself that poor shieldyou kno~v that the heiress was myselg doctor, that my husband was my cousin. It is idle for me to repeat that I have loved William Lanman. I loved him from the first. And heat the first he loved me 0 72 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Yes, yes, my child, and there is the errorthere is the sin. Why did his love not last ? For better, for worsethat was the vow he took If you have grown feeble and faded, it is not your fault, dear. You have been faithful and fond to him! Why did his love not last? repeated Mrs. Lanman, in a hollow voice. I will tell you why ! Because, through lovethrough love and pride together, we became yoke-fellows in iniquity. A womans love may outlast a partnership in guilt, doctor, but when did it ever happen that a mans was not turned to loathing? I say at the first, William loved me. I believe he did; and anyhow, there was every reason why he should court me, if he did not. His father had recently died, and by the singular provisions of his will William had become so to speakdependent upon me. He had been very wild, so report saidhad been rusticated from college for various scrapes~ had got hints about of his de- termination to make some low sort of marriage, and had altogether lost favor with his father, who left him his property, only upon condition of his marriage with meI having always been a favorite with him; and besides that, entailed the money upon the eldest childupon Williams eldest child andhis heirship presupposing a marriage with menecessarily upon mine. But the wording of this portion of the will was susceptible of different renderings, not providing for events which had actually occurred, and there was the kernel of the trouble. I have said that I believe, at tbe first, William truly loved meforgive that I linger on this point. He had not been much in the society of his equals among women, andas he frankly confessed to mebreeding and refinement werea fascinating surprise. Anyway, he appeared absorbed in my society. I was com- petent, at least, to appreciate, admire, and adore him; and I yielded without re- straint to the delicious dream of auspicious love. It was easy enough for our association to slip speedily and informally into a species of betrothal ; but, when some months had elapsed, and it become proper that definite plans should be formed, then, for the first, I noticed a singular reserve and embarrassment in Williams manner. A suspicion that to marry me was repulsive to him entered my mind and filled me with jealousy and despair. One day, at last, when formal matters pertaining to our union had been discussed by our guardians, we were left alone together. William sat by the table, strewn with documents, his head resting upon his hand. I watched him from my seat by the window. A half hour elapsed without a word being spoken. During that time I came to a conclusion and formed a resolution which, if carried into effect, would have spared us the misery of the consequences I am about to relate. I concluded that I was repulsive to my lover; that he would marry me only from mercenary views, and I resolved that I would absolve him from his engagement, and, at the same time, that I would make over to him my own fortune as a compensation for that he lost through the failure of his marriage with me. I loved him so well that I counted his happiness before my own. With this resolution in my mind, I rose and walked to the table at which he sat, William, I said. I know not what there was in my voice, but he looked up, suddenly, with eyes that blazoned his love and longing. He caught my hands, wrung them, and held them hard. Emily, he said, in a hoarse whisper save me! Yes, William, I answered, with a vague, strange feeling that I had drifted into some mysterious error I will save you from a repugnant marriage. He started away, and stared at me. You know it, then! Whathow much do you know, and what can we do? he asked. It was my turn to gaze at him in 1869.] THE LANMAN SCANDAL. 73 bewilderment. He szw that he had mistaken my meaning; that I did not un- derstand him. He fell on his knees before me, and told me with passion that he loved me; that his moodiness, his dejection, his caprice arose from the fact that there existed an insuperable obstacle to our unionthat he had already a wife! and I repeated after him, with a dull mechanical horror, a wz/e / It had been a hasty affair, soon soon repented, but irrevocable. She was a decent and vir- tuous girla waitress at the hotel in the village. I need not refer to the feelings with which he told ine he confronted his position, but humiliating as it was, no dis- honorable means of escape came to his mind. He took the girl quietly away with him when he returned to college; got board for her just out of town; furnished her with the requisites for acquiring an education; determined in a few years, when she should be fitted for a different sphere, to introduce her to the world as his wife. At the expiration of a year, she gave birth to a childa daughter. Insanity su- pervened upon her illness. For several monthsdo long as the physicians could hope that the insanity would prove temporaryshe continued with the family in which she had boarded. At last it was found essential to place her in an asy- lum. A private one was selected, and there, said Mrs. Lanman, for the first time allowing her excitement to master her, the unfortunate woman remains to this day. The child was placed out to nurse, with no information given as to her parentage. This, Dr. Esham, was the story I heard from my lover. I will not defendI will not even explain the motives it aroused. Four years had then elapsed since this marriage had taken place; he was now twenty-three. His tastes, his views, his habits had changed since he was nineteen. He plead to me that he loved me; that he had discharged every dutyshould always dis- charge every duty toward the unfortunate girl who had been made his wife; toward the child that she had borne him, but that there was nothing incompati- ble with these duties in his marriage with me. It was possible to obtainwith- out publicitya divorce. His life was before him. Would I render it a sacri- fice ? I could not tell him that I would. My heart, my hitherto unthwarted will rebelled against giving him up. I recognized hisargumentsaccepted his sophisms. I ignored eternal justice and the most sacred of human rights. I did this, Dr. Esham, and I have had my reward. I had not been married three months before I discovered that the guilty secret between my husband and my- self was undermining his love. He was haunted by a ghost of wrong-doing. At first I endeavored to preserve a complete sympathy with him. We went to- gether to the asylum to see herthe woman whom we had defrauded of name and place, who, though recognized by her Maker, and sorely afflicted, we had displaced on earth. Later, we went also together to see the child. I say together the word is a mockery. Two human beingstwo representatives of sacred responsibilities assumed and never to be cancelled but by deathstood forever between us. I dwell upon these torturing facts, because they torture me; partly, too, because they seem to me to exonerate William Lanman. If he could have forgottenif he could have .been happy, he would have been more blamable! He could not forget. The day came when he even proposed to me to make known the circumstances I have related. His marriage with me was, of course, legal, no publication of facts affected that, but he reasoned that the child had a claima paramount claim to recognition. At this time I was myself a mother. To recognize an elder child of William Lanmans would be, owing to the obscure wording, as I have mentioned, of his fathers will, to de- prive my boy of his fortune. When he asked this he asked too much of me. Besides this consideration was naturally that of the humiliating talk which the 74 THE GALAXY. [JAN., story would make. I refused my assent. I intrenched myself in my wifely claim. I argued that all the injury which could be was already done. I would have no exposure. Then the alienation between my husband and myself began; the cruel hardening on his part, the wild, vain pleas on mine. His heart went from me; he could not help it. She had straightened herself in the bdd, her knees drawn up. She crouched to them now, clasping them with her wrung hands. Old Dr. Esham, who was the purest, most simple-minded of men, had lis- tened with a mingling of amazement and horror. Emily, Emily, he moaned, as she paused, hardly knowing xvhat it was he said What shall you do to be saved? She pursued, without minding him: After fifteen years of struggle, of cold- ness, of wretchedness too dreary to be understood, I gave my consent, six months since, to Gervases comingnot my consent to her recognition, only to her pres- ence. You have seen what has come of it. Yes, yes, I have seen, said Dr. Esham. Considering the consequences of her comin~ upon purely selfish and per- sonal grounds, I never dreamed of the misconception which has ensued until it was too late fot anything but the truth to rectify it. I could not make up my mind to speak this truth, I looked upon myself as the injured person. I insisted still upon concealment. I knew that Gervase had a lover. I was indifferent also to this fact. I for- got my own youth, with its wild tenderness, its sensibility. I cannot tell how it was, for I had made up my mind that nothing should ever soften my heart toward her, so I cannot tell how it was, but last night, when she said before me that her lover had insulted her by suspectin~ her, there arose within me a sud- den womanly sympathy for her womanhood, a startling conviction that she had been wholly sinned againstaye, sinninga terrible self-condemnation for the share I had had in marring her fate! But, Emily, said the old doctor, anxiously, you will A faint smile crossed Mrs. Lanmans sick face. Yes, she said, sharply; I will undo what I can of the harm I have done. To-day the world shall know all ! We will do justice now, though the heavens fall I learned a little while ago that shethe woman I displaced was betterwould one day be well. If it is so, let her come here now? Let her displace me as I Emily, interrupted Mr. Lanman she of whom you speak is dead. A dispatch came to me an hour ago~vhen I little anticipated this scene. She died last night. Mrs. Lanman threw her arms above her head, and fell back in a faint. Dr. Esham roused himself to restore her, her husband standing by, watching her with an expression which transfigured his face, an expression which told better than words could tell the story of the rQmorse which had marred his life and calloused his heart. And through the gloom of this expression brightened a ray of hope. God ! he cried. I am free now to forgive myselfto comfort her! The words seemed to pierce her stagnant senses. She opened her eyes, and read the look on her husbands face. She stretched her arms to him. At last, at last! she sobbed, with her head upon his breast. Yes, Emilywifeat last we will undo together this great wrong. Doctor, said Mrs. La~nman, tearfully, bring Gervase. 1869.1 THE WAKING OF THE CID. 75 The old man was looking for his spectacles, and his gloves, and his hatall of which were in his hand. Thatthat I will, he said, in a choking voice; and Edward Collyer, too The window through which Mrs. Lanman had watched the pale sunshine and the purple shadoxvs, was closed, and such ghosts as might haunt the draw- ing-room and library, were bolted and barred within. The Lanmans went away, and all the world wondered at the solution of the scandal concerning them which they left behind. It was very peculiar, the world thought, that low first marriage, its concealment, and consequences. Mrs. Lanmans course was pro- nounced very weak, and Mr. Lanmans very singular. It was discovered that Gervase was remarkably handsome, and so like her father, that it was quite astonishing that no one had suspected their relation. When she came back six months later as Everard Collyers bride, with her proud way and her Paris things, she met a most flattering welcome. William Lanman and his wife did not hasten back to the scenes of their sufferings. With their invalid son they lived quietly in Italy till the scandal should be forgotten. And was there any forgetfulness for them? was there any bloom still left to life, any freshness to feeling? Well, we sow dragons teeth when we sin, but at least calm came to them, and they made such reparation as was possible. Their only child lived to barely attain his majority, and the Lanman fortune went to Gervase Collyers eldest born. MRS. W. H. PALMER. THE WAKING OF THE CID. R 0 DRIGO of Bivar has risen! his fleet steed snuffs the air! And he has blown a trumpet-blast that rings from Finist~rre To Seville and to Malaga washed by the southern seas, And echoes through the hamlets hid in the pine-dark Pyrenees. All to the rescue, Spaniards! Rodrigo rides before! Now, who will ficrht for God and right with the Cid Campeador? b I slumbered w.ell in Burgos till the winds of broad Castile ~Vhispered the hour was dawning of the nations woe or weal; Then the ages but a moment seemed; the dead fire blazed again; And I leapt from my long sleep to cry, Iso, cavaliers, for Spain! Now, who will grudge or gold or life to make the victory sure? For faithless Queen and perjured priest are worse than pagan Moor. O Ferdinand and Isabel! ye should have risen to see How the great nation answered his summons to be free! Castilian shepherds heard it, their fine-woolled flocks among, And the dogs were left to guard the sheep ere vesper-bells had rung; And the carriers of Galicia, in Santiagos aisle, Vowed by St. James to follow, and thronged each dark defile.

1869.1 THE WAKING OF THE CID. 75 The old man was looking for his spectacles, and his gloves, and his hatall of which were in his hand. Thatthat I will, he said, in a choking voice; and Edward Collyer, too The window through which Mrs. Lanman had watched the pale sunshine and the purple shadoxvs, was closed, and such ghosts as might haunt the draw- ing-room and library, were bolted and barred within. The Lanmans went away, and all the world wondered at the solution of the scandal concerning them which they left behind. It was very peculiar, the world thought, that low first marriage, its concealment, and consequences. Mrs. Lanmans course was pro- nounced very weak, and Mr. Lanmans very singular. It was discovered that Gervase was remarkably handsome, and so like her father, that it was quite astonishing that no one had suspected their relation. When she came back six months later as Everard Collyers bride, with her proud way and her Paris things, she met a most flattering welcome. William Lanman and his wife did not hasten back to the scenes of their sufferings. With their invalid son they lived quietly in Italy till the scandal should be forgotten. And was there any forgetfulness for them? was there any bloom still left to life, any freshness to feeling? Well, we sow dragons teeth when we sin, but at least calm came to them, and they made such reparation as was possible. Their only child lived to barely attain his majority, and the Lanman fortune went to Gervase Collyers eldest born. MRS. W. H. PALMER. THE WAKING OF THE CID. R 0 DRIGO of Bivar has risen! his fleet steed snuffs the air! And he has blown a trumpet-blast that rings from Finist~rre To Seville and to Malaga washed by the southern seas, And echoes through the hamlets hid in the pine-dark Pyrenees. All to the rescue, Spaniards! Rodrigo rides before! Now, who will ficrht for God and right with the Cid Campeador? b I slumbered w.ell in Burgos till the winds of broad Castile ~Vhispered the hour was dawning of the nations woe or weal; Then the ages but a moment seemed; the dead fire blazed again; And I leapt from my long sleep to cry, Iso, cavaliers, for Spain! Now, who will grudge or gold or life to make the victory sure? For faithless Queen and perjured priest are worse than pagan Moor. O Ferdinand and Isabel! ye should have risen to see How the great nation answered his summons to be free! Castilian shepherds heard it, their fine-woolled flocks among, And the dogs were left to guard the sheep ere vesper-bells had rung; And the carriers of Galicia, in Santiagos aisle, Vowed by St. James to follow, and thronged each dark defile. 76 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Ye plains of Andalusia! ye banks of Gaudaiquivir! What shouts of joy stirred all your groves and rippled your proud river! While maidens leant from lattice, from balcony and stair, And the crimson scarfs from their shoulders tore, and the roses from their hair, To deck the dark-eyed heroes that, resolute as fates, From valley and sierra poured through all your city gates! His cry came down the sunny realms, along the tideless shore Valencia old and Alicante her sea-girt cliffs before; From Barcelonas tranquil bay to Biscays surf it ran, And forth there hurried to the fray both Basque and Catalan. Then Madrid threw her banners out and every door flung wide, And up the mighty people marched, Rodrigo by their side. o Ferdinand and Isabel! wake and give thanks to-day! The False is dead! the Queen has fled! to France she takes her way! And Spain, a new world, rises from out her sea of woes Fair as the Indian islands to the Palos sailor rose; Glad as Grenada when the Moor and all his swarthy train, With sighs and tears for vanished bliss, sailed oer the southern main. The sky is flushed with morning, the star of h~ope shines fair, And the sxveet wind sings of liberty, rejoicing through the air! Display the old escutcheons ; ring every golden hell; And through each grand cathedral let fullest glorias swell Corcovas Moorish arches curve to the lofty strain, And Compostelas hallowed shrine thrills with the rich refrain! And thou, my Cid, Rodrigo, Rodrigo of Bivar, Speed to thy rest in Burgos, beneath the morning star! Cold mists may veil the rose-wreath, the clouds may gather dun; But the day is surely dawning, and at length will flame the sun Sleep by thy loved Ximena while Spain proclaims afar The glory of thy rising, Rodrigo of Bivar! EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. EDWIN BOOTH. IN the National Theatre in Chatham street, on a September night, eighteen years ago, a fashionable crowd sat motionless before the tremendous pas- sion of the great Booths Sir Edward Mortimer. When the curtain fell on the horrible death scene, and the spectators, like men suddenly freed from a spell, pressed toward the open air, the talk in the close passages and low lobbies was not only of the stormy genius who had brought them thither, but of a slender lad, another Booth, who was the Wilfred. Beauty and grace they accorded himgifts inalienable from the name. He might have talentmight become a respectable actor. No geniusgreat men never have great sons. When Junius Brutus Booth should dieHeaven long avert the dayhe would leave no heir to his crown. The generation to come would know, only by tradition, what this king of gods and men had been. Foolish fellow, this young player, to stagger for a lifetime under the heavy burden of his fathers greatness. Better ride in a circus or dance before the footlights. So, in i8~o, critics and public lightly blew the name of Edwin Booth like thistle-down upon their scornful breath. A week later he played Hemaya to his fathers Pescara, in Shiels wretched farrago, The Apostate. The audience good-naturedly patted his head in scant and careless applause. If he were ambitious, if he believed in his own powers, and had hoped to compel recognition of them, if he cared that he had not, nobody knew. The handsome stripling di~sappeared. Rumors of his playing in California or Ca- thay came now and then. Nobody cared. Booth, the matchless, was dead. They whose hearts held him cared for no other player, and believed in none. The busy town had new theatres and new comedy companies. When it ~~anted tragedy, it followed Gustavus Brooke, or Charlotte Cushman, or Boanergean Forrest. Melodramas were plenty as blackberries. Opera troupes came and went like Macbeths shadowfilled the eyes and generally grieved the heart. So seven years rolled round. Then the great posters of Burtons Theatre, on Broadway, opposite Bond street, announced that Edwin Booth would ap- pear May 4, 1857, in the character of Richard III. The company was not strong in tragedy; the young actor came without reputation; the season was late. But he conquered his place. His Richard was intellectual, brilliant, rapid, handsome, picturesque, villainous. But the villany was servant to the ambi- tionnot master of it, as a coarse player makes it. The action was original; the dress was perfectthe smirched gauntlets and flung-on mantle of the schem- ing, busy Duke, the splendid vestments of the anointed King, the glittering armor of the monarch in the field. His clear beauty, his wonderful voice which he had not learned to usehis grace, his fine artistic sense, made all triumphs seem possible to this young man. ~vidently there was great power in the new actorpower untrained, vigor ill-directed. But what was plainest to be seen was the nervous, impulsive temperament, which would leave him no rest, save in achievement. He might come back to us a robustious, periwig- pated fellow, the delight and wonder of the galleries. He might come ~back the thorough artist, great in repose as in action. But it was clear enough that what he then was in Richard, in Richelieu, in Sir Edward Mortimer, he would never

EDWIN BOOTH. IN the National Theatre in Chatham street, on a September night, eighteen years ago, a fashionable crowd sat motionless before the tremendous pas- sion of the great Booths Sir Edward Mortimer. When the curtain fell on the horrible death scene, and the spectators, like men suddenly freed from a spell, pressed toward the open air, the talk in the close passages and low lobbies was not only of the stormy genius who had brought them thither, but of a slender lad, another Booth, who was the Wilfred. Beauty and grace they accorded himgifts inalienable from the name. He might have talentmight become a respectable actor. No geniusgreat men never have great sons. When Junius Brutus Booth should dieHeaven long avert the dayhe would leave no heir to his crown. The generation to come would know, only by tradition, what this king of gods and men had been. Foolish fellow, this young player, to stagger for a lifetime under the heavy burden of his fathers greatness. Better ride in a circus or dance before the footlights. So, in i8~o, critics and public lightly blew the name of Edwin Booth like thistle-down upon their scornful breath. A week later he played Hemaya to his fathers Pescara, in Shiels wretched farrago, The Apostate. The audience good-naturedly patted his head in scant and careless applause. If he were ambitious, if he believed in his own powers, and had hoped to compel recognition of them, if he cared that he had not, nobody knew. The handsome stripling di~sappeared. Rumors of his playing in California or Ca- thay came now and then. Nobody cared. Booth, the matchless, was dead. They whose hearts held him cared for no other player, and believed in none. The busy town had new theatres and new comedy companies. When it ~~anted tragedy, it followed Gustavus Brooke, or Charlotte Cushman, or Boanergean Forrest. Melodramas were plenty as blackberries. Opera troupes came and went like Macbeths shadowfilled the eyes and generally grieved the heart. So seven years rolled round. Then the great posters of Burtons Theatre, on Broadway, opposite Bond street, announced that Edwin Booth would ap- pear May 4, 1857, in the character of Richard III. The company was not strong in tragedy; the young actor came without reputation; the season was late. But he conquered his place. His Richard was intellectual, brilliant, rapid, handsome, picturesque, villainous. But the villany was servant to the ambi- tionnot master of it, as a coarse player makes it. The action was original; the dress was perfectthe smirched gauntlets and flung-on mantle of the schem- ing, busy Duke, the splendid vestments of the anointed King, the glittering armor of the monarch in the field. His clear beauty, his wonderful voice which he had not learned to usehis grace, his fine artistic sense, made all triumphs seem possible to this young man. ~vidently there was great power in the new actorpower untrained, vigor ill-directed. But what was plainest to be seen was the nervous, impulsive temperament, which would leave him no rest, save in achievement. He might come back to us a robustious, periwig- pated fellow, the delight and wonder of the galleries. He might come ~back the thorough artist, great in repose as in action. But it was clear enough that what he then was in Richard, in Richelieu, in Sir Edward Mortimer, he would never 78 THE GALAXY. [JAN., be again. A short season in t8~8 showed that he was growing in the right di- rection. In iS6o he reappeared at Winter Garden in Hamlet. Certain spurts and dashes of power were gone; certain striking but fantastic readings and bits of business had been abandoned. The actor had attained repose. His Hamlet was a lovely poem. Its princeliness was its most exquisite quality. Its intellectual power, its capacity of emotion, were less emphasized. He played other characters with varying artistic success, but always with the approbation of the public. We had a new and a great actor, and were proud of him; so proud, indeed, that there was reason to fear we might kill him with our kind- ness. It is strong praise to say that he accepted all apPlause but as the in- centive to better things, and that the indiscriminate flattery of admiration he thanked men for as the utterance of personal regard, and straightway forgot it. In 186465 he came again to Winter Garden, and played Hamlet for one hundred nights. Since then he has given both Richelieu and the Merchant of Venice, with more splendid appointments. But at that time nothing like the completeness of the misc en sc?ne had been attempted for years. As the curtain rose on the lonely sentinels pacing their beat before the castle, a wind seemed to blow across from the northern sea with premonition of death. There was terror in the tale of the night watchers shivering under the black skies. It was a relief when the scene shifted and the warm light gin wed on the crimson audience chamber and the rich dresses of the court. Before the splendid King and Queen bent a slight, lithe figure, robed in black, which seemed to absorb gloomily into itself the brightness of the place; and cast a shadow on itso sad, so desolate, so intense, so stricken it stood. When the King came toward it, with open palm and loud And now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, it started slightly and moved away; the scornful A little more than kin and less than kind, falling in a half-whisper from its lips. While the Queen addressed to Hamlet her querulous commonplaces about death, he seemed to shake off a little his abstraction; listened as one who endured, and answered with enforced respect- fulne~s of manner, Ay, madam, it iscommon. But there was the agony of a deep heart in the Seems, madamnay, it isI know not seems, and the lines that follow. Then one understood what his love for his father had been, and what his grief xvas. He heard the coarse harangue of the King with a cour- tiers silence, only the spasmodic closing of the hand at the words, Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son, revealin5 the inward passion. He followed the departing court up the room, then returning, burst into the soliloquy, 0 that this too, too solid flesh would melt. This be gave, moving from side to side of the stage, or half flung down upon his chair in an attitude of utter aban- donment. But this soliloquy was most unequal. Sometimes it seemed the mer- est repetition of words to him. Sometimes it seemed to shake his being, and sometimes the lines, 0 God, 0 God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uaes of this world, moaned themselves forth in tones so bitter and so hopeless, that one looked to see him end the scene with his l~are bodkin. The instant change from the pas- sionate desolation of his grief to the exquisite courtesy of the host, when the three young men approachwith his tender welcome to Horatiowas one of the finest of his transitions. Indeed, the whole expression of his love for that strong, faithful, limited, unimaginative nature, was very truthful. He leaned on him to the last, and seemed to go out upon the dread unknown with firmer soul, because his friends even and undaunted spirit lent him courage. The story of 1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. 79 the appearance of the ghost he hears with feverish eagerness, but with extreme quiet. The one blemish is the shbuted, If it assume my noble fathers person Ill speak to it, tho hell itself should gape And hid he hold my peace. It is not a bravado, but a sacred resolve. Bluster is not intensity. And a conversation of so tremendous import, carried on, not in Hanilets cabinet, but in a state chamber of the palace, open to any approach, would be held in bated breath, with finger on the lips, rather than in tones to invite attention. The scene with the ghost is one of the finebt in the play. Hamlet is turned away, when Horatio suddenly exclaims, Look, my lord, it comes ! He catches sight of the vision, staggers toward Horatio, falls against hiin,gaspin~ Ano and ministers of grace defend us! It is not the terror of the supernatural alone. It is the appalling confirmation of his fears. It is the presence of his father hovering in some awful border land, which is not life or death, but wherein is seen the horrible image of both. His voice is husky and far away. He shivers as if the cold of the grave were upon him. Then reverence for the majestical presence banishes fear. His voice gathers power and sweetness as the words struggle forth. When he utters the one xvordfallier, his love seems to overflow it, and expand it into volumes of tenderest speech as he falls on his knees and stretches out eager hands to the solemn shade. The Q, answer me! was in- credibly imploring and persuasive. The terrible silence seems again to appall him, and the Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? was breathed out as if a man of stone had spoken. When his friends urge him not to follow the ghost, he answers as knowing that they have spoken, but unconscious of their presence like one in a dream; so possessed is he by the command of the King. He is deaf to Horatios remon- strance. The change to the passionate outcry against their hindrance of him the supple strength with ~vhich he eludes their hold; the instant return to child- ish submission and obedience to the ghost; the slow creeping away into the night; the half-doubt and shuddering dread that overtake him ; the re-resolve that come. what may, he will pluck out the heart of this mystery; his quicker step as he is lost in the shadows, are finely dramatic. When the scene opens, the whole stage is disclosed. In the distance glows the grim castle, noisy with the orgies of the drunken King. The ghost stalks into the moonlight. Down the massive steps leading to the platform stumbles 1-latnlet, crying out hoarsely in the darkness, Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, Ill go no further; and staggering for~vard, the moonlight falls on his ashen face, on his wild eyes, on his dishevelled hair. I am thy fathers spirit, groans the ghostin voice that seems to come from the lowest fires, wherein he is compelled to fast. Slowly, Hamlet sinks to his knees. There is no longer terror in his countenance. Infinite yearnings, infinite compassion, infinite ten- detness, agonized longing to know the truth, look from his face. So intense is the feeling that moves him that we, too, in the audience, yielding to his emotion, see, in the clumsy ghostwith his blue tarlatan diaphanousness, and his inhu- man drawl, and his elocutionary nonsense, and his entire satisfaction with him. selfthe majesty of buried Denmark. Fierce and strong is the excitement which he cannot wholly overcome before his friends join him; wild and whirling his actions, yet controlled withal, as he puts off Marcellus; solemn his bearing 8o TI-JE GALAXY. [JAN., as he offers them the oath; tender and sad his assurances of faith and friend- ship. The lines There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in yonr ~5kiloso15ky, he utters with a slight upward accent on the word philosophy, and an indescrib- able mocking motion of the hand. The talk with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is charmingindeed, nothing in Booths acting is more admirable than the naturalness of his colloquies. To his college friends the elegant prince talks airily, a little sadly, and with a purpose. But he talks. They make speeches to him. Even the unmanageable oration, I have of late, but wherefore I know not he gives with such unex- pected and delicate intonation, with such an air of thinking his sad thoughts aloud, that we quite forget it is set down in a book. He that plays the King shall be welcome, he utters with an impetuousness that seems to him to unveil his purpose, and in a quieter voice he offers welcome to the whole company. The whole scene with the players is perfection of art; his attempt to recall the passionate speech, the wrapt attention with which he listens to the dreadful prig who tells of Priams slaughter, to which his own dark thoughts lend awful- ness, the courtly kindness of his dismissal of the actors, the soliloquy Now I am alone, shook him to the centre. He heaped scorn on himselfbe wrought himself up to the pitch of desperate action; then he caught eagerly at the hope that the command to kill might be from hell and not from heaven. Always the shrinking of the delicate nature, of the religious soul, from the murder which the intellect looked on as inevitable, and the filial sense hurried him to undertake. In the third act the scene is handsomely set as an audience chamber. A stately double staircase leads to a gallery, from which small doors open on the corridors without. In a deep embayed window Ophelia kneelsHamlet is thus freed from the inconvenience of walking over her train without seeing her, which was a part of the old order of things. From a low arched door beneath the stairway glides the Prince, his head bent, his hands clasped before him, his step slow and uncertain. He steadies himself by the balustrade, moves on again mechanically, is stopped by a chair, sinks into itstill silent, still utterly ab- sorbed. In another moment the To be, or not to be, is uttered in a voice almost inaudible; and then, xvith intonations so wonderful and various that they will not he set down, followed the matchless soliloquy. The lines For in that sleep of death what dreams may come; and From whose bourne no traveller re- turns, shuddered with vague but woful foreboding. Rising suddenly and cross- ing toward the window he sees Ophelia. His whole face changes. A lovely ten- derness suffuses it. Sweetness fills his tones as he addresses her. When, with exquisite softness of manner, he draws nearer to her, he catches glimpse of the laxvful espials in the gallery above. Why Mr. Booth should accept the ad- ventitious aid of this stage usage, of which Shakespeare gives no hint, does not appear. His Hamlet is quite strong enough to dispense with it. He knows from Ophelias manner that she is playing a partshe, the one being beside Horatio, in whose truth he believed. He knows that he is vowed to black re- venge; must renounce all thoughts of love. He is half maddened with the secret of his thoughts. The cruel bitterness is not for her, but for women of whom she is one. Yet he makes an immense effect with this stage usage. When he says suddenly, Wheres your father! he lays his hand on Ophelias head, and turns her face up to his as he stands above hur. She answers, looking straight into the eyes that love her, At home, my lord. 1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. 8r No accusation, no reproach could be so terrible as the sudden plucking away of his hand, and tbe pain of tbe face he turns from her. The whole scene he plays like one distract. He is never still. He strides up and down the stage, in and out at the door, speaking outside with the same rapidity and vehemence. The speech I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough, he begins in the outer room, and the contemptuous words hiss as tbey fall. It hath made me mad, was uttered with a flutter of the hand about the head more expressive tI-ian the words. As he turned toward Ophelia for the last time, all tbe bitterness, all the reckless violence seemed to die out of him; his voice was full of unspeakable love, of appealing tenderness, of irrevocable doom, as he uttered the last To a nunnery go, go, go ! and tottered from the room as one who could not see for tears. During the play Hamlet lies at Ophelias feet, watching the guilty King with ever fiercer regard. As the action proceeds he creeps toward him, and, as the mimic murder is accomplished, he springs up with a cry like an avenging spirit. It seems to drive the frightened court before it. In an instant he is alone with Horatio, and, staggering forward, he falls on his neck with the long, loud, mirth- less laugh of a madman. When h6 lifts his face it is one over which ten years have passed, yet with a fierce gladness on it as of a man to whom a blocked way is opened, though it lead through blood. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, coming suddenly upon him while in this mood, are received no longer with the courtly kindness of the friend, but with the haughty courtesy of the Kings successor. They are deep in the scheme against him. They are knaves, gentlemen horn though they be. At last he will have done with shams. With most exquisite courtesy he tells them what they are. The greeting in this scene to Poldnius, God bless you, sir, is one of the finest single lines. There is such utter wear-, mess, there is such scorn of this miserable, dishonest, luxurious court, there is such despair of a noble nature set upon by ignoble natures, there is such impa- tience of this last crafty, unscrupulous, lying courtier, that the grace of speech is more bitter than a curse. Into the Queens closet, where a single light burns in the~ sumptuous gloom, and a crucifix gleams against the wall, comes Hamlet. There is no anger in him as he first accosts his mother. There is the awful obligation to tell her truths which are a horror to him and a shame to her. It is the terrible, intense quiet of his tone and manner which frightens her more than violence would have done. At the shout of old Polonius he leaps like lightning to the arras. The wild hope of the cry is it the King? as he stands with the lamp he has snatched up flickering above his head and his hand on the parted arras, makes the air shudder. He cannot bring himself to murder with deliberate intentthis deli- cate, humane spirit. If but the deed be done in this heat of accident! Looking down at the old man he utters Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell, with accumulating emphasis of bitterness, not more repenting the blow bestowed than deploring the failure of the blow intended. His reproaches to-the Queen are terrible; but never brutal, and never loud. He himself trembles and shud- ders with the pain he gives, but he never relents. lie is pleading with her for her soul. Suddenly upon his sacred anger comes the ghost in whose name he has spoken. For an instant of time terror touches him. Then a passion of tenderness sweeps over him. He reaches out his hands to the shadowy figure. His tones vibrate with love. When the ghost says Speak to her, Hamlet, in the same state of double-consciousness which marked his first interview with the spirit, he puts his arm around the trembling woman of whose presence he 82 THE GALAXY. [JAN., has ceased to be aware. He is appalled to find that his mother sees nothing where stands this figure so real to him. He follows it with his eyes, and when it glides away he follows it as one who had no life apart from itas it fa~les, falling like a dead thing across the threshold. Called back by his mothers voice to this hard life, a neiv pity for her softens his voice and manner. He dismisses her with gentleness. He would bear the burden of her sin, if it could he. The whole stage is open for the graveyard scene. From the shadow of the gloomy trees in the distance, Hamlet and Horatio come slowly forward; Hamlet sits down to rest on a low knoll, and talks ~vith the clown delving in the new grave. Here, again, the grace and delicate breeding of the Prince are airily fine. From the lighteci chapel wails a funeral dirge; the sad procession enters ; the two friends withdraw and stand uncovered in the shadow of a tall monument. When Laertes says A ministering angel shall my sister be, Hamlet starts back, mufdes his face in his mantle. and falls on Horatios neck with a despairing cry, in which all words are lost. In the scene that follows there is the agony of a wounded soul, but no artificial frenzy; there is the wrestle with Laertes, but no pot-house wrangling; there is the sad appeal to the old affection and the mem- ory xvhich should make them friends, but it is the appeal of a proud and clear soul, not of a ~veak or sullied one. In the last scene the lithe grace, the elegance, the beauty, the electric swift- ness of Booth, make his the ideal Hamlet. In the last speech to Horatio his voice thrills with an unearthly sweetness, as he pleads with that sure friend to vindicate his name. And when silence falls we look as on our own dead in a sadness too deep for tears. Edwin Booths Hamlet is, perhaps, the one portraiture with which he is most closely identified, and for which he will be longest remembered. It is easy to say that it is not Shakespeai-es Hamlet. There being as many Shakespeares Hamlets as there are students of Shakespeare, it may be sufficient to reply that it is Booths Shakespeares Hamlet, and that it has as good a claim to authen- ticity as Smiths, orJoness, or~ Robinsons. Perhaps a cultivated, conscientious, tireless actor, who gives his days and nights to studyto whom the traditions of a part from its earliest representatioos are as familiar as the advertising columns of the morning paper to ourselveswho lives in an ideal world alone with his imaginati onmay claim to understand and to interpret the Master as well as we, who go to the play-house three times a month, and, in our lofty arrogance, patron- ize the performance with a very pretty, indeed, no doubt, but not Shakes- peare. Nor is it fair to say that the success of Booths Hamlet is due to his per- sonal charm. Of course, the unmatched intellectual beauty of his face, his graceful figure, his voice that recalls the fable of Amphions lyre, the exquisite refinement of his presence, robe his conception of the character with the fit vesturebut they are the vesture only. It was the fine poetic conception, the artistic representation of a marvellous character that made the subtlest of Shakes- peares plays hold the boards for a hundred nights. And that it was not my notion of Hamlet, or Croakers, seems to me of no earthly consequence to any- body but Croaker and me. Why should we print our woes in the solemn xveek- lies, or make our moan in drawing-rooms? Let us be thankful for a Hamlet so fine that, we willingly admit, only ours could be finer. Richelieu, I suppose, is the most popular of Booths parts, unless it be Rich- ard; at least it crowds the house. The play was so splendidly put upon the stage, 1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. 83 at Winter Gaiden; it is so picturesque and so noisy; it has so many parts of elo- quence dear to the hearts of the gods; and its presentment of Richelien is so dramatic that its success is inevitable. The crafty, unscrupulous, able, witty, scheming ministerdevoted to France, devoted to the Church, but to France and to Church as monuments of Richclieus geniusfinds a wonderful interpre- ter in Booth. The excellences of the part are many. Its defect is unmistaka- ble rant and bombast. Perhaps the impressible young mechanics in the third tiers would clamor for more noise if they were denied it. Perhaps the conspira- tors can comprehend nothing but thunder. But Mr. Booth so seldom struts and bellows, and has so well taught us that this is away from the purpose of true playing, that it is not easy to forgive him. His Richard is so much finer than any other stage Richard ; it is so various, so bold, so strong, so subtle, so picturesque, that it takes the reason captive. It is after the play, when one analyzes the performance, that he finds the Richard to have been dashed with a human gentleness and pity to which the crook-backed tyrant of Shakespeare has no claim. Booth plays it as if the wrongs that Nature had heaped on hitn had set him apart from his kindhad armed his hand against every mans and every mans hand against his; as if the stunted hunchback, shut out from the sweetness of life, gave back wickedness for injustice, and dev- elish cruelty for slight; as if there were a might-have-been constantly pleading for what was. There was this in the first, I that am curtailed of this fair pro- portion. There was this in the There is no creature loves me, And if I die no soul will pity me. The part was the more winning, but the less truthful. Richards death-scene is appalling. He fights unhorsed; he fights running. Too desperately wounded to stand, he fights lying on his side, with a devils hate and rage in his face. Hurt to the heart, at last, he gives one mad leap into the air, and the dead clay falls in a horrible, shapeless heap at the feet of Richmond. Most artistic of Booths portraitures, save one, is the super-subtle Jago. Handsomer than Hamlet, equally graceful , gentlemanly, but with out the exqui- site breeding of that princely soul, fluent of speech, gallant of bearing, in a dress whose dashes of scarlet splendidly li~ht the pale darkness of his~face, he is a frank, keen fellow, whom the simple-hearted, grand Othello can not choose but believe. He has no stage winks and grimaces. Save in his soliloquies he makes no confessions to himself. If Othello had suddenly turned upon him, at any moment in their interview, he would have seen only the grave, sympathetic, respectful, troubled face that was composed for him to see. Herein Booths lago is great. It is great in its versatility. To Othello he is the truthful, re- spectful adherent and friend, whose duty makes a painful disclosure oblVatory upon him. To Desdemona he is the courteous servant, whom her beauty and her distress command. To Cassio he is the open and generous felloxv- soldier, ready to take his part in disgrace. To Roderigo he is a dashing buck, whose villany and whose pretensions the poor fool equally admires. To Emilia alone is he the inscrutable, black-browed schemer, whom she distrusts, but does not understand. In this character, without emotion, without passion, this clear spirit of evil, Booth is immense. Noticeably in two scenes, where he has not a word to saythat of the trial before the council, and the last, where he stands bound and woundedJago is the central figure, and that by virtue of no stage trick of action, but because of the intensity of his being. With con- summate art he maddens his chief. He seems reluctantly to confirm Othellos 84 THE GALAXY. [JAN., doubts rather than to suggest them. Not as a comment, but with deep solici- tude he says I think this hath a little dashd your spirits, and his delicate consideration will not let him see the entire meaning of the struggle in Othellos breast. It is only at the end, when he stands exposed in the presence of his victim, that he acknowledges himself. Then there is a fiendish malignity of satisfaction in him that Othello understands his basest baseness, and by that knowledge augments his own shame. I bleed, sir, butnotkilled, was the mocking defiance of a devil, indeed, whom mortal thrust could not destroy. The one emoodiment which is finer than thisperhaps because the tender- ness and frankness of the actors personality are in fine accord with itis Othello. On one memorable night, just before the Winter Garden was burned, Edwin Booth played Othello as those who watched him fancied it had never been played before. Splendid in costume, princely in bearing, with a languid grace, a calm, a warmth, horn of his tropical blood, this swarthy Mauritanian chieftain was a man to love. Simple, brave, truthful, romantic, fervent, he commanded by rea- son of his inborn kingship. That Desdemona should so worship him as to cling to him through insult and cruelty, as to separate them from himself as no part of him, was inevitable. His love for her was supreme. She was the one thing in his life. She was his life. His face was transfigured as he looked at her. His voice vibrated with unimaginable tenderness. The lines If it were now to die Twere now to be most happy, one could not hear without tearsso fond, so yearning, so sad they were, as with the prophetic shadow of the woe to come. He so loves his wife that he cannot doubt her. He suspects Cassio when Jago drops his poisonous hints, hut not Desdemona. Even the 0, misery! which is so often made the desolate cry of the wronged husband, he utters as if he felt and pitied the state of that man whom lago describes, but saw not that it could touch himself. It is only after the evil counsellor says, She did deceive her father marrying you, And when she seemd to shake and fesr,your looks, She loved them most. that the possibility that she could fail him enters his mind. Afterward, again and again, he puts the doubt away from him. But from that moment he is a changed man. The passions of the barbarian enslave him. Yet to the end his love for Desdemona shines through the blackness of his purpose. To the chamber of death he comes at midnight, solemn as to a sanctuary. The idea of expiation by death possesses himthe old heathen notion of sacrifice. But he loves this fair thing which he must kill, with miraculous love. It is not he who slays herit is her sin. He is but the instrument. When it was over and he knew the truth, the words he poured out over the dead body of his wife were too heart-breaking to bear. Love that the grave could not darken, de- spair that Heaven could not comfort, remorse that God could not deaden, cried out together. People do not talk of Booths Othello. Perhaps it is too fine to be popular. Perhaps it is too terrible. Perhaps the painfulness of the play sets it aside. But once to have seen it is to understand the noblest, simplest character in Shakespeare, and to be thankful for the grace of having lived to see that day. The Merchant of Venice, magnificently mounted, its scenes bathed in the atmosphere of the beautiful city, its costumes splendid, its music fit, its acting generally correct, failed to hold the stage as it promised. The Shylock was Un- 1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. even, botU overstrained and lacking emotion; yet in parts startlingly fine. Though it bore traces of profound study, one could never escape the belief that the actor had not fully possessed himself of the partas if each day modified his conceptionas if he groped for his thought. Yet single passages were wonderful noticeably the I thank God when Shylock hears of Antonios probable ruin, and A bankrupt, a prodigal, that used to come so smug upon the mart. Why Shylock must be the repulsively-looking wretch he is always made is not explained. There is nothing in the text that warrants it. He has a beauti- ful daughter. He is a man of wealth and note among his tribe. The hideous wig and lined face must be the relics of the time when Shylock was considered a comic character, and played in a false nose. It is bad enough to be sordid and cruel, without bearing a brand of Cain. With such a face his case is pre- judged, while there is really something to be said on his side. Lear and Macbeth, which should be fine in Booths hands, he does not give us of late. His Romeo, graceful and gallant, lacked clearness and color when we saw it last, but we hear much of the delicate portraiture it has become. There is a strong melodrama called The Fools Revenge, wherein he plays the part of Bertuccio, the kings jester. He is a deformed creature; hideously ugly, and painfully grotesque in the motley of the fool. He is swayed by two passions; a doting love for his only daughter, and a mad desire for vengeance on a noble who has stolen his wife. The swift transitions of feeling; the horrible exultation, and white anguish ; the ineffable tenderness ; the scorn, the bitter- ness, the agony of tears, the fantastic mockery of mirth, make this one of the great interpretations of Booths genius. His Ruy Blas, also, has sweeps of power and pathos, and quick alternations, which commend it to admiration. It is only in parts that are qu!te too meagre for him, like Claude Melnotte and the Stranger, that Mr. Booth falls below criticism. Cruel fate imposes on the habitual theatre-goer much of woe in the companionship of the loquacious gar- dener and the mysterious being in the furred cloak; but anything drearier than this fine actors Claude and Waldbourg can hardly be in store. 1f however, he has no affinity with mawkish sentiment, he has the heartiest liking for fun, as the outrageous pranks of his Petruchio, the merry recklessness of his Don Caesar testify. Perhaps his Benedick is a thing which the virtuous will one day be rewarded with. In ten years Edwin Booth has done more for the stage in America than any other man. First, he has steadily grown in the excellence of his art. The raw genius has become the trained artist. The fitful power that dazzled and de- lighted in great bursts has become a diffused strength which sustains the whole. An old tendency to attitudinize has almost disappeared. Indeed, his uncon- sciousness of his members is very noticeable in situations where physical action is violent, and in his ~1eath scenes he falls with such disregard of the frangible nature of bones as to amaze anatomists. The lump that lies upon the ground, shapeless and motionless, is one in which no shivering spark of life will ever tremble more. Year by year he reads with finer apprehension and with simpler naturalness. Year by year the actor is less to him and the art more. In his development of the scenic resources of the stage, he has done much for dramatic art. Every night of Hamlet, of the Merchant of Venice, of Richelieu, was a lesson to the artistic sense of the spectators. The stage was the real world. For the brief hour, the sordid, outer life fell away, and these buried times lived again, 6 - 86 THE GALAXY. [JAN., and we in them. Half of the people who witnessed these plays never read Shakespears. It is a great thing to give him thus to the multitude, the wonder- ful men and women of his brain, alive in their own brilliancy and splendor, walk- ing in the streets of the old cities, sweeping through palaces, the whole atmos- phere warm and bright with perfume and jewels. Who can tell what education of the artistic instinct, what awakening to finer needs, come of the sight of spec- tacles like these? But while one can speak with unqualified praise of the appointments of the stage under Mr. Booths liberal and tasteful direction, it remains to say that he has never played, in New York, certainly, with a company in the least worthy of him. So painful and marked is this lack of support that it is commonly de- clared to be due to an unworthy jealousy on his parta wish to be encompassed by an ignorance wherein his skill shall, like a star P the darkest night, stick - fiery off indeed. No one who knows the generous and unsuspicious nature of the man; his willingness to help inexperienced actors; his ready recognition of excellence in others, will believe this. It is impossible to defend the company. It can only be said that the star, absorbed in many cares, always at work, has left too much to the discretion of some unknown official, some Mr. Harris, who shall be made the scape-goat, since criticism cannot harm him. But, surely, it is not to demand too much of Mi. Booth to insist that the gentleman who plays Richmond shall speak the English language; or that the gracious Antonio shall not altogether dispense with a pocket handkerchief; or that the nobles and gentlemen in general should look at their parts once or twice before playing; or that Ophelia should be told in the gentlest manner, and with all deference to her delicate understanding, that she is not a singing chambermaid. If, in the new theatre, he will but give us Shakespeare with an intelligent actor in every part; if the courtiers who stand with folded arms will but be courtiers and not boobies, the world will owe him a debt it will gladly pay in honor, in praises, in fortune. And this same new theatre is the third great benefit he has wrought. A stately building on the corner of Twenty-third street and Sixth avenue hears his name, and exalts his fame. Built of granite, in the graceful style called the Reizaissance, it is a fit union of beauty and strength. The theatre proper, the space intended for the specta- tors, looks small, but it will seat eighteen hun.d red persons, it is said ; and every seat commands the entire stage. It is doubtful whether a democratic American audience will enjoy the four tiers of sofas, with their varying price and fashion- ableness; and one is apprehensive that the third circle or the amphitheatre will usually be empty, and so chill the brightness of the house. The arrangement is pretty enough, however. Ample lobbies and vestihules give a delightful sense of space. The orchestra is ingeniously concealed below the surface of the stage, and the old growth of violin-bows and music-stands, that come like a spindling and pale vegetation between the spectators and Ophelias g~ave, is plucked up. The stage is enormous, and the machinery so well arranged that scenes can be sunk below the surface or lifted into the mysterious spaces of the air with magical swiftness. The lighting will be excellent. We shall have floods of brilliancy without glare. And first, and last, and bestwe are to have fresh air ventilators in the garret and in the cellar, in the floor and in th~ walls. The dec- orations are not yet begun; but there is a rumor in the air to the effect that that sumptuous style, both in painting and upholstery, which may be called the steam- boat order of ornamentation, is to be rigorously excluded. Let us hope for a soft brightness which will not make all the women look sallow, or turn the 1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. 87 positive shades of evening toilet into hideousness. And might not the rows of lamps around the circle, whose odor and heat are oppressive, whose light, striking up, makes the prettiest face ugly, he abated? There remains logic ally one more appeal, which is offered, like Count Foscos tarts, in the sacred name of humanity. Will not ladies go hooded to this new theatre, as to the opera, and abandon the ugly little frights called evening bonnets ? The most beautiful object in nature is the human headits loveliest adornment the human hair. There is no reason why a woman should sit for three long hours in a bonnet that hurts her ears, and hinders sound, and impedes the view of those behind her. And it is a fine respect to the actors who enchant the time, for one to sit uncov- ered before them, and make the house as like a brilliant drawing-room as pos- sible. Once all women did it. Where are the courageous apostles of the fit and beautiful who shall reinstate the charming fashion? We are to have the theatre in January, it is said. It is to open with Ro- meo and Juliet, put on the stage with unexampled beauty and fidelity. After that we are to have Winters Tale, so mounted as to be the prettiest pastoral ever seen. And the Juliet and the Perdita will be rendered by a little lady of whose beauty and excellence report says much. There are other strong names in the new company, and thoughtful lovers of the drama look to it with earnest hope. LucIA GILBERT CALHOUN. EDWIN BOOTH. W HETITIER as Richard, Englands king, he stood; Misshapen body and misshapen soul, The outward frame fitting the inner part, Yet seeming to be plastic in its turn; A being scarce a man, lacking so much The links that bind our common brotherhood; A tiger-creature, with a playful vein Giving perfection to its cruelty, With all the instincts of the animal Uncurbed, unbalanced by a human heart, But with the added power of lThw an brain Or, as the princely Hamlets very self, A poet-nature for fair uses brined, We saw his shuddering soul drawn ever toward That faint but fearful lineoer-stepping which We drift into a darkness where Gods love Alone can reach usthitherward compelled By ghostly visitant from deaths far shore, And charged with dreadful purpose of revenge For which nor heart nor hand was flttin~ found Whether in that guise or this beauteous form, The lowest type or highest of our race, So perfectly he seemed the living thought Which must have dwelt in Shakespeares mind to casl Its wondrous shadow on the written page, That I could but imagine he had leaped That moment from the mi0hty Masters brain As sprang great Pallas from the head of Jove. ANNE M. CRANE.

1869.] EDWIN BOOTH. 87 positive shades of evening toilet into hideousness. And might not the rows of lamps around the circle, whose odor and heat are oppressive, whose light, striking up, makes the prettiest face ugly, he abated? There remains logic ally one more appeal, which is offered, like Count Foscos tarts, in the sacred name of humanity. Will not ladies go hooded to this new theatre, as to the opera, and abandon the ugly little frights called evening bonnets ? The most beautiful object in nature is the human headits loveliest adornment the human hair. There is no reason why a woman should sit for three long hours in a bonnet that hurts her ears, and hinders sound, and impedes the view of those behind her. And it is a fine respect to the actors who enchant the time, for one to sit uncov- ered before them, and make the house as like a brilliant drawing-room as pos- sible. Once all women did it. Where are the courageous apostles of the fit and beautiful who shall reinstate the charming fashion? We are to have the theatre in January, it is said. It is to open with Ro- meo and Juliet, put on the stage with unexampled beauty and fidelity. After that we are to have Winters Tale, so mounted as to be the prettiest pastoral ever seen. And the Juliet and the Perdita will be rendered by a little lady of whose beauty and excellence report says much. There are other strong names in the new company, and thoughtful lovers of the drama look to it with earnest hope. LucIA GILBERT CALHOUN. EDWIN BOOTH. W HETITIER as Richard, Englands king, he stood; Misshapen body and misshapen soul, The outward frame fitting the inner part, Yet seeming to be plastic in its turn; A being scarce a man, lacking so much The links that bind our common brotherhood; A tiger-creature, with a playful vein Giving perfection to its cruelty, With all the instincts of the animal Uncurbed, unbalanced by a human heart, But with the added power of lThw an brain Or, as the princely Hamlets very self, A poet-nature for fair uses brined, We saw his shuddering soul drawn ever toward That faint but fearful lineoer-stepping which We drift into a darkness where Gods love Alone can reach usthitherward compelled By ghostly visitant from deaths far shore, And charged with dreadful purpose of revenge For which nor heart nor hand was flttin~ found Whether in that guise or this beauteous form, The lowest type or highest of our race, So perfectly he seemed the living thought Which must have dwelt in Shakespeares mind to casl Its wondrous shadow on the written page, That I could but imagine he had leaped That moment from the mi0hty Masters brain As sprang great Pallas from the head of Jove. ANNE M. CRANE. THE FLIGHT OF DIOMED. FROM THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMERS ILIAD. WHILE yet twas morning, and the holy light Of day grew strong, the men of both the hosts Were smitten and were slain; hut when the sun Stood high in middle heaven, the Ailfather took His golden scales, and in them laid the fates Which bring the sleep of deaththe fate of those Who tamed the steeds of Troy, and those who warred For Greece in brazen armor. By the midst He held the balance, and, behold, the fate Of Greece, in that days fight, sank down until It touched the nourishing earth, while that of Troy Rose and flew upward toward the spacious heaven. With that the godhead thundered terribly From Idas cliffs, aud sent his lightoings down Among the Achaian army. They beheld In mute amazement, and grew pale with fear. Then neither dared Idomeneus remain, Nor Agamemnon, on the ground; nor stayed The hrothers Ajax, ministers of Mars. Gerenian Nestor, guardian of the Greeks, Alone was left hehind, and he remained Unwillingly. A steed of those which drew His car was sorely wounded by a shaft XVhich Alexander, fair-haired Helens spouse, Sent from his bow. It pierced the forehead where The mane begins, and where a wound is death. The arrow pierced him to the brain ; he reared And whirled in torture with the wound, and scared His fellow coursers. While the aged man Made haste to sever with his sword the thongs That hound him to the car, the rapid steeds Of Hector bore their valiant master on With the pursuing host. The re ~erend chief Had perished there if gallant Diomed Had not perceived his flight. He lifted up His voice, and shouting to Ulysses, said High-horn Ulysses, man of subtle shifts Son of Laertes, whither dost thou flee? Why, lilce a craven, turn thy back? Beware Lest there some weapon smite thee. Stay and guard This aged warrior from the furious foe. So spake he, hut the much-enduring man, Ulysses, heard not the reproof, and passed Rapidly to the roomy ships of Greece.

THE FLIGHT OF DIOMED. FROM THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMERS ILIAD. WHILE yet twas morning, and the holy light Of day grew strong, the men of both the hosts Were smitten and were slain; hut when the sun Stood high in middle heaven, the Ailfather took His golden scales, and in them laid the fates Which bring the sleep of deaththe fate of those Who tamed the steeds of Troy, and those who warred For Greece in brazen armor. By the midst He held the balance, and, behold, the fate Of Greece, in that days fight, sank down until It touched the nourishing earth, while that of Troy Rose and flew upward toward the spacious heaven. With that the godhead thundered terribly From Idas cliffs, aud sent his lightoings down Among the Achaian army. They beheld In mute amazement, and grew pale with fear. Then neither dared Idomeneus remain, Nor Agamemnon, on the ground; nor stayed The hrothers Ajax, ministers of Mars. Gerenian Nestor, guardian of the Greeks, Alone was left hehind, and he remained Unwillingly. A steed of those which drew His car was sorely wounded by a shaft XVhich Alexander, fair-haired Helens spouse, Sent from his bow. It pierced the forehead where The mane begins, and where a wound is death. The arrow pierced him to the brain ; he reared And whirled in torture with the wound, and scared His fellow coursers. While the aged man Made haste to sever with his sword the thongs That hound him to the car, the rapid steeds Of Hector bore their valiant master on With the pursuing host. The re ~erend chief Had perished there if gallant Diomed Had not perceived his flight. He lifted up His voice, and shouting to Ulysses, said High-horn Ulysses, man of subtle shifts Son of Laertes, whither dost thou flee? Why, lilce a craven, turn thy back? Beware Lest there some weapon smite thee. Stay and guard This aged warrior from the furious foe. So spake he, hut the much-enduring man, Ulysses, heard not the reproof, and passed Rapidly to the roomy ships of Greece. THE FLIGHT OF DIOMED. 89 Tydides, single-handed, made his way Among the foremost warriors, till he stood Before the horses of the aged son Of Neleus, and, in winged accents, said The younger warriors press thee sore, old chief; Thy strength gives way; the weariness of age Is on thee; thy attendant is not strong; Thy steeds are slow. Mount, then, my car, and see What Trojan horses are; how rapidly They turn to right and left, and chase or flee. I took them from the terror of the field, Aneas. To our servants leave thine own, While we with these assault the Trojan knights, And teach even Hector that the spear I wield, Can made as fearful havoc as his own. He spoke, and Nestor, the Gerenian knight, Complied; the two attendants, valiant men, Took charge of Nestors steeds. The chieftains climbed The car of Diomed, and Nestor took Into his hand the embroidered reins, and struck The horses with the lash. They quickly came To Hector. As the Trojan hastened on, The son of Tydeus hurled a spear, it misse~d, But spared not Eniopeus, him who held The reins, the Trojans charioteer, and son Of brave Theb~eus. In the breast, between The paps, it smote him; from the car he fell, And the fleet horses started back; his strength And soul passed from him. Hector bitterly Grieved for his death, yet left him where he fell, And sought another fitting charioteer. Nor had his fiery coursers long to wait A guide, for valiant Archeptolemus, The son of Iphitus, was near at hand, And him he caused to mount the chariot drawn By his swift steeds, and gave his hand the reins. Then great had been the slaughter; fearful deeds Had then been done: the Trojans had been scared Into their town like lambs into a fold, Had not the father of the immortal gods And mortal men beheld, and from on high Terribly thundered, sending to the earth A bolt of fire~ He flung it down before The car of Diomed, and fiercely glared The blazing sulphur; both the frightened steeds Cowered trembling by the chariot; Nestors hand Let fall the embroidered reins ; his spirit sank With fear, and thus he said to Diomed: Tydides! turn thy firm-paced steeds and flee. Dost thou not see that victory from Jove Attends thee not? To-day doth Saturns sire 90 THE GALAXY. Award the glory to the Trojan chief. Hereafter he will make it ours, if such Be his good pleasure. No man, though he he The mightiest among men, can thwart the will Of Jupiter, with whom abides all power. The great in battle, Diomed, replied: Truly, ~oh ancient man, thou speakest well. But this it is that grieves me to the heart, That Hector to the Trojan host will say I put to flight Tydides, and he sought Shelter among his ships. Thus will he boast Hereafter, and may earth then yawn for me. But Nestor, the Gerenian knight, rejoined What, son of warlike Tydeus, hast thou said? Let Hector call thee weak and faint of heart The Trojans and Dardanians, and the wives Of the stout-hearted Trojan youths, who fell, Slain hy this hand, will not believe his words. Thus having said, he turned the firm-paced steeds To flee, and mingle with the flying crowd. And now the Trojahs and their leader gave A fearful shout and poured on them a storm Of deadly darts, and crested Hector raised His thundering voice and shouted after them. Oh son of Tydeus ! the swift-.riding Greeks Have honored thee beyond all other men, At banquets, with high place, and delicate meats, And flowing cups. They will despise thee now, For thou art like a woman. Timorous girl! Take thyself hence, and never think that I Shall yield to thee, that thou mayst climb our towers And bear away our women to thy ships, For I shall give thee first the doomed death. He spoke, and Diomed, in doubtful mood, Questioned his spirit whether he should turn His steeds and fight with Hector. Thrice the thought Arose within his mind, and thrice on high Uttered the all-forecasting Jupiter His thunder from the Id~an mounta sign Of victory changing to the Trojan side. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. CRIME LAND! It is not discernible upon any pictorial globe, or in any popular atlas. Yet it is in eitber hemisphere, on every continent, and reached directly by the express trains of volition. It appertains to domains of moral, but not of physical geography. Its latitudes are limitless. Its territory is boundless. Its zones are generally either frigid or torrid, but seldom temperate. Few have nativity within it. Its mass of population is naturalized, and no par- ticular forms of naturalization are prescribed. It is without government, and codes of law are its peoples abhorrence. Few travel within it to return as light- hearted as they were on first entering its queer domain. It has no custom- houses for duties, and it exults in freedom of transactions, commercial and pro- fessional. It does not use passports. But, of all lands, Crime Land is the most heavily taxed! It is approached by many channels. A principal one reminds us of that one throu~h which Ulysses sailed when, with courage little known to this day, he asked to be bound to the mast lest the Syrens should decoy him. Another channel recalls the passage between Scylla and Charybdis. All the channels separating Good Land and Crime Land are, however, very narrow. On occasion of this our excursion we visit it so as to land on its pleasantest and quit it on its worst coast. Our excursion party is headed by Mr. Clergyman, Mr. Detective, and Mr. Attorney. They are the licensed guides to Crime Land. No legislature deprives them of their free travel passes. And soon board of the regular ferry-boat, of reckless speed, and called Temptation, we take passage through the Syren channels. And drowning conscience for a short time in some of the reckless draughts with which that steamboat-bar abounds, we bid au revoir to the shores of Good Land, and, almost before thought can find expression, we near the coasts of Crime Land. On arriving, Mr. Attorney, who loves to play Sir Oracle and ope his mouth often, remarks that Crime Land is properly divided into Vice-Province, Misdemeanorshire, and Felony-Dominion.~~ We have landed at the principal pier of Vice-Province. As yet our baggage is safe. Riches are the baggage of virtue, says Bacon. And that kind of baggage is always safe upon the pier in question. Farther on in the journey it is that the baggage of virtue becomes diminished. Surely! Mr. Guide, cries one innocent young traveller, just from a fresh-. man-class in college, this is not the beginning of Crime Land. Its shorcs are much like those we have left. Here are the same kind of cosy clubs, the theatres are only a trifle more meretricious, the newspapers are only a little more sensational, and the gambling is with fifty-two pieces of cabalistic card paper instead of with the fifty-two pieces of railway shares in the Good Land left behind.? But the other travellers are too much fascinated in looking around at the nov- elties of Vice-Province, that seem, at first sight, so innocent and proper, to hear Mr. Freshmans talk. They indeed look desirous of lingering and exploring. But Mr. Detective blows his warning whistle, and he looks at Mr. Freshman as if to say thine eye-teeth, oh youngster, are not yet sharpened, while he tells

OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. CRIME LAND! It is not discernible upon any pictorial globe, or in any popular atlas. Yet it is in eitber hemisphere, on every continent, and reached directly by the express trains of volition. It appertains to domains of moral, but not of physical geography. Its latitudes are limitless. Its territory is boundless. Its zones are generally either frigid or torrid, but seldom temperate. Few have nativity within it. Its mass of population is naturalized, and no par- ticular forms of naturalization are prescribed. It is without government, and codes of law are its peoples abhorrence. Few travel within it to return as light- hearted as they were on first entering its queer domain. It has no custom- houses for duties, and it exults in freedom of transactions, commercial and pro- fessional. It does not use passports. But, of all lands, Crime Land is the most heavily taxed! It is approached by many channels. A principal one reminds us of that one throu~h which Ulysses sailed when, with courage little known to this day, he asked to be bound to the mast lest the Syrens should decoy him. Another channel recalls the passage between Scylla and Charybdis. All the channels separating Good Land and Crime Land are, however, very narrow. On occasion of this our excursion we visit it so as to land on its pleasantest and quit it on its worst coast. Our excursion party is headed by Mr. Clergyman, Mr. Detective, and Mr. Attorney. They are the licensed guides to Crime Land. No legislature deprives them of their free travel passes. And soon board of the regular ferry-boat, of reckless speed, and called Temptation, we take passage through the Syren channels. And drowning conscience for a short time in some of the reckless draughts with which that steamboat-bar abounds, we bid au revoir to the shores of Good Land, and, almost before thought can find expression, we near the coasts of Crime Land. On arriving, Mr. Attorney, who loves to play Sir Oracle and ope his mouth often, remarks that Crime Land is properly divided into Vice-Province, Misdemeanorshire, and Felony-Dominion.~~ We have landed at the principal pier of Vice-Province. As yet our baggage is safe. Riches are the baggage of virtue, says Bacon. And that kind of baggage is always safe upon the pier in question. Farther on in the journey it is that the baggage of virtue becomes diminished. Surely! Mr. Guide, cries one innocent young traveller, just from a fresh-. man-class in college, this is not the beginning of Crime Land. Its shorcs are much like those we have left. Here are the same kind of cosy clubs, the theatres are only a trifle more meretricious, the newspapers are only a little more sensational, and the gambling is with fifty-two pieces of cabalistic card paper instead of with the fifty-two pieces of railway shares in the Good Land left behind.? But the other travellers are too much fascinated in looking around at the nov- elties of Vice-Province, that seem, at first sight, so innocent and proper, to hear Mr. Freshmans talk. They indeed look desirous of lingering and exploring. But Mr. Detective blows his warning whistle, and he looks at Mr. Freshman as if to say thine eye-teeth, oh youngster, are not yet sharpened, while he tells 92 THE GALAXY. [JAN., him, in strong but concise language, look well out for your pocket-book. We are all about to take passage in the accommodation train, and leave Vice- Province, with its seductions, behind. Ah! says Mr. Clericus, nud,ing Mr. Attorney, who, if not theological, is practical ; how true is itand herein lies the danger to guideless travellers that the first shores of Crime Land are so similar in appearance to the termina- tion beach of Good Land; that the ferry voyage, from that fact, becomes often fatally deceptive to the traveller who had determined never to quit the latter. A motley crowd of passengers, who have bought regular, as well as commutation tickets, are waiting at the station. Some, as they examine our passes and ex- cursion tickets, shrug their shoulders, and exchange mysterious glances with each other. Many of them are seeking the interior because a sojourn in Vice-Prov- ince has left them penniless. Others have been back from the more distant stations in Crime Land for a visit, and to renew the fascinations of earlier days. Mr. Clericus is fain to address them; but Mr. Detective says another timc will do, and Mr. Freshman thinks it were better to lock them temporarily in the station-house, and allow the train to go without them. Some of the motley crowd do remain. In Crime Land there is, happily, locus 75enltenzlcz? as well as locus penitentiary. How slowly the train moves at first. We all seem to think that it is per- fectly easy to jump off at every crossing. But why is no warning-whistle blown? See, already a spendthrift, heedless of his danger, has been run over. The landscapes are certainly beautiful. Charming villas line the road. Suppose we get out and wander in yonder seductive groves, or while away hours beside the murmuring fountains. Remember Ulysses, cries Mr. Clericus. Youll never get back in time, says Mr. Practical Detective. Loudly laughs Mr. Attorney, but then soberly whispers, Ces/ le ~rernier as quz coute. It is not long before the train increases speed. We are entering a warmer latitude. Vice-Province has been in temperate zone. We are evidently ap- approaching the boundary of Misdemeanorshire. The brain feels giddy; the blood throbs quickly. There is a sudden stop. What ho, Mr. Detective; whats the matter? Only a sub-station, sir, in Misdemeanorshire. Come to this window, gents, heres a party getting out to have a prize fight. There they go with all their absurd paraphernalia, calls out Mr. Clericus. Mr. Freshman gives signs of joining; and incoherently mutters something about first claret, one on the nob, orators trap, peepers, and the like. You young rascal, vociferates Mr. Attorney; where did you learn all that? Why, from a family newspapersurely a prize fight worth reporting in every daily is worth seeing or knowing about! Here Mr. Clericus makes a note for a sermon. Mr. Attorney, murmurs a delightful sentence about liberty of the press, as away we speed, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle. Soon the road slightly roughens. So does the landscape. Look well to your seat, tis like taking an airing On a corduroy road, and iha~ out of repairing; 1869.] OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. 93 It leads one, tis true, through a hit of a forest, Grand, natural features; but then one has no rest, You just catch a glance of some ravishing distance, When a jolt puts the whole of it out of existence. There is a sub-station at every quarter mile. Assault-and-Batteryville seemed to be the largest one. We see the common scold and the virago and she was no village editor, either. We look upon the Billingsgate fish- woman whom Dr. Johnson knocked down with a pronoun. We see the patient, and often-fibbing wife, whose brutal husbands life is a daily perjury to his mar- riage oath of protection. The men who hourly rhymed muscle with tus- sle, are upon one platform. At one sub-station the riot act is being read by a Derbyite, who thinks a century of Irish wrongs can be put down by an act of Parliament. A George Francis Trainite in our party is only saved by Mr. De- tective from a hopeless interference. There are coarse-featured bystanders, whose cruelty to animals is the theme of an indignant and eloquent remonstrance from Mr. President Bergh. Jeremy-Diddlerboro has a large depot. The crowd of passengers here is large. An enthusiastic hotel proprietor in the excursion-car is anxious to get out and pay his respects to a well-known gentleman of the J. D. brand of social champagne, but Mr. Detective restrains him, as well as several shop-keepers, who are intent upon the like diversion. A picturesque crowd of gift enterprisers and rafflers and confidence men throng about the brakeman. At another stationwhere thick woods darken and swamps and morasses surroundMr. Attorney points out knots of men and women intent upon ma- licious mischief; or exercising their ingenuity to inflict nuisances upon their neighbors, libels on their enemies, and conspiracies upon their business or holi- day friends. At this stage of the journey, Mr. Clericus grows didactical. But he is in- structive. He has been reading for a short time (as well as the jolting would permit) one of Mr. Attorneys guide-books of the route written by one Black- stone, and he hands it back, and says, as he draws from his bosom the volume that we all of us first saw reverently laid upon childhoods holy altara mothers kneeand significantly tapping it, Mr. Clericus says The Crime Land of to-day, Mr. Attorney, is all mapped out in Deuterono- my. There appears to be no station hereabouts which is not known to the Mosaic law. Even the riot and conspiracy sub-stations were known to the Jews. Nothing new under the sun, quoth King Solomon; and his apothegm applies hereabouts. We give em new-fangled namesthats your sort, adds Mr. Detective. And Mr. Attorneywho loves to give an opinion, whether hes paid for it or notopines that every travel book written by lawyers who visit Crime Land, is but an amplification in detail of the words spoken from Sinai, which is the great landmark known and feared all through the country we are now in. But the whistle of our engine grows hoarser, and fairly sounds melancholic. The brakes are oftoner applied with a dull, thudding sound. The travellers brain grows chloroformed, and his blood runs more sluggishly. It is the half-way station of the journey that we approach, and at which Intent and Design are the mental deities, to whom shrines are erected at every milestone. Thoughtlessness, rashness, and cowardly malice or puerile passion have been the deities of Crime Land which we have passed. Indeed, Intent and Design are the deities whose shrines divide Misdemean 94 THE GALAXY. [JAN., orshire from Felony-Dominion. And it is on the borders of the latter that the half-way station lies. Heigho! Hark! the return accommodation train is about to pass. We step upon the half-way platform, and behold here are the return groups bound on a foraging expedition to the Good Land which we quitted. Mr. Detectives quick eyes are brought into service. Mr. Clericus looks more thoughtful and compassionate than ever. Mr. Attorney recognizes many familiar faces, and coolly nods. All the excursion party look interested. Yonder is Mr. Embezzlement, who has been beyond to visit at Larcenyville some acquaintances whom he ought long ago to have cut There is a large business in Good Land awaiting his returnin the good land where farmers till its honest soil. Mr. Embezzlement will also attend to the till ; but his soil will not be honest. He has lingered in Vice-Province as he went through, and has learned the music of the Syrens, and has broken the Ulysses chains and forgot- ten Penelope. He has learned to handle the ribbons behind fast horses, and to burn the midnight oil, not for the benefit of the head, but for the allurement of the heart. Poor Mr. Embezzlement, he will soon be watched for by Mr. Detective not in the Syren channels, but where the monster Scylla bellows and roars over the hidden rocks. Yonder, too, is Mr. and Mrs. Pickpocket, and Mr. and Mrs. and the Misses Shoplifter. They are all first cousins, and have been doxvn on a visit to old Fagin, and Charley Bates, and the Artful Dodger. They, too, are going forag- ing into Good Land, among the innocents, who xvear watches and diamond pins with shoddy recklessness, and in the shops where the agile greenback has jumped over the slow shilling of pristine times. In their company is Mr. Dummy and Mr. Stall, and a host of stragglers who xvear the wicked uniform of the confed- erates of Crime Land. Here, too, is Bill Sykes and Toby Crackit. We know them at once, for they are celebrated by their biographer, Dickens. They have their baggage under their arms. No need of concealment here. They know Mr. Detective to be off duty; and they have never made the acquaintance of Mr. Clericus. What a beautiful piece of polished cold steel Bill has ! What a flexible pocket-lantern Toby holds in his grasp. The diamond in the shirt-frill of one will ornament linen to-day and cut a pane of glass to-morrow. What thin-soled boots they wear. What delicate silk handkerchiefs for muffling use. What small pistols in their belts I must watch them covies when we get back to Good Land, whispers Mr. Detective, for old Miser Blunt, Esq., of Wall street, has taken to keeping bonds in his bedroom, and his servant-girl has been in communication on that subject with Nancy Sykes ; I saw them together .yesterday. Excellent locric adds Mr. Attorney, soUo voce. Let householders take b more care of their servants than they do even of bars and bolts ; and, above all, of the insinuating young vedettes who love to visit the kitchen when the family are off at the opera. Not far off is Mr. Garroter. He is not so strong, and lusty, and cunning as he used to be. He is the gorilla of Crime Land. Happily, many Du Chaillus have investigated his species, and told us all about his habits, so we have in Good Land traced him to his lair and learned how to avoid him, says Mr. At- torney. But Mr. Detective adds, that so long as there are felt shoes for a noise- less approach, ~nd stupid, absent-minded men who will stay out late, or walk 1869.] OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. 95 in suspicious neighborhoods, and until Journals of Health and manufactur- ers of steam men alter the configuration of the human throat, there are likely to be many members of the family which takes its name from Don Spinalis Medulla Garote, the Spanish executioner. Just here the joint whistles of the engines blow, and the passengers hound into or out of Crime Land, at this felony half-way station, having wet their own whistles after the most approved dyspeptic style in modern travel, are respec- tively under way. Mr. Clericus has shown decided symptoms of somnolence, when he is touched upon the elbow by the stereotype book pedler of the cars. He looks over the literary budget, and instantly awakes into a fit of indignation. Take them away! take them away he cries. Your leaves are leaves of the Upas tree. The finish of your illustrations, and the superficial perfume of the style, exhale their poisonous influences beyond these confines of Crime Land, and in- fect even the social circle. Some authors are concoctors of immoral narcotics. Theres a literary dissipation in vogue, and boys and men alike stimulate their mind with the strong drink of distilled rhetoric, until they get to be craving morbidly, like the physical drunkard, and until. it can be said of each one, by gradual steps he is brought to deaths door by a mental dyspepsia, or suffers under an intellectual ;;za,zia a j5o/ze. There is general applause by the excursion party, and Mr. Attorney raises his pedantic voice. Crime Land has its peculiar literature; but even in England, where the liberty of press is as great as in any part of Good Landeven in England, where the laws are supposed to be flavored with a verbena extract of E~,tab- lished Churchno Parliamentary cqmmittee has dared to define by statute the line at which literature begins to be demoralizing. It is a difficult subject to deal with. Legislator A.- would put the line at freezing point. Legislator B. might place it at temperate. Legislator C. might mark it at boiling point. So it has to be left to the shifting, unsatisfactory discretion of Mother Common Law whose life had many immoral as well as ethical interludesso that, as the law practically stands, what one shall be allowed to read, or be forbidden to read, is left to the arbitrament of social taste. Mr. Bookpedler is glad to jump off at Larcenyville, and Mr. Detective, with his guide-book in hand, informs the party that we are approaching Bigamy- boro, where we shall see a perfect colony of social confidence men, and some very wretched women ! Its very odd, says he, that when leap-year comes as often as a Presidential election, there are so few women who voluntarily set- tle at this ore place. The settlers are called men, and they dress like them. But its my opinion they are descended from the old serpent who went into the apple culture in the Garden of Eden. Look out of the xvindow there, as we stop. The most scoundrelly of the group is Mr. Marmaduke Davis, yonder. Everything is false about him, and, as is fashionable among gamblers and biga- mists, he dyes his whiskers. His cheeks are full of plumpers, and so are his promises. Mr. Attorney here knows how he was twice convicted, when Mar- maduke ventured into Good Land. Says I to the judge, dont send him to pris on. His worst punishment would be a condemnatiop to live with each of his six wives. Poor and unjust logic, quoth Mr. Judge, for why should we make the women wretched. Another train of foragers bound to Good Land whistles by. The rails here 96 THE GALAXY. [JAN., are appropriately laid of steeland highly polished. The closer one gets into Crime Land the smoother appears the travel. How many of them will come back, I wonder, asks one of the excursion party. Tis only a matter of guess work. The foragers are more ingenious than they used to be, responds Mr. Detective. Theres no copyright or pa- tent-office in Crime Land, but there might be, under the number of criminal in- ventions and designs, which are so cunning and original now-a-days. Honesty gives hints to dishonesty, and Crime Land shares in the history of progressive civilization. If these inhabitants, hereabouts, would give to honesty half the skill and patience which they award to its opposite, what useful citizens of Good Land might they be,this from Mr. Clericus, But I suppose theres a fascination in perversity as there is to the eyes of the snake when even the mocking-bird ventures into the morass. It is less true than it used be, continues Mr. Attorney, that murder will out. Yet it is curious how the force~ of Providence often combine against matured cunning. Or how often, like Achilles, the greatest hero of Crime Land finds there is one vulnerable circumstance to destroy his security. That hero gets to his wits end. Just as Mephistopheles said to Faust: Here we are again at our wits end already, where the thread of sense, with you mortals, snaps short. Why make a partnership with us if tho~i canst not carry it through? Wilt fly, and art not proof against dizziness? True as preaching, says Mr. Detective, with heightened interest. I know all about the opera of Faust. The rogues used to go always to hear it. I dont know why. Its a wonder to me how such heavenly music can be allied to such a devilish plottis especially true as your preaching, Mr. Clericus. Now, I was in the celebrated Webster case, helping work up that job. There was that poor misguided professor, who went to church all serene, who toyed with his family in their happy home, evening after evening, self-confident and self-reliant in his atrocious plans of concealment. But all the while, at every bed-time, as the song writer said of the educated Eugene Aram, Guilt was his grim chamberlain, And lighted him to bed, And closed his curtains round-about With fingers bloody red. Yes, all the while Dr. Parkmans false teeth lay uncalcined, but peculiarly moulded, in the ashes of the chemists furnace, to become the means of the murderers final discovery.~~ Now, cries Mr. Detective, we are nearing Forgery Dale, which is a very important station in Crime Land. Its inhabitants are mainly cultivated and ed- ucated people, who contract an unfortunate mania for autographs and stamp- collecting, xvhich produces great confusion in bank accounts. They are usually excellent actors, and are marked with humps of imitativeness. Did they keep their autographs for curiosities, no harm would come to the commercial inter- ests of the land; but the mischief is, that they sell them and at the same time sell their fellow-citizens. We pause at this station of Forgery Dale many minutes. There is much industry all about. At other stations there has been idleness. At other sta- tions the inhabitants of Crime Land seemed to be giving each other that re- markably lucid definition of a verb which occurred in Lindley Murraya word 1869.] OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. 97 signifying to be, to do, to suffer. Crime Land travellers live emphatically to do others, and to make others as well as themselves suffer. This from Mr. Clericus, who, it was evident, had caught up a Bar book of manuscript pleasantries. Yes hereabouts were great marks of business. Paper-mills were hard at worK. Professors of penmanship, with classes, abotinded. Pen-makers, cop- per-plate engravers, and bank-note printers industriously plied their trade. Never say die was no motto here. To die was one of the very branches of Forgery Dale industry. Then, beside the station, was the banking-house of the great National Bank of Cheek, whose circulatin~, notes were unlimited, and not even secured by the bonds of iniquity. Mr. Detective has a valuable hint to offer. ~The forgers who went forag- ing on the banks of Good Land, who generally took trains thitherward which left at 5:20, 7:30. or io:4o, he said, were wonderfully increasing. If the whole brotherhood of banks would agree to force depositors to use check-books that were composed of paper bearing water -marks peculiar to each bank, the chances of frauds on bank accounts would be lessened ninety per cent. No one but we detectives knows how large is the forgery profit and loss account. Where one forgery is made known, or apprehension occurs, five mor~, out of motives of pride and policy, are concealed from all except the police and the stockholders. But what is this new sensation ? The inhabitants of Forgery Dale have suddenly left work and are rushing stationward, to surround and greet two splendidly-dressed travellers from our train, who have been sedulously engaged in smoking. Perhaps smoking is their occupation. One of them is dressed in a suit of clothes whose texture is in all colors. Surely he must be a tailors chameleon. This illustrious and evidently popular chameleonic stranger to us, is no stran- ger here ; ana, by the by, we recall that several times upon quitting the train he was similarly welcomed by the inhabitants of Crime Land, as if he were a vic- torious General, or a dispenser of internal revenue patronage, or monarch of the whiskey ring. What a diplomatic and impenetrable face he has! Those fea- tures never mirror an emotion. He looks like an actor of the severely dramatic school. Mr. Detective solves our curiosity. The illustrious gentleman is General Alibi. Oh, Samivel, Samivel, why wasnt there an alibi? cried old Tony Wel- ler, after the Bardell and Pickwick trial. It was of this very General the as- saulter of Ebenezer Stiggins spoke. Listen: the inhabitants have brought out the brass band. They are firing salutes in his honor. Is he not one of the great preservers of Crime Land? He has fought, and bled, and sworn, and all but died in behalf of its liberties in a thousand court-rooms. Besieged often by the forces of cross-examination; beleaguered anon by stubborn facts, and sometimes utterly discomfited and forced to dishonorable retreat, nevertheless General Alibi never loses his pluck or his faith in the peculiar time-pieces of Crime Land. But who is his fellow-strangerhe who shares somewhat in the ovation. He looks careworn and nervous. He is scarred. He appears not to wholly like his reception, and moves as if stern necessity obliged him, rather than choice controlled him, in serving often the behests of Crime Land. His pendent seals are large and.well worn. One of them shows, cut upon it, the talismanic words, Magna Garta. Another seal looks like the one current in the reign of Charles II. This time Mr. Attorney solves our doubts.. 98 THE GALAXY. [JAN., Stranger number two is Habeas Corpus, Esq., born on the plains of Runny- mede, and who, thanks to British roast beef and American toast, is still in an excellent state of preservation. Now that we know his name we understand his nervous looks and his seals. We recognize, too, his long legs, for what quick running he does We under- stand the picklocks at his waistband. It is his legal mission to set the captive free And, appreciating his many virtues and goodnesses and services, in Good Land, we are sorry that Mr. Habeas Corpus ever prostitutes his services, and sometimes gets into bad company, in the country through which our eve- ning travel lies. General Alibi is going down to pass a week of relaxation at the castle of the Receiver of Stolen Goods. The receivers of stolen goods pet him very much. In fact it is they who mainly support him, and dispatch hi~ hither and thither, and keep him in spirits. Mr. Fagin has many villas and stores, too, in Crime Land. Sometimes he calls himself pawnbroker, and puts up his gilt sign of cab- alistic and Venetian birtha sign which algebraically means x top ball divided byy z, bottom balls equals the unknown quantity of stolen goods, that its two to one it is never found. But how bright the lower rim of horizon beyond, and how dark the upper lines. What is this? Sympathetic reflection, cries Mr. Detective. Far away in Good Land there is a warehouse burning. Wd are now flitting through Arson manor and Incendiaryshire. Its horizon is ever a mixture of reflected flame and shadowed smoke. And he draws from his pocket one of the magic mirrors that Sir Walter Scott gave to Aunt Margaret in Chronicles of the Can- ongate, and we gaze breathless on the surface. Night. A city wrapped in slumber. Now and then the tang-tang of the police club. Sentinel stars in the sky, which for Crime Landers to see, would make them feel that a mysterious watch was over them set. In the Citys busi- ness heart a tall warehouse. How ghastly the garish marble looks through the gloom. Hark! cautious footsteps that quicken as the tang-tang of the club diminishes its sound. A muffled man stops before the ghastly building. He draws a key. It fits the lock. He enters quickly with half the air of one who belongs there if his errand is good, but who should be stranger if his visit is for ill. Breathe on the magic mirror and the picture changes. Interior of the ware- house. Somebody stumbling through its gloom. Krah-f-f-f-f-f. There is a match drawn. And a candle has been lighted. What a face it discloses for a Pre-Raphaelite artist to paint. There are the good impulses of a lifetime, nnd the bad ones fresh born of despairing pride fighting for mastery in that upper lip. Its owner goes into the office. He opens a safe with its own key. He secrets papers in his breast. He looks out one of the books, and opens it. Bankrupt is written on it in dim, shadowy letters. The sight nerves his pride like strong drink. He leaves the safe-door open. He explores the building. The hands that in boyhood built houses from blocks on the happy nursery floor, now fashions in every part guilty piles of combustibles. How the veins lash his temples, like whip-cords. How his heart throbs as he bends. How white his face grows as a curious and innocent mouse crosses before him. How his wrist oscillatestis like the wrist of a twenty-year old dram-drinker lifting the cordial cupas he touches the candle here and there, and thithe? and hither, and dropping it in his flight, noiselessly escapes by the alley entrance, and re- seeks, with night key, the palatial residence where a few hours before he had 1869.] OUR CRIME LAND EXCURSION. 99 gone to sleep, had risen, and now goes to sleep againwith the sky crimsoned, and a thousand men out to the magnetic cry of Fire, fire as the great bells peal over the startled city. Sleep! Partial sleep will give its repose to the wet sea boy, but it will deny it to the new-crowned Arson King of Crime Land. Mr. Detective shrugs his shoulders as he pockets the magic mirror; and we ask him who he is, and where he lives, and whether the merchant was in- sured, and what he made by his crime, and all ahout it. Dead men tell no talesnor burned down buildings, either, when the jobs well setand the characters of them as owns them, is it not? Mr. Detective whispers hoarsely, and relapsing somewhat into his suhstratum lingo. But dont be quite disgusted yet, he adds to Mr. Freshman, who looks like a young sawbones for the first time at a clinical lecture. We are almost at our journeys end. When you look into all the guide books of Mr. Attorney there, and count up the stations of Vice-Province, Misdemeanorshire and Felony-Dominion, thus far past, you see at once it is about time that we were entering the dreadftd domains of Murder. I take no account of killing short of that. Crime Landers kill and cut and stab, more or less, of the sudden im- pulse, at every station. But the station of Murder Wood is all alone by it- self. Even the men and women who own lands about it shun it. No Asiatic jungle or African solitude can surpass it. The most horrible and singular of all geological formations surround and compose it. Avarice, revenge, and grudge and hate, infest it in the form of wild beasts. Of all the wretched Crime Landers who wander through its precincts, the poisoners are the wickest. Down came the window blinds on every side, as Mr. Clericus stopped, emo- tionally, for want of breath ; on every side, and except at one corner, where sat the artist and reporter of an illustrated newspaper, who were of the excursion- ists, and who shut not eyes or ears to this, the last station. The last station of Crime Land! The scream of rage, the groan, tise strife, The blow, ~he gasp, the horrid cry, The panting, throttled prayer for life, The dyings heaving sigh, The murderers cursethe dead mans fixd still glare, And fear and deaths cold aweatthey all are there. The artist and reporter had no time to sketch laboriously, for, with a slow, grinding, wheezing, crackling sob of all the brakes, the train came to a sudden stop. We knew by the dreadful precipices and cliffs on every side, and by the frowning prison walls, and scaffolds on the distant islands in a boiling, seething channel beyond, that we were on the other confines of Crime Land; toward the Scylla and Charybdis Straits, through which the fugitives and Crime Landers in their flight were wont to make exit from whatever station on the route they fled. Take our Court-house ferry-boat, quoth Mr. Attorney, as the party stood reflectively shivering in the damp air that hangs about these confines of Crime Land. That is a ferry-boat which will insure your safety. It will take you to the steps of those temples of justice that frown across the water on Crime Land as the Crime Landers frown on them. Through these temples you will find a dignified and proper entrance again into your various and happy homes of Good Land. A. GAKEY HALL. ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A CHAPTER OF WORDS AND THEIR USES. THE first punishment I remember having received was for a failure to get a lesson in English grammar. I recollect, with a half painful, half amus- ing distinctness, all the little incidents of the dreadful scene. How I found myself standing in an upper chamber of a gloomy brick house, book in hand it was a thin volume, with a tea-green paper cover and a red roan backbefore an awful being who put questions to me, which, for all that I could understand of them, might as well have been couched in Coptic or in Sanscrit. How, when asked about governing, I answered, I dont know, and when about agreeing, I cant tell, until at last, in despair, I said nothing, and choked down my tears, wondering, in a dazed, dumb fashion, whether all this was part and parcel of that total depravity of the human heart of which I heard so mucb. How then the beingto whom I apply no epithet, for, poor creature, he thought he was doing God servicesaid to me, in a terrible voice, You are a stupid, idle boy, sir, and have neglected your task. I shall punish you. Hold out your hand. I put it out half way, like a machine with a hitch in its gearing. Far- ther, sir. I advanced it an inch or two, when he seized the tips of my fingers, bent them back so as to throw the palm well up, and then, with a mahogany ruler, much bevelled on one side, and having a large, malignant ink-spot near the endan instrument which seemed to me to weigh about forty pounds, and to be a fit implement for a part of that eternal torture to which I had been led to believe that I, for my inborn depravity, was doomedhe proceeded to reduce my little hand, not yet well in gristle, as nearly to a jelly as was thought, on the whole, to be beneficial to a small boy at that stage of the worlds progress. The carefully-filed and still preserved receipts of a methodically managed household enable me to tell the age at which I was thus awakened to the sweet and alluring beauties of English brammar. I was just five and a half years old when one Alfred Elymay his soul rest in peace was paid at the rate of five dollars and fifty cents a quarter (a good price for primary tuition then), such ex- tras as wood for the season, ink~ and quills, and books, of course, not includcd, for thus gently guiding my tottering and reluctant steps into the paths of humane learning. Fortunately, my father, when outside the pale of religious dogma, was a man of sound sense and a tender heart; and as there was nothing about English accidence either in the Decalogue or the Prayer-Book, he sent a mes- sage to the school-master, which caused that to be my last lesson in what is called the grammar of my mother tongue. I was soon after removed to a school, the excellence of which I have only within a few years fully appreciated, al- though,as a boy, I knew that there I was happy, and felt as if I were not quite stupid, idle, and depraved.* Thereafter I studied English, indeed, but only in the works of its greatest masters, and unconsciously in the speech of daily com- panions, who spoke it with remarkable but spontaneous purity. My acquaint ~ Let me mention with respect and love, which have own with my year.,the names of my two teachers, Theodore Eames and Samuel Putnam, to whom I owe all that I could he taught at school hefore I left them for college. I know that should any one of my fellow-pupils chance to see these lines, he will declare with me that the hoy who cou~d remain eveis a year under their hands without profit in mind, morals, and manners, must indeed lsave given himself up recklessly to original sin.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A CHAPTER OF WORDS AND THEIR USES. THE first punishment I remember having received was for a failure to get a lesson in English grammar. I recollect, with a half painful, half amus- ing distinctness, all the little incidents of the dreadful scene. How I found myself standing in an upper chamber of a gloomy brick house, book in hand it was a thin volume, with a tea-green paper cover and a red roan backbefore an awful being who put questions to me, which, for all that I could understand of them, might as well have been couched in Coptic or in Sanscrit. How, when asked about governing, I answered, I dont know, and when about agreeing, I cant tell, until at last, in despair, I said nothing, and choked down my tears, wondering, in a dazed, dumb fashion, whether all this was part and parcel of that total depravity of the human heart of which I heard so mucb. How then the beingto whom I apply no epithet, for, poor creature, he thought he was doing God servicesaid to me, in a terrible voice, You are a stupid, idle boy, sir, and have neglected your task. I shall punish you. Hold out your hand. I put it out half way, like a machine with a hitch in its gearing. Far- ther, sir. I advanced it an inch or two, when he seized the tips of my fingers, bent them back so as to throw the palm well up, and then, with a mahogany ruler, much bevelled on one side, and having a large, malignant ink-spot near the endan instrument which seemed to me to weigh about forty pounds, and to be a fit implement for a part of that eternal torture to which I had been led to believe that I, for my inborn depravity, was doomedhe proceeded to reduce my little hand, not yet well in gristle, as nearly to a jelly as was thought, on the whole, to be beneficial to a small boy at that stage of the worlds progress. The carefully-filed and still preserved receipts of a methodically managed household enable me to tell the age at which I was thus awakened to the sweet and alluring beauties of English brammar. I was just five and a half years old when one Alfred Elymay his soul rest in peace was paid at the rate of five dollars and fifty cents a quarter (a good price for primary tuition then), such ex- tras as wood for the season, ink~ and quills, and books, of course, not includcd, for thus gently guiding my tottering and reluctant steps into the paths of humane learning. Fortunately, my father, when outside the pale of religious dogma, was a man of sound sense and a tender heart; and as there was nothing about English accidence either in the Decalogue or the Prayer-Book, he sent a mes- sage to the school-master, which caused that to be my last lesson in what is called the grammar of my mother tongue. I was soon after removed to a school, the excellence of which I have only within a few years fully appreciated, al- though,as a boy, I knew that there I was happy, and felt as if I were not quite stupid, idle, and depraved.* Thereafter I studied English, indeed, but only in the works of its greatest masters, and unconsciously in the speech of daily com- panions, who spoke it with remarkable but spontaneous purity. My acquaint ~ Let me mention with respect and love, which have own with my year.,the names of my two teachers, Theodore Eames and Samuel Putnam, to whom I owe all that I could he taught at school hefore I left them for college. I know that should any one of my fellow-pupils chance to see these lines, he will declare with me that the hoy who cou~d remain eveis a year under their hands without profit in mind, morals, and manners, must indeed lsave given himself up recklessly to original sin. 1869.] ENGLISIT GRAMMAR. To! ance with grammar as a part of my early education was made through the Study of French, Greek, and Latin. From my youth up I hated the name of Lindley Murray. I was thirty years oldlong past his making or marringbefore I gave any attention to his mysterious pages. Having then read a few of them, I laid the hook aside, and thereafter disturhed it, and others of like character and purpose, only as objects of special, curious, and wondering inquiry. My kind and courteous readers will pardon, I hope, this reminiscence, in which I have indulged myself only because in some of the comments, private as well as public, which have been made upon these articles, I have seen myself called a grammarian. God forbid that I should he anything of the sort! That I am unversed in the rules of English grammar (so-called), I am not ashamed to confess ; for special ignorance is no reproach when unaccompanied with pre- sumption. And what I confess that I have not acquired, I have not undertaken to teach. That task I leave to those who are capable of the subject, and who feel its necessily. If grammar is what it has heen defined as being, the science which has for its object the laws which regulate language, the remarks just made cannot be justified ; for, in this sense, grammar is as much concerned with words by them- selves, with their signification and their origin, and with their rightful use in those regards, as with their relations to each other in the sentence ; and it is in this sense but another name for the scienc~e of language, for philology. But, notwithstanding that definition, and its acceptance by some grammarians and some compilers of dictionaries, this is not the sense in which the word grammar is generally used. Nor can the position which I have taken he maintained if grammar is regarded as the science of the rightful or reasonable expression of thought by language; for grammar, in this aspect, would he so closely con- nected with logic as to be a part of it to all intents and purposes. But gram- mar, in its usual sense, is the art of speaking and writing a language cor- rectly: in which definition, the word correctly means, in accordance with laws which are based upon the relations, not of thoughts, but of words, and which are determined by verbal forms. It is this formal, constructive grammar which seems to me almost if not entirely superfluous, in regard to the English lan- guage. Long ago, before any attempt had been made to write its grammar, that language had worked itself nearly free of those verbal forms which control linguistic construction, and therefore free in the same degree from the needs and the control of formal, constructive grammar. And, strangely, it was not until English had cast itself firmly and sharply into its present simple mould that scholars undertook to furnish it with a grammar, the nomenclature and the rules of which they took from languagesthe Latin and the Greekwith which it had no formal affinity, to which it had no formal likeness, and by the laws of which it could not be bound except so far as they were the universal laws of human thought. Allusions to grammar and to its importance as a part of edu- cation abound in our early literature. In a rhyming exhortation to a child, written in the fifteenth century, these lines occur, My lefe chyld I kownsel ye To furme thi vi tens, thon awyse ye; And have mind of thy clensoune Both of nowne and of pronowne, And ilk case in plurele How thai sal end, awyse the wele; And thi participyls forgete thou nowth, And thi consparisons he yn thi thowth; Thynk of the revele of the relatyfe; 102 THE GALAXY. [JAN., And then schalle thou the hetter chryfe; And how a verhe schalle he fnrmede, Take gode hede that thou he not stunnede; The ahiatyfe case thou hafe in mynd, Tisat he he saved us hys kynd; Take gode hede qwat he wylie do. And hosv a nowne suhatantyfe Wylie corde with a verhe and a retalyfe, Posculo, j5osco, ~e/o. But, as appears on its face, this exhortation refers not to English but to Latin grammar, which was the only grammar then taught or thought of. That was the day of the establishing and endowment of grammar-schools in England, but the grammar taught in them was the Latin, and afterward a little of the Greek. Chaucer and Wycliffe had written, hut in English grammar-schools no man thought of teaching English. When, at last, it dawned upon the pedagogues that English was a language, or rather, in their significant phrase, a vulgar tongue, at they set themselves to giving rules for the art of writing and speak- ing it correctly, they attempted to form these rules upon the models furnished by the Latin language. And what wonder? for those were the only rules they knew. But the construction of the English language was even less like that of the Latin, than English words were like Latin. From this heterogeneous union sprang that hybrid monster known as English grammar, before whose fruitless loins we have sacrificed, for nearly three hundred years, our children and the strangers within our gates. Of grammar, the important parts, if not the whole, are etymology and syntax. For orthography relates to the mere arrangement of letters for the arbitrary representation of certain sounds, and prosody, to the aesthetic use of language. Under the head orthography, a recently published grammar gives a description and examples of the various sorts and sizes of type used in printing; great primer, pica, small pica, long primer, and so forth. Rightly enough; for this be- longs, as much as spelling does, to grammar. And, on the other hand, if prosody is a part of grammar, why should the latter not include rhetoric, and even elocu- tion? In fact, grammar was long regarded as including all that concerns the structure and the relations of language; and a grammarian among the ancients was one who was versed, not only in language, but in poetry, history, and rhetoric, and who, generally, lectured or wrote upon all these branches of litera- turewho was, in fact, a man of letters in the widest signification of that phrase. But it seems to me that in the usage of intelligent people the English word grammar relates only to the laws which govern the significant forms of words, and the construction of the sentence. Thus, if we find extraordinary spelled zgstrawnery, or hear suggest pronounced sujj/est, we do not call these lapses false grammar. But if we hear, It wasnt Izisn, which violates true etymology, or He done it, which is incorrect syntax, these we do call false grammar. Etymology, which relates to the significant forms of words, and syntax, the rules of which govern their arrangement, are then, from our point of view, the great essentials, if not the whole of grammar. Now, the principal Latin words, the noun, the adjective, the verb, the participle, and the adverb vary their forms by a process called inflection, and the Latin sentence is constructed upon the basis of these significant verbal forms. English words do not vary their forms by inflection, and the English sentence is constructed without any dependence upon verbal forms. To this remark there are exceptions; hut they are so few, and of such small importance that they cannot be regarded as affecting its gen- eral truth. The structure of the Latin sentence depends upon the relation of ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 1869.] 103 the words of which it is composed; that of the English sentcn Ce, upon the rela- tion of the thoughts. In other words the construction of the Latin sentence is grammatical, that of the English sentence, logical. At the first offshooting of the English language from its present stem, its growth and development began at once to tend toward logical simplicityin fact that tendency was its offshoot- ing; and since then it has gradually, but surely and steadily, cast off inflectional forms, and freed itself from the trammels of a construction dependent upon them. This being true, how preposterous, how impossible for us to measure our Eng- lish corn in Latin bushels Yet that is what we have so long been trying to do with our English grammar. In illustration of the foregoing remarks I will present and compare some ex- amples of Latin and English words and sentences, the former of which shall be so simple that they can hardly escape the apprehension even of those who have not received the training of a grammar-school. The Latin for boy is g5uer. But p uer stands for boy only as the subject of a sentence. When the boy spoken of is the object of an action, he is represented by an inflection from tuerthe word p uerum. Boys as the subjects are called i5uerl, but as the objects of an action, tueros. The Latin for girl is tuellll, as the subject of a verb, but when the girl is the object of the action, she is not represented in that relation by changing tue/la into Juel/um, asjuer was made tuerum; but the word tuella, being femi- nine, becomes tue//am. In the plural it becomes, not tuelli as the subject and tue/los as the object of an action, but puellc.e and jbuellas, those being feminine inflections. Loved is amabam if you wish to say, I loved; but, if he or she loved, amabal, if they loved, amabant. Any of my readers will now be able to trans- late this little sentence Pueri amabant puellam. There being being no article in the Latin, it of course must be supplied, and ~ve therefore have: The boys loved the girl. In this Latin sentence, and in its English equivalent, the words not only rep- resent each other perfectly in sense, but correspond exactly in place. If~ how- ever, we change the relative positions of the English words, without modifying them in the least, we not only change, but entirely reverse the meaning of the sentence. The girl loved the boys. But in the Latin sentence we may make what changes of position we please, and we shall not make a shade of difference in its meaning. Puellarn ansahant pueri, Puellam pueri amahant, Pueri amahant puellam, Pueri puellarn amabant. all have the same meaning, the boys loved the girl. For tue/lam shows by its form that it must be the object of the action; amabant must have for its subject a plural substantive, and which must therefore be, not tue//am but tueri. The connections of the words being therefore absolutely determined by their forms, their position in the sentence is a matter at least of minor importance. The reader who has not learned Latin, will yet by referring to a preceding paragraph have little difficulty in constructing a Latin sentence, which represents the re- verse of our first example, i. e., the girl loved the boys. For here it is the girl that is the subject, and the boys that are the objects of the action, and the verb must have its singular form, which gives us Puella amabat pueros. 104 THE GALAXY. [JAN., The words in the corresponding English sentence are exactly the same as those in the sentence of exactly opposite meaning; in the Latin they are all different. And again their position has no effect on the meaning of the sen- tence; for these words, whether given as above in the order, the girl loved the boys, or in the more elegant order, Puella pueros amabat,. [The girl the boys loved;] or Pueros amabat puella, [The boys loved tise girl,] can have but one construction, and therefore but one meaning, i. e., the girl loved the boys. If we extend the sentence by qualifying either the subject or the object, or both, the operation of this rule of constructure will be more strik- ing. Let the qualification be goodness. The Latin for good is bonus; but in this form the word qualifies only a subject of the singular number and mascu- line gender: singular feminine, and neuter subjects are qualified as good by the forms bona and bonum. A singular feminine object is qualified as good by bo- narn: a plural masculine subject by boid, a plural masculine object by bonos. If therefore, we wish to say that the boys were good, the sentence becomes Boni pueri ainabant puellam. The good boys loved the girl. By merely changing the position of the adjective in the English sentence, we say, not that the boys were good, but the girl: The boys loved the good girl. But a corresponding arrangement of the Latin words Pueri amabant booi puellam means still that the boys were good, and the girl was loved; because boni, from its form, can qualify only a singular masculine subjecthere ~ueri. If we wish to say that the girl was good, we must use the form of bonus which belongs to a singular feminine object ; and write bonam /ue/lam. Then, wherever we put bonam, it will qualify only Juellam. Thus, in the sentence, Bonam puellam arnabant pueri, the order of the words represented in English, is The good girl loved the boys; but the meaning is, the boys lcved the good girl. It is not even necessary, in Latin, that the adjective and the noun which it qualifies should be kept together. Thus, in the sentence, Puella bonos amabat pueros; the order of the words represented in English, is The girl good loved the boys; and in this arrangement, Pueros amabat bonos puella, the order is, The boys loved the good girl; but the meaning in both is the same, and is quite unlike that conveyed by the English arrangement,The girl loved the good boys. The reason of this fixed relation is simply that bonos, whatever its place in this sentence, qualifies tueros only, as appears by the number, gender, and case of each, which are shown by their respective and agreeing forms; that 5ueros must be an object of action, which is shown by its form; and that /uella and arnabat are subject and predi- cate, pertaining to each other, which is also shown by their forms. Bonos can- not belong to puella, because the former is masculine plural, and belongs to an 1869.] ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Os object; and 5z~cTh is feminine singular and a subject; tueros cannot b~ the subject of amabat, because the former is plural in its inflection, and the latter singular. In Juvenals noble saying, Maxima debetur j5uero revereitia, The greatest reverence is due to a boy; the order of the words is thisgreatest is owed to a boy reverence; and there is nothing in this order to preclude the ap- plication of the word meaning greatest to the word meaning boy, which would give us, Reverence is due to the biggest boy. But here the Latin word for boy has the dative inflection, which shows that the boy is the recipient of something, and is the object of the verb debetur; it is also masculine ; and as maxima agrees in case and in gender with reverentia, the feminine subject of the verb, it must qualify that word. If we should find the following collocation of words Thy now doings of my of mistress with weeping swollen redden pretty eyes, we should pronounce it nonsense. It is not even a sentence. And yet it is a correct translation of the beautiful lines in the order of their words, with which Catullus closes his charming ode, Funus Passeris. Tua nune opera mex pull~ Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli, And the words reduced to their logical or English order, are, Now the pretty swollen eyes of my mistress redden with weeping thy doings. The Latin ar- rangement is as if we were presented with the figures 819457263, and were ex- pected to read them, not eight hundred and nineteen million four hundred fifty- seven thousand two hundred and sixty-three, but one hundred twenty-three million four hundred fifty-six thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, the order 123456789 being indicated by some peculiar and correspondent form of the characters. Enough has been said in illustration of the difference between the con- struction of the Latin and that of the English sentence. The former depends upon the inflectional forms of the words; and its sense is not affected, or is affected only in a secondary debree, by their relative positions. In the latter, the meaning of the sentence is determined by the relative positions of the words, the order of which is determined by the connection and interdepend- ence of the thoughts of which they are the signs. Syntax, guided by etymology, controls the Latin; reason, the English. In brief; the former is grammatical; the latter, logical. English admits very rarely, and only a very slight degree, that severance of words representing connected thoughts, which is not only admissible, but which is generally found in the Latin sentence ; of which struc- tural form the foregoing examples are of the simplest sort, and the most easily resolvable into logical order. Milton is justly regarded as the English author whose style is most affected by Latin models; and the opening passage of bis great poem is often cited as a strongly-marked example of involved construc- tion. But let us examine it briefly. Of mans first obedience [and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat], Sing, heavenly muse [that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed in the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of chaos]. This, certainly, is not the colloquial style, or even the dramatic. How many young people, when called upon to parse it, have sat before it in dumb be- io6 THE GALAXY. [JAN., wildermen t! And yet its apparent intricacy is but the result of a single, and not violent inversion. In all other respects the words succeed each other merely as the thoughts which they represent arise. The natural order of the passage is, Sing, heavenly muse, of mans first disobedience; and that simple invocation is the essential part of the sentence. What follows muse, between brackets, is a mere description, modification, or limitation of muse; what follows disobedience is a description of the disobedience, which is the object of siner that is the subject of the poem. The words between brackets are only a sort of prolonged parenthetical adjectives, qualifying muse and dis- obedience. Let any intelligent person, bearing this in mind, read the passage, beginning at sing, and turning from chaos back to the first line, and all the seeming involution will di~ppear; and in the after reading of it in its writ- ten order, he will be impressed only by the grandeur and the mighty sweep and sustained power of the invocation. The two qualifying, or adjectival passages, although composed of several elements, each of which is evolved from its pre- decessor, which it qualifies, being its elf a sort of adjective, are written in a style so plain and so direct that no reader of average intelligence can fail to compre- hend them as fully and as easily as he can comprehend any passage in a novel or newspaper of the day. Would, indeed, that novels and newspapers were written with any approach to this simplicity and this directness I do not say this meanincr! Miltons invocation is not the only example of its kind in the open- ing of a great English poem. Chaucer, writing nearly three hundred years be- fore the blind Puritan, and in an entirely different spirit, thus introduces his Troilus and Creseide, a poem as full of imagination and of a knowledge of many s inmost heart as any one, not dramatic in form, that has since been be- stowed upon the world. The double sorrow of Troilus to tellen, That was Kinge Priamus sonne of Troy, In loving, how his aventures fellen From woe to wele, and after out of joy, My purpose is, er that I part fruy: Thou, Tesiphone, thou heipe me for tindi These wofull verses, that wepen as I write. This is clear enough to any reader who is not troubled by the fact that Chaucer didnt know how to spell ; but it is really more involved in structure, more like a passage from a Latin poet than the opening of Paradise Lost. The sentence, according to the natural order of thought, begins with the fifth line, My purpose is, etc., and then turns back to the first line, which itself con- tains an inversion The sorrow to tellen for To tellen the sorrow. But the whole of the second line is really an adjective qualifying Troilus, and this is thrown in between the verb to tellen and the phrase in lovin~ the latter of which is really an adjective qualifying the object of the action sorrow. So that the logical order Qf the sentence is this: My purpose is to tell the double sorrow in loving of Troilus, that was King Priam s son of Troy, how his advent- ures fell from woe to ~veal, and after out of joy. The construction of this pas- sage, however, as Chaucer wrote it, is not English ; and although in a formal opening of a long poem, it is not only admissible, but impressive, it would, if continued, become intolerable. Inversion has been used with fine effect in a single clause by Parsons in his noble lines upon a bust of Dante. How stern of lineament, how grim, The father was of Tuscan song l Here the limiting adjectival phrase of Tuscan song is separated by the verb 1869.] ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 107 from the noun which it qualifies, and the result is (we can hardly tell why) a deep and strong impression upon the readers mind. Such effects, however, are not in harmony with the genius of the English language, and are admissible and attainable only at the hands of those who wield language with a rare and curious felicity. The reason why inversions of the logical order of thought are perilous and rarely admissible in English, has a direct relation to the subject under discus- sion. For example, in neither of these passages from Chaucer and from Par- sons, is the construction safely founded upon etymological forms, as would have been the case if they had been written by a Greek or a Latin poet. We have to divine the connection of the words and clausesto guess at it from our gen- eral knowledge of the poets meaningfrom the drift of his sentence; and thus, instead of being placed at once in communication with him, and receiving his thought directly and without a doubt, and being free to assent or dissent, to like or to dislike, we must give ourselves, for a longer or a shorter timein some cases but an almost inappreciable momentto unravelling his construction; doing, in a measure, what we are obliged to do in reading a Greek or a Latin author. In the example quoted from Parsons, the inversion, although violent, disturbs so little of the sentence, and produces so pleasant a surprise, and one which is renewed at each re-reading, that we not only pardon but admire. Suc- cess is here, as ever, full justification. But Chaucer loses more in clearness and ease than he gains in impressiveness and dignity; and Miltons exhibition of power to mount and soar at the first essay does not quite recompense all of us for the sudden strain he gives our eyes in following him. But the completest vic- tory over the difficulty of inversion in the construction of the English sentence will not make it endurable, except as a rare and curious exhibition of our mother tongue disguised in foreign garb and aping foreign man~iers. A single stanza composed of lines like that on Dante would weary and offend even the most cultivated and mentally well-disciplined English reader. Ihose who are untrained in intellectual gymnastics would abandon it upon the first attempt, as beyond their powers. The most striking example of the destruction of meaning by the inverted statement of thought that I have met with in the writings of authors of repute, is the following line, which closes the beautiful sonnet in Sidneys Astrophel and Stella, beginning With how sad face, 0 Moon, thou climbst the night! Do they call virtue there forgetfulness? The meaning of this seems clear; and it is so according to the order of the words ; which ask if, in a certain place, virtue is called forgetfulness. But this is exactly the reverse of Sidneys meaning; as may be unravelled from the context. Is constant love deemd there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there forgetfulness? That is, we discover, do they call forgetfulness virtue? But reason ourselves into this apprehension of the sentence as absolutely as we can, familiarize ourselves with it as much as we may, it will at every new reading strike us as it did at first, that the poets question is asked about virtue? So absolute in English is the law of logical order. The following passages, which I have recently seen given as examples of io8 THE GALAXY. [JAN., ~onfusion resulting from a lack of proper punctuation, illustrate the present subject: I continued on using it, and by the time I had taken five bottles I found myself completely cured, after having been brougise so near to the gates of death by your infallible medicine. The extensive view presented finns the fourth story of the Hudson River l His remains were committed to that bourne whence no traveller returns attended by his friends! The fault here is not in the punctuation, but in the order of the words, which, however, although nonsensical in English, might make very good sense in Greek or Latin. The sentences are all examples of the hopeless confusion which may be produced by an inversion which violates logical order; and if They were peppered with points, the fault would not thus be remedied. I shall leave it to my readers to put the words into their proper order; merely remark- ing upon the last example, that the form of the sentence is quite worthy of a man who could speak of commifting a body to a bourne, and that bourne the one whence no traveller returns The difference between the construction of the Latin and Greek languages and that of the English language is not accidental, or the product of a merely unconscious exercise of power. It is the result of a direct exertion of the hu- man will to make the instrument of its expression more and more simple and convenient. The change which has produced this difference began a very long while ago, and for many centuries has been making more or less progress among all the Indo-European languages. Latin is a less grammatical language than its elder sister, the Greek; the modern Latin or Romance tongues, Italian, Span- ish, French, are less grammatical than the Latin ; the Teutonic tongues are less grammatical than the Romance; and of the Teutonic tongues English is least grammaticalso little dependent, indeed, upon the fogms of grammar for the structure of its sentence, that it cannot rightly be said to have any grammar. And here I will remark that it is in this wide difference between the etymology and the syntax of the modern languagesFrench, Italian, Spanish, German, and English, and those of the Greek and Latinthat the incomparable superi- ority of the latter as the means of education consists. The languages of mod- ern Europe, widely dissimilar although they seem to the superficial reader, dif- er chiefly in their vocabularies; and even here much of their unlikeness is due to the difference of pronunciation, an incidental variation which obtains to a con- siderable degree in the same language within the period of one hundred years. In structure the modern languages are too much alike to make the study of any one of them by a person to whom the other is vernacular at all valuable as a means of mental discipline. They are acquired with great facility by people of no education and very inferior mental powers; couriers and valets-de-j5 lace, who speak and write three or four of them fluently and correctly, being numer- ous in all the capitals of the Continent. Education is not the getting of knowl- edge; and it is not for what we ohtain of it at school and college that we pass our early years in study. The mere knowledge that we then painfully acquire, we could, in our maturer years, obtain in a tenth part of the time that we give to our education. Still less is it necessary for European students in modern days to seek knowledge from Greek and Latin authors. All existing knowledge is easily attainable in a modern tongue. And, finally, to the demand why, if boys must study language as a means of education, can they not study French or German, languages which are now spoken, and which will be of some practical (I. e.. money-making) use to them ?the ans~er is, that the value of the classi- cal tongues as edtwators is in the very fact that they are dead, and that their 1869.] SWALLOWS. 109 structure is so remote from ours, that to dismember their sentences and recon- struct them according to our own fashion of speaking, is such an exercise of perception, judgment, and memory, such a training in thought and the use of language as can be found in no other study or intellectual exertion to which im- mature and untrained persons of ordinary powers are competent. To us of English race and speech this discipline is more severe, and, therefore, more val- uable, than to any people of the Continent, becaus.e of the greater distance, in this respect, between our own language than between any one of theirs and the Greek and Latin, and the wider difference between the English and the Greek or the Latin cast of thought. Because, to repeat what has already been insisted upon, the Greek and the Latin languages are constructed upon syntactical prin- ciples, which, in their turn, rest upon etymological or formal inflection, and Eng- lish, being almost without formal inflection, and nearly independent of syntax without distinction of mood in verbs, and with almost none of tense and per- sonwith only one case of nouns, and with neither number nor case in adjec- tiveswith no gender at all, of nouns, of adjectives, or of participleswithout laws of agreement or of government, the very verb in English being in most cases independent of its nominative as to form, rests solely upon the relations of thought. In brieg because the Greek and Latin languages have grammarfor- mal grammarand the English language, to all intents and purposes, has none. How and why this is, will be more fully and particularly considered in my next article. RICHARD GRANT WHITE. SWALLOWS. CHIMNEY swallows! homeward hie, You shall have my ladys eye, To look and love you, now and then, When she lays down her hook or pen, Shut wholly from the sound of men. In her chamher if you build, With her smile you shall he filled; Nevermore will you desire To wander from her happy fire, But fluttering in your new-found nest, Say to each other Here we rest. 0, had I but your pinions, too! Full well I know what I would do. I know where I should dwell to-night, Where lamp and fire and eyes are hright, And where the music never fails Even if the instrument be still. There is a music that prevails Beyond the masters highest skill; Such harmony as flows from love Not passionatehut full of peace; Past understanding, and ahove Musicmost felt when that doth cease. T. W. PAasoNs.

1869.] SWALLOWS. 109 structure is so remote from ours, that to dismember their sentences and recon- struct them according to our own fashion of speaking, is such an exercise of perception, judgment, and memory, such a training in thought and the use of language as can be found in no other study or intellectual exertion to which im- mature and untrained persons of ordinary powers are competent. To us of English race and speech this discipline is more severe, and, therefore, more val- uable, than to any people of the Continent, becaus.e of the greater distance, in this respect, between our own language than between any one of theirs and the Greek and Latin, and the wider difference between the English and the Greek or the Latin cast of thought. Because, to repeat what has already been insisted upon, the Greek and the Latin languages are constructed upon syntactical prin- ciples, which, in their turn, rest upon etymological or formal inflection, and Eng- lish, being almost without formal inflection, and nearly independent of syntax without distinction of mood in verbs, and with almost none of tense and per- sonwith only one case of nouns, and with neither number nor case in adjec- tiveswith no gender at all, of nouns, of adjectives, or of participleswithout laws of agreement or of government, the very verb in English being in most cases independent of its nominative as to form, rests solely upon the relations of thought. In brieg because the Greek and Latin languages have grammarfor- mal grammarand the English language, to all intents and purposes, has none. How and why this is, will be more fully and particularly considered in my next article. RICHARD GRANT WHITE. SWALLOWS. CHIMNEY swallows! homeward hie, You shall have my ladys eye, To look and love you, now and then, When she lays down her hook or pen, Shut wholly from the sound of men. In her chamher if you build, With her smile you shall he filled; Nevermore will you desire To wander from her happy fire, But fluttering in your new-found nest, Say to each other Here we rest. 0, had I but your pinions, too! Full well I know what I would do. I know where I should dwell to-night, Where lamp and fire and eyes are hright, And where the music never fails Even if the instrument be still. There is a music that prevails Beyond the masters highest skill; Such harmony as flows from love Not passionatehut full of peace; Past understanding, and ahove Musicmost felt when that doth cease. T. W. PAasoNs. THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. THE LAST OF THE MAMMIES. JAM about to attempt an outline, worthy reader, of one of the queerest char- acters it has ever been my fortune to encounter. Shefor the individual in question belongs to the angelic sexis about four and a half feet in height, with a copper-colored complexion like that of the American Indians; a full suit of coal-black hair, kinky and matted, a pair of keen black eyes, and an extensive mouth in which the teeth resemble rather a line of skirmishers than a regular order of battle. This lady wears an old brown dress, and around her head is knotted a many-colored handkerchief. She is bent nearly double by agefor she is approaching seventybut you can easily see that she is still strong and active. Her motions are rapid, eccentric, zig-zag. Her expression of countenance, and carriage of person are full of good humor, combativeness, warm feeling, arrogance. Altogether, a stranger bundle of con- trasts, mental and physical, was never seen than may be found in this remark- able Mammy of my friend Bob Blank, Esquire. I wish I had time and space to dwell upon the Mammy, philosophically, his- torically, and ethnologically. I would like to expatiate upon the class of which this old African is a type. They have played a great part in the social system of one-half of these United States. Nothing like them exists in books, or in ex- perience elsewhere. They have owned their young masters and mistresses much more than anybody has ever owned them. They have taken possession of those personages when their charges resembled, as Mr. Thackeray says, small pink frogs swimming on the nurses lap. They have washed and dressed them at that interesting state of existence, and ever after have been impressed with the ineradicable idea that the young white people are their property. Above all, do they regard the young squire as their born serf. They have bul- lied, scolded, denounced, petted, spoiled that younb man, until he stands in deep awe of them, and loves them as deeply. When he was profligate they have overwhelmed him with unanswerable denunciation. When he was sick or suf- fering they have watched over him with the most devoted tenderness. They have loved him, indeed, frequently, much more than they have loved their own children. They will vituperate him themselvesbut woe to you if you attempt it. They wild scold him with intense eloquencepour out upon him the bitterest reproachesbut if you are judicious, you will not agree with them ; for then the object of their wrath will, in some unaccountable manner, become yourself! The queer old Mammy I write of is a true type of her class. She is more a most eccentric and unaccountable personage. It may be said of her that she is ever fresh and full of variety. Custom cannot stale her, or use make her so- ciety insipid. She is odd, if you choose; but that old gypsy-like dwarf has an amount of sound judgment, of keen penetration, and good sense, which I have failed to detect in many grave and reverend seigniors. In head and heart she is admirable. I never knew any one with feelings more tender and kindly. I have never seen anybody, white or black, more true, faithful, and trustworthy. Are you in trouble? She likes you the better for it. Are you in need? She will offer you every penny of her savings. Are you down? Then she is your truest

THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. THE LAST OF THE MAMMIES. JAM about to attempt an outline, worthy reader, of one of the queerest char- acters it has ever been my fortune to encounter. Shefor the individual in question belongs to the angelic sexis about four and a half feet in height, with a copper-colored complexion like that of the American Indians; a full suit of coal-black hair, kinky and matted, a pair of keen black eyes, and an extensive mouth in which the teeth resemble rather a line of skirmishers than a regular order of battle. This lady wears an old brown dress, and around her head is knotted a many-colored handkerchief. She is bent nearly double by agefor she is approaching seventybut you can easily see that she is still strong and active. Her motions are rapid, eccentric, zig-zag. Her expression of countenance, and carriage of person are full of good humor, combativeness, warm feeling, arrogance. Altogether, a stranger bundle of con- trasts, mental and physical, was never seen than may be found in this remark- able Mammy of my friend Bob Blank, Esquire. I wish I had time and space to dwell upon the Mammy, philosophically, his- torically, and ethnologically. I would like to expatiate upon the class of which this old African is a type. They have played a great part in the social system of one-half of these United States. Nothing like them exists in books, or in ex- perience elsewhere. They have owned their young masters and mistresses much more than anybody has ever owned them. They have taken possession of those personages when their charges resembled, as Mr. Thackeray says, small pink frogs swimming on the nurses lap. They have washed and dressed them at that interesting state of existence, and ever after have been impressed with the ineradicable idea that the young white people are their property. Above all, do they regard the young squire as their born serf. They have bul- lied, scolded, denounced, petted, spoiled that younb man, until he stands in deep awe of them, and loves them as deeply. When he was profligate they have overwhelmed him with unanswerable denunciation. When he was sick or suf- fering they have watched over him with the most devoted tenderness. They have loved him, indeed, frequently, much more than they have loved their own children. They will vituperate him themselvesbut woe to you if you attempt it. They wild scold him with intense eloquencepour out upon him the bitterest reproachesbut if you are judicious, you will not agree with them ; for then the object of their wrath will, in some unaccountable manner, become yourself! The queer old Mammy I write of is a true type of her class. She is more a most eccentric and unaccountable personage. It may be said of her that she is ever fresh and full of variety. Custom cannot stale her, or use make her so- ciety insipid. She is odd, if you choose; but that old gypsy-like dwarf has an amount of sound judgment, of keen penetration, and good sense, which I have failed to detect in many grave and reverend seigniors. In head and heart she is admirable. I never knew any one with feelings more tender and kindly. I have never seen anybody, white or black, more true, faithful, and trustworthy. Are you in trouble? She likes you the better for it. Are you in need? She will offer you every penny of her savings. Are you down? Then she is your truest 1869.] THE LAST OF THE MAMM lBS. III and most active friend. You see, worthy reader, that I am not drawing for you a commonplace character. Unfortunately, the above traits are not uniformly characteristic of our species. I have known, in my life, a number of line ladies, in silks and laces. I have found few as worthy of respect as this old African, in her dingy dress, with the colored handkerchief around her head. But I grow didactic. This is not a panegyric on the Mammy of my acquaint- anceit is a charcoal sketch of her. Here she is, bounding, Coriolanus-Kemble-like, upon the scenebent~ back, sparkling eyes, colored handkerchief and all. My young friend Bob, a gentle- man with a moustache and imperial, has conducted himself in a manner of which she does not approve. He is standing before the fire and reflecting, when his foe darts in. She strikes an attitude and scowls upon him. He shrinks before her wrath. Bob!~ exclaims, in shrill, falsetto tones, the enraged old woman. And then the young gentleman is overwhelmed by a flood of objurgation. He replies, or endeavors to reply, to her charges. Sb e interrupts him instantly, and requests not to be told anything about that. That boy, she adds, shrilly, ought to have one hundred lashes! One hundred wouldnt excuse him!~ Well, what have I done? urges the youth, in tones of deprecation. That boy! is the reply. I never see such a one! Hes enough break the heart of an old crow, let alone a turkey buzzard! Bob giggleshe is overcome. To change the subject and effect a diversion, he holds up his cuff and requests the mammy to sew a button on his wristband. The ruse succeeds. The old lady rummages in her ample pocket for the means of sewing. First she takes out a large key, which might have served for Noahs ark; then two more keys of more moderate dimensions; then five more keys, all of which are wanted hourly, and never found by anybody, as the Mammy in- variably and indignantly denies that she has seen them or knows their lurking- place. She then proceeds in her search for her housewife, and draws out a bun- dle of twine, then an onion, next an egg, next two corks, and then the desired article. While engaged in this occupation she ejaculates, at intervals, Bob !that boy! You vex my heart and torment my mind, Bob !the Loiii deliver Jonas !Turn the bread, Jake !Mend yo shut thats a pretty joke to go to bed withto come after me Suddenly the favorite pointer of Bob, who has been lying under the table, indolently stretches himself and utters a satisfied yawn. The sound attracts the Mammys attention. Her eyes dart flames. The dog is the old ladys pet enemy, and she advances to the conflict with ardor. Seizing a hearth-broom, with one bound she rushes on the inoffensive pointer. He recoils. She pur- sues him, makes violent blows at him, which he evades, and finally drives him in disorderly retreat from the apartment. Who can live in such noise? she exclaims, in wrath. I never see sech a dogalways comm into the dine-roomsence the Lord made the heaven and the uth ? She then proceeds to sew the button on Bobs shirt-cuff. He undergoes a ferocious scolding during the performance. But he knows that it is all a com- edythat her happiest moments are spent in mending for him. To make the Mammy supremely blissful, in fact, you have only to let her sit up until two o clock in the morning, mending Bobs torn garments and dozing at intervals, head thrown back, in her chair. 112 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., I have never known an odder collection of pet sayings than that habitually exhibited by the Mammy in airing her vocabulary. Two or three of these have been repeated, others are still more original and amusing. When a glass of spirits is offered herfor the old lady likes jest a drop, and though never ex- ceedin g, resembles Mrs. Sairy Gamp in desiring the bottle to be placed on the mantelpiece in reach, that she may put her lips to it when she is so dispoged when Bob offers her a glass of wine, spirits, ale, or other stimulant, the old African receives it with dignity, holds it aloft with the air of a gentleman oiler- ing a toast at a public banquet, and says, When you call the general roll Ill be thar! Having uttered this cabalistic announcement, without the slightest relaxation of dignityin fact with deep solemnity and an air of great feelingshe raises the glass to her lips, slowly drains its contents, and with a peculiar cluck of the tongue, gazes sadly into the exhausted tumbler. Is it good, mammy? She shakes her head slowly, and replies, Fust-rate, hard to beat, and wusser to keep! Was there enough? Too much for one, not enough for two, and nothing for the third! The youth begins to laugh, and gazing at the old lady, says, You look like that old crow you were talking of; Mammy. The Mammy utters a shrill laugh, and wriggles about as though in an ecstasy of mirth. Take dat now for yo lazy pains! Another hog dead! And repeating her shrill elfish laugh, which displays her scattered teeth, she stamps vigorously with her right foot, causes her gypsy-like head to descend and then rise with the movement of the foot, after which she begins to sing, Mary, dont yon hear me? Glory, hallelo-yab. Mary, dont you hear me? Glory, hallelo-yali! Mary, dont you hear me? Glory, lsallelu-yah Shove tisat hog leg under the hed, For the white folks ar a coming l From this devotional lyric, she suddenly passes to others, among which her favorite is a mysterious ditty, commencing How mournfully the roosters crow. I lear tlse neighhors say, Come and see the show, This is our wedding day l Having chaunted this inexplicable poem with the air of a diminutive Meg Merrlies, the old African wheels suddenly with the rapidity and precision of a soldier executing an about face, and vanishes from the apartment ~vithout another word, with an agility which would excite your astonishment. She is going to call up her ducks and chickens, which she fattens by the use of Bobs entire private store of clean oats or shelled corn in the entry, kept there for his riding horseor to make an attack on her inveterate enemy the pointeror to lis- ten, with distended eyes and out-stretched head, to some story of ghostly appear- ance in the neighborhood. For she is profoundly superstitious. She believes in spectral appearances as firmly as you, friend, believe in the existence of the Atlantic cable. The other day an old colored man, while returning home under the effect of drink, 1869.] SOR PATROCINJO. I T3 fell and froze to death. It was known that he had hoarded money, which he had placed in a crock and buried. It was further known that he had stated the fact to a relative named Nat, with the further announcement that Nat should be his heir, even if he had to come hack from the grave and tell Nat where the crock was hidden. That was quite enough for Mam~~y. She related the par- ticulars of the old mans death, and then shaking her head, said she wouldnt be in Nats place not for all the money. When asked why, she stated that he would certainly see the ghostthat dead men came hackno! she wouldnt be Nat, not for nothin b! Her belief in ghostly appearances is ineradicable. Esthers father had appeared to her only a week before like a ball of fire; and told her to look in his old Bible and she would find some money. She looked and found twenty dollarsshe will show it to you! I dont know what the Mammys religious convictions amount to, but she calmly announces that she is going down below: out of this impression I have found, it impossible to argue her. She makes no secret of it, but does not ob- trude it. She announces the fact as a fact, and leaves you to form your own opinion. Whether she has ever made any effort to produce a different result, I do not know. But she is learned on the subject of getting religion. When her fellow servants look solemn, refuse to smile, and seem to have a hidden load upon their consciences, the old lady comes to you confidentially, sinks her voice to a whisper, and announces the fact that they are seeking. She adds that they have been down the hill every night, but aint through yit. She reckons Jim is gone backshe saw him smile yistiddy! But the queer characteristics of this queer old African would furnish material for a small volume. She is sul ge/lens, like nobody else in all the world, and the strangest conglomeration of startling credulity and excellent judgment that can possibly be imagined. With all this barbarous superstition, and childish belief in ghosts, warnings, and spectral appearances, she is a person of the soundest head, and possesses an intellectual penetration which I have rarely seen surpassed. She has good sense in the fullest acceptation of the term. She has more than this, as I have saidan excellent heart. That odd, eccentric, crazy-looking little figure, in the brown dress, and colored turban, with the bizarre movements, tones, cant phrases, snatches of songthis quaintest of human beings, who appears to have floated down on a broomstick from the moonis one of the kindest, most faithful, and most intelli- gent human beings, white or black, that I have ever known. She is very old now, as I have said, and in the ordinary course of nature cannot figure much longer beneath the glimpses of the moon. I have desired to catch her like- ness, and paint it hereif some reader has been interested by the sketch it was worth my while. JOHN ESTEN COOKE. SOR PATROCINJO. ON the 5th of January, 1603, there was founded in the vicinity of Madrid the convent called Caballero de Gracias, in presence of the Archbishop of Toledo, and of the famous nun Sor Maria de San Pablo, who pretended to have had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and who, in consequence, was be- lieved to possess the power of performing miraculous cures. This convent,

1869.] SOR PATROCINJO. I T3 fell and froze to death. It was known that he had hoarded money, which he had placed in a crock and buried. It was further known that he had stated the fact to a relative named Nat, with the further announcement that Nat should be his heir, even if he had to come hack from the grave and tell Nat where the crock was hidden. That was quite enough for Mam~~y. She related the par- ticulars of the old mans death, and then shaking her head, said she wouldnt be in Nats place not for all the money. When asked why, she stated that he would certainly see the ghostthat dead men came hackno! she wouldnt be Nat, not for nothin b! Her belief in ghostly appearances is ineradicable. Esthers father had appeared to her only a week before like a ball of fire; and told her to look in his old Bible and she would find some money. She looked and found twenty dollarsshe will show it to you! I dont know what the Mammys religious convictions amount to, but she calmly announces that she is going down below: out of this impression I have found, it impossible to argue her. She makes no secret of it, but does not ob- trude it. She announces the fact as a fact, and leaves you to form your own opinion. Whether she has ever made any effort to produce a different result, I do not know. But she is learned on the subject of getting religion. When her fellow servants look solemn, refuse to smile, and seem to have a hidden load upon their consciences, the old lady comes to you confidentially, sinks her voice to a whisper, and announces the fact that they are seeking. She adds that they have been down the hill every night, but aint through yit. She reckons Jim is gone backshe saw him smile yistiddy! But the queer characteristics of this queer old African would furnish material for a small volume. She is sul ge/lens, like nobody else in all the world, and the strangest conglomeration of startling credulity and excellent judgment that can possibly be imagined. With all this barbarous superstition, and childish belief in ghosts, warnings, and spectral appearances, she is a person of the soundest head, and possesses an intellectual penetration which I have rarely seen surpassed. She has good sense in the fullest acceptation of the term. She has more than this, as I have saidan excellent heart. That odd, eccentric, crazy-looking little figure, in the brown dress, and colored turban, with the bizarre movements, tones, cant phrases, snatches of songthis quaintest of human beings, who appears to have floated down on a broomstick from the moonis one of the kindest, most faithful, and most intelli- gent human beings, white or black, that I have ever known. She is very old now, as I have said, and in the ordinary course of nature cannot figure much longer beneath the glimpses of the moon. I have desired to catch her like- ness, and paint it hereif some reader has been interested by the sketch it was worth my while. JOHN ESTEN COOKE. SOR PATROCINJO. ON the 5th of January, 1603, there was founded in the vicinity of Madrid the convent called Caballero de Gracias, in presence of the Archbishop of Toledo, and of the famous nun Sor Maria de San Pablo, who pretended to have had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and who, in consequence, was be- lieved to possess the power of performing miraculous cures. This convent, 4 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., during the next two hundred and fifty years, was destined to be the scene of many strange events, and, in our days, to witness the so-called miracle of the wounds of the nun Patrocinio, who has played such a conspicuous part in the contemporary history of Spain. Sor Maria de San Pablo was the first of the nuns of that famous convent who claimed to possess supernatural powers ; she pretended to be able to hear the heavenly notes of a lute played by an angel. The ladies of the Spanish court flocked to her, feasted their eyes on her musical trances and convulsions, and extolled her rare virtues. The fame of this singular nun soon became so great that King Philip III. and his consort, Margaret of Austria, paid numerous visits to her, purchased the adjacent grounds, and presented them to the con- vent. The example set by the royal couple induced several wealthy courtiers to erect gorgeous altars in the convent, and to enrich it by princely donations. Cervantes alluded to the visits which the courtiers paid to this convent, often for by no means pious purposes, in his Bouquet of Pinks, in which he says that in its garden bloom the five most beautiful pinks, meaning five nuns far- famed for their loveliness. The Kings favorite, Don Rodriguez Calderon, even went so far as to confess to Sor Maria de Pablo that he loved her; she reproved him gently, but did not entirely discourage his attachment, by which she shrewd- ly profited to prevail on him to found another nunnery. Inasmuch as Philip III. continued visiting the convent very frequently, the nun who performed such strange miracles was not long in obtaining consider- able influence at court. The courtiers deemed themselves happy when she vouchsafed a glance to them; and not only was many a councillor of state in- debted to her for his place, but she it was also who procured for the Archbishop Primate of India his highly influential position. In course of time, however, strange stories were circulated about the life which Sor Maria was said to be secretly leading; these scandalous rumors before long became so exceedingly unpleasant to the court that she was suddenly exiled to Alcala de Henares; and as she even here o@ntinued her intrigues with certain designing courtiers, she was sent to Rome under the pretext that she should establish there several Spanish nunneries. She died in the Eternal City, and several years afterward her remains were sent back to Spain, because the Convent Caballero de Gracias desired to possess her ashes. Some time after the death of this remarkable nun, a soldier of the Spanish Life Guards fell in love with a young girl, named Maria della Alumdena, who was about to take the veil in the convent of which we are speaking. He told her that he loved her madly, but she rejected him. One day, when she was re- turning from a neighboring convent which she had visited, he lay in wait for her close to the wall of the convent garden, ran his sword through the body of the poor girl, cut off her head, and put it into a bag, which he carried to the door of the convent. He left it there, saying it was a present from the young girl who was about to take the veil. The nuns asserted that, when they took the head from the bag, the eyes opened, and the mouth uttered the words, Ab, mother! The soldier was hung without shrift on the plaza in front of the convent, and the young girl was buried in the vault of the chapel. The nuns related that the spirit of the poor victim appeared from time to time in the convent, on a throne of clouds, surrounded by an aureola. The chronicles are full of stories of simi- lar miracles giving an exceptional position to the convent, whose inmate the nun Patrocinio was to be one day; but, at the same time, different stories, by no 1869.] SOR PATROCINJO. I 15 means creditable to it, were in circulation about the life led by many of the nuns. One evening a German Jesuit, named Nithart, a favorite of Anna of Austria, the Regent, and who had made himself very unpopular by several steps which he was believed to have taken, preached in this convent at the solemnities amid which a novice took the veil, xvhen a number of men entered the chapel and hooted the preacher. Some of the cavaliers who were present drew their swords to defend the Jesuit, and amid furious shouts and imprecations, there ensued a bloody struggle, during which many a lady of the royal court was grievously maltreated. These and other scenes, however, did not lessen the favor with xvhich the court looked upon the convent; and it was constantly directed by nuns, who, in their lifetime, performed miracles, and, after their death, were worshipped as saints. Philip III., Philip IV., Charles II., Philip V., Ferdinand VI., and even Charles III. paid numerous visits to this pious community. Their example was imitated by Ferdinand VII. upon his return from Valen~ay. Such is the history of the Convent Caballero de Gracias, to which, about the year i8io, a little girl, Seflorita Quiroga, was brought by her parents who, at the birth of their daughter, had made a vow that she should enter the religious community by whose members so many miracles and wonderful cures had been performed. Little is known about the parents of Seflorita Quiroga, save that they were moderately wealthy, but lived in rather humble circumstances. When Sefiorita had reached the proper age, she took the veil, and was thenceforth called Sor Patrocinio. Before occupying ourselves further with this nun, who afterward became so celebrated, let us mention that, in the year 1835, the Convent Caballero de Gra- cias was demolished, the graves were opened, the corpses torn from their coffins, and the nuns sent to another convent, which gave rise to violent quarrels between the two religious communities which had been united in this manner. In November, 1835, the Spanish Minister of Justice sent to a judge of one of the lower tribunals a royal order to institute proceedings against Sor Patro- cinio, for a fraud which she had practised by pretending to perform miracles. She was also charged in the royal order with fanatical hostility to the State, and practising the aforesaid fraud for the promotion of the cause of the rebel prince, who is the originator and chief supporter of the civil war, from which Spain has to suffer so much. The judge, who immediately commenced the prosecution demanded by the government, reported soon after, as result of the preliminary examination, that of all the miracles which the prioress and her accomplices had asserted to be performed by the nun Patrocinio, the most sin- gular had been that the devil had taken her one night from her cell, conducted her to the road leading to Aranjuez, and told her that Maria Christina was a bad woman in every respect, and that her daughter must not rule over Spain; that the devil had shown her the same thing on the road leading to Guadarrama; that, after this strange peregrination, he had taken her back to the convent, hut left her on the roof whence the young nuns had to help her to return to her cell. The miracle which the nun Patrocinio claimed to have performed, therefore, might be reduced to the following three points First, that she had left her cell and ascended to the ioof of the convent; secondly, that she had safely re- turned to her cell ; thirdly, that she asserted in the name of God that Isabella would never rule over Spain. The under-prioress, on her part, testified that, when still a novice, the nun x i6 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., Patrocinio one day said that a wound had opened in her left side while she had been at prayer, and that the pain which this wound had given her had been so intense as to cause her to burst into loud screams while saying the Ave. Sev- eral witnesses had been much startled by these screams, but she had not shown the wound which had drawn them from her until several days afterward; and that several months later, during another prayer, four additional wounds had appeared in her side. The authorities commissioned two distinguished physicians, Doctors Argil- mosa and Seona, to examine these singular wounds. They found that they had been caused by artificial means, and that, as soon as these artificial means were removed, the wounds would heal very speedily. On the following morning, when the physicians examined the nun again, they found that the remedies which they had prescribed had produced no effect whatever, and that the wounds were in the same condition as before. They resolved to nurse the nun Patro- cinio themselves, and to dress her wounds personally, instead of leaving this to the care of the other sisters. In effect, a marked improvement was visible al- ready on the following morning; and they continued their treatment with the utmost care, sealing the bandages lest the nun should secretly open and remove them. A short time afterward Sor Patrocinio declared, in the presence of the un- der-secretary of justice, the civil and military governor, the lieutenant-governor, the grand almoner, the syndic of the ayuntamiento, and the physicians, That it was true that the condition in which the two physicians had found her on the 9th of November, and that which they had brought about on the 17th of De- cember by means of the treatment which they had prescribed for her, had been correctly described in theii7~tepositions ; and that, since that time, she had no longer felt any pain in that part of her body where the wounds had broken out and that she was very glad to state that she considered herself entirely healed and cured. The result of the trial was the following sentence, which the lower tribunal passed upon her on the 25th of December, 1836: Whereas, it has been legally proved that Sor Maria Raphaele Patrocinio has been guilty of a malicious fraud in falsely claimin~ that several wounds had broken out in her side in consequence of a divine miracle; Whereas, the temptation and compulsion by which Sor Patrocinio says she has been led to pursue this deceptive course does not excuse the fraud which she practised; and whereas she should have informed the authorities of the pernicious influence which was brought to bear upon her Whereas, furthermore, she has manifested sincere repentance, and helped the authorities to ascertain the true state of affairs The court finds her guilty, and sentences her to be removed, with all the consideration due to her calling and position, to another nunnery, situated at least forty leagues from this capital ; and we instruct the abbess and prioress of this nunnery to keep the strictest surveillance over her, lest she should re- peat the offences which have given rise to this sentence. The Supreme Court, to which an appeal was taken, changed the sentence as follows: We find the Sisters Raphaele, Maria Benito, and Maria Josefa (the accom- plices of Sor Patrocinio) guilty, and sentence them to be removed to convents situated at least fifteen leagues from Madrid, where they may live as nuns, but shall never hold any position of trust and authority. For this purpose they 1869.] SOR PATROCINJO. I 17 shall be placed under the orders of the Archbishop of Toledo, to whose zeal and patriotism we leave the care of adopting the necessary measures that these nuns may remain under the special surveillance of their prelates, and that they may be directed by virtuous and wise priests, who are devoted to the just na- tional cause, and instruct them in the true principles of virtue and religion, and combat the errors in which they have hitherto lived; and, above all, cause them to abandon their purpose of meddling with secular and political affairs. Other- wise they shall be punished with by far greater severity, without regard to the weakness of their sex and to the pernicious influences brought to bear upon them. Such was the result of the prosecution instituted against Sor Patrocinio by the tribunals of Madrid, in November, 1835. On the night of the 7th of De- cember, in the same year, Sor Patrocinio tried to make her escape, but the at- tempt failed, owing to the precautions adopted by the courts, and she was taken to Talavera de la Reyna, where she was intrusted to the hands of the abbess of the nunnery of the Mother of God, under her former name, Quiroga. After her removal from Madrid, Sor Patrocinio devoted herself entirely to the cause of Don Carlos, and continued her fraudulent practices. Foolish and fanatical, like so many members of the Bourbon family, I)on Carlos attached mor~ importance to~ the letters which the nun wrote to him, and to the advice which she gave to him, than to the strategic plans of his commander-in-chief, Zumala- Carregui. But when the Carlist movement succumbed at Vergara, Sor Patrocinio passed over to the camp of the theocratic party at the court of Isabella. No sooner was the war over than a political reaction commenced, and Sor Patrocinio, despite the sentence of the tribunals, returned to Madrid. The great question of the day at that time was the marriage of Queen Isabella. Don Francisco, the same who accompanied the Queen a few months ago, with Marfori, from St. Sebastian to Pau, was among the suitors of the royal daughter of Maria Christina. 1-le lived at that time in Pampeluna, where he was entirely under the influence of the bishop of that diocese, who used him as a tool, and, previous to his departPre for Madrid, urgently recommended to him the nun, who still continued performing miracles. Sor Patrocinio was not long in ac- quiring unlimited influence over the weak-minded young man, who became a firm believer in her miracles. At times, toward nightfall, there was seen a shadow on the walls of the apart- ments of his palace. This shadow had the form of a woman, and resem- bled Don Franciscos mother, who returned from the other world for the pur- pose of informing the young king consort that Isabella was a usurper, and that he, her son, was doomed to the flames of hell if he did not devise means of re- storing the crown to the family of Don Carlos. At other times it was Sor Pa- trocinio herself who made trips to purgatory and brought to the young king word from his late lamented mother, and informed him of the course which she desired him to pursue. Don Francisco finally took a desperate resolution. Narvaez was then prime minister, and the King induced the Queen to dismiss him and to form an almost ridiculous cabinet, consisting exclusively of ultra absolutists. The people gave it the nickname of the Lightning Cabinet, and it was overthrown within twen- ty-four hours after its formation, amid the sneers and laughter of the whole cap- ital. Narvaez recovered his place, the King and the nun were exiled; but shortly afterward they returned, and obtained more influence than ever before. 8 i THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., Hitherto Sor Patrocinio had taken pains only to influence the King Consort; but henceforth she tried to extend her influence to the Queen also. Up to this time, her miraculous intrigues had been simply absurd; but now the means to which she resorted began to exceed the limit of probability. We can easily understand how she succeeded in causing the statue of Christ in St. Franciss church to be covered with bloody sweat, as a mark of his disap- probation of the policy pursued by Spain. Such things had often been done before. But we have more difliculty in understanding how the Queen carried her faith in the supernatural powers of Sor Patrocinio so far as to allow the de- signing nun to persuade her to wear only such shirts as Sor Patrocinio had already had on her body for at least twenty-four hours. It is almost impos- sible to give any plausible reasons for such an absurdity, and, hence, the Span- iards constantly invented new stories to explain it. Thus it was said that Don Francisco had obtained, by some surreptitious means, a large collection of letters written by and to the Queen, and which enabled him to prevail upon his consort to follow the advice of Sor Patrocinio in every respect. Sor Patrocinio belonged to a religious community, and yet she had never re- sided permanently in a cloister since Don Francisco had married Isabella of Spain. She came and went, like a secular lady, from Spain to Rome and from Rome to Spain; she travelled from convent to convent, from city to city. She braved the sentence passed upon her by the tribunals, and no judges were bold enough to enforce it against her. In Madrid she always rode through the streets in a royal equipage, drawn by four mules; two other carriages followed it; and an escort of honor accompanied her. When she resided at the nunnery of St. Pas- cal, half a dozen carts, bearing the royal coat-of-arms, could be seen every Monday unloading at that cloister the most expensive delicacies of Spain and foreign countries. It was the weekly contribution which the royal court sent to Sor Patrocinios kitchen. The nunnery of St. Pascal is situated at Aranjuez, and was built by Charles III. It is large, but of no importance as a monument of art. Originally destined for the use of monks, it consists of a large number of cells, which, according to the regulations of the community, were to contain only a plain deal table, a wooden bench, a bag filled with straw, two brown linen blankets, a small wooden stool, a crucifix of pine wood, a wooden dish, an earthen jar, and a plate. But to-day these cells have been transformed into elegant boudoirs. This nunnery, which Sor Patrocinio took under her special protection, became a model for all those which, with the expenditure of millions, she founded in MadridIldefonso, Pardo, San Lorenzo, and Loroya. Among the most significant regulations which she introduced here was that the novices must not be older than sixteen years, and it was observable that she did not admit any but very good-looking young girls. The costume of these nuns consists of a white tunic, surmounted by a cape, and fastened round the waist by means of the so-called seraphic string, to which a rosary is attached. Another rosary adorns the breast, and contains a medal made of gilt brass. The cloak is blue, and adorned with another medal, which is worn, on white silken ground, on the shoulder. The head-dress is very large, and a long veil is attached to it. The nuns go barefooted, and have only hemp- en sandals. This is also the costume of Sor Patrocinio. Her figure is not very striking, but her features are not uninteresting. She has a large, but shapely mouth, a powerful nose, and deep-seated, but highly intellectual eyes. She re 1869.] A CHARLESTON VENDUE IN 1842. I 19 sembles an apparition from past ages, and energy and fanaticism are stamped on her face. One day Isabella and Don Francisco sent for a photographer, who had to take a picture of the following group the Queen, the King, and the Queens children, all lying on their knees, while behind them stands Sor Patrocinio, extending her arms over the royal family. Sor Patrocinio has a brother, who, as may be expected, was highly prosper- ous as long as the nun was so powerful at the court of Spain; but fortunately for him he never aspired to any conspicuous positions, and thereby avoided in- curring the hatred of the people. A CHARLESTON VENDUE IN 1842. IT was at Charleston, South Carolina, in May, 1842, that I witnessed for the first and only time the sale of men, women, and children at public vendue I made a record of its details then, so that I am assured of the truthful accuracy of what I now write, but the impress was so indelible that had I not done so, my mind could reproduce it to-day as perfectly as five-and-twenty years ago. At that early time there were no attempts at concealment, nor was there either dislike or fear of Northern men. The sale was public as the daily sales of cotton, and the appearance of a stranger neither excited suspicion nor suggested caution. It was, undoubtedly, both in its conditions and resultswhat could hardly have been obtained five years afterwarda fair sample of the normal transfer of slave property in the far South. I had been to the post-office for letters. Coming down into Meeting street, I observed that a large shanty had been erected during the night in a vacant adjacent lot, and that it was surrounded by a crowd. As I drew nearer, I per- ceived that a large body of negroes were assembled, both within and outside, scattered into little knots, in the middle of each of which was a man or woman, apparently haranguing the listeners with serious earnestness. There were some indeed sitting alone, others walkiub from side to side and large numbers of children playing at various games, but the greater portion were grouped, accord- ing as family or other ties drew them together, engaged in serious conversation. Approaching a man in middle life, who wore the slouched hat and grey jacket of a plantation driver, and apparently had control of the gang, I asked the meaning of the unusual crowd. Vandoo, massa, was his reply. Dese people hab jus come down de riber from Massa Papineaus plantation, and goin to be sold to-day. Sold ? I rejoined. Why so? Massa dead! Died in April, and young massa goin North to lib. How many do you number? Ober seben hunder! I don jus know how many, cos some jump de boat, but more dan seben hunder somewber, I reckon. Are you to be sold, too? Yes, massa, but I don mm dat. I worth all I fetch. But dat poor gal yonder, massas own Alice, raised like a lady. I most sorry for her. Passing through the crowd in the direction the driver had pointed, I found seated alone, behind a board partition that screened her from notice, a girl of

1869.] A CHARLESTON VENDUE IN 1842. I 19 sembles an apparition from past ages, and energy and fanaticism are stamped on her face. One day Isabella and Don Francisco sent for a photographer, who had to take a picture of the following group the Queen, the King, and the Queens children, all lying on their knees, while behind them stands Sor Patrocinio, extending her arms over the royal family. Sor Patrocinio has a brother, who, as may be expected, was highly prosper- ous as long as the nun was so powerful at the court of Spain; but fortunately for him he never aspired to any conspicuous positions, and thereby avoided in- curring the hatred of the people. A CHARLESTON VENDUE IN 1842. IT was at Charleston, South Carolina, in May, 1842, that I witnessed for the first and only time the sale of men, women, and children at public vendue I made a record of its details then, so that I am assured of the truthful accuracy of what I now write, but the impress was so indelible that had I not done so, my mind could reproduce it to-day as perfectly as five-and-twenty years ago. At that early time there were no attempts at concealment, nor was there either dislike or fear of Northern men. The sale was public as the daily sales of cotton, and the appearance of a stranger neither excited suspicion nor suggested caution. It was, undoubtedly, both in its conditions and resultswhat could hardly have been obtained five years afterwarda fair sample of the normal transfer of slave property in the far South. I had been to the post-office for letters. Coming down into Meeting street, I observed that a large shanty had been erected during the night in a vacant adjacent lot, and that it was surrounded by a crowd. As I drew nearer, I per- ceived that a large body of negroes were assembled, both within and outside, scattered into little knots, in the middle of each of which was a man or woman, apparently haranguing the listeners with serious earnestness. There were some indeed sitting alone, others walkiub from side to side and large numbers of children playing at various games, but the greater portion were grouped, accord- ing as family or other ties drew them together, engaged in serious conversation. Approaching a man in middle life, who wore the slouched hat and grey jacket of a plantation driver, and apparently had control of the gang, I asked the meaning of the unusual crowd. Vandoo, massa, was his reply. Dese people hab jus come down de riber from Massa Papineaus plantation, and goin to be sold to-day. Sold ? I rejoined. Why so? Massa dead! Died in April, and young massa goin North to lib. How many do you number? Ober seben hunder! I don jus know how many, cos some jump de boat, but more dan seben hunder somewber, I reckon. Are you to be sold, too? Yes, massa, but I don mm dat. I worth all I fetch. But dat poor gal yonder, massas own Alice, raised like a lady. I most sorry for her. Passing through the crowd in the direction the driver had pointed, I found seated alone, behind a board partition that screened her from notice, a girl of 120 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., some eighteen years, enga.,ed in sewing. To say that she was beautiful would be faint praise. An octoroon, under whose transparent skin the veins radiated in lines of blue, and whose cheeks showed that tint which in contrast with dark liquid eyes makes the race the most beautiful on earth ; of slight figure, tapering hands and feet, and full-developed neck and shoulders, over which jet black tresses fell in luxurianceshe was indeed tropical in her loveliness. She rose from her seat as I stepped within the screen, and bade me good-morning. There was no shrinking. A slight blush seemed to heighten the color of her cheeks, hut it instantly disappeared, or was forgotten in the graceful good-breeding of her manner. In dressthe simple morninb calico of that dayin air, bearing, and self- reliance, as well as in tones of voice and powers of conversation, she was a gentlewoman. Indeed she had been educated in schools at the North under the expectation of freedom and wealth, but the will of her father had been denied probate, and her half-brother, in fact, though not in name, held bimself aloof from all recognition of relationship. She knew that she was to be sold, and had evidently made up her mind to her fate. As I turned to leave, she asked me either to become her purchaser and send her to Massachusetts, where she would spend her life to repay me ; or, if I could not do that, to interest some person in Charleston to buy her for a house- servant or ladys maid. It was out of my powerwould have damaged rather than benefitted her, and I told her so. As I returned to the large inclosure the sale was just beginning. A platform had been erected, and upon it stood the auctioneer reading aloud the terms and conditions of the sale. Some fifty gentleman were present. The negroes were all within the inclosure. A dead silence reigned, even the children being quieted and looking on with eager interest. Call Tom, Betsey and the three children! said the auctioneer to the driver, referring to a list of names lying before him. Tom! Tom! Tom and Betsey! Up on de stan! shouted the driver to the crowd, and a healthy man and woman, both apparently turned of thirty, the latter carrying a baby at the breast, and pushing along before her a boy and girl of two and four years, crept out of the mass, and climbing upon the staging, stood before the purchasers. Heres a blacksmith, a fine healthy fellow, gentlemen, and his wife, a strong, hearty wench, and their three children ! What am I offered for the lot? Two thousand dollars! Twenty-one hundred! Twenty-one and fifty! Why, gentle- men, it isnt half their value! Twenty-two hundred ! Twenty-two and fiftyand fiftyand fifty! Come up and examine them! Show your arm, Tom! Theres muscle for you, gentlemen ! Show your neck, Betsey ! Theres a breast for you ; good for a round dozen before shes done child-bearing! Well ,gcntle- men, shall I say txventy-five hundred? Twenty-five hundred it is! Thank you, sir. Who says twenty-six hundred? While the auctioneer was crying his wares, the purchasers meanwhile examin- ing their arms and legs and asking them questions, I observed that it was the constant aim of Tom and Betsey to depreciate themselves, either as strong and healthy, or as valuable servants in any sense. Not only were the replies made to the inquiries of purchasers most unsatisfactory, but to each recommendation of the auctioneer there was a constant running negation on the part of the parties being sold. I do not know how better to illustrate what I mean than by the following dialogue: 1869.] A CHARLESTON VENDUE IN 1842. 121 Auctioneer. Heres a fine fellow, gentlemen! Torn. Aint a fine feller , gemmen. Auctioneer. Hold your tongue, Tom. You are a fine fellowa strong, handy nigger. Torn. Aint a strong, handy nigge r. Purchaser. Whats the matter with you, Tom? Torn. Got a stiff arm. Me break it when little cuffee. Cant do no moren harf days work. The same running contradiction took place on Betseys part. Auctioneer. Heres a nice wench, gentlemen. Betsey. Aint a nice wench ,gemmen. Auctioneer. Nonsense, Betsey. Yes, you are. There wasnt a smarter woman at Mr. Papineaus plantation. Belsey. Dats a lie. Moren twenty nuff sight smarter than ole Betsey. Massa Papno, he knowd better. Aint smart woman nohow. Purchaser. Why, whats the matter with you, mammy? Betsey. Got swellin in knee. Look dere, raising her dress above a pair sturdy pins to confirm her statement. An got roomatis in back very bad rite here, letting her dress fall and grasping with her hands each side of the small of her back. Aint smart woman to work. De good Lord knows dat. Supposing this systematic attempt to depreciate their value must arise from some exceptional reason on the part of Tom and Betsey, I rather enjoyed it, es- pecially as they usually got the best of the argument and the sympathy of the purchasers; but xvhen I discovered that each man and woman afterward put on the block did precisely the same thing, and that every statement of the auctioneer was met by a flat contradiction, just as broad as it was long, I confess that I xv as l)uzzled. Neither girl nor boy, man nor woman, husband nor wife, was willing to i)e sold at a high price as a first-rate field-hand, mechanic, or house-servant. Turning to a gentleman standing near me, who had made several purchases, I asked the reason. Why, said I, is there this persistent purpose on the part of old and young, each to undervalue his or her personal value? It is contrary to that inordinate vanity that is so large an element in the negro character, and seems to answer no purpose but a damage to the sale ? That is very true, was the reply, and nothing makes the negro wince sooner than a jibe of being valueless. Massa, he ask moren fifteen hunder dollars for dis nigger. or you worse nor poor trash, and massa he glad to sell you for tree hunder dollar, and similar taunts and vaunts are heard constantly on every plantation. But in the case of an actual sale, another and stronger ele- ment than vanity comes into play, which is love of ease. If sold at a high price, the negro knows he must make himself worth that price to his master by hard labor; if, on the contrary, at a low price, he can afford to be idle, and his master will not complain While the gentleman was speaking, an old negro, nearly bent double, tremu- lous, decrepid, palsied, whose hair and beard were white, and who seemed scarcely able to move or even stand, was helped on the platform. A murmur of disapprobation ran through the crowd of buyers. Its a shame to sell that old man! Take him off and let him go ! were heard from one and another, ~vhen the auctioneer replied, I know it, gentlemen, but what can I do? The old fellow belongs to the estate; his name is on the schedule before me, and reluctant as I am to sell a 122 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. rJAN., man who has one foot in the grave, I have only my duty to do as a sworn officer of the State. Then, in a subdued voice, he added, Well, gentlemen, you see the old fel- low. He~ past his day. Its a mercy to make the rest of his life easy. Wholl bid? Anything, gentlemen, anythincr? Do I hear five dollars ? There was a moments hesitation, no one feeling disposed to assume the re- sponsibility, when the gentleman I had addressed answered, Yes, Ill give you five dollars. Five dollars once, five dollars twice, five dollars, going, going, gone! Pe- ter goes to Mr. Hampton for five dollars. Peter, leaning on his crutch, and looking the picture of miserable old age, had meanwhile been an attentive observer. A great many of the negroes had crowded near. There was not a person present who was not looking on. No sooner then had the hammer fallen, than, stretching himself to his full height, throwing away his crutch, his face alive with the broadest grin, and every sign of decrepitude gone, he said, Tank ou, Massa Hampton! Tank ou, Massa Vandue! Dis nigger not dead yet dis long time ! Yah, yah, yab And leaping unassisted from the platform, made his way among his applaud- ing and delighted fellow-servants. It is but justice to say, that, aside from the auction itself, which, of course, utterly disregarded the negros right to himself there was nothing inhuman in any of its details. Families were sold together. Half-grown children were per- mitted to choose whether they would or would not be sold alone. Attachments between young people were respected. The old were never separated from their grown-up children. The property each had brought was sacred. Purchasers often waived their preferences, at the request of hands they had bought, in order that friends and neighbors might still be together. No harsh word was once spoken. Each nexv master, as soon as the hammer fell, introduced himself to those he had purchased, shaking hands with the elders, patting the heads of the children, fondling the babies, and patiently answering the numerous questions eagerly asked. Among a family of nine persons brought on the platform, the oldest child, a girl of sixteen years, was observed to be weeping. What is that wench crying for, Mr. Jacohs ? was the question instantly put by a dozen voices. The girl would not tell. One of her fellow-servants replied, that she didnt want to leave Jim, Jim being the name of her lover. No more she shant, then. Sell her with Jim. She was at once withdrawn from her own family and sold with her lover. The sale had now been on for nearly five hours. Gang after gang had left, some in wagons or boats, others on foot. The partings were distressing. As a rule the men bore them bravely, as if ashamed to quarrel with the inevitable. But with the women it was agony. There was no hope. The grave shuts out the dead no more completely than separation shuts out the slave. There still remained the sale of Blanche, the octoroon. Many of the young bloods of both town and country had been drawn together by the advertisement, and by the knowledge of her history. Her apartment had been a general ren- dezvous during the day, and the city was full of rumors of her beauty. Hardly a slave was left, save the driver and his family, who had been sold on the con- dition he should not be removed till the close. The auctioneer stated briefly the facts already narrated of the girls history, and then sent for her to come out. The building was thronged with men. As she ascended the platform, as- 1869.] MR. GRANT WHITE UNDER DISCIPLINE. 123 sisted by Mr. Jacobs, and walked toward the centre, a murmur of surprise, mingled perhaps with pity, ran through the crowd. A chair was placed for her to sit hy the side of the auctioneer, who at once commenced the sale. He gave no description. She needed none. As the bidding, beginning aI!a thousand dollars, advanced to three thousand and more, I watched her face. There were no tears, no affectation of grief, no shrinking from the public gaze, but her eyes turned from bidder to bidder, with an intensity of meaning clearer than words. The offers robe by hundreds to four thousand one hundred dollars; and when the hammer fell, making her the property of her fathers executor and friend, her fervent utterance of God be thanked, drew from more than one breast a hearty amen. N. S. DODGE. MR. GRANT WHITE UNDER DISCIPLINE. THE publishers of THE GALAXY have received and have placed in my hands the following letter. It is from a Doctor in Philosophy. The suggestion made in it is so striking that I shall not withhold it from my readers: GLEN MILLS, Delaware County, Penn., Nov. 2, i868. Messrs. Skeldon & 6o., Nero York: GENTLEMEN: I generally peruse Mr. Whites Words and their Uses, and often ob- ject to his decisions and rules. If I have heretofore done so only in the silence of my library, it has been for want of time to criticise for the public eye. In your November number, however, the door to criticism is so widely opened, and so invitingly left open, that I cannot resist stepping in, just to leave my card, whereon I would willingly write Controversialist, if I could aspire so highly.* Mr. White says, however, that there is no such word, and that there ought not to be; and, by induction, we must conclude that he denies the right of existence to any noun formed by suffixing ist to an adjective in al, when the adjective is formed from a noun. Let us examine this for a moment. 1st cer- tainly means action, and the genius of our language should permit us to apply it to any noun signifying the doing of an actionto change doing into doer, as controversy into con- trovertist. One may be the doer on an occasionthe controvertist, if only one occasion, if a moment. I would even allow ist (with all propriety, should need arise) to nouns which, not signifying, yet comprehend a doing, and make such words as vocist and netnrist to signify one who sings or experiences nature.t When, however, we wish to designate a person skilled or learned in art or science, notwithstanding Mr. White, we may suffix the ist to an adjective, and make such words as natnralist, vocalist, nationalist, controver- sialist, conversationalist, experimentalist, rationalist, universalist, transcendentalist, etc. The reason is, that the action here is not expended; the ist is not merely the doer ~ of a thingit is the embodiment of a qualification, a subject for the adjective. An agricultur- ist is a tiller of the fields; and one learned in agricultural things should be termed an ag- riculturalist. There is no limit to this rule, save taste, concerning which non disputan- durn, and convention, which, in our language, is loose even to license. Yours truly, JAMES M. WILLcox, Ph. D. * Sic; but perhaps Doctor Willcox meant, aspire so Ieigle.PRooF-READER. I I therefore venture to suggest reiz~gionist as the proper name to be assumed by those persons who have experienced religion. At the same time, I still further presume to say that I cannot comprehend how a man can experience nature, still less what is one who sings or ex/eriences nature, for how nature is to be sung, except, indeed, as Haydn and Thompson have sung her, is almost as hard to understand as how she is to be experienced. Perhaps the learned doctor meant, one who sings, and one who experiences nature. PRoOF-REAOEse. ~ Sic: but piainly the critic means, not that the ist is the doer, but that it is the sign verbal or expression of the doerPRooF-READER.

1869.] MR. GRANT WHITE UNDER DISCIPLINE. 123 sisted by Mr. Jacobs, and walked toward the centre, a murmur of surprise, mingled perhaps with pity, ran through the crowd. A chair was placed for her to sit hy the side of the auctioneer, who at once commenced the sale. He gave no description. She needed none. As the bidding, beginning aI!a thousand dollars, advanced to three thousand and more, I watched her face. There were no tears, no affectation of grief, no shrinking from the public gaze, but her eyes turned from bidder to bidder, with an intensity of meaning clearer than words. The offers robe by hundreds to four thousand one hundred dollars; and when the hammer fell, making her the property of her fathers executor and friend, her fervent utterance of God be thanked, drew from more than one breast a hearty amen. N. S. DODGE. MR. GRANT WHITE UNDER DISCIPLINE. THE publishers of THE GALAXY have received and have placed in my hands the following letter. It is from a Doctor in Philosophy. The suggestion made in it is so striking that I shall not withhold it from my readers: GLEN MILLS, Delaware County, Penn., Nov. 2, i868. Messrs. Skeldon & 6o., Nero York: GENTLEMEN: I generally peruse Mr. Whites Words and their Uses, and often ob- ject to his decisions and rules. If I have heretofore done so only in the silence of my library, it has been for want of time to criticise for the public eye. In your November number, however, the door to criticism is so widely opened, and so invitingly left open, that I cannot resist stepping in, just to leave my card, whereon I would willingly write Controversialist, if I could aspire so highly.* Mr. White says, however, that there is no such word, and that there ought not to be; and, by induction, we must conclude that he denies the right of existence to any noun formed by suffixing ist to an adjective in al, when the adjective is formed from a noun. Let us examine this for a moment. 1st cer- tainly means action, and the genius of our language should permit us to apply it to any noun signifying the doing of an actionto change doing into doer, as controversy into con- trovertist. One may be the doer on an occasionthe controvertist, if only one occasion, if a moment. I would even allow ist (with all propriety, should need arise) to nouns which, not signifying, yet comprehend a doing, and make such words as vocist and netnrist to signify one who sings or experiences nature.t When, however, we wish to designate a person skilled or learned in art or science, notwithstanding Mr. White, we may suffix the ist to an adjective, and make such words as natnralist, vocalist, nationalist, controver- sialist, conversationalist, experimentalist, rationalist, universalist, transcendentalist, etc. The reason is, that the action here is not expended; the ist is not merely the doer ~ of a thingit is the embodiment of a qualification, a subject for the adjective. An agricultur- ist is a tiller of the fields; and one learned in agricultural things should be termed an ag- riculturalist. There is no limit to this rule, save taste, concerning which non disputan- durn, and convention, which, in our language, is loose even to license. Yours truly, JAMES M. WILLcox, Ph. D. * Sic; but perhaps Doctor Willcox meant, aspire so Ieigle.PRooF-READER. I I therefore venture to suggest reiz~gionist as the proper name to be assumed by those persons who have experienced religion. At the same time, I still further presume to say that I cannot comprehend how a man can experience nature, still less what is one who sings or ex/eriences nature, for how nature is to be sung, except, indeed, as Haydn and Thompson have sung her, is almost as hard to understand as how she is to be experienced. Perhaps the learned doctor meant, one who sings, and one who experiences nature. PRoOF-REAOEse. ~ Sic: but piainly the critic means, not that the ist is the doer, but that it is the sign verbal or expression of the doerPRooF-READER. 124 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., The suggestion of this correspondent certainly has the merit of ingenuity. It essays to make and to mark a distinction not hitherto drawn in languagea distinction upon which the use of the words controversialist and agriculturalist is not rested by their users ; for those words are applied to a party in a contro- versy and to a tiller of the fields. Upon Doctor Willcoxs theory, the men who live by making sulphuric acid are chemists, but Dr. Draper and Dr. Doremus are chemicalists; a woman who reoulates her an household well is economist but Adam Smith and Stuart Mill are political economicalists; the men who smelt ores are metallurgists, but Professor Newberry is a rnetallurjcalist; and so we are to have floralist, musicalist, lyricalist, satiricalist, e~z~-rammati- calist, aPologeticalist, canonicalist, and the like, according to our taste, we hav- ing yet no academicalists to decide the question of acadeinicalisticability. Thus placing Doctor Willcoxs proposition fully before my readers, I leave it for the present, without remark upon either the value of the distinction which it draws or that of the class of words which it would introduce. The Nation claims some attention from me, which I give with pleasure. It says: Mr. White wants people to say presidental instead of presidential ; and it asks, What he does with tangentia~ and why he reasons from analogy as regards English orthography, and why he finds fault with so good a metaphor as calling a canvass a campaign, and what blatant Americanism there is in a ~vord so long known to English on both sides of the water as Presidential I The Nation is slightly in error. Far be it from me to want? people to say presidental, or to say or do anything else. I merely tell them what, in my judgment, it is right and best to say, knowing in my heart, all the while, that they, ~r most of them, will go on speaking as they hear those around them speak, as they will act as they see those around them acting. People do not learn good English or good manners by verbal instruction received after adoles- cence. Every man is like the Apostle Peter, in one respectthat his tongue bewrays him. What I do with tangential is simply to put it out of doors with presidential and exponentiala trinity of monsters which, although they have not been lovely in their lives, should yet in their death be not divided. Tangen- tial and eiy5onential, it is plain, were incorrectly made up by some mathemati- cian; and mathematicians, however exact in their technical terminology, are notoriously incorrect in their formation of words and phrases. These words and ~residential are the only examples of their kind which have received the recognition, and have been stamped with the authority even of dictionary- makers; which recognition and stamp of authority mean simply that the diction- ary makers have found the words somewhere, and have added them to the he- terogeneo us swarm upon their pages. Euphonyno less than analogycries out for the correct forms, tangental and extonental. And as to reasoning from analogy, if analogy may not be reasoned from in etymology (although not always as the ulti;na ratio), language must needs be abandoned to the popular caprice of the moment, and we must admit that, in speech, whatever is at any time or in any place, is right. The blatant Americanism of presidential cam- paign is not in the former word, but the latter, which belongs to what the Nation well styles, in its review of Miss Dickinsons book, that inflamed news- paper English which some people describe as being eloquence. Is it not time that we were done with this nauseous stuff about campaigns and standard-bear- ers and glorious victories, and all the bloated army-bummin~ talk which is so rife for the six months preceding an election ? To read most of our political papers 1869.] ARE WE INFERIOR? 125 during a canvass is enough to make one sick and sorry. I do not regard the call- ing a canvass a campaign as a good metaphor, because first, no metaphor is called for, and last, this one is entirely out of keeping. We could do our political talk- ing much better in simple English. The great need of the day, in regard to language, is the purging it of the prurient and pretentious metaphors which have broken out all over it, and the getting plain people to say plain things in a plain way. As to what is becoming in beobles who are boets, either in verse or in prose, that is a different matter. An election has no manner of like- ness to a campaign or a hattie. It is not even a contest in which the stronger and more dexterous party is the winner: it is a mere comparison, a counting, in which the bare fact that one party is the more numerous ensures its success, if it will only come up and be counted. To ensure this, a certain time is spent by each party in belittling and reviling the candidates of its opponents, and in magni- fying and glorifying its own; and this is the canvass, at the likening of which to a campaign every honest soldier might reasonably take offence. Many reasons are always given by the losers for the loss of an election; but the only, and the simple and sufficient reason is, that more men chose to vote against them than with them ; and as to the why of the why, it is either conviction or interest, with which all the meeting and parading, and bawling and shrieking of the previous three or four months has nothing to do whatever. It will be xvell for the politi- cal morality and the mental tone of our people when they are brought to see this matter as it is~ simply of itself; and one very efficient mode of enabling them to do so, would he for journals of character and men of sense, like the Nation and its editors, to write and speak of it in plain language, calling a spade a spade, instead of using that inflamed English which is now its com- mon vehicle, and which is so contagious and so corrupting. R. G. W. V ARE WE INFERIOR? ONE often hears men say, indulgently or despairingly, as the case may be, but al~vays with a spice of seriousness, be they never so playful in say- ing itthat they cannot understand a xoman s reasoning. Even the London Athenteum, which is supposed to know everything, declares that she is past finding out. It is probable that mans unaided reason never will discover the process by which a woman reaches her conclusions. For it is different from his, and he has no clue by which to unravel it. He cannot comprehend it because he cannot reproduce it. Woman can learn and can practise the modes of mans reason- ing, but he cannot return the compliment. Her modus ojerandi is incommuni- cable. Her faculty is, like the poeticborn, not made. The various communist experiments are said to have evolved the fact that when men and women are left free to choose their own avocations, about one-third of the women choose mens employments, and about one-third of the men those of women. In other words, some women are masculine and some men femi- nine in their tastesa fact sufficiently obvious. But whatever similarity of powers or identity of taste there may be, there is a radical difference between the minds of men and of women. The two cannot be blended or transmuted one into the other.

1869.] ARE WE INFERIOR? 125 during a canvass is enough to make one sick and sorry. I do not regard the call- ing a canvass a campaign as a good metaphor, because first, no metaphor is called for, and last, this one is entirely out of keeping. We could do our political talk- ing much better in simple English. The great need of the day, in regard to language, is the purging it of the prurient and pretentious metaphors which have broken out all over it, and the getting plain people to say plain things in a plain way. As to what is becoming in beobles who are boets, either in verse or in prose, that is a different matter. An election has no manner of like- ness to a campaign or a hattie. It is not even a contest in which the stronger and more dexterous party is the winner: it is a mere comparison, a counting, in which the bare fact that one party is the more numerous ensures its success, if it will only come up and be counted. To ensure this, a certain time is spent by each party in belittling and reviling the candidates of its opponents, and in magni- fying and glorifying its own; and this is the canvass, at the likening of which to a campaign every honest soldier might reasonably take offence. Many reasons are always given by the losers for the loss of an election; but the only, and the simple and sufficient reason is, that more men chose to vote against them than with them ; and as to the why of the why, it is either conviction or interest, with which all the meeting and parading, and bawling and shrieking of the previous three or four months has nothing to do whatever. It will be xvell for the politi- cal morality and the mental tone of our people when they are brought to see this matter as it is~ simply of itself; and one very efficient mode of enabling them to do so, would he for journals of character and men of sense, like the Nation and its editors, to write and speak of it in plain language, calling a spade a spade, instead of using that inflamed English which is now its com- mon vehicle, and which is so contagious and so corrupting. R. G. W. V ARE WE INFERIOR? ONE often hears men say, indulgently or despairingly, as the case may be, but al~vays with a spice of seriousness, be they never so playful in say- ing itthat they cannot understand a xoman s reasoning. Even the London Athenteum, which is supposed to know everything, declares that she is past finding out. It is probable that mans unaided reason never will discover the process by which a woman reaches her conclusions. For it is different from his, and he has no clue by which to unravel it. He cannot comprehend it because he cannot reproduce it. Woman can learn and can practise the modes of mans reason- ing, but he cannot return the compliment. Her modus ojerandi is incommuni- cable. Her faculty is, like the poeticborn, not made. The various communist experiments are said to have evolved the fact that when men and women are left free to choose their own avocations, about one-third of the women choose mens employments, and about one-third of the men those of women. In other words, some women are masculine and some men femi- nine in their tastesa fact sufficiently obvious. But whatever similarity of powers or identity of taste there may be, there is a radical difference between the minds of men and of women. The two cannot be blended or transmuted one into the other. 126 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., In the singular discussions of the early church concerning the Trinity, one of the old fathers stoutly maintained the equality of the Son with the Father, but declared him to he a smaller ~orllon of the substance of Deity. This is about the equality which has been assigned to woman. She has heen con- sidered a sort of lesser man; her intellect is assumed to he identical with his, but smaller, weaker, and of an inferior quality. One would like to see this notion clone away with, not from politeness merely or iodulgence, but from conviction, and because it is not true. Whether a given man and woman are equal, or on whichever side the superiority may lie, their minds are diverse one from the other. Despite the poet, woman is not a lesser man. Even a masculine woman is not mentally masculine, even a feminine man is not mentally feminine. The difference between them does not lie in any difference of their mental powers as to quantityas, whether one has more and the other lesswhether the capacity of the one is equal to a pint and the other to a quart, so to speak. This sort of measurement is equally applicable between man and man, as be- tween man and woman. Nor does it consist in quality. Comparison and reasoning in man are equally comparison and reasoning in woman, and a given woman may possess a supe- rior ability in that or in any other direction, to a given man. Nor is it enough to say that one is slow and the other quick, as though a difference in speed were the main difference between them. This again no more than the idea of quantity or quality, supplies the desired distinction. The difference lies in their mode of mental actionin the way in which they use the same mental powers. The mind of man moves analyticallythat of woman synthetically. He approaches his conclusion step by step through a slow and sometimes devious way of reasoning, and reaches it by degrees of ap- proximation. She darts upon hers at once, is sure of it instantly, she does not know how, and afterward seeks to prove it. He reasons toward, and she from the same conclusion. So when he gets to it he is surprised to find that she l~as been there before him, and she is equally surprised that the journey has taken him so long. He, with infinite pains-taking, makes out and declares a general law; she, by her perception, at once affirms or denies it. H is finding of truth is of the nature of a discovery, hers of the nature of a recognition; he deals in proof she in intuition; his is sight, hers insight. Given an intellectual circle to find the centre, man starts from the circum- ference and follows up the different radii until he satisfies himself that he has discovered it, and does not presume to decide where it lies, except by the proof of actual measurement. Woman, on the contrary, with wings as swift as med- itation or the thoughts of love, alights at one bound on a point which she de- clares to be the centre, and then for proof follows up the radii to the circumfer- ence. If a woman has not been trained to the use of her own mental powers, or if she has not thought out her chain of reasoning, it thus happens that she often knows (or what is the same thing to her, feels sure of) a truth which she cannot prove. Indeed such an experience is probably not unknown to most women. What woman has not at times despaired of making clear to a male comprehen- sion, something perfectly evident to her own mind? The most intellectual man, therefore, seems at times to a woman singularly dullthe most intellectual wo- man appears to a man at times singularly unreasonable. Thus it happens that when a womans convictions are strong on a given 1869.1 ARE WE INFERIOR? 127 point, she becomes all impatience at the slowness of a man to admit what to her is almost self-evident, and calls it stupidity. And when he is, after his heavy~ deliberate fashion, slowly gathering proot; he smiles at her quickness to decide before what he considers due investigation, and calls it childishness. Each is, and to a certain degree must remain an enigma to the other, and it is all along of the difference in their mode of mental action. Therefore it is that a woman who is unable to trace back her steps and to forge her links of proof; is often obliged to content herself and at the same time to disgust her lord with reiteration that a thing is so, and then she is very likely dismissed with the satisfactory assurance that women never reason about anything, to which, if she is a woman of spirit, she immediately replies that men never see anything. For, to her apprehension, the difference between his mode of getting at truth, and hers, is as the difference between groping along by the sense of feeling, and flying by the help of sight. Women can and do reason as men do. In that case, nothing is taken from their usual mental process, but something is added to it. A woman then goes through her own peculiar ~node of reaching a conclusion, mentally traces her way back, and then, reversing her own instinctive process, reasons forward step by step. So that she thus reaches the same truth by both modesfirst by the feminine mode, and second by the masculine one. It is an amusing scene, if one could witness it invisibly, where a woman undertakes to conduct her scep- tical lord over ground which she herself has thus nimbly travelled. An- swer me, ye bright sisters, how is it when you set out to make your husband see? How obstinate he seems. What suppressed impatience on your part what wearisome pains-takingwhat short steps of ratiocination to accommo- date his implied slower locomotion. Well, you admit that, dont you? Yes. And that? Yes. And soon. Now and then there appears a mathematical minda genius, it is always calledwhose perceptive faculty is so developed that he can tell instantly the sum of a given number of figures, but cannot explain how he found it. He arrives instantly at results, which other people are obliged to reach step by step. This is akin to the mode in which women obtain their conclusions. Women invent phrases to express this peculiar perception. Something tells me, they often say. All have heard our grandmothers declare of a thing, that they felt it in their bones. 0! those bones! those bones! exclaimed a gay young friend, when something fell out as had been predicted. How do they know so much? And the because at which women stop when at fault in tracing up a reason is thus accounted for, as well as the impolitic but most natural I told you so, when experience has vindicated a prophecy; all of which are related to the female side of the family of the intuitions. And yet, because womans faculty is akin to genius, man must always have the conduct of the worlds affairs. The masculine understanding is the one that must give form to the outward life. It is best adapted to such a work, and as such always asserts itself; for when was genius ever practical? It is of its very nature to deal with results and to overleap processes; to gaze on the purple mountain-top afar, and to ignore the valley that lies between. And so, for each generation, as long as the question is one of standards and ideals as it is in childhood and youth, so long woman is the guiding light; as soon as it becomes one of methods and of practical ways and means, then the masculine under- standing leads the way. An elder sister with younger brothersa mother with sons, is often taken by surprise with this fact. She who was the head and coun 128 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [JAN., sellor finds her relations to them somehow reversed, and in a few years goes to them for the advice which they formerly sought from her. So with a circle of young friends. As they develop and go out into life, the masculine under- standing unconsciously assumes its appropriate place, and the admiring boy who was liked and partially patronized by his female companions, becomes the large- minded, indulgent man to whom they in their turn look up. Blindness to this inevitable reversal is the secret of much surprise at marriages and of many fail- ures to marry. The precocious girl does not recognize in her unfledged lover the man that is to be, and wonders when she hears that some woman has afterward found in him that which she failed to perceive. There are men who think that any man, because he is a man, is superior to any woman, because she is a woman. To judge from English journals, that view is not uncommon across the water; here it is only occasional and excep- tional. For men in America, let me say in passing, give to woman at once the care of a protector, the service of a vassal, and the devotion of a lover; and America is the paradise of woman, though she may not know it. But when, as is sometimes the case, a woman meets, even in our own coun- try, the occasional masculine claim to intellectual superiority, let not her soul be moved. We can readily forgive the egotism and readily account for it. Undoubtedly there is a seeming superiority of man to woman, nay a real one, as seen in some aspects. Mans intellectual faculty, as applied to practical life, is stronger, wiser, better than ours. But womans is really of a higher order than his. Hers is the transcendental faculty the higher reason, which does not stop to touch, and taste, and handle, in its endeavor after truth, but sweeps at once to its goal. Woman was deceived in the transgression. Then it was that she mistook her own perceptions, threw her mental powers into confusion, brought discredit upon them, and bewildered her originally unerring insight; and, in consequence, precedence was necessarily taken by the slower but surer male understanding. He shall rule over thee not an arbitrary outward infliction, but a divine declaration of a necessitya divine suggestion of the only remedy remaining for the mischief which she had wrought. Flenceforth she was to keep silence. She might well be dumb over such an error! Yet the faculty remains. Perhaps I am betraying secrets. If so, sisters, forgive me. But while women accord to men the authority, they are conscious of possessing the real ascendency. She still has power on her head; her intellectual faculty still exercises a marvellous though unrecognized domination, because of the angels, her perceptions, which she sends forth on their divine errands of insight. They who are most truly women are naturally most con- scious of this power; and such are, for the most part, like xvise courtiers, con- tent to hide the appearance of power behind its reality, and make little outcry for more privileges for their sex. Such women deal with men much as they do with spoiled children, and let them have their way, while all the time securing their own. And it is a curious fact that the most manly men are the ones who most cheerfully admit that they are under this peculiar rule, but are evidently never conscious when or how it is exercised. Neither shall I tell the signs or tokens; but I appeal to my sisters if they have not often read the feminine tel- egraphic signal which hrought them into instant comprehension of a sisters aims and intentions; and if they have not smiled at the unconsciousness of the poor, dear masculine, who, thinking himself so wise, and so independent, was yet going straight after her will and way. 1869.] ARE WE INFERIOR? 129 Beyond everything, man admires his own reason. Not a book except the divine one but either expressly or impliedly pays it adulation. Contemplating it, he goes into raptures. Swelling with pride, he exclaims, See how great and how wise I am ! I thank thee, 0 Lord that I am not a brute, or even as this woman! If one of his philosophers, under the irradiation of approaching dawn; speaks of himself as only a child who has been picking up pebbles on the dim earthly shore of truth, the story is repeated as if the admission was an infinite condescension. Mans philosophy is a jargon, but it seems to himself divine speech. His teachings are confused and contradictory, but they seem to himself divine order. With gravest dignity he lays down, in his schools of phi- losophy, every imaginable absurdity. His understanding is of the earth, earthy. What he can touch, and taste, and handle, and carry to market, tiwi he believes in. The physical sciences and mathematics he can manage. But he will not believe what he cannot so touch and handle, and his proof extends not far. He cannot prove immortality, so he denies it. He cannot prove the existence of the outside world, so he denies that. He cannot prove a Creator, so he denies Him. He invents lo., ic, and proves by its help every- thing and nothing. In philosophy he is like an insect crawling hither and thith- er to the bounds of his small sphere, and declaring that there is nothing besides, and what he cannot see does not lie beyond. He carries his reason into religion, and makes confusion worse confounded. He tells you that you can and you cannot; that you may and shall not; that you must and you are not able. He assures you that you are responsible for what you cannot help, and that you are to be punished for what you never did. He gives you German Rationalism, French Positivism, English Ritualism, and general scepticism, as the highest products of his reason. And he calls this wisdom. He expects woman to admire and worship him as being wiser than she. But delude himself as he may by his pretensions, he does not delude woman. She by no means seeks to reason a~vay his reasoningsshe simply brushes them aside, and believes and acts by the light of her own higher faculty. For while in things of outward life, mans understanding must take precedence, in that which appertains to truth woman~ s is the better guide. Hers is the divining cup whereby the lord of the world divines. Her faculty was meant for refer- ence, for consultation, for prophetic perception, which should point the way of the world. It is of a higher order than hisnot lower. Its divine flight is crippled now, but is gradually gaining in strength and certainty. As it sits with clipped wings and dimmed eyes, or, as it flutters uncertainly where it ought to soar, it is jeered at, and set at naught by the slow-stepping masculine under- standing. But it is not to he always so. As the world gradually rights itselg woman gains in mental strength and clearness. Ultimately the primal mistake will be remedied. There is a good time coming to her and to all. Her faculty of insight will then be recognized. The veneration now accorded her by our own noble American men will be seen to have been prophetic, and to have been founded on a dim yet true perception of her real natfire. Man will then under- stand himself and her. She will understand herself and him. She will perceive truth for himhe will prove it for her. He will then find himself undisputed king of the world, and will administer unchallenged the affairs of. his kingdom, while she will be its priestessshe will con5ult for him the oracleshe will keep the sacred fire. SARAH E. HENSHAW. DRIFT-WOOD. MAGAZINE NOVELS. WITh their new year and new volumes, all the magazines are flinging out promises of fresh attractions for the twelvemouth to come. Tis the season of gifts and forth- puttings, and those of the magazines are prospectuses. One observes how impor- tant a part the serial novel plays among these announcements of good things in store though, for that matter, the serial novel has become a prime necessity to the popular magazine. It was born with magazinesgrew with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, from early days of Blackwood and Fraser to yesterdays issue of St. Pauls and Belgravia, warm from the press. The French serial novelists find their channel in the feul/leton, made illus- trious by Balzac, the two Dumas, Sue, About, Alphonse Karr, and a hundred others, just as the magazine serial has been immortalized by Dickens, Reade, Thacke- ray, Bulwer, Lever, and a hundred other Englishmen. But, in one sense, some last-century nov- els may be called serials, being published (like Tristram Shandy,) one or two vol- umes at a timefor a novel in less than five volumes was then accounted as unorthodox as a tragedy in less than five acts. Nay, let us push back, while we are about it, and boldly declare that serials were old as that household of learned slaves pur- chased by a rich Roman as live editions of the old bards whose works they had memo- rized. They were wont to deliver their continued stories, in occasional parts, to their master. Happier than we, he suited his instalments to his own patience and in- terest, nor suffered tortures, as we do, from an intensely piqued curiosity. And yet even this grand owner of living and breathing libraries could not always have his serials as he liked. Disappointments sometimes occurred. Perhaps the deputy Pindar was out of the way; or a sudden indisposi- tion of Homerinterrupted Ulysses in the middle of an harangue, and left Hector stretching out his arms to the child. Could G. P. R. James himself leave us more helplessly dependent in a dtfno ernent, with his Turn we to other scenes? Now, in our modern days, when books are material instead of vital, and the Press is literally not bond but freeunpleas- ant interruption at the most interesting mo- ment is the foundation-principle of the serial novel. It is a rough and unfeeling prin- ciple, at best, and wanting in human kind- ness, whichever way you look at it. Take your own case, gentle reader, and confess your foibles. Is it or is it not agreeable for you to leave your hero for a month in a bandits cave with a Colts pistol presented, capped and cocked, at his head? Do you find it pleasant or unpleasant to have him suspended over a chasm by a cord which snaps, and is to be continued in our next? Or a thousand miles high in a balloon, with the gas stealthily leaking? How did you fancy, in your very last romance, being cut off just as Matilda had stabbed the Count? These are home questions, for every man to ask of himself; and who knows, after all, but that it is from such considerations that Thackeray (who was very kindly) and Miss Thackeray (his own daughter) usually give us the end of a serial novel with the begin- ning, and remove all doubts and fears by making the hero tell his own story, or else by assuring you in the first number that he is alive and well at this moment? Now, one would say, of course, and with perfect truth, that the serial novel starts enormously handicapped in the race for pop- ular favor. That readers mustwait a month, whether they will or no, for every new in- stalment; that only enough is then given them to whet their appetite (like that of the hero of a famous English serial) for more; that a tale which could be dispatched in a few winter evenings is made to stretch from January to January again; that the memory is taxed in a way that loose readers (who use bock-marks) do not likethese and other obvious objections would seem to condemn the serial novel to unpopularity from the start. How, therefore, comes it to pass that, in reality, this strammge and impe- rious literary device rules the reading world as all the world knows that it does? How is it that many magazines live, move, and have their being through serial novels? That one of Charles Reades floats the Ar- gosy, and one of Miss Braddons builds

DRIFT-WOOD. MAGAZINE NOVELS. WITh their new year and new volumes, all the magazines are flinging out promises of fresh attractions for the twelvemouth to come. Tis the season of gifts and forth- puttings, and those of the magazines are prospectuses. One observes how impor- tant a part the serial novel plays among these announcements of good things in store though, for that matter, the serial novel has become a prime necessity to the popular magazine. It was born with magazinesgrew with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, from early days of Blackwood and Fraser to yesterdays issue of St. Pauls and Belgravia, warm from the press. The French serial novelists find their channel in the feul/leton, made illus- trious by Balzac, the two Dumas, Sue, About, Alphonse Karr, and a hundred others, just as the magazine serial has been immortalized by Dickens, Reade, Thacke- ray, Bulwer, Lever, and a hundred other Englishmen. But, in one sense, some last-century nov- els may be called serials, being published (like Tristram Shandy,) one or two vol- umes at a timefor a novel in less than five volumes was then accounted as unorthodox as a tragedy in less than five acts. Nay, let us push back, while we are about it, and boldly declare that serials were old as that household of learned slaves pur- chased by a rich Roman as live editions of the old bards whose works they had memo- rized. They were wont to deliver their continued stories, in occasional parts, to their master. Happier than we, he suited his instalments to his own patience and in- terest, nor suffered tortures, as we do, from an intensely piqued curiosity. And yet even this grand owner of living and breathing libraries could not always have his serials as he liked. Disappointments sometimes occurred. Perhaps the deputy Pindar was out of the way; or a sudden indisposi- tion of Homerinterrupted Ulysses in the middle of an harangue, and left Hector stretching out his arms to the child. Could G. P. R. James himself leave us more helplessly dependent in a dtfno ernent, with his Turn we to other scenes? Now, in our modern days, when books are material instead of vital, and the Press is literally not bond but freeunpleas- ant interruption at the most interesting mo- ment is the foundation-principle of the serial novel. It is a rough and unfeeling prin- ciple, at best, and wanting in human kind- ness, whichever way you look at it. Take your own case, gentle reader, and confess your foibles. Is it or is it not agreeable for you to leave your hero for a month in a bandits cave with a Colts pistol presented, capped and cocked, at his head? Do you find it pleasant or unpleasant to have him suspended over a chasm by a cord which snaps, and is to be continued in our next? Or a thousand miles high in a balloon, with the gas stealthily leaking? How did you fancy, in your very last romance, being cut off just as Matilda had stabbed the Count? These are home questions, for every man to ask of himself; and who knows, after all, but that it is from such considerations that Thackeray (who was very kindly) and Miss Thackeray (his own daughter) usually give us the end of a serial novel with the begin- ning, and remove all doubts and fears by making the hero tell his own story, or else by assuring you in the first number that he is alive and well at this moment? Now, one would say, of course, and with perfect truth, that the serial novel starts enormously handicapped in the race for pop- ular favor. That readers mustwait a month, whether they will or no, for every new in- stalment; that only enough is then given them to whet their appetite (like that of the hero of a famous English serial) for more; that a tale which could be dispatched in a few winter evenings is made to stretch from January to January again; that the memory is taxed in a way that loose readers (who use bock-marks) do not likethese and other obvious objections would seem to condemn the serial novel to unpopularity from the start. How, therefore, comes it to pass that, in reality, this strammge and impe- rious literary device rules the reading world as all the world knows that it does? How is it that many magazines live, move, and have their being through serial novels? That one of Charles Reades floats the Ar- gosy, and one of Miss Braddons builds !869] DRIFT-WOOD. 131 Belgravia? 1-Tow is it that magazine publishers vie with each other to get the best serial novelists, and to them surrender most valuable space? And, finally, how is it that, when they have been successful or unsuccessful, they tell you a single serial represents a gain or a loss to them of 50,000, 20,000, 30,000 subscribers? The answer lies in the serial novel itself, as viewed in the best works of its great masters. Their genius has made it possible to construct a story, obviating for the read- ing world the disadvantages just set forth, by being interesting in every detached part, and yet complete and connected as a ~vhole. The serial novel must be various, and must shift its scenes as quickly as real life shifts them; it must be founded on nature and yet be filled with the romance of real life; it must be probable, so far as consists with the experience that truth is stranger than fiction; k must be vivid and dramatic, with apt and natural dialogue and eloquent situations ; it must delineate character with the touch of a master, and deal with soci- ety as it exists, though the choice of cir- cumstance and of dramatis person~ be left to the writer; and, while it is entrancing in each number, it must march progressively, and without perceptible breaks, to the end. In a word, therefore, the successful serial novel defies the disadvantages of its inter- rupted publication; or, to speak more truly, it somehow turns these very disad- vantages to account. It makes capital of the very curiosity which we dislike to have aroused without being satisfied, by adroit manipulation and artistic skill. Yet, thirty years ago, the Edinburgh Re- view, in discoursing of a famous novelist, said: The difficulties to which Mr. Dickens is exposed in his present periodical mode of writing are, in some respects, greater than if he allowed himself a wider field, a d gave his whole work to the public at once. But he would he subjected to a severer criticism if his fiction could he read continuallyif his power of maintaining a sustained interest could be testedif his work could be viewed as a connected whole, and its object, plan, consistency, and arrangement brought to the notice of the reader at once. This ordeal can- not be passed triumphantly without the aid of other qualities than necessarily belong to the most brilliant sketcher of detached scenes. The real truth is, however, as we now know from larger experience, that the serial novel includes the other; and that whoever succeeds in the magazine equally succeeds in the book. But the reverse is not true. The serial demands as much force aid orig inality as the other, as much invention, as much analytic power, as picturesque a style; and, beyond all that, it demands a special literary ingenuity and artistic skill. Not every great novelist can write a maga- zine novel. Romola, one of George Eli- ots greatest books (and how great tho.t must be let the readers of Adam Bede say), was a dead failure in Cornhill as a serial. Dr. Holmess Guardian Angel was not constructed like a true serial, and suffers in- finite depreciation with those who read it in that way. In a continuous volume, some dull or distracting chapters may be launched without hazard; but siot so in the serial, where the met ciless public demands that each instalment shall in some sort justify itself, and none escape by vicarious sur- plusage. One batch of dry leaves, twenty pages of digression, may ruin all, with this inexorable judge. Ordinary constructive ability will not suffice for a serial, for it must display in every number a man master of his materials, and the polished workmanship of an artist. A l)rentice hand is quickly seen to be out of place here. Dr. Russell, illustrious and crowned with laurels won in other fields, lately undertook a serial in Tinsleys Mag- azine. The Adventures of Dr. Brady started off very finely; but presently it flopped down with an Icarus-tumble. The Edinburgh Reviewers dictum regarding the power of maintaining a sustained in- terest must be reversed; for a novelists sustaining power cannot be more severely tried than when he leaps a chasm of a month with his reader on his back, at the end of every two or three chapters. Charles Dickens may be regarded as the projector and inventor of the modern serial novel, as it exists in our language to-day. He established it by sheer genius, and by sheer genius gave it an immeasurable lease of life. The chances were all against it, and pre- dictions must have been abundant that it would fail. My friends, says Dickens, dryly, told me it was a low, cheap form of publication, by which I sisould ruin all my rising hopes; and how right my friends turned out to be, everybody now knows. When from the Sketches by Boz, be- gun in the Morning Chronicle, and ended in magazines, he launched Pick- wick upon the world in monthly instal- ments, it marked a new epoch in the pub- lishers trade, as well as in literature. The loose construction of these Papers, which 132 THE GALAXY [JAN., did not pretend to plan or plot, favored the form of publicationor, perhaps, was the result of it. But, when, after 30,000 copies of Pickwick had been sold, he tried in the same method a connected, progressive nov- el, and made it a success, the new serial method was assured. To show the progress of the serial novel, let the sketchiness of immortal Pickwick be compared with some modern magazine story, complete in each part, and yet overlaid with plot and sub-plot, coming from the master-ha~d of Wilkie Collins or Charles Reade. But Dickens followed the instinct of his self- conscious and confident genius at the start, improving always in art, until his monthly green covers became as heartsome by the fireside, and as welcome to the eyes, as the sight of green fields in spring. Then Thackeray, after his semi-serial ex- perience in Fraser, followed in the wake of his brother craftsman, and strewed abroad the monthly yellow covers of Vanity Fair and a very worthy sort of yellow-cover- ed literature it was, too. In due time, monthly magazines rose to great popularIty, and multiplied. The serial novel then established its home in them, and the best writers resorted to these vehi- cles, or rather were besought to help them on. Dickens, in Household Words; Thackeray with Lovel, the Widower, and with Philip in Corohill ; Bulwer with My Novel, in Blackwood; Lever (and no novelist, by the way, is more underrated in the critical world than the author of Charles OMalley, and Sir Brooke Foss- brooke) with Maurice Tiernay, in the Dublin University in a word, tbe famous novel-writers all lent their pens to the magazines. And soon amid the illustrious galaxy of English novelists suddenly ap- peared the star of Charles Reade, and shot rapidly up the heavens, where to-day it is in the zenith of favor. In the English magazine the serial plays a far more important ri3le than in the Ameri- can. Two serials are common enough in ours, as also in our popular weekly papers; but in England the monthly magazines mean novelists. They are adventured by publish- ers mainly on the strength of the names and fames of popular novelists ; so that Charles Reade, for example, said with perfect truth of his Griffith Gaunt, that it floated the Argosy. Continued stories are their main features, and the rest is expressively termed padding. Coruhill, Temple Bar, London Society, The Argosy, Bel- gravia, Tinsleys, Good Words,~ Gentlemans Magazine, (which has sur- rendered to its fate and, after a century, comes out in modern style and runs a serial), St. Pauls, St. James,what do these and others mean, if not Reade, Trollope, Wil- kie Collins, Miss Braddon, Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Wood, George Eliot, Miss Mulock, Sala, Yates, Miss Thackeray, and other popular novelists of the day? One or two such names, secured to any periodical, en- sure its success. So it turns out that serial-novel writin~ has become a regular branch of the literary calling, and even a distinct profession in itselfas much as law, or medicine, or di- vinity. Hundreds of writers are engaged in this calling, and turn out their novel per annum as regularly and methodically as a builder builds a house, haply planning all at first, but developing it day by day, in- stead of bringing it before the public at one stroke. Literature too, like law, has grown to xvear more of a business or commercial aspect than in days gone-by. As for the exigency of daily, weekly, or monthly publication, that is accepted by the feuilletonist or magazinist as a custom of his trade, and, as I said, is commonly turned to advantage. For instance, the serial novelist habitually watches the reception given to his charactersthe applause or hisses that greet his puppets as he puts them one by one on his mimic stageand the rL$le of the successful he often (Dickens notably so) enlarges, while the failures are quietly withdrawn from later scenes. Odd blunders, indeed, sometimes occur from in- advertency born of this way of writing. Everybody remembers, for example, how Rigaud in Little Dorrit was mentioned through a whole monthly part, by a wrong alias, awkwardly made up for, the month afterward. Thackerays troubles in this way were quite distressing, in the New- comes, in Philip, and elsewhere. How- ever, his forgetfulness was once quite our gain, as it gave us an inimitable Round- about Paper. THE HOLIDAYS. CrntrsvasAs was close at hand in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment and open-hearterl- ness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends i866.] DRIFT-WOOD. 33 around him, and, amid the sound of feast- ing and revelry, to pass gently and calmly away. So wrote a great writera great Christmas writermany years ago, adding, with wonted pathos, How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide in the restless strug- gles of life, are then reunited, aid meet once again. . . . Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our child- ish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and traveller thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home.~~ If this were the natural thought of thirty or forty years ago, surely it comes not less vividly to mind now, when, more than ever, the Christmas holidays signify and imply family reunion. Happy, happy Christmas, whose office it is to bring back the wanderers, and gather the family once more by the old hearth, under the old roof-tree. It is a pleasure, too, to think that these are festal days for all Christendom, and so have been for cen- turies. It is even a pleasure to trace back our custom of winter holidays, shorn though it be, of its grander Christian significance, two thousand years and more, so getting a new hold of sympathy, through it, upon classic days. The Roman lads had their weeks holiday, (what a jolly release from Latin grammar!) at the Saturnalia, which happened toward the end of Decemberfor all the world like our Christmas. It was the festival of the God of civilization, even as ours is of Christianity, which is merely another name for modern civilization; and no epithet could better describe it than that word merry, which time out of mind has belonged to our Christmas. Then, too, as now, the Senate did not sit, and all the gov- ernment offices were shut up, and so were the courts and the schools. There were extra dinners for master and man, for mis- tress and maid; ther~ were annual presents, as now, and, above all, there were toys by the ton to be lavished upon childrenfor kidd hearts beat in kindly old fellows long before the day of Santa Claus. Nay, as scholars have proved, the special sports of Twelfth Night belonged to this season, while, if we care to go to Rome or Venice to perfect the parallel, we shall find the Carnival revels there, with mask and torch, lineal descend- ants from the emblems and devices of the Saturnalia. In fine, whereas a single day, as with us, was set apart for religious ob- servance, the merry-making lasted through seven, thus making the se/tern Sa/zirnalia remind us again of our festal week betwixt Christmas and New Year. But, how immeasurably grander the or- igin, how immeasurably more solemn and imposing the pomp and circumstance of our Christian holiday, we may read in fit lan. guage in the great poets who have sung them. We may see the contrast, greater by far than the parallel, in Miltons match- less scene, where glittering ranks of helm- ~d Cherubim and sworded Seraphim fill the heavens on high, while beneath and All abont the coortly stable Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. Or, with Tennyson, we may hear the Christ- mas bells from hill to hill answer each other in the mist. Each voice foor changes on the wind That now dilate and now decrease Peace and good-will, good-will and peace, Peace and good-will to all mankind. When these lines reach the reader, every. thing will wear, or seem to wear, a holiday guise. Holly and evergreen will betoken approaching Christmas; the festal trees will have been cut down and will stand ready for use; home and church will be putting on their Christmas wreaths and garlands; shops will be decked in gay at- tire, brimming wit