LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Fifth Series, No, 2115. January 3, 1885. From Begiiming, Volume XLIX. ) 4 Vol. CLXIV. CONTENTS. ENGLISH SONGS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, BoRRoUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. Part II. THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LIT. ERATURE. Part III AT ANY COST. Conclusion, . THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY,. XVURZBURG AND VIENNA STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, THE ENEMIES,. A SHOWERY MORNING, Nineteen/h Century, Macmillans Magazine, National Review, Sunday Magazine, Temple Bar,. Contemporary Review, Macmillans Magazine, Daily Chronicle, Times, .3 13 23 32 39 47 64 POETRY. 21 SONNET TO AN INVALID LADY, ON HER HUSBANDS DEATH, 2 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & CO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, For ETOBT DOLLARS, remitted directly to tke Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,free o/#os/esge. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money shonidhe sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single I~tsmbers of Tua LiviNG A~u, s8 cents. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. 2 THE ENEMIES, ETC. THE ENEMIES. MINE enemy, who time and oft Had smitten me with words like swords, And trampled on my answer soft, Till I too smote with angry words, Is dead, and I am fairly quit. God give him rest. Once well away, Seeing he loved me not a whit, No heart have I to hid him stay. And yet methinks the God who framed Both him and me had made us such, That we were scarcely to be blamed For loving not each other much. The little good there was in me, It was not his, nor in his way; His good I haply might not see, Because he lacked one darling trait. We liked riot, and misliking lent Our virtues its own fatal sting, And many a shaft that anger sent Was feathered from a virtues wing. The aggressor he, his active life Committed him to this or that: I slipped, but loth, into the strife, Where he was dog and I was cat. Now twixt the twain who lately closed In contest on times petty stage, Eternity hath interposed The shadow of its dateless age. To.day I saw his resting.place, A grave that friendships flowers entwine, And wondered, with a troubled face, If any hands would cherish mine. The space about was kept, they said, For some who wished their bones to lay As near as might be to the dead Whom I in life had wished away. God give him rest! The single crime,- Mislike of me, should hardly blot His fame with one who many a time Can soothly say, .1 like me not. Perhaps we never fairly met That part in each God meant should live, And so incurred no lasting debt, And have but little to forgive. Thus entering at opposing gates, For Heaven has many gates, they say, We each may find a comrade waits Who quarrelled with him by the way. In jarring notes that vex the ear Throughout lifes feeble overture, Tis oft the tuning that we hear To make the after.concord sure. Spectator. LR~ A SHOWERY MORNING. ALL my heaven was dark with rain, As I mused of loss and pain, Going down a Devon lane On a showery morning; Joy had vanished, frail and fleet, How could rose and woodbine sweet Lift their heads, and tempests meet With such merry scorning? Such great drops were never known, Said the speedwells, shrinking down; They have spoiled my only gown, Sighed a crumpled cistus; Q uoth the roses in surprise, Answering in solemn wise, Though a smile was in their eyes, Nay, they only kissed us! Ragged robins shook with glee, Foxgloves laughed in company, Till the sun peeped forth to see Through a cloud embrasure; Lu! the rain was past and gone, And stellarias clustering shone Like a Milky way upon Speedwell depths of azure. Every blossom on its stem Wore a shining diadem, And my heart rejoiced with them In their fresh adorning; Flowers are sweetest after rain, Joys completest after pain, Life is but a Devon lane On a showery morning! Sunday Magazine. MARY ROWLES. SONNET. TO AN INVALID LADY, ON HER HUSBANDS DEATH. DEAR lady, sorrow.sainted, whose long pain Rebuked us by its smile, or hushed, like songs The sad, retired nightingale prolongs From depth of holy wood or dim green lane, God waits a new smile from thee, as he turns A new smile on thee, and would draw forth praise From holier shades, and tune thee to upraise The new song where the beauty solemn burns. Death is the touch lets loose loves eloquence As never it could speak in its young dream; The very Love Eternal could not seem Most winsome till it died, nor most intense. 0, called to pain, but chosn to sorrow, know The eternal song that sounds in Christian woe. Spectator. P. T. FoRsvrH. ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. 3 From The Nineteenth Century. ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. THE poetical literature of England is the richest and noblest of modern time superior in some respects to that of the Greeks and Romans, as all will confess who have studied it, and who remember Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Words- worth, Shelley, and Byron, and all the glorious galaxy of the poets from the age of Chaucer to the present day. But many who acknowledge the claims of English literature to the highest poetical pre-emi- nence deny that in one great department of poetry, popular song, it can rank on an equality with other nations. The late Thomas Davisone of the young Irish. men who conferred honor upon the litera- ture of his country declared that the songs of England were the worst in the world. How can a nation have good songs, said he, when it has no music? English music is execrable, said the great Napoleon, when he discoursed to his faithful Las Casas, in the mournful days of his exile, on all imaginable sub- jects of war, policy, philosophy, and lit- erature. The English have no music; or, at all events, no national music. They have, in fact, but one good tune. And to show his qualifications for the office of musical critic, he declared that tune to be Ye banks and braes o bonnie Doon an excellent tune certainly, only it hap- pens to be one that the Scotch have bor- rowed from the French. The emperor did not stand alone in his ignorance. Even now we hear of English ladies and gentle- men who not only know nothing of the beautiful melodies of their native land, but who actually deny that such melodies have any existence. Not content with shutting their ears against the sweet sounds, they affirm that there is no such thing as music in British, or at all events in English nature. In days when the popular melodies of England had not been collected, as those of Ireland had been by Sir John Stevenson and Thomas Moore, or as those of Scotland had been by George Thomson and Robert Burns, there was some excuse for Englishmen who did not know their own wealth in this respect. But now, when their melodies have been [collected by Mr. William Chappell, and shown to be equal to any in Europe, there is no excuse for an ignorance of which pa- triotism ought to be ashamed. What a beautiful melody, said Rossini to an En- glishman (who agreed with him), is The girl I left behind me! It does honor to Ireland. But Rossini was wrong. That beautiful melody is pure English pub- lished in England long before it was first played in lreland by the soldiers of Wil- liam the Third. How sweet, said an English lady, is the air of My lodging is on the cold ground! England has no tunes so tender and so touching. In this case also, the fair critic was as much at fault as Napoleon and Rossini. The tune is old English; and Ireland has no other claim to it than the assertion of Thomas Moore, unsupported by a tittle of evidence. As songs are compositions that may be sung, it is necessary to show that a people have good melodies before it can be ad- mitted that they have good songs. So far from being an unmusical, the English are pre-eminently a musical nation. Long before the invention of printing, long be- fore the age of Chaucer, England, from her love of singing and music, was called Merry England; and to hear the min- strels sing, and to join in their choruses, was the favorite amusement both of the nobles and the people. Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, makes frequent allu- sions to the love of the English of that period for music and song. At and before Chaucers time the education of an En- glish gentleman was held to be incomplete if he could not read music at sight; and in the public schools it was compulsory on every boy, and a necessary portion of his studies, to learn part-singing. The English glees, catches, rounds, canons, and madrigals are thoroughly na- tional, and are admired by musicians of every country for their graceful complica- tions both of melody and harmony. The English dance music is equally spirited, and her country jigs and sailors hornpipes are known all over the world. Some of the most ancient popular melodies of the English are fortunately preserved in a little manuscript of the age of Queen Eliz 4 ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. abeth, called Queen Elizabeths Virginal Book, containing airs that are still popu- lar among the peasantrysuch as The Carmans Whistle, or The Jolly Miller, and Shakespeares favorite melody, of ~vhich he makes honorable mention, Sing it to the air of Light o Love. Those exquisitely pathetic tunes sung by Ophelia in Hamlet are admired by all musicians, and are far older than history can trace. So famous were the English for their pro- ficiency in singing, that before the Refor- mation the Churches of Belgium, Holland, and France sent to England for choris- ters: and one of the most valuable collec- tions of popular English music that exists was published in Amsterdam at the com- mencement of the seventeenth century. Such noble tunes as The Kinc~ shall enjoy his own again, Crop-eared Round- heads, The girl I left behind me, Farewell, Manchester! Balance a Straw, Packingtons Pound, The British Grenadiers, Drink to me only with thine eyes, Down among the dead men, The Vicar of Bray, The man who will not merry be, The Miller of Dee, Begone, dull care! Tis my delight, on a shiny night, and others, may be cited as fair specimens of English popular and traditional music. Its gen. eral characteristics are strength and mar- tial energy. It has a dashing, impulsive, leaping, frolicsome spirit, occasionally overshadowed by a touch of sadness. It has not the tender melafcholy of the mu- sic of Ireland, nor the light, airy grace, delicate beauty, and heart-wrung pathos of the songs of Scotland, but it has a lilt and style of its own. In one ~vord, the music of England may be described as merry; and her national songs partake of the same character, and and are jovial, lusty, exultant, and full of life and daring. There are no authentic records of the earliest songwriters of England. It is known that among the ancient Britons, the bard was next in rank to the Druid, and that his character and functions ~vere invested with a high degree of veneration, if not of sanctity. He was held to be a seer and a prophet, as well as a bard, as indeed true poets are in all ages. The compositions of the British and Celtic bards were either hymns or chants of de- votionlike the Psalms of Davidor celebrated the great deeds of the heroes, who were first in and last out of the battle. They aroused the patriotic enthusiasm of the living by glowing recitals of the achievements of the dead. But never having been committed to writing, their ballads and songs, or epic poems, if they produced any, have either perished alto- gether, or only exist in fragments, such as James Macpherson discovered among the peasantry in remote districts of the High- lands of Scotland, and gave to the world as the poems of Ossian, the greatest bard of the Celtic nations. The Danish skalds and Saxon glee men, who succeeded to the British bards, drew from their predeces~- sors many materials for popular song. The adventures of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, the loves of Guenever and Sir Lancelot du Lake, the pranks of the boy with that ~vonderful mantle described in Percys Reliques, the merriment of King Cole, and the en- chantments of Merlin all traditions of the Celtic period were embalmed in Celtic and afterwards in Saxon song, and found as much favor among the newer people who took possession of the British Isles as the legends of the Mohicans, the Cherokees, or the Creek Indians, when enshrined in the classic pages of Cooper or Longfellow, find among the English and Americans of the present day. King Arthur, his court, his queen, his Round Table, and his knights were for a thousand years the great themes of the minstrels in England and Wales, and have not yet lost their hold over the imagination of the people. King Arthur and King Cole are cited in nursery rhymes, and the earliest songs of children; though Mr. Ch appell, in his excellent work on English music, is heterodox enough to suggest that the King Cole of song is not the King Cole of his- tory, but a mere public~house king or good fellow of the seventeenth century. Of the same period as King Arthur, though a generation or two later, were King Lud and King Lear, mere names and shadows of names except for poetry, that has made them immortal. The King Arthur of his- tory is less than a dream. The King ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. 5 Arthur of song is a living reality. The Lear that reigned in Britain has left no record on which the historian can build but the Lear of the poet, the foolish, fond old man, sightless, and not in his perfect mind, stands out in Shakespeares history, hallowed in the light of poetry, a man whom we know more intimately than we do many persons whom we met yesterday and talked to in the streets. During the Saxon and early Norman period the minstrels played an important part in social life. They were the wel come guests of all ranks and classes from the monarchs palace and the barons hall to the tavern of the town and the cottage of the peasant. Twas merry in the hall When beards wagged all; when the minstrels set the beard in mo- tion by singing their last new ballads of romance or adventure. The minstrels united in their persons not only the func- tions of the song-maker and musician, hut those of the newspaper editor and re- porter of the present day. Although they sang songs of the olden time, they did not confine themselves to the past, but de- tailed the freshest news from the court or the camp, or put into verse the circum- stances of the last horrible murder or des- perate love-tragedy. Of these minstrels, as of the bards who preceded them, few genuine remains have come down to us; although the tunes and modernized versions of many of the bal- lads which they sang have been preserved, such as the famous Ballad of Chevy Chase, the mournful story of Fair Ro- samond, the adventures of the mythical Robin Hood, ~vho was not one but many, the doleful ballad of The Babes in the Wood, a legend of unknown antiq- uity, of which it may be said that it has made the robin redbreast a sacred bird in England, and touched with compassion the heart of the roughest clodhopper. The English boy will rob the nest of any bird that sings, or that cannot sing; but to disturb the nest of the robin, the bold beggar with the glittering eye and scarlet bosom, is held not only to be cruel and ungenerous, but unlucky. If the robin redbreasts could but know how many of their lives have been spared for the sake of an old song, and the pity which it has inspired, they would hover around the graves of poets as they did over the un- buried bodies of the children in the wood, and strew them with leaves in grateful remembrance of the power and tenderness of poetry. In the days prior to the invention of printing, when the wealthy classes thought it no shame to be unable to read and write, the ballad-maket was a power in the State. Richard the First, the great Cmur-de-Lion (whose name is still invoked to frighten unruly children in Syria and Palestine), was unable to sign his name, but he ~vas familiar with the poetry of the troubadours. He knew nothing of the songs of Celtic or Saxon Englishmen, but had committed to memory the choicest effusions of the Norman muse. And, indeed, if kings and other high personages, to say nothing of the gentry and trading classes, would not derive all their knowledge of the affairs of this world from the priests, who pos- sessed the keys of learning, or from actual observation with their own eyes, which was always difficult, and sometimes im- possible, they were glad to gather infor- mation, combined with amusement, from the minstrels, who travelled all over the country, mixed with all classes, heard all the news, and learned all the opinion that was current. But the invention of print- ing gradually operated a change. The minstrels, who by this time had lost their original and honorable appellation, and were called crowders or fiddlers, were thrown out of bread. They ceased, by degrees, to be the favorites of the wealthy, and found their only refuge among the poor and illiterate, and became of scarcely more repute than the mounte- banks and merry-andrews of country fairs. An act of Parliament of the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth classed them as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy vagrants, a legal definition which still applies in England to strolling actors and singers, and which might, ~vith a little stretching, be applied to a~ri;na donna on a provin- cial tour. King Henry the Eighth, not- withstanding the cares of State, his love- 6 ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. making, his wife-killing, and his quarrels with the pope, Cardinal Wolsey, and his great nobles, found time to write songs, one of which was entitled Pastime with Good Company. In a MS. still in exist- ence, and known to be of his reign, are two songs, in pure though quaint English, which may be quoted as among the ear- liest songs remaining in the language Ah my sweet sweeting My little pretty sweeting, My sweeting ~vill I love, wherever I go. She is so proper and pure, Full steadfast, stable, and demure, There is none such, you may be sure, As my sweet sweeting. The other, entitled The Loyal Lover, is equally smooth and vocal As I lie sleeping In dreams fleeting Ever my sweeting Is in my mind. She is so goodly With looks so lovely, That no man truly Such one can find. There seems to be little or no authority for the statement that King Henry the Eighth himself ~vrote these songs; or, if he did, whether they were in celebration of the charms of the sweetings whose heads he cut off, or ofthose whose heads he spared. But, whoever was the author of them, these and similar songs were like the first faint radiance that precedes the dawn. The dawn and the daylight were yet to come. Among the singing birds of the twilight, the most melodious were Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose son was beheaded on Tower Hill, and the unfortu- nate Earl of Surrey, who himself suffered on the block for alleged complicity in the treasons of an age when it was difficult to know what was treason and what was not. At length, as political affairs became somewhat more settled, the full daylight of poetry burst forth. The Elizabethan dramatists, with Shakespeare at their head, and Edmund Spenser, chief of the non-dramatic poets, inaugurated the new era. It was then that English poetry and song entered into the golden age. In the blaze of that sudden glory the inferior compositions of the ballad-mongers were left entirely to the lower rank of the peo- ple; many of them are still in existence, and still sung, such as some of the famous ballads to be found in Percys Reliques the poachers song, Tis my delight, on a shiny night, Women are best when they are at rest, Sweet Nelly, my hearts delight, Full merrily sings the cuckoo upon the beechen tree, The frog came to the mill-door (since mod- ernized into The frog he ~vould a-wooing go ), Ill neer get drunk again, and the mariners glee, We be three mari- ners probably the oldest seasong that England can boast. The only two names of note that have reached the present age in connection with this early song-litera- ture are William Tarleton and Martin Parker both somewhat later than the time of Shakespeare. Martin Parker de- serves especial notice as the man who wrote the well-known song, Ye gentle- men of England a song not only ex- cellent in itself, but entitled to double gratitude for having served Thomas Campbell as the model on which he built Ye mariners of England, one of the noblest songs ever written in any lan- guage. Martin Parkers song sets itself to music: Ye gentleman of England Who live at home at ease, Ah, little do you think upon The dangers of the seas I Give ear unto the mariners, And they will plainly show All the cares, and the fears, When the stormy winds do blow. It used to be the fashion of the English peasantry to paste these songs in cup- boards, on the lids of trunks, or on the backs of doors a custom which has been one great cause why so many of them have been lost without hope of recovery. Could they have been preserved, they might have thrown the light of contempo- rary poetry on the history of manners and afforded us glimpses into the every-day life of our forefathers at a period particu- larly interesting, when the art of printing was bringing forth its first flowers and fruits, operating important changes in the national character, and preparing the way for the final triumphs of the Reformation. Similar songs are still printed for the use of the rural districts, and sold humiliat- ing thought to the pride of song writers! at a halfpenny or a penny a yard. The song-writers of the age of Shake- speare were many and excellent. Among his contemporaries, or those who preceded and followed him, were two or three who wrote songs almost as well as he did none who wrote better. The associated dramatists Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben J onson, Thomas Heywood, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Herrick, George Wither, Thomas Carew, Sir Walter Raleigh, John ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard Love- lace, and George Herbert are but a few out of a long list of poets of whose works any fair criticism would occupy a volume, so full are they of heartiness and beauty. Some of Ben Jonsons songs are exquisite in their delicacy and grace. Every one has read (or heard sung) the delicious songbetter than anything attributed to Anacreon, or any Greek or Roman writer whatsoever Drink to me only with thine eyes, a paraphrase from the Low Latin of a nameless poet in the Middle Ages, and a great improvement on its orig- inal a song sufficient for fame if its author had written nothing else. Most people have read or heard the song of Sir Henry Wotton, worth a whole library of inferior compositions You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your numbers than your light, You common people of the skies, What are you when the moon shall rise? Who does not know the songs of George Wither? The chorus of one of them has passed into the select family of familiar quotations : Shall I, wasting in despair, Die, because a womans fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care Because anothers rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flowery meads in May, If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be? Robert Herrick wrote many songs of the highest merit, and particularly distin- guished above those of all his contempo- raries by the fluency of their melody, and the luxuriant charm of their phraseology. But Shakespeare was the prince of all the song-writers of his age. It may be said of him that, had he not been the greatest of epic poets, the greatest of law- yers, the greatest of anything great to which it pleased him to direct the ener- gies of his great mind, he would most cer- tainly have been a great song-writer, for the songs which he has scattered through his plays are all of them models either of wit, or grace, or tenderness, or of a name- less beauty comprising all these. Every one, at some time or other of his life, must have rejoiced over the frolicsome little song redolent of the green fields and flow- ers of England: Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet birds throat? Come hither! come hither! come hither I Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. Every one who reads knows the two charming pictures of spring and winter sung in Loves Labor Lost, both of them full of humor and of accurate paint- ing from nature, and both of them adapted to such excellent music by Dr. Arne who lived a century afterwards as to make every listener regret that Shake- speare himself never had the felicity of hearing the manner in which great coin- posers can render the meaning of great poets. One other song of Shakespeare has been the favorite of successive gen- erations of musicians, from the age of Milton to our own, who have striven with each other to do it justice: Take, oh! take those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn, The golden age of English lyrical poetry did not die with Shakespeare. Its lustre was not dimmed even by the troubles of the Revolution, although the number of poets who arose from the accession of Charles the First to the restoration of Charles the Second was small compared with the number who adorned the age of Elizabeth and James. The age immedi- ately succeeding that of Shakespeare pro- duced Milton, Cowley, Lovelace, Wailer, and Dryden, and a host of inferior men. These, like all the greatest poets whom England has known, attempted song-writ. ing. Milton was a musician, and under- stood all the fine shades and niceties of language which songs require, if they are meant to be sung. He also, had he chosen to devote himself to lyrical instead of epic poetry, might have enriched literature with many matchless compositions. Per- haps if he had done so he might have been dearer and more familiar to his countrymen. As he is, he is too great and too mighty for their love. His poeti- cal character inspires awe and reverence rather than affection. He sits blind~ and solitaryon the cold summits of Parnassus, wrapped in a blaze of~ glory, inaccessible to the plaudits of the crowd who behold him from afar. Yet when we think of him as the author of 11 Pense. roso and LAllegro, of Lycidas, and of Comus, we take him to our hearts, and lose some portion of our reverence in the new love we feel for him. In all his songs and lyrical poems there is an Italian 7 8 ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. Prior to C/doe 7ealous. To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ, Your judgment at once and my passion you wrong; You take that for a fact which will scarce be found wit. Ods life! must one swear to the truth of a song? sweetness mixed with an English force place. Matthew Prior a fortunate verse- which scarcely needs any aid from the art maker and flatterer of the great, and who of the composer to shape them into music. wrote himself into an embassy and a pen. Cowley did not excel in song~writin g sion expressed in some famous and Nature had not endowed him with a fine often-quoted lines to Chloe Jealous the ear, and, like Wordsworth and Sir Walter low opinion he entertained of the art he Scott in our own day, he could not readily cultivated: distinguish one tune from another, conse- quently his verse was monotonous, if not harsh and rugged. His most noted com- position, one that is still sung by boon companions, and at places where young men drink more than they think, is a para- phrase of Anacreon a Bacchanalian song, suited to the tastes of a Bacchanalian age, and not consistent with modern ideas, except in so far as we may admire the ingenious perversity which presses all na- ture into the service of inebriation : The thirsty earth drinks up the rain, And thirsts and gapes for drink again. The sea itself (which, one would think, Should have but little need of drink) Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, So full that they oerflow the cup. The busy sun (and one would guess By s drunken fiery face no less) Drinks up the sea; and when hes done The moon and stars drink up the sun. Fill up the bowl then, fill it high l Fill all the glasses up, for why Should every creature drink but I? Why, man of morals, tell me why? Drydens songs were better adapted to music than Cowleys; but, for the most part, they were even less adapted to decent society, and have long since perished from memory, no more to be revived. One or two of them that were of a patriotic char- acter have been preserved, such as Come if you dare! His Alexanders Feast, ~a fine composition set to fine music, was not a song, but a small opera. But Dryden belongs to the bad period of the Restoration a period in which courtiers and public men thought it their duty, as well as their pleasure, to imitate the vices of the court of Charles the Sec. ond, when every moral sentiment was deadened or debauched; when hospital- ity degenerated into boisterous and de- grading intemperance; when virtue was a Jest, and honor, so jealously guarded by the sword and pistol of the duellist, was held to be a thing quite apart from good- ness; and when the only manly virtue that was recognized at all was personal courage. This age was very prolific of bad verse. Poetry was supposed to be something artificial, and not natural, and the consequence was that poetry disap- peared, and mere idle rhyme took its What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows The difference there is betwixt Nature and Art; I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose, And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart. How was it possible that poetry could flourish when a poet, even of the second rank, could write thus? One of the few songs worth preserving which date from this time is entitled When this old cap was new, published anonymously in r666. It throws some light on the manners of the day, and on the antiquity of the great and truly British art of grumbling. If the chancellor of the exchequer could but get Parliament to agree to a grumbling-tax, and allow no one, male or female, to grumble unless they took out a license, what a revenue he might raise I Good hospitality was cherished then of many, Now poor men starve and die, and are not helped by any; For Charity waxeth cold, and Love is found in few; Not so in time of old, when this old cap was newt In that day, as in the present, the ladies were not allowed to copy the French and dress as they pleased, or wear hoops, or any other abomination, without a protest from the song-writers, who then, and not newspaper editors, were the leaders of public opinion. Our ladies in those days in civil habit went; Broad-cloth was then worth praise, and gave the best content; French fashions then were scorned; such fan- gles no one knew; And modesty women adorned, when this old cap was new l To the period of unblushing vice and effrontery succeeded a period of false pretence. Love played at masquerade ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. and the song-writers, deriving their in- spiration not at first hand from nature, but at seconcV hand from the Greek and Latin writers whom they imitated or par- odied, made every lover a shepherd, in a court dress with gold buttons, shoes with silver buckles, a curly wig cl la Louis Qua- torze. Lovers in those days had no such honest names as John or Thomas or Ed- ward or Charles, but were all Strephons, or Adonises. Every lass was an Area- dian shepherdess with silk stockings and spangled robe as short as that of a ballet- dancer; and she, too, instead of beino~ called Jane, Mary, Ellen, or Margaret, was Chloe, Phc~be, Lesbia, or Sophro- nisba. To judge of the English by their popular songs at this period, they, might have been ranked as a nation of Greek or Roman pagans. There was no such thing as love in literature; but, instead of it, Cupid was continually shooting his darts, rhyming them with, as well as aiming them at, hearts. The word marriage was never mentioned; but the happy pair, as Mr. Jenkins and Mr. J eames Yellowplush sometimes say in our day, went to the altar of Hymen. A breeze was not a breeze buta zephyr; the storm was Boreas, the sun was Sol or Phmbus, and the moon was Cynthia, Di- ana, or Luna. Every pretty girl, if not a shepherdess in very short petticoats, was a Venus if she were kind, and a Diana if she were coy. Bacehus a vulgar hy- brid, half Silenus, half Sir John Falstaff was the god of drunkenness, to whom continual appeals were made to drown care in a wine-butt or a bowl. Of the kind of song that was most in favor at this time, the following, by Henry Carey, au- thor of Sally in our Alley, will afford a favorable or, more correctly speaking, an unfavorable specimen Bacchus must now his power resign I am the only god of wine. It is not fit the wretch should be In competition set with me, Who can drink ten times more than he I Make a new world, ye powers divine, Stock it with nothing else but wine; Let wine its only product be; Let wine be earth, and air, and sea, and, most drunken, most selfish rhymer! if he ine~tnt what he sang-.- And let that wine be all for me I Carey was an excellent musician but a very inferior poet. He composed the mu- sic to his own songs, and was one of the first in modern days to revive the ancient 9 practice. The world owes to him the music of more than a hundred songs music that has for the most part been divorced from the service of the stage and concert room to that of religion, and is attuned to pious hymns and psalms in half of the churches and chapels of En- gland and America. It is not known with certainty who wrote the noble music or the words of God Save the Kina but the balance of proof inclines in favor of Carey. Nothing is more difficult than to fix the age or the authorships of songs and ballads published anonymously. Even the production of the first printed copy with an authentic date is not always suffi- cient to set at rest such doubtful points. This test is unfortunately wanting in most inquiries of the kind, and even when ap- plied is not always adequate to the appar- ently simple task of giving an author his own property. So difficult is it oven in our own day to establish a poets claim to a sono which has happened from any accident to become popular, that when Thomas Moore was accused in jest by Father Prout of translating or stealing the whole of his Irish melodies from Greek and Latin, French, German, and Italian, the world took the good-natured hoax as a serious accusation, and believed that there was but too much truth in it. Thomas Campbell was declared to have stolen The Exile of Erin from an Irish hedge-schoolmaster whose name no one ever heard before or since. The Rev. Mr. Wolfe, the author of the noble ode on the burial of Sir John Moore, was in like manner declared to be an impudent pla- giarist - One set of wise men declared that he purloined the ode from a lady, while another declared that he stole it from a briefless Irish barrister, who, how- ever, made no claim to it, or on whose behalf no appeal was made during his lifetime. But if such be the case with a modern composition, when the proofs are so abundant and so easily accessible, we need scarcely wonder that it is sometimes difficult to fix the authorship of songs and poems published without a name more than a century ago. This has been emi- nently the case with the English national anthem, the most renowned song ever written, the most fervent expression of British loyalty, a song that touches a chord in every British heart, and makes it vi- brate not only with personal attachment to the sovereign, whether that sovereign be a king as in old times or a beloved queen, the model and example of woman- hood, wifehood, and motherhood, as in I0 ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. our happier day, but which expresses a patriotic devotion to that mild, equable, well-considered, and venerable constitu- tion, of which the crown is the symbol rather than the agent. The sovereigns of England know not the name of the man who wrote this hymn of loyalty; the peo- ple are equally ignorant. One set of mu- sical antiquaries claim the music for Dr. John Bull in the reign of James the First, but give no parentage to the poetry. An- other set claim both words and music for Henry Carey, who wrote in the reigns of William the Third, Anne, and George the First. Carey was both musician and poet; his music excellent, his poetry in- different. This description well applies to the national anthem. The music is grand and simple, and capable of being elevated into sublimity; but the poetry, or the verse, is tame and weak; the rhymes Send him victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, cannot be called poetry at all, or even re- spectable verse; and all Careys avowed coml)ositions abound in similar defects and inelegancies. It may be asked why Carey, if he wrote the anthem, never claimed the authorship? Carey was a Jacobite. He wrote the sentiments of the Jacobites; and the song when first sung was treason to the reigning family, as treasonable as that other Jacobite song, Heres to the king, sir! You know who I mean, sir I Carey lived a life of poverty and neg- lect. The suspicion of disloyalty clung to him. He was thought to have written a treasonable song that song which, by a stran~~e turn in the wheel of fortune, has since become the very watchword of truth and loyalty. He thus failed to acquire the favor of those who could have be- friended him, and at the age of eighty-six, weary of the world, sick at heart, hope- less, destitute, and reduced literally to his last penny, he committed suicide in a mis- erable garret. Careys great anthem treasonable though it seemed in his own day was loyally meant. It was loyal to a principle; it was loyal to misfortune; and by the happy accident of its adoption by the house of Hanover it has become the embodiment of a still greater and bet- ter-founded loyalty than its author in- tended a more valuable possession to the throne of Great Britain than all the jewels in the royal tiara or the great Koh- i-noor itself Among the song-writers of this and the preceding age is Thomas or Tom Dur- fey, with whom King Charles the Second once condescended to walk though St. Jamess Park, arm-in-arm, his dogs and courtiers following behind. Durfey wrote five or six volumes of songs, none above mediocrity, and some far below it. Gay, the author of The Beggars Opera,~ wrote many new songs to the excellent old tunes of England, but scarcely succeeded in making the new songs more moral or less vulgar than the old, or left one great or noble sentiment on record in this form of composition, except in Black-eyed Su- san, one of the most popular songs in the English language. Shortly after his time appear~d David Garrick, who wrote that vigorous sea-song which in his time was enough to transform every sailor who heard it before going into battle into a hero: Hearts of oak are our ships, Hearts of oak are our men. In the same period of literary history must be placed James Thomson, author of The Seasons, who wrote the national anlhem Rule Britannia, a composition which had the good fortune to be asso- ciated with the music of Dr. Arne, and to be floated upon that full tide into a surer haven of immortality than it could ever have reached by its own unaided merits. Still later appeared Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, the editor of Percys Rel- iques, and who wrote one song, 0 Nanny, wilt thou go with me? which received from the pen of no less a person than Robert Burns the praise of being the finest composition of its kind in the whole compass of literature. But it was not until the bright particu- lar star of Charles Dibdin arose, towards the close of the last century, that England recognized her greatest national songster. The ideas of some writers are of the earth, earthy. The ideas of honest Dibdin, mu- sician and poet, were of the salt sea, salty; of the ocean, oceanic; of Great Britain, truly British. England loves her sailors she admires their free-heartedness, their outspoken honesty, their contempt of diffi- culty and danger, their rollickings, their roystering good-humor, their superexu- berant fun, their sublime courage; and so dearly loves them that the offence against good manners and propriety which she would severely condemn in any other, she condones or excuses in the sailor. Thesoldier, though highly esteemed in his own way, is not the prime favorite of the ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. II people Jack, as he is affectionately called, is the national hero; and Nelson ranks above Wellington, not because he did more, or was a braver and better man, but because he was a sailor, and had the failings as well as the virtues of his class. Charles Dibdin represented Jack in all his strength and all his weakness. How beautiful, for instance, are Tom Bowling, Lovely Nan, The Sailors Journal, and a score of others that might be cited! Dibdin said of his songs, with pardonable pride, that they had been considered an object of national conse- quence; that they had been the solace of sailors in long voyages, in storms, and in battles; and that they had been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline. Charles Dibdin left a son, who followed in his fathers footsteps, and wrote some excellent sea-songs; among others The Tight Little Island, which still holds its place in the popular affection unimpaired by the caprices of literary fashion: Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say, If ever I lived upon dry land, The spot I should hit on would be little Britain, Says Freedom, Why, thats my own isl- and. Oh, tis a snug little island, A right little, tight little island, Search the globe round, none can be found, So happy as this little island! It was not many years ago, and within living memory, that Thomas Dibdin was to be seen wandering, a forlorn old man, through the streets of London, with scarcely a shoe to his foot, and with the fate of Henry Carey staring him in the face. What brought him into this pitia- ble condition it is not for us to inquire. Let his memory rest. By what right shall posterity pry into the private misery of poets? His muse was an honest one, and he devoted her to honest uses. More need not be said of him. Of the English song-writers of the pres- ent century, the most illustrious were Thomas Moore, claimed exclusively by the Irish, but who may be also claimed as particularly English, in such well-known songs as The Last Rose of Summer, The minstrel boy to the war has gone, As a beam oer the face of the waters may glow, The Meeting of the Waters, The Canadian Boat-Song, and many others equally familiar. Thomas Camp- bells Battle of the Baltic, his Mari- ners of England, and his Hohenlinden are three songs, any one of which would be sufficient for a noble reputation. Cold is the heart that can read them unmoved, even if patriotism should not lend its glowing heat to the admiration which they excite. His Exile of Erin, and Irish Harper, though Hibernian in sub- ject, are English in style and treatment, and may fairly rank as Enulish sonas of the best class. In his love.sono~s Camp bell was not so successful. His Pleas- ures of Hope and his Gertrude of Wyoming may pass out of popular fa- vor; but his war-songs and some of his lyrical pieces will last as long as the liter- ature of England. Did space permit, a more detailed men- tion might be made of Captain Morris, who wrote about three hundred, and Thomas Haynes Bailey, who wrote up- wards of eight hundred songs. The gal- lant captain was the friend, or rather the companion, of George the Fourth, for kings are placed too high to have real friends. He sang his own songs at the royal table, at the Beefsteak Club, and at the mess table of the Guards. He had good poetical intentions; but mere inten- tions do not produce poetry. Nothing of him remains in the pop4lar mind or on the popular ear. He wrote for a class, and not for the great heart of humanity; and his songs are effete, defunct, dead, buried, and forgotten. The reputation of Haynes Bailey has greater tenacity of life. He had real tenderness, which he displayed in such songs as The Soldiers Tear,~~ and Oh, no, we never mention her! and considerable wit and humor, but his sentiment was too often mere sentimen- talism, his love lackadaisical, and his mel- ancholy very genteel and effeminate wearing white kid gloves, and wiping its eyes, in which there were no tears, with a highly perfumed cambric pocket handker- chief a very Mantilini of the art of poetastry. Of Brian WaIler Procter, better known to the world as Barry Cornwall, it is not necessary to indulge in elaborate criti- cism. One of his songs, The sea! the sea! the open sea! took possession of the tongue and ear of the multitude and maintained it usque ad nausezrn for a whole twelvemonth or longer. A second, on a very inferior subject, King Death is a rare old fellow, is still occasionally heard, and will live as a poem long after it is forgotten as a song. Samuel Lover, a ~vriter of Irish songs, deserves and has received high appreciation, not only from his Irish fellow-countrymen, but from the ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. I2 English people, among whom he cast his classes, conviviality, as our ancestors un~ lot at an early period of his career. He derstood it, is a thing of the past; and wrote many excellent songs, full of the such bacchanalian orgies as they indulged peculiar tenderness and humor which are in are now unknown in decent society, so often found in combination in the Irish and would be held disgraceful if they were character, which promise to enjoy a longer attempted. Songs are no longer sung at tenure of popular favor than the songs of the dinner-table after the ladies have re- his more classical predecessor, Thomas tired to the drawing-room, and to sit long Moore. Except in the songs that breathed at the wine is forbidden by the inexorable incipient sympathy with Irish disaffection and unwritten law of society; and when and rebellion, Moore was far more En- conviviality went out of fashion enthu- glish than Irish, and scarcely attempted siasm went also though not perhaps as to reach the popular heart, or, if he did a necessary consequence. so, failed in the endeavor. He was essen- The struggle for life and worldly posi- tially an aristocrat, and might have been tion is so hard among all classes, and the compared to a tame canary-bird who never disappointments that attend the struggle sang well except when he was perched on are so grievous and so many, as to pro. the finger of a countess; unlike Samuel duce a feeling that hope is a deluder, and Lover and Robert Burns, who sang aloft that enthusiastic belief in or love for any. in the sky with the sunlight upon their thing is a foolish feeling and a mistake in wings, and cheered the hearts of the com- which the wise will not indulge. And mon people in the fields below, with enthusiasm, reverence for everything Most English poets worthy of the name except money and the things that money have written songs often very beautiful will buy has become pretty nearly defunct to read, but not always well adapted to be in all classes of adult men and women, sung. These poets have either not known, though still to some extent, not a large or have forgotten, that the essential ele- one, existent among the young who have ment of a song is to be singable, and that not begun to reckon their ages among the a fine thought, if expressed by words teens. containing too mapy harsh and unvocal An evil example was set between forty consonants, though it may appeal to the and fifty years ago by many young writers understanding, may fail to find interpreta- who laid themselves out to be what is tion from singers who require grace, mel- called funny, to become in fact profes. ody, smoothness, and limpidity of meaning sional punsters, by the composition of in songs, rather than intellectual strength drearily comic books among othe rsby or depth of suggestion, and that the true comic English and Latin grammars, by song should be above all things, as Milton comic geographies, by comic histories of expresses, simple, sensuous, and passion. England; and who would in all probabil ate. ity have written comic Bibles if they Among living writers of songs, of whom could have found a market for them. a score at least might be mentioned with These writings had any amount of popular. all befitting honor, the Laureate has been ity, which contributed in no small degree most successful in his efforts to charm his to the deterioration of the literary taste of contemporaries in this branch of the poetic the then rising generation a deteriora- art. But his songs, like those of some of tion which has extended its baleful influ- his compeers in the higher walks of poetry, ence to their successors, of the present have only found favor with the few, and day, and has not only invaded the private have been of too high an order of literary talk of society, but the theatre, and might merit to reach the hearts of the multitude, even claim the monopoly of the drama The serious minds of the age are en- were it not for the paramount and benign grossed with theological, scientific, and influence of Shakespeare. To such agency political questions, and have no real taste the public of the present and of a not long for the song, which they consider to be bet- since departed day owes the hydraulic ter adapted for the amusement of women and pumped-up fun which is not funny, than for that of men. The change in the of the songs that now achieve the greatest habits and manners oftheupper and more popularity, and retain it for the longest educated classes of society which has been time. Of this inane class are Pop goes in gradual operation for the last fifty or the Weasel, Jump Jim Crow, Tue sixty years has been unfavorable to the Ratcatchers Daughter, The Chicka- appreciation of the song in the private leerie Cove, Tommy, make room for circles where it flourished in the days your Uncle, and other vulgarities that of our great-grandfathers. Among these seem to fascinate the sons and daughters BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 13 of the lower middle class. If one would really form an estimate of what popularity signifies and what it is worth, he might discover a humiliating truth in the fact that the street entertainment of Punch and Judy is really more popular than Hamlet or Macbeth, and that the most popular of all the songs still sung in England is one adapted to the old French melody of Ma/brook sen va-I-en guerre, and that forms the bacchanalian chorus in circles where a spurious convivality still prevails We wont go home till morning, Till daylight doth appear; varied occasionally by another chant of a similarly low order For hes a jolly good fellow, And so say all of us; with an extra powerful emphasis upon the final us. Not quite so vulgar, but quite as popu- lar, as these are the vapid sentimental songs which find favor with what may be considered the great majority of the fair sex, who possess a smattering of lit- erary taste, and a still slighter smattering of musical appreciation that are issued in shoals by the musical publishers of the present day, to the almost complete dis- placement of the really good songs and the very excellent music of a bygone generation. As the literary reviews and other periodicals do not bestow much, if any, of their critical attention upon these slight and ephemeral productions, every publisher in league, it is to be supposed, ~vith the author and composer becomes his own critic and displays his apprecia- tion of his own wares in the advertising columns of the penny press; calls them lovely, soul-entrancing, awfully at- tractive, immensely successful, pa- thetic and most perfect, sentimental but sensible, always certain of an encore, most charming and descriptive, the greatest success of the season, always uproariously encored. Often, as if fear- ing that these encomia should fail of their effect, these enterprising tradespeople publish in extenso, as advertisements, what they call the words (words and nothing else) of these effusions, at a cost per line which possibly the writers of such songs would be only too glad to have in their pockets, if the music publishers would extend their liberality in that di- rection. To judge by the ultra-popular songs of the present day, whether they be senti mental or comic, we might well come to the conclusion that the age of English song has passed. But this would be an error. The song worthy to be so called will continue to exist and be admired in literature and be enshrined in books, if it do not find a place in the music-stands of the boudoir and the drawing-room. Lyr- ical poetry will never die. It is the earliest form of poetry and in many respects the best, as has been proved from the days of the patriarchs, when Miriam sang her song of triumph on the overthrow of the hosts of Pharaoh, and of the later time when King David poured out his full soul in exultation or repentance, and when his son, no.t so great as his father, because he had not been purified in the fires of ad- versity, sang The Song of Songs, which is Solomons. The days for the produc- tion of new epic poems may have passed, never more to return, but the days of lyrical poetry will never pass as long as there are young and passionate hearts in the world, and cultivated intellects to ap- preciate the noble, the pathetic, and the tender outpourings of affection and fancy which, in combination with the music of rhythm and rhyme, constitute lyrical poetry, and which only needs what it does not always obtain the music of the human voice divine , to become songs in the truest sense and in the highest meaning of the word. CHARLES MACKAY. From Macmillans Magazine. BORROIJGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. For every man hath a talent if he do but find it. JOHN LOCKE. CHAPTER IL A FEW days later, sitting again in the same place, he suddenly looked up, after a prolonged interval of silence, and in- quired whether Farquart had returned his cousin s visit. Farquart, who was painting, turned round, laughed, stared a little, and said no, he had not. All his friends knew, he declared, that he hadnt time to run about dropping those ridiculous bits of oblong paper, so didnt look for it. As for his cousin Katherine, it was useless going to see her, for there was only one sitting- room in the house she lived in, and the old woman, her aunt, was always sitting there too. Besides, poor Katherine was so immersed in her microscopic prepara- tions and rubbish of various sorts that 4 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROtIGHDALE. one could only get a word in edgeways with her, and a visit reduced itself to dis- cussing the Bayswater Chronicle with Mrs. Holland, who, as Borroughdale must have observed, had hardly an idea in her head, and was the most tedious old woman in the universe into the bargain. To this explanation the latter responded with that large and massive silence of his which filled up so many of the vacant pauses of his life. Possibly there may have appeared to Farquart to be some- thing less absolutely admiring in it upon this occasion than usual, for he presently added, Youre always roaming about the town though, Borroughdale. Why shouldnt you call and leave my card and your own too at the same time? It would be im- mensely charitable of you if you would, and would save me a world of bother. Mrs. Holland, too, would go simply out of her wits with delight, and would probably send off straight for a framer and glazier, in order that yours might be duly set out over the mantelpiece! This suggest ion Borroughdale at first met also with absolute silence, and Far- quart, who in fact had no idea of his agreeing to anything of the sort, and had rather thrown in the last suggestion by way of deciding him against it, had gone back to his work when he suddenly unsealed his lips to say, Wouldnt they think it cool ? Cool! Who? The Hollands, do you mean? No at least of course not. Theyd be delighted, Farquart replied, rather staggered however at finding his own suggestion so promptly and unex- pectedly acted upon. All right; give us the card and the address. You mean really to leave them? Yes, of course I shant go in, though. Not unless No, in any case I shant go in.,~ A few days later, accordingly, the cards, his own and Farquarts, were delivered by the Marquis of Borroughdale in per- son, who escaped as soon as he had de- posited them in the hands of a prim~faced parlor maid with black ribbons in her cap, who gazed, first at them, and then at him, with an air of the severest and most un- qualified scepticism. Apparently, how- ever, her employers were less incredu- lous, for a few days later, on returning from a solitary expedition down the river, he found on his table three pieces of card- board announcing that Professor Holland, F.L.S., F.R.S., F.G.S., and other initials, had been to call upon him, also Mrs. Hol- land and Miss Katherine Holland. Did they ask if I was in? he in- quired of the servant who opened the door. The man thought not. A lady had come alone in a four-wheel cab, and had handed in the cards, and had driven away again immediately. Borroughdale had all the mind in the world to ask what this lady was like, but refrained, long habits of taciturnity step- ping in amongst other things to hinder his doing so. He let a week elapse, and then, one afternoon about five oclock, lie called again at the house in Bayswater, and sent up his card. This time the parlor maid returned smoothing down her spotless apron, and with a marked decrease of asperity an- nounced that the ladies were at home, and would his lordship kindly walk up stairs. Borroughdale obeyed, and was ushered into a fairly large-sized drawing-room, with the usual shining double doors and profuse exhibition of antimacassars, the only peculiarity in this case being an un- usually large, square table, without cover of any sort, which was placed in one of the windows, and on which stood a num- ber of small brass instruments amongst which a microscope rose conspicuous. Miss Holland, who was putting together some pieces of drawing-paper at this ta- ble, turned round as he entered, while her aunt, whose cap he noticed had got slightly awry, advanced hurriedly from the fire- place to greet him. Evidently the poor lady was suffering from an intense attack of nervous embar- rassment, so alarmingly did she stumble and shuffle over her greeting. So partic- ularly kind of him, she said; really quite remarkably so. He had met her niece before, had he not? He must please pos- itively allow her to call the professor, who would what chair would he take? Now oddly enough, Borroughdale, un- like most shy people, became more instead of less at his ease when he encountered others similarly affected. Whether it was that there was something consoling in the sight of another suffering from his own malady in an acute form, or whether the latent instinct of a man born to fill a great sphere came to his rescue, certain it is that his usual asperities softened under these circumstances, and he became po- lite, and even, comparatively, what is called affable. He now responded to Mrs. Hollands agitated greetings with J3ORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. good-natured civility, sitting down in the chair she tremblingly indicated to him, and plunging into a dissertation upon the weather, and the recent political events with an amount of. fluency which would not a little have astonished some of his own intimates. Apparently the poor ladys embarrass- ment was too profound, however, to be so easily dispersed, and, after a few abortive and disjointed attempts at conversation, she suddenly got up, saying that she really must inform the professor, who would never forgive her were she to allow Lord Borroughdale to go away without his see- ing him, and so saying left the room. Miss Holland, who up to this had re- mained somewhat aloof from the conver- sation, now necessarily took up the thread bf it, continuing to speak upon the same topics which the guest himself had al- ready started. Unfortunately the latters own chronic complaint showed an imme- diate disposition to revive, and it was with a sort of despairing resolution to put an end to it at once or to perish in the at- tempt, that he suddenly leaped from his chair, and crossing over to the large table near which she was still sitting, begged to know what was the use of those little brass boxes, several of which he saw upon it. They are parts of a camera lucida, she answered, for drawing microscopic objects, you know. I am helping my un- cle to prepare some drawings for a mono- graph he is bringing out, she went on. His eyes unfortunately are not at all strong, and he is ordered to take as much care of them as possible. ~ What sort of things do you draw? These sort of things, she answered, placing before him some pieces of white paper, upon each of which was outlined in ink an eccentrically shaped object which appeared to Borroughdales eyes to re- semble some sort of jointed drainpipe, with a small flower or a flower-bud pro- truding erratically out of every joint. Why, what upon earth are they? he inquired. They are called polyzoa, I believe. Should you like to see some? I have sev- eral here in this little glass; I was draw- ing them when you came in. My uncles monograph has to be ready by the end of this month, so I do as many of them now in the day as I can. While speaking, Miss Holland had been carefully extracting some nearly invisible object out of a glass at her elbow by means of a tube, and was now placing them in a small cell upon the stage of the micro- scope before her. Now look, she said to Borroughdale Not there, she added, as that worthy youth began plunging his head energeti- cally towards the base of the instrument. And dont put your hands there either, or you will interfere with the focus. See, hold this little knob, and move it up and down till you get it arranged to your sight. Under these instructions Lord Bor- roughdale at last got his eyes and his fin- gers into the right places; having done which he remained gazing for some min- utes down the instrument. Suddenly he gave a tremendous jump. Hullo l its alive! he exclaimed. Alive! Oh yes, quite alive, she an- swered, laughing. You couldnt draw them, in fact, at all, if they werent, as they go back then into their tubes. Borroughdale said no more, but con- tinued to gaze down the instrument, with his head tightly glued to the top of it. At last, however, he lifted the latter, and, turning round, stared hard instead at his companion, as though he thought she had been performing some act of legerdemain for his benefit. Well, what did you see? she said, smiling. The most extraordinary thing hap- pened. Ive looked through microscopes often before, but never seen anything the least bit like this. There was a little lump of jelly fastened to a bit of stick, and I was wondering why you should have told me to look at it, when all at once it stretched until it became as big as a glass chandelier, all covered over with little bobbing bells, and all the bells began nod- ding, and c urtseying, and dancing, and jumping about together, as if theyd sud- denly gone mad, and then all at once, crack! the whole thing rolled up into a lump of jelly again. Oh, yes, I know what that was, Miss Holland said. These were not the polyzoa, though; the glass must have got moved. I forget their names, but they are very common things, though very curious. I have often been amused by them myself. Curious? theyre the most extraordi- nary things I ever saw in the whole course of my life l And you say they are common. Could one get them for one- self? Oh yes, I should think so. There are almost always some amongst the seaweed and other things that are sent to my uncle. Is BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. At this moment the professor entered, accompanied by Mrs. Holland, who, under his wing, appeared in some degree to regain self-possession. He was a small, thin, bloodless-looking man, with that extreme lankiness of jaw which one has come to associate with the citizens of the great republic, but with a feebler mouth and chin than generally accompanies the type. His forehead, on the other hand, was remarkably large and fine, and the same contradiction seemed to some de- gree to run through the whole person and bearing. His eyes, which were evidently weak, were protected by large spectacles, and his head partially covered with a small black skull-cap. AhI my niece, I perceive, is showing you some of our new forms, he said to Borroughdale, when the first greetings bad been exchanged. Your lordship, I presume, takes an interest in marine zool- ogy? he added in a tone of confidence. Not I, said Borroughdale; at least I never thought at all about it before, but what Miss Holland has just been showing me is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw; things, you know, that are all over glass balls, and bob out at you like a jack-in-the-box. I could go on looking at them all day. Ah! the little Carchesium. True, those compound Vorticeilacecz form a singularly striking group, do they not? Professor Wurst of Munich has recently been pub- lishing the resu Its of a series of investiga- tions upon their structural development ~vhich promises to be of considerable value. No doubt, though, Gellenshaft is still the great authority upon the whole order. Your lordship is acquainted probably with the writings of Professor Gellenshaft? Not I; I know nothing, I tell you about them, or about science or natural history, or anything of the sort. I almost wish I did; at least, if there are many things as curious as those, he added, glancing ingenuously over to the table. Why do you not take to it then? Miss Holland inquired, who, with the or- derliness of habit, was mechanically put- ting the things there back into their places again. You really ought to do so when it interests you so much, she added, turn- ing round to look at him, and speaking with some insistance. Borroughdale reddened, shuffled his feet about a little on the carpet. I shouldnt so much mind if youd help me! he exclaimed, with a sudden burst of audacity. Then, with an equally rapid lapse into despondency, I never could learn anything in my life, though!, he added gloomily; so there would not be any sort of use in my trying. The end of it was, however, that when a quarter of an hour later Lord Borrough- dale took his leave, he carried off with him a pocket microscope and a bottle con- taining a pinch of green stuff. Half that night he sat up trying to puzzle out those unaccountable aberrations which unfolded themselves to his eyes, and two days later he reappeared at the professors clamor- ing to know where he could get some more. Under these auspices he was not long in making friends with the purveyors of the tanks at the Zoological Gardens, and in duly setting himself up with a mi- croscope and a regulation supply of ob- jects. It was the genuine outbreak of a hitherto unsuspected faculty, which but for some such accident as this might have lain comfortably perdue under the surface for the rest of his days. Now, however, that it had proclaimed itself, it did not seem likely to be allowed much rest; one thing inevitably leading to another, and that other, as inevitably, to the one imme- diately beyond. Borroughdale, whom all his masters with one consent had proclaimed too stu- pid or too stubborn to learn anything, for whom the magnificent educational re- sources of England had hitherto been ransacked in vain, having apparently at the eleventh hour discovered something about which he did care to be informed, seemed bent upon making up for lost time. He sat hours at a time over his forceps and pliers, plunged into the most uninviting of primers and manuals, at- tended lectures, and spent days amongst the bewildering mazes of the British mu- seums. Of course all this sudden intel- lectual activity necessitated, it will be understood, a pretty constant recurrence to the house in Bayswater, and to those sources of encouragement for which he had there stipulated. Poets from the be- ginning of things have sung the provoca- tions and incitements which lead to the romantic passion, but perhaps a commu- nity of hobbies little romantic as that may soundis not one of the least effec- tive or the least stimulating of these. So at any rate it was in this case. Borrough- dales brain and heart, despite the im- measurable antagonism which is supposed to exist between the two organs, awoke both of them into conscious activity, both of them, as it happened, precisely at the same moment. Although in his eyes she appeared to BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 7 be a perfect prodigy of learning (which, in truth, the poor girl was very far from being) he was not at all the more alarmed of Miss Holland upon that account. It was not the cleverness or even the bril- liancy of other women, so much as their fine clothes and their irresponsible chat- ter, which had made them so mortally ter- rifying in his eyes. Katherine Holland had apparently no fine clothes, and she had, equally apparently, no disposition for irresponsible chattering, or, if she had, the early severity of circumstances had effectually taken it from her. This pre- mature gravity, which would have made her fatally wanting in charm to most young men, was only, as it happened, an addi- tional attraction to this one. Deep down at the bottom of all Borroughdales sul- lenness and all his disinclination for soci~ ety lay two very distinct qualities: an intense morbidly intense sensitive- ness to the good opinion of others, and a pride which shrank from being indebted either to his money or his position for suffrages, which it seemed to him hope- less to expect to claim upon more personal grounds. Miss Hollands gravity, her in- capacity for small talk, and her absorption whether real or sympathetic in larger interests, was as soothing to him as the low notes of a wood-pigeon to ears long teased by the pertinacious twittering of sparrows. He began by talking to her about his various zoological difficulties; he went on to talk to her about some of those other less impersonal stumbling- blocks of which he had all his life been more or less dumbly conscious; and before the end of their first three weeks of inter- course he had ended by becoming as thoroughly, heartily, and irrecoverably in love with her as the most ardent enthu- siast upon the subject could possible de- sire. To the other two members of her little circle he was a source in some degree of awe, in some degree of perplexity, but also and chiefly, it must be said, of profound pride and gratification, the professor espe- cially being inspired with something very like a positive enthusiasm for this latest and most ardent, if not most promising, of-recruits to the great army of scientific workers. Despite his own pre-eminently respectable standing in that sphere, the good man had all his life been strangely pricked and tormented by vague hanker- ings after another and a less attainable one, generally disguised from himself by slighting references to the incapacity of men of rank and position to adequately IAV1NG AGE. VOL. XLIX 2498 gauge or appreciate the labors of their intellectual betters. To have, therefore, the owner of so shining a name one which seemed to carry a sort of aristo- cratic effulgence in its very syllables~ sitting hour after hour in his own front parlor, imbibing the first syllables of zoological lore from his own inspired lips, was eminently soothing to his amour propre; not the less that he naturally set down the whole of Lord Borroughdales sudden enthusiasm to the score of that scientific radiance which emanated so con- spicuously from his own person. To some of that important young mans own friends this sudden transformation of incorrigibh~ idler into ardent and indefati- gable learner, was less a source of jubila- tion, however, than of perplexity, and even of a somewhat irritated mystification. Far- quart, who had heard something of the new mania, but who for more than a fort- night past had seen nothing of Borrough- dale, walked over to his house in Portman Square one morning towards luncheon time, and was informed by the servant who opened the door that his lordship was ul)-stairs in the drawing-room Wondering rather at this unwonted change of habit he walked up-stairs, and found the owner of the house gazing en- thralled into a small glass phial, a pot of canada balsam simmering upon a tripod at his side, a quantity of pots and pans containing objects scattered about the floor, and a very percel)tible aroma of what, by a delicate periphrase, may be called extinct marine organisms. Hearing steps, the investigator looked up his eyes still alight with the fires of discovery and stretched out a hand wet. with salt water to his guest. What the deuce have you got hold of there? the other inquired, in a tone of. some disgust. A mphipoda such extraordinary lit- tle beggars! And what may their names be in the ordinary language of civilization? Well, theyre a sort of crab at least. no, not crabs exactly, either. You. never went in for zoology, Farquart,. amongst the multitude of things you know, did you? Why was that, I won- der? You can form no idea what a tre- mendously interesting thing it is. Very likely; but you see I happen to have a particular dislike to handling slimy messes, his friend replied, wiping his hand leisurely upon his pocket handker- chief. Why, Borroughdale, I had no conception you had such a good ceiling i8 I3ORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. up here, he added, with a sudden accel- eration of interest, glancing as he spoke into the vault above his head, where some lightly attired but decorously obscure damsels appeared to be disporting them- selves against a chocolate-colored sky. That must be a Verrio, I declare, he added. I intend having it whitewashed, what- ever or whoever it is, Borroughdale re- plied emphatically. Its most beastly dark in here. Whitewashed, my dear fellow! You never surely would be such a Goth? Why, those ceilings are getting. tremen- dously scarce. I dont say Verrio was exactly a Michael Angelo, still, if only as a memento of the period, they are simply priceless. I am very sorry to hear it, as I must get it whitened somehow. Its as dark as pitch in here by five oclock. Could it be scraped off? If so, youre welcome to it, you know. Farquart smiled derisively. You could scrape it off, no doubt, but there wouldnt be much of it left when you had completed your process, he replied, a trifle, perhaps, too disdainfully. Borroughdale proffered no further sug- gestion with regard to the ill-fated ceiling, but quietly replaced his phial before him and resumed his contemplation of the amphipoda. Farquart sat by a little longer watching the big fingers plunging down now and then into us depths; then he got tip, saying he must be off to the club to lunch, would Borroughdale come too? No, Borroughdale said, lie couldnt. He was very sorry to refuse, but he couldnt spare the time, he really couldnt. Accordingly Farquart departed alone, smiling, and lifting his shoulders again with an uncontrollable gesture of pity as he did so. It was odd, very odd indeed, he thought to himself, as he went his way meditatively along the streets, the way things were man- aged in this really most incomprehensible of all incomprehensible worlds. Of course if Borroughdal e, poor fellow, could find no better way of filling up his interminable hours than by scraping shells and bottling up crabs, why, it was better he should do that than inflict them upon other people. But when one thought, when one simply for an instant considered, what another man in his shoes might get out of his life, what accomplish, what leave as a sort of record and legacy to all coming million- aires really it took ones breath away! And as he turned leisurely up Piccadilly a sense of the unfathomable and immeasur- able stupidity of things stole gently over the clever young mans mind, and he twice shrugged his shoulders again before arriv- ing at his destination. A few days later he took occasion to call at Professor Hollands house, moved thereto chiefly by a certain curiosity as to the mainspring of this sudden and futile ebullition of energy. He met his cousin as it happened on the doorstep, she hav- ing just returned, she told him, from a walk in the park. She was looking, lie at once observed, remarkably handsome; the walk had brought a color into her usually pale cheeks; that peculiar look of youth ~vhicli at times seemed fairly extinguished out of her face triumphing to-day in eyes and lips, and in the girl-like brightness of her glance. How well you are looking, Katherine, and how little I have seen of you of late! he said with an air of gracefully senti- mental regret as they went up the stairs together. Miss Holland smiled a little sceptically. Whose fault is that, I should like to know? she answered. We are not much more difficult to find at home than the snails. You have only to look into our shell. True; but then London you know what London is in the matter of engage- ments, or rather perhaps, happy being, you do not. Really the calls upon a mans tinie are maddening, nothing short of maddening. And the more too one tries to shut oneself up, the more the wretched people insist upon pulling one out, and not leaving one a moments peace. Miss Holland smiled again, without her face, however, entirely losing its sceptical expression. Have you finished that picture you were at work at when we were last at your studio? she presently inquired, turning a way as she spoke to lay aside gloves and cloak on the back of a sofa. Farquart stroked his moustache a mo- ment reflectively. The picture? Now let me see which was that, I wonder? he said in a tone of profound introspection. Ah, yes; now I remember. Finished it! Heavens no, my dear girl. Ive put it away. I havent even seen it since. Im trying to forget I ever painted it. Trying to forget it. Why? Well, you see, it is rather a theory of mine. I dont believe in sticking at any one thing beyond a given time. I believe one does oneself more harm than good. BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 19 He had by this time seated himself upon a chair, and was glancing up and down the room with that sense of amusement which so often assailed him when he found himself confronted by other peo- ples notions of the decorative. One makes more way often by resting on ones oars, you know, he added, turning his eyes so as to bring them to bear upon his cousins face. One might rest too long though, she suggested. Oh, yes. Of course there is always that risk; still I think on the whole it is less than the opposite one; supposing, that is, that a man has the wherewithal to do anything at all in him; and if he hasnt why of course it doesnt much matter what he does, whether he grinds or ~vhether he does not. But if he has he cant really idle even if he tries. Everything one sees; everything bombastic people call one~s environment; the people one meets; the houses one goes to; that tiresome woman you danced with yesterday, or took into dinner the day before; all form part, artistically speaking, of your daily bread. You dont consciously chronicle them, of course, or sketch them, or any- thing of that sort, but they go down some- where or other, and come out again in one form or other if theyre wanted. Forgive my inflicting upon you this elaborate reci- tation of my artistic creed, but seriously I believe thats about it. The cream of a mans ideas, his best inspirations, all come to him in that sort of unpremeditated way. It gives a better chance, too, to the infin- ities and immensities which are always floating about if one can only make use of them. Sticking like a leach to his easel or his desk, as the case may be, his ideas get ossified, and ten to one, he is missing a dozen better ideas while he is pegging away like a cart-horse at one. Katherine Holland shook her head slightly. She thought her cousins theo- ries very brilliant, very in~enious, but at the same time slightly unpractical. Now, my uncle, would he I wonder get any clearer ideas about his morphol- ogy or his comparative anatomy if he took to a course of balls and dinner parties? she inquired somewhat ironically. Your uncle? Oh, well no, very likely not; but that, you will admit, is dif- ferent, Farquart answered, with a con- scientious effort at banishing from his tone all sense of the immensity of the difference. I was speaking, of course, of the more purely creative processes. By the way, talking of the others of your uncles pursuits, he added, reminds me of Borroughdale. You remember my friend Borroughdale, whom I introduced to you at my studio? If Lam not mis- taken your uncle has got in him a new recruit. I was at his house the other day, and I found him up to the ears in strange and slimy beasts, the room smell. ing like a seashore at extremely low tide, one hand excitedly t~visting up the screws of a microscope, and the other tenderly caressing a dead crab. Miss Holland smiled. Yes, I know. We have seen a good deal of him lately, she said. He is interested in zoology. He has never stud- ied it at all, it seems, before; but my uncle says that he has never known any one who picked up so much in so short a time. Farquart laughed, throwing back his head with an intense but perfectly good- humored entertainment. Then all I can say is that you have worked a miracle amongst you! he ex- claimed. I have known Borroughdale ages we are almost like brothers. There is not a better-natured, an honester, a kinder-hearted fellow in all England; in fact, Im ~)erfectly devoted to him: at the same time I am bound in honor to declare that during all the years we have been together I have never once, even once, known him acquire anything of his own free will. And at Oxford, old Godhy, who was his tutor, and also mine, told me that in all his experience he never came across so stolidly, respectably, but abso- lutely impervious, a headpiece. Miss Holland looked a little surprised. The last part of her cousins speech did not seem to her to fit particularly well with the profession of friendship at the beginning of it. Havent you read something of the same sort in the biography of various illustrious savants before now? she said quickly. It seems to me I have. Be- sides, Lord Borroughdale tells me that he really has always taken an interest in natural history watching the ways of animals, I mean, and that sort of thing only that he was always rather ashamed of it than otherwise, as no one else he knew cared for anything of the sort, and it appeared like a sort of remnant of child- ish ness. Farquart shook his head. I expect that their chief attraction in his eyes latterly, at any rate has lain ~in the fact that there was no danger of their insisting upon his turning any of them 20 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROTJGHDALE. into a Marchioness of Borroughdale, he answered. By the way, you know, I said laughingly. His terror, his absorb- suppose, that he has become immersed in ing panic, is that every woman he meets, zoology, since you left town, he added or even hears of, intends to marry him. with a smile. Miss Hollands eyebrQws contracted. Know it, my dear sir! I have just She looked vexed, a blush of displeasure come from seeing him. I assure you the rather than embarrassment rising sud- smell of -that house is enough to knock denly to her cheek. Farquart, too, felt you down, literally to knock you down. unexpectedly annoyed with himself. Now Its perfectly poisonous! We shall have that they were uttered his words some- him indicted by the neighborhood as a how sounded a crood deal more significant nuisance if he doesnt mind what he is than he had ever intended them to be. about. The last thing in the world that he had Farquart laughed. proposed to himself that afternoon was It is pretty bad, I know, he said. what, in the language of slang, is called Carburetted hydrogen, isnt it? I dont crabbing Borroughdale, still less of believe theres really any great harm in it, openly hinting to his cousin that any good though. nature of hers in that direction might But Mr. Vansittart was far past laugh- possibly be misconstrued. What he knew ing. All his usual social creeds, his very of her, no less than of the peculiarity of terror of ridicule being for the moment her circumstances, making anything of set aside in the extremity of his parental the sort little short of a aratuitous imper- anguish. tinence. Nevertheless, somehow or other, Harm! heavens and earth, my dear he seemed to have drifted into doing what young man! I dont know what you call was at least open to the imputation of harm. To my mind it is pitifulsimply being both. Where the deuce had his pitiful. When I think of Borroughdales usually infallible tact got to? he asked position, when I think of his magnificent himself, with a self-annoyance which was opportunities, when I think of the care as rare as it was uncomfortable. While with which he has been brought up, when he was still industriously cudgelling his I think of the trouble which I have always brain in search of some newer and hap- lavished over his education, that now at pier topic upon which to. launch, and be- his age he should be given over to such fore Miss Holland had entirely recovered puerilities, such childishness worthy her composure, the door opened and her of some cockney schoolboy out upon his aunt, Mrs. Holland, entered; whereupon first holiday! Of course 1 dont expect Farquart promptly recalled to his mind others to see the thing in the same light, an engagement he had previously forgot. but to my mind it is disastroussimply ten, and not very many minutes after~vards disastrous! he rose to take his leave. Probably hell get tired of it after a Mr. Vansittart, who happened to have while, you know, Farquart said consol- been away for a short time from town also ingly. They were still upon the steps of about this time, paid his first visit to his the club, up which they now began to sons improvised laboratory, and also mount. went away shrugging his shoulders and Mr. Vansittart shook his head. shaking his head. The last state of that I dont know; he becomes extraor- misguided young man seemed to him to dinarily set upon a thingextraordina- be worse than the first. As if it was not rily once he takes it up, he said de- bad enough to have a son who refused to spondently. Ive known him take up fulfil any of the functions of his position, the queerest fads; nothing wrong, you without having one who made it impossi- know, but queer, very queer, the last ble for you to enter his house without things you would imagine any one in his having your nose saluted with the most position, and brought up as he has been, detestably ungodlysmells! Meeting Far- would take up. But this is th~ worst of quart the same afternoon upon the steps them all, much, very much the worst! of a club to which he belonged, and which the unfortunate father ended with a groan. the latter had lately joined, he at once burst upon him with the subject. CHAPTER III. My dear Mr. Farquart, how very for- THE very slight amount of esteem ex- tunate that I should just meet you. Have pressed for his new studies by his friends you seen anything of Borroughdale late- and relations gave but little concern to Lord Borroughdale Moe accurately it Not for nearly a week, the other may be said to have concerned him not at BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 21 all. He was not used, as we have seen, to admiration in that quarter. Despite those attributes of his which might, under ordinary circumstances, have been sup. posed to give rise to some such feeling, a sort of good-humored indulgence, deepen- ing at times into something like pitying contempt, was their most familiar attitude towards him, and of this he himself was perfectly well aware. Dull as he was, his dulness, as we have also seen, was not that truly enviable variety which enwraps its possessor in a triple-lined coat of mail, through which no dart, however potent, can ever penetrate. On the contrary, it- had always been pricked through and through with a certain irritated conscious- ness of itself; he hated it; he chafed against it; he longed to get a~vay from it, to find himself in the freer air, amid the larger surroundings of those to whose intelligence what to him was opaque ap peared clear and apprehensible. When therefore, for the first time in his life, he perceived a direction in which his facul- ties, instead of standing still in torpid ineptitude, seemed to leap, flow, and move of their own accord, it was not very likely that any pressure from without would hin- der him from following the invitation. One thing, and one alone, filled him as the days went on with disquietude, and that was the footing upon which he stood with regard to Katherine Holland. It seemed to him that he made no way at all. He was not, it is true, repulsed, but then neither was he encouraged~ He could not even flatter himself that he had made clear his sentiments to her at all. When he called and he called I may say ex- tremely often she was always friendly, always ready to discuss his latest zoologi- cal perplexity, to eke out, so far as her capacity enabled her, his, at present, very limited amount of knowledge in that di- rection; but whenever the conversation threatened to take a more personal and therefore interesting turn, it seemed to him that she always contrived quietly but determinedly to lead it away to safer and less exciting topics, a man~uvre which, helpless as ever in conversational mat- ters, he found himself powerless to avert, though it inwardly filled him with rage and wild gnashings of teeth at his own stupidity. If he was helpless, however, he was also very tenacious, a family trait which here as elsewhere stood him in good stead. He swore to himself that he was not going to be balked; that come what would she must, would, should hear him yet; and with this resolve clear before his mind he was able, with more semblance of equa- nimity, to await the slow but all-decisive course of events. That he was honestly, intensely, irre- coverably in love with Katherine Holland as man need be, he had not a shadow of doubt. It is true that he had had no previous experience of the sensation, but then neither, on the other hand, had he ever had any experience of a glow which had lost its first intensity. He loved her for herself; for her grave, slightly, per- haps, austere beauty, for her brightness and clear-eyed intelligence, for the unfail- ing gentleness with which she met the, often, as it seemed to him, unreasonable calls upon her time and patience; finally and chiefly he loved her for that best of all reasons because he loved her, be- cause everything about her filled him with a joy, a rapture, a sense of exhilaration, of which his previous intercourse with his fellow-beings had given him no faintest inkling. One not a little amusing transformation resulted from all this. J3orroughdale, to whom the portals of what is called the great world stood as naturally open as his own hall door, and who had hitherto shown such remarkably slight anxiety to get inside them, now, on the contrary, ex- hibited a willingness to present himself at reunions to which that great world in its ignorance and impertinence would in all probability have turned up its distin- guished nose. Mrs. Holland dearly loved such mild dissipations as came within her sphere, and, more to please her than for any great joy which they afforded her personally, Miss Holland allowed herself to be con- ducted to them, and, for the sake of see- ing, and occasionally, when he summoned courage, of talking to her, Borroughdale too began to frequent them. The diffi- culty of procuring invitations was, not, as will be imagined, insurmountable. The society which the Hollands moved in was largely made up of the professional ele- mentthe medical, as incorporating a greater infusion of science than any other, perhaps preponderating. Science, how- ever, pure and simple, was also to be found, those occasions on which the greater scientific bodies throw ~vide their doors to the wives, sisters, cousins, and remotest connections of their members constituting perhaps the highest, or at any rate the most striking, points in Mrs. Hollands social horizon. All, or a con siderable portion, of these entertainments, 22 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. Lord Borroughdale now took to attending. His mantelpiece, long destitute of those natural adornments of a young man about town, began about this time to bristle with shining announcements that the con- versazione of the Microscopical Society would take place upon such a day, or that Professor and Madame van Ovibos would hope for the pleasure of the Marquis of Borroughdales society at their sob-dc upon the 22nd. Calling from time to time upon his son, Mr. Vansittart would turn over a dozen, perhaps, or more, similar intima- tions, lifting them one by one between his finger and thunib, and dropping th& n again upon the mantelpiece, with a slight elevation of his brows and a perceptible start of astonishment as each fresh, and to his mind, more utterly incongruous an- nouncement met his gaze. Borroughdale himself was quite uncon- scious, however, of any incongruity. The society suited him quite well enough quite as well, at any rate, as any society was likely to suit him. That sense of being at odds with his world which had hitherto been such a familiar experience, did not obtrude itself here, at any rate not nearly as much. If he were something of a fish out of water still, it was, at least, in a different and a much more endurable way. To Mrs. Holland or Madame van Ovibos he was not an anomaly at all, but simply an amiable young nobleman, whose presence in their drawing-rooms diffused over their souls a mild sense of beatitude, and whose appearance, way of life, and deportment it did not even enter into their heads to criticise. He might have been on his way to Marlborough House, or re- turning home from the House of Lords that natural abiding-place of the young hereditary legislator for anything either of them could tell to the contrary. Now I hope no one will too hastily accredit Borroughdale with any ignoble love of being first in his company, if I say that in this sort of unhesitating acceptance there was no little balm and solace for him. He was so tired, you see, poor fellow, of being criticised, of knowing that every one in and out of his own circle of acquaintance had an eye for his vagaries, and was men- tally conning over those points in which he differed from the received type, always of course exclusively to his disadvantage. Amongst the younger scientific portion of these gatherings he made friends, too, as (Farquart excepted) he had never as yet done elsewhere. His leanings had always been to the workaday side of things, and here that side was to be seen in what may fairly be called its most attractive form, embellished by a thousand possibilities which fired his brain with vague but there- fore all the more dazzling notions of what might not yet be in store for a world where all those exciting suggestions would sooner or later become sober and univer- sally accepted matters of fact. If these gatherings had no other merit, moreover, they at least had that of causing Kathe- rine Hollands beauty and bearing to stand out before him in new and more commanding lustre indeed she seemed to him to be immeasurably more out of keeping with what was ordinary in her surroundings than he was himself. Com- paring her, for instance, with the four MissMacman uses, daughters of Professor Macmanus, how could he fail to be struck with the difference? Professor Macmanus was an entomolo- gist, a term which probably sounds quite sufficiently explicit to the outer world, but which the initiated know to be far too coarse and too generalized for anything like accurate definition, entomology, like knowledge itself, having long since passed out of the grasp of any one pair of hands, no matter how strong or how wide-em- bracing they may be. Professor Mac- manus, however, embraced two or three of its divisions, the one in which he had first won his spurs, and made for himself a European reputation, being known as the Hetcrop/era a term which sounds better perhaps in Latin than its equivalent does in English. He was a widower, and he and his house with all that it contained with the exception only of his entomo- logical boxes and cabinets were wholly ruled over and subjugated by his four daughters. The poor professor himself was like wax in those redoubtable young ladies hands. If they had only been entomolog- ical specimens, no matter how rare or how unique, he would have known in a mo- ment how to deal with them, but being as they were sufficiently average specimens of the genus youthful Englishwoman of the nineteenth century, he simply yielded himself an easy prey, intrenching himself behind his collections, and leaving the whole weight and direction of social ob- servations to be determined as they in their united wisdom and experience might see fit. It so happened that it was at an enter- tainment given by this enterprising fam- ily that Borroughdale for the first time found courage to break down that bar which her discretion and his own diffi THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 23 dence had erected between himself and Katherine Holland, and to unfold to her his wishes and his aspirations a feat which he achieved after a fashion which was entirely his own, and which may fairly be said to have been unparalleled amongst the annals of love-suits. He had arrived early, and as a not un- natural consequence had been instantly ingulfed by the whole of the Macmanus family, even the professor himself being routed out of his retirement to do honor to his distinguished guest. This our young man endured with passable philoso- phy for some time, solacing himself by keeping a watchful lookout towards the door by which Miss Holland and her chaperon were bound, he knew, to enter. Even after that event had duly happened, however, he found that his escape was by no means a matter of very easy accom- plishment. Youthful marquises were not particularly rife amongst the circles in which the Miss Macmanuses moved, and now that fate had thrust one alive into their hands they had naturally no idea of allowing him to evade them, showing, in- deed, in their watchful clutch not a little of that undaunted and iintiring energy which is known to distinguish the objects of their fathers research above all other denizens of the animal world. In vain poor Borroughdale made effort after effort to escape; always one orother member of the family engaged his attention; always some nev object or person required to be brought before his notice; and when sup- per-time come he found himself still hedged in by a compact hedge of his too hospitable entertainers, beyond which he could only faintly and intermittently dis- cern Miss Holland across fast diminishing piles of plum cake and quavering moun- tains of jelly. Now this, as it happened, was just the sort of stimulus which his particular temperament needed. It aroused all that latent, never very far-dis- tant obstinacy which, as all who knew him intimately were aware, formed a distinctly recognizable portion of his character. He grew irritated, he grew silent, finally he grew morose and desperate, and when at last he had effected his escape, and had got up-stairs again, all his timidity was for the time being at an end. He stood ready primed for any enterprise, any sole- cism however gigantic, with that complete and heroic disregard of what might be said or thought or imagined about him, of which only a desperately shy man once thoroughly roused to action is capable. Marching straight down the middle of the room he advanced upon a sofa, placed immediately below the gas lamp, on which Miss Holland happened to be sitting, in conversation with a long-necked, some- what weak-eyed young man, a professor of philology, who had lately come up to Lon- don from Cambridge. Both started slightly and looked up as he approached, the professor pausing in the middle of a sentence, and pushing back his spectacles with some surprise, for the new-coiners air was rather that of a man who comes to deliver some supremely important piece of intelligence than of one charged with the ordinary unemphatic nothings of so- ciety. Lord Borroughdale was emphatic enough, however. This is the very first moment I have been able to get near you the whole even- ing!he exclaimed, in a tone loud enough to be audible to the entire room, seating himself as he spoke in the chair nearest to Miss Holland, and utterly, in his preoccu- pation, ignoring the presence of the unfor- tunate professor, who, after a momentary gasp of sheer bewilderment, slid gently away and disappeared, leaving the other in ftll possession of the field. You were talking, were you not ? she answered rather vaguely, at a loss, to tell the truth, what exactly she was to say. I wasnt talking, I assure you. I hadnt anything to talk about. Some of the others were talking to me. I wanted all the time to come and sit by you. From The National Review. THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. III. WORDS WORTHY S THEORY OF POETRY. Not that I think the amiable bard of Ry- dale shows judgment in choosing such subjects as the popular mind cannot sympathize in. I do not compare myself in point of imagination with Wordsworth, far from it; for his is natu- rally exquisite, and highly cultivated from constant exercise. - - - But I cry no roast- meat. There are times a man should remem- ber what Rousseau used to say: Tais-toi, Jean Jacques, car on ne tentend pas. - - - The error is not in you yourself receiving deep impressions from slight hints, but in supposing that precisely the same sort of impressions must rise in the minds of men, otherwise of kindred feeling; or that the commonplace folk of the world can derive such inductions at any time or under any circumstances. (Scotts Journal, January I, 1827.) 24 THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. IN a recent endeavor to estimate the imaginative genius of the eighteenth cen- tury, I said that one of its most marked features was its limitation. When the range of thought and feeling in the Can- terbury Tales, The Faery Queen, Shakespeares plays, and Paradise Lost, is compared with the subject matter of Dryden and Popes satires, of The Van- ity of Human Wishes, the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, The Bard, and The Progress of Poesy, the odes on Liberty and The Passions, The Deserted Village, and The Traveller, every one must perceive within how nar- row a tract the imagination of the later period is circumscribed, and that the mines of poetry which the region con- tains, though precious, are not inexhaust- ible. The causes of this limitation are read ily discoverable by the light of history. Chaucer had at his disposal all the re- sources of a social system highly stimu- lative to the imagination, which was not peculiar to one country, but prevailed over the whole of Europe. His successors, after the period of the Reformation, drew inspiration from still deeper wells. With minds dramatically excited by the spirit, of religious liberty and ardent patriotism, they employed the materials afforded by the still vivid traditions of romantic chiv- alry, together with the wealth of ideas and the beauty of form discovered in the revival of classical letters. All these op- posite veins of thought may easily be de- tected in the wonderfully compounded ~vork of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Mil- ton.~ But after the civil war, religious, political, and social influences turned the imagination of the English people exclu- sively upon their own manners. The old modes of medi~val thought had lost their power over the mind: the spirit of reli- gious fanaticism which rose up in opposi- tion to them, seemed hostile to every form of creative imagination. In the sphere of politics the ancient traditions of mo- narchical government were subverted first by the Rebellion and afterwards by the Revolution. Everywhere men ~vere ask- ing themselves wherein consisted the foundations of society, what were the lim. itations of liberty, and how they were to recognize the first principles of art. And, these being the questions which agitated the mind of the nation above all others, it was these for which a natural, an irresist- ible instinct drove men of genius to pro- vide an answer, either in a philosophic or in an imaginative shape. The poetry of the eighteenth century is the poetry of sOciety and manners. So long as a powerful necessity com- pelled men to think and act for them- selves, their work was marked by a vital originality of matter and form, and hence in literature almost everything of imagi- native value belonging to what may be broadly called the eighteenth-century movement came into existence between the Restoration and the accession of George III. Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Gray, Johnson, among the poets; Swift, Steele, Addison, Fielding, and Smollett, among the essayists and novelists, had ~vritten their all or their best before 1760. The Deserted Village, The Travel- ler, The Vicar of XVaketield, and Miss Burneys novels, are nearly all the ~vorks of genius or talent, peculiarly character- istic of the eighteenth century, produced. after this date and before the French Revolution. When the liberties of the nation were finally secured, and the prin- ciples of taste and manners advocated in the Tatler and Spectator had met with general acceptance, the creative im- pulse of the age seems to have ceased. Faction reigns supreme in politics: the Church sinks into slumber: artifice in poetry prevails over thought. We seea J unius succeeding a Swift as a controver- sialist: a Warburton following a Butler in theology: for Pope as a satirist we have to put up with Churchill: and the pure Horatian style of the Epistle to Arbuth not is exchanged for the sono- rous emptiness of The Botanic Garden. I endeavored to illustrate the decay of medi~evalism in the seventeenth century by citing two poems of Cowley and Cra- shaw; a comparison of a passage from Thomsons Seasons with one from Darwins poem mentioned just above, will be equally suggestive of the exhau~- tion of the inspiring impulse of the eigh- teenth century. The following extract from Winter shows the creative spirit of the age still in its vigor: What art thou, Frost? and whence are thy keen stores Derived, thou secret all-invading power Whom even the illusive fluid cannot fly? Is not thy potent energy, unseen, Myriads of little salts, or hooked, or shaped Like double wedges, and diffused immense Through water, earth, and ether? hence at eve, Steamed eager from the red horizon round, With the fierce rage of Winter, deep suffused, An icy gale, oft shifting, oer the pool Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 25 Let down the flood, and half-dissolved by day Rustles no more; but to the sedgy bank Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone, A crystal pavement by the breath of heaven Cemented firm; till, seized from shore to shore, The whole imprisoned river growls below. Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects A double noise; ~vhile at his evening watch The village dog deters the nightly thief; The heifer lows; the distant waterfall Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round, Infinite worlds disclosing to the view, Shines out intensely keen, and, all one cope Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole. In the following from The Botanic Garden the same spirit is. seen in its decay: Nymphs, your fine forms with steps impassive mock Earths vaulted roofs of adamantine rock; Round her still centre tread the burning soil, And watch the billowy lavas as they boil: Where in basaltic waves imprisoned deep Reluctant fires in dread suspension sleep; Or sphere on sphere in widening waves ex- pand, And glad with genial warmth the incumbent land. So when the Mother-bird select~ their food With curious bill, and feeds her callow brood, Warmth from her tender heart eternal springs, And pleased she clasps them with extended wings. You from deep cauldrons and unmeasured caves Blow flaming airs, or pour vitrescent waves, Oer shining Ocean ray volcanic light, Or hurl innocuous embers to the night; While with loud shouts to Etna Hecla calls And Andes answers from his beaconed walls: Sea-wildered crews the mountain-stars admire, And Beauty beams amid terrific fire. There is evidently something in com- mon between these two passages. In both (though only in the first few lines of Thomson) the description is, to some ex- tent, scientific, and, as far as it is so, would find a more fitting expression in prose; in both the frequent use of Latin words and the Latin method of linking epithets to substantives is observable; but while Thomson has evidently con- ceived his subject with enthusiasm, and imparts his enthusiasm to the reader, Darwin thinks throughout in a matter-of- fact spirit, and uses metre merely for dec- orative purposes; so small is his sense of sublimity that he does not perceive any- thing ridiculous in imagining one volcano hallooing to another. Wordsworth la- niented that he could not hear old Triton blow his wreath~d horn. Darwin feigns, without a blush, that the operations of nature are performed by a whole army of nymphs, sylphs, and gnomes, yet in the very same breath describes ~vith scientific coldness the mechanical forces to which they owe their origin. Poetry of this kind is as sure a symp- tom as the lethargy of the Church or the prevalence of petty faction in politics that the vigorous and constructive con- servatism of the eighteenth century, the nature of which I attempted to describe in the September number of this review,* has become crystallized in lifeless forms and conventions. Side by side, however, with these indications of exhaustion in the es- tablished order of society there are many signs of the activity and progress of the democratic spirit Wilkes ih the field of politics, Wesley in the sphere of religion, and Burns in the realms of poetry, all, though with very different intentions, strike the same note : The rank is but the guinea stamp, The mans a man for a that. At the same time, the centrifugal move- ment of the individual away from society, which appears to be a natural accompani- ment of democracy, and which manifests itself in France in the philosophy of Rous- seau, is seen in the blended Methodism and love of nature in Cowpers poetry. Many influences thus combined to prepare the way for that strife between the spirit of aristocracy and the spirit of democracy both in politics and art, the outbreak of which was hastened by the incidents of the French Revolution. In literature the battle began with the controversy excited by the publication of \Vordsworths Lyrical Ballads. To prevent the historical accuracy of this assertion being questioned, let me quote what Coleridge, who had every means of knowing, says, in his Biographia Litera- na, about the origin of the volume, and the influence it exerted on the taste of the times : The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the in- cidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. - . . For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordi * LIVING AGE, No. aioa. 26 THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. nary life; the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves. In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Bal- lads; in which it was agreed that my en- deavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth suffi- cient to procure for those shadows of imagina- tion that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself, as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernat- ural, by awakening the minds attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonder of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand. Coleridge accordingly wrote the An- cient Mariner with a view to its inser- tion in a volume of poems composed upon this double principle, but it was eventu- ally determined that Wordsworths poems should be published by themselves, and they therefore appeared under the title of Lyrical Ballads. To the second edition [says Coleridge] he added a preface of considerable length, in which, notwithstanding some passages of ap- parently a contrary import, he was understood to contend for the extension of this style to poetry of all kinds, and to reject as vicious and indefensible all phrases and forms of style that were not included in what he (unfortu- nately, I think, adopting an equivocal expres- sion) called, the language of real life. From this preface, prefixed to poems in which it was impossible to deny the presence of real genius, however mistaken its direction might be deemed, arose the whole long-continued con- troversy. For from the conjunction of per- ceived power with supposed heresy I explain the inveteracy, and in some instances, I grieve to say, the acrimonious passions, with which the controversy has been conducted by the assailants. Here, then, is an announcement made on the very highest authority that Lyri- cal Ballads sounded the first note of the new departure which I have called the liberal movement in English lit- erature. It has been assumed in many quarters that my object in writing these papers is to make a vain and foolish at- tack on the poets who initiated the move- ment. I know not what I have said to justify such an assumption. My inten- tion has been to examine historically, and, as far as I can, impartially, the meaning of the movement, its causes, and the effects it has produced on imag- inative art. I suppose it will be gener- ally allowed that liberalism in literature as well as in politics implied, in the last century at least, revolt; a revolt in the former case on behalf of individual liberty against certain canons of taste which were supposed by the critics of the day to have acquired an established authority. It does not follow that a conservative should hold such a revolt to have been unjustifi- able. On the contrary, in all great crea- tive artists the elements of liberalism and conservatism have ever been fairly com- pounded; they have been liberal by force of their imagination and invention, con- servative by the restraint of their taste and judgment. Scott, with all his political Toryism and appreciative admiration for the writers of the eighteenth century, was a bold innovator in respect of form. By- ron, a rebel against every kind of social convention, constantly and firmly upheld the authority of the eighteenth century in questions of criticism. Wordsworth ap- pears to me to.~have been at once a great conservative and a great radical. The man who is incapable of feeling enthu- siastic admiration for his genius when it is doing itself justice has no right to criti- cise him at all; but when he is doing him- self the most justice he is working in his own way on traditional lines; while, on the other hand, in his theory and in much of his practice he uncompromisingly de- fies tradition and experience. 1 shall attempt, in the present paper, to inquire how far his theory of poetry, which, as Coleridge says, so largely influenced the public taste, is in harmony with the fun- damental principles of the art of poetry. If an apology be required for carrying the reader into the regions of abstract dis. cussion, it must be remembered that Wordsworth and his followers defend their practice by reasoning, and that it is therefore incumbent on those who object to their practice to examine how far their reasoning is satisfactory. In the first place, however, in order to test the character of Wordsworths theory, it is important to recall the circumstances under which it was evolved. What roused him into rebellion against the canons of criticism generally accepted in his day, was undoubtedly the style of poetical diction then considered to be the indis- pensable dress of all true poetry. He THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 27 saw that the mode of expression employed by Darwin in his Botanic Garden was widely admired; yet the coloring of this poem appeared to him, as to most men of just and manly taste, to he false and gaudy. Looking back to the earlier poets of the century, he found that germs of the same diction were discoverable in them; as, for instance, in Popes Messiah, in some of Johnsons verses, and, indeed, in al- most all the characteristic poems of the age. Instead of reasoning that the defect might spring from the natural corruption of some true principle of art, he inferred from his observations that it arose from a false ideal of composition, consciously adopted by the poets. And, as so. often happens to men of a combative turn, his violent sentiments of dislike led him to argue that all true poetry must be com- posed on a system exactly opposite to the style which he condemned. Darwin seemed to withdraw himself deliberately from the common sympathies of human- ity; true poetry, Wordsworth argued, should, therefore, look for its subjects in the objects and incidents of every-day life. Darwins diction was artificial in the high. est degree; it follows thatthe genuine language of poetry should resemble as closely as possible the language of the peasantry. Darwin wrote in a style which was the antithesis of prose; hence Words- worth would have us believe that there is no essential difference between the lan- guage of prose and verse, and that the fact of poems being written in metre is merely to be regarded as an accident of the art. In considering the justice of these views I suppose that everybody would be on Wordsworths side as far as he was op- posed to Darwin. Almost any species of verse writing, if it show sincere feeling, is better than a style inspired simply by poml)osity and affectation. To enlarge the spiritual experience of an artificialized society by imaginative representations of the beauty of nature and common life was a just and noble aim for poetry, but it was not a new one. To take only a few ex- amples which at once occur, Virgil had written the Georgics, Thomson The Seasons, Gray the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Goldsmith The Deserted Village. All these were subjects chosen from ordinary life, just as much as Peter Bell, The Idiot Boy, Alice Fell, Becrcrars or The Sailors Mother. The real innovation introduced by Words- worth was one of poetical ftrrn, and lay in the manner in which he employed the imagination to present objects to the reader with a view of producing pleasure. On this point it is best to let him speak for himself. The principal object, then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them,throughout,asfar as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time to throw over them a cer- tain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and further and above all, to make these incidents and situations interest- ing by tracing in them, truly though not osten- tatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Here we have a compendious statement of the radical difference between the prac- tice of Wordsworth and that of preceding poets who had dealt with subjects chosen from ordinary life. Neither Virgil, nor Thomson, nor Gray, nor Goldsmith, had attempted to present the objects they described to the mind in an unusual aspect. They trusted to produce pleas- ure by associating qualities inherent in these objects with other beautiful ideas, naturally connected with them, and ex- pressed in a noble and harmonious form of verse. With them the subject matter of poetry lay in associations of ideas exist- ing in their readers imaginations equally with their own. With Wordsworth, on the other hand, all depended on the per- ception of the poet himself, and his power to displace and recombine the ordinary association of ideas so as to present them to the mind in an unusual aspect. And, of course, if he had been able to produce great and permanent pleasure on the principles he lays down, all objection would have been silenced, and the only thing to be said would be that he had discovered principles of art which had hitherto been unknown or neglected. Fortunately Wordsworths works com- prise poems composed on the old princi- ples as well as on his own, so that we are able to compare the two systems at work in the same mind, with the result, as I have already said, that his finest poetical effects are seen to be produced when he is most flagrantly violating his own rules. Comparing Lucy Gray, for instance, which every one will admit to be a perfect work of art, with The Idle Shepherds, which is one degree less successful, and, again, with The Sailors Mother or Peter Bell, which are not successful at 28 THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. all, it will be found that the pleasure ex- cited arises from the simple association, in a beautiful metrical form, of objects that naturally affect the feelings, and that this pleasure diminishes in proportion as the poet intrudes his personality upon the reader, and endeavors to eke out the tenu- ity of his subject by analysis and reflec- tion. in Lucy Gray the narrative is of the most direct kind; there is no sort of mental analysis employed; the exquisite charm of the workmanship comes from the simple description of pathetic objects, and the admirable and unexpected turns of the ballad style in which the story is told. In The Idle Shepherd Boys the real beauty of the poem consists in the delightful landscape presented to the im- agination in the first three stanzas, partic- ularly the third: Airing the rivers stony marge The sand-lark chants a joyous song; The thrush is busy in the wood, And carols loud and strong. A thousand lambs are on the rocks, All newly born! both earth and sky Keep jubilee, and more than all Those boys with their green coronal; They never hear the cry, That plaintive cry which up the hill Comes from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll. There is no analysis here; nothing but a musical combination of images that pro- duce immediate pleasure in the mind and heart: such incidents as the narrative contains are redeemed from meanness only by falling in naturally with the beau- tiful pastoral scene called up before the imagination; and, even as it is, several stanzas are so prosaically expressed as to jar on the effect of the melodious open- ing. But take The Sailors Mother, and it will be seen that the occasional flatness of expression, which mars the completeness of The Idle Shepherd Boys, prevails from the first line to the last with the exception perhaps of the second stanza. One morning (raw it was and wet, A foggy day in winter-time), A woman in the road I met, Not old, though something past her prime; Majestic in her person, tall and straight; And like a Roman matrons was her mien and gait. The ancient spirit is not dead; Old times, thought I, are breathing there; Proud was I that my country bred Such strength, a dignity so fair: She begged an alms like one in poor estate; I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate. When from these lofty thoughts I woke, What is it, said I, that you bear, Beneath the covert of your cloak, Protected from the cold damp air? She answered soon as she the question heard, A simple burden, Sir, a little singing-bird. And thus continuing, she said, I had a son, who many a day Sailed on the seas, but he is dead; In Denmark he was cast away: And I have travelled weary miles to see If aught which he had owned might still re- main for me. The bird and cage they both were his: Twas my sons bird; and neat and trim He kept it: many voyages The singing-bird had gone with him; When last he sailed he left the bird behind, From bodings, as might be, that hung upon hi~ mind. He to a fellow-lodgers care Had left it to be watched and fed, And pipe its song in safety; there I found it when my son was dead; And now, God help me for my little wit! I bear it with me, Sir, he took so much delight in it. I suppose that there is scarcely any one largely acquainted with poetry who would not say, on first reading it, that there was an incongruity between the matter of this poem and the metrical form in which it is expressed. But, Hold, hold! we may imagine Wordsworth to reply; you are wrong to judge in this way; for, if you think about the poem, you will see that the simple incident it records puts you upon a train of the most suggestive reflec- tion respecting the unseen spiritual world and the nature of the affections. The imagination has, therefore, discharged its functions properly. As I say in Peter Bell, another poem of the same kind : The dragons wing, the magic ring I shall not covet for my dower, If I along that lowly way, With sympathetic heart may stray, And with a soul of power. These given, what more need I desire To stir, to soothe, or elevate? What nobler marvels than the mind May in lifes daily prospect find, May find or there create? And that the imagination has this creative power of conferring additional properties upon an object, or abstracting from it some of those which it actually possesses, * I can prove to you by the language which poets use. For instance, take the use of the word hang in poetry: * Preface to the edition of e8z~. 29 THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. Non ego vos posthac viridi projectus in antro DumosA pendere procul de rupe videbo. VIRGIt. Half way down Hangs one who gathers samphire. SHAKESPEARE. As when, far off at sea, a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds. MILTON. In all these passages it is obvious that the quality of hanging does not really in- here in the object, but is conferred onit by the imagination, which I have, therefore, properly employed analytically, though in a different direction, to suggest a train of feeling connected with the incident of the sailors mother. And as to your com- plaint that there is an incongruity between the nature of the thought and the mode of its expression, that arises from the false ideas of poetical diction which you have derived from your study of the poets. True, I might have said what I had to say in prose, but why should I be condemned for attempting to add to such description the charm which, by the consent of all nations, is acknowledged to exist in metri- cal language? * To this, however, the reader may reply confidently: Your reasoning, no doubt, is very fine and ingenious, but the matter is one not for argument but for perception. If the association of ideas is so strongly rooted in my mind that no exercise of your imagination is able to overcome the repugnance I feel at finding a subject which seems to me naturally prosaic treated in metre; while, on the other hand, you are often able to produce the highest pleasure in my mind by your metrical treatment of more imaginative subjects; and if, besides, this latter is evidently the way in which all great standard poets pro- duce pleasure, is it not possible that on this occasion you have been employing your imagination improperly? Words- worth seems to have thought that a poet could always write poetically by the mere exercise of his will. But the evidence of the greatest creative poetry proves that the imagination Ifl ust, in the first place, be overmastered and possessed by an im- pulse from without, and Scott describes universal experience in the following pas- sage of one of his letters: Nobody knows that has not tried the feverish trade of poetry, how much it depends upon mood and whim: I dont wonder that in dis * I have endeavored in the above passage to con- dense the argument of Wordsworths prefaces to the editions of his poems published in 1805 and s8s~. missing all the other deities of Paganism the Muse should have been retained by common consent, for, in sober reality, writing good verses seems to depend upon something sepa- rate from the volition of the author. I some- times think my fingers set up for themselves, independent of my head; for twenty times I have begun a thing on a certain plan, and never in my life adhered to it (in a work of imagination, that is) for half an hour together. This is a vivid description of the work- ing of the estro or afflatus, without which Byron so often declares in his let- ters that he cannot write well in metre; of that Eros which, Plato tells us in the Symposium, seizes and inflames the imagination of the poet. Nor is it the first act of poetical conception alone which is performed in this manner; in all the imag- inative arts the form of the work produced is largely determined by fortune and in- spiration. I remember among the studies of the painters preserved at Florence, a rough design of (I think) Parmigianino, in which the artist, desiring to represent the image of terror on a mans face, has left on the paper three or four unsuccessful attempts, showing that he only attained by degrees the expression of the exact idea that he had conceived. Milton, we know, had originally resolved to cast Par- adise Lost into the form of a drama. Nor can any thing be more suggestive than the account which Lockhart gives of the growth of The Lay of the Last Min- strel : Sir John Stoddarts casual recitation, a year or two before, of Coleridges unpublished Christabel, had fixed the music of that noble fragment in his memory; and it occurs to him that by throwing the story of Gilpin Homer into somewhat of a similar cadence, he might produce such an echo of the later metrical romance as would serve to connect his Conclusion of the primitive Sir Tristram with his imitations of the popular ballad in The Grey Brother and Eve of St. John. A single scene of feudal festivity in the hall of Branksome, disturbed by some pranks of a nondescript goblin, was probably all that he contemplated; but his accidental confinement in the midst of a volunteer camp gave him leisure to meditate his theme to the sound of a bugle; and suddenly there flashes on him the idea of extending his simple outline, so as to embrace a vivid panorama of that old border life of war and tumult, and all earnest passions, with which his researches on the Minstrelsy had by degrees fed his imagination, until every the minutest feature had been taken home and realized with unconscious intenseness of sym- pathy; so that he had won for himself in the past another world, hardly less complete or familiar than the present. Erskine of Crans 30 THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. toun suggests that he would do well to divide the poem into cantos, and prefix to each of them a motto explanatory of the action, after the fashion of Spenser in T he Faery Queen. He pauses for a moment, and the happiest conception of the framework of a picturesque narrative that ever occurred to any poet one that Homer might have envied the creation of the ancient harper starts to life. By such steps did The Lay of the Last Minstrel grow out of the Mins~relsy of the Scottish Border. When the imagination is in this exhil- arating atmosphere, as it requires some larger and bolder means of expression than is afforded to it by prose, it seizes on metre as naturally as a bird takes to the air, and employs the vivid metaphorical forms of language which led XVordsworth into his fallacious views about its methods of analysis and transmutation. Unless a mans imagination is inspired from with- out, and his design is conceived when the mind is in that excited state, he will do wrong to choose metre as his instrument of expression. Hence it is that so much of Wordsworths verse seems to be writ- ten in violation of the laws of poetical art. In The Excursion, for instance, though it is full of the most noble incidental pas- sages, evidently written under the influ- ence of direct inspiration, yet, as the design of the whole poem is certainly formed by a process of cool meditation, we are constantly haunted bya sense that we are in an atmosphere unfavorable to the movement of metre. I have opened The Excursion at random, and I light at once on the following passage: Forgive me, if I say That an appearance which hath raised your minds To an exalted pitch (the self-same cause Different effect producing), is for me Fraught rather with depression than delight; Though shame it were could I not look around By the reflection of your pleasure, pleased.* It is plain that these thoughts would be much more fittingly expressed in prode than they are in verse. Nor is this simply because the substance of them is philo- sophical and didactic, for so is the sub- stance of the Essay on Man, and yet the thought in the Essay on Man is (for the reason given by Pope, and quoted in my last paper) expressed better in me- tre than it could be in prose. The reason is, as every one can see, that the writer of the above passage is not in a mood for the expression of thoughts for which metre is * Excursion, book iii. adapted. Even in pathetic narrative poems like Michael, the prosy effect is often reproduced. A good report did from their kinsman come Of Luke and his well-doing; and the boy Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news, Which, as the housewife phrased it, were throughout, The prettiest letters that were ever seen.~~ Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts. So many months passed on: and once again The shepherd went about his daily work With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour, He to that valley took his way, and there Wrought at the sheepfold. Meanwhile Luke began To slacken in his duty; and at length He in the dissolute city gave himself To evil courses; ignominy and shame Fell on him, so that he was driven at last To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas. Is any charm superadded to this narra- tive by the employment of metre ? I imagine that the story told as Mrs. Gas- kell, for instance, might have told it in prose, would have been more pathetic, simply from the fact that the artifice would have been less felt. But now com- pare with this the noble opening stanza in Laodamia. With sacrifice before the rising morn Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired; And from the infernal gods, mid shades for- lorn Of night, my slaughtered lord have I required; Celestial pity I again implore, Restore him to my sight great Jove, restore ! How could this passionate invocation have been given in prose? And why could it not? Because the imagination is moving in a world of its own: it is ex- hilarated by the atmosphere; and it seeks for unusual forms in which to express its enthusiasm. Or take, again, the magnifi- cent lines on Yew-Trees: There is a Yew-Tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore: Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched To Scotlands heaths; or those that crossed the sea And drew their sounding bows at Azincour, Perhaps at early Cressy or Poitiers. Of vast circumference and gloom profound This solitary tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale, THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 3 Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks, and each particular trunk growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, Up-coiling and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berriesghostly Shapes May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered oer With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United ~vorship; or in mute repose To lie and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara s inmost caves. These lines, read in the light of his the- ory, seem to me to suggest vividly the source of Wordsworths greatness and weakness as a poet. His formulated creed was that the imaginative mind, by an act of meditation, can make any subject, how- ever trivial, poetical. But his practice proves that a poet only writes poetically when he is under an overmastering ex- ternal influence, directing his mind to a subject congenial to his powers. The yew-trees that inspired the above noble verses were certainly not such an object as will be found in every village, nor could any meditative and feeling mind have given such splendid utterance to the emotions they excite. No: the forces that made Wordsworth a poet were far differ- ent from those conscious reasonings on man and society of which he gives an ac- count in The Prelude: his inspiration sprang from mysterious sources which, as he shows us in te first book of his curi- ous metrical autobiography, had been un- consciously pouring images into his mind from his earliest childhood. The reli- gious ideas excited by the unseen life of nature, the sublime outlines of mountain and valley, the blending of wood and water, the changes of light and shadow, the spirit-like movements of birds, the simple manners and passions of the peas- antry, mingled so suggestively with the historic monuments of the past, these were the romantic fountains at which other poets had drunk in passing, but to which Wordsworth was constantly returning for deep draughts of inspiration. XVhen he is completely under the direc- tion of his muse he illustrates as happily as any man the truth of Horaces observa- tion, Gui lecta potenter erit res a Nec facundia deseret hunc, nec lucidus ordo. His theory, on the other hand, shows him to have been under the impression that he merely chose to express himself in verse in order to give a certain additional charm to his thought, and that he pur- posely selected a style of diction approach- ing as nearly as possible to the manner of prose. And, no doubt, this sufficiently describes his case in his uninspired mo- ments, which are frequent enough. But when the afflatus is upon him it turns his genius naturally into ancient tradi- tional channels of expression, and prompts him, like all great poets, to develop metri- cal movements which certainly did not originate with himself. His use of the ballad form, for instance, ~vas largely due to the publication of Percys Ancient Relics; Bowles had previously revived and popularized the use of the sonnet Wordsworths style of writing blank verse is unmistakably his own, but no one can read his lines on Yew-Trees without perceiving how greatly he was influenced by Milton, while at other times the exam- ple of Cowper seems not to have been without its effect. Again, Wordsworth in his theory lays the foundations of poetry in the percep- tions of the individual poet. But all his best work is based on universal associa- tions, and its merit comes from the beauty of the form in which a general feeling is expressed. if one recalls those poems of his which have taken the deepest root in the national mind, the Ode on Immor- tality; Lucy Gray; The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle; The Boy of XVindermere; numerous sonnets, of which Westminster Bridge and It is a beauteous evening calm and free are types ; and such characteristic lines as The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the poets dream; or Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills; The silence that is in the starry sky; The sleep that is among the lonely hills, one is aware immediately that the poet has put into the best possible form of musical words a feeling which had hitherto been lying chaotically indistinct in the heart. Wordsworths genius moved with a large and expanding power in the midst of a society accustomed to town life, limited, refined, highly artificiahized, and exciu 32 AT ANY COST. sively occupied with the contemplation of its own manners; he extended mens so- cial ideas by showing with unsurpassed power what beautiful, pathetic, and sub- lime associations were connected with the natural life of their country. Hence, in so far as he was genuinely a poet, the lib- eralizing influence he exerted on literature was, in the deepest and truest sense, con- servati ye. On the other hand, his solitary habits led him in theory, and often in practice, to principles which, as far as the art of po- etry is concerned, may be called thor- oughly Jacobinical. Perpetually occupied with the contemplation of his own mind, he forgot that it was said that those who measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves are not wise. Incessant introspection in- creased his intellectual arrogance and im- paired his judgment. He could not ap preciate the genius of others who had written as well of men and society as he had written of external nature; and when Scott sent him his edition of Dryden, he avows in his letter of acknowledgme~nt that he considers the latter to be no poet. Everything, however, that passed into his own mind appeared to him to become possible material for poetry. He never said to himself, Tais toi, Jean Jacques, on ne tentend pas; but imagined that each experience interesting to himself would be of equal interest to the world. This overweening estimate of his own genius caused him to undervalue tradition, and, as far as he could, to obliterate and level the distinctions which the practice of the best poets had created between the style of poetry and prose. Summarized briefly, what I have en- deavored to establish in the present and in the preceding papers comes to this. Reason shows that there are certain sub. jects as incapable of just expression in metrical language as others are by the arts of painting, sculpture, and music. Expe- rience proves that the sources of all great poetry are to be sought far back in the history, traditions, and religion of a peo- ple; and the history of English literature further indicates that the stream of na- tional creative imagination flows from two main sources, the poetry of romance and the poetry of manners. Wordsworths great and truly conservative achievement consists in his having given to the poetry of romance, the existence of which during the eighteenth century had come to be almost forgotten, a large and surprising development. But in his hatred of the canons of criticism, which had prevailed through that century, he committed him- self in theory, and often in practice, to principles destructive of art. He held that the sources of poetry lay solely in the mind of the poet himself, and that, therefore, the poets imagination could elevate any subject so as to make it proper for treatment in metrical language. Push- ing his theory to its logical conclusion, he maintained, moreover, that, as subjects for poetry could be picked up almost at random, there was no essential distinction between the language of poetry and prose; whereas the practice of all classical po- etry points to the fact that, there being certain subjects which cannot be so well expressed in prose as in verse, the poeti- cal diction in which these are clothed fol- lows a law and order peculiar to itself. Of the influence of Wordsworth on contemporary verse I shall hope to say more in a future paper, in which I shall attempt to estimate the prospects of po- etry. Meantime it will be sufficient to conclude with expressing my opinion that the doctrine that choice of subject is an unimportant consideration has given an impulse to two contrary movements in the art. On the one hand it has led to a fre- quent neglect of the laws of poetical form, so that one constantly meets with volumes of verse in which it would seem that the thought might have been much better expressed in prose. On the other hand, it has produced a remarkable reaction. If subject is nothing, form, it is argued, must be everything; and the principle is illustrated in practice by writers possess- ing great gifts of melodious and fluent exl)ression. The consequence is that modes of metrical diction are in fashion, more arbitrarily opposed to the common usage, and indeed to the common sense, of society than even the style of Darwin, which Wordsworth so cordially detested. WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE. From The Sunday Magazine AT ANY COST. BY EDWARD GARRETT. AUTHOR OF OCCUPATIc~Ns ~F A RETIRED LIFE, THE CRUST AND THE CAKE, ETC. CHAPTER XV1I. IN THE OPENED DOORS. THROUGH the day, doctors came and went at Mr. Sandisons summons, but he himself was not visible, and poor Kirsty, AT ANY COST. 33 coming down-stairs on divers errands, was Torn Ollisons only source of information. She reported that Mrs. Allan had had a stroke, and later on, that it was little likely she would ever be about again, though, they said, there was no danger for the present. In the twilight Mr. Sandison came into the parlor, where Tom was seated rather forlornly. He laid his hand on the young mans shoulder, with a strong and yet a half-caressing grasp. Come with me, he said; we will have no more secrets in this house. We will let the fresh air blow through every place, as God means it shall, and as it always must, at last. He led the way up-stairs. 1-fe opened one of those mysterious doors no longer lockedand ~vent straight into the room. Seeing that Tom hesitated on the thresh- old, he turned and said, Come in, come rn. What little daylight was still lingering outside found now free access to the apart- ment, for the white blinds, ashen with age, which had hitherto shut out any obtrusive gaze on the part of inquisitive opposite neighbors, were at last drawn up. The windows themselves, too, had evidently been open for some time, but the gentle breezes of a calm spring day had not yet sufficed wholly to dispel the ancient, stag- nant atmosphere, and perhaps it was very well that the fading light was merciful to the dimness and dust of years of neglect. What did Tom see? Tom saw only what, to a heart which has power to understand it, is ever the most tragic sight of any: the signs of a hopeful, cheerful, ordinary life, which has been suddenly arrested by some great blow, some awful agony. He saw nothing but a pretty little apartment, prepared with care and taste, and full of those touches which betray a strong human interest. There was a stand filled with flower-pots in the central window, wherein the dead plants stood like skeletons. There were pictures on the walls, beautiful steel en- gravings there was one of these stand- ing on a chair, with the hanging-cord drawn through its rings, but not yet knotted. This was Landseers touching presentment of the faithful dog resting its head on its dead masters coffin. Peter Sandison had put it out of his hands, all those years ago, that he might open a let- ter which was brought to him a letter whose mercenary falsehood and perfidy had closed those rooms from that day to this, turning the happy home that was to LIVING AGE. VOL. XLIX. 2499 be into the charnel-house of dead hopes that could never be. Ay, I have been very foolish, broke out Peter Sandison. I need not tell you the tale. I dare say you have heard as much of it as needs be. I am not the first man and I fear I shall not be the last who has lost his sight of God, and his joy in Gods world because he had happened to fall in love with the wrong woman The sadness and pain of a lifetime was crystallizing, as in true hearts they always do crystallize, sooner or later, into humor. A good deal of heartbreak goes to the making of epigram. The human mind throws out its sparks, as metals do, be- neath hard blows. But do me justice, Tom, he went on. I never meant to make a dramatic sen- sation in closing up these rooms. In the first day of my disappointment I locked them up in sheer disheartenment and bit- terness, and then I could not bear to face them again, and deferred doing so, and: then there seemed no reason why I should,. and then it seemed easiest to let them lie as they were, since the rest of the house amply sufficed my needs. I knew that even if they were never opened in my life- time, they would tell little to those who would come after me. But what a waste it has been! Somebody ought to have made a home out of those rooms all these years. A house which is hindered from producing a home is as great a wrong to humanity as is a field which is kept from. producing food. There was silence. Mr. Sandison re- sumed : About that poor soul up-stairs, Tom,. I need not say anything. She never knew that I was her son till she evidently found. it out this morning. I was a desolate in- fant, Tom, as desolate as was poor Fred,. the shopboy. And in mature life I sought out my mother, for I could not believe that she had really intended all that had come upon me. I found her poor and helpless, but fenced in by strong barriers from the shame and reproach of her old sin. 0 Tom, I could not bear that my words should fling it back upon her, that my hand should tear down the barriers of credit and respect behind which she hacL entrenched herself. I thought if I once had her in my house, that during years and years of close acquaintance, there would come some softer moment the- vaguest expression of some regretful yearning. Ah, Tom! The infinite pain in the tone of those 34 AT ANY COST. last words was his sole expression of the And it is wonderful how many lights completeness of his disappointment, come out in dark places, when one tries Tom said nothing. What was there to to follow that out. The great doubts and be said? The young mans mind went agonies of the human heart cannot be met back to poor Graces early confidences, by anything but the great facts and expe. and to the mingled feelings they had riences of human life. You must have aroused within himself. noticed that it is only quite lately that I And so I lost God, said Mr. Sandi- have taken to reading the Gospels, and son in a quiet, even voice. As he spoke, have left off going over the Proverbs of Tom looked up at him, and their eyes met. Solomon, and nothing but the Proverbs, Perhaps there was some question in those every night, getting through the whole of the younger man. And so I lost book once every month? I dare say, after God, Mr. Sandison repeated. I cannot what Grace said, you thought I chose that say I ever ceased to believe in him, but I book as being the most practical, or as lost him. Does a poor child cease to be- some people would call it, the worldliest, lieve in his father, when he misses him in in the Bible? a crowded street, and takes the wrong Tom smiled. turning, and goes wailing along among In a way, I did so, Mr. Sandison the strangers w ho give little notice to him conceded. I knew that you had learned or his trouble? the Scriptures from your youth up, and Tom could not help reflecting how it that nothing in them could be new to you, was those who had been infidel in the as mere matter of fact or literature. And deepest sense, unfaithful to all the claims I knew, by what I had gone through my. of dutiful love and service, who had been self, that you would presently get inter- the readiest, and the harshest, in calling ested in all sorts of intellectual problems this man atheist. 0 poor Grace Allan! about the evidence of miracles, about o unhappy Mrs. Brander! the precise nature of inspiration, about I had gone rather deeply into theology the puzzle of unfulfilled prophecy, and in my young days, Mr Sandison went such like difficulties all difficulties on. My head had asked many questions, which ,our minds must grapple with, ac- without answers to ~vhich my intellect cording to the lights of our generation, would not rest satisfied. But I found that but on which each new generation gen. sort of satisfaction would not serve me erally throws new lights, showing the here. One cannot feed ones heart on lights of the generations preceding to abstractions, however logical or poetical. have been but darkness. I wanted your It was a Father and a Friend whom I faith to find instinctively a wider basis, so wanted; a Father whose very face would that fluctuating opinions on any subject satisfy mea Friend who would walk might disturb it no more than the rooted with me and take council with me over tree is disturbed by the summer breeze every step of my way. which lightly stirs its branches. I wanted These are the longings of all hearts, to bring home to you, that divine wisdom said Tom gently. has a strong and sure hand in the conduct There seemed no such Father, and no of this present life, for that is our best such Friend for me, pursued Mr. Sandi. reason for trusting it to lead us through son. And the world I lived in seemed the mists and up the heights. The proph. as if it could not have been made and ecies of the Proverbs are not unfulfilled; managed by such an one. Tom Ollison, for we see them worked out in weal or what I am about to say I could say to few, woe in our own lives, and in every life but I think you may understand me. I within our range. had lost God; I had lost all reflection of I have felt as you do, sir, said TOm, him in the human faces round me per. that the most satisfactory answers of haps only because I had looked for him the intellect are no help to the doubts of most where I was least likely to find him. the heart. But I dont think I could have And then it came into my mind that all I got help while standing apart, as you could do, was to try to do my utmost to seemed to stand, sir. act as I should like to think God would Ah! cried Mr. Sandison, there it act if he was livinga man in the is! There are some who seem only able to world to.dav. find God by going out into the wilderness; He who willeth to do Gods will, he and we may notice that these hermits were shall know of Christs teaching, quoted generally men of peculiar history and of Tom, in an undertone. peculiar character. Nor do I suppose Ay l said Mr. Sandison fervently, they themselves ever dreamed that their AT ANY COST. 35 recluse habits had any of the special sanc- tity which those who admired their final goodness were too ready to attach to them. Those habits were simply a terri- ble need to those men an heroic cure for greater loss and evil; and their stories show us that this cure worked by way of healing them enough to make them sus- ceptible to some gentle touch which lcd them gradually back to as much human fellowship as it was possible for them to bear. He paused. Tom, he said pres- ently, you dont know how much good you did me when you didnt shun me be- cause of the report you heard. And again, when I found that your faithfulness to your fathers friend could outweigh the charms of the pleasant life at Stockley. And again, by sundry true words you spoke on sundry occasions. Tom, as I looked into your frank young face, I caught again a reflection of the countenance of the divine Father and Friend. Mr. San- dison said this in a slow, dry tone, as if the utterance were difficult. Strong emo- tion scarcely dares to filter itself through speech, lest speech give way before it. Tom understood him far too well to breathe a single word. They sat in si- lence for a long time till the twilight faded into darkness, and there was noth- ing but the dull glimmer of a street lamp todimnly reveal the outline of their figures and of the furniture. Mr. Sandison was the first to break the spell. He rose up, saying cheerfully, Well, the house is open now. Let Gods breeze blow through it, and Gods sun- shine brighten it, and let us watch pa- tiently to see what living seeds they will bear into it, and bring to blossom within it. He was speaking half of the closed-up and desolate rooms, and half of his own closed-up, desolate heart, of which they had been but the result and the type. That night, before Mr. Sandison went to rest, he stole up to the room where the aged woman lay, in her strange life-in- death. Graces room had always been comfort- able. Peter Sandison had seen to that from the first. But poor Kirstys zealous efforts had done much for it during her days attendance. A liberal fire was glow- ing on the hearth, for the spring nights were still chilly. Kirsty had got the shop- boy to bring her in some spring flowers crocuses and daffodils, and these stood in a brown pot on a little table beside the bed. From the bed itself Kirsty had re- moved the drab coverlid and had substi tuted a white counterpane, which she had found in the linen closet to which she had been given free access; and over the foot of the couch she had thrown, for added warmth, a coarse scarlet blanket. If the poor thing cant speak and cant hear, said Kirsty, speaking audibly as she went about the room, then theres the more occasion she should see whats pleasant. And theres the master to con- sider, too. And this is the niasters moth- er, it seems, and theres been terrible trouble of some sort. The worlds full of trouble, and theres always somebodys wickedness at the bottom of it. I think the master will let me stay and nurse the poor old lady. This house is just a heaven to me. Oh! what a fool I was to think nothing was so good as pleasure and finery; and what a price Ive paid for my folly! I wonder if Ill ever ~vant to be bad again? Im feared I should, if I was in si ~ ht o folks like the Branders, so I suppose that shows Ive not really learned a bit of wisdom yetexcept it may be that Id have sense to keep out of the way of such like. How different it might have been if Id gone to that watchmakers quiet house in Edinburgh! And whats to become of poor Hannah? When the master said that if Id stay and do the nursing hed get somebody for the house- work I could not help thinking of her, but I darent mention her, for she cant be trusted to keep from the drink for two hours together. When Kirsty saw the master coming into the room, she rose from her low seat by the fire, and passed quietly out. Mr. Sandison carried in one hand the big Bible, which he had brought up from the dining-room. In the other hand he had an inkstand, and behind his ear there was a pen. He laid the book on the table beside the invalid. He did not look at her as he did so. She gave a deep groan. He opened the volume, turning to the fly-leaves, between whose severed pages lay the few old papers which that morning had wrought such havoc in a lifetimes hypocrisy. He took them up, one by one, still not looking towards the bed. He turned away and went towards the fire, taking the seat which Kirsty had vacated. He knew that Grace could see every movement. One by one, in no haste, but with gentlest deliberation, he put those papers on the blazing fire. It swiftly caught them up and consumed them ut- terly. Then he rose, and went back to the open Bible lying on the table. He took 36 AT ANY COST. CHAPTER Xviii. TWO ON THE CLIFFS. the pen, and wrote on the blank fly-leaf, of Mrs. Blacks pathetic wish that Mr. in large, bold characters, From Peter Ollisons great friend should for once see Sandison to his mother. the old place as it always had been Then he turned the book, and held it since nobody knew what changes might towards the invalid. She could easily be coming. For the old squire of Stock. read what was written there, and when she ley was at last gathered to his fathers, had done so she raised her pitiful eyes, and the distant heir, the Branders friend, and they met his. Captain Carson, reigned in his stead. No word could pass between them now. And so Tom went off to the far north. But she fumbled with her numb hands, But he had first written to his father to and grasped his, and drew it upon her ask whether he should not stop at Kirk. pillow, and kissed itonce, twice. wall and try to induce Mrs. Sinclair and Peter Sandison bent down and kissed Olive to accompany him to Shetland and her cheek. There was a moisture on it. be their guests at Clegga, and take an- That was all. He summoned Kirsty to other look at the old places and the old resume her watch. And he went away, faces which once they had known so well. only waving back his hand before he 1)id Tom know to what he was steer. closed the door. ing? In after days he never could be Thank God! he said to himself. quite sure at what precise point a thought And who knows but this might have turned into a hope. come to pass long ago, if I had been He sent his invitation beforehand to wiser? Thank God that he will reveal Mrs. Sinclair and her daughter, and they our sins to us, though he will also blot had many debates over it in the wide old them out! The truth at any cost! Love attics which had grown a dear home to can strike root in nothing else. them. They had prospered so far that they had ventured to take another room, and Olive had grown used to her unremit- ting toil, and so accustomed to her con- stant cares and economies, that she could LATE in the following summer, Tom find interest and excitement in the fluctua. Ollison paid another visit to Clegga. He tions of her earnings. There had been no had been longing very much to do so, but further encroachment on the little fund the suggestion fin ally caine from Mr. San- realized by her fathers life insurance, and dison. (Had he noticed how much more Olive was even accumulating tiny savings often those Kirkwall letters had arrived of her own, made on the sound and sure since Toms last visit to the north?) plan of settling her maximum expenditure I wish you would bring your father by her minimum earnings. Very tiny say- back to spend the winter with us, Tom, ings indeed they were, savings which he said; dont you think you could per- would little avail against disaster if it fairly suadehim? Youknowthereare plentyof came, but which might go very far to spare rooms now. I never thought how avert disaster. They would not have sup- they were wasted, while they were shut ported her in a long illness, but wisely up, but now it seems a terrible waste to laid out, from time to time, they might do think of them open and empty. much to preserve health. Olive began to Mr. Sandison did not go very much into think, hopefully, that however long she those deserted rooms. His life had grown might live, and however little she might into his parlor and his shop. Still he be able to save, she might continue so went into them, determined to lay forever useful to the last that she might eat the the ghost of the old shrinking. With his bread of independence to the end. Only own hands he finished hanging the en- she must be quite sure to outlive her dear graving, which he had laid down in his mother. Every night and morning she moment of despair nearly a quarter of a offered that one prayer. Everything else century before. With his own hands he sh.e could cover with the great petition, threw away the ashen plants which had Thy will be done, but she could not withered in loneliness, and planted fresh quite give up this special plea. ones whose sweet smell stole through the And that is only because Gods ~vill is quiet rooms. He chose none but those not done! she said to herself. For if with a sweet smell. Mrs. Black sent him it was, I could surely feel that I might roots from Stockley. He even broke his safely leave dear mother to her only son, old habits so far as to accompany Tom on not only to his support, but to the tender- a Saturday visit to the mill perhaps in- ness of his love and the warmth of his duced to do so by the constant repetitions hearth. AT ANY COST. 37 When Tom Ollisons invitation came, Olive went to her little store and counted it over, and made many minute calcula- tions. She made up her mind that she and her mother could dare to afford this treat. Under no other circumstances could they get so much pleasure at so low a price. This would cost nothing but their fares in the boat they would need to make no preparations to enjoy the bountiful hospitality of Clegga. Not that she could bear to go quite empty-handed among the poor old wives and fatherless children who had once been her parents pensioners; but if she sat up through only one night, her busy fingers would manu- facture sundry little gifts for such without cost of money or of working hours. Yes, they would go! Mrs. Sinclair heard her daughters de- termination a little wistfully. She had hoped for an invitation to visit her son after his marriage, and she had made up her mind that if one came, why even that sacred insurance money must be taken that it might be accepted. It would not be robbing Olive; no, no, once Robert saw his mother, he would be sure to make it up to her; it was not the money that he would grudge, it was only that he didnt quite realize how things were! She was right that it was not the money he grudged in this matter. He would have paid the cost of the journey many times over, so long as she did not take it. (On the same principle or rather no-prin- ciple he would probably have liberally aided any impecunious relatives who had known how to thrust their poverty upon him at inconvenient times.) Poor little lady, with her worn black dress, and the patient pain in her beautiful eyes, what a discord her appearance would have struck in his garish, rapid life! Mother is happiest where she is, he said to himself. And there was not only heartlessness in the reflection, it ended in a sigh. He felt there was something about him and his wife and his home which would trouble Mrs. Sinclair. Mother would not un- derstand, he said, and sighed again. So once more the two women went down to the dock and met Toni, and this time they we6t on board with him. The young, strong man and the high-spirited maiden ~vere very tender and watchful over the little mother. They said aside that this going back would try her a little, and they wondered, in their inexperience, to notice that while her tears would start fast and faster, her smiles also grew brighter, and she became quite eager in her recognition of points and places which stirred old memories. They had a happy time in dear old Clegga. And in the long, quiet walks which Tom and Olive took together along the roads which waved up and down the lo~v, green hills looking down on the wide blue sea, they opened their hearts and spoke to each other, as hitherto each had only silently thought. And if, as that pleasant sojourn drew to a close, there came long silences in those walks, it was not because they had nothing more to say, but because therc was so much to say, which they felt they could trust to each others thoughts, almost better than to any words. Olive Sinclair owned to herself this much that whether Tom Ollison had loved her or not, she might easily have loved him, only that she knew such feel- ings were not for her. She would never leave her mother. Well, she had her mother to love and to work for, and what would life be without that? And Tom Ollison asked himself whether it did not seem very hard that Peter San- dison should be left in loneliness at last a loneliness haunted by memories of deprivation and wrong; a very different loneliness from that of his own father, with his wholesome memories, his large local influence, and the cheerful coming to and fro of his prosperous married chil- dren. Tom did not feel as if the seed of ones own happiness must be planted in the pain of others, and watered by their tears. But Tom had the masculine right of action and enterprise. Where Olive must have silently taken up what she felt to be her duty, he could seek to elicit her opin- ion on such matters, and could lead her on from generalities to their own particu- lar cases. And so it came to pass that the first breathings of the great love of life be- tween those two, were mingled with ten- der thoughts of others and careful con- sideration concerning them. It came to them as the cornerstone placed solemnly on the edifice of affection and duty not as the missile of a battering-ram rudely hurled against it. They could measure what it must be, by knowing how much these were, and by finding this was su- preme above them. And Mrs. Sinclair, with the keen vision of one who had been through these expe- riences, foresaw what was coining, and so sitting alone on the bench outside Clegga, overlooking the sunny bay, she strove to 38 AT ANY COST. brace her heart for this~ sacrifice, and to win strength to say that if it was to be well with her child, then it should be well with her. Yet at the thought of the van- ishing of the days of quiet love and labor in which her wrung heart had found all the rest it could ever find in this world, she could scarcely repress the last cry of patient anguish, How long, 0 Lord, how long! And while Mrs. Sinclair sat thus, Tom and Olive strolled slowly down the road where she and Robert had travelled on that wild December morning when our story commenced, but which was now rich with wild flowers, bright in the summer sunshine. And Tom said to Olive that he would never have dared to ask her to love him, if he had meant such love to disturb the sacred duties already in her life that he thought the love of life should mean two gladly bearing together the double duty that had been divided between them. And then they said to each other that they could not at once very clearly see how their future was to work itself out, but that surely their love would be strong enough to grapple with all details, and not a sickly sentiment on which no cross wind must blow, lest it slay it altogether. And they said, too, that their duty was owed to good people, who were not likely now to prove them- selves inconsiderate and selfish for the first time in their lives; though of course they must expect to find them human, with all the little human moods and weak- nesses, which, after all, seem but a cem- ent to bind together human virtues. And Tom said to Olive that he thought those must have a very poor idea of all that is involved in twain being made one, who feel that such unity is endangered if not nursed in solitude; and that he thought there is little fear of any household, how- ever constituted, not falling in the main into right relations around any married pair who love, honor, and respect each other. And then Olive said softly, that Isaiah had made it one of the signs of national prosperity that old men and old women should dwell in the streets of Je rusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. Then they had come nearer to particulars, and Tom said that he feared Mrs. Sinclair might shrink from life in London, and Olive answered that she was sure her mother would be happy anywhere with those she loved. And then they said how, in London, she would not be far from Stockley, and might, perhaps, have a double home if she wished. And then they fell to still homelier dis- cussions of ways and means, which even a listening angel might have almost en- vied, because of the divine alchemy with which their human hands could transmute filthy lucre into pure love. That night Tom Ollison told Mrs. Sin- clair that he would never take her daugh- ter from her, but that Olive had well nigh promised in her mothers name that he should be accepted by her as a son. And Mrs. Sinclair put her hands on his shoul. ders and drew down his face and kissed him with the fond, motherly kiss which he had not known for years. And she longed to ask him and Olive to forgive her for the doubt and pain she had felt that after- noon, but she kept silence because she thought it would hurt them even to hear of it. And then she went away and wept a little, because she had never seen her Roberts wife, and because she could not help believing that her own son ~vould fain be as kind and good as Tom, but had somehow failed to seem so. EPILOGUE. AFTER all, Tom Ollison and Olive Sin. clair were married sooner than they had dared to hope on that summer day when they had stood hand in hand among the wild flowers on the road over the cliffs. Lifes path broadened before their feet, as it ever does before the true heart and the resolute will. And now they live in the old house in Penman Row, and Olive has brightened the shady rooms with the pretty tastes and fancies which love and happiness have developed in her, as the warmth of spring brings out the crocuses and snowdrops. As Tom sits at the head of the table in the dining-room (for Mr. Sandison has said that he is only too delighted to abdi- cate the post of carver and sit aside at leisure to criticise his successor), Tom wonders if it can be the same dreary room into which he was ushered on his first arrival in London, for everything seems different except the quaint mirrors and the comfortable cat, who has exchanged the old coat on which he then lay for a soft red cushion. The upper rooms are Olives more especial domain; but more and more often, as she sits in the twilight playing on the piano and crooning old songs, Peter Sandison steals up-stairs and sits listening in the shadows. Mrs. Sin- clair found the gloom and excitement of London life rather too much for her at first, and made long visits to her old friends the Blacks at Stockley but as THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 39 time passed on she seemed able to store up the cheerfulness and calm she gathered there, and to bring them back with her, along with the big nosegays and stuffed hampers which Mrs. Black never failed to send. By her own choice her special apartment was the wide, low attic which had formerly been Toms room; and her son-in-law gave her an exquisite surprise by bringing her familiar household gods from the far north to furnish it. Better goods could have been bought near at hand for less than the cost of the transit of the old chests and clumsy chairs, but he wanted to give her a gift, and she seemed already to live so wholly in the spirit, that one need give her naught but what also had its value wholly in the spirit, consecrated by tender emotion, by memory, and by hope. It was hard to find the point of view from which Robert and Etta Brander re- garded the new arrangements in Penman Row. They came there once or twice: but the West End of London is very far away from its other quarters, and a lady who, like Etta, never travels except in her own brougham, and is very fearful of its panels being scratched, cannot venture often into the City. Besides, Ettas con- stitution is steadily growing less adapted to London, except during the few weeks of the season. She is always trying the climate of some new watering-place, or the effects of some fashionable cure for those vague maladies which occupy those who have nothing else to do. Rob- ert has his fine house very much to him. self, and though it is not very far from Ormolu Square, he does not see much of his wifes parents, he and Mr. Brander having separated their business interests. The younger man considered that the elder was getting slow and subsiding into grooves, where he himself would never have made the fortune he had made, and with which, therefore, Robert was not going to be content. The wheel of life goes fast with Robert Sinclair, and his face has a wan, hunted look, not like those who live by hardest daily labor, but more like that of the needy adventurers who hang on the very outskirts of honesty. He is rich and likely to be richer, though none know so well as himself what sharp corners he still turns sometimes, and how near ruin may be, after all. Sometimes he asks querulously, if life is worth the living. But it has never yet dawned on him that perhaps he has made a bad bar- gain, and that love, and friendship, and duty, high thoughts, and pleasant house- hold ways and holy aspirations, are what do make life worth living, and that these are in the forfeit when we will get on at any cost. Tom and Olive know well that the son whom she sees so seldom is in the moth- ers heart ~vhen she goes away and sits for hours in the quiet attic, where no sound penetrates save Kirsty Mails gentle foot- fall as she goes to and fro in the chamber where Grace Allan still lies, cut off from speech and hearing, but with a plead. ing look softening her hard eyes, and a habit of kindly clasping bending her stiff fingers. Tom and Olive are so happy together that they do not resent the shad- ows of sin and sorrow amid which they carry sunshine; and their home is not less sacred to them because they often say to each other that it seems to be a miniature copy of the workings of Gods providence in its widest ranges, and that ~vhile they twain represent its active life and its ma- terial progress, its very existence is rooted in the martyred life of him who, taking nothing for his own, bore all and forgave all, and in the loving heart of her who is still waiting for the return of that prodigal son of modern life, who has mistaken gold for food, success for satisfaction, and worldly power for the peace which passeth understanding. From Temple Bar. THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. Wx generally think of the beautiful Molly Lepell as one of that gay group of maids of honor, more merry than wise, so prominent in the memoirs of theirtime, who attended Caroline of Anspach when the young court of the Prince and Princess of Wales drew all the wits and beauties from the old court of. George I. The town career of these young women was one unbroken round of gaiety. A drawing-room at Leicester House every morning, an evening assembly there twice a week; balls, masquerades, ridottos,* operas, and plays; growing magnificence in dress, growing extravagance in play, an increasing value set on showy accomplish- ments and a witty tongue, combined to make the young court brilliant, at- * A most entertaining sort of assembly, says Mrs. Delany; you are at liberty to wander about as much as you please, and tbere is dancing, tea, coffee, choco-. late, and all sorts of sweetmeats. (Autobiography and Correspondence, vol. i., p. 253.) 40 THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. tractive, corrupt, and godless the best school imaginable for sharpening the brain and hardening the heart. When rusticating at Richmond Lodge or Hampton Court, however, not only the scene 1)ut the whole daily routine was radically changed, and its attendant hard- ships are pathetically described in one of Popes letters to the Blounts. The un- happy victims were condemned to eat Westphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on l)Orrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark on the forehead from an uneasy hat - - to simper an hour and catch cold in the Prin- cesss apartment; from thence to dinner with what al)petite they may,and after that till midnight walk, work, or think which they please.* No wonder he exclaims, his sympathy rising even to solemnity, The life of a maid of honor is of all things the most miserable! But not without alleviations! The wits and beaux of the day followed them to their riverside retreats, and fluttered round them in open adoration. Swift growled out compliments veiled in roughly playful abusej Pope and Gay sang their praises in more polished verse; Lord Chesterfield the courtly, Lord Peterborough the ro- mantic, Hervey, fair of face and bitter of tongue, worshipped at their shrine. The flattery which had only been polite in town, grew tender in the country. Mrs. Lepell walked with me three or four hours by the moonlight, says Pope, and we met no creature of any quality but the king giving audience to the vice- chancellor all alone under the garden wall. Yet with all the high-flown love- making to which they were subjected, the maids of honor had hearty animal spirits, rode on the garden rollers, shook the windows (and the nerves) of solitary stu- dents at midnight, jumped down-stairs singing Over the hills and far away, and rejoiced in practical jokes like a set of boisterous schoolgirls. Mary, daughter of Brigadier-General Lepell, was the favorite of all the giddy party. Others might be as beautiful, but she had in perfection that art of pleasing which disarms envy itself. Others might be as witty, but their wit was poisoned by coarseness. When others were as much admired they paid the penalty of detrac- tion, which, in that age of unbridled license and scandal, nearly always attended ac knowledged charms. But not one of rumor s thousand tongues breathed a whisper against her fair fame, or asso- ci~ted her with the intrigues which appear then to have been as much a matter of course to a fine lady as her toilet. Though in the court, she ~vas not of it, yet all the courtiers, male and female, were her friends, and she carried into retirement a strong interest in her old companions, whose follies neither involved nor alien- ated her. Gay might well call her youths young- est daughter sweet Lepell, for she be- came a maid of honor at fourteen ! Yet even this precocious preferment was less incongruous than that which, according to the Duchess of Marlborough, made her a cornet in herfathers regiment as soon as she was born. Her birthplace was Sark, of ~vhich island the Lepells were called lords-proprietors, and she may have owed to a certain extent the soft and s~iritue/le vivacity of her manners, and her love for France and all things French, to the force of early association. Pope, her devoted admirer, ~vas proud of wearing her chains; he tells Broome, in March, 1720: 1 am now constantly engaged at home in attending a lady I have a true friendship for, who is here at Twickenham in hopes of a recovery by our air from a dangerous illness Mrs. Lepell.* Pope, no doubt, like all the rest of the world, would have been sur- prised to hear that his lively invalid was then married to one of the most noticeable figures of even that dazzling and depraved timeJohn Hervey, second son of the first Earl of Bristol. Herveys personal distinction and grace, his polished man- ners and cultivated mind, united so strangely to ghastly disease, a cold heart, a calculating brain, and a complete nega- tion of religion and morality, have been immortalized in the withering couplet which concludes Popes picture of Spo- rus : Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Yet Hervey had the power of attracting and retaining regard; for against the piti- less malignity of such foes as Pulteney and Pope, and the doubtful support of such allies as Lady Mary Wortley Mon- tagu, we may set, tor so much as it was worth, the unwavering attachment of * Carruthers Life of Pope, p. 135 * Elwins Pope, Letters, vol. iii., ~. ~ THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 4 Queen Caroline,* and what was of infi- nitely more value, the anxious tenderness of Herveys excellent father and the sore- ly tried but faithful affection of his wife. Their marriage, in accordance with what almost amounted to a fashion at that time, was not at first avowed. Contem- porary publications state that it took place in the autumn of 1720, but in the spring of 1719 a letter from Lord Bristol affectionately claims Molly Lepell as his daughter, though speaking of her mar- riage as secret. Croker says that the private marriage of another maid of hon- or, Mary Bellenden, to Colonel Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll, was made public at the same time, and his theory is that they influenced each other . - - all parties might be fearful of having offended by making a choice without the consent of their royal patrons, and they for mutual support agreed to brave the storm together, and announced their marriages and consequent resignations just previous to the courtly epoch of the birth- day.t Molly Lepells marriage was happier than might have been anticipated from the character of the bridearoom Lady Louisa Stuart in her Introductory Anecdotes to her grandmothers letters, says that the young couple lived together on very amicable terms, as well-bred as if not married at all, but without any strong sympathies, and more like a French couple than an English one; as if the average English couple of those days, especially when moving in fashionable circles, had been so very tender and do- mestic! But the letters themselves show that for some time, at all events, this po- lite indifference did not exist. In July, 1721, we find Lady Mary quite out of pa- tience with their conjugal affection Mrs. Hervey and her dear spouse [she writes to her sister Lady Mar] visited me twice or thrice a day, and were perpetually cooing in my rooms. I was complaisant a great while; but (as you know) my talent has never lain much that way. I grew at last so weary qf those birds of paradise, I fled to Twickenham * The inscrutable Caroline, who ridiculed her husband, hated some of her children and coldly toler- ated others, and dropped frieud after friend when each had served her turn, showed positive fondness for Lord Hervey up to the last hours of her life. She calied him her child, her pupil, her charge. She frankly avowed that she could not hear him out of her sight, adding, It is well I am so old, she was then fifty one, and fourteeo years Herveys senior, or I should he talked of for this creature. (Lord Herveys Me- moirs, vol. i., p. 382.) t totroduction to Lord Herveys Memoirs, vol. i., p. 25. as much to avoid their persecutions as for my own health.* Hervey would indeed have been hard to please had he shown early and confirmed neglect of such a wife. Lady Louisa her- self concedes that by the attractions she retained in age she must have been singularly captivating when young, gay, and handsome; and never was there so perfect a model of the finely polished, high. bred, genuine woman of fashion. Her man- ners had a foreign tinge which some called affected, but they were gentle, easy, dignified, and altogether exquisitely pleasing. And Lord Chesterfield said the word pleasing always reminded him of her, who not only pleased herself, but was the cause of pleasing in others. Like all sprigs of quality in those days, the Herveys were often at Bath, and some of Lady Herveys ~ letters to Mrs. Howard give amusing glimpses of the humors of the place. Lord Peterborough is here [she writes in June, 1725] and has been so some time, though by his dress one would believe he had not de- signed to make any stay, for he wears boots all day, and as I hear must do so, having brought no shoes with him. [Boots were then cpnsid- ered only suitable for riding-gear.] It is a comical sight to see him, with his blue ribbon and star, and a cabbage under each arm, or a chicken in his hand, which, after he himself has purchased at market, he carries home for his dinner. Some months later she gives the same correspondent a. little family news: Arm yourself with faith to believe me when I tell you that Bab, our own lean, pale-faced Bab [her sister-in-law, Lady Barbara Hervey] has been queen of a ball, and has been the ob- ject of sighs, languishments, and all things proper on such occasions: and to surprise you yet snore, I must inform you that her flirt is master of ten thousand pounds a year. I do not doubt but that Lady Bristol will tell you of it, for she is brimful of that (and cases of quadrille)4 Lady Bristol, who had an imperious and uncertain temper, and piqued herself on her power of saying sharp thin,,s, was no doubt occasionally dictatorial to her beautiful daughter-in-law, who may not always have taken her caprices patiently. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu puts the case after her own peculiar fashion: All * Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Mon- tagu, vol. i., p. 457. t In 1723 her husband succeeded to the title by the death of his brother Carr. ~ Letters to and from Henrietta Countess of Suffolk, vol. i., p. 195. THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 42 our acquaintances are now mad, she tells her sister: they do such things! such monstrous and stupendous things! Lady Hervey and Lady Bristol have quarrelled in such a polite manner that they have given one another all the titles so liberally bestowed amongst the ladies at Billings- gate. It would take a less lively pen than Lady Marys to convince us that Lady Hervey, whose perfect good breed- ing and gracious dignity are recorded by all who knew her, ever descended to Bil- lingsgate, and if so, no further faith can be put in physiognomy. For never was sweeter or more gentle expression than that of her smiling face in the Strawberry Hill miniature. But that she did occa- sionally retaliate on Lady Bristol by a little malicious teasing, we have her own testimony: Pray, when you are so kind as to write to me, she asks Mrs. Howard, get sometimes one body, sometimes an- other to direct your letters. For curiosity being one of the reigning passions in a cer/ain person [Lady Bristol], I love prodigiously both to excite and to baffle it. In 1728 Lord Hervey tried to relieve the ill-health which was constitutional with him * (but which his father attributed to the use of that detestable and poisonous plant, tea,) by a journey to Italy Lady Hervey and four young children remain- ing with Lord Bristol at Ickworth. In this seclusion she heard from Mrs. How- ard, who was then at Hampton Court, and says in reply : The place your letter was dated from re- called a thousand agreeable things to my remembrance. I wish I could persuade myself that you regret them, or that you could think the tea-table more welcome if attended as for- merly by the Sckatz [a nickname shared by Lord and Lady Hervey]. If that were pos- sible, it would be the means (and the only one at this time) to make me wish to exchange Ickworth for any other dwelling in England. I s eally believe a frizelation would be a surer * His complaint was epilepsy; and to ward off its attacks he adopted that strict regimen to which Pope cruelly alludes in his Sporus, as, to disguise its traces, he is said to have painted his face. Lord Hailes (preface to the Duchess of Marlboroughs ~~pinions~~) descrihes Herveys daily food as a small quantity of asses milk and a flour hiscuit; once a week he in- dulged himself with eating an apple. His own state- ment to Dr. Cheyne, his physician, is I never take anyliquid hut water or milk-tea; I eat no meat hut the whitest, youngest, and tenderest nine times in ten, nothing hut chicken. I seldom eat any supper; if any, nothing ahsolutely hut hread and water. Two daysin the week I eat no flesh ; my breakfast is dry hiscuit, not sweet, and green tea. I have left off hutter as bilious. I eat no salt, nor any sauce hut bread sauce - - - the attacks made upon me hy ignorance, imper- tinence and gluttony are innumerable and incredible. means of restoring my spirits than the exer- cise and hartshorn I now make use of. I do not suppose that name still subsists; but pray let me know if the thing itself does, and if they meet in the same cheerful manner to sup as formerly. - - - I pass my mornings at pres- ent as much like those at Hampton Court as I can, for I divide them between walking and the people of the best sense of their time. But the difference is, my present companions are dead, and the others were quite alive. In Mrs. Howards reply she says: Hampton was very different from the place you knew - - - frizela/ion,flir/tztion, and dang/ea/ion are now no more, and nothing less than a Lepell can restore them to life. To tell yop my opinion free- ly, the people you now converse with [her books] are much more alive than any of your old acquaintance. In Lady Herveys rejoinder, we see something of that home life at lckworth which gives so much more true a clue to her character than the youthful gaieties with which she is generally associated : I have had frequent accounts from my lord of his being very much out of order abroad, [she writes]; and at home I have had the pain of seeing and the fatigue of nursing Lady Ann [her sister-in-law] in a violent and for a great while dangerous distemper. I pass twelve or thirteen hours a day in her room, and dine by her bedside at seven or eight oclock at night., I can never leave her whilst her fever is upon her, for she will take nothing but from me, nor do anything but at my request. Lord and Lady Bristol are in the greatest concern for her. The latter has been herself so ill that for many days she has not been able to bear going into her daughters room. My spirits, which you know were once very good, are so much impaired, that I question if even Hampton Court breakfasts could recover them, or revive the Sc/iota who is extinguished in a fatigued nurse, a grieved sister, and a melancholy wife. * In a later letter Lady Hervey recom- mends Mrs. Howard to read Cabala, which she says contains some mighty pretty letters from the famous Earl of Essex; and very artful, clever ones from Sir Francis Bacon, who, though a sad fellow in his practice, was a very great man in theory. Then in 1732 we have tidings of a start- ling reformation : Perhaps you imagine you can receive no news out of the country, but I shall convince you to the contrary by informing you that Lady Bristol has lived with me a whole fort- night with all civility and kindness. I havt become first favorite. It would puxxle a poet * Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i., p. 325. THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 43 to find anything soft, kind, and sweet enough to liken her to down, turtle-doves, and honey are faint images of her disposition. A collection of Lady Herveys letters to a very different correspondent, the Rev. Edmund Morris, a country clergy- man, tutor to her sons, was published by Murray in 1821. The first letter, written in 1742, is from Ickworth, which was al- most always her home, and tells her cor- respondent that she has read Youngs Night Thoughts, recommended by him, and, though she admires the book, she does not mean to look at it again. I do not like to look on the dark side of life, she adds, and shall always be thankful to those who turn the bright side of that lantern to me. In the following spring, she tells Mr. Morris she is impatient to hear his. approbation of Oldcastles remarks on Bolingbrokes History. Perhaps I should have said thoughts, she continues, but in this place I think those words synonymous. If they are not so I shall be disappointed and sorry, I dont say mortified, because Lord Herveys commendations (to whom I am now read- ing it) have put me above that. She was soon to lose this much prized companion- ship the judgment and the ability to which she had so long and so unaffectedly looked up. Lord Hervey died in August, and in the following October his wife writes: I see and feel the greatness of this last mis- fortune in every light, but I will struggle to the utmost; and though I know, at least I think, I can never be happy again, yet I will be as little miserable as possible, and will make use of the reason I have to soften, not to aggra- vate, my affliction. It was chiefly for the sake of her chil- dren that Lady Hervey thus exerted her- self; and some of them, at all events, repaid her passionate affection. Her eld- est daughter, Lepel, at this time married to Constantine Phipps, afterwards Baron Mulgrave, was her pride and comfort. When she especially enjoys a book she recommends it to Mrs. Phipps, saying: I should grudge myself anything so good without her participation. I hear from many people of her good looks and good spirits; of every other good that belongs to her I want neither information nor confirmation. May she have as much happiness as she deserves! This sounds very just, but is far from being very reasonable, considering the small stock of happiness there seems to be in the world: for I am wishing her much more than a Benja- mins portion. Lady Hervey writes to Mr. Morris on every subject that can interest an intelli. gent woman. Politics, home and foreign; divinity, literature, her own classical stud- ies, of which she modestly says she shall only peep into the vestibule open to the profane, all are discussed in turn, together with an occasional reminiscence of her old court friends,* or a motherly message about her children. She is glad to hear that dear Frederick (afterwards the most ir-reverend Bishop of Derry) rides with his tutor: There is nothing so likely to keep you both well as riding. I have found great benefit by it and therefore persist in it, though both the horse and the weather are very bad; the one is too calm, the other not calm enough. Weeping philosophers have never been wanting; in September, 1744, Lady Her- vey tells Mr. Morris he is in a patriot fright, adding: I wish you were here! You would make a trio in the pathetic political performance I hear every noon, which I sometimes hiss and sometimes parody, what should be great I turn to farce; if I did not, the tragedy would be too deep to bear repeated every day above five-and-twenty years ago I heard the same dreadful prophecies, from the same dread- ful prophets, therefore, dum spiro, sperabo; my reason, my experience, and my spirits (which latter, I thank God, are not English), all con- cur in enabling me to do so. Had I cried for my country as long as Lord Bristol has been telling me I ought, I should not by this time have an eye left to cry with. And now I have two, and a mouth to laugh, which I am re- solved to make use of as long as I can. When I remind Lord Bristol how long it is since he bespoke my tears for my ruined coun- try, he shakes his head, and says: Ay, Mad- am! But it is nearer and nearer, and must happen at last. According to his method, one should begin to weep for ones children as soon as they are born; for they must die at last, and every day brings them nearer to it. To Lord Bristol, who had always loved her, she was a true and devoted daughter: she read to him, wrote for him, nursed him, drew him into playful discussions which she referred to her friends arbitra- tion, thus giving him a share in her cor- respondence; in short, she was the life of Ickworth, though herself, from a very early age, frequently suffering from se- vere attacks of hereditary gout. * Some of her characterizations maintain her reputa- tion for wit. Lord Chesterfield, she says, had a pe- culiar manner of stahhing with the genteelest compli- ments, which he could make more pointed than argu- ments. Mr. Pitt, when he ungracioutly supported an address to the king has done a right thing with as ill an air as he could contrive it like giving a purse by throwing it at ones head. THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 44 She did not hesitate to give her rever- end correspondent a little common-sense advice now and then. In 1745 he was presented to the living of Nutshalling, Hants, and she rejoiced warmly in his good fortune and admired his description of his new house and neighborhood. I approve of flowers and sweet shrubs for your garden, she adds, but pray what have you to do with exotics? They are things of little beauty, great expense, and only matters of curiosity. Pray stick to what will make your ~arterre gay to the eye and sweet to the nose. Lady Herveys letters to Mr. Morris from the spring of 1745 to the autumn of 1747 were unfortunately lost. In October of the latter year we find her busy in her own garden, and her remarks give a clear idea of the progress of floriculture since her time For the last three weeks I have been stuck as deeply in my garden as any of the plants I have set there, and I wish they may flourish half as well: for though I cant say I have run up in height, yet I have spread most luxuri- antly. I have made a rosery. Perhaps you will ask what that is: it is a collection of all the sorts of roses there are, which amount to fifty.* This rosery perhap~o may bring me to an untimely end, but it is a very pretty thing. I have made the whole design of it myself. In the middle of it, raised above all the oth- ers, is one of the most beautiful kind, who, conscious of the right to possess that place, does not blush in doing so. Besides gardening at Ickworth, Lady Hervey soon had building in London on her hands. She was altering her house in the Green Park after her own fancy; she had made the plan entirely herself, she says in 1748, and it was to be exe- cuted in April. Perhaps youll think I ought to begin on the first day of the month, but though it may be, and certainly is, contrary to all palladian rules, I think I ought to consider my own conven- ience and taste. - - - I hope, out of the ashes of my old house will soon arise a Phcenix house, where you will often eat as plain a din- ner, see as fine a prospect, and as beautiful a verdure as at Nutshalling. Still she has time and thoughts to spare for study. She asks Mr. Morris who are properly to be reckoned the ancients? Who is the last author he would call an- cient and the first he would call modern? Swifts Battle of the Books had set her wondering, and Lord Bristol could not help her; he had never thought about * Her anonymous editor observes that in 1821 the varieties numbered nearly five hundred. it. Next, having apparently disposed of the ancients, Lady Hervey attacks the vulgarisms of some of her moderns. No one who has lived and conversed with the most polite people of the age, such as are Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Chesterfield, and such, I may say, as was Lord Hervey, but will wish, when they meet with those little vulgar- isms, that they had been left out. - - - I would not have a word or an expression made use of that must have been picked up from the illit- erate or the vulgar, or perhaps retained from the nursery; and of that kind are, under the sun in l~/~ upon the face of the earth the world craching about our ears.* Lady Hervey, it will be seen, carried a little of her fine ladyism into her love of letters. But the mother in her warm heart triumphed over both the critic and the fine lady. When I tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Phipps are here, yes, actually here, she writes a little later, you will not be surprised, sir, that I do not answer your last letter, or think of politics and controversy. When I enjoy society and friendship I am too happy with the present to look back to the past, and can think of no words but such as they utter, or can best prove my affection for them. They have a boy, too, who is the most surprising child I ever knew, though I remember what his mother was. In short, there is nothing wanting to my present happiness but the thoughts of its continuance. - - - If you think my letter short, think what I leave to make it even thus long, and then conclude that I am your sincere friend. Her new house still occupies her; most people tell her she has done an indiscreet thing, and spent more money in building than her fortune warranted. But it is for what I like better than any other expense whatever. If I am contented with two dishes rather than four, and with four ser- vants rather than eight, and choose to make that diminished expense into a good house, I please myself and injure, no one. She finds time, however, to be a little satirical at the expense of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his family. She never frequented Leicester House when in their occupation; she could not forgive their undutiful behavior to her old master and mistress (though it was but a repro- duction of the quarrels of her Prince and Princess of Wales with George I.), and she had no respect for their abilities * What would this bright and refined lady say if she lived in an age where awfully buy was uttered by ladies pretending to breeding, & where thanks is thrown at you like victuals to a dog? She would have been quite too utterly upset by such vulgarisms. ED. THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. 45 The Princes family is an example of inno- cent and cheerful amusement. All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys are well acquainted with. The la- dies as well as gentlemen join in this amuse- ment; and the latter return the compliment, in the evening, by playing for an hour at the old and innocent game of push pin, at which they chiefly excel (if they are not flattered) who ought in everything to precede. This inno- cence and excellence must needs give great joy, as well as great hopes, to all real lovers of their country and posterity. Lady Hervey affords one more instance among hundreds, that the questions which occupy many minds in our own day pre- sented themselves under precisely the same aspect to former generations. If she were living now she would certainly be claimed as a Ritualist, though probably a very sober and sensible one All those things which we call superstitions and innovations of the Roman Catholics were undoubtedly the practice of the primitive Christians; and though I believe the Papal power was an innovation, yet their ceremonies and faith were to my apprehension not so. Therefore I must stick to my old opinion, that the reformation, as managed by Henry VIII., was warrantable according to Christianity; but that introduced by Luther and Calvin, and adopted in the time of Edward VI., was not quite so clearly founded in authority. I am sorry if in this we really disagree, because then tis probable I may be in the wrong. But if I am so, tis the fault of my judgment, and my will at least is ready for conviction; errare~os- sum, hareticam esse nob. The Duchess of Richmond tempts Lady Hervey solely by an invitation to Paris, but much though she wishes to go she will not leave Lord Bristol alone. Again, in the following spring, she is chained to her father-in-laws sick-bed. But at Ick- worth there is always something to inter- est, and soothe weary thoughts. The sunshine alone, she says, is a better restorative than all that the Pharmaco- j5 cela officinalis can produce, and more exhilarating than all the wines of France. It gilds and beautifies the lawns and trees on which she loves to gaze, it irradiates her shrubs and flowers; and while she looks on these, a concert is carolled for her by the birds. I have drawn a prodigious concourse of all kinds to the garden, and to my window in par- ticular, by plenty of seeds, crumbs of bread, oatmeal, and all that can please their taste and solicit their abode. I have planted them a retreat in bad weather. They repay me by the most delightful music, and the first sound that strikes my ear in the morning is their melody. - . I will enjoy this sweet place and quiet way of living as long as Lord Bristol lives, and am preparing a dwelling that will suit better with my purse, though not so well with my in- clination. I have paid dear to make that dwelling loch as like the country as I can; but I have been too much used to grass and trees to bear changing them for bricks and dust. Her comments on books, both what she reads and what she will not read, are en- tertaining, and often very shrewd. Mon- tesquieus definition of the English Con- stitution une reipublique qul se cache sous laforme de Ia monarchie charmed her; Harringtons Utopia she declined to look at. I think all those theoretic writers on a plan of perfection no better worth reading than Scuderi or any other romance-writer. In my opinion they both do a great deal of harm in their different ways; and when the one meets with a head turned to politics, and the other a disposition inclined to love, they leave neither at quiet till each is gratified, without the least degree of that perfection they set out in the search of. Her house is still a chief object of at- tention. Mr. Morris has been to see it, and wishes she had made a bow window. Consider what would have been the consequence of it 1 she remonstrates. Instead of those windows which now afford me as fine a view as possible, I should have had but one window that would have looked towards Chelsea and the country; from one of the oblique windows I should have looked into Sir John Copes room, and have afforded him a view of mine, From the other I should have seen the Duke of Devonshires house when the dust of Piccadilly permitted it. In the autumn of 1750 Lady Herveys long projected visit to France was paid. Her old friend Lord Chesterfield, who had despatched his son to make the grand tour, urged him to lose no time in wait- ing on her. To my great joy, because of your great ad- vantage [he writes] she passes all this winter in Paris. She has been bred all her life at Courts; of which she has acquired all the easy good breeding and politeness without the friv- olousness. She has all the reading that a woman should have, and more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely conceals it. As she will look upon you as her son, I desire that you will look upon her as my delegate: trust, consult, and apply to her without reserve. No woman ever had more than she has be ton de ba parfaitement bonne compagnie, les mani?res eng-ageantes, et left ne qais quol qui plait. De- sire her to reprove and correct any and every 46 THE HOME LIFE OF A COURT LADY. the least error and inaccuracy in your mann~~rs, air, address. No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more willingly, or in a more, proper and obliging manner. She will not put you out of countenance by telling you of it in company, but either intimate it by some sign, or wait for an opportunity when you are alone together. She is also in the best French company, where she will not only introduce but puff you, if I may use so low a word.* What a scolding Lady Hervey would have given his lordship for using it! During her Paris sojourn she apologizes to Mr. Morris for writing but seldom. The fashionables keep late hours at night, and have short mornings, as they dine at two oclock. But if she could do him any real, essential service by writ- ing, she would borrow time not only from her pleasures, but from my business, my rest, and my sleep. There can be no doubt she was a faithful ally; she says she never lost a friend but by death and that those who remain shall never lose her while she lives, if they care to keep her. Fontenelle is one of her Parisian compan. ions He has no mark of age but wrinkles, and a degree of deafness; but ~vhen by sitting near him you make him hear you, he answers with that liveliness and prettiness peculiar to himself. He often repeats and applies his own and other peoples poetry very agreeably, but only as it is proper to the subject. He is ninety-two, and has the cheerfulness, liveli- ness, and even the taste and appetite of twen- ty-two! While in France Lady Hervey had an illness which made her so weak that she says she could as easily have managed a cannon as a pen. But it was almost a pleasure to be ill among so many sympa- thizers. Her friends and acquaintances besieged her door all day long, and waited for hours in the afternoon to waylay the doctor or nurse and have the latest built-. tin. Li~ht quilts, couches, easy-chairs, all the things she could possibly require, were sent to her; and when she began to rally, little chickens out of the country, new-laid eggs warm from the hen, the best varieties of wine, poured in upon her. If you could guess all the kindness I meet with, she says, you would neither blame nor wonder at my reluctance to quit these agreeable people. She does return to England in 1752, however; but Lord Bristols death having lessened her ties to home, in subsequent 3-ears she is often found writing from her * Lord Chesterfields Letters to his Son, 12th edit., i8o6, vol. iii., pp. ~~6 friends seats. She frequently goes back- wards and forwards to her beloved France, and in 1756 she visits Scotland, apparently for the first time. This country is far from being so bad an one as English prej- udice and English ignorance represent it, she says, writing from the neighborhood of Roxburgh. And she praises the corn- fields, the noble wooded hills, the beauti- ful rivers, and above all, the fish As for herrings and crabs, I do not believe I shall ever be able again to taste what is called so in England; they are not like the same fish. The salmon is the best I ever tasted ; the trout, the smelts, the perch are incomparable. Such beef and mutton she never ate before. But the fruit that, indeed, is little and indifferent. Her descriptions of the Duke of Rox- burghes, Lord Haddingtons, and Lord Hopetouns seats are very minute and eulogistic. I have seen many more fine places [she continues]; the worst thing in Scotland is its capital, which is a frightful dirty town, though paved as well as St. Jamess Square. I like the people in general. They are sensible and learned, and have a very cheerful heartiness and good humor about them. Her admiration for the great Frederick would have satisfied Carlyle. There is no one but the king of Prussia worth thinking of, she says in 1757: What a persevering spirit, what courage, what sagacity, how able a legislator at home, how formidable and humane an enemy abroad! A pattern and a model of arts and sciences! In short, something in the great scale of be- ings between a man and a deity; and whatever the weak admiration for antiquity may be in general, I prefer him to Caesar, and conse- quently very much before Alexander. He has the virtues of both without their vices. As years pass on, her letters become sadder and more grave in tone Her health was broken. Her children were scattered; the diplomatic service and the army had drawn her sons out of England, and often into danger which racked her nerves and oppressed her spirits. Her old friends were falling by her side, and almost every letter records a loss. These are the misfortunes of long life [she says], and which in old age cannot be repaired. One can hardly then make acquaintance, cer- tainly not friends. Indeed, with all the im- provements you talk of, that of friendship is not one. You hardly now ever hear it named; connections is the word, and the thing; these last for one, two, or perhaps even three ses- sions of Parliament, for on them depend all those conneczions. WURZBURG AND VIENNA. 47 Nevertheless, the accession of George III. gave her pleasure. I have the best imaginable opinion of him, she says, not from anything he does or says just now, but because I have a moral certainty that he was in his nursery the honestest, truest good-natured child that ever lived; and you know my old maxim, that qualities never change. What the child was, the man most certainly is, in spite of tempo- rary appearances. She still exerted herself occasionally to see and entertain those who wished to visit her. To Mr. Morriss children she was thoughtfully kind; and some cheerful and accomplished sisters named Stanley were much with her; but she was rather shy of the new generation The little understanding I have is worn very thin indeed [she says in 1764]. I am a mere rag, and I dare say the Miss Stanleys have no notion that I ever had any liveliness about me. They have a great deal. I like them extreme- ly, and should he happy in their acquaintance, if my vanity did not throw cold water on that pleasure. In short, I confess I am mortified when new acquaintance see me as I now am. I dont mean as to my figure, but as to my understanding, which is full as o~d and as grey as the other. Dont laugh at me for my van- ity. We all have our share of it in some shape or degree, and, take the species as it is, ready made, I question whether vanity is not the most general and powerful motive of the best and most agreeable things we do. La verlu niroil l5as loin si ha zanitI ne lui tenoit pea compagnie. All rational creatures are either ashamed or proud of what they say or do. The vanity is equal in each case. In June, 1768, in the course of a more than usually cheerful letter in which Lady Hervey spoke of her intention of going to Old Windsor, to Ickworth, and thence to drink her Sunning Hill waters, she told her old friend she did not fear death, but the ~vay to it; the last sufferings sometimes protracted; but when once they are over, I do not question but to rise to a new and better life. It was her last letter to Mr. Morris. On the 2nd of September she died at her town house and she was spared the final agony she had dreaded. Her son Augustus was with her, and told Mr. Grenville that the day before her death she squeezed my hand, and said, Poor dear Augustus, and never spoke afterwards. She felt, thank God! no pain whatever.* Horace Walpole, some of whose pleas- antest letters were addressed to her, wrote * The Grenville Papers and Correspondence, vol. iv., p. 35f. to Sir Horace Mann a few weeks after her death: Lady Hervey, one of my great friends, died in my absence. She is a great loss to several persons; her house was one of the most agreeable in London; and her own friendliness, good breeding, and amiable temper had attached all that knew her. Her sufferings, with the gout and rheumatism, were terrible, and yet never could affect her patience, or divert her attention to her friends.* Lady Hervey often moralized gently on the vanity of human wishes, the cruel way in which time will sometimes mock ones little plans, and hopes, and achieve- ments. She did not foresee that her own case was destined to be very much in point. In 1774 Walpole wrote to the Rev. William Cole : Lord Bristol got his mothers house from his brother [Augustus] by persuading her he was in love with it. He let it in a month after she was dead and all her favorite pictures and ornaments, which she had ordered not to be removed, are mouldering in a garret t * Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Peter Cun- ningham, vol. V., p. 129. I Ibid., vol. vi., p. Ia. From The Contemporary Review. WURZBURG AND VIENNA: SCRAPS FROM A DIARY. GOING to Vienna to collect books and documents, with the intention of studying the results of Bosnias occupation by Austro-Hungary, I take the Rhine route, and stop two days at Wiirzburg to see Ludwig Noir~, and have a talk on Scho- penhauer. The Va/er Rhein is now changed beyond recognition: quantum ;nu/a/us ab i//a. How different all is to when I visited it for the first time, years ago on foot, stopping at the stages men- tioned in Victor Hugos Rhin, which had just appeared. All those grand peeps of nature to be got on the old river, as it forced its majestic way through barriers of riven rocks and volcanic upheavals, have now almost wholly disappeared. The wine-grower has planted his vineyards even in the most secluded nooks, and built stone terraces where the rocks were too steep for cultivation. All along the banks, these giant staircases climb to the sum- mits of peaks and ravines. The vines have stormed the position, and their as- pect is uniform. The Burgs, built on heaps of lava, the Maus and the Katze, those sombre retreats of the burgraves of 48 WURZBURG AND VIENNA. old, now covered with the green leaves of the vine, have lost their former ~vild as- pect. The Lorelei manufactures ~vhite wine, and the syren no longer intoxicates sailors with the songs of her harp, but with the juice of the grape. There is nothing here now to inspire Victor Hugos Burgraves, or Heines Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten, Dass ich so traurig bin; Em Marchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. Below, engineering skill has dammed in the waters of the river, and the basaltic blocks form a black wall with white lines between the stones. Black and white! Even the old god of the Rhine has adopted the Prussian colors. Embank. ments have been constructed at the wide points of the river, for the purpose of in- creasing its depth, and of reconquering meadows, by the slow but natural process of raising the level by mud deposits. Be- tween Mannheim and Cologne, the cur- rent has gained ten hours, and the dangers of navigation of legendary celebrity have disappeared. All along the embankments, immense white figures inform navigators at w-hat distance from them it is safe to pass. On each bank, too, runs a railway, and on the river itself pass steamers of every shape, form, and description steamers with three decks, for tourists, as in the United States, little pleasure- boats, iron barges from Rotterdam, steam- tugs worked by paddle or screw, and dredgers of various proportions; all these hundreds of chimneys vomit a continuance of black smoke, which darkens the whole atmosphere. The carriage roads are in admirable order; not a rut is visible, and they are lined with fruit-trees, and with the same black and white basaltic blocks as the river. The Prussian colors again; but the aim is to point out the road for carriages on dark nights. When the way turns either to the right or the left, the trees on each side of it are painted white, so as to be distinctly visible. I have never anywhere seen a great river so thoroughly tamed, subdued, and utilized, so complete- ly bent to mans necessities. The free Rhine of Arminius and of the burgraves is as well disciplined as any grenadier of Brandenburg. The economist and the engineer admire, but painters and poets bewail. Buffon, in a page published in every (ours de Litt6rature, sings a hosanna to cultivated nature, and appears unable to find words strong enough to express his horror of nature in its savage state, brute nature, as he calls it. At the present day, our impression is precisely the reverse of this. We seek on almost inaccessible summits, in the region of eternal snow, and in the very heart of hitherto unexplored continents, a spot where man has not yet penetrated, and where we may behold nature in her invio- late virginity. We are stifled by civiliza- tion, wearied out with books, newspapers, reviews, and periodicals, letters to write and to read; railway travelling, the post, the telegraph, and the telephone, devour time and completely mince up ones life; any solitude for fruitful reflection is quite out of the question. Shall I find it, at least, among the fir-trees of the Carpa- thians, or beneath the shade of the old oaks of the Balkans? Industry is spoil- ing and soiling our l)lanet. Chemical produce poisons the water, the dross from different works and factories covers the country, quarries split up the picturesque slopes of valleys, black coal smoke dulls the verdant foliage and the azure of the sky, the drainage of large cities turns our rivers into sewers, whence emerge the germs of typhus. The useful destroys the beautiful; and this is so general as at times to bring tears to the eyes. Have not the Italians, on the lovely Isle of Sta. Helena, near to the public gardens in Ven- ice, erected works for the building of en- gines, and replaced the ruins of a fourth- century church by chimneys, whose opaque smoke, produced by the detestable bituminous coal of the Saar, would soon leave a sooty trace on the pink marble of the doges palace and on the mosaics of St Mark, just as we see them on St. Pauls Cathedral in London, so ugly cov- ered with sticky streaks. It is true that the produce of this industrial activity be- comes condensed in revenue, which en- riches many families, and adds consider- ably to the list of the bourgeois population inhabiting the capital. Here, on the banks of the Rhine, these revenues are repre. sented by villas and castles, whose pseu- do-Greek or Gothic architecture peeps out from among masses of exotic trees and plants in the most sought-after positions, near to Bonn, Godesberg, St. Goar, or Bingen. Look! there is an immense fec- dal castle, beside which Stoizenfels, the empress Augustas favorite residence, would be a mere shooting-box. This immense assemblage of turrets, galleries, roofs, and terraces must have cost at least 8o,ooo. Has it sprung from coal or from Bessemer steel? It is situated just WURZBURG AND VIENNA. 49 below the noble ruin of Drachenfels. Will not the dragon watching over the Niebelungen treasure in Nifelheims den, avenge this impertinent challenge of mod. em plutocracy? All that I see on my way up the Rhine leads me to reflect on the special charac- teristics of Prussian administration. The works which have so marvellously do- mesticated the river as to make it a type of what Pascal calls un cke;ni;z qul marcize, have taken between thirty and forty years, and have been carried out continuously, systematically, and scientifi- cally. In her public works, as in her military preparations, Prussia has suc- ceeded in uniting two qualities which are only too often lacking a spirit of con- sistency, and the love of progress. The desire to be as near as possible to perfec- tion is apparent in the most minute de- tails. N6t unfrequently consistency, and a too close following of traditions, leads to routine, which rejects innovations. Great strength is attained, and tl~e chances of success are considerably increased if, while one aim is always kept in view, the best means to attain it are selected and applied without delay. I have remarked, when speaking of parliamentary administration, that a lack of consistency was one reason of the fee- bleness of democracies. This should be guarded against as soon as it becomes apparent, or inferiority will ensue. A few trifling facts ~vill show that the Prussians are as great lovers of useful novelties and of practical improvements as the Ameri- cans. On the Rhine, at the ferries, the old ferry-boats have been replaced by little steamers, which are constantly crossing the river from one side to the other. At the railway stations, I notice that the trucks for luggage are made of steel, and are lighter and stronger than a nyl have seen elsewhere. The system for warming the railway compartments is also more perfected. Heated pipes run under the seats of the carriages, and the passengers can regulate the temperature by turning a needle on a disc from Kait (cold) to Warm or vice versd. At the summit of the tower of the town hall of Berlin the different flagstaffs for the flags hoisted on the fite days are ranged in order. Outside the highest gallery iron rings bave been fitted all round in which to fix the staffs, each of which has a number correspond- ing to the same number on the ring it is to fit into. In this manner both rapidity and re~,ularity are insured. Order and foresight are safe means to an end. LIVING AGE. VOL. XLIX 2500 I intended going to see at Stuttgart a former member of the Austrian Cabinet, Albert Schaffle, who now devotes all his time to the study of social questions, and has published some very well - known works among others, Gapitalismus und Socialismus, and Bau und Leben des Socialen A7rpers ( Construction and Life of the Social Body ), books which place him at the extreme left of professo- rial Socialism. Unfortunately, he is at the baths in the Black Forest. But I stop at Wiirzburg to meet No ir6, a philosopher and philologist, who has deigned to study political economy. The sight of the socialistic pass to which dem- ocratic tendencies are leading modern society, induces many philosophers to turn their attention to social questions. This is the case in France with Jules Si- mon, Paul Janet, Tame, Renouvier; in England with Herbert Spencer, William Graham, and even with that ~stheticist of pre-Raphaelite art, Ruskin. I hold that political economy should go hand in hand with philosophy, religion, and especially with morality; but as I cannot myself rise to these elevated spheres of thought, I am only too happy when a philosopher throws me out a bit of cord by which I may pull myself a lit- tle higher, above our workaday world. Ludwig Noir6 has written a book, which is exactly what I needed in this respect, and which I hope to be able to speak of at greater length a little later. It is en- titled Das !/Verkzeu4 (The Tool).. It shows the truth of Franklins saying Man is a tool-making creature. Noir6: says that the origin of tools dates from the origin of reason and language. At the commencement, as far back as one can conceive, man was forced to act on matter to obtain food. This action on nature for the purpose of satisfying wants is labor. As men were living together in families and in tribes, labor was carried on in common. A person making a mus- cular effort very naturally pronounces. certain sounds in connection with the effort he is making. These sounds, re-. peated and heard by the entire group,. were after a time understood to si~,nify.- the action of which they were the sporr- taneous accompaniment. Thus was lan-~ guage born from natural activity in view of supl)lying imperious needs, and the verb representing the action preceded all their words. The effort to procure the necessary and useful develops the reason- ing powers, and tools soon became neces- sary. Wherever traces of pre-historic 50 WIJRZBURG AND VIENNA. men are found, there is also to be found the flint implement. Thus reason, lan- guage, labor, and implements, all mani- festations of an intelligence capable of progress, appeared almost simultaneously. Noir6 has developed this theory fully in another book, entitled, Ursj5rung der Sprache ( Origin of Speech ). When it was published Max Muller stated in the Gontemporary Review, that although he considered this system too exclusive, yet it was far superior to either the onomatopc~ia or the interjection theory, and that it was certainly the best and the most probable one brought forward at present. I can but bow before this ap- preciation. Noir~ is a fanatical Kantian, and an en- thusiastic admirer of Schopenhauer. 1-le has succeeded in forming a committee for the purpose of erecting a statue in honor of the modern Heraclitus. The commit- tee, he says, must be international, for if as a writer Schopenhauer be German, as a philosopher he belongs to the entire world, and he asked me to join it. I am exceedingly flattered by the proposal, said I; but I offer two objections. In the first place, a humble economist has not the right to place his name side by side with such as are already on the list. Secondly, being an incurable disciple of Platonism, I fear that Schopenhauer did not remain in the Cartesian line of spirit- ualism. I feel persuaded that two notions, ~vhich, it appears, are at the present day very old-fashioned I speak of a belief in God and in the souls immortality should form the basis of all social science. He who believes in nothing but matter cannot rise to a notion of what ought to be i.e., to anideal of right and justice. This ideal can only be conceived as a divine order of things imposing itself morally on mankind. The Revue Phi- losophique of October, 1882, says, Posi- tive science, as understood at the present day, considers not what should be, but only what is. It searches merely the formula of facts. All idea of obligation, or of imperative prohibition, is completely foreign to its code. Such a creed is a death-stroke to all notion of duty. I be- lieve that faith in a future life is indispen- sable for the accomplishment of good works. Materialism weakens the moral sense, and naturally leads to general de- cay. Yes, replied Noir~, this is just the problem. How, side by side with the dire necessities of nature, or with divine om- nipotence, can there be place for human personality and liberty? Nobody, neither Christian nor naturalist, has yet been able satisfactorily to answer this. Hence has sprung, on the one hand, the predes- tination of the Calvinists and Luthers de servo arbitrio, and, on the other, de- terminism and materialism. Kant is the first mortal who fearlessly studied this problem and studied it satisfactorily. He plunged into the abyss, like the diver of Schiller, and returned, having vanquished the monsters he found there, and holding in his hand the aolden cup from which henceforward humanity may drink the divine beverage of truth. As nothing can be of greater interest to us than the solu- tion of this problem, so our gratitude, be it ever so considerable, can never possibly equal the service rendered by this really prodigious effort of the human mind. Kant has provided us with the only arm which can combat materialism. It is full time we should make use of it, for this detestable doctrine is everywhere under- mining the foundations of human society. I venerate the memory of Schopenhauer, because he has inspired the truths re- vealed by Kant with more real life and penetrating vigor. Schopenhauer is ~ot well known in either France or England. Some of his works have been translated, but no one has really understood him thoroughly, because to understand a phil- osopher it is necessary not only to admire but to be passionately attached to him. The folly of the Crossis an admirable expression. Schopenhauer maintains that the will is the great source of all; it means both personality and liberty. We are here at once planted at the antipodes of natural- istic determinism. Free intelligence cre- ates matter. Spin/us in nobis qul viget, ille facit. God is the great ideal. He does not make us move, but moves himself in us. The more we appropriate to our- selves this ideal, the freer we become; we are the reasonable and conscious authors of our actions, and liberty consists in this. Schopenhauer s moral law is precisely that of Christianitya law of abnega- tion, of resignation and asceticism. What Christians call charity, he designates as pity. He exhorts his followers to struggle against self-will; not to let their eyes dwell on the passing delusions of the outside world, but to seek their souls peace by sacrificing all pursuits and inter- ests which should fix their attentions solely on the changing scenes of this life. Are not these also the Gospel principles? Must they be rejected because Buddha WURZBURG AND VIENNA. Sr also preached them? The sovereign proof of the truth of my doctrines, says Schopenhauer, is the number of Chris- tian persons who have abandoned all their earthly treasure, position and riches, and have embraced voluntary poverty, devot- ing themselves wholly to the service of the poor and the sick and needy, un- daunted in their work of charity by the most frightful wounds, the most revolting complaints. Their happiness consists in self-abnegation, in their indifference to the pleasures of this life, in their living faith in the immortality of their being, and in a future of endless bliss. The chief aim of Kants metaphysics, proceeds Noir~, is to fix a limit to the circle that can be embraced by man s rea~ son. We resemble, he says, fish in a pond, who can see, just to the edge of the water, the banks that imprison them, but are perfectly ignorant of all that is be- yond. Schopenhauer goes farther than Kant. True, he says, we can only see the world from outside, and as a phenom- enon, but there is one little loophole left open to us by which we can get a peep at substantial realities, and this loophole is each individual myself, revealed to us as will, which gives us the key to the transcendent You say, dear col- league, that you are incurably Platonic; are you not then aware Schopenhauer constantly refers to the divine Plato, and to the incomparable, the prodigious, der erstaunliche Kant? His great merit is to have defended idealism against all the wild beasts which Dante met with in the dark forest, ne/la se/va oscura, into which he had strayed materialism and sensualism; and their worthy offspring, selfishness and bestiality. Nothing can be more false or dangerous than physics without metaphysics, and yet this truth proclaimed at the present day by great men merely provokes a laugh. The no tion of duty is based on metaphysics. Nothing in nature teaches it, and physics are silent on the subject. Nature is piti- less; brute force triumphs there. The better armed destroys and devours his less favored brother. Where then is right and justice? Materialists adopt as their motto the words which Frenchmen falsely accuse our chancellor of having uttered, Might is right Schopenhauers pity, Christian charity, the philosophers and jurists justice, are diametrically opposed to instinct and the voice of nature, which urge us to sacrifice everything to the sat- isfaction of animal appetites. Read the eloquent conclusion of the book of Lange, Geschichie des Maferialismus. If ma- terialism be not vanquished while it is yet time, all the law courts, prisons, bay- onets and grapeshot in the world will not suffice to prevent the downfall of the social edifice. This pernicious doctrine must be banished from the brains of learned men, where it now reignssupreme. It has started from thence, and has grad- ually obtained a hold on the public mind. It is the duty of true philosophy to save the world. But, I replied, Schopenhauers phil- osophy will never be comprehended but bya small minority; for myself, I humbly confess I have never read but fragments translated. It is a pity you have never perused the original, answered Noir6, the style is exceedingly clear and simple. He is one of our best writers. He has exposed the most abstruse problems in the best possible terms. No one has more thor- oughly justified the truth of what our Jean Paul said of Plato, Bacon, and Leib- nitz, the most learned reflection need not exclude a brilliant setting to show it off in relief, any more than a learned brain excludes a fine forehead and a fine face. Unfortunately, M. de Hartmann, who pop- ularized Schopenhauer, has too frequently rendered his ideas unintelligible by his Hegelian jargon. Sch openhauer could not endure Hegelianism. Like an icono- clast, he smashed to shivers its idols with a heavy club. He approved of violent expressions, and indulged in very strong terms. So, for instance, he liked what he calls die gdttliche Grob/zeit, divine coarse- ness. At the same time, he praises elegance and good manners, and even, strange to say, has translated a little man- ual on The Way to Behave in Society, El Oraculo Manual, published in 1658, by the Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian. There was a time, he writes, when Germanys three great sophists, Fichte, Schelhng, and especially Hegel, that seller of sense- lessness, derfreche unsi nige Schrnierer, that impertinent scribbler, imagined they would appear learned by becoming ob. sure. This shameless humbug succeeded in winning the adulations of the multitude. He reigned at the universities, where his style was imitated. Hegelianism became a religion, and a most intolerant one. Whosoever was not Hegelian was sus- pected even by the Prussian State. All these good gentlemen were in quest of the Absolute, and pretended that they had found it, and brought it home in their carpet-bags. 52 WURZBURG AND VIENNA. Kant maintained that human reason can only grasp the relative. Error, cry in chorus Hegel, Schelling, Jacobi, and Schleiermacher, and tutti quanti. The Absolute! Why, I know it intimately; it has no secrets from me, and the dif- ferent universities became the scenes of revolutions of the Absolute which stirred all Germany. If it were proposed to at- tempt to recall these illustrious maniacs to their right reason, the question was asked, Do you adequately comprehenj the Absolute? No. Then hold your tongue; you are a bad Christian and a dangerous subject. Beware of the strong- hold. The unfortunate Beneke was so startled by this treatment that he went mad and drowned himself. Finally these great authorities quarrelled between them- selves. They informed each other that they knew nothing of the Absolute. A quarrel on this subject was very often deadly. These battles resemble the dis- cussion at Toledo between the rabbi and the monk in Heines Rornancero. Af- ter they had both lengthily discussed and quarrelled, the king said to the queen: Which of the two do you think is right? I think, replied the queen, that they both smell equally unpleasantly. This nebulous system of the Hegelian Absolute-seekers, reminding one of iV~. pkeiokokkygk, the town in the clouds, in Aristophaness Birds, has become a prov. erb with our French neighbors, who very rightly are fond of clearness. When any- thing seems to them unintelligible, they dub it as German metaphysics. Cousin did his best to clarify all this indigestible stuff, and serve it up in a palatable form. But in so doing he lost, not his Latin, but his German and his French. I am sure you never understood that pure being was identical with no being. Do you recollect Grimms story, The Emperors Robe? A tailor condemned to death promised, in order to obtain his pardon, to make the emperor the finest robe ever seen. He stitched, and stitched, and stitched ceaselessly, and finally announced that the robe was ready, but that it was invisible to all, save to wise people. All the servants, officers, and chamberlains of the court came to examine this work of art with the ministers and high dignitaries, and one and all pronounced it magnificent. On the coronation day the emperor is sup. posed to put on the costume, and rides through the town in procession. The streets and windows are crowded; no one will admit that he has less wisdom than his neighbor, and all repeat: How mag. nificent! Was ever anything seen so lovely? At last a little child cries out, But the emperor is naked, and it was then admitted that the robe had never existed, and the tailor was hanged. Schopenhauer is the child revealing the misery, or rather the non-existence of Hegelianism, and his writings were con- sequently unappreciated for upwards of thirty years. The first edition of his most important work found its way to the gro- cers shop and thence to the rubbish heap. It is our duty to-day to make amends for such injustice, and to render him the honor which is his due; his pessimism need not stay you. The world, he says, is full of evil, and all suffer here below. Mans will is by nature perverse. Is not this doctrine the very essence of Christianity? Ingemuit omnis creatura. He maintains that our natural will is selfish and bad, but that, by an effort over itself, it may become purified and rise above its natural state to a state of grace, of holiness, of which the Church speaks, & VTipo~ lr?Lovg. This is the deliverance, the redemption, for which pious souls long, and it is to be attained by an indifference to and con- demnation of the world and of self. Sper- nere mundum, s~ernere Se, s~ernere se sperni. * Before leaving Wiirzburg I visit the pal- ace, formerly the residence of the prince- bishops, and also several churches. The palace, die Residenz, is immense, and seems the more so when one reflects that it was destined to ofnament the chief town of a small bishopric. Built between the years 7720 and 1744, after the plan of the palace of Versailles, it is very nearly as large. There is not such another stair- case to be found anywhere. This, and the hall which precedes it, occupy the entire width of the building and a third of its length, and the effect is really of impe- rial magnificence. The trains of crowds of cassocked prelates and fine ladies could sweep here with ease. The cut stone balustrades are ornamented with statues. * 7 learn that the committee has now been formed for the purpose of raising a statue so the memory of Schopenhauer. The following is a list of members: Ernest R~nan; Max Muller of Oxford; Brahmane Ragot Rampal Sing; Von Benningsen, formerly presi- dent of the German Reichstag; Rudolf von Thering, the celebrated Romanist of Gi5ttingen; Gyldes, the astronomer from Stockholm; Funger, president of the Imperial Court (Reichsgerichs) of Vienna; Wilhelm Gentz of Berlin; Otto Bdhs~ingk of the Imperial Acad- emy of Russia; Karl Hillebrand of Florence ; Francis Bowen, Professor at Harvard College in the United States; Professor Rudolf Leuckart of Leipzig; Hans von Wolzogen of Bayreuth; Professor F. Zarocke of Leipzig; Ludwig Nuir~ of Mayence; and Esnile de Laveleye of Liege. WURZBURG AND VIENNA. 53 There is a suite of three hundred and fifty reception-rooms all for show, none for use. A certain number of these were decorated at the time of the French em- pire. How mean the paintings on the ceilings, the pseudo-classic walls, and the mahogany furniture with brass ornaments, appear when compared to the apartments completed at the beginning of the eigh- teenth century, where the chicorde orna mentation exhibits all its seductions! I have never seen, all over Europe, anything in this style so perfect or better preserved. The curtains are in material of the period, and the chairs, sofas, and armchairs are covered to match. Each room is of a dominant color. There is a green one with metallic shades, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle. The brockd silk on the furniture is to correspond. The effect is magical. In another, splendid Gobelin tapestry, after Lebrun, represents the tri- umph and the clemency of Alexander. Another, again, is all mirrors, even to the door-panels, but groups of flowers in oil- painting on the glass temper the excessive brilliancy. The stoves are really marvels of inventive genius and good taste, all in white and gold Saxony china. The black- smiths art never produced anything finer than the immense wrought-iron gates which enclose the pleasure-grounds, with their terraces, lawns, grass-plots, foun- tains, and rustic retreats. This princely residence, which has been almost invari- ably vacant since the suppression of epis- copal sovereignty, has remained perfectly intact. It has been deteriorated neither by popular insurrections nor by changes in taste. What finished models of the style of the Regency architects and furni- ture makers could find here to copy from! The contemplation of all these gran- deurs suggests two questions to my mInd. Where did these sovereigns of tiny States find the money to furnish themselves with splendors and luxuries which Louis XIV. might have envied? My colleague, George Schanz, professor of political economy at the University of Wiirzburg, informs me that these bishops had scarcely any troops to maintain. Make, he says, builders, joiners, upholsterers, and carpenters of all our soldiers all over the land at the present day, and Germany might soon be covered with such palaces. Second question: How could these bishops, disciples of Him who had not where to lay his head, spend the money raised by taxation of the poor, on pomps and luxury worthy of a Darius or a Helio- gabalus? Had they not read the Gospel condemnation of Dives, and the commen taries of the Churchs Fathers? Was the Christian doctrine of humility and of char- ity, even to voluntary poverty, only un- derstood in monasteries and convents? Those grandees of the Church must have been completely blinded by the mistaken sophism which leads to the belief that ex- travagance and waste benefits the working man, the real producer. This unfortunate error is only too harmful at the present day. During the eighteenth century the ma- jority of the churches of Wiirzburg were completely spoilt by being ornamented in that Louis XV. style, suited only to the interior of palaces. As Boileau says, Ce ize sont que festons, ce ne sont quaslra- gales, gothic arches disappear beneath garlands of flowers, clouds with angels draperies in relief and interlacings of chicorde, the whole in plaster and covered with gilding. The altars are frequently entirely gilt. It is a perfect profusion of make-believe riches. In the towns the faades of some houses here and there are finished examples of this florid archi- tecture. Doubtless the radiance of Ver- sailles magnificence urged Germany to decorate her monuments and dwellings c~ Ia Fran~aise, even after the sun there had set. From my windows, which look out on to the square before the palace, I see a battalion of troops march past to exercise. Even the guards at Berlin could not march more automatically. The legs and the left arm move exactly together, while the guns are held precisely at the same angle by each soldier. Their steel barrels form a perfectly straight line as they glisten in the sunshine. The ranks of soldiers are absolutely rectilinear. The whole move in a body as if they were fastened on to a rail. It is perfection. What care and pains must have been bestowed before such a result could be attained! The Bavarians have naturally done their very best to equal and even to surpass the Prussians. They do not choose to be esteemed any longer as mere beer-drink- ers, heavy, and somewhat dense. I won- der if this exceedingly severe drill, so effective on parade, is of use on a battle- field of the present day, where it is usual to disperse to attack. I am not competent to answer this question, but it is certain that rigid discipline accustoms the soldier to order and obedience; two very neces- sary virtues, especially in a democratic age. Obedience is still more wanted when the iron hand of despotism gives 54 WURZBURG AND VIENNA. place to the authority of magistrates and laws. The mission of schools and mili- tary service is to teach this lesson to the citizens of republics. The more the chief power loosens its hold, the more should free man bend at once to the exigences necessary for the maintenance of order in the State. If this be not so, anarchy will result, and a return to despotism is then inevitable, for anarchy cannot be tolerated. In the evening the sound of bugles is heard. It is the retreat sounding for the garrison troops. It is a melancholy fare- well to the day passing away, and reli- gio us, like a call to rest from the night, which is fast falling. Alas! how sad it is to think that these trumpets thus har- moniously sounding the curfew will one day give the signal for battle and blood- shed! Men are still as savage as wild beasts, and with less motive, for they no longer devour their slaughtered enemy. I am a member of at least four societies whose object is to preach peace and rec- ommend arbitration. No one listens to us. Even free nations prefer to fight. I admit perfectly that when the security or the existence of a country is at stake, it is impossible to have recourse to arbitration, although its decision would be at least as just as those of violence and chance; but there are cases which I call Jenkinss ears, since reading Carlyles Frederic the Great.* In such as these, where the question is one of amour ]5rQ~re, of bstinacy, and frequently, I may say also, of stupidity, arbitration might often pre- vent conflicts. But if man is still hard on his fellow, he has become more tender towards animals. He has forbidden their being uselessly tortured. I take note of a touching ex- ample of this. I walk up to the citadel, whence there is a splendid view over all * On April so, 1731, the English vessel Rebecca, Captain Jenkins, is visited by the coastguards of Ha- vanna, who accuse the captain of ~muggiing military goods. They find none on board, but they ill-treat him by hanging him first to the yard and fastening the cabin boy to his feet. The rope breaks, however, and they-then proceed to cut off one of his ears, telling him to take it to his king. Jenkins returns to London and claims vengeance. Pope writes verses about his ear, but England did not choose to quarrel with Spain just then, and all is apparently forgotten. Eight years after, some insults offered by the Spaniards to English ves- sels brought up again the topic of Jenkiisss ear. He had preserved it in wadding. The sailors went about London wearing the inscription Ear for ear on their hats. The large merchants and shipowners espoused their cause. William Pitt and the nation in general desire war with Spain, and Walpole is forced to declare it. TIse consequences are but too well known. Blood- shed all over the world on land and sea. Jenkinss ear is indeed avenged. If the English people were poetical, sags Carlyle, this ear would have become a constella- tion like Berenices crown. Franconia. I cross the bridge over the Main. In a street where the quaint pinions of the houses and gaudy sign-posts over the doors would delight the eye of a painter, I see a sort of sentry-box, on which is written in large characters, Thierschutz. Verein ( Society for the Pro- tection of Animals ). A horse is standing there. Why? To be at the disposal of wagoners with a heavy load who are going up the slope to the bridge, and thus to prevent them ilItreating their horses. This seems to me far more ingenious and efficacious than the infliction of a fine. Wurzburg is not an industrial town. There appears to be no special reason why the population and the wealth of the city should increase rapidly, and yet the old town is surrounded with fine new quar- ters, fashion~ble squares, pretty walks, and fine wide streets, handsome houses and villas. Here, as elsewhere, that sin- gular phenomenon of our age, the im- mense increase in the number of well-to-do families, is distinctly apparent. If this continue in the same proportions, the masses of the future will not be com- posed of those who live on wages and salaries, but of those living on profit, in- terest, or revenue. Revolutions will be- come impossible, for the established order of things would have more protectors than assailants. These countless comfortable residences, these edifices of all kinds which spring up in every direction, with their luxurious and opulent appointments, all this wealth and well-being, is the result of the employment of machinery. Machin- ery increases production and economizes labor, and as the wages of labor have not diminished, the number of those who could live without working has increased. Wtirzburg possesses an ancient univer- sity. It is a very old sixteenth-century building, situated in the centre of the town. As they recently did me the honor to confer on me the degree of doctor ho- noris causci, I wished to see the rector to offer him my thanks, but I had not the good fortune to meet him. On the boule- vard, special institutes have been con- structed for each separate science, for chemistry, physics, and physiology. Im- mense sums have been spent in Germany to add a number of those separate insti- tutes to the different universities. The eminent professor of chemistry at Bonn, M. Kekul6, recently took me over the building constructed for his branch of science. With its Greek columns, and its palatial facade, it is considerably more extensive than the whole of the old uni WURZBURG AND VIENNA. 55 versity. The sub-soil devoted to experi- mental and metallurgical chemistry re- sembles immense works or foundries. The professors apartments are far more sumptuous than those of the first authori- ties. Neither the govenor, the bishop, nor even the general himself, can boast of anything to be compared with them. In the drawing-rooms and dancing-saloons the whole town might be assembled. This institute has cost more than a mil- lion francs. In Germany it is very rightly considered that a professor who has exper- iments to make ought to live in the same building where are the laboratories and lecture-rooms. It is only thus that he is able to follow analyses which need his supervision, at times even at night~ Comparative anatomy and physiology have also each their palace. Several profes- sors of natural sciences complain that it is really an excess, They say they are crushed by the extent and complications of their appurtenances, and especially by the cares and responsibilities they in- volve; nevertheless, if exaggeration there be, it is on the right side. Bacons mot- to, Knowledge is power, becomes truer every day. The proper application of science is the chief source of wealth, and, consequently, of power. Nations, do you wish to be powerful and rich? Then en- courage to the utmost your learned men. I stop a day en route to revisit Nurem- berg, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. I will not speak of its many interesting churches, houses, towers, of the Woolding Chamber, nor of the terrible iron virgin, covered inside with spikes, like Reguluss barrel, which, in closing, pierced its vic- tim through and through, and opened to drop the corpse into the torrent roaring a hundred feet below. Nothing gives a more vivid idea of the refined cruelty of these dark ages. But I have no wish to encroach upon Baedekers prerogative. A word only as to what I see before the ca- thedral. I observe there a small Gothic monument, which reminds me of the Ro- man column of Igel, on the Mosel, near Tr~ves. It has a niche on each of the four sides, under glass. In the first niche is a thermometer, in the second an hy- grometer, in the third a barometer, and in the fourth the days telegrams from the observatory, and the meteorological maps. These instruments are enormous, from four to five feet in height at least, so that the figures may be large enough to be clearly legible. I have seen similar mon- uments in several German towns, and in Switzerland, at Geneva, in the gardens near the Rhone, at Vevey, close to the landing-stage, and at Neuchatel, on the promenade near the lake. It would be excellent if all towns would adopt them. I take every opportunity of urging this. Their cost is but trifling. A perfectly plain one can be made for 40, something more elegant might cost 8o or 100; they are a source of amusement and a means of instructing the people, and a daily lesson in physics for all classes. The laboring man learns there far better than he would do at school the practical use of these instruments, ~vhich are most useful for agricultural purposes and for sanitary precautions. Towards midnight I go on foot to the railway station, to take the express to Vienna. The old castle throws a black shadow over the town, the roofs of which seem to whiten in the silvery moonlight. This, I say to myself, is the birthplace of the Hohenzollern family. What a change has taken place in its destiny since its name first appeared in history, in 117o, when Conrad of Hohenzollern was made burgraaf of Nurembero! One of his de- scendants, Frederick, first elector, left this town in 1412 to take possession of Brandenburg, which the spendthrift em- peror Sigismund had sold him for four hundred thousand forms of Hungarian gold. He had already borrowed half this sum from Frederick, who was as econom- ical as the ant, and had even mortgaged the electorate as security. Being unable to repay his debt, and in want of more money to defray the costs of an expedition to Spain, he very willingly yielded up this inhospitable northern Mark the sands of the Marquis of Brandenburg, which Voltaire so turned into ridicule. The emperor could not suppose that from this petty burgrave would spring a future wearer of the imperial crown. Economy is a small virtue made up of small priva- tions, but which makes much of little Mo/ti pocizifanno un assaiMony a pickle maks a mickle, as the Scotch say. Though far too often forgotten or ignored by rulers, it is nevertheless even more ne- cessary for nations than for individuals. A short June night is soon passed in a sleeping-car. I wake up and find myself in Austria. I perceive it at once from the delicious coffee and cream which is served me in a glass, by a fair young girl in a pink print dress and with bare arms. It very nearly equals in quality that of the fost/zof at Carlsbad. We are very soon in view of the Danube, but the rail- way does not keep alongside it. What- WURZBURG AND VIENNA. ever the well-known waltz, The Blue Danube, may say to the contrary, the river is not blue at all. Its waters are yellow-green, like the Rhine, but how infi- nitely more picturesque is the Donate! No vineyards, no factories, and very few steamers. I saw but one, making its way with difficulty against the rapid cur- rent. The hills on either side are cov- ered with forests and green meadows, and the branches of the willow-trees sweep the water. The farmhouses, very far apart, have a rustic and mountain like ap- pearance. There is very little movement, very little trade; the peasant is still the chief producer of riches. On this lovely summer morning the sweet repose of this peaceful existence seduces and penetrates me. How delightful it would be to live quietly here, near these pine forests and these beautiful meadows, where the cattle are at pasture! But on the other side of the river, where there is no railway! There are several reasons for this great contrast between the Rhine and the Danube. The Rhine flows towards Holland and En- gland, two markets that have been well established forupwards of three hundred years, and ready to pay a high price for all the river brings them. The Danube flows towards the Black Sea, where the population is exceedingly poor, and can scarcely afford to purchase what we should call here the necessaries of life. The produce of Hungary, even live cattle, is taken westward by rail to Lond6n. The transport by water is too long. Secondly, coal, the indispensable fuel of all modern industry, is cheaper on the Rhine than anywhere else. And thirdly, the Rhine, ever since the Roman conquest and at the earliest period of the Middle Ages, has been a centre of civilization, whereas that portion of the Danube the most valu- able for traffic was, until yesterday, in the hands of the Turks. At the Amstett station I purchased the Vienna Neue Frele Presse, which is, I think, with the Pester Lloyd, the best edited and the pleasantest paper to read in the German language. The Kdlnische Zeitung is exceedingly ~vell-informed, and the A Zigemeine Zeitung is also as complete and interesting as possible; but it is a terrible pelImell of subjects, a dreadful muddle, where, for instance, many little paragraphs from France or Paris are dis- seminated haphazard in the six sheets. I would rather read three Times than one Kdlnisclze, in spite of the respect with which that paper inspires me. I have scarcely unfolded my Neue Freje Presse than I find myself in the very heart of the struggle of nationalities, just as I was sixteen years previously, only that the strife is no longer, as it then was, between Magyars and Germans. The Deak dual compromise created a modus vivendi, which is still in force. The dispute is now between Tchecks and Germans on the one hand, and between Magyars and Croatians on the other. The minister Taaffe has decided to dissolve the Bo- hemian Parliament, and there will be fresh elections. The national and feudal Tchecks banding together will overthrow the Germans, who will no longer possess more than a third of the votes in the Diet. The Freje Presse is perfectly disconsolate at this, and foresees the most terrible dis. asters in consequence: if not the end of the world, at least the upset of the mon- archy. On account of these warnings, the numbers are seized by government order three or four times a month, even although it be the organ of the Aus- trian e5ourgeoisie. It is Liberal, but very moderate, like the D6e5als and the Tetups in France. After two or three months have elapsed, the numbers seized are re- turned to the editor, only fit for the waste- paper basket. These confiscations (for they are, in fact, nothing more nor less, although effected through the administra- tion) are absolutely contrary to the law, as is proved by the reiterated acquittals. Their constant recurrence reminds one of the worst periods of the French empire. Applied to a newspaper that defends Aus- trian interests with so much skill as the Frele Presse, they are more than surpris- ing. If my friend Eug~ne Pelletan were aware of this, he would no longer claim for France liberty as in Austria, for which saying he suffered at the time three months imprisonment. It is said that the influence of the Tchecks dictates these confiscations, and this alone is sufficient to show the violence of the enmity be- tween the races. The Viennese with whom I travel declare that this enmity is far less bitter than it was fifteen years ago. At that period, I tell them, I trav- elled across the country without meeting a single Austrian. I met with Magyars, Croatians, Saxons, Tchecks, Tyrolians, Poles, Ruthenians, Dalmatians, but never with Austrians. The common country was ignored, the race was all in all. At the present day, my fellow-travellers tell me this is very much subdued. You will find plenty of excellent Austrians, they say, to-day amongst the Magyars, and to- morrow amongst the Tchecks. WURZBURG AND VIENNA. The reader will permit a short digres- sion here touching this nationality ques- tion. You meet with it everywhere in the dual empire. It is the great preoccupa- tion of the present, and it will be in fact the chief agent in determining the future of the population of the banks of the Danube and the Balkan peninsula. You Englishmen cannot ~vell understand the full force of this feeling which is so strong in eastern countries. England is for you your country, for which you live and for which, if needs, you die. This love of country is a religion which survives even when all other faith or religion has ceased to exist. It is the same in France. M. Thiers, who, as a rule, so thoroughly grasped situations, never realized the im- mense force of these aspirations of races, which completely rearranged, before his eyes, the map of Europe on the nationality footing. Cavour and Bismarck were, how- ever, well aware of this, and knew how to take advantage of this sentiment, in creat- ing the unity of Italy and of Germany. One evening, Jules Simon took me to call on M. Thiers, in Rue St. Honor~, who asked me to explain the Flemish move- ment in Belgium. I did so, and he seemed to consider the question as most unimpor- tant, quite childish in fact, and very much behind the age. He was at once both right and wrong. He was right because true union is one of minds, not of blood. Christs saying is here admirably appli- cable: Whosoever shall do the will of God the same is my my brother and sister and mother (St. Mark iii. 35). I grant that mixed nationalities which, without consideration of diversity of lan- guage and race, rest, as in Switzerland, on an identity of historical reminiscences, of civilization and liberty, are of a superior order; they are types and forerunners of the final fusion when all mankind will be but one great family, or rather a federa- tion. But M, Thiers, being idealistic, like a true son of the French Revolution, was wrong in not taking into account things as they actually are, and the exigencies of the transitory situation. This awakening of nationalities is the inevitable outcome of the development of democracy, of the press, and of literary culture. An autocrat may govern twenty different peoples without in the least trou- bling himself as to their language or race; but if once assemblies be introduced, everything is changed. Speech governs. Then what language is to be spoken? That of the people, of course. Will you educate the young? It must be done in their mother tongue. Is justice to be administered? You cannot judge a man in a foreign language. You wish to rep- resent him in Parliament, and ask for his votes; the least he can claim in return is that he may understand what you say. And thus by degrees the language of the multitude gains ground and is adopted in Parliament, law courts, and schools of every degree. In Finland, for instance, the struggle is between the Swedes, ~vho form the well-to-do classes and live in the towns on the coast, and the rural population who are Finns. When visit- ing the country with the son of the emi- nent linguist, Castr~n, who died while in Asia seeking out the origin of the Finn language, I found that the latter was more spoken than Swedish, even in the suburbs of large towns such as Ab6 and Helsing- fors. All official inscriptions are in the two languages. The instruction in the communal schools is almost entirely in the Finn tongue. There are Finn gymna- siums, and even at the university, lectures in this language. There is also a national theatre, ~~-here I heard Martha sung in Finn. In Galicia, Polish has completely replaced German; but the Ruthenians have also put in a claim for their idiom. In Bohemia the Tcheck dialect triumphs so completely that German is in danger of being wholly cast aside. At the open- ing of the Bohemian Diet, the governor made a speech in Tcheck and one in Ger- man. At Prague a Tcheck university has recently been opened next to the German one. The clergy, the feudals, and the population are strongly in favor of this national movement. The Archbishop of Prague, the Prince of Schwarzenberg, al- though himself a German, appoints none but Tcheck priests, even in the north of Bohemia, where Germans dominate. It is certain that in countries where two races are thus intermingled, this growing feeling must occasion endless dissensions, and almost insurmountable difficulties. It is a disadvantage to speak the idiom of a small number, for it is a cause of isolation. It would certainly be far better if but three or four languages were spoken in Europe, and better still if but one were generally adopted; but, until this acme of unity be attained, every free people called upon to establish self-government, will claim rights for its mother tongue, and will try to unite itself with those who speak it, unless the nation be already fully satisfied with its mixed but historical nationality, like Switz- erland and Belgium. Austria and the Balkan peninsula are now agitated with these claims for the use of the national tongue, and with aspirations for the for~ 57 STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. mation of States based on the ethnic reserve, which still forms part of the Con. ~roups. tinental idea of the typical Englishman As we near Vienna the train runs have been so rapidly swept away during through the most lovely country. A suc- the last generation, that it would be ab- cession of small valleys, with little stream- surd nowadays to expect of any inheritor lets rippling through them, and on either of a great writers correspondence that he side green lawns between the hills covered should form the same sort of strict judg- with woods, chiefly firs and oaks. One ment on its claims to publication which might imagine oneself in Styria or in up- would have been natural and possible a per Bavaria. Soon, however, houses make hundred or even fifty years ago. Taste is their appearance, often charming chal& s laxer, the public easier to please, and buried in creeping plants, Gloire de Dijon book-making more profitable. A modern roses, or jessamine and clematis. These editor of unpublished documents, by the become more and more frequent, and near nature of things, approaches his task in a the suburban stations, there are quite little more prodigal frame of mind. The whole hamlets of villas. I know of no capital mood of the present day is one of greater with such beautiful suburbs, save per- indulgence towards what may be called haps Stockholm. Nothing could be more the personal side of letters than used to delightful than Baden, Mdoling, Brii hI, be the case with our grandfathers; and Schonbrun, and all those little rustic nooks the seven volumes which Mr. Froude has south of Vienna, on the road to the Somer- devoted to the Carlyles, and which, under ing. EMILE DE LAVELEYE. all the circumstances, would have been a scandal in the days of Southey and Scott, ____________ will perhaps be accepted later on as mark- ing the highest point of a tendency which has been long gathering strength and may From Macmillans Magazine. not improbably soon have to fight against STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. reaction. By this publication of a newly discov- Lord Brabourne, then, hardly deserves ered collection of Miss Austens letters, serious blame for not deciding as Mr. Miss Austens great-nephew has done her Austen Leigh would have probably de- as ill a turn as it is in anybodys power to cided twenty years ago, that the newly do to the author of Pride and Prejudice. discovered correspondence threw prac- The name of one of the nimblest, quick- tically no fresh light on Miss Austens est, and least tiresome of mortals has been personality, and, with half-a-dozen excep- perforce associated with two volumes of tions, which might have seen the light in half-edited matter, with letters of which a review, had therefore better be reserved she herself would never have authorized for that family use for which it was orig. the publication, with family pedigrees of inally intended; but he might at least which she would have been the first person have set some bounds to his confidence to feel the boredom and the incongruity, in the public. One small volume of these and literary criticisms of a kind to have letters, carefully chosen and skilfully set that keen wit of hers moving in its edited, would have been pleasant reading most trenchant fashion. When Lord Bra- enough. They might have been used as bourne came into possession of those illustrations of the novels, of the country bundles of his great-aunts letters which society or the class relations of eighty Mr. Austen Leigh, her first biographer, years ago, and a few short explanations believed to have been lost, the temptation of the identity of the persons most fre- to make use of them in some way was no quently mentioned in them would have doubt irresistible. The virtue of literary made them sufficiently intelligible to the reticence is fast becoming extinct; we general reader. As it is, the letters of have almost indeed forgotten that it is a the last fifteen years of Jane Austens life virtue at all. To be able to persuade dull the edge of whatever gentle enjoy. oneself that the world could possibly do ment the reader may have derived from without information which it is in ones the sprightliness of the earlier ones, while power to give it, implies now a strength of the one literary merit which the collection mind so abnormal and so rare, that a mod- possesses, its lightness and airiness of em instance of it is scarcely to be found. tone, is lost in the ponderous effect of the And the old distinction between public and introductory chapters, with their endless private life, which still held firmly in the strings of names and wandering criticisms days when Jane Austen and Miss Ferrier on the novels. Such editorial perform- refused to give their names to any pro- ance as this makes one sigh once more for duction of their pens the old personal a more peremptory critical standard than STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. any we possess in England. What En- gush belles-lettres of the present day want more than anything else is a more widely diffused sense of oblzga/ion among the cultivators of themobligation, if one must put it pedantically, to do the best a man can with his material, and to work in the presence of the highest ideals and achievements of his profession. There are, however, in these volumes a few letters which were worth printing, and which do help to complete the picture al- ready existing of Jane Austen These are the letters written between 1796 and 1799, that is to say, during the period which witnessed the composition of Pride and Prej~idice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey. Jane Austen at the time was a pretty, lively girl, very fond of dancing, deeply interested in dress, and full of the same naif interest in the other sex with which Catherine Morland started on her Bath travels. The whole tone in- deed of this early correspondence with her sister reminds one of an older and shrewder Catherine, and the ways of see- ing and describing to which they bear witness are exactly those to which we owe the unflagging liveliness andgaiety of the two famous books in which the adventures of Catherine and of Elizabeth Bennett are set forth. Northanger Abbey espe- cially, gay, sparkling, and rapid as it is from beginning to end, is the book in which the bright energy of Jane Austens youth finds its gayest and freshest expression. Pride and Prejudice is witty and spark- ling too, but it probably went through many a heightening and polishing process during the fifteen years which elapsed be- tween the time when it was written and the time when it appeared in print; and although a great deal of it may represent the young Jane Austen, the style as a whole bears marks certainly of a fuller maturity than had been reached by the writer of Northanger Abbey. It is in the story of Catherine Morland that we get the inimitable literary expression of that exuberant girlish wit, which ex- pressed itself in letters and talk and harmless flirtations before it took to itself literary shape, and it is pleasant to turn from the high spirits of that delightful book to some of the first letters in this collection, and so to realize afresh, by means of such records of the woman, the perfect spontaneity of the writer. Any one who has ever interested himself in the impulsive little heroine, who was as nearly plain as any heroine dared to be before Jane Eyre, but whose perfect good- humor and frankness won the heart of her Henry, will feel that in one or two of these newly printed letters he comes very near to the secret of Catherines manufac- ture. Here, for instance, is a picture, pieced together from passages of different dates, of Jane Austen in a frame of mind which has something of Catherine Morland and something of Elizabeth Bennett in it, though it is a little too satirical and con- scious for the one, and perhaps a trifle too frivolous for the other. Tom Lefroy, the hero of the little episode, lived to be chief justice of Ireland, and only died in 1854. The first extract occurs in a letter writ- ten from Steventon in January, 1796: You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment re- ceived from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you h& w my Irish. friend and I be- have. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanly, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steven- ton, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago. . - After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same colored clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded. - . . Our party to Ashe to- morrow night will consist of Edward Cooper, James (for a ball is nothing with. out him), Buller, who is now staying with us, and I. I look forward with great im- patience to it, as I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat. - - - Tell Mary that I make over Mr. Heartley and all his estate to her for her sole use and benefit in future, and not only him, but all my other admirers into the bargain, wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I 6o STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. dont care sixpence. Assure her also as a last and indubitable proof of Warrens indifference to me that he actually drew that gentlemans picture for me, and deliv- ered it to me without a sigh Friday (the day of the Ashe ball). At length the day has come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be -over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea. Slight, however, as the relation was, it seems to have been more durable than the signs of frail vitality about it would have led one to expect. It is not till two years later that Jane Austen herself gives it its coup deArrace in her light character- istic way. She describes a visit paid by Tom Lefroys aunt to Steventon, in which the nephews name was ne~er once men- tioned to Jane herself, and I was too proud to make any inquiries; but on my fathers asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London, on his way to Ireland, where he is called to the bar, and means to practise. And then alas! for the faithfulness of woman she flies off to describe the position in which things are with regard to an unnamed friend of Mr. Lefroys, who had evidently taken his place in her thoughts, ~nd was rapidly succeeding to that full measure of indifference which appears to have been the ultimate portion of all Janes admirers. There is less love and more sense in it than sometimes appeared before, she says provokingly, describing a letter from this unknown aspirant and I am very well satisfied. It will all go on exceed- ingly well, and decline away in a very reasonable manner.~~ There are a good many other touches in these girlish letters that give one glimpses, as it were, into the workshop which pro- duced the novels. Mr. Richard Harvey, she says on one occasion, is going to be married; but as it is a great secret, and only known to half the neighborhood, you must not mention it. The ladys name is Musgrave. Again, We have been very gay since I wrote last, dining at Hacking- ton, returning by moonlight and every- thing quite in style, including Mr. Clar- ingboulds funeral which we saw go by on Sunday. Or, If you should ever see Lucy, you may tell her that I scolded Miss Fletcher for her negligence in writing, as she desired me to do, but without being able to brino~ her to any proper sense of shame; that Miss Fletcher says in her defence, that as everybody whom Lucy knew when she was in Canterbury has now left it, she has nothing at all to write to her about. By everybody, I suppose Miss Fletcher means that a new set of officers has arrived there. But this is a note of my own. Or again, with mock- ing reference to some of those pomposi. ties of authorship which she ridicules in Northanger Abbey I am very much flattered by your commendation of my last letter, for I write only for fame, and with- out any view to pecuniary emolument. Her lively pen touches everybody in turn. One feels there may have been something formidable in a daughter who could put together with a few strokes so suggestive an~outline as this: My mother continues hearty; her appetite and nights are very good, but she sometimes complains of an asthma, a dropsy, water in her chest, and a liver disorder. And it is characteristic that even her letters of grief, after the death of a favorite sister-in law, are broken within the first fortnight by some flashes of terse satire on the affairs of the neigh- borhood. Some little pleasure and entertainment then may be gleaned, by those who already know their Miss Austen, from the first dozen letters or so of this collection. They fill up a gap in Mr. Austen Leighs book. The turn of phrase is generally light and happy; and they enable us to realize something of that buoyant and yet critical enjoyment of life, of which the six novels were the direct outcome. But after all, there is very little personal or literary distinction in them ; the judgment of an unfriendly Frenchman would proba- bly find that note of commonness~~ in them which Madame de Sta~l insisted in attributing to Pride and Prejudice. And commonness indeed there is, usiog the word, that is to say, not in any strong or disagreeable sense, but simply as op- posed to distinction, charm, aroma, or any of those various words by which one tries to express that magical personal quality of which Madame de S~vign6 is the typi- cal representative in literature. And even the gaiety and moderate felicity of phrase which beguiled one through the earlier letters disappears from the later correspondence. The writer of it indeed is the same kindly, blameless, and gentle humorous person as the Jane Austen of 1796, but whereas at twenty-one Jane Austens letters were like her novels, and therefore may be said to possess some slight claim to belong to literature, by thirty-one they had become the mere ordi- nary chit-chat of the ordinary gentlewom- an, with no claims whatever to publication or remembrance beyond the family circle. Lord Brabournes book indeed only im STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. 6r presses upon us with fresh force what was already fairly well known that broadly speaking, the wholeyie/dof Jane Austens individuality is to be found in her novels. There are a certain number of facts about her which help to explain her books, and which are of use to the student of the psychological side of letters, but these were already within everybodys reach, so that the collection printed by Lord Brabourne is as a whole neither amusing, nor sufficiently instructive to make in worth publication. The triviality of the letters is easily explained. No circumstances were ever less favorable than Jane Austens to good letter-writing. She possessed one literary instrument which she used with extraor- dinaryskilland delicacythe instrument of critical observation as applied to the commoner types and relations of human life. Within the limits fixed for her by temperament and circumstances she brought it to bear with unrivalled success, success which has placed her amongst English classics. But she was practically a stranger to what one may call, without pedantry, the world of ideas, The intel- lectual and moral framework of her books is of the simplest and most conventional kind. The author of Corinne, placed as she was in the very centre of the Eu- ropean stress and tumult, might well think them too tame and commonplace to be read. Great interests, great questions, were life and breath to Madame de Sta~l as they were to her successor George Sand. She realized the continuity of hu- man history, the great fundamental laws and necessities underlying all the outward tangle and complication. And it was this insight, this far-reaching symyathy, which gave her such power over her time, and made her personality and her thoughts incalculably diffusive. Meanwhile Jane Austen, in her Hampshire home, seems to have lived through the storm iest period of modern European history without being touched by any of the large fears and hopes, or even strongly impressed by any of the dramatic characters or careers in which it abounded. Though the letters extended from 1796 to 1817, there is barely a mention of politics in them, except in some small personal connection, and of the literary forces of the time Goethe, Byron, Wordsworth there is hardiv a trace. Even when she comes to London, though we have an occasional bare record of a visit to a theatre, we still hear of nothing except sisters, cousins, neighbors, the price of Irish, and the new fashions in caps. And for the rest, Kent and Hampshire, with their county families, their marryings and christenin~s their dancings and charities, are the only world she knows or cares to know. She never seems to have had a literary acquaintance, or to have desired to make one. While Miss Ferriers ~vits were quickened by the give and take of Edinburgh society in its best days, and Miss Edgeworth found herself welcomed with extravagant flattery on the Continent as the representative of English culture, all the literary influence that Jane Austen ever experienced was due to her father, and all the literary in- fluence she ever personally exerted ~vas brought to bear upon a novel-writing niece. No doubt if she had lived a little longer things would have been different. When she died, at the age of forty-one, her books had already brought her some fame, and friends would have followed. As it was, her circle of interests, both in- tellectual and personal, was a narrower one than that of any other writer we can remember with the same literary position. In spite, however, of her narrow We/f- ansckauung, and her dearth of literary relationships, Jane Austen is a classic, and Pride and Prejudice will probably be read when Corinne, though not its author, is forgotten. 1-ler life is a striking proof that a great novelist may live with- out a philosophy, and die without ever having belonged to a literary coterie. But out of the stuff of which the life was com- posed it was impossible to make a good letter-writer. To be a good letter-writer a man or woman must either have ideas, or sentiments strong enough to take the place of ideas, or knowledge of and con~ tact with what is intrinsically interesting and important. Jane Austen had none of these. The graphic portraiture of men and women seen from the outside, in which she excelled, was not possible in letters. It required more freedom, more elbow-room than letters could give. Jane Austen, in describing real people, found herself limited by the natural scruples of an aimable and gentle nature. There was a short time when the exuberance of her talent overflowed a little into her corre- spondence. But it soon came to an end, and for the rest of her life Jane Austcns letters were below rather than above the average in interest, point, and charm. Miss Austens novels are a well-worn subject. We have all read her, or ought to have read her ~ve all know what Ma- caulay and what Scott thought of her and the qualities of her humor, the extent of her range, have been pointed out again and again. Perhaps, after all, however, it 62 STYLE AND MISS AIJSTEN. may be still worth while to try and face the question which these disappointing letters bring home to one. How ~vas it that, with all her lack of knowledge and of ideas, and with her comparative lack of passion, which so often supplies the place of both, Jane Austen accomplished work so permanent and so admirable? What is it, in a word, which makes Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey English classics, while the books of her contemporaries, Miss Ferrier and Miss Edgeworth, have practically lost their hold upon our sympathies, and are retreat- ing year by year into a dimmer back- ground? There are two kinds of quali- ties which go to the making of a classic. There are the qualities of expansion and the qualities of concentration. The great books of the world are rich in both. if you compare Chaucers and Gowers treatment of the same theme the sub- ject of The Man of Lawes Tale, for instanceyou will see not only that Chaucers treatment is light and rapid where Gowers is heavy and prolix, but that Chaucer knew where, as the French would say, to lean, where to dwell, where to expand. You may trace this poetic expansion at work in all the great moments or crises of the story. Gower plods on through the trial of Constance for the murder of Dame Hermengild, and through the various incidents which ac- company it, with no variation of tone or pace. Chaucer, when he has brought Constance face to face with her enemies, pauses, as any true poet would, and lets the tragedy of the situation penetrate him- self and his readers. Have ye not seyn sometyme a paW face Among a prees, of him that hath be lad Toward his deth, wher as him gat no grace, And swich a color in his face hath had, Men might~ knowe his face, that was bistad Among~s alle the faces in that route: So stant Custance, and looketh hir aboute. o queen~s, lyuinge in prosperitee Duchesses, and ladv~s euerich one flaueth some rewthe on hir aduersitee; An emperour~s doughter stant allone; She bath no wight to whom to make hir mone. O blood roial! that stondest in this drede, Fer ben thy frend~s at thy greta nede! And a little further on there is a still more striking instance of it, in the exqui- site scene between Constance and her child before she is turned adrift on the North umbrian coast. As for the qualities of condensation they may be traced in the Troilus and Cressid as compared with the Filostrato, and in the Knightes Tale, and elsewhere. But the qualities of expansion develop first in the literary history of the world; those of concentra- tion come later, and the human mind takes longer to fashion the instruments which fit and display them. Although a great writer will have both in some measure, the proportion in which he possesses them will depend upon his date. The progress of literary expression during the last two hundred years has on the whole, and making due allowance for the vast stores of new material which have found their way into literature since Rousseau, been a progress towards concentration. Literature tends more and more to be- come a kind of shorthand. The great writers of this generation take more for granted than the great writers of the last, and the struggle to avoid commonplace and repetition becomes more and more diffused. The mind of the modern writer is on the whole most anxiously concerned with this perpetual necessity for omission, for compression. It will never describe if it can suggest, or argue if it can imply. The first condition of success in letters is nowadays to avoid vaporing, and to wage war upon those platitudes we all submit to with so much cheerful admiration in our Richardson or our Spectator. It was her possession of the qualities of condensation that made Jane Austen what she was. Condensation in literary matters means an exquisite power of choice and discrimination a capacity for isolating from the vast mass of detail which goes to make up human life just those details and no others which will produce a desired effect and blend into one clear and harmonious whole. It im. plies the dete~mination to avoid everything cheap and easy cheapness in sentiment, in description, in caricature. In matters of mere language it means the perpetual effort to be content with one word rather than two, the perpetual impulse to clip and prune rather than expand and length. en. And if to this temper of self-restraint you add the imagination which seizes at once upon the most effective image or detail and realizes at a glance how it will strike a reader, and a spontaneous inter- est in men and women as such, you have arrived at the component parts of such a gift as Jane Austens. Nothing impresses them more strongly upon the reader than a comparison of her work with that of her slightly younger contemporary, Miss Fer. rier. Miss Ferrier had a great deal of humor, some observation, and a store of natural vigor which made her novels wel- come to the generation of Scott and By- STYLE AND MISS AUSTEN. ron. Stronger expressions of praise were used to her and about her than ever seem to have suggested themselves to any con- temporary admirer of Miss Austen, and the author of Marriage was encouraged to believe that her work would rank with that of Scott as a representation of Scot- tish life and manners. But we who read Miss Ferrier with an interval of fifty years between us and her can judge the propor- tions of things more clearly. Miss Fer- rier is scarcely read now, except for the sake of satisfying a literary curiosity, and will gradually drop more and more out of reading. And it is very easy to under- stand why, if one does but approach her books with these qualities of expansion and concentration which go to make up a classic in ones mind. She has little or no faculty of choice, nothing is refused that presents itself; reflections, love-mak- ing, incident, are all superabundant and second-rate. Everything is done to death, whether it is Miss Pratts bustle, or Lady J ulianas finery, or Mr. McDows brutal- ity, and as for the sentimentthese re- flections from the first volume of the Inheritance are a fair average speci- men of it. Ah, thought Gertrude, how will- ingly would I renounce all the pomp of greatness to dwell here in lowly affection with one who would love me and whom I could love in return. How strange that I, who could cherish the very Worm that crawls beneath my feet, have no one be- ing to whom I could utter the thoughts of my heart, no one on whom I could bestow its best affections! She raised her eyes, swimming in tears to heaven, but it was in the poetic enthusiasm of feeling, not in the calm spirit of devotion! There is no parlicular reason why writ- ing of this kind should ever stop; there is nothing intimate and living in it, none of that wrestle of the artist ~vith experi- ence which is the source of all the labors and all the trials of art; it is all conven- tional, traditional, hearsay in fact. The qualities of concentration are altogether wanting. But now, put side by side with Gertrudes sentiment or Mrs. Sinclairs remorse, some of the mental history of Jane Austens drama/is ~ersoncz, and the gulf which this marvellous choosing fac- ulty digs between one writer and another will be plain at once. Anne Eliot, in Persuasion, has arrived at the critical moment of her fate. The man whom she had rejected seven years before has reap- peared upon the scene, and as soon as she is brought in contact with him all lesser affections and inclinations, which had been filling up the time of his absence, disappear. Others might have had a chance if he had remained away, but his return, his neighborhood, rouses a feeling which sweeps all before it. This is the situation. We may imagine, if Miss Fer- rier had had to deal with it, how she would have spun it out; with what rap- tures, what despairs, what appeals to heaven she would have embroidered it! But Jane Austen at once seizes upon the vital points of it, and puts them before us, at first with a sober truth, and then with a little rise into poetry, which is a triumph of style. There was much regret, she says, in her analysis of Annes feelings towards the man she had resolved to sacrifice to her old lover. How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case is not ~vorth inquiring; for there was a Captain Wentworth, and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his for- ever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men than their final separation. Prettier musings of high- wrought love and eternal constancy could never have passed along the streets of Bath than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way. How terse it is, how suggestive, how free from vulgar- ity and commonplace! Another striking instance of this choos- ing instinct of hers is the description of Darceys place, Pemberley, in Pride and Prejudice. There, although there is scarcely any description at all, every stroke of the pen is so managed that any reader with ordinary attention may realize, if he pleases, the whole lie of the park, the look of the house, as Elizabeth surveyed it from the opposite side of the ravine above which it stood, the relative posi- tions of the lawns, stables, and woods. Anybody with a turn that way could sketch it with ease, and yet there is no effort, no intention to describe, nothing but a clear and vivid imagination working with that self-restraint, that concentration, which is the larger half of style. This self-restraint indeed is her important, her determining quality. In other ways she has great de- ficiencies. For fine instances of the qual- ities of expansion we must go elsewhere than to Jane Austen. Emotion, inspira~ tion, glow, and passion are not hers; she is a small, thin classic. But classic she is; for her work is a typical English em- 63 64 THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. bodiment of those drier and more bracing elements of style in which French litera- ture has always been rich, and our own perhaps comparatively poor. M. A. W. THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. Daily Chronicle, Nov. 29. B~ the retirement of Dr. Trench from the archiepiscopal see of Dublin, a well- known figure is withdrawn from active participation in the affairs and direction of the Irish Church. The letter announc- ing his intention to retire was read yester- day at a special meeting of the United Synods of Dublin, Glendalough, and Kil- dare, and as a mark of respect to the re- tiring prelate the whole assemblage rose and stood during the delivery of his mes- sage. While every one will regret that failing health and physical infirmity have prompted the archbishop to seek to be relieved of his public duties, the action he has taken is perhaps the wisest course for him to pursue, and in retirement he will be able to secure that rest and immunity from anxiety which are denied to the occupant of an episcopal throne. During the forty- five years of his ministry in the Church the career of Dr. Trench has been somewhat chequered, and not wholly uneventful. While holding the small incumbency of Curdbridge Chapel he first attracted pub- lic attention by the publication of two volumes of poems which established his reputation as a poet. These so impressed Dr. Wilberforce, then rector of Alver- stoke, that he requested Mr. Trench to become his curate. Thence on the prefer- ment of his rector, Mr. Trench was pre- sented to Itchenstoke, which he resigned on appointment to the deanery of West. minster. His tenure of this office was marked by great intellectual activity, and it was during this period that he published some of his best works. In 1864, he was selected to succeed Dr. XVhateley in the archbishopric of Dublin, from which he now desires to retire. During his resi- nence in Dublin, he has proved himself a true benefactor to Ireland, and his admin- istration of the diocese during a difficult and trying period of twenty-one years has been conducted on priri~tIples the most just and wise. His administrative powers were amply proved by the tact he dis- played at the time of the disestablishment, and he leaves his diocese in a peaceful and flourishing condition. Hislastactin the refusal to accept the provision of a retiring allowance confirms the disinterest- edness and self-denial which have marked his public career, and he retires into pri- vate life with the good wishes and sympa- thy of all who have known him, either directly as an archbishop, or indirectly through the books he has published. Times, Dec. r. WiTH all the dignity of high desert, and all the warmth of mutual appreciation, the Archbishop of Dublin has placed his resig- nation in the hands of his Synod of a load of office which, after twenty-one years of continued strain, he is no longer able to bear. There have been several such res- ignations in this country since Parliament consented to give the requisite facilities, but they seem to have come in the ordi- nary course of nature, and they only re- mind one that after three score and ten the strength of man is apt to be labor and sorro~v. Dr. Trench has exhausted his life and his forces in the discharge of one of the most painful tasks that ever fell to the lot of a bishop, or any ruler of men. He has had to lead a losing and divided cause ; to command in a campai~n fore- doomed to defeat; to conduct a harassed retreat; to submit to hostile terms and make the best of a diminished position; to sacrifice in a sense all, with the saving of honor, and to leave his work so far in- complete as not even to know in what form to make his resignation real and effectual. The knot which death usually cuts has in this case to be untied. It is to be feared, however, that this is but a small part of the legacy of difficulties Dr. Trench leaves to the Church of Ireland and his successors. Between the charac- ter of the man and the part he has had to perform on the great stage of public life there is a certain disparity which adds to the pathetic interest of the event. There are men who might be thought made for such a crisis; there are men who might be thought to have even provoked it, and who only hand over to others the work they had spontaneously initiated. In this case we seem to see only misfits and cross purposes. It is impossible, indeed, to say what better terms could have been made for the doomed Establishment, or what manner of man would have been fitter for ~vork to be done. Nevertheless, the man and the office and the period forcibly illustrate the mixed fortunes and conflict- ing conditions which fortune, with a cer- tain playfulness, is often found to combine in one personal career.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Fifth Series, No, 2116. January 10, 1885. From Beginning, Vohime XLIX. Vol. CLXIV, CONTENTS. I. MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES, . . Fortnightly Review, II. BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. Con clusion, Macmillans Magazine, ITT. LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. By Laurence Blackwoods Magazine, Oliphant, IV. DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE Blackwoods Magazine, V. UNDER A GREEN BOUGH Blackwoods Magazine, VI. WURzBURG AND VIENNA; SCRAPS FROM A DIARY. Part II Contemporary Review,. VII. GENERAL GORGET Saturday Review,. AN UNHEARD SERENADE, NATURES SILENCE COMPROMISE. By Lord Tennyson; POETRY 66 How OFTEN HAVE I NOW OUT- 66 WATCHED THE NIGHT, 66 IN MEMORIAM PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & CO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,freeof~5osiage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money shouldbe sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTNLL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. 67 75 84 92 104 118 127 66 66 66 AN UNHEARD SERENADE, ETC. AN UNHEARD SERENADE. THE soft petunias dim-seen snow With hymns of fragrance hails the night; The bats like shadows come and go, The owlets wing their noiseless flight; Hushed is our garden, herb and tree; Rest peaceful, love, and think of me. Beneath the lamps of heaven I lie (And heaven for us is still the same); Deep in the silver-clouded sky One great star burns with steadfast flame Shut close, sweet eyes, from trouble free; Sleep soft, my love, though far from me. The sweetest star above the rest Watch oer thy sleep with influence mild The breezes hastening from the west Bring thee glad dreams of home and child; May all unrest thy pillow flee; Dream on, my heart, and beat for me. The dawn is come, the channels flow, The bindweed shows her purple, sheen; The flame.acacia* takes the glow With all her arms of waving green; Light of my life, whereer thou be, Wake happy, love, and pray for me. Temple Bar. W. WATERFIELD. * The flamboyant, or gold Mohur tree (Poinciana regia), the glory of Indian gardens. NATURES SILENCE. MYSTERIOUS sponsor of Godlike humanity Nature, deputed custodian of Time, All careful for needs when exposing no van- ity Punishing ignorance rather than crime Why through the ages as lost in reflection Speak you no word to your suffering charge? Leaving each folly to end in dejection, Each roaming fancy to wander at large. The children of men in their anxious solicitude (Rocked in their infantile cradle of earth), To find consolation in evry vicissitude Turn unto thee as the agent of birth. Some with resource of a finer conception Steal from the zephyr your snatches of song: Piece them together, but prone to deception, Hearing imperfectly, render them wrong. Perhaps in your silence you wield an authority Voices of stones een could never bestow, Inducing the sad ones, if not the majority, Higher to seek what is wanting below. These in your reticence, find confirmation, Not of a leaderless genral control, But of the truth, of divine revelation, That a Creator embraces the whole. Temple Bar. F. W. J. COMPROMISE. BY LORD TENNYSON. IN the following epigrammatic lines we have Lord Tennysons mind on the l)resent posture of our political affairs. It is uncertain to which steersman of the political ships the epigram is addressed, since it would be ap- plicable to either Lord Salisbury or to Mr. Gladstone; but it is quite clear that Lord Tennyson is, like the Duke of Argyll, strongly in favor of a compromise Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act Of steering; for the river here, my friend, Parts in two channels moving to one end; This goes straight forward to the cataract, That streams about the bend; But tho the cataract seem the nearer way Whateer the crowd on either bank may say, Take thou the bend, twill save thee many a day. We hope almost against hope that the laureate may yet have cause to trust to what he calls Our crownd Republics crowning common sense. St. Jamess Gazette. How often have I now outwatched the night Alone in this grey chamber toward the sea Turning its deep-arcaded balcony! Round yonder sharp acanthus leaves the light Comes stealing, red at first, then golden bright; Till when the day-god in his strength and glee Springs from the orient flood victoriously, Each cusp is tipped and tongued with quiv. ering white. The islands that were blots of purple bloom, Now tremble in soft liquid luminous haze, Uplifted from the sea-floor to the skies; And dim discerned erewhile through rc~eate gloom, A score of sails now stud the waterways, Ruffling like swans afloat from paradise. j. A. SYMONDS. IN MEMORIAM: HENRY STORMONT LEIFCHILD. IN what fair presence hast thou lately been, Genius of Death? Hast thou a moment seen Ilito of the Resurrection, that thy face Is like to love, and soft is thy embrace; And through the darkness of thine eyes in- drawn A beam of dawn? Lightly the spirit, parted from its clay, Rises; but thou dost wait to smooth away The pain of high endeavor from the brow, Leaving it but its aspiration now, Hope, and the earnest purpose strongly willed, And now fulfilled. Spectator. F. L. MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. From The Fortnightly Review. MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES.* THE two entertaining and instructive volumes in which Mr. Edmund Yates has recorded the experiences and reminis- cences of a varied, animated, and success- ful career, had as their predecessors some interesting recollections by a popular nov- elist, and have been followed by the narra- tive of Episodes in the Second Life of a distinguished journalist, told by himself. Certain characteristics are possessed by each of these autobiographies in common. Mr. Yates combines, or has combined, in his own person the function of Mr. James Payn and Mr. Antonio Gallenga. Like the former he is a novelist; like the latter he is, or has been, a writer of newspaper articles, and among the most locomotive and picturesque.of newspaper special cor- respondents. With Mr. Yates, as with the two other literary autobiographers, existence has been a strenuous and a prosperous affair, full of labor and effort, but of effort ending in-fruition, and of labor sweetened by fame. Mr. Yates tells us how first, at the bidding of the post-office authorities, he performed rapid journeys between London and foreign capitals, and how when the government was taking over the telegraphs, he visited nearly every portion of the United King- dom; how, next, at the bidding of the editor of the A4tw York Herald, he had no sooner returned to England from Amer- ica, than he was summoned to Paris, and then instructed to proceed without a mo- ments delay to Vienna or Madrid, to St. Petersburg or Berlin. The correspon- dence of Mr. Gallenga was for the most part in a more serious vein than that of Mr. Yates. He was present at scenes of greater historic significance, and he chron- icled the decision of more momentous issues. But both men were in their sepa- rate departments of journalism equally in the first rank; equally prompt, accurate, persevering, graphic. This discipline, perhaps the most trying of any that the * Edmund Yates: kzs Recollections and EzAe- riences. 2 vols. (Bentley). Egtisodes of my Second L, by A. Galienga. 2 vols. (Chapman & Hall). Some Literary Recollections, by James Payn. z vol. (Smith, Elder, & Co.). press affords, was never submitted to by Mr. Payn, between whom, however, and Mr. Yates there exist, in spite of marked dissimilarities, some resemblances or coincidences. Both may be said to have been brought up in the school, and at the feet, of Dickens; both enjoyed in varying degrees his friendship; both formed his acquaintance about the same time, Mr. Yates in 1854, Mr. Payn two years later; both made their real literary dde5ut in Household Words. The first appearance of each in print was poetical Mr. Yates, when a mere boy, sending to Mr. Harri- son Ainsworth some stanzas which were inspired by Thackerays At the Church Gate; and Mr. Payn at the same ten- der age contributing a composition en- titled The Poets Death to Leigh Hunts journal. Both have, or have had, many common friends, and many of the same famous or familiar characters appear and reappear in the pages of the books of each; The education, like the natural tastes and aptitudes, of Mr. Payn and Mr. Yates was widely different. The former, who went from Eton to Woolwich, and from Woolwich to Cambridge, was with- out any turn whatever for languages. Languages, he writes, have been al- ways as unattainable to me as the science of music. I spent many years over French and German, but could never read, far less converse in, either tongue with facility. Mr. Yates received the rudi- ments of a sound classical and general training at Highgate School, was trans- ferred to Dusselddrf and Bonn, whence in nine months time he returned to England with a perfect command of the German vocabulary and accent. It is to his knowl- edge of French and German that Mr. Yates attributes much of his success in life, and notably the opportunities of studying men, manners, and cities, which his Continental missions for the post- office supplied. One admirable quality pervades, in a conspicuous degree, each of these works. I do not think, writes Mr. Yates in his preface, I have said any harsh thing of any person, alive or dead. I am certain that I have not said such a thing con- sciously. As a matter of fact, Mr. Yates 68 MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. has not said it at all. Whatever judg- ment, writes Mr. Gallenga, I may have passed upon myself, whether the picture of my character resulting from the narra- tive of my thoughts and deeds be too partial or too severe, I must at least be held guiltles~ of having indulged in any personality offensive to the dead or liv- ing. As for Mr. Payn, he makes no professions, because he spares himself the trouble of a preface, but he is consistently amiable and genial. It is only natural that there should be more traces of a mel- ancholy humor, bordering on bitterness, in Mr. Gallenga than in Mr. Yates or Mr. Payn. In the first place, he was a patriot and an exile. He took life seriously; he felt acutely the vicissitudes and humilia- tions to which, in his earliest attempts to earn a living in America and in En- gland as a teacher of languages and a writer of magazine articles, he was com- pelled to submit. In the second place, though the success which Mr. Gallenga achieved as an English journalist and the command he acquired of forcible and cor- rect English are for a foreigner unique, he never forgot that he was a stranger, living among strangers. In spite, he writes, of the unfailing kindness and deference which I received abroad, I was full of silly complaints borrowed from Dante about the salt that savors other peoples bread, and the hardship of climb- ing and descending other peoples stairs. But he had other hardships than these, and for some years he was a man with a grievance. He could not get back his manuscripts when he wanted,or see edi- tors when he called. Paying editors were not many, and were accessible to none but their intimate friends. Of De- lane and Morris, under whom he did much splendid work for the Times, he speaks in terms of unstinted admiration; but, with the exception of Mr. Sala, there is no one about whom he expresses himself with more than conventional cordiality. Elect- ed in 1853, after his name had been down nine years, a member of the Athenaeum Club, he did not much value the mere honor of belonging to a learned society. As, he continues, members have to wait at least a score of years before they are balloted for, by far the greatest num ber consisted of twaddling and cackling fogies, whose bald pates, toothless gums, and rickety limbs sent a chill through my veins, and acted as an unpleasant reminder that I also had left the mid career of life behind me. I met but few old friends, and made fewer new ones. Again, The Athen~um Club was to me a workshop where I saw few I knew, and hardly spoke to those few. Literary men like Bulwer and Disraeli; statesmen like Lord Clar- endon, Lord Granville, Lord Salisbury,. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, and Lord Hartington; diplomatists like Lord Ly- ons, Lord Cowley, Lord Arnpthill, Lord Lytton, Lord Howden, have all come with- in the orbit of my acquaintance; but with all the good-will on my part and all the courtesy and amiability on theirs, the intercourse almost invariably ended where it began. The truth is, as he explains, Mr. Gallenga was very busy, very shy, and very near-sighted. Mr. Payn, indeed~ is uniformly cheery, sometimes positively chirpy. Yet a bubbling drop of some- thing very like acrimony occasionally wells up to the smooth and smiling surface. My experience, he says, of men and women of letters, which has been contin- uous, and extends over thirty years, is that for kindness of heart they have no equals. I have known but one absolutely offensive man of letters, and even he was said to be pleasant when sober, though as I only met him some half-dozen times, and his habits were peculiar, I never had a fair chance of finding him in that condi- tion. I am well aware, he writes in another place, that there are a good many people who djslike me very cordial ly. If they do so for a good reason I exceedingly regret it. But there are some folks whose animosity is the highest of compliments. There is in my opinion no more fatal weakness in human nature than the desire to be thought well of by every- body a doctrine to which perhaps no one can take exception. Neither Mr. Payn nor Mr. Gallenga is as uniformly charitable and kindly, as absolutely free from all after thought of rancor, all hint- ing of faults and hesitating of dislikes, as Mr. Yates, who, indeed, shows himself in MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. 69 these volumes to be the incarnation of buoyancy, good nature, and good fellow- ship. Mr. Payn and Mr. Yates seem both of them to be brimming over with an exu- berance of joyousness which may well ex- cite the admiration of those whose moral mercury seldom rises above a figure con- temptibly low. It is not so long since, if I remember correctly, that Mr. Payn pub- lished a volume of stories called High Spirits. Mr. Payns title has been from his earliest youth Mr. Yatess property, and as Mr. Payn, although he was not addicted to any form of physical exercise, had as a boy a fatal propensity towards practical jokes, so Mr. Yatess inborn vivacity was so indotnitable that his de- partmental chief in the post-office bade him, as a preliminary discipline to the days routine, walk from St. Johns Wood to St. Martins-Ic-Grand instead of being driven on the omnibus. For genuine amiability, as has been said, the palm must be given to Mr. Yates. His vol- umes are not only in their way a master- piece, excellently written, whether as re- gards taste or literary style, with their component parts admirably arranged~ the product at once of an exceedingly clever man, wielding a practised and artistic pen; they are also the product of a kindly, courteous, and considerate nature, strong and impetuous, but sympathetic even to tenderness. Unless Mr. Yates was en- dowed in an unusually liberal measure with these qualities, it is certain that he would not have refrained from some ani- madversions which might have been par- donably severe on Thackeray. Mention is made of Thackeray by Mr. Payn and Mr. Gallenga as well. Mr. Payn tells what some persons may suppose to be a characteristic anecdote of the great nov- elist. Even BI will call him B,for indeed he was busy enough, though he made no honey speaking to Thackeray of Leitch Ritchie, admitted that he was a very gentlemanly man. But how does B know? said Thackeray. Mr. Gallen- ga, as an instance of Thackerays playful- ness, cites the following: One day, at a large mens party, when we were sixteen present, as I was seated nearly at the lower end of the table and I was talking to my neighbor on the right, our host, from the opposite end, where the conversation was flagging, suddenly and apropos to nothing, called out loudly to me across the table, and asked: Pray, Mr. Gallenga (he never omitted the mister), pray, who is your den- tist? There was instant silence, and most of the guests looked up at me. But I was ready with my answer and spoke out instantly. John Heath, No. i i. Albemarle Street, the best in London. Upon which the guests looked at each other for a few moments won- dering, and soon the confused buzz of voices went on as before. What whim was it that prompted Michael Angelo Titmarsh with that apparently idle question? Did it arise from an ill-natured desire to call attention to tbe havoc that time might have made with my jaws and at the truly marvellous skill with which art now repairs the grievous losses of nature? Did he expect me to blush or faint like any middle-aged madam, the mystery of whose golden chignon or rosy cheek is by some untoward accident brought into light in the presence of her most devoted admirers? Or was that merely his pleasantry, his wish to give a fillip to a languid conversation by sup- plying a new subject which might raise a laugh no matter at whose expense? If the latter was his purpose, it flew wide of the mark, for though some of our friends may have been struck by the strangeness of his sudden sally, no one seemed to perceive its drift. No one noticed its fun or humor. The joke, if joke it was, fell flat. As there were reasons which might have excused Mr. Yates if he had adopted a very different tone in regard to Thack- cray, so there is much in the unavoidable circumstances of a literary career which might have prompted him, as well as Mr. Payn and Mr. Gallenga, to reflections far more acrimonious than are to be found in any of the volumes I am now considering. The life of a writer was defined by Pope as a warfare upon earth. Few warriors could have illustrated the principles of amnesty with more generosity than Mr. Yates. Speaking of literature, Mr. Payn says there is no calling so bright and pleasant, so full of genial friendship, so radiant with the glories of success; but there is also no pursuit so doubtful, so full of risks, so subject to despondency and disappointments, so open to despair. Oh, my young friend, with a turn for literature, think twice and thrice before committing 70 MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. yourself to it, or you may bitterly regret to find yourself where that turn may take you. Yet though these are Mr. Payns sentiments, everything is rose-colored in his autobiography, and as it is with Mr. Payn so is it in a greater degree with Mr. Yates. Now it is no sufficient explana- tion of this circumstance in the case of a man like Mr. Yates to say that he has been brilliantly successful. Success in most men is no remedy for resentment, and does not remove the causes of embit- terment. If there ever existed a calling which could justify embitterment and re- sentment, it is that of the professional writer. Thackeray in one of the most acid chapters in his Book of Snobs, after having shown that literature was full of them, exclaimed in bitter irony, There are no snobs in literature. Mr. Yates has had a good deal more to do with jour- nalism than Mr. Payn: he has therefore been brought more into contact with all kinds and conditions of gentlemen who write. He has had as many opportunities as an Old Bailey barrister, or Mr. George Lewis himself, of seeing the seamy side of human nature. It is not too much to say that the social commerce and the l)rO- fessional intercourse inseparable from a literary life is to moderately sensitive na- tures a protracted torture. The compe- tition which must be encountered and defeated before the position is ~von, is incessant, bitter, and frequently humiliat- ing. When a sort of tableland of success and influence has been reached, and the competitor has at his disposal some degree of literary patronage, he is upon the thres- hold of fresh troubles. The responsible conductor of any literary enterprise has to deal with every sort of knavery and incapacfty as to which let the intelligent reader consult Mr. Payns remarks in the last hundred pages of his volume. He is perpetually assailed by the importunity of incompetence and the impudence of inapti- tude. He ~vill find himself beset alter- nately by the entreaties and impertinences of the opiniated dullard whose conceit is a bar to his improvement, and who in his relations with the men whose kindly offices he solicits begins with flattery, then breaks into a snarl, and ends by suing with a whine. The monitions of experience are thrown away upon these persons. They are the parasites of our literary system, and it is infinitely to the credit of Mr. Yatess native kindliness that he should have been able to practise a self-control beyond that of Mr. Payn, and not have had an unkind word to say upon the subject. There is, I firmly be- lieve, no instance on record of a man of letters who, having trodden so persistently the uphill path of an opposed career as Mr. Yates, and having gone through such a series of exertions and encounters, ever took so urbane and kind a retrospect of the past. In his chapter entitled The Influence of Pendennis, Mr. Yates gives us what is, from an autobiographical point of view, one of the most interesting portions of his work To get admitted into the ranks of literary men, among whom I might possibly, by in- dustry and perseverance, rise to some position, began to be my constant thought; and I was encouraged in the hope that I might succeed, perhaps more than anything else, by reading the career of Pendennis, which, in its well- remembered yellow cover, had then been ap- pearing month by month for the last two years, and in its complete form was just obtainable at the libraries. There is no prose story in our English language, not even the Christ- mas Carol, not even The Newcomes, not even the Scenes of Clerical Life or Silas Marner and now I have named what are to me the most preciouswhich interests and affects me like Pendennis. It had this effect from the very first. I knew most of it so thoroughly. The scenes in the provincial theatre the Fotheringay, her fat her, the prompter, the company were such perfect creations (to this day I have never seen any hint as to where Thackeray got his study of these people, who were quite out of his usual lne); the position of Pendennis and his mother was so analogous to that of me and mine her devotion, his extravagance; the fact that I was personally acquainted with Andrew Arcedeckne, the original of Foker, in whom he was reproduced in the most ludi- crously lifelike manner: all this awakened in me a special interest in the book; and when, in the course of Pens fortunes, he enters upon the literary career, writes his verses for the Spring Annual, dines with Bungay, visits Shandon, is engaged on the Pall Mall Gazette, and chums with Warrington, who makes that ever-to-be-quoted speech about the power of the press: Look at that, Pen! There she is, the great engine; she never sleeps, etc., when I came to this portion of the book my fate was sealed. To be a member of that won- derful Corporation of the Goosequill, to be recognized as such, to be one of those jolly fellows who earned money and fame, as I thought, so easily and so pleasantly, was the one desire of my life; and, if zeal and applica- tion could do it, I determined that my desire should be gratified. One can understand that men should, even from the sober eminence of middle age, look back to the novels of Marryat MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. or Lever as the sources from which they first derived their passion for a naval or military career. But this is very different from a man of Mr. Yatess maturity and experience deliberately asserting that Pendennis impelled him into literature. It may be so, and there seems throughout Mr. Yatess nature a strong vein of senti- ment which would partially account for the fact. But the prosaic critic may be pardoned for suspecting that he has un- consciously exaggerated the influence of the book. Mr. Yates had from the very first, partly, it may be, as a result of his thorough training in French and German, partly as a gift of nature, a real capacity for literature. He has always possessed a faculty of neat and concise expression, flavored by wit, fun, and irony, that is ex- ceedingly rare amongst English writers, and that renders him, in certain kinds of composition, unsurpassed by any and un- approached by most of his contempora- ries. Ability of this sort would. have found its right field of display, and if Mr. Yates will forgive the young gentleman, then fresh from Oxford, who called upon him in i866, at the Post Office, with a let. ter of introduction from Tom Hood, and of whose articles in Temple Bar he was good enough to approve, for saying it, neither Pendennis nor its author had perhaps as much to do as he supposes with the initial step he took on the road to literary fame. At the same time Mr. Yates ought to know and the fact that he is now deliberately of opinion that such is the case, even if he misconceives the circumstances, furnishes a suggestive clue to, and is a significant commentary on, the appreciative, impulsive, and sym- pathetic aspects of his character. It is curious that if Pendennis first made Mr. Yates a ~vriter, the autbor of Pen- dennis should have been directly instru- mental in investing the year r8~8 with the vast importance with which, in his seventh chapter, Mr. Yates says it was fraught to him. The reference is to the events that led to Mr. Yatess withdrawal from the Garrick Club. Both for its in- terest and its taste the Garrick chapter is excellent. The most striking portion of the club in those days was the smoking- room on the ground floor, built out over the leads a good-sized apartment, comfortably furnished, well-ventilated, and adorned by large pictures specially painted for it by Stanfield, David Roberts, and Louis Haghe. Among the habi/zids of the establishment ~vere Charles Kemble, Assassin Smith, Clarkson Stanfield, 7 Sir William de Bathe, Samuel Lover, Robert Bell, Charles Reade, Peter Cun- ningham, Frank Fladgate, better known as Papa, and J. D., most mellow of elderly topers, with all the characteristics of Bardolph of Brasenose a veteran who drank and swore in the aood old-fash. ioned way, and who came to a sad end, poor fellow, dying alone in his Temple chambers, on a Christmas eve, of loss of blood from an accident, while the men in the rooms below heard him staggering about and groaning, but took no notice, as they fancied their neighbor was only in his usual condition. Thackeray was the presidinggenius of the place. As Mr. Gallenga has said in his concluding chap- ter, Thackeray was a member but not much of a frequenter of the Athenaeum Club, his preference being all for the Gar- rick, a club better suited to the free and easy, somewhat Bohemian, tastes and habits of his early days. When Mr. Yates was first admitted to the Garrick he was not eighteen years of age. XVhen he left it he was twenty-seven, and Thack- eray, who was the cause of his leaving it, was forty-seven. The little article con- tributed by Mr. Yates to a paper long since dead, at which Thackeray took grave umbrage, scarcely deserves the censures passed upon it by its author. It is simply a piece of smart, hurried, impertinent, and curiously young writing. Now, as Thack- eray was then twenty years Mr. Yatess senior, what one might have expected. from him was, if he had been incurably wounded, silent contempt; or if he had been merely annoyed, a sharpish caution to Mr. Yates. The article in question did: not violate the sanctity of club life. It disclosed no private or semi-private con- versations; it said absolutely nothing more. about Thackeray than was at the time on. the lips of every one, and ~vas, therefore,. public property. Thackeray, however, very absurdly, as all cool-headed persons will think, addressed to Mr. Yates a for- mal letter, which, as its recipient says,. was severe to the point of cruelty being,. indeed, an inexplicably bitter outburst of personal feeling, and a censure, in com- parison with the offence committed, ludi- crously exaggerated. What, however,. under the circumstances, Mr. Yates ought to have done is perfectly clear. Young. men of twenty-seven cannot allow them-. selves the luxury of engaging their supe- riors and elders in single combat. Their business is to be conciliatory and to wait. Mr. Yates should clearly have written to Thackeray an apologetic disclaimer, as-~ 72 MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. suring the great novelist that he had mis- understood the motives with, and the conditions under, which the offending arti- cle was penned; that on reading it the author recognized its impropriety, and that doing this he could only cry Pec- cavi ! express his extreme regret, and throw himself on his elders consideration. One of two things must then have hap- pened: either Thackeray would have ac- cepted the apology and condoned the offence, or, by refusing to do so, he would have made a graceless exhibition of churl- ishness, and public opinion, even the opin- ion of the Garrick Club, would have been with Mr. Yates. The letter which Mr. Yates prepared in draft, so far from being an apology, was a challenge, a justification of all he had originally said, and a jus- tification by reference to instances which would have been most exasperating to Thackeray. I took the liberty, to quote his own words, of reminding Thackeray of some past errors of his own, not the result of the hasty occupation of an hour, but deliberately extending over a long space of time, and marked by the most wanton, reckless, and aggravating person- alitv. I reminded him how, in his Yellowplush Correspondence, he had described Dr. Lard- ner and Sir E. L. Buiwer: One was pail, and wor spektickles, a wig, and a white neckcloth; the other was slim, with a hook nose, a pail fase, a small waist, a pare of falling shoulders, a tight coat, and a catarack of black satting tumbling out of his busm, and falling into a gilt velvit weskit. How he had held them up to ridicule by calling them Docthor Athana- sius Lardner and Mistaw Edwad Lytton Buiwig, by reproducing the brogue of the one and the drawl of the other, and by exhibiting them as contemptible in every way. In regard to the Garrick Club, I called Mr. Thackerays attention to the fact that he had not merely, in his Book of Snobs, and under the pseudonym of Captain Shindy, given an exact sketch of a former member, Mr. Stephen Price, reproducing Mr. Prices frequent and well-known phrases; he had not merely, in the same book, drawn on a wood-block a close resemblance of Wyndham Smith, a fellow- member, which was printed among the Sport- ing Snobs, Mr. W. Smith being a sporting man; he had not merely, in Pendennis, made a sketch of a former member, Captain Granby Calcraft, under the name of Captain Granby Tiptoff, but in the same book, under the name of Foker, he had most offensively, though amusingly, reproduced every characteristic, in language, manner, and gesture, of our fellow~ member, Mr. Andrew Arcedeckne, and had gone so far as to give an exact woodcut por- trait of him, to Mr Arcedecknes intense an- noyance. Although this letter was not sent, the spirit of Mr. Yatess actual rejoinder, ap- proved though it was by Dickens, was scarcely more conciliatory. There is no need to pursue the details of the incident. The alternative was at last presented to Mr. Yates of apologizing to Thackeray or of quitting the club. Here Mr. Yates made a second mistake. He declined to apologize, and preferred the doom of exile. That he ~vas to a great extent in the right ought really not to have weighed with him. Matters of this sort are practically de- cided not on their merits but by the preju- dices and the partialities of a majority. Mr. Yates has given the facts; only a few remarks are necessary to place them in their proper perspective. The inference is irresistible that Thackerays feelings were worked upon from outside, and that influences hostile to Mr. Yates were from the first brought to bear upon him. Dash- ing and successful young men of strongly defined personality, and superabun- dance of animal spirits, are never likely to be popular among their elders. It also seems reasonable to suppose there may have been a clique antagonistic to Mr. Yates in the Garrick Club, of which Mr. Yatess friend, now deceased, who men- tioned to Thackeray the authorship of the article which produced the mischief, was possibly the leader. Again, Mr. Yatess champion and adviser in the whole matter was Thackerays rival, whom Thackeray himself, however fervently he could, as Mr. Payn shows was the case, admire his genius, personally disliked. in this matter there can be no doubt that Dickens showed himself as bad an adviser as Delane, prac- tised man of the world though he was, did upon another occasion when Dickens invoked his services as a counsellor. It would be exceedingly presumptuous on the part of one who never had the honor of being in Thackerays company except, indeed, once, some thirty years ago, when the great man, coming down to West Somerset to inspect a small country house which he then thought of buying or renting, noticed him as a child to attempt any estimate of Thackerays character. Anthony Trollope, who on the strength of a seven years, though ex- ceedingly slight, acquaintance with the author of Vanity Fair, dared to pen a monograph on him, was called to account with contemptuous severity by the surviv- ing relatives of the object of his admira- tion. Some of the stories told by Mr. Yates of Thackeray are as good as any- thing of the kind which can be expected. MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. 73 There are also, as we have seen, some reminiscences of him in Mr. Gallengas work, and a few pages are devoted to him by Mr. Payn. But they really tell us nothing. Death, the great leveller, is also the great distorter, and it is the most diffi- cult thing in the world to arrive at any- thing like a complete idea of the identity of so many-sided ~ man as Thackeray. Lord Beaconsfield, in his last novel, En- dymion, drew him, as to Disraeli the younger he seemed to be, at full length in St. Barbe. But then Lord Beaconsfield may have travestied his original, just as we are assured he caricatured and calum- niated John Wilson Croker. Upon those who were personally acquainted with a great man gone, death produces an effect upon the moral features of their illustri- ous friend analogous to that which it is said to produce upon the human physiog- nomy. Countenances which, while the breath remained in the body, were un- lovely, harsh, angular, or coarse, are tra- ditionally supposed to be invested with a spiritual beauty and ennoblement di- rectly the muscles, sinew, and marrow are reduced to an inanimate clay. It is the fashion nowadays for the moral being of a man to undergo a similar transforma- tion. Again, what is called character is habitually invested with an unreal unity. Popes celebrated couplet, Nothing so true as what you once let fall, Most women have no character at all, is applicable to the majority of the stronger as ~vell as to the weaker sex. Consistency is the last thing one should look for, except amongst the most elevated of their kind, and not always with them. It is just possible that the infinite variety of the man, and the inconsistency and contradictions which it involved, may be the chief reasons that render it so hard for those who never knew him personally to form a notion of what manner of man Thackeray was. What are called esti- mates of character are in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand the records of personal, of interested, and of, therefore, more or less untrustworthy impressions. They are true as far as they go and no further. If of two mendicants, who meet a pedestrian, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the street, the former receives sixpence and the latter nothing, the estimates which they each form of the same individual will be dia- metrically opposite. The beggar who has pocketed the dole will heap blessings upon him; the beggar who has failed to secure a copper will pursue him with execrations. Of Thackeray no biography worthy of the name has yet been published, and even when it is published it will fail to supply us in all probability with any formula of manageable dimensions in which we can appraise the man. Everything about him [says Mr. Gallengal his humor, his countenance, his voice, was changeable. In the depth of his heart I am inclined to believe he was all kindness, but all sourness and uncharitableness on the surface. Like Carlyle, he spoke precisely as he wrote. His cynicism, his misanthrophy and pessimism, his hatred of mobbism and fiunkeyism, were with him inexhaustible themes. But it was in a great measure mere bounce rodomontade and fanfaronade and it grew louder and more blatant in proportion as his domestic fortunes improved, and his real good nature ripened and mellowed. Mr. Yatess volumes, apart from their purely personal interest, have and the remark holds, to some extent, good of Mr. Gallengas and Mr. Payns a genu- ine historical value. Mr. Gallengas book, indeed, contains a succinct, lucid, and admirably written account of the patriotic movement in Italy which came to a tri- umphant close when, on that memorable 20th of September, 1870, the troops of General Cadorna passed into the Eter- nal City. Mr. Gallenga occupies a promi- nent place in that brilliant galaxy of special and war correspondents, the other bright particular stars of ~vhich are W. H. Russell, Sala, Forbes, and Cameron of the Standard. He has also, as a political writer, especially on foreign affairs, left behind him a reputation in Printing House Square which will never be forgot- ten. Personally I do not think that any work I was allowed to do in my time was ever re- warded by a word of praise more gratifying t~ my self-esteem than that which Delane be- stowed upon me from the beginning to the end of that seven years severe trial. He had great confidence in my judgment and knowl- edge of Continental affairs, and allowed me to conduct the wars and revolutions of that event- ful period at my own discretion. He heard that the Times authority on military subjects never stood higher. He was told by club quidnuncs, who congratulated him on the war articles in the great journal, that there was only one man in England who understood such subjects so thoroughly, and that was Sir John Burgoyne, and he laughed in his sleeve as he answered that they the quidnuncs were perhaps not much out in their surmises. At the same time, however, there were many anxious moments at the various stages tif the 74 MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES. Franco-German war, especially during the three gent notion of a political situation in a great days before Metz, towards the close of the remote capital. siege of Paris, or the campaign of Aurelles de Mr. Gallenga makes some suggestive Paladine and Chanzy on the Loire, in which a remarks on the social revolution which sudden turn in the fortune of arms seemed has been accomplished since the period probable, seemed imminent, and when, never- of his first stay in England. Men, he theless, I pinned my faith to Moltkes genius, tells us then travelled little; the women and staked, as it were, the ?iYmes reputation on the Germans complete final victory; and seldom left home except for their three then my good editor came to me late in the ~veeks sea-bathing at Herne Bay or evening pale with anxiety, begging me not to be Broadstairs. They seldom saw the inside rash, not too confident, for he had seen this, and of a theatre, and few of them were great he had heard that, and competent judges, whom readers, for Mudie was not yet, nor Wes- he named, among others Colonel B, had terton nor the Grosvenor or the London assured him that we were venturing too far, and Library, and books were hard to borrow that events would soon contradict our state- and dear to buy. When Mr. Yates first ments and demolish our theories, greatly to knew London, Butcher Hall Lane had not the loss of the Times prestige. When Paris surrendered, and Moltke and I had triumphed disappeared, Alton Ale houses abounded over prostrate France, my dear Delane drew a to the east of Temple Bar, Almacks was long breath and wrote to me a kind letter of in its zenith, the Adelaide Gallery had congratulation, stating how glad he was that just been taken by Laurent, the Holborn he had trusted me, that I had always been Restaurant was a swimming bath, Vaux- right in my forecast, and had not, by one sin- hall, though in its decadence, dingy, gle false step during that long warlike crisis, dear, and absurdly expensive, was popu- misled the English reading public. I have lar, the overland route was on view in still the letter before me, and I value it far Waterloo Place, the park was full of pro- more highly than any Red or Black Eagle that Bismarck could have bestowed upon me. digious dandies, cheap chop-houses and foreign eating-houses were in vogue, Paddy Green was in his patriarchal bloom. There was none of the display, luxury, and glitter of these latter times, but there was much comfort, much geniality, and an amount of sociability, and a facility for cheap amusements now unknown. Bo- hemia then occupied a recognized and considerable place in the map of London. Mr. Sala was brought from Rools oyster- shop to be presented to the Duke of Sutherland, then Marquess of Stafford, who was loud in praise of Colonel Quaggs Conversion, at the Fielding Club. Robert Brough was denouncing the sham culture of pseudo-classicists in his lyrics, and published in his Songs of the Governing Classes a passionate attack upon social distinctions with the refrain, . When, therefore, Mr. Gallenga says, I might also feel tempted to flatter myself that my career as a journalist was not an absolute failure, he speaks with unneces- sary diffidence and modesty. In talking of the cut and dry manner which has become almost the technical and conven- tional style of the press, especially since the invention of electric wires has sunk the correspondents business to the level of that of the mere telegraph clerk, he will be held by competent judges to be in error. The influence of telegraphy upon the style of the special and war corre- spondent has certainly not been hostile, still less fatal, to vigor and picturesque- ness; witness the marvellous despatches of Mr. Cameron and Mr. Forbes. On the other hand, it has probably robbed the resident correspondent in foreign capitals, and therefore the press generally, of some of its own authority. Instead of the well- weighed and instructive letters on foreign affairs, which used to be highly profitable reading, and which have now almost en- tirely disappeared from journalism, the Times, the Morning Post, the St. 7a;ness Gazette, and the Globe alone being per- mitted by inexorable exigencies of space occasionally to publish them, we have to be content with telegraphic despatches which are admirable as viewy condensa- tions of the latest news, but which have little permanent value, and which scarcely help the average reader to form an intelli Tis a curse to the land, deny it who can, That self-same boast, Im a gentleman. Mr. Edmund Byng, Mr. Yatess godfather, entertained the most select of guests with the plainest and best of dinners, and young men, who to-day sit down to soup, fish, entrees then called made dishes a roast, a bird, a sweet, a savory, and a bottle of claret, would then have been content with a slice off the joint, a bit of cheese, and a pint of beer. Even Mr. Yates, when he first married, as he could not afford to give his friends good wine, and would not give them bad, regaled them on bitter ale. Lucky friends! though BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 75 one may hope that if, even in this degen- erate epoch, Mr. Yates were starting afresh he would be not so far borne away by the vicious contagion of fashion as to endeavor to sap the digestion of his com- pany by the loaded acidity which is called claret, and the abominable decoctions of sugar and petroleum known as chain- pagne. London, Lord Beaconsfield re- marked some months before his death, which was once a very dull place, is now a very amusing place, and so from one point of view it is. But the impression left upon the reader who was not per- sonally acquainted with the metropolis during the first decade of the Victorian era, as he lays down Mr. Yatess volumes, is, that if we have gained considerably we have also lost not a little. There is much which is cheap and nasty now; there was much which was cheap and pleasant then. Timminss little dinners had not be- come regular events, and the trail of Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins was not over us all. In yet another respect, of a far more important character, was there a distinc- tion between the epoch when Mr. Yates commenced his active existence and the present. No such central figures in lit- erature Dickens, Thackeray, Macaulay as existed then exist now. The gen- eral average of literary productiveness has immensely increased, but the stimulating influences of individual genius, placed upon a high pedestal, have disappeared. Literature, and especially periodical lit- erature, has become more highly organ- ized, and therefore more of a business. The result has been favorable to the social and moral welfare of the literary class, but it has involved the sacrifice of not a little freshness and of a great deal of fun. T. H. S ESCOTT. From Macmillans Magazine. I3ORROUGHDALE OF BORROIJGHDALE. For every man hath a talent if he do but find it JOHN LOCKE. CHAPTER III. (continued.) KATHERINE HOLLAND felt a little be- wilderment. it was almost as if a new acquaintance had presented himself. The young man who had sat so often t~te-ci-t~te with her in her aunts drawing-room, hardly daring to lift his eyes to her face, seemed an utterly different personage frqm this bold-eyed, confident-toned young gentleman whose admiration was almost too legibly visible for so very public an occasion. Borroughdale, on his side, was primed and loaded, full-cock, ready for an avowal. It was nothing absolutely nothingto him who might be listen- ing; how many people might be looking on; like a man bent upon some forlorn hope he had come to that point when to go on is immeasurably easier than to turn back. He would know his fate, he vowed to himself, before he left the house that evening, nay, before he left that easy-chair upon which he was then sitting. Even he, however, needed some starting-point, some vantage-ground, however slight, from which to launch his declaration. It was not very long, however, before he discovered one. What a lovely bracelet that is of yours! he exclaimed. I never noticed it before. That one, I mean, touching with his finger a broad band of gold clasped with three brilliants which Miss Holland wore upon her left wrist. Yes, is it not? It belonged to my mother, she answered, a blush, evoked partly by his manner, partly by the recol- lection called up by the bracelet, crossing her cheek. It had been parted with in the days of their poverty, and lately found again and redeemed with some little diffi- culty by herself. Borroughdale noticed the blush, and it lent him additional ardor. There is one uncommonly like it at home, he said. It belonged to my mother, too. I wish you would have it, Miss Holland, he added audaciously. You might wear it upon your other wrist.~, This, it will be owned, for a shy man was pretty well! Katherine Holland, however, was determined, if possible, to ignore what this evening seemed the ex- traordinary and unprecedented signifi- cance of his manner; so, although rather to her own annoyance she blushed again, she answered lightly, Thank you very much, Lord Bor- roughdale, but I am afraid I couldnt well wear your bracelet, could I ? Why not? Well, for several reasons. For one, because it wouldnt belong to me, she answered. It would if I gave it to you. Yes, but then you couldnt well do that, could you? If it was your mothers, it is no doubt part of your family jewels. I have heard that they are particularly fine. 76 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. But her well-intended efforts were per- fectly useless. The young mans perti- nacity was not so to be stayed. I dont care two straws about the pro. fessors collection, or any other collection,~~ he said loudly. I want you to give me an answer. An answer, Lord Borroughdale? poor Katherine said helplessly. Yes, about those things those er jewels we were talking of my jewels. I want to know whether you will er have them, you know; and er me too? The last two words were said in a somewhat lower tone, but when Kath- erine, instead of answering, sat simply staring at him in blank-eyed, open-mouthed dismay, he added, in his previous highly audible tones, Do say yes; then, even more distinctly, You will, wont you? This was perfectly appalling! There was a nearly absolute silence in the room. Conversation, it is true, had broken out here and there by fits and starts, but had been lulled again by the overpowering curiosity of the entire company. Far away, at the extreme end of the inner room, an elderly gentlemen was to be heard laying down the law to his neighbor about the scandalously crowded condition of the City omnibuses. Even his voice, however, suddenly dropped in the sort of breathless awe which had fallen upon the I dont know whether they are partic- which neither the British Museum or the ularly fine or not. There are a great lot Paris collections have a specimen? You of them of one sort or another. Then ought not to leave the house without see- there was a little pause, and then like a ing it. Do let me be cicerone and show man rushing full tilt at a fence, Borrough- them to you. dale burst out, Id like you to have them all for the matter of that, Miss Holland. Then, after another momentary pause: Will you? he added. Poor Katherine gave a gasp. Could he possibly have been taking more wine than ~vas prudent that evening? she not unnat. urally asked herself. Every one had now come up-stairs again from supper; the rooms, neither of them very large, were full to overflowing. Every one, moreover, she could see, had his or her head turned towards the sofa. Every one was more or less on the gui vive as to the meaning and the outcome of this most remarkable conversation which was being carried on thus audaciously under their very noses two of the Miss Macmanuses, who happened to be nearest the sofa, having their heads turned directly towards them with an expression of anything but satis- faction imprinted upon their counte- nances. To affect to bq any longer in doubt as to the goal towards which these remarkably direct observations were tend- ing would have been nothing short of sheer affectation. IJnless some stop was then and there put to his proceedings he would be asking her plump to marry him before ten minutes were out, if indeed he might not have been said to have practically done so already. What then, she asked herself, was to be done? Possibly, under other circumstances, she might not have been more averse to such a public act of homage than another woman. At pres- ent, however, she was thinking much less of herself than of him. Like all who cared for Borroughdale even slightly, a large share of protectiveness, of a sort of ten- derness, mingled with her liking; and to hinder him from making such a ridiculous exhibition of himself before all these in- quisitive people to choke back, if pos- sible, this declaration, which seemed to be even then trembling upon his lips be- came an overwhelming desire, towards which all her energies were immediately directed. I dont believe you have ever seen Professor Macmanuss famous collection, Lord Borroughdale? she exclaimed, ig- noring his last remark, and catching ea- gerly at the nearest chance of effecting a diversion. Are you aware that it is said to be the richest of its kind in the world? that there are numbers of species in it of entire assemblage. That last appallingly distinct You will, wont you? had evi- dently made itself plainly heard from one end of the house to the other. Had the speaker even been an unknown nobody the situation would not have been without zest, but when it was considered who he was, and what those advantages which were being laid thus publicly at a young ladys feet as though he had been a Cory- don and she a Phillis in the safe seclusion of their own native woods and meadows, it must be owned that a certain amount of curiosity was not human merely, but excusable. Katherine Holland, at any rate, could stand it no longer. She got up, saying something incoherent but decisive about her aunt, and the necessity of going down- stairs in search of her and so saying, moved resolutely towards the door. Borroughdale, after a moments pause of bewilderment, followed her, catching her up as she was upon the stairs. She BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 77 was in momentary terror lest he should begin again upon the same subject; this, however, happily, he abstained from doing, and having found Mrs. Holland, and lis- tened in stoical silence to her elaborate explanation as to the causes that had de- taineU her down-stairs, he volunteered to go in search of their carriage, and having found it, and put the two ladies into it, he stood back so as to allow them to drive away. After all this it need hardly be said that the next afternoon he called at the house in Bayswater. His mood, however, had completely changed in the interval; that overmastering determination, which had seemed strong enough at the time to move mountains and to carry him over a thou- sand obstacles, had completely gone, and he had fallen back upon all his previous fluctuations of despondency. Oddly enough, now that he was thus seriously and strenuously in love, those more ob- vious and impersonal advantages which had previously seemed so perilously to overweight any suit he might prefer, had become of little or no account in his mind. He hardly thought of them in summing up the probabilities for or against a suc- cessful issue in his suit. His own stupid- ity, his awkwardness, his general incapac- ity for social purposes, all seemed so many rocks which rose up menacingly, at times absolutely forbidding his hoping that that issue would be other than dis- astrous. It was in this desponding mood that he rang the door-bell that afternoon at Mrs. Hollands house, nor was his previous gloom lightened upon being in- formed by the prim parlor-maid with that air of satisfaction with which such mes- sages generally are delivered, that the ladies were not at home. Borroughdale stood still, staring blankly for a moment at the woman, as if in so saying she had uttered something pre- posterous, something utterly inconceiv- able, and unheard of; then he turned and. slowly descended the steps, and, still like a man in a dream, got into his ph~eton, which was waiting at the door, and me- chanically gathered up the reins in his hands. Just as the horses were beginning to get into motion, however, he suddenly checked them, flung down the reins so hurriedly that it was as much as the groom, who was mounting, could do to get to their heads in time, and bounced up the steps again. I say er look here, my good girl, he exclaimed breathlessly, here is a sovereign for you, and tell me the truth honestly. Did Miss Holland say she wasnt going ever to be at home to me in future? The prim parlor-maid, utterly taken aback by his so much uncalled-for vehe- mence, opened her mouth and her eyes to their widest extent, and for the moment completely lost her starched demeanor in the extremity of her astonishment. Why good laws a mussy me, my lord, in course not! Miss Holland she never said nothing of the sort leastways not to me. She and Mrs. Holland have only gone to the Soho Bazaar, as I heard missus say she wanted some new hearth~ brooms! Oh, thats all right, Borroughdale answered, rather ashamed of his own im- petuosity. You can keep the sovereign, you know; and er look here, you can say Ill probably be at the Institution to- morrow evenin s, he added, as he turned away for the second time. Next evening, accordingly, he duly ap- peared in Albemarle Street, arriving late, after the lecture had already begun, and thereby earning for himself not a few un- uttered maledictions from the owners of the various skirts and feet over which he ruthlessly trampled on his way to his seat. A place had been reserved for him be- tween Professor Holland and his niece Mrs. Holland did not care for lectures into which he dropped, and sat staring blankly into the arena with the expression of a man who has just lost or is expecting to lose every farthing which he possesses in the world. The lecture was a brilliant one, de- livered by one of the greatest of living proficients in that line, and was received with reiterated bursts of applause not unmingled with laughter. As far as Bor- roughdale, however, was concerned, it mi~,ht just as well have been uttered in the tongue of the Cherokees or of the dwellers in Cochin China for any single intelligent idea which adhered to him dur- ing its utterance; all his thoughts, every idea which he had in his head, being solely and absolutely concentrated upon one point. How was he to get an answer to this ill-fated, this all-important question of his? Thatitbehoved him, being aman and having once spoken, to. get such an answer, and, moreover, to get it quickly, was clear to him; but how his first effort having so egregiously failed he was to do this was more than he could see. Indeed he shrank from again, as it were in cold blood, adventuring his fate, 78 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. reflecting, not without a certain measure of satisfaction, that it was almost humanly impossible that any such opportunity could present itself that evening. In this, however, he was mistaken. It was the last lecture, as it happened, of that season, and no sooner was it over than the professor, begging them kindly to wait a few minutes for him, hastily de- scended the steps in order to exchange certain words of wisdom with other black- capped and spectacled sages who, followed by their feminine belongings, were now rapidly converging into the narrow circu- lar space in the centre. Borroughdale and Miss Holland were thus left for the time being absolutely ate-el -tate, seated side by side upon one of the red-covered benches. All around them similar red - covered benches were fast emptying of the groups which had lately filled them, the few re- maining people being assiduously bent upon discovering stray capes or shawls, so that to all practical intents our two young people were as much alone as though they had been in the centre of the great Sahara. Something in this sudden sensation of solitude, something in the encompassing yet indistinguishable volume of sound gave Borroughdale sudden courage, and with hands shaking and knees knocking, but with an inward dogged resolution to have the thing out and get it over, he began huskily, Miss Holland, eryou wouldnt give me, erany answer the other evening, will you, please, give me one now? He stopped, physically incapable for the moment of uttering another syllable. Her embarrassment was hardly less than his. I couldnt, Lord Borrougdale. In- deed, indeed, I couldnt, she said in a tone of distress. How could you think of speaking to me upon such a subject before all those people? Didnt you see that they were listening? No, I didnt see it; but if they were, what then? What did the people matter? I shouldnt have cared for my part if all London had been listening. Im not a bit afraid of people; Im only afraid of you. She tried to laugh. I didnt know that I was so very for- midable, she said. You are to me. When a fellow is awfully anxious about a thing he necessa- rily is frightened. Again he waited as if to give her time to speak. Her words were by no means so ready as they ought to have been. Of course I neednt say how very, very grateful I am to you, Lord Borrough- dale, she began hesitatingly. Thats all stuff, he responded bluntly. No, it is not stuff at all. I consider it a very great honor; a far greater one than I ever thought of receiving. Now, look here, Miss Holland, please dont talk like that. You must have seen, at least I think you must have seen, for a good while back that I wanted to speak to you; toersay what I said the other night, only that I haventerI mean I couldnterI mean He stopped dead short and then began again. You must have known, I say, that I cared for you. Any one, I think, would have known it. I didnt know it, I assure you. Well then, if you didnt you know it now. It sounds like nothing, I dare say, he went on, but you dont know what it is to me. I thought all that sort of thing ~vas sheer balderdash, but if so then bal- derdash is the only thing worth having. I know Id give every single sixpence I have in the world to get my own way in this. To have Now that he was at last fairly launched he might have gone on for some time longer, but she broke in upon him in a tone of distress. Lord Borroughdale, please please do not say anything more. I am grate- ful, indeed more grateful than I can say, but But you dont like me simply; say it out at once and have done with it. I do like you very much, but it cannot indeed indeed it cannot be. Why cannot it be? Becausebecause of so many rea- sons. Think how short a time you have known me. And then again Her voice, which had been embarrassed be- caine suddenly firmer. Remember, what would your own relatives say remember the difference of our position. People would say that you ought to marry some one nearer to your own rank, the last word being uttered with a clear, almost a contemptuous emphasis. Borroughdale gave utterance to a sort of a snort of disdain and defiance. Rank, stuff l People, bosh! he ex- claimed. Why, my rank, as you call it, has been simply the bane and nothing else of my life, and it will be ten times over my bane if it is going to come between you and me~ No, dont think of what BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 79 people say, or of any such rubbish and of inquiry. I promise, she then said nonsense as that. One thing there is gravely, and that was all that passed be. though that I do want to know, that I tween them. must ask you, is there any one, some one ever so much cleverer, handsomer, that CHAPTER IV. youve known longer than you have me, BORROUGHDALE kept his word and de- whom you like, whom you ercare for parted from London the very next day, erbetter? without even going to take leave of any Miss Holland looked for a moment one. He did not, however, go down to slightly puzzled, her dark eyes resting full Fellshire, having indeed already made ar- upon his with an expression of inquiry, rangements for otherwise disposing of his which, however, gave way a moment later summer. to a slight blush. In the course of the last few months he No, Lord Borroughdale, there is no had made acquaintance with a young man such person, she said decidedly. rejoicing in the name of Jeptha Jenkinson, Very well, then, thats all I ~vant to professor of comparative anatomy at that know. If not, its all right, and theres time in the London University, and one nothing in the world to hinder your mar- of the minor curators of the British Mu- rying me. seum. Professor Jenkinson ~vas a very Forgive me, but there is. As I say remarkable man in his way, and was des- you hardly know me. tined in many competent peoples opinion I know you quite well enough. to fill a very considerable sphere in the Well then, I do not know you enough, future. Of indomitable energy, of iron and if you press me for an answer now I will, of almost superhuman powers of must say no. work, he was curt, he was taciturn, he was All right, then, I wont press you for ungainly almost to repulsiveness, and a an answer now, so dont say no. Look sworn foe above all to social observance here, Ill promise, if you like, not to ask of every sort and kind. These latter and you again for two months, or three months less agreeable traits of his it was, to the any time you choose. Of course I full as much as the force of his character dont imagine its particularly likely that or the brilliancy of his attainments, that youd get to care for me all in a hurry, but had moved Lord Borroughdale to strike I know that I care for you, and Ive never up a sort of intimacy with him. In Pro. yet changed my mind about anything, so fessor Jenkinson he seemed to see a sort that Im not very likely to begin about of second self; a cleverer, an abler, an this. Unless, therefore, you go and marry altogether immensely more largely en- some other fellow, youll see that youll dowed self, without on the other hand any not be able to get rid of me; youll find of those, to his mind, more than dubious me sticking to you like a burr. advantages which had shaped, and to a She smiled a little, certain extent, as he believed, ~varped his 1 dont know that I particularly want own life and the bent of his own inclina- to get rid of you, Lord Borroughdale; cer- tions. tainly not that way. Early in their acquaintance he had as- Very well then, now you know the certained that one of the main objects only way in which you can, so I give you which the~professor had set before him- fair warning. Once Ive made up my self, was the working out of certain still mind to a thing I stick to it like grim obscure problems only to be adequately death, and I know that I shall care for you solved by means of a more thoroughly always just as much as I do this evening, intimate acquaintance with certain equally However, I dont want to persecute you obscure or,,anisms to be met with at about it, and Ill go away from London considerable depths in the northern to-morrow and not ask you again for an- seas. Borroughdale, whose enthusiasm other three months if that will do. Only upon such matters was at that time only you must promise upon your sacred word equalled by his ignorance, had at once and honor to think of me sometimes in offered to fit out a yacht with all the the mean time, and to try to get to like me. needful appliances for the prosecution of Will you? he added, detaining her reso- such investigations, and. to place them lutely as she was moving down the steps and it absolutely and unreservedly at the in obedience to a signal from her uncle, professors disposal, upon the sole condi. Miss Holland paused, and her eyes, tion of accompanying him in the charac- nearly on a level with his, rested full upon ter at once of host and disciple. This his face for a moment with an expression proposal had been naturally enough im So BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. mediately caught at, and by the time the end of the season arrived all the needful preparations had been made, and the yacht, fully equipped, was lying at anchor at Sheerness, waiting only for her owner and his guest to come on board. Throughout what remained of that sum- mer, and throughout the early part of the autumn, the two men accordingly lived together upon the yacht, toiling almost day and night at their self-imposed task; dredging often for eight and ten hours at a time, and more often than not with what appeared perfectly inadequate results; blistered with the sun at one time, half frozen with sudden snowstorms at anoth- er, drenched to the skin with brine and snow, and hail and rain, they still held their way doggedly onward. And by the time the two months they spent together had come to an end, and the professors aims had to a considerable degree at all events been realized, without perhaps ex- actly becoming closer friends, each had learnt to feel a certain half-grudging re- spect for those qualities in the other which each secretly cherished and set most store by in himself. Paragraphs concerning the movements and objects of the Marquis of Borrough- dales screw steamer, Cormorant, had, of course, long before this found their way into most of the society newspapers, and even in more strictly scientific quar- ters, not a little interest had been evinced with regard to the proceedings of that bird herself, if not of that birds owner. This species of fame took Mr. Vansittart not a little bysurprise. As long as his sonhad simply contented himself with doing noth- ing at all, he had always felt that there was a chance of his being some time or other rescued, and turned into, at all events, a passably creditable member of society. When, however, Bcrroughdale took to cleaning out crabs, and interest- ing himself about the insides of sea anem- ohes, then indeed, as we have seen, that unhappy father did feel that all was at an end. A young manone born to so great a sphere who could thus deliber- ately and wantonly degrade himself, take up with such undesirable, nay, such truly disgusting monomanias as these, was, it was only too evident, hopelessly given over to oddity, and could never hencefor- ward be regarded as anything but a trial, to be borne with all the philosophy which as a man, a Christian, and a father, he was able to summon to his aid. What then, 1 say, was his surprise when he discovered that, far from being regard- ed as feebly, if fortunately harmlessly, half-witted, Borrough dale appeared to be looked upon by a good many people as rather a fine fellow than otherwise, and a distinct improvement upon the average young man of his period. The climax of his parental astonishment came when one day the Duke of Ossian himselfleader at that moment of his own party in the Upper Houseactually stopped him in the street, when they casually met on their way through London, for the express pur- pose of congratulating him upon the sub- ject, lamenting loudly at the same time that none of his own sons or nephews showed the smallest inclination to follow in the same direction. 1 tell them if they dont look out and bestir themselves theyll be wiped clean out of the record before they know where they are! that advanced nobleman declared in stentorian tones. But Borroughdale is upon the right track. I only wish to heaven there were a few more like him! All this was very astonishing indeed to that much belauded young mans father, but it is only fair to add that it was emi- nently gratifying also. And when at the end of his two months cruise Borrough- dale himself reappeared upon the scene, looking older, manlier, more stalwart, with a face as red as a lobster, and a beard of seven weeks growth upon his chin, Mr. Vansittart experienced a glow of parental pride and satisfaction to which his breast, six months earlier, had certainly been an absolute stranger. Upon Granville Farquart on the other hand, the effect of this unlooked-for ova- tion was less gratifying than perplexing, and even it must be owned to some de- gree mortifying. Heaven knows, he said to himself, he didnt grudge poor Bor- roughdale such small chips of credit as might happen to come in his way! At the same time there was something irri- tating in a contingency occurring which so clever a man as himself perhaps ought to have anticipated, but certainly never had dreamt of doing so. He experienced too, a little of that aggrieveU feeling which a gentleman who has piqued himself upon the liking shown to him, and to him alone, by some ungainly puppy, feels when the puppy suddenly takes to finding out new friends for himself, and even promises to grow up not such a very ill-favored animal after all. That by any conceivable or inconceiva- ble possibility he could come to feel jeal- ous of his poor, puzzle-witted friend, of all men upon earth, was a suggestion which BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 8i he would honestly have laughed to scorn. Hitherto the latters more obvious advan- tages had rather indeed been a source of personal self-satisfaction to him than oth- erwise. It had seemed only to broaden and deepen the gulf which in less purely material matters yawned so palpably be- tween them. That highly refined form of self-satisfaction which arises from the con- templation of anothers advantages, needs however, it may be observed, for its en- joyment -that the realm within which we ourselves do elect to shine should be a very broad and a very well-defined one indeed, and it was just here that Farquart for the first time in his life began to feel misgivings. The result of his first years campaign with destiny had not, it was useless to deny, been quite as satisfactory as he had anticipated. His pictures, to begin with, had one and all been rejected by the Academy. Well, that, he felt, was only to be expected. To better, or at any rate to older artists, the same thing hap- pened every year. They had also, how- ever, been rejected by other and distinctly less illustrious exhibitions, and again by others of a lower and yet lower calibre, to which with a sort of dogged resolution he had persisted in sending them. All this had given a certain shock to his aspirations in this direction, and in re- venge upon both himself and the world of art he had taken to pen and ink, and had produced essays which certainly could not be said to err upon the side of a too great leniency to the faults and foibles of an ill-judging and pitiably misdirected world. Here also, however, his success unaccountably hung fire. That he was amazingly clever, every oneincluding even those proverbially detracting indi- viduals, editors admitted, but somehow the recognition of the fact did not seem to awaken any particular enthusiasm. Either his ideas were too far in advance of those of the rest of the world, orwhat was still more likely his genius was of too pronounced and too original a type, and needed time, therefore, before it could make itself adequately appreciated. At present he had embarked upon a new and a more ambitious literary enterprise, which he had every intention of producing as his mzguum opus. From time to time, he was visited, however, by shrewd mis- givings as to whether this also would achieve quite the amount of success to which its intrinsic merits entiUed it. How could he, how could any man, he asked himself, judge of what would or LiVING AGE. VOL. XLIX. 2502 would not go down in a world where a fellow like Borroughdale a good, well- meaning creature unquestionably, but as every one knew an absolute dunderhead was lauded to the very skies for such a very ordinary achievement, and all for no better reason but because he happened, forsooth, to be a marquis and a million- aire? Meanwhile the particular dunderhead in question was far from enjoying that condition of absolute beatitude which those who have never been either ffiar- quises or millionaires might take to be his. allotted share. The Hollands were back~ now, and he himselfneglectful of many and imperative calls elsewhere lingered~ on in London, seeing them from time to time, but not again approaching that sub- jectat which he had once rushed with so indiscriminating a zeal~ He had grown a. good deal older in more ways than one- during that summer, and with his growth had come a certain measure of discretion. If possible, he was more in earnest now, more anxious to bring the matter to a successful issue now than he had been then, but his anxiety was tempered with a perfectly novel admixture of discrimina- tion. He wished to feel his way; and if possible in some degree test his ground, before again risking everything upon a single throw. How this testing of the ground was to be accomplished, however, was what for some time he taxed his in- genuity vainly to discover. Suddenly what he could not help re- garding as a piece of providential good f.c,rtune came to help him. Sitting late one cold autumnal night over his studies, heedless of the fact that the fire had gone out, Professor Holland caught a severe chill, and awoke in consequence next morning with lungs considerably inflamed, and when the doctor, who for days he ob- stinately refused to see, at length arrived, he took the matter seriously, impressing both upon the patient himself and his relations the danger of allowing the mis- chief to go further, and the strong advis- ability of the winter being, if possible, spent in a warmer climate. The diflicul- ties in the way of carrying out this pro- gramme were, however, great, and ap- peared at first sight to be insurmountable. The emoluments of science are unfortu- nately small; the professors own private income was an inconsiderable one, indeed the whole household had of late been sub- sisting mainly upon Katherine Hollands contributions to the housekeeping, and to make such further inroads upon her store 82 BORROUGHDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. as so lengthened a sojourn abroad would entail was more than either her uncle or aunt would agree to do. Then it was that Borroughdale came to the rescue. Was there not his yacht doing absolutely nothing? he said. It would be a kind- ness, nothing short of an act of positive charity to make some use of her. If, too, the professor, accompanied by his wife and niece the latter merely in a paren- thesis would consent to spend a winter in the Mediterranean, the time need not necessarily be lost. On the contrary the Cormorant was, as every one knew, well equipped with all things necessary for zoological investigations, so that from a scientific point of view three or four months so employed might even be counted an absolute gain. This suggestion the professor was a man of far too self-respecting a turn of mind to clutch at with any indecorous haste. At the same time the offer was too good, and the last.named inducement too overwhelmingly tempting, to be abso- lutely declined. After a certain amount, therefore, of dignified pro-ing and con-ing it was at length accepted, and Borrough- dale posted off in high delight to get everything in readiness for the anticipated cruise. A few days before their start actually took place he went one afternoon to see Farquart, who had not long returned to London, and whom he had only, as it happened, met once since his own return from his northern trip. This time he ~vent with a distinct purpose in his mind. He meant to unbosom himself, and to appeal to their ancient friendship for sym- pathy in his new hopes There had of late been an indescribable chill, a certain sense of strain in their mutual relations, of which Borroughdale himself had been dimly conscious, and it had kept him from speaking to Farquart upon the matter that lay nearest to his heart. To-day, however, he had come resolved to let nothing hinder his doing so, and when Lord Borrough- dales mind was once made up it was neither a slight obstacle nor yet a small amount of discouragement, as we know, which could succeed in turning him from his purpose. Well, we start upon Tuesday, he said, after their first greetings, sitting down as he spoke in the nearest chair, which happened to be almost exactly op- posite the large square window, through which all that remained of the autumnal daylight was at that moment streaming in a dull grey flood. Oh, you do, do you? Farquart re- plied, moving away towards the fireplace, and speaking with rather a studied amount of nonchalance. And how long do you expect to be away? he added. Three months certainly; perhaps four. It will depend a good deal, I suppose, upon how the professor goes ~ Then there was a silence; and then with his usual headlong rush into the very heart of his subject, Borroughdale sud- denly burst out, I say, Farquart, you know er what my my er hopes are about it, dont you? he exclaimed, and then as suddenly stopped. Your hopes about it? Your hopes about what? About your zoology, do you mean? Zoology? No. Hang zoology! I mean, of course, about Katherine Hol- land. Farquart, who was still occupying him- self with the fire, turned slowly round so as to look more directly at the speaker, whose face, always ruddy, had within the last two minutes become of a finely diffused carmine. Even before Borrough- dale had begun to speak he had known perfectly well what he was going to say. He had seen it coming on for a long time back, he told himself, and had therefore, of course, been perfectly prepared for it. What he had not been prepared for, how- ever, seemingly, was to be or even to appear to be cordial in the matter some indefinable, some unconquerable reluc- tance appearing to hold him back. What about Katherine Holland? he said in a tone from which all expression was elaborately banished. IIermean to marry herat least, I er I hope to do so. I have cared for her for months, Borroughdale exclaimed stutteringly, getting suddenly up from his chair and beginning to move aimlessly up and down the room in his ex- citement. Notwithstandino my telling you that her father was only a surveyor? Even as he uttered the words Farquart knew that they were unworthy both of him and of the subject, but for~the life of him he could not keep back the gibe which rose to his lips. Borroughdale instantly stopped short and turned round frowning ferociously. What, I should like to know, has that to say to it? he said haughtily. Then as Farquart did not reply I asked, I en- treated her to marry me last summer, he added, still in a tone of lofty displeasure. BORROUGUDALE OF BORROUGHDALE. 83 You did. And what did she say? She said that she could not then; that she didnt know me well enough; that if I pressed her then she must refuse; so, of course, I said I wouldnt press her, that she might take three months, four months, any time she liked to think about it, and that I would then ask her again. Upon my word that was remarkably considerate of you. Borroughdales frown deepened. What the devil do you m~an by that? he said fiercely. Considerate! There was nothing in the least considerate about it! It is not at all events the fashion in which a Marquis of Borroughdale is sup- posed to woo. If ever the unpretending owner of that highly sonorous title looked like a Mar- quis of Borroughdale it was perhaps at that moment. He got up from the chair into which he had again thrown himself, took his stick from the corner of the fire- place, and turned towards the door. Near it, however, he paused, thrust his hand into his pocket to feel for his gloves, took one out and began deliberately to put it on. All at once, he desisted from that operation; wheeled rapidly again, and dropping or rather ~ino1no away the stick from him with a portentous clatter, he came back in two strides across the room, his hand stuck out before him like a pump-handle. I say, Farquart, old man, what the deuce is the meaning of all this? What er ails you to-day? What makes you so desperately cynical and bitter? I thought youd be glad; that youd sympa- thize with me about it. I thought er at least I hoped you would like I should marry your cousin. You told me, you know, first thing of all that you hadnt any idea in that direction yourself; if you had I should have kept out of the way. Not, mean to say, that I should have had any chance where you were in question. Still He stopped a moment, and then went on. Now, however, I cant pretend to give her up to you, or any man, for, upon my soul, I love her, I er cant possibly explain to you how much I love her. I cant even begin to imagine what it would be to me to lose her to lose the hope, I mean, of winning her. I should become I er literally dont know what I should become, I believe I should take to drinkino? He paused again, and then, as if a new idea had sud- denly struck him, For Gods sake dont tell me, Farquart, that you are in love with her yourself all this time, he exclaimed hoarsely. Im not the very least in the world in love with her, Farquart replied in a tone of considerable impatience. Borroughdale breathed a prodigious sigh of relief. Then why cant you be more cordial about it? he persisted, almost patheti. cally. Tisnt like you, Farquart. You and she are the only two friends Ive ever made in the whole course of my life, and I cant afford to lose either of you. Come, speak up, man, he added, in a tone of urgent entreaty. What ails you to- day? Farquart, to tell the truth, did not him- self very clearly know what did ail him. He felt that he was behaving quite unlike himself quite unlike any fashion in which he would have proposed to behave under the circumstances. There was something ridiculous something per. haps even a little puerilein this inabil- ity to summon the desired cordiality to his lips. What he had just said had been perfectly true. He was not the very least in the world in love with Katherine Hol- land. He did not want to marry her, did not want, in fact, to marry any one; to do so would have been to put out the whole plan and purpose of his life. Yet none the less he experienced sharp twinges of annoyance, almost amounting to morti- fication, at the idea of these two being happy, and happy independently, as it were, of him. He liked themhe liked them both but he liked them as they were. From different reasons both seemed to him in a peculiar sense his own prop- erty, and he had something of the ag- grieved feeling of a proprietor whose chattels are being disposed of without his sanction. He made an effort, however, to overcome these slightly unwarrantable sensations. Of course, my dear Borroughdale, any- thing that is for your happiness gives me pleasure, that I neednt tell you, he said, with graceful, if somewhat tardy, cordial- ity. I wish you all the success you can possibly desire. Katherine Holland is an excellent girl, and deserves all the good fortune she can possibly meet with. I was a little taken aback when you began, but I suppose that was simply due to my own stupidity; no doubt I ought to have been better prepared. Anyhow, I wish you every possible success in your woo- ing, and the best of good luck to you both. Can I say more? Borroughdales face beamed. 84 LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. Of course you cant of course you cant, old fellow, he exclaimed, seizing his friends hand in his own and swinging it to and fro with a vehemence not a little painful to that less indurated member. Of course not, and I was a fool to doubt you; but then I always was a fool, wasnt I? Meanwhile I mustnt stay here any longer now, he went on with a sort of breathless and almost feverish eagerness, for there are about a hundred thousand things to do between this and Tuesday. But youll come and see me again, old man, before we go, wont you? Mind, I havent told a single soul about this yet, not even my father. It wouldnt be fair, would it, till things are settled? Besides, Im not really a bit too sanguine even now, he added, gripping poor Farquarts hand again in his excitement, and shaking it up and down and to and fro with a will. Not a bit too sanguine, upon my soul, he repeated at the door, in a tone and with a look, however, which, it must be owned, threw considerable doubt upon his own assertion. After the door had closed upon him, Granville Farquart sat for a long time in the fast thickening obscurity, the smile with which he had greeted poor Borrough. dales last remark fading away and being replaced by a pucker of discontent which sat oddly and, as it were, incongruously upon the classical perfection of his fea. tures. At last, when of the big window near him nothing was left but a large, lightcolored blur, he suddenly got up from his seat, pulled the blind down with a rapid jerk, and, crossing the room, rang the bell violently for lamps. Nonsense! Of course it will be set- tIed long and long before they return, he said aloud to himself as he did so. In this judgment I had better perhaps, without further circumlocution, hasten to say he ~vas amply justified by subsequent events. Before even the period of pro. bation had quite come to an end, Bor. roughdale and Katherine Holland were betrothed, and when they came back to England they were married. Mr. Vansittart was at first not a little taken aback at this to him very unforeseen climax of his sons enthusiasm about zool. ogy. Still Borroughdale was now settled in life; there could be no fur/her surprises in that direction, and that consideration alone went a very long way towards rec- onciling him to the event. Farquart was less easily reconciled. For a long time he maintained a certain attitude of mental reserve towards the young couple, al. though he never allowed it to appear again so palpably upon the surface as on this occasion, and although after a while he permitted himself to be gradually drawn into much of his former intimacy with both~ of them. I have not yet heard of any of his pictures having been accepted by the Academy, and his literary magnus opus has not yet appeared, or, if it has, an un- grateful public has failed perhaps to rec- ognize it as such. All who know him hold unquestionably, however, that some day or other so ~ble a man will throw all his strength into one effort, and then that the world will possess a new masterpiece, and his friends hopes will be justified. This also I may state with confidence is his own view. Although so far it cannot cer- tainly be said that fame has surrendered herself to any of his advances, he is far from feeling that he has as yet thoroughly tried conclusions with that notoriously tricksy goddess, indeed at the very mo- ment in which I am ~vriting, he is said to be meditating a new, and this time prob- ably ~n irresistible, assault upon her en- trench ments. Lord Borroughdales ad- miration for his gifted and versatile friend has never suffered even a single moments diminution, although since his own stand- ing in the scientific world has become well established it is tempered by a less absolute and a less crushing self-deprecia- tion than formerly. Farquart still speaks of him to others in a tone of kindly pa- tronage, never failing to do justice to the goodness of his heart, and the invariable excellence of his intentions. As regards Borroughdales marriage with Katherine Holland, however, he always privately feels that he was badly used. EMILY LAWLESS.. From Blackwoods Magazine. LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. BY LAURENCE OLIPHANT. IN one of the loveliest valleys of Car- mel, near the south-west extremity of the mountain, and distant about fifteen miles from Haifa, stands the Druse village of Dahlieh or, as it is more properly called, Dahliet-el-Carmel, to distinguish it from another place of the same name, on the Ruhah, or breezy land. It is situated on an abrupt spur of the mountain, at the base of which two nar- row glens unite into a gorge that ulti- mately widens into a valley winding down to the sea. The village which crowns LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. 85 this eminence is composed of a congeries of dwellings, scarcely imposing-looking enough to be dignified with the name of houses, and yet much superior to the huts of which an Arab village generally con- sists. Indeed the traveller versed in fel- laheen domestic life would be struck with an air of comfort, prosperity, and cleanli- ness here, foreign to native abodes gener- ally. The low habitations which flank the narrow streets seem all to have been newly plastered with light yellow-colored mud. They are generally situated in courtyards, where the neatly dressed fe- male occupants may be observed pursuing their various avocations. The streets themselves are kept clean, and the only eyesores are two gigantic manure heaps one at either end of the village. These heaps are common to all Arab villages, and are generally used by the fellaheen as fuel for their ovens: the atmosphere is, in consequence, pervaded with an odor of burnt manure, the taint of which, under the influence of a lively imagination, may even be extended to the bread. From this all-penetrating perfume Dahlieh is free. The Druses who inhabit it dont bake their bread in ovens, and dont use the manure for fuel. On a plateau at the back of the village are the extensive threshing-floors which belong to it, during the summer months filled with conical mounds of grain, which look at a distance like the huts of a golden encampment. At the opposite extremity of the little town is the Druse khalive, or church, a picturesque construction, with two rows of arches inside, and a broad verandah, trellised with vines, outside. It is separated, by a field enclosed with cactus hedges, from a grove of fig-trees which crowns the edge of the spur over- looking the gorge; and on a terrace in the midst of this grove stands a white stone dwelling with a somewhat preten- tious castellated roof, a generally unfin- ished appearance, and suggestions of landscape gardening not altogether in keeping with the native surroundings. This dwelling is mine! And at the risk of appearing egotistical, I propose to nar- rate how I came to build it, and the sort of life I lead in it. But I must first con- clude the description of my surroundings. From the terrace, on which is a broad verandah, I look down the steep slope where there are more terraces, planted with vines, olives, pomegranates, and fig- trees into the rocky gorge, which ex- pands as it nears a copious spring a mile distant giving birth to a tiny stream, that once watered the gardens of a now de- serted village, where a solitary date-palm, and a magnificent grove of figs, pomegran- ates, and some olive-trees attest its former beauty and luxuriance, which I am not without hope may some day soon be re- stored to it. Beyond this, I look from my verandah over the hills swelling gently back, where the grain fields, which have now been reaped, appear like brown isl- ands in a sea of the dark-green copse that clothes the mountain-sides. In the dis- tance, beyond the mouth of the valley, which narrows again and enters the plain through a wild, precipitous gorge, is dis- tinctly visible the old crusading ruin of Athlit, its huge fragment of masonry standing on a projecting promontory over the sea to a height of one hundred and twenty feet, and with a length of one hundred feet, forming a striking feature in the landscape, with an elevation of thirteen hundred feet above the ocean, from which we are distant six miles. We thus command a splendid sea view, with a foreground of precipitous mountain, of smiling cultivated valley, and of rolling wooded hills, all charmingly blended. Both sides of the spur on which Dahlieh is situated are terraced with gardens, as well as the steep slopes of the hillsides opposite, and present an appearance, of rich cultivation not common in this part of Palestine The hills at the back form a sort of amphitheatre, rising in one place to a height of eighteen hundred and ten feet above the sea: this is the loftiest summit in Carmel. A year ago, when in search of a retreat from the summer heats of Haifa, I in- stinctively sought the highest village in themountain, which is Esfia, also con- taining a Druse population, but with an admixture of Christians of the Melchite or Greek Catholic persuasion. Here I was presented with the alternative of hir- ing a native house or forming a camp. The objections to the native house seemed almost insuperable. They may be summed up in two words smells and fleas. The whole place reeked with the odor of burned manure; while the effort of perpetual scratching produced too great a sense of weariness and fatigue to be endured for many consecutive days and nights. On the other hand, while the nights were deliciously cool under canvas, the days were oppressively hot with no better pro- tection than it afforded against noonday rays. I therefore determined to combine my resources. First I hired the only stone vault there was in the village a chain- 86 LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. ber of about thirty feet square. The walls and roof of massive blocks of limestone, which had formed part of some ancient edifice,for Esfia is built on the ruins of an ancient site, secured me midday coolness; and for the few hot hours, we determined to put up with the odors and the insects waging, nevertheless, inces- sant war against the latter with powder and other appliances. Then I hired from a Bedouin encampment in the neighbor- hood their largest tent, and procured from Haifa a number of rafters and mats. The Bedouin tent I stretched on the rafters, which were supported by uprights, so as to form a roof; the walls I made of mats, which were each six feet square, and could be bought for a shilling apiece. This gave me a room thirty-two feet long, seven feet high, and twelve broad, which I sub- divided into apartments; besides which, I had an ordinary fourteen-roped canvas tent, and put up a kitchen and shelter for the horses with brush wood. I also strewed as many branches on the roof as the Bedouin tent would bearthus gaining additional protection against the sun. By these means I obtained accommodation, such as it was, for our whole party, which generally numbered six, and on the occa- sion of visitors eight,, and sometimes even ten, including several ladies; but not, of course, without some unfortunates being condemned to sleep in the vault, to which on any hot days we all repaired for our siestas. On these occasions it often used to represent the mixed appearance of an artists studio, a schoolroom, and a dor- mitory, as we pursued our varied avoca- tions of sketching, studying Arabic, writ- ing, and snoring. As soon as it got cool enough in the afternoon, we made explora- tory expeditions on horseback, sometimes taking with us our afternoon tea. In the course of these I visited, within easy rid- ing distance of my camp, no fewer than twenty sites of ancient towns and villages six of which I had the interest and pleasure of discovering, and at all of which the massive remains bore testimony to the vast and highly civilized population which must have at a former period inhab- ited this historical mountain. Putting it at a very low estimate, Carmel, ~vhich has a circumference of thirty-five miles, con- tained probably a population of at least fifty thousand souls, who must have made of this enchanting highland region a per- fect paradise. Indeed, from the nature of the frequent references to it in Holy Writ, it is clear that in Biblical days the excellency of Carmel, or, as its name literally signifies, Gods vineyard, was synonymous with everything beautiful; and any one who should spend months, as I have, exploring its infinite variety of wild and hidden valleys, will not fail to understand why this should be so. If in imagination we build up its now ruined terraces and cover them with vines; if we clothe its hillsides with pendulous for- ests of heavy timber, and fancy its level l)lateaus and fertile valleys waving with grain; if we crown almost every eminence with stately towns, where now we find fragments of columns, carved capitals, immense rock-cut cisterns, huge stone olive-mills, and wine-presses hewn from the s& lid rock, we may begin to realize the nature of the architecture and of the industries of its once teeming population. Now, ~vith the exception of two small villages whose united population does not amount to a thousand souls, all is silent, desolate, and waste: one rides for hours without meeting a soul, following the cat- tle-tracks which :lead through the thick brushwood now under lofty beetling crags perforated with caves, now across high breezy plateaus, now along smiling open valleys, now into gloomy gorges, until we almost despair of exhausting the novelty and variety of the scenery. If we combine the tendencies of the sportsman and the arch~eologist, these rides offer other inducements besides their mere scenic attractions. At one moment you stumble unexpectedly upon a carved stone, upon which you see, or fancy you see, an inscription; you put down your gun to examine it, and up gets a covey of partridges within ten yards of you; you mark them down, and lo, they have led you to an extensive area of ruin, hitherto unknown and unsuspected by Palestine explorers. For the rest of that day you dont think anything more about partridges, but linger so long over your new discovery, that you lose your way in the dark for you naturally despise guides, and altogether dispense with them and on your arrival find your house- hold, or rather camphold, consumed with an anxiety which is principally com- pounded of disgust for having been kept so long waiting for dinner; or else you give yourself up to a day in the tombs. This is a more lively occupation than it sounds. You provide yourself with a candle and matches, and go to certain ruins, in the neighboring rocks of which you have marked do vn tombs. How torn and hot and dusty you get by the time you have examined a dozen of these LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. 87 subterranean abodes of the dead, scram- bling about on all fours or t~ p/at veizire, tearing away the brushwood ~vhich con- ceals their arched entrances, and counting and measuring their kokirn and their loculi, and making plans thereof, and sketches of such ornamentation as may exist! I have become blast in regard to tombs: as I have scrambled into certainly at least a hundred, my mortuary appetite is satisfied. I am only tempted now by one that never seems to have been opened. That, I confess, is irresistible. Hitherto I have never found anything more interesting than bones, or more val- uable than broken pottery jars. There is an odor about a tomb that has never been opened, when you are the first to roll away the great circular stone that has closed it for the last two thousand years, which, I suppose, would kill you if you inhaled too much of it, and is certainly the most sick- ening smell I know. But how encourag- ing it is! There is a flavor of hope and anticipation in it that compensates you for feeling inclined to faint. Some of these stones are fancifully engraved sometimes with a seven-branched candle- stick on each side of the door, sometimes with a sort of cinquefoil or rosette. More- over, on the stones in the ruins, one comes across some on which are devices indi- cating various historical periods down to the Crusades, the Christian warriors having evidently discovered the charms of Carmel, and having their outposts and summer retreats up here, while they were keeping watch and ward in the strong fortress of Athlit, the Castellum Peregrino- rum, which was one of the landing-places of the pilgrims to the Holy Land. So we find occasionally their shields and bosses and crosses on these old stones. But it is not without a certain kind of risk that we rummage about for these records of the past; for, as a general rule, they are so overgrown with brushwood, that we have to push our way without being able often to see where we are going, or know- ing what kind of creatures we may have to encounter apart from the snakes and scorpions which abound the former, I believe, rarely venomous, the latter some- times as large as moderate-sized crabs. I have in some of these caves come across traces of more formidable animals. On the soft soil at the bottom of a large nat- ural cavern which I was one day explor- ing, I came upon the recent footprints of a leopard: and lest there should be any doubt as to the existence of these animals on the mountain which, I observe, some writers have denied I may mention that I received notice one morning that a Bedouin had shot one the previous night; and riding over immediately to his tent, I found he had killed a very handsome specimen, measuring a little over six feet from the snout to the tip of the tail the skin of which I have now in my posses- sion. There is another animal the habitat of which in Palestine has been deemed doubtful. About ten miles from Dahlieh the Crocodile River flows into the sea, and it has always been said to derive its name from the presence of that reptile in its waters. The other daya man brought me a piece of crocodile-skin about a foot square, as a present, which he had himself cut from the belly of the animal, which he had assisted in killing only a week pre- viously in this stream. In regard to other fera~ naturce, I have several times found the quills of porcupines; young hyenas have been brought to me for sale; glut- tons are said to exist, and one or two spe- cies of wildcat. In some of the thickly wooded bottoms there are wild boar, and a friend of mine killed one recently in the marsh near Athlit. In the course of the year I saw altogether two deer and five gazelle at different times, but never when I happened to have a gun. Venison is, however, a luxury in which we are occa- sionally able to indulge, and I took a handsome pair of horns from the head of a buck recently brought to me. But sum- mer shooting on foot is hot work for the sportsman; and if one rides, the rocky and precipitous nature of the country often involves a wild scramble for the horses, more especially as the paths we generally follow are those made by goats. My horse has a habit, when he is going down a perfectly smooth piece of limestone rock, at an angle of 450, which overhangs a precipice, of stopping to scratch his ear with his hind foot, which interferes for the moment with my respiration, and of which I have in vain tried to break him. In the course of these scrambles I have three or four times come upon curious square erections, which I have not ob- served mentioned in any work upon Pal- estine. The largest of these was fourteen feet high by twelve square, and formed of slabs of stone averaging three feet by two, by one in thickness, laid upon each other without cement, but evidently hewn so that the construction should be symmet- rical. I thought at first there might be a chamber inside; but on examining one of the smaller ones, I found it to be perfectly 88 LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. solid. From the weather-beaten appear- ance of the stones, they seem to have been in position from great antiquity; but whether they were altars, or monuments over tombs, or served some more practi- cal purpose, I leave for those skilled in such matters to decide. The huge mill- stones are numerous, and are to be found, sometimes far removed from any ruin, in the most remote valleys. The lower one usually measures from eight to ten feet in diameter, with a raised rim round the cir- cumference, eight or ten inches high, and a square hole in the centre: they are about two feet six inches thick, but they are often hewn out of the living rock, as well as the basin for the receptacle of the oil below them. Then there are rock-cut res- ervoirs: the largest I have seen was about one hundred feet by forty-five, and fifteen in. depth; but it was half filled with vege- tation, and was originally much deeper. And there are traplike and deceptive cis- terns, the mouths of which are about the size of a coal-hole in the pavement of a London street; but when there is a bush instead of a lid over it, a false step may land you in a circular pit perhaps twenty feet deep, of a demijohn shape, and with smooth sides, from which escape would be hopeless. It was into such a pit probably that Joseph was let down by his brothers. These cisterns are very numerous at some of the ruins, and prove how dependent the population were upon rain-water, and how glad they must have been when Elijah saw the cloud from this very mountain, after a three years drought, which indicated a rainfall. My two summers experience of Carmel, however, would lead me to conclude that clouds are the rule, and entirely cloudless skies the exception. Whether it is owing to the high Nile at this time of year, as has been suggested, or to whatever cause, the fact remains, that the midsummer heats are remarkably tempered by the cloudy skies. Althouah rain never falls between April and October, there are many mornings so damp and cloudy in the middle of summer, that in any other coun- try one would certainly predict a rainy day; and although the sun soon drives the damp feeling away, the cloudy sky remains more or less all the day. This, combined with a strong, fresh sea-breeze, always keeps the temperature cool. In Esfia last summer, the thermometer on the hottest days only reached 8i~ in the vault, and at night it generally fell to 7Q0 in the tent. Here at Dahlieh it is a little hotter, ranging sometimes in the day to but only occasionally. As the alti- tude of our camp at Esfia was seventeen hundred and fifty feet, not only did we enjoy a most agreeable climate, but a mag- nificent viewof a very different kind, however, from that at I)ahlieh. There it was panoramic. Immediately at our feet, scarcely a mile off as the crow flies, was the plain of the Kishon, with that stream winding through it, and issuing from the plain of Esdraelon, over which we also looked by the narrow valley formed by the approach of the low wooded hills of Gali- lee to the base of Carmel. Sitting at our tent-door, we could see the bay and city of Acre, and the seacoast as far as the ladder of Tyre. The irregular outline of the mountains of northern Galilee, the highest reaching an elevation of four thou- sand feet, limited our view in that direc- tion. To the north-east we faced Her- mon, with its snowy crest. Nazareth, about twelve miles off, seemed almost at our feet; beyond it was rounded Tabor, the plain of Jezreel, with the villages of Endor and Nain, and Mount Gilboa, with the mountains of Gilead plainly visible in the distance. To the south we looked over the hills of Samaria, and on a clear day could make out the outline of the ruins of Cesarea on the margin of the sea, which bounded our horizon in that direction. While, however, enjoying an almost un- rivalled prospect and a cool climate, our residence upon this exposed mountain-top was not without its dc/szgrdmens. As often as not it blew a gale of wind, generally from the south west, and I sometimes feared that our whole fragile construction would be blown clean down the Wady Shomariyeh, eighteen hundred feet, into the plain below. This was a rock-y gorge, on the edge of which our camp was situ- ated, so precipitous that there was not even a goat-path down it. Then our cui- sine left much to be desired. The cook, in his windy brushwood shed, and without even a table to cook on, struggled manfully with dust-clouds and prowling dogs, per- forming wonders on a couple of little iron tripods, on which he built charcoal fires; but as he generally cooked enough for the whole day at one time, the seven-oclock dinner was merely the twelve-oclock breakfast, sodden and warmed up, with a great deal more dust in it. Our apart- ments were so breezy that only large sta- ble lanterns could stand the racket: and they are bad to read byindeed they are not good to eat by, but the less we saw of our food under the circumstances the bet- ter. Fortunately we often had partridges, LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. 89 to vary the stews of chicken and mutton, and plenty of leben or sour milk, tasting very strongly of goat. The flavor of goat is an acquired taste. Then we were rather short of water. All of this neces- sary of life h~d to be carried nearly a mile up a steep rocky path: two donkeys were perpetually employed on this ser- vice. There was a spring nearer, called the spring of the leeches. Unwarned by the name, I once watered my horse there, and for some days afterwards was occupied extracting leeches from under his tongue and the recesses of his throat. I pulled out eleven altogether, so the spring was not misnamed. I thought of trying to use it for bathing purposes, but was afraid the ladies might object, even though the alternative involved a certain economy in tubbing arrangements, which did not comport with our usual habits. We also had nightly visits from jackals, which sometimes had the boldness to poke their noses into our bedrooms in the dead of night, causing our small dog to burst into frantic fits of barking, and producing gen- eral consternation and wakefulness. Now and then a scorpion was found under a pillow or in a shoe. But these were little incidents which gave an interest and pi- quancy to existence unknown in civilized life. I merely mention them to show why, in order that they should not become monotonous, we determined not to sub- ject ourselves to them another year, but to build something more substantial than our mat-shed. There was, by the way, one especial inconvenience, a recurrence of which was, it was to be hoped, not to be anticipated, and this resulted from the visitation of cholera in Egypt. When it was reported that some cases had oc- curred in Beyrout, a panic was produced in Haifa. A cordon was l)ut round the town, some six or eight families of the richer native inhabitants flying from it, and taking refuge in Esfia. All postal communication by land and sea was stopped. For two months we were with- out news of the outside world even the telegraph was forbidden to perform its functions, lest news should be conveyed of the spread of the disease which should increase the panic. The consequence was, that the wildest rumors were afloat of the daily mortality in Beyrout, which had never exceeded two doubtful cases in all; and the scare was only thereby in- creased, till it culminated in a visit to my camp by the police in search of a Haifiote who had been in Beyrout at the moment when these deaths occurred, who was supposed to have fled from that town, and as he was known to be a friend of mine, was suspected of being in hiding in my tent. This conjecture was enough to in- fect Esfia; for two days we were put into quarantine, and prohibited from going to Haifa, and I had some trouble in convinc- ing the police that I knew nothing what- ever of the refugee in question. When I expressed to the natives of Esfia my intention of building at their village, the proposal was received with acclamation. My presence, they said, would be a protection against the thieving propensities of the inhabitants of Tireh a Moslem village in the plain, with a notoriously bad reputation who were so daring in their depredations that they would come in broad daylight into the vineyards of the Esfiotes and carry off their grapes under their eyes, without the latter venturing to make any resistance. That they had not suffered that summer from any of these predatory incursions the villagers attributed, rightly or wrongly, to my presence. Under tbese circum- stances they declared, in the first flush of their enthusiasm, that they would present me with a building-site. This I declined, preferring rather to pay a small sum for the land. In my innocence I took their offer for a bond fide one; and it was only when I came to make them what I be- lieved was a reasonable proposal, that I discovered they had been indulging in complimentary figures of speech, and that they demanded one hundred and fifty na- poleons for a piece of ground which was certainly not worth above twenty. Al- though they came down in their price one hundred napoleons at a bound, they had shown the cloven foot in too marked a manner for me to choose them as neigh- bors. It would be no satisfaction to me, I remarked, to protect from the thieves of Tireh as big a set of thieves after an- other fashion, and I declined having any. thing more to do with them. It must, in justice to the Druses, be remarked, that this part of the village did not belong to them, and that the chief offender in the matter was the head of the Christian com- munity there. It was about the middle of last winter, when I was beginning with some perplex- ity to revolve in my mind summer schemes for avoiding the heat of Haifa, that I one day received a visit from a venerable old man with a grey beard and a dignified bearing, who announced himself as the kiatib or spiritual sheikh of the Druses of Dahlieh. His story was a pitiful one. 90 LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE. The term of the annual draft of conscripts for the Turkish army had arrived, and his only remaining son, the husband of a very beautiful young woman whom I remem- bered having seen, was to be carried off as a soldier. The old mother, and the young wife, who had a baby, were in de- spair. One son, they said, had been taken under the conscription ten years before, had deserted to his co-religionists in the Hauran, and had been lost to the family forever; and now its last prop was to be snatched from it, unless fifty Turkish pounds were forthcoming to purchase a substitute. The object of the old sheikhs visit was to borrow this amount from me. It occurred to me that if, on inspection, Dahlieh suited as a summer resort, I might kill two birds with one stone, by helping the sheikh out of his difficulties and obtaining a site for a house. I had already visited the place and been struck with its beauty, but I had not looked on it as a possible residence, and I now lost no time in riding up on a tour of inspec- tion. The result was in every respect satisfactory; for it so happened that, be- sides the sheikh being the owner of a good vineyard, the best situation in the village for a house belonged to him. We therefore had no difficulty in coming to an arrangement to our mutual satisfaction, whereby he saved his son from the army, and I became a landed proprietor in Dahlieh. I now found I had no time to lose if the house was to be built before the hot weather. Fortunately there were exten- sive ruins of an ancient town a mile off; and here was an unlimited supply of stones which had been cut for me by the Romans, or possibly an anterior race. The name of this place is Dubil. It is situated on a hill about two hundred feet higher than Dahlieh, from which it is sep- arated by a valley terraced with orchards and gardens; and upon comparing it with the numerous other remains of ancient towns which I have visited, I have little doubt that in old times it was the princi- pal city of Carmel, though it has not, so far as I am aware, been identified with any known historical place. It has served as a quarry for the surrounding country for so long, that all its best stones have long since been carried offindeed I felt myself somewhat guilty in following the general example. But in the absence of any law for the preservation of ancient monuments, it is difficult to be the only person in the country who respects them, Lhe more especially when it involves a great saving of money to use them. Most of those I took were undrafted stones. And are they not as well preserved in the walls of my house as lying on the barren hilltop? I was in hopes of finding some with devices or inscriptions. Many of those which have been procured from here by the villagers of Dahlieh, and built by them into the walls of their houses, are thus decorated; but I was not so fortu- nate. There is a handsome sarcophagus, some fragments of columns and stone basins, however, which I have my eye upon, and which at some future period I may succeed in transporting to my new abode. Meantime, curiously enough, I had no sooner begun to dig the founda- tions of the house, than I struck those of one of a period long gone by. I found, when I got two feet below the surface of the ground, that I could put the whole back wall upon a solid basis of hewn masses of stone, which were so appropri- ately placed that they might have been put there to order. I also came upon great quantities of /essercr, and hoped to find a tesselated pavement also ready for imme- diate use. In this I was disappointed; but I came upon a good stone floor, in which was cut a groove about three inches deep and two wide, the object of which did not at first occur to me. Loath to cover it with any cement, it now forms, in all its original rudeness, the floor of a back pas- sage. Near this the workmen came upon a dozen or more iron rings, from two to three inches in diameter, attached to nails about eight inches long, which had been clinched at the opposite end. These were found about three feet below the surface, and were, of course, heavily rusted. I think it is likely that they may have been used for fastening horses. At any rate, I have passed some of them through the fire, and find them excellent as stable rings. The others I have kept as curios- ities. Besides this, we came upon a large fragment of a carved cornice, which I had carefully put on one side, and which, to my intense disgust, the workmen, by mistake, squared into a building stone; also half a stone basin, a copper coin of the time of Constantine, and a great quan- tity of broken glass and pottery. In mov- ing a stone wall for a new terrace, I found one of those curious huge rollers men- tioned in the Survey of the Palestine Ex- ploration Fund, and which seem peculiar to Carmelat least I am not aware of their having been found elsewhere in Pal- estine. There are some twenty of them scattered over the ruins of Dubil, and LIFE IN A DRUS1~ VILLAGE. 9 almost the same number at a ruin about two miles from Dahlieh, called Khurbet Semakha, where are also to be found the remains of one of the eleven Jewish syna- gogues of old date which have been as yet discovered in the Holy Land. I unearthed my roller, which now decorates what I hope some day to call a lawn. It meas- ures eight feet long, two feet six inches in diameter at the centre, but tapers to two feet at one end, and has four parallel rows of grooves. Each groove is about a foot long and two inches deep; they are a Loot apart. It has been conjectured that these roll- ers form some part of an olive-pressing machinery; but I have failed in imagina- tion to construct a machine in which they could be employed though it is evident, from the remains of the olive-mills at Du- bil, that it was a great centre of an olive- oil industry. There are some prostrate stones there ten feet long, which were evidently uprights, and which are perfo- rated with holes and carved with slots and grooves, showing that they formed part of a massive mechanism connected with the huge circular millstones in their imme- diate vicinity; and in someinstances the rollers above described are near these. But the most fortunate discovery and this was not made till the house was built ~vas an ancient cistern, which luckily did not happen to be in the middle of the sitting-room, but just outside the back wall, exactly where I should probably have ha~d to build one. The use of the groove in the stone floor of the back passage was now evident. It was to conduct the water into this cistern, which had an opening, eighteen inches square, into the solid rock, and swelled out below into the shape of a bottle fifteen feet deep and eight feet in diameter. As the rock from which it is hewn is very hard, the ancients have saved me from 2O,~ to 3O~ in providing me with this reservoir, which I am enlarging, and shall have to cement, as the old cement, though still adhering to the sides in many places, has of course become useless. It was full of earth and dibris to the brim; and in clearing it out I got much fine mould, besides a great quantity of broken pottery, and some stems and fragments of glass vases, the rims of which were turned over and lined with silverunfortunately none of them perfect. In front of the house, about twenty yards from the verandah, I observed a fig- tree growing out of a suspicious-looking hole, and on clearing away some bram- bles, perceived that it led down into a cave. Into this I descended with a light, and found myself in a circular under- ground chamber one hundred feet in cir- cumference, the roof supported by a rude column of the living rock. Loose stones now cover the floor to a depth of two feet; but when they are cleared away, it will give a height to the roof of about eight feet, which can easily be increased if nec- essary. It had a second small opening under a rock at the opposite side, and near it what appeared to be a blocked-up passage. This I had cleared out, and found that it led to a second smaller cav- ern very much choked with stones. A dozen yards lower down I found the en- trance under a rock to a third cave, which, I suspect, communicates with the other two. They do not appear to have been used as tombs, though the rocks have been hewn in places, especially at the entrances. In their immediate neighbor- hood the field is strewn with /esserc~ and fragments of pottery and glass, and the natives tell me that if I dig, I shall find remains. This has produced a disagree- able conflict of sentiment in my mind. Regarded from a purely practical point of view, I think it will pay better to plant this field out in vines than to exca- vate in it. On the other hand, I feel I have already done a heathenish thing in building a house on the top of the founda- tions of one of the Byzantine period, with- out examining them thoroughly. From the relics I found, my predecessor must have been a man of wealth and position, or he never would have used such elabo- rate wineglasses; and it may be that I am living now on the top of something in- t~resting. But had I, as I was sorely tempted to do when I found the carved cornice, gone on digging, I should have turned the site of my future house into a pit, broken my contract with the builder, and had no place to come to this summer all which would have involved great loss and inconvenience, on the chance of contributing my mite to the existing col- lections of Palestine antiquities. I con- sole myself, therefore, by the reflection that these remains are relatively modern, and that the chance of there being a tri- lingual stone with an inscription which may throw light on the earlier religions of mankind buried under my bedroom is ex- ceedingly remote. Rather than spend my substance in seeking for it, I will convert what the ancients have left me to practical purposes. There is a hole two feet deep and two feet square hewn out of the solid rock near where I propose to build a 92 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. stable, which I will turn into a horse- the thick green leafy screen lay between trough. These caves shall become cel- the two. lars; the modern wines of Carmel shall There was no mistaking, however, the be stored away in its old tombs, the bot- age of the invisible speaker. Youth, tIes packed neatly into loculi or stacked youth, was in every tone of the voice, in away in kokim, and the various vintages every word that fell on the listeners ears. allowed to mature in the sepulchres of a Do not walk so slowly, Elise, in fluent bygone race. I will put hogsheads into but unmistakable English-French. Sup- the caverns once occupied by hermits; the pose just suppose that we should grottos of ascetics shall become store- miss the train. houses for the ruddy juice that maketh Mademoiselle will have twenty mm- glad the heart of man; and the irony of utes to wait at the station, if not half an fate shall, through my instrumentality, hour. work its revenge upon the haunts of these An impatient exclamation from the first misguided anchorites. As for the evi- speaker; then silence for two or three dences of luxury that I come across, they minutes, whilst the three the two worn- only aggravate me. When I think of my en and the lonely man pursued their Byzantine predecessor seated beneath way. marble porticos, drinking out of the most Silence, broken then by something like exquisitely shaped flagons of delicate blue a cry of despair. glass, golden and silver tipped, his eye Elise, Elise ! I have not brought my ranging over the same view that mine purse! Have you? No, dont shake does the same, and yet so different, your head, feel in your pocket. with its hanging forests and terraced vine- Mademoiselle, there is not the slight- yards, its columned temples, its teeming est use; I have no money with me. But population and compare the mud-built there is plenty of time; have I not just villao~e ruined terraces, naked hills, and told mademoiselle so? We will go back unp~pled valleys, with all this vanished to the convent. luxury and beauty, I dont want to fin4 Oh, is there indeed? Well, I will go, anything that reminds me of the contrast. but not you. I can run much more The future, not the past, seems to claim quickly. You walk slowly on towards the our energies and resources. When every station, and I will return. man, free from the tyranny of the unjust Almost involuntarily the man, at the judcre or the extortionate tax-gatherer, can first sound of the discussion, had put his sit in peace and happiness under his own hand in his pocket and drawn forth his vine and his own fig-tree, it will be time purse vague ideas floating through his enough to begin to excavate under them. mind; but as the young voice told its Meanwhile, be mine the task, however plan, and repeated, You are sure, Elise, feebly, to labor for the restoration of this sure that there is plenty of time, he took land to its former condition of fruitfulness out his watch, and from it glanced to the and abundance. small station, that a sudden dip in the road disclosed to view beneath them _____________ then backwards towards the white build- ing, that he knew to be the convent of the Sacr~ Cceur. From Blackwoods Magazine. If her feet are as young as her voice, DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. he thought, she will do it easily. And Man so thinking, sighed, perhaps almost un- Of his own happiness is artisan. consciously envying her her youth, and ON one side a white glaring road, upon feeling hardly used, that his own should which the sun, early as it yet was, shone have slipped by; missing, in the swift burning down; on the other, a narrow retrospective glance, the brilliant gleams path by a sweet-scented bean-field, the of color that had lightened his path at morning dew still sparkling on the delicate times, and which made the surrounding blossoms, and between the two a tall di- blackness so much blacker; failing en- viding hedgerow, crowned with honey- tirely to acknowledge the justice of the suckle and wild roses, law of compensation, the justice of that A man sauntering slowly along the law which gives us everything for which dusty road paused involuntarily as the we are willing to pay. sound of a voice disturbed his reverie. A few steps more brought him to the So close was it, that he looked up as if stile, which served as the narrow means almost expecting to see the speaker, but of communication between the road and DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. 93 what lay hidden from sight by the high rose-crowned hedge, and, arrived at it, he paused and looked over; but the sweet bean-flowers softly stirring in the early breeze, the glittering dewdrops still upon their leaves, were all that rewarded his hasty glance. Even Elise was hidden from sight; or she had perhaps turned back with her young mistress. He felt a sensation of disappointment, as he took his arms off the narrow wooden bar, and resumed his walk. Apparently Elise had a little exaggerated the time to spare, in her eagerness to demonstrate she was right, or perhaps the watch to which she had trusted did not coincide with the clock which created time for the village of Tr6cour; anyhow, when the man s slow steps had led him down the little steep hill, across the broad, unfre- quented road, and he found himself stand- ing on the small, deserted platform, the massive hand on the clock above his head pointed already to a quarter past seven, and in five minutes the train would be due. He walked up and down several times, al~vays lengthening his walk, till no inter- vening building lay between him and the hill that led to the bean-field; but the minutes slipped away one by one, and with the last a white puff of smoke came round the sharp angle which seemed to cut off the railway line a few yards ahead, and the train moved slowly into the sta- tion. The one porter rang the bell, and called out to the passengers to take their seats for ; then followed a long list of un- intelligible names, given in the voluble French tongue, and the one passenger catching the word S& izay, nodded lazily to the porter to unlock the door of the carriage by which he found himself, his head turned all the time towards the spot where, close at hand, on the sunny shad- owless hill, were visible two dark figures one running with fleet young footsteps, with which the other strove in vain to keep Wait one minute, the solitary trav- eller said to the station-master, standing by his side. Yonder comes a lady who is most anxious to catch this train. The man paused, whistle in hand, to turn in the direction whither he pointed, and even as he looked, through the dark narrow entry ran a slight girls figure. She did not hesitate, though the slow train, which called at every village between Tr6cour and S6rizay, was already, though almost imperceptibly, in motion; but ran straight on to where the two officials stood by the already closing door. Let me in, she cried. Then the door was thrown open, a hand, slender and brown, was held out and clasped hers, and a second later she was in the carriage, and an angry voice was pouring forth a fierce list of broken rules and consequent penalties, through the open windows, the while the owner of the said voice was turning the key in the lock. But what cared she? For the moment nothing mattered, now that she was in the train, safe so far, on her journey. She leant out of the window, nodding and smiling towards the platform, where Elise, dusty and hot, stood watching the receding train. All the disagreeables were forgotten the hot walk, the steep hill down ~vhich she had run so fleetly, whilst Elise stum- bled on behind, grumbling loudly the while. And quite forgotten also the fact that she was not alone; that the window out of which she leant and nodded was usurped; that its rightful owner, to whom she had so much cause to be grateful, was fain to be content with other than the one he had chosen, or do without altogether. Her unconsciousness amused her fel- low-traveller; it fitted in, all unconsciously, with the preconceived opinion of her that he had formed as he had listened to her voice. She was just what he had pctured young, very young, perhaps not more than sixteen. English, of course, that he had guessed; not beautiful, but as pretty as bright brown hair, and soft grey eyes, and a mouth as full and red as a pomegranate, could make her. And, in addition, youth and innocent enthusiasm in every tone of the voice, every movement of the slight figure. Suddenly, as he watched and speculated as to what especial form of pleasure this days outing tended, she turned her head, and faced him with a look of blank despair. Monsieur, speaking so hurriedly that he could scarcely follow her words, what shall I do? I never took a ticket! The movement of the train unsteadied her, and he held out his hand, fearing she would fall, as she stood thus before him; and as he did so, the sight of it recalled the assistance he had before rendered her. Tell me, she cried, sinking down into the seat opposite him, what must I do? Oh, it will be all right, he answered quietly. Do not distress yourself. I 94 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. will speak to the station-master at Sari- edly, her eyes wandering over the small, zay. dark head, where one or two grey hairs Thanks, a thousand thanks. How showed. Not handsome, slowly, good of you! I was so afraid for the no, not handsome, but possibly might moment that they might send me back. have been long ago when he was young. Do you know, I have never travelled Then her reflections were cut short by alone before, and I have been most unfor- a pair of dark eyes suddenly meeting hers, tunate. and the doubtful I think was changed Yes, he assented. First, you left for a decided I am sure he has been your purse behind; then No, he handsome. Thus sixteen epitomizing went on, I am not Mephistopheles, you eight-and-thirty. A few minutes later, the need not look so startled. I was on the story of this sudden, unexpected holiday other side of the hedge when you found it was being told him. out. My uncle, Monsieur de Croye, is at She gave a low laugh. S~rizay for two or three days, and he How very amusing, she answered, remembered I ~vas at the convent at Tr& that you should have met me again! cour, and has sent for me to spend today What a curious coincidence that you with him. And if I had missed the train, should have helped me twice! First, with as I so nearly did, and all through Elises your hand; for, I am sure, if it had not obstinacy, I should not have been able to been for you, they would never have let go till three this afternoon: the whole me in. Did you hear that the porter kept day would have been lost. saying, No, no! when I cried to get And what are you going to do at Seri- in? zay? It is not a very lively place. I was not observing him, but he was Oh, but monsieur, I dont think you very angry afterwards. can know it, for indeed it is. And I will Yes, she laughed again, tell you what I hope her voice fell a And then for one brief moment there little. To-night there is a dance at the flashed through her mind all the lessons Casino, and I hope from something my she had received anent men. How men, aunt said in her letter, that they are going. and, above all, strange men, were, as a If there is one thing I long for, it is to go race, to be avoided, and only spoken to, to a dance. I have never even seen one. even those whose antecedents were unim- Her eyes travelled past the man oppo- peachable, when protective females were site towards the brilliant summer sunshine at hand, ready to turn aside the dangerous outside, and up to the clear, blue, early shaft which the stronger sex only sought morning sky overhead, her lips parting time and opportunity to let fly. into a little smile at the joyful prospect But those men of whom, in her careless her words had conjured up. youth, she had received so many ~varn- But suddenly the eyes returned to his ings, were quite different from this one, face, the minds flight was checked, those she decided confidently. accents of despair that he had learnt to Those of whom she had heard as preju- know fell on his ears. dicial to the safety and happiness of girl- Elise had it, she cried. Oh, I hood were young themselves,~blond and wonder what she did with it? Did you blue-eyed, stalwart and strong, rejoicing see? No, of course you were not looking in health and strength; such a one would out. I never thought of it for one mo- be known afar off. ment. it was my bag, she went on in a But this man was very different; and more explanatory voice; she was carry- she raised a pair of frank, grey eyes to ing it. Oh, what shall I do? take note of his appearance, by way of Surely she will send it after you. proving her carefulness. You say there is another train at three. He whom she watched noted in a mo- Yes, despairingly; but Elise is so ment the little check when, the anxiety stupid. subsiding, she was enabled to review her Well, you must telegraph, he said position, and was well aware of the feel- decidedly. We shall arrive at Courville ing that had prompted it, or, at any rate, in five minutes, and you must send a made a good guess at it. message from there. He drew a letter out of his pocket and A look of relief passed over her face. read it through, whilst his opposite neigh- He took out a pocket-book and tore off a bor took a few brief notes. sheet. Not at all young! That was the Have you a pencil? he asked; and mental summing up. Not at all, decid- when she shook her head, he unfastened DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. 95 a small gold pencil-case from his watch- chain and held it out to her. She took it absently, unbuttoning her gloves, the while her mind sought the right words in which to frame her message; but at the sight of the little gold toy, the perplexity for the moment was banished. How very, very pretty! she ex- claimed. His eyes followino- the direction of hers, noted the little pencil-case, made in the form of an anchor. Yes, he said, I have had it ever since I first went to school. There is the anchor itself to rep- resent hope; on its two points are en- graved the names of my sister and myself she gave it to me Louis and C6cile. It is very small. I dare say you cannot make it out. Oh, but I can quite easily; and there is a cross engraved above for faith, and she paused, her eyes roving over the little ornament for the third symbol that of charity. The little piece of gold cord that fas- tens it to my watch-chain is meant to rep- resent love, he said, in answer to the inquirinc~ look. Of course, the threefold cord that is not quickly broken. It is one of the pret- tiest things I ever saw. And you say your sister gave it to you when you first went to school. You must have taken great care of it. It was a long time ago; and he smiled, but a moment afterwards sighed. Yes, she assented, it must have been. I was ten, and she a little girl of eight a very pretty little girl; and she gave me this because she was so unhappy at my going we had never been separated before. My father gave me a watch and chain by way of inaugurating my entrance into life, and C& ile brought me this, her chief treasure, for my further adornment. He smiled a little sadly as he spoke, watching the pretty girlish face listening so interestedly, and brought his mind back from the past into which it had strayed, with a little effort. It must be very pleasant to be two, the girl remarked thoughtfully, fingering the little ornament; to have either a brother or a sister. I have always wished for one. But I am quite forgetting the telec~ram, beginning hastily to write. And a minute later her fellow-traveller saw that he, his words, everything about him, was forgotten in the all-absorbing anxiety of striving to bring home to Elises mind the necessities of the case in as few words as possible. At last she lifted her head, a frown on her smootL white forehead. If only Sister Clementine had been at home, she sighed, it would have been all right; she would have understood. Then her anxious glances & ncountered his, and, It is reallyveryimportant,she said hesitatingly. And he understood, as well as if she had explained it in words, that the bag contained the requisites for the possible ball. Of course it is most important, he assented, rousing himself and leaning for- ward; but between us we will overcome all the difficulties. You write the mes- sage, and I will get out at Courville, and see that it goes. It is very good of you; but she was thinking far more of the probabilities of the three oclock train bringing her that of which she stood in need, than of the polite answer to his speech. She ~vrote in silence for a moment, then handed him the slip of paper. I dont think they can make any mis- take; do you? A very slight smile, so swift that it had scarcely time to lighten for a second the gravity of his eyes, appeared, as he read the words, From Dorothy Vyse to Sister Jose- phine. Send my bag by Three train. Very important. Yes, Sister Josephine is the best per- son, she repeated meditatively. She is younger, and more likely to under- stand. I think it is sure to be all right, he assented; you must make your uncle send some one to meet the train, so that you get it at once. Yes, I might do that~ A moment later the train drew up at Courville~ and Miss Vyse was left alone whilst her fellow-traveller got out to send off the message. She stood at the window watching where he had vanished through the door that led into the telegraph office, and the train was on the point of starting when he reappeared. Here, she called, as she saw him glance up and down in uncer- tainty, and, guided by her fresh voice, he made a few hasty steps towards where the brown head and slim young figure awaited him. Then the door was noisily slammed, and they were off again. I thought you were going to be left behind this time, she said, laughing. Yes, he answered, but we have 96 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. been able to save one another from that For Perhaps we shall meet at the misfortune. Casino; who knows? he said. That You sent it? she questioned, ignor- would be one partner better than none, ing his remark. Oh, I hope it will be would it not? all right. Yes ; the blush fading, and her eyes It is sure to be, he answered, growing glad once more. But and Dont be~ uneasy about it, or you will then she paused. spoil a bit of your holiday, and you ought Oh, if I come, I will find De Mornay, to enjoy every moment of it. and be presented in due form. So I mean to do, but I think I hope The momentary cloud cleared again, but that to-night will be the best part of it. the train was slackening speed, the last Are you very fond of dancino~? little station had been passed, the dew Very! decidedly. had vanished from the flowers wherewith And do you expect to have much ? the wayside banks were bright, the sun Do you know many people likely to be shone broadly down on golden corn-fields, there? and S~rizay was close at hand. Not one. But I should think, she This is our destination, the man said, went on confidently, that uncle must. rising and looking forth. A quarter past And if he takes me, I should think he is eightwe are only five minutes late. sure to find me partners. I am hungry, Miss Vyse remarked. It seems to me it is the very least he Well, in a quarter of an hour you will can do. be at breakfast. I suppose you will be Of course it would be pleasant anyhow met? I mean I should like to go, if I did not Yes, I think so, rising and leaning know a soul in the room; but still it out of the window; I expect Anne would be rather disappointing to go to a that is my aunts English maid will be ball and not dance once wouldnt it? here. It would indeed; but I hope that is Well, you must tell her to wait one not likely to he the case. minute, whilst I see if there is an answer She remained silent a moment, appar- to your telegram. I asked Sister Jose. ently reviewing the situation, and then phine to send one here. A Monsieur de Mornay is staying with How very good of you ! she said, them. His brother lives near S~rizay, so drawing in her head, and turning her of course he will know people. pretty eyes towards him. Of course. De Mornay let me see. Suspense is too terrible to bear, he I have met him in Paris, or at least seen answered lightly, if it can be avoided. him. A short, fat, bald man, with a very I shall never forget, she answered, black moustache and an eyeglass. how much I owe you for your kindness It did not sound an exciting description to-day. My whole holiday would have of the cavalier upon whose kindness she been spoilt if it had not been for you. was to be dependent. But Miss Vyses Then the train stopped, and There is thoughts flew past the personal descrip- Anne, she exclaimed, and a moment tion to the more important fact that had later was by her side,pouring forth a vol- attracted her attention. uble stream of chatter, chiefly anent the Do you know him? How very odd! disasters that had befallen her in the hour the largeness, not the smallness of the and a half since she had quitted the shel- world, having so far impressed itself upon tering roof of the Sacr~ Cceur. her. We are to wait one moment, Anne, for I dont know that I have ever spoken an answer to the telegram; and whilst to him; but if I come across him, I will Anne was striving~to grasp the story, and try and recall myself to his remembrance. to understand why Miss Vyse had no Are you going to stay in S& izay? ticket, a tall, dark-haired man came up to It was the first question that had passed them where they stood together, letting her lips, and it come swiftly, unpremedi- the few passengers dri tatedly, and was followed by a little hasty in his hand. ~ ft by, an envelope blush, that showed she felt herself to have It is all right, I hope, he said, lifting been indiscreet, his hat, as the girl tore it open. I am not sure. He spoke doubtfully, Yes, she answered, becoming once as if reviewing his plans; but the girl more aware of his presence, it is all only read in the dubious answer a rebuke right. Sister Josephine will take it her- for her question, and blushed again. He self to the train. saw it, and probably guessed its origin. That is well: and about the ticket; I DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. 97 have spoken to the station-master, and all you have to do is to pay seven francs fifty centimes. Then all your troubles are over, I trust, for the day, and you are free to enjoy yourself. With a courteous Good morning he turned a~vay; but the girl made one little step to.his side, and speaking quickly and impulsively, You have been very kind, she said. I do hope I shall see you at the ball tonight. I shall be there, he answered. Then the slim, girlish figure passed away into the distance, following in the wake of the other passengers, her bright brown head bent down towards her short, plump coin- panion, as she poured forth an endless stream of question and answer. He watched her for a moment, till a turn of the building hid her from sight, then took out the letter from his pocket he had been reading in the train, and glanced through it again. Having read it, he tore it into frag- ments, and entering the telegraph office, wrote a message From Armand to Dubois. Shall stay here to-day, and go to Brussels by mid- night train. Having sent his message, he quitted the station, smiling a little as he saun- tered down the narrow steeet, with its few passengers hurrying by to their mar- keting in the early sunshine, at the thought of the effect its reception would have upon the friend to whom he had ad- dressed it. But the smile had quite vanished by the time he had arrived at the entrance into the dark courtyard of the Lion dOr, with its fat landlord on the lookout for a chance guest. Monsieur had ordered a room from Paris? Yes. And monsieurs servant had arrived the previous daywith his luggage. Yes, it was quite right, quite right; and if only the servant had said the time at which monsieur was expected, or a message, Un fr/it inot, had been sent announcing his arrival, he, L~on Duval, would have sent the carriage to meet him. But as it was, he, with a shrug of his fat shoul- ders, was desolated, though not to blame. Scarcely hearing his landlords apolo- gies, the stranger mounted the stairs to the room which had been reserved for him, and flung open the door. An elderly manservant was its only occupant; he rose with a military salute LAVING AGE. VOL. XLIX 2503 as his master entered, but did not say anything until the door was closed be- tween them and Monsieur Duvals voluble apologies. I will take breakfast here, Monsieur Armand then said, and the servant went away to repeat the order. But when he came back, his master was pacing up and down the room, pausing generally by the large window which gave a glimpse of blue sparkling waters, far beyond the little town; and once when he had arrived there, without turning his head There is no letter for me, Jean, I suppose? he said. No, monsieur, Jean replied, lifting his eyes as he spoke, and looking sadly at the tall figure. And a moment later, suddenly, as if unable to keep silence: Monsieur stayed at Tr& our last night? Yes, he assented. And did monsieur No, he interrupted, speaking more quickly, she would not see me. I thought she might have written here. The old man only shook his head mourn- fully, whilst the younger seated himself before the breakfast now awaiting him. Did you go to her or write? the ser- vant hazarded by-and-by, as silence again fell between them. I sent a letter by a messenger, asking her to see me to say good-bye, telling her I was leaving France; but the only an- swer was a few words by the messenger, saying she could not see me; so I came on, meaning to go to Brussels this morn- ino And now? questioned Jean. Now, smiling a little, I have changed my mind. I have telegraphed to Monsieur Georges to tell him I shall leave here by the midnight train instead. But monsieur I have made up my mind, monsieur answered shortly. I have an engage- ment, but it will not take me long. We shall be able to start by the midnight train easily. Monsieur is not very wise, began Jean. Most unwise, interrupted his mas- ter; but I am afraid it is too late to begin to be different. Get me a news- paper of the place, you understand if they have such a thing, and paper and ink. It was half past nine, and the weekly ball to which the second-rate casino of S& izay treated its habituds during the summer months was drawing to an end 98 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. half past ten being the legitimate hour for tell you the truth, I never did do much in its closing, that way. But to-night I have felt really The dancers in the centre, the lookers- sorry I could not get through a waltz; on around, all alike seemed to be enjoying for we have a little schoolgirl from the themselves in a greater or less degree, Sacr~ Cceur with us who is wild to dance. and the rash attempts of the shopkeeping There she is, stopping short, and if you element to master the intricacy of the would just one, you know. It was so lancers the scorn of the more aristo- very unkind of Mademoiselle de Ville- cratic parties from neighboring houses, ron, irrelevantly; for I am sure her who, in Paris toilets, and with Paris man- fiance would have given her a turn, but ners, had availed themselves of the amuse- she would not allow me to present him. ment offered by a tolerable band, and a So if you good floor was very entertaining to the Of course, said his listener courte- non-combatants, safely drawn out of the ously; and it certainly seems as if reach of danger. A tall, slightly-built Mademoiselle de Villeron had been a little man, with a smooth dark head, coming unkind. But girls, you know, smiling, into the room, by one of its many en- sometimes think it as well to let no trances, paused in the-doorway, as if to temptation come in the way of afiancd. take a survey. First, of the dancers; but It is as well to be careful, assented neither the energetic bourgeois nor the Monsieur de Mornay; but still circum- aristocracy of the neighborhood seemed stances alter cases. to interest him. And in this case you think there was Then, to the lookers-on; rows of moth- not much danger? ers, fathers, and other relations, all alike Girls of sixteen are not dangerous, filled with joyful pride, till his eyes asserted Monsieur de Mornay confi- reached the party he was apparently in dently. So laughing heartily I search of. think you may run the risk. A stout, good-humored-looking man, a Then a slight tinge of color coming into stout good-humored-looking woman, and his broad face Ten thousand pardons, between them a girl in white, a girl monsieur; but names are treacherous with glad grey eyes, and pretty bright things, and yours, I am sorry to say, has brown hair, quite escaped me, Monsieur ? He watched her for a moment, and Armand, replied the other quietly. then, Pardon, monsieur, diverted his Thank you, effusively. Mademoi- attention; and he became aware that he selle,leaning across the guardian to was lounging in the doorway, to the incon- attract the girls attention, have you venience of the passers in and out, changed your mind? Are you still long- apparently to the great inconvenience of ing for a waltz? Because I have found .a short, fat man, with an eyeglass and a you a partner. very dyed moustache. At the sound of his voice the girl Pardon, monsieur, he answered, turned her head quickly; but before she drawing himself out of the way, and then could speak, if she had any such inten- looking at him with more interest. Mon- tion, Monsieur Armand, went on Mon- sieur de Mornay? he said, interroga- sieur de Mornay, Miss Vyse, Madame tively. de Croye. Madame bowed pleasantly; The same, sir, lifting a face that was and it was to her Monsieur Armand ad- rather pleasing, despite the obvious dye dressed a few polite words, whilst Miss of the hair. XTyse awaited his leisure. You do not remember me, I dare say, She no longer looked tired, which was but I have met you at the house of the what he had noticed when he first sa~v DArtignans. her. Her eyes were as fresh and eager Assuredly, replied the other. One now as when he had seen her at seven grows so forgetful as one gets older. But that morning. I must not delay, fussily; I am with a There was still a little smile about her party. young red mouth. She was looking down And I am all alone. May I, per- towards where, below, the last figure of haps the lancers was being danced by several Certainly, do come and join us. Per- sets, all more or less inefficient; whilst haps, stopping suddenly, ybu dance? the master of the ceremonies looked on, I do, or should say I did. despair written in his countenance; but Oh, you should not speak in the past the gambols of the crowd for the moment tense. Now I ~vell, confidentially, to scarcely interested her. DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. 99 He looks younger than I thought him this morning no shadow of doubt crossing her mind as to the comparative deceptiveness of subdued gaslight and brilliant early morning sunshine. And it is odd, but I think he is quite hand- some no~v. Not what I admire, slowly; a fair, curly-haired man is what I ad- mire, with a swift glance at the dark, smooth head above; but for a dark man he certainly is handsome. There, mademoiselle, he said, that is the end of the lancers. Now for our waltz. Yes, she answered quickly, do not let us lose any of it. He smiled. Well, if madame will permit, let us go and seat ourselves in the front row; and I promise you, you shall not miss one bar unless you so please. Yesgo, child, by all means, ma- dame replied kindly. I am sure it has not been very lively for you. \Vell, mademoiselle, was his first question, how has the holiday been? Everything your fancy painted when you started from Tr6cour? Yes, very nearly so. Somehow things never go quite right in this world No, it is rather the way of this world, he interposed. But excepting for these necessary drawbacks? Yes, excepting for those and there were several, you know, before we start- ed, and she laughed and for my not being able to dance,everything has gone well. That was rather a pity. Yes, with momentary asperity could you believe any one could come here every summer, as Monsieur de Mor- nay does, and not know one man to ask to dance a waltz? He asked that lady oppo- site, do you see a lady in pink muslin? well, he asked her if herfiancd, who is with her, would. But she said no; she could not spare him. I think it was rather unkind, even if it did bore him,and, after all, I am sixteen; in another year I shall be out. It was most unkind, I consider, he answered, trying to follow the thread of her remarks. So my partners were reduced to Uncle Henri and Monsieur de Mornay; they each danced a quadrille with me. It was a very funny affair, with another little laugh, for they did not in the least know what to do. Still, it was better than sitting still. You can imagine, therefore, how glad I was when I saw you, or rather you cant, because you are a man, and of course have been to many, many balls? A good many, he assented. But never to one in S6rizay, so here we start on equal terms. In a few minutes we shall have to make our dibut. And as to your gladness at seeing me, a possi- ble partner, I quite believe it. I was standing in the doorway behind you, and shall I tell you what I saw? She nodded. I saw a great many people dancing, and a great many more looking on ,all apparently quite happy; but besides all these I saw a man, and a lady, and a girl in a white muslin frock; and it seemed to me that this girl looked rather disconso- late, as if she were getting tired of watch- ing other people enjoying themselves. Yes, she interposed softly, I was. So I changed my mind, for I had meant not to come in, although smil- ingI had promised, and came under Monsieur de Mornays wing to the rescue. It was very good of you; and, do you know, her voice falling, and speaking very quickly, I am afraid J am rather un- grateful; for although you were so kind to me this morning, I never remembered to tell uncle about you until I got here this evening, when I hoped you would he here for one dance; and that reminded me, and I told my aunt. I only tell you, the red burning into her cheeks, because I dare say you might think it odd of uncle not to thank you for all you did; but you will understand now that it is not his fault. I hope you and your uncle had many more important things to talk about. Yes, indeed! Then coloring again, I mean we had somethinc~ of treat im- portance to discuss. My cousin Cleni- entine, their only child, is going to be married, and I am to be bridesmaid, and there is to be a ball. I dont wonder you forgot me, Mon- sieur Armand answered. That was a piece of news indeed. But there, the band is beginning, and, you know, we are to losenothing of this. Nothing, she repeated, rising to her feet, the soft color coming into her cheeks, her gray eyes burnin~ with excitement. Waltzing can be raised to the level of a fine art; and with a good floor, and Strausss softest, tenderest music sound- ing overhead, and such a partner as Mon- sieur Armand proved himself to be, Doro- thy Vyse felt that her holiday would have lost its chief attraction had he failed to 100 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. present himself. He moved so quietly, so gracefully, amongst the rash, the head- strong, amidst whom he found himself sharing the honors of the Casino, that no untoward incident marred the full pleas- ure of the dance. And it was the girl who first paused after all. Tired? he questioned. Oh, no, her words coming with soft little pants between; but I am so much out of breath that we must wait for a few seconds. You dared me to do it, you know, he said. There was not to be one pause from the first bar to the last. She smiled. I was afraid you would be one of those men I have been watching them this eveningwho just take one turn, and then stand still and talk. And conversation has no charm for you? Oh, one can talk at any time, she answered carelessly; but a waltz, that is another affair. That depends surely upon the conver- sation and the dancincr Yes, of course. But you, speaking more enthusiastically you dance beau- tifully; better than Jeanne Dupuy, and she is the best dancer in the convent. I am proud, mademoiselle, and feel encouraged to take another turn. Come l And you, putting his arm round her slim waist, how do you stand as compared with Mademoiselle Jeanne Dupuy? I dont think there can be much to choose between you. No, she answered indifferently; we are about equal. But as we are the two best, we are not allowed to dance to- gether, but we have to waltz with those who are very bad. ft rather spoils the pleasure. Yes, I should think so. But we get on very well together, I think; and that is a comfort, because Well? he questioned, as she stopped. Well, you see, she went on, we have sometimes feared, Jeanne and I, that perhaps we were not learning the most fashionable step, and that when we left Tr~cour we should find no one able to dance with us; but now I can tell her that it is all right. At least, stopping short, you would tell me Certainly; I should think you had learned in a Paris ball-room. You have been there lately, she que- ried, and know the fashionable step? Yes, he assented; I am quite a cri tic.~ Perhaps because of the distinct opinion that had been vouchsafed him on the sub- ject, Monsieur Armand did not attempt much conversation; but the dances were not very long, and all too soon, at least in as far as Miss Vyse was concerned, the music ceased. Do you think madame would trust me to take you into the buffet, and give you a glass of lemonade? I believe that light refreshment is to be had. Oh, I should think so. Madame, conversing with a new-corner, tall and thin and these facts exagger- ated by comparison with the party with whom he found himselfscarcely turned her head to say Yes, yes, childcer- tainly. And Miss Vyse, with her hand on Monsieur Armands arm, was led away through a narrow passage into another well-lighted room, where was a table with light refreshment, in the shape of sweet cakes and syrup. Her partner procured what she wished for, and then drawing a chair up to a little table, sat down beside her. She ate her cakes and drank her syrup and water with the most evident enjoy- ment, and after a little while volunteered a remark. I think I may safely say that I have never enjoyed any day in my life as much as I have done this one. I am very glad to hear it. You see, she went on explanatorily, I have been four years in the convent, and have never been out, except to spend a few odd days at the other girls houses in the neighborhood. Itisaverymonot- onous life, and I have often wished for a change. Now to-day An expressive silence. Has been full of change, I suppose? It has, she assented; I shall never forget it. She was still mentally passing in review the various joys and anxieties of the day, when a tall, soldierly servant came up to her companion and said something to him rapidly, something, of which Mon- sieur Armand repeated after him the last words. A letter give it to me; then the anxious tones of his voice softened, and he looked round at the girl with a smile. Mademoiselle will excuse me if I read a letter and a telegram which have come for me. He opened the envelope and glanced at the message, then put it in his pocket. It is all right, he said to the servant. I am going by the midnight train to DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. I0I Brussels. Get me a sheet of paper, and I will answer it. In silence the man gave him one, with which he had evidently come prepared. Instinctively Monsieur Armand took hold of his watch-chain in search of the little pencil, but it was no longer there. A bewildered expression crossed his face, and he turned his perplexed eyes to his servant; but in a moment Dorothy, not- ing the look, interpreted and answered it. I have it, she exclaimed; you lent it to me, dont you remember? search- ing her pocket, and I never gave it you back. I found it after I got home. I meant to give it to you directly I saw you, flushing a little, but I quite forgot it. I am so sorry! Well, you remembered it, after all, at the most opportune moment, he said kindly, taking it and writing rapidly. There ! turning to the servant, send that off directly and tell He hesitated for half a second, glanc- ing from the clear, frank eyes of the child to the tall, soldierly figure, then Tell her to wait, he said; I will come. The man turned away, but paused a moment to say significantly, At once. At once, repeated Monsieur Armand. As the servant disappeared, Mon- sieur, said Dorothy quickly, you have been sent for I could not help hearing the message; I have finished my supper. It was very good of you to wait, for I am afraid you are in a hurry. The little slip of paper the man had given him was still between his fingers; written across it, in a trembling womans hand, were a few words. After all, I cannot let you go without saying good-bye. Come. He looked at it again, then tore it into tiny scraps. And turning to the girl, It is my sister, he said a little abruptly. She sends word she wishes to see me to say good- bye. I hoped to have seen her yesterday, but I did not do so. To say good-bye, repeated Dorothy. Yes. I am on my way to Brussels to meet a friend there, and after that I am going oh, hundreds of miles away. Where? she questioned; and then her young eager eyes falling, I beg your pardon she began - No, dont, he interrupted; it was a very natural question. I am going to Algeria. You are a soldier? she questioned. Yes, he assented. I suppose, she began, whilst button- ing her gloves, that it is the sister who gave you this whom you are going to see? taking up the little anchor which still lay on the table. C~cile, reading out the name. You had better put it back on your chain, holding it out, or you will forget it again; and you see, laughing, there is no use trusting to my memory. The last time I went that journey, he said a moment later, rather irrelevantly, I was with herC& ile; I was bringing her also to spend the day here from the Sacr6 Cceur. How very extraordinary! ejaculated Dorothy. Do tell me about it. How old was she? Ijid she enjoy it? She was about sixteen also. But I remember she told me when I took her back, that it was the most miserably dis- appointing day she had ever spent. But then, you see, she had not been four years in a convent. Ah! that would make a difference. I was her guardian, he added. Poor C& ile I Of course I dont know what you may have been like all those years ago, Miss Vyse vouthsafed, but I should imagine you would have made rather a nice guar- dian. Looking back, he went on, pursuing his own train of thought more than an- s~vering her, one can see so clearly how much better one might have been. Yes, she assented; even I, though I can only look back a little way, often wish I had done differently. It does seem such a pity, doesnt it, she added, not to have done it the right way at the time? Well, if you, with your little scrap of experience, have felt that, what would you think of one as old as I am, who, on looking back, saw that everything ought to have been done differently that his whole life had been one huge mistake? Oh, but no one could think that, she replied confidently, unless they had been very wicked; and then, of course, all they have to do is to be sorry and try to be better. Yes, he answered. His dark eyes were lifted to hers, looking gravely at her. Yes, you are quite right; that is the only thing to be done. But I often think that for those kind of people wicked people, you know the worst part of the looking back is that they see how, if they had been better themselves, those whom they loved would perhaps have been better also. 102 DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. Well, she said, I have never met a wicked person, never, reflectively; but I think, if I ever did, I should like to tell him that he would be far happier if he was good. I dont mean only in heaven, I mean here. Sometimes I have been ut- terly miserable, but it has always come from doing wrong. That is a very good piece of advice, mademoiselle; I will remember it, and give it to the first person who seems to require it. He had picked up the pencil, but his efforts to fasten it on his chain were not crowned with success. It slipped through his fingers and disappeared on to the floor, where, after much searching, it was dis- covered at Dorotl~ys feet. Even hope, you see, mademoiselle, is trying to escape me to-night. I feel quite superstitious. First I lost it, and never even missed it; and then, when I try to put it back into its accustomed place, it escapes me again. It is evidently going to forsake me. But it shall not, said Dorothy deter- minately. You shall have nothing to do with it I will put it back. Well, perhaps you may bring better luck. He took off his watch and handed the chain to her, and she put the little orna- ment back into its place. There! she cried triumphantly, it ;s as firm as possible, giving it back to him. He put it on and smiled. Thank you, mademoiselle, I feel the good effects already. The tall man was still standing making conversation to Madame de Croye, and she still striving to hear all he said, at the immense distance which an unpropi. tious fate had placed between their two heads, when Monsieur Armand took back his young companion to her friends. Uncle Henri was still gazing as if mes- merized at the gambols of those below, which had now taken the form of a partic- ularly wild cotillon. It was Monsieur de Mornay who moved to make room for them. I am not able to stay any longer, Monsieur Armand said. I have brought mademoiselle back, and I am sorry to say I have not even time to wait for a turn in the cotillon. But we had our waltz, and you enjoyed it, mademoiselle, he went on, addressing himself to the girl, who had not seated herself, but was still stand- ing beside him. Enjoyed it! emphatically. The pleasantest part of my day would have been left out if I had missed it. She moved a stel) nearer, and her voice sinking a little, And I know, she add. ed, that you only came to give me pleas- ure. It was very kind, and 1 wish I could do more than say thank you. I am very glad I came, he replied, and I also say thank you, with a bow, which included all the party; then, with a little especial good.night to Dorothy, he turned away; but after a hesitating step or two, came back, and held out his hand~ Good-bye, was all he said; but Dor. othy felt there was a certain significance in the action, because to all the others he had simply said, Good-night; but to her, his friend, on this eventful day, he had said Good-bye, in token that they two alone knew that the parting was final. She watched his tall , slight figure till he had disappeared from view; at the door he looked back, and meeting her eyes, smiled, and bowed again. A little later, they were all walking back through the narrow, roughly paved streets of S~rizay that led from the Casino to the hotel. In that primitive spot cabs were not to be had for the asking. They were always specially ordered luxuries. Madame de Croye leaning on the arm of her new friend; Uncle Henri and Monsieur de Mornay behind; and Doro- thy, wrapped in a day-dream of her own, pursuing her solitary way. But arrived at the hotel, good-nights were exchanged, and they separated the two ladies going up to their own rooms, whilst Monsieur de Croye lingered to smoke a cigar with his friends before parting from them. Well, Dorothy, questioned madame, when they stood in the bright little French drawing-room, I hope you enjoyed your- self. Are you very tired? Oh no, aunt, not in the least; and I have enjoyed myself. It was good of you sending for me. Madame de Croye, who was divesting herself of numerous wraps, wherewith she had striven to counteract the evil influ- ences of night air, came across the room, and kissed the girl kindly. I am very glad you enjoyed it, dear. I only wish we could have done more for you. But never mind, at Clementines marriage you shall have as many partners as you can wish for. I hope Monsieur Armand was not that his name? waltzed well. DOROTHY: AN INTERLUDE. [03 Perfectly, cried the girl enthusiasti- cally. It was a treat! Was it not curi- ous his being there? It was the same man, you know, that I told you about this morning, who was so kind to me in the train. Yes, of course, replied madame, a little absently, folding up her many wraps. I have been wondering about your bridesmaids dress, dear. Have you any particular choice? I think it would be better for you to come to Paris a short time before the wedding, so that you can have what you like best. Into this new important topic, her thoughts being thus diverted, Dorothy plunged with great energy; and when it had been discussed at much length, the door opened, and Monsieur de Croye made his appearance. Not in bed ! was his exclamation on entering. My dear child, ~vhat shock- ingly late hours you are keeping! It is only once in a way, she pleaded. And I wanted to see you before I went, to tell you how very much I have enjoyed myself. Even at that poor attempt at a ball? he said kindly. Yes, indeed, it was too delightful. Though you only danced once, did you not? for you can scarcely count my attempts, or De Mornays. Yes, only once, she repeated; but all the same, I dont think I ever spent a more delightful evening.~ You are a very good, grateful girl, he replied kindly; I hope I shall be able to do more for you one of these days. An nette, the tones of his voice altering, and turning to his wife, fancy who was in the Casino to-night! the Comte de Rivaulx. Comte de Rivaulx! echoed madame, pausing in her tidying; why, what was he doing there? Yes, what? But there is a man down- stairs who is at the Lion dOr, and has just been telling us all about it. It seems he is staying there, though apparently not under his own name. This man, a friend of De Mornays, Fr6don by name, was in his room with the door open, when, at about ten oclock, he saw a lady heavily veiled go past, and knock at the next door to his. A servant came out, and she said very quickly; Is the Comte de Rivaulx in? 1 must see him. Has he started? Not Iluif name, the servant replied. And then added, I wish he had started, but he said he must go to the Casino first. He had promised How heartless! madame remarked. It is disgraceful, Monsieur de Croye went on. My first thought was thank- fulness that that stuck-up Mademoiselle de Villeron would not let De Mornay in- troduce herfiancd. Of course he was one of that party vulgar, fast set. I have no doubt his sister was with him I That, madame remarked, was scarcely likely, under the circum- stances. What circumstances ? inquired mon- sieur testily. She has left her hus- band, he went on; we all know that. Henri! exclaimed madame in tones of horror, do not forget the child is in the room2 He stopped abruptly, and turned to- wards the corner where Dorothy, with wide-open grey eyes, in her white muslin gown, was staring at him. What has he done? she questioned, coming a step nearer. Done? repeated monsieur, still in- censed at the contaminating presence that, all unknown, had been so near to him; he has done nearly everything he should not have done. Ruined, obliged to leave his regiment, penniless, when, fifteen years ago, he had as fine a fortune as any man could wish for; and then a duel to wind up with. The wounded man lying in Paris not expected to live, and he idling about a casino. That, I think, pretty well shows the kind of man he is. But women are all alike. I believe An- nette would say something in his favor if she could. No, Henri, she began doubtfully, I suppose he is a very bad man. I have always heard he is; still this duel, I was told, was forced upon him, that he was insulted most o~)enly. I dare say, I dare say. Still he need not go flaunting about as if he were proud of his heartlessness and with his sis- ter, lost to all sense of shame, living with DElvas. Henri! exclaimed madame, I insist upon your changing the subject, or wait- ing until Dorothy has gone to bed. Her husband was silent a moment, and she asked a little curiously, What kind of a looking man is he? I wish I had seen him. Fr~don says that he thinks he saw him go down, and that he never saw a face which bore so plainly the distinguish- ing marks of the kind of man he is. The expression was horrible, so lie says. 104 UNDER A GREEN BOUGH. What is he like? questioned Dor- othy gently. She was gathering her wraps together, preparatory to departing. His looks dont matter much, replied her uncle. Suffice it that I consider him to be the wickedest man in Paris. Having made this sweeping assertion, Uncle Henris feelings seemed a little relieved ; for, He is not handsome, he added; at least I have always heard that his fascination does not lie in his good looks. Does he dance well? Dorothy haz- arded, lighting her candle. Monsieur de Croye laughed. His good temper seemed restored. His dancing, he said, to quote Fr~don down-stairs, is historical. Well, put in madame soothingly, perhaps he could not resist going to the ball, if he is so fond of dancing. Thats right, Annette, remarked her husband; hear how bad he is, and then make excuses for him. And you, Dor- othy, you hear also, and only regret, I see, that you had not a chance of knowing him. But Dorothy did not answer, did not smile at his light words, but said Good- night, and taking up the candle, went to her own room. She was not thinking of the doubtful hero of many Paris escapades of whom her uncle had spoken, of the man who had run through a large fortune, wasting his patrimony on the idle amusements which his life had suggested, of the man who, in disgrace and ruin, had thought it advisable to leave his country, and strive to carve out a fresh career as a nameless soldier in another land, whilst he, with whom he had fought, lay hover- ing between life and death in Paris. No; her innocent, girlish thoughts were with some one very different; some one who had been kind and helpful to her when she had been perplexed and anxious who had smoothed many diffi- culties in her path, which had threatened to interfere with her happiness and had, at the cost of trouble to himself, given her the crowning joy of her holiday. Some one who had looked at her with dark, grave eyes, and told her the bitter- est punishment of wrong-doing is to find out we have been a bad guide to those we love, some one who had placed in her hands the little symbol which had served as the connecting link between brother and sister, whose love, formed of the threefold cord, no dividing sin and shame could sever. Of the voice that had said that hope was forsaking him, but that her young innocent hand should give it back to him. And it seemed to Dorothy, standing in the bare French room, with the moon- light falling across the uncarpeted floor, that, of a sudden, a great window had been flung open before her, out of which, gazing, she saw, for the first time, all the sin and sorrow that there is in the world. From Blackwoods Magazine. UNDER A GREEN BOUGH. MUCH as I appreciate summer weather, I am afraid that soft, balmy days are not favorable to the doing of laborious work, whether of body or mind. I find them, however, highly conducive to the act of mind which we call musing; and, upon reflection, I do not see why a man should not, at convenient times, drop the reins upon the neck of his fancy, and suffer him- self to be spirited about according to her pleasure. This is dead against the teach- ing of the profound Locke, who, if I re- member rightly, in his Conduct of the Understanding, insists that the mind must always be at the service of its owner, and must never be allowed to take the lead and to carry him off wool-gathering. Locke, like some other great thinkers, is almost too severe for mortals of only ordinary strength. Nay, it may perhaps, without profaneness, be made a question whether nine-tenths of us could at all en- dure the mental discipline which he thinks wholesome and improving. I will even go a little farther than this, and say that if a man were strictly able to follow out Lockes precept, and to assign to his mind its daily stage of duty, he might, while always following after good and worthy objects, miss and come short of objects more original and more adapted to his powers and disposition. Working ear- nestly but in set grooves, he might travel very near to, yet never see, some treasure which a roaming imagination would be sure to light upon. Such observations as these ought, however, as I know, to be offered and received with extreme cau- tion; because it is easier to loosen than to control the mind, and wandering thoughts, if freely indulged, often object to one tak- ing the road back into prescribed study. Even were the argument for dreaming much weaker than it is, I think that I should to-day hardly take to anything very UNDER A GREEN BOUGH. 105 serious. The turf is so fresh and green, the air is so scented and soothing, it is so delightful under the shade of melancholy boughs, that even if I were to force my- self to a task, the chances are that, having once done so, I should treat resolution and come here again miching for an hour or two. It is a favorite conceit of mine when I thus make holiday, that I am the victim of a re/janus, the cause of the con- ceit being nothing stronger than that I lie in a net-hammock wondrously adapted for repose, where I look probably as much like a cabbage as a gladiator. Certainly I do notfee/like a victim as I revel in the far niente, forgetting the world and trust- ing that I am for the present by the world forgot. I am not, in my hours of ease, one bit uncertain or hard to please I know what I like very well and that is, to be let alone. The feet of him that brings tidings (good or bad) to my retreat are not beauti- ful to me; and I feel an emotion only too like hatred against that person in buttons who carries something ominously resem- bling a letter in his hand, athough he comes only from a sense of duty towards me. This unreasonable enmity is another proof that I am not in the frame of mind recommended by Locke; I confess to being uncharitable, and I mentally make spiteful comments on the nuucio as he draws near. I suspect him of exaggerat- ing his chest with a sponge or something of the sort, and decide that he has the most offensively conceited strut ever seen all this because of my belief that the letter is considered important and will cruelly interrupt, if it does not bring to an end, this swing in my net. But when I open the despatch my coun- tenance clears, my heart is once more in the right place. I behold a page of be- coming gait, and with a bosom in strict proportion to the other parts of his frame. I address him in a sweetly benevolent tone as compensating for the mental injury that I had done him; for though the billet was marked immediate, and had been Otherwise commended to the household as demanding instant attention, these are but the devices of a mountebank for advertis- ing his entertainment. Nobody is at this moment intruding on my laziness; I need not, and I shall not, determine just now whether or not I will form one of the audi- ence of the professor (as he calls himself) on Wednesday next; and I once more daft the world aside and bid it pass. That professor, I reflect, as I sub- side into delicious placidity, probably understands his business much better than I do; still, is it wise of him when he wants peoples good-will their patron- age, as he expresses itto fool them by representing his plaguy advertisements as matters of importance? The feeling which he has aroused in me is simply irritation at the fright he gave me; and I am very unlikely, while feeling thus ag- grieved, to go to see him myself or to rec- ommend him to any one else. He had much better have sent his programme without any trickery, and let it take its chance with my impartial judgment. Then it would in due course have humphl perhaps it might not have been brought to me at all, or, having been discovered on my desk at a busy moment, would have been chucked into the waste-basket. Yes, he has by his dodge caused me to read his announcement and to think about it, although he has aroused my ire. To se- cure attention by any means was evider~tly his object; to secure it inoffensively if he could, but to impress with a pan~., rather than not to impress at all. I am thinking about the fellow, that is certain; I shall probably think again of him; and I already see the foreshadow of an event which, for the sake of others, though not for my own sake, may be exactly according to his de- sire. I may condone before Wednesday, and take a party of four to his perform- ance, which I should not have done if the advertisement had been delivered in an unpretending cover. Yes, charlatanry is justified of her chil- dren. Quacks, as to some matters, know us a great deal better than we know our- selves. What a weak thing, then, is the human mind with all its grand preten- sions! Even the sage Locke would have been easier to be played upon than a pipe by a professor of this quality. The weak- ness is not confined to this or that person, neither does it affect us only at certain times of the moon. Our infirmity is gen- eral, and is at all times exposed to attack, as is evident by the immense number of persons, from the pretended halt, maimed, and blind, up to the profoundest impos- tors, from fortune-tellers and thimble- riggers to financial and political swindlers, who practise daily upon universal cre- dulity. What quantities of wealth are made change hands continually by means of imposture pure and simple, or of de- vices not wholly chimerical in themselves, but puffed and advertised with impudent audacity! Caution, in these cases, seems to be in the inverse ratio of the magni- tude and effrontery of the imposture. xo6 UNDER A GREEN BOUGH. Some pains may be taken to ascertain known to be well stocked; the former has whether a street beggar is blind or not; managed to extract 50,000 from pockets but sacks of gold are emptied into a South which he affirms to be pitiably empty, and Sea scheme without the slightest solici- he has thereby given contradiction to the tude, except that the deposit should not maxim ex nihilo nihi/fit. It has yet to be made too late. be seen whether Mr. Parnell can keep the Various degrees of skill can be shown stream running as Mr. Cobden did; he in very immoral pursuits; and I trust has undoubtedly shown a pretty wit in that I shall not be taken as expressing that way. And in reckoning up those admiration or approval of their craft, if I who have subsisted themselves hand- notice one or two men who appear to have somely by public contributions, I must not been at the head of the science of extract- leave Mr. OConnell unmentioned. He ing money without rendering any equiva. did not, it is true, go down to the grave in lent. I doubt ~vhether, during the last the ~ull enjoyment of the reputation, such fifty years, any Englishman has shown as it was, which he had acquired; but for such aptitude in this line as the late Mr. a great number of years he made the pub- Cobden. He drew from the people money lic a ready milch cow. by hundreds of thousands of pounds; and When I spoke of enduring peace as one he had a secret which put him in the high- of the baits which Mr. Cobden employed est walk of his disreputable profession. to mislead the people for his own ends, I, That is to say, he did not feel it necessary of course, did not mean to say that he after a coup, to make off to some obscure created the general belief in the possibility retreat, where he might enjoy his gains in of lasting peace. He merely, as all these obscurity while his victims were returning cunning fellows do, wrought upon an in- to their right minds, and growing resent- strument which he found ready framed to ful; but he was able for a long time to his hand. Throughout the present cen- keep up the illusion, and to levy heavy tury a notion has been gaining ground tolls a second and a third time before the that we, if we will it so, can always avoid public infatuation was dispelled. His hat going to war; and a sort of corollary to had gone round so many times that it this notion is, that every war which we seemed to be possessed with the spirit of have made or may make, must be a crime, a blind mill-horse turned out to grass, and no matter what the circumstances might to be unable to move except in cirdes. be which led, or might lead, us to draw One of the supposed benefits for which the sword. Now, as almost every man this enormous price was paid was endur- who reflects at all must find such doctrine ing peace. Any man who will take the difficult of digestion, Mr. Cobden saw a trouble to glance over the worlds chron- favorable opportunity of bringing out his ides since the year 1847, the time about pepsine, or, in plain words, ot showing which Mr. Cobden began to operate, how universal and perpetual peace might may quickly satisfy himself as to the be induced to spread her balmy wings amount of value which the credulous pub- over the whole world. Make trade thor- lic received in the form of peace for all oughly free, dogmatized he, and you their subscriptions. Another of Mr. Cob- make war impossible. The affirmation, dens boasts was that he would crumple no doubt, quieted many peace-desiring up Russia. Yet anybody who reflects minds. How, in the present day, and in on the (to us) threatening position of Rus- recollection of all the dreadful wars which sia upon the frontier of India, will admit have occurred since Mr. Cobdens false that she was not crumpled up by Mr. prophecy, the belief in possible eternal Cobden, and was not an easy power to peace is nourished and mainta