LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Fifth Series, ~ No 1569 Jul 4 1874. From Beginning, Volume VII. ~ ~ ~ Vol. CXXII, CONTENTS. Blackwoods Ma~,azine, contcmy~5orary Review, Cornhill Magazine, I. RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. By Edward A. Freeman, . . Macmillans Magazine, II. THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. Part VIII., . IlL LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWN- ING TO THE AUTHOR OF ORION ON LITERARY AND GENERAL TOPICS. Part IV., IV. A ROSE IN JUNE. Part VI., V. ALFRED B. STREET VI. SHAKESPEARES SON-IN-LAW. A Study of Old Stratford. By C. Elliot Browne,. VII. COLOUR IN ANIMALS VIII. WOMENS RIGHTS IN THE LAST CENTURY, IX. COL. GORDONS JOURNEY TO GONDOKORO, X. TITLES, . . Frasers Magazine, Chambers 7ournal, Academy, Nature,. Saturday Review, POETRY. zI THE WILD BEE, JESUS ONLY, 3 15 24 32 39 . 52 57 .6o 61 . 6z PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. tERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to tile Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,free of g5ostage. Dut we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commlsslou for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical. Au extra copy of THE LIVING AGE l5 sent gratis to any one gettIng up a citlb of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can he procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters wllen requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTaLt. & GAY. .2 2 JESUS ONLY, ETC. JESUS ONLY. And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. ST. LUKE ix. 36. THE vision fades away, The brilliant radiance from heaven is gone; The angel visitants no longer stay, Silent the Voice Jesus is found alone. In strange and sad amaze The three disciples watch, with longings vain, While the cloud-chariot floats beyond their gaze; Yes, these must go He only will remain. Oh, linger, leave us not, Celestial Brothers! heaven has seemed so near While ye were with us earth was all for- got-! See, they have vanished;, He alone is here. He only He, our own, Our loving Lord, is ever at our side. What though the messengers of heaven are gone! - - Let all depart, if He may-still abide! Such surely was their thought Who stood beside Him on that wondrous eve. - So would we feel; Jesus, forsake us not, - When those unutterably dear must leave! For all their priceless love, All the deep joy their presence could impart, Foretaste together of the bliss above, We thank Thee, Lord, though with a breaking heart! Nor murmur we to-day That he who gave should claim his own again; Long from their native heaven they could not stay, The servants go, the Master will remain. Jesus is found alone Enough for blessedness in earth- or heaven! Yet to our weakness hath His love made known, More than Himself shall in the end be given. Not lost, but gone before, Are our beloved ones; the faithful Word Tells of a meeting-place to part no more; So shall we be forever with the Lord! Sunday Magazine. H. L. L. THE WILD BEE. I COME at morn, when dewdrops bright Are twinkling on the grasses, And woo the balmy breeze in flight That oer the heather passes. I swarm with many lithesome wings, That join me, through my ramble, In seeking for the honeyed things Of heath and hawthorn bramble. And languidly amidst the sedge, When noontide is most stilly, I loll beside the waters edge, And climb into the lily. I fly throughout the clover crops Before the evening closes, - Or swoon amid the amber drops That swell the pink moss-roses. - At times I take a longer route, In cooling autumn weather, And gently murmur round about The purple-tinted heather. To Poesy I am a friend; I go with Fancy linking, - And all my airy knowledge lend, To aid him in his thinking. Deem not these little eyes are dim To every sense of duty; We owe a certain debt to him -Who clad this earth-in beauty. And therefore I am never sad, A burden homeward bringing, But help to make the summer glad In my own way of singing. - When idlers seek my honeyed wine, In wantonness to drink it, I sparkle frobct the columbine, Like some forbid den trinket; But never sting a friend not one It is a sweet delusion, - That I may look at children run, And smile at their confusion. If I were man, with all his tact And power of foreseeing, I would not do a single act To hurt a human being. And thus my little life is fixed, Till tranquilly it closes, For wisely have I chosen twixt The thorns and the roses. Chamhers Journal. RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. From Macmillans Magazine. RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.* By EDWARD A. FREEMAN. OF all the various forms of homage which the world has paid to the city which was once deemed to be its mis- tress, none is really more speaking than the countless multitudes of books of which Rome has been the subject. If we say that works on Roman topography have been growing for the conventional term of a thousand years, we are some. centuries within the mark. We might almost venture to add another half mil- lennium of formal and distinct descrip- tions of Rome, as distinguished from notices in the works of historians, poets, and professed geographers. Modern scholars still edit and comment on the topographical writings of the fourth and fifth centuries, which describe Rome as it stood when the line of the Western Clesars, reigning in Italy at least if not in Rome, was still unbroken.t And the series goes on, through the middle ages, through the Renaissance, till we reach those great works of modern Ger- man research which have worked out every detail, both of the surviving re- mains and of the lost buildings, of the Eternal City. We can still track out our way round the walls of Rome by the guidance of the anonymous pilgrim from Einsiedlen in the eighth century4 We pause not unwillingly in the history 3 of the First Crusade, when the monk of Malmesbury stops his narrative to de- scribe the topography of Rome, to tell us how the Romans, once the lords of the world, were now the lowest of mankind, who did nothing but sell all that was righteous and sacred for gold.* The chain never breaks we have pictures of Rome in every age but unluckily the picture drawn in each age sets before us less than the picture drawn in the age just before it. Archbishop Hildebert of Tours, whose verses William of Malmes- bury copies, sang of Rome, when the marks of the sack of Robert Wiscard were still fresh upon her, as a city already ruined.t But the worst ruin had not come in his day. We may forgive the Norman and the Saracen; we may for- give the contending Roman barons ; but we cannot forgive the havoc wrought by Popes and Popes nephews in the boasted days of the Renaissance. When we look at what they have done, we may be thank- ful that there are still some thin1,s, heathen and Christian, which have lived through four ages of relentless destruc- tion and disfigurement. For Rome as the monumental city, as the museum of art and history, the evil day was, not when the Goth or the Vandal or the Norman entered her gates, but when Popes came back from their place of happy banishment to destroy their city piecemeal. We may rejoice that their day is over. New causes of destruction may arise, as the capital of new-born Italy spreads itself once more over hills which have become almost as desolate as they were when the first settlers raised their huts on the Palatine. As new streets arise, there is danger that many * z. Die Ruinen Roms und der Campagna.~~ Von Dr. Franz Reber. Leipzig, 1863. 2. Rome and the Campagna, an Historical and Topographical Description of the Site, Buildings, and Neighhourhood of Ancient Rome. By Robert Bnrn, M. A. Camhridge and London, 1871. 3. Rome. By Francis Wey, with an Introduction by XV. W. Story. London, 1872. t Die Regionen der Stadt Rom. Von L. Preller. Jena, ,846. Codex Urbis Roma Topographicus. Edidit Carolus Ludovicus Urlicha. Wirceburgi, 1871. Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum. Von H. Jordan. Zweiter Band. Berlin, 1871. The first volume of this last work has not yet ap- peared. Among the three the student will find several recensions of the text and ahundant commentaries on the early and medhaval topographers of Rome. t The Itinerarium Einsidlense is printed by Ulrichs, p. ~8, and the latter part by Jordan, p. 646. The former text is specially valuable, as it contains the in- Presently after we read: scriptions, many of them now lost or defaced, which Non tamen ant fieri par stanti macbins mow, were copied by the pilgrim. Ant restaurari sula nsina potest. * William of Malmesbury (Gests Regum iv. 351.) thus begins his account of Rome: De Roma, qu~ quondam domina orbis terrarum, nunc ad compare- tionem antiquitatis videtur oppidum exignum, et de Rumania, ohm rerum dominis genteque togata, qui unuc sunt hominum inertissimi, auro trutinantes justi- tiam, pretio venditantes canonum regulam. f The verses of Hildebert begin thus: Par tibi Roma nihil, cum sis prope tota ruins; Q uam magni fueris integra, fracta ducts. RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. 4 relics of old Rome, many ruined frag- ments, many foundations which have to be looked for beneath the earth, may be swept away or hopelessly hidden. But the main source of evil is dried up; there is no fear of columns being pounded into lime, no fear of perfect or nearly perfect buildings being used as quarries; per- haps even there is less danger of that subtler form of destruction which cloaks itself under the garb of restoration. All has become, if not wholly safe, at least safer than it was, now that the power which so long boasted itself that it could do mischief is happily banished beyond the bounds of the ancient Rome, shut up in a modern palace in a suburb which formed no part of the city either of Ser- vius or of Aurelian. Of the general antiquities of Rome, of its early topography and early history, and of the light which modern researches have thrown upon them, I do not mean to speak here at any length. The history of Rome is indeed written in her monu- ments, and new pages of that history, above all in its earliest chapters, are al- most daily brought to light. We can now see many things in a new light through the great works of digging which are still going on in various parts of the city, above all on the spot which was the cradle of Rome and on the spot which was the centre of her full-grown life, on the Palatine Hill and in the Roman Fo- rum. But the pages of history which are thus brought to light are pages which need the greatest caution in reading. They are oracles which tell their own tale, but which tell it only to inquirers who draw near in the spirit of sound criticism, not in that of blind belief or hasty conjecture. Of all the works of mens hands in the Eternal City, two classes speak to the mind with a deeper interest than any others. The first are the small remains of primitive times, the still-abiding relics of the days when the Ramnes of the Palatine and the Titienses of the Capitol lived each on their separate hills, as dis- tinct and hostile tribes. These relics speak of the first birth of Rome; next to them, almost beyond them from the point of view of universal history, come, in deep and enthralling interest, the memo- rials of Romes second birth, of the day when with a new faith she put on a new life. Between these two periods of birth and of revival, the time of mere dominion, the time of the Republic and of the ear- her Empire, has but a secondary charm. Its proudest monuments yield in interest, as historical memorials, alike to the foundations of the prim~val Roma Qua- dra/a and to the churches reared in all the zeal of newly-won victory out of the spoils of the temples of decaying heathendom. The purely artistic student naturally looks on them with other eyes. The stones of the primitive fortress can hardly claim the name of works of art at all. And the basilicas, built with columns brought from other buildings, columns often of unequal proportions, and crowned with capitals of different orders, are apt to be looked on simply as signs of the depth of degradation into which art had fallen. Of these two propositions the truth of the former cannot be denied; the latter is true or false accoiding to the way in which the history of art i~ looked at. The for- tresses of prim~val days from which, if we only read them aright, we may learn such precious lessons of primzeval his- tory, are hardly to be called works of architecture; they are simply works of construction. They are simply the put- ting together of stones, sometimes in a iuder, sometimes in ~t more workmanlike fashion, to serve a practical need. There is no system of decoration, no ornament of any kind, upon them. Indeed among the scanty remains which we have of pri- mieval work at Rome we could not look for any system of decoration. There is not so much as a gateway of the primie- val fortress left to us, and ~in no age should we ask for much of architectural detail in the mouth of a sewer or in the roof of an underground well~house.* Had Rome never risen higher than the other cities * All scholars seem now agreed that the lower story of the building which hears the name medkevai only, but still perhaps traditional of the Mamertine Prison, was at first simply a well-house or hellfisnum, and that, when it was afterwards used as a prison, the tine mean- ing of its name was forgotten, and it was connected with the legendary King Servius Ttslliua. RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. S What Rome began in her sewers, she carried out in her gateways, in her aqueducts, in her baths and her am- phitheatres. Other nations invented the round arch as well as Rome in Rome alone it found an abiding home. It was only in Rome, and in the lands which learned their arts from Rome, that it became the great constructive feature, used on a scale which, whatever we say of the Roman architects, stamps the Roman builders as the greatest that the world ever saw. But it,was not till, in common belief, the might, the glory, and the art of Rome had passed away, that Rome, working in her own style in the use of her own great constructive invention, learned to produce, not only mighty works of building, but consistent works of architecture. In this way the two turning points in the history of Rome, her birth and her new birth, the days of her native infancy and the days when she rose to a new life at the hands of her Christian teaclYers and her Teutonic conquerors, are brought into the closest connection with one an- other. From the point of view of the unity of history, the course of the archi- tecture of Rome strikingly ansxvers to the course of the literature of Rome. Her architecture and her literature alike are, during the time of Romes greatest outward glory, during the ages which purists mark out by the invidious name classical, almost wholly of an imita- tive kind. As men followed Greek mod- els in literature and clothed Roman words and thoughts in the borrowed metres of Greece, so men followed Greek models in art also. They clothed a Roman body in a Greek dress, and arch, the great invention of Roman art, masked the true Roman construction the very embodiment of Roman strength under a borrowed system of Greek orna- and massiveness, the constructive ex- mental detail. In both cases the true pression of the bounderies which were national life was simply overshadowed; never to yield, of the dominion which it was never wholly trampled out. While was never to pass away, came into being philosophy and rhetoric, epic and lyric in a work characteristically Roman. The poetry, were almost wholly imitative, law beginning of Roman architecture is to be and satire and, to some extent, history found, notin a palace or in a temple, but remained national. So too in architec- in those vast drains which were said to ture. If we stand in the Forum and ad- form an underground city, rivalling in ex- mire the exotic grace of the columns of tent the city which they bore aloft. the temple of Vespasian and of the Great of Latium, she might have been as rich in remains of these early times as some of the other cities of Latium still are. Still in the early remains of Rome, scanty as they are, in these abiding relics of a time when the names and deeds of men are still legendary, we can see clear sims of two stages in the art of construction. We can see a stage when the greatest of all constructive inventions was still un- known, and another stage when it was already familiar. We can see in Rome, as in Latium, in Greece, in Ireland, and in Central America, works of the time when men were still striving after the great invention of the arch. We can see works which are clearly due to a stage when men were still trying various experiments, when they were making various attempts to bring stones so as to overlap and support one another, but when the perfect arch, with its stones poised in mid-air by a law of mutual me- chanical support, had not yet rewarded the efforts of those who were feeling their ~vay towards it. The roof of the Tullianum is no true vault, any more than the roof of New Grange or of the Treasury at Myk~n~. In some of the passages connected with it the roof has real mutually supporting voussoirs; btit the shape of the voussoirs is still polyg- onal; the most perfect form of the arch hadnot yet been lighted on. In the Cloaca Maxima we find the round arch in its simplest form, but in a form per- fect as regards its construction. This great invention, which was independently made over and over again in times and places far apart from one another, was also made at Rome, or at all events somewhere in Central Italy. The round 6 RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. Twin Brethren, the eye rests also on the Rome fittingly cast off its great fetters, gigantic vaults of the Basilica of Con- and stood forth in a form which was to stantine. We may even catch a distinct be the root of the later architecture of all glimpse of the huge arcaded mass of the Europe. The construction which first Flavian Amphitheatre, nor do we wholly showed itself in the Great Sewer, at last turn away from the arch of Severus and won for itself a consistent form of deco- the small fragments of the disfigured ration in the palace of Diocletian and in arcades of the Tabularium. All these the churches of Constantine. are Roman works ; Greek decorative The history of Roman architecture, as elements are to be traced in all of them ; a whole, is still to be written, because the but what stands out in all its boldness, history of Rome itself, as a whole, is still in all its dignity, is the true native art of to be written. Writers who deal with the Rome. That is the art which used the architecture of Rome, or with anything round arch as its constructive feature, else that belongs to Rome, from any of and which could therefore bridge oyer those special points of view which are and bind together distant spaces which implied in the words classical, me- were altogether beyond the reach of the di~val, and modern, are often doing Greek system of the column and entab- admirable service within their own spe- lature. When we see the Roman system cial range, but they are not grappling of construction carried out on the mighti- with the subject as a whole. I have now est scale, when, in such a pile as Caracal- to speak only of the buildings of Rome, las Baths, we see Roman art preparing and not of any of the other aspects of itself to influence the world as purely Roman history; but the same law ap- Greek art never could do, it is not amiss plies to all. I have put at the head of to remember that at the same moment this article the names of three books men like Ulpian and Paulus were building published within the last twelve years, of up that great fabric of purely Roman Law which the first two are of a very different which was in the like sort to influence character from the third. The volumes the world, to be the source of the juris- of Professor Reber and Mr. Burn are of prudence of modern Europe, and to win the utmost value to the student of Ro- for Rome a wider dominion than was man topography and history in every ever won for her by the arms of Julius way that has to do with the buildings of and Trajan. At last the two great ele- classical and pagan Rome. But there ments of revolution drew nigh. New they stop. Alongside of sound and nations were knocking at the gates of scholar-like books like these one would Rome, asking, not to wipe out her name hardly have ventured to mention a book or to destroy her power, but rather to be like that of M. Wey, which does not as- themselves admitted to bear the one and pire to anything higher than pleasant to wield the other. A new creed, born gossipping talk, save for one thing only. in one of her distant provinces, was M. Wey, in his unsystematic rambles, making its way, in the teeth of all oppo- has in one sense bridged over the gap sition, to become the creed of the Roman better than the careful research of the Empire and of all lands which bowed to German and the English scholar. He Roman rule, whether as subjects or as has at least dealt with Pagan temples and disciples. Diocletian might be the per- Christian churches in one volume as secutor of the Church and Constantine parts of one subject. In architectural might be her nursing-father; but both matters, as well as in other matters, we alike were men of the same period ; each have to fight against the superstition had a share in the same work. Each that Rome came to an end in 476. This alike marks a stage in the change by superstition, as applied to art, naturally which the chief magistrate of the Roman demands that a wide line should be Commonwealth grew, first into the des- drawn between the heathen basilica potic sovereign girt with the trappings of which Maxentius reared and of which eastern royalty, and then into the for- Constantine took the credit, and the Chris- eign King who came to be anointed as tian basilica which Constantine reared in C~sar and Augustus with the rites of a readiness for the crowning of his Teu- creed of which the first bearers of those tonic successor. From my point of view, names had never heard. Under the line we can no more draw any wide line in of Emperors from Diocletian to Theo- matters of architecture than we can in dosius the real influence of Rome was matters of law or language or religion. not ending, but beginning. And it was The story is one, without a break, al- in these days too that the architecture of most without a halting place. The former RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. .7 part of the tale is imperfect without the latter ; the latter part is unintelligible without the former. Rome invented the round arch at an early stage of her his- tory. She has used it down to our own day in every stage of her history. ~ut it was in that stage of her history which is marked by the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine that she first made the round arch the leading feature of an in- dependent and harmonious style of archi- tecture. This aspect of Roman history, like every other, should be written as one story, and as yet it has not been written as one story. I still long to see the history of the genuine Roman buildings of Rome, from the first strivings after the arch in the roof of the Tullianum to the church of the third Otto and the house of Cre- scentius, traced out as one single volume of the history of art, the later pages of which must not be unkindly torn away from the earlier. The many works, chiefly the result of German scholarship, by which the topog- raphy and early history of Rome have been so largely illustrated during the last forty years deal of course largely with the buildings of all dates; but their object is hardly to supply a connected history of architecture at Rome. But the minute and splendidly illustrated volume of Professor Reber is specially devoted to the buildings of the city, and it deals elaborately with their architectural detail. In Mr. Burns book also, the buildings oc- cupy, though not an exclusive, yet a prom- inent, place, and they are largely illus- trated by engravings. And both the German and the English writer give us also an introduction specially devoted to a sketch of the origin and growth of Ro- man architecture down to the point at which they unluckily stop. Both books give the result of real research and sound scholarship, but of course the work of Professor Reber, as specially devoted to the buildings, treats their details in a more elaborate and technical way. And if Professor Reber is a little too believ- ing as to the traditions of early times, it is a fault which does little damage in a work which by its nature is almost whol- ly concerned with the remains of the his- torical ages. Our only complaint is that so diligent an inquirer and so clear an expositor did not go on further. It would surely not have been a task un- worthy of his powers to have given the same skill with which he has traced out the buildings of earlier times to trace out the first estate of the head church of Rome and Christendom. The same pow- er which can call up the Flavian Amphi- theatre in its ancient form might also call up the mighty pile of the old Saint Peters, when the crowning place of the C~esars had not been swept away for the gratification of papal vanity. The nar- row prejudices which once looked on such buildings as these as worthless and barbarous, unworthy of a glance or a thought from the eye or the mind of taste, have surely passed away along with the kindred prejudice which once looked with the same contempt on the wonders of mediawal skill in our own and in other northern lands. The early Chris- tian buildings of Rome and Ravenna are indeed far from lacking their vota- ries; they have been in many quarters carefully studied and illustrated, and their history has been carefully traced out. What is needed is to put them thoroughly in their true relation with re- gard to the buildings which went before them and to the buildings which followed them. The steps by which the arrange- ments of the earliest churches grew out of the arrangements of pagan buildings have been already often traced out; but it is no less needful to show the steps by which both the system of construction and the architectural detail of the so-called classical period changed into the construc- tion and the detail of what the classical purist is tempted to look on as the barbar- ous Romanesque. In architecture, as in everything else, the works of the true Middle Age, the time when two worlds stood side by side, is the time which, in the view of universal history, has an in- terest beyond all other times. But with regard to architecture, just as with re- gard to other things, it is exactly the pe- riod which is least studied and least un- derstood. It is neglected because of that very transitional character which gives it its highest interest. There is a classical school and there is a medi~eval school; each studies the works of its own favour- ite class in the most minute detail ; but the intermediate period, the period whose works tie together the works on each side of it into one unbroken series, is looked on by both parties as lying with- out its range. The classical purist looks on a basilican church as something hope- lessly barbarous something put to- gether out of fragments ruthlessly plun- dered from buildings of a better age. He sees a sign of degraded taste in the greatest step in advance which architec- ture ever took since the arch itself was 8 RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. brought to perfection, in that bold stroke time of Augustus or Trajan. And this of genius by which Diocletians architect belief is strengthened by the fact that, in at Spal ito first called into being a consist- the subsidiary arts, in painting, sculpture, ent round-arched style. On the other and the like, the later time really was a hand there is, or was a few years back, a time of decline. But when we once take school which looked on the old Saint inthe position which the age of Diode- Johns and the old Saint Peters as build- tian and Constantine holds in universal ings only half escaped from paganism, history, we shall at once see that it is ex- and which professed itself grieved to see actly the age in which great architectural an Ionic or Corinthian capital placed, developments were to be looked for. It even in an architectural treatise, side by is certain, as the ornaments of the arch of side with what it was pleased to call Constantine prove, that in Constantines the sacred details of Christian art. day the mere art of sculpture had gone By these sacred details were meant down not a little since the days of Trajan. the details of the architecture of England,~ It is certain also that the bricks of the age France, and Germany from the thirteenth of Constantine are not so closely and to the sixteenth centuries. Between two regularly fitted together as the bricks of such sets of narrow prejudices as these, the age of Nero. But there is no absurd- the buildings of the intermediate time, the ity holding that, while the arts of the time when the true Roman construction sculptor and of the bricklayer went down, was throwing off its incongruous Grecian the art of the architect might go up. If mask, have, for the most part, fared but we allow that the chief merit of architec- badly. A small special school gave itself ture is consistency, that the constructive to their study, but they have been cast and the decorative system should go hand aside by the two larger schools on either in hand, architecture was certainly ad- side of it. vancing, while the subsidiary arts were I have more than once, in different decaying. Through the whole classical ways, tried to set forth the seeming para- period construction and decoration ~vere dox that the architecture of the so-called kept asunder: the construction was Ro- classic days of Rome is really a tran- man ; the decoration was Greek. It was sition from the Grecian, the pure style of only in buildings which needed little or the entablature, to the Romanesque, the no decoration that the inconsistency is fully developed style of the round arch. avoided. In an amphitheatre the Greek The case is perfectly plain. The Greek elements are so secondary that they do architecture works its main constructive not force themselves on the eye; the features, the column and the entablature, half columns have sunk into something into its main ornamental features. The like the pilasters of a Romanesque build- Romanesque architecture also works its ing, and the general effect is that of a main constructive features, the round consistent round-arched style. In some arch and the piers or columns on which amphitheatres, and in bridges and aque- it rests, into its main ornamental features. ducts, the Greek ornamental features van- The classical Roman, coming between ish altogether, and we see the Roman the two, does not follow this universal law construction standing out in all its grand of all good architecture. Sometimes, as and simple majesty. Buildings of this in most of the temples, it simply imitates kind are the direct parents of the plainer Greek forms; in other buildings it com- and more massive forms of Romanesque, monly uses the round arch as the princi- such as we see in many of the great pal constructive feature, but masks it, as churches of Germany. But such a style far as it can, under a system of decora- as this is essentially plain, essentially tion borrowed from the Greek construc- massive, and there are places where tion. This inconsistency marks the clas- buildings are wanted which are at once sical Roman style as an imperfect an dil ighter and more enriched. The begin- transitional style. The difficulty in ac- nings of a light and ornamental round- cepting this doctrine comes from two arched style showed themselves when the causes. Till men have learned to take arch was first allowed to spring directly wide views of history as a whole, it is from the capital of the column. We now hard for them to believe that the time of I have for the first time a pure and consist- the seeming decline of Rome was really ent round-arched style, better suited for the time of her new birth. It is hard for the inside of a church or hall or other them to believe that the time of Diode- large building than the massive arches of tion and Constantine was, in architecture the amphitheatre and the aqueduct. And or in anything else, an advance on. the when the column and arch were once es RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. 9 tablished as the main constructive fea- tures, they naturally supplied a new sys- tem of decoration. As arched buildings had once been inconsistently decorated with ornamental columns and entabla- tures, they could now be consistently decorated with ornamental arcades. We see the beginning of this system as early as the church of Saint Apollinaris at Classis ; and from thence, diverging at one time into the wilder and ruder forms of Lorsch and Earls Barton, it grows into the endless decorative arcades of Pisa and Lucca, and into the more moderate use of the same kind of enrichment in the Romanesque of Normandy and Efln~ land. Thus it was that Romanesque grew up. Change the form of the arch, de- vise a system of mouldings and other or- naments which suit the new form of arch, and Romanesque changes into Gothic. The hall of Spalato is thus the true be- ginni of every later form of good and consistent architecture. It is the imme- diate parent of Durham and Pisa; it is the more distant parent of Westminster and Amiens. On the ~vhole, the course of the earlier stages of this long history can be no- where so well studied as in Rome. Ra- venna has its own charm and its own les- son. It has a perfectly unique collection of buildings of an age of which there are few buildings elsewhere. In the later forms of Romanesque Rome is far less rich than Pisa and Lucca, or than Milan and Pavia; and of Gothic, even of Italian Gothic, there is at Rome all but an abso- lute lack. But nowhere else can we find the same store of pa~an and early Chris- tian buildings standing side by side. Nowhere therefore can we so well trace out the steps by which the inconsistent classical Roman style was improved into the consistent Romanesque. We start from the very beginning. We have seen in Rome the invention one of the many independent inventionsof the arch it- self. But, as far as we can see, Rome failed to make the most of her own inven- tion. If we had any perfect buildings of the time of the Kings and of the early Republic, we should be better able to follow out our subject. But, as far as we can see, the charm of Greek art, the ex- quisite loveliness of Greek forms, cut short all native effort in this as in other ways. Rome, in her most brilliant days, failed to form a native architecture, just as she failed to form a native literature. We gaze with admiration on the exqui- site examples which Rome has to show of the transplanted art of Greece we call up before our eyes the full splendour of the vast expanse of colonnades, the ranges of temples and palaces and basil- icas, which covered the hills and valleys of Rome. Imagination fails as it strives to conceive the spreading forest of mar- ble which gathered round the soaring column from which the sculptured form of Trajan looked down on his mighty works. And yet, if we could see them in their splendour, an eye accustomed to other forms of art might perhaps grow weary of the endless repetition of one idea. We might feel that we had had more than enough of the stiff forms of the Grecian portico; we might weary of horizontal lines, of flat roofs, however rich with bronze or gilding. We might long to see the unvaried outline broken by the spreading cupolas of Byzantium, by the tall campaniles of media~val Italy, or by the heaven-piercing spires of Ger- many and England. We might feel too that, after all, the splendours of Rome were not Roman, that the conqueror had simply decked himself out in the bor- rowed l)lumes of conquered Hellas. In such a mood, we might turn away from the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, from the vast Julian Basilica at its foot, to those works in which somewhat of a Roman spirit showed itself beneath the mask and varnish of the foreign~ sys- tem of ornament. A plain arch of brick, even if put together with the utmost skill of the days of Nero, is in itself a far less beautiful object than a fluted column crowned by a Corinthian capital. But on the soil of Rome the arch of brick is na- tive, and the Corinthian capital is foreign. A day was to come when the foreign form of beauty was to be pressed into the ser- vice of the native form of construction; but that day was still far distant. The two forms still stood side by side, either standing wholly apart or else welded into one whole by a process of union much like that which was delighted in by the mythical Etruscan tyrant.* We might mark, as we still mark, with more of xvon- der than of pleasure, the attempt of * I need hardly quote the description of the Vir- gilian Mezentius: Mortua quinetiam jungebat corpora vivis. Certainly nothing can be more truly living than the grand conception of the really Roman part of the Pantheon, while the Greek portico had become some- thing very nearly dead, with the unfluted columns, the disproportionate pediment, and the frieze where un- dniibtedly very much for the convenience of historians the name of a living man took the place once allotted to the sculptured forIns of gods and heroes. To RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF R OME. Agrippa to tie on a would-be Grecian portico to a truly Roman body. And when we see that the classic architect knew no better way of lighting so great and splendid a pile than by making a hole in the top which left its pavement to be drenched by every passing shower, we might turn to the ranges of windows in some despised early Christian church, and think that, in one respect at least, the builders of the days of Constantine and Theodosius had made some improve- ments on the arts of the days of Augus- tus. From such an incongruous union of two utterly distinct principles of build- ing we might turn with satisfaction to those buildings where the real Roman spirit prevails, more truly Roman some- times in their decay, when the Greek cas- ing has been picked away from them, than they could ever have been in the days of their perfection. The Baths of Caracalla, the Temple of Venus and Rome, the Basilica of Maxentius or of Constantine, as they now stand ruined, show only their Roman features. They amaze us by the display of the construc- tive powers of the. arch on the very grandest scale. In the days of their glory, features of Greek decoration, beau- tiful no doubt in themselves, but out of place as the mask of such a noble reality, must have marred the vast and simple majesty of the true Roman building. As it is we see in them links in a chain which takes in the Cloaca Maxima at one end and the naves of Mainz and Speyer at the other; when they were perfect, their exotic features might have made them as inharmonious as the Pantheon. We can admire the theatre of Marcellus, we can almost forgive the purpose of the Flavian Amphitheatre, when we see how completely the Roman element has tri- umphed over the Greek. So, in one fea- ture especially Roman, one for which the habits and the arts of other nations could supply no parallel, in the triumphal arches, we see the native Roman forms stand forth as the leading feature of the structure, while the Greek features, the columns added simply for ornament, gradually lose their importance. In the arches of Severus and Constantine the columns have lost much of the import- ance which they have in the arches of Drusus and Titus. But the most con- sistent work of the kind i~ really the de- spised arch of Gallienus, where the round arch boldly spans the way, and where the Greek element has shrunk up into a shallow pilaster which has almost to be looked for. We are told that the Janus Quadrifrons was once adorned with de- tached columns; but they are gone and we do not miss them. The old Latin deity might be well satisfied with the four bold arches and the vault which were the creation of his own land; he needed not the further enrichment of features bor- rowed from the temples of the deities of another mythology. In all these exam- ples, and in many more wherever, in short, use came first and decoration second the Roman forms hold an un- doubted supremacy, and sometimes they have banished the foreign element alto gether. But it was a higher achievement- to lay hold on the noblest feature of the foreign style, to press it into the service of the native construction to teach the columns of Greece to bear the arches of Rome. What the entablature was in the Greek system the arch was in the Roman, and no greater step in the history of art was ever taken than when it was found that the column which had given so much grace and beauty to the one construction could be made to give equal grace and beauty to the other. At the bidding of Diocletian consistent round-arched archi- tecture first showed itself. The restorer and organizer of the Empire might fit- tingly be also the restorer and organizer of the building art. The Emperor who handed on the legacy of Rome to so many ages might well be also the creator of a type of building which contained in itself the germ of every good and consistent building which was to follow it. It is at this point that our guides fail us, that they hand us over to other guides, and that they leave us to bridge the chasm which yawns between them for ourselves. Chasm in truth there is none; all is true and genuine growth, step by step, though the battle was long and hard, longer and harder in Rome itself than it was elsewhere. At Ravenna the triumph of the arched system, with the arches resting on columns, seems to have been complete from the moment that the city became an Imperial dwell- ing-place. Nowhere in the buildings of Placidia or Theodoric do we see the columns still supporting the entablature. Nowhere at Ravenna are the horizontal lines of the outside of the Grecian temple transferred to the inside of the Christian church. But the triumph of the new style was perhaps less thorough because it was so speedy. Nowhere at Ravenna does the arch rest, as it does at Spalato, at once on the abacus of the column. An interme RECENT WORKS ON TIlE BUILDINGS OF ROME. II diate member, which is not without its constructive use, but which is artistically a survival, though no more than a sur- vival, of the broken entablature, is thrust in between them.* At Rome, on the other hand, the two modes of construction went on side by side, and the entablature re- mained in occasional use to divide the nave and aisles of Roman churches, after the northern architects had exchanged the round arch itself for the more aspir- ing pointed forms. Of the three greatest churches of Rome, the first in rank, the church of Saint John Lateran, the true metropolitan church of Rome, the Mother Church of the City and of the World, used the arch in all its perfection in that long range of colums which papal barbar- ism has so diligently laboured to destroy. But in the Liberian Basilica on the Esquiline the entablature save again where triple-crowned destroyers have cut through its long unbroken line reigns as supreme as the arch does in the Lat- eran. In the Vatican Basilica both forms were used; but the entablature had the precedence. It was used in the main rows of columns which divided the nave from the main aisles, while the arcade was used only to divide the main aisles from the secondary aisles beyond them. It was between the long horizontal lines of the elder form of art, lines suggesting the days of Augustus rather than the days of Diocletian, that Charles and Henry and Frederick marched to receive the crown which Diocletian rather than Augustus had bequeathed to them. And, as if to make the balance equal, the church of the brother Apostle, standing beyond the walls of Leo no less than be- yond the walls of Servius and Aurelian, the great basilica of Saint Paul, modern as it is in its actual fabric, preserves, better than any other, the form of a great church with arches resting on the col- umns, the memory in short of what the patriarchal church itself once was. In the lesser churches the arched form is by far the most common, but the entab- lature keeps possession of a minority which is by no means contemptible. And at last it appears again, by a kind of dying - effort, in the work of Honorius the Fourth in the basilica of Saint Lawrence, a work distant only by a few years from the last finish of Pisa, from the first beginnings of Salisbury. That the struggle at Rome * The Ravenna stilt may be compared with the stilt between the column and the entablature in Egyptian architecture. In the Saracenic styles it became a great feature with both round and pointed arches. should have been thus long and hard is in no way wonderful. Of the pagan buildings of Ravenna nothing remains but a few inscribed stones and such like, and the columns which are used up again in the churches. Not a single temple or other building is standing, even in ruins. They most likely perished early. The position of Ravenna was more like that of the New Rome than That of the Old. The city sprang at once, in Christian times, from the rank of a naval station to that of an abode of Emperors. But at Rome, where the stores of earlier build- ings were so endless, where paganism held its ground so long, and where so many of the pagan temples were spared till a very late time, the older mode of building was not likely to be forsaken all at once. The churches had either been basilicas or were built after the model of the basilicas. And in the basilicas, the rows of columns which divided the build- ing, the beginning of nave and aisles, certainly supported, down at least to the days of Diocletian and Constantine, not arches, but a straight entablature. Saint Mary on the Esquiline therefore, in its long horizontal lines, simply dave to the existing fashion ; the arches of Saint John Lateran and of Saint Paul were an innovation which had to fight its way against received practice. But the transition may be traced, not only in the construction and arrangement of buildings, but in their ornamental de- tails. Classical purism allows of only a very few forms of capital. There are the three Greek orders in their pure state, and at Rome it would be hard to shut out their Roman modifications. The pe- culiar Roman or Composite capital, the union of Ionic and Corinthian forms, may perhaps he admitted by straining a point. But there toleration ends. Yet one may surely say that, though the Greek forms are among the loveliest cre- ations of human skill, yet, if men are con- fined in this way to three or four models, they are sure to weary of their sameness. The Corinthian capital is as beautiful an arrangement of foliage as can be devised; but it is hard to be forbidden either to attempt other arrangements of foliage or to seek for ornament in other forms be- sides foliacre The later Roman builders clearly thought so; they brought in vari- ous varieties, which it is easy to call cor- ruptions, but which it is just as easy to call developments. Among the vast stores of capitals which are to be found among the buildings of Rome, there are many which, 12 RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. though they follow the general type of ument of the religious and artistic his- the Ionic or the Corinthian order, do not tory of Rome, it has the same kind of in- rigidly follow the types of those orders terest which we feel when we find, ever which are laid down by technical rules. and anon at home, a church built or Professor Reber has given some exam- adorned after the elder fashion during the ples of this departure from rigid technical reaction under Philip and Mary. This exactness even in the Colosseum itself. temple was the work of a devout and The forms used in the Colosseum are zealous pagan, Pr~textatus the friend of certainly not improvements ; the point is Julian, though it was built, not during that there should be varieties of any kind, the reign of his patron, but in the tolerant But I m(ist speak in a different tone of days of Valentinian. This building, as a certain capitals, to my mind of singular pagan building, as part of the buildings splendour and singular interest, which of the Forum, comes within Professor lie ne~lected among the ruins of the Baths Rebers ken. We have to thank him for of Caracalla. The artist has been so far illustrating its remarkable capitals, in from confining himself to one prescribed which we find neither human nor animal pattern, either of volute or of acanthus- forms, but, by an equal departure from leaves, that he has ventured to employ the ideal precision of any known order, yigorously carved human or divine figures the place of the figures of Hercules and as parts of the enrichment of his capitals. Bacchus in the capitals of Caracalla is And among the stores of fragments which supplied by armour and weapons in the lie in the lower gallery of the Tabula- form of a trophy. Both Professor Reber rium, there are a number of capitals and Mr. Burn note these steps in archi- which go even further, capitals of which tectural development. Why do they not the volute is formed by the introduction go on to notice the next step, when we of various animal figures. If it be true find capitals of the same anomalous kind that the volute took its origin from a used up again in the Laurentian Basilica? rams horn, such a change is something From thence another easy step leads us like going back again to the beginning. to the use of the same forms in the In these capitals, some at least of which, churches of Lucca, and one more step if not classical, are certainly pagan, we leads us to the western portal of Wetzlar get the beginning of that lavish employ- and to the Imperial palace at Gelnhausen. ment of animal figures in Romanesque The complaint then which I have to capitals of which we have many examples make is that we have excellent works il- in England and Normandy, but the best lustrating the pagan antiquities of Rome, forms of which are certainly to be found and excellent works illustrating the Chris- in some of the German and Italian build- tian antiquities of Rome, but that we have ings. At Wetzlar and at Gelnhausen, at no book, as far as I know, which clearly Milan, Monza, and Pavia, we may see and scientifically traces out the connection how ingeniously the volute can be made between the two, and which sets them forth out of various arrangements of the heads as being both alike members of one un- of men, lions, bulls, and the primitive broken series. In M. Weys book I can ram himself, and how, in the noblest type at least turn from a picture of the Temple of all, it is formed by the bird of C~sar j of Saturn to a picture of the church of bowing his head and folding his wings, Saint Clement, even though either may as if in the presence of his master. Such be picturesquely mixed up with a picture forms as these may be grotesque, fanci- of a peasant or a buffalo. Professor ful, barbarous, according to technical Reber and Mr. Burn give me all that I rules; I venture to see in them perfectly can want up to a certain point; only then lawful efforts of artistic and inventive they stop, without any reason that I can skill. And at any rate, here we have the see for stopping. beginning of them, in Roman buildings I have two more remarks to make on early in the third century. And there is the connection between the Pagan and the another building which I have always early Christian buildings of Rome. The looked on with especial interest, the exclusive votaries of classical antiquity small range of columns, the remains of sometimes raise a not unnatural outcry at the Temple of the Dii Consentes, imme- the barbarism of Popes, Emperors, and diately below the clivus of the Capitol. Exarchs the memory of Theodoric for- Here is a work of pagan reaction, a tem- bids us to add Kingsin building their pie consecrated to the old Gods of Rome churches out of the spoils of older build- after some of the earliest Christian ings. But what were they to do? They churches were already built. As a mon- natutally looked on the question in a RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. 3 wholly different way from that in which it is natural for us to look at it. They had no antiquarian feeling about the matter such feelings at least were far stronger in the breast of the Goth than they were in the breast of the Roman. The feeling of a Bishop or of a zealous Emperor or mag- istrate would rather be that with which J ehu or Josiah brake down the house of Baal. The temples were standing use- less churches were needed for the wor- ship of. the new faith the arrangements of the temples seldom allowed of their being turned into churches as they stood, while they supplied an endless store of columns which could be easily carried off and set up again in a new building. The act cannot fairly be blamed in a wider view of history and art it can hardly be regretted. Besides this objection from outside, which may make some minds turn away from the study of the early Christian buildings at Rome, there is another re- mark, an admission it may be called, to be made from within. There can be no doubt that the form which was chosen for the early churches, though it fostered art in many ways, checked it, in the West at least, in one way. The arch is the parent of the vault the vault is the parent of the cupola and to have brought these three forms to perfection is the glory of Roman art. But for some ages the con- tinuity of Roman art in this respect is to be looked for in the New Rome and not in the Old. The type of church which was adopted at Constantinople allowed the highest development of the art of vault- ing, and sent it in its perfect form back again into the Western lands Where it had first begun. Saint Mark is the child of Saint Sophia,and Saint Front at P~ri- gueux is the child of Saint Mark. But the oblong basilican type of the Roman churches had no place for the cupola, and the one objection to the use of the column as a support for the arch is that it makes it hardly possible to cover the building with a vault. The vault and the aome were therefore used in the West only in the exceptional class of round buildings, and in the apses of the basili- can churches. The basilican churches had only wooden roofs, and their naves could be made no wider than was con- sistent with being covered with a wooden roof. Sometimes, as in the basilica which bears the name of Saint Cross in Jerusa- lem, where an ancient building of great width has been turned into a church, the single body of the old structure is divided by longitudinal ranges of columns in the new. In short, at the very moment when the arch won its greatest triumph, both of construction and of decoration, archi- tecture, as far as the roof was concerned, fell back on the principle of the entabla- ture. The practice of vaulting large spaces, such as we see in the Baths of Caracalla and the basilica of Maxentius, went altogether out of use, till a distant approach to the boldness of the old Ro- man construction came in again in the great German minsters of the twelfth century. It is the round-arched buildings, and especially the early type of them, which form the main wealth of the Christian architecture of Rome. The later Roman- esque gave Rome one boon only, but that was a precious one. Rome r~ow gained, what she had never had either in Pagan or in early Christian times, something to break the monotony of her horizontal lines. The pagan temple was all glo- rious without ; the Christian basilica was all glorious within ; but neither of them had anything in its external outline to lead the eye or the mind upward. That lack was supplied by the tall narrow bell-towers which add so much to the picturesqueness of many a view in Rome, and which are the only medi~val works which at all enter into the general artistic aspect of the city. Of the sham Gothic of Italy Rome has happily but little to show. The sprawling arches of Romes one Gothic church by the Pantheon show that we are on the way to the time of ut- ter destruction. They are the pioneers of the havoc of the Renaissance. Rome was now at last to be truly sacked by the barbarians. We may pass by the ravage wrought on the temples at the foot of the Capitol, on the Colosseum, on the stately columns of Nervas Forum. One who has followed the line of argument of this article will perhaps rather be inclined to mourn over the destroyed and disfigured churches of the early days of Roman Christianity. Then it was that the fury of the destroyer was let loose on the ven- erable piles which Constantine had reared and where Theodoric had made his offer- ings. Pope after Pope had the pleasure of writing up his name, of recording his munificence, on the holy places which he laid waste. The disfigurement of Saint John Lateran, the destruction of Saint Peters, may stand on record as the great exploits of papal rule in Rome. Men enter the modern Vatican Basilica and wonder why the building seems so 4 RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME. much smaller than it really is. We may be sure that no man wondered on that score in the ancient building, as no man now wonders in the restored church of Saint Paul. No wonder that the building looks small when three arches have taken the place of twenty-four intercolum- niations; the vastness of the parts takes away from the vastness of the whole. In this mood we turn from the boasted glory of the Renaissance to try and call up to our minds the likeness of the nobler pile which has passed away. That dreary and forsaken apse, that front which it needs some faith to believe to be part of a church at all, may pass away from our thoughts. They have sprung up on ground which no part of the old basilica ever covered. We turn from the work of the Borghese to the portal of ancient times, when the one imperial tomb which Rome still holds was not yet thrust down out of sight and out of mind.* We enter, and, as the eye hurries along the few yawning arches of the nave, we long for the days when it might have rested step by step along the endless ranges of its columns. And even the majesty of the dome cannot make us forget that on its site once stood the altar, not as now, standing alone and forlorn, with its huge baldacchino further to lessen the effect of size and dignity, but standing in its place, canopied by the apse blazing with mosaics, with the throne of the Patri- arch rising in fitting dignity among his presbyters, the throne from which a worthier Leo than the. Medicean de- stroyer came down on the great Christ- mas feast, first to place the crown of Rome on the head of the Frankish Patrician, and then, as a subject before his sovereign, to adore the majesty of the Frankish Ciesar.t We turn trom the church of the Emperors to the spe- cial church of the Popes, to their own forsaken home on the Lateran, to the patriarchal church, disfigured indeed, but not, like its successful rival, wholly destroyed. We strive to call up the pile as it stood when its columns, its arches, were still untouched, not only before the destroyers of later times had hidden the marble columns beneath dull stuccoed masses of stone, but even before Northern forms which have no * The tomb of Otto the Second, which stood in front of the old Saint Peters, is thrust down into the crypt of the modern church. To be sure several tombs of Popes have shared the same fate. t Einhard, 8os: Post quas laudes ab eodem pon- itfice more antiquorum principum adoratus est. true abiding place on Italian soil had thrust themselves into the windows both of its apse and of its clerestory. We picture it as it was when Hildebrand arose from the patriarchal throne of the world, from the throne which his suc- cessors have swept a~vay as an useless thing,* to declare the King of Germany and Italy deposed from both his king- doms. We picture it as it was when Urban sat in the midst of his assembled Council, and called Anselm of Canter- bury, as himself the Pope of another world, to take his seat beside him in the circle of which the destroyers have left no trace behind.t So we might go through all the buildings, great and small,~ of which any portion has been spared to us. Everywhere there is the same de- struction, mutilation, or concealment of the ancient features, the same thrusting in of incongruous modern devices, the same fulsome glorification of the doers of the havoc. Still, in the vast extent of the city, enough is left for us to trace out all the leading features of the various forms which were taken by the early Christian buildings, and to connect them with the buildings of the pagan city which form the models out of which they grew by healthy and natural development. The historical associations of these buildings are surely not inferior to those of their pagan predecessors. As marking a stage in the history of art, we must look on them as links in the chain, as the central members which mark the great turning- point in a series. That series, as we have seen, begins with the arch of the Great Sewer; it goes on, obscured for awhile, but never wholly broken, under the influence of a foreign taste. Through the buildings of Rome and Spalato and Ravenna and Lucca it leads us to the final perfection of round-arched architec- ture, both in its lighter and more grace- ful form at Pisa, and in its more massive and majestic variety at Caen and Peter- borough and Ely and Durham. * The fact has been once or twice lately brought into notice that in the cloister of Saint John Lateran, the patriarchal chair of the Bishop of Rome may be seen, cast out among other disused fragments. A paltry altar fills its place in the apse, and the whole ancient arrangement, which may be traced in one or two of the smaller churches of Ro~e, is utterly destroyed. t Eadmer, Hist. Nov. p. 52, Selden. Cum vero ad concilium venturum esset, et episcopis qui de Italia et Gallia venerant suas sedes ex consuetudine veudi- cantibus, nemo existeret qui se vel audisse vel vidisse archiepiscopum Cantuariensem Romano concillo ante h~c interfuisse diceret, vel scire quo tunc in loco sedere deberet, ex pr~cepto Pap~e in corona sedes illi posita est, qui locus non obscuri honoris in tali couvento solet THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. ~I5 From Blackwoods Magazine. THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. CHAPTER XVI. DICK BROWN got up very early next morning, with the same sense of exhilara- tion and light-heartedness which had moved him on the previous night. To be sure he had no particular reason for it, but what of that? People are seldom so truly happy as when they are happy with- out any cause. He was early in his habits, and his heart was too gay to be anything but restless. He got up though it was not much past five oclock, and took his turn at the pump in the yard, which formed the entire toilet arrange- ments of the tramps lodging-house, and then strolled down with his hands in his pockets and his ruddy countenance shin- ing afresh from these ablutions, to where the river shone blue in the morning sun- shine at the foot of Coffin Lane. Dick had passed through Windsor more than once in the course of his checkered ex- istence. He had been here with his tribe those curious unenjoying slaves of pleasure who are to be found wherever there is merrymaking, little as their share may be in the mirth on the 4th of June, the great fete day of Eton, and on the occasion of reviews in the great Park, and royal visits; so the place was mod- erately familiar to him, as so many places were all over the country. He strolled along the raised path by the water-side, with a friendly feeling for the still river, sparkling in the still sunshine, without boat or voice to break its quiet, which he thought to himself had brought him luck, a new friend, and perhaps a long succession of odd jobs. Dick and his mother did very fairly on the whole in their wandering life. The shillings and sixpences which they picked up in one way or another kept them going, and it was very rare when they felt want. But the boys mind was different from his fate; he was no adventurer and though habit had made the road and his nomadic outdoor life familiar to him,. yet he had never taken to it quite kindly. The thing of all others that filled him with envy was one of those little tidy houses or pretty cottages which abound in every English village, or even on the skirts of a small town, with a little flower-garden full of flowers, and pictures on the walls inside. The lad had said to himself times without number, that there indeed was something to make life sweeta settled home, a certain place where he should rest every night and wake every morning. There was no way in his power by which he could attain to that glorious conclusion; but he thus secured what is the next best thing to success in this world, a distinct conception of what he wanted, an ideal which was possible and might be carried out. He sat down upon the bank, swing. ing his feet over the mass of gravel which the workmen, beginning their morning work, were fishing up out of the river, and contemplating the scene before him, which, but for them, would have been noiseless as midnight. The irregular wooden buildings which flanked the rafts opposite looked picturesque in the morn- ing light, atid the soft water rippled up to the edge of the planks, reflecting every- thing, pointed roof and lattice window, and the wonderful assembly of boats. It was not hot so early in the morning; and even had it been hot, the very sight of that placid river, sweeping in subdued silvery tints, cooled down from all the pictorial warmth and purple glory of the evening, must have cooled and refreshed the landscape. The clump of elm-trees on the Brocas extended all their twinkling leaflets to the light; lower down, a line of white houses, with knots of shrubs and stunted trees before each, attracted Dicks attention. Already lines of white clothes put up to dry betrayed at once the occu- pation and the industry of the inhabitants. If only his mother was of that profession, or could adopt it, Dick thought to him- self, how sweet it would be to live there, with the river at hand and the green meadow-grass between to live there forever and ever, instead of wander~ ing and tramping about the dusty roads! There was no dust anywhere on that clear fresh morning. The boy made no comment to himself upon the still beauty of the scene. He knew nothing of the charm of reflection and shadow, the soft tones of the morning brightness, the cool green of the grass; he could not have told why they were beautiful, but he felt it somehow, and all the sweetness of the early calm. The great cart-horse stand- ing meditative on the waters edge, with its heads and limbs relieved against the light sky ; the rustling of the gravel as it was shovelled up, all wet and shining, upon the bank; the sound of the work- mens operations in the heavy boat from which they were working, gave a wel- come sense of company and fellowship to the friendly boy.; and for thc rest, his soul was bathed in the sweetness of the 6 THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. morning. After a while he went higher up the stream and bathed more than his soul his body too, which was much the better for the bath; and then came back again along the Brocas, having crossed in the punt by which some early workmen went to their occupation, pondering many things in his mind. If a fellow could get settled work now here a fellow who was not so fortunate as to have a mother who could take in washing! Dick extended his arms as he walked, and stretched him- self, and felt able for a mans work, though he was only sixteenhard work, not light a good long day, from six in the morning till six at night; what did he care how hard the work was, so long as he was off the road, and had some little nook or corner of his own he did not even mind how tinyto creep into, and identify as his, absolutely his, and not anothers? The cottages facing to the Brocas were too fine and too grand for his aspirations. Short of the ambitious way of taking in washing, he saw no royal road to such comfort and splendour; but homelier places no doubt might be had. What schemes were buzzing in his young head as he walked back towards Coffin Lane! He had brought out a hunch of bread with him, which his mother had put aside last night, and which served for breakfast, and satisfied him fully. He wanted no delicacies of a spread table, and dreams of hot coffee did not enter his mind. On winter mornings, doubt- less, it was tempting when it was to be had in the street, and pennies were forth- coming; but it would have been sheer extravagance on such a day as this. The bread was quite enough for all Dicks need; but his mind was busy with pro- jects ambitious and fanciful. He went back to the lodging-house to find his mother taking the cup of weak tea with- out milk which ~vas her breakfast; and, as it was still too early to go to his ap- pointment to Val, begged her to come out with him that he might talk with her; there was no accommodation for private talk in the tramps lodging-house, al- though most of the inmates by this time were gone upon their vagrant course. Dick took his mother out by the river- side again, and led her to a grassy bank above the gravel-heap and the workmen, where the white houses on the Brocas, and the waving lines of clean linen put out to dry, were full in sight. He began the conversation cunningly, with this practical illustration of his discourse be- fore his eyes. Mother, said Dick, did you never think as youd like to try staying still in one place and getting a little bit of a home ? No, Dick,~ said the woman, hastily; dont ask me I couldnt do it. It would kill me if I were made to try. No one aint a-going to make you, said Dick, soothingly; but look here, mother now tell me, didnt you ever try? Oh yes, Ive tried tried hard enoughtill I was nigh dead of it I cant remember, mother. It was before your time, she said, with a sigh and uneasy movement -~ before you were born. Dick did not put any further questions. He had never asked anything about his father. A tramps life has its lessons as well as a lords, and Dick was aware that it was not always expedient to inquire into the life, either public or private, of your predecessors. He had not the least notion that there had been anything par- ticular about his father, but took it for granted that he must have been such a one as Joe or Jack in roucrh coat and knotted handkerchief,. a wanderer like the rest. He accepted the facts of existence as they stood without making any diffi- culties, and therefore he did not attempt to worrit his mother by further refer- ence to the past, which evidently did . worrit her. Well, never mind that, he said ; you shant never be forced to anything if I can help it. But if so be as I got work, and it was for my good to stay in a place supposing it might be here ? Heres different, said his mother, dreamily. Thats just what I think, cried Dick, too wise to ask why; its a kind of a place where a body feels free like, where you can be gone to-morrow if you please the forest handy and Ascot handy, and barges as will give you a lift the moment as you feel it the right thing to go. Thats just what I wanted to ask you, mother. If I got a spell of work along of that young swell as Im going to see, or anything steady, mightnt we try? If you felt on the go any day, you might just take the road again and no harm done; or if you felt as you could sit still and make yourself comfortable in the house _____ I could never sit still and make my- self comfortable, she said ; I cant be happy out of the air, Dick I cant breathe; and sitting still was never my THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. 7 way nor you couldnt do it neither, only a dames, not a masters house. she added, looking in his face. The elegant young Grinder, who was Oh, couldnt I though said Dick, Vals tutor, was but a younger branch of with a laugh. Mother, you dont know his exalted family, and had no immediate much about me. I am not one to grum- share in the grandeurs of the establish- ble, I hope but if youll believe me, ment, which was managed by a dominie the thing Id be proudest of would be to or dame, a lay member of the Eton com be bound prentis and learn a trade. munity, who taught nothing, but only Dick ! superintended the meals and morals of I thought youd be surprised. I I his great houseful of boys. Such per- know Im too old now, and I know its sonages have no place in Eton proper no good wishing, said the boy. Many the Eton of the Reformation period, so to and manys the time Ive lain awake of speak but they were very important in nights thinking of it ; but I saw as it Vals time. Young Brown went to a side wasnt to be done nohow, and never door, and asked for Mr. Ross with a little spoke. Ive give up that free and full, timidity. He was deeply conscious of mother, and never bothered you about the fact that he was nothing but a cad what couldnt be; so you wont mind if I not a kind of visitor whom either dame bother a bit now. If I could get a long Qr tutor would permit one of the gen- spell of work, mother dear! Theres tlemento receive; and, indeed, I think them men at the gravel, and theres a Dick would have been sent Ignominious- deal of lads like me employed about the ly away but for his frank and open coun- rafts; and down at Eton theyre wanted tenance, and the careful washing, both in in every corner, for the fives-courts and the river and out of it, which he had that the rackets, and all them things. Now morning given himself. He was told to supposing as this ydung swell has took a wait; and he waited, noting, with curious fancy to me, like I have to himand eyes, the work of the great house which supposing as I get worklets say sup- went on under his eyes, and asking him- posing, for it may never come to nothing, self how he would like to be in the place wouldnt you stay with me a bit, of the young curly-headed footman who mother, and try and make a home ? was flying about through the passages, Id like to see the gentleman, Dick, up-stairs and down, on a hundred er- said his mother, ignoring his appeal. rands; or the other aproned functionary The gentleman ! said the boy, a lit- who was visible in a dark closet at a dis- tIe disappointed. And then he added, tance, cleaning knives with serious per~ cheerily Well, mother dear, you shall sistence, as if life depended on it. Dick see the gentleman, partickler if youll decided that he would not like this mode stay here a bit, and I have regular work, of making his livelihood. He shrank and we get a bit of an ome. even from the thought I cannot telL He would never come to your home, why, for he had no sense of pride, and lad not the likes of him. knew no reason why he should not have You think a deal of him, mother. taken service in Grinders, where the ser- He mightnt come to Coffin Lane ; I vants, as well as the other inmates, lived daresay as the gentlemen in college dont on the fat of the land, and wanted for let young swells go a-visiting there. But nothing; but somehow his fancy was not you take my word, youll see him ; for attracted by such a prospect. He watched hes taken a fancy to me, I tell you. the cleaner of knives, and the curly- Theres the quarter afore ten chimino I headed footman in his livery, with inter- must be off now, mother; and if any- est ; but not as he watched the lads on thing comes in the way youll not go the river, whose life was spent in launch- against me? not when Ive set my heart ing boats and withdrawing them from on it, like this ? the water in continual succession. Fle Ill stay a bit to please you, had no pride; and the livery and the liv- Dick, said the woman. And the lad ing were infinitely more comfortable than sprang up and hastened away with a light anything he had ever known. His heart. This was so much gained. He mind did not go with it, he said to him- went quickly down, walking on through self; and that was all it was necessary to the narrow High Street of Eton to say. the great red house in which his new While he was thus meditating, Valen- friend was. Grinders was an institu- tine Ross, in correct Eton costume tion in the place, the niost boarding-houses~houTh z black coat, high hat, and white necktie of all the Eton ~ fresh from his tutor, with books under LIViNG AGE. VOL. VI. 314 S THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. his arm, came in, and spied him where he wrote a hasty answer, for such important stood waiting. Vals face lightened up business cannot wait. Dick, watching into leased recoo~nition more readily his movements, felt with genuine gratifi- P than Dicks did, who was slow to recog- cation that here was another commission nize in this solemn garb the figure which for him. But his patrons next step made he had seen in undress dripping from his countenance fall, and filled his soul the waters. Hollo, Brown ! said Val; with wonder. Val opei}ed his door, and I am glad you have kept your time. with stentorian voice shouted Lower Come up-stairs and Ill give you what I boy! into the long passage. There was promised you. Dick followed his patron a momentary pause, and then steps were up-stairs, and through a long passage to heard in all directions up and down, rat- Vals room. Come in, said Val, rum- tling over the bare boards, and about ma~in~ in a drawer of his bureau for the half-a-dozen young gentlemen in a lump half-crown with which he meant to pre- came tumbling into the room. Val in- sent his assistant of last night. Dick en- spected them with lofty calm, and held tered timidly, withdrawing his cap from out his note to the last corner, over the his head. The room was quite small, the heads of the others. Take this to bed folded up, as is usual at Eton. The Benton at Guerres, he said, with admi- bureau, or writing-desk with drawers, rable brevity; and immediately the mes- adorned by a red-velvet shelf on the top, senger departed, the little crowd melted stood in one corner, and a set of book- away, and the two boys were again alone. shelves similarly decorated in another; a I say, I mustnt keep you here, said heterogeneous collection of pictures, hung Val ; my dame mightnt like it. Heres as closely as possible, the accumulation your half-crown. Have you got anything of two years, covered the walls ; some to do yet? I think youre a handy fellow, little carved brackets of stained wood and I shouldnt mind saying a word for held little plaster figures, not badly you if I had the chance. What kind of modelled, in which an Italian image-seller place do you want ? drove a brisk trade among the boys. A I dont mind what it is, said Dick. blue and black coat, in bright stripes Id like a place at the rafts axvful, if I (need I add that Valau~ust distinction was good enough; or anythin~ sir I ~, -- was in the Twenty-Two ?), topped by dont mind, as long as I can make enough ;a cap of utterly different but equally to keep me and mother; thats all I bright hues the colours of the house care.~~ ~hung on the door; a fine piece of colour, Was that your mother ? said Val. if peahaps somewhat violent in contrast. Do you work for her too ? The window was full of bright geraniums, Well, sir, you see she can make a deal which grew in a box outside, and gar- in our old way. She is a great one with landed with the yellow canariensis and the cards when she likes, but she wont wreaths of sweet-peas. Dick looked never do it except when were hard up round upon all these treasures, his heart and shes forced; for she says she has to -throbbing with admiration, and some- tell the things she sees, and they always thing that would have been envy had it comes true: but what I want is to stay been possible to hope or wish for any- in one place, and get a bit of an ome to- thing so beautiful and delightful for him- getherand she aint good for gentle- -self; but as this was not possible, the mens washing or that sort, worse luck, boys heart swelled with pleasure that said Dick, regretfully. So you see, sir, his young patron should possess it, which if she stays still to please me, Ill have to was next best. Wait a moment, cried work for her, and good reason. Shes Val, finding, as he pursued his search, a been a good mother to me, never going note laid upon his bureau, which had on the loose, nor that, like other women been brought in in his absence; and Dick do. I dont grudge my work. stood breathless, gazing round him, glad Val did not understand the curious of the delay which gave him time to take tingling that ran through his veins. He in every detail of this school-boy palace was not consciously thinking of his own into his mind. The note was about some mother, but yet it was something like momentous piece of business,the do- sympathy that penetrated his sensitive mestic economy of that one of the mind. I wish I could help you, he boats in which Val rowed number said, doubtfully. Id speak to the peo- seven, with hopes of being stroke when pie at the rafts, but I dont know if theyd Jones left next Election. He bent his mind me. Ill tell you what, thowzh, he brows over it, and seizing paper and pen, added, with sudden excitement. I can approaching no nearer to completion. Dick surveyed it ~vith glowing eyes. I saw some like it in a shop as I came down. Oh, how I should like to try! Ive cut things myself out of a bit of wood with an old knife, and sold them at the fair. And you think you could do this without any lessons ? said Val, laugh- ing; just take and try it. I wonder what old Fullady would say! there are the saws and things. But look here, youll have to go, for its time for eleven oclock school. Take the whole concern with you, quick, and Ill give you five bob if you can finish it. Remember after six at the rafts to-night. Thus saving, the young patron pushed his ~rofe~4 before him out of the room, laden with the wood-carving, and rushed off himself with a pile of books under his arm. All the boys in the house seemed fiooding out, and all the boys in Eton to be pouring in different directions, one stream intersecting another, as Dick is- sued forth, filled with delight and hope. He had not a corner to which he could take the precious bit of work he had been in trusted with nothing but the common room of the tramps lodging- house. Oh for a home, not so grand as Vals little palace, but anything that would afford protection and quiet a place to decorate and pet like ~a child This feeling grew tenfold stronger in Dicks heart as he sat wistfully on the rivers bank, and looked across at the rafts in which were sublime possibilities of work and wages. How he longed for the evening! How he counted the moments as the day glowed through its mid hours, and the sun descended the western sky, and the hour known in these regions as after six began to come down softly on Eton and the world! THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. 9 do better than that Ill get Lichen to speak to them They might not care for me but theyll mind what Lichen says. Dick received reverentially and grate- fully, but without understanding the full grandeur of the idea, this splendid prom- ise for how should the young tramp have known, what I am sure the reader must divine, that Lichen was that Olym- pian demigod and king among men, the Captain of the Boats? If Lichen had asked the Queen for anything I wonder if her Majesty would have had the cour- age to refuse him? but at all events no- body about the river dared to deny him. To be spoken to by Lichen was, to an ordinary mortal, distinction enough to last him half his (Eton) days. Dick did not see the magnihcence of the prospect that thus opened to him, but Val knew all that was implied in it, and his counte- nance brightened all over. I dont think they can refuse Lichen anything, he said. Look here, Brown; meet us at the rafts after six, and Ill tell you what is done. I wish your mother would tell me my fortune. Lots of fellows would go to her if they knew; but then the masters wouldnt like it, and there might be a row. Bless you, sir, mother wouldnt not for the Bank of England, cried Dick. She might tell you yours, if I was to ask her. Thank you kindly, sir ; Ill be there as sure as life. Its what I should like most. If Lichen speaks for you, youll get it, said Val; and I know Harry wants boys. Youre a good boy, aint you? he added, looking at him closely you look it. And mind, if we recommend you, and youre found out to be rowdy or bad after, and disgrace us, Lichen will give you such a licking! Or for that matter, Ill do it myself. Im not afraid, said Dick. I aint rowdy; and if I get a fixed place and a CHAPTER XVII. chance of making a home, you just try DIcKS mother sat upon the bank me~ and see if Ill lose my work for the where he had left her, with her hands sake of pleasure. I aint that sort. clasping her knees, and her abstract eyes I dont believe you are, said Val~ oazing across the river into the distance, only its right I should warn you ; for ~eein~ scarcely anything before her, but Lichen aint a fellow to stand any non- seeing much which was not before her sense, and no more am I. Do you nor could be. A tramp has no room to think thats pretty? Im doing it, but I sit in, no domestic duties to do, even liavent the time. were she disposed to do them; and to This was said in respect to a of wood-carvino which Valentine piece sit thus in a silent musing, or without ad be- even musing at all, in mere empty leisure, gun in the beginning of the year, and beaten upon by wind and sun was as which lay there, like many another en- characteristic of her wandering life as terprise commenced, gathering dust but were the long fatigues of the road along 20 THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. which at other times she would plod for the most rigid conventional life, and hours, or the noisy tumult of race-course bound, had she known it, by as unyield- or fair through which she often carried ing a lacework of custom as any that her serious face and abstract eyes a could have affected the life of the Hon- figure always remarkable and never hay- ourable Mrs. Richard Ross, the wife of ing any visible connection ~vith the scene the Secretary of Legation. But she did in which she was. But this day she was not know this, poor soul; and besides, as she had not been for years. The all possibility of that other existence, all heart which fulfilled its ordinary pulsa- hold upon it or thought of it, had disap- tions in her breast calmly and dully on peared out of her horizon for sixtef~n most occasions, like something far off years. and scarcely belonging to her, was now Sixteen years a large slice out of a throbbing high with an emotion which womans life who had not yet done more influenced every nerve and fibre of her than pass the half-way milestone of hu- frame. It had never stilled since last man existence. She had never possessed night when she heard Vals name sound- so much even of the merest rudimentary ing clear through the sunny air, and saw education as to know what the position the tall well-formed boy, with his wet of Richard Rosss wife meant, except jersey clinging to his shoulders, moving that it involved living in a house, wearing swiftly away from her, a vision, but more good clothes, and being surrounded by substantial than any other vision. Her people of whom she was frightened, who old heart, the heart of her youth, had did not understand her, and whom she leaped back into life at that moment; could not understand. Since her flight and instead of the muffled beating of the back into her natural condition, the slow familiar machine which had simply kept years had brought to her maturing mind her alive all these years, a something full thoughts which she understood as little. of independent life, full of passion and She was not more educated, more clever, eagerness, and quick-coming fancies, and nor indeed more clear in her confused hope, and fear, had suddenly come to fancies, than when she gave back one of life within her bosom. I dont know if her boys, driven thereto by a wild sense her thoughts were very articulate. They of justice, into his fathers keeping ; but could scarcely have been so, uneducated, many strange things had seemed to pass untrained, undisciplined soul as she was before her dreamy eyes since then, a creature ruled by impulses, and with things she could not fathom, vague no hand to control her; but as she sat visions of what might have be en right, there, and saw her placid Dick go hap- of what was wrong. These had come to pily off, to meet the other lad who was to little practical result, except in so far that him a young swell, able to advance she had carefully preserved her boy Dick and help him, one to whom he had taken from contact with the evil around had a sudden fancy, he could not tell why, trained him in her way to truth and the of the situation roused goodness and some strancre sense of strangeness her to an excitement which she was in- honourhad got him even a little edu- capable of subduing. It maynt be him cation, the faculties of reading andwrit- after allit maynt be him after all, ing, which were to herself a huge dis- she said to herself, watching Dick till he tinction among her tribe; and, by keep- disappeared into the distance. She ing him in her own dreamy and silent would have given all she had (it was not but pure companionship, had preserved much) to go with him, and look face to face the lad from moral harm. She had, how- upon the other. It seemed to her that ever, a material to work upon which had she must know at the first glance whether saved her much trouble. The boy was, it was him or not. But, indeed, she had to begin with, of a character as incom- no doubt, that it was him. For I do not prehensible to her as were the other attempt to make any pretence at deceiv- vague and strange influences which had ing the well-informed and quick-sighted shaped her shipwrecked life. He was reader, who knows as well as I do who good, gentle, more advanced than her- this woman was. She had carried on her self, his teacher, in the higher things wandering life, the life which she had which she tried to teach him, getting by chosen, for the last eight years, exposed instinct to conclusions which only pain- to all the vicissitudes of people in her fully and dimly had forced themselves condition, sometimes in want, often mis- upon her, not subject to the temptations erable, pursuing in her wild freedom a which she expected to move him, not routine as mechanically fixed as that of lawless, nor violent, nor hard to control, THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. 21 l)ut full of reason and sense and steady trustworthiness from his cradle. She had by this time got over the surprise with which she had slowly come to rec- ognize in Dick a being total!y different from herself. She was no analyst of char- acter, and she had accepted the fact with dumb wonder which did not know how to put itself into words. Even now there awaited her many lesser surprises, as Dick, going on from step to step in life, did things which it never would have oc- curred to her to do, and showed himself totally impervious to those temptations against which it had been necessary for her to struggle. His last declaration to her was as surprising as anything that went before it. The nomads son, who had been on the tramp all his life, whose existence had been sl)ent on the road, alternating between the noisy ex- citement of those scenes of amusement which youth generally loves, and that dull semi-hibernation of the winter which gives the tramp so keen a zest for the new start of spring,was it the boy so bred who had spoken to her of a home, of steady work, and the commonplace existence of a man who had learned a trade? She wondered with a depth of vague surprise which it would be impos- sible to put into words for she herself had no words to express what she meant. Had it not happened to chime in with the longing in her own mind to stay here and see the other boy, whose momentary con- tact had filled her with such excitement, I dont know how she would have received Dicks strange proposal; hut in her other agitation it had passed without more than an additional but temporary shock of that surprise which Dick constantly gave her; and she did not count the cost of the concession she had made to him, the tacit agreement she had come under to live under a commonplace roof, and confine herself to indoor life during this flush of midsummer weather, for the longing that she had to know something, if only as a distant spectator, of the life and being of that other boy. After a while she roused herself and went over in the ferry-boat to the other side of the river, where ~vere the rafts to which Dick looked with so much anx- iety and hope. Everything was very still at the rafts at that sunny hour be- fore mid-day, when Eton, shut up in its schoolrooms, did its construing drowsily, and dreamed of the delights of after twelve without being able to rush forth and anticipate them. The attendants on the rafts, lightly-clad, softly-stepping figures, in noiseless boating shoes and such imitation of boating costume as their means could afford, were lounging about with nothing to do, seated~on the rails drawling in dreary Berkshire speech, or arranging their boats in readiness for the approaching rush. Dicks mother approached along the road, without at- tracting any special observation, and got into conversation with one or two of these men with the ease which attends social intercourse on these levels of life. If there is a new hand wanted, my lad is dreadful anxious to come, she said. Old Harrys looking for a new lad,~~ answered the man she addressed. And so the talk began. There was a kind of an accident on the river last night, she said, after a while; one of the gentlemen got his boat upset, and my lad brought it down Lord bless you, call that a hacci- dent ? said her informant; half-a- dozen of em swamps every night. They dont mind, nor nobody else. The name of this one was Ross, I think, she said, very slowly; maybe youll know him ? I know him well enoughhes in the Victory; not half a bad fellow in his way, but awful sharp, arid not a bit of patience. I seed him come in dripping xvet. Hes free with his money, and I daresay hed pay your lad handsome. If I were you, Id speak to old Harry him- self about the place; and if you say youve a friend or two among them young swells, better luck. Is this one what you call a swell ? said the woman. Why, hes Mr. Ross, aint he? thats Eton for honourable, said one of the men. He aint Mr. Ross, said an older and better-informed person, with some con- tempt. The older attendants at the rafts were walking peerages, and knew every- bodys pedigree. His father was Mis- ter Ross, if you please. He used to be at college in my time; a nice light-haired sort of a lad, not good for much, but with heaps of friends. Not half the pluck of this one: this ones as dark as you, missis, a kind of a foreign-looking blade, and as wilful as the old gentleman him- self. But I like that sort better than the quiet ones ; the quiet ones does just as much mischief on the sly. Theyre a rare lot, them lads are, said the other shouting at a man 22 THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. likes he was the dust under their feet. Aint we their fellow-creatures all the same? It aint much you makes at the rafts, missis, even if you gains a lot in the season. For after all, look how short the season is you may say just the summer half. Its too cold in March, and its too cold in October nothing to speak of but the summer half. You makes a good deal while it lasts, I dont say nothing to the contrary but whats that to good steady work all round the year? Maybe her lad isnt one for steady work, said another. It is work, I can tell you is this, as long as it lasts ; from early morning to lockup, never a moment to draw your breath, but school-hours, and holidays, and half-holidays without end. Then theres the regular boating gents as come and go, not constant like the Eton gentlemen. They give a deal of trouble they do; and as particular with their boats as if they were babies, I tell you what, missis, if you want him to have an easy place, I wouldnt send him here. Hes not one thats afraid of work,~~ said the woman, and its what hes set his heart on. I wonder if you could tell me now where this Mr. Ross comes from if hes west-country now, down Devon- shire way? Bless you, no, said the older man, who was great in genealogies ; hes from the north, he is Scotland or there- abouts. His grandfather came with him when he first came to college Lord something or other. About as like a lord as I am. But the nobility aint much to look at, added this functionary, with whom familiarity had bred contempt. Theyre a poor lot them Scotch and Irish lords. Give me a good railway man, or that sort; theyre the ones for spending their money. Lord I cant think on the old uns name. Was it Eskside ? Youre a nice sort of body to know about the haristocracy, said the man in course it was Eskside. Now, mis- sis, if you knowed, what was the good of comin~ asking me, taking a fellow in? I didnt know, said the woman, hum- bly; I only wanted to know. In my young days, long ago, I knew a family of that name. Ay, ay, in your young days. You were a handsome lass then, Ill be bound, said the old man, with a grin. Look here, said one of the others heres old Harry coming, if you like to speak to him about your lad. Speak up and dont be friThtened. He aint at all a bad sort, and if you tell him as the boys spry and handy, and dont mind a hard days work speak up! only dont say I told you. And the benevolent ad- viser disappeared hastily, and began to pull about some old gigs which were ranged on the rafts, as if much too busily occupied to spare a word. The woman went up to the master with a heart beat- ing so strongly that she could scarcely hear her own voice. On any other occa- sion she would have been shy and reluc- tant. Asking favours was not in her wayshe did not know how to do it. She could not feign or compliment, or do anything to ingratiate herself with a patron. But her internal agitation was so strong that she was quite uplifted beyond all sense of the effort which would have been so trying to her on any other occa- sion. She went up to him sustained by her excitement, which at the same time blunted her feelings, and made her almost unaware of the very words she uttered. Master, she said, going straight to the point, as the excited mind naturally does I have a boy that is very anxious for work. He is a good lad, and very kind to me. Weve been tramping about the country nothing better, for all my folks was in that way; but he dont take after me and my folks. He thinks steady work is better, and to stay still in one place. He is in the right, of it there, was the reply. Maybe he is in the right, she said; Im not the one to say, for Im fond of my freedom and moving about. But, master, youll have one in your place that is not afraid of hard work if youll have my son.~~ Who is your son? do I know him ? said the master, who was a man with a mobile and clean-shaven countenance, like an actor, with a twinkling eye and a suave manner, the father of an athletic band of river worthies who were regarded generally with much admiration by the college gentlemen, to whom their prow- ess was well known, who is your son The woman grew sick and giddy with the tumult of feeling in her. The words were simple enough in straightforward meaning; but they bore another sense, which made her heart flutter, and took the very light from her eyes. Who was her son? It was all she could do to keep from betraying herself, from claim- THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. 23 ing some one else as her son, very differ- wooden railing, and held herself up right ent from Dick. If she had done so, she by it, shutting her eyes to concentrate would have been simply treated as a mad her strength. And by-and-by the bewil- woman: as it was, the bystanders, used dering sick emotion passed; was it him to tramps of a very different class, looked whom she had seen? at her with instant suspicion, half dis- After this she crossed the river again in posed to attribute her giddiness and fal- the ferry-boat, thoubh it was a halfpenny tering to a comm on enough cause. She each time, and she felt the expenditure to mastered herself without fully knowing be extravagant, and walked about on the either the risk she had run or the look other bank till she found Dick, who natu- directed to her. You dont know him, rally adopted the same means of finding she said. We came here but last night. her, neither of them thinking of any re- One of the college gentlemen was to turn home, a place which did not speak for him. Hes a good hard-working exist in their consciousness. Then they lad, if youll take my word for it, that went and bought something in an eating- knows him best. shop, and brought it out to a quiet corner Well, missis, its true as you know opposite the Brocas clump, and there him best; but I dont know as we can ate their dinner, with the river flowing at take his mothers word for it. Mothers their feet, and the skiffs of the gentle- am t always to be trusted to tell what they men darting by. It was, or rather know, said th~master, good-humouredly. looked, a poetic meal, and few people Ill speak to you another time, for here passed in sight without a momentary envy they are coming. Look sharp, lads. of the humble picnic; but to Dick Brown All right,sir; here you are. and his mother there was nothing out of The tide was coming in a tide of the way in it, and she tied up the frag- boys who immediately flooded the ments for supper in a spotted cotton place, pouring up-stairs into the dressing- handkerchief when they had finished. rooms to change their school garments It was natural for them to eat out of for boatin~ dress, and gradually occupy- doors, as well as to do everything else ing the rafts in a moving restless crowd. out of doors. Dick told her of his good The woman stood, jostled by the living luck, how kind Valentine had been, and stream, watching wistfully, while boat gave her the half-crown he had received, after boat shot out into the water, gigs, and an account of all that was to be done with a laughing, restless crew out- for him. If they dont mind him, riggers, each with a silent inmate, bent theyre sure to mind the other gentle- on work and practice; for all the school man, said devout Dick, who believed in races had yet to be rowed. She stood Vals power with a fervent and unques- gazing, with a heart that fluttered wildly, tioned faith. After a while he went upon all those unknown young faces and across to the rafts, and hung about there animated moving figures. One of them ready for any odd job, and making him- was bound to her by the closest tie that self conspicuous in eager anxiety to can unite two human creatures; and yet, please the master. His mother stayed poor soul, she did not know him, nor had still, with the fragments of their meal he the slightest clue to find her out to tied up in the handkerchief, on the same think of her as anyhow connected with grassy bank where they dined, watching himself. Her heart grew sick as she the boats as they came and went. She gazed and gazed, pausing now upon one did not understand how it was that they face, now upon another. There was one all dropped off one by one, and as sud- of whom she caught a passing glimpse, denly reappeared again when the hour as he pushed off into the stream in one for dinner and the hour of three oclock of the long-winged dragon-fly boats, who school passed. But she had nothing to excited her most of all. She could not do to call her from that musing and si- see him clearly, only a glimpse of him be- lence to which she had become habitu- tween the crowding figures about ; an ated, and remained there the entire after- oval face, with dark clouds of curling noon doing nothing but gaze. At last, hair pushed from his forehead. There however, she made a great effort, and came a ringing in her ears, a dimness in roused herself. The unknown boy after her eyes. Women in her class do not whom she yearned could not be identified. faint except at the most tremendous among all these strange faces; and there f they did, they would somethino which could be done for emerrencies. I was probably be set down as intoxicated, and good Dick, the boy who had always been summarily dealt with. 5he caught at the good to her. She did for Dick what n~ 24 LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. one could have expected her to do; she went and looked for a lodging where they could establish themselves. After a while she found two small rooms in a house facing the river, one in which Dick could sleep, the other a room with a fire-place, where his hot meals, which he no doubt would insist upon, could be cooked, and where, in a corner, she her- self could sleep when the day was over. She had a little stock of reserve money on her person, a few shillings saved, and something more, which was the remnant of a sum she had carried about with her for years, and which I believe she in- tended to bury her, according to the curious pride which is common among the poor. But as for the moment there was no question of burying her, she felt justified in breaking in upon this little hoard to please her boy by such forlorn attempts at comfort as were in her power. She ventured to buy a few necessaries, and to make provision as well as she knew how for the night the first night which she would have passed for years under a roof which she could call her own. One of the chief reasons that rec- onciled her to this step was, that the room faced the river, and that not Dick alone, but the other whom she did not know, could be watched from the win- dow. Should she get to know him, per- haps to speak to him, that other?to watch him every summer evening in his boat, floating up and down to distin- guish his voice in the crowd, and his step? But for this hope she could not, I think, have made so great a sacrifice for Dick alone a sacrifice she had not been able to make when the doing of it would have been still more im- portant than now. Perhaps it was be- cause she was growing older, and the in- dividual had faded somewhat from her consciousness ; but the change bewil- dered even herself. She did it notwith- standing, and of her free will. From The Contemporary Review. LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING TO THE AUTHOR OF ORION~~ ON LITERARY AND GENERAL TOPICS. Iv. sho~vn in the previous instalment of these papers. Provoking as some of the stric- tures must have been to one who had not accidentally fallen into what would be commonly regarded as lyrical heresies, but who had systematically intended, and laboured to do, the very things most de- murred to -~ she passes them over in the note about to be given, with only a re- mote reference ; playfully speaking of her dog Flush, then touching upon the Dead Pan, then turning to other ob- jects of literary interest, with a nobly ex- pressed admiration of Miss Martineau Saturday night (no other date). Never in the world was another such a dog as my Flush! Just now, because after readin~r your note, I laid it down thoughtfully without taking anything else up, he threw himself into my arms, as much as to say Now its 7fl~ turn. Youre not busy at al now. He un- derstands everything, and would not disturb me for the world. Do not tell Miss Mitford but her Flush (whom she brought to see me) is not to be cornj5ared to mine ! quite animal and dog-natural, and incapable of my Flushies hypercynical refinements. There is not such a dog in the world as he is, I must say again and never was, except the one Plato swore by. I talk to him just as I should do to the reasoning animal on two legs ~ the only difference being that he has four super- erogatorily. I am very glad to hear of Miss Martineau and Orion. She has a fine enthusiasm and understanding, or rather understanding and enthusiasm, for poetry, which shows a won- derful and beautiful proportion of faculties, considering what she is otherwise. I do not say so because she fancied my Pan which you may not think worthy of such praise and which she very probably was pleased with on account of its association with her favourite poet Schiller such associations affecting the mind beyond its cognizance. My Pan takes the reverse of Schillers argument in his famous Gods of Greece, and argues it out. No, nobody has said that the paper was the work of a private friend, [alluding, prob- ably, to some critique I had written about her poetry] but everybody with any sense must have thought it. Ever and truly yours, E. B. B. Oh do not put me in despair about times and seasons. The book must and shall come out this season. The next is a fragment found in the same envelope, the first leaf having gone astray WITH how fine a temper, and how gen- erous a spirit Miss E. B. Barrett bore all Fr gment. the objections made to her new theory of Think of my stupidity about Leigh Hunts i~nglish Rhymes, has only been slightly poem of Godiva l The volume I lent has LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 25 just returned, and most assuredly there is no such poem in it. His late republication may contain it and that also I have lent. You shall have it in time. I hear rumours of greatness in respect of a Mr. Patmores new volume of poems just ad- vertised. They are said to be only second to Tennysons by coming secondly which, however, makes a difference! Tell me, if you see them, what you think of them. He is said to be quite a young man that is, a very young man. Oh, no I promise to try not to kill myself [with over-work] but I am very busy and anx- ious, and cant help being both. We now come to the question of Versi- fication an Art quite fixed and final if we keep to the old classic system of counting feet, or syllables,and a most eel-like subject, chameleon-like, lustrous, doves-breast-like, chromatic sprite and sylphid, when, boldly diverging from the old, well-known tracks and measurements, poets take to the spiritual guidance of airy voices dictating euphonious ac- cents, pauses, beats of time, wavy lilts and pulsations, often not amenable to any laws except those of musical utterance and emotion. These varied measures, numbers, utterances, when an attempt is made to force them within the confines of special laws, are very apt, in many in- stances, to find their sl)irit evaporate, and nothing but a cai5ut mortuum remaining in its place. Perhaps the greatest diffi- culty in forming a settled judgment of these new forms of versification arises from the fact that one good ear will fre- quently be found to differ from another good ear, with regard to the effect of the same rhythmic music. In short, one can read it musically, and another cannot. One is delighted with it the other de- nounces it. A remarkable instance of this will appear in the next of Miss Bar- ietts letters which I am about to give. It will be found interesting, as well as curious, from a peculiar circumstance. In the previous instalment of this series, a note is mentioned which had been ad- dressed to Miss Barretts cousin, Mr. John Kenyon,shown to her,lent to me, and returned referring admiringly to her bold experiments in novel rhymes. This note, which I had fancied to have been written by Landor, I have since found was written by Mr. Browning. The Letter I am now about to give has special reference to Mr. Brownings poetry. It will thus be discovered that two poets who had never seen each other at this time, were already intimate in im- agination and intellectual sympathy ; that one appreciated the other com- pletely, while the other (viz., Miss Bar- rett) took a sweeping exception to a special phase of the genius she so well estimated in all other resl)ects. And in this exception she was, as I considered, only justified in certain respects. The note begins with an amusing ref- erence to something outri which had been written to Miss Barrett by some- body, whose name I was endeavouring to guess; then touches briefly on the poems of Mr. Trench, and passes on to Mr. Browning with a striking commentary May ist, 1843. Your over-subtlety, my dear Mr. Home, has ruined you! Suspecting inc of man-traps and spring-guns, you shoot yourself with the hypothesis of a spring-gun which takes its place at once among remarkable accidents. For I stated the bare fact when I said a man. Man it wasno woman it was! man it was, and man it ought to be. Yes, and it wasnt Leigh Hunt either, I make oath to you! I wish it h d been Leigh Hunt. No man would have ventured to say such a ,thing? Ventured ! why, you are quite in- nocent, Mr. Home. I wont tell you the name; but I affirm to you that those words, as I quoted them, were written by a man, and to me. And, by no means in jest or lightness of heart, as a woman would have written them nor in arch-mock at the infirmities of our na- ture, as Leigh Hunt might have written them, but in grave na~vet~, in sincere earnestness, and without the consciousness of saying any- thing out of the way. [My last guess was that it came from America.] Now, I wouldnt tell you the name for the world. At the end of your last note you attempt an impossible application of a quotation which wont be applied in such a manner for two sep- arate reasons. I prythee do not mock me. You are quite right. Anybody can be se- vere. As to Mr. Trench, I have only such knowledge of him as extracts in your article and other reviews can give; and although he has probably more faculty than many who are facile and copious, he seems to be dry and limited, and without impulse in the use of it, and meets, I should think, with liberal justice at your hands. Browning, however, stands high with me. I want very much to know what you mean by his worst fault, which you have not touched upon? Will you tell me in confidence, and I will promise never to divulge it, if you make a condition of secrecy? Mr. Browning knows thoroughly what a poets true work is ; he is learned, not only in pro- fane learning, but in the conduct of his genius; he is original in common things; his very ob- scurities have an oracular nobleness about them which pleases me. I cannot help pausing an instant to re- mind the reader that the above critique 26 LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH 13. BROWNING. was written in 1843, when only a very special class had made similar discover- ies, and that the writer had never seen the poet; so that we may fairly regard this as a striking proof of her genius in discerning, and her generosity in the full admission of what she recognized. Miss Barrett thus continues His passion burns the paper. But I will guess at the worst fault at least, I will tell you what has always seemed to me the worst fault a want of harmony. I mean in the two senses spiritual and physical. There is a want of softening power in thoughts and in feelings, as well as words; everything is trenchant black and white, without intermediate colours nothing is tender; there is little room in all this passion, for pathos. And the verse the lyrics where is the ear? Inspired spirits should not speak so harshly; and, in good. sooth, they seldom do. What ? from Paracelsus down to the Bells and Pome- granates a whole band of angels white- robed and crowned angel-thoughts, with palms in their hands and no music! The too sweeping assertion of the last words I distinctly remember contesting in my next note. Admitting all the fair critic had said as to the frequent obscuri- ties of meaning, and involutions, or harshness of style, I reminded her that almost any schoolboy without select- ing Lord Macaulays model one who had some natural faculty and a good scholastic drilling, could write smooth verses, and where this was not done by those who were evidently masters of the Art of Poetry, there was a reason for it. Nobody should regard it as attributable to carelessness, or even indifference. On the other hand, the lady was referred to several striking instances of rhythmic music, and particularly among the Bells and Pomegranates. It was difficult to resist a dancing emotion as one read how all the children and townspeople went dancing after the Pied Piper of Hamelin, while every horseman must have accompanied the riders in the ride with the good ne~vsto Ghent. I was so impressed with this at the time and never having known what could be done in that way, as I subsequently experi- enced in the Australian bush that I remember asking the poet if he could tighten his girths while at full speed, as I had felt while doing this, with his poem, that I had more than once just lost my balance. In short, I only partially agreed with the fair critic about the mu- sic. And this question directly brings us to Versification; but, as the mere syn opsis of such an Essay would occupy several pages, and, so far, interrupt the course of the Letters, it has been consid- ered advisable to postpone the discussion till the close of these papers. We will therefore do no more at present than touch upon the question of Versification with reference chiefly to Miss Barrett, and incidentally to the Laureate and one or two other poets, commencing, of ne- cessity, with Chaucer. It has been seen that Miss Barrett was a true admirer and student of the Father of English Poetry; but from the influ- ence of early habit, it seems probable that his admirable variations of the eu- phony of heroic couplets, so as to correct the monotony of their ten-syllable regu- larity, and systematic pauses, were not especially noticed by her, unless, in some cases, as objectionable. The method adopted by Chaucer to obtain variety of harmony in this measure was not, how- ever, so much with respect to the position of pauses and accents in the line, as in the rhythmical embodiment of an eleventh syllable. He also, on special occasions, breaks up the couplet-system, by ending a poetical paragraph with the first word of the rhyme and a full stop. And then takes it up again, with its proper rhyme in the first line of the next poetical divi- sion or paragraph. Two or three exam- ples of the former will make the princi- ple clear enough He mote be dedde a king as well as a page, & c. The Knights Tale. I speake of many an hundred year ago, & c. Wife of Baths Tale. Thy temple in Delphos wol I barfote seke, & c. The Franhelins Tale. At Orliaunce in studie a booke he seie, & c. Ibid. Where was your pitie, 0 people merciless% & c. Lamentation of Mary Magdaleine. Her nose directed straight, and even as line, & c. The Court of Love. With these, and similar variations, the poems of Chaucer abound. Read in ac- cordance with the early training of most of us, the reader will exclaim It wont come in Of course it will not; but the foregoing lines will all be found perfectly harmonious if the words which cause the difficulty are treated like a turn in music, so that they come trippingly off the tongue. Thus, as well as, being read as wells many an, man~yn, tem- ple in, ternftlin, studie a, studia, pitie, 0 people, piti-o--peopl, LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 27 even as, ev nas, & c. For such expla- nations, to all those who do not in the least need them, the writer begs to ten- der every proper apology. The desire to make this matter perfectly clear must be his excuse. These harmonious varia- tions * were dropped by nearly all the poets during many years after Chaucer. In lyrical verse, and more especially in the octo-syllabic measure, the first great innovator not precisely the discoverer, but certainly the first great master was Coleridge. In the Vision of Pierce Ploughman, in Lidgates and several other old English and Scottish Ballads, similar musical variations occur, but ap- parently without intention, and by happy inspiration, though not with the numer- ous forms of variety introduced by Cole- ridge. It is said that he once exclaimed with glee They all think they are reading eight syllables,and every now and then they read nine, eleven, and thir- teen, without being aware of it. But to take a general and broad view of English versification, I find the following Letters from Leigh Hunt carefully fas- tened to the Letter from Miss Barrett upon the same subjeet. Although they bear no date of the year upon them, the allusions show that they were written mainly in comment, with a mild infusion of controversy, on a certain paragraph in my Introduction to the volume of Chau- cer Modernized, and also in reply to some comments I had made upon the versification of his Legend of Florence. Differing with Mr. Leigh Hunt so widely on certain points of theology and social ethics as did Miss Barrett (which will be displayed fully and argued out in one of her future Letters), I yet feel sure she would have been highly gratified had she known that her views on the Art of Eng- lish Poetry had been so specially con- served for so many years, even in literary entombment, with one of the most ac- complished and elegant of the illuminati (using the term in its best sense) of his time. Kensington, November 24. Mv DEAR HORNE, I should have written by return of post, but had something to finish by tea-time which I could not delay. The English prosodists have generally pro- ceeded, I believe, upon the assumption that their heroic measure is a particular mode of iambics, with a variation of spondees, tro- chees, & c. I therefore, if I distinctly see the drift of it, doubt whether your paragraph can stand exactly as it does; but it is impossible for us now to exchange talk on this subject by letter, and as I am coming to Montague Street, to-morrow (Wednesday), would it not be as well for us to have our I3osterisms out at once vivd voce? For then, you see, we can have as many as we please in a good long chat, and so do what we can with this perplexing matter finally; for in truth, it is a very perplexing one, and has scratched the fingers of everybody that has approached it. I will also bring you another book, expressly on the subject at least comprising it. The Ancient Mariner did much, no doubt, in the poetical circles in which it was almost exclusively known [How sad is this record of neglect of living genius, which thus incidentally drops from the pen of one of the poets contemporaries ], and Coleridge, I should say, is unquestionably the great mod- ern master of lyrical harmony. But what the Percy Rel iques achieved in the gross, was a general simplification of the poetic style, and the return to faith in nature and passion. We will have a good set-to upon these mat- ters to-morrow, if you think fit; and you shall have, in the course of a good plump half-hour, all I have to say about them. Ever heartily, LEIGH HUNT. * As a somewhat extreme illustration, I hope the following anecdote will be pardoned. I notice, said Tennyson (this was long before he became Poet Lau- reate), that you have a number of lines in Orion~ which are not amenable to the usual 5canning. True; hut they can all be scanned by the same num- ber of heats of time. Well; how then do you scan Unfortunately, something prevented mind, I dont object to itbuthow do you scan the proposed conversation, but here is The long, grey, horizontal wall of the dead-calm sea? another note on the same subject writ- Now, as thiswas the only instaisce of such a line, the ten durino the same month engineer fancied he was ahout to be hoist with his own b petard ; however, he proposed to do it thus Kensington, November. Lne I long I grey I hon I zontl wall o the I dead I Mv DEAR HORNE, This is merely one or calm sea. two more marginahia which, on recollection, I It could easily be put into an Alexandrine line: and, intended to have scribbled. The fact is, that by a different arrangement of the beats of time, the line might even he brouglst into eight heats: as to spectacle [to which, apparently, I Thg I lflng I grey I hflri I zflntl I w5ll-o the I deitd-calm had demurred, as being too harsh a word in a sla. certain line] it is harsh, uttered by a harsh The poet smiled, and apparently accepted the scanning man; but what if Chaucer had said it, thou at any rate, the first one. Some of the variations, Home ! To this I suppose you will say, Im- however, subsequently introduced by Leigls Hunt in his possible beautiful play of The Legend of Florence, would . Well, but suppose you find it in have to be tried, like those of Beaumont and Fletcher him some day? or something equivalent? by yet more unorthodox principles oi harmony. [The logic of this i~ exquisite, and so like 28 LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. Leigh Hunt in a case of friendly controversy, where the shades of the earnest and the hu- morous continually ran into each other.] This is nothing. But now as to The poet now refers to several very remarkable lines in his Legend of Flor- ence, but this examination must be de- ferred for the reasons previously given. To come at once to our own time. The peculiar variety which we have bben discussing scarcely ever occurs in any of Miss Barretts earlier poems ; but latterly it is to be found: Or, as noon and night Had clapped together, and utterly struck out The intermediate time, undoing themselves In the act. Aurora Leigh. Book III. Be sure tis better than what you work to get. Ibid. So, happy and unafraid of solitude, & c.Zbid. Except in fable and figure: forests chant, & c. Ibid. To a pure white line of flame more luminous Because of obliteration, more intense The intimate presence carrying in itself. Ibid., Book IX. It is possible that some readers may no~ have been prepared for this; and still less for the same Chaucerian varia- tion (which many persons may have fan- cied rough, and antiquated, mei-ely from having been trained to a regular syllabic mode of reading) to be found continually, and, of course, gracefully, adopted by the Laureate. Here are three or four illus- trations taken quite at random, or quite as much so as usual with such takings: He crept into the shadow: at last he said, & c. Enoci. Arden. How merry they are down yonder in the wood, & c. [bid. Had rioted his life out, and made an end. Aylmers Field. Strike thro a finer element than her own? Ibid. Which rolling oer the palaces of the proud, & c.Ibid. And oxen from the city and goodly sheep, & c. Trans. iliad. Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed. Zbid.* * In the above specimen of a translation from the Iliad truiy a model for all future translators those who like to have as close a translation of a great poets words as can be poetically given, will feel surprised at the Laureates preference for And champing golden grain, the horses stood Hard by their chariots, waiting for ike dawn, instead of his more literal The Experiments (in versification) published by the Laureate at the end of the volume containing Enoch Arden and Aylmers Field, should be studied by all who take an interest in the progress of English poetry in these respects. The experiment entitled Boadic~a will be regarded as a success after a second reading, and the poem on Milton (in alcaics) at once. Somehow, it seems to be precisely the right kind of measure to adopt with regard to Milton. The Hen- decasyllabics, will require more read- ings than may be consonant with an ad- mission of success in a metre of Catullus. Still, there are some lines which at least render the cause quite hopeful. Canon Kingsleys Andromeda is also a mer- itorious experiment. The variations derived from the octo- syllabic measure of the old Ballads, as brought to perfection by Coleridge, and carried, into other perfections, I submit, by Tennyson, and lastly by Swinburne, have now been, more or less, adopted by lyrical poets in general, by some as conscious students and followers, by others from the almost unconscious in- fluence which leading spirits invariably exercise upon contemporaries of less originality and power. In the variation upon the octo-syllabic measure we may observe several who have been very suc- cessful, more especially among poetesses from Jean Ingelow, Sadie, and Miss Rossetti, to the last graceful appearanqes in the lyrical form, of Jeanie Morison (Mrs. Campbell, of Ballochyle), and Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer. In the previous instalment of these papers it was remarked that all young poets have commenced their songs in a bird-like manner. They have scarcely ever had any more thought of the classi- cal terms and technicalities, and the va- rious laws of the Art, than the bird on the bough, who warbles away, with no And eating hoary grain and j~nlse, the steeds Stood by their cars, waiting the thron6d morn. The first is of the usual sort, and has nothing of the close truth of the description of the dry mealy corn, together with the green Iserbage. Aso the word chariots instead of cars, has lost us the grand suggestion of the embattled host looking upward to Ens on her Throne, an hour or so afterwards! The very same kind of error is committed by Mr. Gladstone, who prefers giving the common-place skarA-/l4~ed lance, to the original ca/ter-lmAAed. (See Can. Rev., Feb., 1874.) For what possible reason, of a good kind, should we minot have that piece of insight into the arms and ~ work of the Homeric age? Besides, tlse very fact of the lances being tipped with copper, will account for many a mans life being saved by the point turning before it had passed through his shield or breast-plates. LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 29 idea of such things as crotchets and quavers, a~~oggiaturas and the nach- schiag the trochaic or the iambic rhythm the dactylic, anap~stic, or am- phibrachic rhythm. The illustration is of course only figurative, and rather one- sided, but true in spirit. The poetesses who have appeared during the last few years commencing with Jean Ingelow, and closing (for the present) with Jeanie Morison and Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, are all instances of this, more especially the two last-named ladies, who run most grace- fully into several melodious measures, as by a spontaneous impulse. But while we are admiring this simplicity and artless ease, we must be yet more impressed with the force of poetical idiosyncrasy which shall enable those who have passed through the curriculum of studies for the Art, with all its laws and technicalities like Canon Kingsley, Robert Bu- chanan, and George MacDonaldto return to nature and first principles in the charming and bird-like freedom of their Songs for Children thus happily superseding the horrid barefaced de- pravities and vulgar doggrels of the very great majority of our early Nursery Songs and Rhymes. It has been previously stated in these papers, that the work entitled A New Spirit of the Age being critiques on the writings of contemporaries in I844 was edited, and partly written, by the transcriber of these Letters ; and that he was assisted by the contributions of three or four eminent authors. The prin- cipal, and most valuable of these, was Miss E. B. Barrett. One of the critiques, and certainly one of the best, was mainly written by that lady. It was forwarded in two Letters, which were carefully transcribed. As the second edition of the work has been out of print these thirty years in England (though I am aware that at least three unauthorized editions were subsequently printed in America), I venture to think the readers of the present day will not be indisposed to welcome a few extracts from Miss Barretts Letters containing her contribu- tions,now for the first time acknowl- eclged,and in especial those just al- luded to, which are almost exclusively devoted to a review of the writings of Walter Savage Landor. It was preceded by a few biographical and other remarks, founded upon com- munications forwarded to me by Mr. Landor. The spirit of a Greek epigram written by him on Napoleon the First (and which we will subsequently tran- scribe) will be understood by the follow- ing interesting episode in the authors private history Mr. Landor went to Paris in the be- ginning of the century, where he wit- nessed the ceremony of Napoleon being made Consul for life, amidst the accla- mations of multitudes. He subsequently saw the dethroned and deserted Em- peror pass through Tours, on his way to embark, as he intended, for America. Napoleon was attended only by a single servant, and descended at the Prefecture, unrecognized by anybody excepting Lan- dor. The people of Tours were most hostile to Napoleon; as a republican politician, Landor had always felt a hatred towards him, and now he had but to point one finger at him, and it would have done what all the musquetry, artil- lery and infernal machines of twenty years of wars and passions had failed to do. The tigers of the populace would have torn him to pieces. Need it be said that Landor was too noble a man to avail himself of such an opportunity. He held his breath, and let the hero pass. Possibly this hatred on the part of Lan- dor, like that of many other excessi~ely self-willed men, was as much owing to exasperation at the commanding suc- cesses of Napoleon, as at his falling off from pure republican principles. How- beit, Landors great hatred, and yet greater forbearance are hereby re- corded. The remark having been made by me that, as a general rule, the originality of a mansay and do what he mayis necessarily in itself an argument and reason against his rapid popularity, Miss Barretts Letter proceeds as follows In the case of Mr. Landor, however, other causes than the originality of his faculty op- posed his favour with the public. He has [the date of this letter is 1844, Landor bcing then alive] the must select audience, perhaps the fittest, the fewest of any distinguished author of the day; and this of his choice. Give me, he said in one of his prefaces, ten accomplished men for readers, and I am content. And the event does not by any means, so far as we could desire, outstrip the modesty, or despair, or disdain, of this aspira- tion. In reply to an adverse criticism in a certain quarterly journal, he offered the critic three hot penny rolls for his luncheon, if he could write anything as good. This was not exactly the way to LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 30 He writes criticism for critics, and poetry for poets; his drama, when he is dramatic, ~viil suppose neither pit nor gallery, nor critics, nor laws. He is not a publican among poets he does not sell his Amreeta cups upon the highway. He delivers them rather with the dignity of a giver to ticketed persons; ana- lyzing their flavour and fragrance with a learned delicacy, and an appeal to the esoteric. His very spelling of English is uncommon and theoretic. And as if poetry were not, in English, a sufficiently unpopular dead lan- guage, he has had recourse to writing poetry in Latin; with dissertations on the Latin tongue, to fence it out doubly from the popu- lace. Odiprofanurn vuigus et arceo. make friends with the tribe. Miss Bar- rett thus continues, There are two of Landors -works which In a private note to me, in acknowledg- are probably known to less than half-a- ing the reception of a copy of my one-act dozen people of the present day. One of tragedy ( The Death of Marlowe ) he them is entitled Poems from the Ara wrote, I had reddit before with greater bic and Persian. They are as full of pleasure than, & c. but nobody must ornate fancy, grace, and tenderness, as imagine from this that he favoured the the orio-inals from which they appeared adoption of a phonetic system of spelling to be translated, and were accompanied rational as such a system would be. A number of erudite critical notes, to the word redd, its adoption would likel to cause much really be an advantage. Oriental scholars. searching among And the search, after Mr. Landor is classical in the highest sense. all, was certain to be in vain, as no such His conceptions stand out clearly cut and fine, poems really existed in the Arabic or in a magnitude and nobility as far as possible Persian. The other brochure was A removed from the small and sickly vagueness Satire upon Satirists, a copy of which common to this century of letters. If he Mr. Landor sent to me. It was a scath- seems obscure at times it is from no infirmity mo- piece or inadequacy of thought or word, but from of heroic verse, and a brief ex- extreme concentration and involution in brev- tract may, perhaps, be given at the close ity; for a short string can be tied in a kiiot as of this series. well as a long one. He can be tender, as the Allusion having been m,ade to Landor strong can best be; and his pathos, when it with reference to Napoleon the First, comes, is profound. his descriptions are full an extract from one of Miss Barretts and startling; his thoughts self-produced and private Letters will prove interesting in bold; and he has the art of taking a common- the shape of a fraoment of literary yen- place under a new aspect, and of leaving the o-eance which the poet bequeathed to the Roman - brick, marble. In marble, indeed, l.~me 7~onqueror:. seems to work; for there is an angularity in the workmanship, whether of prose or verse, Your [Life of] Napoleon touched me which the very exquisiteness of the polish very much; and what I estimated was that we renders more conspicuous. You may com- are not suffered in this, as in some other animat- plain, too, of hearing the chisel; but after all ed narratives, to be separated from our higher you applaud the work it is a work well done. feelings without our consciousness. I like the The elaboration produces no sense of heavi- tone of thought distinguishable through, and ness; the severity of the outline does not from, the cannunading, the half sarcasm militate against beauty; if it is cold, it is also dropped, as unaware, among the pseudo glo- noble; if not impulsive, it is suggestive. As ries which are the subjects of description. a writer of Latin poems he ranks with our The dead say nothing. There are fine most successful scholars and poets; having things, too, more than I can count, particularly less harmony and majesty than Milton had with the book out of sight. The Duke dEn- when he aspired to that species of Life in ghiens death has haunted me, with the con- Death but more variety and freedom of cluding words on human power that efflu- utterance. Mr. Landors English prose writ- ence of mortality already beginning to decay. ings possess most of the characteristics of his The books fault is its inequality of style; in poetry, only they are more perfect in their fact, that you didnt write it all; and I am class. His Pericles and Aspasia and - consistent enough not to complain of that. Pentameron are books for the world and Did you ever see Mr. Landors epigram upon for all time, whenever the world and time shall Napoleon? He was so kind as to give it to come to their senses about them; complete in beauty of sentiment and subtlety of criticism. His general style is highly scholastic and ele- gant; his sentences have articuiafz~ns, if such an expression may be permitted, of very excel- lent proportions. And, abounding in striking images and thoughts, he is remarkable for mak- ing clear ground there, and for lifting them, like statues to pedestals, where they may be seen most distinctly, and strike with the most endurin1,, though often the must geadual, im- pression. This is the case, both in his prose works and his poetry. It is more conspicu- ously true of some of his smaller poems, which for quiet classic grace and tenderness, and exquisite care in their polish, may best be compared with beautiful cameos and vases of the antique. LETTERS FROM ELIZABETI-I B. BROWNING. 3 me, the only evening I ever spent in his corn- right way of viewing the matter is that Mr. pany, and here it is Carlyle intends to teach us something, and not Tk Tore, NeT62ueov, rd a~ irptora K i5ornara everything; and to direct us to a particular yp& i~u instrument, and not to direct us in its specific Epya; Xp.rog mxvwv a~fzaTL Trp7r6fLCVo~. application. It would be a strange reproach visit to offer to the morning star, that it does not Receiving this epigram while on a shine in the evening. with a mutual lady-friend in the country, For the rest, ,we may congratulate Mr. Car. I requested her the next time she lyle and the dawning time. We have observed called on Miss Barrett to hand her the that individual genius is the means of popular following paraphrastic translation, advancement. A man of genius gives a thought to. the multitude, and the multitude spread it out as far as it will go, until another man of genius brings another thought, which attaches itself to the first, because all truth is assimilative, and perhaps even reducible to that monadity of which Parmenides discoursed. Mr. Carlyle is gradually amassing a greater reputation than might have been looked for at the hands of this Polytechnic age, and has the satisfaction of witnessing with his living eyes the outspread of his thought among nations. That this Thought the ideas of this prose poet, should make way with sufficient rapidity for him to live to see the progress, as a fact full of hope for the coming age; even as the other fact, of its first channel furrowing America (and it is a fact that Carlyle was gen. erally read there before he was truly recog- nized in his own land), is replete with favour- able promise for that great country, and indicative of a noble love of truth in it passing the love of dollars. Napoleon! thy deeds beyond compeers, Who shall write, thrillingly? The Father of Years! And with the blood of children will- ingly. Feeling that there was another side to the question, I requested the same lady to hand also another epigram to the fair secluded classic, Holy Alliance ! Time can scarcely tell To heaven or hell, What blood and treasure sank into the void Of husht-up night, For Divine Right, Which that one man destroyed! The followingfrag;nenz of a Letter was not intended for the work previously men- tioned, hut might very well have been in- cluded in italthough I should have proposed here and there to interpolate an adverse word FRAGMENT. I have been reading Carlyles Past and Present. There is nothing new in it, even of Carlyleism but almost everything true. But tell me, why should he call the English people a silent people, whose epics are in action, and whose Shakespeare and Milton are mere acci- dents of their condition? Is that true ? Is not this contrary most extremely, to truth? [Indeed, I do think it very true.] This Eng. lish people has it not a nobler, a fuller, a more abounding and various literature than all the peoples of the earth, past or present, dead or living, all except one the Greek people? It is fact, and not sham, that our literature is the fullest, and noblest, and most suggestive do you not think so? I wish I knew Mr. Carlyle, to look in his face, and say, We are a most singing people a most eloquent and speechful people we are none of us silent, except the undertakers mutes. Most truly and loquaciously yours, E. B. BARRETT. Had I been challenged so stoutly nay, charged home, at the poiot of the This subject naturally leads to recol- lections of the first great French Revolu- tion, to Carlyles wonderfully graphic work on that subject, and to several Letters from Miss Barrett concerning Carlyle, which were printed in the critical work previously mentioned. But the fol- lowing Letter was not printed havina arrived some days too late. TI;e refer- ences to theological dogmas are charac- terized by the writers usual independ- ence of thought, and force of expres- sion It is impossible to part from this subject without touching upon a point of it we have already glanced at by an illustration, when we said that his object was to discover the sun, and not to specify the landscape. He is, in fact, somewhat indefinite in his ideas of faith and truth. In his ardour for the quality of belief, he is apt to separate it from its objects; and although in the remarks on tolerance in his Hero Worship he guards himself strongly from an imputation of lati- tudinarianism, yet we cannot say but that he sometimes overleaps his own fences, and sets us wondering whither he would be speeding. This is the occasion of some disquiet to such of his readers as discern with any clearness that the truth itsel/is a more excellent thing than our belief in the truth; and that, h priori, our belief does not make the truth. But it is the effect, more or less, of every abstract consid- eration that we are inclined to hold the object of abstraction some moments longer in its state of separation and analysis than is at all necessary or desirable. And, after all, the 32 A ROSE IN JUNE. pen in our present day, I should cer- tainly have taken side with Thomas Car- lyle. By a singing people must be meant either poets or vocalists, and in both cases, especially the former, the men of genius have always been exceptions. We all know how Shakespeare and Mil- ton were regarded in their ~wn day; and if such men now lived, we see clearly how they would be treated by managers of theatres, and by nearly every living publisher for the good business-reason that they wouldnt sell. Meantime a noble Duke the other day gave a,ooo for a bull! To keep up our breed. Most cattle-spirited and praiseworthy, of course. The epics in action, alluded to by Carlyle, would find their audience in the sedulous readers of Abyssinian wars, and Ashan- tee wars, not to speak of the insatiate and inexhaustible readers of the deeds of the hero of the late Tichborne wars For speechful eloquence, are not Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Bright remarkable er- ce~tions among English people ; Mr. Gladstone also, standing upon a waggon for a couple of hours without his hat and allowed by twenty thousand people to stand thus uncoveredon a pitiless windy day pouring out speech like any Christiom child who shall say that such things, because they are the common property of England, are the common capacities of the English people? As to silentness, even among each other, does not everybody know this at home and abroad? With reference to Miss Barretts claim- ing for us so full, and noble, and varied a general literature, it is no doubt a just eulogy, although one might demur to the term suoo as it would seem far more applicable to the literature of Ger- many. Yet, again, the eavej5tions among us are undoubted, even in the face of German idealities,one striking in- stance of which, among many that could be adduced, will be manifest when I place before the reader Miss Barretts sugges- tions for the lyrical drama of Psyche, previously mentioned. R. H. HORNE. From The Corohill Magazine. A ROSE IN JUNE. CHAPTER X. MR. INcLEDON was a man of whom people said that any girl might be glad to marry him; and considering marriage from an abstract point of view, as one naturally does when it does not concern ones self, this was entirely true. In po- sition, in character, in appearance, and in principles he was everything that could be desired: a good man, just, and never consciously unkind; nay, capable of gen- erosity when it was worth his while and he had sufficient inducement to be gener- ous. A man well educated, who had been much about the world, and had learned the toleration which comes by experi- ence; whose opinions were worth hearing on almost every subject; who had read, a great deal, and thought a little, and was as much superior to the ordinary young man of society in mind and judgment as he was in wealth. That this kind of man often fails to captivate a foolish girl, when her partner in a valse, brainless, beard- less, and penniless, succeeds without any trouble in doing so, is one of those mys- teries of nature which nobody can pene- trate, but which happens too often to be doubted. Even in this particular, how- ever, Mr. incledon had his advantages. He was not one of those who, either by contempt for the occupations of youth or by the gravity natural to maturer years, allow themselves to be pushed aside from the lighter part of life h~ still danced, though not with the absolute devotion of twenty, and retained his place on the side of youth, not permitting himself to be shelved. More than once, indeed, the young officers from the garrison near, and the young scions of the county families, had looked on with puzzled noncompre- hension, when they found themselves al- together distanced in effect and popular- ity by a nature personage whom they would gladly have called an old fogie had they dared. These young gentlemen of course consoled their vanity by railing against the mercenary character of women who preferred wealth to everything. But it was not only his wealth upon which Mr. Incledon stood. No girl who mar- ried him need have felt herself with- drawn to the grave circle in which her elders had their place. He was able to hold his own in every pursuit with men ten years his juniors, and did so. Then, too, he had almost a romantic side to his character; for a man so well off does not put off marrying for so long without a reason, and though nobody knew of any previous story, any entanglement, which would have restrained him, va- rious picturesque suggestions were afloat; and even failing these, the object of his A ROSE IN JUNE. 33 choice might have laid the flattering unc- tion to her soul that his long waiting had been for the realization of some perfect ideal which he found only in her. This model of a marriageable man took his way from the White House in a state of mind less easily described than most of his mental processes. He was not excited to speak of, for an interview between a lover of thirty-five and the mother of the lady is not generally ex- citing; but he was a little doubtful of his own perfect judiciousness in the step he had just taken. I can no more tell you why he had set his heart on Rose than I can say why she felt no answering incli- nation towards him for there were many other girls in the neighbourhood who would in many ways have been more suitable to a man of his tastes and position. But Rose was the one woman in the world for him, by sheer caprice of nature; just as reasonable, and no more so, as that other caprice which made him, with all his advantages and recommen- dations, not the man for her. If ever a man was in a position to make a deliber- ate choice, such as men are commonly supposed to make in matrimony, Mr. Incledon was the man; yet he chose just as much and as little as the rest of us do. He saw Rose, and some power which he knew nothing of decided the question at once for him. He had not been thinking of marriage, but then he made up his mind to marry; and whereas he had on various occasions weighed the qualities and the charms of this one and the other, he never asked himself a question about her, nor compared her with any other woman, nor considered whether she was suited for him, or anything else about her. This was how he exercised that in- estimable privilege of choice which wo- men sometimes envy. But having once received this conviction into his mind, he had never wavered in his determina- tion to win her. The question in his mind now was; not whether his selection was the best he could have made, but whether it was wise of him to have en- trusted his cause to the mother rather than to have spoken to Rose herself. He had remained in the background dur- ing those dreary months of sorrow. He had sent flowers and game and messages of enquiry; but he did not thrust himself upon the notice of the women, till their change of residence gave token that they must have begun to rouse themselves for fresh encounter with the world. When he was on his way to the White House he LIVING AGE. VOL. vii. 314 had fully persuaded himself that to speak to the mother first was the most delicate and the most wise thing he could do. For one 4hing, he could say so much more to her than he could to Rose; he could assure her of his goodwill and of his desire to be of use to the family should he become a member of it. Mr. Incledon did not wish to bribe Mrs. Damerel to be on his side. He had in- deed a reasonable assurance that no such bribe was necessary, and that a man like himself must always have a reasonable mother on his side. This he was perfect- ly aware of, as indeed any one in his senses would have been. But as soon as he had made his declaration to Mrs. Damerel, and had left the White House behind, his thoughts began to torment him with doubts of the wisdom of this proceeding. He saw very well that there was no clinging of enthusiastic love, no absolute devotedness of union, between this mother and daughter, and he began to wonder whether he might not have done better had he run all the risks and broached the subject to Rose herself, shy and liable to be startled as she was. It was perhaps possible that his own avowal, which must have had a certain degree of emotion in it, would have found better acceptation with her than the passionless statement of his attentions which Mrs. Damerel would probably make. For it never dawned upon Mr.. Incledons imagination that Mrs. Dam-~ erel would support his suit not with calm- ness, but passionately more passion- ately, perhaps, than would have been pos- sible tohimself. He could not have di- vined any reason why she should do so, and naturally he had not the least idea of the tremendous weapons she was. about to employ in his favour. I dont. think, for very pride and shame, that he would have sanctioned the use of them. had he known. It happened, however, by chance that as he walked home in the wintry twilight he met Mrs. Wodehouse and her friend Mrs. Musgrove, who were going the. same way as he was, on their way to see the Northcotes, who had lately come: to the neighbourhood. He could not but join them so far in their walk, nor could he avoid the conversation which was inevi- table. Mrs. Wodehouse indeed was very eager for it, and began almost be- fore he could draw breath. Did you see Mrs. Damerel. after all ? she asked. You remember I met you~ ~vhen you were on your way? A ROSE IN JUNE. 34 Yes; she was good enough to see me, said Mr. Incledon. And how do you think she is look- ino~? I hear such different accounts; some people say very ill, some just as usual. I have not seen her myself, said Mrs. Wodehouse, slightly drawing herself up, except in church. How was that? he said, half amused. I thought you had always been great friends. Upon this he saw Mrs. Musgrove give a little jerk to her friends cloak, in warn- ing, and perceived that Mrs. Wodehouse wavered between a desire to tell a griev- ance and the more prudent habit of self- restraint. Oh she said, with a little hesita- tion; yes, of course we were always good friends. I had a great admiration for our late good Rector, Mr. Incledon. What a man he was Not to say a word against the new one, who is very nice, he will never be equal to Mr. Damerel. What a fine mind he had, and a style, I am told, equal to the very finest preachers We must never hope to hear such ser- mons in our little parish again. Mrs. Damerel is a very goodwoman, and I feel for her deeply; but the attraction in that house, as I am sure you must have felt, was not her, but him. I have always had a great regard for Mrs. Damerel, said Mr. Incledon. Oh, yes, yes! I am sure a good wife and an excellent mother and all that~ but not the fine mind, not the intellectual conversation, one used to have with the dear Rector, said good Mrs. Wodehouse, who had about as much intellect as would die on a sixpence; and then she added, Perhaps I am prejudiced; I never can ~get over a slight which I am sure she showed to my son. Ah! what was that?~ Mrs. Musgrove once more pulled her ~friends cloak, and there was a great deal more eagerness and interest than the oc- casion deserved in Mr. Incledons tone. Oh, nothing of any consequence! What .do you say, dear ? a mistake? Well, I dont think it was a mistake. They thought Edward was going to yes, that was a mistake, if you please. I am sure he had many other things in his mind a great deal more important. But they thought ~ and though common civility demanded something different, and I took the trouble to write a note and ask it, I do think; but, however, ~after the words I had with her to-day, I no longer blame Rose. Poor child ! I amalways very sorry for poor Rose. Why should you be sorry for Miss Damerel? Was she one of those who slighted your son? I hope Mr. Edward Wodehouse is quite well. He is very well, I thank you, and get- ting on so satisfactorily; nothing could be more pleasant. Oh, you must not think Edward cared! He has seen a great deal of the world, and he did not come home to let himself be put down by the family of a country clergyman. That is not at all what I meant; I am sorry for Rose, however, because of a great many things. She ought to go out as a govern- ess or companion, or something of that sort, poor child! Mrs. Damerel may try, but I am sure they never can get on as they are doing. I hear that all they have to depend on is about a hundred and fifty ayear. Afamilycan never live upon tha~, not with their habits, Mr. Incledon; and therefore, I think I may well say ~aor Rose! I dont think Miss Damerel will ever require to make such a sacrifice, he said, hurriedly. Well, I only hope you are right, said Mrs. Wodehouse. Of course you know a great deal more about busi- ness matters than I do, and perhaps their money is at higher interest than we think for ; but if I were Rose I almost think I should see it to be my duty. Here we are at Mrs. Northcotes, dear. Mr. In- cledon, I am afraid we must say gaod- bye. Mr. Incledon went home very hot and fast after this conversation. It warmed him in the misty cold evening, and seemed to put so many weapons into his hand. Rose, his Rose, go out as a gov- erness or companion! He looked at the shadow of his own great house standing out against the frosty sky, and laughed to himself as he crossed the park. She a dependant, who might to-morrow if she pleased be virtual mistress of Whitton and all its wealth ! He would have liked to have said to these women, In three months Rose will be the great lady of the parish, and lay down the law to you and the Green, and all your gossiping so- ciety. He would even, in a rare fit of generosity, have liked to tell them, on the spot, that this blessedness was in Roses power, to give her honour in their eyes whether she accepted him or not ; which was a very generous impulse indeed, and one which few men would have been equal A ROSE IN JUNE. 35 to though indeed as a matter of fact Rose out of si~ht of the seniors of the Mr. Incledon did not carry it out. But party, and though all his active apprehen- he went into the lonely house where sions on that score had been calmed everything pleasant and luxurious, except down by Edwards departure, yet he was the one crowning luxury of some one to too xvise not to perceive that there was share it with, awaited him, in a glow of something in Mrs. Wodehouses dis- energy and eagerness, resolved to go jointed talk more than met the eye at back again to-morrow and plead his cause the first glance. Mr. Incledon had a with Rose herself, and win her, not pru- friend who was one of the Lords of the dentially through her mother, but by his Admiralty, and upon whom he could rely own warmth of love and eloquence. Poor to do him .a service a friend whom he Rose in June In the wintry setting of had never asked for anythingfor what the White House she was not much like was official patronage to the master of the Rectors flower-maiden, in all her del- Whitton He wrote him a long and icate perfection of bloom, queen rose of f charming letter, which, if I had only room the rosebud garden, impersonation of all J for it, or if it had anything to do except the warmth, and sweetness, and fra- incidentally with this simple history, grance, and exquisite simple profusion of would give the reader a much better idea summer and nature. Mr. Incledons of his abilities and social charm than any- heart swelled full of love and pity as he thing I can show of him here. In it he thought of the contrast not with pas- discussed the politics of the moment, and sion but soft tenderness, and a deli- that gossip on a di ~, nified scale about cious sense of what it was in his power ministers and high officials of state which to do for her, and to restore her to. He is half historyand he touched upon strayed over the rooms which he had social events in a light and amusing once shown to her, with a natural pride strain, with the half cynicism which lends in their beauty, and in all the delicate salt to correspondence; and he told his treasures he had accumulated there, until friend half gaily, half seriously, that he he came to the little inner room with its was beginning to feel somewhat solitary, grey-green hangings, in which hung the and that dreams of marrying, and marrying Perugino, which, since Rose had seen it, soon, were stealing into his mind. And he had always called his Raphael. He he told him about his Perubino ( which seemed to see her too, standing there I fondly hope may turn out an early looking at it, a creature partaking some- Raphael ), and which it would delight him thing of that soft divinity, an enthusiast to show to a brother connoisseur. And, with sweet soul and looks congenial to by-the-bye, he added, after all this, I that heavenly art. I do not know that have a favour to ask of you which I have his mind was of a poetical turn by kept like a ladys postscript. I want you nature but there are moments when life to extend the ~gis of your protection over makes a poet of the dullest, and on this a fine young fellow in whom I am con- evening the lonely quiet house within the siderably interested. His name is Wode- parks and woods of Whitton, where there house, and his ship is at present on that had been neither love, nor anything detestable slave trade service which costs worth calling life, for years, except in us so much money and does so little good. the cheery company of the servants hall, He has been a lonx time in the seivice, S suddenly got itself lighted up with ethe- and I hear he is a very promising young real lights of tender imagination and feel- officer. I should consider it a personal ing. The illumination did not show out- favour if you could do something for him wardly, or it might have alarmed the and (N.B.) it would be a still greater ser- Green, which was still unaware that the vice to. combine promotion with as dis- queen of the house had passed by there, tant a post as possible. His friends are and the place lighted itself up in prospect anxious to keep him out of the way for of her coming. private reasons the old entanolement After dinner, however, Mr. Incledon business, which, of course, you will un- descended from these regions of fancy, derstand; but I think it hard that this and took a step which seemed to himself sentence of banishment should be con- a very clever as well as prudent, and at joined with such a disa5reeable service. the same time a very friendly one. He Give him a gun-boat and send him to had not forgotten, any more than the look for the North-west passage, or any- others had, that summer evening on the where else where my lords have a whim lawn at the Rectory, when youn5 Wode- for exploring! I never thought to have house had strayed down~ the hill with paid such a tribute to your official dig- 36 A ROSE IN JUNE. nity as to come, hat in hand, for a place, like the rest of the world. But no man, I suppose, can always resist the common impulse of his kind; and I an happy in the persuasion that to you I will not plead in vain.~~ I am afraid that nothing could have been more disingenuous than this letter. How it worked, the reader will see here- after; but, in the meantime, I cannot de- fend Mr. Incledon. He acted, I suppose, on the old and time-honoured sentiment that any stratagem is allowable in love and war, and consoled himself for the possible wrong he might be doing (only a possible wrong, for Wodehouse might be kept for years cruising after slaves for anything Mr. Incledon knew) by the un- questionable benefit which would accom- pany it. A young fellow living by his wits will find a gunboat of infinitely more service to him than a foolish love affair which never could come to anything, his rival said to himself. And after having sealed this letter, he returned into his fairyland. He left the library where he had written it, and went to the drawing-room which he rarely used, but which was warm with a cheer- (ul fire and lighted with soft wax-lights for his pleasure should he care to enter. He paused at the door a moment and looked at it. The wond~ers of upholstery in this carefully decorated room, every scrap of furniture in which had cost its master thought, would afford pages of description to a fashionable American novelist, or to the refined chronicles of the Family Herald; but I am not suffi- ciently learned to do them justice. The master of the house, however, looked at the vacant room with its softly burning lights, its luxurious vacant seats, its closely drawn curtains, the books on the tables which no one ever opened, the pic- tures on the walls which nobody looked at (except on great occasions), with a curi- ous sense at once of desolation and of happiness. How dismal its silence was! not a sound but the dropping of the ashes from the fire, or the movement of the burning fuel; and he himself a ghost looking into a room which might be in- habited by ghosts for aught he knew. Here and there, indeed, a group of chairs bad been arranged by accident so as to look as if they were occupied, as if one unseen being might be whispering to an- other, noiselessly smiling, and pointing at the solitary. But no, there was a pleas- anter interpretation to be given to that soft, luxurious, brightly-coloured vacan cy; it was all prepared and waiting, ready for the gentle mistress who was to come. How different from the low-roofed drawing-room at the White House, with the fireplace at one end of the long room, with the damp of ages in the old walls, with draughts from every door and win- dow, and an indifferent lamp giving all the light that they could afford ! Mr. In- cledon, perhaps, thought of that, too, with an increased sense of the advantages he had to offer; but lightly, not knowing all the discomforts of it. He went back to his library after this inspection, and the lights burned on, and the ghosts, if there were any, had the full enjoyment of it till the servants came to extinguish the candles and shut up everything for the night. CHAPTER XI. WHEN Rose xvent up the creaking stairs to bed on that memorable night her feelings were like those of some one who has just been overtaken by one of the great catastrophes of nature a hurri- cane or an earthquake and who, though escaped for the moment, hears the tem- pest gathering in another quarter, and knows that this is but the first flash of its wrath, and that he has yet worse en- counters to meet. I am of Mr. Incledons opinion or rather of the doubt fast ripening into an opinion in his mind that he had made a mistake, and that possibly if he had taken Rose her- self with the tear in her eye, and pressed his suit at first hand, he might have succeeded better; but such might- bes are always doubtful to affirm and im- possible to prove. She sat down for a while in her cold room, where the draughts were playing freely about, and where there was no fire to think ; but as for thinking, that was an impossible operation in face of the continued gleams of fancy which kept showing now one scene to her, now another; and of the ringing echo of her mothers words which kept sounding through and through the stillness. Self-indulgence choosing her own pleasure rather than her duty what she liked instead of what was right. Rose was far too much confused to make out how it was that these reproaches seemed to her instinct so inappropriate to the question ; she only felt it vaguely, and & ried a little at the thought of the selfishness attributed to her; for there is no opprobrious word that cuts so deeply into the breast of a romantic, innocent crirl. She sat there pensive till all her fac A ROSE IN JUNE. 37 ulties got absorbed in the dreary sense of cold and bodily discomfort, and then she rose and said her prayers, and untwisted her pretty hair and brushed it out, and went to bed, feeling as if she would have to watch through the long dark hours till morning, though the darkness and loneli- ness frightened her, and she dreaded the night. But Rose was asleep in half an hour, though the tears were not dry on her eyelashes, and I think slept all the long night through which she had been afraid of, and woke only when the first grey of daylight revealed the cold room and a cold morning dimly to her sight slept longer than usual, for emotion tires the young. Poor child! she was a little ashamed of herself when she found how soundly she had slept. Mamma would not let me call you, said Agatha, coming into her room; she said you were very tired last night; but do please come down now and make haste. There is such a basket of flowers in the hall from Whitton, the man says. Wheres Whitton ! Isnt it Mr. Incle- dons place? But make haste, Rose, for breakfast, now that you are awake. So she had no time to think just then, but had to hurry down-stairs, where her mother met her with something of a wist- ful look, and kissed her with a kind of murmured half apology. I am afraid I frightened you last night, Rose. Oh, no, not frightened, the girl said, taking refuge among the children, before whom certainly nothing could be said; and then Agatha and Patty surged into the conversation, and all gravity or deeper meaning was taken out of it. In- deed, her mother was so cheerful that Rose would almost have hoped she was to hear no more of it, had it not been for the cluster of flowers which stood on the table, and the heaped-up bunches of beau- tiful purple grapes which filled a pretty Tuscan basket, and gave dignity to the bread and butter. This was a sign of the times which was very alarming; and I do not know why it was, unless it might be by reason of her youth, that those deli- cate and lovely things fit offerings for a lover never moved her to any thought of what it was she was rejecting, or tempted her to consider Mr. Incledon~s proposal as one which involved many de- lightful things along with himself, who was not delightful. This idea, oddly enough, did not find any place in her mind, though she was as much subject to the influence of all that was lovely and pleasant as any girl could be. The morning passed, however, without any further words on the subject, and her heart had begun to beat easier and her excitement to calm down, when Mrs. Damerel suddenly came to her, after the childrens lessons, which was now their mothers chief occupation. She caine upon her quite unexpectedly, when Rose, moved by their noiseless presence in the room and unable to keep her hands off them any longer, had just commenced in the course of her other arrangements (for Rose had to be a kind of upper house- maid, and make the drawing-room habita- ble after the rough and ready operation which Mary Jane called tidying ) to make a pretty group upon a table in the window of Mr. Incledons flowers. Cer- tainly they made the place look prettier and pleasanter than it had ever done yet, especially as one stray gleam of sunshine, somewhat pale, like the girl herself, but cheery, had come glancing in to light up the long, low, quaint room and caress the flowers. Ah, Rose, they have done you good already ! said her mother ; you look more like yourself than I have seen you for many a day. Rose took her hands from the last flower-pot as if it had burnt her, and stood aside, so angry and vexed to have been found at this occupation that she couln have cried. My dear, said her mother, going up to her, I do not know that Mr. Incle- don will be here to-day; but if he comes I must give him an answer. Have you reflected upon what I said to you? I need not tell you again how important it is, or how much you have in your power. Rose clasped her hands together in self-support one hand held fast by the other, as if that slender grasp had been something worth clinging to. Oh! what can I say ? she cried ; I told you; what more can I say? You told me! Then, Rose, every- thing that I said to you last night goes for nothing, though you must know the truth of it far, far better than my words could say. Is it to be the same thing over again always over again? Self, first and last, the only consideration? Everything to please yourself; nothing from higher mo- tives? God forgive you, Rose I Oh, hush, hush ! it is unkind it is cruel. I would die for you if that would do any good! cried Rose. These are easy words to say; for civ- ing would do no good neither would it be asked from you, said Mrs. Damerel, impatiently. Rose, I do not ask this in 38 A ROSE IN JUNE. ordinary obedience, as a mother may command a child. It is not a child but a woman who must make such a decision but it is my duty to show you your duty, and what is best for yourself as well as for others. No one neither man nor woman, nor girl nor boy can escape from duty to others ; and when it is neglected some one must pay the pen- alty. But you you are happier than most. You can, if you please, save your family. We are not starving, mamma, said Rose, with trembling lips; we have enough to live upon and I could work I would do anything What would your work do, Rose? If you could teach and I dont think you could teach you might earn enough for your own dress; that would be all. Oh, my dear! listen to me. The little work a girl can do is nothing. She can make a sacrifice of her own inclina- tion of her fancy; but as for work, she has nothing in her power. Then I wish there were no girls 1 cried Rose, as many a poor girl has done before her, if we can do nothing but be a burden if there is no work for us, no use for us, but only to sell ourselves. Oh, mamma, mamma! do you know what you are asking me to do ? I know a great deal better than you do, or you would not repeat to me this vulgar nonsense about selling yourself. Am I likely to bid you sell yourself? Listen to me, Rose. I want you to be happy, and so you would be nay, never shake your head at me you would be happy with a nian who loves you, for you would learn to love him. Die for us! I have heard such words from the lips of people who would not give up a morsel of their own will not a whim, not an hours comfort But I I am not like that, cried Rose, stung to the heart. I would give up anything everything for the chil- dren and you! Except what you are asked to give up; except the only thing which you can give up. Again I say, Rose, I have known such cases. They are not rare in this world. Oh, mamma, mamma! You think I am cruel. If you knew my life, you would not think so; you would understand my fear and horror of this amiable self-seeking which looks so natural. Rose, said her mother, drop- ping into a softer tone, I have some- thing more to say to you perhaps some- thing that will weigh more with you than anything I can say. Your father had set his heart on this. He spoke to me of it on his death-bed. God knows! perhaps he saw then what a dreary struggle I should have, and how little had been done to help us through. One of the last things he said to me was, Incledon will look after the boys. Papa said that? said Rose, putting out her hands to find a prop. Her limbs seemed to refuse to support her. She was unprepared for this new unseen an- taoonist. Papa ? How did he know ? The mother was trembling and pale, too, overwhelmed by the recollection as well as by her anxiety to conquer. She made no direct answer to Roses ques- tion, but took her hand within both of hers, and continued with her eyes full of tears: You ~vould like to please hini, Rose it was almost the last thing he saidto please him, and to rescue me from anxieties I can see no end to, and to secure Berties future. Oh, Rose! you should thank God that you can do so much for those you love. And you would be happy, too. You are young, and love begets love. He would do everything that man could do to please you. He is a good man, with a kind heart; you would get to love him; and, my dear, you would be happy too. Mamma, said Rose, with her head bent down and some silent tears drop- ping upon Mr. Incledons flowers a flush of colour came over her downcast face, and then it grew pale again; her voice sounded so low that her mother stooped towards her to hear what she saidmamma, I should like to tell you something. Mrs. Damerel made an involuntary movement a slight instinctive with- drawal from the confidence. Did she guess what it was? If she did so, she made up her mind at the same time not to know it. What is it, dear? she said, tenderly, but quickly. Oh, Rose! do you think I dont understand your ob- jections? But, my darling, surely you may trust your mother, who loves you more than all the world. You will not reject it I know you will not reject it. There is no blessing that is not promised to those that deny themselves. He will not hurry nor press you, dear. Rose, say I may give him a kind answer when he comes ? Roses head was swimming, her heart throbbing in her ears and her throat. The girl was not equal to such a strain. ALFRED B. STREET. To have the living and the dead both uniting against her-sboth appealing to her in the several names of love and duty against love was more than she could bear. She had sunk into the near- est chair, unable to stand, and she no longer felt strong enough, even had her mother been willing to hear it, to make that confession which had been on her lips. At what seemed to be the extremity of human endurance she suddenly saw one last resource in whidh she might still find safety, and grasped at it, scarcely aware what she did. May I see Mr. Incledon myself if he comes ? she gasped, almost under her breath. Surely, dear, said her mother, sur- prised ; of course that would be the best ; if you are able for it, if you will think well before you decide, if you will promise to do nothing hastily. Oh, Rose! do not break my heart! It is more likely to be my own that I will break, said the girl, with a shadow of a smile passing over her face. Mamma, will you be very kind, and say no more? I will think, thinkeverything that you say; but let me speak to him myself, if he comes. Mrs. Damerel looked at her very ear- nestly, half suspicious, half sympathetic. She went up to her softly and put her arms round her, and pressed the girls drooping head against her breast. God bless you, my darling! she said, with her eyes full of tears; and, kissing her hastily, went out of the room, leaving Rose alone with her thoughts. If I were to tell you what these thoughts were, and all the confusion of them, I should require a year to do it. Rose had no heart to stand up and fight for herself all alone against the world. Her young frame ached and trembled from head to foot with the unwonted strain. If there had been indeed any one any one to struggle for; but how was she to stand alone and battle for herself? Everything combined against her; every motive, every influence. She sat in a vague trance of pain, and, in- stead of thinking over what had been said, only saw visions gleaming before her of the love which was a vision, noth- ing more, and which she was called upon to resign. A vision I that was all; a dream, perhaps, without any foundation. It seemed to disperse like a mist, as the world melted and dissolved around her the world which she had known showing a new world, a dreamy, undis- covered country, forming out of darker 39 vapours before her. She sat thus till the stir of the children in the house warned her that they had come in from their daily walk to the eai4y dinner. She listened to their voices and noisy steps and laughter with the strangest feeling that she was herself a dreamer, having nothing in common with the fresh real life where all the voices rang out so clearly, where people said what they meant with spon- taneous outcries and laughter, and there was no concealed meaning and nothing beneath the sunny surface ; but when she heard her mothers softer tones speaking to the children, Rose got up hurriedly, and fled to the shelter of her room. If anything more were said to her she thought she must die. Happily Mrs. Damerel did not know that it was her voice, and not the noise of the children, which was too much for poor Roses overstrained nerves. She sent word by Agatha that Rose must lie down for an hour and try to rest; and that quiet was ~the best thing for her headache, which, of course, was the plea the girl put forth to excuse her flight and seclusion. Aga- tha, for her part, was very sorry and dis- tressed that Rose should miss her dinner, and wanted much to bring something up- stairs for her, which was at once the kindest and most practical suggestion of all. ALFRED B. STREET. THAT it should be possible for a series of extracts from the works of one emi- nent American to be attributed, with lit- tle danger of contradiction, to another, is only one more illustration of the too well known fact, that what is most excellent, is not always most widely known, nor most highly esteemed. The British Quarterly Review, in an extended notice of the Life and Writings of Thoreau, quotes as proof and illustra- tion of his poetic genius, numerous gems of description which certainly establish the claims of their author to the charac- ter of a true poet, but which, many of them, were really written, notby Thoreau, but by Alfred B. Street, who has been called the Herrick and the Teniers of American poets. Why his poems have been too gener- ally forgotten while he is still only on the threshold of a respected and venerated old age, might be hard to tell. Probably lines and couplets from his writings, em- 40 ALFRED B. STREET. bodying some delicately discriminating and suggestive description, some preg- nant epithet, linger in the minds of many who have forgotten or who never knew the name of their author. As is so often the case the longer and more ambitious poems of this writer are of much less value than the shorter and less pretentious ones, though all embody more or fewer of those exquisite mosaics of descriptive touch, which constitute the principal charm of his works. That his merits were not overlooked by the highest authorities of the past or passing generation, some of their criti- cism on his works will best show; the extracts which they give in support of their opinions, have an intrinsic and abid- ing beauty which will be at least equally appreciated now. Alfred B. Street was born in the vil- lage, now city, of Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, N. Y., well known as one of the most beautiful in the State, situated on the side and summit of a slope that swells up from the Hudson. From College Hill there is a prospect of almost matchless beauty. A scene of rural and sylvan loveliness expands from every point at its base; the roofs and steeples of the busy village rise from the foliage in which it seems embosomed ; the river stretches league upon league with its gleaming curves beyond; to the west is a range of splendid mountains ending at the south in the misty peaks of the Highlands; whilst at the north, dim outlines sketched upon the distant sky, proclaim the domes of the soaring Catskills. It was among these scenes that our author passed his days of childhood; here his young eye first drank in the glories of Nature, and the foundations of his mind were laid. When, however, at the age of fourteen, he removed with his family to Monticello, he was immediately surrounded with scenes in striking contrast with those of his former life. Sullivan County had been organized only a score of years, and was scarcely yet rescued from the Wilderness. Monticello, its county town, was sur- rounded by fields which only a short time before were parts of the wild forest, which still hemmed them in on every side. These forests were threaded with bright streams and scattered with broad lakes, while here and there the untiring axe of the settler, during the last quarter of a century, had been employed in opening the way for the industry and enterprise of man. Secluded as Sullivan County is in the southwesternmost nook of the State, it would be difficult to find within its bounds another region of such sylvan beauty and wild grandeur. The eye is filled with images that make their own en- during places in the mind, storing it with rich and unfading pictures. Among these scenes, as might be supposed, Mr. Street ranged with a ceaseless delight, probably heightened by the strong con- trast they afforded in their startling pic- turesqueness to the soft, quiet beauty of those of Dutchess. Instead of the smooth meadowy ascent, he saw the broken hill- side blackened with fire, or just growing green with its first crop. Instead of the yellow corn-field stretching as far as the eye could see, he beheld the clearing spotted with stum.ps, with the thin rye growing between ; instead of the com- fortable farm-house peeping from its or- chards, he saw the log-cabin stooping amid the half-cleared trees ; the dark ra- vine took the place of the mossy dell, and the wild lake of the sail-spotted and far- stretching river. Thus communing with nature, Mr. Street embodied the impressions made upon him in language, and in that form most appropriate in giving vent to deep enthusiastic feeling and high thought the form of verse. Poem after poem was written by him, and being published in those best vehicles of communication with the public, the periodicals, soon at- tracted attention. Secluded from man- kind, and surrounded With nature in her most impressive features, his thought took the direction of that which he saw most, and thus description became the characteristic of his verse. Equally cut off from books, his poetry found its ori- gin in his own study of natural scenes, and in the thoughts that rose in his own bosom. The leaves and flowers were his words; the fields and hillsides were his pages; and the whole volume of Nature his treasury of knowledge. This, while it may have made him less artistic, was the means of that originality and unlikeness to any one else which are to be found in his pages. But while thus employing his leisure, Mr. Street was engaged in studying his profession of law in the office of his father, and in due time was admitted to the bar. After practising for a few years at Mon- ticello, in 1839 he removed to Albany, where he has continued to reside until the present time. The Foreign Quarterly Review, one of the most distinguished of the English publications, in an article which bears ALFRED B. STREET. 4 severely upon nearly every other Ameri- can poet except Bryant, Longfellow, Hal- leck, and Emerson, speaks in the follow- ing manner of Mr. Street: He is a descriptive poet, and at the head of his class. His pictures of Amer- ican scenery are full ot gusto and fresh- ness ; sometimes too wild and diffuse, but always true and beautiful. The open- ing of a piece called the Settleris very striking. His echoing axe the settler swung Amid the sea-like solitude, And rushing, thundering down were flung The Titans of the wood~ Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed From out his mossy nest, which crashed With its supporting bough, And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed On the wolf s haunt below. His poems are very unequal, and none of them can be cited as being complete in its kind. He runs into a false luxuriance in the ardor of his love of nature, and in the wastefulness of a lively, but not large imagination; and like Browne, the author of the Pastorals, he continually sacrifices general truth to particular de- tails, making un-likenesses by the crowd- ing and closeness of his touches. Yet with all his faults his poems cannot be read without pleasure.~~ The Westminster Review also noticed the poems in the following manner: It is long since we met with a volume of poetry from which we have derived so much unmixed pleasure as froin the col- lection now before us. Right eloquently does he discourse of Nature, her changeful features and her varied moods, as exhibited in his own America with her rich green forest- robe; and many are the glowing pic- tures we would gladly transfer to our pages, did our limits permit, in proof of the poets assertion that Nature is mans best teacher. But we must only quote A FOREST WALK. A lovely sky, a cloudless sun, A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers, Oer hill, through dale, my steps have won To the cool forests shadowy bowers; One of the paths, all round that wind Traced by the browsing herds, I choose, And sights and sounds of human kind, In Natures lone recesses lose; The beech displays its marbled bark The spruce its green tent stretches wide, While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark, The maples scalloped dome beside. All weave on high a verdant roof That keeps the aery sun aloof, Making a twilight soft and green Within the columned, vaulted scene. Sweet forest odors have their birth Fromtheclothedboughsandteemingearth; Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead, Long tufts of grass and stars of fern With many a wild-flowers fairy urn A thick, elastic carpet spread; Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk Resolving into soil, is sunk There, wrenched but lately from its throne, By some fierce whirlwind circling past, Its huge roots massed with earth and stone, One of the woodland kings is cast. Above, the forest tops are bright With the broad blaze of sunny light; But now a fitful air-gust parts The screening branches, and a glow Of dazzling, startling radiance darts Down the dark stems, and breaks below; The mingled shadows off are rolled, The sylvan floor is bathed in gold; Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen, Display their shades of brown and green; Tints brighten oer the velvet moss, Gleams twinkle on the laurels gloss; The robin, brooding in her nest, Chirps, as the quick ray strikes her breast, And as my shadow prints the ground, I see the rabbit upward bound, With pointed ears an instant look, Then scamper to the darkest nook, Where, with crouched limb and staring eye, He watches while I saunter by. A narrow vista carpeted With rich green grass invites my tread; Here, showers the light in golden dots, There, sleeps the shade in ebon spots, So blended that the very air Seems network as I enter there. The partridge, whose deep rolling drum Afar has sounded on my ear, Ceasing its beatings as I come, Whirrs to the sheltering branches near; The little milk snake glides away, The brindled marmot dives from day; And now, between the boughs, a space Of the blue laughing sky I trace; On each side shrinks the bowery shade; Before me spreads an emerald glade; The sunshine steeps its grass and moss, That couch my footsteps as I cross; Merrily hums the tawny bee, The glittering humming-bird I see; Floats the bright butterfly along, The insect-choir is loud in song; A spot of light and life, it seems A fairy haunt for fancy dreams. Here stretched, the pleasant turf I press In luxury of idleness; 42 ALFRED B. STREET. Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye; While murmuring grass, and waving trees Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze, And water tones that tinkle near Blend their sweet music to my ear; And by the changing shades alone, The passage of the hours is known. A complete and beautiful edition of Mr. Streets poems, in a large octavo vol- ume of more than three hundred pages, was published by Messrs. Clark & Austin of the city of New York. The following criticism of it appeared in the Demo- cratic Review, and we cannot better im- part to the general reader an idea of Mr. Streets mental characteristics, than by transferring it, beautifully written as it is, to our pages. It was originally published anonymously, but is understood to be from the fine and graphic pen of H. T. Tuckerman, and was republished in A Sketch of American Literature, by Mr. Tuckerman, appended to Shaws Coin- plete Manual of English Literature: God has arrayed this continent with a sublime and characteristic beauty, that should endear its mountains and streams to the American heart; and whoever ably depicts the natural glory of America, touches a chord which should yield re- sponses of admiration and loyalty. In this point of view alone, then, we deem the minstrel who ardently sings of forest and sky, river and highland, as eminently worthy of respectful greeting. This merit we confidently claim for the author of these poems. That he is deficient occasionally in high finishthat there is repetition and monotony in his strain that there are redundant epithets, and a lack of variety in his effusions, we con- fess, at the outset, is undeniable; and having frankly granted all this to the critics, we feel at liberty to utter his just praise with equal sincerity. Street has an eye for Nature in all her moods. He has not roamed the woodlands in vain, nor have the changeful seasons passed him by without leaving vivid and lasting impressions. These his verse records with unusual fidelity and genuine emo- tion. We have wandered with him on a summers afternoon, in the neighbour- hood of his present residence, and stretched ourselves upon the greensward beneath the leafy trees, and can there- fore testify that he observes, con arnore, the play of shadows, the twinkle of sway- ing herbage in the sunshine, and all the phenomena that make the outward world so rich in meaning to the attentive gaze. He is a true Flemish painter, seizing upon objects in all their verisimilitude. As we read him, wild flowers peer up from among brown leaves; the drum of the partridge, the ripple of waters, the flickering of autumn light, the sting of sleety snow, the cry of the panther, the roar of the winds, the melody of birds, and the odor of crushed pine-boughs, are present to our senses. In a foreign land, his poems would transport us at once to home. He is no second-hand limner, content to furnish insipid copies, but draws from reality. His pictures have the freshness of originals. They are graphic, detailed, never untrue, and often vigorous ; he is essentially an American poet. His range is limited; but he has had the good sense not to wander from his sphere, candidly acknowledging that the heart of man has not furnished him the food for meditation, which inspires a higher class of poets. He is emphatical- ly an observer. In England we notice that these qualities have been recog- nized; his Lost Hunter was finely illustrated in a recent London periodical thus affording the best evidence of the picturesque fertility of his muse. Many of his pieces, also, glow with patriotism. His Gray Forest Eagle is a noble lyric, full of spirit; his forest scenes are minutely, and, at the same time, elabo- rately true; his Indian legends and de- scriptions of the seasons have a native zest which we have rarely encountered. Without t~he classic elegance of Thom- son, he excels him in graphic power. There is nothing metaphysical in his turn of mind, or highly artistic in his style; but there is an honest directness and cor- dial faithfulness about him, that strikes us as remarkably appropriate and manly. Delicacy, sentiment, ideal enthusiasm, are not his by nature; but clear, bold, genial in sight and feeling he possesses to a rare degree; and on these grounds we welcome his poems, and earnestly advise our readers to peruse them attentively, for they worthily depict the phases of Nature, as she displays herself in this land, in all her solemn magnificence and serene beauty. We extract also a portion of an elabo- rate and exquisite criticism upon the same volume, which appeared in a late number of the American Review, written by its editor, George H. Colton. The rhymed pieces are of different degrees of excellence. There are quite too many careless lines, and here and there is an accent misplaced, or a heavy ALFRED B. STREET. 43 word forced into light service ; but the rhythm in general runs with an equable and easy strength, the more worthy of regard because so evidently unartificial; and there is often not in the simply narrative pieces, like The Frontier In- road or Morannah, but in the fre- quent minute pictures of Nature a heedless but delicate movement of the measure, a lingering of expression corre- sponding with some dreamy abandon- ment of thought to the objects dwelt upon, or a rippling lapse of language where the authors mind seemed con- scious of playing with themcaught, as it were, from the flitting of birds among leafy boughs, from the subtle wander- ings of the bee, and the quiet brawling of woodland brooks over leaves and peb- bles. Some liquid lines from The Wille- wemoc in Summer are an example, at once, of Mr. Streets sweetness of versifi- cation, in any of the usual rhyming meas- ures, and still more of his minute pictur- ing of Nature. Bubbling within some basin green So fringed with fern the woodcocks bill Scarce penetrates the leafy screen, Leaps into life the infant nil. Now pebbly shallows, where the deer Just bathes his crossing hoof, and now Broad hollowed creeks that, deep and clear, Would whelm him to his antlered brow; Here the smooth silver sleeps so still The ear might catch the faintest trill, The bees low hum the whirr of wings, And the sweet songs of grass-hid things. Blue sky, pearl cloud and golden beam Beguile my steps this summer day, Beside the lone and lovely stream, And mid its sylvan scenes to stray; The moss, too delicate and soft To bear the tripping bird aloft, Slopes its green velvet to the sedge, Tufting the mirrored waters edge, Where the slow eddies wrinkling creep Mid swaying grass in stillness deep. Still more exquisite exquisite in every sense of the word unquestion- able poetry is The Callikoon in Au- tumn. The last verse in particular is of the finest order. Sleep-like tbe silence, by the lapse Of waters only broke, And the woodpeckers fitful taps Upon the hollow oak; And, mingling with the insect hum, The beatings of the partridge drum, With now and then a croak, As, on his flapping wing, the crow Oer passes, heavily and slow. All steeped in that delicious charm Peculiar to our land, That comes, ere Winters frosty arm Knits Natures icy band The purple, rich and glimmering smoke That forms the Indian Summers cloak, When, by soft breezes fanned, For a few precious days he broods Amidst the gladdened fields and woods. See, on this edge of forest lawn, Where sleeps the clouded beam, A doe has led her spotted fawn To gambol by the stream; Beside yon mulleins braided stalk They hear the gurgling voices talk; While, like a wandering gleam, The yellow-bird dives here and there, A feathered vessel of the air. So also of a short piece called Mid- summer; if an ethereal and dreamy landscape by Cole or Durand is a j?5ainting, why not this a ~oern? An August day! a dreamy haze Films air and mingles with the skies; Sweetly the rich dark sunshine plays, Bronzing each object where it lies. Outlines are melted in the gauze That Nature veils; the fitful breeze From the thick pine low murmuring draws, Then dies in flutterings through the trees. Another piece of a different style, but equally vivid and felicitous, is the prelude to a scene of Skatino It is iJn possible not to admire it in every line. It is, by the way, an example almost faultless of measuring the melody by accents, not by syllables. The thaw came on with its southern wind, And misty, drizzly rain; The hill-side showed its russet dress, Dark runnels seamed the plain; The snow-drifts melted off like breath, The forest dropped its load, The lake, instead of its mantle white, A liquid mirror showed; It seemed, so soft was the brooding fog, So fanning was the breeze, Youd meet with violets in the grass, And blossoms on the trees. In the use of language, more espe- cially in his blank verse, Mr. Street is simple yet rich, and usually very felici- tous. This is peculiarly the case in his choice of appellatives, which he selects and applies with an aptness of descriptive beauty not surpassed, if equalled, by any poet among us certainly by none ex- cept Bryant. What is more remarkable quite worthy of note amid the deluge 44 ALFRED B. STREET. of diluted phraseology bestowed on us by most modern writers is the almost exclusive use, in his poems, of Saxon words. We make, by no means, that loud objection to Latinisms which many feel called upon to set forth. In some kinds of verse, and in many kinds of prose, they are of great advantage, mellowing the diction, enlarging and enriching the power of expression. Unquestionably they have added much to the compass of the English language. This is more, however, for the wants of philosophy than of poetry unless it be philosophical poetry. For in our language nearly all the strongest and most picturesque words, verbs, nouns, adjectives, are of one and two syllables only; but, also, I nearly all such words are of Saxon origin. Descriptive poetry, therefore, to be of any force or felicity, must employ them; and it was this, no doubt, that led Mr. Street unconsciously it may be to choose them so exclusively. For the same reason, Byron, who in power of description is hardly equalled by any other English poet, used them to a greater extent, we believe, than any other moulder of verse since Chaucer, unless we may except Scott in his narrative yerse; Wordsworth, on the other hand, whose most descriptive passages have always a philosophical cast, makes con- stant draft on Latinized words, losing as much in vigour as he gains in melody and compass. In all Mr. Streets poems the reader will be surprised to find scarce- ly a single page with more than three or four words of other than Saxon derivation. This extraordinary keeping to one only of the three sources of our language for the Norman-French forms a third is owing, in great part, to the fact that his poetry is almost purely descriptive yet not wholly to this, for any page of Thomsons Seasons, or Cowpers Task, will he found to have four times as many. It is certain, at least, that the use of such language has added im- mensely to the simplicity, strength, and picturesque effectiveness of Mr. Streets blank verse; and, as a general considera- tion of style, we recommend the point, to the attention of all writers, whose diction is yet unformed, though we hold it a mat- ter of far less importance in prose than in poetry. It will not be difficult to make good all we have said, by choice extracts, ex- cept for the difficulty of choosing. What, for example, could be finer in its way than some passages from A September Stroll? The thread-like gossamer is waving past, Borne on the winds light wing, and to yon branch Tangled and trembling, clings like snowy silk. The thistle-down, high lifted, through the rich Bright blue, quick float, like gliding stars, and then Touching the sunshine, flash and seem to melt Within the dazzling brilliance. That aspen, to the winds soft-fingered touch, Flutters with all its dangling leaves, as though Beating with myriad pulses. Besides this observation, keen as the Indian hunters, of all Natures slight and simple effects in quiet places, Mr. Street has a most gentle and contemplative eye for the changes which she silently throws over the traces where men have once been. For instance, in The 0 ldBridge and The Forsaken Road. So of a pas- sage in The Ambush, which sinks into the mind like the falling of twilight over an old ruin. Old winding roads are frequent in the woods, By the surveyor opened years ago. When through the depths he led his trampling band, Startling the crouched deer from the under- brush, With unknown shouts and axe-blows. Left again To solitude, soon Nature touches in Picturesque graces. Hiding, here, in moss The wheel-track blocking up the vista, there, In bushes darkening with her soft cool tints The notches on the trees, and hatchet-cuts Upon the stooping limbs across the trail Twisting, in wreaths, the pines enormous roots, And twining, like a bower, the leaves above. Now skirts she the faint path with fringes deep Of thicket, where the checkered partridge hides Its downy brood, and whence, with drooping wing, It limps to lure away the hunters foot, Approaching its low cradle; now she coats The hollow stripped by the surveyors band To pitch their tents at night, with pleasant grass, So that the doe, its slim fawn by its side, Amidst the fire-flies in the twilight feeds; And now she hurls some hemlock oer the track, Splitting the trunk that in the frost and rain Asunder falls, and melts into a strip Of umber dust. As the painter of landscapes, how- ever, can never rank among the greatest ALFRED B. STREET. 45 of painters, so the merely descriptive poet can never stand with the highest in his art. It needs a higher power of the mind, the transforming, the creative. Mr. Street endeavours only the pictures of external things. He rarely or never idealizes Nature ; hut Nature unidealized never brings a man into the loftier re- gions of poetry. For the greatest and, highest use of material Nature, to the poet, is that she be made an exhaustless storehouse of imagery; that through her multitude of objects, aspects, influences, subtle sources of contrast and compari- son, he should illustrate the universe of the unseen and spiritual. This is to be ~rot~ri~g Maker, CREATOR. It is that strange power of Imagination bodying forth The forms of things unknown. It is to interpret, idealize Nature. This is what Mr. Street never at- tempts. He never gives wing to his im- agination. He presents to us only what nature shows to himnothing farther. Or, if he makes the attempt, striking out into broader and sublimer fields, he is not successful. He is not at home, in- deed, when describing the grander fea- tures of Nature herself, but only as he is picturing her more minute and delicate lineaments. He can give the tracery of a leaf, or the gauze wings of a droning beetle, better than the breaking up of a world in the Deluge, or the majesty of great mountains Throning Eternity in icy halls. A remarkable example of this is the first piece, Nature. Through the first part, where he is describing the Creation, the Deluge, the sublime scenery in parts of the world with which his senses are not actually familiar, his imagination does not sustain itself, and his verse is com- paratively lame and infelicitous. But when he comes to the quiet scenes in America, which he has seen and felt, he has such passages as these, passages which, in their way, Cowper, Thomson, Wordsworth or Bryant never excelled. Thus of Spring: In the moist hollows and by streamlet-sides The grass stands thickly. Sunny banks have burst Into blue sheets of scented violets. The woodland warbles, and the noisy swamp Has deepened in its tones. And of Summer : Oer the branch-sheltered stream, the laurel hangs Its gorgeous clusters, and the basswood breathes From its pearl-blossoms, fragrance. But now the wind stirs fresher; darting round The spider tightens its frail web; dead leaves Whirl in quick eddies from the mounds; the snail Creeps to its twisted fortress, and the bird Crouches amid its feathers. Wafted up, The stealing cloud with soft gray blinds the sky, And in its vapory mantle onward steps The summer shower; over the shivering grass It merrily dances, rings its tinkling bells Upon the dimpling stream, and, moving on, It treads upon the leaves with pattering feet And softly murmured music. Again in Autumn : The beech-nut falling from its opened burr Gives a sharp rattle, and the locusts song Rising and swelling shrill, then pausing short, Rings like a trumpet. Distant woods and hills Are full of echoes, and all sounds that strike Upon the hollow air let loose their tongues. The ripples, creeping through the matted grass, Drip on the ear, and the far partridge-drum Rolls like low thunder. The last butterfly, Like a winged violet, floating in the meek Pink-coloured sunshine, sinks his velvet feet Within the pillared mulleins delicate down, And shuts and opens his unruffled fans. Lazily wings the crow, with solemn croak, From tree-top on to tree-top. Feebly chirps The grasshopper, and the spiders tiny clock Ticks from its crevice. How exquisite are these pictures with what an appreciation, like the mi- nute stealing in of light among leaves does he touch upon every delicate fea- ture And then, in how subtle an alem- bec of the mind must such language have been crystallized. The curiosafelicitas cannot be so exhibited except by genius. Mr. Street has published too much; he should have taken a lesson from Mr. Bryant. He constantly repeats himself, too, both in subjects and expression. His volume, therefore, appears monoto- nous and tiresome to the reader; with- out retrenchment it can hardly become popular. But we shall watch with much interest to see what he can do in other and higher spheres. Meanwhile, how- ever, we give him the right hand of fel- lowship and gentle regard, for he has filled a part at least, of one breat depart- ment of the field of poetry, with as ex- quisite a sense, with as fine a touch, with as loving and faithful an eye, heart and pen, as any one to whom Nature has 46 ALFRED B. STREET. ever whispered familiar words in solitary the volume a poem in a vein somewhat places. different from Mr. Streets usual descrip In addition to the above, we quote a tive efforts. few felicities of ,thought and expression from the volume before mentioned. THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE. God made the world in perfect harmony. Earth, air, and water, in its order each, With its innumerable links, compose But one unbroken chain; the human soul The clasp that binds it to His mighty arm. A sympathy throughout each order reigns A touch upon one link is felt by all Its kindred, and the influence ceaseth not Forever. The massed atoms of the earth, Jarred by the rending of its quivering breast, Carry the movement in succession through To the extremest bounds, so that the foot, Tracking the regions of eternal frost, Unknowing, treads upon a soil that throbs With the Equators earthquake. The tall oak, Thundering its fall in Appalachian woods, Though the stern echo on the ear is lost, _______ Displaces with its groan the rings of air, Until the swift and subtle messengers Bear, each from each, the undulations on To the rich palace of eternal Spring That smiles upon the Ganges. Yea, on pass The quick vibrations through the airy realms, Not lost, until with Times last gasp they die. The craggy iceberg, rocking oer the surge, Telling its pathway by its crashing bolts, ______ Strikes its keen teeth within the shuddering bark _____ When night frowns black. Down, headlong, shoots the wreck; Lost is the vortex in the dashing waves, And the wild scene heaves wildly as before; But every particle that whirled and foamed Above the groaning, plunging mass, hath urged ______ Its fellow, and the motion thus bequeathed Lives in the ripple, edging flowery slopes With melting lace-work; or with dimples rings Smooth basins where the hanging orange- branch Showers fragrant snow, and then i~ ruffles on Until it sinks upon Eternity. A fresh damp sweetness fills the scene, From dripping leaf and moistened earth The odor of the wintergreen Floats on the airs that now have birth. The whizzing of the humming-birds swift wings Spanning gray glimmering circles round its shape. When the strawberry ripe and red, Is nestling at the roots of the deep grass. The trees seem fusing in a blaze Of gold-dust sparkling in the air. Merrily hums the tawny bee. The wind that shows its forest search By the sweet fragrance of the birch. The moving shades Have wheeled their slow h~tlf circles, pointing now To the sunshiny East. A landscape frequent in the land Which Freedom with her gifts to bless, Grasping the axe when sheathing brand, Hewed from the boundless wilderness. And the faint sunshine winks with drowsiness. Where, grasping with its knotted wreath Of roots the mound-like trunk beneath, In brown, wet fragments spread, A young usurping sapling reigned; Nature, Mezentius-like, had chained The living with the dead. Within the clefts of bushes, and beneath The thickets, raven darkness frowned, but still The leaves upon the edges of the trees Preserved their shapes. A purple haze, Blurring hill-outlines, glazing dusky nooks, And making all things shimmer to the eye. The sunshine twinkles round me, and the wind Touches my brow with delicate downy kiss. Through the dark leaves the low descending sun Glows like a spot of splendour from the shade Of Rembrandt s canvas. Listen a murmuring sound arises up; Tis the commune of Nature the low talk She holds perpetually with herself. ______ Thus naught is lost in that harmonious chain, That, changing momently, is perfect still. God, whose drawn breaths are ages, with those ______ breaths Renews their lustre. So twill ever be, Till, with one wave of his majestic arm, He snaps the clasp away, and drops the chain Again in chaos, shattered by its fall. In 1842, appeared The Burning of Schenectady and other Poems from the pen of Mr. Street. William Gilmore Simms in the Maga- We end our notice with selecting from zine he established, The Southern and ALFRED B. STREET. 47 Western Monthly Magazine and Review, thus remarks: It is not, however, in the epic or the dramatic, but in the descriptive that Mr. Street excels. He is not even contem- plative solely descriptive, and as nice and as elaborate in details as any of the Flemish Masters. His delineations are as close and correct as if Nature herself had employed him as her chief secretary. Here is a spirited picture of the guard- room revel. Circling a table flagon-strewed The soldiers sat in jocund mood; Around the fort the tempest howls; Thick, solid-seeming darkness scowls: But what reck they! with song and shout Merrily speeds the festive scene, Loud laughter greets the tawny scout, As, startling, when, more shrill and keen Swells on the air the furious gale, He mutters of the mornings trail. One, the most reckless of the band, Viewing the scout with scornful eyes, Fierce smites the table with his hand, And swinging high his goblet, cries Fill, comrades, fill, the ~vine is bright, Well drink the soldiers life to-night I Sing, comrades, sing, the wind shall be The chorus to our harmony! This talk forbear no trails we fear Thy bodings naught, no foe is near! A guardian kind is Winter old! He rears his barriers white and cold; His frozen forests fill the track Between us and fierce Frontenac! Hark to the blast, how ~vild its sweep He shouts his chorus strong and deep; How beats the snow! we envy not This bitter night, the sentrys lot Our comrades at the gates must feel The driving sleet like points of steel! Fill, and let thanks to fortune flow For wine and fire, not blast and snow! Fill, till the brim is beaming bright Well drink the soldiers life to-night! We note several pieces of exquisite description. Nice bits of scenery occur in frequent pagesglimpses of wood and water, rude mountain and cultivated valley, slips of prospect such as a painters eye would seize upon and fasten in autumnal tints upon the intelligible canvas. Occa- sionally, too, our author moralizes well upon the things he describes, with a pure spirit and that gentle solemnity which soothes and satisfies, without chilling or oppressing, the heart. In 1849, Frontenac, a long narrative poem from the pen of Mr. Street was pub- lished by Richard Bentley, London, and subsequently ushered to the American public by the then publishing firm of Baker and Scribner, since Scribner, Wel- ford & Co. Of this poem The Britannia, a Lon- don periodical, thus speaks. Mr. Street is one of the writers of whom his country has reason to be proud. His originality is not less striking than his talent. In dealino- with the romance of Nohh American life, at a period when the red man waged war with the ~Euro- pean settler, he has skilfully preserved that distinctive reality in ideas, habits, and action characteristic of the Indian Tribes, while he has constructed a poem of singular power and beauty. ln this respect Frontenac is entirely different from Gertrude of Wyoming, which presents us only with ideal portraiture. Mr. Street has collected all his materials from Nature. They are stamped with that impress of truth which is at once visible even to the inexperienced eye, and, like a great artist, he has exercised his imagination only in forming them into the most attractive, picturesque, and beau- tiful combinations. We can best give an idea of Mr. Streets production by saying that it re- sembles one of Coopers Indian ro- mances thrown into sweet and varied verse. The frequent change of metre is not we think advantageous to the effect of the poem as a whole, and the reader uninitiated in the pronunciation of Indian proper names may find the frequent re- currence a stumblin block as he reads but the rapidity of the narrative, the ex- citing incidents of strife and peril which give it life and animation, and the exquis- ite l)eauty of the descriptive passages must fascinate the mind of every class of readers, while the more refined taste will dwell with delight on the lovely images and poetic ideas with which the verse is thickly studded. Thus speaks Duyckincks Literary World published some years ago. When Europeans first penetrated the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, they found a confederacy of Red men, who, by the power of union, bore sway over all the surrounding tribes. The Ho-de-no-son-ne, once consisting of nine united nations, for a time, according to Algonquin tradition, were known as the Eight Tribes. At the period of the Dutch discovery, they called themselves the Five Nations, Akonosliloni; or, as more cor- rectly xvritten, Ho-de-no-son-ne. Ordina- rily, when speaking of themselves, they used the term Ongwe Honavee, a generic word, equivalent to Indian, and which 4 ALFRED B. STREET. 48 applied to the whole red race, just as we, appropriating the name of the continent, call ourselves Americans. Subsequently, and within our written history, another tribe, the Tuskaroras, was adopted into the Union, and the confederacy became known as the Six Nations. The polity which regulated these United Reck Men is hajdly known. So far as ascertained, the number of tribes might be increased or diminished, according to circumstan- ces. The power of war and peace was given up by each member of the Confed- eracy: votes were given by tribes. The singular bond of the totem, or family name and device, ran through all the na- tions, Algonquins as well as Iroquois. It bore some analogy to coats of arms. Descent was by the female side. The son of a chief could not succeed him. His brother, or, in default of a brother, the male child of his daughter, was the heir-apparent; and his claims were sub- mitted to a council for approval, without which he was not inducted into office. Married women among them retained their name or totem, as well as their prop- erty. Matrons might take part in coun- cil. There were Council Fires or Delib- erative Assemblies in each tribe, and a Grand Council of the Confederacy made up of delegates from the tribes composing it, as our Senate consists of representa- tives of the States. Over all presided the Atotarho or Convener of the Coun- cil ; an office, in some respects, not un- like that of President of our Republic. This system was democratic in practice. The independence of the individual tribes was jealously guarded. All war- riors were volunteers, without pay or re- source from the public. The people were trained to war as the business of life. Hunting ~was merely foraging. The thirst for glory, says Mr. School- craft, the strife for personal distinction filled their ranks, and led them through desert paths to the St. Lawrence, the Illi- nois, the Atlantic seaboard, and the southern Alleghanies. They conquered wherever they went. They subdued na- tions in their immediate vicinity. They exterminated others. They adopted the fragments of subjugated tribes into their confederacy, sank the national homes of the conquered into oblivion, and thus re- paired the losses of war. Of the great deeds of fhis noble race sings our poet. Mr. Street has, in Fron- tenac, attempted only the metrical ro- mance, and a capital one he has written. He has been most happy in the choice of his subject. Street has a peculiar power to see, and to describe in words and rhythm, visible nature. He paints to the eye of mind as Cole and Durand paint to the bodily sight, the woods and waters, the sunny glades and solemn caverns, the distant landscape, and the group just by. Be- sides, like Cole and Durand, his heart adores his native land. He studies and loves our America. His images, his he- roes, his similes, his story, all are Ameri- can; and therefore I love him, and want to make you and all true readers of native books, love him too. Even as the bold leaguers, whose successors we are, paint- ed on some barked tree or whitened doe- skin, the brave deeds of their sires and comrades, and by their Ho-no-we-na-to, or hereditary Keeper of the Records, kept alive perpetual tradition from father to son, so has the author of Frontenac recorded one chapter of the history of the United People, and married it to verse, which I would fain wish immortal. I hail this pale-faced Ho-no-we-na-to, who has filled his mind with the lore of the Iroquois, and whose diction might have been the utterance of a Ho-de-no- son-ne soul. Hear him: As Thurenserah viewed the lovely sky, It looked, to his wild fancy-shaping eye, Like holy HAH-XvEN-NE-YO5 * bosom bright With his thick-crowded deeds, one glow of light And his rich belt of wampum broadly bound White as his pure and mighty thoughts, around. What an image! The broad expanse of starry sky, belted with constellations, to the untutored Indians mind, suggested the broad chest of the mighty brave, whose thick-crowded deeds could scarce find room to be emblazoned there in glory. The milky way was the rich belt of wam- pum, white as His pure thoucrhts. Again: the ATOTARHO ~s appealing to his warriors, who, overawed by the ac- counts they receive of the Frenchmans artillery, hesitate to resist: Have you forgot that here is burning The pure Ho-de-no-son-ne fire? Rather than, from its splendor turning, Leave it to Yon-non-de-yohs spurning, Around it, glad, should all expire! See! its smoke streams before your eye Like HAH-wEN-NE-TOH5 scalp-lock hz~rh! The Atotarho, Thurenserah (Anglice, * 4 ALFRED B. STREET. The Dawn of Day ), the hero of the romance, is a heroine LUCILLE, the daughter of Sa-ha-wee, Priestess of the Sacred Fire of the Onondagas, who had been carried a captive to France, and wedded there Frontenac ; this Lucille becomes Atotarho of the Iroquois, and after performing all chivalrous and gal- lant acts, according to Indian warfare, at last overcome, is about to be burnt at the stake with Indian torments, a prisoner. The sacred fane has been destroyed and the fire gone out, when her sex is discov- ered, and her mother avows herself in the priestess, and the wife of the con- queror, the long-lost and long-renowned Sa-kz-wee. Here we have the romance. The interest of the story is well sustained, and the improbabilities are so artfully car- ried out, of our modern notions of what would be likely, into olden Ho-de-no-son- ne days, that no one but an Iroquois has any right to say aught against them. The versification is varied; not always perfect, nor even carefully conducted but full of substance, needing the file, yet ~vorthy of that toil which, in another edition, the rhyme-builders ought to bestow. As for instance : Now by smooth banks, where, stretched be- neath the shade The Indian Hunter gazed with curious eye, Now catching glimpses of some grassy glade, Rich with the sunshine of the open sky; Now by the vista of some creek, where stood The moose mid-leg, and tossing high his crown Hazy with gnats, and vanishing in the wood, Waking to showers of white the shallows brown. Thus on they passed by day. Alter the words italicized into he van- ished; and both sound and sense are im- proved, for it was the moose and not the gnats that vanished. Now you see how hard I have striven to find fault, and after all my quotation draws a picture beauti- ful as Durand can paint. The word-pic- tures of Street are marvels. Listen he is looking over the battlements of Quebec. The lower citys chimneys rose Along the marge in long array, Whilst, in its calm and smooth repose Like air the broad curved river lay. A brigantine was creeping round, With its one sail, Cape Diamonds bound; By Orleans Island a bateau Was like a lazy spider, slow Crawling. The boatmen, spots of red, Pushing their poles of glimmering thread. But here is a graver strain : LIViNG AGE. VOL. VII. 316 49 HYMN TO THE DEITY. AN IROQUOIS HYMN Mighty, mighty HAH-WEN-NE-YO, spirit pure and mighty, hear us! We thine own Ho-de-no-son-ne, wilt. thou be forever near us, Keep the sacred flame still burning! guide our chase, our planting cherish! Make our warriors hearts yet taller! let our foes before us perish! Kindly watch our waving harvests! Make each Sachems wisdom deeper! Of our old men, of our women, of our children be the keeper! Mighty, holy Hah-wen-ne-yo! Spirit pure and mighty, hear us We thine own Ho-do-no-son-ne, wilt thou be forever near us! Yah-hah! forever near us I Wilt thou be for. ever near us! A single stanza from the description of Cayuga Lake: Sweet sylvan lake! beside thee now, Villages point their spires to Heaven, Rich meadows wave, broad grain-fields bow, The axe resounds, the plough is driven; Down verdant points come herds to drink, Flocks strew, like spots of snow, thy brink; The frequent farm-house meets the sight, Mid falling harvests scythes are bright, The watch dogs bark comes faint from far, Shakes on the ear the saw-mills jar; The steamer, like a darting bird, Parts the rich emerald of thy wave, And the gay song and laugh are heard But all is oer the Indians grave. Pause, white man! check thy onward stride! Cease oer the flood thy prow to guide! Until is given one sigh sincere For those who once were monarchs here, And prayei. is made, beseeching God To spare us his avenging rod For all the wrongs upon the head Of the poor helpless savage shed; Who, strong when we were weak, did not Trample us down upon the spot, But weak when we were strong, were cast Like leaves upon the rushing blast. The following is from The Albion. There is something in a name, and Mr. Street has chosen one that has this recommendation. It is peculiar and yet euphonious, begetting some curiosity in those not well read in Canadian story to learn who or what Frontenac might be. The scenes are laid in the castle and city of Quebec; in the deep forests of the then uncleared wilderness, and on the waters of the Canadian rivers and lakes; these afford ample scope for de- scription, which is evidently Mr. Streets forte. The poem contains not fewer thaa seven thousand lines, mainly in the octosyllabic metre, but pleasingly varied. Mr. Street must surely have made per ALFRED B. STREET. sonal acquaintance with that most pic- turesque city, Quebec, for he writes of it with much unction. In the rich pomp of dying day, Quebec, the rock-throned monarch, glowed Castle and spire and dwelling gray, rhe batteries rude that niched their way Along the cliff, beneath the play Of the deep yellow light, were gay, And the curved flood below that lay In flashing glory flowed; Beyond, the sweet and mellow smile Beamed upon Orleans lovely isle; Until the downward view Was closed by mountain-tops that, reared Against the burnished sky, appeared In misty, dreamy hue. Reared on the cliff, at the very brink Whence a pebble dropped would sink Fourscore feet to the slope below, The Castle of St. Louis caught Dancing hues of delicate pink, With which the clouds oerhead were fraught From the rich sunsets streaming glow. The funeral of Frontenac takes place in the Recollets Church, and the con- cluding passage entitled Mass for the dead is extremely musical. Sunset again oer Quebec Spread like a gorgeous pall; Again does its rich, glowing loveliness deck River, and castle, and wall. Follows the twilight haze And now the star-gemmed night; And out bursts the Recollets Church in a blaze Of glittering, spangling light. Crowds in the spacious pile Are thronging the aisles and nave With soldiers from altar to porch, in file All motionless, mute and grave. Censers are swinging around, Wax-lights are shedding their glare, And, rolling majestic its volume of sound, The organ oppresses the air. The saint within its niche, Pillar and picture and cross, And the roof in its soaring and stately pitch, Are gleaming in golden gloss. The choristers sorrowing strain Sounds shrilt as the winter breeze, Then low and soothing, as when complain Soft airs in the summer trees. The taper-starred altar before, Deep mantled with mourning black, With sabre and plume on the pall spread oer, Is the coffin of Frontenac. Around it the nobles are bowed, And near are the guards in their grief, While the sweet-breathing incense is wreath- ing its cloud Over the motionless chief. But the organ and singers have ceased, Leaving a void in air, And the long-drawn chant of the blazoned priest Rises in suppliance there. Again the deep organ shakes The walls with its mighty tone, And through it again the sweet melody breaks Like a sorrowful spirits moan. The author is an observer and must be a lover of Nature. How condensed and striking, is the following description of the bursting for/h of a Canadian Spring. Twas May! the Spring, with magic bloom, Leaped up from Winters frozen tomb. Day lit the rivers icy mail; The bland, warm rain at evening sank; Ice fragments dashed in midntghts gale; The moose at morn the r:j5ples drank. The yacht, that stood with naked mast In the locked shallows motionless When sunset fell, went curtseying past As breathed the mornings light caress. Are not the above lines excellent? The four that we have italicized contain a volume of suggestions, and are alone sufficient to stamp Mr. Street a man of genius. If Edwin Landseer desired to paint the portrait of a moose deer, could he find any more graphic sketch than the follow- ing? Twas one of Junes delicious eves; Sweetly the sunset rays were streaming, Here, tangled in the forest leaves, There on the Cataragin * gleaming. A broad glade lay beside the flood Where tall dropped trees and bushes stood. A cove its semi-circle bent Within, and through the sylvan space, Where lay the light in splintered trace, A moose, slow grazing, went; Twisting his long, curved, flexile lip Now the striped moose-woods leaves to strip, And now his maned neck, short and strong, Stooping, between his fore-limbs long, Stretched widely out, to crop the plant And tall, rich grass that clothed the haunt. On moved he to the basins edge, Moving the sword-flag rush and sedge, And, wading short way from the shore, Where spread the water-lilies oer A pavement green with globes of gold, Commenced his favourite feast to hold. So still the scene the rivers lapse Along its course gave hollow sound, With some raised wavelets lazy slaps On log and stone around; And the crisp noise the mooses cropping Made, with the water lightly dropping * Iroquois name for the River St. Lawrenc. so 4 ALFRED B. STREET. 5 From some lithe, speckled lily stem Forest Sprihg, we select as an instance Entangled in his antlers wide, of his nature-painting, his Forest Walk. Thus scattering many a sparkling gem We have not space here for any other Within the gold-cups at his side. Sudden he raised his head on high, than this poem of Street whose love for Spread his great nostrils, fixed his eye, Nature made him her original and strik- Reared half his giant ear-flaps, stood, ing delineator. Between his teeth a half-chewed root, In a large, closely printed, double-cob And sidelong on the neighbouring wood umn octavo volume entitled, Bildersaal Made startled glances shoot. der Welt Literatur, von Dr. 7ohannes Resuming then his stem, once more, Scherr, embracing a selection of trans- He bent, as from suspicion free, lations by various writers, from the poets His bearded throat the lilies oer, of the Indian, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabian, And cropped them quietly. Persian, and Turkish; Greek and Ro Another extract. man; Proven~a1, Italian, Spanish, Portu The summer sun was sinking bright guese and French, English, Scotch, Ger- Behind the woods of Isle Perrot; man and Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Nor- Back, Lake St. Louis gleamed the light wegian and Danish; Bohemian, Servian, In rich and mingled glow; Polish and Russian; Hungarian and The slanting radiance at Lachine Romaic, America is represented. We Shone on an animated scene. have Percivals Eagle, Bryants Than- Beside the beach upon the swell atopsis, Longfellows Excelsior, Scores of canoes were lightly dancing, Streets Settler, Irvings Falls of the With many a long bateau, where fell Passaic, and Drakes American Flag. The sun on pole and drag-rope glancing. Philar~te Chasles, late Professor in the Throngs were upon the gravelly beach, College of France, and one of the most Bustling with haste, and loud in speech; distincruishe Some were placing in rocking bateaus b d French authors and critics, Cannon and mortars and piles of grenades; in his Anglo-American Literature and Some were refitting their arrows and bows, Manners, and in a chapter, Of some Others were scanning their muskets and Anglo-American Poets, speaks thus: blades; The only names which we can single Some were kindling their bivouac fire; out from this forest of versifiers are Others were blending Street, Halleck, Bryant, Longfellow, and Their voices in song; While others, contending Emerson. The following notice occurs in the With utterance strong, Hand-Book of American Literature, Scarce kept from blows in their reckless ire. published by W. & R. Chambers, Lon- In a Dutch work entitled De Kerk don and Edinburgh. Alfred B. Sreet School en Witenschaj5 in de Vereenzgde has published descriptive poems highly Staten Van Nord-Ainerika, by D. Bud- commended for their graphic power. In dingh, ~a distinguished scholar and anti- Frontenac, a tale of the Iroquois, the quarian of the Netherlands, is the follow- author has added a narrative interest to ing, translated by Mr. E. B. OCallaghan. his descriptive passages, of which sev- We here pass by the poets James G. eral are clearly written with picturesque Percival, J. G. C. Brainard, John Pierpont, effect. Willis and others, in order to make close In Vapereaus Dictionnaire Univer- acquaintance with the poets Alfred B. sel des Contemporains, published at Street, and Henry W. Longfellow, already Paris, in Mr. Streets biography, M. named above by us as the Minstrel of the XTapereau in speaking of his works re- Night. marks, Where is found an undeniable After a biography of Mr. Street, in power of description, a vivid apprecia- which Mr. Buddingh remarks, His rep- tion of nature, and a manner of thought utation as a poet even extended to Eng- entirely American. land, when he, in 1846, published a vol- In The Poets and Poetry of Amer- ume in large octavo in New York, in ica, Mr. Griswold says, Mr. Street de- which were The Lost Hunter, and his scribes with remarkable fidelity and mi- wood-picture, The Gray Forest Eagle, nuteness, and while reading his poems surpassing his descriptions of the Seasons one may easily fancy himself in the for- (which remind us of Thomson), and his est, on the open plain, or by the side of Indian Legends. the shining river. Streets great merit as a poet con- In Allibones Dictionary of Authorss sists in his rare gift of nature-painting, it is said of Mr. Street, In 184344 Passing by the earlier poem, American (succeeding General John A. Dix,) he 52 SHAKESPEARES SON-IN-LAW. was the editor of The Northern Light. Perhaps it would be correct to say that his rank among American poets is the same as that generally assigned to Dry- den among English poets. In The Crayon, an art journal, is found the following: The soft brown moss, in which the vivid green of the new shoots comes like spangles, is more grateful to the feet than the clay of the road, and so I pene- trate the grove. Here sprouts the fresh young wintergreen, There swells a mossy mound; Though in the hollows drifts are piled The wandering wind is sweet and mild, And buds are bursting round. Where its long rings unwinds the fern, The violet, nestling low, Casts back the white lid of its urn Its purple streaks to show. Amid the creeping-pine which spreads Its thick and verdant wreath, The scauberrys downy spangle sheds Its rich, delicious breath. (Streets American Forest Spring.) That was in Streets locality. Also the poets know what an increase of effect they gain in describing the mo- tion of such objects by applying a hu- manizing verb, as, for example, in Shake- speare: But look! The morn in russet mantle clad Walks oer the dew of yon high eastern hill. As vivid as the bolt itself, is this in Byron. From peak to peak the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder. And in the epithet used by Street there is a close approximation to the effect of a rain-cloud traversing the fields. And in its vapory mantle onward steps The summer shower. Also, in another article. Our American Street has plied his pencil-pen upon (winter) scenes with ad- mirable care for detail. We can select but one or two sturdy bits. Yon rustic bridge Bristles with icicles; beneath it stand The cattle-group long pausing while they drink From the ice-hollowed pools, that skim in sheets Of delicate glass, and shivering as the air Cuts with keen stinging edge; Take another. The morning rises up And lo, the dazzling picture! every tree Seems carved from steel, the silent hills are helmed And the broad fields have breastplates. Over all The sunshine flashes in a keen, white blaze Of splendor searing eye-sight. Go abroad! The branches yield crisp cracklings, now and then Sending a shower of rattling diamonds down On the mailed earth, as freshens the lzght wind. The hemlock is a stooping bower of ice, And the oak seems as if a fairys wand Away had swept its skeleton frame, and placed A polished structure trembling oer with tints Of rainbow beauty there. But soon the sun Melts the enchantments like a charm away. We hold that Thomson, in as many lines, never wrote so many apt expres- sions of natural effects. The Crayon also published three es- says on The Landscape Element in American Poetry assigning to Bryant, Street, and Lowell in each essay, their place as the exponent and representative of this distinctive school of our literature. Extended specimens ~are given of their poetry, bringing out their picturesque qualities and pictorial beauties. Mr. Street has delivered manifold poems before the literary societies of the Colleges of New York and elsewhere, Geneva, Yale, Union, Hamilton, & c.; is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, of Cambridge Art Union, and has received the distinction of an honorary member- ship of the Literary Society of Nurem- berg, the Literarische Verein, of which Mr. Longfellow is likewise a recipient. From Frasers Magazine. SHAKESPEARES SON-IN-LAW. A STUDY OF OLD STRATFORD. STRATFORD-UPON-AVON in the seven- teenth century must have presented a very perfect type of the small midland towns which ranked in size and import- ance between the villages and the larger boroughs. Grouped about a fair and stately church and an old Guild-house were three or four streets of low, half- timber houses, sparingly intermixed with a few of larger size, such as the College where Combe lived, and the ever mem- orable New Place, environed by well- wooded gardens and gently sloping towards the river, which then, as to-day, crept lazily through the many arches of the old bridge, now making sweet music to the enamelled stones of the shallows, SHAKESPEARES SON-IN-LAW. 53 ate vicinity possessed two physicians, be- sides several apothecaries, and a number of the irregular practitioners who always abound in aguish districts. During the first quarter of the seventeenth century the most noted of the Stratford doctors was John Hall, who had the luck to im- mortalize his name by marrying the eld- est daughter of Shakespeare. The regis- tel of Stratford, under the date of 1607, has the following entry among the mar- riages: John Hall, gentleman, and Susanna Shaxpere. This is the first, and well-nigh the only contemporary notice of Hall. Who he was, and whence he came, the reasons which induced him to settle at Stratford, and, indeed, almost everything concected with his personal history, are all hidden in that singular obscurity which seems to envelop all the surroundings of Shake- speare. With the exception of a few brief notices in the Corporation Records relating to his holding the office of Bailiff we hear nothing more of him until after his death, when one of his many manu- script case-books came into the hands of Dr. Cooke, of Warwick, who translated it from the professional Latin, and pub- lished it in 1659 under the title of Select Observations upon English Bodies of Eminent Persons in Desperate Diseases. This singular book, little known and strangely neglected, is of great interest to investigators of Shakespeares life and times. Nearly all the eminent English bodies, of whose patching up and phy- sicking it is the record, were those of Shakespeares friends and neighbours, and it is the only source from which we may get a glimpse, however slight, of the people among whom his last years were The whole neighbourhood was formerly spent. To these last days, indeed, these very unhealthy. If we may depend upon doleful pages are in some sort the the entries of burials in the parish regis- epilogue, for we find here most of the ter, the death rate during the last twenty- friends and contemporaries of his youth five years of the sixteenth century must in the sere and yellow leaf journeying have greatly exceeded that of a modern peacefully, but for the most part pain- manufacturing town; and in the very fully, to the grave, under the pilotage of year of Shakespeares birth, the plague Dr. Hall. Among his patients we have is estimated to have carried off one- Mrs. Hall, of Stratford (my wife), being seventh of the inhabitants. Even in miserably tormented with the cholic ; these days of improved drainage the rate Elizabeth Hall ( my only daughter, is high. Out of one hundred and eighty- vexed with tortura oris); Mrs. Green eight deaths from natural causes in i868, (most likely the wife of the Town Clerk, sixty-six were registered as caused by who was a relative of the l)Oet); Mrs. zymotic diseases. The neighbourhood Combe (the wife of the Combe to whdrn of Stratford has always given employ- Shakespeare left his sword); Mrs. Std- ment to a number of doctors, and in the ler (his early friend, and god-mother of time of Elizabeth there is reason to be- his daughter Judith); Esquire Underhill lieve that this little town or its immedi- (perhaps the former proprietor of New now heavy and stagnant in the deep pools under the shadow of the elms and wil- lows. Imagine this, with a foreground of rich meadow land, dank and moist as Cuyps river banks, streaked with tall hedgerows and backed by the undulating banks, which do duty for hills in this part of England, and you have a picture of Stratford as it must have appeared in the time of Shakespeare. The fertility of this middle-most valley of England is unrivalled. Dry and matter-of-fact Speed, who knew the district well, and ~vas a frequent visitor at Warwick, hard by, is almost betrayed into poetry when he comes to describe the meandering pastures, with their green mantles so em- broidered with flowers, that from Edge- hill we behold another Eden. In our day, Hugh Miller, rambling by the Avon on a hot day in June, descants with enthusiasm upon the rich aquatic vegeta- tion, and declares that he had seen noth- ing in living nature which so well en- abled him to realize the luxuriant semi- tropical life of the period of the coal- measures. But the beauty of the land- scape is very treacherous. Built or bor- dering upon low alluvial soil, near the point where the great red sandstone dis- trict of central England be gins to be overlaid by the has, the town is very liable to floods, which year after year leave behind them a plentiful crop of fevers and agues. In the autumn months it often happens that the quiet little river, swollen by hundreds of tiny conflu- ents from the high grounds, spreads itself along the valley into the semblance of a huge mere, and the scene from Strat- ford Bridge is A flat malarian world of reed and rush. SHAKESPEARES SON-IN-LAW. 54 Place), who in these days was miserably tormented by the running gout, as became an aged justice; and Alderman Tyler, the person whose name was erased from the will, treated for a thoroughly aldermanic complaint, exceeding heat of tongue. A Mrs. Nash also, probably the wife of Shakespeares friend, and mother of the Nash who married Halls daughter, appears in these pages, and several other members of the Combe and Underhill families. The book is nothing more than an ordinary case-book of the period; but in the word or two descrip- tive of the individual which Hall affixes to each case we are often able to discover the bent of his own mind, and in some measure to reconstruct the society of the neighbourhood. There is abundant evidence that his practice lay amongst the best families of the district, and he was often sent for to attend patients liv- ing at a great distance. At Compton Wyniates he was in frequent attendance upon the Marquis of Northampton, and even attended him when residing at Lud- low as Warden of the Welsh Marches. At Warwick his principal patients were Baronet Puckering, son of Elizabeths Speaker, of the same name, very learned, much given to study, of a rare and lean constitution, yet withal phleg- matic, and Lord Brook, the famous friend of Sir Philip Sydney, who appears to have been a confirmed invalid during his latter years of retirement at Warwick. At Clifford, near Stratford, lived the Rainsfords, who are frequently mentioned in this book, notably my lady Rainsford, beautiful, and of a gallant structure of body. There can be little doubt that Shakespeare would be a frequenter of this house, as Sir Henry Rainsford is said by Aubrey to have been a great friend to poetry and poets. Drayton mentions in one of his letters to Drum- mond of Hawthornden, that he is accus- tomed to spend three months of every summer at Clifford, and again alludes to it in the Polyolbion as dear Cliffords seat, the place of health and sport, Which many a time hath been the muses quiet port. Another patient of great consideration with Hall was Esquire Beaufou, of Guys Cliff, whose name I have always cause to honour. His worst illness was caused by eating great quantity of cream at the end of his supper, about the age of seventy. His wife, the Lady Beaufou, was godly and honest, being of a noble extract. At Walcot, in Ox- fordshire, he had a good patient in Lady Jenkinson, who was probably the widow of the Sir Anthony Jenkinson who was twice sent by Elizabeth as ambassador to Russia. Other patients residing in or near Stratford were Mrs. Harvey, very religious ; the Lady Johnson, fair, pious, chaste ; Mr. Drayton, an excel- lent poet, treated for a tertian, and dosed with a pleasant mixture, which wrought both upwards and down- wards; Mistress Woodward, a maid. very witty and well-bred, yet gibbous ; Mr. Fortescue, catholic, a great drinker, of a very good habit of body, sanguine, very fat; Mr. Trap, the Puritan curate of Stratford, for his piety and learning second to none. The case of George Quiney is one of the most interesting in the book. H~ was the son of Shakespeares old friend Richard, the writer of the one extant let- ter addressed to Shakespeare (asking for the loan of xxlb.), and the brother of Thomas, who married the poets second daughter. In 1624 he was curate of Stratford, and became Dr. Halls patient for grievous cough and gentle feaver, being very weak in other words, he appears to have been in the last stage of a galloping consumption. The medi- cal men of our day let us off with a few doses per diem, and a pill or a potion at night, but in Quineys time the doctor was a tyrant from whom no hour, or even meal, was free. This unhappy young man was physicked indeed. In the morning he took a warm emulsion fasting; followed after breakfast by a hydromel, and at night by another emul- sion and pills. At dinner they put saf- fron into his sauce, because profitable for the brest, and musk into his wine, to corroborate the heart. His head was shaved, and an emplaster of twenty-eight ingredients applied to it and besides all this, he was dosed with small messes of myrrh and tragacanth made into a paste and taken lying on the back, to the end it may dissolve it- self. Under this treatment the patient ultimately died, and Hall dismisses him with the remark that he was a man of good wit, expert in tongues, and very learned, which proves at any rate that there was one man of culture amongst the Stratford townsmen. From this spe- cimen it will be seen that our doctors practice was of the heroic type. Nature, according to his theory, was not a friend SHAKESPEARE~S SON-IN-LAW. 55 to be gently entreated and coaxed, but an enemy to be fiercely wrestled with and conquered. In common with most prac- titioners of his time, he had some very nasty and coarse medicines. He often gave juyce of goose-dung and frog- spawn water as tonics, and one of his fa- vourite catalpasms was, R., a swallows nest, straw, sticks, dung, and all. Pow- dered human skull and even human fat are strongly recommended, and he fre- quently prescribes a restorative made from snails and earth-worms. Medicine at this period was in a state of transition, and the old remedies, based for the most part upon the doctrine of sympathies and correspondences, still held their own against the new and better practice which acknowledged no authority but experi- ment and observation. In turning over the pages of this book we cannot fail to be struck by the great prevalence of fe- vers and agues. Many varieties are men- tioned by Hall, such as the malign spotted fever, erratic fever, the un- garic fever, the new fever, and ter- tians and quotidians of many kinds; and as a result of these, probably, we contin- ually meet with cases of hypochondriac melancholy. If the cases in this book are to be taken as fairly representative, it follows that the popular ideal of the land of Shakespeare must be consider- ably modified. Stratford was no bucolic paradise of red-faced yokels, but a town of lean and melancholy invali ds:a very nursery of Hamlets, Timons, and Jacques, scarcely ever free from - . . burning fevers, agues pale and faint; Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood; Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damnd despair. It is, perhaps, worth notice that no great poet has so frequently employed images derived from these diseases. The physicist of the future who, upon some advanced stage of Mr. Buckles thesis, will expound to our grandsons the various causes which led up to that most wonderful of all phenomena, SHAKE- SPEARE, will no doubt have much to say about the influence of locality in produ- cing the morbid melancholy which, in place and out of place, seems to pervade every page of his writings. There is lit- tle doubt that Hall would be Shake- speares attendant during his last illness, although we have no account of it in this book, the entries in which tfnfortunately do not commence till 1617, the year after his death, although it is by no means cer tam that Shakespeares case would have been given, as the doctor is very chary of recording his failures. But who was Shakespeares apothecary or surgeon? A pocket-book of Halls is said to have once been in the possession of Malone, in which there was a statement that his name was Nason, but in another place corrected to Court. Now among Halls patients we find both John Nason of Stratford, Barber, and Mrs. Grace Court, wife to my apothecary. In those days the lancet had scarcely been di- vorced from the razor, so probably both names are correct, Court being the apoth- ecary, and Nason acting as surgeon or blood-letter. We are told by Ward, af- terwards Vicar of Stratford, and also at the same time practising as a physician a not uncommon conjunction of offices in the seventeenth century that Shake- speare died of a fever, contracted at a merry meeting with his friends Drayton and Ben Jonson.* In that year (i6a6~ we find from the entries in the Parish Register that the fever was unusually active in Stratford, and it is probable, therefore, that we may acquit the feast- ing of any share in the poets death. In the autumn of 1632 the fever again became terribly busy, in Halls words, killing almost all that it did infect, and the doctor himself nearly fell a victim to it. From the way in which his disor- der was treated, in the first instance by himself, and afterwards, as he grew worse, by a friendly physician from War- wick and which was, in fact, the routine practice of the period we may gather a pretty accurate idea of the last hours in this world of that bright but saddened and world-worn spirit inhabiter of that most eminent of all eminent English bodies, which seventeen years before had lain burning and tossing in the same house, probably in the same room. The battle commenced in the usual manner, by bleeding 8 oz. from the liver-vein ; and was followed up by active cathartics. Afterwards, at frequent intervals, they gave him a strong decoction of hartshorn, the effects of which naturally made him, as he says, much macerated and weak- ened, so that I could not turn myself in bed; and between the doses of harts- horn he took an electuary, of which the principal inbredient was the famous pow- der of gems, then much in vogue, and * Dzary of z~ke Rev. ~oka Ward, Vicar of S/rat- ford-u#on-A von. Edited by Severn. London, 183g. Dr. Ward, like Hall, left behind him a u~mber of MS. caae-books. SHAKESPEARE S SONINLAW. composed of jacynths, smardines, rubies, leaf-gold, and red coral. At night he swallowed potions of diascordium and syrup of poppies, and in the morning more cathartics to drive away the little life still left. The heart gradually sink- ing, a plaster of musk and aromatics was applied to the breast; and then, the poor weakened brain wandering, and the troubled spirit ready to pass the thresh- old, a pigeon was cut open, and its raw flesh applied warm to the soles of his feet, in the expectation that the vital magnet- ism of the bird would draw away the hu- mours from the head. And then! In Shakespeares case, we know how it ended; but Dr. Hall, who must have had the constitution of a horse, recovered. The book entirely corroborates the well-known and persistent Stratford tra- dition that the immediate descendants of Shakespeare were Puritans, and there- fore inclined to hold the writings of their illustrious relative in little respect. Dr. Hall was certainly a Puritan of a very pronounced type. The word bodies upon his title-page seems to imply a reser- vation as to souls which savours of this school, and the book abounds in the pious phrases which at that time were certain shibboleths of the sect. Cooke, the edi- tor, tells us that he was in great fame for his skill far and near ; and this I take to be a great sign of his ability, that such who spare not for cost, and they who have more than ordinary understand- ing, nay, such as hated him for his reli- gion, often made use of him. When Dowdall visited Stratford in 1693, the earliest pilgrim who has left an account of his visit, he made friends with the parish clerk, who was then upwards of ei~hty years old. While viewing the church, the old man pointed to Shakespeares tomb, and said emphatically, He was the best of his family! This has always seemed to us the most expressive testi- mony, and, from the old town gossips point of view, speaks volumes, plainly telling of a bright period of generous liv- ing at the New Place, too soon followed by a time of darkness, when cakes and ale were not. John Hall died in November 1635. By his nuncupative will, made on the day of his death, he left his study of books and amongst these, unless they had undergone a similar sifting to that be- stowed upon Don Quixotes, would be the priceless Shakespeare Library to his son-in-law Nash, to dispose of them as you see good, and, in striking contrast to the indifference displav~ed by his great father-in-law, exhibits a laudable anxiety for his literary progeny.. As for my manuscripts, I would have given them to Mr. Boles if he had been here, but foras- much as he is not here present, you may, son Nash, burn them or do with then what you please. Such is the wondrous diversity of human nature, Macbeth and Othello are dismissed without a word to the tender mercies of ignorant players, and still more ignorant printers, or, for the matter of that, to the chances of utter oblivion; but Dr. Hall upon tiis bed of death, is troubled about his poor little case-books. The way in which the pres- ent book came to be published is detailed by Cooke in an address to the reader pre- fixed to the first edition, but omitted in the succeeding impressions. At the be- ginning of the Civil Wars, probably in 1642, Cooke, then quite a young man, was acting as surgeon to the Roundhead troop who were keeping the bridge at Stratford, and quartered with him was a mate allied to the gentleman who wrote the observations. This young man invited Cooke to New Place to see the books left by Dr. Hall. Mrs. Hall showed him the books, and then said she had some [other] books left by one that professed physic with her husband, for some money. I told her that if I liked them I would give her the money again. Mrs. Hall then brought them forth, amongst which there was this, with another of the au- thors, both intended for the press. I be- ing acquainted with Mr. Halls hand, told her that one or two of them were her hus- bands, and showed them to her. She denied, I affirmed, till I perceived she be- gan to be offended, and at last I returned her the money. This is the only scrap of intelligence, save the inscription upon her monument, which time has left us about Shakespeares daughter, and it must be allowed that it does not show her in a pleasant light. Mistress Hail was certainly wise in a worldly sense, as well as wise to salvation. We may, per- haps, however, derive from the incident a consolatary inference. The tradition mongers have always delighted to rack our imagination with visions of the burn- ing of Shakespeare~s manuscripts at the hands of a Puritanic and unsympathetic kindred. The fair bargainer of the above scene was not the woman to dispose of her fathers manuscripts if there were any .without a proper consideration, and the probability seems to be that Heminge and Condell would get them all. COLOUR IN ANIMALS. 57 But we must not be led into doing injus- terms, with an exordium on the incon- tice to Mrs. Hall. It is quite possible veniences of plays being very seriously that Cooke may have been mistaken in considered of, and their unlawfulness, th~ inference which he evidently intends and increasing the penalty to ten pounds. us to draw. We know that it is quite I Stratford also in those days was greatly possible for even the largest-hearted and troubled and excited about the enclos- most sympathetic of women to be a dead ures. Combe and Mannering, two of the hand at a bargain, and after all there is largest landowners, wished to enclose a no crime in desiring to change a number part of the common-field, and the small b of musty little manuscripts into current owners and the townsmen generally, hay- coin of the realm. Mrs. Halls tomb- ing probably certain rights at stake, re- stone in Stratford Church asks us sisted vigorously. A portion of Shake- To weepe with her that wept with all speares estate would be injuriously af That wept, yet set herselfe to chere fected by the change; and almost the Them up with comforts cordiall; only morsel of information left to us about his private life, except the will and which could hardly have been said of a the legal documents relating to his prop- narrow-minded woman. erty, has reference to this agitation. It We have endeavoured in vain to dis- is a memorandum in the handwriting of cover some trace of Halls parentage or the Town Clerk, to the effect that Mr. extraction. His name does not occur Shakespeare told Mr. J. Greene that he upon the Register of the College of Phy- was not able to beare the enclosing of sicians, or upon those of the Universities, Welcombe, and is dated September i, and, as Cooke tells us that he was a good 1615, a few months only before his death. French scholar and had travelled, it is In the same year an application to re- probable that his degree was from Leyden strain the enclosers was made to Lord or Paris. There was a John Hall who Chief Justice Coke, at Warwick Assizes, practised at Maidstone about 1565, and and some idea of the temper of the published a translation of Lanfrancs townsmen may be obtained from the or- famous Ars Chirurgicez. This Hall also I der of the Court, which censures Combe published some poetry of a religious cast, and his friends, and declares that the and was a very decided Puritan. Is it order is taken for preventynge of tu- possible that our Dr. Hall could have mults, whereof in this very towne of late, been a son ot nephew of his? There is upon these occasions, there had been certainly a curious intellectual relation- lyke to have been an evill begynninge of ship in the style of the two men. some great mischief e. It is amusing, how the real state of This was Arcadian Stratford. affairs at Stratford, during the last years C. ELLIOT BROWNE. of Shakespeares life, differed from that which has been pictured for us by the sentimental biographers who have sur- rounded the poet in his retirement with troops of admiring worshippers. The From Chambers Journal. truth seems to be that Stratford was COLOUR IN ANIMALS. a perfect hotbed of religious and do- THE variety of colouring in animal life mestic strife. The municipal govern- is one of the marvels of nature, only now ment was in the hands of a narrow Pun- beginning to be studied scientifically. It tan majority, who administered the local I is vain to say that an animal is beautiful, affairs in the spirit of a Scottish Kirk ses- either in symmetry or diversity of colour, sion, pretending to a strict control over in order to please the human eye. Fishes the personal morals of the inhabitants, in the depths of the Indian seas, where In i6oz we learn from the town records, no human eye can see them, possess the published from the originals by Mr. Hal- most gorgeous tints. One thing is re- liwell, that amongst other attempts at markable: birds, fishes, and insects reformation they passed a resolution that alone possess the metallic colouring; no plays should be played in the chain- I whilst plants and zoophytes are without ber, and that any of the council who reflecting shades. The mollusca take a shall give leave or license thereto middle path with their hue of mother-of- should forfeit ten shillings; and again in pearl. What is the reason of these ar- 1612, when their illustrious townsman rangements in the animal kingdom? It was in the very zenith of his fame, they is a question which cannot be satisfacto- repeated the resolution in still stronger . rily answered; but some observations 53 COLOUR IN ANIMALS. have been made which throw light on the substances have it in themselves, owing suhject. One is, that among animals, to molecular arrangement, hut usually the part of the hody turned towards the this is not the case ; the liveliest colours earth is always paler than that which is~ are not hound up with the tissues. Sorhe- uppermost. The action of light is here times they arise from a phenomenon like apparent. Fishes which live on the side, that hy which the soap-hubble shews its as the sole and turbot, have the left side, prismatic hues ; sometimes there is a which answers to the hack, of a dark special matter called pigment ~vhich is tint; whilst the other side is white. It united with the organic substance. Such may be noticed that birds which fly, as it is the brilliant paint, carmine, which is were, bathed in light do not offer the the pigment of the cochineal insect, and strong contrast of tone between the upper the red colour of blood, which may be and low~r side. Beetles, wasps, and collected in crystals, separate from the flies have the metallic colouring of blue other particles to which it is united. and ~,reen, possess rings equally dark all Even the powder not unknown to la- round the body; and the wings of many dies of fashion is one of Natures beau- butterflies are as beautifully feathered tifying means. That which is left on the below as above, hands of the ruthless boy when he has On the other hand, mollusca which live caught a butterfly, is a common instance in an almost closed shell, like the oyster, but there are birds, such as the large are nearly colourless; the larv~ of in- white cockatoo, which leave a white sects found in the ground or in wood powder on the hands. An African travel- have the same whiteness, as well as all ler speaks of his astonishment on a rainy intestinal worms shut up in obscurity, day to see his hands reddened by the Some insects whose life is spent in dark- moist plumage of a bird he had just killed. ness keep this appearance all their lives; The most ordinary way, however, in such as the curious little beetles inhabit- which the pigment is found is when it ing the inaccessible crevasses of snowy exists in the depths of the tissues, re- mountains, in whose depths they are hid- duced to very fine particles, best seen den. They seem to fly from light as under the microscope. When scattered, from death, and are only found at cer- they scarcely influence the shade; but tam seasons, when they crawl on the when close together, they are very per- flooring of the caves like larv~, without ceptible. This explains the colour of eyes, which would be useless in the re- the negro: under the very delicate layer treats where they usually dwell. of skin which is raised by a slight burn This relation between colouring and there may be seen abundance of brown light is very evident in the beings which pigment in the black man. It is quite inhabit the earth and the air; those are superficial, for the skin differs only from the most brilliant which are exposed to that of the European in tone; it wants the sun; those of the tropics are brighter the exquisite transparency of fair races. than in the regions around the North Among these, the colours which impress Pole, and the diurnal species than the the eye do not come from a flat surface, nocturnal; but the same law does not but from the different depths of layers apparently belong to the inhabitants of in the flesh. Hence the variety of rose the sea, which are of a richer shade and lily tints according as the blood where the light is more tempered. The circulates more or less freely; hence the most dazzling corals are those which blue veins, which give a false appear- hang under the natural cornices of the ance, because the blood is red; but the rocks and on the sides of submarine grot- skin thus dyes the deep tones which lie toes ; while some kinds of fish which are beneath it; tattooing with Indian ink is found on the shores as well as in depths blue, blue eyes owe their shade to the requiring the drag-net, have a bright red brown pigment which lines the other side purple in the latter regions, and an insig- of the iris, and the muscles seen under the nificant yellow brown in the former. skin produce the bluish tone well known Those who bring up gold-fish know well to painters. that to have them finely coloured, they The chemical nature of pigment is lit- must place them in a shaded vase, where tle known; the sun evidently favours its aquatic plants hide them from the ex- development in red patches. Age takes treme solar heat. Under a hot July sun it away from the hair when it turns white, they lose their beauty. the colouring-matter giving place to very The causes to which animal colouring small air-bubbles. The brilliant white is due are very various. Some living of feathers is due to the air which fills COLOUR IN ANIMALS. 59 them. Age, and domestic habits ex- changed for a wild state, alter the ap- pearance of many birds and animals; in some species the feathers and fur grow white every year before falling off and being renewed; as in the ermine, in spring the fur which is so valued assumes a yellow hue, and after a few months, becomes white before winter. It would, however, be an error to sup- pose that all the exquisite metallic shades which diaper the feathers of birds and the wings of butterflies arise from pig- ments ; it was a dream of the alchemists to try to extract them. Their sole cause is the play of light, fugitive as the sparkles of the diamond. When the beautiful feathers on the breast of a hum- ming-bird are examined under the micro- scope, it is astonishing to see none of the shades the mystery of which you would penetrate. They are simply made of a dark-brown opaque substance not unlike those of a black duck. There is, however, a remarkable arrangement; the barb of the feather, instead of being a fringed stem, offers a series of small squares of horny substance placed point to point. These plates, of infinitesimal size, are extremely thin, brown, and, to all appearance, exactly alike, whatever may be the reflection they give. The brilliant large feathers of the peacock are the same; the plates are only at a greater distance, and of less brightness. They have been described as so many little mirrors, but that comparison is not cor- rect, for then they would only give back light without colouring it. Neither do they act by decomposing the rays which pass through them, for then they would not lose their iris tints under the micro- scope. It is to metals alone that the me- tallic plumage of the humming-birds can be compared; the effects of the plates in a feather are like tempered steel or crys- tallized bismuth. Certain specimens emit colours very variable under different angles, the same scarlet feather becom- ing, when turnedjo ninety degrees, a beautiful emerald green. The same process which nature has followed in the humming-bird is also found in the wing of the butterfly. It is covered with microscopic scales, which play the part of the feather, arranged like the tiles of a house, and taking the most elegant forms. They also lose their colour under magnifying power, and the quality of reflection shews that the phenomena are the same as in feathers. There is, however, a difference in the ex tent of the chromatic scale. Whilst the humming-bird partakes in its colours of the whole of the spectrum from the violet to the red, passing through green, those of the butterflies prefer the more refrangi- ble ones from green to violet, passing through blue. The admirable lilac shade of the AIo~y5ho menelas and the Mortho cy~rIs is well known, and the wings of these butterflies have been used by the jewellers, carefully laid under a thin plate of mica, and made into ornaments. A bright green is not uncommon, but the metallic red is rare, excepting in a beau- tiful butterfly of Madagascar, closely allied to one found in India and Ceylon. The latter has wings of a velvet black with brilliant green spots; in the former, these give place to a mark of fiery. red. There is the same difference between the metallic hues of creatures endowed with flight and the iris shades of fishes, that there is between crystallized bis- muth and the soft reflections of the changing opal. To have an idea of the richness of the fish, it is only necessary to see a net landed filled with shad or other bright fish. It is one immense opal, with the same transparency of shade seen through the scales, which afford the only means of imitating pearls. It is due, however, not to the scales, but to ex- tremely thin layers lying below the scales under the skin and round the blood- vessels, which look like so many threads of silver running through the flesh. R6aumur first noticed and described them; sometimes their form is as regu- lar as that of a crystal, and of infinitesi- mal size and thickness. The art of the makers of false pearls is to collect these plates in a mass from the fish, and make a paste of them with the addition of glue, which is pompously named Eastern Essence. This is put inside glass beads, and gives them the native white- ness of pearls. Many observations have been made lately by our naturalists as to the de- fence which colour supplies to animals: hares, rabbits, stags, and goats possess the most favourable shade for concealing them in the depths of the forest or in the fields. It is well known that when the Volunteer corps were enrolled, and the most suitable colour for the riflemen was discussed, it was supposed to be green. Soldiers dressed in different shades were placed in woods and plains, to try which offered the best concealment. Contrary to expectation, that which escaped the eyes of the enemy was not green, but 6o WOMEN S RIGHTS IN THE LAST CENTURY. the fawn colour of the doe. Among It is undoubtedly the nerves which hunting quadrupeds, such as the tiger, connect the brain with organs where the the leopard, the jaguar, the panther, there pigment is retaIned. By cutting a nerve, is a shade of skin which man has always the colouring-matter is paralyzed in that been anxious to appropriate for his own portion of the skin through which the use. The old Egyptian tombs have nerve passes, just as a muscle is isolated paintings of the negroes of Sudan, their by the section of its nerve. If this opera. loins girt with the fine yellow skins for tion be performed on a turbot when in a which there is still a great sale. All the dark state, and thrown into a sandy bot- birds which prey upon the smaller tribes, tom, the whole body grows paler, except- and fishes like the, shark, are clothed in ing the part which cannot receive cere- dead colours, so as to be the least seen bral influence. The nerves have, in gen by their victims. eral, a very simple and regular distribu There is an animal which, for two tion: if two or three of these are cut in thousand years, has excited the curiosity the body of the fish, a black transversal and superstition of man by its change of band following the course of the nerve colour that is, the chameleon. No will be seen ; whilst, if the nerve which reasonable observation was ever made animates the head is thus treated, the upon it, until Perrault instituted some turbot growing paler on the sand, keeps experiments in the seventeenth century. a kind of black mask, which has a very He observed that the animal became pale curious effect. at ni~,ht, and took a deeper colour when These marks will reynain for many in the sun, or when it was teased; whilst weeks, and what may be called paralysis the idea that it took its colour from sur- of colour has been remarked in conse- rounding objects was simply fabulous. quence of illness or accident. Such was He wrapped it in different kinds of cloth, seen in the head of a large turbot, the and once only did it become paler when body being of a different colour. It was in white. Its colours were very limited, watched, and died after a few days, evi- varying from gray to green and greenish dently of some injury which it had re- brown. ceived. The subject offers a field of im- Little more than this is known in the mense inquiry: the chemical and physi- present day: under our skies it soon loses cal study of pigments, the conditions its intensity of colour. Beneath the Afri- which regulate their appearance, their in- can sun, its livery is incessantly changing; tensity, and variations under certain in- sometimes a row of large patches appears fluences; the want of them in albinos, on the sides, or the skin is spotted like a and the exaggerated development in trout, the spots turning to the size of a other forms of disease. To Mr. Darwin, pins head. At other times, the figures in England, and to M. Ponchet, in France, are light on a brown ground, which a mo- the subject is indebted for much re- ment before were brown on a light search, which will no doubt be continued ground, and these last during the day. as occasion offers. A naturalist speaks of two chameleons which were tied together on a boat in _____________ the Nile, with sufficient length of string to run about, and so always submissive to the same influences of light, & c. They From The Academy. offered a contrast of colour, though to a WOMENS RIGHTS IN THE LAST CEN- certain degree alike; but when they slept TURF. under the straw chair which they chose IN turning through some files of old for their domicile, they were exactly of newspapers, we have been surprised to the same shade during the hours of rest notice that the question as to the pro- a fine sea-green that never changed. priety of women taking a more prominent The skin rested, as did the brain, so that part in public affairs was quite as dili- it seemed probable that central activity, gently discussed a century ago as it is thought, will, or whatever name is given, nowadays. A few extracts which we has some effect in the change of colour, have made will furnish somewhat curious The probability is, that as they become illustrations of this. The Morni;zg Post pale, the pigment does not leave the skin, of April 14, 1780, contains the following but that it is collected in spheres too announcement : small to affect our retina, which will be Casino, no. 43 Great Marlborough impressed by the same quantity of pig- Street, this evening, the 14th inst., will ment when more extended. commence the First Sessions of the F~ COLONEL GORDONS JOURNEY TO GONDOKORO. MALE PARLIAMENT. The Debate to be carried on by Ladies only, and a Lady to preside in the chair. Question Is that assertion of Mr. Popes founded in jus- tice, which says Every woman is at heart a rake? On the Sunday evening a theological question to be discussed. In succeeding issues of the paper, formal reports of the proceedings of this parliament in petticoats are published, such as Friday, April 21. The Speak- er having taken the chair, it was resolved ne;n. con. that the assertion of Mr. Popes, which says, Every woman is at heart a rake is not founded in justice. A mem- ber presented to the House several peti- tions from men milliners, men mantua makers, & c., & c., against a bill entitled An Act to prevent men from monopo- lizing womens professions. Resolved that said bill and said petitions be con- sidered. Such is the universal rage for public speakino writes the Morning Post, of May 20, 1780, that the honourable Mrs. L, possessed of no less than two thousand pounds a year, constantly speaks at the Casino Rooms on the nights of the ladies debates. In the Morning Post of March 9, 1781, we meet with this report: La Belle Assemblee Budget. The opening of the Budget, and the debate which en- sued upon the taxes that were proposed by the female Premier, as the Ways and Means for procuring the supplies for the present year, afforded such high and un- common amusement to the numerous and splendid company in the Rooms, that a general request was made that on the subsequent Friday the Ladies should re- sume the consideration of the Budget, in preference to the question given out from the chair. In obedience, therefore, to the desire of the public, the Ladies mean this evening to resume the debate on the following taxes, viz. : i. Old maids and bachelors over a cer- tain age. 2. On men milliners, men mantua mak- ers, men marriage brokers. 3. On female foxes, female dragoons, female playwrights, and females of all descriptions who usurp the occupations of the men. 4. On monkies, lap-dogs, butterflies, parrots, and pwppies, including those of the human species. 5. On made-up complexions. 6. On French dancers, French frizeurs, French cooks, French milliners, and French fashion mongers. 7. On quacks and empirics, including those of the State, the Church, and the Bar, etc., etc. About this time, too, we find the fol- lowing ingenious problem propounded for the solution of a like gathering in The Large Hall Cornhill : Which is the happiest period of a mans life: when courting a ~vi fe, when married to a wife, or when burying a bad wife. In 1788 an advertisement appears of the proposed opening, on March 17, of Rices elegant rooms (late Hickfords), Brewer Street, Golden Square, for public debate by ladies only. The first subject suggested se ems quite as comprehensive in the matter of womens rights as the most zealous advocate of them in our own day could desire. This is it: Do not the extraordinary abilities of the ladies in the present age demand academical hon- ours from the Universities, a right to vote at elections, and to be returned members of parliament? From Nature. COL GORDONS JOURNEY TO GONDO- KORO. WE have been favoured with the fol- lowing remarks concerning Colonel Gor- dons journey to Gondokoro. Colonel Gordon, His excellency, the Governor- general of the equator ! arrived at Khar- toum on March 13, and had with him a Pall Mall Gazette of Feb. i~ he writes on the 17th from Khartoum as follows : At this season of the year the air is so dry that animal matter does not decay or smell, it simply dries up hard ; for in- stance, a dead camel becomes in a short time a drum. The Nile, flowing from the Albert Nyanza below Gondokoro, spreads out into two lakes; on the edge of these lakes aquatic plants, with roots extend- ing ~ ft. into the water, flourish; the na- tives burn the tops when dry, and thus form soil for grass to grow on; this is again burnt, and it becomes a compact mass. The Nile rises and floats out por- tions, which, being checked in a curve of the channel, are joined by other masses, and eventually the river is completely bridged over for several miles, and all navioation is stopped. year the governor of Khartoum went up with three companies and two steamers, and cut away large blocks of the vegetation; at last one night the water 62 TITLES. burst the remaining part, and swept down on the vessels, dragging them down some four miles, amidst (according to the Governors account) hippopotami, crocodiles, and large fish, some alive and confounded, others dead or dying, the fish being crushed by the floating masses. One hippo was carried against the bows of the steamer and killed, and crocodiles 35 ft. long were killed: the Governor, who was on the marsh, had to go five miles on a raft to get to the steamer. The effects of these efforts of the Governor of Khartoum is that a steamer can now go to Gondokoro in twenty-one days, whereas it took months formerly to perform the same journey. Colonel Gordon left Khartoum on March 21, and in his last letter from Fashoda, ~ N., he touches on some of the scenes on the banks of the rivers the storks, which he was in the habit of seeing arrive on the Danube in April, laying back their heads between their wings and clapping their backs in joy at~ their return to their old nests on the houses, now wild and amongst the croco- diles 2,000 miles away from Turkey; the monkeys coming down to drink at the edge of the river, with their long tails, like swords, standing stiff up over their backs; the hippos and the crocodiles. Such scenes to a lover of nature, as Col. Gordon is, doubtless would serve to ma l~ e up in some measure for the loss of civilized society and comforts. From The Saturday Revjew. TITLES. IN the latter part of Mr. Bryces ac- count of Iceland in the Cornhi/l Maga- zine * he gives a curious picture of a state of society in which men who are perfect- lv civilized in their thoughts and manners live in a physical condition not much above that of savages. And one feature of very primitive life they still keep in all its fulness. They have hardly any sur- names, and they have no titles. A man is simply Sigurd; if you wish to distin- guish him from some other Sigurd, he is simply Sigurd Magnusson. If you go to a house, and wish to see its mistress, you ask for nobody but plain Ingebiorg; or, if you wish to be formal, you do not call her Lady or Mrs., but only Ingebiorg Sigurdsdottir. For in Iceland, as in old * Lxv,so Ace, No. 1567. Rome, a married woman is known by her fathers name; she cannot take the sur- name of her husband, because he has no surname for her to take. In all this we are carried back to the days when the smallest man in Athens or Rome could not call Perikles or C~sar anything but Perikles or C~sar nay more, when he could not call Agarist~ or Julia. any- thing but Agarist~ or Julia. At Rome, to be sure, there were little delicacies about the use of ~rcinomen, nomen, and cognomen; while Perikles could be nothing but Perikles in the mouth of anybody, he whom the outer world called Clesar would be known to an inner circle as Caius. So in the Universities a man is spoken to from the first moment of introduction by his cognomen, allowing for a few exceptional cases in which, owing to some special charm either in the man himself or in his Areno ten, the ~ra?nomen is used instead. But Greeks, Romans, Icelanders, and undergraduates all agree in calling a man by nothing but one or other of his real names. Even in Iceland there are respectful ways of marking official rank, as when a man speaks to the Governor or the Bishop, but there is nothing like our fashion of putting a handle to the name of every- body. We use this last phase of set pur- pose; people constantly say that such a man has got a title, that he has got a handle to his name, when he is made an y thing which gives him a right to be cal led Sir or Lord. Grave heraldic au- thorities who write peerages and books of landed gentry, and people who write letters to explain how, though they are not peers, they are still noblemen, draw a distinction between titled and un- titled nobility, or gentry, or whatever word they choose to express that foreign thing which the law of England has al- ways so unkindly refused to acknowledge. When people say that the new lord or baronet or knight has got a title, or a handle, they forget that he has been called by a title, or a handle, ever since the first time that his nurse spoke of him as Master Tommy, or perhaps more familiarly as Master Poppet. We are so much in the habit of crivino everybody titles, just as we are somuc~ in the habit of talking in prose, that we have got to be as unconscious of the one process as of the other. We are so con- stantly in the habit of giving everybody the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Master, that we forget that all these are titles, and we fancy that no one bears a title but TITLES. 63 those who are called Lord, Lady, or Sir. less a title indeed, according to our In fact, the smaller every-day titles are showing, it was much more of a title more strictly and purely titles than the than if he had been called Duke of Mont- others, because they are mere titles, morency. A man was not to be called while the others are in most cases titles Monsieur, but he was to be called ci- and something more. Duke, Earl, toyen; but Ci1~yen expressed, just as Bishop, are not mere titles; they wear j much as Monsieur, the feeling which dis- badges of actual rank; they are originally tinguishes all of us from the Greek, the and still to some extent, descriptions Roman, and the Icelander, the shrinking of office. But we call people Mr. and from calling a man by his name and noth. Mrs., not to express rank or office, but ing else. It never came into the head of simply to avoid what passes for the un- an Athenian or a Roman to speak of a due familiarity of calling them, in Greek man as Citizen Perikles, or Citizen Caesar, or Icelandic fashion, sii~nple John and though there would really have been Mary. The custom undoubtedly came j more sense in so doing than there was in through the use of official descriptions, among the French Republicans, for no A man was called John the Earl, or Peter Athenian or Roman had declared that all the Bishop, or anything else, greater or men were equal, and the title of citizen smaller, to mark him off from those Johns might have expressed the very wide dis- or Peters who held some other office or tinction between the member of the rul- no office at all. The official description ing commonwealth and the member of easily slides into the title used, not any of the inferior classes, from the mere merely to describe office, but to express slave up to the Latin or the Plataian. respect. But, as long as the description And even in those cases where intimate marks out any definite office, or even any friendship or any other ground causes definite rank, it is not a mere title; it men to speak of one another simply by really serves to point out what the man their names, it is only done privately and is, and not merely to avoid the necessity among equals. The man whom we speak of calling him by his simple Christian to as Smith becomes Mr. Smith in a or surname. If John Churchill is Duke speech or an article, and in the like sort of Marlborough, we call him Duke of the undergraduate, to whom Smith is Marlborough, not merely to avoid calling Smith from the very beginning, speaks of him John Churchill, but to express the Mr. Smith either to his tutor or to his fact that he is Duke of Marlborough. scout. Thus, even when we go furthest But if John Churchill is nothing but in dropping titles, we do not dare to drop John Churchill, and we call him Mr. them altogether; we have not got back John Churchill, we do so, not to express to the stage of talking of Perikles and any fact a all, but merely to avoid the Sigurd at all times and to all persons. seeming rudeqess of calling him simply There is indeed one exception, though John Churchill. Thus the Icelander not in our own ~untry. lie who finds recognizes the official rank of the Gov- himself reviewed in a German periodical ernor and the Bishop, only he differs enjoys the privilege of being praised or from us in holding that plain Sigurd and blamed by his simple surname and noth- Ingeb iorg have no need to be called any- ing else. And it might be well to set up thing but Sigurd and Ingebiorg. an iao2roatreia, an interchange of privilege, In this way it is plain that the un- in this matter. If for no other cause, yet titled classes are really those who are for this, that, as the German and the most truly titled, those to whom titles Englishman, if they try their hand at any are most habitually given simply as titles kind of title, are sure to miscall one and for no other reason. All Europe, another, a good deal of inaccuracy is except the happy Icelanders, conforms to saved if they agree to call one another the fashion, and there seems no great by no title at all. likelihood that the rest of Europe will go There is something in our received back to the simpler practice of one un- system of titles, great and small, which sophisticated island. How deeply em- seems very puzzling to men of all other bedded the practice is in all modern nations. The Baronet or Knight and the habits of thought is shown by the fact Esquire seem very mysterious beinos It that when the first French Republicans is strange that the title of Sir, ~n its determined to abolish titles, all that they origin so purely French, should have be.. did was to abolish the old titles, and to come in its use so purely English that invent a new title of their own. When a no Frenchman can understand it. We man was called Citizen Roland, it was no suspect that what makes our titles so 64 TITLES. puzzling to Frenchmen is their variety. An Englishmans description may begin in twenty different ways; a Frenchmans description always begins in one way. An Englishman may be Lord, Sir, Col- onel, Doctor, plain Mr.; a Frenchman is always Monsieur. He may be plain letter M., or he may be M. le Duc; but he is M. in every case. Then the Esquire outrages the feelings of the whole human race by sticking his title after his name instead of before it. This no foreigner can allow. A French- man must indeed be familiar with Eng- lish ways to keep himself from putting M. John Smith, Esq. You may write down your description in full in your own hand, but the M. is sure to appear in the address. of the letter which your for- eign friend writes to you. His feeling is, Vous ~tes trop modeste, as an English- man is sometimes told when he begs earnestly not to be called Milord. The truth is that the style of the Esquire is altogether anomalous. It is stuck after the name and not before, because it is not really a title, but a description. A. B. is described as Esquire, as another man may be described as Knight, Clerk anything down to Labourer. The de- scription of A. B., Esquire, is, in fact, the remnant of the oldest formula of all, Cnut Cyning, Harold Eorl, and the like, which survives, or did survive a few years back, when visitors to Blen- heim are called on to look at the portrait and exploits of John Duke. By some odd freak, this kind of description goes on in any mention of an Esquire which is in the least degree foi~rial, though col- loquially he is spoken of by the Mr. which it would be thought disrespectful to put on the outside of a letter. The peasant who talks about Squire Tomkins is ~ar more consistent. Then again this description of Esquire, a mere de- scription and no title, is, oddly enough, just the thing which a man avoids call- ing himself. It has an odd look when a sheriff, signing an official paper, signs A. B., Esquire, and it has an odd sound when a magistrate qualifying, de- scribes himself as A. B., Esquire. Whether a Sheriff who is a Baronet should sign himself, as he commonly does, Sir A. B., Baronet, we doubt. Should he not rather sign himself A. B., Baronet, as his description, and wait for other people to give him the title of Sir? Besides the substantive title or de- scription, there is the honorary adjective and the honorary periphrasis. These are much older than mere titles ; they are as old as Homer. What our modern rules have done is simply to stiffen them, so that everybody knows exactly which to apply to everybody. But it is odd how the substantives and adjectives got con- founded, as if they were things of the same kind which excluded one another. It is now thought vulgar to call a privy councillor or a peers s son Hon. or Right Hon. A. B., Esquire. It was the right thing early in the last century. And the older usage was more rational. A peers son is an Esquire ; Esquire is therefore his proper description ; he is also entitled to the complimentary adjec- tive Honourable. The substantive and the adjective in no way exclude one another. One might make a long list of usages in the way of titles which are ab- surd and nngrammatical; as, for instance, the last new piece of affectation, The Reverend the Honourable A. B., which seems to have just displaced The Hon- ourable and Reverend A. B., which is grammatical and intelligible. But it is enough to point out the crowning ab- surdity of such phrases as 1-ler Ma- jesty, Her Majesty the Queen, and the like. They are vulgar corruptions of the fine old formula the Queens Ma- jesty. When the King, Prince, Duke, or other exalted person has %nce been described it is sense and grammar to go on speaking of his Majesty, his Highness, his Grace ; but it is clearly ungrammatical to talk of his Majesty when nothing has gone before for his to refer to. And Her Majesty the Queen, can all the heralds in the land parse these words? When Charles the First greeted Laud on his highest promo- tion with the words My Lords Grace of Canterbury, you are welcome, he spoke the Kings English; but His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury is simple gibberish. From these difficulties, and from these courtly vulgarisms, men were of old free at Athens, and they are still free in Ice- land.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. ol. XXII. rifth Series, No. 1570.July 11, 1874. CONTENTS. I. MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE, . Contempora?y Review,. IL ALICE LORRAINE. A Tale of the South Downs. Part V Blackwoods Magazine, III. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. Part IL, Temple Bar, IV. A ROSE IN JUNE. Part VII., . . Cornhili Magazine, V. ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES By Shirley, Frasers Magazine, VI. THE NAMES OF PLANTS Sattirday 7ournal, GROWING Uv,. THE UNKNOWN DEITY,. POETRY. 66 ON THE CLIFF, 661 67 86 95 704 112 iz6 .66 as MISCELLANY, . . . PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY ~3Y LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLAas, remitted directly to Me Publishers, the Leveuo Acm will be punctually forwarded for a year,free of j5ostagv. But we do Dot prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another perinaical. Au extra copy of THE LIVING AGE II sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should he made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can he procured, the money should he 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 & GAY. 66 GROWING UP, ETC. GROWING UP. OH to keep them still around us, baby dar- lings, fresh and pure, Mothers smile their pleasures crowning, mothers kiss their sorrows cure; Oh to keep the waxen touches, sunny curls, and radiant eyes, Pattering feet, and eager prattle all young lifes lost Paradise One bright head above the other, tiny hands that clung and clasped, Little forms, that close enfolding, all of Loves best gifts were grasped; Sporting in the summer sunshine, glancing round the winter hearth, Bidding all the bright world echo with their fearless, careless mirth. Oh to keep them; how they gladdened all the path from day to day, What gay dreams we fashioned of them, as in rosy sleep they lay; How each broken word was welcomed, how each struggling thought was hailed, As each bark went floating seaward, love-be- decked and fancy-sailed! Gliding from our jealous watching, gliding from our clinging hold, Lo! the brave leaves bloom and burgeon; lo! the shy sweet buds unfold; Fast to lip, and cheek, and tresses steals the maidens bashful joy; Fast the frank bold mans assertion tones the accents of the boy. Neither love nor longing keeps them; soon in other shape than ours Those young hands will seize their weapons, build their castles, plant their flowers Soon a fresher hope will brighten the dear eyes we trained to see; Soon a closer love than ours in those waken- ing hearts will be. So it is, and well it is so; fast the river nears the main, Backward yearnings are but idle; dawning never glows again; Slow and sure the distance deepens, slow and sure the links are rent; Let us pluck our autumn roses, with their sober bloom content. All The Year Round. THE UNKNOWN DEITY. THERE stood an altar in a lonely wood, And over was a veiled deity, And no man dared to raise the veiling hood, Nor any knew what god they then should see. Yet many passed to gaze upon the thing, And all who passed did sacrifice and prayer, Lest the unknown, not rightly honouring, Some great god they should anger unaware. And each one thought this, hidden god was he Whom he desired in his most secret heart, And prayed for that he longed for most to be, Gifts that was no fixed godhead to impart. Nor prayed in vain, for prayers scarce breathed in word Were straight fulfilled, and every earthly bliss Showered down on men; till half the world had heard, And left all ancient gods to worship this. But Jove, in anger at his rites unpaid, Tore off the veil with one fierce tempest- breath, Lo! that to which all men their vows had made, Shuddering they saw was their fell foeman, Death. And all forgot the blessings they had had, And all forsook the kindly carven stone. Tis now a shapeless block; the Zephyrs sad None else their nightly prayers around it moan. Spectator. F. W. B. ON THE CLIFF. HALF down the cliff the pathway ends, The rocks grow steep and sheer; Hard by a sudden stream descends; From ledge to ledge with break and bends It dashes cool and clear. Across the bay green ripples flow In endless falls and swells; Clear shows the ribbed sea-flow below, And round dark rocks in whiteness glow Smooth sands of crisp~d shells. Foam-specks before the wind that glide, The sleeping sea-gulls float: Amid eves s crimson shadows wide, Rocked softly by the swaying tide, Yet safe as anchored boat. Their white and folded wings are laid On tides that change and flow; The daylight passes into shade; Yet calm they rest, and unafraid, Whateer may come and go. So safe, mid waste of waters wide, Below the darkening sky, So safe my heart and I may bide, Calm floating on times changeful tide, Beneath eternity. Chambers Jourail. MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 67 From The Contemporary Review. MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. No writer has aroused in his own time and within his own sphere a more positive interest than Mr. Browning. He has been sincerely loved and cor- dially disliked. For many persons, both men and women, his works have pos- sessed the support, the sympathy, and the suggestiveness of a secular Gospel; whilst with others they have become a bye-word for ambiguousness of thought and eccentricity of expression. He has been abundantly reviewed in each iso- lated poem; isolated aspects of his ge- nius have been strongly appreciated and even subtly defined; nevertheless, he has been writing for forty years, and the public are more than ever at issue con- cerning the fundamental conditions of his creative life ; the question is more than ever undecided whether he is what he professes to be, a poet, whose natural expression is verse, or what many be- lieve him to bea deep, subtle, and im- aginative thinker, who has chosen to write in verse. The fact is, perhaps, less strange than it appears. Either opinion may be sup- ported by reference to his writings whether either is absolutely true can only be discovered through a complete survey of them; and a survey complete enough for such a purpose is by no means easily obtained. Mr. Brownings collective writings are not too voluminous to be read, but their substance is too solid to be compressed into a written review, and with all its variety, too uniform for the species of classification by which review- ing is generally assisted. As a poet, he has had no visible growth; he displays no divisions into youth, manhood, and age; no phases particularly marked by the predominance of an aim, a manner, or a conviction. His genius is supposed to have reached its zenith in The Ring and the Book, because nothing he has written before or since has afforded so large an illustration of it, but we have no reason to believe that his writing it when he did, instead of before or afterwards, was due to anything but its external cause; and we might reverse the po sitions of Paracelsus and Fifine at the Fair, his first known and his latest original work, without disturbing any preconceived judgment of promise in the one or finality in the other. In their ac- tual relation, each appears in its right place. We see in Paracelsus the idealism of a young and lofty intelli- gence ; in Fifine the semi-material philosophy which comes of prolonged contact with life; but if Fifine had been written when its author was twenty- two, it would have seemed full of the sophistry of a youthful spirit, dazzled by the variety of life, and striving to com- bine incompatible enjoyments and to rec- oncile incompatible feelings. And if Paracelsus were published now, we should hail in it the final utterance of a mind wearied by its own eccentricities and giving in its solemn adherence to the time-honoured methods of human labour and human love. Fifine at the Fair exhibits one sign of a riper genius in the tone of satire which does not spare even itself ; but Paracelsus bears a stilL fuller stamp of maturity in its complete refinement of imagery and expression. It shows the tjuch of a master hand. We do not mean to assert that during Mr. Brownings long literary career the manner of his inspiration has undergone no change. It has changed so far, that if we compare the first twenty years with the last we shall find emotion predomi- nant inthe one period and reflection in the other; but reflection is considered to have acquired a morbid development in Sordello, and flashes of intense feeling occur even in the coldest of his later works. The change has been too gradual to draw a boundary line across any moment of his life; and though it is in the nature of things that a change so gradual should be permanent, there is something in Mr. Brownings nature which prevents our feeling it as such. It appears too restless to crystallize. To exist thus as a haunting presence inthe literary world, never old and never young, always distinctly self-asserting, never thoroughly defined, is to possess the prestige of mystery which Mr. Browning is by some persons wrongly 68 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. other creations of an equally esoteric kind, and in thought, though not in ex- pression, it is essentially a youthful work. It is the half-delirious self-reveal- ing of a soul maddened by continued in- trospection, by the irrepressible craving to extend its sphere of consciousness, and by the monstrosities of subjective experience in which this self-magnifying and self-distorting action has involved it. The sufferer tells his story to a woman who loves him, and to whom he has been always more or less worthily attached; and ends by gently raving himself into a rest which is represented as premonitory of death, and in which the image of a perfect human love rises amidst the tu- mult of the disordered brain, transfusing its chaotic emotions into one soft har- mony of life and hope. The same fun- damental idea recurs in Paracelsus, but in a more subdued and infinitely more objective form. We find there the same consciousness of intellectual pow- er, but with a stronger sense of respon- sibility; the same restless ambition, but directed towards a more definite and more unselfish end. There is also the same acceptance of love as the one saving re- ality of life, but the earthly adorer of Pauline has become the exponent of the heaven-born, universal love; and we shall see in one of Mr. Brownings more recent poems how the final expression of these two modes of feeling may be imaginatively resolved into one. Pau- line is strongly distinguished from its authors subsequent works by an exces- sive luxuriance of imagery, employed, not as the illustration of a distinct idea, but as the spontaneous embodiment of a complex and intense emotion. It resem- bles them in its very delicate and power- ful rendering of the passion of Love. One passage especially breathes a perfect aroma of tenderness supposed to covet; and it is precisely because we believe that he does not covet it, that his mysteriousness lies in no intentional involvement of his thoughts, but in the complex individuality which is probably, though in a different way, as mysterious to him as to us, that we do not think his literary reputation has much to gain by any possible solution of it. To those for whom he is a poet, he appeals in the manner of deep calling unto deep in that infinite sense of sym- pathetic existence which needs no ex- plaining; to those for whom he is not, his mode of self-manifestation will re- main uninteresting or obnoxious, what- ever its principles may be. But every writer has a certain number of responsi- ble critics whose function is not merely to endorse such impressions but to de- termine their causes and in some meas- ure to judge them. No true critic can dispense with all knowledge of the gene- sis of the ideas which he is called upon to judge ; and Mr. Brownings critics can be true neither to themselves nor to him till they have taken the evidence of his collective works on this one great ques- tion of what he is and ~vhat he has striven to do. We think that, if rightly ques- tioned, their answer will be unequivocal. We have said that Mr. Brownings genius had no perceptible growth, be- cause it was full-grown when first pre- sented to the world. This does not im- ply that it had no period of manifes,t be- coming; and there is evidence of such a phase in a fragment called Pauline, which became known much l~iter than his other works, but in the last edition of them occupies its proper place at the beginning. The difference of manner and conception which divides it from Paracelsus gives the rate of the prog- ress which carried him in three years from the one to the other, whilst the comparative cru4eness of the earlier I am ver weak poem affords a curious insight into the Y But what I would express is, Leave me not, yet seething elements of that almost co- Still sit by me with beating breast and hair lossal power. We cannot judge how far Loosened, be watching earnest by my side, Pauline was a deliberate product of Turning my books or kissing me when I the authors imagination or a sponta- Look up like summer wind! 13e still to me neous overflowing of poetic feeling; but A key ~o musics mystery when mind fails this does not affect its relation to his A reason, a solution, and a clue! MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. 69 The one quality of Mr. Brownings in- which they are intended to depict. Some tellectual nature which is at present most objection has been taken to the mise en universally recognized is its casuistry sc?ne of the monologue, and the introduc- his disposition to allow an excessive tion of the Lais of Leicester Square is, weight to the incidental conditions of hu- indeed, a violation of good taste which man action, and consequently to employ could only be accepted on the ground of sliding scales in the measurement of it. entire poetic fitness. But there is even The most remarkable evidence of this more than poetic fitness there is his.~ quality, supplied by his later works, is to toric truth in this ideal approximation of be found in Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan- the princely exponent of hand-to-mouth gau. It is displayed with more audacity existence to its typical embodiment in in Fifine at the Fair, with larger and the lowest social form. more sustained effect in The Ring and The Emperor is supposed to describe the Book. But Fifine at the Fair, or imagine the leading actions of his though very subjective in treatment, reign under three different aspectsas verges too much on the grotesque to be they appear in the light of his own con- accepted as a genuine reflection of the science, as they would have been if they authors mind ; and The Ring and the had conformed to a general rule of right, Book represents him as a pleader, but and as they must have appeared to those who measured them by such a rule. He begins by admitting and defending his wavering policy as dictated by the high- est expedience ; and then proceeds to enumerate the acts and motives which eulogistic historians of the Thiers and Hugo type would impute to him; oppos- ing to this ideal version step by step the rejected suggestions of sagacity, which depicts his actual thoughts and deeds in the obvious shallowness of their tempo- rizing worldly wisdom. The argument which occupies the first half of the book is an elaborate vindication of the policy of leaving things as they are, saving only such improvement as implies no radical change. A piece of paper lying close to the speakers hand supplies him with an illustration. The paper has two blots upon it, and he mechanically draws a line from one to the other; it does not occur to him to make a third, but it does occur to him to correct the two already made. That he does this and no more is typical of his conduct through life. He has not been gifted with the genius that could create, but he has been gifted with the sober intelligence which appreciates the risk of destroying. The great renewing changes of life are wrought by special agencies and under special conditions, as in the physical world New teeming growth, surprises of strange lif# Impossible before a world broke up at the same time as a judge. It de- scribes the case under discussion from every possible point of view, but does not describe it as subject to any possi- ble moral doubt. Prince Hohenstiel- Schwangauis a deliberate attempt on the authors part to defend a cause which he knows to be weak, and as such is a typi- cal specimen, as it is also a favourable one, of his genius for special pleading. It places in full relief the love of opposi- tion which impels him to defend the weaker side, and the love of fairness which always makes him subsume in the defence every argument that may be justly ad- vanced against it; and it also exhibits that double-refracting quality of his mind which can convert a final concession to the one side into an irresistible last word in favour of the other. It is unfortunate that a slight ambiguity in one or two pas- sages obscures the drift of the poem, and disinclines its readers for taking the other- wise small amount of trouble required for its comprehension, for this supposed solil- oquy of the ex-Emperor of the French is in every respect a striking expression of the non-pathetic side of its authors genius. Both narrative and argument have a coursing rapidity which rather fatigues the mind, but they are vivid, humorous, and picturesque, carry some serious thought in solution, and leave behind as their residue a distinct dramatic impres- sion of the easy-going Bohemianism 70 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. And re-made, order gained by law destroyed. Not otherwise in our society Follow like portents, all as absolute Regenerations: they have birth at rare, Uncertain, unexpected intervals 0 the world, by ministry impossible Before and after fulness of the days. And he is convinced that the highest wisdom of a non-inspired ruler is to assist those who are subject to his rule to live the life into which they were born, trusting to the deeper laws of existence to vindicate good through evil, and per- fection through imperfection. He too has recognized the destroying folly of sects and opinions; but he has seen that to suppress the one would be to give pre- dominance to the other, and has thought it best to leave truth to assert itself in the balance of error; he has thought society best saved by being left alone. He too has had dreams of a higher utility, dreams suggested by the -~ Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct, Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there, Imparting exultation to the hills! Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk, And waft my words above the grassy sea, Under the blinding blue that basks oer Rome, Hear ye not still Be Italy again? But with the time for action had come a new sense of responsibility; nearer duties to fulfil, more urgent needs to sat- isfy; mouths craving food, hands craving work, eyes that begged only for the light of life and he has worked first for these. In this strain he continues. It would be difficult to do a more equal justice than Mr. Browning has done to the abstract truth of the case, and to the concrete circumstances by which such truth might be suspended; nor could anything be more philosophical than his appreciation of the conditional nature of all earthly good, and the fruitlessness of Utopian attempts at reform. Neverthe- less, we scarcely ever feel during this first part of the book that we are stand- ing on quite firm ground. Its idea of preservation floats between that intelli- gent protection of an existing social or- der which strengthens the good and weakens the evil contained in it, and the mere laisser-faire, which implies no judgment on the present, and invites the deluge for the future; and the speaker nowhere clearly distinguishes the divine mission to work in a certain groove from the natural inclination to do so. It ap- pears to us that he defends from a reli- gious point of view ideas which are the natural outcome of an Atheistical philos- ophy; and it is the habit of thus inter- fusing confusing we cannot call it principles which other minds keep apart, or in strict subordination to each other, xvhich is so characteristic of Mr. Brown- ings reasonings upon life. At the end of the book he drops the balance alto- gether in an appeal, half playful, half pa- thetic, from the vanity of words to the incommunicable essence of individual truth. Bishop Blougrams Apology is still more sophistical in tone, and though the author represents it in his conclusion as a possible course of argument rather than a just one, it leaves a certain misgiving as to the extent to which he endorses it. It would not be necessary to adduce this monologue in support of the impression conveyed by that of Prince Hohenstiel- Schwangau, but that it derives a fresh significance from its much earlier date, which proves the co-existence of this casuistic mood xvith the most poetic phase of its authors imaginative life. The Bishop excuses himself for having accepted the honours and emoluments of a Church of which he does not fully be- lieve the doctrines, on the plea that dis- belief is of its nature as hypothetical as belief, and that it must be not only wise but right to give oneself both temporally and spiritually the benefit of the doubt. He does not say, My belief is too nega- tive to justify me in renouncing the power for good which I derive from the appear- ance of belief; or too negative to give me the courage to renounce the good it affords to myself. But he implicitly says, I am not gifted with positive opin- ions; I am gifted xv ith a positive appre- ciation of the refinements of life and a positive desire for them. I am clearly violating the intentions of Providence if, whilst rejecting a possible truth, I refuse to the one part of my nature that for which I can find no compensation in the other. This palpable confusing of belief with conformity, the higher wisdom with common expediency, worldly profit with spiritual gain, scarcely provokes discus- sion; and Mr. Brownings concluding lines appear at first sight to value such reasoning at its worth; but we cannot overlook the fact that, while he has put sound objections into the mouth of the Bishops opponent, he considers the Bish- ops unsound arguments to have been a MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 71 match for them; and the tone of the in some measure, the equal justification whole discussion implies at least tolera- of the varied possibilities of life. Mr. tion of the theory that temporal good and Browning considers all things as good in spiritual gain are not disparate ideas, but their way. The more familiar aspects of different aspects of one and the same. this idea are illustrated in the Introduc- There is one poetical passage in this tion to The Ring and the Book, in a tissue of sophistry, and one true one passage which gives also some insight that which asserts the frequent shallow- into the natural connection between the ness of religious unbelief : authors esthetic. impressions of exist- ence and his moral judgments upon it. Just when we are safest, theres a sunset touch, A fancy from a flower bell, some ones death, A Chorus ending from Euripides, And thats enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as Natures self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol on his base again, The grand Perhaps! Rather learn and love Each facet-flash of the revolving year ! Red, green, and blue that whirl into a white, The variance now, the eventual unity, Which make the miracle. See it for your- selves This mans act, changeable because alive! Action now shrouds, now shows the informing thought; Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top, Out of the magic fire that lurks inside, Shows one tint at a time to take the eye: Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep, Shifted a hairs breadth shoots you dark for bright, Suffuses bright with dark, and baffles so Your sentence absolute for shine or shade. The author takes no account of the many minds in which the disbelief in certain things has assumed the positive character of belief, but .his lines are a noble tribute to the tenacity of religious association, even where regret for the displaced idol has no longer power to re- instate it. If we observe the variety of specula- The empirical morality which recoin tive opinion to which Mr. Browning con- mends itself to so many less religious siders all questions of human conduct to minds is the more remote from his con- be subject, together with the frequent ception that he cannot accept the great- reference in his works to a Supreme est happiness standard on which it is Being in whose will alone lies the absolute based. An objective standard of happi- solution of such questions, we cannot ness derived from the natural exercise of avoid the inference that the religious natural human activities is as unmeaning sense is far stronger in him than the moral to him as a natural morality to be discov- sense. It is evident at least that his mind ered in the balance of them; and as naturally subordinates the general laws of little as he accepts the greatest happiness morality to the specialities of circum- test of the truth of a philosophic belief,, stance, and to a feeling of the distinc- so little would he recognize a general tive position of every human soul. This misery proof of the non-existence of God belief in a special and continuous relation or his malevolence. Happiness, is with of the human and the divine, or simply in him something eminently subjective; as special Providence, is the mainspring of far as possible removed from a net result his religious writings, and sceptic as he of determinable conditions; to be defined is, the material mysticism of Low Church in its permanent form as a courageous Christianity has seldom found amongst struggling between aspiration and circiim its own disciples a more faithful and ear- stance ; in its more intense expression as nest exponent. But Christianity is based a fugitive, balance of the two. He rejects4 upon a revelation which he does not pro- every enjoyment that brings with it a fess to acknowledge, and whilst the exist- sense of finality as the negation of all ence and omnipresence of God are proved spiritual and intellectual life. Be our to him by the nature of things, he recog- joys three parts pain, says his Rabbi nizes in nature no distinct expression of ben Ezra. In one of the religious poems,, His will. It is easy, therefore, to con- Easter Day, are the lines : ceive that to a mind at once so sensuous and so poetic, so strongly impressed with How dreadful to be grudged between the lowest expe- No ease henceforth, as one thats judged the connection Condemned to earth forever, shut riences and the highest consciousness of From Heaven! humanity, sanction will appear every where stronger than prohibition, and the Every serious ,expression of Mr very belief in a divine ordaining become, Brownings casuistry appears to point to. 72 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. some singular union of belief in the sub- warmth of its affections would belie the ~ectivity of all feeling and conviction indifferentism of its ideas, and we con- with that belief in transcendent existence stantly find it to be so. An innate yen- which always implies the recognition of eration for moral beauty, of which we fixed standards of truth; and this double find scarcely any trace in his philoso- point of view is so frankly assumed in phizing poems, asserts itself in all those Fifine at the Fair as to give to that of a more emotional character, and so va- eminently fantastic poem a philosophical rious is his mode of self-manifestation significance which its more serious prede- that the evidence contained in his col- cessors do not possess. Its sensualistic lective works of his belief in the neces- conceptions are expressed with the great- sary relativity of judgment is not a whit est poetic power, but it asserts with equal stronger than their indirect advocacy of distinctness the material unity of con- courage, devotion, singleness of heart sciousness and the separate existence of in short, of all the virtues which are born the soul; and though both ideas may be of conviction. His imagination is keenly reconciled by a religious theory of crea- alive to every condition of love; but its tion, Mr. Browning cannot deny that in deepest and most passionate response is accepting the one he cuts away all rational always yielded to that form of tenderness foundation from the other. The morality ~vbich by its disinterested nature most of Fifine at the Fair would be even approaches to the received ideal of the more eccentric than its philosophy, but Divine. This feeling attains its highest that its reasonings are neutralized in this expression in Saul, where the anthro- direction by the dramatic impulse under pomorphism so often apparent in the which they were carried out; whether or authors conception of God is justified by not the author intended it so. The lead- historic truth and ennobled by a sus- ing figure of the poem is a hard-working tamed intensity of lyric emotidn which social outcast, whom the author had prob- has been rarely equalled and probably ably seen, and who appears to have sug- never surpassed. It is the outpouring of gested to him some idea of the virtues a passionate human friendship gradually which reside in self-sustainment and of a raised by its own strength to the pre- moral good that may come of immorality, sentiment of a divine love manifest in the and the whole resolves itself into a series flesh, and to which in its final ecstasy .of speculations on the precise mixing of the very life of nature becomes the rthe fruits of experience that may best throbbing of a mysterious and expectant ~conduce to the higher nourishment of the joy. The love of love is the prevailing soul. These questionings assume the inspiration of all such of Mr. Brownings form of a battle within the heros mind poems as even trench on religious sub- ibetween Fifine, the vagrant, and Elvire, jects, and it often resolves itself into so the symbol of domestic love, and unfor- earnest a plea for the divine nature and ~tunately the one is conceived as an mdi- atoning mission of Christ, that we can ~vidual, the other only as a type. Elvire scarcely retain the cQnviction that it is is invested in the beginning with enough his heart, and not his mind, which ac- of the substance of a loving and lovable cepts it. His romance of Christmas wife to give prominence to her husbands Eve presents itself as a genuine con- arguments in favour of an occasional fession of Christian doctrine, and the Fifine; but as the story advances, and its poet is at least speaking in his own fundamental mood becomes more pro- name, when he judges the German nounced, she fades into a pallid embodi- philosopher who has discarded the doc- ment of mild satisfaction and monotonous trine as still subject to its hopes and duty, and by the time Mr. Browning has fears. Nevertheless, the poem proves brought her and her companion back to nothing more than a sympathetic adop- their villa-door, he cannot resist the de- tion of a certain point of view, and a light of making her the subject of a trick speculative desire to reason it out; and which his sense of justice sufficiently dis- as illogical as we must regard its attack on kclaims to make him display it in all its the consistent non-believer, so unanswer- heartlessness. His Don Juan proves, in able appears to us the conviction it ex- spite of himself, that in individual life presses of the religious uselessness of disorder does not naturally lead to order, any conception of Christ falling short of nor a simply erratic fancy rise to the ab- literal belief. Christmas Eve is in stractions of universal love, every respect a striking manifestation of We should naturally infer, from the Mr. Brownings muse, for it combines, as temper of Mr. Brownings mind, that the does also its companion poem, his most MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. 73 earnest continuousness of thought with part the expression of an idea more en- his most deliberate abruptness of ex- tirely Mr. Brownings own the idea of pression. Its ideas and images succeed the religious necessity of doubt. He each other with the jolting rapidity of enters with considerable subtlety into the categorical enumeration, and though this difficulties and conditions of belief, and manner is well calculated to convey the proves, it appears to us with complete rugged realities of a Dissenters meeting, success, that an unqualified faith would it is singularly discordant with the im defeat its ovn ends, neutralizing the ex- pressions of the abating storm and of periences of the earthly existence by an the lunar rainbow, flinging its double overwhelming interest in the heavenly, arch across the silent glories of the and that a state of expectancy equally re- night; and with the gradual exaltation of moved from the calmness of scientific soul and sense, in which the speaker conviction, and the indifference of sci- finally realizes the actual presence of entific disbelief, is the essence of spirit- Christ. ual life. We follow this doctrine with Mr. Browning is supposed to be taking the more interest from its congeniality to refuge within the outer door of a Dissent- our prevailing impression of Mr. Brown- ing chapel on a rainy evening just as the ings mind; we know how dear to his service is going to begin. The congre- imagination are the shifting lights, the gation, recruited from the slums of the varied groupings, the curiously blended neighbouring town, are hurrying in one contrasts of subjective experience; how by one. The porch is four feet by two, habitually it recoils from the rigidity of the mat is soaked, every new-corner who every external standard of truth; and in edges past flings a reproachful glance at this implied declaration that he adores in the intruder; the flame of the one tallow the possible Saviour rather the mystery candle shoots a fresh grimace at him at and the message of love than the reveal- every opening of the door. He thinks ing of an articulate Will, we see also the he had better go in; but within there are reserve under which his most dramatic smells and noises; the priest is all rant- defence of Christian orthodoxy must ing irreverence, the flock all snuffling have been conceived. Easter Day~ self-satisfaction; and in a. very short resolves itself into a Vision of Judgment, time he plunges out into the pure air in which the man who has been blind to again. Alone, in the silent night, the the workings of the spirit in the intellect spirit of his dream changes: Christ and in the flesh is threatened with spirit- stands before him; repentant and be- ual death; he awakens to a grateful con- seeching he clings to the hem. of His sciousness that this terrible doom has garment, and is wafted first to St. Peters not gone out against him, that he may at Rome, where religion is smothered in still go through the world ceremonial, and next to the lecture-room Try, prove, reject, prefer; of a German philosopher, where it is reasoned away by the received methods still struoole to effect his warfare. of historical criticism, and after following In speaking of the religious poems, we through a long course of reflection the cannot leave unnoticed A Death in the successive phases of religious belief, he Desert, the finest of the Dramatis arrives at the certainty that, however Person~. St. John the Evangelist has confused be the vision of Christ, where fled from persecution into a cavern of the His love is, there is the Life, and that desert, and there for sixty days been at the more direct the revelation of that the point of death; but the care of the Love the deeper and more vital its power, Disciples has restored to him for a short .and he awakens in the chapel, which space the power of speech, and in a su- he had only left in a dream, with a quick- preme effort of the expiring soul, he bears ened sense of the presence among its witness to the presence of the revealed humble inmates of a transforming spirit- Love and to the coming reign of Doubt, ual joy, and a more patient appreciation through which its deeper purposes shall of the coarse medium of expression be attained. This slow and solemn ex- through which it finds its way to their tinction of the last living testimony to the souls. mysterious truth already fading beneath The originality of the thoughts con- the hand of time, brooded over by the si- tamed in this poem lies entirely in their lence of the desert, yet sustained by the minor developments, which s~ bare an tender reverence of those who watch at outline cannot even suggest; but Easter the head and feet and on either side of Day, which forms the sequel to it, is in the dying man, fanning the smouldering 74 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. life into its last brief outburst of pro- phetic flame, forms a strangely impressive picture ; and some of the lines, in which the poet has expressed the clairvoyance of approaching death, have a very noble and pathetic beauty I see you stand conversing, each new face Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, Or islets yet unnamed amid the sea; Or pace for shelter neath a portico Out of the crowd in some enormous town, Where now the lark sings in a solitude; Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand, Idly conjectured to he Ephesus: And no one asks his fellow any more Where is the promise of his coming? But Was he revealed in any of His Jives; As power, as love, as influencing soul? Setting aside the points on which it necessarily reflects the common ideas of Theism, or the common experience of ra- tional minds, it appears to us not only that Mr. Brownings conception of the ~sthetic and religious life is essentially imaginative and poetical, but that the analyzing tendency which is so disturbing an element in his poetic genius is itself overborne and even conditioned by it; that his writings, if not always inspired by poetic emotion, are invariably marked by that conception of life which distinguishes a poet from a pure thinker. A thinker, as such, will always elimi- nate what is secondary or incidental from his general statement of a case. With Mr. Browning, thus to simplify a ques- tion is to destroy it. The thinker merges the particular in the general; Mr. Brown- ing only recognizes the general under the conditions of the particular. The thinker sees unity in complexity; Mr. Browning is always haunted by the complexity of unity. It is true that a specious rea- soner is often a narrow one, and that an excess of imagination is considered sy- nonymous with a deficiency of logic. But we cannot impute narrowness of mind to one whose imaginative powers are coex- tensive with life ; and Mr Brownino-s logical subtlety needs no vindicatio~i; that it rather works in a circle than towards any definite issue is the strongest negative proof of the presence of an op- posing activity, and we believe that noth- ing short of a profound poetic bias could possess such a power of opposition. The dominant impression that all truth is a question of circumstance, and conse- quently all picturesque force a question of detail, explains Mr. Brownings every peculiarity of form and conception. It explains more or less directly everything that charms us in his writings and every- thing that repels us. His minutest works no less than the greatest, are each marked by a separate unity of image or idea, but this unity is the result of a multitude of details, no one of which can be isolated or suppressed. He evidently imitates the processes of nature, and strives at unity of effect through variety of means; and the principle is no doubt a sound one; but there is in his department of art a manifest obstacle to its application. He sees as a group of ideas what he can of- ten only express as a series, and however he may endeavour to subordinate the parts to the whole, it is almost impossi- ble that in his argumentative monologues he should always succeed in doing so; we do not think he does always succeed. Every successive reading of these works brings us nearer to their central inspira- tion, gives greater prominence to their leading idea, a more just subordination to their details; but we do not catch the inspiration at once, and it is natural that the minor facts and thoughts which its warmth has so closely transfused within the authors mind should drag themselves out in ours to a somewhat disjointed length, that the variety of proof should somewhat obscure the thing it is intended to prove. This minute elaboration of his ideas has done much, we are convinced, towards giving to Mr. Browning his rep- utation for the opposite defect of indis- tinctness in the statement of them. It is easy to mistake a strain on the attention for a strain on the understanding, and in his case the strain on the attention is the greater that, whilst he never condenses his thoughts, he habitually condenses his expression, and thus conveys to much of his argumentative writing the combined effect of abruptness and length. It is just to admit that, most of all on these occasions he stimulates his readers mind, lashing it up to its task with the exhilarating energy of a March wind, but the sense of being driven against an obstacle generally remains. We have the wind in our teeth. From the same intellectual source arises the deeper sense of remoteness which he is so often said to convey. He never employs an ill-defined idea, or a vague or abstruse expression; but his belief in the complexity of apparently simple facts constantly shows itself in the forcing them into new relations, or extracting from them fresh results ; and for one person who is capable of follow- ing out an abnormal process of thought, MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 75 and recognizing its individual value and as well as its actual antecedents, and its relative truth, there are a hundred, writing out the deed . in the completed not wanting in intellectual gifts, to whom thought, which might impart to it a higher it will remain unintelligible or unreal. significance. His stand once taken Proportionably great is the success of within the mans mind, his habitual real- this realistic mode of treatment with all ism asserts itself, and he shows us by subjects of a pictorial or dramatic nature. how simple a chain of every-day expe- The beauties of most of Mr. Brownings rience the human spirit may be raised to minor poems are generally known and the white heat of a supreme emotion. appreciated, and it would be difficult to Setting aside the minor question of its make a just selection from the great num- perfect artistic consistency, we need only ber of those which convey an idea, an compare this monologue, in which image, or an emotion, through a succes- thought, anxious and intense, is slowly sion of minute touches, each in itself a quivering into deed, with the finest pas- triumph of vivid fancy or incisive obser- sages of Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan- vation. The colossal power of The ~auto feel how necessary is an emo- Ring and the Book lies less in the. ex- tional, and therefore a poetic subject, to posure of the various lights in which the the thorough display of Mr. Brownings same action may be regarded by a diver- genius. In no other is it just to itself. sity of minds, than in the authors un- Philosophic discussions, which are main- limited imaginative command of the ly intended to prove the infinite refrangi- minor circumstances and associations bility of truth, must sacrifice breadth to which individualize the same action for subtlety, and the large insight on which different minds. Red-cotton Night- they are based has its only adequate ex- cap Country exhibits, on a smaller scale, pression in the full creativeness of poetic the value of descriptive minuti~ in pro- life. It is not as the idle sin crer of an ducing a general effect; and though the empty day, but it is as poet in the deep- poet in this case has had to deal with est sense of the word, that he has stirred ready-made personages and events, he the sympathies and stimulated the thought retains the credit of having recognized of the men and women of his generation~ their artistic capabilities and done justice It is of course one thing to accept this to them. He has not only presented to view of the essential quality of Mr. us the fact that a tragical eruption took Brownings inspiration, and another to place in the midst of an apparently peace- place him in any known category of po ful atmosphere, but by dwelling on the etic art; and the place he claims for him- smallest details of its repose he has creat- self as dramatic poet is open to dispute ed the idea of the calm which invites if we accept the word Drama in the usual the storm, and the mental stagnation in sense of a thing enacted rather than which passions once aroused rage unre- thought out. He has written few plays; sisted. The story is told in a succession in the last, and not least remarkable of of genre pictures, and it is through the these, thought already preponderates realistic accumulation of detail that we over action, and the increasing tendency gather the ideal force of its catastrophe. of his so-called dramatic poems to ex- In the monologue on the Tower, Mr. hibit character in the condition of mo- Browning has reversed the method, tive, excludes them from any definition which he pursues with unimportant ex- of dramatic art which implies the pre- ceptions throughout the narrative, of senting it in the form of act; but he is presenting its incidents as an ordinary a dramatic writer in this essential re- human witness would conceive them; spect, that his studies of thought and and though we cannot desire to see feeling invariably assume a concrete and omitted that part of the poem which con- individual form, and the reproach which tains almost all its pathos and some of has been so often addressed to him of its finest poetry, we think that if he had making his personages, under a slight aimed at mere dramatic effect he would disguise, so many repetitions of himself, have omitted it. He would have left to appears to us doubly unfounded. He is fancy, speculation, and the balance of always himself, in so far that his mode of probabilities, what real life could explain conception is recognizable in everything in no other way; as it is, he has given to that he writes. But there never was a Mellerios death the dramatic force of a great artist with whom it was not so. prolonged preparation and a sudden ful- Nobody cavils at the fact that Shake- filment, but he could not resist the spec- speare is always Shakespeare, or that Sir ulative pleasure of retracing its mental Joshua Reynoldss most lifelike portraits 76 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. are conceived in a manner which stamps them unmistakably as his; and it is a truism to repeat that it is precisely this subjective conception of the idea to be treated which insures the vitality of the treatment, and which distinguishes the artistic reproduction of nature from a vulgar or lifeless copying of it. Mr. Browning has, it is true, a verbal language of his own, which is distinct from this finer manifestation of himself a compound of colloquialisms half ec- centric and half familiar, which must be congenial to him, first, because he has created it, and secondly, because he ap- parently makes opportunities for its em- ployment. It has its strongest expres- sion in parts of The Ring and the Book, to which it gives a flavour of me- dkeval coarseness not always inappropri- but always unpleasing; and we find ate, in a modified form wherever he is either arguing or narrating from a point of view which we may imagine to be his own; but he never attributes this lan- guage to any person who would be by nature unlikely to use it. It is spoken in The Ring and the Book by the Roman lawyer and the Roman gossip, but it is not spoken by Pompilia in the outpourings of her pure young soul; nor by Capon Sacchi as. he relates his first meeting with her, and the succes- sive experiences which reveal to him, as in the vision of a dream, the depth, the pathos, and the poetry of life; nor by the Pope, as he ponders in solemn seclu- sion the precarious chances of human justice and the overwhelming obligations of eternal truth. Mr. Browning does not speak it himself, when he tells us how he stood in the balcony of Casa Guidi on one black summer night, a busy human sense beneath his feet ; above the si- lent lightnings dropping from cloud to cloud, and with his bodily eyes strained towards Arezzo and Rome, and his mental vision towards that long past Christmas Day, saw the course of the Francheschini tragedy unroll before him. To every actor in this tragedy he has restored his distinctive existence, and not the least individual amongst them is the man in whom he has most strongly caricatured his own caprices of expression Don Hyacinthus de Archangelis. lie is so unpleasantly real, that, whilst we cannot imagine the his tory of the case as com- plete without a statement of the legal fictions that were brought to bear upon ~t, we scarcely understand Mr. Brown- ings impulse to clothe a mere represen tative of legal fiction in this very mate. rial form. We can only imagine that in his strong appreciation of the natural un- fitness of things, he has found a fantas- tic pleasure in identifying the cause of the saturnine murderer with this kindly- natured old glutton, whose intellect elab- orates the iniquities of the defence, whilst his whole consciousness is satu- rated with the anticipation of dinner, and the thought of the little fat son whose birth-day feast is to be held. The hu- manity of the characters in The Ring and the Book has, in fact, never been questioned, nor could we do more than allude to it in so merely suggestive a sur- vey of the authors works; hut we think there is one part of this extraordinary composition the dramatic importance & f which has been somewhat overlooked Count Guidos second speech. We might say its artistic importance, because this expression of the central figure of the poem gives to its wide-spreading structure a support which nothino- else could give it; but it is the triumph of Mr. Brownings dramatic inspiration to have felt that this man alone was talking behind a mask; and that the mask must be torn off; and to have restored even to this villain in the torments of his last hour, in the hope which sickened into despair, and the despair which ran through every phase of rage, scor n,and entreaty, the sympathy which life even in its worst form commands from life. The concluding cry, Pompilia, will you let theni murder me? has an almost terrifying power. Not only are Mr. Brownings men anti women complete after their kind ; but as we have already said, he has impressed the fulness of individual character even on his descriptions of isolated mental states. Bishop Blougram has a quite different personality from the Legate Ogniben, though both are easy-going Churchmen, and one probably as con- vinced as the other that life in the flesh was given us to be enjoyed. Both are distinct from Fra Lippo Lippi, and all are equally so from the Bishop who is ordering his tomb in St. Praxeds Church. Lippi is the most original of the four, in his mingled. candour and cunning, his joyous worship of natural beauty, and his sensuality, as simple and shameless as that of a heathen god. But the last- mentioned Bishop is a mixed product of nature and circumstance, and as such even~ more powerfully conceived. He is MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. 77 not a genial satirist like the Legate, nor an artistic enthusiast like Lippi, nor a combination of cynic, sophist, and epi- curian like Bishop Blougram; but a childish, irascible old man, with a con- science blunted by self-indulgence, and a mind warped by a life-long imprisonment in ceremonial religionism; a scholar, a sensualist, and, in his own narrow way, the greatest pagan of them all. As Mr. Browning depicts him, he is lying very near his end, curiously imagining that he and his bed-clothes are turninb~ to stone, and he is becoming his own ef- figy and as fitful recollections of his past life blend with the thought of death and the presentiment of monumental state, all the luxurious materialism that is in him becomes centred in the details of his tomb the gorgeous aggregation of basalt and jasper, and warmly tinted marbles, beneath which he shall lie through coming ages, in a semi-carnal repose, nourished by low sounds ~nd heavy perfumes, and quickened by the triumphant sense that the Gandolf who envied him his Love in life, lies en- vying his magnificence in death. There is something grotesquely pathetic in his petulant entreaties to the sons who in- herit his wealth,.to impose no stint on that magnificence; aboye all, not to defraud it of the lump of lapis-lazuli of which he robbed the Church for that very pur- pose, and in the final surrender to the in- evitable Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there; But in a row; and going turn your backs Ay, like departing altar ministrants, And leave me in my Church, the Church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers Old Gandolf at me, from his onion stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was! Cleons lament for the largeness of hu- man aspirations, and the limitations of hu- man existence so eloquently-resumed in the one line, It skills not, lifes inade- quate to joy, conveys the whole image of the pagan artist and philosopher, the man eager for knowledge, but more eager for happiness who rejects the immor- tality of his works as consolation for his own mortality, and deprecates all fame and power and learning that cannot con- tribute to the conscious fulness of life. Andrea del Sartos whole life and charac- ter are embodied in the address to his wife, You beautiful Lucrezia, that are mine. In the exquisite and mournful tenderness which at once acknowledges and deplores his degrading love for an unworthy woman, the letter of Karshish, the Arab physician, represents the most interesting phase of the scientific mind, with a moral individuality peculiar to the man. Karshish is travelling through Palestine and discovering new physical products, new diseases, and new cures, but he has also seen Lazarus after his re- ported raising from the dead, and his im- agination is haunted by the mental trans- figuration of the man, who in his own belief has brought back into time eyes that have looked upon eternity. He con- demns the Legend with scientific convic- tion, and yet dwells on it with a mysteri- ous awe ; then suddenly checks himself in words which contain the very climax of the idea of the poem Why write of trivial matters, things of price, Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool Blue-flowering Borage, the Aleppo sort Aboundeth, very nitrous. Mr. Browning has felt kindly towards the earnest seeker for truth, or he would more distinctly have satirized this in- verted reflection of the relative greatness of things. Caliban, in his musings upon Setebos, is an inimitable,portraitof the sly, greedy, cowardly, imperturbably practical mon- ster he is supposed to be. He is pictur- esquely introduced as saying to him- self: Will sprawl now that the heat of day is best Flat on his belly in the pits much mire With elbows wide, fi~ts clenched to prop his chin. And being thus both comfortable and secluded, he betakes himself to specula- tion on the nature and origii~ of things. The system which he evolves combines the heretical idea of a secondary creator or demi-urgos with a perfectly Christian anthropomorphism; but he is too great a philosopher to accept the common teleo- logical alternative of a divinity who is in his large way an entirely good man, or an entirely bad one; his system is, in fact, quite 1 priori and unencumbered by evidence of any definite creative purpose whatsoever. -He imagines that Setebos - being by his nature excluded from bodily pains and pleasures, may have liked to give himself the spectacle of things which felt them, may alternately be moved to satisfaction at his work, and to jealousy of those reflected powers in which his creatures, by reason of their very limita 78 MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. tions, surpass himself, and will make or mar, help or hinder, according to the mood which is upon him. If he is ever acces- sible to a motive beyond the natural im- pulse to do anything that you happen to have strength for, it will probably be jealousy, and Caliban reminds himself that, with an instinctive appreciation of this condition of the creative mind, he habitually suppresses in his own life all appearance of prosperity; only dances on dark nights, and howls and groans when he is in the sun. He tests these various propositions by references to his own experience, and finds them borne out. Nevertheless, he votes Setebos a nui- sance, and hopes that some day he may fall asicep for good, or be absorbed into those colder and more inactive regions of existence which constitute the atmosphere of the Moon. Mr. Browning has no Caliban amongst his women, but his female studies are almost as various as his studies of men. Pompilia, in her exquisite combination of guileless girlhood and perfect maternity the queen, in the poem entitled In a Balcony, drag~ ing through a hopeless existence the full-grown burden of a passionate and lonely heart the South- ern-blooded heroine of the Laboratory, watching the preparation of the poison which is to oestroy her rival with a fierce, eager delight, half-childish, half-demoni- acal the sensitive, intellectual intro- spective James Lee.~ Wife, are all so many palpable and distinct creations. Amongst the Dramas, we find two which detach themselves from the rest as possessing remarkable dramatic qualities, but failing, more or less definably, to real- ize the exact conditions of a Drama. The earlier of these Pippa Passes is rather a philosophic romance, since its various scenes are imagined in illustra- tion of a given iJea and have scarcely any connection beyond their common relation to it. It wants the coherent interes.t of a play. We have, however, the full benefit of this loose adjustment of parts in the latitude which it gives to the authors im- agination; and except in his poem of Women and Roses, its realism has no- where so nearly assumed the fantastic richness and haunting intensity of a dream. The slight extravagance of genius which characterizes Pippa Pass- es might mark it, if Mr. Brownings works admitted of being so marked, as one of his earlier productions ; but there is full-grown dramatic power in its vivid-1 ness of personation, depth of humour, and the sense of contrast which is with him so unfailing anelementof expressive force, and which could scarcely be more forcibly expressed than in the approxima- tion of Pippas sparkling innocence to the lurid flashings of Ottimas impassioned soul. The idea of the poem is the de- pendence of the greatest events on the minutest causes, or the most prominent on the most obscure, and it would have been sufficient to sustain a larger and more complicated work, because its value is essentially dramatic. The philosophic importance of the fact which it represents lies in the force of predisposing condi- tions ; and for this reason the objection which has been raised to the effect of Pippas songs, that they are too insignifi- cant to justify it, appears to us of all ob- jections the most unfounded. This com- parative insignificance was needed to show at how slight or indirect a touch a long train of feeling will occasionally cul- minate or collapse. The little singer her- self, in her happy combination of gentle birth and plebeian breeding, of sturdy in- dependence and innocent trust, possesses quite enough individuality to exercise a more direct influence, if such were re- quired. Pippas day is an idyll in itself, and its picturesque distinctness gives at least an artistic unity to its straggling events. We see it stride in, in trium- phant joyousness, in the lines Day! Faster and more fast, Oer nights brim, day boils at last. And we hear the little holiday-maker bemoan its gloomy close as she lies down to rest sighing out a vague mental weari- ness, which app~ars to us at once a natu- ral result of the unaccustomed idleness and a mysterious reflection of the unseen shadows that have encompassed her. The entire poem is written in alternate prose and verse, and is as fitful in ex- pression as in fancy, but there is a play- ful grace in parts of Pippas soliloquy which Mr. Browning has nowhere sur- passed. And magnificence of imagery can rise no higher than in Ottimas words to her lover Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; And ever and anon some bright white shaft Burned thro the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, As if Gods messenger thro the close wood screen Plunged and replunged his weapon at a ven- ture, MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. Feeling for guilty thee and me; then broke The thunder like a whole sea overhead The Souls Tragedy, composed five years later than Pippa Passes, is more strictly dramatic in form, and its princi- pal personage, the Legate Ogniben, who trots into the insurgent town humming Cur fremuere gentes, with the evident feeling of having anurseryfullof chil- dren to slap and put to bed, is Qne of Mr. Brownings most delightful creations, both as an individual and a type; but it is no less intellectual in motive, and in its own way no less fantastic in conception. Its two acts entitled, one The Prose, the other The Poetry, of Chiappinos Life, exhibit with great force and sub- tlety, two opposite moral states and their natural connection with each other a sudden inspiration to virtue, and a grad- ual relapse from it. But the second phase becomes chiefly known to us through the interposition of the Legate, who humours and then exposes Chiap- pinos weakness, in order to make him the more ashamed; and his discussing of the question tends to merge it so entirely in a comic philosophy of life, that all its seriousness disappears. It turns out that no real harm has been done, every one slips into his right place, Chiappino is in- vited to seclude himself for a short time, and as the Legate and his mule trot out again we ask ourselves whether we are intended to recognize in this double epi- sode the lasting tragedy or the mere tem- porary mishap of a human soul. We think Mr. Browning meant to be tragical, but as all extremes of feeling are nearly allied, the spirit of fun got the better of him, and if we dared look for anything like internal significance in the caprices of dramatic inspiration, there would be considerable significance in the fact, that the keenest satire of this play is directed against casuistry, though. perhaps of a coarser kind than that which its author has elsewhere displayed. The exclusion of these two irregular compositions from the list of Mr. Brown- ings dramas, reduces their number to six; a number too small to be in itself a proof of any decided impulse towards that kind of production; and knowing as we do that in his later studies of life the in- terest of action is entirely subordinated to the importance of thought, we are tempted to attach a perhaps undue sig7 nificance to the deep reflectiveness of Luria, and to the fact that the Souls Tragedy, which is full of intention, ap 79 peared immediately before it. Purely ex- ternal circumstances may, however, have induced Mr. Browning to leave off writ- ing for the stage, and the question to be determined is, not why he produced no greater number of plays, but whether those which he did produce bear witness to a depth and breadth of dramatic in- spiration sufficient for a larger result. It appears to us that they do. The one de- fect which may possibly be urged against them is that their action is occasionally hurried insuffici~ntly prepared by those minor developments of purpose and inci- dent which break the shock of a catas- trophe, and yet add to its power. We notice this in some degree in S trafford, more still in The Blot in the Scutcheon, most of all in King Victor and King Charles, where for want of this. kind of padding the main outlines of the situation are sometimes indistinct ; but in this par- ticular case the author may have been hampered by the scantiness of historic material. In no case have we reason to attribute the sketchiness of execution to any haste or immaturity of design. Ma- turity of design is in fact the primary characteristic of Mr. Brownings Plays. Every actor in them reveals his character as far as this is possible in his first words; their action is invariably fore- shadowed in the first scene; and we may add that, however intricate it may be- come, and in The Return of the Druses it is notably so, its dramatic unity remains unbroken. Next to the vividness of Mr. Brown- ings dramatic conception, we remark its pathos; a pathos equally removed from sentimentality and from passion, and which is never morbid nor excessive, but always penetrating and profound. We find this tenderness of emotion in the very earliest of his dramatic works ; and the time of its appearance makes it the more striking. Mere passion or senti- ment is not unnatural to youth, because either may be the assertion of a still un- disciplined self ; but tenderness is the finer essence which is only crushed out of it by the continued bruisings of life. Mr. Browning must have known passion, but he cannot have known tenderness at the age at which he wrote Strafford. Barely, perhaps, when he wrote the Blot on the Scutcheon. That he has coh- ceived as a poet what he cannot have ex- perienced as a man creates for his writ- ings an indisputable claim to the high places of dramatic art.* Lastly, his half * It has been said on a former occasion that Mr. So MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. dozen tragedies are all distinctly unlike each other, as a slight sketch of them may be sufficient to prove. The first of them, Strafford, is hi~- torical in the full sense of the word, though its best known incidents are so vividly conceived that they have almost the force of novelty. Its main interest is centred in the character of Strafford and his relation to the King, and the young poet has displayed a peculiar sympathy for this proud, sensitive, and impatient man, who recoiled from every proof of his masters treachery to himself, and yet anticipated its worst results in a scarcely interrupted flow of tender, self-sacrificing pity. The scene in the prison affords the strongest illustration of the nature and extent of this devotion. Charles, in dis- guise, accompanies Holles to the pres- ence of Strafford to announce to him the judgment for which a lingering belief in the Kings sincerity had left him unpre- pared. He refuses at first to believe in it, but as the Kings emotion gradually reveals his identity, and as HoIles com- pletes the avowal by the solemn adjura- tion to him about to die Be merciful to this most wretched man! the deep spring of pitying love well again, and he forgets h sup is own grievous wrong in the yearning to comfort and protect the weakness that could inflict it. His whole affection for the man is in the words which so powerfully attest his utter worthlessness. STRAFFORD. Youll be goodto tho8e children, sir? I know Youll not believe her, even should the Queen Think they take after one they rarely saw. I had intended that my son should live A stranger to these matters: but you are So utterly deprived of friends! He too Must serve you will you not be good to him? Or stay, sir, do not promise do not swear! The transformation of opinion which converts Straffords early friends into in- exorable foes, and the rhetorical denun- ciations of the rival courtiers into an indig- nant protest against his attainder, are displayed in all the force of contrast; and the words of the unnamed Puritan who breaks upon the excitement of the small Council~chamber, and the bustle of the Ante-room of the House of Lords, in the portentous language of Bibli- cal prophecy and condemnation, though Brownings manner was picturesque rather than pa- thetic, and this remark holds good whenever his work is a narration, not an impersonation. somewhat automatic in their recurrence, give a heightened colouring to the scenes into which they are introduced, and ap- pear to herald the catastrophe with the intermittent tolling of some solemn bell. The love which renounces life is not more forcibly interpreted than the love which can slay, than the dark enthusiasm by which Pym is driven to cause the death of his early friend, believing that this one condition of Enolands safety is also the salvation of Wentworths soul. Unutterably tender and solemn is the meeting of the judge and the condemned at that gloomy gate through which there was vet hope of escape, but which opened in fulfilment of a fatal dream, ndt on the friendly boat and its protecting crew, on silence and on flight, but on dark figures of executioners, and on the roar of dis- tant voices howling for blood. There Pym tells of the early affection which might come to no better end, and bids the friend whom he is sending on before await him there, whither he hopes soon to follow. But Straffords soul is rapt away from all thought of self. He has suddenly become cotiscious that his own fate foreshadows that of the King. Sinking on his knees he implores immu- nity for him : No, not for England now, not for Heaven now See, Pym, for my sake, mine who ~kneel to you! There, I will thank you for the death, my friend! This is the meeting; let me love you well! And when Pym replies : England I am thine own! Dost thou exact That service? I obey thee to the end, he sends forth a cry which resumes all the anguish of the thought, and the thankfulness that he need not live to bear it: O God, I shall die first I shall die first! The love ~i outrance, love without re- ward and without hope, which is so strongly illustrated by the friendship of Strafford, and subsequently by the de- votion of Luria, appears as the ideal con- ception of the attachment of man to woman in one of the Dramatis Perso- n~e, entitled The Worst of it. The Worst of itis the lament of a husband forsaken by his wife, not for his suffer- ing, but for her dishonour. A cry of bit- terness, not against her by whom he has been wronged, but against himself, who MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 8i has been to hcr an occasion of wrong. formation is rendered the more striking A cry of sorrow, not for his own life by the leap in the socket of the old wick- blighted on earth, but for hers excluded edness and fury which appear in his last from heaven. It is the outpouring of a words. love that would sacrifice time and eternity to secure the salvation of the object, but would shield her even from remorse, if salvation could be effected without it. The utter pathos of this appeal is scarcely apparent on the first reading, as its verse has a monotonous abruptness which is more suggestive of agitated reflection than of -impassioned feeling, but when once the emotion is understood it be- comes the more vivid from this mode of rendering. It gains all the force of com- pression. King Victor and King Charles is the reproduction of a little-known episode in Piedmontese history, and has all the curious interest which attaches to it, but its poetic merit is greatest there where it departs from strict historical truth. Vic- tor Amadeus I. had involved himself in dancrer and perplexity by the many in- iquities of his reign, and when the dan- ger had reached its climax, he cast it upon his son Charles, a youth whom he had always ill-used and depreciated, by a solemn transfer of the crown. The youn~, king prospered beyond his hopes. Jn the course of a year, his justice and humanity had gained for him the alle- giance of his subjects and placed them in a position to encounter their foreign foes; and Victor then emerged from his seclusion, and attempted to repossess himself of the throne. The historic Charles caused his father to be arrested and confined for the remainder of his life. Mr. Brownings hero gratifies the old kings desire to recover the regal honours in a pious impulse to withdraw him from the intrigues by which he is seeking to attain that end, and the old man dies, recrowned in his sons palace after two scenes of alternate command and entreaty, in which he himself depre- cates his craving for the symbols of roy- alty as a senile mania created by the dis- turbing shadows of death. The pathetic strangeness of this termination casts a glamour of romance about the whole drama, whilst the author skilfully retains the historical version o~ the kings end by causing him in the penitent dreami- ness of the last scene to suggest such a story as the one best calculated to pre- serve his sons dignity against the out- rage by which he is threatening it. Something of remorse and gratitude steals over the dying soul, and the trans- LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 318 You lied, DOrmea! I do not repent! In the Return of the Druses we have the large outlines, the vivid action, the strong local colour of a semi-histori- cal drama combined with all the special interest which a sympathetic conception of the Eastern nature could impart to it. The Druses were a peaceful Syrian sect, associated by tradition with the name and sovereignty of a Breton Count de Dreux, and which once sought refuge against the Turks in a small island ad- jacent to Rhodes. They here placed themselves under the protection of the Knights, and after enduring many wrongs at the hands of a Prefect of the Order found themselves on the point of being transferred to the authority of Rome. According to Mr. Brownings story, a child saved from the murder of the Druse Sheiks and their families, by which the new reign of the White Cross had been signalized, had fled into Brit- tany to spend his youth in concealment, and to reappear amongst his people as the mysterious Saviour who would lead them back to Lebanon, and who, on the day of their return, would fulfil the an- cient prophecy, which restored to the. flesh their long-dead Caliph and Founder Hakeem. The scene opens with the morning of the day on which the Re-- turn of the Drusesis to take place. In a few hours the Papal Nuncio will have arrived to take possession of the island, and Venice, to whom, on their side, the Druse occupants have surrendered it,. will have sent her ships to cover their retreat. The Prefect will have expired. by Djabals hands, and Hakeems reign will have begun. Initiated Druses are assembled in the Hall of the Prefects. palace, quarrelling for its expected spoils; with that eagerness of the Eastern mind to which no subject of contention is too small; whilst the vivid Eastern fancy flashes forth from each in the rapid re membrance of some grievous domestic. wrong, or some glorious vision of the coming deliverance. The second act presents the reverse of the picture, the shame and remorse of Djabal, the self defined Frank schemer and Arab mystic in whom the love for a Druse maiden first awakened the thought of accom-- plishing a daring human deed, under the semblance of superhuman power. AnaeL 82 MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE. had sworn only to give her love to the saviour of her race; to her, an initiated Druse, the Saviour, and Hakeem were one; and Djabal, enthusiast as much as deceiver, feigned himself Hakeem that he might win that love, and vaguely hoped that its possession would transform him to the reality of what he pretended to be; but the hope has proved fitful, and the I desire of confession weighs heavily upon him, quickened no less than repelled by the glowing veneration of Anael, now his promised wife, and by the simple wor- ship of Khalil her brother. Anael, too, has her struggles her reverence for Djabal the saviour is inextricably bound up with her passion for Djabal the man, and in the clairvoyance of her highly strung nature she doubts the belief which can thus appeal to her in the tumult of an earthly love. An interview with the man whom but for Djabal she probably would have loved, proves to her that her feel- ing for Djabal differs from her feeling for other men much less in kind than in de- gree, and in hor de~ire to expiate the im- perfectness of a faith which possesses her intelligence but cannot transform her life, she herself murders the common enemy, the Prefect. The moment of this deed was to be that of Djabals transfiguration. It prostrates him at her ifeet in agonized confession of his fraud. :She cannot at once disbelieve, she clings to him for refuge against the newly ~awakened sense of crime, she entreats him to exalt himself, and let her share in the exaltation; but at length the ~knowledge of his helpless humanity is borne irrevocably in upon her ; she gives utterance to one brief passionate burst of scorn, and then the liberated earthly love wells up triumphant through the ruins of her faith, and she gathers the shamed existence the more absolutely into her own. Side by side with this fierce conspiracy runs a friendly plot which we have not space to describe, strongly illustrative of the manner in which the natural course of -events often tends towards a result which fraud or violence are made to bring about. In the last act the living personages of the drama are assembled in the same Hall of the Prefects palace, brought together by the news of his death. The Nuncio denounces, the Druses waver, the finer nature in Djabal triumphs. A solemn and sorrowful con- - fession cast round him a sudden halo of redeeming glory. With a cry of Makeem the overstrained life of Anael passes away, and Djahal, still vaguely adored by the astonished people, whose future he entrusts to the true heart and unswerving will of Khalil, falls, stabbed by his own hand, thus complet- ing the atonement for his guilt and the union with her, whom her love, not his deed, has exalted. Of the many fine passages in this tra- gedy the last lines, spoken by Djabal, are perhaps the finest ; they are addressed to a young knight of the Order of Rhodes, the son of his protector in exile and his constant friend. DJAnAL. [raises Loys.] Then to thee, Loys! How I wronged thee, Loys! Yet ~vronged, no less thou shalt have full revenge Fit for thy noble self, revenge and thus, Thou, loaded with such wrongs, the princely soul, The first sword of Christs sepulchre thou shalt Guard Khalil and my Druses home again! Justice, no less Gods justice and no more, For those I leave ! to seeking this, devote Some few days out of thy knights brilliant life: And, this obtained them, leave their Lebanon, My Druses blessing in thine ears (they shall Bless thee with blessing sure to have its way). One cedar blossom in thy ducal cap, One thought of Anael in thy heart, per- chance One thought of him who thus, to bid thee speed, His last word to the living speaks! This done Resume thy course, and, first amid the first In Europe take my heart along with thee! Go boldly, go serenely, go augustly What shall withstand thee then? A Blot on the Scutch eon is a do- mestic tragedy, but of almost historic magnitude. It stands alone amongst Mr. Brownings dramatic works, as conveying tragic impressions under that purely ob- jective form, which is derived from no subtle, individual, slowly ripening fatality, but from the rapid and distinct collision of the elemental forces of the human soul. Three out of five of its principal actors fall victims to love, revenge, or re- morse, and it is characteristic of the authors manner that whilst this work gives, so much s~cope to the more violent emotions, its tone seldom exceeds the expression of a profound and concen- trated sorrow. We notice this especially in the case of the heroine Mildred, a very young girl, whose self-condemning grief has something of the introspectiveness wrongly imputed to all Mr. Brownings MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 83 characters, and we think detracts a little from the tragic simplicity with which the story is otherwise conceived. Her death, which is immediately caused by the mur- der of her lover, is perhaps also an over- straining of natural possibilities but this event was necessary to carry out the dra- matic idea of a short fierce tempest and a sudden calm. The tender brotherly love so terrible in its revulsion but so truly asserted in the Earls self-inflicted death, is expressed with great delicacy and power in the passage in which he himself defines this form of affection. It is un- fortunately too long to be quoted. Mer- touns words of comfort to his grieving child-love are also very touching and heartfelt. Have I gained at last Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, And waking thoughts sole apprehension too? Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break On the strange unrest of our night, confused With rain and stormy flaw and will you see No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops On each live spray, no vapour steaming up And no expressless glory in the East? When I am by you, to be ever by you, When I have won you and may worship you, Oh, Mildred, can you say this will not be? Columbes Birthday is the slightest in conception of Mr. Brownings plays, and the only one which is somewhat theatrical in its effects, but it contains much genuine poetry and some genuinely dramatic scenes. The reputed heiress of two duchies finds herself suddenly called upon to surrender her honours or to re- tain them by marriage with the rightful heir, who, on coming to dispossess her, is struck by her beauty and dignity, and be- thinks himself of this compromise as likely to be advantageous to both. He opens his negotiations through Valence, an advocate, a devoted adherent of the young Duchess and her unconfessed lover, and Valence is so conscientiously afraid of disposing her against his rival that he says everything he can in his be- half. He cannot plead the ardour of the Princes attachment, for the young aspi- rant to a possible empire imagines himself a cynic, and has not included his heart in the offer of his hand; but he sets forth, in a glowing discourse, the mystical glories of a career of prosperous ambi- tion as the prize which she is invited to share; and though this exordium is a trib- ute not to merit but to success, and therefore its very solemnity a satire, it is one of the finest passages in Mr. Brown- ings collective works. He gathers earths whole good into his arms; Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise, Marching to fortune, not surprised by her. One great aim, like a guiding star, above Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift His manhood to the height that takes the prize A prize not near lest overlooking earth He rashly spring to seize it nor remote, So that he rest upon his path content: But day by day, while shimmering grows shine, And the faint circlet prophesies the orb, He sees so much as, just evolving these, The stateliness, the wisdom, and the strength, To du~ completion will suffice this life, And lead him at his grandest to the grave, After this star, out of a night he springs A beggars cradle for the throne of thrones He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts, Nor, as from each to each exultingly He passes, overleaps one grade of joy. This, for his own good : with the world, each gift Of God and man, reality, tradition, Fancy and fact so well environ him, That as a mystic panoply they serve Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind, And work his purpose out with half the world, While he, their master, dexterously slipt From some encumbrance is meantime em- ployed With his own prowess on the other half. Thus shall he prosper, every days success Adding to what is he, a solid strength An a~ry might to what encircles him, Till at the last so lifes routine lends help, That as the Emperor only breathes and moves His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk Become a comport or a portent, how He trails his ermine take significance, Till even his power shall cease to be most power And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare Peril their earth its bravest, first and best, Its typified invincibility. Thus shall he go on greatening, till he ends The man of men, the spirit of all flesh, The fiery centre of an earthly world Such a speech stands in admirable contra;t to the business-like simplicity evinced by the hero himself, when he ac- cepts the title-deeds to the Duchy and resigns Colombe to her obscure admirer, at the same time admitting that though he has himself no tendency to romance, a life in which it has no place appears to him rather more dreary than before. Lady, well rewarded! Sir, as well deserved I could not imitate I hardly envy I do admire you! All is for the best! Too costly a flower were this, I see it now, To pluck and set upon my barren helm MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. 84 To wither any garish plume will do! Ill not insult you and refuse your Duchy You can so well afford to yield it me, And I were left, without it, sadly off! As it is for me if that will flatter you, A somewhat wearier life seems to remain Than I thought possible where . . . faith, their life Begins already theyre too occupied To listen and few words content me best! The play is also enlivened by a continu- ous flow of good-humoured satire on the morality of court-life and its rewards The tragic interest of Luria is entirely psychological, though its external ele- ments are derived from history. It is the latest of Mr. Brownin& s trao~edies, the most pathetic, and perhaps the finest in the impression it conveys of deliberate creative power. Its protracted action has all the excitement of suspense, whilst the lengthened monologues which char- acterize the last act form a fitting prelude to the quiet mournfulness of the catas- trophe. The central figure is Luria, a Moorish condottiere, who has led the Florentine army against that of Pisa, and whose noble qualities have won for him the admiration of both. Luria has served Florence not only faithfully but lovingly. Her ~sthetic refinement appeals to every aspiration of his soul, and he believes, as men so often believe of women, that the outward charm is the sign of an inward grace. He is convinced that his Flor- entines are good, and though the deli- cate instincts of his race warn him that whatever friendship they may profess, their nature has no sympathy with his, his large heart rejects all suspicion of their gratitude. He has yet to learn that Florence knows gratitude only in the form of fear, only knows a protector as a potential tyrant and foe; and whilst his devotion is, day by day, deepening his mistrust, his guilelessness is as con- stantly sending forth some careless word to bear witness against him. The hostile General Tiburzio, in whom he has gained a friend, becomes the means of warning him that the day of his expected victory is also to be that of his trial and condem- nation. Luria probes his situation sadly but deliberately. He sees that his judg- ment is fixed. The Florentine army is in his hands the Pisan troops are of- fered to his command; he has no natural alternative but to perish at the hands of Florence, or to save himself through her destruction, and true to the end, he swal- lows poison, the one refuge against possi- ble misfortune, which he has brought from his native East. He dies, sur- rounded by the repentant captain, com- missary, and other citizens of Florence, aroused too late by the fervent testimony of Tiburzio, combined with their own latent belief in the nature they could so little understand, each tendering in his own way, love, gratitude, and obedience to the friend whom they have in one su- preme moment found and lost. The restless intriguings of Florentine life are powerfully symbolized by Husein, the condottieres one Moorish friend, in words of warning to him. Say or not say, So thou but go, so they but let thee go This hating people, that hate each the other, And in one blandness to us Moors unite Locked each to each like slippery snakes, I say Which still in all their tangles, hissing tongue And threatening tail, neer do each other harm; While any creature of a better blood, They seem to fight for, while they circle safe And never touch it, pines without a wound, Withers away beside their eyes and breath. See thou, if Puccio come not safely out Of Braccios grasp, this Braccio sworn his foe, As Braccios safely from Domizias toils Who hates him most! But thou, the friend of all, Come out of them! Against its shifting background of craft and hatred and mistrust, the image of Luria, living as it is, assumes an almost monumental character it dwells upon the mind as a great conception of all last- ing greatness and purity. To the testimony of the Dramas we may add this fact, that at the age of twenty-two, Mr. Browninb conceived from slender historic materials the character and career of Paracelsus the apostle of natural truth, still hampered by the tra- ditions of a metaphysical and mystical age his high hopes and crushing disap- pointment; the lapse into more doubtful striving and more anomalous result ; and the death-bed vision which blended the old, fitful gleamings of the secret of uni- versal life into the larger sense of a divine presence throughout creation in which every abortive human endeavour is alike anticipated and subsumed. Paracelsus is considered the most transcendental of Mr. Brownings poems. It certainly com- bines the individuality which with him has so often the effect of abstruseness with a sustained loftiness of ppetic con- ception, and we find in it a faithful reflex of the desire of absolute knowledge and the belief in the possibility of its attain- ment. But it is no less remarkable for its humanity; for the sympathy it evinces with the complex, struggling, misguided soul, which begins by spurning all human aids and breathes out its last and finest essence under the fostering warmth of af- fection ; and its appreciation of the crav- ing for unbounded intellectual life is even less abnormal as expressed by so young a poet, than the tribute it contains to the ideal of human existence which rests upon limitation. Power neither put forth blindly, nor con- trolled Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear: Knowledge not intuition, but the slow Uncertain fruit of an enhancii~ toil, Strengthened by love: love not serenely pure But strong from weakness like a chance-sown plant Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds And softer strains, unknown in happier climes; Love which endures and doubts, and is op- pressed And cherished, suffering much and much sus- tained, And blind, oft failing, yet believing love, A half-enlightened, often chequered trust. These lines form part of the dying con- fession which is probably so well known that we need not regret being unable to quote it at length. The one peculiarity of Mr. Brownings verse through which his character of poet is most generally impugned is its fre- quent want of melody, and his known contempt for melody as distinct from meaning would be sufficient to account for the occasional choice of subjects that excluded it. But he thus admits the more fully the essential unity of matter and form ; and the unmusical character of so much of his poetry is in some de- gree justified by the fact, that its subjects are in themselves unmusical. So I ~viil sing on fast as fancies come; Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints.* His actual ruggedness lies far more in the organic conception of his ideas than in the manner of rendering them, whilst his rapid alternations and successions of thought often give the appearance of ruggedness where none is. In beauty or MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE. the reverse his style is essentially ex- pressive, and when, as in Pauline, Paracelsus, almost all the Dramas, and most of the minor poems, there is an in- ward harmony to be expressed, it is ex- pressed the more completely for the re- jection of all such assistance as mere sound could afford. He has even given to so satirical a poem as The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxeds Church, a completely melodious rhythm, its satire being borrowed from the simple misap- plication of an earnest and pathetic emo- tion. If he ever appears gratuitously to rebel against the laws of sound it is in his rhymed and not in his blank verse; and there might be truth in the idea that his contempt for the music of mere itera- tion is excited by the very act of employ- ing it, but that so many of his grandest and sweetest inspirations have been ap- propriately clothed in rhyme. There is a passage in Pauline~ in which the speaker describes himself, which accords to so great an extent with the varying impressions produced by Mr. Brownings mind as to present itself as a possible explanation of them. He has deprecated, perhaps unnecessarily, the execution of this poem in an explanatory preface to it, and if he admitted it to con- tain so much of permanent truth he might more justly deprecate the manner in which it was conceived. But the lines to which we refer have a deliberate empha- sis which impresses us with the idea that the young poet was speaking of himself, and t t what he said may in some measure have remained true. I am made up of an intensest life, Of a most clear idea of consciousness Of self, distinct from all its qualities, From all affections, passions, feelings, powers; And thus far it exists, if tracked in all: But linked in me, to self-supremacy Existing, as a centre to all things, Most potent to create and rule and call Upon all things to minister to it; And to a principle of restlessness Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all This is myself, and I should thus have been Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. Whatever this passage may or may not mean, it caw only confirm the one sig- nificant fact that a life-long reputation for self-conscious poetic power might have rested unassailed on this the au * Pauline. thors very earliest work. 86~ ALICE LORRAINE. From l3lackwoods Magazine. must the greatest man ever developed ALICE LORRAINE. have desired a million-fold, because he A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS. I lived in each one of the million. However, there were but two to whom CHAPTER XIX. Sir Roland Lorraine ever yielded a peep THE excellent people of Coombe Lor- of his deeply treasured anxieties. One raine as yet were in happy i,~norance of was Sir Remnant; and the other (in vir- all these fine doings on Hilarvs part. tue of office, and against the grain) was Sir Roland knew only too well,~of course, the Rev. Struan Hales, his own highly that his son and heir was of a highly ro- respected brother-in-law. man tic, chivalrous, and adventurous turn. Struan Hales was a man of mark all At Eton and Oxford many little scrapes about that neighbourhood. Everybody (which seemed terrible at the time) knew him, and almost everybody liked showed that he was sure to do his best to him. Because he was a genial, open- get into grand scrapes, as the occasion of hearted, and sometimes even noisy man his youthful world enlarged. full of life in his own form of that mat- Happen what will, I can always trust ter and full of the love of life, whenever my boy to be a gentleman, his father he found other people lively. He hated used to say to himself, and to his only every kind of .humbug, all revolutionary real counsellor, old Sir Remnant Chap- ideas, methodism, asceticism, enthusiastic man. Sir Remnant always shook his humanity, and exceedingly fine language. head ; and then (for fear of having meant And tho~gl~, like every one else, he re- too much) said, Ah, that is the one spected Sir Roland Lorraine for his up- thing after all. People begin to talk a right character, lofty honour, and clear- great deal too much about Christianity. ness of mind while he liked him for his At any rate, the last thing they thought generosity, kindness of heart, and gen- of was the most likely thing of all tleness ; on the other hand, he despised that Hilary should fall in love with a him a little for his shyness and quietude good, and sweet, and simple girl, who of life. For the rector of West Lorraine for his own sake, would love him and loved nothing better than a good day with grow to him with all the growth of love, the hounds, and a roaring dinner-party Morality whereby we mean now, afterwards. Nothing in the ~vay of sport truth, and right, and puritywas then ever came amiss to him ; even thou~,h it despised in public, even more than now did as no true sport does depend in private life. Sir Remnant thought it a for its joy upon cruelty. question of shillings, how many maids Here, in his snug house on the glebe, his son led astray ; and he pitied Sir under the battlement of the hills, with Roland for having a son so much hand- trees and a garden of comfort, and snug somer than his own. places to smoke a pipe in, Mr. Hales was Little as now he meddled with it, Sir well content to live and do his duty. He Roland knew that the world was so ; and liked to hunt twice in a week, and he the more he saw of it, the less he found liked to preach twice every Sunday. such things go down well with him. The Still he could not do either always; and broad low stories, and practical jokes, no good people blamed him. and babyish finesse of oaths, invented for Mrs. Hales was the sweetest creature the ladiesmany of which still survive ever seen almost anywhere. She had in the hypocrisy of our bond tongue plenty to say for herself, and a great deal these had a great deal to do with Sir more to say for others; and if perfection Rolands love of his own quiet dinner- were to be found, she would have been table, and shelter of his pet child, Alice. I perfection to every mind, except her And nothing, perhaps, except old custom own, and perhaps her husbands. and the traditions of friendship, could j The rector used to say that his have induced him to bear, as he did, with wife was an anbel, if ever one there Sir Remnants far lower standard. Let a were ; and in his heart he felt that truth. man be what he will, he m~ust be moved Still he did not speak to her always as if one way or another by the folk he deals he were fully aware of being in colloquy with. Even Sir Roland (though so differ- with an angel. He had lived with her ent from the people around him) felt ever so long, and he knew that she their feelings move here and there, and was a great deal better than himself; but very often come touching him. And he he had the wisdom not to let her know never could altogether help wanting to it; and she often thought that he know what they thought about him. So preached at her. Such a thing he never ALICE LORRAINE. did. No honest parson would ever do it; and the sun was beginning to curtail of all mean acts it would be the mean- those brief attentions which he paid to est. Yet there are very few parsons Coombe Lorraine. He still looked fairly wives who are not prepared for the chance at it, as often as clouds allowed in the of it. And Mrs. Hales knew that she morning, almost up to eight oclock; and had her faults, and that Mr. Hales was after that he could still see down it, over quite up to them. At any rate, here they the shoulder of the hill. But he felt that were, and here they meant to live their his rays made no impression (the land so lives out, having a pretty old place to see fell away from him), they seemed to do to, and kind old neighbours to see to nothing but dance away downward, like them. Also they had a much better a lasher of glittering water. thing, three good children of their own ; Therefore, in this garden grew soft and enough to make work and pleasure for gently natured plants, and flowers of del- them, but not to be a perpetual worry, in- icate tint, that sink in the exhaustion of asmuch as they all were girls three the sun-glare. The sun, in almost every very good girls, of their sort thinking garden, sucks the beauty out of all the as they were told to think, and sure to flowers ; he stains the sweet violet even make excellent women, in March ; he spots the primrose and Alice Lorraine liked all these girls, the periwinkle ; he takes the down off They were so kind, and sweet, and sim- the heartsease blossom; he browns the pie; and when they had nothing what- pure lily of the valley in May; and, after ever to say, they always said it so pretti- that, he dims the tint of every rose that ly. And they never pretended to inter- he opens: and yet, in spite of all his mis- fere with any of her opinions, or to come chief, which of them does not rejoice in into competition with her, or to t~ik to him her father, when she was present, more The bold chase, cut in the body of the than she well could put up with. For she hill, has rugged sides, and a steep de- was a very jealous child; and they were scent for a quarter of a mile below the well aware of it. And they might let house the cleft of the chalk on either their father be her mothers brother ten side growing deeper towards the mouth times over, before she would hear of any of the coombe. The main road to the Halesy element as she once had house goes up the coombe, passing under called it coming into her family more the eastern scarp, but winding away from than it had already entered. And they it here and there to obtain a better foot- knew right well, while they thought it too ing. The old house, facing down th~ bad, that this young Alice had sadly hill, stands so close to the head of the quenched any hopes any one of them coombe, that there is not more than an might have cherished of being a Lady acre or so of land behind and between it Lorraine some day. She had made her and the crest, and this is partly laid out poor brother laugh over their tricks, when as a courtyard, partly occupied by out- they were sure that they had no tricks; buildings, stables, and so on, and the and she always seemed to put a wrong ruinous keep, ingloriously used as a lime- construction upon any little harmless kiln; while the rest of the space i~ thing they did. Still they could afford planted in and out with spruce and birch to forget all that; and they did forget it, trees, and anything that will grow there. especially now when Hilary would soon Among them winds a narrow outlet to be at home again, the upper and open Downs too steep a It was now July, and no one had heard way for carriage-wheels, but something for weeks from that same Hilary; but in appearance. betwixt a bridle-path and this made no one anxious, because it was a timber-track, such as is known in those the well-known manner of the youth. parts by the old English name, a bos- Sometimes they would hear from him by tall. every post, although the post now came As this led to no dwelling-house for thrice in a week; and then again for weeks miles and miles away, but only to the together, not a line would he vouchsafe, crown of the hills and the desolate tract And as a general rule, he was getting on of sheep-walks, ninety-nine visitors out better when he kept strict silence. of a hundred to the house came up the Therefore Alice had no load on her coombe, so that Alice from her flower. mind at all worth speaking of, while she garden commanding the course of the worked in her sloping flower-garden, drive from the plains, could nearly always early of a summer afternoon. It was foresee the approach of any interruption. now~ getting on for St. Swithins day; Here she had pretty seats under labur 88 ALICE LORRAINE. nums, and even a bower of jessamine, and a noble view all across the weald, even to the range of the North Downs; so that it was a pleasai~t place for all who love soft sward and silence, and have time to enjoy that very rare romance of the seasons a hot English summer. Only there was one sad drawback. Lady Valerias windows straightly over- looked this pleasant spot, and Lady Va- lena never could see why she should not overlook everything. Beyond and above all other things, she took it as her own special duty to watch her dear grand- daughter Alice; and now in her eighty- second year she was proud of her eye- sight, and liked to prove its power. Here they come again I cried Alice, talking to herself or her rake and trowel; will they never be content? I told them on Monday that I knew nothing, and they will not believe it. I have a great mind to hide myself in my hole, like that poor rag and hone boy. It goes beyond my patience quite to be cross- examined and not believed. Those whom she saw coming up the steep road at struggling and panting in- tervals, were her three good cousins from the Rectory Caroline, Margaret, and Cecil Hales; rather nice-looking and active girls, resembling their father in face and frame, and their excellent moth- er in their spiritual parts. The decorat- ed period of young ladies, the time of wearing great crosses and starving, and sticking as a thorn in the flesh of man- kind, lay as yet in the happy future. A parsons daughters were as yet content to leave the parish to their father, help- ing him only in the Sunday-school, and for the rest of the week minding their own dresses, or some delicate jobs of pastry, or gossip. Though Alice had talked so of running away, she knew quite well that she never could do it, unless it were for a childish joke; and swiftly she was leaving now the pretty and petty world of childhood, sinking into that distance whence the failing years recover it. Therefore, in- stead of running away, she ran down the hill to meet her cousins, for truly she liked them decently. Oh, you dear, how are you? How wonderfully good to come to meet us Madge, I shall be jealous in a moment if you kiss my Alice so. Cecil what are you thinking of? Why, you never kissed your cousin Alice ! Oh yes, you have all done it very nicely. What more could I wish? said Alice; but what could have made you come up the hill, so early in the day, dears ? Well, you know what dear mamma is. She really fancied that we might seem (now there is so much going on) really unkind and heartless, unless we came up to see how you were. PaDa would have come ; hut he feels it so steep, unless he is coming up to dinner; and the pony, you know Oh she did such a thing! The wicked little dear, she got into the garden, and devoured ic worth of the grand new flower, just introduced by the Duchess Dallia, or Dellia, I cant spell the name. And mamma was so upset that both of them have been unwell ever since. Oh, Dahlias! answered Alice, whose grapes were rather sour, because her father had refused to buy any; flaunty things in my opinion. But Caroline, Madge, and Cecil, have you ever set eyes on my new rose? Of course they all ran to behold the new rose; which was no other than the Persian yellow, a beautiful stranger, not yet at home. The countless petals of brilliant yellow folding inward full of light, and the dimple in the centre, shy of yielding inlet to its virgin gold, and then the delicious fragrance, too refined for random sniffers, these and other de- lights found entry into the careless be- holders mind. It makes one think of astrologers, cried Caroline Hales ; I declare it does Look at all the little stars ! It is quite like a celestial globe. So it is, I do declare ! said Madge. But Cecil shook her head. She was the youngest, and much the prettiest, and by many degrees the most elegant of the daughters of the Rectory. Cecil had her own opinion about many things; but waited till it should be valuable. It is much more like a cowslip-ball, Alice answered, carelessly. Come into my bower now. And then we can all of us go to sleep. The three girls were a little hot and thirsty, after their climb of the chalky road; and a bright spring ran through the bower, as they knew, ready to harmo- nize with sherbet, sherry-wine, or even shrub itself, as had once been proved by Hilary. How delicious this is! How truly sweet! cried the eldest and perhaps most loquacious Miss Hales; and how nice of you always to keep a glass! A spring is such a rarity on these~ hills ALICE LORRAINE. 89 papa says it comes from a different stratum. What a stratum is, I have no idea. It ought to be straight, one may safely say that; but it always seems to be crooked. Now, can you explain that, darling Alice? You are so highly taught, and so clever! Now, we dont want a lecture, said Madge, the blunt one; the hill is too steep to have that at the top. Alice knows everything, no doubt, in the way of science, and all that. But what we are dying to know is what became of that grand old astrologers business. This is the seventh or eighth time now, Alice answered, hard at bay; that you will keep on about some little thing that the servants are making moun- tains of. My father best knows what it is. Let us go to his room and ask him. Oh no, dear! oh no, dear! How could we do that? What would dear uncle say to us? But come, now tell us. You do know something. Why are you so mysterious? Mystery is a thing alto- gether belongin~ to the dark ages, now. We have heard such beautiful stories that we cannot manage to sleep at night without knowing what they are all about. Now, do tell us everything. You may just as well tell us every single thing. We are sure to find it all out, you know: and then we shall all be down on you. Among near relations, dear mamma says, there is nothing to compare with candour. Dont you see, Alice, Madge broke in, we are sure to know sooner or later and how can it matter which it is ? ro be sure, answered Alice, it cannot matter. And so you shall all know, later. This made the three sisters look a lit- tle at one another, quietly. And then, as a desperate resource, Madge, the rough one, laid eyes upon Alice, and, with a piercing look, exclaimed, You dont even understand what it means yourself Of course, I do not, answered Alice ; how many times have I told you so, yet you always want further par- ticulars ! Dear cousins, now you must be satisfied with a conclusion of your own. I cannot at all see that, said Caro- line. Really, you are too bad, cried Marga- ret. Do you think that this is quite fair? asked Cecil. You are too many for me, all of you, Alice answered, steadfastly. Suppose I came to your house and pried into some piece of gossip about you that I had picked up in the village. Would you think that I had a right to do it ? No dear, of course not. But nobody dares to gossip about us, you know. Papa would very soon stop all that. Of course he would. And because my father is too high-minded to meddle with it, am I to be questioned perpetu- ally? Come in, Caroline, come in, Mar- garet, come in, dear Cecil; I know where papa is, and then you can ask him all about it. I have three little girls at their first sampler, such little sweets ! said Caro- line I only left them for half an hour, because we felt sure you must want us, darling. It now seems as if you could hold your own in a cross-stitch we must not penetrate. It is nothing to us. What could it be? Only dont come, for goodness sake, dont come rushing down the hill, dear creature, to implore our confidence suddenly. Dear creature ! cried Alice, for the moment borne beyond her young self-pos- session I am not quite accustomed to old womens words. Nobody shall call me a dear creature except my father (who knows better) and poor old Nancy Stilgoe. Now, dont be vexed with them, Cecil stopped to say in a quiet manner, while the two other maidens tucked up their skirts, and down the hill went, rapidly; they never meant to vex you, Alice; only you yourself must feel how dreadfully tantalizing it is to hear such sweet things as really made us afraid of our own shadows ; and then to be told not to ask any questions! I am sorry if I have been rude to your sisters, the placable Alice an- swered; but it is so vexatious of them that they doubt my word so. Now, tell me.what you have heard. It is wonder- ful how any foolish story spreads. We heard, on the very best authority, that the old astrologer appeared to you, descending from the comet in a fire-bal- loon, and warned you to prepare for the judgment-day, because the black-death would destroy in one ni~ht every soul in Coombe Lorraine; and as soon as you heard it you fainted away, and Sir Roland ran up and found you lying, as white as wax, in a shroud made out of the ancient gentlemans long foreign cloak. Then, beg cousin Carolines pardon I for me. No wonder she wanted to hear more. And I must not be touchy about 90 ALICE LORRAINE. my veracity, after lying in my shroud so long. But truly I cannot tell you a word to surpass what you have heard already; nor even to come up to it. There was not one single wonderful thingnot enough to keep up the interest. I was bitterly disappointed; and so, of course, was every one.~~ Cousin Alice, Cecil answered, look- ing at her pleasantly, you are different from us, or, at any rate, from my sisters. You scarcely seem to know the way to tell the very smallest of small white lies. I am very sorry always ; still I must tell some of them. No, Cecil, no. You need tell none; if you only make up your mind not to do it. You are but a very little older than I am, and surely you might begin afresh. Suppose you say at your prayers in the morning, Lord, let me tell no lie to- day! Now, Alice, you know that I never could do it. When I know that I mean to tell ever so many; how could I hope to be answered? No doubt I am a story- tellerjust the same as the rest of us and to pray against it, when I mean to do it, would be a very double-faced thing. To be sure it would. It never struck me in that particular way before. But Uncle Struan must know best what ought to be done in your case.~~ XVe must not make a fuss of trifles, Cecil answered, prudently; papa can always speak for himself; and he means to come up the hill to do it, if Mr. Gates pony is at home. And now I must run after them, or Madge will call me a little traitor. Oh, here papa comes, I do de- clare. Good-bye, darling, and dont be vexed. It does seem a little too bad, thought Alice, as the portly form of the rector, mounted on a borrowed pony, came round the corner at the bottom of the coombe, near poor Bonnys hermitage a little too bad that nothing can be done without its being chattered about. And I know how annoyed papa will be, if Uncle Struan comes plaguing him again. We cannot even tell what it means ourselves ; and whatever it means, it concerns us only. I do think curiosity is the worst, though it may be the smallest vice. He expects to catch me, of course, and get it all out of me as he declared he would. But sharp as his eyes are, I dont believe he can have managed to spy me yet. I will off to my rockwork, and hide myself, till I see the heels of his pony going sedately down the hill again. With these words, she disappeared; and when the good rector had mounted the hill, Alice, Alice ! resounded vainly from the drive among the shrubs and flowers, and echoed from the ram- parts of the coombe. CHAPTER XX. ONE part of Coombe Lorraine is fa- mous for a seven-fold echo, connected by tradition with a tale of gloom and ter- ror. Mr. Hales, being proud of his voice, put this echo through all its peals, or chime of waning resonance. It could not quite answer, How do you do ? with Very well, Pat, and the same to you and its tone was rather melancholy than sprightly, as some echoes are. But of course a great deal depended on the weather, as well as on the time of day. Echo, for the most part, sleeps by day- light, and strikes her gong as the sun goes down. Failing of any satisfaction here, the Rev. Struan Hales rode on. Ride on, ride on ! was his motto always; and he seldom found it fail. Nevertheless, as he rang the bell (which he was at last compelled to do), he felt in the crannies of his heart some wavers as to the job he was come upon. A coarse nature often despises a fine one, and yet is most truly afraid of it. Mr. Hales believed that in knowledge of the world he was entitled to teach Sir Roland; and yet he could not help feeling how calmly any imperti- nence would be stopped. The clergyman found his brother-in- law sitting alone, as he was too fond of doing, in his little favourite book-room, walled off from the larger and less com- fortable library. Sir Roland was begin- ning to yield more and more to the gen- tle allurements of solitude. Some few months back he had lost the only friend with wliom he had ever cared to inter- change opinions, a learned parson of the neighbourhood, an antiquary, and an ele- gant scholar. And ever since that he had been sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of isolation and privacy. For hours he now would sit alone, with books before him, yet seldom heeded, while he mused and meditated, or indulged in visions mingled of the world he read of and the world he had to deal with. As no less an authority than Dr. Johnson has it This invisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartment, shuts out the cares and interruptions of ALICE LORRAINE. mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy. And again This cap- tivity it is necessary for every man to break, who has any desire to be wise or useful. To regain liberty, he must find the means of flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoic precept teach his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and amicable communication. Sir Roland Lorraine was not quite so bad as the gentleman above depicted; still he was growing so like him that he was truly sorry to see the jovial face of his brother-in-law. For his mind ~vas set out upon a track of thought, which it might have pursued until dinner-time. But, of course, he was much too courteous to show any token of interruption. Roland, I must have you out of this. My dear fellow, what are you coming to? Books, books, books! As if you did not know twice too much already ! Even I find my flesh falling away from me, the very next day after I begin to punish it with reading. That very remark occurs in the book which I have just put down. Struan, let me read it to you. I thank you greatly, but would rather not. It is in Latin or Greek, of course. I could not do my duty as I do, if I did it in those dead languages. But I have the rarest treat for you; and I borrowed a pony to come and fetch you. Such a badger you never saw! Sir Remnant is coming to see it, and so is old General J akes, and a dozen more. We allow an hour for that, and then we have a late dinner at six oclock. My daughters came up the hill to fetch your young Alice to see the sport. But they had some blaze-up about some trifle, as the chittish creatures are always doing. And so pretty Alice perhaps will lose it. Leave them to their own ways, say I leave them to their own ways, Sir Ro- land. They are sure to cheat us, either way; and they may just as well cheat us pleasantly. You take a sensible view of it, ac- cording to what your daubhters are, Sir Roland answered, more sharply than he either meant or could maintain; and immediately he was ashamed of himself. But Mr. Hales was not thin of skin ; and he knew that his daughters were true to him. Well, well, he replied ; as I said before, they are full of tricks. At their age and sex it must be so. But a better and kinder team of maids is not to be found in thirteen parishes. Speak to the contrary who will. I know that they are very good girls, Sir Roland answered kindly; Alice likes them very much; and so does everybody. That is enough to show what they are. Nobody ever likes anybody, without a great deal of cause for it. They must have their faults of course, we know; and they may not be quite butter-lipped, you know still I should like to see a better lot, take them in and out, and al- together. Now you must rome and see Fox draw that badger. I have ten good guineas upon it with Jakes; Sir Rem- nant was too shy to stake. And I want a thoroughly impartial judge. You never would refuse me, Roland, now? Yes, Struan, yes; you know well that I will. You know that I hate and despise cruel sports. And it is no compliment to invite me, when you know that I will not come. I wish I had stayed at the bottom of the hill, where that young scamp of a boy lives. When will you draw that ~badger,Sir Roland, the pest of the Downs, and of all the county? Struan, the boy is not half so bad as might be expected of him. I have thought once or twice that I ought to have him taught, and fed, and civilized. Send him to me, and Ill civilize him. A born little poacher ! I have scared all the other poachers with the comtat but the little thief never comes to church. Four pair of birds, to my knowledge, nested in John Gates veitches, and hatched well, too, for I spoke to John where are they? Can you tell me where they are Well, Struan, I give you the shoot- ing, of course but I leave it to you to look after it. But it does seem too cruel to kill the birds, before they can fly, for you to shoot them. Cruel! I call it much worse than cruel. Such things would never be dreamed of upon a properly managed property. You are going a little too far, said Sir Roland, with one of his very peculiar looks; and his brother-in-law drew back at once, and changed the subject clum- sily. The shooting will do well enough, Sir Roland; I think, however, that you may be glad of my opinion upon other matters. And that had something to do with my coming. 9 ALICE LORRAINE. 92 01 1 thought that you came about the badger, Struan. But what are these, even more serious matters? Concerning your dealings with the devil, Roland. Of course, I never listen to anything foolish. Still, for the sake of my parish, I am bound to know what your explanation is. I have not much faith in witchcraft, though in that perhaps I am heterodox; but we are bound to have faith in the devil, I hope. Your hope does you credit, Sir Ro- land answered; but for the moment I fail to see how I am concerned with this Drthodoxy. Now, my dear fellow, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do what I mean. Of course there is a great deal of exag- geration and knowing you so well, I have taken on myself to deny a great part of what people say. But you know the old proverb, No smoke without fire~ and I could defend you so much better, if I knew what really has occurred. And besides all that, you must feel, I am sure, that you are not treating me with that candour which our long friendship and close connection entitle me to expect from you. Your last argument is the only one requiring any answer. Those based on religious, social, and even parochial grounds, do not apply to this case at all. But I should be sorry to vex you, Struan, or keep from you anything you claim to know in right of your dear sister. This matter, however, is sd entirely confined to those of our name only, at the same time so likely to charm all the gossips~ who have made such wild guesses about it, and after all it is such a trifle except to a superstitious mind that I may trust your good sense to be well content to hear no more about it, until it comes into action if it ever should do so. Very ~vell, Sir Roland, of course you know best. I am the last man in the world to intrude into family mysteries. And my very worst enemy (if I have one) would never dream of charging me with the vice of curiosity. Of course not. And therefore you will be well pleased that we should drop this subject. Will you take white wine, or red wine, Struan? Your kind and good wife was quite ready to scold me, for having forgotten my duty in that, the last time you came up the hill. Ah, then I walked. But to-day I am riding. I thank you, I thank you, Sir Roland but the General and Sir Rem- nant are waiting for me. And, most important of all, the badger. Good-bye, Struan I shall see you soon. I hardly know whether you will or not, the rector answered testily this is the time when those cursed poachers scarcely allow me a good nights rest. And to come up this hill and hear noth- ing at the top! It is too bad at my time of life I After two services every Sun- day, to have to be gamekeeper all the week! At your time of life I said Sir Roland, kindly: why, you are the youngest man in the parish, so far as life and spirits go. To-day you are not yourself at all. Struan, you have not sworn one good round oath! Well, what can you expect, Roland, with these confounded secrets held over one? I feel myself many pegs down to- day. And that pony trips so abominably. Perhaps, after all, I might take one glass of red wine before I go down the hill. It is a duty you owe to the parish. Now come, and let me try to find Alice to wait upon you. Alice is always so glad to se eyou. 4 And I am always so glad to see her. How narrow your doors are in these old houses! Those Normans must have been a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland, if I have said anything harsh, you will make all allowance for me, of course; be- cause you know the reason. You mean that you are a little disap- pointed Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. But after such weather as we have had, and nothing but duty, duty, to do, one is apt to get a little crotchety. XVhat kind of sport can be got anywhere? The landrail-shooting is over, of course, and the rabbits are running in families the fish are all sulky, and the water low, and the sea-trout not come up yet. There are no young hounds fit to handle yet and the ground cracks the heels of a de- cent hack. Ones mouth only waters at oiling a gun all the best of the cocks are beginning to mute and if one gets up a badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party, people will come, and look on, and make bets, and then tell the women how cruel it was! And with all the week thus, I am always expected to say something new every Sunday morning! Nay, nay, Struan. Come now; we have never expected that of you. But here comes Alice from her gardening work! Now, she does look well~ dont you think she does? ALICE LORRAINE. 93 Not a rose in June, but a rose in May ! the rector answered gallantly, kissing his hand to his niece, and then with his healthy bright lips saluting her you grow more and more like your mother, darling. Ah, when I think of the bygone days, before I had any wife, or daughters, things oc~ur to me that never Go and bait your badger, Struan, after one more glass of wine. CHAPTER XXT. NATURE appears to have sternly willed that no man shall keep a secret. There is a monster here and there to be discov- ered capable of not even whispering any- thing; but he ought to expect to be put aside in our estimate of humanity. And lest he should be so, the powers above provide him, for the most part, with a wife of truly fecund loquacity. A word is enough on such parlous themes ; and the least said the soonest mended. What one of us is not exceed- ingly wise, in his own or his wifes opinion? What one of us does not pre- tend to be as reticent as Minervas owl, and yet in his heart confess that a secret is apt to fly out of his bosom? Nature is full of rules ; and if the above should happen to be one of them, it was illustrated in the third at-~ tack upon Sir Rolands secrecy. For scarcely had he succeeded in baffling, without offending, his brother-in-law, when a servant brought him a summons from his mother, Lady Valeria. According to all modern writers, whether of poetry or prose, in our admir- able language, the daughter of an earl is always lovely, graceful, irresistible, al- most to as great an extent as she is un- attainable. This is but a natural homage on the part of nature to a power so far above her; so that this daughter of aii Earl of Thanet had been, in every out- ward point, whatever is delightful. Nei- ther had she shown any slackness in turning to the best account these nota- ble things in her favour. In short, she had been a very beautiful woman, and had employed her beauty well, in having her own will and way. She had not married well, it is true, in the opinion of her compeers; but she had pleased herself, and none could say that she had lowered her family. The ancestors of Lord Tha- net had held in villeinage of the Lor- raines, some three or four hundred years after the Conquest, until from being under so gentle a race they managed to get over them. Lady Valeria knew all this; and feel- ing, as all women feel, the ownership of her husband (active, or passive, which- ever it be), she threw herself into the nest of Lorraine, and having no portion, waived all other obligation to parental ties. This was a noble act on her part, as her hushand always said. He, Sir Roger Lorraine, lay under her thumb, as calmly as need be ; yet was pleased as the birth of children gave some distri- bution of pressure. For the lady ruled the house, and lands, and all that was therein, as if she had brought them under her settlement. Although Sir Roger had now been sleeping, for a good many years, with his fathers, his widow, Lady Valeria, showed no sign of any preparation for sleeping with her mothers. Now in her eighty- second year, this lady was as brisk and active, at least in mind if not in body, as half a century ago she had been. Many good stories (and some even true) were told concerning her doings and sayings in the time of her youth and beauty. Do- ings were always put first, because for these she was more famous, having the wit of ready action more than of rapid words perhaps. And yet in the latter she was not slack, when once she had taken up the quiver of the winged poison. She had seen so much of the world, and of the loftiest people that dwell there- in so far at least as they were to be found at the Court of George the Second that she sat in an upper stratum now over all she had. to deal with. And yet she was not of a narrow mind, when un- folded out of her creases. Her suite of rooms was the best in the house, of all above the ground-floor at least; and now she was waiting to receive her son, with her usual little bit of state. For the last five years she had ceased to appear at the table where once she ruled supreme; and the servants, who never had blessed her before, blessed her and themselves for that happy change. For she would have her due, as firmly and fairly (if not a trifle more so), as and than she gave the same to others, if undemanded. In her upright seat she was now be- ginning not to chafe, for such a thing would have been below herbut rather to feel her sense of right and duty (as owing to herself) becoming more and more grievous to her the longer she was kept waiting. She had learned long ago 94 ALICE LORRAINE. that she could not govern her son as ab- solutely as she was wont to rule his fa- ther; and having a clearer perception of her own xviii than of any large princi- ples, whenever she found him immova- ble, she set the cause down as prejudice. Yet by feeling her way among these pre- judices carefully, and working filial duty hard, and flying as a last resort to the stronghold of her many years, she pretty nearly always managed to get her own way in everything. But few of those who pride themselves on their knowledge of the human face would have perceived in this ladys fea- tures any shape of steadfast will. Per- haps the expression had passed away, while the substance settled inwards ; but however that may have been, her face was pleasant, calm, and gentle. Her manner also to all around her was cour- teous, kind, and unpretending; and peo- ple believed her to have, no fault, until they began to deal xvith her. Her eyes, not overhung with lid, but delicately set and shaped, were still bright, and of a pale blue tint; her forehead was not re- markably large, but straight and of beau- tiful outline ; while the filaments of fine wrinkles took, in some lights, a cast of silver from snowy silkiness of hair. For still she had abundant hair, that crown of glory to old age; and like a young girl, she still took pleasure in having it drawn through the hands, and done wisely, and tired to the utmost vantage. Sir Roland came into his mothers room with his usual care and diligence. She with ancient courtesy rose from her straight-backed chair, and offered him one little hand, and smiled at him; and from the manner of that smile he knew that she was not by any means pleased, but thought it as well to conciliate him. Roland, you know that I never pay heed, she began, with a voice that shook just a little, to rumours that reach me through servants, or even al- low them to think of telling me. Dear mother, of course you never do. Such a thing would be far beneath you. Well, well, you might wait till I have spoken, Roland, before you begin to judge me. If I listen to nothing I must be quite unlike all the other women in the world. And so you are. How well you ex- press it I At last you begin to perceive, my dear mother, what I perpetually urge in vain your own superiority. What mans mother can be expected to endure mild irony, even half so well as his wife would? Roland, this manner of speech, I know not what to call it, but I have heard of it among foreign people years ago, whatever it is, I beg you not to catch it from that boy Hilary. Poetical justice Sir Roland ex- claimed ; for his temper was always in good control, by virtue of varied humour; this is the self-same whip wherewith I scourged little Alice quite lately! Only I feel that I was far more just. Roland, you are always just. You may not be always wise, of course ; but justice you have inherited from your dear father, and from me. And this is the reason why I xvish to know what is the meaning of the strange reports, xvhich al- most any one, except myself, would have been sure to go into, or must have been told of long ago. Your thorou,,h truth- fulness I know. And you have no chance to mislead me now. I will imitate, thou~h perhaps I can- not equal, your candour, my dear mother, by assuring you that I. greatly prefer to keep my own counsel in this matter. Roland, is that your answer? You admit that there is something important, and you refuse to let your own mother know it! Excuse me, but I do not remember saying anything about importance. I am not superstitious enough to suppose that the thing can have any importance. Then why should you make such a fuss about it? Really, Roland, you are sometimes very hard to understand. I was not aware that I had made a fuss, Sir Roland answered, gravely; but if I have, I will make no more. Now, my dear mother, what did you think of that extraordinary bill of Bottlers ? Bottler, the pigman, is a rogue, said her ladyship, peremptorily; his father was a rogue before him; and those things run in families. But surely you cannot suppose that this is the proper way to treat the subject. To my mind a most improper way to condemn a mans bill, on the ground that his father transmitted the right to overcharge! Now, my dear son, said Lady Va- lena, who never called him her son at all, unless she was put out with him, and her dear son only when she was at the ex- tremity of endurance my dear son, these are sad attempts to disguise the real truth from me. The truth I am en- MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. 95 titled to know, and the truth I am re- solved to know. And I think that you might have paid me the compliment of coming for my advice before. Finding her in this state of mind, and being unable to deny the justice of her claim, Sir Roland was fain at last to make a virtue of necessity, while he mar- velled (as so many have done) at the craft of people in spying things, and espying them always wrongly. Is that all ? said Lady Valeria, after listening carefully ; I thought there must have been something a little better than that to justify you in making it such a mystery. Nothing hut a dusty old document, and a strange-looking packet, or case like a squab However, I do not blame you, my dear Roland, for mak- ing so small a discovery. The old astrologer appears to me to have grown a little childish. Now, as I keep to the old-fashioned hours, I will ask you to ring the hell for my tea, and while it is being prepared you can fetch me the case itself and the document to examine. To be sure, my dear mother, if you will only promise to obey the commands of the document. Roland, I have lived too long ever to promise anything. You shall read me these orders, and then I can judge. I will make no fuss about such a trifle, he answered, with a pleasant smile ; of course you will do what is honourable. Surely men, although they deny so ferociously this impeachment, are open at times to at least a little side-eddy of curi- osity; Sir Roland, no doubt, was desirous to know what were the contents of that old case, which Alice had taken for a dirty cushion, as it lay at the back of the cupboard in the wall while his hon- our would not allow him comfortably to disobey the testators wish. At the same time he felt, every now and then, that to treat such a matter in a serious light ~vas a proof of superstition, or even childish- ness, on his part. And now, if his mother should so regard it, he was not at all sure - that he ought to take the unpleasant course of opposing her. From Temple Bar. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. II.* THERE is scarcely to be found in his. tory so curious a contrast of civilized manners and customs as between the Chinese and the European. In Europe itself nation differs from na- tion rather by shades and degrees than by contrast. The French affect onions, the Spanish garlic, and the Welshmen leeks ; offspring of the same family dif- fering only in pungency. Other nations, such as Arabs, Turks, Persians, & c., & c., offer no similitude in their habits, and have little in common with ours. But the Chinese run in a sort of parallel of violent opposites. As an example, the European has decided that ministers of religion should wear a costume, and that it should be black. Chinese also agree that their priests shall wear a distinctive habit, but it must be bright yellow. Europeans signify their mourning for their dead by putting on black raiments; Chinese lament their ancestors by don- ning garments of white. The offices of chamber-maid, cook, laundress, dress- maker, and, in fact, all servants labour where we employ women, are fulfilled by men; whereas sailors are for the most part women; and almost everything else might be traced as following the rule of contrariety. In nothing is this more ex- emplified than in the ceremonials attend- ing death and burial. Like ourselves, the Chinese make the one mighty fact of death of stringent importance, but the in- evitable act of dying they regard as of little moment. The consequent funeral operations outvie our own absurdities in that line to a pitch xvhich, to our mind, approaches lunacy; and, pluming our- selves greatly upon our superior enlight- enment, we are apt to overlook that it is little more than contrast. They believe, like Christians, in the resurrection of the body, and they hold that belief in so de- termined a manner that they absolutely take more precautions for the preserva- tion of the body when dead than when alive; and the money and care lavished upon the inanimate clay, bones, or dust, is frequently the re~uit of the deprivation of the living. Many a Chinese will ex- pend his last farthing and go supperless to his mat rather th~tn not li~ht the even- ing joss-candle upon his little altar in honour of his defunct relatives. In the * LiviNG AGE, No. 1562. 96 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. method of the ceremonial of dying they differ in tab from us. Whereas we feel it incumbent to surround a death-bed with weeping friends and relatives, law- yers, doctors, and parson, the Chinese most ruthlessly abandon their dying, de- terminedly thrust them from their beds, drag them from their houses into the nearest open space they can find, where they have to expire alone as best they may, friends and neighbours keeping dis- creetly aloof until the last breath has been drawn. Thus an invalid can scarcely obtain admission into any house for fear he might die before he could be ejected again. Women in the hour of their direst need are often driven to some outside shed or back slum alone. No wonder that dead babes are so often found. A curious and comical incident oc- curred at a European friends where I was stopping. Hearing that there was a poor old sick woman living out in the forest alone, my friend hired a man and wagon to have her brought into the town, where she could be attended to. The driver declared he knew the place and the old woman well, and set out with his wagon well lined with paddi-straw. Even- ing brought the return of the vehicle. but no invalid therein. Why, where is the old woman? ex- claimed my friend, angrily. These con- founded Coolies are such idiots. Where is the old woman? Yah, master, exclaimed the driver, holding up his hands deprecatingly. Old piecee woman! muchee sick! wantshee makee die! Very likely; but that was exactly the reason I sent you to bring her in. Ha yah! screamed the Chinaman, in utter despair at such an argument. Wantshee makee die in my wagon! no can do, putshee on the road; makee die there can do. Why, you brute I cried my friend, give me the whip, and he jumped into the wagon and drove off, leaving the owner wringing his hands and his tail in anguish. And a Chinamans sorrow is of the most ludicrous kind. He bellows, and blubbers, and contorts himself, mak- ing the most grotesque grimaces, which rather affect the risible than the lachry- mal sympathies. Our drivers tribulation arose from the idea that should the old woman chance to die in his cart it would be forever ruined and polluted, and it was his only means of livelihood; never- theless, he would have sacrificed it under the superstitious fear of the evil which would attend him had such an event taken place. Fortunately, the old woman was brought in alive, and with care recovered, I believe. The dying old woman and the be- reaved Coolie were merely a threatened and small calamity in comparison with the dismay and discomfiture in our es- tablishment which took place when the cook died. Old Aapong was a most trustworthy and careful servant, and could cook a very fair European dinner. My only prejudice against him arose from a suspicionnay, a conviction that he killed the fowls by scalding them to death. It is customary to kill several chickens in every establishment each day for currie, & c., and it would be a lengthy operation to pluck the birds, so that they are supposed to be strangled, and then dipped into boiling water until the feathers drop off. But my impression is that the strangling is considered a work of supererogation, as the boiling water would assuredly kill them, and the China- man no doubt reasons like the Irishman, and thinks, What is the good of killing him twice ? On this particular morn- ing Aapong came into the parlour to take some orders about game which he was to purchase from the boats coming from the north of China. He was a ~vary old pur- veyor, and always kept on the right side of extravagance. Sometimes game was very dear, and at others very cheap, ai~d he had repeatedly put the question, How much mississee give for game? and I had left it to his discretion. Barely time had elapsed for him to have reached his kitchen when our door was violently flung open, and in tumbled half a dozen servants screaming with terrified ges- tures, Mississee ! mississee I Aapong have makee die in the cook-house I I sprang to my feet and ran across the yard into the kitchen. There, stretched on his back, lay poor Aapong, motionless as in sleep. I thought he was in a fit, and called for the servants to help to raise him and administer to his revival. Not one moved an inch, or by abuse or entreaty could be induced to come near him. They stood resolutely aloof, depre- cating with voice and long spider-like ~fingers my meddling with the corpse, and lamenting that he had not got out into the yard to die instead of dropping down in the kitchen. The calamity appeared to be, not his death, but his demise in the cook-house. In spite of my utmost unassisted efforts there came no motion MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. 97 in the body, no quiver of the eyelids, no pulsation through the veins; the vital spark had indeed fled, and Aapong was gathered to his ancestors. He had left behind him a scene of confusion, muddle, and dismay indescribable. The scene was powerfully serio-comic. Like all Chinese affairs,it was a jumble of the horrible and the absurd. The sublime or the pathetic are never prominent. There lay the corpse, with nothing of the awe- someness of death about it, just with the expression upon his funny square face which it wore a few minutes ago when he was inquiring what he should pay for the game. Around were the whole house- hold assembled, expressing in their quaint grotesque manner their disappoint- ment and astonishment, and discovering with wonderful fertility the various com- plications and misfortunes of the case. Who was to n~iove the body? suggested one. What a pity he had not stepped into the yard, said another. Who was to cook the dinner? It was a sad thing he had not waited to die until after dinner! Here the cooks boy stole away and hid himself, lest he should be required to go into the kitchen to prepare the dinner in the same room with the dead cook. Who was to get his coffin? and they lamented his want of prudence in not procuring his own coffin, as many Chinese do. Who was his nearest relative ? They dis- cussed that point with great vehemence; jerking and twisting of their bodies, and digging the air with their long fork-like nails. It seemed to me it would be quite dangerous to go within reach of them. If he was interfered with by any one, they said, except his nearest relative, he would certainly haunt that audacious in- truder, and perhaps torment him during the rest of his life. The servants, one and all, entreated, conjured me not to touch him; and I believe they resolved never to set foot in that kitchen again.1 At this period of affairs the cooks boy having, I presume, peeped from his hid-! ing, beheld his new badjou thrown over the face of the deceased. I had wished to cover the face, and this cloth had fal- len first to my hand. He uttered a yowl which startled us all, and went into hys- terical lamentations. It was ho relief that I took it off again. The article was ruined, and must be burnt. But still above all rose the pressing difficulty about the dinner for whatever hap- pens, English people must dine. Finally, I cancelled their obligation on that point by saying we would dine out, which re-i LIViNG AGE. VOL. VII. 319 lieved them extremely, as they all re- solved to rush out of the house directly my back was turned, and leave Aapong in solitary possession. One suggested that he should immediately go and search for the nearest relative, without whom the funeral ceremonies could not com- mence; others begged off on various pretexts. It was in vain I sent out to hire Coolies to come and remove the body to a more suitable position. The news had flown like wildfire. They scampered off in the opposite direction, or declared they were engaged. A few of the servants lingered out of respect for my presence, much wondering what spell bound me to stay near the dead while they were being drawn irresistibly in the opposite direction. This feeling does not arise from fear of death or the awe which this inscrutable phase of his. tory inspires in us. The Chinese are al- most indifferent to the phenomenon of dissolution, and frequently compass their own end when life becomes wearisome. A wife sometimes elects to follow her husband on the starlit road of death; and parents will destroy their offspring in times of famine and great distress rather than allow them to suffer. Still more remarkable is the custom of selling their lives in order that they may pur- chase the superior advantage of obse- quies, which are considered to insure the body in safety for the future resurrec- tion. A wealthy man condemned to death will arrange with his gaoler to buy him a substitute for a certain sum of money to be spent upon the poor wretchs inter. ment and preservation of his body. Should he have parents, so much is usually paid to them in compensation for their sons life. Chinamen invariably help to support their parents ; filial re- spect and devotion is the great Chinese virtue and religious precept, in which they rarely fail. Regarding death as in- evitable, he makes the best of a bad bar- gain, and cunningly and comically gets laid for dying. The wholesale destruc- tion of life in this country is greatly the result of indifference. Hence the mas- sacre of Europeans, so terrible to us~ seems to them a matter of little moment, and they cannot comprehend why we should make such a fuss about it. They regard our indignant protestation very much as we might treat our irate neigh- bour whose dog we had shot. Well, well, be pacified; if it was such a favourite, I am sorry, but it is only a 98 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. dog, and there are plenty more. How stalks at harvest time, appalling to Euro- much do you want to be paid for it? pean ideas. I must confess to a nervous You English think so much of a life, shuddering when I stood upon the exe- argues the Chinese; have you not cution ground at Canton a narrow lane plenty of people at home ? Nor do or potters field where so many hun- they in the least estimate the devotion of dreds had been butchered ~er diem dur- the Sisters of Charity, who go about ing weeks together, the executioner re- seeking to save souls by the preserva- quiring the aid of two smiths to sharpen tion of infant life. If the child has been his swords, for many of the wretched born under aff evil star as they think, and victims were not allowed to be destroyed is doomed to misery through bodily ail- at one fell swoop, but sentenced to be ment or stress of circumstances, they hacked to pieces by twenty to fifty think that the sooner death comes to their blows. I was informed by a European relief the better. In cases of mere want who had travelled much and seen most of of food the Chinese woman will bring her the frightful side of life, that witnessing babe and lay it at the door of the Sisters Chinese executions, was more than his hospital, as in any other country, know- iron nerves could stand; and in some of ing it will be taken in and cared for. The the details which he was narrating I was wanton destruction of infants I believe to obliged to beg him to desist. And yet be greatly exaggerated and misunder- he said there was nothing solemn about stood, and even where the destruction of it, and the spectators looked on amused. life has been an ascertained fact it would It was the horrible and the grotesque appear to be less the effect of cruelty combined. than of the small account made of death To return from this digression to our failing to regard that event as a calam- own special dilemma. We reached home ity or the worst of misfortunes as we do. just in time to see the servants who had to I particularly noticed that Chinese wo- be in attendance make a precipitous rush men were as fond of their children as any in at the gate; and subsequently, when I other mothers, and were remarkable for signified my intention of retiring to rest, their tenderness and patience as nurses. they accomplished quite as hasty an exit, In the lower classes it is quite common so that I knew that I was alone in the to see a woman toiling with a baby tied place with poor Aapong. As I passed up on to her back, and it is the regular cus- to my room I looked out at the open ye- tom to nurse the child very much longer randah; the moon was shining brightly, as than in Europetwo years or more; a Chinese moon seems to feel it incum- ~but with their peculiar notions about bent upon her to shine, for she is regu- death they prefer to lose the child rather larly f& ed and made much of; but now ~than see it suffer. Death in China is her beams fell full upon the cook-house, awarded as the punishment for the most which is always divided from the main trivial offences, and frequently for none building by a square or yard, and in that at all, except being in somebodys way. detachment all the domestics have their A story was told to me as a fact, that dur- rooms. But not a living individual was ~ing the visit of one of our royal princes a within. The silvery light fell on the livid, ~theft was committed of a chain or watch quaint face of Aapong, still bearing the ~belonging to the royal guest. The un- inquirendo expression of How much ~fortunate attendant was caught with the missessee give for the game? I could property upon him, and, without further not turn my gaze away from its anxious ceremony, his head was chopped off. questioning, and I felt that sleep was out The mandarin in attendance immediately of the possible until dawn, when the ser- announced the tidings to the prince as a vants would come stealing in. The fol- little delicate attention, showing how de- lowing day a sufficiently near relative ap- voted he was in his service. To his as- peared, a coffin was brought, and our ex- tonishment the Prince expressed his cook, duly inducted into all the wearables great regret that the mans head had been he possessed, including six badjous and taken off. Your Highness, cried the unmentionables, was placed, or I should obsequious mandarin, bowing to the say, crammed therein. All his valuables ground, it shall be immediately put on and property were put along with him, again 1 50 little did he understand that but his purse being considered too scanty, the regret was for the life taken, and not a number of paper coins, made to repre- the severed head. sent real ones, an innocent forgery upon In times of insurrection or famine the the next world, were added, so as to make mowing down of human life is like corn- a handsome display of wealth, just as a MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. lady supplements her real diamonds with paste. Chinese pickled ducks, a living white cock, tea, and samshoo were taken out to the grave. A number of howlers and wailers were brought in, but in con- sideration for my feelings they con- strained their lamentations and praiseof Aapong to a so/to voce until they got to som~ distance. Our last difficulty arose as to the manner of getting defunct out of the house, as it is considered most in- auspicious to bring a corpse through a doorway, and when a person dies in a house it is usual to erect a scaffolding outside the window, from whence the coffin slides down. Unfortunately, all the windows of the servants quarters were upon the yard, from whence there was no exit except through the house. We nat- urally objected to allow the drawing-room windows to be made the medium of transit of Aapong into the regions of bliss, therefore with an infinity of precautions he was carried out vid the door. We had much difficulty in procuring a new cook to occupy his place, and then only by sac- rificing the kitchen and turning it into a lumber room. No great matter, for the Chinese cook over a few embers in small earthenware pots, each dish having a little fire of its own. The cook sets up his ap- paratus anywhere in a few minutes. Even this compromise did not satisfy the cooks boy, who laboured under the pain- ful conviction that Aapong, having been taken out by the door,~ would assuredly, on some moonlight nio-ht be seen re-en terino- and ~ by it, having just received his wages he absconded, abandonin.g the de- filed badjou, and was heard of no more. Not less contrasting with ours are their mortuary processions and mausoleums. The former, like all Chinese marches, are a heterogeneous gathering of incongruous objects. Ragged, semi-clad Coolies stag- gering along without order or precision, bearing the most singular burdens; the dead person with the white fowl fluttering ahead, trays with baked meats, perhaps a whole pig, and ducks, heaps of paper money in baskets, clothes, shoes, both real and made of paper, trays of cakes, umbrellas, fans, & c. The friends, car- ried in chairs, wrapped in white cloths, only their eyes and nose appearing, look like so many corpses going to their own funerals; and it would be too tedious to enumerate the objects which do go to a Chinese interment. The general effect is comic rather than solemn, lively rather than sad, disorderly rather than methodi- cal. Their sepultures differ from ours in 99 form and size. Whilst, on the one hand, our tombs, graves, monuments, & c., are formed in angles, squares, and oblongs, the Chinese last resting-places are built in curves, semi-circles, horse-shoes. Whilst we usually consider that eight feet by four of earth is enough for any one when he is dead, the Chinese needs a freehold of an acre or two for his post-mortem habita- tion, which is built into a series of round yards, horse-shoe chambers, according to his rank and wealth. A stranger finding himself outside Canton walls, and following one of the pathways, for there are no roads, as there is nothing but Coolie traffic, would be perfectly mystified as to the probable use of the six or eight miles of build- ings which he sees glittering white in the sunshine on the side of the moun- tain. They could scarcely be fortifica- tions, for they are the wrong way about; neither could they be houses, for they present the remarkable difference that Chinese houses are all outside and no in- side; these are all inside and no outside, being built on the slope of the hill. The masonry is very solid, and a great deal of marble is used, so that the general effect is very curious. Whilst we are fond of shrouding our graveyards with weeping willow, cypress, and the crape-like ti- lentia, and selecting damp, shady spots, the Celestials are most fastidious in their choice of a locale. It must be a bright sunny site, where no shadow ever falls, which rises up so as to catch the first kiss of Aurora, and the breath of some zephyr blowing from a certain quarter. They have a regular professional testor, diviner, or seer, whose business it is to search out these specially favoured spots for a dead Chinamans abode. When any great mandarin is to be the occupant, months frequently elapse before a suf- ficiently salubrious position can be fixed upon. We often used to meet these species of wizards wandering over the hills, or standing stock-still until some inspiration visited them, or probing the earth with a wand like mineral-seekers for ore. One of the most striking and interesting parts of this lugubrious sub- ject is the death cities inhabited by the dead only. They are usually situated a few miles from the living ones, and have no parallel that I know of anywhere. I shall essay to convey an idea of the one outside of Canton, which I visited in company of a friend thoroughly versed in Chinese matters. We set out in chars, or rather oblong boxes with a sei~ ~, 100 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. borne on the shoulders of two or four It startled a number of white cranes, Coolies who trip away with their burden shrouded in the sombre foliage which at a sort of trot. It was a bright, beau- overhung the dank and dismal moat, and tiful morning, the weather being just suf- who seemed to regard with amazement ficiently cool to be enjoyable. As I have the advent of two living creatures into remarked, there are no roads around the city of the dead. The gate was Canton, and no need for any, as there are opened and a plank put down by a thing neither carriages nor horses. Thus the as near a skeleton as I should think pathway is only made wide enough for could be found to perform such necessary one foot-passenger. Chinese always walk and useful labour. I have no experience like Red Indians in single file. Some- of living skeletons in England. I have times this track is a mere ridge between heard of persons said to be only a bag two paddi fields lying under water, some- of bones; but in China any one de- times skirting the side of the hill, or on sirous of studying anatomy might do so the border of one of the innumerable with great facility, especially upon the streams of water which intersect Canton habitual opium-smokers. Our Coolies like a tangle of silver braid ; but every declined to enter the gate, so we stepped scrap of land is cultivated to its utmos~t across the plank alone, and entered the capacity. It is laid out principally in city of death. The skeleton guardian kitchen-gardens, well kept, neat, and vanished as soon as he had performed his flourishing. It has often been a subject office, and we walked in. of speculation to me, when leaving Lon- It presented at first sight the appear- don by the Clapham Junction, who could ance of any other Chinese city, with the possibly eat all the cabbages which I exception of the dead silence, dearth of saw growing. I believe there are more movement, and a sort of atmosphere cabbages consumed in Canton than in which felt vapid and stagnant. There London; for although the population is were the same narrow streets paved with probably about the same, I do not sup- the cobble-stones, the same quaint little pose that every one in London habitually square houses with the elaborate screen and inevitably eats cabbage, whereas in in the doorway instead of a door, the Canton I believe it is the rule without ex- little latticed venetian window-frames ception; but even the cabbages are in whence the Chinese woman satisfies her direct opposition to ours, they grow long curiosity as to what is going on in the instead of round. It was quite a refresh- outer world. But here no eyes peeped ing sight, all these flourishing gardens, through, no figures glided in and out with the patient, industrious labourers from behind the screen, no pattering feet weeding and watering the latter in the of bearer Coolies smoothed the cobble- most primitive fashion. The waterman stones, no cry of vendor of fruit and fish carried two buckets slung on a pole broke th~ dull monotony. The streets across his shoulders with wickerwork intersected each other and ran in crooked tops, and by jerking himself first on one zigzags, as most Chinese streets do. foot, and then on the other, he contrived Here and there were patches of garden to slop out the water pretty equally on ground planted with cadaverous sapless either side as he walked along. Strings flowers, looking as though they had been of Coolies, all with poles across their struck with paralysis. A few dwarfed shoulders, were carrying baskets laden shrubs stood languidly up, seeming as with green ginger, cabbages, onions, and though they could not put forth more turnips, which persistently grow long in- than one leaf in a century. There was stead of round, spinage, and a great variety no hum of insects or flies, not even the of herbs and vegetables unknown in this ubiquitous mosquito. Not so much as a country. They all moved respectfully rat ran across the silent streets, which into the ditch to allow us to pass, with a we traversed for some time, experiencing polite salutation or the pleasant wish that with terrible acuteness the irksome jar of our grandmothers might live forever, our own footfall. My companion sug- Traversing this smiling pasture for some gested that we should enter one of t~e miles, we came in sight of a fortified houses, we therefore stepped behind the walled city with a moat around, over screen and found ourselves in an ordinary which was a drawbridge. The yell by Chinese parlour or receiving room, fur- which our Coolies announced our arrival nished with the usual black ebony chairs and desire to have the bridge lowered and teapoy~, with the quaint gaudy pic- and gate opened, sounded weird and hol- tures lacking perspective, which one low, and the echo from within sepulchral. might fancy are hung in sheer perversity MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. I0I perpendicularly instead of horizontally, commencing at the ceiling and extending to the floor in a narrow strip, the figures appearing on various stages as upon a ladder. At one end of the room was the altar, which adorns the principal apart- ment of every Chinese house, sustaining some ferocious-looking joss, which repre- sents either saint or demigod. On either side were brass urns containing smoul- dering incense, and in the front cups of tea and samshoo. I do not know if the tea was hot. I did not taste it, for if it is ill to step in dead mens shoes, it must be worse to drink dead mens tea! In the centre of the room was a bulky arti- cle which looked like an ottoman or divan covered with a quilted silk counter- pane or mastoyd, such as is used on Chi- nese beds, and it might have passed for one of those most uncomfortable arti- cles of furniture. But it was hollow, and within it lay the inhabitant of the dwelling, sleeping his last long sleep; never more to rise; never more to sip his tea or samshoo, though it waited there prepared for him ; never to sit or~ his ebony chairs; never to light any more joss-stick to his ancestors, but have them lit for him by his posterity. There were other chambers in the house similarly furnished, except that the mas- toyd was thrown back, and displayed an empty coffin, which lay ready lined with sandal-wood, its owner not being yet dead. The verandah was furnished with the usual green porcelain seats and vases in which seemed to stagnate the blood- less flowers. We stole softly out into the street, chilled, and painfully yet not mournfully impressed. We went into the next door; that house was To Let Un- furnished. A third was rich in giidin~ and vermilion, and mirrors reflected and glittered through the rooms. The ebony~ and ivory furniture was most beautifully carved. The tea and samshoo cup were of exquisite egg-shell china; objet s de vertu lay about on the altar emblazoned with real jewels. The bed was covered with a magnificent crimson velvet quilt, richly embroidered in gold and seed pearls, with a deep bullion fringe worth its weight in gold. Under the quilt lay a high mandarin, who had amassed an enormous fortune by the very simple process of chopping off the heads of all such as he discovered to be possessed of money. His method was simplicity in it- self. He would first seek a small quar- rel, cast the owner of the wealth into prison, take possession of the property in the name of the crown pendente lite. After wasting in prison for a year or so the prisoner would be adjudged to lose half his property. He would probably resist, for a Chinese hates to have his money taken from him above all things. You may beat him, starve him, punish him in any way, but if you stop his wages he goes into despair and howls to make himself heard a mile off. Thus, refusing to pay, the unfortunate nYoneyed man is sent back to prison, and ere long is found guilty enough to merit death; his property forfeited to the Imperial de- scendant of the Sun, first, however, pass- ing through the sticky fingers of the mandarin. The one who lay stretched before us under the crimson and gold mastoyd was said to have been quite an adept in this nefarious system of plun- dering his victims by compassing their death literally bleeding them. Who knows but perhaps we have got this pain- ful expression from the Chinese? I was informed that he had immense wealth with him in his coffin, and was adorned with all his jewels and costly mandarin dress. The coffin or state-bed on which he lay had cost one thousand pounds. The outer one was of ebony, beautifully inlaid with gold, silver, ivory, and mother-of-pearl. The inner one was of the famous ironwood, from Borneo or Burmah, considered more invulnerable than metal, as it neither rusts nor decays, and defies the white ant. Within that there was a sandal-wood shell lined with velvet, the body being highly spiced to preserve it. The furniture of the house might well exceed a thousand pounds. The altar-cloth and hangings were of rich embroidered silk with a profusion of gold fringe, and the lattice filigree which the Chinese are so fond of introducing every- where, was gilt and vermilion. The floor was inlaid marble. Such was the gor- geous house the Mandarin Shang Yung had raised for himself on the bones of his victims to live in when he was dead, if I may be excused the bull. There is a very common reflection made in England as regards misers amassing wealth. Ah, well, he cannot take it with him. Not so in China, for he does take it with him, at least part of the way, and is more par- ticular about his entourage when dead than when living; whether they have some notion of remunerating old Charon to supply a better craft, or to bribe the officials of purgatory; for the Chinese believe fully in that expiatory region, and, no doubt, shrewdly guess that the author- 102 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. ities there might be susceptible to filthy The death city near Canton was said to lucre, as they have found them to be in contain several thousand inhabitants. China Proper. Also, according to the The houses were rented by the year or thrifty view they take of most things, month. There were some very old inhab- they might consider that it was safer to itants, judging from the dilapidated ap- buy themselves out of purgatory than to pearance of the furniture and drapery. leave the money with priests or relatives In one house there was a large family, for that purpose, as some Christians have one coffin in each room, and the father thought meet to do. For instance, Fer- and mother in the grand chamber. dinand and Isabella, having, it might be They were all waiting to go to Pekin, assumed, a deep-rooted conviction of their native city, waiting until the then their own wickedness, left a large fortune head of the family, holding a government to endow a chapel, where mass was to be appointment, should be recalled. Wan- said every day ~ ~ey5~t I/I for the ben- dering about in this oddly dreary place, fit of their souls in purgatory. But the which was neither mirth nor woe, the Chinese are curiously prosaic and mat- painful stillness and the heavy atmos- ter-of-fact in all their dealings, and in phere being the only elements which in- none more so than their arrangements as spired awe, my nerves, nevertheless, re- to their future state. ceived a sudden shock, when, just as I Recurring to the death city, my readers was examining the decorations of an ap- must not suppose that it was a hr,,e parently new visitor, speaking in whis- cemetery like that of New Orleans, built pers and raising the mastoyd, a shrill above ground, where the dead are placed shriek made me start, drop the mastoyd, in monuments erected for the purpose, and clutch my comoanion by the arm, and and for the reason that the Mississippi is for a minute I could scarcely control my constantly overflowing and would wash fright. He laughed, for it was only the any underground grave a way. This cem- crowing of a cock; but I declare St. etery also presents a curious ensemble of Peter was never more startled. Thus, miniature villas and tiny churches, for when the nerves, like an instrument, are many families have mass said in their tuned to a certain pitch, a sudden con- mausoleums once a year upon All Souls trast creates a jar and breaks the string. festival, the corpses ranged around on I had become so in unison with silence shelves forming the congre~ation. Some that even a rooster had the power to ter- of the monuments are several storeys rify me. But this was a proof that the high ; all detached, with beautiful gar- corpse was a fresh one, as the white dens around them. This is really a cem- cock, without a coloured feather, which etery, a graveyard above ground ; whereas accompanies the coffin is usually left the Chinese death city is nothing of the there when the body merely goes into kind. The dead are not interred, and lodgings. If really interred, I believe he never intended to be. They are merely is killed and eaten. In another portion lodgers ~ro tern., in a sort of luxurious of the city we saw several of them, though morgue, until their own final resting-place I think they were past crowing. Some shall have been decided upon by the of the interior walls of tile houses were professional diviner, or that it shall be decorated with portraits supposed to rep- convenient to move them to their own resent the defunct; on the toilet tables homes and ancestral funeral pyres. The were the brass basins used for ablutions; grand Chinese idea is that the whole and in one, where there was a portrait of family should be gathered together in a lady, who must have been a Chinese death for generations and generations; beauty, there was a large pot of red and they carry it out practically further paint and another of white, which the than any other people. Though, strange Chinese use unsparingly; by the side of to say, the Americansthe newest na- that lay her jade comb, and silver l)ins, tion have actually adopted this old- and the gum which is used to stVfen the world idea, and though of course they hair. Something in this amalgamation have no remote ancestors to lie beside, of life in death recalled to me a similar yet they object to be buried in the place day spent in tIme dead cities of Hcrcula- where they die. Being a strangely gre- neum and Pompeii, where the ladies garious people when alive, they seem toilet stood just as she had left it centu- even indisposed to rest when dead, and ries ago; the bread seemed still baking the travelling about of corpses is a in the ovens; and although the bodies unique feature in the manners and cus- had been removed as soon as found to toms of the United States. the museum, yet the evidence of their MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA. 103 presence seemed so fresh that they might have left but yesterday We quitted the city, nothing loth. We seemed to breathe more freely when fairly outside the pent air of the death city. The skeleton was hovering about the entrance gate, with a view to coppers, for if he could not eat he certainly required to smoke opium, which was in truth the se- cret of his extreme leanness ; and surely he might be excused if, whilst his living bones were doomed to remain in this dreary sepulchre, he should endeavour to transport his spirit into blissful dream- land by means of the opium pipe. Again we startled the lonely heron steadfastly regarding the dark green moat, no doubt in solemn contemplation of some knotty problem of heron life. We backed our- selves between the poles into our boxes, like horses into the shafts of a cart, were hoisted on to the shoulders of our Coolies, and departed. We did not return the same, way we had come, through the flower-beds and gardens, but, making a detour, we re- solved to take all the horrors on the same day and visit the grave-ground of the rebels. This is a piece of dreary waste land, without boundary or any sign which the imagination could dwell upon to suggest the land of horror which it really is. For the very earth has been saturated with human gore, the very soil is composed of human flesh, and the rucks and heaps that look so arid and un- sightly are mounds of human bones. It was here that the bleeding bodies of the rebels, butchered upon the execution- ground before alluded to, were carried to be buried. Finally, the ground became so full that there was no earth left to cover them ; yet they were still cast down in heaps for the vultures to serve as undertakers to, at least as regarded the flesh. Rebellion being the greatest crime a Chinese can commit, it is pun. nished in the severest manner, not only in this world~ as they think, but in the next, by not allowing him a proper burial. Cutting off the head on earth is a trivial mishap in comparison with depriving him of it in purgatory. In a representa- tion of that mythical Botany Bay, I ob- served a number of headless figures. They had been decapitated, and a boun& less gulf placed between their capital and their trunk. They had been waiting in Limbo for centuries to recover this essen- tial part of a man. Thus these poor rebels, having, revolted against the su- preme head and regal descendant of the Sun, were to be punished for time and eternity; for there can be no resurrec- tion of the body without its head. Di- rectly the executioner had severed it from the body, the latter was thrust into a wooden box, slung over the Coolies shoulders, and carried to this field, a real Haceldama, the blood dripping the whole way, marking the path to the field of blood. It may be fairly inferred that a shell coffin was intended for each victim, but the cupidity of the mandarin who had charge to furnish them made one box serve for a hundred or two victims, until the wood became spongy with gore. Moreover, the Coolies who were charged to bury them, following the example of their superiors, instead of going to the trouble of digging graves, tossed the mu- tilated bodies on to the bare earth like so much offal, and ran off for another load. In spite of the vultures and birds of prey which came in flocks for twenty miles round Canton, and hovered like a dark cloud over the bloody graves of the rebels, the putrefaction soon produced a pestilence in the city itself, though sev- eral miles distant. The fearful carnage continued for weeks and the headsman s sword laboured from dawn until sunset. The prisoners were generally in a semi. state of syncope. Having been taken as rebels, whether guilty or no, they were driven like cattle to the shambles. And here again the covetousness of the man- darins in char6e would consider that, as they had to die when their turn came, it was useless to provide them with food, and he might as well put the money ia his pocket. One hundred thousand are said to have manured that horrible piece of ground, so dry and arid, and for months and months it was impossible for the living to pass that way. And yet, in spite of this atrocious pun~ ishment, the Chinese are the most tur- bulent nation under the sun, at home or abroad; they plot to overthrow the rul- ing power; their secret societies are universal; and every few years they must have an outbreak. We returned home sad and weary with this long day, spent under the shadow oi death on the dark side of hun~anity. [04 A ROSE IN JUNE. From The Corohil Magazine. A ROSE IN JUNE. CHAPTER XI. (CONTINUED.) Tnn bustle of dinner was all over and the house still again in the dreary after- noon quiet, when Agatha, once more, with many precautions, stole into the room. Are you awake? she said; 1 hope your head is better. Mr. Incledon is in the drawing-room, and mamma says, please, if you are better will you go down, for she is busy; and you are to thank him for the grapes and for the flowers. What does Mr. Incledon want, coming so often? He was here only yesterday, and sat for hours with mamma. Oh ! what a ghost you look, Rose! Shall I bring you some tea? It is too early for tea. Never mind; my head is better. But you have had no dinner, said practical Agatha; it is not much won- der that you are pale. Rose did not know what she answered, or if she said anything. Her head seemed to swim more than ever. Not only was it all true about Mr. Incledon, but she was going to talk to him to de- Cide her own fate finally one way or other. What a good thing the drawing- room was so dark in the afternoon that he could not remark how woebegone she looked, how miserable and pale! He got up when she caine in, and went up to her eagerly, putting out his hands. I suppose he took her appearance as a proof that his suit was progressing well and, indeed, he had come to-day with the determination to see Rose, whatever might happen. He took her hand into both of his, and for one second pressed it fervently and close. It is very kind of you to see me. How can I thank you for giving me this opportunity? he said. Oh, no ! not kind ; I wished it, said Rose, breathlessly, withdrawing her hand as hastily as he had taken it; and then, fearing her strength, she sat down in the nearest chair, and said, falteringly, Mr. Incledon, I wanted very much to speak to you myself. And I, too, he said her simplicity and eagerness thus opened the way for him and saved him all embarrassment I, too, was most anxious to see you. I did not venture to speak of this yester- day, when I met you. I was afraid to frighten and distress voti; but I have wished ever since that I had dared Oh, please do not speak so! she cried. In his presence Rose felt so young and childish, it seemed impossi- ble to believe in the extraordinary change of positions which his words implied. But I must speak so. Miss Damerel, I am very conscious of my deficiencies by your side of the disparity between us in point of age and in many other ways; you, so fresh and untouched by the world, I affected by it, as every man is more or less; but if you will commit your happiness to my hands, dont think, because I am not so young as you, that I will watch over it less carefully that it will be less precious in my eyes. Ah! I was not thinking of my hap- piness, said Rose ; I suppose I have no more right to be happy than other people but oh I if you would let me speak to you! Mr. Incledon, oh! why should you want me? There are so many girls better, more like you, that would be glad. Oh! what is there in me? I am silly; I am not well educated, though you may think so. I am nut clever enough to be a companion you would care for. I think it is because you dont know. Mr. Incledon was so much taken by surprise that he could do nothing but laugh faintly at this strange address. I was not thinking either of education or of wisdom, but of you only you, he said. But you know so little about me; you think I must be nice because of papa; but papa himself was never satisfied with me. I have not read very much. I know very little. I am not good for any- where but home. Mr. Incledon, I am sure you are deceived in me. This is what I wanted to say. Mamma does not see it in the same light; but I feel sure that you are deceived, and take me for something very different from what I am, said Rose, totally unconscious that every word she said made Mr. Incledon more and more sure that he had done the very thing he ought to have done, and that he was not deceived. Indeed, you mistake me altogether, he said. It is not merely because you are a piece of excellence it is because I love you, Rose. Love me! Do you love me ? she said, looking at him with wondering eyes; then drooping with a deep blush under his gaze but II do not love you.~~ I did not expect it; it would have been too much to expect; but if you will let me love you, and show you how I love you, dear l said Mr. Incledon, going up A ROSE IN JUNE. 105 to her softly, with something of the ten- bewilderment and misery, and fixed her derness of a father to a child, subduing eyes upon them as if their interlacing the eagerness of a lover. I dont want were the chief matter in hand. Mr. to frighten you ; I will not hurry nor Incledon, she said, very low, there tease; but some time you might learn to was some one else oh, how can I say love me. it 1someone whom I cared for That is what mamma says, said Rose, whom I cant help thinking about. with a heavy sigh. Tell me, said Mr. Incledon, bravely Now this was scarcely flattering to a quenching in his own mind a not very lover. Mr. Incledon felt for the moment amiable sentiment; for it seemed to him as if he had received a downright and that if he could but secure her confidence tolerably heavy blow; but he was in all would be well. He took her hand earnest, and prepared to meet with a re- with caressing gentleness, and spoke low, buff or two. She says truly, he almost as low as she did. Tell me, my answered, with much gravity. Rose darling; I am your friend, confide in me. may I call you Rose ? do not think I Who was it? May I know? will persecute or pain you; only do not I cannot tell you who it was, said reject me hastily. What I have to say Rose, with her eyes still cast down, be- for myself is very simple. I love you cause he has never said anything to me that is all; and I will put up with all a perhaps he does not care for me; but man may for the chance of winning you, this has happened: without his ever when you know me better, to love me in asking me, or perhaps wishing it, I cared return. for him. I know a girl should not do so, These were almost the same as those and that is why I cannot cannot! Mrs. Damerel had employed; but how But, said Rose, raising her head with differently they sounded I They had not more confidence, though still reluctant to touched Roses heart at all before ; but meet his eye, now that you know this they did now with a curious mixture of you will not think of me any more, Mr. agitation and terror, and almost pleasure. Incledon. I am so sorry if it makes you She was sorry for him, more than she at all unhappy; but I am of very little could have thought possible, and some- consequence; you cannot be long un- how felt more confidence in him, and happy about me. freedom to tell him what was in her heart. Pardon me if I see it in quite a differ- Do not answer me now, unless you ent lio~ht he said. My mind is not at please, said Mr. Incledon. If you all changed. This is but a fancy. Sure- will give me the right to think your fain- ly a man who loves you and says so, ily niine, I know I can be of use to them. should be of more weight than one of The boys would become my charge, and whose feelings you know nothing. there is much that has been lost which I I know about my own, said Rose, could make up had I the right to speak with a little sigh; and oh, dont think, to your mother as a son. It is absurd, as mamma does, that I am selfish I It is I know, he said, with a half smile; I am not selfishness; it is because I know, if about as old as she is; but all these are you saw into my heart, you would not ask secondary questions. The main thing is me. Oh, Mr. Incledon, I would die for you. Dear Rose, dear child, you them all if I could! but how could I say dont know what love is one thing to you, and mean another? Ah! the girl looked up at him sud- How could I let you be deceived? denly, her countenance changing. Mr. Then, Rose, answer me truly; is Incledon, I have not said all to you that your consideration solely for me I wanted to say. Oh, do not ask me any She gave him an alarmed, appealing more! Tell mamma that you have given look, but did not reply. it up! or I must tell you something that I am willing to run the risk, he said, will break my heart. with a smile, if all your fear is for roe I will not give it up so long as there is and I think you might run the risk too. any hope, he said; tell me what is The other is an imagination ; I am real, it? I will do nothing to break your very real, he added, very constant, heart. very patient. So long as you do not re- She made a pause. It was hard to say fuse me absolutely, I will ~vait and hope. it, and yet, perhaps, easier to him than it Poor Rose, all her little art was ex- would be to face her mother and make hausted. She dared not, with her mothers this tremendous confession. She twist- words ringing in her ears, and with all ed her poor little fingers together in her the consequences so clearly before her, i o6 A ROSE IN JUNE. refuse him absolutely, as he said. She mediate service to Rose, who was al. had appealed to him to withdraw, and he lowed time to recover herself after her would not withdraw. She looked at him acritation, and had no more exciting ap- as if he were the embodiment of Fate, peals addressed to her for some time. against which no man can strive. But Mr. Incledon went and came, and a Mr. Incledon, she said, gravely and soft, continued pressure, which no one calmly, you would not marry any one could take decided objection to, began to who did not love you ? make itself felt. I will marry you, Rose, if you will have me, whether you love me or not, CHAPTER XII. he said; I will wait for the love, and MR. INcLEDON went and came; he hope. did not accept his dismissal, nor, indeed, Oh, be kind! she said, driven to had any dismissal been given to him. A her wits end. You are free, you can young lover, like Edward Wodehouse, do what you please, and there are so would have been at once crushed and many girls in the world besides me. rendered furious by the appeal Rose had And I cannot do what I please, she made so ineffectually to the man of ex- added, low, with a piteous tone, looking at perience who knew what he was about. him. Perhaps he did not hear these last If she was worth having at all, she was words. He turned from her with I know worth a struggle; and Mr. Incledon, in not what mingling of love, and impa- the calm exercise of his judgment, knew tience, and wounded pride, and walked that at the last every good thing falls up and down the darkling room, making into the arms of the patient man who an effort to command himself. She can wait. He had not much difficulty in thought she had moved him at last, and penetrating the thin veil which she had sat with her hands clasped together ex- cast over the some one for whom she pecting the words which would be de- cared, but who, so far as she knew, did liverance to her. It was almost dark, and not care for her. It could be but one the firelight glimmered through the low person, and the elder lover was glad be- room, and the dim green glimmer of the yond description to know that his rival twilight crossed its ruddy rays, not more had not spoken, and that he was absent, unlike than the two who thus stood so and likely to be absent. Edward Wode- strangely opposed to each other. At house being thus disposed of, there ~vas last, Mr. Incledon returned to where no one else in Mr. Incledons way, and Rose sat in the shadow, touched by nei- with but a little patience he was sure to ther one illumination nor the other, and win. eagerly watching him as he approached As for Rose, though she felt that her her through the uncertain gleams of the appeal had been unsuccessful, she, too, ruddy light, was less discouraged by it than she could There is but one girl in the world for have herself supposed. In the first place me, he said, somewhat hoarsely. I do she was let alone ; nothing was pressed not pretend to judge for any one but my- upon her; she had time allowed her to self. So long as you do not reject me, I calm down, and with time everything was will hope. possible. Some miracle would happen And thus their interview closed. When to save her; or, if not a miracle, some he had got over the disagreeable shock ordinary turn of affairs would take the of encountering that indifference on the shape of miracle, and answer the same part of the woman he loves which is the purpose. What is Providence, but a di- greatest blow that can be given to a vine agency to get us out of trouble, to mans vanity, Mr. Incledon was not at all restore happiness, to make things pleas- downhearted about the result. He went ant for us? so, at least, one thinks when away .with half-a-dozen words to Mrs. f one is young; older, we begin to learn Damerel, begging her not to press his that Providence has to watch over many suit, but to let the matter take its course. whose interests are counter to ours as All will go well if we ~re patient, he well as our own; but at twenty, all that said, with a composure which, perhaps, is good and necessary in life seems al- surprised her; for women are apt to pre- ways on our side, and there seems no fer the hot-headed in such points, and choice for Heaven but to clear the obsta- Mrs. Damerel did not reflect that, having des out of our way. Something would waited so long, it was not so hard on the happen, and all would be well again; and middle-aged lover to wait a little longer. Roses benevolent fancy even exercised But his forbearance at least was of im- itself in finding for poor Mr. Incledon A ROSE IN JUNE. 107 some one who would suit him better than herself. He was very wary, very judi- cious, in his treatment of her. He ig- nored that one scene when he had re- fused to give up his proposal, and con- ducted himself for some time as if he had sincerely given up his proposal, and was no more than the family friend, the most kind and sympathizing of neigh- bours. It was oi~ly by the slowest de- grees that Rose found out that he had given up nothing, that his constant visits and constant attentions were so many meshes of the net in which her simple feet were being caught. For the first few weeks, as I have said, she was relieved altogether from everything that looked like perse- cution. She heard of him, indeed, con- stantly, but only in the pleasantest way. Fresh flowers came, filling the dim old rooms with brightness; and the garden- er from Whitton came to look after the flowers and to suggest to Mrs. Damerel improvements in her garden, and how to turn the hall, which was large in propor- tion to the house, into a kind of conser- vatory; and baskets of fruit came, over which the children rejoiced ; and Mr. In- cledon himself came, and talked to Mrs. Damerel and played with them, and left books, new books all fragrant from the printing, of which he sometimes asked Roses opinion casually. None of all these good things was for her, and yet she had the unexpressed consciousness, which was pleasant enough so long as no one else remarked it and no recompense was asked, that but for her those pleas- ant additions to the family life would not have been. Then it was extraordinary how often he would meet them by acci- dent in their walks, and how much trouble he would take to adapt his con- versation to theirs, finding out (but this Rose did not discover till long after) all her tastes and likings. I suppose that having once made up his mind to take so much trouble, the pursuit of this shy creature, who would only betray what was in her by intervals, who shut herself up like the mimosa whenever she was too boldly touched, but who opened se- cretly with an almost childlike confidence when her fears were lulled to rest, be- came more interesting to Mr. Incledon than a more ordinary wooing, with a straightforward yes to his proposal at the end of it, would have been. His van- ity got many wounds both by Roses un- consciousness and by her shrinking; but he pursued his plan undaunted by either, having made up his mind to win her and no other; and the more difficult the fight was, the more triumphant would be the success. This state of affairs lasted for some time; indeed, everything ~vent on quietly, with no apparent break in the gentle monotony of existence at the White House, until the spring was so far ad- vanced as to have pranked itself out in a flood of primroses. It was something quite insignificant and incidental which for the first time reawakened Roses fears. He had looked at her with some- thing in his eyes which betrayed him, or some word had dropped from his lips which startled her ; but the first direct attack upon her peace of mind did not come from Mr. Incledon. It came from two ladies on the Green, one of whom at least was very innocent of evil meaning. Rose was walking with her mother on an April afternoon, when they met Mrs. Wodehouse and Mrs. Musgrove, like- wise taking their afternoon walk. Mrs. Musgrove was a very quiet person, who interfered with nobody, yet who was mixed up with everything that went on on the Green, by right of bein~ the most sympathetic of souls, ready to hear everybodys grievance and to help in everybodys trouble. Mrs. Wodehouse struck straight across the Green to meet Mrs. Damerel and Rose, when she saw them, so that it was by no ordinary chance meeting, but an encounter sought eagerly on one side at least, that this revelation came. Mrs. Wodehouse was full of her subject, vibrating with it to the very flowers on her bonnet, which thrilled and nodded against the blue dis- tance like a soldiers plumes. She came forward with a forced exuberance of cor- diality, holding out both her hands. Now tell me ! she said; may we congratulate you? Is the embargo re- moved? Quantities of people have as- sured me that we need not hold our tongues any longer, but that it is all settled at last. What is all settled at last ? asked Mrs. Damerel, with sudden stiffness and coldness. I beg your pardon, but I really dont in the least know what you mean. I said I was afraid you were too hasty, said Mrs. Musgrove. Well, if one cant believe the evi- dence of ones senses, what is one to be- lieve? cried Mrs. Wodehouse. It is not kind, Rose, to keep all your old friends so long in suspense. Of course, it is very easy to see on which side the hesi i oS A ROSE IN JUNE. tation is; and I am sure I am very sorry if I have been premature. You are more than premature, said Mrs. Damerel, with a little laugh, and an uneasy colour on her cheek, for you are speaking a language neither Rose nor I understand. I hope, Mrs. Wodehouse, you have good news from your son. Oh, very good news indeed! said the mother, whose indignation on her sons behalf made the rose on her bonnet quiver: and then there were a few further interchanges of volleys in the shape of questions and answers of the most civil description, and the ladies shook hands and parted. Rose had been struck dumb altogether by the dialogue, in which, trembling and speechless, she had taken no part. When they had gone on for a few yards in silence, she broke down in her effort at self-restraint. Mamma, what does she mean ? Oh, Rose, do not drive me wild with your folly! said Mrs. Damerel. What could she mean but one thing? If you think for one moment, you will have no difficulty in understanding what she means. Rose woke up, as a sick man wakes after a narcotic, feverish and trembling. I thought, she said, slowly, her heart beginning to throb, and her head to ache in a moment I thought it was all given ~ How could you think anything so foolish? What symptom can you see of its having been given up? Has he ceased coming? Has he ceased trying to please you, ungrateful girl that you are? Indeed you go too far for ordinary patience; for it cannot be stupidity you are not stupid, said Mrs. Damerel, excitedly; you have not even that ex- cuse. Oh, mamma, do not be angry! said poor Rose; I thought it seemed so natural that, as he saw more of me he would give it ul). Why should he care for me ? I am not like him, nor fit to be a great lady ; he must see that. This is false humility, and it is very ill-ti i~ed, said Mrs. Damerel. Strange though it may seem, seeing more of you does not make him give it up; and if you are too simple or too foolish to see how much lie is devoted to you, no one else is. Mrs. Woclehouse had a spiteful meaning, but she is not the first who has spoken to me. All our friends on the Green be- lieve, like her, that everything is settled between you; that it is only some hesi tation aboutabout our recent sorrow which keeps it from being announced. Rose turned upon her mother for the first time with reproach in her eyes. You should have told me! she said, with momentary passion; you ought to have told me, for how was I to know? Rose, I will not allow such ques- tions; you are not a fool nor a child. Did you think Mr. Incle~don came for me? or Agatha, perhaps? He told you be would not give you up. You were warned what his object was more than warned. Was I to defeat my own wishes by keeping you constantly on your guard? You knew what he wanted, and you have encouraged him and accepted his attentions.~~ Iencouraged him? Whenever a girl permits, sbe en- courages, said Mrs. Damerel, with orac- ular solemnity. In matters of this kind, Rose, if you do not refuse at once, you commit yourself, and sooner or later you must accept. You never told me so before. Oh, mamma! how was I to know? you never said this to me before. There are things that one knows by intuition, said Mrs. Damerel ; and, Rose, you know what my opinion has been all along. You have no right to refuse. On the one side, there is every- thing that heart can desire; on the other, nothing but a foolish, childish disinclina- tion. I dont know if it goes so far as disinclination; you seem now to like him well enou Do you not know the difference? said Rose, turning wistful eyes upon her mother. Oh, mamma, you who ought to know so much better than I do! I like him very well what does that matter? It matters everything; liking is the first step to love. You can have no rea- son, absolutely no reason for refusing him if you like him. Rose, oh, how fool- ish this is, and what a small, what a very small, place there seems to he in your mind for the thought of duty ! You tell us you are ready to die for us which is absurd and yet you canno.t make up your mind to this ? It is different, said Rose ; oh, it is different! Mamma, listen a moment: you are a great deal better than I am; you love us better than we love each other; you are never tired of doing things for us ; whether you are well or whether you are ill it does not matter; A ROSE IN JUNE. 109 you are always ready when the children want you. I am not blind, said the girl, with tears. I know all you do and all you put up with; but, mamma, you who are good, you who know how to deny yourself, would you do this ? Rose ! Would you do it? cried Rose, ex- cited and breathless, pu