LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Volume ~ ~ No. 1777. July 6,1878. From Beginning, Vol CXXXVIII. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. CONTENTS. I. THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY, II. A DOUBTING HEART. By Miss Keary, author of Castle Daly, Oldbury, etc. Part II. III. THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. Part III. From 1837 to 1852 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. By Francis W. Newman, LADY CAROLINE LAMB OLD MAPS OF AFRICA A LANCASHIRE DIARIST, NICE PEOPLE To A WEED, . THE WEEDS ANSWER, MISCELLANY, For/nightly Review, Advance Sheets, Fortn~htly Review, Cornhill Magazine, Frasers Magazine, Temple Bar,. Nature,. All The Year Round, Saturday Review, .3 10 14 27 40 46 59 6z 2 P 0 E T R Y. 2J MAY, 64 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remztted directly to tke Publiskers, the LIvING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,free of~ostage. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting un a club 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 be procured, the money should be 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. Single Numbers of THE LIvING AGE, iS cents. 2 TO A WEED, ETC. TO A WEED. WHAT wanton wind, disorderly, fantastic, Hither impelled thy alien germ, 0 ~veed? Why wasted here was natures virtue plastic On such a seed? Here, where the sumptuous rose and stately lily, Through the bright hours their crowns efful- gent rear, And with rich perfume in the twilight stilly Dower the dim air; Where by the fount its tender beam is bright- ening, Sweet eyes are turned to loves benignant star; Or fairies frolic while the summer lightning Shimmers afar. Mid these choice bowers, in this immaculate garden, Beautys loved haunt, pictorial fancys meed, Not here, not here mayst thou have place or pardon, Ungainly weed! Here float soft melodies of bird and bee, Rains come at call, and tempered winds blow hither; Such are for Floras darlings, but for thee, Wither, weed, wither! THE WEEDS ANSWER. THEN answered bold as beggar-brat That plant of mean descent, Whoever speaks to me like that Is very imperent. At me no hothouse swell shall rail, In such outlandish lingo, Without an answer on the nail, In plainer terms, by jingo. It might be rollicksome or queer, The blast that blew me hither, But now I am fast-rooted here, Im not a-goin to wither. My health, thank God, is very sound; I crave no shade or prop; In open air, from common ground, I gets my bite and sup. My does diskiver stains and rents, While yours are fine as fire; I dont go in for paints and scents From stable or from byre. But not a breeze can make me shrink, No suns for me too hot; Im blest if I would take my drink Out o a waterin-pot. You Dahly swelled, you Fuschy sick, You fiery-faced Carnation, No doubt, you count yourselves the pick And pride o all creation. But though at shows theres such ado About your tints and statur, Ive just as great a share as you 0 all thats fair in natur. Tis not alone for you the sky At peep o day is brightenin; Theres more nor you .has got an eye For moonshine andsheet-lightnin. Robins and wrens I here remark, Twitterin about and clingin, But by my birth-place lived a lark, And over it flew singin! No fear have I o worm that gnaws, Or frost and storms that splinter, While most o you poor windle-straws Will never see a winter. Afore the snow yell all be dead, In spite o praise and carin, And ugly weeds will live and spread, When Florys pets die barren. Still longer thus, with gibings keen, In language free of fetters, The Ragweed had indulged her spleen, And ballyragged her betters; But suddenly she ceased to prate, And shook with rueful fidgets, Clutched tightly by the hand of fate, Alias, the gardeners digits! For that old man, whose skill excelled, Though sometimes he got tipsy, Grew red, cried Dammee ! and expelled The vegetable gipsy. J. S D. Spectator. MAY. Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime, And take the harmiesse follie of the time. HERRICK. SPRINGs hands, in Shakespeares words, you say, Do paint the meadows with delight Igo where artist hands in May Hang paintings far more bright! Though soft the twilight star that shines On grassy mead and limpid stream The stars I seek when day declines In Covent Garden beam! Though sweet the thousand liquid notes Your feathered songsters warble here My birds of eve from tuneful throats Now utter notes more dear! Farewell, ye streams, ye meads, ye flowers, Until your autumn robes ye wear Though May is fair in country bowers, Tis fairest in Mayfair! TOWNSHEND MAYER. From The Fortnightly Review. THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. BEHIND all the discussions, controver- sies, and recriminations to which the war in the East and the treaty of San Stefano have given rise, behind all the schemes for the deliverance of Slays or Greeks, for the aggrandizement of Russia or the pro- tection of England, there stands one ques- tion, for the moment cast into the shade and almost forgotten, but sure to reappear ultimately as the widest and gravest of all the questions which civilized Europe has to confront. That question is, What is to become of the territories left to the Turks? Whether a war comes now between En- gland and Russia or not, and whatever may be the issue of such a war if it does come, this question will only be adjourned, but not solved. After war, peace must return some day, and as surely as peace returns, so surely will this question press itself forward for sblution. Longer delay will make it none the easier nor smaller. Some part of Europe a bit of Thrace, probably Bosnia and part of Epirus and Macedonia will remain under the imme- diate rule of the sultan. All his Asiatic dominions, except a slice of Armenia, are apparently to be left untouched. What is to be the condition of these vast and noble territories? Is it desirable, is it even pos- sible, to do anything to improve the gov- ernment of them and prevent their wretch- edness from being in the future, as it has been for so long in the past, a scandal to the world, a ground for interferences by one or other of the neighboring powers, a source of jealousy which may at any time break out into open war? To put the difficulty thus is, indeed, to understate it. For in one respect the con- dition of the subjects of Turkey, Moham- medan as well as Christian, is likely to be far worse now than it has been heretofore. The incurable vice of Turkish sway has been rather its weakness than its wicked- ness. It is not the laws that have been most in fault, but their administration; and it was not want of will nearly so much as want of strength that made their ad- ministration so bad. Now this weakness will necessarily increase with that total collapse of the military and civil resources 3 of Turkey which the war has brought about. Her treasury is now empty, and having lost her credit she can no longer borrow in the West. Her richest territo- ries have been ravaged by war, and in many parts denuded of their inhabitants. A considerable part of thetn is lost for- ever. The conscriptiod has in Asia been scarcely less ruinous than the war in Eu- rope. Nearly the whole male Mohamme- dan population of military age has been carried off, most of them to perish on Bul- garian or Roumelian battle-fields, others to return home sick or wounded, many to be scattered through districts whence they will fail to find their way back to their own villages. The fields are lying untilled: the industries of peace have stopped: just when the need for taxes is greatest, the springs of taxation have run dry. If the army is kept on foot, how is it to be paid? If it is disbanded, the soldiers dispersed over the country may become a dangerous element, the raw material for brigands whom there will be no regular force to hold in check. Turkey is threatened with a paralysis of the most necessary machin- ery of government from the want of money to support the civil officials, the police, the troops, all of whom were, even before the war, inadequate and underpaid. An evil not less serious remains. The government of the Porte has for a long time rested more upon opinion and habit than upon material force. Travellers have often expressed their surprise that there was not greater disorder in a country where the means of repressing it wereso slender, and have concluded that it was the traditional awe inspired by the name of the sultan, and the veneration that had come down from the great days of con- quest, which secured such measure of obe- dience as was rendered to the laws. If these feelings are not utterly destroyed, they must have been grievously shaken by the events of the last year. The knowl- edge that a crushing blow has been dealt to the padishah, that he has submitted to harsh terms, that sacred Stamboul lies at the mercy of the conqueror, cannot long be kept concealed, even from the most remote and ignorant part of the subject populations, from the Druses of Lebanon, THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. 4 THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. from the Bedouin of the desert, from the savage tribes of Kurdistan. One may well fear an increasing encouragement to law- lessness, a more terrible disorganization of all the ~tructure of civil society. Already the signs are not wanting, both in Albania and in Bulgaria, and in more than one re- gion of Asia, that an outbreak of the pas- sions of plunder and religious hatred is at hand which may plunge whole provinces into anarchy. For it has been a most de- plorable, though a most natural result of the past struggle, to embitter every ani- mosity of faith and race. The impending danger cannot be better described than in the words of a letter lately received by the present writer from an acute and experienced observer (neither Englishman nor Russian), who has lived long in Turkey: I follow with interest any movement which bids for a prepara- tion against that collapse into utter bar- barism and blank anarchy which menaces the whole of Turkey, where there is not some foreign authority introduced in the place of that hard and petrifying rule which was, however, in one sense govern- ment, and did restrain the worst excesses of the worst of the barbarians. This is all that could be said for the Turkish gov- ernment. Bad as it was, it will be worse for all the subject lands if the Koord and the Circassian, the Bey and the Bashi- Bazook are allowed, with all their awe of Stamboul removed, to work their will on the classes of the population always under terror and never accustomed to self-de- fence. No one who has not known the rayah of various races on the spot, can imagine the utter helplessness of these wretched people, and their incapacity for offering any resistance to the least for- midable of their old oppressors. The negroes in the Southern States of America were hardly more devoid of manhood. You know what they are in Asia, and I know them of several races in Europe; but does England in general conceive what is likely to be the fate of all those prov- inces which are not to be occupied by Aus- tria, Russia, or some other strong govern- ment, now that the mGral influence of the sultan has been destroyed, how pillage by every one that has strength to pillage will take the place of the pillage which was organized, and more or less regularized un- der the name of taxation? What is pass- ing in Epirus and Thessaly proves that already the pashas in the local administra- tion are obliged to let the Bashi-Bazooks do what they like with the Christian popu- lation. But this is~but the beginning, for as the fact comes home to the people gen- erally that the sultan has been overthrown, and as the extenuation and the demoraliza- tion of his government is brought to its fullest extent by the natural course of the malady, i.e., by the prostration inevitable after the feverish energy with which the Turks have struggled during the past six months, the half-subjected races will re- assert their independence, the authorities will have less vigor to make head against local disorganization, and the whole empire will by degrees sink into a state of disso- lution of all social and political restraint such as Europe can with difficulty conceive. But with these primitive races the progress even of dissolution is so slow that it may still be averted if the civilized nations of Europe take up the government before the total failure of the Turkish rule is felt. These anticipations (one hopes they may be overcharged, but those who know Tur- key best, will be least disposed to make light of them) apply equally to European and to Asiatic Turkey. It is, however, only of Asiatic Turkey that I propose to speak: not only because it now forms a far larger problem (seeing how much the European dominions of the Porte are like. ly to be cut down), but also because it has received scarcely any attention in compar- ison to that bestowed on the resettlement of Europe. These Asiatic provinces were once the wealthiest and most flourishing portion of the ancient world. Their geo- graphical position, their harbors, their soil, their minerals, would soon enable them, under a good government, to recover no small measure of prosperity, and to double or treble their population. What sort of a political future can be predicted for them? And is there any possibility of averting that utter disorganization which the col- lapse of the Turkish power seems likely to bring about? Let us begin by frankly admitting that THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. 5 Turkey is dead dead beyond all hopes of revival. That is to say, she is no long- er an independent, but a protected State, existing on the sufferance of neighbors who could crush her with scarcely an ef- fort; and, in fact, left in existence only because no one of those neighbors would be permitted by the others to absorb her. What spirit and life there ever was in the Turksit was never anything more than a spirit of conquest, not of civilization or governmentis gone out of them and seems most unlikely to return. Acknowl- edging fully and heartily the solid virtues of the peasantry, virtues which have made many European observers prefer them to the slavish Christian populations, they have no power of assimilating new ideas, no turn for civilization, no capacity for in- tellectual or moral progress. That they cannot receive it when imposed on them from without it would happily be prema- ture to affirm, for the experiment has never been fairly tried. But they cannot do it for themselves. It would be an error to attribute this to any natural stupidity of the Turkish race, for there is really only a small Turkish element in the population of these countries. Probably it is rather due to the bare, hard, sterile character of Mohammedanism, to its fatalistic tenden- cies, and above all, to the state of degra- dation and ignorance in which it keeps women. The history of Mohammedan empires shows that no development of the arts of government or society, no advance in thought or industry, is to be looked for under them.* Nor will matters be at all mended when the Moslem population is (as it may probably now become) in a more decided majority. People have talked of driving the Turks out of Europe into Asia, as if that was a solution of the difficulty. But why? They have ruled Asia just as ill as Europe; the only difference being that we have not heard so much about the misfortunes of regions more remote and less frequently visited. The misgovern- ment of both Moslem and Christian sub- * The apparent exceptions furnished by the Abba- side khalifs at Bagdad, the Spanish Mussulmans, and the great Akbar in India, are seen, when closely ex- amined, to be no exceptions to this proposition, but in reality rather to illustrate it.. jects is no less ruinous in Asia than in Europe, and where there is a considerable Christian population, as in Armenia, the massacres perpetrated upon it are just as atrocious. That the Turks when relegated to Asia Minor may reconstitute themselves into a respectable power, is an idea which (though I see it is entertained by so judi- cious an enquirer as Sir George Camp- bell) seems to have the probabilities entirely against it. What are the grounds of such a hope? Local institutions are all but extinct. The central government is hopelessly weak, the ruling class hopeless- ly corrupt, the reigning family hopelessly effete. It is in the interest of the Turk- ish population itself, whose welfare ought to be regarded equally with that of the Christians, that we should emphasize the distinction between them and the knot of palace favorites and low-born adventurers who govern them, and that we should rec- ognize how little can be expected from these latter. There is of course no question of abol- ishing the sultanate at present. It must be suffered to subsist, because there is nothing as yet to put in its place, because the subject races seem incapable of free institutions. The immediate duty of the powers of Europe would appear to be to suggest, or rather to insist upon, such reforms as may alleviate the more crying of the present evils. Whether by the ap- pointment of a European commission, or by any other means which may supply that lack of initiative and of administrative vigor to which the failure of all previous efforts has been due, something must be done, or the state of Asia will become worse than that of Europe has been. When the powers take counsel together, be it in congress or, out of congress, they must needs provide some remedies, some safeguard against these perils. Such rem- edies, however, can only be temporary. Let us endeavor to look farther ahead, and enquire, by the light which history affords, what the remoter future may have in store for the Asiatic provinces of the empire, when the decay of its present government has ended in dissolution. Three alterna.. tives present themselves as possible. The first is the rise of some new Mohammedan 6 THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. State or dynasty. The second is annex- ation by one or more of the European powers. The third is the rise of a Chris- tian race, embodying itself in a Christian State. The first of these three is suggested by the history of the earlier ages of Moham- medanism. When one race or dynasty had become effete, another, more vigorous if not otherwise superior, emerged to sup- plant it and reigned in its stead. Thus the Abbaside khalifs succeeded to the throne of the Ommiades; thus the Fatimides sprang into power in north Africa and Egypt; thus the Seljukian Turks estab- lished mighty kingdoms on the ruins of the Saracenic empire; thus finally the Otto- man dominion itself rose out of the midst of the Seijukian principalities. But things have changed greatly since those times. There is no longer a reservoir of warlike nations in the steppes of Turkestan, nor any such evidences of vitality in the Mos- lem population of western Asia as can make us expect a new dynasty to rise from among them. By its system of continually changing the provincial governors, the Porte has even succeeded in preventing any of them from making himself inde- pendent, as satraps so frequently did in earlier centuries, and has thereby de- stroyed such slight chance as there used to be of some new forcible tyrant. The second alternative is more proba ble, but just as little desirable. The ten- dency through all recent history has been for the larger states to go on absorbing the smaller and weaker ones on their bor- ders. And thus it may seem natural that Russia should swallow up part of Asiatic Turkey, and that England, who by her command of the sea is everybodys neigh- bor, sho& d annex the rest. But this is exactly what we seek to prevent. En- gland has no wish, with India already on her hands, to become liable to govern and defend fresh territories, though there is no doubt much to be said in favor of her assuming the protectorate of Syria, whence, better and more easily than in Egypt, she could defend the Suez route. And we are all, even those who do not conceive the interests of England to be specially affected, agreed in resisting any farther advance of Russia to the south. It may well be thought that such an ad- vance would overtax her own strength, and tend to her internal disruption. But this is mere matter of speculation, and suppos- ing aggression to be successful, it would not only give. her a dangerously dominant influence in the Levant, but would be a misfortune for the territories she might annex. She is not herself sufficiently civ- ilized or open-minded to be fit to rule and educate other races. In trying to impose its own most imperfect type of culture, her bureaucracy would stifle the chances of any other form of national life. There remains the third alternative, the growth of a native ~Christian race possess. ing such a capability for intellectual and industrial progress as may enable it to be- come a civilizing and organizing influence in these neglected countries, and ultimately the nucleus of an independent State. The only Christian race in the East that offers any promise of this kind is the Armenian; and it is to a consideration of their condi- tion and prospects, that I desire to devote the remaining pages of this article. Asiatic Turkey falls naturally into three divisions. First, there is the Turkish, con- sisting of the centre and west of Asia Mi- nor, where the majority of the rural popu- lation is Mohammedan, though there are plenty of Greeks, especially in the sea- ports, and Armenians both there and in the inland cities. Turkish is the language commonly spoken over all this region. Secondly, we have the Arab portion, em- bracing large districts of Syria and the lower valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, where the inhabitants are almost entirely Mohammedan, and Arabic is the prevailing tongue. Thirdly, there is the Armenian division, lying north of Mesopotamia and north-east of Asia Minor. Now Armenia is not, strictly speaking, a country; it is rather, as used to be said of Italy, a geographical expression. It has no definite boundaries, either natural or political. Its name denotes the region which once formed the Armenian king- dom, and which is still largely inhabited by Armenian Christians, although politically divided between the empires of Persia, Russia, and Turkey, whose frontiers meet in the peak of Ararat. Speaking roughly, one may say that it extends from Trebi- zond on the Black Sea to. Tavriz in Persia, and from Delijan (a little south of Tiflis) on the north-east to near Diarbekir on the south-west. This would give it about three hundred and fifty miles in length by two hundred and fifty in. breadth. It is high and generally mountainous; a country of great natural strength, and withal naturally fertile, though, owing to the want of roads, of capital, and of security, the resources of its soil and its mineral wealth re- main undeveloped. Of its inhabitants nearly two millions are Armenian Chris- tians. A possibly larger, but quite uncer tam, number are Mohammedans, but as these Mohammedans belong to different races, speaking different tongues, and as nearly half of them are savage nomads, the Armenians constitute the most important element in the population. They are more numerous than any single section of the Moslem inhabitants, and they are infi- nitely superior to the great bulk of the Mohammedans in.industry as well as in intelligence. Nearly all the trade of the country is in their hands; and in some districts, where the Moslems are pastoral nomads or mere robbers, they are the only tillers of the soil. Unlike their neighbors, the Nestorian Christians, many of whom are warlike mountaineers, the Armenians are a quiet and peaceable folk in these ancient seats of theirs. But in the for- eign countries to which so many of them have emigrated, they are, as everybody knows, singularly enterprising and suc- cessful merchants, showing wherever they settle in Calcutta, in Java, in Constanti- nople, in Manchester a keenness and tenacity not inferior to that of Scotchmen or Yankees. Both in Asiatic Russia and in Turkey they form a large part, and (as one hears) by far the most valuable part of the subordinate officials. In the Russian army there are said to be thirty Arme- nian generals, including Loris Melikoff, Tergukaseff, and Lazareff. Nubar Pasha, the ablest man in Egypt, is an Armenian Christian; so is the present Persian min- ister in London, who is one of the fore- most statesmen of Persia.* And the exploits of the tribes of the Cilician moun- tains, who have maintained themselves in practical independence since the four- teenth century, repelling the attacks of vastly superior Turkish armies with a valor comparable to that of the Montene- grins, prove that there is no want of cour- age or spirit, any more than of intelligence, in the Armenian race. Now, of all the districts of Asiatic Tur- key, Armenia is that where the misery of the subjects is the greatest. Both in the Arabic portion, and in what I have called the Turkish portion proper (i.e., Asia Minor), the number of Christians is com- paratively small, and they inhabit the towns, where oppression is not so easy, and can be sooner brought to the notice of a European consul. Here, however, the Christians are a rural as well as an urban population, and there are so few represen * It is worth remarking that the Armenians played a great part among the generals and administrators of the Eastern Roman Empire from the sixth century on- wards. 7 tatives of England or Russia in the cities that cruelties and exactions pass unheeded. But the pre-eminence of suffering which belongs to Armenia is chiefly due to a cause absent in the other provinces (though something like it exists in Syria), the pres- ence of the marauding tribes of Koords. These robbers are the scourge of the coun- try. Constantly in arms, and scorning all labor, they carry on a perpetual guerilla war against their peaceable neighbors. They fall upon the villages, of the plain, destroy their crops, plunder and burn their houses, kill them if they attempt to resist, carry off their women into captivity. - Complaints are useless, for the local gov- ernor, even when he desires to do justice and punish the offender, has no sufficient force at his command. If he attempts to interfere the Koords will probably take vengeance on him, and certainly on the village which has ventured to invoke his help. The peaceable Moslem inhabitants suffer from these ruffians (who are very lax Mussulmans, and care nothing for the sultan) almost as much as the Christians do. But as they are permitted to carry arms, and their testimony is admissible in the courts, they are less helpless both for defence and redress. Not to repeat the tale of horrors which we have heard so often during the last two years, I will con- tent myself with extracting from the last published blue-book on the affairs of Tur- key, an account, touching in its sad sim- plicity, of the massacre which the Koords perpetrated at Van, hitherto the most pros- perous part of Armenia, early in last sum- mer. The Porte had summoned these wild warriors to its aid, but instead of fighting the Russians, they fell upon their innocent neighbors, who lived far from the scene of war, and had given no sign of disaffection. The account (whose details have been amply confirmed from other sources) is written in July last, and headed, Letter from an Armenian in Van to a bishop in Bitlis (another city of Armenia). HONORABLE AND HOLy FATHER, The condition of this city is most distress- ing. For the distance of three days journey on all sides of it the Christian villages have been despoiled. Not a sheep, not an ox, not a vestige of movable property remains; neither is there safety of life. Every Christian vil- lage on the road from Van to Bayazid has been destroyed by the cruel Koords~ They have robbed the people of everything; dese- crated the churches and carried away the church treasure. The pitiable villagers, ut- terly destitute and helpless, have fled to the mountains and caves, are hungry, thirsty, and naked, having no shelter from the scorching THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. 8 THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. heat of day or the cold at night. The daugh- ters and wives of some the Koords ravished, and others they to& k captive. They plundered shops without number; those that resisted they beat and wounded, and many they killed. The Jizirik chief men completeljrobbed Ala- bash Kaloo, the very rich and holy monastery of St. Bartimeus; they opened the grave of the saint and defiled it; they converted the monastery into a stable. In like manner the holy monastery of Derrama has been converted into a ruin and the tower and walls of the church pulled down. Also Koosaganborts monastery they plundered, of which not a vestige remains. Of which shall I speak? Of which shall I write ?* Armenia has become a desolation. It will be impossible for you to believe the things which have come to pass. But if the Lord prospers you so that you come hither, your eyes will be filled with tears at the sight of the desolation. In this city a Christian cannot walk about with freedom; to meet together to talk is impossible; to open the shops is wholly out of the question. Taxes grow heavy from day to day. Troubles in- crease daily. The wheat is ripe; to reap it is impracticable and unsafe. There are no means to hire laborers. Oxen and carts have been stolen, so that we are given up to un- bearable suffering. If we go out from our houses, we take off much of our clothing, lest it be seized in the streets. The Turkish army went to Bavazid and took it from the Russians. While the fight was going on, the Koords plundered the city and surrounding villages, and killed many of the inhabitants. The beautiful women and girls they carried away to their mountain strongholds, and now the region is desolate and uninhabited. Many of the slain lie unburied. The Almighty Saviour our God deliver his people from these straits. This massacre was not an exceptional thing. It was merely the repetition, on a larger scale than usual, of outrages which have been going on in Armenia for gener- ations past, which have driven hundreds of thousands of Armenians to emigrate to other parts of Turkey or into Russian territory, which have steadily reduced the population and wealth of the country, and which, if unchecked, must end in its total ruin. As I write, news comes that such massacres have begun afresh in more than one part of Armenia, and that the govern- ment is utterly helpless to check them. The sufferings of the Armenians have been greater than those of Bulgarians or Bosnians, and there has not becn in their case even the poor justification of an at- tempted insurrection.t It is impossible to conceive a stronger case for the benevolent intervention of the European powers, and especially of En- gland, than the circumstances of Armenia make out. For what are the declared objects of English policy? To improve the condition of the subject races, and to erect a barrier against the aggressions and influence of Russia. Are the Armeni- ans to be forgotten White the cause of the Greeks is urged, merely because the former are Asiatics, and live further re- moved? They are certainly neither less deserving than the Greeks, nor less likely to repay and profit by any efforts that may be made on their behalf. How they ought to be aided is a more difficult question. They live intermingled with Mohamme- dans, and though their total number in Tur- key is four millions, they are hardly strong enough in Armenia proper to be formed into an independent principality. But it may be suggested that the districts which lie exposed to the ravages of the Koords, corresponding generally to Turkish Arme- nia, require exceptional treatment since they suffer from exceptional evils. They might be formed into a new large province which would touch the Black Sea at Tre- bixond and Kerasun, and would therefore be open to English as well as Russian influence. Such a province might be placed under a governor, to be appointed with the consent of the European powers, who should be himself, if possible, a Frank.* To check the Koords, a strong local militia ought to be created in it, con- sisting largely of Christians; and a system of local self-government set on foot which should enable the Christian villages to manage their own concerns. The tribute to be paid by the province to the Porte should be fixed, and the rest of the taxes raised be applied to local purposes. Peace and security once ensured to the peasant and the artisan, the Christian population would increase rapidly, the tide of emigra- tion would set backwards into Armenia from other parts of Turkey and from anarchic Persia, and the Armenian people might ultimately become ripe for a com- pleter self-government and a larger political life. Of course it would be no easy matter to carry out such a plan. No one can even Taylor and Zohrab at Erzeroum, and by Vice-Consul Rassam at Diarbekir, printed in the two latest blue- books, contain details of the highest importance. Others may be found in the reports on provincial op * Mr. Grant Duffs suggestion that successful Indian pressions published by the Armenian patriarchate. * A quotation from Moses of Chorene, the ancient administrators might be employed in Turkey is one of historian of Armenia. the most seasonable that has been made in the course t The reports on the state of Armenia by Consuls of this melancholy business. THE FUTURE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. affirm that it is possible. But something of the same kind has been done, with a consid- erable measure of success, in the Lebanon. And unless something of this kind is done in Armenia, unless, above all, the ravages of the Koords are stopped, the Armenian people, who have clung to their nationality and their faith through the wars and per- secutions of sixteen centuries, will perish from the earth, and their country be at last annexed by Russia. To avert such a catastrophe is surely a matter of European concern. Enolish Liberals ought to be quite as . b anxious as Tories to arrest the southward march of the czars. I venture to think that many of those who have espoused the anti-Turk- ish side in our recent controversies, have too readily allowed themselves to be goad- ed into the attitude of advocates of Rus- sia, while some few have gone so far as to call on her to annex freely, merely because she will govern better than Turkey. Now, without thinking Russia worse than other States, one may well hold this line to be a mistaken one, not merely from a party, but also from a statesmanlike point of view. Russias motives are no doubt mixed. Some of them are honorable enough. Some are selfish, and, like most of us, she contrives to persuade herself that the hon- orable ones are the only ones, thrusts the others into.a dark corner of her mind, and if she cant help seeing a bit of ambition sticking out, calls it manifest destiny. We need not, like the English enragds, consider her a mere common robber, in order to feel justified in stopping this manifest destiny, where it strikes against the general interests of the civilized world. Those interests require that no single power, and least of all an imperfectly civil- ized and despotic one, shall be permitted to extend her dominion over races and lands which may be capable of a different and individual civilization, and ultimately of political freedom. If, then, it is desi- rable to check the advance of Russia in Asia, the development of the Armenian nationality offers by far the best, perhaps the only permanent, means of doing so. In time past the Armenians have no doubt been favorably disposed to her, because she alone interfered (seldom enough) to protect them. Their sympathy has helped her in this campaign: their miseries have given, and would continue to give her, a basis for intrigue, and an excuse for war and annexation. If none of the other powers will take up their cause, they will again be forced to throw themselves upon her. But the Armenians are nevertheless 9 jealous of Russia. They suspect her of desiring to absorb that venerable Church round which all their patriotic memories cling, and to extinguish the use of their ancient and cultivated tongue, a tongue which had a literature ages before Russia received its alphabet. Their national character is unlike that of the Slays, and though they rise to distinction in the Rus- sian service, the two rices show no signs of fusing. The Armenians would there- fore, if delivered from their present wretch- edness and encouraged by the sympathy of England, have every motive to stand sentinels in their mountain fastnesses against the further advance of the Sla- vonic power and the orthodox Eastern Church. Their influence, which is already powerful all through Asia Minor, would become an anti-Russian influence; their contentment would destroy the pretexts for her interference. This, however, is by no means the larg- est result that might be hoped for from a revival of Armenian nationalty, or rather, since that nationality has revived and is already vigorous, from giving to the Ar- menian national feeling a hold upon prac- tical politics, a country to hope for and work for. I return to the point from which this discussion started, to ask again what is the best chance for the future of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey, and to answer that it lies in the uprising of a progressive Christian people, which may ultimately grow into an independent Chris- tian State. The Armenians have, alone among the races of western Asia,* the gifts that can enable them to aspire to this mission. They are keen-witted, ener- getic, industrious, apt to learn, and quick in assimilating Western ideas. In point of morality and social customs they coin- pare favorably with their Greek and Russian neighbors. Their form of Chris- tianity cannot be called an advanced one; but the priests are certainly not more ignorant, nor ths people more supersti- tious than those of the orthodox Chuith. And they have the great merit of being singularly free from fanaticism. That they have not, like most Christian bodies, persecuted other faiths, may perhaps be only because they have never had the chance. But their Church deserves the praise of being tolerant and liberal, ready to fraternize with other sects, while the people bear no hatred to their Moham- medan neighbors, and, indeed, live on * I do not, of course, mean to include the Jews, because there are now comparatively to few of them in Palestine. A DOUBTING HEART. I0 good terms with all except the Koords. bility of such a result is enough to make Such a nation, which combines with a one wish that England, whose Eastern strong individuality and corporate spirit policy has too long been merely to tide great flexibility of mind, and a power of over the difficulties of the moment with- adapting itself to varying conditions of out foreseeing the greater ones of the life, seems specially qualified for the func- future, should come forward to bear a tion of pervading and civilizing the foremost part in the work of reconstruc- surrounding Asiatic provinces, whose Mo- tion. Though Russia cannot decently hammedan inhabitants have lost what oppose, she will scarcely help, for she initiative they may once have had. What would doubtless prefer to absorb the Ar- the Armenians need is a centre, a land menians herself. If anything is to be which they may call their own, and which done, the suggestion, the impulse, must they may in time, as its wealth and numer- come from England, whose relations with ical strength increases, build up into a these countries give her a special title to State. To ask for independence now would interfere, and ought to give her a special be idle; for it could scarcely, even setting knowledge. Her mission in the further apart other obstacles, be reconciled with East has grown nobler in motive and the presence, in the same districts, of so larger in design with each successive gen- many Moslem inhabitants. But if order eration. Is its spirit to be less provident, were once secured, prosperity would fol- less penetrating, less hopeful on the low; and when in time the progressive Euxine than it has been on the shores of element in the population had come to the Southern Ocean? And are all our outnumber, as it always ultimately does, lavish professions of a desire to improve the stagnant and ruder Mohammedans, the condition of the subject races to re- independence would not be far off. main unfulfilled, even in a region where it All this some osie may say is visionary cannot be alleged that political reasons matter of sentiment and fancy rather exist to deter us from their fulfilment? than of practical politics. To many per- JAMES BRYCE. sons any belief in moral forces seems vis- ionary. Italian unity was a dream of poets and conspirators, German unity the crotchet of doctrinaire professors. One must not be afraid of terms of this kind. A DOUBTING HEART. I do not deny that the int9rest which those BY MISS KEARY, who advocate the cause of the Armenian nation feel, is partly a sentimental interest. AUT~*OR OF CASTLE nALY, OLDJ4U1~Y, ETc. They think that its glorious history, its CHAPTER n. intellectual achievements, the tenacity with THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. which it has clung to its faith and its na- tional memories, infinitely strengthen the THE clinging damp of a rainy Novem- claim which its sufferings raise to the con- her evening, while it stayed outside well- sideration of Europe. These constitute fenced houses, like Lady Riverss, crept the force of the people these are the uncomfortably through and through the legitimate basis of its aspirations. Still ground-floor rooms of a large, scantily-f ur- less do I seek to conceal the difficulties nished, ill-warmed, and ill-lighted house at which any attempt to reform the Turkish the opposite end of London. It brought government, even in one district, must en- out a slimy perspiration on the passage counter. The obstacles to the creation of walls and hung misty halos round the dim l~n Armenian province, and to the revival gas-burners, so that they seemed to have of a semi-independent Armenian princi- withdrawn themselves miles away, and to palit~, may turn out insuperable; but in be acting as signals in a fathomless dis- Turkey every part of the horizon is so tance. Perhaps it was the uncomfortable dark, every path seems so blocked, that impression of desolate space thus created, the least gleam of light ought to be marked, which made the two occupants of one of and any plan considered which can afford the largest of these ground-floor rooms, sit even a chance of improvement. I do not close together on an old-fashioned couch assert that the Armenians, so reduced in ranged against the wall, app~irently a mile numbers, will prove capable of pervading or two from the fireplace, where a black and civilizing Asiatic Turkey. But their fire, built up to give out heat sometime, doing so is at any rate the best prospect but not now, smouldered dully. Quite out for those countries. If they fail, no of the way of heat and light these two per- others will succeed; and even the possi- sons had been sitting for at least an hour, A DOUBTING HEART. II and if they were not chilled to the bone, it must have been owing to a certain soft glow of love-light which shone from their eyes whenever in the course of a confiden- tial low-toned talk they had looked at each other. Two pairs of velvety-brown eyes these were which thus interchanged love- light; too exactly alike in shape and color, and sweep of silken lashes to belong to lovers in the ordinary sense of that word, and having just the contrast of expression, lovingly trustful and lovingly anxious, which might be expected from the actual relationship of their owners. Mother and daughter,theone a thin, worn, sad-looking woman, the other a vigorous, bright girl, whose face, full of delicate coloring and light, spoke of an eager temperament and naturally gay spirits toned just now to seriousness by the quick sympathy that reflected every mood of those she loved. Something very important had to be de- cided, something which so far as Vhe con- versation had gone at present, threatened equal pain to her mother, whichever way it was settled; and as Emmie West leaned her soft pink cheek against her mothers worn forehead, her velvety eyes (now that all the arguments she could think of had come to an end), had a sorrowful, dumb entreaty in them, which her mother felt without being able to satisfy. Do make up your mind to choose the least painful course, and do be as little un- happy as possible about it, the yearning eyes, hungry for a little joy, said, and sad- hearted Mrs. West stooped down and kissed them, not having any more satisfac. tory answer to give to this appeal an ap- peal which she was apt to read in her childrens eyes many times every day. It was not so much that she had lost the art of making the best of things, but that an- other influence stronger than even her childrens, perpetually forced her to look on the gloomy side. Life had been hard on Mr. West, on the husband who had in her youth honored her by thrusting unexpected elevation upon her, and now that the world had turned against him, she felt it would be disloyal in her to see anything but gloom in a state of things in which he had fared so ill. Who had he to feel with him but herself ? not even his children, poor, thoughtless, light-hearted things; and ~how could his sorrows be adequately mourned, unless her heart were always bleeding? If now and then, on rare occasions, when Mr. West was away, and not likely to re- turn for a longer interval than usual, she was drawn on by her eldest sons gay good-temper, and her daughters sweet coaxing, to listen to the young peoples schemes for the future (in which, to be sure, there was never any mention made of Mr. West), and she let her thoughts take a slight tinge of rose color from their inex- perienced hopefulness, her conscience always smote her afterwards, and she reproached herself, as~ if her momentary escape from gloom had been an act of un- faithfulness to her husband. Just now, however, there was no question of escape. Mr. West might be expected home any minute (the fire was ready to be broken up into a blaze when his foot was heard on the ~craper), and she and Emmie were tremblingly discussing the safest way of accomplishing a sacrifice she was contem- plating on his behalf which must be so car- ried out, that, while he profited by it, he should never have the least idea that it had been made for him. My dear, I dont think I can make up my mind to-night, Mrs. West was saying. We had better lock up the box again, and put it back on my dressing-table before your father comes in. I would not have him go up-stairs and miss it, and find out what we have been talking about for the world. Mamma, I wonder Emmie be- gan hesitatingly, paused, and then hur- ried on as if half afraid of what she was saying. Mamma; I wonder whether it might not be better after all to do it open ly. Why should you have the pain of parting with your treasures, and the fright as well, which half kills you, of pretending to have got them all the same? Why should not papa know? Perhaps he would leave off expecting so much if he quite understood what a hard struggle it is for you to provide the little luxuries you say are so necessary for him. Let me go on, dear, and say what I have on my mind just this once. I dont think it is a fair division for you to have all the giving up, and all the pain of concealment as xvell. Katharine Moore says that ~vomen ought not to do such things; that they should act openly and independently, and then they would not be trampled upon. Trampled upon? A look of almost wild horror flitted across Mrs. Wests face. Oh, Emmie, my dear, how could she have such a thought about me? You must not get it into your head, darling, or it will make me feel very wicked, as if I had ter- ribly misrepresented things as they stand between your father and me. Trampled upon! Dont you understand, darling, that there is nothing I dont want to do 12 A DOUBTING HEART. for him and all of you? If letting oneself be trampled upon would do any good, and keep humiliation from him and you, there would be no pain in it. It would not de- grade me. The pain is that I am such a useless person,~and can do so little to serve him and you all. It seems to me that you do everything, and bear all the pain. That is because I talk about it like a woman, and your father is silent to every- body but me; but, oh Emmie, he suffers for us all! I read the bitter pain that cuts down to the very bottom of his soul when- ever he is made aware of any fresh priva- tion we have to bear. It hurts him and humbles him down to the ground, though he can only show what he feels by short, sharp words. I understand, if you young- er ones dont; and, darling, we will strug- gle to spare him little mortifications as long as we can; when there is nothing more to be done we will sit still and bear the will of God. Perhaps when we have done all we can, the worst, if it comes, will bring a sort of peace. Or good fortune will come at last; and mamma, you must not say that we young ones dont feel for papa. Harry does at all events. I really think he is almost as anxious to keep disagreeable things from papas sight, and to provide against his being crossed in his fidgets, as you are. Do you know that ever since old Mary Anne refused to clean knives and shoes for lodgers, Harry has got up an hour earlier and gone down-stairs, and done all that part of the work before any one else is up? This puts Mary Anne into such good humor, that she takes pains with the breakfast again, and sends up the one rasher, and the two bits of toast, and the thick bread-and-butter, with as much cere- niony as if it were a lord mayors feast. You have not been down-stairs to see lately, but I assure you papa has looked almost satisfied, and yesterday he actually remarked that his boots were well blacked, and supposed we had got a new boy, and Sidney was so tickled at the idea, Harry had to kick him under the table to keep him from exploding. Its all Harrys doing, and I do believe he does it quite as much for papas sake, as for yours. My own boy! said Mrs. West fer- vently; and as she spoke her worn face glowed, and a smile broke over it, obliter- ating for a moment its lines of care and pain, and making it almost as fair and young as Emmie s. But you wont love him better than me, said E mmie, pretending to pout; that would not be a good return for my giving myself up to you body and soul, and seeing only you in the world, would it, mother darling? I agree with Katharine Moore that women can understand and love each other best, and should stick to each other through thick and thin. Let the men fight for the n~ selves, and help themselves, I say. ~I will take care of you, mother. Well then, dearest, I ought not to think of myself as poorer than your poor Aunt Rivers, who seems to be in the way of losing all her daughters, while I am to keep mine. And, mamma, cried Emmie eagerly, that is another reason for your making up your mind to-day about the necklace. I forgot to mention it before, but it is a reason. Your never meaning to leave me, dar- ling? No, but my not having been invited to Constances wedding. I will confess something to you, mother. I have often thought I should like to wear that neck- lace just once. I remember how I used to admire it when I was a little child, and you put it on to go out with papa to some grand party, and he used to come out of his dressing-room, when you were ready, and look you know how, mamma, as he never looks now proud of you, and of every. thing about him. I used to think then that wearing a pearl necklace meant being grown up, and beautiful, and perfectly happy. When I heard that Constance Rivers was engaged to be married, it did come into my mind that I might be asked to be one of her bridesmaids, and that perhaps Aunt Rivers would give me a dress such as would not disgrace the neck- lace, and that, for once, I could have looked so that the Riverses need not be ashamed of me. But the opportunity has passed, you see. I was not invited to the wedding, and I dont now believe I ever shall be asked to the Riverss on any grand occasion; they look down upon us too much now. The necklace had better go, and not tantalize us any longer by lying idle in the jewel-box. I should not won- der, if after paying all these bills, and buy- ing what you want for papa, and putting aside a fittle fund for emergencies, we might get a new floorcloth for the front hall out of the money the sale will bring. It would be a real load off my mind if we could do that, for I am quite certain the old one cant be put down again after another spring cleaning. Imagine our feelings if Aunt Rivers or the new A DOUBTING HEART. 3 Lady Forest were to call here some day and have to put their feet absolutely on bare bo4rds! I dont think we should ever get Aunt Rivers into the sitting-room, she would faint in the hall; and I am sure no one in this house could carry her back into her carriage. We should never hear the last of it. My darling, it was of your own wed- ding day, not of Constance Riverss, that I have thought, when I have many a time put back the necklace into its case, through sore needs of selling it we have struggled out of. Your father gave it me on the day you were christened, and I have a feeling that it is robbing you to send it away. I should have liked him to clasp it round your neck before he gave you away to any one.~~ Mamma, said Emmie, after a mo- ments pause, with a richer flush than usual on her cheek, but a resolute tone of reasonableness in her voice, Katharine Moore says it is quite time that girls left off looking upon marriage as the one ob- ject of their existence. She says it is an accident of life that occurs now to fewer and fewer women every year, and that girls should plan their lives without any reference to it whatever. Jam afraid very few of them will do so, my dear, in spite of Katharine Moore. But at all events I can, mamma, said Emmie, sitting a little more upright, and pushing her soft brown hair from her fore- head, with a decided little gesture that had perhaps been caught from Katharine Moore. I can make up my mind to look at things as they really are, and face them resolutely without deluding myself with vain expectations. No~v let us consider, dear. I hardly ever go anywhere except now and then to drink tea in the Land of Beulah, and that counts for nothing, as Mrs. Urquhart only asks me when she is alone. And if by a rare chance I do get an invitation to an evening party, and ac- cept it, I am always sorry afterwards, for I dont feel at home among the other girls when I am there. It cant be helped, mother dear. I have not sat or stood in corners at Aunt Riverss Christmas parties without finding out exactly how everybody looks at one when one has on the shabbi- est dress in the room. Last Christmas a gentleman found me out in my corner, and sat talking to me a long time, and I thought perhaps he found me rather nice till Alma came and explained to me that Mr. An~ stice was something of an oddity himself, and always made a point of talking to the person in the company most likely to be overlooked by everybody else. It was ever so nice of him, but it was not the kind of compliment that encourages one to go out again, was it, mamma? My darling, you know I would spare you Aunt Riverss parties if I could, since I cant dress you for them as I should like; but but if Aunt Rivers took of- fence at my keeping ~you away, and your father were to begin to suspect her of slighting us Ah, yes, I know; and besides, dear mamma, I generally like the thought of the party beforehand well enough; and Alma is sometimes kind; or if not, and the reality is worse than I looked for, I can always now run up to Air Throne the next morning, and laugh over my mor- tifications with the two Moores, till I get not to care for them. I was not complain- ing, mother dear; but I want you to face the real state of things; give up impossi- ble hopes, and sell the necklace. It wont be wanted ever for such a day as you fan- cied; but we shall have other happy days great days for the boys perhaps, or even for me, in some other way than marriage. You should hear how the Moores talk. Till these good times come there is a great deal of pleasure to be got out of the world, even in shabby clothes, and with all our worries and troubles, if you, mother, would only pluck up your courage again. Very nice bits come in between whiles for us young ones. Fun in the back sitting-room of evenings, while you and papa are sit- ting here dolefully; and delicious talks with the Moores in Air Throne, and cosy times with dear old Mrs. Urquhart in the Land of Beulah. Does it not sometimes make you dread misfortune a little less when you see that our great crisis the crisis that you thought would break your heart of our having to take lodgers into our house, has ended in making us hap- pier? At least, I know I am a great deal happier since the Moores came; and Har- ry and the boys have quite got over the little mortification it was to them at first, in the fun of giving odd names to the new divisions of the house. If Aunt Rivers chooses to be ashamed of us, and to send us to Coventry, we can bear it; and you wont think us unsympathizing, will you, dear, for being able to get a little amuse- ment out of what seemed such a terrible sorrow at first? Mrs. West thought of the contraction that came on her husbands brow when- ever, in the course of their long, silent evenings, the sound of a bell from the up- per story reminded him that he was no 14 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. longer sole master of the house in which he had been born, but she could not quench the light in Emmies beautiful eyes by such an allusion. Whatever makes you happy is good for me, she said gently, stroking her daughters hair back into its usual becom- ing waves over her forehead, and thus obliterating the little attempt to look like Katharine Moore, that had its terrors for her, though she said nothing about it. I am sure I hope the Moores coming will prove good for us all. As your cousins keep so much out of the way, I like you to have other companions. Friends, corrected Emmie eagerly; friends who will do more for us than all the Riverses put together ever would. Mamma, if you do not mind my telling Katharine about the necklace, I believe her advice will be very useful. She gives lessons on two evenings in the week to a young man who is a working jeweller, and I dare say he could tell us what the neck- lace is really worth, or even manage the sale for us, if you liked to trust him. I know you dont wish Harry to have any- thing to do with it. My dear, I hope the young man does not come here I What would your father say if he met him, and heard that one of the young lady lodgers gave him lessons? He would think it a monstrous thing. He would want us to turn the Moores out of the house at once. I had no idea myself that Katharine gave lessons to young men and shopmen too. Dear mamma, she thinks nothing of it. You must not judge the Moores as you would anybody else. They are to be judged in quite a different way; and no one but Katharine can explain it. How- ever, you need not be at all uneasy. She never brings any of her pupils up to Air Throne that is Christabels shrine, to draw and write and paint in. Katharine would not desecrate it, she says, by bring- ing drudgery there. She goes out to give her lessons, and I believe this is one of the evenings. Let me take the jewel-case to her and speak about it now; in another minute papa will come in; and I am sure you will feel happier for having come to a decision. It may be a long time before you and I can have such another long un- interrupted talk, and it would be a pity to let it go for nothing. Would you like to look at the necklace, and say good-bye to it before it goes, mamma? Emmies finger, as she spoke, was on the spring of the purple case which she had previously taken from the box on her knee, and her eyes looked pleasantly ex- pectant, but her mother made a hasty neg- ative gesture. No, no, dear, I dont want to look at it again. I said good-bye to all that it means for me a long, long time ago; and if you are not to wear it, I had rather never see it. Put the case into your pocket, and carry it to Katharine white papa and I are at dinner. If we women can manage the matter among ourselves, I shall be thank- ful. My conscience will be easier for not having drawn Harry into our little con- spiracy, since I must conceal it from your father for the present. There, is not that papas step outside ? run away, dearest run away, and put the jewel-box exactly in its usual place on my dressingtable, so that there may be nothing to strike your fathers eye when he goes into the room to dress for dinner. I shall tell him that I have been obliged to part with the neck- lace, some day, Emmie dear; but I want to spare him the pain of knowing exactly when it was done, and of following us in all the painful little details of the business. The loss is his as well as ours, but we can spare him part of the degradation. Yes, run away, Emmie dear, and leave me alone. Your father likes best now to find me alone here when he first comes in, weary and out of spirits. From The Fortoiglitly Review. THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. I FROM 1837 TO 1852. LORD BEACONSFIELDS political adven- tures have three stages. The first, ex- tending from 1826 to 1837, exhibits his beginnings in literature and politics, and shows how he struggled with reluctant constituencies until at last he forced his way into the House of Commons. It is really the most important of all, for in it the man was formed and displayed, and the peculiarities of his character and gen- ius were disclosed with less restraint than afterwards. He gambolled with un- checked license. The fierce play of an untamed nature gave itself free vent. Afterwards, Lord Beaconsfield found it necessary to clothe himself in Parliamen- tary, official, and social decorum. Only now and then in the wild sallies, and still oftener in the demure smile, do we see that the man is in disguise. Still, THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. ~ every now and then the aboriginal savage looks through his eyes, and occasionally shrieks in his voice, and displays itself in his excited gestures. The impish nature breaks at seasons through the gilded pale. The next period is compressed within the years from 1837 to 1852. It records Lord Beaconsfields struggles in the House of Commons to Parliamentary toleration, to Parliamentary recognition, to Parliamen- tary eminence, through the sp6kesmanship first of a rather ridiculous coterie, then of an angry faction, and afterwards of an or- ganized party, raising him into office, and the ministerial leadership in the House of Commons. Lord Beaconsfield began by wearing the livery of Peel; he then, with ribbons in his hat and tabor in his mouth, masqueraded as a rural swain, dancing with his young-England companions round a Maypole; and finally in the breeches and top-boots of a stage squire, smacked his hunting-whip against his thigh, de- nounced the villany of the traitor Peel, who had deceived him and other simple- minded country gentlemen into a belief that he was a protectionist, and a friend of the land and of the corn-laws, while he was nothing but a manufacturer and free- trader. Lord Beaconsfields rapid changes of costume and character resemble those of the elder and younger Mathews in some of their startling transformations. The third period of his political adventures, in which England now has the perilous honor and excitement of living, is that of his offi- cial and ex-official life. It extends from the year 1852 to this present month of June, 1878, and probably will extend consider- ably beyond it. It is really that which most interests the world; but the second period, which engages us now, must first be rapidly surveyed. The year 1837 then saw Mr. Disraeli fairly launched in the career in which for more than forty years he has played a conspicuous, and for thirty of those forty, a distinguished, and on some questions a decisive part. The law, since altered, re- quired that a new Parliament shall be summoned on the accession of a new sov- ereign; and he was a member of the first House of Commons that met under the reign of Queen Victoria. He had been elected for Maidstone. He won this vic- tory not over his old enemies the Whigs, but over his former friends and allies, the Radicals, defeating the veteran Colonel Perronet Thompson. This Barrabean preference on the part of the Kentish borough has since been atoned for by wiser elections to subsequent Parliaments. Such triumphs of the sciolist and the ad- venturer over the man of pure and public purpose, of fixed principles, and of rea- soned convictions, are, however, incidents of public life too common and natural to attract much attention. It has been Lord Beaconsfields purpose in life to advance himself, and he has succee~ied. It was the purpose of ColonePPerronet Thomp- son to advance the doctrines which he believed to be true, and to promote the reforms which he deemed to be necessary. Both have had the triumph which they most coveted. Each illustrates the value of singleness of purpose, be the purpose good or evil, in public or in private life. It is natural to desire that a man ~vho pro- motes a great cause shall also promote himself. But the conditions of human life and character do not often allow of this double victory; and the man who has this twofold aim in view is not likely to realize either part of it. Usually he must either sacrifice himself to his cause, or his cause to himself. To desire to be disinterested and rewarded is a state of mind logically contradictory, but in practice too easily and too frequently realized. To strive only for principles, and to reap place and power, titles and decorations, public honor and public gratitude, is a combination very flattering to that inward eye which is the bliss of meditative and ambitious solitude. The internal delight of satisfied virtue, and the gratified vanity of external honors, are scarcely to be had together except in the fanciful forecast of a sentimental vir- tue veiling personal greed. The man who has no cause but himself, and the man who, if we may say so, has no self but his cause, are alone likely to reach the goal that they set before them. The men who are a little for virtue and a great deal for themselves, will probably end by being all for themselves, and so sink into the first class. The men who are too virtuous to be unscrupulous, but not virtuous enough to lose sight of themselves, will probably share the misfortune of the dog that courses two hares at once. Lord Beacons- field has had one steady and consistent pur- pose through life; and, to use Burkes expression, he has varied his means in order to preserve the essential unity of his end. To climb ever higher and hiTher, to fix more and more steadily the public gaze, to wield power, to receive and distribute honors, to be the talk of his coterie, of England, of Europe, of the world, has been his aim, and in this he has succeeded. No career ever illustrated more remark- ably the virtues, if they be such apart z6 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. from the ends to which they are directed, of steady and unshaken purpose, of per- severance, patience, and audacity, of the skill which knows when to wait and when to act. Lord Beaconsfield is the great modern professor and practitioner in its personal application of that doctrine of opportunism, which Peel, in its more legit- imate political aspects, made a system in England, and to which the tactics of M. Gambetta have given a name in France. The debauching effect of the French em- pire, even upon such opponents as the Republican leader of France, is to be seen in his undisguised admiration for Lord Beaconsfield. Lord Beaconsfield, who had been alter- nately a Tory-Radical, and a Radical- Tory, as convenience might dictate, appeared at Maidstone as a simple Con- servative. For the next six or seven years of his life he can best be described by a term vhich had not then taken its place in political nomenclature. He was a Peelite, though not of course in the later meaning of the word, in which it denoted a school of political doctrine and practice. He was a Peelite in a more personal sense, such as that in which the gallant, gay domestics of high life below stairs as- sume the names, as they wear the livery, of the noblemen and gentlemen on whom they condescend to wait. His insight into personal character enabled him to single out the really capable man of his age. His perception of political tendencies led him to recognize that the hour was bring- ing his opportunity to the man; and he flung himself into the current which was carrying place and power, and meaner things and persons with it, to the feet of Peel. The impatience and alarmed preju- dices of William IV. had anticipated mat- ters. But the extraordinary skill and address with which Sir Robert Peel, in 18345, had maintained himself as the minister of a minority, imposed by the royal pleasure upon a hostile Parliament and country, only showed that the ap- proaching time had not yet arrived. It illustrated all the more signally the unri- valled ascendancy of the man. Curiously enough, it has fallen to Lord Beaconsfield to display more than once a somewhat similar power as the leader of a govern- ment in a minority, before showing what he could do as a prime minister with an undisputed majority behind him. In 1836 Lord Beaconsfield had addressed one of the Letters of Runnymedeto Sir Rob- ert Peel. It is characteristic of the up- holsterer and ornamental gardener in the present prime minister, that his expres- sions of almost adoring confidence in the man are mingled with expressions of ad- miration of the big house and well laid-out grounds in which Sir Robert Peel spent his retirement. Lord Beaconsfield does not hate Persian displays or love a Sabine farm. A great man not clothed in purple and fine linen, nor f~tring sumptuously every day, a great man moderately housed and attended, is to him scarcely a great man at all. The halls and bowers of Drayton; those gardens and that library where you have realized the romance of Verulam and where you enjoy the lettered ease that Temple loved, rouse the ingen- uous enthusiast to a rapturous eloquence which shows that George Robins need not have lacked a successor if Lord Beacons- field had had anytbing but himself to put up to auction. I~hese things are as es- sential to his image of Sir Robert Peel as the panoply of your splendid talents and your spotless character.~ Sir Robert Peel was declared to be like the Knight of Rhodes in Schillers heroic ballad, the only hope of a suffering isle. The letter is a lyrical invocation, a sort of prose parody on the ode in which Horace com- pared Augustus to Jupiter, to the equal discredit of the god, the emperor, and the poet. Lord Beaconsfield saw that the op- portunity of Peel and of the Conservative party was coming, and he lost no time in proclaiming himself on the side of the winners. The electioneering addresses at Maid- stone were couched in the same vein as the Letters of Runnymede. That personal and political hatred of the Whigs, which is one of the few things in which he has been consistent, is freely expressed. Lord Beaconsfield perceived that they were a declining and perishing party, though they still had a name to live, and persisted in existence from mere continuance. As a tree, whose roots are decaying in the earth, still for a season puts forth leaves and flowers, and sometimes bears good fruit, so the Whigs have for a generation produced useful measures. But practi- cally their work was done in 1832. The Reform Bill, which was their greatest achievement, destroyed them as well as the abuses at which it was aimed. The conditions of political existence were wholly changed; and in these altered con- ditions the Whig party could not flourish. It is unjust to deny the genuineness of their Liberalism and the value of their services to Liberalism. Under the political conditions of the seventeenth and eigh THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. ~v teenth centuries, the contest against the despotism of the later Stuarts and against the pretensions of George III. to magnify~ the prerogatives and personal power of the crown, could be waged with success only by the great houses. An oligarchial char- acter was therefore almost of necessity impressed upon the defence of the prin- ciples of the constitution. The three statesmen whom, after Bolingbroke and Wvndham, Lord Beaconsfield most ad- mires, are Chatham, Shelburne, and the younger Pitt. He eulogizes their Liberal doctrines with respect to constitutional liberty, to freedom of trade, and Parlia- mentary reform, as genuine Toryism. But they derived those doctrines from Whig traditions in the first case, to which in the two latter must. be added the influence of Adam Smiths writings, and of personal intercourse with the Nonconformists Price and Priestley. There was nothing in To- ryism to make Chatham and Shelburne advocates of American freedom, nor to make Shelburne and the younger Pitt de- fenders of free-trade. The men whom Lord Beaconsfield calls Tories ~vere known in their own time more correctly as Chat- ham \Vhigs, that is to say, they were scarcely Whigs at all. They tried, with a real though a premature and inopportune wisdom, a wisdom therefore rather of speculation than of practice, to be Liberals without being Whigs. Chatham was strong enough in virtue of his wonderful ascendancy of personal character, and of his transcendant success in foreign policy and the conduct of our European wars, to hold his own against both the crown and the great families. Shelburne, theoreti- cally, and to some extent in practice, an advanced Liberal of the modern type, was obliged to strengthen himself by the sup- port of the crown against Whig oligarchy, and as theory often follows practice, he was led to formulate doctrines of a patriot king ruling independently of parties, which brought him dangerously near to the insid- ious Tory democracy of Bolingbroke. The domestic factions into which the French Revolution divided English parties made Pitt, who never was a Tory, the head of a Tory government and the agent of a Tory policy. But in all that does these men most honor, in all that makes party zealotry anxious to claim the sanction of their names, they were only not Whigs, because they were something more and better than Whigs. They were Liberals of a more modern type, endeavoring to emancipate themselves too soon from the conditions under which alone a Liberal LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 1146 policy was possible in the eighteenth cen- tury. They were thus drawn into danger- ous alliances ~vith Tory principle of per- sonal rule, and in the case of Pitt into a Tory policy both in home and foreign pol- itics. The Whigs were an oligarchical party, because the great families opposed the only organization by whichthe preten- sions of the crown could be effectually combated, and the principles established in 1689 could be defended against the court and against Church-and-king mobs. This strange combination of oligarchical rule and liberal, principle, inevitable and useful though it was, had done its work in 1832. From that time it became an anach- ronism and an offence. A century and a half of struggle under these conditions has ineffaceably stamped its character upon the Whig aristocracy. A Whig is a Lib- eral who believes that Liberal principles can be only asserted under the guardian- ship and by the representatives of certain old families. He imports the historic con- ditions of the eighteenth century into the nineteenth. He does not perceive that the Reform Act of 1832 in part, and that of 1867 almost completely, abolished him; and that modern Liberalism, whether it be moderate or advanced, exists under condi- tions involving his transformation or his departure from the political scene. The hot-house protection of an oligarchical party, needful to the delicate plant of con- stitutional freedom, is simply a hindrance to the health and development of the vig- orous tree. The great noble in politics must share the fate of the patron in litera- ture. The Whigs deserve that historic honor and political gratitude which Lord Beaconsfield denies them. But the doom which falls on those who have done their work, though it may have been a noble one, cannot be avoided. If, however, the aristocratic patronage of Liberal principles is obsolete, the equal service of Liberals of every class, patrician or plebeian, to the common cause is still to be desired. The principle of exclusion directed against men of rank and lineage would of course be as absurd as the principle of exclusion assert- ed by them. There is little danger in the present constitution of English society that any such proscription will be attempt- ed. Name and birth and wealth will always have something more than their proper advantage, if any advantage be proper in English political life. If any- thing could revive Lord Beaconsfields pet aversion, the Venetian oligarchy, it would be the re-establishment of that personal power of the crown of which he has almost i8 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. always been the advocate in theory, and which he seems inclined to assert in prac- tice. But the popular power does not now need to shelter itself, like the towns of the Middle Ages, in the shadow of some feudal castle. It is not for Lord Beacons- field to bring us back to the obsolete strug- gles of the time of Anne and of the first three Georges. England is no longer merely the spectatress, or the stake, of the game for ascendancy, played by monarchy and aristocracy. The principal charge which Lord Bea- consfield has made against the Whigs is their indifference to the interests and feel- ings of the poor. The condition-of-En- gland question did not occupy them. No imputation is more entirely devoid of truth. The great characteristic of English politics since the passing of the Reform Act is the part which social politics have played in it. Either in principle or in ac- tual fact the disputes of generations had been settled during the years which imme- diately preceded, or in those which closely followed, the great measure of 1832. Re- ligious liberty, involving in its further development religious equality, won the victory which ~vas sure to carry all the rest with it, when the tests and corporation acts were repealed, and Catholic emanci- pation was achieved. The system on which Ireland must be governed was de- cided when the latter measure ~vas passed, and it was further acknowledged in the unsectarian character of the national sys- tem of education established in Ireland. The unsuccessful Appropriation Clause contained in principle Irish re-establish- ment; and the Civil Marriages Act was a further extrusion of the ecclesiastical prin- ciple by the secular in human affairs. The ascendancy of the democratic principle in the constitution, though yet waiting its accomplishment, had the promise of its fulfilment in the Reform Act of 1832. The Poor-Relief Act, notwithstanding its im- puted harshness, proclaimed to the poor the doctrine of energy and self-reliance, and emancipated them from a degrading and servile dependence on the alms of the rich. The legislation of Huskisson con- tained within it the germs of that passing of free-trade, which has since been more completely developed than any other ac- knowledged principle in our legislation. The Municipal Corporations Act estab- lished local self-government, though it did not apply it completely and universally or thoroughly. The final severance, at the accession of the queen, of the crown of Hanover from that of England, was the pledge of a disentanglement from Euro- pean projects and alliances, and symbol- ized the substitution of an insular for a continental policy in foreign affairs. The queen succeeded to an era of set- tled questions, of questions settled that is in principle, though their development and application still had to l~e contended for. Hence the calm an& steady J)rogress which has been the characteristic hitherto of her forty years reign. The force of facts, that practical logic which may be disputed but cannot be long disobeyed, made Conser- vative as well as Liberal governments, Peel as well as Melbourne and Russell, the heads and instruments of that progress. The Reform Act, and the measures of civil, religious, and commercial freedom which immediately preceded and followed, called a new England into existence; and the first business of those who had created or discovered it was to survey the country, and trace what manner of land it was on which they were about to enter. Hitherto it had been a terra incognita to those ~vho ruled it. Its new rulers did their best to find out what it was like. This was the period when, according to Sydney Smith, ~the whole earth was in fact in commis- sion. Sanitas sanitaturn, omnia sanitas, is the phrase in which Lord Beaconsfield a few years ago summed up his domestic policy. Systematic inquiries into the prevalence of fever in the metropolis; into the need of open spaces; into the practice of interment in towns ; into the conditions of the laboring classes, first in England and Wales, and afterwards in Scotland; into the employment of ~vomen and chil- dren in mines; the reduction of the hours of labor in factories; grants in aid of edu- cation, these are but some of the proofs that the health of the people, physical and moral, from the first engaged the attention of the Liberal governments which ruled England during the opening years of the present reign. That they did ~ot do more, was due in part, no doubt, to their own hesitation and infirmity, but in a greater degree stlll to the resistance, on most of these questions, which they met from the party to which Lord Beaconsfield at- tached himself. Lord Beaconsfields at- tempts to represent England as governed before the Reform Act by an oligarchy in- different to the poor, and ruled since by a plutocracy hostile to them, have about as much historic truth as we look for, or at any rate find, in his statements. The Parliament in which Lord Beacons- field took his seat was elected under the Whig ministry which the failure of King THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 19 William IV.s attempt to govern by a Con- servative minority in the House of Com- mons had restored to office with a Parlia- mentary majority, won at the general elec- tion of 1833. Its achievements had been the Municipal Corporation Act, the Tithe Commutation Act, the General Registra- tion Act, the reduction of the stAmp duty on newspapers and of the duty on paper, the act allowing counsel to prisoners, and a partial reform of the jail system of the country measures one of them of the first magnitude, and others important as being the first steps taken in a direction in which large advances have been made since. Its great falure was to give effect to the motion for the appropriation to edu- cational purposes of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church, which had brought the Whigs back to office. The ministry itself ~vas in 1837 practically what it had been in 1835. The Letters of Runnymede abound in compliments to its leading members, who are addressed frankly in the second per- son. Lord Melbourne is the sleekest swine in epicurean sty. Contemptible as you are, he is told yet so-and-so, and so, which we need not quote. With the exception of an annual oration against Parliamentary reform, your career in the House of Commons was never remarkably distinguished. When I recall to my bewildered memory the perplexing circum- stance that William Lamb is prime minis- ter of England, it seems to me that I iec- ollect with labor the crowning incident of some grotesque dream. It is perhaps hopeless that your lordship should rouse yourself from the embraces of that siren Deridia, to whose fatal influence you are not less a slave than our second Charles. Mr. Disraelis character of Lord Mel- bourne is a savage version of the well- known banter of Sydney Smith. Lord John Russell is informed: Your charac- ter is a curious one - . - You were born with a strong ambition and a feeble intel- lect. He is flattered with the statements that your intellect produced in succes- sion the feeblest tragedy in our lan. guage, the feeblest romance in our literature, and the feeblest political essay on record. Your memoirs of the affairs of Europe ... retailed in frigid sentences, a feeble compiiation from the gossip of those pocket tomes of small talk, which abound in French literature - - This luckless production closed your liter- ary career; you flung down your futile pen in incapable despair; and your feeble in- tellect having failed in literature, your strong ambition took refuge in politics. As an orator, cold, inanimate, with a weak voice, and a mincing manner, the failure of your intellect was complete. Und~r this double disappointment, you subsided for some years into a state of listless moroseness, which was even pitia- ble. This was the period when, among your intimates, you ta~ked of retiring from that public life in which you had not suc- ceeded in making yourself public, ~\vhen you traced, like a feeble Catiline, the ave- nues of Holland House. Your friends always treated you with a species of con- tempt. A miniature Mokanna, you are now exhaling upon the constitution of your country - . - all that long-hoarded venom and all those distempered humors that have for years accumulated in your petty heart, and tainted the current of your mor- tified life. Lord John Russell is told that. he is an infinitely small scarab~us. When the foreigner learns that you are the leader of the House of Commons, our traveller may begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshipped AN INSECT. Later in Mr. Disraelis career, it became his cue to flatter Lord Russell as reso- lutely as in the Letters of Runnyinede he had bespattered him. In Coningsby, his strong ambition and dark and dishonorable intrigues are converted into this moral intrepidity which prompts him ever to dare that which his intellect as- sures him is politic. He is consequently at the same time sagacious and bold in council; as an administrator, he is prompt and indefatigable. The cold and inan- imate temperament, the weak voice and mincing manner, the imbecile ac- cents that struggle for sound in the cham- ber echoing but a few years back with the glowing periods of Cannino become physical deficiencies which even a De- mosthenic impulse could scarcely over- come. But these disadvantages detract little from the Parliamentary influence of a statesman who is experienced in de- bate, quick in reply, fertile in resources, takes large views, and frequently compen- sates for a dry and hesitating manner by the expression of those noble truths that flash across the fancy, and rise spontane- ously to the lips of men of poetic tempera- ment when addressing popular assem- blies. The noble of the Runnymede letters, who with a historic name and no fortune, a vast ambition and a baulkect careers and soured, not to say malignant, from disappointment, offered prime materials for the leader of a revolutionary faction, becomes one whose private life 20 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. of dignified repute, and the antecedents of whose birth and rank, added to the personal qualities before eulogized, make the best leader the Whigs have ever had or could have. The individual of Runnymede, who, on the principle that good vinegar is the corruption of bad wine, has been metamorphosed from an incapa- ble author into an eminent politician, becomes in the biography of Lord George Bentinck an instance, along with Mr. Burke, Caius Julius, and Frederick the Great, of the union of pre-eminent capac- ity, both in meditation and in action. It is pretty certain that Lord Beaconsfield never thought as ill or as highly of Lord John Russell as he has at different times pretended to do. The two characters which he has drawn of this eminent statesman throw light upon his treatment of Sir Rob- ert Peel, for whom a different fate ~vas reserved, to be first the victim of Lord Beaconsfields praise, and then the object of his slander tooth that poisons as it bites. We need not quote further flowers of speech from the garlands of compliments with which Lord Beaconsfield crowned the smaller members of the Whig cabinet which he found in power ~vhen he entered Parliament in 1837. But it may be inter- esting to recall some of the compliments which he addressed to Lord Palm2rston. Lord Palmerston is described as a minis- ter who has maintaihed himself in power in spite of the contempt of a whole na- tion. Our language commands no ex- pression of scorn which has not been exhausted in the celebration of your char- acter, there is no conceivable idea of deg- radation which has not been at some period or another associated with your career. He is congratulated on that dexterity which has never deserted you, and which seems a happy compound of the smart- ness of an attorneys clerk and the intrigue of a Greek of the lower empire. Lord Palmerstons Parliamentary shortcomings are attributed rather to a want of breeding than to a deficiency of self-esteem. The leader of the Whig opposition was wont to say - - - that your lordship reminded him of a favorite footman on easy terms with his mistress. The qualities exhibited in these elegant extracts are those which Lord Beaconsfield offered for sale as he stood idle in the political market-place, because as yet no man had hired him. These gifts of political scurrility he brought with him into the House. of Commons. He had shown them before in his encoun- ters with OConnell, and he was after- wards to display them in his tirades against Sir Robert Peel, at this period the st~bject of his unbounded eulogy. The beginning of Lord Beaconsfields Parliamentary career did not give much promise of the distinction he has since obtained. We need not tell the old story of the failure of his first speech, and of the verified prediction df subsequent suc- cess which it contained. That was rather a cry of anguish, the breathing of a hope which was too like despair for patience to smother, than an expression of reason- able and manly self-confidence, which in such circumstances would have waited for the event, rather than have vaunted itself in prospective braggadocio. Lord Bea- consfield discovered that he was a stranger in the House of Commons; and, ~vith the instinct of an intelligent foreigner, he set himself to learn the language and to acquire the usages of this strange com- munity in which he found himself, and in which he was determined to push his for- tunes. He spoke with moderate success on some of the principal topics that occu- pied this Parliament, working with the regular opposition headed by Sir Robert Peel, but not taking a prominent part in it. The organized warfare of regular parties was not at that time suited to Mr. Dis- raelis genius, which was then of the guerilla order. He went with what has since been called the Front Opposition Bench, in resisting Lord John Russells measures, without much discrimination as to their character. He spoke against the grants in aid of education, and against the repeal of the corn-laws, with respect to which and to free-trade generally he fol- lowed the changing tactics and adapted himself to the growing Liberalism of Sir Robert Peel. His most remarkable avowal was his declaration, which had some boldness and generosity, of sympathy with the Chartists, though he disapproved of the Charter. Lord Beaconsfield has shown from time to time imaginative sensitiveness for the sufferings of the poor, and an understand- ing of the motives which impelled the Chartist agitation. In Sybil we have the expressions of this sympathy, as. in Lo- thair there is certainly an intelligent un- derstanding, which seems to betray a covert liking for the revolutionary projects and leaders of the Continent. A very little change in circumstances, or perhaps, we should rather say, a slight but vital modi- fication of character, might have made Lord Beaconsfield the ally of Fergus OConnor and the partisan of Mazzini. THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 21 The hand which drew Walter Gerard and ship, or even an under-secretaryship, not Stephen Morley, and Sybil herself, which unreasonable in the almost certain event sketched Mirandola and Captain Bruges of the general election returning a Con- and Theodora, the Marianne and the servative majority to the House of Coin- National Convention and the Fenian broth- mons. On the dissolution of Parliament, erhood, is no,t that of a coarse caricaturist Lord Beaconsfield sought the suifrages, and assailant. There is a good deal of not of Maidstone, but of Shrewsbury. true insight and of kindly appreciation in After a contest marked by the coarsest Lord Beaconsfields sketches of men and personalities, of whicW this time he was, organizations, who to the vulgar and scared rather the object than the author, he was rich are objects at once of terror and con- returned second on the poll, with a Con- tempt. But the thing never goes beyond servative colleague, the Liberals being in an artistic sentiment. Chartists and Maz- a comparatively small minority. Sir Rob- zinists are to him picturesque figures in a ert Peel was still the object of his unmeas- drama. There is as little that is moral in urecl eulogy and of his unqualified confi- his feelings towards them, as in a sensi- dence. He described himself as his tiveness to music. Lord Beaconsfields humble but fervent supporter. He used fatal love of rank and wealth and power something like the language of a stage has made him always more ready to use confidant, imparting secrets into which he the prejudices of their possessors for his had been admitted for the sake of reas- own political advancement, than to combat suring the electors of Shrewsbury. Sir them in the interests of persons and Robert Peel was almost too great a man classes for whose sufferings he has shown for the merely finite intelligence of Lord in his novels and in his speeches a literary Beaconsfield completely to grasp. He and oratorical tenderness, and whose aims represented himself as baffled, when he he has understood and considerately inter- attempted to discover how from the scat- preted. Acts of personal kindness are tered remnants of a political party Sir attributed to him, as in the case of the Robert Peel had collected a power suf- Chartist poet, Thomas Cooper, and we are ficient to direct the fate of an empire - glad to believe in their genuineness. The and in an age of quick transition he had words of kindly compassion which Lord discovered the tone and spirit of the age. Beaconsfield gives to Mr. Smith OBrien, The contemplation of such achievements in his life of Lord George B entinck, are left him lost in admiration for Sir Robert creditable to him. He can understand Peels great talents and matchless fore- motives and characters which break loose sight. It was as a supporter of Sir Robert from routine, even into hare-brained and Peel, and nothing else, that he was elected quixotic enterprises. Lord Beaconsfield for Shrewsbury in 1841, and he proclaimed could write a description of Mazzini, under the satisfaction which he had had in the name of Mirandola, which even his writing to Sir Robert Peel to inform friends might accept; but he vilified Maz- him that the electors of Shrewsbury had zini in his own name and character, and done their duty. pursued him in the persons of his friends In August, 1841, the Whigs, who had in the House of Commons. He could appealed to the country, faced on the mm- make heroes of the Chartist leaders and isterial benches a Conservative majority in respectable enthusiasts of Fenian head- the House of Commons. Practically they centres, but he poured contempt on the had been defeated at the general election obsolete advocates of stale sedition in Par- upon the question of a modification of liament. The fine and generous qualities commercial legislation in the direction of which are not absent from Lord Beacons- freer trade, but the amendment to the ad- fields writings, are the weightest con- dress which was moved by the opposition demnation of his public conduct. So far did not directly raise that issue. In that as practical politics are concerned, Lord fact was an indication, which Lord Bea- Beaconsfields sympathy for the suffer- consfield at least understood, that Sir Rob- ings of the poor and his intelligence of ert Peel was not a candidate for power as their aims, even when most vain and mis- a minister pledged to protection. Who- chievous, does little more than furnish ever else may have been deceived, he was a basis for his denunciations of Whio not. In the speech which he made on the indifference to these things. motion of want of confidence, Lord Bea- The Parliament which the hostile vote consfield took pains to point out that Sir of 1841 brought to a close, left Lord Robert Peel was not pledged to protection, Beaconsfield in a political position which and moreover that it was not an article of might have made hopes of a junior lord- the Tory creed. The election, he said, 22 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. did not turn on the question of the import duties and of the commercial reforms pro- posed by the Whigs, but on their incapac- ity for affairs and their inability to carry out their own policy. The progress of commercial reform had been stopped by the Reform Act. In other words, the principles of Huskisson, of whom Peel had been the colleague, and was, in a cer- tain sense, the successor, had failed to receive their proper development through the accession of the Whigs to power. In the debate on Sir Robert Peels financial scheme of 1842, a scheme which practi- cally, though timidly, applied the doctrines of free-trade, and which v~as introduced by the prime minister in a speech which stated and defended them theoretically, Lord Beaconsfield again vindicated both the measures and the doctrines of his chief. He repeated his statement that the Tories were the true and original free- traders. - Mr. Pitt, in 1787, first promul- gated free-trade principles, which were 01)- posed by Fox, Sheridan, and Burke, which Lord Hawkesbury, Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Wallace developed, which Mr. Huskisson received from them, and which Sir Robert Peel had taken up from him. The Tories passed from hand to hand the torch of sound economic doctrine which the Whigs strove to blow out. Sir Robert Peel was, in this respect, by a legitimate affiliation through the statesmen just named, the lineal descendant and true representative of Mr. Pitt. Afterwards, when the oppor- tunity arose of heading the revolt against Sir Robert Peel on pretexts of which Lord Beaconsfield himself had years before shown the hollowness, he discovered that the true free-trader was the judicious pro- tectionist; and he invented a phrase to cover this ingenious combination. The. phrase was regulated competition. Mr. Pitt, Mr. XVallace, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Huskisson, and the rest, were regulated competitors. Competition is regulated when in a race you leave one runner free and tie the legs of the others. The bar- ren question whether free-trade owes most to Tories or to Whigs is only part, how- ever, of a larger discussion, of which Lord Beaconsfield has always been fond, and on which we have already spoken at some length. He has from time to time con- tended that the Tories and not the Whigs are the true reformers. His case consists in a reference to the name of Mr. Pitt, who was the author of a project of house- hold suffrage, and to those of Lord Shel- burne and even Lord Chatham. These statesmen, as we have shown, were neither orthodox Whigs, still less genuine Tories. They were in their characteristic opinions reformers, who constituted in the eigh- teenth century the Liberal doctrine of the nineteenth century. It is clear from what has preceded that Lord Beaconsfield understood perfectly this issue which was placed before the country in the general election of 1841, the principles of commercial policy on ~vhich Sir Robert Peels government was formed, and the character of its first meas- ures of which the repeal of the corn-laws was the natural and inevitable develop- ment. In that government, as all the world knows, he was not included. In one of the speeches which he made,in that saturnalia of personal vilification in which the emancipated slave exceeded the ex- tremest license of his order, Sir Robert Peel referred to the fact that at one time Mr. Disraeli had given practical signs of his confidence in him by his expressed willingness to take office. Overtures, it is believed, were made which were not pros- ecuted, and the discontinuance of which was not perhaps explained ~vith sufficient courtesy to the expectant minister, and has not been explained to the puhlic. When the memoirs and correspondence of Sir Robert Peel are published, a disclo- sure, it is believed, will take place which will furnish a fresh illustration of, if it does not throw new light on the characters, of the two eminent men concerned. It is curious to reflect on what might have been Mr. Disraelis career, had he taken the subordinate office under the new Conser- vative government, which was dangled be- fore his longing eyes only to be withdrawn from his grasp. It would possibly have been more respectable it is not likely to have been so distinguished. Mr. Disraeli ~vas scarcely the man to ~vork his way up by Parliamentary docility and administra- tive industry and success, through an as- cending scale of more and more important parts, to a high place in the cabinet. He is a man of surprises and seizures, likely either to gain everything by a bound, or to fall back bruised, and broken, and empty- handed. It might have been left to him, if Sir Robert Peel had been kinder, to illustrate, after the manner of the late Mr. Wilson Croker, that union of action and contemplation, of literature and afgairs, of which Caius Julius, Frederick the Great, both eminently literary characters, Mr. Burke, and Lord John Russell were signal instances, and to have furnished another RiThy to the mocking pen of some suc- ceeding satirist. Fortune was better dis THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 23 posed to Mr. Disraeli than she seemed to be, and the under~secretary man qut! was the material out of which the chancellor of the exchequer and prime minister and the successor of Sir Robert Peel in the leadership of the Conservative party was framed. The success of Sir Robert Peels second administration was a disproof of the sor- rowful forebodings with which the Duke of Wellington had beheld the accession of a female sovereign. The Duke of Wel- lington mournfully contrasted his own superficial graces and accomplishments and those of Sir Robert Peel with the fas- cinations of the adorable Melbourne. There is no chance of a Conservative government, he is reported to have said; I have no small talk, and Peel has no manners. Happily, small talk and man- ners are not the conditions of office under a Parliamentary system, even though it be a constitutional monarchy with a female sovereign on the throne. It is creditable to the queen that no minister ever won her confidence and personal friendship so completely as Sir Robert Peel, unless, upon evidence happily as yet inconclusive, we are to make an exception of Lord Bea- consfield himself. Lord Beaconsfield is fond of dwelling upon Sir Robert Peels defects of manner, his constraint and awk- wardness, and his incapacity of making an after-dinner speech without saying some- thing stilted and even a little ridiculous, though he parts from the contemplation of these faults in a great Parliamentary statesman with a pious valediction, a peace be to his ashes. It was one of Sir Robert Peels inconsistencies that the man who consented to take office at the personal dictation of William IV., under conditions as unconstitutional as those which have made the i6th of May a mem- orable date in French history, should have resisted with spirit and firmness the ill- advised attempt of the queen, or rather of her Whig advisers, to force the ladies of the great Whig men as bedchamber ~vomen upon a Conservative government. It is not astonishing to find Mr. Disraeli approving Sir Robert Peels conduct in 1834, for he approved everything Sir Rob- ert Peel did; and, moreover, it was in harmony with the lessons he himself had learned and taught out of Bolingbroke. In the Runnymede letters he praises Sir Robert. Peel for having accepted the pre- miership in 1834, and having kept it until 1835, in spite of a hostile Parliamentary majority. You retained your post, he adds, until you found you were endanger- ing the kings prerogative, to support which you had alone accepted his Majestys confidence. In his speech upon the motion of want of confidence in Lord Mel- bournes government, in 1841, he de- nounced in the strongest language the use of the sovereigns name, the attempt to make the majesty of England a second candidate upon som~ paltry poll, and the presumed intention of the Whig min- istry to defy the House of Commons, and, in spite of a hostile vote, to declare that the government, in being supported by the crown, had the best support a minister could have. This is sound constitutional doctrine. It has often been asserted against Lord Beaconsfield himself, notably by Mr. Bright in 1867. But Lord Bea- consfield never expresses sound constitu- tional principles, except when the XVhigs have been betrayed into unsound consti- tutional practice, or are suspected of it. Mr. Dis1aelis Parliamentary career from 1841 to 1846 follows like a shadow the history of Sir Robert Peels adminis- tration. But the shade is at last seen to be thrown by a sullen cloud. For a time he was the umbra of the prime minister. Soon the fervent blessings of the mendi- cant are exchanged for doubtful and angry looks, and afterwards for threats and im- precations. Yet Sir Robert Peel simply followed the course which Mr. Disraeli had approvingly predicted, and which he had described as the triumph of consum- mate statesmanship. In a very early speech he lays down doctrines of political casuistry, which would cover acts far more questionable than any which, on the least favorable reading of his motives and con- duct, can be attributed to Sir Robert Peel, and which would even shelter Lord Bea- consfields o~vn career from moral censure. A statesman, he said, is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the f his times. A statesman is creation 0 essentially a practical character; and whenhe is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his opinions might or might not have been upon this or upon that subject, he is only to ascertain the needful, the beneficial, and the most feasi- ble manner in which affairs are to be car- ried on. The fact is, that the conduct and opinions of public men must not be too curiously contrasted in a free and as- piring country. The people have their passions, and it is even the duty of public men occasionally to adopt sentiments with which they do not sympathize. . . I laugh, therefore, at the objections against a man that at a former period of his career 24 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. he advocated a policy different to his pres- ent one; all I seek to ascertain is whether his present policy is a necessary expedient; whether he is at the present moment pre- pared to serve his country according to its present necessities. The moral principles on which Lord Beaconsfield was prepared to censure Sir Robert Peel are not clearly deducible from this passage, which he might publish as the text of a political apologia ~ro vila sua. But the contemplation of Sir Robert Peels actual career in the House of Com- mons from Mr. Disraelis impartial posi- tion outside the administration, recalled this somewhat lax moralist to a severer political virtue. Growing, but not yet decided, disapproval is indicated in the tone of his comments. The perturbation of the country gentlemen among whom he sat, at the economic tendencies of the minister, communicated themselves to Lord Beaconsfield, on whom the idea soon dawned that competition ought to be more and more regulated, in its appli- cation to articles which country gentle- men were concerned in producing. These workings of an uneasy mind were accom- panied by the stirrings of an awakened conscience; and Lord Beaconsfield grew more and more sensible of the political immorality of Sir Robert Peels conduct. Instead of having inherited free-trade prin- ciples by legitimate Conservative deriva- tion from Pitt, through Lord Hawkesbury, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Huskisson, Sir Robert Peel was found to have purloined them from the Whigs, who had hitherto figured in Mr. Disraelis speeches as the great antagonists of free- trade, but were now discovered to be its real founders. Sir Robert Peel was charged with having stolen their clothes while they were bathing, with being a great middle-man, and, politically, a vast appro- priation clause. If free-trade was to be established, Lord Beaconsfield, honoring genius, would prefer to receive it from Mr. Cobden, rather than from one who, though a skilful Parliamentary man~u- verer, has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. The country gentlemen, however, though preparing to withdraw their confidence from Peel, were not ready to give it to his antagonist, who resolved, therefore, to create a party which should have confi- dence in him, and the very basis of whose existence should be that confidence. Only very young men, and those not very wise ones, could satisfy these conditions, and out of the materials which they presented to him Lord Beaconsfield formed the Young England party. Of these, the only survivers are Lord John Manners, who is comfortably within the ministerial fold, and Mr. Baillie Cochrane, who wanders disconsolately on the outside of it. The atrocious crime of being ~t young man, to which a great Parliamentary orator had at one time indignantly pleaded guilty, be- came an exalted merit, a sort of super- natural and sacramental grace; and to be told by Sir Robert Peel to serve on rail- way committees, ~vhen you were conscious of a divine summons to serve your coun- try, was little less than a profanity. Only those, however, who have lost their youth value it very highly, and it was natural that a party formed on this basis should be formed and commanded by a middle- aged leader. XVe youth, says Falstaff on one occasion; and Lord Beaconsfield parodied him. The recently published memoirs of Lord Strangford show the feelings with which this new intimacy was regarded by the respectable pares nobles, to whom the influence which Mr. Disraeli had gained over their sons was a sorrow- ful perplexity over which they shook their heads and exchanged condolences. The Duke of Rutland deplores to one corre- spondent the connection of Lord John Manners with Lord Beaconsfield, much as the father of Lord Frederick Verisopht might have lamented his sons addiction to the society of Sir Mulberry Hawk. Young England, however, was merely a passing fashion or craze, memorable rather in literature than in politics. The neces- sity of finding some sort of imaginative and intellectual basis for it led Lord Bea- consfield to write his three ablest novels, Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred, in which his doctrines of Church and State are set forth in blended disquisition and narratives. England was to be saved by its youth, and especially by its aristocratic youth; alms-giving was to be restored; young noblemen and gentlemen were to dance with charming female peasants in parks, and to play cricket on village greens with athletic and docile rustics. The di- rect power of the crown was to be exer- cised for the benefit of the people at large, unfettered by a selfish and for the greater part ignoble parvenu oligarchy and a rapa. cious House of Commons, and the princi- ples of government encouraged by Charles I., the martyr of direct taxation, were to be established once more. The Church was to return to its proper work of diffusing Asian ideas among the flat-nosed Franks. Is our THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 25 civilization a failure? asks an American poet, or is the Caucasian played out? Our civilization is a failure, Lord Beacons- field contended, but the Caucasian, the unmixed Caucasian, who in Lord Beacons- fields eccentric ethnological nomencla- ture is the Jew, was only now beginning, in Lord Beaconsfields person, to play his proper part in English politics. Although the youthful aristocracy and country gen- try were to be the instruments of this great restoration, the humble aid of the right- minded manufacturer was not altogether rejected. Milbank is admitted into com- panionship with Coningsby and Henry Sidney; and Young England ma body made a missionary journey to the Man- chester Athemeum, and preached the gos- pel to heathen capitalists and anxiously inquiring clerks and shopkeepers. It is difficultto feel certain whether or not the whole scheme of Young En gland, politi- cal and literary, was a mystification. Lord Beaconsfields most fantastic notions are apparently his most genuine beliefs. His practical politics are but the accommoda- tions of an Eastern mind and character to the habits of the foreign country in which he lives. Young England, how- ever, was but a passing dream from which Ivir. Disraeli soon awoke. Coningsby at- tached himself to the traitor and miscreant Peel, and became his under secretary of state for foreign affairs. The growing distrust-felt towards the prime minister, as he pursued his liberalizing course in economic policy, made a protectionist party possible, and to its formation Mr. Disraeli addressed himself His alliance for this purpose with Lord George Bentinck is one of the most curi- ous incidents of his career. Lord George Bentinck was everything which up to a recent period Lord Beaconsfield had de- nounced. He was, as Lord Beaconsfield himself records, by descent and in political connection, a Whig of 1689. He held to the old-fashioned Whig notions of tolera- tion, and voted, at the risk of forfeiting his newly-won leadership, for th~ emancipa- tion of the Jews on grounds of religious freedom, and, not with Lord Beaconsfield, on grounds of religious truth. He had a strong jealousy of that influence of the court which Lord Beaconsfield would aug- ment at the expense of the power of Par- liament. He held those protectionist doctrines in commerce to which Lord Bea- consfield was now a professing convert, but which a few years ago he had stigma- tized as a part of the selfish policy of the Whig aristocracy. But though he loved protection much, he hated Peel more; and of this feeling, common to him with the majority of the Conservative country gen- tlemen, Lord Beaconsfield condescended to make himself the organ. He barbed and winged the heavy arrows of their mal- ice, and gave literary force to their un- couth and inarticulate spite. The language which~Mr. Disraeli had for most of his life used with respect to Peel, his elaborate justification of the doc- trines of free-trade as the true and tradi- tional Tory policy, and his defence of Peels principle of opportunism and accom- modation to circumstances as the essential condition of modern statesmanship, have been already spoken of. lt was compe- tent to Lord Beaconsfield to alter his opinions on these points, if he had any opinions to alter, and if he had a sufficient motive for doing so. But, apart from the character of the person assuming to be a censor, it was not within his moral right to stigmatize conduct which with full knowl- edge he had eulogized, and principles of political casuistry which he himself had set forth. This cx 150sf facto condemna- tion of things once approved, assumes that they had acquired from the personal vin- dictiveness of the assailant an unworthi- ness which did not originally or intrinsi- cally belong to them. To accusations of political treason to his party, accusations which Lord Beaconsfield had himself elab- orately refuted in advance, were added imputations indescribably base of personal untruthfulness and treachery in Peels treatment of Canning. The dull mind of Lord George Bentinck was probably not aware of the wrong he was doing. Lord Beaconsfield cannot accept this excuse; and his own keen pleasure in the pain which he inflicted on Peel was obvious to every one who listened night after night to his attacks. Patriotism and the charity which sinks its personal feelings in a pas- sion for the public good have perhaps reached. their highest expression in the spectacle, which has been exhibited during the present year, of the son of Sir Robert Peel, the inheritor of his name and his title, protesting his unbounded confidence in Lord Beaconsfield, and rallying opinion to his support in the House of Commons and on demagogic platforms. The ties of blood and the memory of unexampled out- rage are as nothing compared with a con- straining sense of public duty. The repeal of the corn-laws was followed by the de- feat of Sir Robert Peel on the Irish Coer- cion Bill, through a coalition of Whigs and Protectionists. A Liberal government 26 THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. presided over by Lord John Russell suc- ceeded. We have seen that it was as the disciple of Sir Robert Peel that Lord Beaconsfield found his way into the Parliaments of 1837 and 1841. It was as his assailant that he made his first step to the posi- tion which he now occupies. Yet it may be said with truth that Lord Beaconsfields estimate of the man has never changed. He always recognized in him precisely the same qualities, eulogizing them at one mo- ment as marks of the most consummate statesmanship, and at another as proofs of the meanest peddling in politics. Some of the sentences in which he denounced or ridiculed Peel are worth quoting: When I examine the career of this minister, which has now filled a great space in the Parliamentary history of this country, I find that for between thirty and forty years, from the days of Homer to the days of the honorable member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden), the right honorable gentle- man has traded on the ideas and intelli- gence of others. Perhaps we may say in parentheses that this is better than trading on their want of ideas and their absence of intelligence, as later Conservative states- men have done. His life has been one great appropriation clause. He is a bur- glar of others intellect. Search the index of Beatson from the days of the Conqueror to the termination of the last reign, there is no statesman who has committed politi- cal petty larceny on so great a scale. The most striking instance of this petty larceny is well known. The right honor- able gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their Liberal position, and he is himself a strict Conservative of their garments. Again: Something has risen up in this country as fatal in the political world as it has been in the landed world of Ireland we have a great Parliamentary middle-man. It is well known what a middle-man is. He is a man who bamboozles one party and plun- ders the other, till, having obtained a posi- tion to which he is not entitled, he cries out, Let us have no party questions, but fixity of tenure. Against this degrada tion of statesmanship Mr. Disraeli pro- tested in lofty moral tones. While we are admitting, he said, the principles of relaxed commerce, there is extreme dan- ger of our admitting the principles of relaxed politics. I advise, therefore, that we all, whatever may be our opinion about free-trade, oppose the introduction of free politics. Let men stand by the principles by which they rise, right or wrong. I make no exception. If they be in the wrong, they must retire to that shade of private life with which our present rulers have often threatened us. My concep- tion of a great statesman is of one who represents a great idea an idea ~vhich may lead him to power~ an idea with which he may identify himself, an idea which he may develope, an idea which he may and can impress on the mind and conscience of the nation. That, sir, is my notion of a great statesman. I do not care whether he be a manufacturer or a manufacturers son. But I care not what may be the posi- tion of a man who never originates an idea, a watcher of the atmosphere, a man who, as he says, takes his observations, and when he finds the wind in a certain quarter turns to suit it. Such a person may be a powerful minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man who gets up behind a carriage is a great whip. There is much more to the same effect. Lord Beaconsfield has always been a mas- ter of the art of saying the same thing in many different ways. These citations are perhaps among the best examples that could be furnished of that very peculiar in- tellectual product, House of Commons wit. Scotch wit has passed into a proverb, as an example of what logicians call the contradictia in a.c~/ec/o, the adjective qual- ifying the substantive much as in the case of German silver, or (to be quite impartial) Britannia metal, or Brummagem plate are qualified. In like manner House of Com- mons wit simulates the sort of thing which is called wit in other connections, without really being so. It is generally recogniz- able by the laughter which the reporters kindly append to its recorded utterance. Lord Beaconsfield has always been a master in the production of this com- modity, and he sometimes gives the genu- ine thing. This is a digression. We shall speak of him afterwards as a Parlia- mentary orator. What we are now con- cerned with is his theory of statesmanship. If he had been contrasting the higher and the lower orders of statesmanship, little exception could be taken to his doctrine. Peel certainly was not a statesman of the first rank. He was not an originator. If he had been, he probably would not have been a politician; he certainly would not have been a minister of state in England. He might have been a professor, a writer of books, or an agitator, but he would never have been an official statesman. The closest approach which any one has made in modern times to Lord Beacons- DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 27 fields idea of statesmanship was made by Mazzini, whom Lord Beaconsfield would probably deny to be a statesman at all. He, if any one ever did, represented an idea, not indeed an idea which led him to power, in the sense in which Lord Beaconsfield un- derstands power, since it doomed him to imprisonment, exile, and poverty. Still it was one which he impressed on the mind and conscience of his country, with. which he identified himself, and which he devel- oped. In Lord Beaconsfields sense, Maz- zini was a greater statesman than Cavour. In the same sense, Burke was a statesman when he raged in prophetic fury against the French Revolution, carrying the n~ational feeling with him in his frenzy, but not when he framed and carried his scheme of economic reform. Cobden, as a free- trader, was a statesman and Peel was not. Mr. Bright, in his agitation for household suffrage, showed a statesmanship which Lord Beaconsfield did not display in pass- ing the bill for which that agitation pre- pared the way and created the necessity. The fact probably is that statesmanship, as a merely practical art, does not deserve the high intellectual rank sometimes as- signed to it. Original ideas are out of place in it. The statesman in modern times and in quiet days is four or five re- moves from originality. This was so with Peel. The originator, so far as English theory and practice is concerned, of sound economic ideas ~vas Adam Smith. Be- tween him and Sir Robert Peel, popular exponents of economic doctrine, such as Bastiat in France, and Colonel Perronet Thompson in England, authors of Eco- nomic Sophisms and Catechisms of Free-Trade, have first to be interposed. But they are only the first link in the chain. Then came the popular agitation of Cobden and Bright, and the Parliamen- tary advocacy of Mr. Villiers. Last in the chain, and dragged along by it, conquered rather than conquering, comes the suc- cessful minister with whose name the hardly-won reform is associated. The dis- coverer, the expositor, the agitator, the Parliamentary leader educated opinion, popular opinion, House of Commons opin- ion, and ministerial conversion or apostasy two words for the same thing looked at with hostile or friendly eyes these are the stages by which a vital political idea struggles into realization. To complain that a statesman does not originate is to utter treason against the doctrine of the division of labor. He simply delivers the article that others have made. If Sir Robert Peel had originated anything in theory, he would probably have failed directly to accomplish anything in prac- tice. He would have been Adam Smith and not Sir Robert Peel. He was the convert, the honest convert, of public opin- ion. His mind by a sort of pre-estab- lished harmony was so constituted as to see what ought to be done just when the moment for doing it had arrived, but not a moment too soon nor a moment too late. Such an intelligence is not of the highest order. But it is useful in the conduct of life. The proper contrast is not that which Lord Beaconsfield draws between the adapting and adopting statesman and the originator; but between the statesman who gives effect to tardy and yet timely convictions, and the trading politician who resists measures which he knows ~n his heart to be just and exp~dient in order to humor a faction or to gratify personal spite and ambition. The Conservative party has within a generation had leaders of both sorts. It is worth noting by those who think that in politics we still have judgment here, that Sir Robert Peel died an exile from his party, distrusted and hated by them; and that Lord Beacons- field is able to boast of unwavering major- ities in both Houses, of the confidence of the crown, and of the enthusiastic support of the mobs and music halls which he sup- poses to represent the country. From The Corohill Magazine. DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. IN TWO PARTS. PART I. AT the little town of Vevey, in Switzer- land, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels; for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake a lake that it behoves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an un- broken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from the grand hotel of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to the little Swiss tension of an elder day, with its name inscribed in German-look- ing lettering upon a pink or yellow wall, and an awkward summer-house in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classi. 28 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. cal, being distinguished from many of its But Winterbourne had an old attachment upstart neighbors by an air both of luxury for the little metropolis of Calvinism; he and of maturity. In this region, in the had been put to school there as a boy, and month of June, American travellers are ex- he had afterwards gone to college there tremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, circumstances which had led to his form- that Vevey assumes at this period some of ing a great many youthful friendships. the characteristics of an American water- Many of these he had kept, and they were ing-place. There are sights and sounds a source of great satisfaction to him. which evoke a vision, an echo, of New- After knocking at his aunts door and port and Saratoga. There is a flitting learning that she was indisposed, he had hither and thither of stylish young taken a walk about the town, and then he girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a rat- had come in to his breakfast. He had tle of dance-music in the morning hours, now finished his breakfast; but he was a sound of high-pitched voices at all times. drinking a small cup of coffee, which had You receive an imprgssion of these things been served to him on a little table in the at the excellent inn of the Trois Cou- garden by one of the waiters who looked ronnes, and are transported in fancy to like an a/tackS. At last he finished his the Ocean House or to Congress Hall. coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently a But at the Trois Couronnes, it must be small boy came walking along the path added, there are other features that are an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who much at variance with these suggestions: was diminutive for his years, had an aged neat German waiters who look like secre- expression of countenance, a pale complex- taries of legation; Russian princesses sit- ion, and sharp little features. He was ting in the garden; little Polish boys walk- dressed in knickerbockers, with red stock- ing about, held by the hand, with their ings, which displayed his poor little spin- governors; a view of the sunny crest of dleshanks; he also wore a brilliant red the Dent du Midi and the picturesque cravat. He carried in his hand a long towers of the Castle of Chillon. alpen-stock, the sharp point of which he I hardly know whether it was the analo- thrust into everything that he approached gies or the difference that were uppermost the flower-beds, the garden benches, in the mind of a young American, who, the trains of the ladies dresses. In front two or three years ago, sat in the garden of Winterbourne he paused, looking at of the Trois Couronnes, looking about him, him with a pair of bright, penetrating little rather idly, at some of the graceful objects eyes. I have mentioned. It was a beautiful Will you give me a lump of sugar? summer morning, and in whatever fashion he asked, in a sharp, hard, little voice a the young American looked at things,they voice immature, and yet, somehow, not must have seemed to him charming. He young. had come from Geneva the day before, by Winterbourne glanced at the small table the little steamer, to see his aunt, who was near him, on ~vhich his coffee-service staying at the hotel Geneva having be en rested, and saw that several morsels of for a long time his place of residence. But sugar remained. Yes, y6u may take his aunt had a headache his aunt had one, he answered; but I dont think almost always a headache and now she sugar is good for little boys. was shut up in her room, smelling cain- This little boy stepped forward and phor, so that he was at liberty to wander carefully selected three of the coveted about. He was some seven-and-twenty fragments, two of which he buried in the years of age; when his friends spoke of pocket of his knickerbockers, depositing him, they usually said that he was at Ge- the other as promptly in another place. neva, studying. When his enemies He poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, spoke of him they said but, after all, he into Winterbournes bench, and tried to had no enemies; he was an extremely crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. amiable fellow, and universally liked. Oh, blazes; its har-r-d I he ex- What I should say is, simply, that when claimed, pronouncing the adjective in a certain persons spoke of him they affirmed peculiar manner. that the reason of his spending so much Winterbourne had immediately per- time at Geneva was that he was extreme- ceived that he might have the honor of ly devoted to a lady who lived there a claiming him as a fellow-countryman. foreign lady a person older than himself. Take care you dont hurt your teeth, he Very few Americans indeed I think said paternally~ none had ever seen this lady, about I havent got any teeth to hurt. They whom there were some singular stories, have all come out. I have only got seven DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 29 teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one caine out right afterwards. She said shed slap me if any more came out. I cant help it. Its this old Europe. Its the climate that makes them come out. In America they didnt come out. Its these hotels. Winterbourne was much amused. If you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother will certainly slap you, he said. Shes got to give me some candy, then, rejoined his young interlocutor. L cant get any candy here any Amer- ican candy. American candys the best candy. And are American little boys the best little boys? asked Winterbourne. I dont know. Im an American boy, said the child. I see you are one of the best! laughed Winterbourne. Are you an American man? pursued this vivacious infant. And then, on Win- terbournes affirmative reply American men are the best, he declared. His companion thanked him for the compliment; and the child, who had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood look- ing about him, while he attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he himself had been like this in his in- fancy, for he had been brought to Eu- rope at about this age. Here comes my sister! cried the child, in a moment. Shes an American girl. Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady advancing. American girls are the best girls, he said cheerfully, to his young companion. My sister aint,the best! the child declared. Shes always blowing at me. I imagine that is your fault, not hers, said Winterbourne. The young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-col- ored ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. How pretty they are! thought Winter- bourne, straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise. The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted his alpenstock into a vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he was springing about in the gravel, and kicking it up not a little. Randolph, said the young lady, what ~2re you doing? Im going up the Alps, replied Ran- dolph. This is the way! And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne s ears. Thats the way they come down, said Winterbourne. Hes an American ~man! cried Ran- dolph, in his little hard voice. The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight at her brother. Well, I guess you had better be quiet, she simply observed. It seemed to XVinterbourne that Ire had been in a manner presented. He gotup and stepped slowly towards the young girl throwing away his cigarette. This little boy and I have made acquaintance, he said, with great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely- occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these? a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on hear- ing Winterbournes observation, simply glanced at him; she then turned her head and looked over the paral)et, at the lake and the opposite mountains. He won- dered whether he had gone too far; but he decided that he must advance farther, rather than retreat. While he was think- ing of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little boy again. I should like to know where ~ou got that pole, she said. I bought it I responded Randolph. You dont mean to say youre going to take it to Italy. Yes, I am going to take it to Italy! the child declared. The young girl glanced over the front of her dress, and smoothed out a knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere, she said, after a moment. Are you going to Italy? XVinter- bourne inquired, in a tone of great re- spect. The young girl glanced at him again. Yes, sir, she replied. And she said nothing more. Are you a going over the Sim- plon? Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed. I dont know, she said. I suppose its some mountain. Randolph, what mountain are we going over? 30 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. Going where? the child demanded. To Italy, Winterbourne explained. I dont know, said Randolph. I dont want to go to Italy. I want to go to America. Oh, Italy is a beautiful place! re- joined the young man. Can you get candy there? Randolph loudly inquired. I hope not, said his sister. I guess you have had enough candy, and mother thinks so too. I havent had any for ever so long for a hundred weeks! cried the boy, still jumping about. The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observa- tion upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had be. gun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There had not been the slightest alteration in her charming complexion; she was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she looked another way when he spoke to her, and seemed not particijlarly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a little more, and point- ed out some of the objects of interest in the view, with which she apl)eared quite unacquainted, she gradually gave him more of the benefit of her glance; and then he saw that this glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It was not, how- ever, what would have been called an im- modest glance, for the young girls eyes were singularly honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything prettier than his fair coun- trywomans various features her com- plexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and ana lyz. ingit; and as regards this young ladys face he made several observations. It ~vas not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and though it was eminently delicate, Winterbourne mentally accused it very forgivingly of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that Master Randolphs sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome for the winter she and her mother and Ran- dolph. She asked him if he was a real American; she shouldnt have taken him for one; he seemed more like a Ger- manthis was said after a little hesita- tion especially when he spoke. Winter- bourne, laughing, answered that he had met Germans who spoke like Americans; but that he had not, so far as he remem- bered, met an American who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she should not be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down. She told him she was from New York State if you know where that is. Winterbourne learned more about her by catching hold of her small, slippery broth- er, and making him stand a few minutes by his side. Tell me your name, my boy, he said. Randolph C. Miller, said the boy sharply. And Ill tell you her name; and he levelled his alpenstock at his sister. You had better wait till you are asked, said this young lady calmly. I should like very much to know your name, said Winterbourne. Her name is Daisy Miller! cried the child. But that isnt her real name; that isnt her name on her cards. Its a pity you havent got one of my cards, said Miss Miller. Her real name is Annie P. Miller, the boy went on. Ask him his name, said his sister, in- dicating Winterbourne. But on this point Randolph seemed per- fectly indifferent; he continued to supply information with regard to his own family. My fathers name is Ezra B. Miller, he announced. My father aint in Europe; my fathers in a better place than Eu- rope. Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Mil- ler had been removed to the sphere of ce- lestial rewards. But Randolph immedi- ately added, My fathers in Schenectady. Hes got a big business. My fathers rich, you bet. Well! ejaculated Miss Miller, lower- ing her parasol and looking at the em- broidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child, ~vho departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. He doesnt like Europe, said the young girl. He wants to go back. To Schenectady, you mean? Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasnt got any boys here. There is one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher; they wont let him play. DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 3 And your brother hasnt any teach- but hotels. But Miss Miller did not make er? Winterbourne inquired, this remark with a querulous accent; she Mother thought of getting him one, to appeared to he in the best humor with travel round with us. There was a lady everything. She declared that the hotels told her of a very good teacher; an Amer- were very good, when once you got used ican lady perhaps you know her Mrs. to their ways, and that Europe was per. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. fectly sweet. She was not disappointed She told her of this teacher, and we not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had thought of getting him to travel round with heard so much about it~ befdre. She had us. But Randolph said he didnt want a ever so many intimate friends that had teacher travelling round with us. He said been there ever so many times. And then he wouldnt have lessons when he was in she had had ever so many dresses and the cars. And we are in the cars about things from Paris. Whenever she put on a half the time. There was an English lady Paris dress she felt as if she were in we met in the cars I think her name Europe. was Miss Featherstone ; perhaps you know It was a kind of a wishing-cap, said her. She wanted to know why I didnt Winterbourne. give Randolph lessons give him in- Yes, said Miss Miller, without exam- struction, she called it. I guess he could ining this analogy; ~ it always made me give me more instruction than I could give wish I was here. But I neednt have done him. Hes very smart. that for dresses. I am sure they send all the Yes. said Wi nterbourne; he seems l)retty ones to America; you see the most very smart. frightful things here. T he only thing I Mothers going to get a teacher for dont like, she proceeded, is the society. him as soon as we get to Italy. Can you There isnt any society; or, if there is, I get good teachers in ltaly? dont know where it keeps itself. Do you? Very good, I should think, said Win- I suppose there is some society some- terbourne. where, but I havent seen anything of it. Or else shes going to find some Im very fond of society, and I have al- school. He ought to learn some more. ways had a great deal of it. I dont mean Hes only nine. Hes going to college. only in Schenectady, but in New York. I And in this way Miss Miller continued to used to go to New York every winter. In converse upon the affairs of her family, and New York I had lots of society~ Last upon other topics. She sat there with her winter I had seventeen dinners given me; extremely pretty hands, ornamented with and three of them were by gentlemen, very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and added Daisy Miller. I have more with her pretty eyes now resting upon friends in New York than in Schenectady those of Winterbourne, now wandering more gentleman friends; and more over the garden, the people who passed by, young lady friends too, she resumed in a and the beautiful view. She talked to moment. She paused again for an in- Winterbourne as if she had known him a stant; she ~vas looking at Winterbourne long time. He found it very pleasant. It with all her prettiness in her lively eyes was many years since he had heard a and in her light, slightly monotonous young girl talk so much. It might have smile. I have always had, she said, a been said of this unknown young lady, who great deal of gentlemens society. had come and sat down beside him upon a Poor Winterbourne was amused, per- bench, that she chattered. She was very plexed, and decidedly charmed. He had ranquil atti quiet; she sat in a charmino t - never yet heard a young girl express her- tude, but her lips and her eyes were con- self in just this fashion; never, at least, stantly moving. She had a soft, slender, save in cases where to say such things agreeable voice, and her tone was decid- seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence edly sociable. She gave Winterbourne a of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet history of her movements and intentions, was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of and those of her mother and brother, in actual or potential inconduite, as they said Europe, and enumerated, in particular, the at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at Ge- various hotels at which they had stopped. neva so long that he had lost a good deal; That English lady, in the cars, she he had become dishabituated to the Amer. - said Miss Featherstone asked me if ican tone. Never, indeed, since he had we didnt all live in hotels in America. I grown old enough to appreciate things, told her I had never been in so many ho- had he encountered a young American girl tels in my life as since I came to Europe. of so pronounced a type as this. Certain- I have never seen so many its nothing ly she was very charming, but how deuc 32 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. edly sociable! Was she simply a pretty girl from New York State were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemens society? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupu- lous young person? XVinterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his rea- son could not help him. Miss Daisy Mil- ler looked extremely innocent. Some people had told him that, after all, Ameri- can girls were exceedingly innocent; and others had told him that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss Daisy Miller was a flirta pretty Ameri- can flirt. He had never, as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this cate- gory. He had known, here in Europe, two or three women persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and provided, for re- spectabilitys sake, with husbands who were great coquettes dangerous, terrible women, with whom ones relations were liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt. Winter- bourne was almost grateful for having found the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations of ones intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn. Have you been to that old castle? asked the young girl, pointing with her parasol to the far-gleaming waIls of the Chateau de Chillon. Yes, formerly, more than once, said Winterbourne. You too, I suppose, have seen it? No; we havent been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course I mean to go there. I wouldnt go away from here without having seen that old cas- tle. Its a very pretty excursion, said Winterbourne, and very easy to make. You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer. You can go in the cars, said Miss Miller. Yes, you can go in the cars, Winter- bourne assented. Our courier says they take you right up to the castle, the young girl continued. We were going last week; but my moth- er gave out. She suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldnt go. Randolph wouldnt go either; he says he doesnt think much of old castles. But I guess well go this week, if we can get Randolph. Your brother is not interested in an- cient monuments? Winterbotirne in- quired, smiling. He says he dont care much about old castles. Hes only nine. He wants to stay at the hotel. Mothers afraid to leave him alone, and the courier wont stay with him; so we havent been to many places. But it will be too bad if we dont go up there. And Miss Miller pointed again at the Chateau de Chillon. I should think it might be arranged, said XVinterbourne. Couldnt you get some one to stay for the afternoon with Randolph? Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then, very placidly I wish you would stay with him, she said. Winterbourne hesitated a moment. I should much rather go to Chillon with you.~~ With me? asked the young girl, with the same placidity. She didnt rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done; and yet Win- terbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought it possible she was offended. ~ With your mother, he answered very respectfully. But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss Daisy Miller. I guess my mother wont go after all, she said. She dont like to ride round in the afternoon. But did you really mean what you said just now; that you would like to go up there? Most earnestly, Winterbourne de- clared. Then we may arrange it. If mother ~vill stay with Randolph, I guess Eugenio will. Eugenio?the young man inquired. Eugenio s our courier. He doesnt like to stay with Randolph; hes the most fastidious man I ever saw. But hes a splendid courier. I guess hell stay at home with Randolph if mother does, and then we can go to the castle. Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible we could only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This programme seemed almost too agree- able for credence; he felt as if he ought to kiss the young ladys hand. Possibly he would have done so and quite spoiled the project; but at this moment another person presumably Eugenioappeared. A tall, handsome man, with superb whis- kers, wearing a velvet morning-coat and a brilliant watch-chain, approached Miss DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 33 Miller, looking sharply at her companion. Oh, Eugenio! said Miss Miller, with the friendliest accent. Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot; he now bowed gravely to the young lady. I have the honor to inform mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the table. Miss Miller slowly rose. See here, Eugenio, she said. Im going to that old castle, any way. To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoi- selle ?the courier inquired. Mademoi- selle has made arrangements? he added, in a tone which struck Winterbourne as very impertinent. Eugenios tone apparently threw, even to Miss Millers own apprehension, a slightly ironical light upon the young girls situa- tion. She turned to Winterb6urne, blush- ing a little a very little. You wont back out? she said. I shall not be happy till we go! he protested. And you are staying in this hotel ? she went on. And you are really an American? The courier stood looking at Winter- bourne, offensively. The young man,~ at least, thought his manner of looking an offence to Miss Miller; it conveyed an imputation that she picked up acquaint- ances. I shall have the honor of pre- senting to you a person who will tell you all about me, he said smiling, and refer- ring to his aunt. Oh, well, well go some day, said Miss Miller. And she gave him a smile and turned away. She put up her parasol and walked back to the inn beside Eu- genio. Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the toiernure of a princess. He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising to pre- sent his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller. As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache he waited upon her in her apartment; and, after the proper inquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she had observed, in the hotel an Ameri,can family a mamma, a daugh- ter, and a little boy. ~And a courier? said Mrs. Costello. Oh yes, I have observed them. Seen them heard them and kept out of their way. Mrs. Costello was a widow with a fortune; a person of much distinc- tion, who frequently intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick-head LiVING AGE. VOL. Xxiii. 1147 aches, she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long, pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair, which she wore in large puffs, and 7-ouleaux over the top of her head. She had two sons mar- ried in New York, and another ~vho was now in Europe. This young man was amusing himself at Hombourg, and though he was on his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular city at the moment selected by his mother for her own appear- ance there. Her nephew, who had come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was therefore more attentive than those who, as she said, were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentive to ones aunt. Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years, and she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which, as she gave him to under- stand, she exerted in the American capi- tal. She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if he were acquainted with New York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she presented to him in many different lights, ~vas, to Winter- bournes imaoination alm striking. , ost oppressively He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Millers place in the social scale was low. I am afraid you dont approve of them, he said. They are very common, Mrs. Cos- tello declared. They are the sort of Americans that one does ones duty by not not accepting. Ah, you dont accept them? said the young man. I cant, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I cant. The young girl is very pretty, said Winterbourne, in a moment. Of course shes pretty. But she is very common.~~ I see what you mean of course, said Winterbourne, after another pause. She has that charming look that they all have, his aunt resumed. I cant think where they pick it up; and she dresses in perfection no, you dont know how well she dresses I cant think where they get their taste. But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage. She is a young lady, said Mrs. Cos- tello, who has an intimacy with her mammas courier. DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. $4 An intimacy with the courier? the young man demanded. Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier like a familiar friend like a gentleman. I shouldnt wonder if he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gen- tleman. He probably corresponds to the young ladys idea of a count. He sits with them in the garden, in the evening. I think he smokes. Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures ; they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evi- dently she was rather wild. Well, he said, I am not a courier, and yet she was very charming to me. You had better have said at first, said Mrs. Costello with dignity, that you had made her acquaintance. We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit. Tout bonnernent! And pray what did you say? I said I should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable aunt. I am much obliged to you. It was to guarantee my respectability, said Winterbourne. And pray who is to guarantee hers? Ah, you are cruel! said the young man. Shes a very nice young girl. Y@u dont say that as if you believed it, Mrs. Costello observed. She is. completely uncultivated, Win- terbourne went on. But she is wonder- fully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove that I believe it, I am goino~ to take her to the Chateau d~ Chillon. You two are going off there together? I should say it proved just the contrary. How long had you known her, may I ask, when .tbis interesting project was formed? You havent been twenty-four hours in the house. I had known her half an hour, said Winterbourne ,smiling. Dear me ! cried Mrs. Costello. What a Llreadlul girl ! Her nephew was silent for some mo- ments. You really think, then, he be- gan earnestly, and with a desire for trust- worthy information you really think that But he paused again. Think ~vhat, sir? said his aunt. That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man sooner or later to carry her off? I havent the least idea what such young. ladies expect a man to do. But I really think that you had better not med die with little American girls that are un- cultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long out of the . country. You will be sure to make some great mistake. You are too innocent. My dear aunt, I am not so innocent, said Winterbourne, smiling and curling his moustache. You are too guilty, then. Winterbourne continued to curl his moustache meditatively. You wont let the poor girl know you then? he asked at last. Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon with you? I think that she fully intends it. Then, my dear Frederick, said Mrs. Costello, I must decline the honor of her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old thank Heaven to be shocked! But dont they all do these things the young girls in America? Winter- bourne inquired. Mrs. Costello ~stared a moment. I should like to see my granddaughters do them ! she declared grimly. This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne remembered to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were tremendous flirts. If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal margin allowed to these young ladies, it was probable that anything might be expected of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see her again, and he was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he should not appreciate her justly. Though he was impatient to see her, he- hardly knew what he should say to her about his aunts refusal to become ac- quainted with her; but he discovered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy Miller there was no great need of walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening in the garden, wandering about in the warm star- light, like an indolent sylph, and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever be- held. It was ten oclock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting with her since dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the morrow. Miss Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him; she declared it was the longest evening she had ever passed. Have you been all alone? he asked. I have been walking round with moth- er. But mother gets tired walking round,~ she answered. Has she gone to bed? No; she doesnt like to go to bed, said the young girl. She doesnt sleep not three hours. She says she doesnt know ITow she lives. Shes dreadfully nervous. I guess she sleeps more than she thinks. Shes gone somewhere after Randolph; she wants to try to get him to go to bed. He doesnt like to go to bed. Let us hope she will persuade him, observed Winterbourne. She ~vill talk to him all she can; but he doesnt like her to talk to him, said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. Shes going to try to get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isnt afraid of Eugenio. Eugenios a splendid courier, but he cant make much impression on Randolph. I dont be- lieve hell go to bed before eleven. It appeared that Randolphs vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother. I have been looking round for that lady you ~vant to introduce me to, his com- panion resumed. Shes your aunt. Then, on Winterbournes admitting the fact, and expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it, she said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello from the chambermaid. She was very quiet and very camille ilfazet; she wore white puffs; she spoke to no one, and she never dined at the table dhc$te. Every two days she had a headache. I think thats a lovely description, headache and all ! said Miss Daisy, chattering along in her thin, gay voice. I want to know her ever so much. I know just what your aunt would be; I know I should like her. She would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be ex- clusive; Im dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We dont speak to every one or they dont speak to us. I suppose its about the same thing. Any way, I shall be ever so glad to know your aunt. Winterbourne was embarrassed. She would be most happy, he said; but I am afraid those headaches will interfere. The young girl looked at him through the dusk. But I suppose she doesnt have a headache every day, she said sympathetically. Winterbourne was silent a moment. She tells me she does, he answered at last not knowing what to say. Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood looking at him. Her prettiness was still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing her enormous fan. She doesnt want to know me! she said sud- denly. Why dont you say so? You neednt be afraid. Im not afraid l And she gave a little laugh. 35 Winterbourne fancied there was a trem- or in her voice; he was touched, shocked, mortified by it. My dear young lady, he protested, she knows no one. Its her wretched health. The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. You neednt be afraid, she repeated. Why should she want to know me? then sh~ paused again; she was close to the parapet of the garden, and in front of her was the starlit lake. There was a vague sl~een upon its surface, and in the distance were dimly-seen moun- tain forms. Daisy Miller looked out upon the mysterious l)rospect, and then she gave another little laugh. Gracious she is exclusive ! she said. Winter. bourne wondered whether she was seri- ously wounded, and for a moment almost wished that her sense of injury might be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that she would be very approachable for consolatory pur- poses. He felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversation- ally; to admit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they neednt mind her. But before he had time to commit himself to this perilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, re- suming her walk ,gave an exclamation in quite another tone. Well; heres moth- er! Igue ss she hasnt got RandoJph to go to bed. The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very indistinct in the dark- ness, and advancing with a slow and wa- vering movement. Suddenly it seemed to pause. Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this thick dusk? Winterbourne asked. Well! cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh, I guess I know my own mother. And when she has~got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my things. The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about the spot at which she had checked her steps. I am afraid your mother doesnt see you, said Winterbourne. Or perhaps,? he adcted thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke permissible perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl. Oh, its a fearful old thinol the young girl replied serenely. I told her she could wear it. She wont come here, be- cause she sees yOu. Ah, then, said Winterbourne, I had better leave vou.~ Oh,no; comeon! Miller. urged Miss Daisy DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 36 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. that she had been uttering his name all her life. Oh, yes ! said Winterbourne; I have the pleasure of knowing your son. Randolphs mamma was silent; she turned her attention to the lake. But at last she spoke. Well, I dont see how he lives ! Anyhow, it isnt so bad as it was at Dover, said Daisy Miller. And what occurred at Dover? Win- terbourne asked. He wouldnt go to bed at all. I guess lie sat up all night in the public parlor. He wasnt in bed at twelve oclock; I know that. It was half past twelve, declared Mrs. Miller, with mild emphasis. Does he sleep much during the day? Winterbourne demanded. I guess he doesnt sleep much, Daisy rejoined. I wish he ~vould! said her mother. It seems as if he couldnt. I think hes real tiresome, Daisy pur- sued. Then, for some moments, there was silence. Well, Daisy Miller, said the elder lady presently, I shouldnt think youd want to talk against your own brother. Well, he is tiresome, mother, said Daisy, quite without the asperity of a retort. Hes only nine, urged Mrs. Miller. Well, he wouldnt go to that castle, said the young girl. Im going there with Mr. Winterbourne. To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisys mamma offered no re- sponse. Winterbourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of the pro- jected excursion; but he .said to himself that she was a simple, easily-managed person, and that a few deferential prot- estations would take the edge from her displeasure. Yes, he began; your daughter has kindly allowed me the honor of being her guide. Mrs. Millers wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. I presume you will go in the cars, said her mother. Yes; or in the boat, said Winter- bourne. Well, of course, I dont know, Mrs. er. Miller rejoined. I have never been to I was telling Mr. Wi nterbourne, the that castle. young girl went on; and to the young It is a pity you shouldnt go, said Win- maDs ear her tone might have indicated terbourne, beginning to feel reassured as Im afraid your mother doesnt ap- prove of my walking with you. Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. It isnt for me; its for you that is, its for her. Well, I dont know who its for! But mother doesnt like any of my gentle- men friends. Shes right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I do introduce them almost always. If I didnt introduce my gentlemen friends to mother, the young girl added, in her little soft, flat monotone, I shouldnt think I was natural. To introduce me, said Winterbourne, you must know my name. And he proceeded to pronounce it. Oh, dear; I cant say all that! said his companion with a laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, who, as they drew near, walked to the par- apet of the garden and leaned upon it, looking intently at the lake, and turning her back to them. Mother! said the young girl, in a tone of decision. Upon this the elder lady turned round. Mr. Winterbourne, said Miss Daisy Miller, introducing the young man very frankly and prettily. Common she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness, she had a singularly del- icate grace. Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exig- uous nose, and a large forehead, decorat- ed with a certain amount of thin, much- frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance; she had enormous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no greeting she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl straight. What are you doing, poking round here? this young lady inquired; but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choice of words may imply. I dont know, said her mother, turn- ing towards the lake again. I shouldnt think youd want that shawl! Daisy exclaimed. Well I do! her mother answered, with a little laugh. Did you get Randolph to go to bed? asked the young girl. No; I couldnt induce him, said Mrs. Miller, very gently. He wants to talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that wait DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her daughter. Weve been thinking ever so much about going, she pursued; but it seems as if we couldnt. Of course Daisy she wants to go round. But theres a lady here I dont know her name she says she shouldnt think wed want to go to see castles here; she should think wed want to wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there, continued Mrs. Miller, with an air of increasing con- fidence. Of course, we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England, she presently added. Ah, yes! in England there are beauti- ful castles, said Winterbourne. But Chillon, here, is very well worth seeino Well, if Daisy feels up to it said Mrs. Miller, in a tone impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the en- terprise. It seems as if there was noth- ing she wouldnt undertake. Oh, I think shell enjoy it! Winter- bourne declared. And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege of a t~te-d-t~e with the young lady, who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalizing. You are not disposed, madam, he in- quired, to undertake it yourself? Daisys mother looked at him, an instant, askance, and then walked forward in si- lence. Then I guess she had better go alone, she said simply. Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type of maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves in the forefront of so- cial intercourse in the dark old city at the other end of the lake. But his meditations were interrupted by hearing his name very distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Millers un- protected daughter. Mr. XVinterbourne I murmured Daisy. Mademoiselle! said the young man. Dont you want to take me out in a boat? At present? he asked. Of course ! said Daisy. Well, Annie Miller! exclaimed her mother. I beg you, madam, to let her go, said Winterbourne ardently; for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding through the summer starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young girl. I shouldnt think shed want to, said her mother. I should think shed rather go indoors. 37 Im sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me, Daisy declared. Hes so aw- fully devoted! I will row you over to Chillon, in the starlight I dont believe it! said Daisy. Well! ejaculated the elder lady again. You havent spoken to me for half an hour, her daughter went bn. I have been having some very pleasant conversatiQn with your mother, said Win- terbourne. Well; I want you to take me out in a boat! Daisy repeated. They had all stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne. Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was swinging her great fan about. No; its impossible to be pret- tier than that, thought Winterbourne. There are half-a-dozen boats moored at that landing-place he said, pointing to certain steps wl~ich~*descended from the garden to the lake. If you will do me the honor to accept my arm, we will go and select one of them. Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little, light laugh. I like a gentleman to be formal ! she declared. I assure you its a formal offer. I was bound I would make you say something, Daisy went on. You see its not very difficult, said Winterbourne. But I am afraid you are chaffing me. I think not, sir, remarked Mrs. Mil- ler, very gently. Do, then, let me give you a row, he said to the young girl. Its quite lovely, the way you say that! cried Daisy. It will be still more lovely to do it. Yes, it would be lovely! said Daisy. But she made no movement to accompany him; she only stood there laughing. I should think you had better find out what time it is, interposed her mother. It is eleven oclock, madam, said a voice, with a foreign accent, out of the neighboring darkness; and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the florid personage who was in attendance upon the two ladies. He had apparently just approached. Eugenio,~, said Daisy, I am go- Eugenio bowed. At eleven oclock, mademoiselle? I am going with Mr. Winterbourne. This very minute. Do tell her she cant, said Mrs. Mil- ler to the courier. 38 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle, Eugenio declared. Winterbourne wished to heaven this pretty girl were not so familiar with her courier; but he said nothino I suppose you dont think its proper! Daisy exclaimed. Eugenio doesnt think anythings proper.~~ I am at your service, said Winter- bourne. Does mademoiselle propose to go alone? asked Eugenio of. Mrs. Miller. Oh, no; with this gentleman! an- swered Daisys mamma. The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne the latter thought he was smilingand then, solemnly, with a bow, As mademoiselle pleases, he said. Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss! said Daisy. I dont care to go now. I myself shall make a fuss if you dont go, said Winterbourne. Thats all I want a little fuss I And the young girl began to laugh again. Mr. Randolph has gone to bed, the courier announced frigidly. - Oh, Daisy! now we can go, said Mrs. Miller. Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling, and fanning her- self. Good-night, she said; I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, or something! He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. I am puzzled, he an- swered. Well, I hope it wont keep you awake I she said, very smartly; and, under the escort of the privileged Eu~e- nio, the two ladies passed towards the hO~~terbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled. He lingered be- side the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the mystery of the young girls sudden familiarities and caprices. But the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy deucedly going off with her somewhere. Two days afterwards he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon. He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the servants, the foreign tour- ists were lounging about and staring. It was not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came trip- ping down stairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant travelling- costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestors used to say, sensibility; as he looked at her dress and, on the great stair case, her little rapid, confiding step, he felt as if there were something romantic going forward. He could have believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among all the idle people that were assembled thr~re; they were all looldng at her very hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him. Winterbournes preference had been that they should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the little steamer; she declared that she had a passion for steam- boats. There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbournes companion found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their little excursion was so much of an escapade an adventure that, even allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, in this particu- lar, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those of any one else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she felt that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty companions distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move about the boat a good deal. But he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling, with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place, she delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea that she was common ; but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective cast; but every now and then it took a subjective turn. What on ear/li are you so grave about? she suddenly demanded, fixing her agree able eyes upon Winterbourne s. Am I grave? he asked. I had an idea I was grinning fromeartoear. You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If thats a grin, your ears are very near together. Should you like me to dance a horr~ pipe on the deck? DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. Pray do, and Ill carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our journey. I never was better pleased in my life murmured Winterbourne. She looked at him a moment, and then burst into a little laugh. I like to make you say those things! Youre a queer mixture I In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts in the corkscrew stair- cases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubli- el/es, and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her about the place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities, and that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon her. They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about without other companionship than that of the custodian; and Winter- bourne arranged with this functionary that they hould not be. hurried that they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian interpreted the bar- gain generously Winterbourne, on his side, hadbeen generousand ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Millers observations were not remarkable for logical consistency; for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a pre- text. She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for ask- ing Winterbourne sudden questions about himself his family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions and for supplying information upon corre- sponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and indeed the most favorable, account. Well, I hope you know enough! she said to her companion, after he had told her the history of the unhappy Bonni- yard. I never saw a man that knew so much! The history of Bonnivard had evidently, as they say, gone into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winterbourne would travel with them and go round With them; they might know something, in that case. Dont you want to come and teach Randolph? she asked. Win- terbourne said that nothing could possi- bly please him so much; but that he had unfortunately other occupations. Other occupations? I dont believe it! said Miss Daisy. What do you mean? You are not in business. The young man ad- 39 mitted that he was not in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two, would force him to go back to Geneva. Oh, bother I she said: I dont believe it! and she began to talk about something else. But a few mo- ments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design of an antique fir& place, she broke out~ irrelevantly, You dont mean to say you are going back to Geneva? It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva to-morrow. Well, Mr. Winterbourne, said Daisy; I think youre horrid ! Oh, dont say such dreadful things I said Winterbourne just at the last! The last ! cried the young girl; I call it the first. I have half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone. And for the next ten min- utes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him the honor to be so agitated by the an- nouncement of his movements. His com- panion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in Geneva whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person, was quite unable to dis- cover; ~tnd he was divided between amaze- ment at the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the frankness of her ~ersi- f/age. She seemed to him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. DQes she never allow you more than three days at a time? asked Daisy, ironically. Doesnt she give you a vaca- tion in summer? Theres no one so hard- worked but they can get leave to go off some~vhere at.this season. I suppose, if you stay another day, shell come after you in the boat. Do wait over till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her ar- rive I . Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed in the temper in which the young lady had em- barked. If he had missed the personal accent, the personal accent was now mak- ing its appearance. It sounded very dis- tinctly, at last, in her telling him she would stop teasing him if he would promise her solemnly to come down to Rome in the winter. Thats not a difficult promise to make, said Winterliourne. . My aunt has taken 40 ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. an apartment in Rome for the winter, and has already asked me to come and see her. I dont want you to come for your aunt, said Daisy; I want you to come for me. And this was the only allusion that the young man was ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at any rate, he would cer- tainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk; the young girl was very quiet. In the evening Winterbourne men- tioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon with Miss Daisy Miller. The Americans of the courier? asked this lady. Ah, happily, said Winterbourne, the courier stayed at home. She went with you all alone? All alone. Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle. And that, she ex- claimed, is the young person whom you wanted me to know! From Frasers Magazine. ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. BY FRANCIS W. NEWMAN. UN a broad survey of ancient history, so far as it is well known, it would. appear that every national creed became encrust- ed with fable and error increasing with centuries. Nothing may be thought more puerile and contemptible than the mythol- ogy of the Iliad; but even in the Odyssey we find new growths super- added; and when the historical era of Greece opens, the heroes of the Iliad nay, their attendants are worshipped as gods; and over the Homeric dynasties a load of malignant sensational legends had been forged and accepted as truth, if not gospel. The marvellous tales of Her- cules were magnified and multiplied. The cannibal feast made by Atreus for his brother was become an article of the na- tional faith: to doubt that Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter would have seemed heretical, though Homer knew nothing of it. The amour of the god Neptune with the hero Pelops is gravely alluded to in a religious hymn by the very religious Pin- dar. The wild story of ~QEdipus slaying his father and marrying his mother igno~ rantly, is as old as the Odyssey; but later narrators heaped up new horrors; and to be acquainted with this mass 6f ever-growing folly was esteemed as val- uable erudition. Nor can we doubt that several monstrous tales of the gods found in the Iliad and in Hesiod were cor- ruptions and misinterpretations of a purer theory. Moral corruptipn went hand in hand with this niovement. With the ascendency of the Dorians both hero- worship and the characteristically Greek mania came in: moreover the debauchery systematized in Corinthian and Cyprian temples had no parallel in the earlier times. So much of Greece. But in Egypt the same thing appears. At least it may be broadly stated, that inquirers with one voice avow their belief that the hideous statues of bestial gods and ludicrous devotion of effort for numberless sacred animals, are mere perversions of earlier and reasonable ideas, which received expression in sym- bols. The religion of Tyre cast off its early cruelties of sacrifice as time went on; but its impurities, unless our informants deceive us, became fixed in the religion, as among the Babylonians in another kind, and as in Egypt. The ancient religion of the Hindoos was noble and pure in com- parison to its later stages; and we know that the Buddhist religion, so sim ple and spiritual with its originator Sakya Muni, has been changed into a carnal sacerdo- talism as unlike his doctrine as is Vatican- ism to the doctrine of Paul of Tarsus. The religion of Persia suffered deprava- tion between Cyrus and the last Darius. To degenerate seems to be the ordinary fate of national creeds. But perhaps the history of the Hebrew nation shows us one rernarkabl& exception. To define the early state of the national belief might bring us into much controversy; but no one will deny that in its later documents there is a very sensible improvement on the older. A man with whose name all Oxford was well acquainted early in this century Davison, a friend of Bishop Coplestone and Archbishop Whately preached a series of Bampton lectures on this very topic how, in successive dispensations, juster and juster views of the divine character came forth, till the limited and carnal ideas of Genesis and Exodus were sublimated by psalmists and prophets. It is found difficult to deny that Jephthahs sacrifice of his daughter was justified by Leviticus xxvii. 29; but it is certain that such a deed in the times of royalty was as detestable to Hebrew relig- ion as now to us, and could only obtain sanction when a king brought in foreign ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. 41 priests and foreign notions. At the time of Uzziah the Hebrew acquaintance with foreign countries rapidly increased, and the men who led the national religion be- came aware how precious was its superi- ority. This presently led to the belief which pervades the psalms and prophecies remaining to us, that the heathen were to lay aside their idols, and come to learn divine truth of Jerusalem. The noble de- sire to propagate to foreign nations the higher TRUTH which Israel, or rather Ju- dah, possessed and cherished, burned in the hearts of the religious leaders, not the less because they saw the foreigner to be invading their country with his vain and corrupting idolatries. Isaiah uttered the word and Micah echoed it, Many people shall say, Comeye, and let us goup to the mowntain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. From that era onwards the Jews became a relig- ious power in the world, small and weak as was their secular State. When estab- lished for mercantile reasons in Egypt or elsewhere, they held together locally for their common religion: and, inasmuch as it could not occur to them to imitate the services of the Temple, nothing but the institution which we call the synagogue could grow up. This was the beginning of the process which was to separate be- tween the ceremonies of the law and its moral doctrines. The exclusive claims set up for the Temple of Jerusalem did but make the synagogues more instructive and more attractive to the thoughtful minds of the foreigners among whom they were planted. Whether in the kingdom of Samaria there was much energetic religion of the same stamp as in Jerusalem, is a question so difficult to answer, that it is not safe to lay stress on the dispersion of its citizens in Assyria as an active spiritual force of the captives among the captors. But when Jerusalem itself fell under Nebuchadnez- zar, thousands of those carried into Baby- lonia had an intense religion. Those who returned under Cyrus and later kings were probably the most ardent part of the na- tion; but they did not lessen the national zeal in leaving the less ardent multitude behind; on the contrary, by giving a new existence to the Temple, they concentrated upon new-born Jerusalem the hopes of all. J udah had long ceased to vex Ephraim, nor could Ephraim envy Judah; but all the twelve tribes (if twelve they really were, when Dan and Simeon were lost) re- united in the dispersion, looking up with one heart to Jerusalem as their national and religious centre. Clinging together on religious grounds, they clustered in the towns; whence mercantile necessity, as families multiplied, enforced a continuous migration, westward as well as eastward. Of the eastward moveh~ent ye know little, except that some reached India and Cochin China, and continuing there for more than two thousand years have acquired the tint of the climate. Of the western movement we know thus much, that few towns of Asia Minor were without them, and that they reached Italy and Rome before the Christian era. There is no pretence or plausibility in calling the Eu- ropean Jews the two tribes, any more than the ten. No one knew of any sep- aration. The Christian apostle James writes to his brethren of the twelve tribes without distinction. Paul in the Acts is represented as speaking before Agrippa concerning the twelve tribes, undoubt- edly meaning the entire and indivisible body known as Jews throughout the Roman empire. This remark is digres- sive, and is elicited by the wonderful modern fiction that the ten tribes are to be looked for as missing; out of which have arisen ridiculous theories and delu- sive efforts. Visits to Jerusalem whence originated the modern idea of pilgrimage were prompted by religious zeal, as well as by liberal curiosity and patriotic interest; and Jerusalem became a spiritual heart, to which and from which the Jewish influ- ences flowed. Rules were organized concerning proselytes, according as a for- eigner might wish simply to attend the religious worship and instruction of the synagogue, or in a more complete sense to bind himself to the Mosaic law. When it is notorious that proselytes were thus classified in the national enactments, the very fact denotes that their number cannot have been few, nor their accession to the synagogues unexpected. The Jews, as we thenceforth call the whole twelve tribes, on the cardinal question of the divine nature and unity retained their superiority alike to the polytheists and to the Gentile philosophers; yet they imbibed many new tenets from the nations among whom they were mixed. Prominent among these was the belief in an after life and a divine judgment organized as a human tribunal, with a judge on the throne, accusers by his side and books of notaries. Along with this was the idea of a great malignant 42 ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. spirit, who dared to stand up against God as his rival; thence called Satan or the enemy. This probably came from Persia. From Egypt or Babylonia or from both came a belief in magic and in disease caused by the indwelling of evil spirits: moreover any vague notions which they before had of angels were now sharpened and largely filled out. Angels were sup- posed to minister to God in the elements (a Persian idea), and to wait on him as bearers of errands to man. They learned even the names of seven archangels, who stand before God in a local heaven. Special angels, perhaps evil spirits, were supposed to uphold the pagan dynasties, which fell when the invisible patron was overcome by better angels. Each man was supposed, as by the Etruscans, to have a guardian angel or genius. Rules and recipes for casting out evil spirits were accepted, whether as a medical or as a religious process is hard to decide. Much more was adopted by the Pharisees (who were the progressive, innovating, and pre- dominant body) than was ever acknowl- edged as binding on the nation. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the righteous: that they acquiesced in a doctrine of Tartarus or hell, such as the Greeks taugl~t,is doubted and keenly de- nied. In any case it is certain that the Sadducees were not thought less faithful to the national creed for rejecting the be- lief in spirits and angels and future life as an innovation on Moses. A passage in the fonrth Gospel implies that the Pythag- orean doctrine of transmigration was cur- rent among the contemporaneous Jews, so that a man may be punished for sins which his soul committed in a former body. But it is hard to find a trace of this elsewhere. If we cannot account some of these new ideas improvements, yet we must re- gard the change as a mark that the relig- ious intellect among the Jews was anything but stagnant. However great their rever- ence for the written scriptures, the Phari- sees were not mere slavish commentators on Moses nor on the prophets. When they adopted new thoughts, they were glad so to interpret the old scriptures as to find countenance for them. Thus Moses was alleged to teach the resurrection of the just, when in his last song he addresses to God the words: All the saints are in thy hand. There was both in the Pharisees and in the Essenes an evident striving after ~~giier and new truth, which on the one hand opened them to many fanciful notions, but on the other conduced to en- larged and nobler views of all moral top- ics. They could learn whatever was best in Greek philosophy, if unable to reject some follies of demonology. This was a temperament very well suited to attract and influence the better part of those pa- gans who had not imbibed the highest philosophy of the day. Some one will ask: Have we any direct attestation of their efficacy in proselyting? Commentators on the New Testament generally regard it as notorious, that the case of Cornelius, a devout man, attached to Jewish teaching, but uncircumcised, was anything but exceptional; but it is well here to appeal to the testimony of the his- torian Josephus. First, a few words may be in place concerning his trustworthiness. In attempting to narrate ancient events he undoubtedly betrays a nafional vanity, and misinterprets both the Hebrew Scriptures and Egyptian legends, to exalt the antiq- uity and greatness of his people, whom in one place he identifies with the shepherd kings of Egypt. In arguing against con- temptuous Greeks, and Romans ridicu- lously ignorant, it is not wonderful that he is carried beyond sobriety. But in writing concerning the events of his own day and things which come within his immediate cognizance, he cannot easily have been deceived, and he wrote to confute enemies at a time when enmity was most bitter. His work on the Jewish war was laid be- fore Vespasian and his son Titus; and he was not likely to assert as fact ~vhat the Gentiles everywhere knew to be untrue. Now concerning proselytism he makes very strong assertions. In his treatise to Epaphroditus, entitled Against Apion (ii. 39~, he writes as follows : Our laws have been thoroughly tested by ourselves: also, in all other men (fv ro~ J~2ot~ wrartv avOp6wottj they have inspired a zeal for themselves ever more and more (& ~ ,cai FLd?uXov). Earliest, the philosophers among the Greeks, while seeming to adhere to their native re- ligion, in fact followed him [Moses], holding like sentiments concerning God, and teaching simplicity of life and a free imparting [of goods] to one another. Not but that already even among the masses (roi~ 7OLieeaw) there has arisen from a long time back much zeal forour piety; nor is there any one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, into which our custom of the seventh-day rest has not penetrated (6taweq5oirnice). Also our fastings and lighting of lamps * and many of our cus- toms concerning food are kept up. And they try to imitate also our concord of sentiment and free distribution of goods, and our indus. * Probably he imagined the e/eraal fire of Vesia to be borrowed from the Jews. - ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. try in mechanical art, and our hardy endurance deadly war in which Vespasian and his when subjected to violences in the cause of son turned Juda~a into a wilderness, the our law. What is most marvellous, this law, historian calmly claims it as conceded by without allurement, without any bait of pleas- the conscience of the Gentiles, that the ure, itself by itself, has proved strong; and as Jews are their superiors in practical~ God permeates the whole world, so has his law marched forth among all men. Each morality. No trace of sacerdotalism, or man himself, who looks upon his own country what (in an evil sense) we call Pharisaism, and home, will not disown what I am saying. shows itself in his argument; and from Now we must impute to all men voluntary his sentiments elsewhere we may fairly baseness, if they cherish zeal for things foreign infer those of his fellows and equals, and inferior, in preference to what is native especially since he was of a high priestly and excellent: if this be not their conduct, family, and, as such, was put forward into our accusers must leave off slandering us. responsible office at a very early age. We claim nothing invidious in honoring the Elsewhere (23 of his own life) he tells enactor of them [our laws], and in believing us, that when certain foreign nobles came the annunciations which he made concerning God. Nay, if we did not of ourselves under- over for protection to the city in which he stand the excellence of his laws, yet at least was governor, .the populace cried out that by the multitude (~rOov~) of the emulous [or they must not remain unless they would zealous proselyfes], we should be led onward to be circumcised. But Josephus replied, be very proud of them. . . . 45. Concerning that they must in no case be constrained, our laws, more words were not needed; for for every man mnst show piety to God they are seen in themselves, not teaching im- according to his own convictions, not by piety, but the truest devoutness; nor exhorting com~uision; and that they must not let to misanthropy, but to fellowship (or free those men repent of having come to them communication) of goods, being foes of in- for refuo~e - b way, justice, studious of the just, banishing idle- . The multitude oave ness and expensive habits, teaching men to and all the wants of the fugitives were sup-. be self-supporting (a& rdpKetg) and industrious, plied abundantly (daiptX~). In modern forbidding wars of ambition, but training men Europe it has taken six centuries of fight- to be brave in self-defence; laws which are ing and two of argument before this sim- inexorable in punishment, undeceivable by l)le and fundamental truth could become got-up harangues, but ever seeking confirma- established even as a theory in Christen- tion of facts: for these we always present, as dom. Joseph us waseminently a Pharisee, more manifest (or decisive) than composed anti in his early youth not a little ascetic speeches. On which account I may boldly say that we have been to other nations ex- (ox? payc i1aa~ tavr~v), and we see what his, pounders of very many and very noble lessons. doctrine was. For what is nobler than piety never trans- But he narrates at full a remarkable~ gressed? And what more just than to yield story, which, if I can sufficiently abridge obedience to the laws? And what is more it, will surely interest the reader. The profitable than mutual concord; and not to scene of the tale is Adiabene, a small stand aloof in calamity, nor become wantonly country in the north-east of Assyria, factious in success: but in war to despise chiefly the valley of the greater Zab. death, and in peace to be devoted to arts or The little potentate who there reigned, agriculture, and retain a firm persuasion that acknowledged as his suzerain the Parthian God surveys everything everywhere? Now if among other nations such precepts were either king of kings. A very young king named earlier written -or more firmly observed, we Izates had ascended the throne, through should owe them thanks, as having been their the special affection of his father, in disciples. But if we are seen to beg5re-eminent preference to his elder brothers, born of in their observance, and we have proved that other wives. The mother of Izates was the origination of them was from us, then - - . Helena, who had been converted to Jewish etc. . . . belief simultaneously ~vith her son, but by a different Jewish teacher. The instruc- The readers attention is called to the tor of Izates bore a name familiar to us tone of this extract. The writer else- Ananias. He was a travelling mer- where avows that the Jews have cere- chant, and through selling his wares to monial restrictions and prohibitions of the kings wives, had obtained introduc- food which may be highly unacceptable to tion to Izates. When the young man foreigners, as mortifying their palates; but conferred with his mother, and found her his panegyric of the Hebrew law turns to be full of zeal for Jewish habits and entirely on what all mankind avow to be institutions, through admiration of the pure morals; and at a time when the cul- religious doctrine, he proposed to accept tivated Romans still retained a bitter circumcision in order to be a true Jew. hatred of Judaism on account of the But through political fears she dissuaded 44 ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. him, and appealed to Ananias; who forth- with vehemently deprecated the kings idea as offensive to his people; urging that, whatever his zeal for Judaism, he could without circumcision revere God, which was a far more cardinal matter (xvpuThepov). This for a while quieted the young man. But after this a third Jew, called Eleazar, arrived from Galilee, ~vho held just the opposite doctrine; and find- ing Izates engaged in reading the law of Moses, abruptly charged him with dis- obedience and impiety in remaining uncir- cumcised. He carried his point with the zealous convert, who obeyed him without communicating his purpose to his mother and to Ananias. They were frightened when they learned what he had done, but had to bear it. After this his mother made a progress to Jerusalem, carrying with her thank-offerings. It was just in the crisis of a great famine (this was in the reign of Claudius Caesar, as is clear in the connection), and Queen Helena was only too happy to be able to buy, at large expense, corn from Alexandria and dry figs from Cyprus which she distributed to the needy, and left a lasting memory of her bounty. Izates at home hearing of the distress sent large sums of money to the chief men in Jerusalem for the public relief. The Parthian king hap- pening to be expelled from the throne by his satraps, took refuge with~ Izates; who espoused his cause so vigorously as to effect a conciliation and restore him to royalty, for which service he was rewarded by a valuable addition to his territory. His zeal for Judaism so mounted up, that before long he sent five young boys, his sons, to be taught accurately the Hebrew language and institutions. His mother also repeated her visits to Jerusalem. A result which he could hardly have ex- pected followed. His eldest brother, Monobazus, and his kinsfolk, seeing that Izates had gained high credit with all men (~t~2.ir6v 7rapa w& otv ~vGp~4ot~ yeyevyjstvov) for his piety, formed the like desire of aban- doning their native cultus for that of the Jews. But this was more than the chief nobles could bear, and they intrigued with a king of the Arabs first, and next with the Parthian king, to effect the deposi- tion of Izates. Space does not allow us to detail how their plans failed, nor does it here signify; but Izates remained on the throne until his death, after a reign of twenty-four years. Though he had many sons, he made his eldest brother Mono- bazus his successor. The historian had promised to tell us more of the good deeds of these kings to Jerusalem, but no further account appears in his works. It is just possible that these kings meant only Izates and his mother; yet he distinctly repeats that he has more to tell of Monobazus. This narrative suggests many comments. Three Jews apparently such as we call laymen are mentioned as zealous in converting foreigners, and all gain respect- ful submission. Between Ananias and Eleazar the same controversy is opened, as between Paul and the over-zealous brethren who came from James. Ananias, like Paul and James, did not wish the Gen- tiles to be subject to circumcision which ~vas the test ordinance, implying that he who received it accepted the whole na- tional law of Moses. Josephus held with the two apostles, that piety to God was paramount and sufficient; Eleazar held with those whom Paul treats as seducers and corruptors of his Galatian converts, that without circumcision no one can fully obey God and be a true saint. Many per- sons imagine that this controversy was originated by one man, Paul: that with- out his individualism the question might not have arisen, and would not have been fought out for the freedom of the Gentile. But it is clear that Josephus, intimate as were his relations with the chief priests, the Pharisees, and the Essenes, was as decided as Paul himself against the neces- sity of circumcision except for those who desired to become Jews nationally. The same doctrine is held universally by all the modern Jews, who certainly have not learned it from Christians. No doubt, as soon as professed reverence arose for the Mosaic scriptures, a narrow-niinded teacher who enforced every tittle of the law had a momentary advantage over the larger-minded with the young, inexperi- enced, and enthusiastic; but with time and discussion the sounder doctrine was sure to prevail. Further: we must view the details of this remarkable case as an illustration of the historians emphatic declaration al- ready quoted, that in all nations there was much zeal among the masses of mankind for the Jewish form of piety. Only in the case of an eminent royal convert could we expect details to be preserved in history. But it must be added: there is no reason whatever to make deductions from Jose- phuss statements on the ground that they oppose those of Roman literature. The Roman writers say indeed little about the Jews, but what they say is certainly con- firmatory. Herodotus had too much rev- ON JEWISH PROSELYTISM BEFORE THE WAR OF TITUS. 45 erence for foreign religion to despise cir- cumcision; though he had no knowledge of its origin with the Egyptians, Arabs, and Syrians through ideas of cleanliness. But to the Romans, presented~ as a relig- ious ordinance, it seemed emphatically ludicrous: such, no doubt, it was to the poet Horace. Yet his mention of the Jews is quite kindly. XVhen he wishes to es- cape from a troublesome companion he tells us how his friend Aristius Fuscus teased him, declining his request by an off-hand invention: To-day is the thirti- eth sabbath: you surely would not wish me to insult the Jews. This was of course said in jest. Elsewhere the poet has the phrase: We poets are numerous, and like 7ews we will press you into our corps: a clear intimation how active was Jewish proselytism in Rome under Augus- tus Ca~sar. No emperor was likely to be fond of the Jews; for it was no easy mat- ter to hinder Roman soldiers from insult- ing their religion, out of which popular tumults arose; and since they every seventh year left the land uncultivated, no tribute could be collected in that year a sore annoyance to the government. But after the terrible war of Vespasian the sen- timent of the Romans became very bitter, and their writers pour out little but slander on the unhappy and crushed people. The ignorance of Tacitus concerning the Jewish history is as thorough, but not as disgrace- ful, as his hatred and spite; yet he testi- fies in his own emphatic way to their suc- cess in winning proselytes before their final overthrow. These ceremonies, says he, of the sabbaths and other rites native to Jud~ea, are defended by antiq- uity; the rest of their institutions, ill- ornened and foul, have prevailed by their depravity. For all the worst characters used to discard the religion of their ances- tors, and carry to Jerusalem tribute and small payments: whereby the resources of the Jews were swollen. He proceeds to slander them as impure: Inter se nihil inlici/u;n. But there is no motive for quoting farther. It suffices that he attests their zeal and their success in making proselytes. He acknowledges the noble purity of their theology. The Egyp- tians, says he, worship many animals and artificial figures, but the Jews appre- hend a single God and by the mere intel- lect; regarding those as ~profane, who fash- ion out of perishable material images of gods in the form of men. The Highest and Eternal One, they maintain, is un- changeable and imperishable. Knowing this to be the nobler and truer doctrine, knowing the vile trash which heathen priests~ and poets taught as religion, this eminent writer nevertheless stigmatizes as ~essimus whoever abandoned such fol- lies for the nobler tenets of the Jews. To keep up the national observances, how- ever puerile, however monstrous, was with a Roman the first duty of m~n. Tacitus, like Pliny and Trajan, regarded it as a cap- ital crime to cast off ones ancestral relig- ion; and all three are typical Romans. Yet, wonderful to add, great historians have convinced themselves, and have per- suaded the world, that in religion the Ro- mans were essentially and systematically tolerant. In fact, despotism was the only Roman idea of rule, in things ecclesiasti- cal or political alike. Against a man who pleaded conscientious objection they were savage: to hypocritical and subservient atheism they had no repugnance at all. Between the era of Antiochus Epiph- anes and the emperor Nero, it appears certain that the Jews made a very benefi- cial impression on the mind of western Asia and the Roman world, preparing it (it may seem) for Christianity. The equi- table character of their domestic institu- tions was in harmony with their nobler religion. The historian Josephus many times insists on the excellence of their social practices and sentiments. What he says of their simplicity of life and the ab- sence of luxury, may have been colored by the contrast reflected from Roman extrav- agances; but what he says in detail of the honor paid to industry, the zeal of all to be self-supporting (a~r4picet4 the approval of personal work (ai~i-ovpvta), and their free- ~dom in imparting goods to one another, which he calls ~otv~via (community, fellow- ship), and div~docn~ (yielding up, or distribu- tion), must be accepted literally. We have full reason to believe that mechanical art and rustic labor were as honorable then in J ud~ea as now in the American Union or at Salt Lake, and that many doctors of the law maintained themselves with their hands. The case of St. Paul is an obvious illustration. Moreover, the laws of Jud~ea were equitable and the punishment mild. Tacitus himself declares that among themselves the fidelity of the Jews was rigid (obstinata), and their tender mercy prompt. Such a people, it might seem, had deserved to live, even in the Roman empire. Not so thought Roman wisdom. That model emperor Titus, the delight of mankind, took counsel with his high offi- cers whether to save the Temple of Jeru- salem, a building esteemed magnificent. But they argued, that out of Jerusalem h~id 46 LADY CAROLINE LAMB. come two detestable religions, the Jewish and the Christian, which would best be destroyed by uprooting their original home; therefore the Temple and the city were to be utterly demolished. After Roman cruelty had done its worst upon the oppressed and ruined nation, Christian animosity succeeded, to play a like part. Jewish proselytism ceased, indeed became impossible, after the violent and deadly war; yet the Jews and their religion have long survived the domineering, oppressive, and self-destroying rule of Rome; it has undergone no deterioration by the lapse of centuries; yet they still have to plead for toleration and justice from Sclavonic Eu- rope. From Tempie Bar. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. WHAT do you think of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Miss Manvers? asked Vivian Grey. Oh, I think her a very amusing wom- an, a very clever woman, a very but , But what? But I cant exactly make her out. Not- I, nor I. Shes a dark riddle, and although I am a very ~ZEdipus, I confess I have not yet unravelled it. Mrs. Felix Lorraine is said to have been intended for Lady Caroline Lamb; and as it is the fashion to identify the prime min- ister with the opinions of his hero, we may accept this as Lord Beaconsfields (or rather Mr. Disraelis) verdict on the wife of one of his predecessors in the premier- ship. But if Lady Caroline was a dark riddle fifty years ago, its solution is not very difficult at the present day. The direct descendant of Sarah, Duch- ess of Marlborough, had an hereditary gift of ready wit, a strong, if whimsical, will, Whig prepossessions, undoubted fire of temper, and something akin, if not amount- ing, to fire of genius. With these quali- ties Caroline Ponsonby combined warmth of heart, charm of manner, and generosity of disposition, which made her for a time admired by every circle and adored by her own. But in this cup of blessing was one bitter drop which poisoned the whole. Forever in extremes, Lady Caroline held no measure in her likings, knew no re- straint to her caprices, so that her very virtues became more mischievous than the vices of self-controlled, prudent peo- ple. Related as she was to all the great Whig families, no child could have entered the world with brighter prospects or more dis- tinguished associations. Her father was third Earl bf Besborough, her mother sec- ond daughter of the first Earl of Spencer. Her eldest brother, Viscount Duncannon, was an excellent Irisl landlord, a useful statesman, and i~ore than a match, says Sir Denis le Marchant, for Mi. OCon- nell. The second brother, Frederick, with indolent manners and a face and dis- position of feminine sweetness, became a daring cavalry officer, followed Wellington from th.e Peninsula to \Vaterloo (where he received fifteen wounds), and was made K. C. B., lieutenant-general, and governor of Malta. William, the third brother, en- tered the navy, but, marrying a daughter of the Earl of Shaftesbury, settled on his estates in Dorsetshire, ~vent into Parlia- ment, and was raised to the peerage as Lord De Mauley. Caroline the only daughter was born in 1785. Three years afterwards her mother had a paralytic stroke, and was ordered to Italy, whither she took the little girl. Lady Besborough rapidly grow- ing so much worse as to be supposed near death, returned to England, leaving her daughter in charge of a servant, with whom the little Lady Caroline remained six years. This ill-assorted companionship amidst the romance of Italian scenery and people, unconsciously moulded her mind at its most impressionable period, and influ- enced it for life. At nine years of age, she was sent to Devonshire House, to be educated with her cousins, and became the pet of the duke, admitted to his room when his daughters were excluded, and lisping politics while he toasted his muf- fin and sipped his tea. Here, too, she devoured Burnss poems, which, she says, awakened her mind. They are not food for babes, and probably stimulated an imagination already too vivid. Devon- shire House was a strange, disorderly establishment, characteristic perhaps of the giddy career of its beautiful mistress. Though the children were served on silver, they were allowed to carry their plates into the kitchen to be replenished. Lady Georgiana Cavendishs chief amuse- ment was hunting butterflies; Lady Caro- line Ponsonby excelled in breaking in horses and polishing Derbyshire spar. Their governess does not appear to have imparted to them much of the useful knowledge for which her mother, Mrs. Trimmer, was famous. We had no idea LADY CAROLINE LAMB. that bread and butter was made, says Lady Caroline, and no doubt that fine horses were fed on beef. They also thought the world was divided into pau- pcrs and nobles, and that the money of the latter knew no limit, an illusion which clung to her through life. In about a year Lady Spencer took charge of her granddaughter, and was so alarmed by her waywardness and eccentricity that eminent doctors were consulted as to her state of mind. They said she had been overtaxed by her governess, and over- indulged by her parents; she was not mad, but might be made so; and to avert the danger, the over-active brain was ordered to rest for some years. To de- bar so quick a child from study and disci- pline, and never contradjct her for fear of outbursts of passion which might injure her health, was a decision of doubtful wis- dom. At thirteen, Lady Caroline, a precocious politician, sentimentalist, and poetess, drank Foxs health and confusion to the Tories in bumpers of milk, and fell in love with the idea of William Lamb, whom she had never seen, because he was a friend of liberty. And when I did see him, she asks, could I change? N9 I was more attached than ever. He was beau- tiful, far the cleverest person then about, the most daring in his opinions and inde- pendence. He thought of me but as a child, yet he liked me much. They first met when Lady Caroline accompanied her cousins on a visit to Lady Melbourne at Brocket Hall; and William Lamb ex- claimed: Of all the. Devonshire House girls that is the one for me. The strange fellowship between the undisciplined en- thusiast of thirteen and the calm, cultivat- ed, elegant youth of twenty ripened into a passion as profound on his side as it was intense on hers, which ought to have been the blessing of both lives, but which it was her unhappy destiny to turn into a curse. William Lamb was a younger son, a barrister who once~had the delightful sen- sation (not equalled, he said in after life, by that of being made prime minister) of seeing his name on the back of a brief. His prospects of marriage, therefore, were rather remote. Peniston Lambs death in 1805 making him heir to the Melbourne title and estates, he hastened to lay his brighter fortunes at Lady Carolines feet. To his amazement she refused him, alleg- ing that she feared her violent temper would wreck their happiness. But to his still greater amazement she added a wish 47 to accompany him in boys clothes and act as his secretary. Lady Caroline was then nineteen) slender and graceful in fig- ure, with small, regular features, a pale complexion, darl+~ expressive eyes in strik- ing contrast with short, thick, golden hair, a grave look which emphasized her odd, sparkling talk, and a voice whose low tones had such unusual ~weetness that they captivated the indifferent and dis- armed even her enemies. Byron, when at Pisa, told Medwin that she had scarcely any personal attractions to rec- ommend her. Her figure, though gen- teel, was too thin to be good, and wanted that roundness which elegance and grace ~vould vainly supply. But Byrons pref- erence was always for a substantial order of beauty, with more flesh and blood than intellect, and none of the nonsense of your stone ideal. William Lamb de- scribed her as small, slight, and perfect- ly formed. She was fond of saying startling things, to ~vhich a slight lisp gave additional piquancy. William Harness was dancing with her at a great ball, when she confounded him by demanding: Gueth how many pairth of thilk stockingth I have on? His wit not being equal to the divination, she raised her skirts above a pretty ankle, and; pointing to a little foot, said, Thix. When old enough to disregard the doc- tors embargo on study, Lady Caroline had learnt with avidity, though without system. She soon acquired French and Italian, music and painting, could write an ode of Sappho, or dash off a spirited cari- cature. She rode and wrote as fearlessly as she talked. No wonder William Lamb, once attracted by a girl so bewitching and, original, found all others commonplace. He again proposed, and, unhappily, he was not again refused because, she says, I adored him. The bridegroom soon had cause to ad- mit how reasonable ~vere the grounds on which his first offer had been rejected. Although marriage was her absolutely free choice, the bride, according to her own account, was seized during the ceremony with one of her ungovernable fits of pas- sion. I stormed at the bishop, she says, tore my valuable dress to pieces, and ~vas carried nearly insensible to the carriage which was to convey me forever from my home. This storm apparently cleared the atmos- phere. The honeymoon passed peace- fully. The young couple rode and read together, and she used to refer to that quiet time, when William taught me all I 48 LADY CAROLINE LAMB. knew, as the happiest of her life. On their return to London, Lady Caroline at once became the rage; or, in Hepworth Dixons words the belle of her season, toast of her set, star of her firmament. The Prince of Wales, a constant visitor at Melbourne House, stood sponsor to her first child, who was named after him. The flattery she received was enough to turn a steadier brain, but love and admira- tion for her husband kept her safe. They sympathized in literary tastes till Lady Caroline fell under the evil influence of the Satanic school, whose manufac- tured melancholy her husband ridiculed and in seeking the society of literary peo- ple. Jerdan describes an evening party winding up with a game at forfeits which he, kneeling blindfold before Lady Caro- line, had to cry. Being asked what he would do if an injured ghost assaulted him for wrongs done in the flesh I was about to reply [he says] when a smart cuff on the head proved that it was no ghost story. I pulled off the silken bandage, and, looking up from his laughing ladys knee, saw William Lamb, just returned from the Com- mons, and come to take his wife home. Rogers, Moore, and Spencer were all my lovers, she tells Lady Morgan, and wrote me up to the skies. I was in the clouds. Moore, devoted to his quiet Bessy, and Rogers to his cynical bachelor- hood, would have smiled at this assertion. While she was still the cynosure of neighboring eyes, Byron called by Hep- worth Dixon beautiful and deadly as nightshade returned from Italy. The manuscript of Childe Harold was lent to Lady Caroline by Rogers, and she be- came crazy to see the poet. He has a club-foot, and bites his nails, said Rogers. If he is ugly as ~sop, I must know him, she answered. Lady Westmoreland offered to introduce them at a ball, but with an impulse of aversion Lady Caroline turned away, noting him in her diary as mad, bad, and dangerous to know. She changed her opinion when, on Byrons first call at Melbourne House, he held her sleeping child on his knee for more than an hour, lest by moving he should wake him. For nearly a year his visits were incessant. He had a real regard for Lady Melbourne, whom he called the best friend he ever had a second mother yet played at being in love with her daugh- ter-in-law. On Lady Carolines part it was not play, but lamentable earnest. There was much gratified vanity at first on both sides. Rank and ton had an irresistible charm for Byron. To win the uncon- cealed devotion of a woman brilliant and beloved, whose wildest follies had never compromised her before, was a triumph even for the fashionable Apollo whom the women suffocated. But it was a triumph of which he speed- ily tired. These violent delights have violent ends. Real thuhder and lightning soon issued from the atmosphere of artifi- cial gloom both revelled in. Their frantic despairs, vows, jealousies, have been ludi- crously likened to the parody on the woes of Mr. and Mrs. Haller: She, seeing him, screamed, and was carried out kicking; While he banged his head gainst the oppo- site door. But the misery brought by this extrava- gance on her husband and herself was only too genuine. Byron, with his mock- madness and callous heart, could pass un- scathed through many such entanglements; at the root of Lady Carolines follies lay the germ of real insanity and the misguid- ed fervor of a loving nature. Byron, in after years, with his customary cynicism, deliberately misstated facts in order some- what to exonerate his own conduct. He said to Medwin She possessed an infinite vivacity, and an imagination heated by novel-reading, which made her fancy herself a heroine of romance, and led her into all sorts of eccentricities. She was married, but it was a match of conve- nance, and no couple could be more fashion- ably indifferent to or independent of one another than she and her husband. As regards her actual criminality with Byron, out of their own mouths we might indeed judge them guilty; for the exag- gerated self-condemnation in which both so morbidly indulged cannot be forgotten. Rogers never suspected of too lenient judgments though describing how Lady Caroline absolutely besieged Byron, offering him in her first letter all her jewels if he were in want of money, and whenever practicable going to and from parties in his carriage, or, if he went where she was not invited, waiting in the street for his return declares, in spite of all this absurdity, his firm belief in their in- nocence. And it has been shrewdly re- marked that where so much was on the surface friends did 1not suspect anything beneath. Nevertheless, a hundred strange stories were current about this strange liaison. When Charles Kemble and his wife visited Paris they met William Lamb and Lady Caroline at a dinner given by LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 49 Lord Holland. It had been settled that need not fear me. I do not pursue pleas. the Lambs were to return to England on ure like other men; I labor under an in- the following day, but a rumor of Byrons curable disease and a blighted heart. probable arrival being mentioned at table, Believe me, she is safe with me. She Lady Caroline created a sensation among was not safe from being raised to the sev- the guests by emphatically announcing enth heaven by adulation at one moment, her intention of remaining in Paris. Wil- or sunk to that nethermost hell endured ham Lamb took the matter quietly, as ~vas by a woman scorned at the next. She his wont, but it may have had something was not safe from such alternations of to do with the scene which followed, rage, jealousy, and tenderness as shook Both the Lambs and Kembles occupied her ill-balanced mind to its foundations.* rooms in the H6tel Meurice, and as the Her ostentation of intimacy with Byron carriages which took them home drew up irritated him as much as it angered her at the same time, the latter saw William own family, and led to some outran- Lamb jump out, lift his wifes girlish fig- scenes. Francis Jackson, in the bright, ure in his arms, and carry her into the vivacious Bath Archives, writes to his hotel, to avoid the deep gutter dividing brother George on the 3rd of July, 1813: the road from the trot/air. I, growled At Lady Heathcotes ball, last week, Lady Kemble, as he watched this piece of gal- Caroline Lamb, who had been flirting with lantry, should have put your ladyship ~ Lord Byron, upon some quarrel with him, the gutter. On reaching their respective stabbed herself with a knife at supper, so that sitti ng-rooms, which had facing windows, the blood flew about her neighbors. She was uncurtained and brilliantly lighted, the taken away, and as it was supposed she was Kembles saw a curious dorhestic tableau: faint, a glass of water was brought, when she Mr. Lamb was seated in an armchair; broke the glass, and struck herself with the Lady Caroline had placed herself on his pieces. A little discipline will, I suppose, knee; that position not expressing suffi. bring these schoolgirl fancies into order. cient tenderness and humility, she slid to his feet. But some chance word perhaps turned the tide of her feelings, for when her husband rose, she sprang to her feet, and, rushing round the room, swept down vases, glasses, cups, and saucers all its breakable ornaments - in a whirlwind of passion, her husband following and vainly endeavoring to soothe her. In the midst of this tragi-comedy down fell the curtain the window-blind and the finale was left to the spectators imagination. William Lamb, knowing how evanescent were his wifes fancies, and that a revul- sion was inevitable, does not seem to have been much troubled by her Byron-wor- ship. He cared nothing for my morals [she re- marks bitterly in one of her letters]; I might flirt and go about with what men I pleased. He was privy to my affair with Lord Byron, and laughed at it. His indolence renders hini insensible to everything. When I ride, play, and amuse him, he loves me. In sickness and suffering he deserts me. Which, being interpreted, probably means that, when she was tolerably reasonable, her husband was happy in her society; but he had not always patience with her rhapsodies. Lady Melbourne, with the perspicacity of a woman of the world, re- monstrated with Byron against the growing intimacy, and he replied, iii the sublime strain he was fond of assuming: You LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 1148 Fanny Kembles version of the origin of the quarrel is incredible. Lady Caro- line, she says, with impertinent disre- gard of Byrons infirmity, asked him to waltz. He contemptuously replied, I cannot, and you nor any other woman ought not. Whereupon the impetuous woman rushed into the dressin -room thre~v up the window, exclaiming with St. Preux, La rocize est escar~& ; / ean est ~rofonde I and was about to fling herself out, when a friendly grasp on her petti- coats restrained her. She then asked for some water, and, biting a piece out of the glass, endeavored to stab herself with it, but was persuaded to go home to bed. Byrons own history of the affair is thus given by Medwin : I am easily governed by women, and she [Lady Caroline] gained an ascendencv over me that I could not easily shake off. I sub- mitted to this thraldom long, for I hate scenes, and am of an indolent disposition, but I was forced to snap the knot rather rudely at last. Like all lovers, we had several quarrels before we caine to an open rupture. .. - Even during our intimacy, I was not at all constant to this fair one, and she suspected as much. In order to detect my intrigues, she watched me, and earthed a lady into my lodgings and came herself, terrier-like, in the disguise of a car- * Rogers says: They frequently had quarrels; and more than once, on coming home, I have found Lady C. walking in the garden [in St. Jamess Place] wait- ing for me, to beg that I would reconcile them. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. man. My valet, who did not see through the masquerade, let her in: when, to the despair of Fletcher, she put off the man, and put on the woman. Imagine the scene! It was worthy of Faublas! Her after conduct was unaccountable madness a combination of spite and jealousy. It was perfectly agreed and understood that we were to meet as strangers. We were at a ball, she came up and asked me if she might waltz. I thought it perfectly indifferent whether she waltzed or not, and with whom, and told her so, in differ- ent terms, but with much coolness. After she had finished, a scene occurred, which was in the mouths of every one. Then follow several lines of stars; doubtless representing an account of the attempt to kill herself, which Medwin or his publisher thought it ~vise to omit. That Byrons statements were colored by the bitterness of disappointed desires as time went on, or that he was a consum- mate dissembler in his relations with Lady Caroline, is proved by his farewell let- ter on her leaving London for Ireland with her mother. This letter is equally irrec- oncilable with his sneers to Medwin and a criminal view of the intimacy. Mv DEAREST CAROLINE, If tears, which you saw, and know I am not apt to shed; if the agitation in which I parted from you agitation which, you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached; if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my feelings are, and must ever be, towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer. God knows I never knew till this moment the madness of my dearest and most beloved friend. I cannot express myself, this is no time for words but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. I am about to go out, with a heavy heart, for my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the spite of the day might give rise to. Do you think now that I am cold and stern and wilful? Will ever others think so? Will your mother ever? That mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much more, much more on my part than she shall ever know, or can imagine. Promise not to love you? Ab, Caroline, it is past promising! But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than ev~r can be known, but to my own heart perhaps, to yours. May God forgive, protect, and bless you ever and ever, more than ever. Your most attached BYRON. P.S. These taunts have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, and were it not for your mother, and the kindness of your con- nections, is there anything in heaven or earth that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? And not less now than then, but more than ever at this time. God knows I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other, in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affec- tions which is and shall be sacred to you till I am nothing. You know I would with pleasure give up all here or beyond the grave for you; and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? I care not who knows this, what use is made of it it is to you, and to you only, yourself I was, and am yours, freely and entirely, to obey, to honor, love, and fly with you, when, where, and how your. self might and may determine. This letter was followed by others, the most tender and most amusing, says Lady Caroline. But Byrons vanity leading him to fix his matrimonial choice on Miss Mil- banke chiefly because she had already refused him and half a dozen of his inti- mate friends it was undesirable that the intimacy with Lady Caroline should be renewed; and on hearing of her approach- ing ret urn to England, he wrote what she called the cruel letter given in Glen- arvon, and declared by Byron to be the only true thing in that book. LADY AVONDALE, I am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it by this truly unfeminine persecution, learn that I am attached to another, whose name it would of course be dishonest to mention. I shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances I have received of the predilection you have shown in my favor. I shall ever con- tinue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself. And as a first proof of my regard, I offer you this advice: correct your vanity, which is ridiculous; exert your absurd caprices on others; and leave me in peace. Your most obedient servant, GLENARVON. If substantially true, such a letter was capable of turning to frenzy the latent madness of his beloved friend, espe- cially as it bore the coronet and initials of Lady Oxford, whom she considered her rival. Its receipt threw her into a brain fever, through which her mother nursed her at a little Irish inn. Amidst all her infatuation for Byron, her husband retained the first place in her admiration. At a Parisian dinner-party she asked her neigh- bor whom he supposed she thought the most distinguished man she ever knew, in mind and person, refinement, cultiva so tion, sensibility, and thought. Byron, was the natural reply. No, she said, my own husband, William Lamb. Lady Morgan called her friends taste in dress perfect, and Mr. Torrens says she dressed as she painted and played, pic- turesquely; indifferent to opinion, and never exactly in the mode. Accordino~ to Madame dArblay, her costume in however picturesque, was by no means perfect. At Madame de la Tour du Pins party, I just missed meeting the famous Lady C. L., who had been there to dinner, and whom I saw crossing the Place Royale [Brussels] to the Grand HOtel, dressed, or rather not dressed, so as to attract universal attention, and au- thorize every boldness of staring among the military groups constantly parading La Place, for she had one shoulder, half her back and all her throat and neck displayed, as if at the call of some statuary for modelling a heathen goddess. A slight scarf hung over the other shoulder, and the rest of her attire was of accordant lightness. As her ladyship was not then considered as one apart from being known as an eccentric authoress, this de- meanor excited something beyond surprise, and provoked censure upon the whole En. glish nation. SI to personate Lady Caroline, while she herself in boys clothes sat writing at a distant table as the author. Next time the man of business called, he was in- formed that the boy-novelist, William Osmand, was dead, but that Lady Caro- line was still resolved the book should be published. This masquerade served no purpose, as the identification of the author and chief characters rather encouraged than sought to be disguised constituted its sole claim to a fleeting notoriety. It is stagey and spasmodic, with an involved plot, in which Italians, begums, nuns, gip- sies, white boys, sybils, and guilty count- esses, whose angel faces are distorted by demon passions, twist and twirl in a be- wildering manner. Here and there are gleams of eloquence and feeling run wild, and bits of shrewd self-knowledge. Calanthas motives appeared the very best, but the actions resulting from them were ab- surd and exaggerated. Thoughts swift as lightning hurried through her brain projects seducing, but visionary, crowded upon her view. Without a curb she followed the im- pulse of her feelings, and those feelings varied with every varying interest and impression. The one respectable character in the book is Lord Avondale (William Lamb), who, It was from this period that her eccen- tricities in every direction became more marked and irritating. She had a mis- chievous page who used to throw detonat- ing balls into the fire, for which Lord Melbourne scolded Lady Caroline, and Lady Caroline scolded the page. One day when she was playing at ball with him, he threw a squib into the fire; she threw the ball at his head it drew blood, and he cried out, Oh, my lady, you have killed me! She rushed into the hall scream- ing, Oh, God! I have murdered the page! The report spread like wildfire; people in the street took up the cry, and the horrible tragedy at Melbourne House was in everybodys mouth. The family would no longer tolerate such esca- pades. Who could tell what scandal she mirtht not bring upon them next? A separation was inevitable. To this William Lamb reluctantly agreed. While the deeds were being drawn, Lady Caroline occupied her- self with writing Glenarvon, in which she figured as the heroine Calantha, and In spite of sundry wild flights on Lady Byron as the hero. She says that she Avondales part, the young couple have wrote the book in a month. When about some prospect of happiness, till Glenar- to dispose of the manuscript, she, with her von, the spirit of evil, appears on the uncontrollable love of mystification and scene. romance, elegantly dressed her compan- Never did the hand of the sculptor, in the ion, Aliss Walsh, and placed her at a harp full power of his art, produce a form and face with an utter contempt for all hypocrisy in word and act, with a frankness and simplicity of character sometimes observed in men of extraordinary abilities, but never attendant on the ordinary or the corrupted mind, appeared to the world as he really felt, and never thought nor studied whether such opinion were agree- able to his own vanity or the taste of his com- panions, for whom, however, he was at all times ready to sacrifice his time, his money, and all on earth but, his honor and integrity. He and Calantha fell desperately in love with each other, and, after some misun- derstandings, Lord Avondale sought and won that strange, uncertain~ being for whom he was about to sacrifice so much. He considered not the lengthened journey of life, the varied scenes through which they were to pass; where all the qualities in which she was deficient ~vould be so often and so absolutely required dis- cretion, prudence, firm and steady principle, - obedience, humility. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 52 LADY CAROLINE LAMB. more finely wrought so full of soul, so ever- varying in expression. He had been heralded by rumors of crime and captivation which prepared the fashionable world to receive him with open arms. But The sort of impression she expected Glenarvonto make on Byron, it is hard to guess. She had a copy splendidly bound for him, with his coronet and initials on the cover, and a key to the characters in her handwriting on the fly-leaf. Of course it was never sent. Byron, when asked the meaning of th~ tine in Beppo, Some play the devil and then ~vrite a novel, replied that it alluded to a book which had some fame from being consid- ered a.history of his life and adventures, character, and exploits. Shelley, he continued, told me he was offered by a bookseller in Bond Street no small sum to compile the notes of that book into a novel, but he declined ~ adding hypocritically, 1ff know the authoress, I have seen let- ters of hers much better written than any part of that novel. After Byron had left England, Lady Car- oline called once on her cousin, Lady By- ron, who received her with I know all, Lady Caroline. He has told me all, and you could have saved me from all my misery. What bearing this enigmatical remark had on the causes of Byrons sepa- ration, Lord Broughton s memoirs to be published twenty-two years hence may determine. In 1817, Lady Caroline had a fall from her horse, followed by a nervous fever. a studied courtesy in his manner, a proud hu- mility, mingled with a certain cold reserve, amazed and repressed the enthusiasm his youth and misfortunes had excited. He exerts all his powers to dazzle and beguile Calantha, so successfully that they are twice on the verge of elopement, but the thought of her husband and children keeps her back, and the lovers part, after swearing to be wickedly true to each other, in a scene absurdly reminiscent of the Veiled Prophet. Calanthas heart is still bleeding from the wounds thus in- flicted when she receives, in answer to several tender inquiries, the cruel letter we have already quoted. Just as Glenarvon apl)eared, the law- yer with some of the Ponsonby family arrived at Melbourne House to attest the signatures of the two principals to the deed of separation. They were received by XVilliam Lamb, who left the room to fetch Lady Caroline. After some impa- tient waiting, her brother ~vent in search of the semi-attached couple and found the lady sitting on her husbands knee feeding him with bread and butter! Of course the lawyer put his deeds in his pocket, and walked away. Lady Caroline attributed the change of situation to de- light at reading Glenarvon. But Wil- liam Lamb must have been a peculiarly constituted husband if that book did not rather exasperate than soothe him. Pos- sibly, however, he found in its incoherence an excuse for treating her follies as those of a scarcely responsible being. The new Lady Caroline, however, When Madame de Sta~l coolly asked proved to be uncommonly like the old. Byron at Coppet if the description of him- George Lamb contested Westminster in self was accurate, he replied: The por- 1819, and she canvassed for him busily. trait cannot be like; I did not sit long Amongst others, she sought the acquaint- enough. To Murray, Moore, and every ance of Godwin, but did not succeed in one for whose opinion he cared, Byron obtaining his vote. His courteous answer repeated the same contemptuous disavow- to her appeal led to a correspondence given al. Lady Caroline, hearing at Brocket in Mr. Kegan Pauls excellent biography some of the bitter thin0s he said, made a of Godwin. It was Lady Carolines un- funeral pyre of his letters, put his minia- failing habit to pour her woes into an.y ture on the top, and had a number of young ready ear, and it would have been well if girls dressed in white to dance round, she had never made a more objectionable sinoin~ a dirge written for the occasion, confidant than the author of Political beginning Burn, burn ; but they were Justice, who could hardly have been pre. only copies, and, says Irving, what made pared for the full tide of sentiment and the ridiculousness complete was that there confession about to descend on him. Iler was no one present to be taken in by it topics were diverse as her mind was un- but herself, and she was in the secret. stable, a prominent one being her dear, When I believe I died [she wrote]. For assuredly a new Lady Caroline has arisen from this death. I seem to have buried my sins, grief, melancholy . . . and never mean to an- swe.r any questions further back than the fifteenth of this month; that being the date of the new Lady Carolines birth. I hate the old one. She had her good qualities; but she had grown into a sort of female Timon bitter, and always going over old past scenes. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 53 yet misguided and misguiding Byron. teach the youth who figured as champion She asks Godwin what he thinks of The at George the Fourths coronation how to Doge of Venice, saying in the same ride, being herself fearless as an Arab. breath that Cobbett writes better to her At Brocket, she is said to have ridden fancy than almost any one. She com- barebacked horses about the park at fran- pares herself to the wreck of a little tic speed. As a girl, she had the ideas of merry boat, and, lamenting the friends a duchess; as a married woman, she de- she has lost by her own fault, adds, served the title her lavishship; bestowed Now I have one faithful, kind friend in by her father-in-law, the old viscount. But William Lamb, two others in my father she had fits of penitence for the profusion and brother . . . but all else is gone. which helped to embarrass her husband. In a later letter, she asks, Pray tell me Would I could be useful! she says to what you have done about my journal? Lady Morgan. I did write a hook upon a chronicle of her wishes, thoughts, stables and domestic economy, on a new good resolves, and frequent shortcomings and beautiful plan, hut unless some one during many years, interspersed with recol- saw it and thought it good, I would not lections of friends and foes submitted venture to publish it. But she published to Godwin for revision, possiblywith some a second novel in 1822, Graham Hamil- idea of publication. After her death it ton, suggested to her by IJgo Foscolo, as was destroyed, no doubt wisely, though, as a corrective to Glenarvon, for, he said, with Byrons memoirs, one regrets the sac- women cannot afford to shock. Her rifice. In recognition of the pains Godwin family vainly besought her to wipe her took with her manuscript, Lady Caroline pens and cork up her ink-bottle. sent him a diamond ring given her by By- ron and a bottle of otto of roses which had I ask you [she indignantly wrote] if one belonged to Ali Pacha ! surely the odd- descended in a right line from Spenser, not to est offerings ever made by a spoilt favorite speak of the Duke of Marlborough, with all fashion to a stoic philosopher in diffi- the Cavendish and Ponsonhy blood to boot, of which was always rebellious, should feel a culties. Her only surviving child was a little strongly upon any occasion, and burst source of deep anxiety. He was amiable forth, and yet be told to hold ones tongue, and handsome, but his mind had not de- and not write what is to happen? veloped in proportion to his body, and she consulted Godwin an expert in the sci- Ada Reis, Lady Carolines third, ence of education who visited Brocket sometimes called her best, novel, hap- to see the boy, but could suggest no meth- pened, at all events; and a very high od of stimulating his dormant intellect, fantastic flowery performance it is, He survived his mother eight years, but though exhibiting some power and only his only gleam of spontaneous intelligence too much imagination. The good came a few hours before death, spirit she afterwards declared was in- In another letter Lady Caroline intro- tended for Bulwer; adding, I fear he is duced Mr. Bulwer Lytton, a very young not so good now. In July 1824, she and man and an enthusiast. Bulwers first her husband, riding in the neighborhood of volume of poems contains one To Caro- Brocket, met a long funeral procession. line, who was his confidante in his love- On being told it was that of Byron, she affair with Rosina Wheeler, and is said to became insensible, and a long illness su- have made that marriage which was pervening left her brain more unsettled, almost as disastrous as her own. Mrs. s. and her temper more ungovernable than C. Hall, describing one of the blue ever. She was alternately irritable with- parties of little Miss Spence, says that out cause, or affectionate without meas- ure; even her husbands patience found a Lady Caroline was present, enveloped in the limit. One day she became so petulant folds of an ermine cloak, which she called a and affronting while dining at Melbourne cat-skin; that she talked a great deal about a House, says Mr. Torrens, that YVilliarn periodical she wished to get up, to be called Lamb left the table and drove off to the Tabbys Magazine, and that with her was an exceedingly haughty, brilliant, and beauti- Brocket. He had not long reached his ful girl, Rosina Wheeler, who sat rather im- room when a noise in the corridor dis- patiently at the feet of her eccentric Gamaliel. turbed him; opening the door, he saw his wife lying across the threshold, convulsed Her eccentricities took a hundred with grief. She had ridden after him shapes, which would have been vulgar, but through the night, in a stormy reaction of for the saving grace of a natural refine- feeling; unfortunately next morning she ment such as her going to Astleys, to was ready to quarrel again, as violently LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 54 and as causelessly. These vagaries, partly due to a fatal habit, then not infrequent among fashionThie women, of drinking laudanum sometimes mixed with brandy, reached such a pitch that in 1825 a separa- tion was again mooted. No one could tell what her next freak might be. At all times she constituted herself Byrons pas- sionate champion. Her brother remon- strated with her in vain. How strange it is I love Lord Byron so much in my old age, despite of all he is said to have said, she wrote to Godwin; and I love Hobhouse because he so warmly takes his part. Every one, well-known or unknown, who took Byrons part became a favorite. Nathan, the composer, with no claim on the score of education or discretion to a ladys favor, was patronized chiefly be- cause he set to music Byrons Hebrew Melodies, and used to sing them to her when she was low-spirited or ill. She be- came godmother to one of his children, and wrote sundry sentimental songs for him. She also sent him a specimen of her verse in a style so astonishing as to be worth quoting Yes, I adore thee, William Lamb; But hate to hear thee say, God damn! Frenchmen say English cry, Damn, damn; But why swearst thou ? thou art a Lamb. Nathan, in his Reminiscences, gives a poem, The Brocket Festival, describ- ing how Lady Caroline used to celebrate the anniversary of her wedding, and writ- ten by a rising poet, introduced to her while arrangements for her separation were pending. He was summoned to her pres- ence late one evening, one page conduct- ing him to a dimly lighted room, where a lady was apparently sleeping on an otto- man in the centre, while another page in a distant corner sang, Farewell, my trim- built wherry, to a violin accompaniment. As the poet took the chair placed for him beside the ottoman, the lady started up, seized his hand, and recited eight stanzas from his then recently published Lament for Childe Harold. Almost without a pause, Lady Caroline poured her own sad story into his sympathetic ears, hint- ing that pressure was being used to induce her to sign the articles of separation. She was sent to Coventry by the family; her meals were served in her own rooms, and her letters opened. But the life she led compelled the surveillance * she found so * In the same strain she wrote to Lady Morgan They have hroken my heart, not my spirit; and if I will hut sign a paper, all my rich relations will protect me, and I shall no douht go with an Almacks ticket to irksome. One day her visitors would find her in bed, the room darkened, and a huge fire burning (even in the dogdays), while her unfortunate musical page, his voice hoarse and his fingers blistered, soothed her for hours with slow music. The next she ~vould be up, dressed in fur cap, riding-habit and trousers (in those days a startling innovation), and flying across the park on her black mare. Once she invited her young poet to turtle and music, the page who carried her note being mounted on a pony, with a copper kettle slung be- fore him to hold the dainty he was on his way to fetch from the London Tavern. The soup proved excellent, but the host- ess, overwhelmed with melancholy, could not eat, and summoned the musicians. Judge of my astonishment [says the narra- tor] when I beheld those itinerants whom I had that very evening heard singing in St. Martins Lane, and with whom Lady Caroline appeared on quite a friendly footing, inquiring solicitously after their wives, mothers, etc. They executed some pieces tolerably, but then unfortunately treated us to Theres nae luck aboot the house, which seemed to vibrate on her heartstrings. She burst into tears, or- dered them a sovereign, and bade them de- part. At Brocket Hall the contents of her room were emblematic of her mind. Val- uable things half buried in a heap of rub- bish were robbed of their beauty by incon- gruous surroundings. The chintz curtains of the bed and windows were full of holes; two antique cabinets, each sur- mounted by an elegant crucifix, with a piece of embroidery and point lace (said to have been part of a petticoat belonging to Mary Stuart) spread beneath as an altar-cloth, stood at one end of the apart- ment. One set of shelves contained pres- entation volumes from nearly all her liter- ary contemporaries ; another set was covered with medals, models, medicine bottles, and pieces of plumcake. On the walls hung portraits of her husband and son, a water-color sketch representing death snatching her lost children from her arms, and two miniatures of Byron painted by herself. On a centre-table might be seen a prayer-book, some of Dibdins music, a flask of cognac, a basin of cold gruel, eggs, a bottle of lavender-water, and a piece of pickled salmon. It is not sur- prising that such a heterogeneous collec- tion in a ladys apartment should create suspicion of her sanity. While at Brocket, Lady Caroline was sometimes placed under the care of two female keepers, superintended by a medical man, whose LADY CAROLINE LAMB. watch she smashed in a fit of rage. She delighted to play Lady Bountiful, to assem- ble the tenants and laborers, feast them on beef and beer, kiss and romp with their rosy childien, and join in their songs and dances. The old viscount, who also lived at Brocket, and did not approve of so much noisy revelry, once, ~vhen af~te was threat- ened, ordered the housekeeper to lock up the pantry, and the steward to fasten the ale-cellar. These injunctions obeyed, the latter official departed on business, and after an hours absence was amazed to see his mistress dancing in the park amidst a joyous throng of smock-frocks and cotton gowns; barrels of ale and baskets of bread and beef standing on the turf Lady Caroline having ordered the locked doors to be broken open. After signing the deed of separation, she determined to go abroad, and to give her humble friends a farewell fite on the anniversary of her wedding. Dressed with all the elegance of happier days, she received her guests. A troop of girls in May-day finery, headed by a fiddler and a boy playing a tabor and triangle, were followed by the Welwyn band and troops of rustics. After a dance under Lady Carolines windows, the girls went through a performance she had in- vented, called the Prussian exercise, which ended with their all falling sideways on the grass like a pack of cards. The visitors then adjourned to a plentiful meal, with copious libations of good ale, after which dancing and other amusements were kept up till midnight, the spacious ball-room being profusely decorated with flowers and evergreens. Lady Caroline, bent on leaving, paid as well as received parting visits. With the blacksmiths wife she promised to dine, and arrived at the cottage in a carriage and four, carry- ing a bottle of ~vine with her. The repast has been thus celebrated by her rising poet: Still condescending, Caroline her presence deigns to lend, Nor will refuse the boon to dine, and grace her humble friend. But to a strange mishap it led, though meant the guest to cram, For who could think a baked sheeps head could please a dainty Lamb? The dainty Lamb ate a slice, however, and left a sovereign under her plate when she departed. It was her own choice to leave Brocket, as she wrote energetically, If am sent to live by myself, dread the violence of my despair. Better far go away; every tree, 55 every flower, will awaken bitter recollec- tions. By desire of her husband, who was careful that no scandal should attach to the change in their domestic arrange- ments, Lady Caroline went first to Mel- bourne House, and mixed freely in society. She appeared at the opera in Lady Cow- pers box, where she was kindly noticed by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And writing to ask for a visit from Lady Morgan, she says: William wishes me to see every one. I shall therefore shake hands with the whole Court Guide before I go. She had three novels in hand, with- out an idea as to how any one of them was to be concluded, and could not go abroad with such a weight on her mind. Accord. ingly, she sent for the rising poet, who had occasionally acted as her secretary, and confided the manuscripts to him for completion undertaking to pay a certain sum when they were ready for the press. In a few days he finished one, and took it to Melbourne House, where he learned that his erratic patroness had started on a three years Continental tour. In the state of his finances, three years seemed an eternity. So he wrote to Mr. Colbourn, who agreed to take the novels off his hands for a trifling sum. But no sooner had Mr. Colbourn obtained possession of them than he announced that he had al- ready advanced Lady Caroline more than a hundred pounds on their security, and her promise to finish them Lady Caroline was never intentionally ungenerous, but she had the vaguest ideas about money, and could not realize that it would be more inconvenient to any one to wait three years than three days for it. To complicate matters, she actually re- turned within three months, and one of her first thoughts was to require Mr. Flem- ings report on her novels. He called on her at Lady Gresleys in Conduit Street. She was dressed for the Park, her horse and groom waiting at the door. The in- terview was stormy, and the poet left the house in high wrath. No sooner had the door closed than Lady Carolines kindness of heart returned. The indignant poet had only reached Bond Street when he heard her wellknown voice, as she pur- sued him at full speed, and I am sure, he adds, that no fewer than a hundred persons witnessed our reconciliation Henceforth Lady Caroline spent most of her time at Brocket, with her father-in- law and her son. They formed a melan- choly group the old viscount, who had survived all interests and occupations; the handsome, amiable, grown-up child, who OLD MAPS OF AFRICA. had never been capable of any; and the once worshipped, dazzling woman, who had possessed every earthly blessing, and had wilfully thrown all away. The monotony of their life was frequently brightened by the sunshine of William Lambs cordial manners, genial temper, and handsome presence the beau- ideal of an Epicurean philosopher blended with an English statesman. Lady Caro- line corresponded with him regularly and affectionately, and also wrote frequently to Lady Morgan letters full 6f self-up- braiding, lightened by flashes of the old audacious humor: as where, afte,r declar- ing, I was and am religious, she says: I fear nobody except the devil, who certainly has all along been very particular in his atten- tions to me, and has sent me as many baits as he did Job. But through all this mixture of remorse and mournful jesting, she was constant in grateful admiration for her husband. I have wandered from right and been pun- ished; I have suffered what you can hardly believe. - - - I am on my deathbed. Say, I might have died by a diamond, I now die by a brickbat. But remember, the only noble fel- low I ever met with is William Lamb. He is to me what Shore was to Jane Shore. During her last illness, Lady Caroline was removed to Melbourne House for better advice, and tenderly nursed by both families. Her husband (chief secretary for Ireland) was then in Dublin; and her one desire was to live long enough to see him again. This was gratifted, and on his arrival she was, according to her favorite brother, William, able to converse with him and enjoy his society. Perfectly resigned~ calm, patient, and affectionate, she died of dropsy, on January 26, 1828, ~in her forty-second year. William Lamb contributed a biographical sketch of Lady Caroline to the Literary Gazette for Feb- ruary i6, 1828, in the course of which he said: There are many yet living who drew from the opening years of this gifted and warm- hearted being hopes which her maturity was not fated to realize. To these it will be some consolation to reflect that her end at least was what the best of us might envy, and the harsh- est of us approve. - . . Her character it is difficult to analyze, because, owing to the ex- treme susceptibility of her imagination, and the unhesitating and rapid manner in which she followed its impulses, her conduct was one perpetual kaleidoscope of change. . . . To the poor she was invariably charitable she was more: in spite of her ordinary thought- lessness of self, for them she had considera- tion as well as generosity, and delicacy no less than relief. For her friends she had a ready and active love: for her enemies no hatred: never perhaps was there a human being who had less malevolence: as all her errors hurt only herself, so against herself only were levelled her accusations and reproach. . . - Her manners, though somewhat eccentric, and apparently, not really, affected, had a fascina- tion which it is difficult for any who never encountered their effect to conceive. Her conversation was playful and ani- mated, pregnant with humor and vivacity, and remarkable for the common sense of the opinions it expressed. She who disdained all worldly advice was the most sao~acious of worldly advisers. In her grave all her faults and follies were buried. and only the interest and love she had inspired survived. To the last of his own long and distinguished life, her husband seldom spoke of her without tears; and her words in Glenarvon were pro- phetic: though he might meet with many more talented or more beautiful, none could ever be so dear to Avondales heart as was Calantha. S. R. TOWNSHEND MAYER. From Nature. OLD MAPS OF AFRICA. MR. STANLEY, in the paper which he read at the Geographical Society on Mon- day, spoke of Africa being brougl~t to light after an oblivion of six thousand years. Notwithstanding the somewhat confused phraseology, Mr. Stanleys mean- ing is clear enough: central Africa, with its great lakes and rivers, is now known, he means to say, for the first time. But recent investigation seems to show that the oblivion of Africa must be counted by hundreds and not thousands of years; that, in fact, it is only within two or three centuries that a knowledge of central Africa has been allo~ved to lapse. A more rigorous search may show that be- tween the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries the great features that have been placed on modern maps within the past few years were discovered and recorded on the maps of the time. We have recently referred, on more than one occasion, to two very curious globes that have been brought to light, one in the National Library in Paris, and the other in the library of Lyons. On OLD MAPS OF AFRICA. 57 the Lyons globe, the date of which is 1701, the Congo is made to issue from a great lake, and wind its way westwards to the Atlantic, in a direction to some extent coincident with that recently discovered by Mr. Stanley. As a sort of preparation for the work of the great traveller, so soon to be issued, some account of the data on which these maps may have been con- structed, may not be uninteresting. Our information is based on an article in La Nature, and on a report by a commission of the Lyons Geographical Society, ap- pointed to investigate the value and origin of the Lyons globe. The discovery made at Lyons is, in reality, no surprise to those who know the history of geographical exploration. Not only in the seventeenth century, does the Zaire-Congo appear on most of the maps with the direction definitely assigned to it by Stanley, but nearly all old documents, from the fifteenth century and the date should be noted make the great river issue from a considerable mass of water far in the interior of the African conti- nent. Already, in the year 1500, the famous maj5~einonde of Juan de la Cosa, the pilot of Christopher Columbus, gives the same indications; the picturesque ma~j5emonde known as that of Henry II., repeats them with some variations, as also the master- work of Mercator (1569), the founder of modern geography. All the old geog- raphers, or nearly all, repeat the same data: Forlani (1562), Castaldi (1564), Sanuto (1588), Hondius (1607), Nicolas Picart (1644), Blceu(1569), Sanson, etc. Therefore there need be no surprise to find on a globe of the eighteenth century informa- tion which for more than two hundred years previously had been registered on the map of Africa. Whence, however, came this knowl- edge which our fathers had of certain regions in central and equatorial Africa? The reply is simple: from the Portuguese, who, since the fifteenth century, under- took not only extensive maritime voyages, but several times crossed Africa from west to east and from east to west. It is even very possible that they discovered the sources of the Nile, the great equato- rial lakes ; thus, in the midst of the sim- plicity and incoherence of their tracings we find, in their old parchments, the great lines of African geography almost as sci- ence now represents them. Most of these Portuguese, with the exception of some missionaries, were but poorly educated; they travelled much oftener as traders than as experienced explorers; neverthe- less, we have almost the certainty that before the year 1500 they had furnished very precise information on the centre of Africa. In nearly all these maps, and in that of Lyons, the Congo flows in a nearly straight line from Lake Zaire or Zembre to the Atlantic; it bends only a very little to the north, and does not pass the equa- tor, as we no~v know it does. As a sort cf exception, there has been found among the riches of the National Library at Paris, a Spanish globe of cop- per (without date, but probably between 1530 and 1540), which is not content with presenting the same data, but which re- produces, with wonderful closeness, the course of the Congo as discovered by Stanley. The river issues from a lake, flows towards the north, describes a large curve well to the north of the equator, then turns ~vest-south-west to the Atlantic. This is indeed a summary of the last jour- ney of the intrepid American correspond- ent. From all this it must not be concluded that Stanley has discovered nothing new. These discoveries of the ancient travel- lers, if genuine discoveries they were, seem to have been forgotten as soon as they were recorded; and although the maps referred to above have been known for generations, no one ever seems to have taken them as trustworthy guides to the lines of African exploration. Indeed, it is only now that Stanley has made a dis- covery never to be forgotten that these old maps have come to have a real interest, for ~ve suspect that till now geographers regarded the tracings as having their basis in the cartographers imaginations. The glory of being really the first discoverers of the two Nyanzas, Nyassa, Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and the course of the Congo cannot be taken away from Speke and Baker and Burton and Livingstone and Stanley; or if so it must be by some ancient Arab or possible Egyptian, many, many centuries ago, for there can be no doubt that long before Europe awakened to modern geographical enterprise, these great features of central Africa were known; Herodotus had an inkling of them, and Ptolemy all but located the central lakes. These modern explorers deserve the glory of first discoverers as much as Columbus deserves that of discoverer of America. Without then detracting frem the origi- nality of the work of modern explorers, it is evident that from the fifteenth century onwards some travellers whose names have OLD MAPS OF AFRICA. fallen into oblivion but who may have been companions of Diego Cam and Martin Behaim, ventured into the heart of Africa; followed certain arteries of communica- tion and discovered the course of the Congo; geography kept possession of these discoveries for two centuries and gave them as articles of faith; besides, in the sixteenth and seventeqnth centuries many Portuguese Capuchins or simple traders entered anew the interior, pub- lished the same facts, sometimes with cor- rections and additions. Father Ricioli, a Jesuit and very intelli- gent man, furnished the fathers Placide, of St. Amien, and Crespinien, two labo- rious monks, with documents to prepare the Lyons globe, in 1701. The actual constructor of the globe seems to have been the celebrated Lyons mechanician, Henri Marchand, in religion Pare Gre- goire, a Franciscan, with the help of the Venetian Contarini, a pupil of Nolin, be- longing to the Flemish cartographic sys- tem. Evidently this was the last word of science. How came it that just about the same time, about 1700, one of the princes of modern geography, Guillaume Delisle, was so badly inspired as to reconstruct an altogether new Africa in which he accu- mulated heresy on heresy? The central lakes, the immense reservoirs of the Nile, disappear at one stroke of the pen; as to the Congo it is no longer connected with the lakes of the interior, although it is allowed to retain a little of its semicircu- lar direction. The error accredited by a celebrated geographer like Delisle made way. The old map of Africa was demol- ished stone by stone, so to speak. In short the work was so well done that, after having piled nonsense upon non- sense, for the sake of peace, all was ex- punged; after having believed in tribes with dog-heads, placed a few anthropo- phagi everywhere, and confounded coun- tries situated a thousand miles from each other, they ended by makingatabula rasa and leaving a white space where formerly were rightly placed the great lakes and sources of the Nile. Yet a few years and here was geography doubting, denying, and ridiculing the follies of our predeces- sors. The students of geography of the period of 18405o were too much on their guard to commit the colossal blunder at that period of making the Nile issue from the lakes to the south of the equator. So far as concerns a part of Africa, to quote M. R. Cortambert, in the article in La Nature, the past has been resusci tated: old things have become new. That which was laughed at yesterday is taken seriously to-day. Then, my friends, these good ancestors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who counted among them Columbus, Gama, Magellan, and many other conquerors of the world, have not, perhaps, left altogether to their de- scendants of the nineteenth century the glory of inventing geography. From the report of the Lyons Commis- sion we learn that the following works were probably accessible to the Flemish map-makers, and later to the constructors of the Lyons globe i. The geography of Ptolemy; 2. The Portuguese Asia of De Barros (1552); 3. The Descrip- tion of the Congo, by Pigafetta, accord- ing to Lopez (1592); 4. The Historical Description of Ethiopia of Dom Fran- cesco Alvarez (1558); 5. The Africa of Leo Africanus (i5~6); 6. And the old maps and portulans. Among these old maps and portulans, those which appear at this period to have had a certain influence are i. The Medicean portulan (135x); 2. The Cata- lan atlas (I3~5); 3. The map of Mecia de Viledestes (1413); 4. The map of Johannes Leardus (1448); ~. The mar- ~ernoude of Fra Mauro; 6. The Ambro- sean map (1480); 7. The inappemonde of Juan de la Cosa (isco); 8. The map of Diego Ribera; 9. The Spanish maj5fe- monde of the National Library, Paris (1540); 10. The maps of Ramusio, of Pigafetta, and of Hugues Linschotten. In the detailed report which the Lyons Commission will communicate to the soci- ety will be shown to what extent each of the above documents contributed to the establishment of the Flemish maps on which probably the Lyons globe was more immediately based. The same re- port will contain an investigation into the travels known or unpublished which, from the tenth century, have contributed to the progress of the African geography of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance. This investigation will include the following i. The Arab voyages and compendia; 2. The voyages of the mendicant Spanish friars of the fourteenth century; 3. The expedition of eight Dominicans of Mont- pellier to the sources of the Nile (1317 1350), unpublished; 4. The travels of the brothers Vivaldi, thirteenth century ; 5 The expedition of the Catalan Ferrer in 1346, unpublished; 6. The voyages of Diego Cam; 7. The itineraries of the early pombeiros; 8. The Eastern Ethopia of Joan dos Santos; 9. The travels of A LANCASHIRE DIARIST. 59 Barbosa; io. The exploration of the Dutch Jan van Herder, in the country of the Akkas, unpublished; ii. The Derro- tero desde Lisboci cii Cabo de Bueno Es~e- ranza y India Oriental, anonymous and unpublished; 12. The description of the Congo, by Martinus Abarca de Bol~a et Castro (i6oi), unpublished; i~. The Uni- versal Book of the Navigations of the World (1590 ?), Spanish, unpublished; 14. The Travels of the Belgian Pierre Farcl6 from Algiers to the Congo (1686), unpublished; 15. The Travels of Ma- noel Godinho (1663); i6. The letters of Father Mariano, the Jesuit, on Kaffraria, etc., etc. The work undertaken by the Lyons Geographical Society is creditable to them in the highest degree and will result in a valuable addition being made to histori- cal geography. Their work, as the com- mission rightly maintain, is to some extent international, and deserves the counte- nance and assistance of geographers all the world over. From All The Year Round. A LANCASHIRE DIARIST. TWELVE years or so ago, somebody turning over a heap of rubbish in a cottage at Slaidburn, near Chipping, came upon two worn little volumes, which proved on examination to be the diary of the Rev. Peter Walkden, a Dissenting minister, who, from 1722 to 1769, officiated on alternate Sundays at two humble places of worship one near Newton-on-Bowland, and the other at Hesketh Lane, near Chipping. The treasure trove coming into the pos- session of Mr. William Dobson, he was at the pains of transcribing the defunct pastors crabbed caligraphy, and printing the diary, that Lancashire men and women might learn how country folk lived in the county of crag and fell, of moss and moor, in the good old days when George the Second ruled the land. With no thought of posthumous publi- cation, and therefore no temptation to use it as a means of safely vilifying foes and slandering friends, Peter Walkden kept a diary only that it might be to him a mirror to view his life and actions in; that he might know how he walked, and how to humble his soul before God. It is, ac- cordingly, but a quaint and simple record of a commonplace life, detailing with mi- nuteness the way in which every day was spent, each days account beginning like the opening one, written on the 1st of January, 1725: This morning, being in health, I rose, and prayed, and praised God, and put on my linen, and ending with a commendation of himself and all his belongings to Heavens care. At this time our diarist was forty-one years old, and the head of a household numbering seven besides himself, consist- ing of niy love, as he invariably terms his wife, three sons and three daughters. We fail to gather whether he had any set- tled income at all. In all likelihood he was not so well off as Parson Adams with his handsome income of twenty-three pounds a year, but assuredly he resembled the best Christian in any book, in being a parson on Sundays and a farmer on all other days of the week a farmer who was his own laborer withal. When not en- gaged praying, preaching, or expounding the Scriptures, or busy with such ministe- rial duties as came to him by reason of births, deaths, and marriages among his small and scattered flock, the good pastor was hard at work in his garden or on his farm; sowing with my loves help onions, radishes, and lettuces; planting berry trees or potatoes, minding his goods (cows); cutting turf on the long- since-reclaimed Peacock Moss, and stack- ing it at home for winter fires; batting oats, thackino straw, mending fences, repairing tools, reaping his wheat with Mary Richmond, paving the shippen, fetching coals from Preston, and carrying them to the dames school for his daugh- ters, Mary and Ann, to warm them by this winter, or gathering cranberries on Long- ridge Fell. Industrious as Walkden was and ready to turn his hand to anything, he was obliged to call in outside aid now and again, but in those days a goodly amount of labor was to be had for very little money. When old John Berry claimed eightpence a day for pointing the house, he being old, Walkden thought sixpence a day as much as he ought to pay; but John dif- fered in opinion, and he and my love had some words about it, but in vain. Pos- sibly the old fellow rated his services at too high a value if payment by results had been the rule in Lancashire, but according to the scale of wages fixed by magisterial wisdom at the beginning of 1725 his de- mands were by no means extravagant. A shilling a day, nothing found, or six- pence a day with meat and drink, was the maximum wage of men of his class, while the best agricultural laborers working from five in the morning to half past seven 6o A LANCASHIRE DIARIST. in the evening, from the middle of March to the middle of September, and from day- break to sunset for the remainder of the year, with half an hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, and half an hour for drinking received the same pay; inferior workers having to be content with tenpence or fivepence a day in one season, and ninepence or fourpence per day in the other. And the best of millers was not to have more than five pounds a year with board, and ten pounds a year without; and domestic servants were fortunate if they got two pounds a year with board and lodging, as a matter of course. Walkden, past question, lived by the sweat of his brow rather than by the exer- cise of his priestly avocation; but, taking all things into consideration, his position was not. altogether so bad as it seems. He raised sufficient wheat, vegetables, butter, milk, and eggs to supply his family wants; and his income, whatever it might be, was supplemented by sundry small receipts. For keeping account of church leys he received sixpence per annum. Mrs. Walkden had customers in Proud Preston willing to take her surplus butter off her hands at the rate of threepence halfpenny a pound, while every pound of potatoes not required for home consump- tion was good for a halfpenny; and the lit- tle mare that carried the minister to chapel on Sundays was occasionally let out to a neighbor for a consideration. For a jour- ney to Preston, a distance out and in of eighteen miles, the pastor was wont to charge sixpence a charge the mare, could she have been consulted in the mat- ter, would have pronounced none too high, for if the miles were not many they were weary ones to travel. What the bridle- paths she had to traverse were like, may be guessed from Arthur Youngs descrip- tion of the turnpike-road from Preston to Wigan. I have not, says he, in the whole range of language, terms sufficient- ly expressive to describe this infernal road. To look over the map, and perceive that it is a principal one, not only to some towns, but even to whole counties, one would naturally conclude it to be at least decent; but let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible road to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one but they break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts four feet deep, and floating ~vith mud, only from a wet summer; what, therefore, must it be after a winter? The only mending it re ceives is the tumbling in of some loose stones, which serve no other purpose but jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts, for I actually passed three carts broken down in these eighteen miles of execrable memory.,~ Sometimes a basket of winter plums or a few apples, a piece of beef or a cheese, would come to the minister, from a mem- ber of the church; sometimes the volun- tary contributions took the more welcome shape of coin, as when John Jenkinson s wife gave him a shilling; William Fell came to thank him for what he had done for him in his last illness, and gave him a shilling to buy what he pleased with; and Ellen Seed bestowed on his love wool that would be a pair and stockings, and Richard Seed bestowed half-a-crown on the good man himself. Then there were windfalls like this: Robert Rathwell gave me an account of William Parkinson s verbal will, attested and revealed by John Wilkinson, which is as follows, viz.: to his kinsman at York he bequeathed one table and one ark that is to say, an oak chest with one large Bible; to Mr. Peter Walkden, ten shillings to preach his funeral sermon. All that remained over the charges of his burial and the paying of his just debts he gave to his kinswoman, Jane Rathwell. Verbal testaments are no longer recognized, nor would it be held justifiable for the person to whom prop- erty had been left to do as Walkden re- cords a certain heir did: He put the family that lives in the house all out, shut the door upon them, and thereby said that he took possession of the estate and the house. Sam Slicks poor dear, good old Joshua Hopewell told the sympathizing clock- maker: Im een amost starved, and Captain Jack does look as poor as Jobs turkey; thats a fact. So I thought as times was hard, Id take the bags and get some oats for him, from some of my sub- scribin congregation; it would save them the cash, and suit me just as well as the blunt. XVherever I went, I might have filled my bag with excuses, but I got no oats. Things were not quite so bad with our diarist; when he went begging oats for the little mare, he got some of a sort; the worthy upon whose liberality he relied, he tells us, put a bushel of oats in my sack, but they were very light and but small feeding in them; so I bought of him a bushel of better to mix with them, to make them better. worth the mares labor to eat them. A LANCASHIRE DIARIST. Walkdens house, which was, we may he sure, anything but a grand one, bore the unpleasantly suggestive name of Daub Hall. For this, and half the fruit of the newly-planted orchard at the back of it, he paid a rent of twenty-four shillings a year; his garden, situated some distance away, costing another shilling a year. The Hall he held on an eleven years lease. Anent which he writes: Heard that John Parkinson had said he must give me no- tice to remove from Daub Hall. I ad- mired it, seeing it is scarce a year since I took it of him for eleven years; whereupon Mr. Dobson remarks that the reverend gentleman is rather sarcastic, but we are not inclined to think any sar- casm intended; the minister only uses the word admired in its old sense of won- dered. At any rate he was not dis- turbed in his possession. Besides rent, there were taxes to be paid, for we find him disbursing three shillings and eight- pence for highway gaud, and recording the coming of the window-peeper to the parish, in a note ending, We having ten windows, must make one up or pay one shilling a year. XVhen he could buy a four-year-old heifer for a little over four pounds, and a cow for three pounds seven shillings, a mans butchers bills were necessarily less formidable-looking documents than such things are nowadays. Walkden would seem to have spent but little upon meat, and to have got his moneys worth for what he did spend. For a loin of mutton he paid fivepence, for a leg, elevenpence, for a neck of veal and a calfs foot, seven- pence halfpenny, a piece of beef weighing nine and a half pounds cost him one and sevenpence, and a foot of beef, just half a sovereign. Even with such prices as these, people of a saving turn adopted a co-operative method of buying. Robert Seed called on me and said that several neighbors had a desire to join and buy a fat cow, and they knew of as many as would take three quarters, and they wanted a fourth quarter. I said I would be will- ing to take half a quarter, if they could find a partner for the other, and if they happened to find a partner for the whole quarter, I would be easy without any at all. Clothing the body was an expensive necessity compared with the feeding of it. When my love went one day to sell butter at Preston, she spent the gains of her journey in buying me and my Mary each a pair of stockings, one shilling and fourpence; and me a bottle of ink, one penny; the childrens striped woonsey one yard and a half, one shilling and three- pence; and black Jersey for footing my old stockings, twopence. At another time, Walkden borrows three shillings and elevenpence of son Thomas to pay a webster for two yards and a half of linen cloth, for me a shift; and we find him paying eightpence fot a pair of gloves, fourpence for a pair of gaiters, four shil- lings for two hats, one for himself, the other for his wife; twopence for a pair of scissors, and nine shillings in silver and the old ones, for a new pair of boots for his own feet the mares were shod at sixpence halfpenny a pair. Lancashire lads were educated cheaply enough, supposing they were taught any- thing worth learning, for son Harry, des- tined to succeed his father in his ministry, was schooled by Mr. Nabb for half-a- drown a year; but one, at least, of the three Rs appears to have been ignoredby that pedagogue, for WaThden notes the payment of one shilling to a scrivener for teaching son Harry writing for a fort- night. A frugal liver, contented to make a meal of a pennyworth of cockles, the diarist, when dining away from home, rarely spent more than fourpence upon refreshing the inner man; sometimes threepence sufficed for dinner and.a pint of ale. Recording a visit to a relation, he says: I and my love came home direct and got the taylers supper, that is, little or nothing. It was the custom in the north for the village tailor to work at his customers house for so much a day and his board, and to show that he had had enough, he left a morsel on the plate, called the tailors mense. With all his economical care, Walkden was at times compelled to go a-borrowing. On one occasion he essayed to borrow eight shillings and sixpence from a brother minister, for a month, but he had it not; fortunately a richer acquaintance was found able to spare eight shillings for the required period. Still he was never reduced like Brother Miller to sell his hair for five shillings and a new cravat, and could afford to give lodging for a night or two to an old itinerant mendicant preacher of the Church of England, and find refreshments for a wandering strag- gle-brained clergyman, pretending to hold a benefice in Derbyshire, of whose truth- fulness he had something more than a doubt. Of such luxuries as tea, coffee, sugar, and groceries generally there is no men- tion in the diary, and, although a gallon of 62 NICE PEOPLE. claret at three shillings and eightpence, and two quarts of the same at one and sevenpence, figure among the items of ex- penditure, it must not be inferred that the poor preacher indulged in a little wine for his stomachs sake; that, we may safely take it, was kept for sacramental use. Not that Walkden was of an ascetics mind as regards drinking; he was that Ute noir of teetotalers, a moderate drinker, who en- joyed a pipe and a pot of ale, and had. such faith in the virtues of malt, that we read, Not being very well, I sent and got two pots of ale; and when he desired to extract some information on family affairs from aunt Dorothy Wood, he was much disappointed because, although he called for a pot of ale for the old ladys delecta tion, yet she told him nothing. A penny was the price of a pot of ale, as it was in Elizabethan days, when Adam the smith was made to say: The ale is good ale, and you can ask but a penny for a pot, no more by the statute. But the pot of the diarists period held but half a pint, for when after calling at Mr. Eccless shop and buying a quartern of tobacco for threepence halfpenny, he went to his cousins and got two pints of ale, Walkden paid fourpence for the quart of liquor. His notes respecting pots and pints of ale are numberless, and are chiefly remarkable for sho~ving that it was his custom, after service on the Lords day, to refresh him- self at an inn before settina his face home- wards. Here are a few of these Sabbath entries. I got a pint of ale, and tobacco, and was for coming home, but a mighty rain began to fall, with thunder, which caused me to call for another pint. Come to Walmesleys and spent two- pence and no more, on my love and Alice Martin. At Walmesleys, after service, with my love and Elizabeth Atkinson, and got one pint of ale, and a pennyworth of brandy mixed with it and paid for ale. A pot of ale, a toast, and a pipe of to- bacco, threepence. Dined at Edward Parkinsons; I paid twopence for ale, a penny dinner, a penny tobacco, and a pen- ny for my mare. After service, called at the New Hollins, and being in a cold and the day cold, I resolved to get a gill of hot ale; so told Brother Miller, and he and John Gardner went in with me, and we got one pint hot between us, and paid pence a piece and came away. On many occa- sions the good man rode away without paying his shot, by reason of the host or hostess being too short of brass to give him change. They did not mind trusting the minister, whose credit, however, ap pears to have stood him in small stead with other traders, since he records that Mrs. Walkden went to the fell and bought for my Mary a pair of shoes, must be one shilling and fivepence, or the sho~s again to-morrow. Our worthy Nonconformist was not a man of many books, he had very little time for reading them, and very little cash for buying them. It is not, therefore, sur- prising that his purchases in that way ~vere exceedingly few and very far between. Seven shillings and sixpence for Ains- worths works, in folio; three shillings and sixpence for Edwards Veritas Re- dux and sixpence for an almanack eleven shillings and sixpence in all is the sum total expended upon books in the course of half-a-dozen years. He liked, how- ever, to know something of what was going on in the world, for we find one entry of the payment of one and sixpence halfpenny for newspapers, and another running: Paid sixpence to Ellen Seed for what newspa- pers I have had this year, and was told we must have no more. Nothing is said as to why this stoppage of supplies was to come about, but it ~vas apparently a false alarm, the above-given entry bearing the date of July 3rd, 1729, while on the i6th of May, 1731, he writes: I sent for twelve newspapers received since the 1st of January one and sixpence, and to-days newspaper will be the second to pay for. I read the newspaper, and find not much in it remarked as to the public news, but that the Parliament broke up on Thursday last, and that there is still preparations for war carried on between Spain and Ger- many. As to private news, what is most notable is an account from Coventry that the spouse of the Rev. Mr. Rider, vicar of Nuneaton, near Coventry, was safely de- livered of four children, were all living; and that about ten months ago, she had three children at a birth, who are all liv- ing. This is the last entry in the diary of the Rev. Peter Walkden. He lived for many years afterwards, not departing this life until the 5th of November, 1769, hav- ing attained the age of eighty-four, and survived my love just a quarter of a century. From The Saturday Review. NICE PEOPLE. IT would appear that society at the present time is comparatively indifferent as to whether people are good, clever, sen NICE PEOPLE. 63 sible, or amusing; but there is a universal desire, almost amounting to a frenzy, to meet nice people. Thus we find that whenever a country residence is to he let or sold, all the surrounding neighbors are devoutly hoping that it may be taken by nice people, and every one wishes for the en/ne to houses where nice people are to be met. To be nice people, and to know nice people, seem indeed to be the aim and object of life in this latter half of the nineteenth century. Even the worship of the great idol of Mammon itself is for- saken by many for devotion to the nice. Although, however, the companionship of nice people is doubtless much to be desired, these social angels are sometimes so lacking in the qualities which are usu- ally considered necessary to make inter- course entertaining, that one is almost tempted to shun their society for a season. First impressions may seem to justify the use of the much-coveted adjective, not only in its fashionable, but also in its gen- eral sense; but on closer acquaintance it is apt to be found that those on whom the title is bestowed are wanting in some of the most important of the characteristics which it is generally understood to imply. In a small, but very concise dictionary, we find the word nice defined as very pleasant, dainty, precise. Now there are many persons who are conventionally spoken of as, not only nice, but very nice, people, whom we could point out as interesting subjects on which to try the test of this definition. Very pleasant, in the gen- eral acceptation of the term, as meaning agreeable, amiable, and good-tempered, they certainly are not; dainty is a word which ~ve could hardly apply to their con- versation, especially when it touches upon social scandals ; while precise is an ad- jective which defines neither their behav- ior nor the accuracy of their statements. What then are the qualifications which entitle a person to be classified among nice people ? This is a question which would undoubtedly puzzle many of those who so glibly make use of the expression; but, generally speaking, we believe the phrase is conventionally understood to mean people who are received into good society. It does not necessarily point to the rich or to those of good family, since nice people are occasionally neither one nor the other; but it is a si;le quc~ non that they should have a place in what is known as society. In- timacy with charming and well educated persons will not do indeed education is rather at a low premium among nice people but the aspirants to this title must, somehow or other, by. fair means or foul, become acknowledged members of the fashionable world; in short, to use a modern slang expression, they must be in the swim of society. Although the parentage of these superior beings is sometimes the very reverse of aristocratic, this may be counterbalanced by great social recommendations; but high birth is of considerable advantage at the outset of their career. To be born of honest parents, as old biographies quaintly put it, is of no account in any way; to be the descendant of an old line of country squires is little better, unless these wor- thies have of late years intermarried with the nobility; but to be linked to the peer- age, even by a bar sinister, makes an aspi- rant quite safe. Setting aside, how ever, the question of birth, it is more interesting to turn to the moral and social attributes of nice people. In the first place, we will examine the manner in which they do their duty towards their Creator and their neighbor. They do not consider it to be what they elegantly term good form to indulge in religious or irreligious extremes. This is the first commandment among nice people. To go to church, and to a fashionable church, is de nigueur; but religious enthusiasm must be strictly avoided. A certain amount of respectable piety may be tolerated as a necessary evil and, after all, worship is in some meas- ure reciprocal; for if the nice devotee spends an hour or two a week in a pretty church, and gives away a modest sum of money, which he does not miss, the devo- tion paid to him in return by the clergy is perhaps the nearest approach to adoration which men can reasonably expect from a fellow-creature. Many nice people are doubtless sincerely devout; yet of them it is said, They are very nice people, but and the but is followed by lamentations over the one failing which sullies their otherwise beautiful characters namely, their religious earnestness. As regards their duties towards their neigh- bors, nice people are often very charita- ble in nursing their invalided friends who happen to be wealthy. The poor they will also attend to so far as their labors will make them popular, and give them influence when elections take place. Be- sides, it is the proper thing to have the reputation of being kind to the poor; and their being so establishes a sort of mimic feudal relation between them and their poorer neighbors. When nice people are tenants, the expenditure of a very moc~erate 64 NICE PEOPLE. sum of money, and a still more moderate ing the rounds of the social ladder, and it amount of time among the neighboring is satisfactory to climbers to know that members of the laboring classes, will give the money given will at least conduce them almost as much influence as would eventually to their own social advance- the possession of a large estate. In Lon- ment. By refusing all appeals in obscure don they must be ever ready to subscribe cases they are enabled to give large sums, liberally to the pet charities of their fash- with great apparent magnanimity, to the ionahle acquaintances. The judicious use favorite charities of the leaders of fashion, of charities is of great assistance in scab thus making sure of a reWard in this life. PUBLIC OPINION AND THE GERMAN AR- MY. In countries where service is compul- sory on all classes of society, every member of the commonwealth has a direct interest in the well-being of the army. The army is not an armed caste, it is a part of the body of the nation; through the gradations of the reserve and Landwehr men, the army fades away insen- sibly as it were into the general mass. It is the bond of union between the future genera- tions and the past generations of the manhood of the country. Service may, it is true, be regarded as a severe tax; but, on the other hand, every one has to pay it in some shape or another. A man will not start in life quite so soon as he would otherwise have done, but at all events all start on even terms. It is diffi- cult at first to realize the effect this has on the discipline of the army. In our own country desertion is, we are afraid, regarded by civil- ians (ignorant of the fact that ninety-nine men out of every hundred who desert are thieves as well as deserters) as a venial crime. A sol- dier who, in consequence of his insubordina- tion, is committed to prison, and whose share of duty has to be undertaken by his comrades, is certainly not regarded as a criminal; but in Germany the man who offends against the military code, who refuses, by desertion, to do the part assigned to him; or who compels, it may be a neighbor, to do his duty for him by his absence from it, is considered to have committed an offence, not against the mere rules of discipline, but against the rest of his countrymen. Again, the territorial organiza- tion shows its value in this respect, as the pub- lic opinion of a locality from which a badly- conducted soldier has been drawn will be too strong for him on his return to allow such misbehavior to be practised with impunity. Macmillans Magazine. PRIVATEERING. There has been some dis. cussion on the possibility, in case of war with Russia, of the revival of the practice of issuing letters of marque. The public have been warned that in a war between England and Russia the latter power will issue letters of marque to American adventurers and a swarm of Alabamasmay interrupt our commerce; but, in reply to this suggestion, a correspond- ent of the Times writes to state that the old practice of issuing letters of marque to the subjects of neutral States, by which they were authorized to carry on a sort of legalized piracy against the vessels and property of a nation with which they were not at war, had been abandoned and rigorously repressed long before the Declaration of Paris. In fact, no such letters of marque have been issued or accepted by neutrals in the present century. This may be true in the sense of the formal issue of such letters to. subjects of neutral na- tions, but it is nottrue as to the general issue of letters of marqu~ for on April i~, 1861, the president of the Confederate States issued a proclamation offering letters of marque to all persons applying for them; and it appears that even Prussia, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Paris, which recites that privateering is and remains abolished, in the course of the Franco-German war found herself, says Sir R. Phillimore, so pressed with the superiority of the French navy that she issued a decree for the purpose of creating a voluntary marine, which, according to that learned writer, it is very difficult to distinguish from the old system of privateering. With these examples before us, we cannot agree that there is not the slightest probability that privateering will be revived. Solicitors Journal.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Volume No. 1778. July 13, 1878. From Beriuning, V01 CXXXVIII, CONTENTS. I. LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON, II. THE SHADOW OF A DREAM, III. JOHNSONS LIVES. By Matthew Arnold, IV. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. By Mrs. Oh. phant. Part X. V. Mi. FROUDES LIFE AND TIMES OF THOMAS BECKET. By Edward A Free. man. Part III. VI. CONSOLATION, VII. DESULTORINESS VIII. LOTTERIES Quarterly Review, All The Year Round, Macmillans Ma5 azine, Advance Sheets, Contemporary Review,. Saturday Review, Truth Pall Mall Gazette, P 0 E T R Y. 661 TANTALUS, MOSS-ROSES, 67 80 86 93 OS 124 126 127 66 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LJTTELL & GAY, BOSTON. ( TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remzUed direcfly lo f/se Publisizers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,free of~os/age. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribeis. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be 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. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, iS cents. 66 MOSS-ROSES, ETC. MOSS-ROSES. \\HITE with the whiteness of the snow, Pink with the faintest rosy glow, They blossdm on their sprays; They glad the borders with their bloom, And sweeten with their rich perfume The mossy garden ways. The dew that from their brimming leaves Drips down, the mignonette receives, And sweeter grows thereby; The tall June lilies stand anear, In raiment white and gold, and here The purple pansies lie. Warm sunshine glitters over all, On daisied sward and ivied wall, On lily, pansy, rose; While flitting round each garden bed, With joyous laugh and airy tread, A fairer sunbeam goes. A little human blossom, bright With childish, innocent delight Of lif~ yet in its dawn; With sunshine prisoned in her hair, Deep eyes unshadowed by a care, She gambols on the lawn. She checks the light elastic tread, And stays to hear, far overhead, The larks song to its close Eyes shaded by two tiny hands We pray God bless her as she stands, Our little daughter Rose. Yea, bless the Rose, dear God, since we Have given the Lily back to thee, fhat bloomed with her awhile; Yea, bless her deeply, doubly now, For her dear sake, whose angel brow Reflects thine awful smile. How often in her childish face, Our hungry, longing eyes can trace The looks of one away; How often in her merry tone A music wakes, more sad than moan, Of accents hushed for aye! God bless the child to blossom here, Our clinging human hearts to cheer, Till life has reached its close; To grow in sweetest grace and bloom, To beautify the dear old home, Oui~ precious daughter Rose! All The Year Round. TANTALUS. I AT the banquet of the gods have sate Above the clouds that shroud these earthly plains, Their nectar quaffed, and their ambrosia ate, And felt the Olympian ichor in my veins. Apollo, like a glory in a gloom, Joves thundrous brow, and Junos face serene, Chaste Dians grace, the auroral blush and bloom That Venus owns, these mortal eyes have seen. Mad with desire I strove the charm to seize That should again renew to sense and soul On earth below those heavenly ecstasies, And I their nectar and ainbrosia stole. But who against the gods shall eer prevail? The bliss of heaven on earth we may not own; Stale ttstes the nectar here, the ambrosia stale, The ethereal flavor lost, the aroma flown. And so the gods condemn me here to stand Thirsting within the stream that from me flees, Hungering mid fruits ambrosial that my hand Forever vainly reaches out to seize. My sense the music of Apollo haunts, But dim and distant and beyond my reach; I hear afar the gods grand utterance, But cannot shape it into mortal speech. In silence still I feel as in a dream Their dim, mysterious whisperings every- where, On the lone hills, in forest, reed, and stream, In nights low breathings, in the seas de- spair. So taunting ever with half-confidence That wins the listening ear, but will not speak, Pleasing and puzzling all the soul and sense, The gods forever mock us mortals weak. O poets, in whatever realm or clime, Pity me Tantalus for you must feel How nature lures us on with dreams sublime, And hints the secret she will neer reveal! Blackwoods Magazine. W. W. S. LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. From The Quarterly Review, we measure the dimculties surmounted, LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON.* may be fairly called the most successful THE two books before us form a valu- one, which history records. In this, too, able contribution to a period of history too as in all great political changes, the inter- little known to the majority of educated est does not end with the formal conclu- Englishmen. We in this country have, sion of the contest. The process by for the most part, what may be called an which the Federal Constitution was fash- intermittent knowledge of American his- ioned and determined really lasted through tory. The romance which surrounded the the presidencies of Washington and early settlers, the fate of Gilbert, the ad- Adams, and only ended with the triumph ventures of Smith, and the landing of the of the Democrats under Jefferson. Pilgrim Fathers, are almost as familiar to If we had to single out one person who Englishmen as the burning of Cranmer, might fitly serve as a central figure for a or the trial of Strafford. Then, for most political sketch of this period, our choice readers, the stream of American history would probably fall upon Madison. This loses itself in the earth, and reappears at is due rather to the .nature, than the ex- Bunkers Hill. But there is another side tent, of his abilities. The generation of of the subject, fraught with the deepest statesmen among whom he moved includ- interest for students of constitutional his- ed many great names, and posterity will tory, which has hardly received due atten- probably assign to Madison a place below tion. The history of the United States is at least three of his contemporaries. Even pre-eminently the history of the growth of if he had possessed such qualities, his institutions. We there see going on before career ~ ave him no opportunity, of dis- our eyes those processes which, among the playing the unwearied public spirit, the long-settled nations of the Old World, can dauntless and patient courage, the pure only be known by their faintly-marked and unselfish patriotism of Washington. traces in the past. The history of the He had none of that eager enthusiasm for American colonies before the Declaration party, that ardent faith in the future of of Independence shows, as no other his- his country, and that sympathy both with tory does, the actual birth and growth of the nobler and the baser passions of man- representative government. There can kind, which made Jefferson the founder be few more attractive subjects of study and leader of American Democracy. With than the various steps by which the dif- Hamilton he had mdre in common. Yet ferent colonies took up the institutions of Madison could claim but a small share in the mother country, and adapted them to that far-sighted political wisdom to which their special wants. Yet even this fails every page of American history bears wit- to equal in interest the later period of ness. But, in one sense, Madison was a American constitutional history. Most more representative statesman than any English readers, we fear, feel that the his- of these. There probably was never a tory of the contest for independence ends time at which he did not, better than any with the final triumph of the colonists. It other living man, embody the views of a would be nearer the truth to regard the majority of educated American citizens. war as a prelude to one of the most deep- This it is which gives so much interest to ly interesting chapters which the constitu- the history of his political conduct and tional history of any nation can lay before opinions, and it is from this point of view us. The formation of the Federal Consti- that we propose to consider his career. tution was, beyond doubt, the greatest and James Madison was born in Virginia in most arduous political experiment, and, if 1751. He was descended from one of * s. His/ory of/he L~/e and Times of lames Mad- the earliest settlers, Captain Isaac Madi- ison. By William C. Rives. Volume I. Boston, son, the founder of a family, in which 1859. and James Madison was only the foremost Four/h Presiden/ of/he Un//ed S/a/es. In four vol- among several distinguished members. nines. Published by order of Congress. Philadel- Of his early days there is little to tell. phia, 1867. His education began at the school of a 68 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. learned Scotch emigrant. In 1769 he was sent to the college at Princeton, be- yond the limits of his native state. The principal, Dr. Witherspoon, was, like Madisons first teacher, a Scotch emi- grant. A few years later he was called to a wider sphere of activity in the Revolu- tionary Congress, and his name is among those appended to the Declaration of In- dependence. We may suppose that his influence did something towards determin- ing the future career of his pupil. Yet Madisons letters show no greater interest in the questions of the day than would be ordinarily found in an intelligent and well- educated lad. One characteristic anec- dote of Madisons youth, significant of his future career, is oddly enough omitted by Mr. Rives, though it rests on no worse authority than that of John Quincy Adams. Dr. Witherspoon said of him that he never knew him to say or do an indis- creet thing. It is consoling to find that the case of a model young man is not always desperate. Probably, however, Mr. Rives has acted for the best interests of mankind in withholding so dangerous a precedent. With such a disposition it was well that the conditions of Madisons early life were not such as to stimulate mere intellectual precocity at the expense of his powers of action. His somewhat weak health and his retiring temper might have allowed him to settle down as a quiet student, had not his lot been cast in a time when The forward youth that would appear, Must now forsake his Muses dear. Madison had little more than completed his college career when his country needed in some way or other the services of every patriotic citizen. In the actual events of the War of Independence Madisons part, though subordinate, was not unimportant. Even if it had been less prominent, we must remember that he and his contemporanes were trained into statesmen by the struggle for independence, and unless we take that influence into account we cannot justly appreciate their motives and position. Few subjects would be more deeply inter- esting, or offer worthier material to a his- torian, than to trace the process which developed the English colonists of the sev enteenth century into that generation of men, great at once as political philoso- phers and practical statesmen, who liber- ated America from England and fash- ioned the Federal Constitution. Much, indeed, was due to the instincts and ideas which the emigrants took out with them. England early in the seventeenth century was specially well fitted to throw out off- shoots full of vigorous and healthy politi- cal life. The spirit which animated the founders of our American colonies was the spirit of the Lono Parliament, not of the Commonwealth, the Restoration or the Revolution. The romance which in- vests the early history of Virginia, the religious troubles which fill so large a space in the annals of New England, are apt to divert our attention from the politi- cal life of the colonies. How real and active that life was, is shown by the way in which representative institutions sprang up as it were spontaneously, and expanded with the needs of the young common- wealth. And, if the seed sown was good, so too was the culture which it received. The colonists were happily saved from all those influences which sapped the strength and vitiated the life-blood of English poli- tics for nearly a century after the Restora- tion. The contests of the various colonial legislatures with the home government, contests in which the colonists were at times factious and unreasonable, but were more often struggling against the profli- gate and extortionate governors with whom the mother country had saddled them, served to keep alive a vigorous spirit of independence. There were other influ- ences at work to raise the minds and aspi- rations of the colonists above the some- what petty cares of their own separate States. We may be sure that there were others beside Franklin whose thoughts had early turned to the possibility of a great united colonial dominion. Many a colonist must have felt, when Washing- ton went down with his little band to hold the Ohio valley against France, that a struggle had begun which might give to his descendants a territory bounded only by the Pacific. Moreover, the great wave of European thought, which had already begun to form, was not without its in- LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. 69 fluence in America. Thus, we find the young John Adams, the descendant of an old Puritan family, and reared up. in a pious New England home, studying and criticising Mo ntesquieu and I3olingbroke. Every line that Jefferson wrote breathed the influence of the French philosophers. At the same time the practical training in politics, which the colonists gained from thefr local institutions, saved them from being led astray into any speculative ex- travagances. There lay the great differ- ence between the American rebellion and the French Revolution. To the French revolutionists liberty was a mere abstract name, wholly disconnected from their his- torical past, and therefore incapable of practical application. The An~ericans, too, had grasped the idea of liberty; but they viewed it not as an abstract idea, but a principle which underlay their past history and their present institutions. We may in short say that the Revolutionary states- men of America were in their main out- lines Englishmen of the seventeenth cen- tury, with their perceptions quickened at once by philosophical teaching and by the practical, if somewhat narrowing, influence of colonial politics. Then came the strug- gle for independence. Whatever we may think of the merits of the quarrel, we can- not doubt that its effects on the colonists were in the main healthy and strengthen- ing. Circumstances saved the American Revolution from many of the worst feat- ures of such struggles. It was not, like the struggle in the Netherlands, embit- tered by differences of creed and race. The rudeness and elasticity of colonial life were such that the shock of an inva- sion was felt far less than it is in an old- established country. There were, no doubt, moral shortcomings on the part of the peo- ple. There was supineness, sloth, want of public spirit. But this was caused rather by crcnmstances than by defects in the national character. The weakness of the American cause was due to the heterogeneous character of the different states. There was mutual distrust engen- dered by diversity of origin, of creed, of commercial interest. The weakness shown by the colonists was not unlike the weak- ness shown by our own country in her strug gle with the Danes. There was much local energy and much individual courage, but a want of cohesion and unity of action. Had the colonists been led by an Etheired instead of a Washington the parallel might have been more complete. But whatever weaknesses there might be among the com- mons, in higher quarters there were none. It would be hard to name a revolution so free from any stains of treachery, of half- heartedness, of selfish ambition among its leaders. The traitors and the intriguers, Arnold, Conway, Gates, were mere sol- diers. The statesmen of the rebellion have no part in their guilt. Not one of them ever seems to have entertained an idea of securing his own escape if the common cause should fail. All threw in their lot with their county, determined to triumph or fall together. Had any sus- picion of such guilt existed, party rancor would long ago have proclaimed it to the world. There was scarcely one of the Revolutionary statesman whose reputation has wholly escaped the envenomed attacks of party warfare. Even the great leader himself, one of the few whose public spirit and almost superhuman virtue is estab- lished by the unanimous voice of history, did not escape calumny. The characters of Hamilton and Jefferson are still topics of party warfare. But whatever may have been said of their later actions, the voice of calumny has never assailed their con- duct during the contest for independence. There are many things in later history which every well-wisher of America would gladly blot out; but she may at least re- member with just pride that in the great crisis of her fate no stain attached to those whom she entrusted with her cause. In the American Revolution, in the stir- ring events which followed it, the part which each colony played was strongly col- ored by its previous history and its politi- cal character. None had more definitely marked features than Madisons native state, the mother of presidents, as Virginia was called in later days. Her social life reproduced many of the best features of the mother country. 1-ler early emigrants had numbered among them adventurers and felons, but the backbone of those who supported the Virginia Company, and who 70 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. followed Lord Delawarr and Sir Thomas Dale as emigrants, were taken from the ranks of the English country gentry, just at the time when that class was at its best. It would be an interesting, though a some- what mortifying study, to trace the process by which the highly educated and accom- plished country gentleman of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the class which included Hampden and Hutchinson and Elliot, gave place to the boorish squire of a century later, whom a satirist could paint as Squire Western, and a more kindly ob- server as Sir Roger. The social disorgan- ization due to the Civil War and the con- sequent disruption of old feudal ties, the growing political and social importance of London, and the general 1 owering of the moral tone of the nation, all contributed to this result. In Virginia the old public spirit of a feudal aristocracy survived. The lower classes lacked teaching, but the society which produced Jefferson and Madison and Randolph can hardly have had a low educational standard. We have, unhappily, but few authentic records of the social life of the southern colonies. But a ~vriter of our own day, almost un- equalled in his power of reproducing from slender materials the scenery and coloring of a past age, has brought vividly before us the life of a Virginian plantation. We may be sure that there were a good many young Virginians who, like George War- rington, sent to England for books and musical instruments, and hurried on board to see them unpacked. If, indeed, it be true that Jefferson and Patrick Henry were accomplished musicians, the colony had retained one phase of Elizabethan culture ~vhich the mother.country had for a while almost lost. Looked at in its politic~i bearings, the social life of Virginia kept alive a vigorous spirit of independence. The boundless natural resources of the country were, from an economical view, almost as much a curse as a blessing. The number of navigable rivers gave every planter a harbor close to his own door, and prevented the formation of any one centre of commerce. The abundance of fertile soil enabled every man to become a land- owner, and made it impossible to obtain free and intelligent labor. But though all these things made against the commercial welfare of Virginia they rather stimulated the spirit of political freedom. As Mr. Rives says: A large landed estate in Virginia, consisting of distinct and some- times distant plantations, with the general supervision of the agents and laborers em- ployed on each, and the negotiations mci- dent to the periodical sale of their produce and purchase of their supplies in remote markets, was a mimic commonwealth, with its foreign and domestic relations and its regular administrative hierarchy. It called for the constant exercise of vigilance, ac- tivity, humanity, sound judgment and wise economy, and was thus a school both of virtue and intelligence, in which many of the patriots of that day were trained for public usefulness. Though slavery ex- isted, it did not yet bear that baneful fruit which afterwards spran~ from it. It does not seem to have been attended with any one of those moral corruptions which after- wards formed such a plague-spot in the life of the Southern States. Nor had the practice of slavery deadened the political. morality of the Virginian aristocracy. Taunts have often been cast at the men who, while they claimed freedom for them- selves, were blind to the wrong which they were inflicting on a whole race. A very slight knowledge of the writings and speeches of the most eminent men among them enables one to refute such sneers. Every l)rominent Virginian statesman of the last century seems to have looked upon slavery as an evil which economical circum- stances had forced upon his country, which must, if possible, be extinguished, and which might be fraught with the greatest mischief in the future. The doctrine, which upheld slavery as the proper basis of Southern society and Southern political supremacy, was the offspring of a states- man of a later generation, Calhoun of South Carolina; and we may be sure that Washington or Jefferson would have re- pudiated his teaching as eagerly as any Northern abolitionist. In 5774, at the age of twenty-three, Madisons public career began. He was in that year elected a member of one of the county committees, which were estab- lished throughout the American colonies to concert means of resistance to the Brit- ish government. Two years later he was returned to the Virginian Congress. From the outset Virginia had taken a leading part in the dispute, and she now ventured on a step in advance of any other colony. North Carolina had already given to its representatives in the Continental Con- gress, power to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring inde- pendence and forming foreign alliances.~~ Virginia went a step further, and definitely instructed her delegates to move a declar4- tion of independence. As a necessary accompaniment to this measure, a corn- mittee was appointed to frame a govern- LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. 7 ment for the colony, or, as we must now call it, the State. Here, too, Virginia was taking the lead. South Carolina and New Hampshire had already framed provisional governments. Virginia was the first state that distinctly applied her best wisdom to the formation of a new constitution intend- ed to be permanent. Madison, despite his youth, was a member of this committee~ and the subject is one of some importance in connection with his career. His one pre-eminent claim to honor is as a consti- tution-maker; and a peculiar interest at- taches to the first attempt of the kind in which he took part. The Virginian con- stitution of 1776, like most successful ex- periments of the sort, was a compromise. The general outline of the constitution was sure to be modelled on the old one, handed down with some changes from the days of the Virginia Company. A consti- tution based on the English type, and con- sisting of a governor and two chambers, was the mould into which all the colonial governments had almost spontaneously fallen, and to which the colonists, conser- vative in revolution, with two exceptions, adhered. This system, however, gave room for differences of detail. Two schemes were proposed which may fairly be supposed to represent the extreme views on each side. One proposed to retain the upper chamber for life, and the governor during good behavior, ~vhile the lower chamber was to be elected trien- nially. The other, suggested by John Adams to some of his Virginian friends, proposed that the whole legislature, in- cluding the governor, should be re-elected annually. The scheme finally adopted coincided in its main features with this latter, with this somewhat important dif- ference, that the upper chamber was to be elected for four years. It is worthy of notice that not one of these schemes con- templated a democratic suffrage. The widest margin proposed was one which would take in householders who were also fathers of three children, and the qualifica- tion finally adopted was the possession of twenty-five acres freehold. Madison, by his own account, took no very prominent part in the task of construction. His only recorded contribution was an amendment to the declaration of rights which preceded the constitution, striking out the term toleration, as inconsistent with com- plete religious equality, and substituting the full and free exercise of religion ac- cording to the dictates of conscience.~~ We have noticed this, because Madisons hostility to anything like relibious inequal ity was, perhaps, the only political feeling which could be fairly called a passion with him, or which ever led him into a display of enthusiasm. Though his own share in the Virginian constitution was not a prom- inent one, yet we may be sure that it was a lesson not thrown away. Between the two extreme parties in Virginia between those who wished to be frde from England, but keep everything English, and demo- crats like Jefferson and Henry there was a great gulf, which we may be sure could only be bridged over by a spirit of moderation and compromise, and from that process Madison must have learnt lessons which stood him in good stead in the great task of his life. in the next year Madison lost his seat, a result which Mr. Rives tells us was due to his scrupulous refusal to employ the universally adopted engine of treating. That he had in no way forfeited public confidence is shown by the fact that in the same year he was elected a member of the State Council, and in 1779 returned to the Continental Congress. Even by that time the early zeal which had distinguished that body had begun to grow cold. Many of its most eminent men had been called off to the services of their separate States, and Congress reflected but too faithfully that want of cohesion and mutual support which weakened the Union and hampered the action of her great leader. Madison was one of those who labored to redeem the character of Congress. He zealously backed up Washingtons appeals for more strenuous efforts, and throughout the war he advocated various measures designed to strengthen the authority of the central government. Thus we find him support- ing a proposal to give Congress certain coercive powers, which would enable it to exact the required contributions from the separate States. Monstrous though it seems to us now, that a government could be expected to carry on a war while it had no efficient means of exacting supplies, yet the sectional jealousies of the different States, and the dread of central pow-er, frustrated this measure. Subsequently Congress passed a resolution applying to the various States for power to levy a duty on foreign merchandise. Virginia at first acceded to this application, but afterwards, owing to the failure of other States to com- ply with it, Madison had the mortification of seeing his constituents reverse their decision. On another occasion Madison was in conflict with his own State, and showed by his conduct that his usual mod- eration could in season give place to firm- 72 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. ness. The claim of Spain to monopolize the navigation of the Mississippi, was a subject of negotiation between the two powers. To ask the United States to sur- render the Mississippi was, as Frankln forcibly put it, like asking a man to sell his street door. Madison took an equally de- cided view, and expressed it in a report laid before Congress. At the time that the question came forward, the pressure of the war was felt mainly by the Southern States, and that part of the Union was naturally eager for foreign help, and willing to make large concessions to obtain it. Accord- ingly Virginia, urged on by Georgia and South Carolina, instructed her representa- tives to oppose the claim. Madison con- sidered the occasion important enough to justify him in disregarding the wishes of his constituents; and when the immediate prospect of war was removed, Virginia adopted his views. Before we take leave of Madisons career in the old Congress, one l)oint ought to be noticed. It would be premature to speak of parties, yet we can trace faintly the beginnings of those divisions which afterwards severed the po- litical world of America into two camps. We can trace, too, in Madison~ s own atti- tude, a foreshadowing of his later career. While he advocated, as we have seen, the grants of coercive powers to Congress, he did not go as far as Hamilton in his wish to exalt the central, at the expense of the local governments. Hamilton would not merely have given Congress power to levy taxes for itself, but he would have also handed over to it the appointment and control of the staff employed for that pur- pose. Madison, on the other hand, would, as far as might be, have left the establish- ment and management of the machinery to the separate States. The difference may seem trifling, but it illustrates the dif- ferent spirit in which the two men ap- proached the great impending question, the limits of power of the central govern- ment and the State governments, respect- ively. On another question, Madison displayed views and sympathies which af- terwards had a most important influence on his career. During the negotiations for peace, an estrangement arose between the French government and the American representatives, Adams, Franklin, and Jay. We name three, for though there was a fourth, Laurens, both his body and mind were, for a while, weakened by his long imprisonment in England, and he was, at the time, little more than a cipher. It would exceed the limits, alike of our space and our subject, to go into the merits of the question. Jay seems to have been of a suspicious temper; Adams had but little good-will towards France; and Franklin, whose sympathies were strongly with the French, may have been unable single- handed to influence his two colleagues. On the other hand, there is no doubt that persons professing to be accredited agents of France had dealings with the English minister, Lord Shelburne, of such a nature as reasonably to excite the suspicions of the Americans. The result was, that the preliminaries of peace were signed by the American envoys ~vithout their consulting the French minister, De Vergennes. This excited the indignation of the French gov- ernment, and the question came before Congress. The immediate question of the conduct of the envoys does not concern us; the matter is important as showing a division of feeling already existing in America, and destined afterwards to have most important results. There were al- ready two parties in Congress, who regard- ed France with widely different views. By some her support was looked upon as an act of generosity, forming a sentimental bond of union between the two nations, and giving France a moral claim to the gratitude of America. Others ur~ ed that France had withheld her assistance till she clearly saw that the cause of America would furnish a convenient weapon against her old enemy. To debate what were the real motives of France would be as profit- less as are all discussions concerning the motives which animate national policy. A few enthusiasts, like Lafayette, doubtless joined the cause of America out of a pure and generous sympathy with a ieople ~var- ring for their rights. The majority of the young officers who flocked over, to vex the soul of Washington and to command troops whom they could neither speak to nor understand, doubtless viewed America as they would have viewed India, or Ire- land, or any other country where there was glory to be won and Englishmen to be fought. The aristocratic diplomatists and pohticians who governed France would probably have questioned the sanity of a man who attributed their policy to any but interested motives. Nevertheless, it was a generous impulse which made many Americans resent any act that seemed to savor of ingratitude and coldness towards an ally. In the debate which arose out of the conduct of the envoys, Madison strong- ly condemned the views of those who looked upon France with distrust. That he should have taken this line is somewhat remarkable. Of all politicians he was the LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. least likely to be influenced by sentiment, and his political and intellectual sympathies were not such as to enlist him in favor either of monarchical or revolutionary France. Whether the influence of Jeffer- son may have thus early shown itself we cannot say. Certain it is that the line which he took on this occasion marks a sentiment which for some time remained inoperative, hut which at a later time had a great influence on him, and, in fact, formed a turning-point in his career. At the end of 1783 Madisons term of office expired, and by the newly-framed rules of Congress he was ineligible for re- election. During his whole term of mem- bership he does not seem once to have visited his home. In December he re- turned thither, and at once applied himself to reading law. As, however, we find him at the same time studying constitutional history, and especially such questions as were likely to affect the future of the con- federacy, it seems unlikely that his legal learning was meant for practical purposes. If he entertained any such scheme, it was soon frustrated. In the next few years events began to open to the rising genera- tion of American statesmen a career in some ways greater than any which the war itself had offered. The events of the war, and still more the domestic troubles vhich followed it, the rebellions in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, too clearly proved that the old Confederation was but a rope of sand. The task of reconstructing it on a firmer basis was one which might well stimulate and yet appal the imagination of the wisest and most enterprising states- man. The attempt was beset with difficul- ties from two quarters. The pressure of the war had been scarcely enough to keep in check the jealousies and conflicting claims of the different States. When that pressure was withdrawn, they were sure to burst out with renewed force. More- over the war itself had done much to quicken political thought, and to sow the seeds of great party divisions. A ques- tion of such overwhelming political impor- tance as the formation of a new Constitu- tion was sure to call those seeds into full life and activity. Before we consider the struggle itself, we must say a few words of the principal actors. Two of Madisons contempora- ries and rivals, Hamilton and Jefferson, stand out, not as yet the accredited leaders of the opposite parties, but so distinctly and pre-eminently the representatives of the great conflicting principles, which were struggling for ascendancy in the newly- 73 formed republic, as to claim our special attention. Many Americans io this day regard these two statesmen as the Ormuzd and Ahriman of American politics, while they differ in their mode of assigning the two parts. By one party Hamilton is re- garded as an inspired prophet, who fore- saw all the dangers with which the United States were threatened by the sway of the masses, and who died a political martyr, struggling vainly to keep his country within the bounds of constitutional free- dom, and to hold her back from the gulf of popular misrule into which Jeff rson and his followers were hastening to l)lunge her. With others Jefferson is the champion of freedom, who fully emancipated his coun- try from those trammels of feudal and monarchical government, which Hamilton was struggling to reimpose. One who views the question from that intermediate standing-ground which Madison occupied, is happily not forced to adopt either view. We may, without injustice either to Ham- ilton or Jefferson, believe that the one un- duly neglected, while the other unduly overrated, the dangers of democratic gov- ernment. Everything in the origin and training of these two men had prepared the way for their rivalry. Hamilton was in some de- gree separated both by birth and training from the other statesmen of his age. His birthplacc was Jamaica, and this fact may have served in some measure to diminish the intensity of his American sympathies. His adopted State, New York, was that one in which the flame of patriotism burnt least brightly. His writings show that he had read much and meditated deeply, and his knowledge of foreign l)Olitics won from Talicyrand the compliment, Havzilton avail devi;M ZEurofe. Such training may make, and in his case did make a great constructive ststesman, but it is not calculated to make an enthusiast. En~,lish Whiggism had impressed Hamilton deeply, and we cannot doubt that Walpole was to a great extenthis model. In his opinion, a commercial aristocracy, and a govern ment with abundant means of exercising indi- rect influence, were essential conditions of national stability. It would be an error to suppose that these opinions involved any disloyalty to the cause of American independence. Hamilton was not the only statesman of the time who, while throwing himself passionately into the cause of national freedom, and clearly perceiving the unfitness of England for the task of colonial government, yet wished to retain many of the aristocratic traditions, and 74 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON much of the machinery of government, of cal philosophy of the eighteenth century. the mother country. Indeed, the very But it was from French republicanism, acts by which Hamilton has incurred the not from English Whiggism, that he drew charge of disloyalty to the American Con- his inspiration. Hamiltons political ideal stitution are, if carefully considered, his looked back to i688; Jeffersons had yet best defence. Had he really wished to to find its fulfilment in 1789. With such overthrow the Constitution, he would never training and such principles, these two have striven so diligently to guard it men were clearly marked out as the em- against its own inherent dangers. Doubt- bodiments and champions of those two less be had a speculative preference for conflicting principles, which were soon monarchy; but to suppose that he ever destined to extend their battle-field from. contemplated the introduction of it into the Old World to the New. America, is to regard him as a mere theo- It seemed for a while as if Madisons rist incapable of limiting his aspirations by natural sobriety of temper and freedom his knowledge of what was possible. And from enthusiasm were likely to be stronger if he had cherished such a wish, his keen than his loyalty to his brother Virginian, political insight would have taught him and, as if he was destined to stand among that a direct attack on the republican con- the allies of Hamilton. To Hamilton stitution of his country would be the worst unquestionably belongs the credit of hay- means that he could choose towards his ing first clearly grasped the idea of a end. A far weaker mind than Hamiltons more stable union subordinating all the might have easily perceived that the anar- state governments to the sovereignty of chy against which he was striving would the whole, as the only means of saving the be the readiest road to absolutism. Let nation from anarchy. By every means in the pilot forsake the helm, and the ship his power, by public utterances and pri- would inevitably go on the rocks and be- vate influence, Hamilton forced this idea come the willing prey of any saviour of upon his countrymen. In this task he society. Yet if Hamiltons fame has been found an able assistant in Madison. He, obscured by party calumny and his true like Hamilton, clearly saw that no attempt greatness appreciated only by a few, his to improve the existing federation could own character is not wholly free of the meet the needs of the case. With Madi- blame. His own temper was naturally son rests the credit of carrying through cold and unsympathetic. He seems, in- the Virginian Assembly a resolution invit- deed, to have prided himself on this, and ing the other States to a general confer- to have somewhat exaggerated it. He ence on the subject of the commerce of was thoroughly sincere, but it was the sin- the federation. It was through Hamil- cerity of high principle and strong self- tons agency that the powers of the con- respect, rather than of natural frankness. ference were enlarged, and that it was In almost every detail of temper, training, converted into a Convention for consider- and opinions, Jefferson was the direct op- ing and, as events proved, for reconstruct- posite to his great rival. His vanity and ing, the Federal Union. In May, 1787, impetuosity often led him into inconsis- the Convention met at Annapolis. Its pro- tency, and it is hard at times to clear his ceedings were secret, and our knowledge character from the deeper stain of wilful of them is derived from reports compiled duplicity. Yet he had a certain openness by Madison after the hours of debate. It of temper, which seems among his con- is not an easy matter to estimate the share temporaries to have won forgiveness for which any one member of the Convention his graver fanlts. His writings show no can claim in the result. It cannot be too trace of that solid political and historical often repeated that the American Consti- study, on which Hamiltons opinions were tution was a compromise, modified to based; yet his love of knowledge was ever suit the wants of conflicting parties and vigorous, and his sympathy and interest individuals of widely different views, and extended to almost every branch of human therefore not corresponding with any pre- activity and thought. His opinions were conceived ideal. But we should probably deeply colored by the training of his native not be far wrong in saying that it more state. Commerce was his bugbear. He nearly reflected the views of Madison writes in the true spirit of a Virginian than of any other of the framers. We may farmer and sportsman: While we have infer this from comparing the actual result land to labor upon, let us never wish to with his recommendations, and with the see our citizens occupied at a work-bench ideas expressed in his subsequent writ- or twirling a distaff. Like Hamilton, ings. In many details, indeed, the Con- Jefferson was conversant with the politi- stitution deviated from Madisons ideal. LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. He at first proposed to give the central government a power of veto against any State law. Subsequently he abandoned this in favor of that admirably4ramed scheme, which erects the Supreme Court into a separate, and, as far as possible, an independent arbitrator to decide in the last resort between the conflicting claims of the State and the Union. Madisons first suggestion on this subject is worth noting, as showino that he at this time held views~ as to the subordination of the State gov- ernments not widely different from those of Hamilton and his followers. It has been the fashion with Democratic writers to treat the annihilation of State sover eion ty out ser takino the teeth of the pents, as an eminent Federalist Governor Morris, called it as an article peculiar to the Federal creed. It ought to be re- membered that this doctrine was upheld by one whom the Democrats reckon among their most honored leaders. To identify at this time the doctrine of a strong central government with those aristocratic principles which hamilton and his party undoubtedly did hold, is to antedate the position of parties by more than twenty years. But though on this point Hamilton and Madison were still at one, the pro- ceedings of the Convention brought out points of difference. Hamilton would have vested the executive power in a pres- ident and vice-president chosen for life, and removable only by impeachment, and would have made the upper chamber rest on a like tenure. On both these points he seems to have stood almost alone. With- out going further into detail, we can best sum up Madisons share in the Constitu- tion by enumerating the conditions neces- sary to his ideal of the United States gov- ernment, conditions which were all in some degree fulfilled by the form as actu- ally settled. He required a government resting on the direct consent of the people, and exercising direct control over them. He wished to preserve the State govern- ments for their o~vn purposes, and he saw that it must be the aim of the Constitution to give those governments die greatest possible amount of independent action in their own sphere, combined with the least possible power of interference with the central government. Above all, he saw that any system, to be adopted, or when adopted to work successfully, must be a compromise and he was thus enabled to meet all arguments which impugned the new Constitution as falling short of an ideal, either of State freedom or perfect centralization. 75 His services on behalf of the Constitu- tion were soon needed on an important battle-field. In none of the States was more vigordus resistance to be looked for than in Virginia. There, as in the other States, a Convention was summoned to consider the question of ratification. The opposition was he~~ded by Patrick Henry, then in the full vigor of oratorical powers unequalled by any American of that, or probably of a later, age. A passionate republican, and, like Jefferson, deeply im- bued with the idea that the woods and streams of Virginia were the chosen home of liberty, he looked with horror on a sys- tem which substituted for the yoke of a king and l)arliament the yoke of a central government, in which Massachusetts and New York might be leading powers. The battle was fierce and long doubtful, but the resisting forces yielded point by point. From a general opposition to the new Constitution they fell back on the detailed objection that it lacked a bill of rights. This defect clearly could, and probably would, be remedied after ratificThon, and thus the question resolved itself into one of amendment before or after acceptance. Madison, as was natural, bore the brunt of the battle on the side of the Constitution. Probably, however, the consideration which had most weight and which ulti- mately turned the scale, was the fear that the Constitution might he accepted by nine other states, and thereby ratified, and that Virginia, by rejecting it, might be left out, in the humiliating position of an unsuccess- ful obstructive, who had done something to discredit the new Constitution without succeeding in saving the independence of the separate States. Madisons labors on behalf of the Con- stitution were not confined to his own State. In concert with Hamilton he had been advocating it through the medium of The Federalist, a series of papers addressed nominally to the people of New York, but in reality to the whole body of States. Probably the lasting reputation of its two authors, in Europe at least, rests mainly on this work. Its two authors we say, since their colleague Jay was merely associated with them on account of his special knowledge of foreign politics and diplomacy, and only contributed such ideas as bore specially on those subjects. So far as any division of labor between Ham- ilton and Madison can be traced, it is such as we might have anticipated. The philo- sophical groundwork on which the Con- stitution was to be built was chiefly sup- plied by Hamilton. It was for the most 76 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. part left for Madison to point out immedi- ient associate for a special purpose. It ate practical advantages and to combat is somewhat remarkable, too, that in Mad- detailed objections. Yet this must not be isons published correspondence we have pressed too far. Madisons contributions, not met with a single reference to Hamil- notably his first paper, No. 14, show a ton which indicates anything like a ~varm marked appreciation of the abstract prin- personal feeling. That Madison should ciples of government, as well as of their for a particular object have identified him- application to the present occasion; while self with one with whom he had so little in Hamiltons writings there is nothing generally in common may seem strange, vague or speculative. In one respect the but it is not out of keeping with his unim- very fame of The Federalist in one passioned, practical temper, and his habit direction tends to blind us to its merits in of subordinating personal feeling to polit. another. We are apt to read it as a his- ical necessities. torical analysis of the Constitution. Such, The final ratification of the new Consti- indeed, it is. But we must never forget tution might be formally the conclusion of that it was primarily a controversial work, a peace bet~veen the two parties, but in written in a time of stirring agitation, for reality it was the signal for the outbreak what may be almost called a party pur- of a new l)olitical struggle, less impas- pose. Yet its permanent value is scarcely, sioned perhaps, but even more definite if at all, impaired by the circumstances of and sustained. Since the time of the sep- its production. There is nothing in it of aration from England, the new republic party rancor, nothing of misrepresenta- held within it the germs of two great par- tion, not a word of needless controversy, ties. There were those who had sepa- The writers never deviate from their main rated from England on what we might call purpose to attack an opponent. It would grounds of expediency, without any antip- be hard to name a single production, athy to the principles of the government among the political writings of the last from which they had severed themselves. century, even from the pen of Burke, so They would willingly have seen the newly- free from all the ordinary faults of politi- created government, in its relations cal literature. The credit of this accrues towards the several States, step into the not merely to the writers, but to the audi- place of the monarchy which they had ence for whom it was designed. It speaks cast off. There were others, drunk with the well for the wisdom of the American citi- new wine of democratic enthusiasm, who zens of that day, that at such a crisis an saw in the formation of the American re- appeal should have been made, not to public the possible fulfilment of their ideal. party prejudice or sectional interests, but Hitherto these two central ideas have re- to a clear and far-sighted patriotism, and mained latent. During the War of Inde- that historical arguments should have pendence the nation had been forced into been thought of more value than personal temporary unity by external pressure. mnvectives. It would be hard, we should During the years of chaos and anarchy think, for any thoughtful and educated which followed there was no room for the American at the present day to read The development of party organization. All Federalist, and to compare it xvith the thinking men must have seen that the later political literature of his country, existing state of things could not last. without a feeling of shame. To organize a party at such a time would Before leaving The Federalist, jus- have been like forming line of battle on a tice to Madison requires one remark. The quicksand. But when once the Federal fact of his having been associated with Constitution was framed, a clear and well- Hamilton in this great task has been at defined battle-field lay open. The previous times treated by admirers of the latter as condition of things gave rather a peculiar though it constituted a political bond of turn to the formation of parties. The old union between the two, and as if the rup- Whig tradition, which would fain have ture of this bond gave some coloring of seen in the new Constitution only an adap- treachery to Madisons subsequent alli- tation of English monarchy, prevailed ance with Jefferson. Nothing in The chiefly among the northern merchants. Federalist itself justifies such an idea, The central government, on whose effi- and if we turn to Madisons own letters ciency they depended to control the grow- we shall see how unfair such a charge is. ing democratic impulse, had most to fear There is nothing in The Federalist to from the strength of local institutions. show that Madison accepted the abstract Thus the conservative or, as it called it- theories of Hamilton. Apparently he self, the Federal party, became the advo- merely looked on Hamilton as a conven- cate of centralization, while democracy was forced to depend on the State govern- ments as its instrument, and was driven by its hostility to the merchants of New England into a somewhat strange alliance with the slave-holding planters of the South. The outbreak of open hostility was for a whfle suspended by the presence of Washington. His experience of the divisions, which had so hampered his ef- forts during the xvar, had imbued him with a deep dread and dislike of parties, and his political insight was not such as to perceive the inevitable conflict of great opposing principles. But, though the struggle was delayed, signs of the coming trouble were not wanting. Madison soon became alienated from his old allies. He showed that he had not used the promise of amendments as a mere sop to lull his opponents in the Virginian Convention, by introducing ten amendments, covering the ground which would have been occupied by a bill of rights, and providing against various abuses of arbitrary power. His position was a difficult one, for his propos- als xvent too far to please most Federal- ists, and not far enough to satisfy the bulk of the Democrats. His tact and adroit- cess triumphed over these difficulties, and, in the language of an able American writer, he engineered his plan through the House with triumphant success. This opened the breach between Madi- son and the Federal party, and circum- stances soon widened it. The next ground of conflict was the financial policy of Ham- ilton. As secretary of the treasury, he introduced a scheme of national finance. Its main features were the establishment of a national debt and a national bank. He proposed to elevate the Federal gov- ernment at the expense of the separate States, by transferring to it the debts con- tracted by the various State governments on behalf of the Union. In all these points he was opposed by Madison. If we look at the question simply as one of finance, we can have no doubt as to its merits. Madison had never shown any peculiar aptitude for finance, or indeed any special knowledge on the subject. Few statesmen have ever studied it more profoundly than Hamilton. At the age of twenty-three he drew up an elaborate financial scheme for the Confederation, and forwarded it to Robert Morris, the minister of finance. So much impressed was Morris by its ability, that at a later day, when Washing- ton turned to him in despair, and asked him what he was to do with the public debt, his answer ~vas, There is but one man who can tell you, and that is Alexan 77 der Hamilton. If then the question were merely financial, we might fairly appeal from Hamiltons critics to Hamilton him- self. But Madison and those around him did not and could not regard the question as merely financial. Madison regarded it, and not without justice, as part of a sys- tem for concentrating all the powers of the state in the hands of the executive. He saw that Hamiltons doctrine of implied powers might be employed to give a direc- tion to the Constitution alien from the purpose of its founders. He believed that there was a design on the part of the Federalists, as he himself afterwards ex- pressed it in conversation, to adminis- trate the Constitution into conformity with their party views. These suspicions as to the designs of the Federalists, though we cannot set them down as groundless, were unquestionably exaggerated. Yet the blame of that was in some measure due to the Federalists themselves. Flushed with their triumph in the national convention, and trusting in the support of Washington and the great administrative ability of Hamilton,they recklessly disregarded the natural and justifiable suspicions of their opponents, and often used language which gave a color to the worst charges brought against them. The course of events speedily hurried Madison onward in his union with the Democrats. As we have seen, the rela- tion of the republic to France had already been made the battle-field of an internal conflict. The French Revolution did not alter the aspect of party divisions in America, but it gave them a definiteness and fixity which they did not before pos- sess. Hitherto there had been many who were hostile to England, and to the aristo- cratic traditions of English government, but who nevertheless had no abstract sym- pathy with democracy. Such a middle position became now almost untenable. The conduct of the French government, and the outrageous behavior of its Ameri- can ministers, Genet and Adet, seemed for a while to have turned the tide of public feeling. But the democratic current was too strong, and sympathy with France was soon demanded by the Democrats as a test of loyal citizenship. We cannot judge bet- ter of the fierceness of party feeling, than by its effect on a man of naturally moderate and restrained temper like Madison. We feel somewhat as if we saw an archdeacon dancing among the Shakers, when we find Madison writing of degenerate citizens, enemies of the French Revolution and liberty, of the poison of the Anglo- LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. 78 LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. Saxon party, and denouncing anti-French views as heresy. One painful result of this state of affairs was to involve Madi- son in a bitter personal controversy with his old ally, Hamilton. The president, acting by the advice of his cabinet, issued a proclamation of neutrality. This pro- ceeding was impugned by the Democrats, both on technical and moral grounds. As to the former point, the best writers on the American Constitution are agreed that the president, in interpreting and proclaiming the duties imposed by treaties on the citi- zens, was in no way transgressing his proper functions. As to the general ground of policy, few would deny that Washington and his advisers would have been greatly to blame had they suffered America to be engulfed in the whirlpool of a great European war. Nevertheless, when Hamilton, writing under the signa- ture of Pacificus, defended the presi- dents action, he was answered by Madi- son in the letters of Helvidius. It is pain- ful to find that the recollection of their joint labors did not withhold Madison from a bitter and contemptuous tone in dealing with his opponent. Able, too, though the letters of Helvidius are, their ability is rather that of a special pleader than of a statesman. But though we cannot agree with Madison, either on the technical issue or on more general grounds, yet we must make the same allowance here as in the case of Hamiltons financial policy. We must remember that Madison saw in the action of the president one step in a deliberate scheme to overthrow those lib- erties, for which so much blood and treas- ure had been spent. We must remember, too, that Hamiltons attitude was one pe- culiarly calculated to alarm an opponent. His doctrine of implied powers was, in the opinion of the Democrats, an attempt to turn the letter of the Constitution against its authors, and to undermine American liberty with that very engine which they had forged for her defence. The retirement of XATashington was the signal for the pent-up storm to break out in full force. Had his term of office been prolonged, we can hardly doubt that he would have been driven to identify himself with that party, towards which his mod- erate temper and conservative instincts naturally inclined him, and that the Fed- erals might have opened the campaign with the weight of his name on their side. As it was, his influence was sufficient to prevent a party struggle over the appoint- ment of his successor. Adams was well known to have leanings towards a strong central government, yet he entered upon office as the representative, not of a party, but of the nation. But a position which had well nigh overtasked the moderation and forbearance of Washington was far too arduous for his vain and irritable suc- cessor. Seldom have great natural gifts been more inopportunelymarred by small yet destructive failings than in John Ad- ams. His integrity was unquestioned, and saved him from those base compliances into which vanity, such as his, might have led a man of weaker principle. His abili- ties, and the respect which they won from his equals, should have made him inde- pendent of the opinion of the many, yet he craved for the popularity which he lacked the power to win. The seeds of distrust between Adams and his party had been sown as early as Washingtons first election. According to the system then in force, the vice-president was not separate- ly elected, but the candidate second on the list for president took that office. A num- ber of the Federalists, under the advice of Hamilton, decided that there must be no risk about Washingtons election, and that he must be brought in by such a majority as to prove incontestably the superiority of his claims. Accordingly, Adams was elected to the second place by barely the number of votes required. Adams resent- ed this as a slight, and felt that Hamilton had treated him with a want of confidence and had acted in a spirit of manc~uvre. Hamilton and his followers, on the other hand, believed that Adams felt himself ag- grieved by not having been allowed a chance of success against Washington, an imputation which Adams warmly resented. Moreover, there were special grounds of mutual distrust between Adams and Ham- ilton. The latter remembered the intricrues against Washington during the b war, in- trigues which all had their source in New England, and he looked on Adams as in some measure identified with them. Ad- ams, on the other hand, had been absent on diplomatic service while Hamilton had been achieving his great position, and he might be forgiven if he, one of those who had drafted the Declaration of Indepen- dence, felt sore at being ousted from his place among his party by a youth of thirty, whom he had left serving as Washingtons aide-de-camp. During Adamss vice-pres- idency these sources of discord remained in abeyance; but when he attained to the first office they speedily made themselves felt. There was unquestionably, on the part of more than one member of the cab- met, a disposition to treat Adams as a mere LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MADISON. nominal head, and Hamilton as their ac- tual leader. A party with a real and a pro- fessed leader is in a perilous state, and when both are men of eager and unyield- ing ambition the case is well nigh hopeless. By the end of Adamss term of office the Federal party was in a state of anarchy. How complete that anarchy was, is shown by Hamiltons inability to restrain a section of his party from the discreditable intrigue whereby they supported that profligate and unprincipled adventurer, Aaron Burr, for the presidency. It is a melancholy reflec- t.ion, that by thus first impelling Hamilton to take up an attitude of direct hostility to Burr, they brought about that tragedy which robbed their party of its foremost man. The term of Adamss presidency saw Madison completely detached from his old allies and enlisted under the banner of Jefferson. Though Federal writers of a later day have treated his change of posi- tion as an act of political perfidy, yet his own contemporaries do not seem to have so regarded it. They appreciated, better than we can, the change which had come over the attitude of the Federal party. Indeed, Madison might with fairness have said that the party had moved away from him, rather than he from it. Questions arising out of the interpretation of the Constitution obviously formed new ground, and, whatever we may think of the Fed- eral policy during the administrations of Washington and Adams, we cannot fairly blame Madison for refusing to be among the followers of Hamilton. The result of Jeffersons election left Democracy triumphant, and the Federal party a wreck. Two years later, and that great man , great even by the admission of those who saw his faults most clearly, the one leader whose transcendent abilities might yet have rallied the Federal party and stemmed the advancing tide of mob tyranny, had perished by a tragic death. Hamilton had fallen, the victim of political passion too base and profligate to deserve the name of ambition, and the hopes of Federalism lay buried in his grave. With his death the possibility of renewed conflict was at an end, and the history of political parties may be said for a while to cease. Here we may fitly part from Madison. Measured by the standard of political ambition, the triumph of the Democrats was the turning-point of his success. If time would suffer, we should see him in a few years wisely ruling over his country, at the very epoch which definitely gave her a place among the great powers of the world. Still later, we should see him released from all claims of political ambi- tion, yet turning his view with undimin- ished clearness to the approaching troubles of his country. There was a curious com- pleteness in the political career of one who served in the Revolutionary Con~ress, and who lived into the days when the Union was imperilled by the independent action of South Carolina. And there could not he more significant testimony to the wisdom of one who took a part in writing The Federalist, and in framing the American Constitution, than the ap- pearance of those dangers which clouded Madisons departing days. We may seem to have touched lightly on Madisons per- sonal character. In doing so, we have but followed the example of Mr. Rives, an example which we could wish to see more widely followed by American biographers. In the case of Madison, there is no great temptation either to extrava~ant hero-wor- ship or details of petty gossip. His private life was uneventful. He was never mar- ried, and though he seems to have been one of the most dutiful and affectionate of sons, yet his family relations show little of that play of character on which a biogra- pher would be glad to dwell. Indeed, throughout our study of Madison, we can- not avoid a feeling that the man is less than his work. In this respect he some- what resembles his two great contempo- raries, Washington and Franklin. The three men differed widely, but one feature was common to them all. Their great- ness did not rest so much on the extent or nature of their abilities as on the man- ner in which those abilities were employed. In this, as in so many other points, the statesmen of the American Revolution remind us of their great prototypes, the English, statesmen of the seventeenth century, the Parliamentary Opl)Onents of the Stuarts. Madison and Franklin, like Pym and Hampden, beyond doubt pos- sessed great powers of action, but it was not that which raised them so high above the common run of men. Their true greatness lay in their insight into public opinion, their calm self-restraint, above all, in that public spirit and temperate love of freedom which formed part of their heritage as Englishmen. 8o THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. From All The Year Round. THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. A STORY. I NEVER had any thought of danger dur- ing the whole twenty years I made the Journey; nothing ever happened to me; and then to think the very first time this youngster goes, he but I must begin at the beginning. The way of our bank at Charrendon was just this. We had several branches at distant places small towns, you under- stand, where there was not enough busi- ness done to pay for keeping a clerk constantly on the spot, so we only had an office, and only opened it on market-days, once a week. One of us used to go over in the morn- ing and return at night. The railway helped us to three of these journeys, but the fourth, to Meresdene, had to be made by gig. The place lay fifteen miles off, in the very bosom of the downs, and the road ran all in amongst them, and sometimes over their topmost shoulders. It was for the most part lonely, and in winter some- times very rough and bleak. I had to do the days business at Meresdene, but, be- yond bitter winds, snow, and rain, nothing ever befell me, as I have said, for twenty years. In the summer it was a pleasant drive ; in winter, of course, in bad weather, it was an unpleasant one that was all the impression it ever made upon me. Young Chase, however, never seemed to fancy it; from the first, when it was talked about for him to do, he did not like the idea. He told me so, and I laughed at him. I said, Oh! you wont mind it; after a bit youll think nothing of it, no more than I do. You understand, he was not used to the country; he had been born and bred in London, and they drafted him from our chief office there, down here, for the sake of his health. He had been ailing a long while; the doctors said he ought to live out of town; and, being a trusty ser- vant, and liked by our manager, an ex- change was arranged. He had been at Charrendon about six months, and did not seem much the better for the change. He was tall and muscu- lar, but a thin, pale-faced, large-eyed fel- low, always fond of reading Shakespeare and the like, and had a dreamy, absent kind of way xvith him at times ; and was particularly fond, in his leisure, of wander- ing over our downs with his book. He often used to talk to me about them, say- ing how beautiful they were, and that no sort of country that he had ever been in had impressed him so much. I am afraid I did not greatly sympathize with him; the downs had never been anything to me. Indeed, I dont know that I ever gave them a thought, till he used to speak about them, and yet I have lived hard by them nearly all my life. Well, as I was saying, he had been with us six months, and it was just about the beginning of November, when I was at- tacked by rheumatism. They said if I did not take care, I should be laid up, and that I must not expose myself through the coming cold weather. This led to young Chases having to do my work at Meres- dene. So I drove him over one week to show him the road, and the way the work was done, that he might be able to take my place the following week and for the rest of the ~vinter. Now it was when this was settled that he first seemed to shirk the job. He told me that he had been constantly dreaming about the downs, and, as he seemed to say, one particular part of them. Mind you, he had never seen the place, didnt know there was such a place really; but he said he had dreamt of it over and over again, and it always made him uncomfortable. It was a deep chalk-cutting, he s~rid, past which the road wound up the side of a hill from one of the bottoms or valleys. In a sort of way, he described the place to me, but, bless your heart, I never paid any heed to it; I didnt recognize it as any place I knew; and it was only when I was driving him over to Meresdene, that I found out what he meant. We were exactly half-way on our jour- ney, and had turned on to what are known as the Whiteways ; that is, several narrow chalk tracks which show up very white across the turf, and run side by side with the road for some distance, as it descends the steep hill past a great chalk-cutting. This, perhaps, is the most solitary and exposed part of the drive, and lies on one of the highest ridges of the Downs. There is no habitation for a good mile on either hand; Denes Gate turnpike, at the bot- tom of the hill, being the nearest; and when we came to the beginning of the de- scent, where we could see down into the valley theres a splendid vie~v, mind you, there he almost frightened the life out of me by suddenly jumping up from his seat and exclaiming: There! there it is! thats the place; thats the very place Ive seen a hundred times before, in my dreams! I have seen it every night, for a month past! Sure enough, the road passes the chalk- THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. 8r cutting, but I had never thought anything of that, and it had never occurred to me as being the place he meant. Well, I said, sit down; dont excite yourself like that, youll upset the gig. If it is the place, it wont bite you! And then he sank down quietly by my side, his chin dropped on his chest, one of his dreamy fits came on, and he never spoke another word till we reached Meresdene. The little town was busy with the sheep- market, and he roused up throughout the day. He was always nimble at his work, soon took in what was to be done, and was quite comfortable until we set out home- wards. Then the dreamy fit seemed to come on again. It was past five oclock, and getting dark, when we stopped at Denes Gate turnpike to light our lamps. Soon after this, we began to ascend the hill, near the top of which is the chalk-cut- ting and the Whiteways. I was on the look-out for what he would do here, ex- pecting some oddity, for he was always odd; but he remained silent, and beyond fidgeting in his seat, and looking from side to side of the road, and up at the steep cliff of chalk as far as the twilight and glitter of our lamps would show it him, he did nothing; and when we got back to Charrendon, I said Well, theres not much to he afraid of in that days work, is there? And now that you have seen the reality, perhaps youll leave off dreaming about the Whiteways. He merely smiled, and said: Oh, no, of course not; its only a stupid fancy I had. Theres no difficulty about the journey; I shall do it all right enough. Yet I thought he forced himself rather to say this, and didnt mean it. Well, nothing particular happened during the next week, only I noticed that young Chase was a little more dreamy and odd than usual. I said to him on the Tuesday (asl~ewastogoontheWednesday): You dont really mind this job, do you? or would you like to have some one with you? We might send the ostler lad, I think. Whereupon he said, very hurriedly and anxiously, I thought: Oh dear no;no, certainly not; on no account! and I an- swered, Well, I think you are right; it would look rather silly; you might get laughed at. Though I am bound to say of late years, since the railways have brought London so much closer to us, people have more than once said that they thought it rather foolhardy of me to come back at night alone in the winter, seeing there was always a good sum of money in the driving-seat, the farmers payings-in, LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 1150 and the like, during the day, you under. stand. But, bless your heart, I never had any fear, and I could not understand why anybody else should; so I was quite re- lieved when young Chase plucked up, and would not hear of having anybody with him. Well, off he went. We were very busy all day, and I thought no more about him. My time home from Meresdene had usual. ly been a little before seven, according to the roads and the weather. I live over the office, you understand, and I have done so ever since I was made chief clerk. I looked at my watch after I had had my tea, and was astonished to see it was half past seven. I was astonished, that is, because young Chase was not back; and I confess I began to get a little fidgety, when another half-hour passed, and still he had not returned. I looked out of the window and saw there was a thick fog so thick, I could not see the lamps on the other side of the market-place. This accounted for his delay in my mind; the thing had happened to me; but the roads are so white, and Jenny, the old mare, knew them so well, that beyond going slowly there was no difficulty; but still, when ten, half l)ast, and eleven came, and no sign of young Chase well! I didnt like it, and I was going to send over to the chief of the police, when the horse and gig came trotting up to the door. I looked out. The fog was all gone, and it was a bright starlight night; but you may judge my state of mind when, going down, who should be at the door but Joe Muzzle, the turnpike-man from Denes Gate, and another. Says he, very excited, and hurrying over his words: Your young man, sir, found for dead just below the Whiteways. We cant tell northin at all about it. My mis- sus and I was just going to turn in, when we heerd somethin clanking agin the gate like: I goes out, and there bees a horse and gig, and neer a driver, and on exam- ination I find it bees your gig, reins cut or broke, and dragglin on the road; there bees a bit of a fog about, and I sings out, but no one answers, so I routs my young- ster out o bed, and sends him off to Grays Farm, the nearest house, for help, for I knowd there must ha been an acci- dent, for I let the young gentleman through the gate at the reglar time, soon after five this afternoon, on his way home, and he gives me a sort of sleepy nod like, without speakin~ and Now where bees un? I says to my missus, for it was just nine then, and chaise and he ought to 82 THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. have been at Charrendon long ago. This of inspectors and detectives down; our man, Farmer Grays foreman, comes back bank offered a reward, and so did the with my boy in about half an hour, and government, for the apprehension of the with a couple of lanterns we goes slowly thief. on to the Whiteways, leading the horse Young Chase lay at the little turnpike and gig with us, specting to find the young for over a fortnight, qiiPte insensible, like gentleman pitched out, or somethin like a log. He had received a concussion of that. And, sure enough, just when we the brain, the doctors said; but beyond gets under that there old chalk-cutting, this, there was no injury apparent. They this man here comes upon his body just couldnt quite make it out; no more could above the edge of the slope, for the fog anybody, for the matter of that; and even had lifted then, and we could see plainly, when he had shown signs of life and He seemed quite dead, and we thought opened his eyes, he was for a month or the best thing we could do was to take un two unable to speak coherently, or under- back to the pike, which we done, in the stand what ~vas said to him. All this gig, as quick as possible. Then I sends while, you can guess that enquiries and my boy to Meresdene, for the doctor, and examinations were going on in all direc- hes with un now, and then he sends me tions, but there was no clue to the robbery, on here to tell you. Ive spliced the reins for robbery there had been, no doubt, or up a bit, and we got through, and werry where was the money? One of the pis- sad it all bees, baint it? and now what tols was discovered to be loaded, whilst bees best to be done? the other, though the hammer was down, This was a puzzling question, truly, but did not appear to have been fired; both I went and woke up the police, and two pan and barrel were quite empty and or three of our clerks, and then we had clean ; clearly he had not been shot at. some more talk with Joe Muzzle. Joe is Then to whom did the pistols belong? quite a character in his way, and if you He was never known to l)ossess any, and give him a start, hell run on, clacking like they bore no makers name; at least there a clock. I did give him a start, and then were signs that it had been erased. The he said: Searching about the place where keenest wits of Scotland Yard were baf- we found the poor young genlman, as well fled; we could make nothing of it; not a as we could with the lanterns, we finds person was apprehended, evcn on sus- the cushions pitched out and the whip picion. broke in two fraid I left that at the I must now tell you, however, as ill-luck pike; but here bees some proper mar-drous would have it, the news of the poor young weepons, and he produced from his capa- fellows mischance was such a severe cious pockets a pair of small flint-lock shock to his aged mother the only rela- pistols; there warnt nothing else to tive he had, that we knew of that she show what had happd but the off gig-s tel) died two days after she heard it. Hence seems to have got a t~vist-like, and the off I was deputed privately by our directors lamp be stove in that, I reckon, was to look over young Chases room and ef- comm agin the pike with neer a driver. fects. This led to our getting a sort of Here we adjourned to the stable, to ex- clue at least, it made a link in the chain, amine the gig, and youll understand that though perhaps on the whole it rather all this time my mind was running on the added to the mystery, as you will say, cash. Was that safe, I wondered? when you have read this paper. I found To my dismay there was not a sign of it it in an envelope inscribed with these in the driving-seat. This led to more words : To be given to my mother, if I questioning of Muzzle, but he swore there do not return this night from Meresdene. was nothing else found on the road, except -~ November 15, 1846. what he had produced. It seemed as if he were about right, for,to cut this part of And this is what the paper contained: my story short, we could not come on any Years have passed since the first faint trace of it, though we knew pretty well to shadow of the dream fell across my life. I a penny how much young Chase had, and have put it aside again and again, as an what shape it was in. Afterwards a sort idle and vain imagining, but it has always of suspicion did fall on Muzzle, and the returned; sooner or later, the vision has man who helped him; their belongings always revisited my pillow. Still, how were all overhauled, but with no result. I could I, a sensible man with my faculties need not tell you that this affair made a about me, conceive that it should mean great commotion for miles round. It got anything more than one of those curious into the London papers. We had a host freaks of our uncontrolled sleeping THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. thoughts common to all? How could I imagine that it pointed to a reality? yet, when six months ago, I found that circum- stances beyond my control had brought me into the sort of country that made the background of this dream, I marked the strangeness of the coincidence. When, too, I found with this that the dream was far more frequent in recurrence, and more vivid and circumstantial in detail, I was not the less impressed. And when at last I saw that events were conspiring to ne- cessitate my making a night journey across the downs alone, the shadow of the dream opl)ressed me with a vague dread. I used to think of Hamlets words 0 God ! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams! I was abso- lutely sure, when starting on that prelim- inary drive last ~veek, that I should see the spot. I knew it as a foregone conclusion, so that when we turned the brow of that last big down, and came upon what they call the Whiteways, and the hill road run- ning past the chalk-cutting lay before me, I instantly recognized the place which had for all these years been the one prevailing picture of my dream. There it was! There was the scene as it first faintly presented itself to my sleeping eyes years ago; as it had ever since continued to come before them at intervals with increasing vividness. The effect on the landscape of a winters twi- light, deepening into night, began to sug- gest itself after a while. In addition to this, I could at times discern, but only in that vague manner belon~ log to dreams, a horse and gig toiling slowly up the hill. This incident also gradually increased in reality, and by the time I had been here at Charrendon a month I could often see that it was myself who was driving. Al- most every night I dreamt that I saw my- self doing this. I was alone in the gig, the lamps were lighted, and gave to the white horse, and the chalk-cutting under which I was forever passing, a spectral aspect. I never seemed to get beyond this spot, until there first arose a talk in the office about the possibility of my hav- ing to do our chief clerks (Mr. Shepfolds) ~vork at Meresdene. After this, there was a change and confusion in the vision. A frosty fog hung about; the big-lamps glim- mered through it fitfully, giving an unu- sual phantom-like look to all 1 beheld. I saw myself for an instant driving as usual, but the next the horse and gig had van- ished, and I was bending over the form of a man prostrate on the road. In one of 83 his hands he held the leather padlocked bag which contained the bank money. A crape mask hid his face, but there was an ominous streak of red upon the white road beside him, and my hands were tinted ~vith the same color, Intense horror possessed me, for I felt that I had kjlled him Aghast at the deed, I strove to drag his body to the side of the Whiteways, oppo- site the chalk-cutting, where the down slopes abruptly to a hollow some hundreds of feet below. In my attempts to do this I always awoke. Then, every night for three or four weeks, was I haunted and made miserable by this accursed dream, and when I knew that it was finally settled that I should have to make the journey alone, and discovered that there existed a spot on the road, actually resembling in all its details that which I was only too famil- iar with, I could no longer mistake the meaning of my dream. It could be noth -ing but a portenta warning of what might happen to me. I should be there; I should pass the place on my journey home, in darkness and alone conditions favorable to the attack which I could not but suppose now.would be made upon me, for the sake of the money which my busi- ness would oblige me to carry. I should defend it, and I should kill my assailant Yet why was the veil, which it is the pnvl- lege of man to find ever hanging be fore his future, lifted for me? What have I done, that the one shield which guards the happiness of human beings, that ignorance of what the next day or the next hour may have in store for them, should be dashed from my too far-seeing eyes? Why has my life been gradually and irresistibly em- bittered by a sight of what might justifia- bly, though unintentionally, be forced upon me? That a man, in the contemplation of some hideous crime, should be warned from it in a dream that showed him to what it would lead, seems feasible; and we have heard that such things have been, and that men have been turned from their evil purpose thereby. But that I, knowing of no malicious intention; having, as God is my judge, none in my heart ; should have thus been persecuted by some fiend- ish, uncontrollable phantom of the brain, which, by its persistent ni0htly presence should have shed its horrid shadow on my daily life, was unaccountable. Yet there was more behind; more mys- tery to aggravate the terror. Coming home after that visit to Meresdene with Mr. Shepfold, I threw myself on my bed, with a dread of sleep that I cannot express. 84 THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. Perfectly certain now that I should go on companion on that journey might give me. dreaming till the end was reached, I de- No; I now knew I must go alone to meet termined I would not sleep. I lay there, whatever might befall, or to dispel at once devising some plan by which I could and forever the shadow of the dream. If avert this impending catastrophe. It was I was really so to meet him in the flesh, if my duty to do so, both to myself and my he really be in England, no one must know employers; for the sum of money I should it but myself. Then the dream may, after have with me would be very large. I would all, hecome the beneficent means of saving detail to them exactly what I have said him, and preserving me from the commit- above; I would urge them to see it as tal of a deed that would weigh upon me to I saw itthat it was an unmistakable the end of time. warning which we had no right to disre- Thus concluding on the morning after gard. They might think me a fool, a my expedition with Mr. Shepfold, I had lunatic, a coward what they pleased; but to wait for this the momentous day. but I would not take that journey alone, It has come, and in a few hours I shall be and I hoped they would not wish it. Yes, on my road. For the last seven succes- I would state my case the follo~ving morn- sive nights, the vision, with all its latest ing. An infinite sense of relief came over circumstances, has been present whenever, me when I had made this decision, a calm through sheer fatigue, I have given way to which I had been a stranger for months to sleep; whilst by day, its shadow has a calm, indeed, that, despite my resolu- darkened on me hourly, to the exclusion tion, soothed me to sleep. of all but that scene on the Whiteways. Instantly I dreamt. Of course I was I start, at least prepared. upon the downs, under the usual circum- stances; the frosty fog, the gig with glim- Very dim was the light, however, that mering lights, the chalk-cutting, the hill this statement let in upon the catastrophe. road beneath it, the Whiteways, as I now To be brief, it led to nothing practical; knew the spot to be called; then the pros- nothing could be done until young Chase trate form upon the road, the red stain upon had recovered sufficiently to be able to the chalk, my figure ~vith the bloody hands, give a personal account of the affair. bending over it; details which I had al- Months passed before this was possible ways been able to discern plainly in my his health returned very slowly. The doe- dreams, notwithstanding the want of light; tors forbade any questioning or excite- and the effort I myself am making to drag ment, and I really didnt know the details the body across the road, to hurl it down of anything that had transpired until he the steep slope! was pronounced fit to appear before our But ah! what new and strange revela- board of directors. tion is this? what new and terrible solu- Then I was present, with the rest of tion to this mysterious dreaming is about the people concerned. It was like a pri- to be made to me? The crape mask, that vate court of justice, and young Chase was has always hitherto hidden from me the arraigned, as it were, like a criminal. \Vhen man~s face, is gone! and I behold in my he came into the room his altered appear- assailant and robber the unmistakable fea- ance was startling. I had only seen him tures of but I dare not write his twice since his setting out on the fatal name, lest this fall into other hands than jdurney: once, when he was lying quite yours, mother but you will understand insensible at the turnpike; and once, when who it was I thus saw in my dream, when he was only a little better, at the county I say it was he who is the unhappy cause hospital. He now looked twenty years of our great grief and sorrow, and whom older; his thin, pale face was deeply fur- we suppose now to be far away. I was rowed, his long dark hair thickly tinged awake again the instant after this, in a with grey, and the dreamy expression in frame of mind exceeding in its agony any- his large eyes had changed to one of wild- thing I had ever felt. If I might accept ness, whilst his black clothes added to his all that had gone before as a portent, why weird, ghost-like appearance. He pulled~ should I doubt the catastrophe was to be himself together, however, by a great brought about by this unhappy man? it effort, and, in answer to the questions the would not be more marvellous than any chairman put, this is about what he said, other part of my never-failing dream. as near as I can remember. Should there be any truth in it and it was The statement which you, gentlemen, my destiny to be attacked and robbed by found addressed to my poor mother, him, then there was sufficient reason for and which you have just read to me, is my not claiming the protection which a strictly true to the letter. It is fuller than THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. any account I can give now of my feelings seeing that my words were intended for no and state of mind prior to the 15th of eyes but my mothers. November. I have very little to add, but The whole business, went on the I will tell you what I can. chairman, is so visionary and unsatisfac- As I approached the Whiteways, on tory, that you are bound to explain to whom my return-homeward journey, all the con- you refer; your position with us de- ditions of my dream were realized. I ap- mands it. You have been a tried and peared to have been within them so often trustworthy servant, but ypu will forfeit before, that I might have been dreaming all the past if you do not aid us in our then. Everything was so familiar. There efforts to discover the perpetrator of this was no difference between my sensations robbery. An indication of who this mys- asleep or awake. I had no sense of being, terious person is may give us a clue. I of actual existence, in one state more than conjure you to tell us everything, Mr. in the other. I felt I was gliding to my Chase. destiny, gliding without movement, with- Again he resisted; again he was urged out bodily effort, precisely as one does in to speak; he continued silent, growing sleep. I can give no better account of paler every moment. There was a ner- what happened. The fog wrapped me vous clutching of the hands and twitching round. There was an interval, an impres- of the mouth; he staggered as if he were sion that I was struggling, I appeared to going to faint; he sank upona chair, and fall; and then I awoke in the hospital, his head drooped; it was a very painful two months back. I can tell you no scene now, for he was much respected. more. Once again, the chairman insisted, com- But did you see no one? Did no one manding him to say to whom he alluded. stop you? At length he arose, looking more like a No one, that I am aware of; but I ghost than anybody I ever saw, and, gax- could not swear it, was the answer. ing vacantly round the room ~vith a return But the pistols; were they yours? of his old, dreamy air, said in a faint and Yes; mechanically I had provided hollow voice, and without seeming to ad- myself with them; but with no thought of dress any one in particular: It matters using them. If I remember rightly, I took little now. The shadow falls upon me them from my pocket, and placed them for the last time; it can never lift again. between my feet when I left Denes Gate. He casts it upon me; he has blighted my I wished no one to know that I was life; he hastens my death. armed. Who? Whom do you mean? cried And, on your word and honor, Mr. the chairman. For one minute Chase Chase, you do not remember being at- seemed brought back to a waking state. tacked? He looked straight at the chairman as On my oath, I remember no more than he replied : My brother, sir; my twin I have told you. brother. I will conceal nothing from you And the money; where was that? now. When only sixteen years of age he In the driving-seat under me, in the was transported for forgery. We con- padlocked leather bag which Mr. Shepfold trived to hide the business from our always used. friends; had we not done so, I should You know nothing more of it than th~it never have obtained the post of trust I it was there when you started? have held in your bank. Had the fact of Nothing; onmy oath. his existence even reached your ears while Then, after a long pause, during which I yet held it, you would have taken it many signs of dissatisfaction spread from me, and I and my mother would through all listeners, the chairman contin- have been irretrievably disgraced. This ued, as he referred to Chases statement, is why I did not write his name in that It is now my duty to ask you to whom, statement. But his name was Edward, in this extraordinary story you have given and you will find the record in The of your dream, you refer as your visionary speaker suddenly stopped, put his hand to assailant. It is most essential vital to his forehead, once more staggered back your interests that you keep nothing into the chair, and thence fell heavily to back from us, whether asleep or awake. the floor. Here Chase was visibly moved. He The doctor, who had watched his case shrank, as it were, within himself; he throughout, was by his side instantly, and, dropped his eyes, cowering. Presently he after the very slightest examination, pro- said, recovering slightly, nounced him dead. I had hoped to have been spared this, There is no occasion to dwell upon what 86 JOHNSON S LIVES. spring, the little mere, which lies between Grays Farm and the town of Meresdene, was drained, and, amongst the white chalky mud, what did the workmen come upon but an old brown leather bag, with a pad~ lock! My old leather bag, with all the money that poor John Chase had with him when he left.the bank that niThtevery penny of it intact, except for the rotting which the notes and cheques had got from the wet. Well, for a day or two this was the greatest wonder of all. However could it have got there? The neighborhood all round was talking about it, and, as a mat- ter of course, it comes to the ears of a certain man, lying sick, well-nigh to death, of a fever at Grays Farm. When he hears of this find he turns very uncomfort- able, sends for the parson, and says he, I cant die with it on my soulI flung that bag into the mere, I did. How did you come by it? Why, when Joe Muzzle and I came upon the body of that poor young Chase, lying upon the Whiteways, and were grop- ing about with the lanterns, and picking up the whip, and the cushions, and the pistols, and all the rest of it, I kicked against the bag. Joe never saw me. I guessed what it contained. I slipped it into my pocket, and said nothing about it. When I got home I found I couldnt open it, and I hid it for two or three days under my bed. Then, when it got wind that the police were likely to search Joes crib and mine, why, I brew frightened lest it should be found on me. I slipped out in the mid- dle of the night, and flung it into the mere. With this confession on his lips, the man died; and the man was Farmer Grays foreman! immediately followed. His dying state- ment was found to be correct, and an Ed- ward Chasetwin brother to John proved to have been transported two years before the latter obtained his bank appoint- ment. Our directors made it their business, through the Home Office, to. get every in- formation concerning this man, and the whole of this strange business is made the stranger by what they thus discovered. It turned out, after the most careful scrutiny and comparison of dates, that the convict, Edward Chase, had not only never left the Australian penal colony to which he had been consigned, and therefore could never have had a hand in the robbery on the Whiteways, but that, after committing a series of crimes as a bushranger, he was convicted of having robbed and killed a man on a lonely highway, on the 15th of November, 46; that he escaped, and being recaptured at the end of some months, was actually ~xecuted on the very day that poor John fell down dead in our board-room! These are the facts, and, I suppose, jus- tify the name which, in this neighborhood, is given to the story. It has been a terri- ble shadow indeed. It rested on the whole of us for a long time, I can tell you ; but, for my part, I think it all came from poor Johns encouraging his dreamy fancies for wandering about the downs and lonely places, and reading poetry, Shakespeare, and the like. I dont hold with that sort of thing; it partly turned his head, poor fellow, Im sure at least, you will under- stand thats the way in which I account for it all, for youll never convince me that there was anything more than coincidence in it. The poor fellows queer, odd nature was so worked upon, that he probably had a fit when he got to the Whiteways, and fell out of the gig. The doctor told me privately that was his opinion; and it was a fit that killed him in the end. I am not going to believe, as some folks do here- abouts, that there was any spiritual influ- From Macmillans Magazine. ence at work in his dreaming. Why, I JOHNSONS LIVES. know a man who wants to make out that it Dci mi/il, Domi;ie, scire qitod scieuidiun was the villanous life the brother in Aus est Grant that the knowledge I get may tralia was leading, and his contemplation of be the knowledge which is worth having! the murder which he committed on the the spirit of that prayer ought to rule i~th of November, that affected the mind our education. How little it does rule it, of John Chase, here in England through every discerning man will acknowledge. their twinship, you understand. Bah ! Im Life is short, and our faculties of attention not going to believe that kind of stuff and of recollection are limited; in educa- no, lm too matter-of-fact for that, I hope. tion we proceed as if our life were endless, You shake you heads; but the end proves and our powers of attention and recollec- Im right, I think. tion inexbaustible. We have not time Eight years and a half passed, and the or strength tc deal with half cf the mat- matter was aimost forgotten, when, one I ters which are thrown upon our minds, JOHNSONS LIVES. and they prove a useless load to us. When some one talked to Themistocles of an art of memory, he answered: Teach me rather to forget! The sarcasm well criticises the fatal want of proportion be- tween what we put into our minds and their real needs and powers. From the time when first I was led to think about education, this want of propor- tion is what has most struck me. It is the great obstacle to progress, yet it is by no means remarked and contended against as it should be. It hardly begins to pre- sent itself until we pass heyond the strict elements of education beyond the acqui- sition, I mean, of reading, of writing, and of calculating so far as the operations of common life require. But the moment we pass beyond these, it he~ins to appear. Languages, gram mar, literature, hi story, geography, mathematics, the knowledge of nature what of these is to be taught, how much, and how? There is no clear, well grounded consent. The same with religion. Religion is surely to be taught, but what of it is to be taught, and how? A clear, well-grounded consent is again wanting. And taught in such fashion as things are now, how often must a candid and sensible man, if he could be offered an art of memory to secure all that he has learned of them, as to a very great deal of it be inclined to say with Themistocles: Teach me rather to forget! In England the common notion seems to be that education is advanced in two ways principally: by forever adding fresh matters of instruction, and by preventing uniformity. I should be inclined to pre- scribe just the opposite course; to pre- scribe a severe limitation of the number of matters taught, a severe uniformity in the line of study followed. Wide rangin ~, and the multiplication of matters to be in- vestigated, belong to private study, to the development of special aptitudes in the individual learner, and to the demands which they raise in him. But separate from all this should be kept the broad, plain lines of study for almost universal use. I say almost universal, because they must of necessity vary a little with the varying conditions of men. Whatever the pupil finds set out for him upon these lines, he should learn; therefore it ought not to be. too much in quantity. The essential thing is that it should be well chosen. If once we can get it ~vell chosen, the more uniformly it can be kept to, the better. The teacher will be more at home; and besides, when we have got what is good and suitable, there is small hope of gain, and great certainty of risk, in departing from it. No such lines are laid out, and perhaps no one could be trusted to lay them out authoritatively. But to amuse oneself with laying them out in fancy is a good exercise for ones thoughts. One may lay them out for this or that description of pupil, in this or that branch of study. The wider the interest of the branch of study taken, and the more extensive the class of pupils concerned, the better for our purpose. Suppose we take the de- partment of letters. It is interesting to lay out in ones mind the ideal line of study to be followed by all who haVe to learn Latin and Greek. But it is still more interesting to lay out the ideal line of study to be followed by all who are con- cerned with that body of literature which exists in English, because this class is so much more numerous amongst us. The thing would be, one imagines, to begin with a very brief introductory sketch of our subject; then to fix a certain series of works to serve as what the French, taking an expression from the builders business, call ~oz;zts de re~t~re points which stand as so many natural centres, and by return- ing to which we can always find our way again, if we are embarrassed; finally, to mark out a number of illustrative and rep- resentative works, connecting themselves with each of these tom/s de re~ere. In the introductory sketch we are amongst generalities, in the group of illustrative works we are amongst details ;generali ties and details have, both of them, their perils for the learner. It is evident that, for purposes of education, the most im- portant parts by far in our scheme are what we call the ~olzts de re~?re. To get these rightly chosen and thoroughly known is the great matter. For my part, in think- ing of this or that line of study which hu- man minds follow, I feel always prompted to seek, first and foremost, the leading ~oints de rt~~?re in it. In editing for the use of the young the group of chapters which are now com- monly distinguished as those of the Baby- lonian Isaiah, I drew attention to their remarkable fitness for serving as a point of this kind to the student of universal history. But a work which by many is regarded as simply and solely a document of relio-ion there is difficulty, perhaps, in employing for historical and literary pur- poses. With works of a secular charac- ter one is on safer ground. And f~m years past, whenever I have had occasion to use Johnsons Lives of the Poets, the 88 JOHNSONS LIVES. thought has struck me how admirable a greatest power in English letters during y5oint de rep?re, or fixed centre of the sort the eighteenth century. And in these described above, these lives might be characteristic lives, not finished until 1781, made to furnish for the student of English and which I wrote, as he himself tells literature. If we could but take, I have us, in my usual way, dilatorily and hasti- said to myself, the most important of the ly, unwilling to work and working with lives in Johnsons volumes, and leave out vigor and haste, we have Johnson mel- all the rest, what a text-book we should lowed by years, Johnson in his ripeness have! The volumes at present are a work and plenitude, treating the subject which to stand in a library, a work which no he loved best and knew best. Much of it gentlemans library should be ~vithout. he could treat with the knowledge and But we want to get from them a text-book, sure tact of a contemporary; even from to be in the hands of every one who de- Milton and Dryden he ~vas scarcely fur- sires even so much as a general acquaint- ther separated than our generation is from ance with English literature; and so Burns and Scott. Having all these recoin- much acquaintance as this who does not mendations, his Lives of the Poets do desire? The work as Johnson published indeed truly stand for what Boswell calls it is not fitted to serve as such a text-book; them, the work which of all Dr. John- it is too extensive, and contains the lives sons writings will perhaps be read most of many poets quite insignificant. John- generally and with most pleasure. And son supplied lives of all whom the book- in the lives of the six chief personages of sellers proposed to include in their collec- the work, the lives of Milton, Dryden, tion of British Poets; he did not Swift, Addison, Pope, and Gray, we have choose the poets himself, although he its very kernel and quintessence; we have added two or three to those chosen by the the work relieved of whatever is less sig- booksellers. Whatever Johnson did in nificant, retaining nothing which is not the department of literary biography highly significant, brought within easy and and criticism possesses interest and de- convenient compass, and admirably fitted serves our attention. But in his Lives to serve as a taint de re5?re, a fixed and of the Poets there are six of pre-eminent thoroughly known centre of departure and interest; the lives of six men who, while return, to the student of English litera- the rest in the collection are of inferior ture. rank, stand out as names of the first class I know of no such first-rate piece of lit- in English literature Milton, Dryden, erature, for supplying in this way the Swift, Addison, Pope, Gray. These six wants of the literary student, existing at writers differ among themselves, of course, a14 in any other language; or existing in in power and importance, and every one our own language, for any period except can see, that, if we were following certain the period which Johnsons six lives cover. modes of literary classification, Milton A student cannot read them without gain- would have to be placed on a solitary ing from them, consciously or uncon- eminence far above any of them. But if, sciously, an insight into the history of without seeking a close view of individual English literature and life. He would find differences, we form a large and liberal great benefit, let me add, from reading in first class among English writers, all these connection with each biography something six personages Milton, Dryden, Swift, of the author with whom it deals; the first Addison, Pope, Gray must, I think, be two books, say, of Paradise Lost, in placed in it. Their lives cover a space of connection with the life of Milton; Absa- more than a century and a half, from i6o8, loin and Achitophel, and the Dedication the year of Miltons birth, down to 1771, of the ~Eneis, in connection with the life the date of the death of Gray. Through of Dryden; in connection with Swifts this space of more than a century and a life, The Battle of the Books; with half the six lives conduct us. We follow Addisons, the Coverley Papers; with the course of what XVarburton well calls Popes the imitations of the Satires and the most agreeable subject in the world, Epistles of Horace. The Elegy in a which is literary history, and follow it in Country Churchyard everybody knows, the lives of men of letters of the first and will have it present to his mind when class. And the writer of their lives is he reads the life of Gray. But of the himself, too, a m~an of letters of the first other works which I have mentioned how class. Malone calls Johnson the bright- little can this be said; to how many of us est ornament of the eighteenth century. are Pope and Addison and Drydenand He is justly to be called, at any rate, a Swift, and even Milton himself, mere man of letters of the first class, and the names, about whose date and history and JOHNSON S LIVES. 89 supposed characteristics of style we may have learnt by rote something from a hand- book, but of the real men and of the power of their works we know nothing I From Johnsons biographies the student will get a sense of what the real men were, and with this sense fresh in his mind he will find the occasion propitious for acquiring also, in the way pointed out, a sense of the power of their works. This will seem to most people a very unambitious discipline. But the fault of most of the disciplines proposed in educa- tion is that they are by far too ambitious. Our improvers of education are almost always for proceeding by way of augmen- tation and complication; reduction and simplification, I say, is what is rather re- quired. XVe give the learner too much to do, and we are over-zealous to tell him what he ought to think. Johnson himself has admirably marked the real line of our education through letters. He says in his life of Pope: Judgment is forced upon us by experience. He that reads many books must compare one opinion or one style with another; and when he com- pares, must necessarily distinguish, reject, and prefer. The aim and end of educa- tion through letters is to get this experi- ence. Our being told by another what its result will properly be found to be, is not, even if we are told aright, at all the same thino as getting the experience for ourselves. The discipline, therefore, which puts us in the way of getting it, cannot be called an inconsiderable or ineffica- cious one. We should take care not to imperil its acquisition by refusing to trust to it in its simplicity, by being eager to add, set right, and annotate. It is much to secure the reading, by young English people, of the lives of the six chief poets of our nation between the years 1650 and 1750, related by our foremost man of let- ters in the eighteenth century. It is much to secure their reading, under the stimu- lus of Johnsons interesting recital and for- cible judgments, famous specimens of the authors whose lives are before them. Do not let us insist on also reviewing in de- tail and supplementing Johnsons work for them, on telling them what they ought really and definitively to think about the six authors and about the exact place of each in English literature. Perhaps our pupils are not ripe for it; perhaps, too, we have not Johnsons interest and Johnsons force; we are not the power in letters for our century which he was for his. We may be pedantic, obscure, dull, everything that bores, rather than everything that attracts; and so Johnson and his Byes will repel, and will not be received, because we insist on being received along with them. Again, as we bar a learners ap- proach to Homer and Virgil by our chevaux de frise of elaborate grammar, so we are apt to stop his way to a piece of English literature by imbedding it in a mass of notes and additional matter. Mr. Crokers edition of Boswells Life of Johnson is a good example of the labor and ingenuity which may be spent upon a masterpiece, with the result, after all, really of rather encumberino~ than illus- trating it. All knowledge may be in itself good, but this kind of editing seems to proceed upon the notion that we have only one book to read in the course of our life, or else that we have eternity to read in. What can it matter to our generation whether it was Molly Aston or Miss Boothby whose preference for Lord Lyt- telton made Johnson jealous, and pro- duced in his Life of Lyttelton a cer- tain tone of disparagement? With the young reader, at all events, our great en- deavor should be to bring him face to face with masterpieces, and to hold him there, not distracting or rebutting him with needless excursions or trifling details. I should like, therefore, to reprint Johnsons six chief lives, simply as they are given in the edition in four volumes octavo, the edition which passes for be- ing the first to have a correct and coin- plete text, and to leave the lives, in that natural form, to have their effect upon the reader. I should like to think that a number of young people might thus be brought to know an important period of our literary and intellectual history, by means of the lives of six of its leading and representative authors, told by a great man. I should like to think that they would go on, under the stimulus of the lives, to acquaint themselves with some leading and representative ~vork of each author. In the six lives they would at least have secured, I think, a most valua- ble ~oin/ de rep?re in the history of our English life and literature, a point from which afterwards to find their way ; whether they might desire to ascend upwards to our anterior literature, or to come downwards to the literature of yesterday and of the present. The six lives cover a period of literary and intellectual movement in which we are all profoundly interested. It is the pas- sage of our nation to prose and reason: the passage to a type of thought and ex- pression, modern, European, and which on 90 JOHNSON S LIVES. the whole is ours at the present day, from a type antiquated, peculiar, and which is ours no longer. The period begins with a prose like this of Milton: They who to states and governors of the commonwealth direct their speech, high court of Parlia- ment! or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, if at the beginning of no mean en- deavor, not a little altered and moved in- wardly in their minds. It ends with a prose like this of Smollett: My spirit began to accommodate itself to my beg- garly fate, and I became so mean as togo down towards Wapping, with an intention to inquire for an old schoolfellow, who, I understood, had got the command of a small coasting vessel then in the river, and implore his assistance. These are ex- treme instances; but they give us no un- faithful notion of the change in our prose between the reigns of Charles I. and of George III. Johnson has recorded his own impression of the extent of the change and of its salutariness. Boswell gave him a book to read, written in 1702 by the En- glish chaplain of a regiment stationed in Scotland. It is sad stuff, sir, said Johnson, after reading it; miserably writ- ten, as books in general then were. There is now an elegance of style universally dif- fused. No man now writes so ill as Mar- tins Account of the Hebrides is writ- ten. A man could not write so ill if lie should try. Set a merchants clerk now to write, and hell do better. It seems as if a simple and natural prose were a thing which we might expect to come easy to communities of men, and to come early to them; but we know from experience that it is not so. Poetry and the poetic form of expression naturally precede prose. We see this in ancient Greece. We see prose formino- itself there gradually and with labor; b we see it passing through more than one stage be- fore it attains to thorough propriety and lucidity, long after forms of consummate adequacy have already been reached and used in poetry. It is a peoples growth in practical life, and its native turn for devel- oping this life and for making progress in it, which awaken the desire for a good prose a prose plain, direct, intelligible, serviceable. A dead language, the Latin, for a long time furnished the nations of Europe with an instrument of the kind, superior to any which they had yet discov- ered in their own. But nations such as England and France, called to a great his- toric life, and with powerful interests and gifts either social or practical, were sure to feel the need of having a sound prose of their own, apd to bring such a prose forth. They brought it forth in the seventeenth century; France first, afterwards En- gland. The Restoration marks the real moment of birth of our modern English prose. Men of lucid and direct mental habit there were, such as Chillingworth, in whom before the Restoration the desire and the commencements of a modern prose show themselves. There were men like Barrow, weighty and powerful, whose mental habit the old prose suited, who continued its forms and locutions after the Restoration. But the hour was come for the new prose, and it grew and prevailed. In Johnsons time its victory had long been assured, and the old style seemed barba- rous. The prose writers of the eighteenth century have indeed their mannerisms and phrases which are no longer ours. John- son says of Miltons blame of the univer- sities for allowing young men designed for orders in the church toact in plays: This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile from college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which the l)leasures of the theatre afford him. Plays were therefore only criminal, when they were acted by academics. We should nowadays not say peevish here, nor illxz~riance, nor academics. Yet the style is ours by its organism, if not by its phrasing. It is by its organism an organism opposed to length and involve- ment, and enabling us to be clear, plain, and short that English style after the Restoration breaks with the style of the times preceding it, finds the true law of prose, and becomes modern; becomes, in spite of superficial differences, the style of our own day. Burnet has pointed out how we are un- der obligations in this matter to Charles II., whom Johnson described as the last king of England who was a man of parts. A king of England by no means fulfils his whole duty by being a man of parts, or by loving and encouraging art, science, and literature. Yet the artist and the student of the natural sciences will always feel a kindness towards the two Charleses for their interest in art and science; and mod- ern letters, too, have their debt to Charles II., although it may be quite true that that prince, as Burnet says, had little or no literature. The king had little or no lit- erature, but true and good sense, and had got a right notion of style; for he was in France at the time when they were much set on reforming their language. It soon appeared that he had a true taste. So this helped to raise the value of these men (Tillotson and others), when the king ap- proved of the style their discourses gen- erally ran in, which was clear, plain, and short. It is the victory of this prose style, clear, plain, and short, over what Bur- net calls the old style, long and heavy, which is the distinguishing achievement, in the history of English letters, of the century following the Restoration. From the first it proceeded rapidly and was never checked. Burnet says of the chancellor Finch, Earl of Nottingham He was long much admired for his eloquence, but it was labored and affected, and he saw it much despised before he died. A like revolution of taste brought about a general condemnation of our old prose style, im- perfectly disengaged from the style of poetry. By Johnsons time the new style, the style of prose, was altogether para- mount in its own proper domain, and in its pride of victorious strength had invaded also the domain of poetry. That invasion is now visited by us with a condemnation not less strong and gener- al than the condemnation which the eigh- teenth century passed upon the unwieldy prose of its predecessors. But let us be careful to do justice while we condemn. Athinggoodin its own place may be bad out of it. Prose requires a different style from poetry. Poetry, no doubt, is more excellent in itself than prose. In poetry man finds the highest and most beautiful expression of that which is in him. We had far better poetry than the poetry of the eighteenth century before that century arrived, we have had better since it de- parted. Like the Greeks, and unlike the French, we can point to an age of poetry anterior to our age of prose, eclipsing our age of prose in glory, and fixing the future character and conditions of our literature. We do well to place our pride in the Elizabethan age and Shakespeare, as the Greeks placed theirs in Homer. We did well to return in the present century to the poetry of that older age for illumina- tion and inspiration, and to put aside, in a great measure, the poetry and poets inter- vening between Milton and Wordsworth. Milton, in whom our great poetic age ex- pired, was the last of the immortals. Of the five poets whose lives follow his in our proposed volume, three, Dryden, Addison, and Swift, are eminent prose-writers as wcH as poets; two c~f the three. Swift and Addison, far more distinguished as prose- 9 writers than as poets. The glory of En. glish literature is in poetry, and in poetry the strength of the eighteenth century does not lie. Nevertheless, the eighteenth century accomplished for us an immense literary progress, and even its shortcomings in poetry were an instrumer~t to that prog- ress, and served it. The example of Ger- many may show us what a nation loses from having no prose style. The practical genius of our people could not but urge irresistibly to the production of a real prose style, because for the purposes of modern life the old English prose, the prose of Milton and Taylor, is cumber- some, unavailable, impossible. A style of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance, was wanted. These are the qualities of a serviceable prose style. Poetry has a dif. ferent logic, as Coleridge said, from prose; poetical style follows another law of evolu- tion than the style of prose. But there is no doubt that a style of regularity, uniform- ity, precision, balance, will acquire a yet stronger hold upon the mind of a nation, if it is adopted in poetry as well as in prose, and so comes to govern both. This is what happened in France. To the practical, modern, and social genius of the French, a true prose was indispensable. They pro- duced one of conspicuous excellence, one marked in the highest degree by the qual- ities of regularity, uniformity, precision, bal- ance. With little opposition from any deep. seated and imperious poetic instincts, they made their poetry conform to the law which was moulding their prose. French poetry became marked with the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, bal- ance. This may have been bad for French poetry, but it was good for French prose. It heightened the perfection with which those qualities, the true qualities of prose, were impressed upon it. When England, at the Restoration, desired a modern prose, and began to create it, our writers turned naturally to French literature, which had just accomplished the very process which engaged them. The kings acuteness and taste, as we have seen, helped. Indeed, to the admission of French influence of all kinds, Charles the Seconds character and that of his court were but too favor- able. But the influence of the French writers was at that moment on the whole fortunate, and seconded what was a vital and necessary effort in our literature. Our literature required a prose which con- formed to the true law of prose; and that it might acquire this the more surely, it compelled poetry, as in France, to con- JOHNSONS LIVES. 92 JOHNSON S LIVES. form itself to the law of prose likewise. The classic verse of French poetry was the Alexandrine, a measure favorable to the qualities of regularity, uniformity, pre- cision, balance. Gradually a measure favorable to those very same qualities the ten-syllable couplet established it- self as the classic verse of England, until in the eighteenth century it had become the ruling form of our poetry. Poetry, or rather the use of verse, entered in a re- markable degree, during that century, into the whole of the daily life of the civilized classes; and the poetry of the century was a perpetual school of the qualities requi- site for a good prose, the qualities of reg- ularity, uniformity, precision, balance. This may have been of no great service to English poetry, although to say that it has been of no service at all, to say that the eighteenth century has in no respect changed the conditions of English poeti- cal style, or that it has changed them for the worse, would be untrue. But it was undeniably of signal service to that which was the great want and work of the hour, English prose. Do not let us, therefore, hastily despise Johnson and his century for their defec- tive poetry and criticism of poetry. True, Johnson is capable of saying: Surely no man could have fancied that he read Ly- cidas with pleasure had he not known the author! True, he is capable of maintaining that the description of the temple in Congreves Mourning Bride was the finest poetical passage he had ever read he r~collected none in Shake- speare equal to it. But we are to con- ceive of Johnson and of his century as having a special task committed to them, the establishment of English prose; and as capable of being warped and narrowed in their judgments of poetry by this exclu- sive task. Such is the common course and law of progress; one thing is done at a time, and other things are sacrificed to it. We must be thankful for the thing done, if it is valuable, and we must put up with the temporary sacrifice of other things to this one. The other things will have their turn sooner or later. Above all, a nation with profound poetical instincts, like the English nation, may be trusted to work itself right again in poetry after pe- riods of mistaken poetical practice. Even in the midst of an age of such practice, and with his style frequently showing the bad influence of it, Gray was saved, we may say, and remains a poet whose work has high and pure worth, simply by knowing the Greeks thoroughly, more thorou crhly than any English poet had known them since Milton. Milton was a survivor from the great age of po- etry; Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Swift were mighty workers for the age of prose. Gray, a poet in the midst of the age of prose, a poet, moreover, of by no means the highest force and of scanty produc- tiveness, nevertheless claims a place among the six chief personages of John- sons lives, because it was impossible for an English poet, even in that age, who kne~v the great Greek masters intimately, not to respond to their good influence, and to be rescued from the false poetical prac- tice of his contemporaries. Of such avail to a nation are deep poetical instincts even in an age of prose. How much more may they be trusted to assert themselves after the age of prose has ended, and to remedy any poetical mischief done by it ! And meanwhile the work of the hour, the nec- essary and appointed work, has been done, and we have got our prose. Let us always bear in mind, therefore, that the century so ~vell represented by Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Swift, and of which the literary history is so powerfully written by Johnson in his lives, is a cen- tury of prosea century of which the great work in literature was the forma- tion of English prose. Johnson was him- self a laborer in this great and needful work, and ~vas ruled by its influences. His blame of genuine poets like Milton and Gray, his over-praise of artificial poets like Pope, are to be taken as the utter- ances of a man who worked for an age of prose, who was ruled by its influences, and could not but be ruled by them. Of poetry he speaks as a man whose sense for that with which he is dealing is in some degree imperfect. Yet even on poetry Johnsons utter- ances are valuable, because they are the utterances of a great and original man. That indeed he was; and to be conducted by such a man through an important cen- tury cannot but do us good, even though our guide may in some places be less com- petent than in others. Johnson was the man of an age of prose. Furthermore, he was a strong force of conservation and concentration, in an epoch which by its natural tendencies seemed moving to- wards expansion and freedom. But he was a great man, and great men are al- ways instructive. The more we study him, the higher will be our esteem for the power of his mind, the width of his inter- ests, the largeness of his knowledge, the freshness, fearlessness, and strength of WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 93 his judgments. The higher, too, will be our esteem for his character. His well- known lines on Levetts death, beautiful and touching lines, are still more beautiful and touching because they recall a whole history of Johnsons goodness, tenderness, and charity. Human dignity on the other hand, he maintained, we all know how well, through the whole long and arduous struggle of his life, from his servitor days at Oxford, down to the lam moriturus of his closing hour. His faults and strange- nesses are on the surface, and catch every eye. But on the whole we have in him a good and admirable type, worthy to be kept in our view forever, of the ancient and inbred integrity, piety, good-nature, and good-humor of the English people. A volume giving us Johnsons lives of Milton, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, Gray, would give us, therefore, the com- pendious story of a whole important age in English literature, told by a great man, and in a performance which is itself a piece of English literature of the first class. If such a volume could but be pref- aced by Lord Macaulays Life of John- son, it would be perfect. MATTHEW ARNOLD. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. BT MRS. OLIPHANT. CHAPTER XIX. BUSINESS, OR LOVE? IT was not only in the mind of young Purcell that Lotties circumstances and prospects were the subject of thought. Rollo Ridsdale had not watched and wor- shipped as the young musician had done. Nor had he, even on his first introduction to her, looked upon Lottie as anything but the possessor of a beautiful voice, of which use might be made, for her benefit no doubt in the long run, but primarily for his own. She was not a divinity; she was not even a woman; she was a valuable stock- in-trade, a most important implement with which to work. Rollo had gone through a very effectual training in this kind. He had run through the little money he pos- sessed so soon, and had learned the use of his wits so early, that the most energetic of tradesmen was not more alive to all the charms of gain than he. The means, per- haps, may be of a different kind, but it does not very much matter in principle whether a man is trained to sharp bargains in bric a-brac, or in cotton bales; and it is not essentially a loftier trade to speculate in pictures and china than in shares and stocks. This young aristocrat had kept his eyes very wide open to anything that might come in his way. He was not a director of companies chiefly because his poor little Honorable was not a sufficiently valuable possession to be traded upon, though it had some small value pecuniarily. Lord Courtland himself might indeed have made a few hundreds a year out of his title, but to his second son the name was not worth as much. It secured him some advantages. It gave him the en/ne to places where things were to be picked up, and it helped him to puff and even to dispose of the wares which he might have in hand. It kept him afloat; it ameliorated poverty; it took away all objections to the sale and barter in ~vhich, profitably or un- profitably, he spent so much of his life. Had he gone upon the Stock Exchange, society would have made comments upon the strange necessity; but when Rollos collection of objets dart was sold, nobody found anything to object to in the transac- tion, which put a comfortable sum in his pocket, and enabled him to go forth to fresh fields and pastures new; neither was there anything unbecoming his nobility in the enterprise which he had now in hand. Theatres are not generally a very flourish- ing branch of commerce; yet it cannot be denied that those who ruin themselves by them, embark in the enterprise with as warm an inclination towards gain as any shopkeeper conld boast of. RollQ had thought of Lotties voice as something quite distinct from any personality. It was a commodity he would like to buy, as he would have liked to buy a picture, or anything rare and beautiful, of which he could be sure that he would get more than his own money for it. In that, as in other things, he would have bought in the cheapest market and sold in the dearest. He would have thought it only right and natural to secure at a low rate the early services of a prima donna. A certain amount of enthusiasm no doubt mingled with the business; just as, had Rollo bought a picture and sold it again, he would have derived a considerable amount of enjoyment from it over and above the profit which went into his pocket; but still he would not have bought the picture, or sought out the future prima donna, on any less urgent and straightforward stimulus than that of gain. Probably, too, the artistic temperament those characteris- tics which have to answer for so many 94 WITHIN TIlE PRECINCTS. things influenced him more in the pur- suit of the talent which was to make his fortune, than any man is ever influenced by hales of cotton or railway shares. To hear that shirtings are firm does not thrill the heart as it does to hear the mel- ody of a lovely new voice, which you feel will pay you nobly by transporting the rest of the world as it does yourself. Neither could any amount of coupons fill you with delight like that small scrap of a Bellini by which you hope to faire fortune. But, nevertheless, to make his fortune was what Rollo thought of just as much as the man who sells dusters over his counter. If a new kind of duster could be found more efficacious than any previously known, a something that would dust by itself, that would sell by the million, no doubt the shopkeeper, too, ~vould feel a moments enthusiasm; yet in this he would be quite inferior to the inventor of a new prima donna, who, added to his enjoyment of all that the public gave to hear her, would have the same enjoyment as had the pub- lic, without giving anything for it at all. This had been the simple enthusiasm in Rollos mind up to his last meeting with Lottie Despard. He had pursued her closely that he might fully understand and know all the qualities of her voice of the slave he wanted to buy: to know exactly what training it would want, and how much would have to be done to it before it could appear before the public, and begin to pay back what he had given for it. And point by point, as he pursued this quest of his, he had noted in her the qualities of beauty, the grace, the expression, the perfection of form and feature, which were so many additional advantages. The rush of color to her cheek, of spirit or softness to her eyes, had delighted him, as proving in her the power to be an actress as well as a singer. He studied all her looks, inter- preted her character to himself, and watched her movements with this end, with a frank indifference to every other, not even thinking what interpretation might be put, what interpretation she might herself put, upon this close and anxious attention. It was not till the evening when, overcome by the feelings which music and excitement had roused in her, Lottie had fled alone to her home, avoiding his escort, that he had suddenly awoke to the consciousness that it was no mere voice, but a young and beautiful woman, with whom he was dealing. The awakening gave him a shock yet there was pleasure in it, and a flattering con- sciousness that his prima donna had all along been regarding him in no abstract, but an entirely individual way. Rollo had been brought up among artificial senti- ments. He had been used to hear people talk of the effect of music upon their imagination of the sensations it gave them, and the manner in which they were dominated by it. But he had never seen any one honestly moved like Lottie abandoning the sphere of her social suc- cess, silent in the height of her triumph. When he saw that she could not and would not sing again after that wonderful sacred song, lie was himself more vividly im- pressed than lie had ever been by music. It took her voice from her, and her breath transported her out of herself. How strange it was, yet how real, how natural! just (when you came to think of it) as a pure and elevated mind ought to be touched: though lie had never yet seen the fumes of art get so completely into any head before. The reality of Lottie s emo- tion had awakened Rollo. He was not touched himself by Handel, but he was touched by Lottie. He suddenly saw her through the mist of his own preconceived ideas, and through the cloud of conven- tionalities, those of art and those of society alike. Never in his life before had lie so suddenly and distinctly come in contact with a genuine human creature, as God had made her feeling, moving, living ac- cording to the dictates of nature, not as she had been trained to live and feel. This is not to say that he had met with no genuine people in his life. His father and mother were real enough, and so was his aunt, Lady Caroline very real, each in his or her little setting of conveniences and necessities. He knew them, and was quite indifferent to knowing them. But Lottie was altogether detached from the atmosphere in which these good people lived. And he had discovered her sud- denly, making acquaintance with her in a momentfinding her out as an astrono- mer, all alone with the crowds of heaven, finds out a new star. This was how it made so great an impression on him. He had discovered her, standing quite alone among a~l the women who knew how to express and to control their emotions. She was not trained either to one or the other. The emotion, the enthusiasm in her got the upper hand of her, not she of them. A man who is only used to men and women in the secondary stages of well. sustained emotion is apt to be doubly im- pressed by the sight of genuine and art- less passion, of whatever kind it may be. He went to town thinking not of the prima WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. donna he had found, but of the woman who had suddenly made heaven and earth real to him as they were to her. He posted up to London that is, he flew thither in the express train, according to the dictates of his first impulse; hut he was so entirely carried away by this second one, that he had almost forgotten his primary purpose altogether. Ah I that is it, he said to himself when the prima- donna idea once more flashed across his mind. He did not want to lose sight of this, or to be negligent of anything that would help to make his fortune. Rollo was in the greatest need of hav- ing his fortune made. He had nothing except very expensive habits. He was obliged to spend a great deal of money in order to live, and he was obliged to live (or so, at least, he thought); and he had no money at all. Therefore a prima- donna or something else was absolutely necessary. Accordingly he wound himself up with areat ene to no b rgy, and tried think more of that other world which Lotties touch had plunged him into. In the mean time, in this world of theatres, draw- ing-rooms, and fashionable coteries, where people are compelled to live, whether they will or not, at an enormous cost in money, and where accordingly money must be hunted wherever scent of it can be found, it was necessary that some one, or some- thing, should make Rollo Ridsdales for- tune. He rushed to his imtresario, and roused a faint enthusiasm momentarily in the mind of that man of great under- takings. An English prima donna, a na- tive article, about ~vhom the English would go wild! Yes! But would they go wild over an English prima donna? Would not the first step be, ere she was presented to the public at all, to fit her with an Italian name? Signorina Car- lotta Desparda that was what she would have to be called. The impresario shook his head. And, besides, these native articles never turn out what we are led to expect, he said. He shook his head ; he was sorry, very sorry, to disappoint his conf;-t~re, but But I tell you, you never heard such a voice; the compass of it the sweet- ness of it sirntatica beyond what words can say fresh as a larks up to any- thing you can l)ut before her and with such power of expression. We shall be fools, utter fools, if we neglect such a chance. You are very warm, said the mana- ger, rubbing his hands. She is pretty, I suppose? 95 No, said Rollo; she is beautiful and with the carriage of a queen. (Poor Lottie, in her white frock; how little she knew that there was anything queenlike about her!) Come down and see her. That is all I ask of you. Come and hear her XVhere may that be? said the man- ager. I am leaving town on Monday. Cant we have her up to your rooms, or somewhere at hand? My rooms! said Rollo, thunder- struck. He knew very little about Lottie, except that she was a poor chevaliers daughter; but he felt that he could have as easily invited, one of the princesses to come and sing in his rooms, that the rep- resentatives of the new opera company might judge of her gifts. His face grew so long that his colleague laughed - Is she a personage then, Ridsdale? Is she one of your great friends? he said. She is one of .my friends; but she is not a great personage, said Rollo gloomily, pulling the little peaked beard which he cultivated, and thinking that it would be as difficult to get his manager in- vited to the Deanery as it would be to bring Lottie to Jermyn Street. These were difficulties which he had not fore- seen. He ~vent over the circumstances hurriedly, trying to think what he could do. Could he venture to go in suddenly to the chevaliers lodge, as lie bad done with Lady Carolines credentials in his pocket, but this time without any creden- tials, and introduce his companion, and without further ceremony proceed to test the powers of the girl, who he knew was not always compliant nor to be reckoned on ? What if she should decline to be tried? \Vhat if she had no intention of becoming a singer at all? \Vhat if the manager should condemn her voice as un- trained (which it was), or even mistake it altogether, mixing it up with the cracked tones of the old piano, and the jingle of the Abbey bells? He had not thought of all these difficulties before. He had not taken time to ask if Lottie would be docile, if Lady Caroline wodld be complaisant. He pulled his beard, his face growing longer and longer. At la sthe said, Ill tell you what we can do. We can go to Mrs. OShaughnessy Who on earth is Mrs. OShaugh- nessy? said the manager. But very likely there is no piano there! You see, this is a difficulty I did not think of. I have heard this lady only in the house of one of my relations, a very 96 WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. rigid old person, who hates theatres, and thinks opera an invention of the devil. How Rollo dared slander poor Lady Car- oline so, who liked an opera-box as well as any one else, it is impossible to say. Well it doesnt seem to matter much what are the qualities of the voice if we cant hear it, the manager said care- lessly; and he told his fashionable part- ner of the singer he had heard of in Milan, who was to distance all the singers then on the operatic stage. They are all like that, he said like this private nightin- gale of yours, Ridsdale till you hear them; and then they turn out to be very much like the rest. To tell the truth, I am not so very sorry this particular protJg6e of yours has broken down; for I dont be- lieve the time has come for an English prima donna, if it ever comes. Weve got no confidence in ourselves, so far as art goes especially musical art. English opera, sir; theres many fine pieces, but youll never keep it up in England. It might make a hit, perhaps, in Germany, or even France, but not here. Your En- glish prima donna would be considered fit for the music halls. Wed have to dress her up in vowels, and turn her into an Italian. Contemptible? Oh, yes, its contemptible; but, if were to make our own money out of it, we mustnt trouble ourselves about whats contemptible. What weve got to do is to please the pub- lic. Im just as glad that this idea of yours has broken down. Broken down! I will never allow it has broken down. It is much easier and pleasanter, of course, to go to Milan, than to go to St. Michaels, said Rollo disdain- fully. But never mind; if you dont start till Monday, trust me to arrange it somehow. Your new Milanese, of course, will be like all the rest. She will have been brought up to it. She will know how to do one thing, and no more; but this is genius owing nothing to educa- tion and everything to nature. Capable of I could not say what such a voice and such a woman is not capable of Bravo, Ridsdale! said his partner. She is capable of stirring you up thor- oughly, that is clearand I hope she will be kind to you, he said, with a big laugh, full of insinuations. The man was vulgar and fat, but a mountain of energy, and Rollo, though disgusted, could not afford to quarrel with him. You are entirely out in your notion, he said, with that air of dignity which is apt to look fictitious in such circumstan- ces. He was not himself easily shocked, nor would this interpretation of his mo- tives have appeared to him at all unlikely in the case of another man; therefore, as was natural, his gravity and look of dis- gust only confirmed the suspicions of the other, and amused him the more. Bravo, my boy; go in and win! he said, chuckling; promise whatever you like, if you find it necessary; and trust me to back you up. To say I am unable to understand what you mean, as Rollo did, with cold displeasure, yet consciousness, did but increase the ecstasy of the fat manager over the evident fact that his fastidious, friend was caught at last. Rollo went away with a great deal of offended dignity, holding himself stiffly erect, body and soul. He had never been so entirely disgusted, revolted, by the coarse character of the ideas and insinua- tions, which in themselves were not par- ticularly novel, he was aware. It was because everything grew coarse under the touch of such a fellow as this, he said to himself; and it must be allowed that vice, stripped of all sentiment and adornment, was a disgusting spectacle. Rollo had never been a vicious man. He had taken it calmly in others, acknowledging that, if they liked it, he had no right to interfere; but he had not cared for it much himself he was not a man of passions. A dii- letante generally does avoid these coarser snares of humanity and there had always been a sense of nausea in his mind when he was brought in contact with the vicious. But this nausea had been more physical than spiritual. It was not virtue but tem- perament which produced it; his own temptations were not in this kind. Never- theless, he knew that to show any exag- gerated feeling on the subject would only expose him to laughter, and he was not courageous enough either to blame warm- ly in others, or to decry strenuously in himself, the existence of unlawful bonds. What did it matter to anybody if he were virtuous? his neighbors were not on that account to be baulked of their cakes and ale; his disinclination towards sins of the grosser kind was not a thing he was proud of it was a constitutional peculiarity, like inability to ascend heights or to go to sea without suffering. He was not at all sure that it was not a sign oCweakness a thing to be kept out of sight. Accord- ingly he took his part in the social gossip, which has no warmer interest than this, like everybody else, never pretended to any superiority, and took it for granted that now and then everybody went CHAPTER XX. AN UNCONSCIOUS TRIAL. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 97 wrong. He would have been a monster went all against himself and his Class. He if he had done anything else. Why, even hated not only his manager-partner, whom his good Aunt Caroline the best and it was perfectly right and natural to hate, stupidest of women, to whom, if she had but himself and all the rest of his kind. desired it, no opportunity of going wrong He was so much disgusted that he almost had ever presented itselfliked to hear made up his mind to let fortune and the these stories and believed them implicitly, English prima donna go together, and to and was convinced that not to go wrong take no further stel) to make the girl was quite exceptional. Rollo was not the known to those who were so incapable of man to emancipate himself from such a appreciating her. But when he came that complete and universal understanding. length Rollo reached the end of his tether, He allowed it calmly, and did not pretend struck against the uttermost limits of his either to disprove or to doubt. Probably horizon and this brought him back sud- he had himself Coldly, and as a matter of denly to the question how he was best to course, gone ~~rong too in his day, and make his prize known. certainly he had never given himself out as at all better than his neighbors. Was it only the coarseness of his vulgar asso- Ciate which made the su~~esti on so - ly disgusting to him now deep He asked himself this question as, dis- appointed and annoyed, he left the man- ager s ostentatious rooms; and a new sense of unkindness, ungenerosity, un- manliness in having exposed a harmless person, a woman whose reputation should be sacred, to such animadversions, sud- denly came into his mind, he could not tell how. This view of the matter had never occurred to Rollo before. The women he had heard discussed axid he had heard almost everybody discussed, from the highest to the lowest had nothing sacred about them to the laugh- ing gossips who discussed all they had done, or might have done, or might be going to do. ,This, too, was a new idea to him. Who was there whom he had not heard spoken of? ladies a thousand times more important than Miss Despard, the poor chevaliers daughter at St. Michaels and nobody had seemed to think there was any harm in it. A mans duty not to let a woman be lightly spoken of? Pooh! What an exaggerated, sentimental piece of nonsense! Why should not women take their chance like any one else? Rollo was like most other persons when in a mental difficulty of this kind. He was not so much discussing with himself as he was the arena of a discussion which unseen arguers were holding within him. While one of these uttered this pooh ! another replied, with a heat and fervor altogether unknown to the clubs, What had Lottie Despard clone to subject herself to these suggestions? she who knew nothing about society and its evil thoughts she who had it in her to be uplifted and transported by the music at which these other people, at the best, would clap their hands and ap- plaud. The argument in Rollos mind LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. I 151 IT turned out, however, that Rollo could not accomplish the object, which he had aimed at with so much eagerness and hope, in the only legitimate way. He could not get his manager invited to the Deanery. I dont think your aunt would like it ; I dont think I could sanction it, the dean said, whom he met at his club. Unfortunately the dean had somewhere encountered the partner by whose aid Rollo expected to make his fortune, and he made it the subject of a little discourse, which Rollo received with iml)atience. I would have nothing to do with him if I were you, his Reverence said; he is not a kind of man to be any credit to his associates. You cant touch pitch without being defiled. I would not have anything to say to him if I were you. Nor should I, uncle, if I were you, said Rollo, with a rueful smile. He was not aware that this was not original; he was not thinking, indeed, of originality, but of the emergency, which he felt was very difficult to deal with. Nonsense! said the dean; dont tell me there are not a gre at many better occupations going than that of managing a theatre Opera opera. Give us our due at least What difference is there? said the dean sternly. The opera has ruined just as many men as the theatre. Talk of making your fortune! Did you ever hear of the lessee of a theatre making a fortune? Plenty have been ruined by it, and never one made rich that I ever heard of. XVhy cant you go into diplomacy or to a public office, or get your uncle Urban to give you something? You ought not to have anything to do with such a venture as this. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 98 My dear uncle, said Rollo, you know the vulgar partner who gave Rollo so much well enough how many things I have tried, trouble. Uncles are very kind (as in your case), but In the mean time he wrote to the Signor they cant take all their relations upon to see what could be done, and begged their shoulders; and you knew this was with the utmost urgency that he would what I was doing, and Aunt Caroline arrange something. Perhaps the old knew Irishwoman next door would receive us, Ah.! yes; I recollect that was what all Rollo said, even if she has got no piano. the singing was about; but she could not Try, my dear Rossinetti, I implore you; stand that manager fellow. I could not try your best. The signor was very ~vill- stand him myself; as for your aunt, you ing to serve the deans nephew; but he could not expect it. She is very good- was at the moment very much l)ut out by natured, but you could not ask her to go Lotties reception of young Purcell, as so far as that. much as if it had been himself that had He is a man who goes everywhere, been refused. said Rollo; he is a man who can behave Who is Mrs. OShaughnessy, and how himself perfectly well wherever he is. am I to communicate with her? he cried; Oh, bless you, she would see through and he did not throw himself into the work him at a glance ! cried the dean. I with any zeal. All that he would do at dont mean to say your aunt is clever, last, moved by Rollos repeated letters, Rollo, but instinct goes a long way. She was to bid him bring his friend down to would see through him. Miss Despard the service on Sunday afternoon, when he was quite different; she was perfectly would see Lottie at least, and hear some- comu;w ii fa ut. Girls are wonderful some- thing of her voice. The manager grinned times in that way. Though they may have at this invitation. He was not an enthu- no advantages they seem to pick up and siast for Handel, and shrugged his shoul- look just as good as any one: whereas a ders at sacred music generally as much man like that By the way, I am very out of his line; but he ended, having no sorry for the poor thing. They say her better engagement on hand, by consenting father, a disreputable sort of gay man who to go. It was the end of the season; the never should have got the appointment, is opera was over, and all its fashionable going to marry some low woman. It will patrons dispersed; and St. Michaels was be hard upon the girl. something to talk of at least. So the two What an opportunity was this of seizing connoisseurs arrived on a warm afternoon hold upon her of overcoming any objec- of early August, when the grey pinnacles lion that might arise Rollo felt himself of the Abbey blazed white in excessive Lotties best friend as he heard of this sunshine, and the river showed like glow- complication. While she might help to ing metal here and there through the broad make his fortune he could make her inde- valley, too brilliant to give much refresh- pendent, above the power of any disrepu- ment to the eyes. table father or undesirable home. He As it happened, it was a chance whether could not bear to think that such a girl Lottie would attend the service that after- should be lost in conditions so ~vretched, noon at all. She was sorry for poor Pur- and, though the dean was obdurate, he did cell, and embarrassed to face the congre- not lose hope. But between Thursday gation in the Abbey, some of whom at and Monday is not a very long time for least must know the story. She was cer- such negotiations, and the manager was tam the signor knew it, from the glance lie entirely preoccupied by his Milanese, had thrown at her; and Mrs. Purcell, she whom another impresario was said to be felt sure, would gloom at her from the free on the track of, and in whom various con- seats, and the hero himself look wistful noisseurs were interested. It is impos- and reproachful from the organ-loft. She sible to describe the scorn and incredulity had very nearly made up her mind not to with which Rollo himself heard his part- go. Would it not be better to go out on ners account of this new singer. He put the slopes, and sit down under a tree, and not the slightest faith in her. hear the music softly pealing at a distance, I know how she will turn out, he said. and get a little rest out of her many She will shriek like a peacock; she will troubles? Lottie had almost decided upon have to be taught her own language; she this when swNenly, by a caprice, she ~vill be coached up for one rule and good changed her mind and xvent. Everything for nothing else; and she will smell of came true as she had divined. Mrs. Pur- garlic enough to kill you. cell fixed her eyes upon her from the Oh , garlic will never kill me! said moment she sat down in her place, with a gloomy interest which sadly disconcerted Lottie; and so did old Pick, who sat by his fellow-servant and chuckled over the conclusion of Mr. Johns romance ; while once at least Lottie caught the pale dul- ness of the signors face looking disap- proval, and at every spare moment the silent appeal of Purcells eyes looking down from over the railing of the organ- loft. Lotties heart revolted a little in resistance to all these pitiful and disap- proving looks. Why should they insist upon it? If she could not accept young Purcell, what was it to the signor and old Pick ? though his mother might be for- given if she felt the disappointment of her boy. The girl shrank a little from all those glances, and gave herself up alto- gether to her devotions. Was it to her devotions? There was the captain chant- ing all the responses within hearing, cheer- ful and self-confident, as if the Abbey belonged to him; and there, too, was Law, exchanging glances of a totally different description with the people in the free seats. It was to two fair-haired girls whom Lottie had seen before who were, indeed, constant in their attendance on the Sunday afternoonthat Law was signalling, and they, on their part, tittered and whispered, and looked at the captain in his stall, and at another woman in a veil whom Lottie did not make out. This was enough to distract her from the prayers, to which, however, if only to escape from the con- fusion of her own thoughts, she did her very best to give full attention. But She put up her prayer-book in front of her face, and hid herself at least from all the crowd, so full each of his and her own concerns. She was silent durin~, the re- sponses, hearing nothing but her fathers voice with its tone of proprietorship, and only allowed herself to sing when the cap- tains baritone was necessarily silent. Lotties voice had become known to the people who sat near her. They looked for her as much as they looked for little Row- ley himself, who was the first soprano but to-day they did not get much from Lot- tie. Now and then she forgot herself, as in the IUagnzj/icat, when she burst forth suddenly unawares, almost taking it out of the hands of the boys; but while she was singing Lottie came to herself almost as suddenly, and stopped short, with a quaver and shake in her voice as if the thread of sound had been suddenly broken. Rais- ing her eyes in the midst of the canticle, she had seen Rollo Ridsdale within a few places of her, holding his book before him very decorously, yet looking from her to a 99 large man by his side with unmistakable meanin~. The surprise of seeing him whom she believed to be far away, the agi- tation it gave her to perceive that she her- self was still the chief point of interest to him, and the sudden recalling thus of her consciousness, gave her a shock which ex- tinguished her voice altogether. There was a thrill in the music as if a string had broken; and then the hymn went on more feebly, diminished in sweetness and vol- ume, while she stood trembling, holding herself up with an effort. He had come back again, and again his thoughts were full of her, his whole attention turned to her. An instantaneous chan~e took place in Lotties mind. Instead of the jumble of annoyances and vexations that had been around her the reproachful looks on one side, the family discordance on the other her father and Law both jarring with all that Lottie wished and thought right a flood of celestial calm poured into her soul. She was no longer angry with the two fair- haired girls who tittered and whispered through the service, looking up to Law with a hundred telegraphic communica- tions. She was scarcely annoyed when her fathers voice pealed forth again in pretentious incorrectness. She did not mind what was happenin~ around her. The sunshine that caine in amono- the pin- nacles and fretwork above in a golden mist, lighting up every detail, yet confusing them in a dazzle and glory which common eyes could not bear, made just such an effect on the canopies of the stalls as Rollos appearance made on Lotties mind. She was all in a dazzle and mist of sudden calm and happiness which seemed to make everythin~ bright, yet blurred everything in its soft, delicious glow. Dont think much of her, said the manager, as they came out. The two were going back again at once to town, but Rol- los partner had supposed that at least they would first pay a visit to the Deanery. He was a man who counted duchesses on his roll of acquaintances, but he liked to add a Lady Caroline whenever the opportunity occurred, and deans, too, had their charm. He was offended when he saw that Rollo had no such intention, and at once divined that he was not considered a proper person to be introduced to the heads of such a community. This increased his deternii- nation not to yield to his partner in this fancy of his, which, indeed, he had always considered presumptuous, finding voices being his own share of the work a thing much too important to be trusted to an amateur. The boy has a sweet little pipe WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. I00 WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. of his own; but as for your prima donna, was that kind woman! She curtsied as Ridsdale, if you think that sort of thing she took his hand as if he had been the would pay with us No, no! my Prince of Wales, nearly pulling him down, good fellow; shes a deuccd handsome too, ere she recovered herself; and her girl, and I wish you joy; I dont wonder countenance shone, partly with the heat, that she should have turned your head ; partly with the delight. but for our new house, not if I know it, And I hope I see yort~ ~vell, sir, she my boy. A very nice voice for an ama- said; and glad to se~ you back in St. teur, but that sort of thing does not do Michaels; theres nothihg like young peo- with the public. pie for keeping a place cheerful. Though You scarcely heard her at all ; and the we dont go into society, me and me ma few notes she did sing were so mixed up jor, yet its a pleasure to see the likes of you with those scrubby little boys about. Oh! I heard her, and I dont care to Rollo had time to turn to Lottie with very hear her again unless it ~vere in a draw- eloquent looks while this speech was being mo-room. Why, theres Rossinetti, said addressed to him. I am only here for the irn~resario; hell tell you just the half an hour, he said ; I could not resist same as I do. Do you know ~vhat were the temptation of coming for the service.~~ down here for, Rossinetti, eh? Deluded Oh! me dear sir, you ~vouldnt care so by Ridsdale to come and hear some mirac- much for the sarvice if ye had as much of ulous voice; and it turns out to be only a it as we have, said Mrs. OShaughnessy, charming young lady who. has bewitched going on well pleased; she liked to hear him, as happens to the best of us. Pretty herself talking, and she had likewise a voice for a drawing-room, nice amateur quick perception of the fact that, while she quality; but for the profession I tell talked, communications of a different kind him you must know that as well as I. might go on between the young folks. Come into my place and rest a little; Between ourselves, its not me that theyll there is no train just vet, said the signor. get to stop for their playing, she said, all He had left Purcell to play the voluntary, the more distinctly that the signor was and led the strangers through the nave within hearing. Id go five miles to hear which was still crowded with people listen- a good band; the music was beautiful in ing to the great strains of the organ. the regiment when OShaughnessy was ad- Come out this way, he said; I dont jutant. And for me own part, Mr. Rids- ~vant to be seen. Purcell plays quite as dale, Id not give th~ drums and the fifes well as I do; but if they see me they will for the most elegant music you could play. stream off, and hurt his feelings. Poor I dont say that Im a judge, but I know boy I he has had enough to vex him al- what I like. ready. Why did you stop so soon? Rollo These words were on his lips when, said aside. Ah ! Miss Despard, ~vas it coming out by a private door, the three not cruel?~ A good band is an excel- connoisseurs suddenly came upon Lot- lent thing, Mrs. 0 Shaughnessy; I shall tie, who was walking home with Mrs. try to get my uncle to have the band from OShaughnessy. The signor, who was the depot to play once a week, next time I noted for a womanish heat of partisanship, come here. Thanks all the same for and had not forgiven her for the disap- those few notes; I shall live upon them, pointment of his pupil, darted a violent he added fervently, till I have the chance glance at her as he took off his hat. It of hearing you again. might have been himself that she had re- Lottie made no reply. It was unneces- jected, so full of offence was his look; sary with Mrs. OShaughnessy there, and and this fixed the attention of the big talking all the time. And, indeed, what manager, who took off his hat, too, with a had she to say? the words spread them- smile of secret amusement, and watched selves like a balm into every corner of her the scene, making a private memorandum heart. He would not have gone so far, to the effect that Rossinetti evidently had nor spoken so warmly, if it had not been been hit also; and no wonder! a hand- for the brutal indifference of the big man- some girl as you could see in a summer ager, who stood looking on at a distance, day, with a voice that was a very nice with an air of understanding a great deal voice, a really superior voice for an ama- more than there was to understand. The teur. malicious knowingness in this mans eyes As for Rollo, he hastened up to Mrs. made Rollo doubly anxious in his civili- OShaughnessy with fervor, and held out ties; and then he felt it necessary to make his hand; and how happy and how proud up to Lottie for the others blasphemy in WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. I0I respect to her voice, though of this Lottie knew nothing at all. I shall not even have time to see my aunt, he said; how fortunate that I have had this opportunity of a word with you! I did not know whether I might take the liberty to call. And welcome, Mr. Ridsdale, said Mrs. OShaughnessy. Lotties but a child, so to speak; but I and the major would be proud to see you. And of an afternoon were always at home, and, though I say it as shouldnt, as good a cup of tea to offer ye as yed get from me Lady Caroline herself. Its ready now, if youll accept the refreshment, you and your friend. A thousand thanks, but we must not stay. Mrs. OShaughnessy, if you see my aunt will you explain how it was I could not come to see her? and be sure you tell her you met me at the Abbey door, or she will not like it. Miss Despard, Augusta is coming home, andl hope to be at the Deanery next month. Tizex I trust you will be more generous, and not stop sing- ing as soon as you see me. What had I done? he cried in his appealing voice. Yes, Rossinetti, Im coming. Not good-bye, Mrs. OShaughnessy, only, as the French say, till we meet again. And I hope that will not be loncr said the good woman, delighted. She swept along the Deans Walk, letting her dress trail after her and holding her head high she was too much excited to think of hold- ing up her skirts. Did ye hear him, Lottie, me honey? If you see my aunt, says he. Lord bless the man ! as if me Lady Caroline was in the way of looking in and taking a cup of tea! Sure, Id make her welcome, and more sense than shut- ting herself up in that old house, and never stirring, no, not to save her life. If ye see me aunt, says he. Oh, yes! me darlint, Ill see her, shut up in her state, and looking as if Hell find the difference when he comes to the Deanery, as he says. Not for you, Lottie, me dear; youre one of themselves, so to speak. But its not much thanks me Lady Caro- line will give him for sending her a mes- sage by Mrs. OShaughnessy; I thought Id burst out in his face. Tell her ye met me by the Abbey door. Thats to save me ladys feelings, Lottie. But Ill do his bidding next time I see her; Ill make no bones of it, Ill up and give her my mes- sage. Lord! just to see how me lady would take it. See if I dont now. For him, hes a jewel, take me word for it, Lot- tie; and yell be a silly girl, me honey, if you let a gentleman like Mr. Ridsdale slip through your fingers. A real gentleman, ye can see as much by his manners. If Id been a duchess, Lottie, me dear, what more could he say? Lottie made no reply to this speech, any more than to the words Rollo himself had addressed to her. Her mind was all in a confused maze of happy thoughts and an- ticipations. His looks, his words, were all turned to the same delicious meaning; and he was coming back to the Deanery, when she was to be more generous to him. No compliment could have been so penetrating as that soft reproach. Lottie had no words to spend upon her old friend, who, for her part, was sufficiently ex- hilarated to require no answer. Mrs. OShaughnessy rang the changes upon this subject all the way to the lodges. When you see my aunt, says he. The idea that she was in the habit of visit- ing Lady Caroline familiarly, not only amused but flattered her, though it was difficult enough to understand how this latter effect could come about. Rollo was himself moved more than he could have imagined possible by this en- counter. He said nothing as he followed his companions to the signors house, and did not even remark what they were say- ing, so occupied was he in going over again the trivial events of the last few minutes. As he did so, it occurred to him for the first time that Lottie had not so much as spoken to him all the time; not a word had she said, though he had found no deficiency in her. It was evident, then, that there might be a meeting which should fill a mans mind with much pleas- ant excitement and commotion, and leave on his thoughts a very delightful impres- sion, without one word said by the lady, This idea amused him in the pleasant agitation of his being to which the en- counter at the church door had given rise. He forgot what he had come for, and the rudeness of his partner, and the refusal of that personage t~ think at all of Lottie. He did not want any further discussion of this question; he had forgotten, even, that it could require to be discussed. Some- how all at once, yet completely, Lottie had changed character to him; he did not want to talk her over with any one, and he forgot altogether the subject upon which the conversation must necessarily turn when he followed the signor and his big companion through the groups of peo- ple who began to emerge from the Abbey. There were a great many who stared at Rollo, knowing who he was, but none who 102 WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. roused him from his preoccupation. For- tunately the dean had a cold and was not visible, and Lady Caroline did not profess to go to church in the afternoon It was too soon after lunch, and there were so many people, and one never felt that one had the Abbey to ones self, her ladyship said. The manager went off to Italy the next day, after his Milanese, without being at all restrained by Rollo, who was glad to get rid of him, and to have no more said about the English prima donna. He did not quite like it even, so perverse was he, when the signor, sitting out upon his ter- race, defended her against the impresarios hasty verdict: She has a beautiful voice, so far as that goes ,the signor said, with the gravity of a judge; you are mistaken if you do not admire her voice; we have had occasion to hear it, and we know what it is, so far as that goes. You dog! said the jovial manager, with a large, fat laugh; I see something else if I dont see that. Ah, Rossinetti hit too ? Do you happen to know what he means? said the signor with profound gravity, turning his fine eyes upon Rids- dale. Ah! it is a pleasantry, I suppose I have not the same appreciation of humor that I miTht have had, had I been born an Englishman, he said, with a seriousness that was portentous, without relaxing a muscle. Rollo, who was not aware of the vehe- ment interest with which the signor es- poused Purcells cause, felt the managers suspicions echo through his own mind. He knew how entirely disinclined he felt to enter upon this question. XVas his companion right, and had the signor been hit, too? It seemed to Rollo that the wonder was how any one could avoid that catastrophe. The manager made very merry, as they went back to town, upon Lotties voice and the character of the ad- miration which it had excited; but all this Rollo received with as much solemnity of aspect as characterized the signor. CHAPTER XXI. and it soon became a matter of general talk that he was not at the Deanery, but had come down from town expressly for the service, returning by as early a train afterwards as the Sunday regulations of the railway allowed. What did he come for? Not to see his relations, which would have been a comprehensible reaso~i for so brief a visit. He had been seen talking to somebody at the north door, and he had been seen fo~owing the signor, in com- pany with a large and brilliant person who wore more rings and studs and breloques than had ever been seen at St. Michaels. Finally, this remarkable stranger, who was evidently a friend of the signor as well as of Rollo, had been visible on the little green terrace outside Rossinettis sitting- room, smoking cigarettes and drinking claret-cup, and tilting up his chair upon two legs in a manner which suggested a tea-garden, critics said, more than a stu- dious nook sheltered among the buttresses of the Abbey. Public opinion was instinc- tively unfavorThle to Rollos companion; but what was the young prince, Lady Car- olines nephew, doing there ? Then the question arose, Who was it to whom Rollo had been talking at the north door? All the canons and their wives, and the ladies in the lodges, and even the townspeople when the story reached them, cried out Impossible ! when they were told that it was Mrs. OShaughnessy. But thatlady had no intention of concealing the honor done her. She published it, so to speak, on the housetops. She neglected no occa- sion of making her friends acquainted with all the particulars of the interview. And who should it have been but me? she said. Is there eer another one at St. Michaels that knows as much of his fam- ily? Who was it but an uncle of his, or maybe it might be a cousin, that was in the regiment with us, and OShaughnessys greatest friend? Manys the good turn the majors done him; and, say the worst you can o the Ridsdales, its not ungrate- ful they are. Its women that are little in their ways. XVhat does a real gentle- man care for our little quarrels and the visiting-list at the Deanery? When ye see me aunt, says he, Mrs. OShaugh- nessy, yelI tell her Sure he took it IT was not to be supposed that the visit for certain that me Lady Caroline was a of Rollo and his companion should pass good neighbor, and would step in of an unnoticed in so small a community as that afternoon for her bit of talk and her cup of St. Michaels, where everybody knew o tea. Youll tell her, says he, that I him, and in which he had all the impor- hadnt time to go and see her. And, tance naturally belonging to a member, so please God, I will do it when Ive got the to speak, of the reigning family. Every- chance. If her ladyship forgets her man- body noticed his appearance in the Abbey, ners, it shall neer be said that OShaugh SEARCHINGS OF HEART. WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 103 nessys wife was wanting in good breeding to a family the major had such close con- nections with. But do you really know Mr. Rids- dales family? said Lottie, after one of these brilliant addresses, somewhat bewil- dered by her recollection of what had passed. And, sure, didnt you hear me say so? Is it doubting me word you are? said Mrs. OShaughnessy, with a twinkle in her eye. Lottie was bewildered but it did not matter much. At this moment nothing seemed to matter very much. She had been dull, and she had been trou- bled by many things before the wonderful moment in which she had discovered Rollo close to her in the Abbey much troubled., foreseeing with dismay the closing in around her of a network of new associa- tions in which there could be nothing but pain and shame, and dull with a heavy de- pression of dulness which no ray of light in the present, no expectation in the future, seemed to brighten. Purcells hand held out to her, tenderly yet half in pity, had been the only personal encouragement she had; and that had humbled her to the dust, even though she struggled with her- self to do him justice. Her heart had been as heavy as lead. There had seemed to her nothing that was hopeful, nothing that was happy before her. Now all the heaviness had flown away. Why? Why, for no reason at all, because this young man whom she supposed (without any war- rant for the foolish idea) to love her had come back for an hour or two; because he was coming back on a visit. The visit was not to her, nor had she probable share in the enjoyments to be provided for Lady Carolines nephe~v, and Lottie did not love him to make his very presence a delight to her. She did not love himyet. This was the unexpressed feeling in her mind; but when a girl has got so far as this, it may be supposed that the visit of the lover whom she does not love yet, must fill her ~vith a thousand delightful tremors. How could she doubt his sentiments? XVhat was it that brought him back and back again to St. Michaels? and to be led along that flowery way to the bower of bliss at the end of it, to be persuaded into love by all the flatteries and worship of a lover so delicately impassioned could a girls imagination conceive anything more exquisite? No, she was not in love yet. But there was no reason why she should not be, except the soft, maidenly reluctance, the shy retreat before one who kept advancing, the instinct of coy resist- ance to an inevitable delight. Into this delicate world of happiness, in which there was nothing real but all imag- ination, Lottie was delivered over that bright Sunday. She had no defence against it, and she did not wish to have any. She gave herself up to the dream. After that interval of heaviness, of dark- ness, when there was no pleasant delusion to support her, and life ~with all its difficul- ties and dangers became so real, confront- ing her at every point, what an escape it was for Lottie to find herself again under the dreamy skies of that fools paradise! It was the garden of Eden to her. She thought it was the true world and the other the false one The va~ue terror and dis- gust with which her fathers new plans filled her mind, floated away like a mist; and, as for Law, what so easy as to carry him with her into the better world where she was going! Her mind in a moment was lightened of its load. She had left home heavily; she went back scarcely able to keep from singing in the excess of her lighthearted ness, more lifted above earth than if any positive good had come to her. So long as the good is coming, and exists in the imagination only, how much more entrancing is it than anything real that ever can be ours! The same event, however, which had so much effect upon Lottie, acted upon her family too in a manner for which she was far from being prepared. Captain Despard came in as much elated visibly as she was in her heart. There had been but little intercourse among them since the evening when the captain had made those inquiries about Rollo, which Lottie resented so deeply. The storm had blown over, and she had nominally forgiven Law for going over to the enemys side; but Lotties heart had been shut even against her brother since that night. He had forsaken her, and she had not been able to l)~55 over his desertion of her cause. How- ever, her heart had softened with her hap- piness, and she made his tea for him now more genially than she had done for weeks before. They seated themselves round the table with perhaps less constraint than usuala result due to the smiling aspect of the captain as well as to the softened sentiment in Lotties heart. Once upon a time a family tea was a favorite feature in English literature, from Cowper down to Dickens, not to speak of the more exclu- sively domestic fiction of which it is the chosen banquet; a great deal has been said of this nondescript (and indigestible) meal. But perhaps there must be a draw- ing of the curtains, a wheeling in of the 104 WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. sofa, a suggestion of warmth and comfort in contradistinction to storms and chills outside, as in the opium-eaters picture of his cottage, to carry out the ideal cir- cumstances altogether wanting to the tea of the Despards, which was eaten (passez- viol le viol, for is it not the bread and but- ter that makes the meal?) in the warmest hour of an August afternoon. The win- dow indeed was open, and the Deans Walk, by which the townspeople were coming and going in considerable numbers, as they afways did on Sunday, was visible with its gay groups, and the prospect out- side was more. agreeable than the meal within. Mrs. OShaughn essy, next door, had loosed her cap-strings, and fanned herself at intervals as she sipped her tea. Its hot, but sure it cools you after, she was saying to her major. The Despards, however, were not fat, and did not show the heat like their neighbors. Law sat at the table and pegged away resolutely at his bread and butter, having nothing to take his mind off his food, and no very exciting prospect of supper to sustain him. But the captain took his tea daintily, as one who had heard of a roast fowl and sausages to be ready by nine oclock, and was therefore more or less indifferent to the bread and butter. He patted Lottie on the shoulder as she gave him his tea. My child, he said, I was wrong the other day. It is not every man that would own it so frankly; but I have always been a candid man, though it has damaged me often. When I am in the wrong I am bound to confess it. Take my hand, Lot- tie, my love. I made a mistake. Lottie looked at him surprised. He had taken her hand and held it, shaking it, half playfully, in his own. My love, he said, you are not so candid as your poor father. You will get on all the better in the world. I withdraw everything I said, Lottie. All is going well, all is for the best. I make no doubt you can manage your own affairs a great deal better than I. What is it you mean, papa? We will say no more, my child. I give you free command over yourself. That was a fine anthem this afternoon, and I have no doubt those were well re- paid who came from a distance to hear it. Dont you think so, Lottie? Many peo- ple come from a great distance to hear the service in the Abbey, and no doubt the signor made it known that there was to be such a good anthem today.~~ Lottie did not make any reply. She looked at him with mingled wonder and impatience. What did he mean? It had not occurred to her to connect Rollo with the anthem, but she perceived by the look on her fathers face that something which would be displeasing to her was in his mind. Whats the row? said Law. Who was there ? I thought it was always the same old lot. And so it is generally the same old loL We dont vary; but when pretty girls like Lottie say their prayers regu- larly, heaven sends somebody to hear them. Oh, yes; there is always somebody sent to hear them. But you are quite right to allow nothing to be said about it, my child, said the captain; not a word, on the honor of a gentleman. Your feel- ings shall be respected. But it may be a comfort to you, my love, to feel that what- ever happens your father is behind you, Lottie knows and approves. My dear, I say no more. By Jove! What is it? cried Law. It is nothing to you, said his father; but look here, Law. See that you dont go out all over the place and leave your sister by herself, without any one to take care of her. My engagements I cant always give up, but dont let me hear that theres nobody to walk across the road with Lottie when shes asked out. Oh, thats it, is it ? said Law. I thought theyd had enough of you at the Deanery, Lottie. Thats going to begin again, then, I suppose? I am not invited to the Deanery, said Lottie, with as much state and solemnity as she could summon up, though she trem- bled; neither is it going to begin again. There is no occasion for troubling Law or you either. I always have taken care of myself hitherto, and I suppose I shall do it till the end. You need not get on your high horse, my child, said Captain Despard blandly. Dont suppose that I will interfere; but it will be a consolation to you to remember that your father is watching over you, and that his heart goes with you, he added, with an unctuous roll in his voice. He laid his hand for a moment on her head, and said, Bless you, my love, before he turned away. The captains emotion was great; it almost brought the tears to his manly eyes. What is the row? said Law, when his father had gone. Laws attention had been fully occupied during the service with his own affairs, and he did not know of the reappearance of Rollo. One would think he was going to cry over you, WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 105 Lottie. What have you done ? Engage- ments he has always got some engage- ment or other. I never knew a fellow with such a lot of friends I shouldnt wonder if he was going to sup somewhere to-night. I wonder what they can see in him, said Law with a sigh. Law, are you going out too? Oh, I suppose so; there is nothing to do in the house. What do you suppose a fellow can do? Reading is slow work; and, besides, its Sunday, and its wrong to work on Sunday. I shall go out and look round a bit, and see if I can see any one I know. Do you ever think, I wonder, said Lottie papa and you that if it is so dull for you in the house, it must some- times be a little dull for me ? She was not in the habit of making such appeals, but to-night, there was courage and a sense of emancipation in her which made her strong~ You? Oh, well, I dont know you are a girl, said Law, and girls are used to it. I dont know what you would do if you wanted to have a little fun, eh? I dare say you dont know yourself. Yes, I shouldnt wonder if it ~vas dull; hut what can any one do? Its nature, I suppose, said Law; there isnt any fun for girls as there is for us. Well, is there? How should I know? But there was fun for Emma and her sisters of the workroom, Law remind- ed himself with a compunction. Ill tell you what, Lottie, he said hastily; you must do just as other girls do. You must get some one to walk with you, and talk, and all that, you know. Theres nothing else to be done; and you might have plenty. Theres that singing fellow, that young Purcell; they say hes in love with you. Well, hes better than nobody; and you could give him the sack as soon as you saw somebody you liked better. I thought at one time that Ridsdale I think, Law, said Lottie, you had better go out for your walk. He laughed. He was half pleased to have roused and vexed her, yet half sorry too. Poor Lottie I Now that she was abandoned by her grand admirer and all her fine friends, it must be dull for her, staying in the house by herself; but then what could he do, or any one? It was nature. Nature, perhaps, might be to blame for not providing fun for girls, but it was not for Law to set nature right. XVhen he had got his hat, however, and brushed his hair before going out, he came back and looked at Lottie with a compunc tion. He could not give up meeting Em- ma in order to take his sister for a walk, though, indeed, this idea actually did glance across his mind as a rueful possi- bility. No, he could not go; he had ised Emma to meet her in the woods, and he must keep his word. But he was very sorry for Lottie. What a pity she had not some one of her own Purcell, if nobody better! and then, when the right one came, she might throw him off. But Law did not dare to repeat his advice to this effect. He went and looked at her remorsefully. Lottie had seated herself up-stairs in the little drawing-room ;she was leaning her elbow on the ledge of the little deep window, and her bead upon her hand. The attitude was pensive; and Law could not help thinking that to be a girl, and sit there all alone looking out of a window instead of roaming about as he did, would be something very terrible. The contrast chilled him and made him momentarily ashamed of himself. But then he reflected that there were a great many people passing up and down, and that he had often heard people say it was amusing to sit at window. Very likely Lottie thought so; probably, on the whole, she liked that better than going out. This must be the case, he persuaded him- self, or else she would have been sure to manage to get some companion; there- fore he said nothing to her, but went down-stairs very quietly and let himself out softly, not making any noise with the door. Law had a very pleasant walk with Emma under the trees, and enjoyed him- self; but occasionally there would pass a shadow over him as he thought of Lottie sitting at the window in the little still house all alone. But indeed, for that evening at least, Lottie was not much to be pitied. She had her dreams to fall back upon. She had what is absolutely necessary to hap- piness not only something to look back to, but something to look forward to. That is the true secret of bliss some- thing that is coming. With that to sup- port us, can we not bear anything? After a while, no doubt, Lottie felt, as she had often felt before, that it was dull. There was not a sound in the little house; every- body was out except herself;