(IJunicll Uniucrsity IGibraty 
 
 atljaca, Neui llnrk 
 
 WORDSWORTH COLLECTION 
 
 MADE BY 
 
 CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN 
 
 ITHACA. N. Y. 
 

 
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l{/ ^JUaH^ 
 
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 Cornell University 
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 The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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NOTES ON 
 
 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
WORKS BY LADY WILDE 
 
 ANCIENT LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 ANCIENT IRISH CURES AND CHARMS 
 
 DRIFTWOOD FROM SCANDINAVIA 
 
 ERITIS SICUT DEUS. Three volumes. From the 
 G-ennan 
 
 SIDONIA THE SORCERESS. From the German 
 
 THE GLACIER LAND. Dumas 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 LADY WILDE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 ANCIENT LEGENDS OF IRELAND ' ' DRIFTWOOD FROM SCANDINAVIA ' &C. 
 
 efecfeb (^00ai?0 
 
 FIEST SERIES 
 
 , 7 
 
 WARD & DOWNEY 
 
 12 YOBK STEEET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1891 
 
 [All rights resef^ved] 
 
 3o 
 

 /\. 6o|0G4- 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 SPOTTaWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUAKB 
 
 LONDON 
 
 wv. 
 
 5-V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 -^O*- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jean Paul Richter . . i 
 
 The Girondins . . . . , . . 28 
 
 Calderon ........ 49 
 
 Stella and Vanessa . . . . . . 85 
 
 Miss Martineau . . . . . . 1X2 
 
 Lady Blessington . . . . . . . 127 
 
 George Eliot . . . . . , .171 
 
 Daniel O'Connell . . . . . . . 130 
 
 The Right Reverend Dr. Doyle .... 198 
 
 Lord Lytton . . . . . . . . 204 
 
 Disraeli and Endymion '..... 213 
 
 Thomas Moore. . . . . . . . 221 
 
 Leigh Hunt . . . . . . .231 
 
 Wordsworth . . . . . . . . 247 
 
 Philip James Bailey : 
 
 I. 'FESTUS' . . . . . .261 
 
 II. ' the angel world ' . . . . . 274 
 
 Alfred Tennyson : 
 
 I. the PRINCESS ' . . . . . 286 
 
 ii. * the holy grail ' and other poems . . 304 
 
 iii. *in memoriam ' ..... 318 
 
 World Leaders . . . . . . . 326 
 
 Charles Kean as King Richard . . . .344 
 
MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 -•0*- 
 
 JEAN PAUL RICHTER 
 
 The eighteenth century is marked in German history by the 
 rise of that wonderful literature which sprang into life full 
 grown, full armed, like a second Minerva, and has since reigned 
 the undisputed leader of the thought of Europe, 
 
 Jean Paul Richter belonged to this brilliant era of splendid 
 intellects, and was one of its most celebrated leaders, while 
 Goethe, Herder, Schiller, Kant, Lessing, Wieland, Tieck, Klop- 
 stock, ISTovalis, Schelling, Jacobi — all these constellated stars of 
 poetry and philosophy were his contemporaries. The great 
 German ocean of thought was then at a springtide, and over- 
 flowing into all Europe ; and from then until now, from her 
 forests and her mountains, Germany has never ceased sending 
 forth spiritual giants to exterminate error and crush dogmatic 
 bigotry. 
 
 Richter's life, like that of the German literati in general, 
 was marked by little external variety : from Bayreuth to 
 Berlin to live — from Berlin to Bayreuth to die. He never 
 beheld the sea nor the Swiss mountains ; and bitterly lamented, 
 in his latter years, that he must die without ever having be- 
 held the glory of nature from the summit of the Righi. There 
 is a dreary monotonous uniformity in all these German lives. 
 Kant, it is said, never crossed the court of the college in which 
 he resided for thirty years ; and Schiller never beheld that 
 
 B 
 
2 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 Switzerland whose scenery he has depicted with such consum- 
 mate truth in his ' William Tell.' 
 
 The greatest literary men amongst them, Goethe, and a 
 few others excepted, have generally commenced life as school- 
 master or private tutor, and ended as priest, professor, or state 
 counsellor. This is the usual routine ; but the duality in their 
 lives is still more striking than the uniformity. The outer 
 world, so prosaic, dull, struggling, matter-of-fact — the inner 
 a central fire, ever heaving up some gigantic mass of thought, 
 or pouring forth its rich lava stream over the rude mechanical 
 stra.ta of daily life, crystallising all it touches into gems. 
 
 E/ichter's parents belonged to the humbler classes. Their 
 dwelling, in which he first saw the light, was a little thatched 
 cottage. Their library, the first dawning to him of a brighter 
 light than the material, consisted only of the family Bible and 
 psalm-book. Here, cradled in poverty, material and spiritual 
 destitution, sprang to life one of the most gifted souls of the 
 century. ' Truly, let none despair. Genius is of the palm- 
 tree nature, which springs up and spreads out broader to 
 heaven the bleaker and more arid is the desert around : ' 
 ' Welcome poverty,' continues Jean Paul, ' so it come not too 
 late in life. Riches weigh more heavily on talent than 
 poverty. Under gold mountains lie crushed many spiritual 
 Titans. Fate darkens the cage of the singing bird until he 
 learns the harmonies she would teach him.' 
 
 While Jean Paul was yet a child, his father was appointed 
 pastor of Joditz, which village he designated as his spiritual 
 birthplace • for here the intellectual fibres, thirsting for nourish- 
 ment, penetrated and wound themselves around everythino- 
 from which they could extract aliment. He had access to an ex- 
 tensive miscellaneous library, the property of a friend • and 
 thus, at the age of fifteen, saturated his mind with whatever 
 he could appreciate and assimilate, laying the foundation of 
 that truly wonderful and varied extent of knowledge, that un- 
 limited power of illustration from all sciences and all litera- 
 tures which is such a distinguishing peculiarity of his writino^s. 
 Having no means of purchasing books, he adopted the plan of 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 3 
 
 making extract-books, which soon became a rich library in 
 themselves. Before his seventeenth year he had thus com- 
 pleted many volumes, each containing 300 quarto pages. This 
 self-teaching was far more consonant to his nature than the 
 common-place routine of a school education, which only 
 irritated without satisfying his mind. His companions, who 
 mocked the poor village lad, in his coarse, ungainly dress of 
 home manufacture, could not distinguish the gifted soul that 
 lay hid beneath this rude disguise ; and many a dark hour he 
 passed during his school days, mourning the want of those two 
 great blessings denied to his unsunned youth, teachers and 
 love. About this time his father died, and, in addition to his 
 own trials and struggles, the care and support of his mother 
 devolved on him — this poor mother, of whom he has said so 
 beautifully that he loved all mothers for her sake. At eighteen 
 he entered the university of Leipsic, where he soon found what 
 sort of life people must lead who have neither friends nor 
 money. His family wished him to enter the ministry ; but 
 his dislike to theology was invincible ; for ' to study what is 
 not congenial to our nature is to contend with meanness, dis- 
 gust, and ennui. To lavish talent on a subject wherein we 
 can never excel is to weaken ourselves for one in which we 
 might have reached to distinction ; but you must earn your 
 bread— this is the miserable reason given. I know of nothing 
 bv which bread cannot be earned. Whatever be the natural 
 tendency of your intellect, follow it— sacrifice everything for 
 it, and if even the paltry reward bestowed on insignificant 
 talent be denied, yet the exquisite enjoyment will still be yours 
 which springs from the pursuit of truth and the consciousness 
 of its attainment.' Thus writes Jean Paul. 
 
 At this time he read the French authors with avidity. 
 Voltaire, Helvetius, and Rousseau were his favourites ; but, if 
 delighted by their wit and eloquence, he never became their 
 disciple. Deep, intense faith seemed one of the primal 
 faculties of his nature, as it is of German nature in general- 
 faith in eternal truths, in the existence of the divine nature 
 
 within us, and in the glorious possibility of humanity. So 
 
 b2 
 
4 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 here, in this gay, beautiful city of Leipsic, wandered the poor, 
 unknown Richter, vainly trying, by the hieroglyphics of ex- 
 ternal pomp, to learn something of that great world-life, dash- 
 ing and sparkling around him. But the gay world little 
 heeded the tall, fair, flowing-haired rustic, in his thread-bare 
 garments — and at last he takes the desperate resolve to become 
 an author, finding no way in which he can maintain himself 
 and his mother, unless by some such daring foray into the 
 rich, brilliant world that surrounded him. 
 
 But it is easier to write a book than to find a publisher. 
 This remorseless race stand dragon-like at the portal of Fame's 
 Temple, and few, indeed, of the young aspirants survive the 
 combat which is necessary before they can enter. Richter's 
 first work lay unnoticed month after month on the desk of 
 the publisher, and finally died as it had lived, in manuscript. 
 Jean Paul, who perpetually reproduces himself in his works, 
 describes in his novel of ' Siebenkass ' how the poor advocate 
 went from bookseller to bookseller in Leipsic, drew his manu- 
 script from his pocket and replaced it again like a dagger in 
 its sheath. In six months he completed another work, again 
 applied to tlie dragons^ but was refused by all. Yet he took 
 courage to send it to Berlin, and in his dreary, cold, friendless 
 desolation was at last cheered by the announcement that it 
 should appear at the next Leipsic fair. It did appear, but 
 nobody minded it ; and when he wrote a third volume of the 
 same kind of satirical essays, he could find neither editor, pub- 
 lisher, nor reader. As a last resource he sent it, with a letter 
 stating his necessities, to all the distinguished and learned 
 men. His letters remained unanswered, he was repulsed from 
 every door, and in despair he fled from Leipsic in diso-uise, as 
 though he had been a criminal, and took refuse once ao-ain 
 with his poor mother at Hoflf, whose residence was now further 
 reduced to one apartment, where cookery, washino", spinnin<y 
 and all the labours of domestic life, were carried on. Amid 
 tliese strange dissonances, PJchter thought, and wrote and 
 uttered to the world the deep music of his poet nature. But 
 after all, physical destitution is not the greatest evil to which 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 5 
 
 man is subject : the true soul-annihilating position is that of 
 physical enjoyment. What are all the evils of hard work, 
 coarse food, rude garments, compared with the listless misery 
 and weary vapidness of a life in which there is nothing to 
 combat, nothing to sacrifice, nothing to endure ? 
 
 The poor know nothing of the purposeless existence, the 
 faded, false life, or of that weary impatience produced from 
 the plenitude of all worldly enjoyments. Life in its fullest 
 meaning, physically, psychologically, and morally, is resistance. 
 Inaction is death — the suicide of the soul. ' What is poverty 
 that a man should pine under it ? ' asks Jean Panl. ' It is but 
 like piercing the ears of a maiden, and you hang precious / 
 jewels in the wound.' Richter was now twenty- two, and read 
 and laboured in his not quite idyllic retreat for many years 
 with the most untiring assiduity, lighting up the caverns of 
 his own mind with many lamps before he again attempted to 
 illuminate those of others. Here his extract books increased 
 infinitely ; not a thought, phenomenon, or illustration escaped 
 him, whether observed in books or nature, or in his own 
 creative mind. All were instantly preserved, and formed 
 what he termed ' the quarries of his great works.' It was from 
 this custom that he was enabled to exhibit in his works that 
 extraordinary mass of information which makes one think 
 that his reading was universal and his memory omnipresent. 
 
 His next essay in money-making was as a private tutor, 
 which office he sustained with much heart-sickening for three 
 years. At length, disgusted with the 'exceeding unpoeti- 
 calness of boy-nature,' as Arnold phrases it, he resigned the 
 employment, and fled back again to the cooking and spinning 
 mother at Hoff. His mind had now long lain fallow, enriching 
 itself with influences from above and around — for, according 
 to his own doctrine, ' The young poet should long love, wonder, 
 worship and weep before he ventures to incarnate his wild 
 thoughts into harmonious forms.' But the creative spirit 
 sprang up strong again within him, and finding that no one 
 would read his satirical essays, he abandoned the 'vinegar 
 manufactory ' and wrote an essay on death, an earnest serious 
 
6 MEN, WOIIEN, AND LOOKS 
 
 work. Wieland was then editor of ^The German Mercury/ 
 a paper which influenced all the cultivated minds of Germany 
 for twenty years, and procured for Weimar the title of the 
 German Athens. All trivial gossip was excluded from its 
 pages, while the higher literature of Europe, philosophy, art, 
 political epochs, all subjects calculated to have an enduring in- 
 fluence upon men were elucidated and discussed with that calm, 
 comprehending cosmopolitanism for which the Germans are 
 unrivalled. Pvichter's essay obtained admission into this paper, 
 and its publication brought him the friendship of the great 
 Herder — the man who was ^ not a poet but a poem,' w^hose 
 'soul was one thought, but that thought the universe.' So 
 Jean Paul gained some celebrity, but no money ; although at 
 the time he and his mother had not wherewithal in the house 
 to purchase wood for their fire. Again he attempted education, 
 and opened a school. The four years passed in this employ- 
 ment were, he states, the happiest of his life, ' for it is pleasant 
 in the Arabia Petraea of human life to meet one race at least 
 whose lips and eyes have never worn a mask.' He also be- 
 came guide, philosopher, and friend to all the tender, aspiring 
 female hearts of the neighbourhood. No poet ever loved the 
 sex with sublimer devotion. To him the female nature, with 
 its instinctive perceptions of truth, beauty, and grace, and 
 appreciation for all that is noble and self-sacrificing, its soft 
 emotions and unselfish love appeared to be the nearest approach 
 to a divine nature which we possess on earth ; and he always 
 strove to place the sex on that pedestal for which nature in- 
 tended them, but from which they so often voluntarily descend. 
 He mourns over the young bride whose husband will no lono-er 
 demand of her ' a tender, gay, happy heart, but only rou^-h- 
 working fingers, feet never weary, and a quiet paralytic tono-ue. 
 Thou wert created for something nobler ; but do we not see 
 daily how souls are sacrificed because they inhabit a woman's 
 form ? On the female mind, as on the female body, is bound 
 an eternal corset. They go from chain to chain.' 
 
 liichter was twenty-eight when his first romance appeared 
 'The Invisible Dwelling.' For ten weary years he had been 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTEE 7 
 
 under the severe, educating discipline of destiny. But his 
 Lehrjahr (apprenticeship) was at last completed. He stood 
 now on the middle point of life, and from this on till its 
 close, love, appreciation, honour, and fame, were granted to 
 him. 
 
 This first novel of Richter's was suggested by his own 
 peculiar employments at the time. In it he has developed his 
 theory of education, as practised by himself towards his pupils. 
 The characters are but projected shadows of himself, and his 
 immediate friends. He knew no other social world. His own 
 autobiography — that of his emotional life — is pictured in the 
 hero, Gustave ; for ' the young author ' (he says in the pre- 
 face) ' tries to compress his whole life, with all its overflowing 
 thoughts and feelings, into his first work, as if no second — ay, 
 twenty other openings, did not remain for their expression.' 
 Gustave passes the first eight years of his life in a subterranean 
 dwelling, under the care of his teacher (a mystic, heavenly- 
 souled being, designated ' The Genius ' ), in order that he may 
 not become hardened by a too early familiarity with vice, nor 
 indifferent to the magic loveliness of nature, before his soul is 
 awakened to comprehend her. The chapter describing his 
 resurrection from this grave-life beneath the earth to the 
 living life above it, at the moment of a glorious sunrise, is 
 exquisitely and mystically beautiful. One can imagine the 
 deep psychological truths which are afterwards elicited by the 
 contrast of a fine, spiritual, untarnished nature like Gustave's, 
 with the rude attritions of the world to which it becomes sud- 
 denly exposed ; and with his own peculiar humour and world- 
 pathos, his laughing emotion and weeping mockery, Jean Paul 
 lays bare the whole system of our false society, ' this senti- 
 mental lie,' as Menzel terms it. It is this eternal dualism of 
 human life which Richter delights to paint, wherein ' man, 
 like the Egyptian deity, half-animal, half -god, a divine torso, 
 vibrates between the spiritual and the material, as the moon 
 is attracted at once both by the sun and the earth, but the 
 earth binds her fast in her chains, and she looks to the sun 
 only and trembles.^ But not only does he paint this ever- 
 
8 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 enduring antagonism between our two natures, but that also 
 between the consciously gifted mind and its position — 
 between the spiritual and the practical — when the rude 
 ploughshare of existence is dragged by the horses of the sun. 
 ' How often does the soul sink in the struggle, stifled between 
 the low mud walls of the actual which surround it, and in 
 whose dull opacity exists no chink, no cranny through which 
 the spiritual light can gleam ! ' The soul that sinneth it shall 
 die, is the fatal judgment for whose fulfilment we are accus- 
 tomed to look only to futurity ; but do not souls die here ? 
 The soul dies that does not reign. * Of what avail,' says Jean 
 Paul, ' are all our godlike gifts, if weeks, months, years stream 
 by and they are never evidenced, never invoked ? What are 
 all the acts of man ? Ever less than his powers and his 
 volitions ; and so pass on the years without object or aim — 
 the enigma of life still unsolved, and age after age ripens, falls, 
 and rots, only to manure the one which follows it. Alas ! 
 there is nothing left to man when the flowers of youth 
 have fallen, and the singing birds are silent in the branches, 
 but to lie down upon the faded leaves and die.' 
 
 When ' the Genius ' brings the young Gustave to the upper 
 living world, and consigns him to his family, he disappears, 
 leaving one half of a sheet of music with his pupil, and re- 
 taining the other portion himself. Gustave's contains the 
 dissonance of a melody, and certain questions. That wdiich 
 the Genius takes contains the resolution of the dissonance and 
 the answers. When they meet again in the great world- desert 
 they are to recognise each other by these signs. Here too 
 is a mystery. 
 
 When we come in infancy from God to earth, is not life 
 to us the dissonance, and our earnest seeking, never-satisfied 
 soul the ceaseless propounder of questions which will never 
 receive an answer until we meet God in that future life 
 where alone we shall find the resolution of the dissonance a H 
 the fulfilment of our aspirations ? 
 
 Richter's next novel, entitled ' Hesperus,' procured 1 * 
 much celebrity and many friends. On its publication 1 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 9 
 
 visited Bayreuth, and there, for the first time, was received in 
 society on an equality with the most distinguished men, and 
 admitted to the acquaintance of elegant and accomplished 
 women. Here he beheld the beautiful Clotilde, whose portrait 
 he had previously drawn in the ' Hesperus,^ from the descrip- 
 tion of an enthusiastic friend. Jean Paul was an acute 
 observer of the fair sex, and Clotilde seems fully to have under- 
 stood the value of a j^ose inttoresque. He describes her as 
 ' seated at a window listening to her nightingales, in the 
 shadow of a curtain, so that a slight reflection of rose colour 
 fell upon her face, while her hand played with some fresh- 
 gathered flowers. She is twenty-seven, of a majestic height, 
 and has the most beautifully ennobled expression.^ 
 
 The story of ' Hesperus ^ is peculiarly involved. Even 
 Richter advises every reader to provide himself with a bio- 
 graphical dictionary of the characters to assist his memory. 
 A mystic, nympholeptic spirit is one of the leading personages 
 contrasted with an infidel English lord. There is a beautiful 
 silver thread of love running through the story, between the 
 hero, who is the type of an elevated human nature, and a 
 lovely being — half angel, half woman — the type of the ideal- 
 ised senses, as woman is mean': to be. She hovers round the 
 strong, defined, sharp outline of the masculine nature, soften- 
 ing, beautifying, adorning all, as the light frieze or acanthus 
 bordering, or flowing arabesques on some lofty mediaeval temple. 
 We find much emotion^ but little passion in Richter's writings, 
 for he always strove to paint the true and the eternal — and 
 passions are animal and transient, but emotions divine a.nd 
 immortal. We read often of Christ's emotions — never of His 
 passions. ' Hesperus ' is dedicated ' to the world-weary soul 
 who mourns a lost youth and a wasted life ; or to those lofty 
 SDirits who come forth perfected from the death dust of a 
 broken heart ; or to that still nobler soul who, weary of his 
 century and of this sad winter of humanity, filled with lofty 
 aspirations and sublime sorrows, passes on with eyes upraised 
 to the calm eternal heavens, and heeds not the heavy step of 
 death nor the falling forms of his brethren as they sink into the 
 
10 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 grave, for he is bound to mortality only by the thrilling hand 
 of a friend which clasps his in the darkness.' 
 
 In his next romance, ' Quintus Fixlein,' the object seems 
 to be the distillation of poetry from the commonplace — that 
 true poetry which lies about our feet, and which need not be 
 sought in world -shattering passions or world-darkening ob- 
 scurity. It is the awful sense of the deep meaning that lies 
 in every moment, in every grain of life that falls upon eternity* 
 It is the visionary eye which, in the commonest, the most 
 ordinary of human actions, can discover the unseen, eternal, 
 mystic thought it symbolises : — 
 
 ' The lowest life,' says Richter, ' is as poetical as the highest, 
 perhaps even more so ; for there is in it more of symbol ; and 
 they are both but phases of the one humanity. Why live but 
 in remorse or aspirations, in the past or the future ? Each 
 moment, man ! is to thee an entire life. Enjoy thy heing^ 
 but heed not thy r)iode of being. Make thy present not a 
 mere means to a future, which is but a coming present, as this 
 despised present w^s once a desired future. Despise our false 
 life that you may enjoy the real. Look upon a city but as an 
 aggregate of villages — a village but as the connected lanes of 
 a city. Consider that joy is but a second, grief a moment, life a 
 day, and but three things eternal — God^ creation^ and thy souL^ 
 
 Richter does not ask a prize for having discovered new 
 pleasures, only for having given us a good methodology for 
 enjoying the old. In the preceding works his heroes are 
 lifted above humanity. Here we have the picture of a genial 
 soul acting within the limits of an ordinary week-day life, and 
 elevating that life to a meaning by uniting with it. It is in 
 this novel those beautiful prose Lyrics, ' The Death of an 
 Angel,' and ' The Eclipse ' are to be found. 
 
 The ' Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces,' his next production, 
 and the best known in this country, where it has found its 
 way even into the circulating libraries, is a tangled wilderness 
 of all mental vegetation, through which one wanders enchanted 
 as through an Indian forest, with its echoes of wavino- palms 
 and Ganges streams, and tropical hurricanes of tropes. It 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 11 
 
 contains essays, visions, one of which is the celebrated ' Dead 
 Christ,' and a romance, ' The History of the Poor Advocate 
 Siebenkass/ It is the most personal of all Jean PauVs works. 
 Under the veil of a fictitious character he describes his own 
 transition from the every-day life of reality to the higher ideal 
 life of poetry and imagination. 
 
 Nothing can be more fatally true than the picture given in 
 it of an ill-assorted union, where there exists an unequal 
 standard of mind, and a deficiency of culture in one of the 
 parties. Lenette, the wife of Siebenkass, is incapable of 
 understanding her gifted husband. He married her for her 
 innocence and simplicity, but finds too late that a narrow mind 
 and obtuse intellect is the most unendurable of all companions 
 to a man of genius. His impatient weariness becomes con- 
 tempt — disgust ; and their mutual suiferings convey painful 
 but most truthful lessons. The excellent Lenette is parti- 
 cularly pai'tial to house-cleaning — her whole soul lies in it. 
 She is a sort of incarnate sweeping-brush — an animated floor- 
 cloth — a living ubiquitous duster. The whole house becomes 
 a Gehenna and Tartarus to the poor martyr, Siebenkass. 
 What fearful noises of sweeping, dusting, rubbing, are per- 
 petually murdering the thoughts in his soul, as he vainly strives 
 to think and write in his chamber. Sometimes she walks so 
 heavily across the room, with such resounding clatter, that he 
 remonstrates. The next time she enters in her socks ; but 
 this damp, muffled trotting is worse agony. Then it strikes 
 Lenette that she might get over her prayers while her husband 
 is writing ; but, if the wretched martyr rises but to watch a 
 doud or touch the harpsichord, up she jumps, with that detest- 
 able grey flannel floor-cloth in hand, that demoniacal sweep- 
 ing brush, and the martyr groans as if the tortures of the 
 Inquisition awaited him. 
 
 Poor Lenette ! She was one of those commonplace women 
 who never can be raised from the dull prose of life into a 
 lyrical inspiration — for whom the groat mystic universe is 
 nothing but a nursery or a ball-room — whose souls have but 
 the circumference of their thimbles. Yet it was not her 
 
12 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 fault. Few, indeed, amongst women are the hearts at once 
 tender and sublime — who can sanctify and indivinate the 
 earthly marriage bond, and raise to yet higher grades the souls 
 to which they are bound — the destinies which they have power 
 to guide. But Siebenkass does meet with one of these gifted 
 and rare beings — only it is too late. Now, for the first time, 
 he feels the whole meaning of to love. ^ Natalie ' is his destiny. 
 What fiery scenes, what burning words, what bitter partings, 
 now fill up the sad tragedy of his life. And still eternal, 
 immovable remains the gulf between them, which to pass were 
 Heaven^ but which Heaven forbids. At length, in a climax of 
 passion and love and despair, he flies from Natalie, and takes a 
 vow never to behold her again until after his death. He 
 returns to Lenette — the poor commonplace Lenette. What 
 a contrast from the brilliant, genius-gifted Natalie ! But he 
 tries to endure her, and even reads out some of his most 
 beautiful verses, while she sits at that eternal knitting, 
 endeavouring so to poetise it, if possible ; but al] the while he 
 hears the under murmur of ^ one, two, three, take up one,' and 
 is finally interrupted with ^ Stay, my dear, I observe there's a 
 stitch dropped in your stocking — take care you don't put it on 
 to-morrow till I mend it/ He flings down the book, exclaim- 
 ing ' Woman ! woman ! ' and rushes from the room. She has 
 disagreeable ways, too, like all little minds — sneers at ^ learned 
 ladies,' meaning Natalie, and invariably responds to every 
 remark addressed to her by Siebenkass, whether poetical or 
 profound, with ^ What do you say ? ' — an excruciating way to 
 meet the low breathings of a poet's soul. Finally, human 
 nature, or rather gifted nature, could endure no longer the 
 daily crucifixion. Through the assistance of a friend, Sieben- 
 kass feigns death — has a mock funeral, and a generous public 
 erects a tombstone over his grave. He, in the meanwhile 
 escapes disguised, and flies to a distant province, where he 
 gives himself up to a life of seclusion, and dreams of Natalie. 
 In a year he hears that Lenette has married some excellent 
 creature as good and uninteresting as herself. He wishes to 
 be an unseen witness of her happiness, and returns secretly to 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 13 
 
 his native town. Here he enters the churchyard, and reads 
 above a new-made grave the names of Lenette and her new- 
 born infant. Then he visits his own grave, and while musing 
 over himself — at once dead and alive — a veiled female 
 approaches. She screams and faints on beholding him. He 
 receives her in his arms. It is Natalie. She had come to 
 visit his grave, and fancied his spirit had appeared to her. 
 With what burning kisses he awakes her to life and love ! and 
 there, standing on his own grave, now free, he receives the 
 plighted vows, the trembling hand, the betrotlied kiss of his 
 souFs true love — the gifted Natalie. He has fulfilled his vow. 
 They had never met until after his death, 
 
 E/ichter had now become famous, and was pressed to visit 
 Weimar, that focus of savants, where Goethe, Schiller, Herder, 
 and Wieland reigned supreme. There he was received with 
 the most fanatical enthusiasm — this tall, slight, pale poet, from 
 the wild Fichtelberge, with his noble brow, clear eyes, in which, 
 like Schelling's, ' shone the might of intellectual command ^ — 
 and, what is so seldom met with in the face of genius, a lovely 
 mouth. It is Arndt who remarks that all great intellects 
 have two worlds in their face, the earthly and heavenly — two 
 natures, the mortal and the god — and illustrates his theory by 
 Madame de Stael, whose eyes and brow were godlike, while 
 her mouth — but we must not criticise a lady. With his long 
 fair hair floating in natural curls on his shoulders, Jean Paul 
 must have been a most picturesque apparition at the Athenian 
 Court of Weimar. Add to these external advantages his 
 earnest, impassioned manner, with somewhat of an impediment 
 at times, as if the ideas thronged too rapidly for utterance, and 
 
 The chariot wheels jarred in the gate through which he drave 
 them forth, 
 
 and his rich, varied, eccentric conversation, like a west wind 
 sweeping before it a whirlwind of leaves and flowers — thus it 
 is no wonder that all the savantes and hero-worshipping ladies 
 of Germany pined away for the love of him. 
 
 One of the most remarkable amongst these idolatresses 
 
14 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 was Madame von Kalb, the Aspasia of Weimar and the 
 original of Linda^ in Richter's novel of ' Titan ' — ' with great 
 eyes and a great soul, such as I never met with before. She 
 speaks as others write.' Thus he describes her. But her 
 sentiments on religion and morals startled him, for he wor- 
 shipped in women not the mere external beauty, but rather 
 that divine inner nature of which he believed they were meant 
 to be the type, and cared little for the gem if the foil of the 
 spiritual were not beneath. He says somewhere — ' What a 
 full harmony of word, look, and movement surrounds a woman 
 who respects herself \^ He wrote ^The Eclipse,' to convey to 
 her a warning, which seems to have been needed, as she 
 declared in one of her letters that with the words law and 
 duty the evangel of love vanishes. His love finally changed 
 to pity and a mournful admiration. 'I will pray,' he says, 'when 
 I think of your heart, crushed as if it had been thrown from 
 rock to rock in the past.' He visited Goethe in his palace — a 
 pantheon of pictures and statues, the cold, one-syllabled god, 
 with a face massive, as if carved out of marble, and ' the stony 
 Schiller, from whom, as from a precipice, all strangers spring 
 back. He is full of power, but without loveJ How unlike 
 our ideal of the passionate dramatist, with that lovely counte- 
 nance we behold in his portraits, in which the expressions of 
 Plato and Endymion seem blended! And Schiller's wife he sees 
 ' with her Cleopatra eyes,' and that splendid Carol uie Herder, 
 familiar with all literatures, versed in all sciences, yet the 
 tenderest of wives, whose poet husband never could write 
 unless she were seated by his side, his visible inspiration ! Yet 
 with all this Richter returned home rather desillusionne w4th 
 the Mecca of his aspirations. ' Alas ! for my ideal of <^reat 
 men,' he exclaims ; ' authors are like planets, to distant regions 
 of space they are light-giving stars ; approach them and you 
 find they are but dull earth.' A blaze of flattery was now 
 poured on him enough to give weaker heads a coup de soleil 
 and the German women worshipped him as only German 
 women can. Amongst others the remarkable Julia von 
 Krudener visited him, celebrated with all celebrities, <^enius 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 15 
 
 beauty, wit, and eccentricity. Her lofty, enthusiastic spirit 
 made a deep impression on Jean Paul. She writes to him, ' I 
 have climbed the mountain which little minds have not power 
 to ascend, and the echo of their voices brings no discord to my 
 ear.' This fair transcendentalist was succeeded by a ^ feinme 
 incomprise^^ the most spiritual of female souls, nine parts 
 understanding and but one of heart. Richter offered her his 
 hand ; but her ' egotistical coldness, which demands and loves 
 nothing but perfection,' made him tremble for his prospect of 
 happiness. The lady honourably resigned him and happily 
 soon found another who could really love the nine parts 
 understanding (he was a Scotchman), and her marriage 
 released Richter from many a stormy scene. But neither 
 flattery nor fame could fill his soul. He complains at thirty- 
 five years of age that he had been alone all his life, that he 
 had never met a man he could take to his heart. Alas ! for 
 the egotism, or rather the soul-solitude of all elevated natures. 
 If they are elevated, it is but to the regions of eternal snow. 
 Like Saturn^ they are accompanied by revolving satellites, and 
 surrounded by gorgeous rings, but wander how far from the 
 sun of Love ! ' We pant and thirst,' says Ptichter, ' after the 
 love of others. We attain it, and then find it like to quick- 
 silver, which looks truly bright and beautiful as the gushing 
 stream, and so flows and so glitters ; but in reality nothing 
 can be colder, drier, or more heavy.' And now Richter begins 
 to long for a quiet home, and a gentle, wedded partner, who 
 could smile with him, weep with him, and sometimes cook for 
 him ! This estimable amalgamation of qualities he finds at 
 length in Caroline Meyer, a gentle, loving, patient, although 
 learned w^oman, who could read Ploio in the original, and 
 make her own dresses, perhaps all the better for the Greek, 
 and who loved, revered, worshipped her husband, because she 
 comfijjreliended him. 
 
 The novel of ' Titan ' on which he was employed ten years, 
 was published soon after his marriage. The heroine, Linda, 
 a proud, gifted, self -relying soul, whose law and gospel are 
 only its own generous, noble impulses, is drawn from Madame 
 
16 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Von Kalb, and the fatal effects of her philosophy on the 
 female mind are shown by the tragical fate of the heroine and 
 her moral death, Richter's object being to prove that the 
 catastrophe was inevitable from the principles, and that 
 character and destiny are the same. There is an amusing cha- 
 racter introduced, whose head has been turned by Fichte's 
 philosophy, and wlio fancies himself for ever pursued by an 
 objective ego^ from which he vainly tries to escape, while 
 another pure ego is within him. At length he dies in a fit of 
 mad excitement produced by a visit from his brother, who 
 resembles him strongly, and who, in consequence, he imagines 
 is the spiritual ego at last become objectively visible. 
 
 Richter, now tired of the gay and great world, leaves 
 Weimar, ' for it is not good to hold the ear too close to the 
 rushing waves of life ' ; retires to Bayreuth, wliere he settles 
 down quietly for life with his wife, this Caroline, ' who was 
 a poet in lier life, not for the public' Here he wrote with 
 untiring energy all day, and in the evening twilight would 
 improvise wild music on the harpsichord till thoughts as wild 
 and beautiful would flood his soul, and he would break out 
 into violent weeping. 'Nothing,' he says, 'exhausts me like 
 Fantasien on the piano. I could thus kill myself.' The fascina- 
 tion which Jean Pauls passionate writings exercised over the 
 ardent natures of enthusiastic Germany is exemplified in the 
 strange history of Maria Foster, who, when he was sixty, and 
 she but seventeen, actually committed suicide for the love of 
 him — this passion having been entirely kindled by his works, 
 for they never met. 
 
 The shadows of life were now deepening around Richter, 
 and a fearful sorrow fell on him. His eldest son, a orifted, 
 enthusiastic young man, died from the efiect of an overwroucrht 
 religious feeling acting on a fragile frame. On the day of his son's 
 death Richter began a work on Immortality ; it was meant to 
 be a continuation of 'The Campaner Thai,' commenced thirty 
 years before — a work in which occur the most beautiful and 
 profound passages in his works. It was written, he says, to 
 assist the philosophers ; for though the critical philosophy 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 17 
 
 proves truly that we are immortal, yet it is not every one who 
 can stand near enough to the professor's chair to hear his low- 
 voiced evidences. He, therefore, gives the same truths only 
 in a different form, for ' poetry and philosophy are the con- 
 jugate foci of the spiritual ellipse ; or, poetry is the electrical 
 condenser of philosophy. It is the spark which flashes through 
 men's souls and heals while it makes them tremble. Unless 
 literature unite hoth^ we have a disembodied poetry and an 
 unsouled philosophy.^ 
 
 Richter never recovered the death of his son, but he still 
 worked on with undiminished energy, though the tears fell 
 fast upon his pages. And so he wrote and wept for a few 
 years longer, until his sight failed. Then he became quite 
 blind, and soon all work ceased. He died in 1825, at the age 
 of sixty-three. Richter's writings present great difficulties to 
 the English student ; so involved, diffuse, unmethodised, are 
 his narratives, and so idiomatic his language. That is, he has 
 an idiom of his own, like Carlyle ; indeed those two authors 
 resemble each other strongly. There is the same vivid picture 
 language, and blended wit, poetry, humour, and deep pathos, 
 luxuriating into all strange forms, yet each, as in a kaleidoscope, 
 beautiful and harmonious ; their souls sometimes a camera 
 obscura, on which play the shadoios of the universe — now a 
 lens, in which its light is concentrated to a focus. Each page 
 of Richter is certainly an exercise of mental gymnastics ; but 
 also a treasure chamber of the most exquisite thoughts and 
 images. The whole universe yields him analogies, and every- 
 thing becomes beautiful to him ; for he looked on everything 
 with love^ and worshipped the glories of nature with the spirit 
 of a Greek. 
 
 His aim in writing, as he proudly and truly declares, was 
 to elevate the sinking faith in God, virtue, and immortality, 
 and in an age of egotism to kindle again the fire of humanity 
 in men's hearts. Like one of his own heroes, ' he had erected 
 an altar to God within his own heart like all men of elevated 
 natures, for it was on the mountains that of old men wor- 
 shipped God and raised temples to his honour.' There is 
 
 c 
 
18 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 something sublime in the defence of his writings which he 
 makes in one of his latest works : — 
 
 ' In that darkest moment of existence, in The Last, oh ye 
 men who have so often misunderstood me, I can lift up my 
 hand and swear that in my writings I never sought anything 
 but the good and the beautiful, so far as my powers and op- 
 portunities enabled me to discover them. And you who judge 
 me after a ten years' agony of a poor, friendless, clouded 
 destiny, warred on by indifference and helplessness — would yoit, 
 I demand, have remained faithful to their worship, even as I 
 have done ? But futurity cares little for the labours of a 
 loving heart ; only, perhaps after long, long years, when I 
 have passed away and been forgotten, some seed from these 
 my works, cast forth by the hand of time, will spring up in 
 llowers and fruit ; and some mourning heart will be vivified 
 thereby, and throb with gratitude — but know me not/ 
 
 Jean Paul's ' Visions ' have a great reputation. They are 
 ' grand and mystic as those of a Hebrew prophet.' Of them, 
 'The Dead Christ,' and 'The Vision of Annihilation,' are 
 reckoned the finest by the critics ; but even passages such as 
 are appended here, taken from his various works, at any chance 
 opened page, will give an idea of his peculiar style, of the rich 
 treasures of his imagination, and of that heart which, as 
 Menzel says, raged loith love. 
 
 THOUGHTS FEOM EICHTER 
 A poet's life. 
 
 The universal is the highest and most daring word in our 
 language, and the rarest in our thoughts. To most men 
 the universe is but the market-place of their own petty 
 contracted life, and the history of eternity only that of their 
 
 own town. Who has ever comprehended the universal the 
 
 all of reality — and flung the light of his genius down its 
 abysmal depths like those twin stars of poetry, Homer and 
 Shakspeare ? A great poet is one whose genius in its soul- 
 
JEAN PAUL RICHTER 19 
 
 wanderings has passed through all natures, all times, and all 
 situations, who has sailed round every coast of the world in 
 succession, and brought back with him bold and daring 
 sketches of their eternal forms. The poets of old were men of 
 action and warriors before they were singers ; and in par- 
 ticular the epic poets of all ages worked hard at the helm, as 
 they steered through the waves of life, ere they took the pencil 
 to sketch the course they had passed. Thus did Camoens, 
 Dante, Milton — thus were the clods of life in Shakspeare, and 
 yet more in Cervantes, broken, and ploughed up, and furrowed, 
 before the seeds of poet]y in their hearts germinated and 
 sprung up. 
 
 The first school of poetry should be action. Give a young 
 genius employment, not a book. Let him deduce poetry from 
 nature, not nature from poetry. 
 
 Truly neither a mentor nor a book, neither shears nor a 
 watering-pot, can give sap and colour to a flower, only 
 influences from heaven and earth. 
 
 Above all, act I Oh, in actions lie a thousand times more 
 lofty truths than in books. Actions nourish and warm the 
 inner man, while books and opinions only give a s:urface 
 superficial heat. Be not like children in scarlet fever, who 
 have burning foreheads but cold hands. Act ! Then will the 
 tree of knowledge and the tree of life spring up together ; 
 then will God tend that faith, in thee which was planted at 
 thy birth ; which no storms of life can overthrow ; and under 
 whose branches thou wilt find shadow, refreshment, and security. 
 
 WHICH IS GREATER ? 
 
 The gifted soul, who, elevated above the stormy interests 
 of his age, only looks on without aiding to guide them ; or 
 he who in the strength of that wisdom and power he has 
 gained in solitude, plunges into the world-tumult with all 
 his God-given energies, and proves their value by action 1 
 Lofty is the eagle when he daslies upward through the tem- 
 pest to the calm blue ether beyond ; but loftier when he stoops 
 
 c 2 
 
20 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 from that heaven, and with the might of his wings cleaves the 
 dark thunder-clouds that rest over his eyrie, to bring shelter 
 and protection to the trembling unf eathered little ones that lie 
 therein. 
 
 I am in general melancholy. Ah, this life is so bitter- 
 sweet, so compounded of nothing and all, an eternal sinking 
 and upheaving earthquake. We see no spectres round us ; 
 but they hang upon our neck, we bear them upon our 
 shoulders, until we become one ourselves. Would that I 
 might sleep still and deep. 
 
 The Tempe vale, the mother land of fancy, is found in 
 dreams. The melodies that murmur through that twilight 
 Arcadia — the Elysian fields that cover it — the heavenly forms 
 that dwell therein, bear no comparison with aught on earth. 
 And I have often thought, when awaking from these lovely 
 visions where youth, and love, and hope, and happiness were 
 mine once more, oh, that I could dwell yet longer in that 
 bright dreamland of slumber ! 
 
 The dead are the fallen columns of the world temple — the 
 living are the upstanding. 
 
 A man of greater mental power than his age is an anti- 
 cipated century. 
 
 Learning in heads, and French wine in bottles, become 
 soon of little value unless both are tilled quite up to the 
 cork. 
 
 Poetry and philosophy as comets and planets revolve round 
 the one sun of truth. They difier but in the extent of their 
 orbits. Poets and comets describe the greater ellipse. 
 
 It is easier to sacrifice oneself for a man than to love him 
 — to confer a favour on an enemy than to forgive him. 
 
 We are all republicans when we look into the imst. 
 
JE.1N PAUL EICHTER \ 21 
 
 What is life but the crystal portal of heaven ? We see 
 the glory and the beauty beyond, but cannot reach it. Wait. 
 The portal will one day open. 
 
 Genius can be only comprehended by genius. In this 
 sense no man is a hero to his vcdet de chambre. Such valet- 
 minds have no basis from which to calculate the parallax of 
 
 the lights of heaven. 
 
 OLD MEN. 
 
 Truly, their shadows are long, and their evening sun lies 
 coldly upon the earth ; still, their shadows all point towards 
 
 morning. 
 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 Do not ye stand nearest to God ? It is the least amongst 
 the planets which lies next to the sun. 
 
 THE GIFTED. 
 
 His soul is the retina of the universe. 
 
 THE UNGIFTED. 
 
 The man who lives simply through the understanding^ and 
 without poetry^ is imprisoned within the limits of the most 
 abject poverty. He resembles an autumn full of fruit, but to 
 which the magic of the singing birds is wanting ; or the vast 
 North American forests in their dull, mournful silence, un- 
 souled by any living voice. Great souls have neither model, 
 imitation, nor equal : as the falls of Niagara, the most resol 
 nant of all nature's thunders, produce no echo. 
 
 Genins has an attraction for sorrow, as the high mountains 
 attract the thunder-storm ; but the tempest expends its fury 
 upon them, and they prove the shelter and defence of the 
 plains beneath. 
 
 A SOLUTION. 
 
 It has been observed that Eve was created in Paradise, 
 Adam luithout it ; and it is evident that man always retains 
 
22 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 something of the original mud adhering to him out of which 
 he was formed, 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE FAIR SEX. 
 
 Few men would marry a Jeanne d'Arc, or a Charlotte 
 Corday — while to women the attractions of a Brutus, and 
 similar heroes are irresistible. This proves that the love of 
 women rests on nobler grounds than that of man. Unfriend- 
 ship the case is exactly reversed with the sexes. 
 
 CAUTION TO GIRLS. 
 
 The young men fall on their knees before you ; but re- 
 member it is but as the infantry before cavalry, that they may 
 conquer and kill, or as the huncer who only on bended knee 
 takes aim at his victim. 
 
 LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 To imagine that mere heanty is sufScient to keep the 
 marriage bond unbroken, without heart and intellect, which 
 alone can knit it firmly together, is to attempt weaving a garland 
 of flowers without their stems. 
 
 CONSTANCY. 
 
 Ah, I am living in thine eyes i exclaimed the child, as he 
 gazed up into his sister's face. And I in thine, too, my 
 brother, she replied. Ay, so long as ye gaze one upon the 
 other, said the father ; for the eyes of men are like their 
 hearts. 
 
 DANTE. 
 
 When Dante's spirit wished to tread the earth, it found 
 the epic, the lyric, the dramatic eggshells and braiiishells too 
 narrow for its dwelling ; so it enwrapped itself in the broad 
 garments of night and of flame, and of the ether of Heaven and 
 thus but half incarnated, flung itself amid the 0})posino' and 
 astounded critics. 
 
JEAN PxiUL EICHTER 23 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe's composition has the form of Memnon's statue. All 
 is harmonious in proportion and exquisitely chiselled, but the 
 tone is not life ; it betrays the mechanism and the hand of 
 the artist. His works are a nobje but silent gallery of casts 
 and statues. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 Schiller's style excels all others in gorgeousness and 
 splendour. Whatever the pomp of reflection, of imagination^ 
 of imagery, can give he gives. Yea, sometimes he strikes 
 the poetic harp with such a jewelled hand that, dazzled by the 
 lustre, we half forget the strain. 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 Luther's prose was a combat ; the deeds of few men can 
 equal the strength of Luther's words. 
 
 A NEW year's night. 
 
 The new year unfolds its portals. Destiny stands between 
 the glowing clouds of the rising sun and the funeral pyre of 
 the departed year. For what wishest thou, Natalie ? 
 
 ' Not for joy. Alas ! nothing but its black thorns have 
 ever remained within my heart, for the rose-leaves soon fell, 
 and their odour was exhaled. The brightest sun but heralded 
 the wildest tempest, and the light which seemed to glitter on 
 my path was but the reflection of the sword which the coming- 
 day was to plunge into my bosom. No, I ask not for joy, it 
 makes the desiring heart so empty. Sorrow alone can fill it.' 
 
 Destiny is portioning out futurity. What dost thou 
 demand, Natalie ? 
 
 ^ Not love. Oh, we press to our heart the thorny white 
 rose of love till it bleeds, and the warm joy-tears which fall 
 into its cup first become cold, and then dry up for ever ! Is 
 not love, in the morning of our life, bright and glowing as the 
 aurora of heaven. But approach not that radiant atmosphere, 
 
24 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 it is formed out of clouds and tears. No, no ; I wish not for 
 love. Let me die of a nobler agony — let me fall beneath a 
 loftier poison- tree than the myrtle.' 
 
 Thou art kneeling before destiny, Natalie. For what 
 praye^t thou ? 
 
 ' Not for friendship. No. We all stand side by side upon 
 hollow but unseen graves ; and though our hands be twined 
 together ever so firmly, though our hearts be knit together with 
 the sufferings of many years, yet the slight vaulted roof will 
 fall in. The pale one sinks down ; and I stand alone in a 
 cold, solitary life, beside a filled-up grave. No, no ; but if 
 the heart be indeed immortal when friend meets friend in the 
 eternal world, then may the pulse throb with an undying love. 
 Immortal eyes become dimmed with tears of joy, and the lips 
 that can never more grow pale, murmur — Now I am thine, 
 beloved one. Now let us love, for we can never more be 
 parted,' 
 
 Oh, thou forsaken Natalie, for what prayest thou, then, 
 upon the earth ? 
 
 ' For patience and the grave, for nothing more. But deny 
 me not that, thou silent destiny ! Dry the eye, and then close 
 it. Still the heart, and then break it ! But, when the spirit 
 wings her flight to a fairer heaven — when the new year opens 
 in a purer world — when all again meet and love, then 1 will 
 speak my wishes. Yet no, for then I shall be happy.' 
 
 SOUL SOLITUDE. 
 
 There are some fearful twilight moments in our life, when 
 we stand between day and night but belong to neither — when 
 we seem suspended between existence and annihilation. 
 
 The theatre of life and the spectators have vanished ; our 
 part is over. We stand alone in the deep darkness ; but we 
 wear our stage garments still, and look on them, and seem to 
 ask ourselves, ' What art thou, poor Mummer ? ' At this 
 moment there is nothing grand or true, or fixed for us. All 
 around seems an infinite midnight cloud, through which flashes 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTER 25 
 
 some wandering ray of light ; but still the darkness sinks 
 deeper and heavier over us, and only high above the cloud 
 there is a glory, and that is God, and deep beneath it is a 
 glimmering point of light, and that is a conscious human soul. 
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 What is there more painfully or longer sought for than a 
 heart ? When man stands and trembles before the ocean or 
 the mountains, the pyramids, or a city of fallen temples, then 
 he extends his arms towards a sympathising friend^liip. But 
 when melody and moonlight, and the spring and tears of joy 
 move him, then his heart melts, and he desires love ; and he 
 who has never sought for either is a thousand times more poor 
 than he who has lost both. 
 
 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 The denier of a living God, if he succeeds in dethroning 
 the Divinity in his heart, must stand alone in a frozen, lifeless 
 All ; imprisoned in a cold, dull, blind, iron necessity. Nothing 
 lives for him but his own fugitive /. So stands the wanderer 
 on the ice seas and the icebergs of Switzerland. Stillness all 
 around. No being that hath motion. All nature frozen far 
 as the eye can reach ; only high above, a light cloud floats 
 past, and seems the one sole moving thing in that immeasur- 
 able desert. 
 
 COUNSEL. 
 
 Say not, ' I will suffer,' for you must ; but say, ' I loill act/ 
 for you must not. 
 
 The poet is like the chords of a harp : he passes in music 
 
 out of sight. 
 
 THE UNCOMPREHENDED ONE. 
 
 There is a crown of thorns upon thy bleeding brow, but 
 immortal roses bloom upon thy breast. 
 
26 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 It is not the high- swelling restless wave, but the calm 
 motionless depths that reflect the universe. 
 
 Man is like a flower : the wilder the storm so much the 
 more fragrance doth his soul exhale. 
 
 Man speaks to man with four and twenty signs : nature 
 speaks to us with millions. 
 
 LOST YOUTH 
 
 On new year's night, an old man stood at his window, and 
 gazed upward, with a glance of fixed despair, at the eternal, 
 immovable, ever-resplendent heaven, and down upon the still, 
 clear, silvered earth, where none existed so sleepless or joyless 
 as he. The open grave lay yawning at his feet, for the snow 
 of age had fallen thickly over the green verdure of his youth ; 
 and from out that far, rich land of life, through which he had 
 journeyed, he brought with him nothing but sorrow, and sin, 
 and sickness — a wasted body, and a desolated soul ; a heart 
 full of poison, and an old age of repentance ; his fair youthful 
 days wandered now as ghosts before him, and pointed back to 
 that bright morning when his Father placed him on the cross- 
 road of life, which leads on one side along the sunny path of 
 virtue, to a bright and peaceful land of light and golden 
 harvests, where angels dwell ; and on the other, down to the 
 cavern of vice — a dark abode full of coiling serpents, and 
 down-dripping poisons, and loathsome tumid vapours. Ah ! 
 the serpents coiled round his neck, and the poison-drippings 
 lay on his tongue, and now he knew which path he had se- 
 lected. Frantic, and with unspeakable agony he extended his 
 arms towards heaven, and cried ' give me my youth again ! 
 
 Father, place me once more on that cross road of life, that 
 
 1 may choose again.' But his father and his youth had long 
 since passed away. He saw meteors dancing on the morass, 
 and then quenched in the sepulchres : he said, ' They are 
 my days of folly.' He saw a star shoot from heaven, o-litter- 
 ing as it fell, until it was lost upon the earth. ' That is 
 my emblem,' exclaimed his bleeding heart, and the serpent 
 fangs of remorse gnawed yet deeper in the wound. His 
 
JEAN PAUL EICHTEE 27 
 
 fevered fancy conjured up mocking ghosts in every object 
 around him. The windmills seemed to toss their mighty arms 
 as if to crush him in their embrace, and in the empty graves 
 there remained but one skeleton — it bore his own form. 
 
 But now, as the conflict within him rose to its height, the 
 music that welcomed in the new year poured from tower and 
 steeple like one glorious Cathedral chant — and he was moved. 
 He looked round upon the horizon, and over the wide earth, 
 and thought of his youth's happy friends, who, better and 
 nobler than he, were now instructors of their age, fathers of 
 happy children, and blest among men. ' I, too,' he exclaimed, 
 ' might have slumbered calmly as ye, upon this first night, 
 with tearless eyes, had I so willed. I, too, could have been 
 happy, had I followed your counsels, and your wishes, my 
 Father.' During the frenzied remembrances of his lost youth, 
 it seemed to him as though the skeleton that wore his form 
 rose slowly from the grave, and as, in the new year's night it 
 is given to mortals to see spirits and futurity, so he gazed, 
 until he beheld it change to a form of a young and blooming 
 youth, who, in the attitude of him of the Capitol, bent to 
 extract a thorn. The old man recognised his own youthful 
 features in the mocking illusion. Pie could gaze no longer — 
 
 he bent his head upon his hands, while the burning stream of 
 tears poured down, and sank into the snow, and sighed forth, 
 faintly, despairingly, wildly, ' Oh youth, youth — return, 
 return ! ' 
 
 And it did return, for that new year's night had been but 
 a fearful dream, and he awoke in his youth. But his errors 
 and faults had been no dream, and he thanked God there was 
 yet time for him to retrace his steps upon the dark way of 
 vice, and enter the sunny path which leads to the bright land 
 of golden harvests. 
 
 Return with him, young reader, if thou too hast strayed 
 down the path of error. This fearful vision wilt be thy judge ; 
 and a day will come, when thou wilt call in anguish, ' Return, 
 my youth ! ' — but it will never more return to thee. 
 
28 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 THE G IRON DINS 
 
 One never wearies of Lamartine's great work, ' L'Histoire des 
 Girondins.' All the brilliant pathetic, terrible and tragic 
 scenes of that supreme moment of French history are pictured 
 there with an intensity of dramatic force, a vivacity of colour- 
 ing, and a splendour of diction such as no other poet or 
 prophet of humanity has ever surpassed in grandeur and 
 gloom. 
 
 The story of the Revolution commences at the death of 
 Mirabeau ; for Mirabeau's career would have been a history 
 and poem in itself alone. His colossal nature was an incar- 
 nation of the whole idea of the Revolution, in its genius, force, 
 eloquence, passion, and world-wide sympathies ; while those 
 who succeeded him but symbolised its separate fractions. 
 Possessing every quality of mind and body suitable to a popular 
 leader : the impressive physique which seems instinctively to 
 command ; a tall, powerful frame, a massive head, and broad 
 Olympic brow, like a Jupiter Tonans, shadowed with masses of 
 black hair, as if, like Samson, his strength lay in it, says De 
 Stael ; dark, gleaming eyes that scathed or softened as he 
 chose all who approached him ; with the large mouth and full 
 prominent lips, always denoting energy, passion, and impetuous 
 feelings ; his eloquence rapid and burning as a lava-stream ; 
 his voice like deep-toned thunder blended with soft murmur- 
 ing rain-drops ; a heart that could love greatly, act nobly • and 
 an intellect to command a world — yet this great revelation 
 of humanity passes away and accomplishes so little • and thus 
 he stands in history, a grand, unfinished destiny, a broken 
 
THE GIEONDINS 29 
 
 promise to humanity, as the unfinished Strasburg Cathedral 
 has been termed ' a broken promise to God/ 
 
 Such was the man who stood between the kino^ and the 
 people at the commencement o£ the Revolution, with one hand 
 sustaining the crown, with the other repelling the democracy. 
 When he died the two came into collision. And as always 
 happens in the world's history, the latter triumphed ; for 
 royalty can exist only by the will of the people. 
 
 After the death of Mirabeau three distinct parties struggled 
 for supremacy : the Constitutionalists, who desired a limited 
 monarchy ; the Girondins, pure Republicans ; and the Jaco- 
 bins, whose name has become a proverb for ferocity and 
 anarchy, but who were destined to triumph over the other two. 
 
 Madame de Stael, then in the full glory of her youth, 
 passion, and genius, led the first named party. Lamartine 
 thus describes her : 
 
 A man in energy, a woman in tenderness, who wrote like 
 Rousseau, and spoke like Mirabeau — whose life was a dream 
 of genius, glory, and love — a thinker by inspiration, a tribune 
 in eloquence, a woman in attraction, with the beauty, not of 
 features or form, which is all the vulgar can comprehend, but 
 of passionate impulse and visible inspiration. Her large flash- 
 ing eyes shone with as much love as genius, and you felt that 
 the light of her intellect was only a reflection of the burning 
 tenderness of her heart. There was love, therefore, in all the 
 admiration she excited, and she in the admiration only valued 
 the love. 
 
 That devoted ambition of a woman of genius to become 
 the inspirer, the hidden destiny of some great man, to 
 awaken his energy and be happy in his glory, this was the 
 necessary excitement of her life, and her salon became a focus 
 of the Revolution, where Talleyrand, La Fayette, and Narbonne 
 came to receive inspiration, and where she employed all the 
 fascinations of her manner and the charms of her brilliant 
 conversation, to keep their enthusiasm burning. This party, 
 however, necessarily expired with the monarchy, and the fierce 
 contest was then wholly kept up between the Gironde and the 
 
30 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Jacobins. While reading Lamartine's brilliant descriptions 
 of the women who led French society at that period, one can- 
 not help animadverting, par parenthese, on the absurd idea 
 prevalent amongst us, that politics should not be discussed by 
 a woman — as if the destiny of her country was not a nobler 
 object for thought and subject for conversation than the gossip 
 of a neighbourhood. French ladies are wiser. There they 
 seize instinctively on this additional instrument of fascination, 
 so neglected by our countrywomen. They are educated for 
 taking part in these grand interests. Their minds are 
 strengthened and enlightened, their espiHt quickened by the 
 desire to make their conversation interesting to men, and so 
 in place of repelling, they attract the social circle round them. 
 Genius, eloquence, and wit Hash on all sides, and a dry 
 political discussion becomes sparkling and animated by the 
 playful grace, quick sympathies, and deep feehngs of a culti- 
 vated feminine mind. 
 
 The deputies from the department of the Gironde, from 
 which place they derived their denomination, concentrated at 
 that moment around themselves all the glory and interest of 
 the Ptevolution. The party was composed principally of young 
 lawyers from the provinces. Men from the ranks of the 
 people, many of them without rank, w^ealth, patrons, or posi- 
 tion, but whose influence nevertheless, consisting solely in 
 their intellect and genius, overthrew a monarchy and founded 
 a Republic. They were gifted with the most rare combina- 
 tion of talents and noble aims : all young — for the young 
 are needed for revolution — and all enthusiastically devoted to 
 the regeneration of their country. 
 
 Incorruptible virtue and a single-minded, noble devotion 
 to the cause were their characteristics, united Avith a fiery 
 eloquence which throbbed through the country like the beatino-s 
 of a fever pulse. A Republic in its holiest meanino- was what 
 they strove for ; a reign of justice, liberty, and intellect, in 
 place of force, despotism, and imbecility. Danton had this 
 lofty end in view, but he was the convulsive force that w^ould 
 have marched to liberty through crime. The Jacobins w^ould 
 
THE GIRONDINS 31 
 
 only have substituted one tyranny for another — that of the 
 mob for kings — but the Girondists would have established the 
 rights of all, without violating the rights of any. All this, 
 however, was to be accomplished by spotless means. ' Men of 
 words/ Danton called them. They wanted liberty without 
 sacrifice, the force of the people without its predominance, 
 patriotism without the fever of delirium or the ferocity of 
 despair. It was a sublime dream, their only error was in 
 believing it could be realised. 
 
 ^ A woman is invariably the insj)iration of all great under- 
 takings,' says Lamartine, ' for men have only the spirit of 
 truth, but women its passion.' One was necessary to the 
 French Revolution, and philosophy finds her in the young, 
 gifted, and celebrated Madame Roland, the heroine and the 
 soiil of the Gironde party. The sketch of her character is 
 given with all the enthusiasm of a poet, for it is only a poet 
 that can comprehend fully the soul of such a woman. It is 
 more a deification than a description. Her face, as we see 
 in her portrait, was one of wondrous energy, passion, and 
 genius, Lamartine describes her as beautiful, with soft black 
 hah^ falling to her knee, blue eyes which darkened with the 
 shadow of thought, a rather large mouth, which words as well 
 as smiles parted and displayed her dazzling teeth, a thrilling 
 voice, the most precious gift a woman can possess, a tall, 
 slio'ht fio'ure, and a bearing of the head which betokens intre- 
 pidity.' 
 
 Her flashing intelligence seemed inspiration ; she acquired 
 all without study, comprehended all without effort, and con- 
 vinced by the force of her own convictions. Conscious of the 
 great soul within her, her pride revolted at the homage paid 
 to beings far below her in every endowment, merely because 
 gilded and tinselled with the trappings of society ; and the 
 young gud brought by a servant to see the splendours of 
 Versailles, returned a Republican, and the destined instru- 
 ment for the downfall of monarchy. Her marriage with 
 Roland was a mere act of heroism, without any love. He 
 had the reputation of being a philosopher and a statesman, 
 
32 MEN, AVOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 and she enthusiastically determined to consecrate her life 
 to him. But as Roland was at best merely a respectable 
 elderly gentleman, rather given to prosing, the young pupil 
 of Rousseau soon found this uncongenial marriage could not 
 till her heart, and so she devoted herself to her country as 
 to a lover. Happy and beloved, she would have been no more 
 than a woman — unhappy and isolated, she became the inspira- 
 tion of a party. She above all had faith in the Revolution. 
 It is the divine principle which men need to have daily re- 
 newed — this burning energy of believing souls which is so 
 often crushed beneath the dull, tame, petty hindrances that 
 surround them, till at last it dies out suffocated by the dust of 
 the arena, and they come back to rekindle the flame at the 
 glowing inspiration of a woman's soul ; as men feel their mental 
 energies, their divine sympathies reawakened when they stand 
 face to face with Heaven, or breathe the free mountain air, 
 or gaze upon the stars. For enthusiasm in the heart of a 
 woman, like the fire in the temple of Yesta, once kindled is 
 ever burning. They stand nearer to the Eternal than men, 
 farther removed from the combat of party interests. They 
 see only the sublime purpose, not the paltry means which 
 even the sublimest purpose needs to become effectual. They 
 are capable of the purest heroism, sacrifice and suffering, for 
 such is love in its truest signification — a need of self-sacrifice, 
 a divine feeling that can only fully prove its infinite love 
 by infinite suffering. Such love was Christ's, and is the 
 highest. 
 
 To Manon Jeanne Roland her country became the object 
 that filled the infinite necessity of love in her heart. She 
 became the passion, the sentiment of the Revolution, and 
 radiated around her its heat and light. And is it not thus 
 with all women of genius when their first destiny, love^ has 
 been crushed for ever. Do they not seek some object infinite 
 as their emotions to fill their soul — religion — literature— some 
 life of voluntary immolation where self can be foro-otten ? 
 Then, if their country need assistance, from their solitude and 
 isolation they come forth, these pale young martyrs of enthu- 
 
THE GIEONDINS 33 
 
 siasm, with souls of flame and eyes ' dark and inscrutable as 
 Jael's,' who have gained knowledge by suffering, and in whom 
 the sword of the spirit has been tempered by their burning- 
 tears. Realisations of their own dreams. Fearless, for they 
 have nothing to lose, disinterested, for they have nothing to 
 hope, sublime in their isolation and their suffering, they yearn 
 to breathe forth their life in some act of heroism. In the day 
 of exaltation sublimating patriotism to religion, and in the day 
 of trial proudly demanding their right to martyrdom. 
 
 Such was the Egeria of the Girondins. ' Genius and 
 will know their strength, and a presentiment teaches us our 
 destiny.' Scarcely had she come to Paris when she attracted 
 round her all that was noble-minded, pure, and gifted in 
 France ; all those earnest, deep, serious, enthusiastic minds of 
 the Gironde party, who, though young, seemed as if they 
 never had known youth. Of these Yergniaud was the leader 
 and the genius. All the strong lights of the picture are 
 concentrated upon him in Lamartine's portrait with its brief 
 sibylline phrases, which strike with the rapidity of vision. 
 
 ' Yergniaud was then thirty-three, of middle height. His 
 figure firm as the statue of an orator. You felt there the 
 gladiator of words. His mouth was strongly marked, with the 
 lips large and thick, as if destined to cast forth torrents of 
 words, as a river from the open lips of a Triton. His eyes 
 shot forth the light of enthusiasm from beneath the prominent 
 brow ; while above them rose his large domed forehead, 
 polished as a mirror in which genius is reflected. His long 
 lii^ht brown hair waved with each motion of his head like 
 Mirabeau's. His complexion pale, with something of the 
 ghastliness that bespeaks profound emotions. The vulgar 
 crowd might pass him unnoticed, but when the soul radiated 
 over his countenance, like light upon a bust, his face rose to 
 the ideal, and attained a splendour, even a beauty, which none 
 of his features had in detail — it was the transfiguration of 
 genius. The hour of Yergniaud was excitement — the pedestal 
 of his beauty was the tribune ; when he descended, the orator 
 was but a man.' 
 
 D 
 
34 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 But Vergniaud's wonderful power and influence arose, not 
 so much from his gifts as a writer or an orator, as from the 
 sublime awful sense which pervaded his being of the holiness 
 of their cause. His life was the calm devotion of his nature 
 — the entire consecration of his soul to a principle. Exertions 
 for his country had, to him, the dignity of an apostleship. He 
 stood far above all paltry motives and party interests. It was 
 for a nation, for humanity, for eternity, he strove and suffered. 
 His power lay in this pure unsullied nature — this genial fire, 
 that acts like sunlight upon flowers — forcing spirits to their 
 proper growth, and still making them look upward as they 
 gain in strength. Always grand in every moment, for he had 
 no egotism — no petty aims. The shadow of eternity seemed 
 to rest on his slightest words and give them an unfathomable 
 depth. His manner was calm, dignified, yet perfectly without 
 affectation ; serious, and somewhat sad ; a worshipper of the 
 fine arts, and himself one of the best poets of the day, he 
 would have passed his life in a luxurious reverie of music, 
 painting, recitation, poetry, and literature, if his country had 
 not called him to be her glory and her martyr. Every one 
 loved him, yet each felt the immense distance by which his 
 mental power separated him from them. Devoted to the 
 people, yet he never descended to flatter them : all his 
 passions were noble as his words. Too sublime to be am- 
 bitious, too grand to hate, he seemed to disdain the homage of 
 admiration and the rights of sovereignty, because his soul 
 revolved in a sphere far beyond the glories of either. Such is 
 the impression which all his actions leave on our mind of his 
 character. 
 
 The gentle, romantic Louvet is the next most remarkable 
 man of the party. He edited the Gironde journal, ' La Sen- 
 tinelle,' in which the most ardent patriotism was associated 
 with the worship of order and humanity. His vouno* wife, 
 Lodoiska, whose spirit was filled with the same enthusiasm 
 for liberty, literature, and glory, assisted him in his studies, 
 and her love was his inspiration. With more of the simple 
 sunny tenderness of the woman in her nature than Madame 
 
THE GIRONDINS 35 
 
 Roland, she loved her country for the sake of her lover, and 
 the Revolution as the means of his glory and celebrity. 
 
 Louvet was then somewhat about thirty, of small stature, 
 with a pale, expressive face, light hair, and blue eyes full of feel- 
 ing, in which all the poetry of his nature seemed ever burning ; 
 a noble pensive brow, fair as a woman's ; and an habitual 
 expression of melancholy, which was not languor, but earnest, 
 grave resolve — endowed with genius rather than talent, and 
 of heroic courage, the writer, the orator, and the hero were 
 combined in one. Many of his speeches equal Yergniaud's in 
 eloquence and deep pathos ; less exciting, perhaps, but they 
 sank into the soul with a yet deeper impression. If destiny 
 had not called him to be one of the first political leaders of 
 the day, he would undoubtedly have been the first author. 
 He and Madame Roland became devoted in their friendship 
 to each other, and she speaks of him enthusiastically in her 
 memoirs — for women much more readily appreciate genius 
 than talent. It is said that many of the best articles in his 
 journal were written by her. Thus she competed with Yer- 
 gniaud in eloquence, and with Louvet in composition. Her 
 genius was felt, though her sex was unknown. ' She fought 
 masked in the arena of parties.' 
 
 Each day brought new adherents to this brilliant circle — 
 for political ideas become a thousand times more active when 
 ensouled by sentiment — amongst them the young Isnard, but 
 twenty-two, from the sunny south : the orator of the party, 
 as Yergniaud was the genius. ' His words fiery as his blood, 
 and glowing as his southern skies ; his speeches were mag- 
 nificent odes that raised discussion to lyrism. The people 
 followed him breathless, and were kindled to enthusiasm, to 
 fury, before they attained conviction.' 
 
 And Guadet, the handsome, impetuous boy, whose soul you 
 
 could read as through a crystal vase. Scarcely twenty, yet 
 
 already his reputation was established in the kingdom for that 
 
 splendid talent whose passionate utterance seemed wrung 
 
 from his heart with tears. And Buzot, whose pensive Italian 
 
 1)2 
 
36 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 beauty, grace, gentleness, and melancholy genius even touched 
 the heart of the queenly Roland ; and others came— 
 
 Winged persuasions and veiled destinies, 
 Splendours and glooms and glimmering incarnations. 
 
 But we must not pass over 'the brave and beautiful 
 Barbaroux,^ with a face like a Greek statue, and a soul like the 
 Greek fire : him who wrote to Marseilles, ' Send me 600 men 
 who knoiv how to die ' — his genius had been first evidenced in 
 poetry, and his political life was but poetry in action — and the 
 sparkling Ducos, friend and pupil of Vergniaud, ardent, rash, 
 brilliant as youth and inexperience, and his inseparable friend, 
 Fonfrede. They and the handsome Grangeneuve, whose 
 patriotism outran his judgment, formed the extreme of the 
 Gironde, who wished to force matters to a crisis with the 
 frenzy of young Jacobins. Yergniaud^s policy seemed too cold 
 for them. ' They were prepared to die, but wished to die com- 
 bating.' Empires, they exclaimed, can be saved by blood, but 
 never by tears. The calm, grave Gensonne, though consider- 
 ably their senior in years, was also, like them, willing to trust 
 more to bayonets than declamation. Sieyes, the statesman of 
 the party, held the balance between them. They listened to 
 him with respect, as being the oldest amongst them, and from 
 a certain traditional glory which radiated round him as having 
 been the friend of Mirabeau ; but he had neither passion, 
 ambition, nor genius. ' He possessed the sang froid oi intelh- 
 gence, without intrepidity of daring.' His opinions were rather 
 counsels than resolves, and though his efforts tended to re- 
 concile them, yet he only lamed the action of both. 
 
 The great political act of this great party of the Gironde 
 was finally the revolution of August 10, which abolished 
 monarchy, and established a republic. 
 
 At this period they ruled Trance, but the unceasing ani- 
 mosity of the Jacobins tended every moment to their destruc- 
 tion, and they wanted resolution to oppose force to ferocity. 
 At any time had they leagued with Danton and Dumouriez, 
 they could have crushed the cowardly, malignant Robespierre, 
 
THE GIEONDINS 37 
 
 and the brutal Marat, and saved the Revolution from the 
 infamy which now covers it. But they hesitated ; and, in 
 revolutions, to hesitate is to fail. Their genius, purity, and 
 unselfish aims, were a perpetual reproach to the corrupt, 
 selfish, intriguing Jacobins. Petty minds pardon anything 
 sooner than grandeur of purpose in their antagonists. This 
 nobility of fame is worse than a nobility of blood, they ex- 
 claimed. Yergniaud was the first to fling down the gage of 
 war against the Jacobins in the National Assembly, and the 
 wretches whom they held in pay to sow discord in the ranks 
 of the Nationalists, 'who dishonoured the most glorious of 
 causes by the baseness of their means and the insolence of 
 their pretensions.' Incessantly the young Girondists combated 
 against this tyranny of corruption, venality, and ferocity. 
 Day and hour, with an intrepid eloquence, they fought against 
 discourses sharpened like poniards, and which concealed death 
 in every phrase. But, unfortunately, they contented them- 
 selves with declaiming when they ought to have crushed by 
 force. ' Of what use are all your laws and theories ? ' said the 
 bold Danton ; ' the only law in revolutions is to triumph — the 
 sole theory for a nation is the theory of existence. Save our- 
 selves first, discuss theories afterwards. "* The impetuous 
 young Ducos, Grangeneuve, and Fonfrede — the extreme section 
 of the Gironde party — urged Yergniaud in vain to trust to 
 arms rather than words for the future ; but Yergniaud, too 
 courageous to fear death, was yet too profoundly versed in 
 history and politics to allow himself to be deceived by the 
 different plans they proposed. He shuddered to take 
 upon himself the ruin of his party ; and, looking around, he 
 saw no real force to which they could trust for support against 
 anarchy. His genius even discouraged him ; for his far - 
 reaching glance discovered only an abyss, where they imagined 
 would be an outlet from their difficulties. What he dreaded 
 above all, was not his own proscription and death, and that 
 of his friends, but the insane insurrection of the people, the 
 frenzy of the mob, and the destruction of all law. 
 
 In considering the causes which led to the fall of the 
 
38 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Girondins, we must not confound the Revolution with the 
 crimes of Marat and Robespierre. Everything really grand 
 and permanent in that Revolution was accomplished without 
 violence— calmly and deliberately, by the will alone of earnest, 
 resolute men ; and thus the Constituent Assembly in two 
 years swept away more abuses than an English Parliament 
 would in fifty. 
 
 It is a fearful error to maintain that the regime of the 
 guillotine gave liberty to France. On the contrary, it 
 destroyed it ; for the Convention was no longer free when a 
 mob, excited by furious demagogues, dictated its orders of 
 blood and proscription, and the noblest patriots were im- 
 molated at the demand of a handful of anarchists and 
 assassins. 
 
 The Jacobins at any time were never more than a faction, 
 where all the selfish jealousies, the personal rivalries of narrow 
 minds, all of base and mean that enters into and forms the 
 dregs of any grand manifestation, were collected as in a 
 sediment. The sole aim of their policy was to drag every- 
 thing down to their own infamous level, and the hideous, 
 disgusting Marat was their truest representative. He had 
 but one weapon, brutal force ; one theme, violence ; one hope, 
 spoliation. He incarnated the insane, feverish impatience of 
 the class which lies lowest in society, to cast off the fetters of 
 thrones, governments, and laws, as if they could thus break 
 the triple fetters of labour, oppression, and misery. He edited 
 an infamous journal, which was but the bowlings of the mob 
 written in blood, and was supported only by the very dregs of 
 the populace, men who, like himself, were objects merely of 
 disgust and contempt. 
 
 Robespierre's character is more complicated. ' He is the 
 last word of the Revolution, which none can read.' Yet his 
 countenance reveals much. There is cruelty in the thin com- 
 pressed lips, with their smile half sarcasm, half sinister soft- 
 ness ; treachery in the uncertain-glancing cold blue eye half 
 covered by the eyelids ; malignity and envy in the yellow- 
 green complexion ] and fanaticism in the narrow retreatii;^^ 
 
THE GIEONDINS 39 
 
 forehead, yet projecting strongly over the brows, for there 
 was a certain degree of cunning and quickness in the man 
 which ahuost became intellect, but which is the farthest pos- 
 sible removed from genius. His character still remains an 
 enigma to many writers ; but yet every action of his career 
 can be clearly interpreted as the result of a nature compounded 
 of envy, suspicion, egotism, and cowardice. His ambition 
 was the offspring of vanity, not of conscious force. He could 
 not soar as an eagle to the summit of power ; but he crawled 
 as a reptile — killing those who opposed him with his venom, 
 when he dared not strike as a man. The Republic he dreamed 
 of was a reign of mediocrity, when he would have passed the 
 scythe over all that rose above his own miserable standard. 
 The Gironde, on the contrary, would have instituted a rule 
 of the highest natures. Divine right to them consisted in the 
 divine ability to reign. 
 
 The eulogists of Robespierre talk much of his Republican 
 plainness and simplicity ; but his mode of living, in place of being 
 a virtue, only proved the smallness and meanness of his nature. 
 There was nothing generous, expansive, or genial about him. 
 He gnawed at life rather than quaifed the vital goblet fresh 
 and foaming. The tendency of all beautiful natures is to have 
 a beautiful world around them, but Robespierre was content 
 with one — mean, sordid, and narrow as his spirit. 
 
 There is something of the old Puritan blood (which he 
 sprang from, they say) observable in this, but he wanted the 
 Puritan courage. Not one act of his ever served to advance 
 the Pvevolution — he only drowned Liberty in the blood of her 
 purest advocates. He was a coward on the 10th of August, 
 hidino" himself in a cave, while Vergniaud and the others were 
 proudly and fearlessly overthrowing a monarchy of twenty 
 centuries. A coward during the September massacres, which 
 he had helped to organise — a coward when he barred his 
 windows as the tumbrils loaded with his victims rolled heavily 
 by. Not like Danton, who, with all the obliquity of his moral 
 vision, had at least courage — and many virtues are bound up 
 with that. He, when arraigned on his trial, could exclaim, ' I 
 
40 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 looked my crime steadily in the face, and I did it.' And so he 
 died proudly like a heaven-defying Titan. 
 
 There is a certain dramatic grandeur about Danton, with 
 his strong words that echoed like a charge of battalions ; his 
 gigantic force of will and reckless ferocity of daring. No 
 meanness — no egotism. He committed crimes, but not to 
 profit by their results ; and when his terrible policy failed to 
 produce the anticipated effect he retired from the leader- 
 ship, flung down the reins like Sylla, and leaped from the 
 chariot when he found the wheels were clogged with 
 blood. Of all the Jacobin leaders, the young St. Just com- 
 bined most strongly the fascinating and the horrible. With 
 brilliant genius and the wildest icolatry of liberty, he was 
 cruel, not from malignity, but from fanaticism, carried almost to 
 insanity, to that uncertain limit which separates genius from 
 madness. Frigid as an idea, sententious as a maxim, his policy 
 was that cold impassibility of a logic which makes the heart 
 dry as a system and cruel as an abstraction. He looked on 
 politics as a combat to the death, in which the vanquished 
 should be victims. Yet his countenance was mild and beauti- 
 ful as a St. John ; with clear, open, visionary eyes, and a low, 
 measured, impressive voice, as if each word were a prophecy — 
 a revelation. Men called him the Apocalyptic. His courage, 
 Avh ether in council or the field, was as eminent as his genius. 
 ' Dare ! ' was his motto. ' That word is in itself a revolution, 
 he said — ' they who make one by halves are only digging their 
 own graves.' 
 
 It was against such leaders, unrestrained by any principle, 
 unscrupulous regarding any means— a combination of ferocity 
 and insane fanaticism^- with the dregs of the populace for 
 their supporting faction, and a system of murder and levelling 
 fanaticism (which is the worst exaggeration of despotism) for 
 their policy— that the pure noble-minded Girondists, gifted 
 with all but statesmanship^ opposed but words. 
 
 No one can deny that it was their duty to have saved the 
 Revolution from this infamous tyranny. By not boldly claim- 
 ing their right as leaders, and avengers of the brutal excesses 
 
THE GIEONDINS 41 
 
 of the Jacobin faction, they placed themselves in the dilemma 
 of becoming either the accomplices or victims of the mob. 
 Their weak, temporising policy condemned them to be the 
 latter. If after the September massacres, planned and executed 
 by the Jacob his, the Gironde had boldly leagued with 
 Dumouriez to avenge the outraged laws of justice and human- 
 ity, as was iheir duty — invited him to march his army upon 
 Paris, and crush anarchy and murder h^ force ^ all the subse- 
 quent horrors of the Revolution would have been spared and 
 its glory eternised. 
 
 Danton's advice was good — ' Never risk the Revolution in 
 a street battle without the cannon on your side.' By not crush- 
 ing this horrible faction by force — energetic force, they per- 
 mitted the name of liberty to be blasphemed throughout the 
 world, and by that means lost to the rest of Europe all the 
 results which the glorious primary principles of the Revolution 
 would have gained for suffering humanity. If France had 
 never known a Reign of Terror, all Europe would be free at 
 this hour. 
 
 The Jacobins, however, were resolved to prevent the coa- 
 lition of Dumouriez and the Gironde. They therefore de- 
 nounced him at their infamous clubs ; and as their denuncia- 
 tions were always equivalent to death, Dumouriez, with the 
 most unaccountable cowardice, hesitated to accept the struggle, 
 deserted his army, fled to the Austrians, and sacrificed a fame 
 and destiny which might have been the highest in France, if 
 he had so willed it, only to become the despised pensioner of 
 England. 
 
 The desertion of Dumouriez made the cause of the Gironde 
 hopeless ; for what can even the most* lofty principles effect if 
 unsupported by power ? and they made no eflbrt to organise 
 an armed resistance against reckless men who had boldly 
 violated all law, justice, and humanity, and covered the Revo- 
 lution with their own infamy. 
 
 The genius of the Girondists (says Lamartine) made them 
 the fittest instruments in a revolution ; but they wanted 
 daring to become its dominators. They were constantly ad- 
 
42 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 vancing, but without well knowing towards what. Always 
 destined to give the impulse, never the direction. They had 
 the virtue to resist atrocious means, but not resolution to adopt 
 necessary expedients. They could not save their country, but 
 they made her illustrious. Their greatest fault was trying to 
 govern when they ought to have combated. Prudence is the 
 last virtue for revolutions. Timidity the worst vice. They 
 wanted plan, policy, and, above all, audacity. 
 
 Their history is, indeed, full of profound maxims that 
 teach and prophecies that warn, for everywhere in the pro- 
 gress of revolutions we find the same genius and the same 
 characters liable to the same fatal mistakes. If the opinions 
 they advocated were based on truth, reason, and the right of 
 humanity, then for these rights it is imperative to combat, it 
 is glorious to die. If men are once sure of the principle which 
 sways them — that it is of God — then let them fight for it 
 through Gethsemanes, and Golgothas. All governments, 
 whether of one or of one thousand, are only entitled to our 
 obedience in so far as they carry out the principles of eternal 
 justice and the moral law. When a government sins against 
 that law, the instincts of the people and the reason of the 
 philosopher revolt at the infraction ; and such revolt is not 
 only admirable, heroic, and holy, but it is duty^ the clearest of 
 man's duties ; for in so far as we tamely submit to the infrac- 
 tion of the eternal laws of justice, we are as guilty before God 
 as those who have broken them. The man who does notfiofht 
 for a truth is as guilty as the man who violates it. There is 
 no such thing as negative virtue. All virtue must be active. 
 Vice only is the universal negation. Faith in a cause is worth 
 armies. Were people to wait till the chances are apparently 
 in their favour, no great deed would ever be accomplished. 
 Truly says Goethe : — 
 
 What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. 
 Boldness hath genius, power and magic in it. 
 
 There must be a certain trustful casting of oneself upon 
 destiny, leaving the consequences to God. Our duty alone is 
 
THE GIEONDINS 43 
 
 to act — whether it be a nation, a party, or even one man 
 against an empire, a world. It is not member gives the right 
 to combat, but the cause. If that be just, then, though we 
 stood alone against a world, we must preach, we must combat, 
 we must press onwards to the truth though we tread the flames 
 to reach it. 
 
 If there are men in every age — Immanuels, Gods with us, 
 to whom the Lord grants clearer views of truth, it is that they 
 should utter them in words and deeds. He touches their lips 
 with living tire, though often at the same time he consecrates 
 them as martyrs ; for success is not always granted to those 
 most worthy of it ; nor should calculations of success ever enter 
 the minds of patriots or reformers as an impelling or retard- 
 ing motive, though no proper means should be neglected to 
 ensure it. 
 
 ' It is not necessary to live,' said Frederick the Great, 'but 
 it is necessary to act.' 
 
 Events are in the hands of God, but man's path is clear, 
 to do his duty, inscribe his principles on his banner ; then 
 
 Fling it fearless in the face of Heaven. 
 
 The prominent events which hastened the fall of the 
 Girondists are of course familiar to every one ; but no poet or 
 historian has given the last scenes of the sad drama with such 
 touching sublimity as Lamartine. One can scarcely read for 
 tears. Day by day, slowly but surely, the circle of their 
 enemies closed round them like a coil of fire. The fierce 
 denunciations and malignant falsehoods of the Jacobins had 
 excited the mob, always so ready to side against the noble and 
 the pure — and open violence or secret assassination perilled 
 them at every step. On the first night the Republic was 
 proclaimed they met together at Madame Roland's. Pale with 
 emotion, her eyes lit with supernatural fire, she seemed 
 already to behold the scaffold as the termination of her glory. 
 Yergniaud, upon whom every eye was fixed as the author and 
 leader of the new Republic, was calm, serene, and melancholy, 
 with the quietude of conscious genius and stern resolution. 
 
44 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 He rose, filled his glass, and proposed to drink to the new 
 Republic. ' Let us sprinkle rose leaves on our wine, like the 
 ancients in their solemn feasts,' exclaimed Madame Roland, as 
 she scattered the flowers from her bouquet. Yergniaud held 
 his glass to receive them ; then bending to the young Barbaroux, 
 he murmured : ' Barbaroux, it is not roses but cypress we should 
 scatter on our wine to-night, for who knows but we are drinking 
 to our death — but, no matter, were this wine my blood, still 
 I would drain it for Liberty, and my country ! ' ' Vive la 
 R^publique ! ^ they all exclaimed with one voice, undiscouraged 
 by this mournful image. They were ready to accept all from 
 the Revolution — even death ! 
 
 But of what avail are reason, eloquence, and sublimity of 
 purpose without power ! And the Jacobins alone had the 
 armed sections of Paris under their influence to make their 
 words deeds. 
 
 ' Look at those men,' said Danton, pointing to the Giron- 
 dists ; ' there is not one of them worth even a dream of 
 Danton's. Men of words — they are sleeping on the echo of 
 their phrases.' 
 
 Vergniaud's last measure was to obtain the appointment of 
 a commission of twelve to watch over the safety of the 
 Republic, and guard against the murderous plots of Marat and 
 his infamous followers. 'Men of the Gironde,' he exclaimed, 
 ' dare to be terrible or you are lost.^ But a deliberative body is 
 the worst instrument to employ at a political crisis. They only 
 retard a victory. Marat, supported by the populace, triumphed 
 over their powerless denunciations, and the cry of ' Death to 
 the Girondins ! ' resounded yet more fiercely in revenge from 
 the clubs, where Marat and Robespierre reigned supreme. 
 
 At length, aware of the extremity of their danger, they 
 met together for the last time at an isolated house in the 
 suburbs, not to deliberate, but to fortify themselves against 
 death. ' Sublime words were heard and buried in that night.' 
 Next day they boldly presented themselves at the Convention, 
 in the midst of their enemies. 
 
 It is painful to follow the death struggles of such men. 
 
THE GIEONDINS 45 
 
 Henriot, the Jacobin general, and his armed battalions, sur- 
 rounded the assembly with their cannon, threatening death 
 to all unless the twenty-two most prominent men of the 
 Gironde were delivered up to them. 
 
 From the benches of the Jacobins, from the tribune, from 
 the populace, from the armed bands, there was but one cry — 
 ^ Down with the Girondists ! death to the twenty-two ! ' 
 
 The decree of arrest was passed rapidly, and amongst the 
 twenty-two conducted to prison were Yergniaud, with Ducosand 
 Fonfrede, the young Jacobins of the Gironde, who would have 
 had Danton for a leader if Yei'gniaud had not existed ; Isnard, 
 the eloquent, magnificent orator ; Grangeneuve and Gensonne, 
 Barbaroux, Louvet, Buzot, and Guadet, had escaped to the 
 provinces (which had all declared for the Gironde), but only to 
 perish some of them still more miserably. Louvet and his 
 Lodoiska alone survived all danger, and found a refuge in 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Their enthusiastic leader, inspirer, and the high-priestess 
 of their faith, was the first to enter the prison. On hearing of 
 the danger of her friends she drove to the Convention, demand- 
 ing admittance and to be heard at the bar. After many efforts 
 she gained an entrance, and spoke with Yergniaud. ' Let 
 them hear me,' she entreated, ' I will tell them truths a 
 Republic should hear. I will awaken them from their stupor.' 
 Conscious of her genius, eloquence, and courage, she felt as if 
 she must dominate ovet* the cowards of the Convention ; but 
 Yergniaud dispelled her illusions, and turned her from her 
 purpose. Then pressing her hands in his for a sublime fare- 
 well, he returned to the assembly moved, yet strengthened for 
 his own approaching fate. Next day she was arrested, and 
 never left the prison till she ascended the scaffold. 
 
 The cell in which the Girondists were confined for the four 
 months preceding their trial has been lately opened, and the 
 walls were found covered with inscriptions written by them — 
 not one betrays weakness or regret. They are hymns to con- 
 stancy, defiances of death, or appeals to immortality expressed 
 in brief phrases or latin verses, and most of them written with 
 
46 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 blood. There is something agonising in looking at these stone 
 tablets on which such men have imprinted their last thoughts 
 with their substance and their life. There is one inscription 
 before which everyone pauses. It is written in large bold 
 letters with blood, and is the hand of Vergniaud — 
 
 Potius mori quam foedari ! 
 
 It was the motto of his life. 
 
 All these innumerable inscriptions show the stoical in- 
 trepidity of men who, conscious of their iives, had no fear to die. 
 ' These stone walls, like the victims they had enclosed, bleed, 
 but do not weep.' 
 
 Their friends were admitted to take leave of them. 
 Amongst others was a child, nephew to Vergniaud. The boy 
 wept with fright when he beheld the livid face and miserable 
 garments of the celebrated prisoner. But Vergniaud took 
 him in his arms. ' My child,' he said, ' look on me well, and 
 remember when you are a man, say that you have seen Ver- 
 gniaud, the founder of the Republic, in the grandest moment of 
 his life and in his proudest costume, that in which he suffered 
 for truth, that in which he died for liberty.' The child 
 remembered the words, and fifty years afterwards repeated 
 them to the author of the Girondins. 
 
 Their trial lasted seven days. As they entered the Hall of 
 Audience on the first, the crowd gazed with wonder and pity 
 on their calm, serene faces, all so young and some so beautiful. 
 
 Vergniaud was the last to enter. All Paris had seen him 
 formerly in his majestic perspective on the pedestal of the 
 Tribune, and even now expected from him some dazzling dis- 
 play of eloquence which would gain triumphs like those of 
 Demosthenes or Cicero. From such men one expects every- 
 thing, even the impossible. Bu he was no longer Vergniaud 
 of the Convention. His dim eyes, sunk, hollow cheek, and 
 livid colour, proclaimed him only as the prisoner of the 
 people. 
 
 He looked not like the ruins of his youth 
 But like the ruins of those ruins. 
 
THE GIEONDINS 47 
 
 Men wept involuntarily on beholding him, but no longer 
 trembled. They looked only on 'the dying gladiator.' At 
 midnight on the seventh day of trial, judgment of death 
 was pronounced. One of them, Valaze, fell back when be 
 heard it. ' What ! you faint ? ' they said indignantly. ' No, 
 it is death,' he replied, drawing the poniard from his bosorn, 
 with which he had just stabbed himself, and fell dead at the feet 
 of his judges. Ducos and Fonfrede, the two ardent, impetuous 
 young Jacobins of the Gironde, who loved like brothers, 
 embraced each other, weeping. ' My friend,' said Fonfrede 
 to the young Ducos, ' it is I who have brought thee to this 
 death. But courage, we shall die together.' Does not this 
 recall a similar midnight scene, just five years later, in another 
 land, when two young brothers, like them, passionate patriots, 
 victims of tyranny and martyrs for their country, embraced 
 each other weeping, uttering almost the same words, when the 
 sentence of death pronounced against them resounded through 
 the court ? We, too, have had our martyred Girondists and 
 our legal Jacobins. The prisoners returned to their cell 
 chanting the Marseillaise in chorus, as a hymn of triumph. 
 They supped together that last night of life ; some of their 
 friends were admitted ; and the table was covered with the 
 rarest wines, fruits, and vases of flowers, while innumerable 
 torches lit up the walls of the prison. Nothing in their de- 
 meanour or brilliant conversation betrayed men who were to 
 die to-morrow. It reads like that strange scene in Victor 
 Hugo's ' Ducrece Borgia,' of ^ the living dead,' where the young, 
 gay, beautiful guests quaff* the poisoned wine which they know 
 not contains death, while invisible voices chant the funeral 
 psalm — 
 
 Os habent, neque loquuntur ; oculos habent, neque vident ; aures 
 habent, nee audiunt. 
 
 But as the hours passed and morning approached, the con- 
 versation became more solemn — their voices lower, smiles 
 vanished, and their words fell grave and heavy as the strokes 
 of a hammer upon a tomb. Each gave his opinion upon the 
 
48 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 truths of religion, and their hopes of a future state. But when 
 Yergniaud spoke all were silent. He discoursed, like Socrates, 
 long and eloquently on the immortality of the soul. Never 
 had his brow, his look, revealed more genius, or his deep voice 
 thrilled more profoundly through the hearts of his hearers. 
 He seemed to speak from the tribune of God. ^ Why should 
 we doubt of the recompense,' he exclaimed, 'when we have 
 paid the price ? Have we not all given our faith, our blood, 
 our life, for liberty ; and when man thus offers himself a 
 victim to God, what can he do more ? ' ' It is true,' they 
 answered ; ' Christ died also upon the scaffold as a witness for 
 truth.' Then they rose to prepare themselves for death. 
 
 As they left the prison for the scaffold, they commenced 
 chanting the Marseillaise. Arrived at the foot of the guil- 
 lotine, they embraced, in sign of the communion of liberty, and 
 then recommenced the hymn, until the lips of each were silent 
 in death. Each stroke of the axe diminished the strength of 
 the chorus. At length one voice alone was heard. It was 
 that of Yergniaud, who died the last, breathing out his life in 
 a hymn to liberty. ' And when their heads rolled to the feet 
 of the people, youth, beauty, genius, illusions, enthusiasm, and 
 antique eloquence seemed to have perished in France.' 
 
49 
 
 CALDERON. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixteenth century we find two great 
 names, lords of the drama of the world — Shakspeare and Lope 
 de Yega. Both were about the same age, Lope being only two 
 years older than his illustrious contemporary, and both were the 
 worshipped idols of their respective nations, and the flattered, 
 honoured, petted, caressed favourites of a court. Shakspeare 
 was dazzling and delighting the brilliant Elizabeth of England, 
 while Lope v^as winning smiles even from the gloomy Philip 
 of Spain, amid the chill horrors of the Inquisition, and the 
 flames of the heretic autos. 
 
 No author of any age or country ever equalled the Spanish 
 Lope in fertility and fluency. Shakspeare left but thirty-six 
 dramas ; Lope left a thousand to the world. They poured 
 forth from his brain with the facility of improvisation ; all 
 full of powerful scenes, broad, reckless fun, and exciting life 
 and force. With such qualities it is not surprising that he 
 lived adored by his nation, and has remained ever since 
 the most popular dramatist with the multitude. 
 
 Like most men of his era he began life as a soldier : nerve 
 in the arm and fire in the brain. He served in the 2:reat 
 Armada sent against England, and wrote a long poem while 
 going as an enemy to the land of Shakspeare. Tall, dark, and 
 handsome, with bright loving eyes — so he is described — full of 
 genius, warmth, life, and brilliancy ; ever warring or writing, 
 loving or loved ; pouring forth the inexhaustible fulness of his 
 human heart with exuberant joy into the channels of all life ; 
 and thus he stands out like sunlight throv/n upon the dark 
 
 B 
 
50 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 fanatic spirit of his age. But sorrows fell upon him ; he was 
 left wifeless, almost childless ; then he, too, became infected 
 with the gloomy religion of his country. He took orders, was 
 made a monk of St. Francis, and a familiar of the Inquisition ; 
 and later in life grew so fanatical, that he often fasted till he 
 fainted from weakness, and scourged himself till the walls of 
 the room were sprinkled with his blood. 
 
 Spain was ever a loving mother to Lope — honoured by her 
 in life, and glorified in death ; for when he died, such a funeral 
 train followed him to the grave that still runs the proverb 
 in Spain, to express the acme of pomp, ' It was a burial of 
 Lope.' 
 
 But let us turn back to the year of grace 1600, when both 
 Lope and Shakspeare were in the prime of life, glory, and 
 mental power. Lope was then thirty-eight, Shakspeare 
 thirty-six, and Cervantes, their great contemporary, fifty- 
 three. It was a brilliant literary era, and no doubt the world 
 thought it impossible that successors should ever rise fit to wear 
 the laurel wreath when death lifted it from such brows. 
 Shakspeare indeed left no successor ; his mantle fell on no 
 second prophet ; but in that year 1600, a child was born in 
 Spain, destined for greater celebrity even than Lope de Vega, 
 and surpassing him in genius and power as much as Shak- 
 speare excels all who have borne the title of English dramatist. 
 That child was Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Four years 
 later the great Corneille was born in France. So, just as the 
 twin stars of the sixteenth century were declining from the 
 zenith, those of the seventeenth century were rising to the 
 meridian. They might even have met had an entente cordiale 
 subsisted then amongst the nations, such as we have wit- 
 nessed lately, when the chief names of Europe congregated 
 from all meridians to one focus ; and let us suppose a dinner 
 given to the congregate literati at such a time, say about the 
 year 16ir). Cervantes might have presided in virtue of his 
 age— he was then sixty-eight. On either hand are Lope de 
 Vega and Shakspeare, in the prime of life, fame, and man- 
 hood ; while the younger and less gifted poets, Ben Jonson, 
 
CALDEEON 51 
 
 Massinger, and Ford, Beaumont, and Fletcher fill the sides ; 
 last of all, we see two youths, one fifteen, the other but ten, 
 yet of both already have been heard prophecies of fame. The 
 elder, with the beautiful face of genius, dark, lustrous eyes, 
 and flowing hair, is Calderon from Spain. Though but fifteen, 
 he has already written a play which Lope praised. The 
 younger youth has a low, stunted, mercantile aspect — no 
 beauty in him, only a grave equanimity and self-possession, 
 that saves him from being called vulgar. Though but ten, he 
 has written verses that men have talked about, and so people 
 turn the head to look at him : he is the young Corneille from 
 Paris ; his future glory already the vision of his youth. But 
 one still younger, a beautiful child of seven years old, witli 
 long golden curls, rests his arm on Shakspeare's knee, and 
 looks up into the great poet's face, with large, blue, worship- 
 ping eyes — the child is John Milton ; he who afterwards 
 wrote of Shakspeare's works that — 
 
 Kings for such a tomb might wish to die. 
 
 Xow let us just add Rubens in a corner to sketch the scene, 
 for he too was then in the prime of life ; and the whole galaxy, 
 without any anachronism, might thus have been handed down 
 to posterity. But if we suppose a similar dinner organised 
 the following year, we find two places vacant that none dared 
 to fill, and the rolling course of centuries has never filled 
 them since — Shakspeare and Cervantes were both in their 
 
 graves. 
 
 AVe are not going, however, to discuss these vast celebrities 
 of a memorable age, these Titans of literature with ' the large 
 utterance of the early gods ; ' our glance rests only on the 
 handsome Spanish youth ; and of him let us try to gai:her 
 from the past all that is worthy to live in the present. 
 
 Calderon came of a good family. Aristocrats all of them, 
 and devout Catholics, who had held ofiice at court under a 
 succession of royal fanatics. He himself was educated by the 
 Jesuits ; hence, perhaps, the serious, profoundly grave tone of 
 his mind. While yet a child he learned all, conquered all, and 
 
 E 2 
 
52 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 at fourteen had written a drama. Then he entered the army, 
 as Cervantes, and Lope, and Ercilla had done before him, and 
 served tv/elve years ; but unlike them, he seems to have been 
 not much of a warrior. We hear of him still writing, not 
 fighting. Finally, when Lope died, and the court found 
 existence impossible without a dramatic poet, he was recalled 
 from the army, and made superintendent of court festivities 
 at Madrid. After which, to the end of life, we find him living, 
 as Goethe at Weimar, the idol and oracle of a court, that 
 brilliant court of Philip IV. of Spain, the patron of poets, 
 and himself a poet and dramatist. But all this time there is 
 no mention of Love in Calderon s life. Lope loved many 
 times, and married twice ; Shakspeare married, at nineteen, a 
 farmer's daughter, eight years older than himself ; Cervantes 
 married ; Corneille married, and left six children ; and 
 though Camoens remained single, yet it was for the un- 
 dying love he bore his lost Catarina. But Calderon — did 
 he ever love ? We know not. Little can be gathered of his 
 inner emotional life from the records left of him ; at all events 
 he never married. Yet his nature was neither severe nor 
 morose ; rather was it a serious, mournful nature — full of 
 grave, calm tenderness, as of one who sympathised with all 
 human weakness, yet was himself above all. Very kindly 
 too, if not loving ; for we read how he was wont to gather 
 the young children round him on his birthdays, and tell them 
 tales of his own early life, or recite verses to them with that 
 sweet voice of his, which has been specially eulogised by his 
 biographers. His writings indeed show that he deeply studied 
 human suffering and passion — had laid his hand on the quiver- 
 ing fibres of human hearts ; but then it was as a physician 
 who notes symptoms, or as a stern judge who examines to 
 condemn. There seems no pity in his stern justice. With 
 such a nature it is not surprising that when youth and middle 
 age were passed, he should seek the grave, dignified sanctity 
 of sacerdotal life ; and so we find him at the age of fifty-one 
 taking priest's orders, as Lope had done when heart-crushed 
 by the suffering that comes of love and death. 
 
CALDERON 53 
 
 Afterwards Calcleron became Court Chaj^lain and Grand 
 Inquisitor ; and thus lived for thirty years, still enchanting 
 Spain with his brilliant dramas, and honoured as poet was 
 never honoured before, by king, court, and nation. 
 
 Oh destiny ! what a capricious weaver of fortunes art 
 thou ! Cervantes fought and suffered, lost an arm in battle, 
 and was sold as a slave into Algiers for eight years ; then, 
 having made the Spanish name for ever illustrious in literature, 
 was left to die by the Spanish nation, poor and friendless, in 
 one of the lanes of his native city. Camoens served his 
 country and fought her battles bravely during forty years of 
 a lonely unhonoured life ; then wrote a poem that makes the 
 best literature of Portugal synonymous with his name. Yet 
 he dies in an alms-house, blind, poor, starved, and miserable 
 — one faithful negro slave the only friend by his deathbed, the 
 only mourner by his grave ! 
 
 In addition to his great genius, Calderon had great 
 industry ; 500 plays are attributed to him, and through his 
 long life we find the unrelaxed labours of his mind still creat- 
 ing, still producing, though in the later years of his old age 
 these productions were limited to pieces on sacred subjects. 
 He died at the age of eighty- one, on the Feast of Pentecost, 
 while all Spain was celebrating his AiUos^ and he himself was 
 composing one ; trying even in the last death-weakness to 
 finish it for the Corpus Christi Day. And so, says Solis, the 
 historian, his friend and contemporary, our Calderon has 
 passed av^^ay singing, like a swan. 
 
 The ereat dramatist lies buried in the Church of San 
 Salvador^ at Madrid ; and above the marble tomb, upon which 
 the great mental deeds of his life are recounted, is placed a 
 half-length portrait of him, life size, by Juan de Alfaro, court 
 painter to Charles 11. of Spain. 
 
 Calderon's personal beauty was remarkable. The high- 
 domed brow, bearing ' the strong impress of divinity,' resembles 
 Shakspeare's more than any other portrait of the age ; and 
 the countenance is one of wondrous calm beauty and majesty ; 
 it is the face of a Christian Plato — uniting philosophy with 
 
54 MEN, WOMEN, AND LOOKS 
 
 sublimity. The white hair crowns the brow, like snow upon 
 the lofty Alps ; and the large clear eyes seem to read into the 
 very soul, severe with thoughtful earnestness ; while over the 
 entire countenance, features, and expression, is diffused the 
 unmistakable impress of a lofty, spirit-gifted nature. His 
 eyes and the melody of his voice have been expressly noticed 
 by contemporaries. One whites thus describing him : — 
 
 The grave, majestic beauty of his face ; 
 The tine capacious brow; the glorious e^'cs, 
 And sweet melodious voice. 
 
 Before analysing Calderon's plays, it may be interesting to 
 trace the various causes which had an effect on Spanish poetry, 
 and the Spanish drama, the most national and idiomatic in 
 Europe. The Arabs, we know, held Spain from the eighth to 
 the fifteenth century, during which long dominion they exer- 
 cised an immense influence upon the language, customs, and 
 literature of the Spanish nation. All the Spanish forms of 
 poetry are indeed derived from them except the dramatic. 
 Oriental literature was narrative, descriptive, amatory, eulo- 
 gistic, and satirical ; romances, ballads, and all species of 
 lyricism, full of love of nature, and metaphors drawn from 
 her varied beauty, and adorned with quaint conceits, acrostics, 
 anagrams, antitheses, and elegant hyperbole, were familiar to 
 the Moors ; but they had no drama. The Spaniards merely 
 inwove all these Oriental peculiarities into the dramatic idea 
 which spread over Europe from Italy, where the clergy had 
 appropriated that powerful and expressive form of antiquity 
 for the service of the Church, and used it as a means whereby 
 to instruct the people in the history and dogmas of their faith. 
 These religious mysteries, in which the holiest names were 
 freely introduced in a manner at once irreverent and absurd — 
 although the intention was by no means anything but devout 
 — were at first acted in the churches, with priests for actors ; 
 l)ut gradually the exhil3ition passed from the sanctuary to the 
 theatres, and hired actors and secular subjects replaced the 
 sacred legend and the sacerdotal performers. 
 
CALDERON 55 
 
 Thus the Spanish drama had its origin and dates from the 
 fifteenth century. At first the popular representations were 
 nothmg more than rude, coarse, amusing, one-act pieces, per- 
 formed by strolling players in the streets and squares of the 
 city. Then the court adopted the idea, and produced dramatic 
 festivals with considerable splendour ; still, moveable painted 
 scenes were not introduced until so late as the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. Even up to that period the comedies were 
 but grotesque bufiboneries ; •'the tragedies ferocious and dis- 
 gusting absurdities, where all sorts of verse were mingled, and 
 all extravagances of plot and diction practised and enjoyed. 
 Yet some of the writers of that early time have still a celebrity 
 in Spain, though foreigners only take interest in the drama 
 from the sixteenth century, when the voice of the young Lope 
 de Yega began to be heard, and soon no other voice would be 
 listened to. After that period the name of Calderon becomes 
 the fullest expression of the Spanish drama, and has thus 
 reigned without a rival up to the present day. 
 
 Lope de Yega improved on the vulgar drama ; Calderon 
 made it beautiful ; for still he worked upon the old basis ; 
 still we find love, jealousy, and revenge the leading tragic 
 element of the Spanish stage, developed with true Oriental 
 passionate excess — such scrupulous jealousy as we have no idea 
 of, but which is natural in the East, where woman is con- 
 sidered but as property ; and such savage revenge as we can 
 scarcely believe credible, did v/e not know how lightly human 
 life has ever been regarded amongst the Orientals, when a 
 purpose was to be gained or an insult avenged. In judging, 
 therefore, the startling excesses of the Spanish stage, we must 
 remember the deep Oriental tinting of Spanish blood, which has 
 given so many beautiful and picturesque elements to the 
 national life, yet also accustomed the national mind to ideas 
 of cruelty and ferocity unknown to more northern nations. 
 Fanaticism seems, indeed, inherent in Spanish nature — the 
 result, perhaps, of their Celtic origin and political position. 
 Perpetual warfare with an infidel foe made them fanatics in 
 faith and remorseless to the invader. In the conquest of the 
 
56 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 New World these qualities again found means for exercise ; 
 the victims were Pagan, and scarcely even acknowledged as 
 human, while the Spanish conquerors, the fierce and fanatic 
 products of civilisation, fancied all crime pardonable when 
 shadowed by the banner of the cross. The expulsion of the 
 Moors, the persecution of the Jews, and the establishment of 
 the Inquisition, strengthened these tendencies. Dark, gloomy 
 ferocity existed at home against Moors and heretics, and 
 abroad against idolaters and Indians. All crimes, even the 
 most revolting to human sensibilities, were familiar to men's 
 minds, when in any way their purpose could be connected with 
 the advancement of the faith. But free thought could not 
 exist in Spain. Who would dare to think, with the Inquisi- 
 tion by their homes and hearths, and the memory of Tor- 
 quemada, with his holocaust of six thousand victims burned at 
 the stake, present to their minds ? 
 
 Thus, while Spanish military glory attained its highest 
 eminence under the imperial Charles, and the nation be- 
 came intoxicated with pride, conquest, wars, wealth, and ad- 
 venture, fanaticism was at the same time exhibiting those 
 gloomy terrors which reached their darkest excess under his 
 descendants. 
 
 Philip II. was a stern, cruel bigot, who himself witnessed 
 the aittos of his heretic subjects His son, imbecile and profli- 
 gate, had no power to infuse free mental circulation amongst 
 the people. Philip IV., the patron of Calderon, and he who en- 
 tertained the English Charles at his court, was indeed splendid, 
 courtly, and magnificent ; yet also fanatic and profligate— the 
 doom that seems fatally heritable by all Spanish sovereignty. 
 Carlos, his son and successor, a weak miserable being, died 
 childless ; and so ended the great Austrian line of Spanish 
 kings— a race of warriors and bigots, as if they inherited at 
 once the majestic strength of their great ancestress, Isabelle of 
 Castile, and the imbecile weakness of her daughter Juanna. All 
 civil liberty, all religious freedom, was crushed by them ; yet 
 the Austrian age still remains that of Spain's highest military 
 glory and highest literary excellence. The nation was then 
 
CALDERON 57 
 
 first in power, splendour, dominion, importance, and magnifi- 
 cence. The Bourbons succeeded, French influence became 
 paramount, and nothing great has ever been heard since of 
 Spanish mind or Spanish might. Every step from that era has 
 been downward. Indian blood left its stain upon the gold of 
 the New World, and a curse seems to have rested ever since 
 upon the possessors. 
 
 The great Austrian era was especially productive of 
 dramatic energy. Daring adventure, romantic novelty, and the 
 fearlessness of conscious power, excited all hearts ; that full 
 tide of life rushed through the pulses of the nation, which 
 makes youth dramatic, for dramatic vigour requires a great 
 history. Men's minds are then so stirred, they must either act 
 or speak in action ; and thus the greatest political eras are 
 always succeeded by the highest dramatic, because the dramatic 
 is the highest expression in literature of mental energy. The 
 lyric, pastoral, and philosophic poets require rest and calm ; 
 but the dramatist ever follows in the wake of the storm. Not 
 even could the horrors of the Inquisition stifle the energetic 
 life of the national heart. Lope, a familiar of the Holy Office, 
 wrote the gayest of comedies, and Calderon, Grand Inquisitor, 
 the finest secular dramas ; but fanaticism forced the mental 
 faculties more especially into that province of literature which 
 deals with manners and social life rather than with abstract 
 principles ; yet even in this province, which, in Shakspeare's 
 hands, became the medium for the utterance of so much 
 profound, lofty, and independent thought, how httle we 
 have analysed of our mystic and compound nature. The 
 result is given, but not the mental workings that lead up to it. 
 Crimes are committed, deep tragedies of murder and revenge 
 unveiled, but we are not allowed to see the process by which 
 the actor justifies the crime he commits. One would think 
 that deep inner world, where the two voices, representatives 
 of our two natures, are ever questioning and replying, was 
 in Spain guarded by the Church, even from the vision of the 
 poetic seer, lest some of her dogmas might be questioned or her 
 dicta impugned. 
 
58 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 The artistic form in which the spirit of any nation becomes 
 manifest depends on the climate, the customs, the religion, 
 and the history of that people ; and Calderon is completely 
 the incarnation of his nation, his age, and his religious faith. 
 He does not reveal himself in his works any more than Shak- 
 speare ; but in each poet we read the minds of two great sec- 
 tions of the human race — the northern and the southern — one 
 ever hovering over the deep abyss of abstraction— ever analys- 
 ing the spiritual, the unseen ; the other ever striving to repre- 
 sent emotions by the most vivid sensuous images. Feudalism, 
 Catholicity, and Oriental influences made the country of Calde- 
 ron ; and the whole ritual of thought and spirit of the three 
 united is reflected in his works. The old feudal loyalty to 
 their king — the old chivalric worship of woman — the old fealty 
 to the banner of the cross, was the traditionary religion of 
 Spain ; but Eastern blood made their loyalty slavery, their 
 religion fanaticism, and their love the selfish jealousy of a 
 tyrant over a beautiful captive. Thus in Spanish character, 
 we find the heroism of a nation of warriors, the pride of a 
 nation of nobles, and the fidelity of a nation of Christians ; 
 yet withal, the Spanish race is just what Calderon represents 
 them — slaves to their king, tyrants to their mistress, and 
 bigots to their faith. 
 
 The period at which Calderon appeared was most favour- 
 able to his genius. He found a perfect language, the noblest 
 and most beautiful of Europe, as an instrument ready to his 
 hand. The national mind had the vigour and force of con- 
 scious political power, for Spain had then no political equal 
 in the world ; all the resources of wealth were at his command 
 to produce the creations of his brain with gorgeous scenic 
 eflfect, and the most brilliant of Spanish kings was his friend 
 and patron. It was the culminating point of Spanish glory, 
 whether in war or literature, that era of Calderon ; and he 
 had great men to study, great predecessors, and great contem- 
 poraries. Cervantes, Lope, Gongora, Quevedo, Mariana, had 
 all uttered the thought that was in them when he first took 
 up the pen. Saafi had flourished, and Hafiz had sung ; and 
 
CALDEEON 59 
 
 all their rich Oriental imagery had warmed the Gothic blood 
 of Spain ; Copernicus had revealed the heavens, and Columbus 
 the earth ; Corneille was rivalling him in France, and Solis 
 was his friend. Solis, whose history of the conquest of Mexico 
 — beautiful and coloured as an epic poem — might well make 
 all other historians despair of rivalling such enchanting elo- 
 quence. Thus Calderon did not create Spanish literature, as 
 Dante created the Italian, and Shakspeare founded the English 
 drama ; but he was the last chief stone that crowned the 
 building. jSTo great name comes after him ; he remains alone 
 and undethroned, the summit of Spain's literary glory in the 
 seventeenth century, when Spain was indeed glorious. We do 
 not speak of English authors having had any effect upon 
 Calderon's genius, for there is no proof that he was acquainted 
 with our language, and no Spanish version of Shakspeare 
 existed in his time. 
 
 Besides these high influences of history and cultivation 
 surrounding the great poet, there was also the variegated 
 dramatic life of Spain perpetually passing before his eyes ; its 
 picturesque magnificence of dress and customs ; the noble 
 manners, with that stately grace, in common things, which still 
 marks the Spaniard ; the varied dramas e^^olved from the 
 tranquillest life in that age of war, adventure, and intrigue ; 
 every street scene was then a picture framed in the romantic 
 architecture of their semi-Moorish towns, and \dvified by the 
 gay brilliancy of costume and the j^icaresque manners of the 
 lower classes ; v/hile the tournamenvs and religious processions, 
 the feasts and dances, were all dramatic interludes, acted daily 
 under the blue arch of heaven. These the poet analysed and 
 perfected, grouped them with a painter's vision, and produced, 
 finally, the whole national life, its history, poetry, romance, 
 action, and superstitions, in a series of perfect and beautiful 
 pictures upon the stage. 
 
 Even the prevalence of the one passion, love, as the main- 
 spring of so much Spanish tragedy, which to us seems mono- 
 tonous and tame, is but another national characteristic, as 
 marked in Spanish nature as their pride or their fanaticism ; 
 
60 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 for to a Spanish woman love is life, and life is love. She gives 
 all to it, and asks all from it ; such love as the snow maidens 
 of the north can neither feel nor inspire, no more than they can 
 rival in beauty the warm -tinted orientalised daughters of 
 Spain. But of the life of intellect a Spanish woman knows 
 nothing, and therefore we find them only endowed, by Spanish 
 dramatists, with those qualities which instinctively are asso- 
 ciated with the word woman — grace, fascination, all-j)owerful 
 beauty, all-subcluing tenderness, all-conquering love ; and these 
 truly are the especial gifts of ' Spain's dark-glancing daughters,' 
 as if the cestus of Yenus, or the knowledge of some magic love- 
 philter had been given as heirlooms to their race — that beauti- 
 ful race with the large floating Oriental eyes, flashing with the 
 impulsive passions of a mortal, or languid with the seductions 
 of a houri, such as the Arab prophet beheld them in vision ; 
 the exquisite forms, undulating as an acacia, graceful as a 
 bayadere, yet with the majesty of a sultana in walk and move- 
 ment ; and the fairy-glancing feet — who has not heard of the 
 Andalusian foot ? or who can forget, if they ever witnessed, the 
 amazement, the dismay, the horror of a Spanish girl at first be- 
 holding one of our northern shoes ? Indeed, Alexandre Dumas 
 asserts — and his authority is of course perfectly canonicaJ — 
 that they are accustomed to make boats of them in Spain, in 
 which whole families descend the Guadalquivir from Seville 
 to Cadiz. How, then, can we, of the race of the frost giants, 
 taking this firm hold of earth which it is proved we do, 
 alas ! by practical mensurauon, comprehend how much of fire 
 and electricity, of passion, jealousy and crime, these floating, 
 burning, seductive visions of love and beauty diff*use through 
 Spanish life — this race, blended of the odalisque and the 
 sultana, in whom the intellect is ever indolent, and the passions 
 ever in delirium. 
 
 But the great artist himself —he who fused all these varied 
 elements in the alembic of his genius, and produced resultant 
 forms so perfect and indestructible — of him let us speak now. 
 What waves of melody come rutshing on the memory as we 
 think of Calderon — the grave, earnest, believing. Catholic 
 
aAJLDERON 61 
 
 Calcleron— the poet-priest. In him, too, was blended the 
 Oriental and the European. This is especially evident in 
 his style. There is the occasional energetic laconism of the 
 Oriental— the grave aphorisms that fall like ancient oracles 
 on the ear — the flowing capricious harmonies of his verse, 
 gorgeous and elaborate as the gilding and colouring of 
 Moorish architecture ; while saintly and solemn comes, ming- 
 ling with all these, the grave ascetic philosophy of the priestly 
 devotee — ever preaching the vanitas^ omnia vaiiitas^ of life^, 
 and the grand cadenced words roll round the thought like 
 organ symphonies. 
 
 It is this blending of East and West which makes him 
 stand alone amongst the poets of Europe, so that his works 
 seem to one like a stately Gothic temple, adorned with arab- 
 esques of the Alhambra. There is also the full Oriental love 
 of nature in him, with the crowding metaphors drawn from 
 her ever changing aspects, which were the delight of Eastern 
 poets. 
 
 Menzel, speaking of the poet Riickert, says beautifully : 
 ' He went forth to wander amidst the flowers, and from every 
 blossom went up a new song, till the dreaming poet found him- 
 self in a strange land, where flourished a wild, luxuriant vege- 
 tation, and native and Eastern flowers twined round hiin, and 
 every flower woke a song of love, and his pen was never weary, 
 for melody was his nature, and its utterance his instinct.' 
 Thus is it with Calderon : all nature sings to him — the stars in 
 their glory, the flowers in their evanescence. Amidst the melo- 
 dies and mysteries of creation his spirit walks freely, as through 
 an infinite garden, while his language seems ever striving to 
 imitate the varied harmonies of the universe ; sometimes rising 
 into the most spiritual lyricism — 
 
 A music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
 It is felt as an odour within the sense. 
 
 Then you meet some grand thought struck out boldly and 
 distinctly from the mass by the change of measure, p.nd the 
 words fall on the idea like regal robes upon a king — you are 
 
62 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 compelled to pause and render homage ; or a particular senti- 
 ment is woven into a series of perfectly finished sonnets, and 
 you come upon them at intervals like jewelled clasps upon a 
 chain of gold. In truth, there is no form of beauty into which 
 this wondrous Spanish language — this compound of Latin 
 and Arabic, the grandest, and most sonorous, most majestic of 
 Europe — cannot be wrought by the magic might of Calderon ; 
 yea, sometimes, as Jean Paul says of Schiller, ' he strikes the 
 poetic harp with such a jewelled hand that, dazzled by the 
 lustre, we half forget the strain.' 
 
 Calderon's dramas are all lyrical, rhymed or unrhymed, 
 according to the excitement of the scene : thus, in passionate 
 passages, the verse always rises into perfect rhyme. The 
 metre is generally trochaic, of eight or seven feet, but a thou- 
 sand variations of measure are to be met with, to imitate 
 which must be the torture and despair of any translator. 
 Denis Florence McCarthy, however, has endeavoured to render 
 into English all the metrical forms of the original ^ ; and none 
 but a Spanish student can comprehend the immense labour, 
 the amount of poetic skill, the great mastery of language, the 
 many high natural poetic gifts, requisite to produce even an 
 imitation such as we have received from him. And yet trans- 
 lations far more powerful might have been produced, if in place 
 of striving after impossible resemblances in form, he had 
 given simply the spirit of the original in our own natural, 
 strong dramatic verse. 
 
 All poetry has two elements — thought and form. The 
 former is indestructible, and can be poured from one language 
 into another, without dissolution of its essence ; but the latter 
 can never be dissevered from the language in which it was 
 born, without almost total extinction of its vital beauty— for 
 each nation has lingual forms as peculiar and idiosyncratic as 
 the physical conformation of the people. Race is marked in 
 idiom as in blood : thus the French cannot endure or compre- 
 hend our blank verse, while in the kindred German nation 
 Shakspeare has been naturalised word for word, measure for 
 
 1 The Dramas of Calderon, 2 vols. By D. F. McCarthy, M.E.I.A. 
 
CALDEEON 63 
 
 measure. Now, the language of the drama everywhere should 
 be that in which the highest passion and excitement of a 
 nation finds natural utterance ; and as iambic blank verse 
 approaches nearest to lofty English prose, therefore is it the 
 most thrilling in the English drama— for the drama is meant 
 to represent, not a visionary world, but intense phases of 
 actual life. All nations express passion differently ; in the 
 north it is grave, measured, and emphatic ; in the south, 
 rapid, voluble, and always tending to rise into lyricism. We 
 may observe this difference even in common life. How, as an 
 English orator grows excited, does his language assume an 
 emphatic condensed measure, which, if taken down and 
 slightly arranged, would be found the instinctive utterance of 
 excitation in the ordinary dramatic form of blank verse ; while 
 the torrent-like volubility of the excited southern, the rapidity 
 with which vowel sounds can be poured out, the regularity of 
 their grammatical forms, the similarity of the verbal termi- 
 nations, and the strong accent thrown on them, especially 
 under excitement, all give the sensation to the ear of a song or 
 recitation ; in fact, a strongly marked lyrical measure. But, 
 in place of the strong syllabic accent which makes lyricism so 
 natural to the south, we have only the accent of emphasis in 
 English — an accent not springing from rules of prosody, but 
 intentional and mental in its origin ; and of all poetical mea- 
 sures, blank verse is the fittest to convey this emphasis, the 
 power of the line falling properly on that particular word 
 which natural passion would instinctively emphasise. Open 
 Shakspeare at any page, and we find how this leading re- 
 quirement of passionate expression is provided for by the con- 
 struction of the line — hence the marvellous strength and 
 power of his verse ; but open Mr. McCarthy's volumes at 
 any page, and we find how, by the unfortunate measure he 
 has adopted, the emphasis falls almost invariably on the most 
 trifling word in the whole line, annihilating natural emphasis 
 completely 
 
 Yet Mr. McCarthy sa3"s, with a.pparent pride, that he has 
 given the original line for line, with closest fidelity. Granted ; 
 
64 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 but imitation is not life. Titian, copied in a lithograph, or 
 with all his brilliant colouring given in Berlin wool, is not the 
 glorious Titian of reality. On this very subject of form, 
 Frederick Schlegel, a good authority, says, speaking of Calcle- 
 ron, ' T am so sensible of the high perfection of this great and 
 divine master, that I think he cannot be too much studied as 
 a distinct and inimitable specimen of excellence, but least of 
 all is the external form of the Spanish drama suitable to us ; 
 to imitate this is the height of absurdity.' Even setting aside 
 national distinctions, the style of no great genius is imitable, 
 for style is part of the artist's soul, peculiar, individual, eter- 
 nally and only his — the full visible expression of the energy, 
 melody, force, depth, and tendency of his own genius ; and a 
 Calderon has not been twice created. Occasionally, indeed, 
 we meet with one of those Promethean men who can breathe 
 life into the clay, draw forth the spirit from another's 
 work, and shrine it in the form they have copied. Such was 
 Shelley : and in his scenes from ' The Great Magician ' of 
 Calderon, we for one instant feel the entire beauty of the great 
 Spaniard transfused into English. And such a work also is 
 Dr. Anster's ' Faust ' so complete in its perfection, that it has 
 rendered all other past efforts forgotten, and all future efforts 
 unnecessary. Yet while allowing that such a translation as 
 Dr. Anster's is, and could only be, the work of genius, we 
 must add that, in transfusing German into English, we trans- 
 late from a kindred tongue, all the forms of which find a 
 natural echo in our own : and therefore perfection in such a 
 task is not absolutely hopeless ; while the endeavour to repre- 
 sent southern harmonies by English equivalents is a task so 
 difficult, that, even with genius such as Mr. McCarthy's, success 
 might be impossible. We allow that he is generally very accu- 
 rate ; and though his volumes cannot be called poetry, yet they 
 will be found of immense use to the student of Spanish ; a copy 
 in clay of the original marble — not beautiful, certainly, but 
 valuable as giving the English reader an idea of the celebrated 
 Calderon in his varied moods, which could not otherwise be 
 attained. Mr. McCarthy has given translations of six of Calde- 
 
CALDEEON 65 
 
 ron's dramas, including ' The Constant Prince/ ' The Purga- 
 tory of St. Patrick/ and ' The Physician of his own Honour ; ' 
 all of which have an immense celebrity, both in and out of 
 Spain. With reference to the last, Ochoa says — 'When a 
 foreigner speaks of Spanish literature, his first words are of 
 the inimitable Don Quixote, Lope de Vega, and the '^ Medico" 
 of Calderon.' 
 
 The ' Constant Prince ' is a noble and affectino- drama, of 
 which heroism, not love, forms the interest. Prince Ferdi- 
 nand is the hero, son of Joam, king of Portugal, and of an 
 English princess — that Philippa of Lancaster, of whom it is 
 recorded that on her death-bed she presented each of her sons 
 with a sword, and bade them use it for God, the oppressed, and 
 their country. These sons proved worthy of her : Ferdinand, 
 by his heroic fidelity to the faith, and noble endurance of 
 suffering, became the saint and martyr of Portuguese history ; 
 and Prince Henry, another son mentioned in the drama, was 
 the daring navigator of the fifteenth century, whose name still 
 holds a distinguished rank amongst maritime discoverers. In 
 1437, these two royal brothers undertook the conquest of 
 Tangiers from the Moors, but were defeated, and Ferdinand, 
 being taken prisoner, was kept till his death in horrible 
 captivity and servitude, refusing to the last to surrender Ceuta 
 to the Moors, the price demanded for his freedom. These 
 are the historical facts on which the drama is founded. First 
 we see him, full of hope and pride, proceeding with a noble 
 fleet to Tangiers ; then comes the battle and defeat ; after 
 which he appears as a prisoner, but still one royally treated. 
 Freedom waits but on his own word — the surrender of Ceuta. 
 The King of Portugal sends the warrant for the town to be 
 given up, but Ferdinand tears it with his own hands, and re- 
 fuses to believe the king could really mean to give up the 
 altars of God to the desecration of the infidel. Then he is 
 presented to us degraded by the revengeful Moors to the 
 lowest slavery ; he appears denuded of his royal garments, 
 chained, clothed as a common captive, toiling at the common 
 work. This contrast of mind and position, the cruel degrada- 
 
 P 
 
66 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 tion and the high philosophy with which it is borne, the 
 sublime resolve of self-sacrifice rather than inflict the shadow 
 of a stain upon his country, is a truly noble, though a tragic 
 picture. To his friend, who wishes himself dead rather than 
 behold these tortures of his prince, he replies calmly — 
 
 A man of noble soul should ne'er complain 
 
 Of fate, Don Juan ; 
 
 An example should by us be given 
 
 Of patience, valour, fortitude, my friend. 
 
 To his fellow-slaves, who would still show him reverence as 
 their prince, he says — 
 
 Pay me no idle courtesy ; 
 
 Death comes to-morrow and makes all things equal. 
 
 The Moorish king's daughter descends to the garden, and 
 seeing him toiling with the common slaves, asks how he has 
 fallen so low from such a height of royalty. He answers by 
 a beautiful sonnet, in which he bids the flowers preach to her 
 the evanescence of all earthly glory, beginning — 
 
 These flowers awoke in beauty and delight 
 At early dawn, when stars began to set ; 
 At eve they leave us but a fond regret 
 
 Locked in the cold embraces of the night. 
 
 This sonnet is admirably translated, with the exception of 
 one line towards the end : — 
 
 'Tis but to wither that the roses bloom ; 
 
 'Tis to grow old the}^ bear their beauteous flowers — 
 One crimson hud their cradle and their tovib. 
 
 The green calyx is truly cradle and grave in one, and to 
 this Calcleron alludes, for he makes no mention of crimsorh 
 buds ; his words are — 
 
 Cuna y sepulcro en un boton ; 
 
 and the dictionary of the Spanish Academy gives the very 
 word calyx as the Latin synonym for boton. But to return 
 
CALDEEON 67 
 
 to the prince. Still farther cruelties are heaped on him. 
 He is represented wretched, diseased, starved, dying, begging 
 by the way-side for a morsel of bread — a Lazarus full of sores, 
 and none but the dogs to pity him. Still, to all the insults of 
 the Moorish king he answers mildly — 
 
 My patience shall his cruelty exceed. 
 
 Finally, the King of Portugal sends an army to rescue him 
 at any cost ; but Prince Ferdinand has just died — his last 
 words a defiance to the Moor, that he may triumph over him, 
 but shall never triumph over the Church. 
 
 The dead body of the prince is then shown from the walls, 
 lying in his coffin, and robed in the dress of the religious 
 order of which he was grand master, this last request of his 
 having been granted by his enemies. The next scene is fine 
 and dramatic ; the dead Fernando appears to the Christian 
 army, and incites them to the combat ; then, with a torch in 
 his hand, and clothed in the robes of his order, leads them on 
 to the walls of Fez, where they obtain signal victory over the 
 infidel foe. 
 
 The Moorish princess is taken prisoner, and the drama 
 ends by her being exchanged for the corpse of the prince^ 
 which is carried back to Portugal by the victorious troops^ — 
 
 To the solemn sound and sweet 
 
 Of trumpets, and the drum's low music^ 
 
 Marching in the usual order 
 
 Of interment ; and so ends 
 
 The Lusitanian Prince Fernando, 
 
 Firm and constant in the faith. 
 
 There is a slight silver thread of love involved in the play, 
 between the Moorish princess and the Moorish general ; but 
 love is not the interest of the drama, which rests solely on the 
 firmness, death, and apotheosis of the victim. Mere patience 
 is not a dramatic virtue certainly ; but in the patience of 
 Ferdinand there is inflexible patriotism, high Christian devo- 
 tion, and the true heroism of voluntary acceptance of suffering 
 
 f2 
 
68 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 for a principle. In this lies the grand nobility of the picture, 
 not in the mere courage that can endure. 
 
 The ' Physician of his own Honour ^ is a domestic tragedy, 
 and must be one of the most fearful to witness ever brought 
 upon the stage. The scene is laid in Seville, in the reign of 
 Pedro the Cruel, called Pedro the Just by his flatterers ; and 
 Henry, Count of Trastamara, the king's illegitimate brother, 
 is one of the principal characters. This Don Enrique was 
 much beloved by the Castilians, and from his munificence 
 received the name of Enrique of the Benefits. The king 
 became jealous, fancied he would usurp the crown, and so 
 persecuted him unremittingly. Pedro well deserved the title of 
 cruel, for he murdered the mother of Enrique, and poisoned 
 his own wife, Blanche of Bourbon, in order that he might 
 marry his mistress ; but at length he fell into Enrique's power, 
 who slew him with his own hand, and reigned in his stead. 
 This gives great force to the slight incident in the drama, 
 where Enrique, handing the king his dagger, accidentally 
 wounds him in the hand, and the king rises up disordered and 
 terrified at the sight of blood — a foreboding of the future 
 highly effective on the Spanish stage, where the allusion was 
 at once understood. But the royal history forms no part of 
 the drama : Enrique is only introduced as the leading cause 
 of a terrible domestic tragedy ; and the king that he may 
 administer inflexible justice : yet, knowing that such characters 
 and such crimes as Pedro's were familiar to Spanish minds, 
 we may wonder less at the spectacle of swift, imj)lacable, 
 deadly vengeance displayed by Calderon, which to those unac- 
 customed to the fierceness of Spanish revenge, seems a picture 
 too revolting for reality. 
 
 The story is one of jealousy and revenge. Enrique has 
 been the lover of the young and beautiful Mencia. He goes 
 to the wars, returns, and finds her max^ied. They meet ; with 
 tears, prayers, and at last, with the daring of despair, he 
 solicits her love. They are alone, for he has bribed the servant 
 to admit him to Mencia's chamber during her husband's absence. 
 She resists with noble dignity ; not even in thought will she 
 
CALDEEON 69 
 
 wrong her husband : yet gently, pitying the despairing lover, 
 tells him that his love must ever have been hopeless, for she 
 was too humble to be his wife, too proud to be his mistress. 
 
 The husband returns and finds the dasfsier of the Prince, 
 forgotten by him in his flight. This dagger and her confusion 
 arouse his first suspicions. On taking leave of her again, she 
 asks tenderly why he will not embrace her ; when he suddenly 
 throws back his cloak, and she perceives the dagger of her lover 
 in his hand. As her dismay becomes evident, he says, as if 
 quite unconscious of the cause — 
 
 What makes my Mencia fear ? — 
 My joy, my treasure, and my 7vife, 
 
 This is one of the many fine dramatic situations which abound 
 in Calderon. From this onward we have the perfect inno- 
 cence of the beautiful young wife in strong contrast with 
 the dark, remorseless purpose of her husband gathering strength 
 every hour. Still he makes no accusation — he only watches. 
 One night he returns stealthily to his house, thinking to sur- 
 prise his guilty wife. He finds Mencia sleeping and alone, the 
 light beside her. He extinguishes the light, and calls her softly 
 by name. She awakes, and fancying it is the Prince again, 
 entreats his highness to leave her, as he cannot hope every 
 night to escape the vengeance of her husband. This is terrible ; 
 her innocence is so spotless, her love for her husband so high and 
 true^ 3^et every word she utters is her own death-warrant. She 
 calls for a light, and the husband then advances, speaking 
 loudly as if but just arrived. Mencia receives him with rap- 
 ture, but he says aside — 
 
 Her false caresses strike my bosom chill. 
 
 She tells him the air blew out the light as she was sleeping. 
 He answers : — 
 
 I do not wonder at it, darling mine, 
 Because the air that killed this light of thine 
 Was breathed out by a zephyr wild and bold, 
 And then ran circling round so icy cold 
 
70 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 That of this you need have little doubt, 
 Not lights alone, but lives it could blow out, 
 
 Can it be jealousy, my lord, you feel ? 
 
 Mencia asks him. He still dissembles, and replies : — 
 
 Jealousy ! 
 As the heavens live, I know no pang like this. 
 
 Then he breaks forth in passionate frenzy : — 
 
 If I had grounds to fancy what might be 
 This phantom terror you call jealousy, 
 Whoe'er the object, I would cruelly tear 
 Out bit by bit the warm heart she doth bear ; 
 Then, as the quivering fragments came, 
 Keeking with blood and liquefied in Hame, 
 I would the red drops as they fell 
 Drink with delight, and eat the heart as well. 
 
 But, as the memory of past tenderness rushes upon him, he 
 changes suddenly to this wild burst of love : — 
 
 God ! God I my Mencia, Mencia dear — 
 My good, my wife, the glory of my skies ! 
 Dear mistress mine — oh, pardon by thine eyes 
 This wild disorder, this strange burst of grief, 
 Which, past conception, past all sane belief, 
 A mere chimera of the brain did cause. 
 
 Yet still, convinced of her guilt, he leaves her, muttering to 
 himself — 
 
 1 called myself physician of my honour. 
 And in the earth shall bury my dishonour. 
 
 The third fine scene is where Mencia learns that the Prince 
 is going to leave Seville in despair of her love. This terrifies 
 her ; the reason will, perhaps, become public — her name will be 
 disgraced. She resolves, therefore, to write one line, and 
 entreat him to remain to save her honour. She enters her 
 closet to write, and the curtain falls behind her. The husband 
 appears, lifts the curtain noiselessly, leans over her, and 
 
CALDEEON 71 
 
 snatches the letter from her hands. Mencia turns round, sees 
 him, and faints. He looks at her as she lies, ' a living statue 
 of cold snow/ and writes underneath the letter — 
 
 Thou hast but two hours to live ; save thy soul — to save thy life is 
 impossible — • 
 
 then leaves the apartment, locks the door, and dismisses all 
 the attendants on dijfferent pretences. Mencia returns to 
 consciousness, reads her death sentence, and finds herself a 
 prisoner. Frantically she tries both door and window — they are 
 barred : she calls her attendants — no voice answers ; and her 
 exclamations of horror, agony, and despair are the last words 
 we hear from Mencia's lips ; and the scene closes on this 
 terrible tragedy of torture, where yet the victim is innocent 
 of all crime. 
 
 The vengeance of the jealous husband is strange and 
 horrible. He returns, bringing with him a surgeon, blindfolded. 
 In the antechamber he removes the bandage, and bids him wait 
 for his return. Then he again lifts the curtain, and enters his 
 wife's apartment, where he remains some moments. What 
 passes in this last mysterious interview of the avenger and the 
 victim we are not told. He returns ; then bids the surgeon 
 draw back the curtain, and tell him what he sees. The surgeon 
 
 answers — 
 
 An image 
 
 Of pale death — an outstretched body 
 
 Which upon a bed is lying ; 
 
 At each side a lighted candle, 
 
 And a crucifix before it. 
 
 What it is I cannot say, 
 
 As the face is covered over 
 
 With a veil of taffeta. 
 
 ^You must kill that living bocly,^ the husband replies. 
 ' Drop by drop let the life-blood flow ; I shall watch you from 
 this spot, and if you hesitate your life is lost.' 
 
 The surgeon enters. The husband holds back the curtain, 
 and watches the slow process of the murder. We hear no 
 cries, or tears, or prayers from the victim ; no word of pity 
 
72 MEN, Y/OMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 from the avenger for her youth, her beauty, her young life — all 
 so ruthlessly destroyed. His soliloquy as he watches is one of 
 triumph that he has cleansed his honour by blood thus secretly 
 and securely, and a half-uttered purpose to kill the surgeon as 
 he leaves the house, that no witness may remain of the deed. 
 Thus the scene closes. 
 
 The next scene, Gutierre, the husband, is leading back the 
 blindfolded surgeon ; they suddenly come upon the king with 
 his attendants. Gutierre flies ; the surgeon tears off the 
 bandage, and in the fulness of his terror tells the king of the 
 murder and the death. He has no idea of the victim, only he 
 heard her sob forth her protestations of innocence while dying ; 
 but on leaving the house he had marked the door-post with his 
 bloody hand that he might know it again. By this token of 
 the bloody hand the house of Gutierre is recognised, but no 
 punishment falls on him, and the play ends by the king giving 
 him one of the ladies of the court in marriage, who says she 
 does not fear to take his hand though it is stained with blood. 
 
 One can see from this slight sketch what powerful stage 
 situations, what a series of dramatic tableaux, unequalled by 
 any dramatic author, the gloomy pencil of Calderon has 
 painted and his brain engendered. Yet the absence of love in 
 Calderon 's nature is evident throughout all his works. The 
 lighter comedies are all intrigue and gallantry, and in the 
 higher dramas the love is lost in the feelings of jealousy, re- 
 venge, and honour, from which he draws such powerful terrors. 
 Nothing can surpass his tragic effects ; but how different were 
 the souls of the men who drew Othello and the Medico. Othello 
 does not care for or think of a conventional honour ; he is not 
 an outraged ' husband ' — he suffers as a betrayed lover. The 
 Medico is insulted, and avenges, not a wronged heart, but a 
 stained honour. Poor Othello writhes at the thouo-ht of 
 ' Cassio's kisses on her lip.' He does not take a second wife, 
 or go to the wars — he is wrecked. 
 
 The highest excess of dramatic power, terror and gloom, 
 has certainly been reached in this drama, and in that other of 
 Calderon'sj entitled ' Secret Vengeance for a Secret Wrong.' 
 
CALDEKON 73 
 
 Here, too, the wife is innocent. She fancies her first lover 
 dead, and marries another ; but he returns, and in the disguise 
 of a diamond-merchant presents her with her own gift-ring, on 
 which she promises to meet him that evening in order tojustify 
 herself. The husband discovers the assignation, and resolves 
 on vengeance. The lover is just entering the ferry-boat to 
 convey him across to Leonora's garden, where they are to meet, 
 when the husband comes up, and, pretending to know nothing 
 of his object, asks leave to cross with him. They enter the 
 boat, and the lover is seen no more. How he is murdered, we 
 know not ; but in the next scene we are present with Leonora 
 in the garden, from which the distant screams of the murdered 
 man are audible, though she little suspects they are the last 
 agonies of her lover. Presently the husband jumps on shore, 
 and tells her, as if it were a matter of perfect indifference, how 
 a man called Don Lope has unfortunately been drowned while 
 crossing. Leonora faints ; and he bids them carry her to her 
 chamber, while he tells the by-standers to see what a loving 
 wife she is, who faints at the mere apprehension of her hus- 
 band's danger. To kill her secretly is his next resolve ; in 
 some way that he shall have vengeance, yet the world never 
 know of either her crime or his revenge ; so he sets fire to his 
 house, suflfocates Leonora, and then appears upon the scene 
 with his wife dead in his arms, lamenting over her as if he had 
 vainly endeavoured to save her from the flames. Thus he has 
 ' secret vengeance for a secret wrong.' 
 
 In both these powerful dramas of Calderon it is still the 
 tragedy of outraged honour he paints, not of loving or broken 
 hearts. Nowhere has he drawn the glad excess of love, or its 
 deep agonies : he could not, perhaps — he who seems never to 
 have felt either ; but the deep gloom of relentless justice, the 
 stern iron nature, remorseless even to the suspicion of a crime — 
 this was natural to the priest, to the ascetic monk, to the 
 Grand Inquisitor familiar with torture, to the court chaplain 
 who had listened to many a dread tale of domestic crime and 
 tragedy at the confessional. He knew well the deadly tempta- 
 tions, the fierce passions incident to our nature, the secret 
 
74 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 workings of sin in the frail heart ; he had watched the writh- 
 ings of the hulxian spirit in its agony, as of the human frame 
 under torture, and there seems no place for pity for either in 
 that gloomy religion of which he was the minister. 
 
 Nothing" broken is beautiful save the heart, says the Persian 
 proverb ; and as an artist he may have studied its phenomena 
 through the stormy agonies of others ; and yet, thus perhaps 
 the highest souls are best taught the story of our sad humanity. 
 Omniscient, they read all life, gaze down into its gloomiest 
 depths, while they themselves stand serene and immovable far 
 above clouds and tempest. As a poet has said : — 
 
 Myriad hearts are pained and broken that one poet may be taught 
 To discern the shapes of passion, and describe them as he ought. 
 
 ' The Purgatory of St. Patrick ' belongs to quite a different 
 order of drama from the foregoing. It may be classed amongst 
 the religious plays, since its aim is to show how repentance and 
 faith can purify from the greatest crimes. 
 
 The story is founded on a legend alluded to by many 
 ancient chroniclers concerning a certain knight. Sir Owain, 
 who, after leading a life of the most satanic crime, is converted 
 by St. Patrick, and finally absolved after passing through the 
 awful and supernatural terrors and tortures of St. Patrick's 
 Purgatory. 
 
 The scene is laid in our own beautiful Erin, where the 
 pagan King Egerio reigns. A storm flings St. Patrick, along 
 with the knight of the legend — called in the drama, Ludovico 
 Enio — upon the coast. St. Patrick endeavours to convert the 
 monarch, who, however, to show his scorn and disbelief of the 
 apostle's preaching, recklessly braves the unknown terrors of 
 the Purgatory, enters the cave, and is seen no more. Ludovico 
 relates his own history ; how he has passed his youth in Spain, 
 ^a prey to every wild desire,' and as a sample of the crimes he 
 committed, tells them — 
 
 To force a tender damsel to my wish, 
 I slew a noble, venerable man — 
 
CALDEEON 75 
 
 Her father. Nay, an honoured cavalier 
 I stabbed, through frenzied passion for his wife, 
 As he lay sleeping calmly by her side, 
 Bathing his dearest honour in his blood ; 
 Making his bed a fatal theatre, 
 And mingling there adultery and death. 
 • • • • • 
 
 I struck a Serjeant, killed a captain, 
 And in my fury wounded several more. 
 I slew a bailiff — much too small amends 
 For all the other evils I had done. 
 
 Then he finds asylum in a convent, from whence he carried 
 ofi* a nun, who loves him, forgetting for a while his crimes — 
 
 Although were centred in her hapless person 
 
 The sealing of a cloister's sacred walls — 
 
 Violence, incest, ravishment, adultery, 
 
 Towards God himself, since she was vow'd His spouse. 
 
 But soon tired of her, he endeavours to repair his lost for- 
 tune by making a traffic of her beauty and honour. After 
 this, finding himself universally shunned and hated, he embarks 
 for Ireland, and would have perished in the shipwreck but for 
 the blessed St. Patrick, ' who clrew^ him from the poisonous 
 wave.' This catalogue of demoniacal acts is given in order to 
 make his subsequent purification by faith alone the more 
 remarkable. But even after his miraculous rescue, he con- 
 tinues the same course of crime in Ireland. Polonia, the king's 
 davighter, a fierce fiery maiden, who is engaged to Philip de 
 Boqui, he seduces and carries off to the mountains, where he 
 murders her that he may obtain possession of the jewels she 
 fled with. St. Patrick raises her to life, as a proof of his divine 
 mission ; and Polonia then appears afterwards in many wild 
 and beautiful scenes, uttering inspired words of pleading for 
 the Christian faith. Years pass by, and Ludovico, who has 
 been wandering through distant lands, to try and stifle the 
 reproaches of a guilty conscience, returns to Ireland, All is 
 changed there ; the country has become Christian, and the 
 sister of Polonia reigns as qvieen, Ludovico is still the slave of 
 
76 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 all fierce passions, and his first resolve on returning is to 
 murder Philip de Roqui, his rival with Polonia. For this 
 purpose he watches Philip's house, crouched close beside it 
 each night to stab him in the dark as he enters ; but for three 
 nights successively, as he lies in wait, a muffled figure inter- 
 poses between him and the intended victim, and Philip passes 
 safe into his house. The next night he determines to attack 
 this intrusive stranger, kill him first, and Philip afterwards. 
 They meet ; Ludovico accosts him, draws his sword, but the 
 sword only falls powerless on the empty air. ' Tell me, then,' 
 
 he says — 
 
 Are you phantom, man, or demon ? 
 
 Are you silent ? Then 'tis needful 
 
 That your dark disguise I open. 
 
 He tears open the cloak, and discovers a skeleton : — 
 
 Mortal, know you not yourself [it exclaims] ? 
 Here behold your truest picture ; 
 I — am Ludovico Enio. 
 
 Ludovico falls to the ground, and when he recovers the inner 
 change has been eflfected. The miracle of saving grace has 
 besfun, and he calls on Heaven to tell him some means of 
 atonement for his past life. 
 
 [ Voices within^ and iiiusic — 
 
 The Purgatory ! 
 
 Nothing in the whole course of dramatic representation 
 equals this scene, with its fearful accessories, its solemn, awful 
 meaning, its gloom, its terror, and its truth ; for it is the soul 
 of Ludovico — that soul dead in sin, that sepulchre of all 
 uncleanness, that here stands before him, made visible by the 
 gaunt and ghastly image of corruf)tion and death. 
 
 In the next scene, his uprisen murdered victim Polonia 
 meets him, and strengthens his resolve to dare the Purgatory. 
 The boat that conveys him across the lake to the dread cave 
 is a coflin ; he enters it alone. The priests of the island and 
 Polonia watch him till he disappears within the entrance, never 
 
CALDERON 77 
 
 dreaming to behold him again in life. But he returns — the 
 powers of hell are conquered ; and he reappears, a changed, 
 repentant, and forgiven man, who is henceforth to lead a lonely 
 life of penance and humiliation in the desert, apart from all 
 the human race. Then the priests command him in the name 
 of God to tell of all he has seen. Upon which he relates his 
 passage through all phases of this hell, with its demon tempters 
 and supernatural tortures, where the unrepentant sinner 
 writhes in eternal agony, till he reached a vast congregation — 
 
 Where, although 'twas plain they suffered, 
 Still they looked with joyous faces ; 
 Uttered no impatient accents, 
 But with moistened eyes, uplifted 
 Towards the heavens, appear'd imploring 
 Pity, and their sins lamenting. 
 This, in truth, was Purgatory. 
 
 The whole narrative is full of Dantescan imagery, and by 
 itself a fine poem, though too prolonged, one would think, for 
 the stage. The entire drama is, indeed, one of wild and singular 
 beauty ; and passages of sublime and gorgeous poetry flash 
 through it, that seem the product of some higher inspiration 
 €ven than genius. Sometimes Mr. McCarthy's translation rises 
 almost to the level of the original, but again falls so far below 
 it, that one wishes for plain common prose, rather than such 
 nondescript measure as he has adopted. 
 
 Amplification and dilution also, sometimes weaken the 
 force of the original, or a crowd of supernumerary adjectives 
 stifles its energy ; for instance, the speech of Enrique, page 
 
 300, vol. i. :— 
 
 And then the skies 
 
 Conspire to darken and to fret 
 My heart to-day. Before my eyes 
 I see my jealous thoughts arise. 
 With monstrcus leer an I giant size, 
 I see them here and to would fain 
 Fly from their looks, so dark and drear. 
 
 All the words in italics are interpolations. 
 
78 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 Again, in the speech of Mencia (same page) we have : — 
 Be not driven by passion's stormy sighs. 
 
 Passion does not sigh. Calderon says simply : — 
 
 Be not driven by passion. 
 
 And in the conclusion of the same speech the English 
 
 version gives : — 
 
 As to the lady, Heaven above 
 Alone can tell how Strang the i)ower 
 That forced her to forget thy flame : 
 O ! call her no unworthy name — 
 The fichle changeling of an hour. 
 
 Whereas the Spanish is charming in its brief pathetic 
 
 music : — 
 
 Cuanto d la dama, quiza 
 Fuerza, y no mudanza fue. 
 Oidla vos. 
 
 (As to the lady, perhaps 'twas force, and not inconstancy. 
 Hear her defence.) 
 
 Then in the description of the horse (p. 301) the same 
 amplification occurs ; accumulation of epithets merely to eke 
 out a rhyme. The Spanish description is simply : — 
 
 Broad flank and chest, 
 Short head and neck, 
 Strong foot and limb. 
 
 One more example to show how simple beauty is sacrificed 
 
 to over elaboration. On page 305, English version, Mencia 
 
 says : — 
 
 'Tis thus with men, to-day they prize 
 
 The thing to-morrow they may shun ; 
 
 And what was joy to win, when won, 
 Turns in their hearts to cold despair. 
 
 The original Spanish is so perfect in the form of expression, 
 so mournful in the fall of the cadence, that the words at once 
 strike the ear and imprint themselves on the memory : — 
 
CALDEKON 79 
 
 Oh, que tales sois los hombres I 
 Hoy olvido^ ayer amor ; 
 Ayer gusto ^ y Iwy rigor ! 
 
 How exquisite are the two last lines even to the mere 
 English ear, that can only comprehend the music, without the 
 sense ! Literally it runs : — 
 
 Oh, thus with all men 'tis the way I 
 Yesterday loved, forgotten to-day I 
 Yesterday rapture, and scorn to-day I 
 
 the form Mr. McCarthy has adopted requiring thirty words 
 to express what in the original requires but half that number. 
 This justifies the assertion, that Spanish metrical forms and 
 music are not imitable in our language, and that all a trans- 
 lator can hope for, is to give the spirit of the original. If Mr. 
 McCarthy, with all his high poetic gifts, has failed to render 
 back the true Calderonic music, it is a proof, not of his want 
 of power and genius, but simply of the impossibility of success. 
 Yet to the student of high dramatic Spanish literature his 
 volume will be found of incalculable value ; while the mere 
 English reader will certainly gain from it a comprehensive 
 idea of Calderon's varied dramatic power, and of his finest 
 productions, such as never was before presented to the English 
 public. ' Love after Death ' is a drama full of excitement and 
 beauty, of passion and power, of scenes where enthusiastic 
 affection, self-devotion, and undying love are drawn with more 
 intense colouring than we find in any other of Calderon's 
 works. The plot is founded on a romantic incident of the 
 time when the Moors of Granada rebelled, in 1568, and estab- 
 lished themselves in the Alpujarra, under a king of their own 
 race ; but enough has been said already, even in this brief 
 sketch, to inspire the English reader with a desire to gain some 
 idea, though it were only from a translation, of this great poet 
 who has reigned in Spain without a rival for above two 
 hundred years. 
 
 Shakspeare and Calderon, says Augustus Schlegel, are the 
 only two poets entitled to be called great. Therefore it may 
 
80 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 not be uninteresting to note the strong vital difference between 
 them. 
 
 Shalvspeare was in the fullest sense the poet of the Teutonic 
 mind — the product of the highest mental freedom and self- 
 assertion ; and therefore he draws strong definite individuali- 
 ties, not classes. Each character, as it were, asserts its own 
 right to think and do according to the laws of its own inner 
 nature. He adopts no conventional mode for kings, women, 
 and lovers to think, speak, and act. Further, it is not the 
 incident, but the evolution of character, that interests in 
 Shakspeare. We do not weep for the victims — do not tremble 
 for their fate, but watch with suspended breath the mental 
 workings of the chief actors — the combat of the human with 
 the unseen demon. This is, in fact, the real tragedy of life — 
 not the incident of a life ; and this is why, long after we are 
 familiar with the catastrophe in Shakspeare, we still read, and 
 re-read, fascinated and absorbed, for the incident may never be 
 repeated or paralleled in our own experience, but the combat 
 of the mortal and the tempter is ever within and around us ; 
 and ever according to our moods Shakspeare utters some true 
 phrase — some startling revelation of the inner strife. Charles 
 Lamb was even of opinion that Shakspeare was most power- 
 ful when not acted, but read in solitude by the still heart. 
 
 Let memory for an instant rest ujDon his finest plays and 
 we find it is not the catastrophe that enchains the attention, 
 but the secret workings of one human soul laid before us. 
 Even in ^ Othello,' where the tragedy is so deep and the victim 
 so young and lovely, we think more of the unseen, intangible 
 agonies of Othello's mind, than of the visible agonies of Des- 
 demona's death. The mental torture affects more powerfully 
 than the physical. The tragedy, to us, lies in the tortures of 
 jealousy, not in the murder ; and therefore it is the unseen, 
 not the scenic tableau, which rises first to memory when we 
 recall his dramas. 
 
 Indeed there are no pictures in Shakspeare. What artist 
 could represent the agony of Lear ; the fatal pride of Richard ; 
 the strife between temptation and weakness in Macbeth ; the 
 
CALDEKON 81 
 
 wrecked Othello ; the fine poetical nature of Hamlet, forced 
 into collision with the drear realities of life and sin ? 
 
 In Shakspeare, likewise, quite independent of either plot 
 or individual character, we find more beautiful passages on 
 abstract thoughts and qualities than can be met in any other 
 poet of the world —passages that will be loved and quoted to 
 the end of time, though the whole dramatic story connected 
 with them sank into oblivion. 
 
 Now of Calderon exactly the reverse may be predicated. 
 In not one speciality does he resemble Shakspeare, save that 
 each have held paramount sway over their respective nations 
 for above two centuries — 
 
 Kings by their own snfnciDg grace, 
 In the free realms of the spirit ; 
 
 the relation betw^een Shakspeare and the free Teutonic mind 
 being as complete and enduring as that between Calderon and 
 the semi-Oriental, passive, passionate. Catholicised spirit of 
 the southern. 
 
 Calderon is essentially a dramatist for the stage. In place 
 
 of strong-defined individual characters, w^e have incident, tine 
 situations, pictures — the most powerful series of dramatic 
 pictures ever presented on the stage ; no poet ever imagined 
 anything like them since ^schylus. He does not devote his 
 genius, like Shakspeare, to analysis of feeling — the hidden 
 thoughts of the soul, the pensamientos escondidos del alma, 
 are not revealed by him. You know the soul of his creations 
 only through acts, results. Sudden, swift, and fatal descends 
 the tragic destiny. There is no apparent strife, no inner 
 combat. We do not walk step by step along with the tempta- 
 tion, but irresistibly, as if by fatal necessity, the mortal falls 
 beneath it, and we are summoned to look at once upon the 
 crime and the revenge. For this reason none of Ccikleron's 
 speeches are quotable for an abstract beauty independent of 
 the plot, which is so strong a characteristic of Shakspeare's 
 style. The interest in Calderon lies all within the story and 
 its terrible catastrophe ; therefore, on mention of any of his 
 
 G 
 
82 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 most powerful dramas, what rises soonest to the mind is not 
 one great individual character standing out from all the others 
 l)y reason of the grand proportions of the character itself ; 
 neither is it any select passage of sublimity or tenderness, of 
 depth of passion or height of lofty reasoning ; but memory 
 draws back the curt^^in from some fearful well-remembered 
 tragedy, at which we seem to have assisted with our own 
 eyes, and the deep gloom of which can never pass from the 
 imagination ; not the working out of an abstract passion, 
 not the writhings of an individual mind, but some picture, 
 terrible and startling as a torture-scene of the Inquisition, as 
 awful in its tremendous meaning as a vision of the super- 
 natural, just such as a powerful painter would throw upon 
 canvas in his moods of highest inspiration. 
 
 Calderon loved painting ; he even wrote a treatise in praise 
 of the art ; hence all his scenes are tableaux. What a gallery 
 of beauty and terror might be formed from his works ! One 
 may judge of this from even the few scenes noticed here. 
 Think of Mencia's murder — the young life-blood ebbing drop 
 by drop ; her low sobs of pleading innocence ; and the husband 
 holding back the curtain, to watch that pity should not abridge 
 one torture, nor revenge lose one throb, of her death agony. 
 Then the scene between Ludovico and the skeleton. Here 
 Shakspeare would have given a grand, deep soliloquy, in which 
 the workings of the sin-steeped heart would have been laid 
 bare to us ; but Calderon, by one bold stroke, presents the 
 whole ghastly image to the sensuous organs. That foul, fierce 
 heart itself is there before us, visible in all the vileness and 
 loathsomeness, such as the leprosy of sin had made it, such as 
 the Scripture metaphors reveal it — a grave of dead men's bones. 
 
 Another speciality of Calderon (not of his age) is morality. 
 Not a line, not a phrase, not a word in his dramas need be 
 cancelled by the most fastidious delicacy. Tirso cle Molina, 
 a contemporary, though an ecclesiastic, is an immoral and 
 shameless writer ; he it was who wrote the original of all the 
 Don Juans of the world — therefore the exceeding purity of 
 Calderon is the more remarkable. 
 
CALDEEON 83 
 
 Still Spain never at all approached the grossness of uie 
 French and English contemporaneous drama, though in each 
 country the highest minds v/ere the purest. Shakspeare, 
 Corneille, and Calderon— these men had nobler minds than 
 their age, and therefore speak nobly. Sha^kspeare is indeed 
 often unreadable ; he could not quite overcome the tendencies 
 of his era. Yet, all other English dramatists of the century are 
 as much beyond him in coarseness, as they are beneath him in 
 genius. And before Corneille, the French stage was so coarse, 
 that even a description of the plot would not now be tolerated.^ 
 But he and Calderon simultaneously effectf^d a revolution in 
 literature, overthrowing the exhibition of sensuality and 
 licentiousness, and uttering, with grave, beautiful eloquence, 
 noble and heroic thoughts ; while their lives moved on equably 
 down the century, with the same calm majesty and beauty, 
 the same reforming, purifying influence. Grossness and licen- 
 tiousness fled back into the shades of night, from the pure 
 light their genius radiated around them ; and, as if by special 
 providence, their lives were prolonged beyond the ordinary 
 term of human duration, that so their apostolate of high and 
 lofty thought might be set as an example to a corrupt, 
 sensualised people. They both beheld the opening of the 
 seventeenth century, and almost witnessed its close ; and, in 
 that long career, not one unworthy action stains their fame, 
 not one unworthy word blots the page they left to the judgment 
 and the praise of posterity. Well might Calderon, too, have 
 exclaimed with the aged Corneille, at the close of his long, 
 pure, memorable life : 'I have flnished my course — my destiny 
 as a superior man is accomplished. Whatever I was capable 
 of doing I have done ; the rank that I was worthy to attain I 
 have attained. Nothing more remains for me to desire.' 
 
 Before concluding, a very interesting volume may be 
 noticed, which appeared at the same time with Mr. McCarthy's 
 Spanish translations, ' Six Dramas of Calderon, translated by 
 Mr Fitzgerald.' Amongst them are four of the most remark- 
 able of Calderon's plays— TAe Maijor of ZaJamea; The Fainter 
 
 ^ Guizot's Jjife of Corneille. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ^ MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 of his oion Dishonour ; Three Judgments at a Bloio ; and Gil 
 Ferez^ the Galician — a strange, wild drama, of which a 
 notorious robber is the hero. Unlike all other translators, 
 Mr. Fitzgerald has at once abjured the attempt at imitation 
 of Spanish metrical forms, and boldly given his versions a 
 complete idiomatic English dress. He has certainly taken 
 great liberties with the original — abridged speeches, tacked 
 others together, lopped off all exuberances of ornament, when 
 he could not give the ' rainbow play of brilliant harmonies,' 
 which made the Spanish verse so exquisite, and turned all the 
 lyricism at once into blank verse, but the result has been a 
 most interesting volume for the English reader, natural in 
 style and idiomatic in expression. In no other mode or form 
 oan the works of the great Spaniard become i^opular ; and 
 Mr. Fitzgerald deserves our thanks for having preseated so 
 excellent a model for future translators to emulate. 
 
85 
 
 STELLA AND VANESSA 
 
 The English writers of the eighteenth century are rapidly 
 vanishing from our hearts and libraries ; even the best of them 
 are only traditionally venerated, seldom read. The new gene 
 ration never dreams of taking its inspiration from Pope, nor 
 its philosophy from Paley, and even the great Dr. Johnson him- 
 self is mainly kept alive by the faithful love of poor Boswell. 
 The mission of the eighteenth century was, in fact, action, not 
 literature. It came into the world, as a French writer 
 observes, to destroy, not to build up ; to clear away the old 
 rags and cobwebs of prejudice and cant, and the last remnants 
 of serfdom and feudalism, by such great deeds as American 
 independence and French revolution. It was an age of 
 questionings and doubt ; when, men mocked at everything they 
 had once venerated, and denied everything, even God. ' A 
 torch and crowbar period,' Carlyle calls it, ' of quick rushing 
 doom and conflagration, when the whole social system having 
 fallen into rottenness, the natives took the questionable step 
 of setting the whole thing on fire.^ 
 
 The literature of such a period was, of necessity, sensuous 
 and material, or vapidly didactic, for without earnest religious 
 faith there can be neither sublimity nor elevation of senti- 
 ment ; yet even this eighteenth century, so shallow, false, and 
 feeble in literature, produced, amidst ' the men of the time,' 
 some representatives of the men of all time, destined to hold 
 permanent rank in the grand federation of human intellect. 
 Of these most were Irish. Swift, Goldsmith, and Burke 
 still live and seem endowed with anirrepressible vitality, while 
 
88 MEN, WOMEN, AND LOOKS 
 
 nearly all their fellow-workers are passing, or have passed, into 
 chaos and oblivion. Yet Swift's individuality interests even 
 more than his works : that wonderful career of a self-made 
 man, who by the mere force of his intellect, wit, and irony 
 made ministries tremble, as he hurled his terrible pamphlets 
 like thunderbolts upon his scared and startled opponents, 
 crushing them as much by the bitterness of his sarcasm as by 
 the remorseless logic of truth, fact, and sound sense. 
 
 It is remarkable that Swift's genius was by no means 
 developed early. His career in Trinity College was unmarked 
 save by some records of his unruly and insubordinate temper. 
 On his twenty-first birthday he had to beg pardon on bended 
 knees of the outraged college authorities, a circumstance which 
 made him hate his birthdays ever after, and even record them 
 bitterly. When he went to London he was glad to earn a poor 
 20L aj^ear as literary drudge to Sir William Temple ; buthere, in 
 the great focus of ideas, a sense of his own deficiencies dawned 
 upon him, and he began to study assiduously for eight hours a 
 day. Still at twenty-seven he had produced nothing beyond 
 a few translations from the classics, and had attained nothing 
 beyond an Irish living of lOOI. a year. Ten years more passed 
 away, and though his great learning, his extraordinary wit, his 
 conversation, and his sarcasms had gained hiin an immense 
 social reputation, the slumbering giant within him had not 
 fully awoke. In fact. Swift was nearly forty years of age 
 before he blazed upon the world with all his tremendous 
 povv^ers, and England knew that she possessed one great writer 
 more. For the ten subsequent years he reigned in London 
 the autocrat of the ministry — the undisputed master of the 
 political world— hated, feared, and caressed by the trembling 
 slaves who, notwithstanding his arrogance, yet knew that with- 
 out him they could have no existence whatever. This man, 
 without rank or fortune or office, ruled them all by the 
 terrible force of his mighty intellect ; yet he had in him also 
 great and noble instincts, for without them no man can rule his 
 fellow-men — a scorn of gain, an indomitable pride, and an 
 invincible love of truth, right, and justice. 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 87 
 
 It was in Ireland, after he became Dean of St. Patrick's, 
 that he wrote the famous satire, 'Gulliver's Travels'— the 
 sharp sword of his wit never keener, though he was then near 
 sixty years of age— this wonderful tale, that, in its literal 
 meaning, has delighted the children of every generation for the 
 last hundred and fifty years, and whose hidden wisdom will 
 delight all sages, politicians, and thinkers to the end of time. 
 AYho knows what hints for this grand satire of political and 
 otScial weakness and absurdities Swift may not have received 
 from his residence in Ireland ? and even the land wliere 
 Gulliver reports he passed some time during his travels may 
 still exist — a land where ' the bulk of the people consist, in a 
 manner, wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, 
 prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several sub- 
 servient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the 
 conduct, and the pay of Ministers of State and their deputies * 
 the plots in that kingdom being usually the work of those 
 persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound 
 politicians, to restore new vigour to a crazy administration, or 
 to stitie or divert general discontents.' 
 
 But what need to localise his pictures ? The vices, frauds, 
 follies, and meannesses he satirises are to be found everywhere 
 and in all times. Were there not something common to all 
 human nature in them, these profound satiric sketches would 
 not have existed so long. He does more, however, than paint 
 the degradation of man. He enforces the eternal principles of 
 truth and justice, which formed the basis of his own mind, by 
 the very poignancy of his satire against their opposites. In 
 this strange book, indeed — this child's book, yet filled with the 
 deepest philosophy — we seem, more than in any other of 
 Swift's works, to stand face to face with the heart of the man 
 
 . its tragic gloom and grotesque irony. Through the sarcasm 
 
 of the fable we tra-e his noble love of freedom, his strong 
 sense of human rights, and the dignity of intellect ; his savage 
 independence of spirit, his scorn and hatred of systems which 
 left o-enius and true merit crushed under the feet of a corrupt 
 oligarchy, and the indignant pride that made him recoil from 
 
88 MEN, WOMEN, AND LOOKS 
 
 all wrong and injustice. He not only weighed his own age 
 in the balance and fathomed its hollowness, but he looked 
 before and after, and sat in judgment upon the whole life of 
 humanity. A great prophet of our own day has said : ' Whoso 
 belongs only to his own age, and reverences only its gilded 
 popinjays or mumbo-jumbos, must needs die with it, though he 
 were crowned seven times at the Capitol. The great man does 
 in truth belong to his own age, but he belongs likewise to all 
 ages, otherwise he is not great. What was transitory in him 
 passes away, but the immortal part remains, the significance 
 of which is inexhaustible.' It is this 'inexhaustible si^jnifi- 
 cance ' of Swift's best thoughts that make them for ever worth 
 re-interpreting in the new forms of a new age. 
 
 But, above all, the love-drama of Swift's life has helped to 
 make his name immortal ; and it is singular that a subject so 
 full of romantic passion has never been selected as a theme by 
 any of our native novelists. What tears would have fallen 
 by Stella's monument in St. Patrick's aisle, or by the laurels 
 which Vanessa planted, if some Shakspeare of our age had tilled 
 up the shadowy outline of this tragedy of fatality and despair, 
 of which tradition only recites the fragments ! 
 
 A Frenchman — M. de Wailly — attempted such a work in 
 his romance entitled ' Stella and Vanessa,' but he failed to 
 unravel the mystery of those suftering hearts, whose felicity 
 and misery are so fatally intertwined that union or separation 
 alike brings doom. The portraits also are coarse and dis- 
 torted, drawn without any true spiritual insight. For instance, 
 the handsome Svv^ift — the poet, patriot, wit, statesman, the 
 profound and subtle thinker, the brilliant, dazzling conversa- 
 tionist, the leading genius of his country, and the most 
 powerfully effective writer of the age — is presented to the 
 reader's mind as only a coarse, selfish, somewhat brutal, 
 thoroughly uninteresting, unlikable compound of egoism and 
 morosity, blended with a few traits of surly benevolence, 
 springing from the promptings of conscience more than the 
 impulses of the heart. That Swift possessed a nature shadowed 
 by some of this dark colouring, is true, certainly ; but Id. de 
 
STELLA AKD VANESSA 89 
 
 Wailly's portrait has no claim to be considered a likeness, 
 when he has copied only the coarsest features, the harshest 
 lines, the superficial roughness of the epidermis, and omitted ail 
 the glory that genius radiated over the faults and defects of 
 Swift's singular and complex moral organisation. 
 
 In his sketches of the two heroines, destined to celebrity 
 throughout all time, for their beauty, misfortunes, fatal rivalry, 
 and mournful destiny, the author has been equally unfortu- 
 nate. Vanessa, with her passionate devotion, and Stella, with 
 her meek, sacrificing love, are drawn with as coarse a pencil 
 and coloured with falser tints. Stella, whom Swift pronounced 
 ' the most accomplished conversationist of either sex ' he had 
 ever met with, appears through the distorting prism of M. de 
 Wailly's imagination as scarcely better than a silly, childish 
 hoyden, without acquirements to adorn or intellect to acquire ; 
 while the proud, gifted, high-bred, poet-souled, beautiful 
 Vanessa changes beneath his touch into a vulgar, provincial 
 third-rate virago ; not a Medea, that she might have been, 
 but a Madge Wildfire, whose love is half fury, half madness ; 
 but M. de Wailly at least deserves some commendation for the 
 industry with which he has accumulated materials and inwoven 
 truth with fiction. 
 
 The incidents of the tale are all historical, but the synchron- 
 ous grouping, though adapted to render the dramatic effect 
 more striking, is too far opposed to our consciousness of the 
 truth to make us victims of the illusion. From Swift's arrival 
 at Laracor, to take possession of the vicarage, up to the death 
 of Stella, the time occupied in the action of the novel exceeds 
 scarcely a few months, and all the intermediate events of his 
 life, with Vanessa's love and Stella's death, are crowded into 
 that space, though they really extended over a period of 
 thirty years. 
 
 Yet even the simple historic incidents have a power to arouse 
 our sympathies and to lead us dreaming into the past, where 
 those pale mute statues stand out in sad beauty by the grave 
 of him they died for, like sculptured caryatides supporting his 
 tomb. 
 
90 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Let us breathe life upon the still lips for a few moments, 
 and, uncoiling the roll of years, stand face to face with them, 
 as Dante by the wailing spirits of Hades, while they tell their 
 tale. 
 
 It was in the year 1688, the year of the great Revolution^ 
 when he was just twenty-one years of age, that the gifted 
 young Irishman, in whom a conscious genius lay strugghng to 
 be freed from the bonds of poverty and obscurity, went to Eng- 
 land to seek his fortune, a pedestal, a position — for what is 
 genius without one ? By his mother's influence, he was 
 received into Sir William Temple's house as tutor, clerk, secre- 
 tary — in fact, general assistant to all the working brains of the 
 establishment, from the learned baronet's down to those of 
 little Esther Johnson, the housekeeper's daughter — then a 
 pretty, delicate, bright-eyed child of six years old, and aftsr- 
 wards the ' Star ' of his life, the world-renowned Stdla, After a 
 few years residence there. Swift took orders and a vicarage in 
 Ireland. A fit of romantic generosity, however, made him resign 
 this living of Kilroot, after having held it only a year, in 
 favour of a poor curate, struggling against starvation, with a 
 wife and children, on 40^. a year ; and at eight-and-twenty 
 Swift found himself once more trusting: to the driftino; current 
 of chances for means and a position. Yet Sir William gladly 
 received his brilliant secretary again, and Swift resumed his 
 position at Moor Park, as chaplain, literary assistant to Sir 
 William, and preceptor to Stella — now a gay, gifted, beautiful 
 girl of fourteen. But the young clergyman wasno Abelard or 
 St. Preux ; Ambition was his only idol then, and his feelings 
 tovvards his f^^ir pupil never seem to have warmed, at any 
 period of his existence, beyond the tenderest paternal regard. 
 He continued this life for four years, until Sir William's death, 
 reading eight hours a day, studying classics, philosophy, and 
 politics with his all-wise, all-accomplished host ; and penning 
 pamphlets, satires, poems, and sketches of future works, that 
 gained present celebrity and the earnest o£ approaching fame. 
 
 Then a change came. His patnm died. 
 
 Lord Berkeley held out hopes of patronage, which were f ul- 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA ' 91 
 
 filled by presenting him with the miserable little living of 
 Laracor, in the county Meath, with only 100/. a year ; a]id 
 Swift settled down in his obscure glebe. But a light was want- 
 ing to his drear solitude, and he writes to his friend Stella to 
 come and settle in Ireland likewise. She obeys. Was it love 
 led her ? We know not ; but before the year is out, Stella 
 and her companion, Mrs. Dingley, are fixed in lodgings at 
 Trim, close to their brilliant, cynical, selfish friend. How 
 beautiful was Stella then ! just eighteen, a lovely, fascinating 
 being (as he himself described her, years long after, writing on 
 the midnight of the day she died), with hair blacker than a 
 raven, every feature of her face perfection, and a gracefulness 
 more than human in every movement, word, and action. Add 
 to this external beauty an intellect of a high order, most 
 richly cultivated. 
 
 Swift says of her, that he had never met any of her sex 
 gifted with a better mind, or who had improved it more by 
 reading and cultivation. She was versed in Greek and Latin 
 story, spoke French perfectly, understood the Platonic and 
 Epicurean philosophies, the nature of government, somewhat 
 of physics and anatomy, was a perfect critic both in prose and 
 verse, whose opinion any author might rely on, always the 
 most brilliant in conversation, nomatter who was by — combin- 
 ing judgment, good sense, vivacity, courage, and discretion in 
 a most extraordinary degree. 
 
 Her mind was like a temple dedicated to the Muses : wit, 
 poetry, learning, philosophy had each an altar there. No 
 conversation more brilliant, no face more lovely, could be 
 found in the London circles where she moved ; and yet she 
 leaves all- the homage and the splendours of the great capital 
 — to bury herself in the central solitudes of Ireland with 
 one whom she could not even call a lover. 
 
 Years pass thus. Stella receives an offer of marriage from 
 a Dr. Tisdall. She thinks of accepting it, perhaps to shield 
 her name from the censure which Swift acknowledges shadowed 
 it for some time, in consequence of her undefined position ; or 
 did she wish to test the affection of him whom she now felt she 
 
92 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 loved ? This, too, is a mystery for us ; but Tisdall was dis- 
 couraged in all possible ways by Swift, and finally rejected. 
 Years still pass on. Stella has no more offers of marriage, 
 for her friend is henceforth considered as her lover. Perhaps 
 Swift felt a compensation was necessary for having selfishly 
 used the light of her young life to illuminate his otherwise 
 cheerless, solitary existence. She had become necessary to his 
 happiness, though assuredly he never loved her with the love 
 that vStella's dark eyes would have desired to read in his ; 
 and there is every reason for believing that he at last entered 
 into a vaofue en^'ao-ement to make her his wife when his 
 fortune was bettered and he obtained preferment. 
 
 Ten years passed thus, and Stella^s youth was fading and 
 her health failing ; but still she loved and hoped and trusted. 
 Had Swift any real intention of keeping the terms of his 
 engagement ? If he had, there is not a single line from his pen 
 extant to prove it. 
 
 In the year 1710 his political friends came into power, and 
 Swift hastened to England to assist them, and further his own 
 advancement. During his three years' absence from Ireland 
 he wrote the well-known ' Journal to Stella,' a record of each 
 day of his life transmitted to her by post each night. For the 
 first few months there is intense fondness displayed, but no 
 word of love — not an allusion to their probable marriage 
 throughout the whole three years' correspondence. He calls 
 her 'dearest beloved,' tells her that 'her felicity is the great 
 end of all he aims at,' with other generalisms, evidently in 
 answer to some gentle pleading of hers for a definite hope or an 
 assured promise. 
 
 Then the change comes. Poor Stella ! 
 
 The words of love, faint as they were, grow fainter. She 
 thinks, perhaps, it is from the whirl of political excitement in 
 which he lives ; and truly there is nothing stranger in the his- 
 tory of that era than Swift's sudden elevation to importance as 
 a political power. An obscure Irish clergyman, without wealth, 
 rank, or station, becomes at once the grand object which all 
 parties are eager to secure upon their side ; but he has splendid 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 93 
 
 talents, they know that ; also a tremendous power of sath^e and 
 an unscrupulous energy in using it, they know that too ; and 
 that no opponent can stand before the fierce, scathing, terrible 
 shafts of his ridicule. Harley and Bolingbroke declare he is 
 the only man in England they fear, and they succeed in win- 
 ning him to their side. Harley, the Prime Minister, absolutely 
 grove^-s to him for his support, and Bolingbroke, the Secretary, 
 flatters and adulates with all his own exquisite eloquence. His 
 poor lodgings at eight shillings a week, in London, are besieged 
 by courtly visitants and invitations to the courtly set ; all the 
 wits of London adore him or envy him ; all the duchesses are 
 emulous of his notice ; he guides the councils at the palace and 
 troubles the cabals of the courtiers. Talent, for once, has its 
 triumphs : Genius tramples upon coronets ; and one exults to see 
 how Swift's proud soul recoiled from yielding homage to mere 
 rank, when God and nature had denied iiobler gifts. He stood 
 by his order, and made the haughty lords of Court sue to him for 
 his notice, but never advanced a step to solicit theirs. 
 
 ' I treat them like dogs,' he says, with that contemptuous 
 scorn which had measured their feebleness by his own colossal 
 strength. 
 
 He refused to become chaplain to Lord Oxford, then Prime 
 Minister, and in a letter to Bolingbroke writes : ' I would 
 have you to know, Sir, that if the Queen gave you a dukedom 
 and the Garter to-morrow, with the Treasury stafl' at the end 
 of it, I'd regard you no more than if you were not worth a 
 groat.' 
 
 This is the true Pepublican spirit that actuates Genius in 
 all a^es. Swift would not allow intellect even in another to 
 descend a step from the height where God had placed it. 
 When Lord Oxford desired that Parnell might be brought to 
 him, as he wished his acquaintance, Swift replied : ' A man of 
 genius was above a lord ; therefore the Ministry must seek 
 Parnell, not Parnell the Ministry.' His arrogance even some- 
 times became insolence : he bids Harley take a message to 
 the Secretary that he cannot dine with him unless he dine 
 early ; and the Prime Minister of England takes the message. 
 
94 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Yet, with all this cold, cyn^ral contempt for the men who 
 feared and flattered him, and used his brains as the Jever to 
 lift them to power, he was capable of the warmest feelings of 
 kindness and generosity, as a thousand anecdotes evince. 
 Lord Peterborough tells of him ' he wanted to frame a new 
 system, to govern the world by love.' Pope, whose melan- 
 choly, tender letters display an affection based upon the highest 
 esteem, testifies warmly to his ' humanity, candour, charity, 
 and sincerity.' He tried to secure a place for Steele, his 
 political opponent ; and advanced Berkeley, Parnell, and Gay. 
 For him, Genius was of no party. Almost all the great men 
 of the day were indebted to him in some way or other ; while, 
 at the same time, singularly enough, the position his own 
 talents and services entitled him to expect was not conceded 
 to him. Perhaps the Ministry thought that hope would retain 
 his services to their cause better than success ; or the Queen's 
 ear was assailed by the calumnies of the Whigs, who called 
 him libeller and atheist ; bishoprics became vacant, and dull 
 plodders were adorned with the mitre, but Swift's brow still 
 remained uncrowned. No wonder the bitterness of disap- 
 pointed ambition displays itself openly in his treatment of 
 Ministers. Still his war of words continues unabated on their 
 behalf. Pamphlets, satires, poems, shake the power of the 
 enemy, and peace or war in Europe depends upon a few 
 strokes of his pen. He edited a paper called ' The Examiner,' 
 assisted by Bolingbroke, Atterbury, and Prior. Opposed 
 to them were Addison, Burnet, Steele, Congreve, and others 
 — men worth breaking a lance with— who, though political 
 opponents, were yet on terms of social intimacy with Swift. 
 
 No age can show a more numerous list of distinguished 
 names than were Swift's contemporaries, though none amono-st 
 them, perhaps, are worthy to be ranked vrith the high pontiffs of 
 literature that graced an earlier century. His was a brilliant 
 life then. The flattered idol of the highest society in London • 
 the companion of the gay, dazzling wits, philosophers, essayists, 
 poets, dramatists, and prosists, that were headed by Pope 
 Ac'dison, Steele, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Gay, Parnell, 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 95 
 
 Prior, and others, whose fame illumined the century. But the 
 brightest amongst them all has offended the Queen, it seems, 
 by a satire on her favourite Duchess of Somerset, and is con- 
 demned to banishment in Ireland as Dean of St. Patrick's. 
 Swift felt infinitely mortified that ministerial pa.tronage con- 
 ferred no more. All the fine ladies were in tears at his 
 departure ; all his friends mourned. Leaving London seemed 
 to them like quitting sunlight for a cavern. How would 
 he live without its glories and its splendour ? An amusing 
 letter from one of them, addressed to him in Ireland, shows 
 the feeling with which they contemplated his exile : 
 
 ' And now, methinks, I look down into that bog of usque- 
 baugh, and hear you gnashing your teeth, and crying : '' Oh, 
 what would I give now for a glass of that small beer I used to 
 call sour, or a pinch of that snuff I used to say was the worst 
 snuff in the world ! Oh, what would I give to have had a 
 monitor warning me of the sword hanging by a packthread 
 over my head, and crying, in a voice as loud as Southweirs, 
 ' Memento^ doctor^ quia Ilihernus es^ et in Hiherniam rever- 
 teris I ' 
 
 'You are now cast upon an inhospitable island ; no mathe- 
 matical figures on the sand ; no vestigia hominum to be seen ; 
 perhaps, at this very time, reduced to one single barrel of 
 damaged biscuit and short allowance even of salt water. 
 What's to be done ? Another in your condition would look 
 about ; perhaps he might find some potatoes, or yet an old 
 piece of iron, and make a harpoon, and, if he found Higgon 
 sleeping near the shore, strike him, and eat him. 
 
 'But this, I know, is too gross a pabulum for one who 
 hitherto has lived on wit, and whose friends, God be thanked, 
 desiirn he should continue to do so, and on nothing else. There- 
 fore, I would advise you to fall upon old Joan. Eat : do I live 
 to bid thee ? Eat Addison ; ^ and when you have eat every- 
 body else, eat my Lord -Lieutenant ; he is something lean — 
 God help the while ; and though it will, for aught I know, be 
 treason, there will be nobody left to hang you, unless you think 
 
 ^ Cliief Secretary in Ireland at the time. 
 
96 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 fit to do yourself that favour ; which, if you should, pray don't 
 write me a word of it, because I should be very sorry to hear 
 of any ill that should happen to you/ 
 
 But what was poor Stella doing during these long three 
 years, while Swift's wit was blazing brigliter than the diamonds 
 of admiring duchesses and flashing recklessly through the ice 
 of Court formalities and startling the soul of the poor dull 
 Queen ? 
 
 Was she weeping in loneliness by the willows of Laracor 
 while her lover was basking in. the eyes of a rival ? And 
 such a rival ! Alas ! poor Stella, thou hast cause to weep ! 
 
 But Stella did not even know she had a rival. The daily 
 journal from Swift had certainly become colder and chiller, and 
 it is evident that she had even comjDlained a little of his pro- 
 tracted absence and evident disinclination to return to Ireland ; 
 while, all the time, no professions of affection came to calm her 
 solicitude. If want of fortune had prevented their marriage, 
 Swift was now rich. The deanery was worth 700?. a year ; 
 but no allusion is made to such a result — no expression of joy 
 uttered at the prospect of their meeting ; on the contrary, a 
 sca^rcely concealed chagrin is visible in every line, though 
 without apparent cause ; and, as if to chill any rising hope 
 within her bosom, repeated hints are given that he wdll be no 
 richer for his preferment. Stella, however, never dreams of a 
 rival. What woman ever thinks it possible that her lover can 
 forget her ? If he is less ardent than her heart could wish, 
 she blames ambition, not love, as the enchantress that detains 
 him from her side. How could she be suspicious of brighter 
 influences than her own retaining him, or that hers had ceased 
 to attract ? for, though Swift had been on terms of the greatest 
 intimacy with the Vanhomrigh family from the time of his 
 arrival in London, yet no mention whatever is made in the 
 journal of the all too fascinating Esther Vanhomrigh. His 
 conscience told him how quickly and truly Stella's instincts, if 
 he had but trusted himself to speak of her, would have recog- 
 nised a rival in the superb ' Vanessa.' Let us, then, wake 
 lier from the marble where she sleeps, and sketch her poi trait 
 in all the fascination of youth and beauty. 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 97 
 
 Esther Yanhomrigh was scarcely raore than twenty when 
 Swift first met her moving, a radiant star, in the brilliant Lon- 
 don circles. Rich, beautiful, and gifted with the fatal dower 
 of genius — that acanthus-wreath for the brov/ of a woman 
 which so often leaves it bleeding — was it wonderful that she 
 dazzled and bewildered a man of intellect and ambition, who 
 found himself the selected object of her love ? Younger, toj, 
 by eight or ten years, than Stella — a Venus Victrix, equalling 
 in beauty, and triumphing by rank and fortune over the low- 
 born girl, whose station in society was acquired by chance, 
 and retained only by those transcendent merits which could 
 compensate for the obscurity of her birth, and the dubious 
 nature of her position ; yet Swift, whether from a principle 
 of honour, or a deficiency of passion in his nature, seems long 
 to have struggled against Vanessa's fatal fascination. A proud, 
 scornful, sarcastic spirit like his is rarely a loving spirit. 
 Ambition was the ruling passion of his life — not from seltisai 
 or vanity, but from the strong consciousness of power within 
 fitted to rule and reign amongst those who surrounded him. 
 He loved appreciation. He rejoiced at being the centre and 
 object of all homage ; but he himself gave back no sympathies. 
 His aim was to be a potent spirit, guiding men and ministers, 
 and the love of woman was only a graceful luxury for his idle 
 hours, delightful to enjoy so long as he was not called upon to 
 make any sacrifice to retain it. It is a truth, however, of all 
 natures gifted with genius, that they are the least capable of 
 constant, concentrated love. They live in the Infinite ; in 
 lofty purposes and grand deeds, of which humanity at large is 
 the object. They can throw their hearts into a cause, but not 
 yield it to an individual. What isolated human heart is vast 
 enough to absorb their aflfections or satisfy their aspirations ? 
 
 Souls like theirs cannot have free action within so limited 
 an horizon. What they call love is a sublime adoration for 
 an idol robed in the fleeting colours of the imagination ; but 
 the delusion cannot last, and the society of minds inferior to 
 their own often becomes in the end either wearisome or dis- 
 
 gusting. 
 
 H 
 
9S MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Fits of passion they may have, but enduring love seems 
 ahnost an impossibility to genius — unless, indeed, Plato's 
 dream were realised, and each great soul met and blended 
 with its eternal antitype here on earth, as they may in 
 heaven. But Swift must have been singularly passionless if a 
 being gifted like Vanessa failed to draw down his soul from 
 abstractions and shrine it in a human heart. In her he may 
 have recognised at last the one that could inspire as well as 
 sympathise — the full completion of his own nature — the ideal 
 of his aspirations, though between them there was a great gulf 
 fixed ; for, since the gates closed of Paradise, when did Pate 
 ever permit the union of these eternally related souls ? Never. 
 If each found its correlative on earth, Paradise would be no 
 longer barred. 
 
 Between Swift and Vanessa rose up a separating form, 
 strong in the sanctity of promises, beautiful, too, and gifted 
 and loving, clinging to her cold, incomprehensible lover, as the 
 ivy to the oak, with such helpless confidence that he knew if 
 he rent away the tendrils she must die ; but tenderness only, 
 not the excitement of love, was in his heart. This is evident 
 from his verses years long after : — 
 
 Thou, Stella, wert no longer young 
 When first for thee my harp was strung, 
 Without one wound of Cupid's darts, 
 Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts ; 
 'V\^\i\ifriencUhi'p afid esteein 2^ossesiied^ 
 I ne'er admitted love a guest. 
 
 She had grown up with him, like a daughter, from her very 
 childhood, and feelings that have once crystallised into fondness 
 in the days of ' long ago ' seldom change afterwards into love. 
 Ten years of her beautiful womanhood had bloomed and faded 
 away beside him without exciting a glow beyond the mild 
 Platonism of tender interest : and if he ever formed an en^raire- 
 ment of marriage with her it was merely because he could not 
 otherwise have felt secure of preserving her society — a charm 
 that had now become indispensable to his lonely Irish resi- 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 99 
 
 dence. But it was an engagement he might protract inde- 
 finitely ; for Stella had no means of resistance but complaints — 
 the worst exorcism for a lover. Yet the happiness of all her 
 life was staked on this marriage. Without it she had neither 
 name nor rank nor honourable station. She had given up 
 country and home and relatives to accept him for her destiny, 
 and a woman can be placed in no falser position than when she 
 has thus yielded up her independence, and claims the hand of 
 her lover as a compensation for sacrifices, in place of conferring 
 her love freely as a favour long sought, eagerly coveted, to be 
 recompensed by the devotion of his life. 'Keep free as an 
 Arab of thy beloved ^ is the truest counsel to a woman. Men — 
 indeed, all mortals — have a tendency to value only what 
 seems the unattainable ; but calmness, security, custom, above 
 all, a conscientious sense of duty mingling with the feelings, 
 are all fatal to love. 
 
 It was an influence more serene and lasting than love that 
 attracted Swift towards his gentle companion. Accustomed 
 to the turbid commotion of party politics, half a misanthrope 
 from disappointed ambition, Stella, in the midst of his unquiet 
 life, was the one pure feeling, the one untroubled holy thought 
 where he found calm and repose. Her transparent soul mir- 
 rored his own, and blended in harmonic sympathy vrith all he 
 hoped and suffered. She soothed his vexed, perturbed mind, 
 like the inspired music that quelled the evil spirit in the 
 breast of Saul, though, like the frantic monarch of Israel, he 
 himself flung the javelin to pierce the heart of the player. 
 Stella's love for him, too, was the result of circumstance ratlier 
 than the sudden up-springing impulse of ecstasy and adoration 
 when the heart recognises 'the ever longed for.' It was only 
 when the dream of years was troubled by a rival that she felt 
 the whole happiness of life, her very life itself, was staked 
 upon its continuance. 
 
 Vanessa's, on the contrary, was a voluntary consecration ; 
 the willing immolation of her youth, fame and fortune at tlie 
 shrine of her lover ; a feeling raging with the tumultuary 
 fever of passion ; a worship that, in a nature so impassioned as 
 
 II 
 
100 MEN, AVOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 herSj became idolatry. It was the love of a woman of genius 
 for her equal, and no passion equals it in intensity — none have 
 proved so fatal in their consequences. Swift would have been 
 more or less than man could he have been insensible to the 
 glorious gifts she flung so lavishly before him or the passionate 
 tire that burned in her words. True, he tried to reason with 
 her — to calm her ; but the very consciousness that he dare 
 not trust himself to love her was an excitement to fan the 
 flame. ' They never loved who never have loved wrongly.' 
 There was danger in his intercourse with Vanessa, but the dan- 
 ger made it delirium. He was her companion and instructor. 
 They read and wrote together, dreaming away the hours in a 
 Paradise- world of intellectual communion. The teacher was 
 forty-four, the pupil but half his age ] yet the first betrayal 
 of love fell from her lips. Swift's surprise and emotion at the 
 confession are portrayed in his poem of ' Cadenus and Vanessa,' 
 where he relates the rise and progress of her fatal love — not 
 with any expressions of corresponding fervour certainly, but 
 with an evident pride and pleasure that showed how he loved 
 to linger over the seductive picture. 
 
 In the paganised cant of the day, he commences by de- 
 scribing how Venus conferred all beauty and Pallas all wisdom 
 on the maiden ; how the latter gift made the follies of society 
 intolerable to her ; till at length, yielding herself up to the 
 attractions of mind, she turns from them all to enjoy the con- 
 verse of her tutor, Cadenus ; but love mingles with the litera- 
 ture. Vanessa ' owns the wandering of her thoughts,' and 
 tells him: — 
 
 * I knew by what you said and writ 
 
 How dangerous were men of wit ; 
 
 You cautioned me against their charms, 
 
 But never gave me equal arms. 
 
 Your lessons found the weakest part — 
 
 Aim'd at the head, but reach'd the heart,' 
 
 * Cadenus felt within him rise 
 Shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise, 
 Hardly, at leogth, he silence broke, 
 And faltered every word he spoke.' 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 101 
 
 But Vanessa refutes all his objections, and claims the right 
 to love him. even from his own teachinofs : — 
 
 * How was her tutor wont to praise 
 The geniuses of ancient days ; 
 Suppose Cadenus flourished then, 
 He must adore such godlike men.' 
 
 ' And this she takes to be her case ; 
 Cadenus answers ever}^ end — 
 The book, the author, and the friend. 
 The utmost her desires can reach, 
 Is but to learn what he can teach, 
 While every passion of her mind 
 In him is centred and confined.' 
 
 * Cadenus, to his grief and shame, 
 Could scarce oppose Vanessa's flame, 
 And, though her arguments were strong, 
 At least could hardly wish them wrong.' 
 
 The concluding verses leave the world in doubt as to 
 whether the pleading maiden subdued the scruples of her 
 lover, who hitherto had offered to her only friendship in return 
 for so much love : — 
 
 But what success Vanessa met. 
 Is to the world a secret yet — 
 Whether he at last descends 
 To act with less seraphic ends, 
 Or, to compound the business, whether 
 The}^ temper books and love together, 
 Must never to the world be told, 
 Nor shall the conscious muse unfold. 
 
 Notwithstanding the frigid, artificial framework of this 
 poem, there is love evident in it ; as genuine love, probably, 
 as Swift could feel ; flattered vanity at least, which forms 
 half the love of all men. But, whatever were the elements, 
 there is more of the sentiment— a thousand times more— than 
 can be found in all the odes addressed to Stella. 
 
 In Vanessa's lines to him, however, there is no mistaking 
 the deep earnestness of true passion. How beautiful are 
 
102 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 these, after contrasting the brightness of spring with the 
 gloom of the heart when he had left her ! — 
 
 Yet why should I thy presence hail, 
 As when Cadenus blest the scene, 
 And shared with me those joys serene ? 
 When, unperceived, the lambent tire 
 Of Friendship kindled new desire ; 
 Still listening to his tuneful tongue, 
 The truths which Angels nilght have sung 
 Divine imjjrest their gentle sway^ 
 And sweethj stole my soul away. 
 My guide, instruct or ^ lover, friend — 
 Uear names I in one Idea hlend. 
 Oh ! still conjoinerl, your incense rise, 
 And waft sweet odours to the skies. 
 
 But now he is returning to the patient, weary-waiting 
 sStella with love on his lip and treason in his heart. Vanessa, 
 no doubt, expects him back to claim her hand when his Irish 
 affairs are settled, and Stella is lingering for the fulfilment of 
 the promises of thirteen years. 
 
 Hoping hearts, could ye but look into futurity ! 
 
 Swift's first letter to Vanessa on his return to Ireland is 
 steeped in melancholy. ' I thought I should have died of 
 discontent (he says) at my first coming. I hate the thought 
 of Dublin.' Alas for Stella ! 
 
 A few weeks found him in London once more. Ministers 
 could not exist Avitliout him, and he remained there till the 
 following year (1714), when the Queen died. This event, 
 which marred all his hopes of preferment, affected him deeply 
 He returned to Dublin, and never visited England again for 
 twelve years. 
 
 At this very time Vanessa, by the death of her father 
 rind brother, succeeded to a small estate in Ireland. She was 
 now independent in fortune, uncontrolled in action, and she 
 resolved to follow her lover to Ireland and take up her 
 residence beside him. Swift's alarm at such a measure was 
 expressed in a letter warning her to be cautious. He says : 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 103 
 
 ^ I can see you very seldom in Ireland — it is not a place for 
 freedom — leave all to fate — perhaps we may meet in London 
 in the winter.' 
 
 But Vanessa knows no necessity for caution. She was 
 proud of her lover — proud to confess her love, ' By all the 
 holy angels/ exclaims Goethe, ' by all the images of blessed- 
 ness which a pure and kindly heart creates, there is not any- 
 thing more heavenly than the soul of a woman that gives 
 herself to the man she loves ! ' 
 
 She had no reason to blush for her devotion. But the 
 triumph of conquest was enough for him. He fears the 
 clashing claims of Cleopatra and Octavia ; the terrible strife of 
 loving, jealous, breaking hearts. Men have no objection to be 
 loved, but they dread a scene. If women will break their 
 hearts, let it at least be in silence ; that is all they demand 
 from the victims in return for the passing dream of love with 
 which they may have favoured them. 
 
 Undismayed, however, and undeterred by her lover s 
 objections, Vanessa arrives in Dublin^ and the dread shadow 
 falls at last upon Stella's destiny which Swift had so long 
 vainly tried to avert. Rumours reach her of love in which 
 she has no part. Jealousies and agonies rend her soul. How 
 touching are these plaintive lines of hers on ' Jealousy/ every 
 word of which seems written with tears : — 
 
 Shield me from his rage, celestial Powers I 
 This Tyrant who embitters all my hours. 
 Ah, love ! yoa've poorly pla^^ed the hero's part ! 
 You conquered, but you can't defend, my heart. 
 When first I bent beneath your gentle reign, 
 I thought this monster banished from your train ; 
 Eut you would raise hitn to support your throne, 
 And now he claims your empire as his own ; 
 Or — tell me, tyrants — have you both agreed 
 That where one reigns, the other shall succeed ? 
 
 And what tender devotion in the verses on Swift's birth 
 day, where she addresses him as her 'early and her only 
 guide/ and concludes : — 
 
104 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Late dying, may you cast a shred 
 Of your rich mantle o'er my head ; 
 To bear with dignity my sorrow, 
 One day alone — then die the morrow. 
 
 Meanwhile, Vanessa, unconscious that a breaking heart 
 lay between her and happiness, mourns over the reserve of 
 her lover, which he calls 'discretion,' and writes to him after 
 her arrival in Dublin : — 
 
 ' Pray what can be wrong in seeing and advising an 
 unhappy young woman ? — you cannot but know that your 
 frowns make my life insupportable. You have taught me to 
 distinguish, and then you leave me miserable.' 
 
 And in another letter suspense seems rising to torture ; a 
 thick, stifling darkness of suspicion and despair is gathering 
 round her life like a pall, and these are not words but cries 
 of agony wrung from a crushed heart : — 
 
 ' It is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I 
 saw you last. I could have borne the rack better than those 
 killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to 
 die without seeing you more, but the resolves, to your mis- 
 fortune, did not last long. 1 must beg you to see me, and 
 
 speak kindly to me, for I am sure you would not condemn any 
 
 one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. 
 
 When I complain, then you are angry ; and there is something 
 awful in your looks that strikes me dumb. Oh ! that you 
 may have so much regard left that this complaint may touch 
 your soul with pity. Did you but know what I thought, I am 
 sure it would move you to forgive me. I cannot help telling 
 you this, and live.' 
 
 Was misery ever more eloquent ? Could the deep prostra- 
 tion of love be more complete ? 'No heart could have 
 remained insensible to such passionate pleadings. Swift 
 must have loved her ; and love, fatal love, alone could 
 have prevented him from following the course which honour 
 dictated — that of revealing to her the bonds which bound 
 him to another, the bar which separated their destinies for 
 ever. 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 105 
 
 Still in the bright, dazzling prime of youth, Vanessa 
 might have found another kindred spirit on whom to lavish 
 all the glowing love of her nature ; but Swift had not courage 
 to litter the word that parted ; nor yet could he resolve to 
 break utterly that patient, trusting, long-suffering heart which 
 had gently twined itself with every fibre of his being. The 
 pale, fading form of Stella was there beside him, clindnj? 
 by one frail cord of love to the wreck of her existence ; could 
 he snap it asunder, and let her die ? Death was already 
 hovering around her ; there was but one word could rescue 
 her from the grave, and Swift at last pronounced it. In 
 1716, two years after Vanessa's arrival in Ireland, at mid- 
 night, in the garden of the Deanery, that strange marriage 
 ceremony was performed which made the misery of two 
 persons irreparable, without insuring the happiness even of 
 one. Swift bound himself by law to one woman, while he 
 was bound by love to another ; Stella's position in society 
 was not ameliorated, as her marriage with the Dean was to 
 be kept a profound secret. She had the name of wife with- 
 out the honours or the happiness, for she returned to her 
 lodgings after the ceremony, and lived apart from her nominal 
 husband the same as before ; but poor Vanessa's fate was 
 sealed. Stella no longer could fear her rival, and it was to 
 procure her this satisfaction that Swift had consented to their 
 joyless and ill-omened marriage. 
 
 He evidently grew tenderer to Stella as her health declined, 
 and it was about this time he began to address those birthday 
 odes to her which have made her name illustrious, but through 
 which no trace of passion is discoverable. Praise, esteem, 
 friendship, gratitude, appreciation of her talents are all 
 warmly expressed — everything, in short, that a woman cares 
 least to hear from the man whom she adores when her heart 
 is pining for the one word — love. 
 
 Meanwhile, Vanessa had retired to Marley Abbey, her re- 
 sidence, near Celbridge. There Swift visited her ; and hours 
 of rapture to poor Vanessa were passed by his side, while she 
 little thought that he had already sacrificed her to appease the 
 
106 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 jealousy of another. She lived with her sister, avoiding all the 
 gaieties suited to her age, though her society was eagerly 
 courted by the gentry round. Offers of marriage were made to 
 her ; she rejected them all. The neighbours thought her sad ; 
 she never was seen to smile, except when the Dean visited 
 her, and then she seemed happy. After each visit she 
 planted a laurel with her own hands beside the romantic 
 bower where she received him. 
 
 It was shadowed by trees, the Liffey glanced brightly in 
 the distance, and a murmuring cascade fell in music beside 
 them. There they sat, and talked, and read for hours to- 
 gether. The garden can still be traced, and a few laurels yet 
 mark the spot consecrated as ' Vanessa's bower.' What a 
 fanaticism of feeling was hers — what poetry and passion 
 blended in one lovely, loving soul ! 
 
 But a visible change came over the manner of her lover 
 after the ceremonial marriage with Stella. Vanessa's letters, 
 which poured burning from the heart, are answered by Swift 
 with a cold deadly levity, as if his object had been to kill 
 passion by scorn and force her to break with him and leave 
 Ireland for ever. He seemed to live in perpetual terror of dis- 
 covery. He tells her not to write his name, but express it by 
 a dash, lest her letters be opened, and speaks of the confusion 
 he was in when a note from her was handed to him before 
 company. Perhaps, at last, he felt real pity for her position, 
 and affected coldness to cure her of a passion as fatal as it 
 was intense. Honour, it may be, was triumphing over feeling, 
 but the honour was now more cruel even than the love. Her 
 lover had become a religion to Vanessa ; he stood between 
 her and the universe — even between her and God. 
 
 The love of woman never imagined anything more deeply 
 tender, more agonising in their . eloquence, than the last 
 recorded letters of hers. There is the tragic gloom of Schiller 
 with the wild passion of Rousseau. In one she says : — 
 
 ' I must either unload my heart, and tell you all its griefs, 
 or sink under the inexpressible distress I sutler by your 
 neglect. It is now ten long v.^eeks since I saw you, and in all 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 107 
 
 that time I have never received but one letter. Oh ! have you 
 forgot me ? You endeavour by severities to force me from 
 you, but I here declare that it is not in the power of art, time 
 or accident to lessen the inexpressible passion which I feel. 
 Put my passion under the utmost restraint ; send me as distant 
 from you as the earth will allow ; yet you cannot banish those 
 charming ideas which will ever stay by me while I have 
 memory. ISTor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul ; for 
 there is not a single atom of my frame that is not blended with 
 it. Therefore do not flatter yourself that separation will ever 
 change my sentiments ; for I find myself unquiet in the midst 
 of silence, and my heart is at once pierced with sorrow and 
 love. For Heaven's sake, tell me what has caused this pro- 
 digious change in you of late. If you have the least remains 
 of pity for me left, tell it me tenderly. No — do not tell it 
 so, that it may cause my present death, and do not suffer me 
 to lead a life like a languishing death, which is my only life if 
 you have lost your tenderness for me.' 
 
 And there is another, in which the wild and thrilling in- 
 cantations of a love ' vast as ni^^ht or heaven' make one 
 tremble when we think the agonies of the mind were real that 
 dictated them. It is written four years after Swift's marriage, 
 still a concealed fact from her ; but she felt there was a change, 
 and all the hopes of her young life seem finally to have fallen, 
 like pale autumn leaves, to earth, and left her heart bare and 
 desolate. Can we not fancy her, with her mournful eyes, her 
 Corinna brow, and her lips tremulous with emotion, as she 
 writes : — 
 
 ' Tell me sincerely if you have once wished with earnestness 
 to see me since I wrote to you. Solitude is insupportable to 
 a mind which is not easy. I have worn out my days in sigh- 
 ing, and my nights with w^atching and thinking of you. Oh ! 
 that I could hope to see you here, or that I could go to you ! 
 Can you deny me in my misery this only comfort ? I was born 
 with violent passions, which terminate all in one— the inex- 
 pressible passion I have for you. Consider the killing emotions 
 I feel from your neglect, and show some tenderness, or I shall 
 
108 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 lose my senses. I firmly believe you have often wished me 
 religious, hoping then I should have paid my devotions to 
 heaven ; but that would not spare you, for were I an enthusiast, 
 still you would be the deity I should worship. What marks 
 are there of a deity but what you are known by ? You are 
 present everywhere. Your dear image is always before my 
 eyes. Is it not more reasonable to admire a radiant form one 
 has seen than one only described ? ' 
 
 Two years more j)ass in this terrible conflict between hope, 
 fear, love, jealousy and suspicion. Swift tries to prevail on her 
 to leave Ireland, to seek distraction in company and exercise. 
 ' Get yourself a horse,^ he says, ^ and have always two servants 
 to attend you, and visit your neighbours. There is a pleasure 
 in being reverenced, and that is always in your power, for your 
 superiority of sense and easy fortune. I long to see you in 
 figure and equipage.' There are some traces of melancholy, if 
 not misery, too, in his letters now. One is glad of it. That 
 he suffered was at least some compensation to Vanessa ; but 
 the catastrophe is approaching. Twelve years had passed 
 since her first meeting with Swift — a twelve years' feverish 
 dream of love. From the grave of buried youth and hope comes 
 up at last the supreme cry of an agonised soul, seeking certainty 
 in some shape — death or happiness. Holiest martyrs at the 
 stake with heaven sustaining might have endured equal 
 tortures, but could not have endured them longer. 
 
 She writes to Stella, and asks the fatal question : 
 
 Was she indeed married to Swift ? 
 
 Stella answers in the affirmative. 
 
 No hope now — no more sunlight on her life. Nothing but 
 a black fatality of doom. The saddest, gloomiest bar that 
 God ever placed between a heart and happiness rose before 
 her, beyond which no hope gleams but from across the grave 
 of another. 
 
 Married ! That word killed her. 
 
 The following day Swift rode down to Vanessa's residence, 
 entered the room where she was seated, mourning her fate, 
 flung her letter to Stella upon the table without a word, then 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 109 
 
 quitted the house in a tempest of rage, and never again beheld 
 Vanessa in life. A violent fever that followed this scene soon 
 put a period to the sad existence of the unhappy Vanessa ; 
 the troubled dream of life was over — the beautiful form laid 
 within the grave ; the noble heart stilled for ever, and the 
 passionate soul gone forth to mingle with the harmonies 
 of the universe and with the seraphs before the Throne. Yet, 
 better so to die than to have lived unloving and unloved. 
 
 But misery came to other hearts also, though it did not 
 kill so speedily. 
 
 Stella's suspicions were confirmed. What was the name of 
 wife to her without the love that makes it blessed, and a rival 
 had claimed her holiest right ! Filled with indignation and 
 overwhelmed by grief, she quitted Dublin without seeing Swift, 
 and they did not meet again for months ; while upon him 
 whose love had been so fatal fell a gloom which twenty 
 succeeding years of a life brightened by as much glory, homage, 
 worship and adoration as ever fell to the lot of an Irishman 
 in Ireland could not dissipate ; and thereof ' came in the end 
 despondency and madness.' 
 
 Stella's health and heart were broken, but she lingered on 
 for five years.^ Her whole life had been one of patient suffering. 
 She was accustomed to it ; still her spirit yearned for one con- 
 solation before she died — the public acknowledgment of her 
 marriao-e. This was denied her. Swift was in London at the 
 beo"innino- of her last illness, and, from his letters, seemed 
 anxious to remain there till all was over ; but business obliged 
 him to return, and, as he stood by Stella's deathbed, she made 
 a last earnest appeal to his justice, adjuring him by their 
 friendship to acknowledge her as his wife. Swift made no 
 reply, but, turning on his heel, walked out of the room, nor 
 ever saw her afterwards during the few days she lived. The 
 veracity of this account has been impugned ; but, in any case, 
 who can doubt the agonies of Stella, for she died without the 
 
 request being granted ! 
 
 A hundred years and more have passed since death stdled 
 the hearts of the rivals and the victims. The triumphs of 
 
110 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Marlborough are forgotten ; the pedants of the age have 
 disappeared from our memories and our libraries ; the great 
 statesmen who fretted their busy hour upon the stage of life 
 have sunk into the gulf of nothingness — but the pale, beautiful, 
 shadowy forms of Stella and Vanessa are still beside us, even 
 as they passed from this life weeping. Over the records of true 
 feeling time has no influence ; hearts of the present and future 
 still vibrate with the hearts of the past, and the love that 
 kills can at least rear an enduring cenotaph. So they stand 
 for ever in the Valhalla of humanity, with Eloise and Juliet, 
 crowned with the immortality of genius, love, and suffering ; 
 imploring sympathy with their soft mute eyes, and waking 
 fresh tears from each successive generation as their sad, pas- 
 sion-inspired words glide across the centuries like the low 
 tones of distant music ; for the tragedies that make us weep 
 are not of fallen empires, but of the workings of human passion 
 in a wrecked human heart. In such alone we feel the kinship 
 of all natures ; the mournful history seems a page torn from 
 our own heart ; the woe, the agonies, the doom that ever fol- 
 low true love as certainly as death follows life are phases 
 of emotion and suffering we, too, have passed through, and our 
 tears fall from pity for ourselves as much as for the sorrows of 
 another. 
 
 What a tragedy, if one but thinks of it, and what a mystery ! 
 Whj^ were these three hearts led to love, and then love made 
 their misery I Was Swift in fault if, seeing Vanessa, he 
 should adore her ? or what law of God or man did she violate 
 by giving her heart to him 1 Yet she is unconsciously made 
 the cloud to shadow the pure and perfect life of Stella — the 
 cruel instrument to rob her of her only blessing. Love is 
 involuntary, yet Swift must expiate it, as if it were a cringe, 
 by sacrificing himself and Vanessa to a marriage without love. 
 Two hearts, two lives were in his keeping ; happiness for one 
 was death to the other. Was it his fault ? He tried to pre- 
 serve both, and the end is despair and madness. Yet one can- 
 not stop in any portion of the story and say, ' Here there is sin.' 
 It is like one of the old Greek tragedies^ in which the Fates 
 
STELLA AND VANESSA 111 
 
 and Furies guide the threads of life, and mortals, feeble 
 mortals, strive in vain against an iron-handed destiny, and 
 yet it is no more than a drama of daily life. Two more 
 female hearts are added to the pile laid upon the altar of un- 
 happy love. Is it so strange a fate ? Is not love ever the 
 sole tragedy of a woman's destiny ? Are there not other 
 women who have passed from amongst us, with the crowned 
 brow of genius, who, Sappho-like, freed themselves at once 
 from life and a fatal love by a voluntary death — women who 
 have made the worship of genius their religion and expiated 
 the idolatry ? Stella and Yanessa at least have won a glory to 
 gild the gloom of fate denied to many ; for the name of 
 their lover is a catafalque whereon they lie in state for the 
 tender sorrow of all ages, with the asbestos torch of his genius 
 illuminating the bier. 
 
 At last Swift's proud spirit seems to have been broken by 
 sorrow and remorse, and a gloom fell upon his life that never 
 more was lifted. 
 
 His health declined, his intellect became clouded, the power 
 of writing went from him, but the bitterest pang of all was 
 his own consciousness that madness was approaching, and that 
 all the fine chords of his brain were jangled and out of tune. 
 For three years he never spoke though he still seemed conscious 
 of passing events, even down to the time of his death, which 
 took place in 1745, just fifteen years after Stella had been laid 
 in her grave. 
 
112 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 MISS MARTINEAU 
 
 Woman's intellect, keen, brilliant, and fearless, is rapidly 
 permeating all departments of literature, and making its influ- 
 ence felt upon the mind of the age ; an influence which is now 
 mainly exerted in overthrowing old prejudices and conventional- 
 isms, and those venerable social fictions which have long held 
 women in bondage. Clever, typical members of the sex, no 
 longer to be called the weaker, lecture to lawgivers, orate from 
 the platform, edit magazines, flash through the serials, and 
 have even gat them up into high places, and utter sibylline 
 oracles from the tripod of the Quarterlies and the solemn ady- 
 tums of the sacrificial reviews. A woman^s pen discoursing 
 upon social subjects in the fluent, facile, woman's way has 
 made the fortune of the 'Saturday,' and given it a celebrity 
 which all the pseudo- Johnsonian-spread-eagleism of its political 
 style, as an American critic describes it, never could have 
 achieved. And women have even enthroned themselves on the 
 judgment-seat. One of the cleverest female intellects of the 
 age, Harriet Martineau, but recently passed from amongst us, 
 has in her work entitled ' Literary Celebrities ' passed sentence 
 upon her century with lips as cold and eye as stern as an un- 
 pitying Rhadamanthus, weighing souls in the balance and, 
 alas ! finding many of them wanting. 
 
 Miss Martineau states in her preface that she was for years 
 on the staff of the ' Daily News,' during which time she contri- 
 buted to it all those biographies of illustrious and departed 
 intellects afterwards collected into a volume. From the free- 
 dom and power of these brilliant sketches, so independent, so 
 
MISS MAETINEAU 113 
 
 fearless, so sarcastic and severe, the world, no doubt, imbibed 
 them witli reverential faith as the product of the strong, mas- 
 culine mind ; but, lo ! all this time it had sat at the feet of a 
 woman to learn wisdom. A Deborah judged Israel. It is no 
 strong, hirsute Esau that here brings us in his prey, palpitating 
 and sanguineous from the hunting-grounds of literature, but a 
 woman who gives us butter in a lordly dish ; though, like Jael, 
 she can slay while she nourishes, and has driven a nail into 
 the brow of many a poor fleeting wanderer that lay down 
 trustingly in her tent. Miss Martineau's judgments are indeed 
 for the most part cruel, scathing, and remorseless. Sisera's 
 mother would have hardly recognised her son if the hammer of 
 Jael were as heavy as that of the modern prophetess. Still, 
 the biographies are worth preserving. They comprise those of 
 statesmen, generals, poets, authors, and men and women of 
 letters who have been famous in the world's sight for the last 
 fifty years ; some of whom are certainly destined to immor- 
 tality, but others would soon fade and fall from our memories, 
 and go down as dust to dust, were it not for the Egyptian 
 spices of wit and sarcasm in which Miss Martineau has em- 
 balmed their faults and follies. Yet it must be a sad thing 
 after all, to build the tomb and write the epitaph for one's own 
 generation : to stand by, like the Angel of Fate, to judge each 
 passing soul as it shivers on the brink of the fatal river, going 
 sadly from its life-work to the grave : to watch the vast stream 
 of life flowing beside us, coming whence we know not, going 
 whither we know not, except that we see it fall into a gulf of 
 silent mystery, within whose depths we know that we too must 
 soon sink and disappear. And Miss Martineau, as she wrote 
 the long death-roll of her literary co-workers, contemporaries, 
 and friends, must have often realised the sadness and truth of 
 Jean Paul Richter's words, ' As we go on in life we find that 
 the graves of our friends are the steps by which we descend to 
 our own.' But proximity and contact seem to have generated 
 no tenderness in her heart : she disdains to follow the beauti- 
 ful illusions of the aff^ections. Besides, praise is a vapid thing- 
 stupid and commonplace. Every eye can detect the grains of 
 
114 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 gold, but it is only the philosopher can prove to us how much 
 dross the ore contains. This stern work of analysis the keen 
 and clever authoress resolutely undertook, with no feeble, femi- 
 nine shrinking of the nerves. Even when she praises it is 
 with a cold and grudging reticence^ as if she scorned her 
 spirit that could be moved to praise up anything. Her style, 
 also, is eminently terse and epigrammatic. Praise, which 
 always hasa tendency to weak difFuseness, would not suit it ; 
 therefore she is sparing of the holy, consecrating oil, and, 
 even if she does anoint the head, by no means allows any to 
 run down the beard, much less to reach the skirts of the 
 clothing. 
 
 People generally, it is said, hate their contemporaries : 
 Horace Walpole certainly hated most of his, and despised the 
 rest — kings, queens, statesmen, authors, actors, and, especially, 
 his own particular friends. We stand too near the intellects 
 of our age for Hero-worship ; and if we are thrown into too 
 close communion with them, their faults often irritate our daily 
 life more than their genius sanctifies it. The faults of the 
 gifted, also, are often constant, glaring, and aggravating, while 
 their genius is only manifested, or best manifested, in those 
 sublime exceptional moments when a great purpose or a noble 
 thought fills the soul, and all the petty people and the petty 
 cares of the world are forgotten or overlooked as if they no 
 longer existed. 
 
 Besides, it is a law of nature that repulsion is generated 
 by proximity ; and attraction ceases and centrifugal force 
 begins to act when souls, like molecules, are brought into a 
 condition of too close contact. Therefore Emerson wisely 
 preaches to society the doctrine of insulation. ' Let us not,' 
 he says, ' be too much acquainted. We should meet each mora- 
 ing as if from foreign countries, and depart at night as into 
 foreign countries. In all things I would have the Island of 
 a man's life inviolate.' Carlyle, also, recommends that we 
 should ' study the art of weaving a cloak of darkness, politely 
 impregnable to human curiosity.' We should, in fact, each one 
 of us, live apart like kings ; guarded by deference and majesty 
 
MISS MARTINEAU 115 
 
 not only from the prying intrusiveness of society, but even 
 from too familiar intercourse with our nearest friends. 
 
 Miss Martineau's judgments bear the stamp of this fatal 
 proximity which tends so much to lessen reverence. She lived 
 too near most of the celebrities she depicts, and examined 
 them quite at her ease through the smoked glass of daily life 
 which deadens all their radiance. To those at a distance these 
 bright planets look glittering and beautiful, but to her who 
 stands besides them they are but dull, common earth, no better 
 than our own. Yet we cannot accept her analysis as final 
 and exhaustive, for, as a great thinker has said, ' there is 
 somewhat spheral and infinite in every man, especially in every 
 genius, which sports with and spurns our limitations.' Human 
 nature is a mystic duality, half animal, half angel ; a worm, a 
 God ; and the contrast and strife between the two natures is 
 never so marked as in the gifted. At times we may see genius 
 falling below the level of the human, a prey to mere instincts ; 
 then, suddenly reasserting its divinity, it tramples on the low 
 influences that would make it a bond -slave to the passions, and 
 triumphs over them as the archangel over Satan. Often, too, 
 it may seem buried beneath the dead leaves and dross of earth ; 
 but a resurrection morn dawns, a spirit-voice wakens the 
 sleeper, an angel rolls away the stone, and the freed soul 
 springs from the sepulchre to Heaven. For neither the low 
 passions nor the petty vanities of life can long hold the gifted 
 soul in bondage : human passions it may indeed have, stronger 
 even and more stormy than those of duller natures, but they 
 can never stifle entirely its divine aspirations. Daily, hourly 
 within such a soul a great mystery, a great trilogy may be 
 enacted — the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of the 
 divine principle within. 
 
 The path of the soul, like that of the planet round the sun, 
 which may be meant for its eternal symbol, is but a series of 
 falls and uprisings. Still, through all human weakness and 
 deflection it will be forced by the divine impulses of its nature 
 to circle for ever round the central source of truth and light, 
 in crlorious harmony with God's great eternal laws. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Miss Martineau shows us only the grave-clothes of the up- 
 risen spirit ; she reveals nothing of the inner life. There may 
 have been moments of exalted aspiration ; of sublime resolves ; 
 of passionate devotion to an ideal good ; of those deep yearn- 
 ings of the lonely soul towards God so grandly defined by 
 one of the ancients, ' <i?vyr] /jlovov Trpo? fxovov ' — ' The flight of 
 the Alone to the Alone ' — but she dreams not of them : her 
 judgments are those of a soul without faith, of an intellect 
 without splendour, of a heart without wide human sympathies. 
 Therefore she uplifts no Magnificat over her generation, 
 utters no doxologies, chants no hymn of praise ; but, gathering 
 up all the celebrities of the age, as one might gather a hand- 
 ful of diamonds, she flings them into her crucible and exclaims, 
 as the brilliancy and the glitter vanish away in smoke, ' See, 
 they are but mere carbon after all ! ' Yet all that gave them 
 real beauty has escaped her analysis : the glorious symmetry 
 of the many-sided intellect, and the light from Heaven they 
 reflected. 
 
 Had Macaulay, for instance, nothing diviner in the depths 
 of his gifted human soul than what Miss Martineau's plummet- 
 line has reached ? Yet it is thus she describes him, as if he 
 were but an infinite negation : ' He was no statesman, no 
 logician, no lawyer, no philosopher, no poet, no orator, only an 
 accomplished man of letters and rhetorician ' — utterly devoid 
 of heart — without moral earnestness ; and thus it was that his 
 estimate of all character was so low, unsound, and inaccurate. 
 His history was but epigram, his literature was but oratory — 
 an elegant scholar, but without tenderness or sensibility or 
 warmth, ' whose cold life of intellect had the glitter and chill 
 of ice.' That he was the best talker of the a^re, a talker of 
 exceeding splendour, is acknowledged, though rather too in- 
 cessant, for Sydney Smith was wont to recognise as a public 
 benefaction Macaulay's ' flashes of silence.' 
 
 It is not at all necessary here to combat Miss Martineau's 
 opinions, or to do battle with her for any of our favourite 
 heroes, as Greek with Trojan over the dead bodies of the 
 slain ; we record them simply because they are Miss Marti- 
 
MISS MAETINEAU II7 
 
 neau's, and therefore interesting as the judgments of one of the 
 leading women of the age. So we leave her unmolested as she 
 drives her chariot along the century, trailing the dead heroes 
 after it through the dust. Of Lord Brougham she says : 
 ' Latterly he was without political character or social influence. 
 His law-reforms were his only titles to honour. Arrogant and 
 egotist, without wit or temper— coarse in invective, and brutal 
 in sarcasm — in the picture of our country there is a blur 
 where Brougham's name ought to be.' Poor Brougham ! 
 Could he have imagined that his ninety years' work for the 
 progress of humanity would write no better epitaph than this 
 upon his tomb ? 
 
 Lord Palmerston is thus judged and sentenced : ' He 
 never inspired any belief in him in any sort of mind, except 
 the confidence in his ability to get out of mischief after he had 
 got into it.' The poet Moore is described as ' the dapper little 
 chamber-songster.' And 'the crafty Alexander of Russia,' 
 'the narrow-minded Metternich,' and 'the double-minded 
 Frederick of Prussia, the only use of whose existence was to 
 be a warning to his successors,' are summed up together as 
 ' three knaves.' Lord Londonderry is designated ' a frothy 
 v/ind-bag ; ' the late Sir Robert Peel as ' a diplomatic weather- 
 cock and tactician, setting his sails as the wind blew soft or 
 strong ; ' while Palmerston, ' the gay old humbug, laughed 
 over everything, serious in nothing beyond clinging to the 
 height he had gained.' Lockhart ' had everything but good 
 principles and a good heart.' Lord Chancellor Campbell is 
 described as ' audacious, spiteful, witty, and ill-natured ; 
 whose principal pleasure was sparring with Brougham ; ' and 
 De Quincey is noted for having ' lived till past eighty upon 
 evil-speaking and opium.' 
 
 The brilliant women of the age fare little better at the 
 hands of their sister authoress. They come out of her cold, 
 desiccating grasp with the glow and the colour all rubbed 0IT 
 their wings, so that Psyche herself would look no better than 
 a mere grub after such a process. Mrs. Jameson — our Irish 
 Mrs. Jameson — daughter of Murphy, the artist, is held up to 
 
118 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 tlie world as vain and voluble — pouring out with her Irish 
 vehemence an accumulation o£ emotions and imaginations 
 about Ireland and O'Connell, about Shakespeare and the 
 Kembles, about sentiment and art, Italian Madonnas and the 
 London stage, and all the ill-usage which women who have 
 hearts receive from men who have none : restless, expatiat- 
 ing, fervent, unreasoning Mrs. Jameson. Yet also generous 
 and accomplished — this much is acknowledged at leastr— of 
 indomitable sociability, large liberalism, but deep prejudices. 
 Separated from her husband, she became the idol and the 
 prophetess of a coterie ; ever craving for society, she could 
 only live in the glare of social praise, with that morbid egotism 
 natural to a woman of genius who finds herself acknowledged 
 as one of the celebrities of the age. 
 
 Poor Amelia Opie, ' vain, weak, and womanly,' retiring 
 from life into a picturesque Quaker dress, and gently rejoicing 
 that she looked pretty in it, is crushed altogether by the 
 might of Miss Martineau's remorseless adjectives. Her 
 analysis of Alexander von Humboldt, that grand high priest 
 of nature, leaves little else as a residuum than ' a vain old 
 man ' who thought it nobler work to dangle after a king, look- 
 ing for stars and orders, than to count the suns of heaven from 
 the summit of the Andes. Her detestation of Lord Byron 
 seems a fanatical hatred, if one could imagine Miss Martineau 
 fanatical about anything ; but her worship of Lady Byron 
 rises to a Latvia : she sees in this cold, suspicious, half-mad, 
 unattractive woman ' all that is beautiful and good — an angel 
 of mercy, charity, and love ; ' and having thus erected an altar 
 to the fated and fatal Clytemnestra of her lord, she proceeds 
 to build up two other altars, one to the Duchess of Kent and 
 the other to the Duchess of Gloucester. Both these royal 
 ladies are warmly eulogised, and some interesting scraps of 
 royal gossip are found in the sketches — such as, a plot was 
 organised to declare King William mad, place the Duke of 
 Cumberland on the throne, pass over the Princess Victoria, and 
 set aside the succession in her line ; but the death of the King, 
 and the universal enthusiastic joy with which the whole nation 
 
MISS MAETINEAU 119 
 
 received the young Princess as Queen, destroyed the projects 
 and the hopes of the Kmg of Hanover. 
 
 Ihe life of the Duchess of Gloucester is inwoven with much 
 of the romance of a past generation. In her youth she was 
 known as the beautiful Princess Mary, the most fascinating of 
 all the daughters of George III., perfect in manners and in 
 grace. She and her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, became 
 deeply attached to each other, but State reasons interposed, 
 and a marriage was projected between the Duke and the 
 Princess Charlotte. Thus the lovers were kept for long years 
 in suspense, until the time when, the Princess Charlotte having 
 given her heart and hand to the handsome Leopold of Coburg, 
 they were at last free to wed, and afterwards lived as happily 
 as lovers in a story-book ; for, though youth and beauty had 
 well-nigh vanished, the grace and fascinations for which the 
 Princess was so remarkable remained to the last unchanged by 
 time's cold, blighting hand. 
 
 The Duke of Gloucester had also a history. All readers of 
 past gossip know that Horace Walpole's widowed niece, the 
 beautiful Countess Waldegrave, so captivated the heart of the 
 Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., that he married 
 her despite of all the opposition of the indignant royal family, 
 who revenged themselves, however, afterwards on the young 
 Duchess by a series of heartless persecutions and insults, the 
 details of which are recorded in her own touching letters to 
 her uncle Horace ; from which it would appear that her 
 married life was one long expiation for the fate which had 
 placed her so near the throne. Yet she had some compensa- 
 tion ; her husband loved her, and she assumed gracefully 
 and with dignity the rank and position her title gave her. 
 She had her household, and held receptions as one of the royal 
 family, greatly to the disgust of Queen Charlotte. Of this 
 love-marriage came one son, afterwards Duke of Gloucester ; 
 and it was to this nephew of George III., and grand-nephew 
 of Horace Walpole, that the Princess Mary was united. But 
 they left no family, and so the royal kinship of the Walpoles 
 and Walde^raves no longer exists. 
 
120 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Miss Martlneau's tributes of admiration are few and rare, 
 hut she mentions Charlotte Bronte with affection, and notes 
 the fine eyes, soft, beautiful brown hair, and simple neatness 
 of dress of that renowned authoress. Of the sterner sex she 
 has also selected a few for pedestals, and crowned them with 
 a grim, defiant air. Archbishop Whately is one of these, and 
 she quotes a good saying of his : ' It is not enough to believe 
 what you maintain — you must also maintain what you believe.^ 
 The Napiers, too, are eulogised as ' the race whose mission was 
 to thrash tyrants.^ Lady Sarah Lennox, mother of the ' fight- 
 ing Napiers,' and lier sisters are all interesting historical 
 characters. The beautiful Lady Sarah had the honour of 
 declining the proffered hand of George III., who was passion- 
 ately in love with her ; one of her sisters was mother of 
 Charles James Fox, and the other of our own loved and fated 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Miss Martineau's highest enthu- 
 siasm, however, is bestowed upon Robert Owen, in whom 
 alone she sees the prime mover of the march of man ; the 
 Moses of the modern progressive humanity. But her best, 
 cleverest, sharpest, wickedest piece of writing is her descrip- 
 tion of John Wilson Croker, who ' earned his livelihood by 
 tomahawking authors in the Quarterly — under whose tongue 
 was the poison of asps, and who poured out his venom for 
 forty years long upon friends and foes alike.' This brilliant, 
 keen, scathing, sarcastic, terrible Irishman — Connaughtman — 
 who swooped down upon the world with a vial of wrath in his 
 hand from the apparently peaceful, harmless sanctitudes of 
 Trinity College, was, according to Miss Martineau, ferocious 
 as an Italian or a Greek bandit. All the false and cruel 
 articles that disgraced the Revieiv were by him. He attacked 
 for the sake of wounding. Like the cuttle-fish, his weapon 
 of offence was ink, and he flung it in the face of all who came 
 in his way ; for if he could not injure, he could at least defile. 
 All his most intimate friends he stabbed to the heart under 
 shelter of his anonymity. He stabbed Scott when he was 
 dying and Moore Avhen he was dead, and plunged a sword 
 into the heart of Mrs. Moore while yet in the first sorrow of 
 
MISS MiiETINEAU 121 
 
 her widowhood. And he would have killed bright, clever, 
 brilliant, witty Lady Morgan over and over, as everyone 
 knows, only she had the pluck of an Irishwoman and a tongue 
 as keen as his own. Happily for us, this terrible Viking of 
 the Quarterl(j is no more ; and we in this age may now 
 comfortably pour forth our platitudes in peace. Disraeli 
 helped to slay him in ' Coningsby,' and Macaulay finally 
 killed him outright in the Edinburgh, There is considerable 
 vigour in Miss Martineau's sketch of Croker. It is only to be 
 regretted that he was obliged to die before he had the chance 
 of reading it. 
 
 The biographies of Hallam and of Lockhart have a great 
 deal of interest, without being very homicidal. Lockhart, so 
 strong in mental power, so grand in physical beauty, a Titan 
 that seemed able to defy earth, fate, and the future, yet 
 brought so low by sorrow in his latter days, so humbled by the 
 shafts of an unseen power, which even he with all his might 
 could not war against, is a picture worth studying. How 
 proudly he stood in the prime of his life and intellect in the 
 front ranks of that splendid band of literary men which 
 England then boasted of ; yet how sad, desolate, bereaved, and 
 broken-hearted he was at the last ! His eldest son, that 
 wondrous child of genius, for whom Sir Walter wrote the 
 'Tales of a Grandfather,' died just as the hopes of his child- 
 hood were becoming realised ; then his daughter died, and his 
 second son, and he stood almost alone in life, like a mighty 
 tree of the forest bereft of its branches. One child, one only 
 daughter, was left to him ; but she became a Roman Catholic, 
 and parent and child were estranged for life. Sir Walter 
 Scott's two sons had died childless and his race was continued 
 only in the line of his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart ; and so it 
 happened that this lady, Lockhart 's only surviving child, 
 became the legal representative of Sir Walter's line, and the 
 owner of Abbotsford. 
 
 The biography of Hallam, the historian of the 'Middle 
 Ages,' is one that awakens much sympathy, especially that 
 portion of it relating to his gifted son, Arthur Hallam, who 
 
122 MEN, AVOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 died abroad, sadly and suddenly, when just engaged to be 
 married to the poet Tennyson's sister ; and thus the world 
 had ' In Memoriam ' in exchange for a lost life. 
 
 The historian is pictured as a truly learned scholar ; rapid, 
 genial, overflowing with vivacity, even to the close of his 
 eighty years' pilgrimage through life ; yet full of dissent from 
 everybody, so that Sydney Smith described Hallam at a dinner- 
 party ' with his mouth full of cabbage and contradiction.' 
 
 We may observe here that all the pleasant things in Miss 
 Martineau's volumes are the utterances of this celebrated wit, 
 Sydney Smith. Bishop Blomfield's pompous identification of 
 himself with the Established Church he illustrated by saying 
 that the Bishop's dinner-invitations should be sent out : ' The 
 Church of England and Mrs. Blomfield request the pleasure 
 of &c., &c. 
 
 And, talking of Rogers, the poet, whose tediousness in the 
 process of composition was so extreme that during his long 
 life of ninety-six years he gave the world only two octavo 
 volumes, he affirmed that when Rogers produced a couplet the 
 knocker was tied up, straw laid down, caudle was made, and 
 the answer to inquirers was, ' Mr. Rogers is going on as well 
 as can be expected.^ 
 
 Rogers was rich and generous ; he lived in the fashionable 
 world, and his literary breakfasts, where successive generations 
 of literati learned wisdom from his bitter, caustic criticisms, 
 were famous in the century. He was celebrated also for the 
 elegance and taste of all the arrangements that surrounded 
 him. Byron remarked this ; and Baron Bunsen, in one of his 
 letters, notices with approbation the delicate and refined 
 organisation of the poet's mind as evinced at his dinners, where, 
 instead of a vulgar, blinding, flaring glare of gas pouring down 
 upon the heads of the unfortunate, half-asphyxiated guests, 
 the lights were so disposed that while the room was fully 
 illuminated, the dinner-table alone rested in a soft shadow. 
 Rogers evidently felt, with all sensitive natures, the truth 
 of Sydney Smith's aphorism, that ' light puts out conversa- 
 tion.' 
 
MISS MAETINEAU ' 123 
 
 The late amiable and gifted Viceroy of Ireland, Lord 
 Carlisle, is one of Miss Martineau's favourites, and she grace- 
 fully says of him that he was ' the best-beloved man of his 
 generation.' Professor Wilson ( ' Christopher North,') is noticed 
 for his splendid presence, 'which realised the ideal of the first 
 created man, so full was it of vitality and sentience.' But 
 these angel words are few and far between. In general Miss 
 Martineau treads the past like a Valkyrian prophetess— one of 
 ' the choosers of the slain.' She seeks victims for sacrifice, not 
 heroes for worship. Yet it would be of little use to write 
 biographies unless there were something in the life, words, or 
 works of a man that was related to the Eternal. These great 
 illustrations of a past age may all have had great faults. 
 Lyndhurst was cynical and morose ; Brougham arrogant and 
 insolent ; Macaulay cold and heartless ; Rogers sarcastic ; 
 Lord Campbell spiteful ; Croker malignant ; Landor bitter 
 in face and bitterer in temper : but of what value to the world 
 are the petty details of their weakness and failings ? We want 
 to know simply what great thoughts a man has added to the 
 world's treasures ; what great impulses he gave to the world's 
 progress. If none, let him rest in peace : we do not need the 
 vulgar gossip of his faults. For a great man's faults in general 
 come only from his temperament, and the temperament is but 
 a malady of the human system, not of the soul. Each age 
 flings its treasures on the shores of Time from the drifted 
 wrecks of human life : let us gather the eternal treasures, 
 but leave the rest to the waters of o))livion. 
 
 Looking back over English history, we may say that at no 
 period was so much gained for the people as during the last 
 half -century. It gave to the Empire statesmen, warriors, 
 orators, poets, philosophers, writers, whose names are for all 
 time. The men of this day are but as grasshoppers before the 
 race of Anak, strong and mighty, that existed then, and led 
 the world upward and onward. Let it be remembered of 
 them, also, that they did not desecrate their gifts to unworthy 
 uses : they were earnest co-workers for human right — eloquent 
 utterers of the true. This generation stands on the elevation 
 
124 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 these men built up, and enjoys a wider horizon freed from 
 many a barrier of prejudice and cant because of their life-long 
 labours for liberty and light. They worked for freedom, 
 education, civil and religious equality, and achieved what they 
 worked for. Tliey created also a splendid school of criticism 
 based upon a reverence for nature and truth ; and, finally 
 not the least, however, of their merits — they brought the 
 English language to a perfection which makes it now the 
 grandest, richest, most powerful, and most expressive of all 
 the modern organs of thought. 
 
 It is remarkable that these men sprang mostly from the 
 middle class. They were self-reliant and self-made. Fortune 
 gives splendid opportunities to some, and nothing comes of it. 
 To others she denies all gifts of ease and opulence ; yet how 
 often from amidst such a class a brow is lifted on which 
 destiny has written unmistakably ' lord and master ' ! But 
 to natural gifts these world-leaders of the past added also in- 
 domitable perseverance. They were incessant in work and 
 magnificent in ambition ; not the paltry ambition of social 
 distinctions, but that which comes of a deathless desire to 
 speak out tlie word that burns at the heart, and make of it a 
 lever to lift humanity to the noblest altitudes. They also all 
 began life early, and ' rushed up the narrow path leading to 
 fame ' at an age when energy, faith, and hope are illimitable. 
 It is Bulwer who says, ' In the glorious lexicon of youth there 
 is no such word as '' fail.^^ ^ For them no such word existed ; 
 and, as the result, we find that all of them were famous before 
 they reached the age of twenty-five. They had the courage of 
 conscious power, and self- trust, we know, is the first secret 
 of success ; ' the belief that if you are here the Authorities of 
 the Universe put you here for a cause, for some strictly- 
 appointed task, and so long as a man works at that he is wise 
 and successful.' 
 
 But, if they began life early, they were also long in leaving 
 it. Nothing is more striking in vital statistics than the 
 longevity of literary people. Brain-work does not kill, like 
 the hand-work of the artisan. A long list could be given of 
 
MISS MARTINEAU 125 
 
 the clever men and women of the last generation whose lives 
 extended nearly to a century. Yet the literary or mental 
 life in any form of manifestation is not a happy one. The 
 world, with all its brightness and joy, seems made only for the 
 feeble and frivolous souls who are idle while others work. It 
 is also a lonely life. The gifted stand on heights the crowd 
 can never reach. Even in the midst of the very praise they 
 aspire after, the instinct of isolation is strong in them, and 
 they pine to rush back again to the great free, solemn desert 
 where they are alone with heaven and their own soul ; to the 
 silent grandeur of those lonely hours of thought where the 
 spirit renews its strength in commune with the Eternal. 
 
 It is a true saying of one of the old Platonists, ' no 
 solitude, no glory,' and this passionate yearning for soul- 
 solitude, so necessary to genius, yet so difficult to obtain, is 
 perhaps the very cause of the strange, irritable, cynical eccen- 
 tricities of temper and manner so often observable in the 
 priesthood of intellect. Like Faust, they hate the crowd of 
 petty people and small anxieties which for ever break in upon 
 and dissipate the world ' which, for himself, the lonely man's 
 imagination builds.^ 
 
 Thus, what the soul gains in strength by the lofty, isolated 
 life the temper often loses in human gentleness. Of these 
 great workers and thinkers, few lived in the genial warmth of 
 domestic ties. Many of them never married, and of those who 
 did, most were unhappy, because marriage was unsuited to 
 them. The fire in the veins of such men is lit by aspiration, 
 by ambition, by a passionate longing for that recognition 
 from the world which we call fame. They may desire 
 sympathy, for that is the homage of soul to soul ; but love, 
 with its fiery passion and madness, more often devastates an 
 intellect than stimulates it to exertion and ascension. A 
 great writer, or thinker, or worker, is perhaps at his best when 
 he holds himself free as an Arab of all bondage, even of the 
 tender human affections. Leave him, then, to the influences 
 of the universe ; let the ages pour their treasures into his soul, 
 that his o-enius may transmute them into the vital forces that 
 
126 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 move the world. The gifted are a consecrated race. They 
 have a noble mission, but it must be worked out in the lone- 
 liness of a life lifted above the human. Let them accept the 
 doom with the glory. It must be granted that these men of 
 the past were faithful to their mission, even through much 
 toil, and strife, and bitter warfare. They plucked up the 
 weeds that stifled intellect, they cleared out the rubbish 
 from the sanctuary, and cast down that they might re- 
 construct on nobler models. The world now walks in the 
 track of light their labours left, and can never more retro- 
 grade to the darkness and bondage from which they freed 
 it. During the last half -century what marvellous and mystic 
 powers of nature have been revealed, which, like slaves of the 
 lamp, seem ready to fulfil the wildest imaginations of man's 
 heart ! — while education, like a central fire, is upheaving the 
 great granite mass of the people, on which all kingdoms rest, 
 and, wherever that burning torrent of lio;ht and knowledge 
 flows, the rudest strata may become veined with gold. 
 
 The human race is now in truth rising up to possess the 
 world, which is its heritage, with hymns of freedom and songs 
 of hope ; and for the good work done in the cause of light 
 and progress, of independence and liberty, of knowledge and 
 spiritual and legal emancipation, let us reverently honour the 
 memories of these great kings of thought who have now passed 
 to their rest with the calm, divine, majestic dead. 
 
127 
 
 LADY BLESSINGTON 
 
 There could be no greater contrast to the cold, bitter, 
 sarcastic, unlovely and unloving Harriet Martineau, than 
 the brilliant, genial, and beautiful Marguerite, Countess of 
 Blessington, loved, worshipped, even adored by all who came 
 under the spell and magic witchery of her presence and 
 conversation. The name of Lady Blessington was long asso- 
 ciated in London with wealth, rank, intellect, splendour of 
 position, and the lavish homage of all the gifted minds of the 
 age. For twenty years she reigned in the social circles as 
 queen paramount of intellect and the mental history of the 
 century would be incomplete without a page devoted to her 
 remarkable career. 
 
 By the desire of her family her papers and correspondence 
 were placed in Dr. Madden's hands after her death, for publi- 
 cation as he should think j&t ; and the result has been an ad- 
 mirable addition to the biographical literature of the century. 
 There is nothing trivial, nothing that has not some permanent 
 interest as illustrating the character of remarkable persons. 
 The correspondence, also, is judiciously selected, comprising 
 every great name that England has known for the last forty 
 years. Letters from all the celebrated men of the era may be 
 found in it, forming a collection of wit and wisdom unrivalled 
 in any modern published correspondence for variety, extent, 
 and interest. 
 
 Lady Blessington's life was made up of the most startling 
 contrasts ; and her biographer has placed this human life 
 before us with all its faults and follies, its splendours and 
 
128 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 triumphs, for us to search into and work out whatever help 
 we can towards unravelling the mystery of destiny that lifts 
 up and casts down by some unseen force which the frail human 
 being is unable to resist. 
 
 With the feelings, the short-comings, and the weakness of 
 a temperament unable to resist temptation, he shows us also 
 the nobler elements of Lady Blessington's nature, the generous 
 heart, the tender sympathy, the soft womanly feelings, always 
 radiating sunshine upon darkened lives, and makes the ever- 
 during good plead pardon, as it were, for the transient evil. 
 One is of the soul, immortal and eternal — part of its own 
 undying essence ; the other was the result of circumstance — 
 an unguided youth, an unorganised education, a fatal, miserable 
 marriage ; and later, the seductive influence of an atmosphere 
 of adulation — the madxiess of literary excitement, warring 
 vanities, and agonies of display, into which she was plunged ; 
 the turmoil and the glory with which the world always 
 surrounds the beautiful, the wealthy, and the brilliant. 
 
 And out of all these mighty influences to evil, she had to 
 work out a pure law of life, for she had been taught none — 
 that stern law which says, love not the world. Was it an 
 easy task ? Let him or her who has been so gifted, tried, and 
 tempted, answer. And yet there were strivings after it, and 
 deep sadness at conscious failures. And sometimes a sense of 
 the awf ulness of life rose up before her in the still silence of 
 the night, when the incense clouds of praise no longer threw 
 a mist between her and heaven. For in the record she has 
 left of those hours, called ' The Book of Night Thoughts,' we 
 can trace dim yearnings for a higher life of purity and power ; 
 aspirations for pardon and peace ; the viewless sorrow, the 
 inner weeping of a soul over its own sin. 
 
 That she was happy appears nowhere, either in her letters 
 or diaries ; yet hers was a life diffusing happiness — all were 
 benefited who approached her. Her kindness was instinct, 
 yet ardent as though it had been passion ; and, above all 
 women of her time, she fascinated : and fascination is a moral 
 grace, for it has its source in the soul — it is gentleness, kind- 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 129 
 
 ness, charity. In this, therefore, we find something whereon 
 to rest an admiration of her, and out of which to seek a model. 
 A life of radiance and glitter was not wholly lost for higher 
 ends. There were some divine elements in it that at the last 
 hour angels might carry up to the throne of God, to plead for 
 the weak woman's nature that was to stand before his judgment 
 seat. How many timid, struggling intellects she encouraged, 
 till they rose into power and success ! How she sympathised 
 with the suffering, relieved the distressed, and supported 
 honourably those who had sacrificed her young life for their 
 own sordid interests. These things we can trace through her 
 correspondence. ' I write for money,' she says, ' and what 
 will sell.' ' I never write,' says Landor, ' but to better men.' 
 Here was the contrast between a weak and an exalted nature. 
 But why does she write trash and twaddle — ' whatever the 
 publishers want, and that is always trash ' ? Was it to deck 
 her person with more jewels ? No. In a letter to Landor, 
 she says — ' I have been very unwell of late. The truth is, the 
 numerous family of father, mother, sister, brother, and his six 
 children that I have to write for, compels me to write, when 
 my health would demand a total repose from literary exer- 
 tion.' 
 
 This father, who was supported, throughout his very good- 
 for-nothing life, by his daughters, three countesses, like the 
 poor old Fere Goriot in Balzac's novel, was a Mr. Power, of 
 Waterford, who afterwards resided at Clonmel with his family 
 — a rough, rude specimen of the Irish middle class of sixty years 
 ago ; handsome and rollicking, illiterate and pretentious, fond 
 of rioting and re veilings, of field-sports and garrison society, 
 dissipated abroad and brutal at home. In '98 he was a 
 magistrate, hunting rebels, though a Eoman Catholic him- 
 self ; the end of which hunting was, that he shot one under 
 suspicious circumstances of undue haste, was tried for murder, 
 but acquitted. The mother, of the maiden name of Sheehy, 
 was a plain, uncultivated woman, without pretension of any 
 sort ; a negation of all gifts, of whom nothing particular is 
 recorded but that she died in Clarendon Street, Dublin. Of 
 
 K 
 
180 ]V];en, women, and books 
 
 this unpromising pair were born three daughters — Marguerite, 
 who became afterwards Countess of Blessington ; Ellen 
 Yiscountess Cauterbury ; and Mary Anne, Countess de St. 
 Marsault. This exaltation of the Power family seems a 
 strange freak of destiny ; nothing leads up to it by any 
 perceptible sequence. That one girl out of the obscure Irish 
 village of Knockbritt should have been raised to the peerage 
 were a triumph of Irish beauty sufficient to satisfy the imagi- 
 nation of any romancist ; but here are three^ from the one 
 family, all destined to wear the coronet. 
 
 However, the Sheehys could claim kindred with the best 
 blood in Ireland, though it was only in the old time, long ago. 
 Latterly they had sunk to minor situations, such as provincial 
 editors, masters of workhouses, and the like. Amongst her 
 ancestors by the mother's side. Lady Blessington could claim 
 the chiefs of Thomond, Desmond, Ormond, and the O'SuUi- 
 vans — dukes, marquises, and barons — high blood and noble, 
 and rebel blood, too ; for without it her nature would not have 
 been so intensely Irish. Her mother's father, Edmund Sheehy, 
 was executed for rebellion in 1766 ; a maternal cousin. Father 
 Sheehy, was, for a like political offence, hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered at Clonmel ; and her mother's brother was 
 murdered on his own property. These events, probably, dis- 
 gusted her early with the romantic theories of Irish revolu- 
 tionists, out of which no fact ever comes but death. In one 
 of her letters to Dr. Madden, she says : — ' AVomen, in my 
 opinion, have no business with politics ; and I, above all women, 
 have a horror of mixing myself up with them. I must con- 
 tent myself in wishing well to my poor country.' 
 
 The early days of the young Marguerite were passed at 
 Clonmel, where the father's house became the resort of the 
 usual Irish provincial society — the garrison, the assize bar, 
 and the political adherents of the favourite member. The 
 usual Irish provincial life followed — dancing and drinking, 
 politics and love ; but none excited the latter passion, at 
 assize ball or other provincial festivities, like the two Miss 
 Powers, Marguerite and Ellen. Every one talked of their 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 131 
 
 beauty, their grace in dancing, and their elegance in dress. 
 Every one was in love with them, especially the garrison ; and 
 in one day Marguerite, then but fifteen, had two offers for 
 her hand from ofiicers of family and fortune. One of these 
 gentlemen she liked ; the other she feared and dreaded with 
 an intuitive shrinking dislike and repugnance. But he was 
 'a better match,' and her parents accepted him for their 
 daughter, without consulting her at all on the subject. In her 
 own account of the circumstance, given by Dr. Madden, she 
 says, that ' when her father announced to her that she was to 
 marry Captain Farmer, she burst into tears, prayed, and pro- 
 tested, but was answered by menaces and violence ; so that 
 finally she consented to sacrifice herself, and marry a man for 
 whom she felt the utmost repugnance.' She had not been long 
 under her husband's roof, when it became evident that he was 
 subject to fits of insanity (of which her father had been aware, 
 though he concealed the information from her). She lived with 
 him about three months, during which time he frequently 
 treated her with personal violence ; he used to strike her on 
 the face, pinch her till her arms were black and blue, lock her 
 up whenever he went abroad, and often left her without 
 food till she felt almost famished. Finally she fled from him. 
 Was she to blame so far ? We think not. As her bio- 
 grapher observes justly, ' the interests of religion, of truth, and 
 morality do not require us to throw aside all consideration of 
 the influence of surrounding circumstances, as the antecedents 
 of error, when judging of a single fact.' She fled to her 
 father's house, but there was no longer a home for her theie. 
 The parents had provided her a destiny, and thought she 
 ought to accept it, and make the best of it. There was a 
 Captain Jenkins, also, of the dragoons, paying attention to 
 Ellen, the second daughter, at this time, and they fancied tlie 
 beautiful Marguerite made him waver in his allegiance. 
 
 ' The father was unkind, more than unkind. She was 
 looked on as an interloper in the house — as one who interfeied 
 with the prospects and advancement in life of her sisters/ 
 The young girl had again to seek a home, and she went to 
 
132 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 reside with an aunt. At fifteen, with her beauty and quick 
 warm feelings, and without a father's home or a husband's 
 protection, she was left to battle as she might with the waves 
 of life alone. 
 
 About this time the Tyrone militia was stationed at 
 Clonmel ; of which corps Lord Mountjoy and Colonel Stewart, 
 of Killymoon, were the successive colonels. They became 
 acquainted with the Power family. Chance brought together 
 people destined for a life-long connection. Twelve or thirteen 
 years later Lord Mountjoy, afterwards the Earl of Blessington, 
 became the husband of Mrs. Farmer. But we are anticipating. 
 Lord Mountjoy went away, and took a Mrs. Browne under his 
 protection, then living separated from her husband, and on 
 the husband's death, he married her. They had many 
 children ; but the only legitimate issue of this marriage was 
 Lady Harriet Gardiner, afterwards Countess D'Orsay, and a 
 son who died young. 
 
 Meanwhile these thirteen years of Mrs. Farmer's life — the 
 warm spring of life, with its hot sunshine and quick tears — 
 pass by in obscurity, we scarcely know how ; some in Paris, 
 some in London, but her biographer offers no record of them. 
 She has not attempted literature as yet ; and if her name is 
 heard in the great world of fashion, it is not with plaudits. 
 At length, in 1815, we find her residing in London, and there 
 she again meets Lord Blessington. With extravagant sorrow, 
 and funeral obsequies that cost 4,000/., he had buried his first 
 wife, and was now a widower. Three years after, the iron 
 fetters that bound Mrs. Farmer to a dead marriage were also 
 broken. Her husband, Captain Farmer, killed himself in a 
 fit of half madness ; and, four months after the catastrophe, 
 his widow became Countess of Blessinofton. 
 
 From this period her real life begins. The former had 
 been a mere protozoic period — chaos and darkness. Now she 
 emerges from the cloud into full splendour and magnificence — 
 w^ealth, rank, distinction, and celebrity. At once her salons 
 are crowded with all the distinguished men of England ; she 
 begins to recognise that she, too, has genius ; and, if ladies of 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 133 
 
 fashion will not patronise her, she can take her position at 
 once as leader of intellect. Now she has attained her proper 
 sphere, and moves in it with such grace and harmony, that all 
 are fascinated who approach her. 
 
 it was a long way from the poor Irish village of Knock- 
 britt to the summit of London distinction ; but she has reached 
 it, and graces the elevation. The statue is worthy of the 
 pedestal. Her life we see is opening out into great dramatic 
 scenes, full of startling contrasts. In the first we beheld a 
 poor young girl, locked up, half -starved, beaten, pinched, 
 insulted by her husband. There seems no hope for her there ; 
 and the scene closes upon a general sobbing of the audience. 
 But the curtain rises for the second act, and lo ! a beautiful 
 woman — throned like a sultana, with all London worshipping 
 at her feet. Is this a compensation, or a trial, to our poor 
 Irish girl ? We shall see. But such is destiny. She is now 
 twenty-eight. Let us pause to contemplate her, as described 
 by her biographer at this period. 
 
 ' In the perfection of matured beauty, her form was 
 exquisitely moulded, inclining to fulness, but no finer pro- 
 portions could be imagined ; her movements graceful and 
 natural at all times, in her merriest as well as gayest moods. 
 The peculiar character of her beauty consisted in the corre- 
 spondence of every feature with the emotion of her mind. 
 The instant a joyous thought took possession of her fancy, you 
 read it in her sparkling eyes, her laughing li])S ; you heard it 
 in her ringing laugh, clear and sweet as childhood's merriest 
 tones.' 
 
 But here was the grand secret of her fascination : — 
 
 ' There was a geniality in the warmth of her Irish feelings, 
 an abandonment of all care, of all apparent consciousness of 
 her own powers of attraction ; a glowing sunshine of good- 
 humour and good-nature in the suiiles, and wit, and laughter 
 of this lovely woman, seldom surpassed in the looks and 
 expression of any person, however beautiful. Her voice was 
 sweetly modulated, and low, clear, silver-toned. All her 
 beauty, without this exquisite sweetness of her voice, and the 
 
1 34 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 witchery of its tones, would have been only a secondary 
 attraction.' 
 
 Her voice, and this ^ sweet Irish laugh of hers,' are con- 
 tinually alluded to by her admiring correspondents. Indeed, 
 it is impossible not to believe in the many fascinations of Lady 
 Blessington, but especially in her beauty and gentle kindness. 
 All her correspondents bear witness to those graces. Her 
 hand had been copied in marble, and Prince Schwartzenberg 
 thus writes concerning it : — 
 
 ' I kiss that lovely hand, even as you permitted me when I 
 took my leave. Send me the one of marble, that I may warm 
 it with my lips. ... In the midst of my solitude your image 
 comes to console me. I love to recall your enchanting form, 
 and the hours I passed near you seem to me a dream. . . . 
 Write to me two lines, and a third which says Marguerite, and 
 I am happy. When shall I see you again, and recount my 
 adventures while you listen, resting your beautiful hand upon 
 that lovely hair I have admired so often ? ' 
 
 And Moore reminds her of the day when he beheld ' two 
 dazzling faces popped out of a window in Sackville Street ' 
 (tliose of the sisters Marguerite and Ellen). 
 
 Lord Blessington had kept his second marriage a secret, 
 even from his own friends. None of them were aware of it, 
 until at a dinner given to a distinguished circle in Henrietta 
 Street, in the same room where the 4,000Z. catafalque of the 
 deceased wife had lain, he entered ' with a lady of extraordinary 
 l)eauty, and in bridal costume, leaning upon his arm, and pre- 
 sented her as Lady Blessington.' Decorations, costly as the 
 catafalque, were now lavished on the new bride. At Mountjoy 
 Forest she found her private sitting-room hung with crimson 
 silk velvet, trimmed with gold. At their hotel in Paris the 
 reception-rooms were fitted up with crimson satin and gold, 
 i^old, and marble, and mirrors, abounded everywhere. But her 
 ladyship's bedroom and dressing-room was ' a surprise of splen- 
 dour, prepared for her by her gallant husband ' (to use her own 
 words). The bed was silvered in place of being gilt, and rested 
 on the backs of two large silver swans. It was placed in a 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 135 
 
 recess, lined with fluted white silk, while pale-blue silk curtains, 
 lined with white, fell from the frieze, which was supported by 
 columns at each side. A silvered sofa, resting on a velvet 
 carpet of pale blue, rich coffers for jewels and India shawls, a 
 silver lamp, and all the ornaments silvered, complete the picture. 
 The dressing-room had hangings of blue silk, covered with 
 lace, and the furniture was all silvered like the bed. The 
 bath-room also, with its draperies of white lace, its marble floor, 
 painted ceiling, and alabaster lamp, in the form of a lotus, is a 
 pretty picture to contemplate ; but we have had enough of 
 sybarite upholstery. 
 
 The splendid town mansion of the new-married Lord and 
 Lady became, as we have said, the rendezvous of all men of 
 intellect — literati^ statesmen, artists, eminent men in all pro- 
 fessions, were the habitual visitors of the house. Two royal 
 dukes even condescended to do homage at the new shrine of 
 Irish beauty and intellect. Canning and Castlereagh, Lords 
 Palmerston and Russell, Scarlett, Jekyll, Erskine, and other 
 celebrities paid their devoirs there. Kemble and Mathews, 
 Lawrence and Wilkie ; eminent divines. Parr and others ; 
 Pto^ers and Moore were among her votaries : and all murmured 
 around the fair Countess their homage of admiration, respect, 
 or crratitude ; for to all she had shown some courtesy or kind- 
 ness, special and graceful. All who approached her found 
 sympathy, and by this quick sympathy with others she won 
 their confidence. This was perhaps the great secret of her 
 powers of attraction, and for this beautiful and womanly grace, 
 that made her presence, her letters, her kind words and smiles 
 synonymous with happiness, may many errors be forgiven. 
 
 About three years after Lady Blessington's marriage, among 
 the distinguished foreigners who appeared at her house were 
 the Due de Grammont, and his brother-in-law, the young Count 
 D'Orsay. The Count was handsome as the divine Apollo, and 
 clever and brilliant in addition. With such qualities he soon 
 won the ardent friendship of Lord and Lady Blessington. They 
 were meditating a tour through Italy, and proposed that he 
 should accompany them. The rest of the party consisted of 
 
136 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Miss Power, afterwards the Comtesse de St. Marsault, and Mr. 
 Charles Mathews, the great comedian, then a youth of twenty 
 and a protege of Lord Blessington's. At Genoa they met Lord 
 Byron, who describes Lady Blessington, in a letter to Moore, 
 as ' highly literary, and very pretty, even in a morning — a 
 species of beauty on which the sun of Italy does not shine so 
 frequently as the chandelier.' 
 
 Her ladyship was ' disappointed ' in Byron. 
 
 ' He expressed,' she says, ' warmly at their departure the 
 pleasure which the visit had afforded him, and she doubted not 
 his sincerity, not from any merit in their party, but simply 
 that Byron liked to hear news of his old associates, and to pass 
 them in review, pronouncing sarcasms on each as they were 
 mentioned. His laugh is musical,' she continues, 'but he 
 rarely indulged in it during our interview ; and when he did, 
 it was quickly followed by a graver aspect, as if he liked not 
 this exhibition of hilarity. 
 
 * Were I asked to point out the prominent defect in Byron's 
 manner, I should pronounce it to be a flippancy incompatible 
 with the notion we attach to the author of " Childe Harold," 
 and " Manfred ; " and a want of self-possession and dignity 
 that ought to characterise a man of birth and genius. Yet 
 his manners are very fascinating — more so, perhaps, than if 
 they were dignified ; but he is too gay, too flippant for a 
 poet.' 
 
 ' His lordship,' Dr. Madden states, ' suflfered Lady Blessing- 
 ton to lecture him in prose, and what was worse, in verse ;' 
 especially on the publicity he gave to his domestic unhappiness 
 when, as was said, ' Byron wept for the press, and wiped his 
 eyes with the public' His lordship wrote her some compli- 
 mentary lines in return, but her inspiration could not make him 
 rise above some very commonplace doggrel. 
 
 That same year, 1823, they parted at Genoa, with much 
 mutual regret, even tears — the Blessingtons for the gaieties of 
 Piome and Naples ; Byron for glory, and a grave in Greece. 
 
 If any intellect be lying latent in a human frame, it must 
 awaken in Italy, where the earth is grand and the heavens 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON . 137 
 
 beautiful ; and especially in the silent Rome, where the great 
 (lead of old lie stretched upon their monumental seven hills. 
 iDesides, travelling is employment — what all women want, and 
 the increased activity of the brain finds a manifestation some- 
 how in the life. Lady Blessington not only beheld, but studied 
 the world around her. Then it was her literary ambition was 
 aroused, and the sense of power awoke in her. She read much, 
 and strove to penetrate the beauty and mystery of the Past, 
 whether in art or literature ; always, too, under the guidance 
 of some leading intellect. At Genoa she had studied poetry in 
 a poet's heart. At Rome, Naples, and Florence, she talked of 
 antiquities with Sir William Gell ; of literature with Lord 
 Morpeth ; and of all that was deep and noblest in the antique 
 life with Walter Savao:e Landor. 
 
 Uwins the painter, Westmacott, Maclise, Sir John Herschel, 
 were also her daily companions. With them she could investi- 
 gate the heavens and the earth, temples and tombs, fallen 
 columns and fragments of dead gods, a new planet or a buried 
 city. Mr. Charles Mathews thus describes the mode of life at 
 the Blessington Villa, in Naples : — 
 
 ' A paradise of a place, with a splendid view of the Medi- 
 terranean and surrounding mountains, Vesuvius in the centre. 
 Nothing can be more delightful than the exterior and interior. 
 Lady Blessington is more charming than ever. This is the 
 place, with all its associations, to draw out the resources of her 
 mind ; to discover her talents, and be captivated by them. 
 Our evenings are charming ; we have each of us a table in the 
 same room, at which we prosecute our various studies, writing, 
 drawing, reading, <fec. All our conversations, which are frequent, 
 are upon improving subjects ; the classics, the existing antiqui- 
 ties around us. We write essays upon various subjects pro- 
 posed, which are read in the evening, opposed and defended. 
 1 am treated as one of the family. I make all my drawings in 
 the room with them, and am going to instruct Lady Blessing- 
 ton in architecture. It is proposed, as all of us desire to im- 
 prove ourselves in Italian, that we should learn in a class, 
 devotino- an hour each day to that study. For antiquarian 
 
138 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 research we have all the ancient authors here to refer to. In 
 short, there never were people so perfectly happy as we are. 
 Whenever any excursion is proposed, the previous evening is 
 employed in reading and informing ourselves thoroughly about 
 what we are going to see.' 
 
 Every one of these distinguished Italian friends continued 
 their intimacy with Lady Blessington by frequent letters after 
 her return to London ; and thus we are indebted to this conti- 
 nental tour for the brilliant correspondence which forms the 
 chief interest of her published life. 
 
 In 1823, while in Genoa, Lord Blessington lost his on]y 
 legitimate son, the heir to his estates — the son of his first wife — 
 for the second Lady Blessington had no children ; upon which 
 event he drew up a will, so singular in its provisions that Dr. 
 Madden imputes it to partial insanity. By this will he be- 
 queathed all his property, except some legacies and the Tyrone 
 estate, to Count D'Orsay, and whichever of his two daughters 
 Count D'Orsay chose to marry ; and in case of refusal on the 
 part of either of the daughters selected, she was to receive but 
 10,000/. These two daughters were Mary Gardiner, illegiti- 
 mate, aged twelve, and Lady Harriet Gardiner, legitimate, aged 
 eleven, both daughters of the one mother. To Lady Blessing- 
 ton he left a jointure of 3,000Z. a-year. But two months after, 
 when the will was legally executed, this jointure was reduced 
 to 2,000/. a-year, while the other provisions remained the same. 
 A strange infatuation for Count D'Orsay this appears, to offer 
 him the choice of either of his daughters, with a bribe of a vast 
 property appended, while the daughters themselves were then 
 but children, who had never seen Count D'Orsay, having been 
 brought up in Dublin under the care of an aunt. 
 
 When the will was executed, General Count D'Orsay, 
 father to Count Alfred, accompanied by Lord Blessington, 
 went to Ireland to see the estates, and the young ladies. 
 Lady Harriet was selected as the future bride, her legitimacy, 
 perhaps, being the motive of preference with the proud D'Orsay 
 family. Meanwhile, as the young Count is not mentioned as 
 being of the party to Ireland, he probably remained in Italy 
 
LADY ELESSINGTON 139 
 
 with Lady Blessington. Curiosity even did not prompt him 
 to go and see his bride. 
 
 Four years after this arrangement the young girl was sent 
 for to Naples from Ireland, and the marriage took place. 
 Count D'Orsay was then twenty-six, the bride fifteen ; and 
 her supposed rival in the Count's affections was thirty-seven ; 
 a disparity of years which almost precludes the idea of any 
 rivalry whatever. 
 
 The Count received 40,000?. fortune with his wife, and 
 ' separated himself from her almost at the church door.' 
 
 Dr. Madden, when on his way back from Egypt, met the 
 Blessingtons about this time at Rome, and thus describes the 
 young bride : — 
 
 ' Lady Harriet was exceedingly girlish-looking, pale and 
 rather inanimate in expression, silent and reserved. There 
 was no appearance of familiarity with anyone around her ; no 
 air or look of womanhood, no semblance of satisfaction in her 
 new position, were to be observed in her demeanour or deport- 
 ment. She seldom or ever spoke, she was little noticed, and 
 looked on as a mere school-girl. 
 
 ' I think her feelings were driven inward by the sense of 
 slight and indifference, and by the strangeness and coldness 
 of everything around her ; and she became indifferent, and 
 strange, and cold, and apparently devoid of all vivacity and 
 interest in society. People were mistaken in her, and she, per- 
 haps, mistaken in others. Her father's act had led to all these 
 misconceptions, ending in suspicions, animosities, aversions, 
 and total estrangements. In the course of a few years, the 
 crirl of childish mien and listless looks, who was so silent, and 
 apparently inanimate, became a person of remarkable beauty, 
 spirituelle and intelligent, the reverse in all respects of what 
 she was considered when misplaced and misunderstood. 
 
 ^It was an unhappy marriage,' he adds, 'and nothing to any 
 useful purpose can be said of it, except that Lord Blessington 
 sacrificed his child's happiness, by causing her to marry with- 
 out consulting her inclinations or interests.' 
 
 However, the D'Orsays and the Blessingtons continued to 
 
140 MEN, AVOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 reside together during the remainder of their stay abroad ; 
 but as eight years had now been passed travelling, they 
 thought of turning homewards. At Genoa, on their return. 
 Lady Blessington was reminded at every spot of Byron, from 
 whom she had there parted five years before : — 
 
 ^ While thus musing one day, she saw a young English 
 girl, who resembled Byron in an extraordinary degree, ac- 
 companied by an elderly lady. The English girl was '' Ada, 
 sole daughter of my house and heart, '^ and the elderly lady 
 was her mother — the widow of Lord Byron/ 
 
 The year 1829 was passed at Paris in the splendid Hotel 
 Ney ; but the sudden death of Lord Blessington broke up the 
 establishment at once. By this event her ladyship found her- 
 self reduced to an income of only 2,000/. a-year, in place of 
 30,000/. ; and besides she really seemed to regret her husband's 
 death from personal affection for him. 
 
 In her confidential letters long after, she speaks of much 
 unkindness experienced at this period, after his death^of 
 much suffering she had gone through, we know not of what 
 nature ; for Dr. Madden states only, that 'painful circum- 
 stances ' obliged the family to leave Paris ; and accordingly, 
 the year following, 1830, Lady Blessington proceeded to 
 London, accompanied by the Count and Countess D'Orsay. 
 In a short time the Countess D'Orsav returned to Paris, and 
 her husband rented a small house in Curzon street, adjoining 
 Lady Blessington's residence, in Seymour Place ; but after 
 her removal to Gore House, the Count took up his abode 
 entirely under the same roof with her ladyship. Some time 
 after, a deed of separation was drawn up between the Count 
 and Lady Harriet, by which he relinquished his claim on the 
 Blessington estates for the sum of 100,000/., which was agreed 
 to, and paid by successive instalments. 
 
 On Lady Blessington's return to London, she seriously 
 turned her thoughts to authorship, as a means of increasing 
 a very diminished income. First appeared, in Tlie Neio 
 Monthly^ her ' Conversations with Lord Byron.' The papers 
 attracted immense notice, in consequence of the morbid curi- 
 
LADY ELESSINGTON 141 
 
 or 
 
 osity, then quite an epidemic, to know something or anythin^ 
 of what Byron thought, said, or did. The Hterary reputation 
 of the Countess was at once established, and from that till 
 her death, novels, tales, reviews, verses, &c., never ceased 
 flowing from her pen, all of the most mediocre nature cer- 
 tainly, but still they brought her an income of about two 
 thousand a-year, or more. Not that we are to judge of their 
 merits by that fact. Her ladyship did not write absolute 
 trash certainly — on the contrary, she sometimes uttered very 
 shrewd, common-sense opinions ; but there was such a total 
 want of elevation of feeling or depth of thought in all her 
 works, that it was impossible to read them with profit, or 
 remember them with interest. She had neither Lady Morgan's 
 wit, nor Mrs. Norton^s almost agonising pathos ; and if com- 
 pared with the lady authoresses her contemporaries, must in 
 all things be named the lowest of the list. We speak of her 
 works in the past tense, for they have probably disappeared 
 from all memories and all libraries ; or if they have not, we 
 would recommend them (in Carlyle's phrase) to gather them- 
 selves up with all possible speed and be off* to the dust-bin. 
 
 Something vastly more attractive than penmanship and 
 authorship were the fascinations that surrounded Lady 
 Blessington, and which made her irresistible — grace, beauty, 
 brilliancy, and kindness. Why should a woman with these 
 gifts stain her fair hands with ink, and dim her eyes at 
 midnight manuscripts ? Yet this she did for twenty long 
 years of her life, working, ay, as hard as any factory-girl at 
 her loom, and for the same reason — to support herself — not 
 only herself, but seven or eight members of her family besides ; 
 and in addition, all the poor Irish cousins from Clonmel— an 
 interminable, exacting, long-lived, vigorous race, like all Irish 
 cousins, requiring a great deal to kee]) up their systems. In 
 one of her letters, she says : — 
 
 ^ I am so constantly and fatiguingly occupied in copying 
 and correcting, that I have not a moment to myself.^ 
 
 Again : — 
 
 ' When I tell you that I have no less than three works 
 
142 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 passing through the press, and have to furnish the manuscript 
 to keep the printers at work for one of them, you may judge 
 of my uneasiness and overwhelming occupations, which leave 
 me time neither for pleasure nor for taking air or exercise 
 enough for health. I am literally worn out. I look for 
 release from my literary toils more than ever a slave did from 
 bondage. I never get out any day before five o'clock. I am 
 sufiering in health from too much writing.' 
 
 The entire novel of ' The Repealers ' was written in five 
 weeks ; and in a letter to Dr. Madden, dated 4th March, she 
 
 says : — 
 
 ' When I tell you that I have six hundred pages to write 
 and compose between this and the end of the month for a 
 work, which, unless completed by that period, I forfeit an 
 engagement, you will understand why I cannot read over the 
 story you sent me, and which, I am persuaded, is like all I 
 have seen from your pen — graphic, and full of talent.' 
 
 And yet, withal, year after year, her expenditure was 
 more than double her income. Fashionable life and literary 
 notoriety are expensive pleasures, as she found one day to her 
 cost, when the poor brain, with all its toil, could no longer 
 meet the expenses of the material body with all its necessary 
 luxuries, and appanages, and decorations. Upon this state of 
 afiairs the wise editor remarks : — 
 
 * Little was she aware of the nature of literary pursuits, or 
 the precariousness of their remuneration, if she imagined that 
 secure and permanent emolument could be derived from such 
 sources. A lady of quality who sits down in fashionable life 
 to get a livelihood by literature, or the means of sustaining 
 herself or her position at the hands of publishers, had better 
 build any other description of castles in the air, however 
 ethereal the order of architecture may be.' 
 
 Too true ; for does not Carlyle describe this weird race of 
 publishers as ' seated in their back-parlour Valhallas, drinking 
 wine out of the skulls of authors ? ' Very terrible to think of ! 
 But when the pen was laid aside, and the weary daily task 
 ended, then the enchanted gates were unfolded, and the tired 
 
LADY ELESSINGTON 143 
 
 toiler over manuscript became transformed into the brilliant 
 idol of a brilliant circle. 
 
 Every evening, from ten to half-past twelve, Gore House 
 was thrown open to visitors, like to a temple of Minerva, to 
 which all literary votaries went up nightly to worship. The 
 high-priestess takes her position at once, as centre and leader, 
 and all revolve around her, suns, satellites, and stars. Stars 
 there were in plenty. They came, not singly, nor even in 
 binary combination, but in whole systems. A perfect via 
 lactea of literary luminaries flashed through her salons each 
 evening. What was this strange, indefinable, subtle, yet per- 
 manent charm which attracted to her circle every man of note 
 in England, from the great Wellington down to the small 
 annualists, of the day. Her writings, we have said, were not 
 beyond mediocrity, and her conversation, however gay and 
 sparkling, was yet wholly devoid of real wit or energetic 
 power. Compare her with the supreme De Stael, the deep 
 wise Rahel of Germany, the intensely earnest Margaret Fuller 
 of America, and how commonplace and unsatisfying, as mental 
 reagents, do all her recorded sayings fall upon the ear and 
 heart. Was the flattery, then, that gilded her life, elicited 
 mainly by the coronet on her escutcheon ? Perhaps so ; 
 especially when the coronet on the brow crowned so much 
 beauty and enough of genius to found sonnets on : for beauty 
 makes a surprising difference in the reception a woman meets 
 with in society, and the air of superiority she is privileged to 
 assume there. 
 
 The swinging of the censer before the fair face of Lady 
 Blessington never ceased in those salons ; and soft accents of 
 homage to her beauty and talent seldom failed to be whispered 
 in her ear, while she sat enthroned in her w eW-known faiUeuil 
 (Willis tells us it was of yellow satin), holding high court in 
 queen-like state — the most gorgeous Lady Blessington ! ' 
 
 Truly, a life of intoxicating excitement, but fatal to all 
 earnestness of thought ; talent laid on the salver of publicity, 
 to be breathed upon and dimmed so as at best only to reflect 
 the shows and surfaces of things. Was it wonderful that her 
 
144 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 literature reflected her life, dealing only with the follies and 
 crimes, or the fashion and glitter of social life, and never de- 
 scending into the real healthy humanity, such as God created, 
 to seek for noble types and strengthening principles of action. 
 Madden makes some very just remarks on the inevitable 
 tendencies of a nature fed by indiscriminate flatteries ; and 
 on the bad eflfects of a life of literary display upon the mind of 
 a woman. 
 
 Those to whom the art of pleasing becomes a business daily 
 to be performed, pass from the excitement of society into 
 exhaustion, languor, and ennui, and from this state they are 
 roused to new eftbrts in the salons by a craving appetite for 
 notice and for praise. Lady Blessington had that fatal gift of 
 pre-eminent attractiveness in society, which has rendered so 
 many clever women distinguished and unhapjoy. The power 
 of pleasing indiscriminately is never long exercised by women 
 with advanta^re to the feminine character of their fascinations. 
 ' The facility of making one's self so universally agreeable 
 in literary salons, as to be there '' the observed of all observers,'' 
 becomes in a time fatal to naturalness of character and sin- 
 cerity of mind. Relations with intellectual celebrities must 
 be kept up by constant administrations of cordial professions 
 of kindness and affection, epistolary and conversational, and 
 frequent interchange of compliments and encomiums. 
 
 'The praiser and the praised have a nervous apprehension 
 of depreciation ; and those who live before the public in litera- 
 ture or society get not unfrequently into the habit of lavishing 
 eulogies with a view to repayment in the same coin. The 
 queen regnant of a literary circle must at length become an 
 actress there ; she must adapt her manners, her ideas, her 
 conversation, by turns, to those of every individual around her. 
 She must be perpetually demonstrating her own attractions 
 and attainments, or calling forth those of others. She must 
 become a slave to the caprices, envious feelings, contentions, 
 rivalries, selfish aims, ignoble artifices, and exigeants preten- 
 sions of literati, artistes, and all the notabilities of fashionable 
 circles. 
 
* LADY ELESSINGTON 145 
 
 ' Besides, the wear and tear of literary life leave very 
 unmistakable evidence of their operation on the traits, thoughts 
 and energies of bookish people. Like the ceaseless efforts of 
 Sisyphus are the pursuits of the literati^ treading on the heels 
 of one another day after day, tugging with unremitting toil at 
 one uniform task — to obtain notoriety, to overcome competi- 
 tion, and having met with some success, to maintain a position 
 at any cost.' 
 
 It was in Lady Blessington's time that the epidemic of 
 illustrated annuals broke out in England which raged with 
 considerable flimsiness and platitude for about twenty years. 
 Her ladyship of course became an editress ; for, as her bio- 
 grapher asserts with laudable candour, ^she had a great facility 
 for versification, and her verse was quite equal to the ordinary 
 run of hoiits rimes,^ 
 
 Besides, a titled editress was indispensable as nurse to the 
 small literary buds of fashion that lisped their pretty twaddle 
 in gilded annuals, while the lady herself loved celebrities and 
 display ; and this occupation brought her into contact with 
 almost every literary man of eminence in the kingdom, or of 
 any foreign country who visited England. But it also involved 
 an enormous expense, far beyond any amount of remunera- 
 tion derived from editing the works. It made a necessity for 
 entertaining continually persons to whom she looked for 
 contributions, or from whom she had received assistance. It 
 involved her, moreover, in all the drudgery of authorship, in 
 all the turmoil of contention with publishers, communication 
 with artists, and never-ending correspondence with contribu- 
 tors ; in a word, it made her life miserable. 
 
 The whole system of the annuals was, in fact, a speculation 
 based upon personal vanity. Court beauties had their pictures 
 engraved with (as Dickens describes) the traditional back- 
 ground of flower-pots ; and then verses were ordered by the 
 editor to suit these portraits. When the mothers of the 
 nobility were exhausted, the annualists turned to the children 
 of the nobility, whose portraits came out with impossible eyes 
 and hair, white frocks, the flower-pot and a dog. For them 
 
146 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 were verses in like manner ordered ; and of course the sale 
 was unprecedented. Thus we find Lady Blessington peti- 
 tioning a contributor, and really a man of genius, though he 
 had caught the epidemic. Dr. William Beattie, for ' three or 
 four stanzas for the work named " Buds and Blossoms," to con- 
 tain the portraits of all the children of the nobility. The chil- 
 dren for the illustration are the three sons of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, and an allusion to the family would add interest 
 to the subject.' 
 
 To the same poet, too yielding, perhaps, not to be made the 
 prey of these infantile bores, she writes again with lamentable 
 pertinacity : — 
 
 ' Will you write me a page of verse for the portrait of Miss 
 Forrester ? The young lady is seated with a little dog on her 
 lap, which she looks at rather pensively ; she is fair, with light 
 hair, and is in mourning.' 
 
 During the palmy days of the pensive annuals Lady Bless- 
 ington made about 2,000Z. a year by them ; for they had this 
 advantage to editors, that contributors were seldom paid except 
 where a great name was sought for, at any price, to look 
 impressive in the index. Thomas Moore was offered 600?. for 
 one hundred and twenty lines, in either prose or poetry, for 
 'The Keepsake,' which he declined. But at length the 
 public were surfeited with illustrated annuals. The perpetual 
 glorifications even of beauty became a bore ; the periodical 
 pseans sung in honour of the children of the nobility ceased to 
 be amusing. Lords and ladies ready to write on any subject, 
 and fashionable editors and editresses, there was no dearth of ; 
 but readers were not to be had for love or money. A failure 
 in Lady Blessington's income was the result. Besides, of late 
 years it was with difficulty she could find a publisher for her 
 novels. They would not sell ; yet she continued to write them, 
 for it kept up the excitement of her life, and friends still 
 praised — how falsely and absurdly it is painful to read, for the 
 sake of literary and critical honour and veracity. Had she 
 no friends who, when they saw her with all these irons in the 
 fire, about new novels and the like for making money, could 
 
LADY ELESSINGTON 147 
 
 boldly say, as did Dr. Johnson on a similar occasion : 
 ' Madam, — Put your novels with your irons ? ' On the contrary, 
 they write thus to the poor blinded one : ' You have all the 
 tact, truth and grace of De Stael/ And concerning another 
 novel, whose name is not even worth remembering: now : ' It 
 reminds me greatly of Godwin's writings/ Again: 'Your 
 style is peculiarly fluent and original ; I do not remember any 
 specimen of '' The Pvambler" equal to it.' This is only equalled 
 by Lady Blessington telling some poet, never heard of since, 
 who had sent her a poem of his for her perusal, that it was 
 ' beyond anything in Shakespeare ! ' 
 
 When annuals and publishers had all failed, her ladyship 
 turned her attention to newspapers. Her last novel, ' Country 
 Quarters,' appeared in one. And she accepted an engagement 
 from the ' Daily News,' at the rate of iOOL a year, for contri- 
 buting ' Exclusive Intelligence, or Gossiping News from High 
 Quarters ; ' but she thought her services worth 800/. a year, 
 and gave up the engagement after six months. Still her 
 writings, such as they were, brought her an average income 
 of about 1,OOOZ. a year ; while Southey, with all his great 
 wisdom, great learning and undoubted ability, was at the 
 same time only making about two or three hundred, and glad 
 even to secure that. But then four times the amount of 
 Lady Blessington's literary gains was spent in keeping up 
 the prestige of her name as a literary leader. With what 
 lavish magnificence she threw open Gore House for the 
 entertainment of authors and publishers, contributors, high- 
 bred eulogists, and unscrupulous laudators ! All who could 
 write or help writers, all aspirants or conquerors in the lists of 
 fame found themselves in the enchanted palace of the beautiful 
 Armida, and unable to resist her spells. 
 
 Meanwhile, the handsome and gifted Count D'Orsay added 
 not a little to the brilliancy of these celebrated receptions. 
 We have said that he was twelve years younger than Lady 
 Blessington ; a man, by all accounts, of surprising wit and 
 beauty of appearance ; so that for twenty years he led the 
 fashion— rather, laid down the law— in London in dress, 
 
148 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 manners, and conversation. In fact, as a French periodical 
 expressed it : ' D'Orsay taught the English aristocracy how to 
 converse/ Beyond this, too, he was a gifted artist. One 
 hundred and fifty portraits, executed by him, of the celebrities 
 of Gore House are in existence, and have been lithographed 
 and published by Mr. Lane. His statuettes and busts excited 
 unmeasured praise from all judges — from the cold severe 
 Wellington as well as the spiritual Lamartine. Haydon, the 
 painter, with one of his vivid picturesque touches, thus de- 
 scribes him in his ' Diary ' : ' About seven D'Orsay called, 
 whom I had not seen for long. He was much improved, and 
 looking "the glass of fashion and the mould of form ;" really 
 a complete Adonis, not made up at all. He made some capital 
 remarks, all of which must be attended to. They were sound 
 impressions, and grand. He bounded into his cab like a young 
 Apollo with a fiery Pegasus. I looked after him. I like to see 
 such specimens.' Again, another entry : ' D'Orsay called, and 
 pointed out several things to correct in the horse (the Duke's 
 Waterloo charger), verifying Lord Eitzroy's criticism. I did 
 them ; and he took up my brush in his dandy gloves, which 
 made my heart ache, and lowered the hind quarters by bring- 
 ing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress ! — white great-coat, 
 blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the primest 
 curve and purest water, gloves scented with eau-de- cologne 
 or eau-de-jasmine, primrose in tint, skin in tightness. In this 
 prime of dandyism he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hogtool, 
 and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky.' 
 
 We have mentioned the strange circumstances of his 
 marriage, and how he had separated himself from his young 
 wife, and taken up his abode entirely at Gore House. A life 
 of literature and magnificence, of artistic employment and 
 thoughtless expenditure seemed to suit his Athenian nature. 
 Tradespeople gave him unlimited credit, for his taste in dress 
 was so perfect that whatever he wore became the fashion, and 
 they felt sufficiently compensated by being allowed to have the 
 honour of announcing that he employed them. 
 
 But how strangely are the extremes of society connected ! 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 149 
 
 Because the fields are lying black round the Irish cabins the 
 great London world of life and light is thrown into terror and 
 dismay. 
 
 The potato blight fell upon Gore House. Irish rents were 
 not paid ; and as soon as the suspicion of inability to meet 
 demands got abroad demands poured in. There were no 
 means of meeting them. Lady Blessington's expenditure had 
 long been more than double her receipts. Confusion and 
 dismay came gathering darkly over her magnificence. 
 
 The lady's diamonds are pledged to meet the most urgent 
 claims. But bills are like the frogs of Egypt, interminable 
 and obtrusive. They came up into Pharaoh's chamber. 300/. 
 for Count D'Orsay's boots ; 4,000Z. for India shawls, silks and 
 laces for my lady. Day by day payment was evaded. Then 
 executions were threatened ; and so, while rank and genius 
 were glittering in the salons^ bailiffs were watching at the hall- 
 door. For two years it was thus ; the hall door never opened 
 but with precautions. For two years the brilliant D'Orsay 
 could only venture out on Sundays for fear of arrest. 
 
 At length a bailiff* got entrance in disguise. The lady sees 
 that all is over, and sends a quick message to the Count's room 
 that he has not a minute to lose. So he escapes by a back 
 door, with a single valet and a portmanteau, and flies for 
 refuge to France — never to behold England more — leaving 
 debts behind him to the amount of a hundred thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 Thus ended the magnificent London career of Count 
 D'Orsay — the man who had revolutionised London society 
 and made the English aristocracy for twenty years his servile 
 imitators. 
 
 A fortnight after his flight Lady Blessington with her 
 nieces also quitted London, never more to return thither, and 
 followed the Count to Paris, leaving her entire property at the 
 mercy of her creditors. 
 
 The sale then commenced at Gore House. The library of 
 5,000 volumes, the magnificent specimens of the fine arts, the 
 costly ornaments of these celebrated salons were all sold. By 
 
150 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 the express command of Lady Blessington nothing was re- 
 served from the creditors except her own picture by Chalon. 
 The sale realised above 13,000/., out of which eleven pounds 
 balance, after paying the debts, was handed over to Lady 
 Blessington. Twenty thousand persons visited the house 
 previous to the auction, and of all these but one is recorded 
 as having shown any visible emotion at the wreck of a 
 prosperity in which most of them had shared. Who, think 
 you ? Thackeray, the caustic satirist of women, the harsh 
 denouncer of their follies, the author whose name, above all 
 others, is hateful to the sex ; whose theory of woman is ex- 
 pressed with bitter irony in one formula : all clever women 
 are wicked, and all good women are fools ; and yet this man, 
 who could only see distortions of humanity, must have felt 
 that some beautiful quality, some gentleness, kindness, gene- 
 rosity, or tenderness, existed in the heart that had once vivi- 
 fied that desolate magnificence, for he wept, and one thinks 
 better of Mr. Thackeray for those tears. 
 
 Dr. Madden happened to be present at the sale, and thus 
 describes this tragedy of fashion : — 
 
 ' There was a large assemblage of people of rank. Every 
 room w^as thronged ; the well-known library-saloon, in which 
 conversaziones took place, was crowded, but not with guests. 
 The arm-chair in which the lady of the mansion was wont to 
 sit was occupied by a stout, coarse gentleman of the Jewish 
 persuasion, busily engaged in examining a marble hand ex- 
 tended on a book, the fingers of which were modelled from a 
 cast of those of the absent mistress of the establishment. 
 People, as they passed through the room, poked the furniture, 
 pulled about the precious objects of art and ornaments of 
 various kinds that lay on the table, and some made jests and 
 ribald jokes on the scene they witnessed. In another apart- 
 ment, where the pictures were being sold, portraits by, 
 Lawrence, sketches by Landseer and Maclise, innumerable 
 likenesses of Lady Blessington by various artists ; several of 
 the Count D^Orsay, representing him driving, riding out on 
 horseback, sporting, and at work in his studio ; his own 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 151 
 
 collection of portraits of all the frequenters of Gore House, in 
 quick succession were brought to the hammer. It was the 
 most signal ruin of an establishment of a person of high rank 
 I had ever witnessed.' 
 
 Gore House itself had also a destiny : first, it belonged to 
 the great Wilberf orce, who records how he ' repeated the 1 1 9th 
 Psalm there in great comfort ; ' then Lady Blessington became 
 the proprietor, upon which James Smith wrote : 
 
 The chains from which he freed the Blacks 
 She rivets on the Whites ; 
 
 from her hands it passed to those of the renowned Soyer. 
 ' The culinary replaced the literary,' and so for ever after 
 Gore House will be associated with social freedom, mental 
 light and corporeal regeneration. 
 
 Lady Blessington quitted London in April 1849. The 
 whole fabric of her greatness had crumbled in the dust. At 
 sixty years of age she found herself a fugitive in Paris — 
 youth, beauty, wealth, prestige^ magnificence all gone. No- 
 thing remained to her but her energetic intellect. By this she 
 strove to build up another future. Already she planned new 
 works of literature and new modes of life. A biography of 
 remarkable women was to issue from her pen, and she was to 
 spare no pains in reading up for it. She took a new residence 
 and furnished it with all that elegance of luxury and oriental 
 brilliancy of decoration which she could not help evidencing. 
 The taste was instinctive to her — part of her nature. The 
 spirit of her youth seemed to come back to brave the desolation 
 of her age, but the heart was silently breaking the while ; 
 what wonder if it were so ? On June 3, just seven weeks 
 after the flight from her London home, she removed to her 
 new residence in Paris from the hotel where she had been 
 located, her health and spirits apparently good, even better 
 than usual. But that morning she had already entered the 
 dark shadow of death, although those around her saw it not. 
 Pomp and pleasure, praise and fame, and all the lights of life 
 
152 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 were going out one by one, and God alone is by her in the 
 last darkness. That night she died, not without some suffer- 
 ing, but yet apparently unconscious that the fiat of her doom 
 had gone forth. No priest knelt by her bedside, no prayer 
 ^f^ems to have been uttered. Her last words were, ' Quelle 
 heure est-il ? ' and then she passed calmly into eternity. The 
 last hour of the clock of time had tolled for her. 
 
 She was buried at St. Germain. Her mausoleum was 
 designed by Count D'Orsay and her epitaph written by Barry 
 Cornwall and Walter Savage Landor ; while Irish ivy, brought 
 for the purpose from her native village, was planted round 
 her grave. The story of her life seemed thus symbolised by 
 her tomb. 
 
 Count D'Orsay's grief at her death is described as almost 
 frantic ; besides, he experienced most bitter disappointment, it 
 is said, at the cold reception given him by Louis Napoleon, of 
 whom both he and Lady Blessington had once been the friends 
 and benefactors. 
 
 Once, indeed, they had been invited to dine at the Ely see ; 
 but for eighteen months previous to the Count's death the 
 Emperor took no notice of him whatever. 
 
 Thus, without fortune, without friends, and deprived of 
 her who had been his companion for twenty years. Count 
 D'Orsay naturally fell into melancholy, then into bad health ; 
 and finally, about three years after Lady Blessington's death, 
 he died, and was laid in the same tomb, in the stone sarco- 
 phagus which he had ordered to be placed there for himself at 
 the time of her interment. Five months after his death the 
 Countess D'Orsay married a second time.^ 
 
 Count D'Orsay had many gifts, yet withal he can never 
 stand before the mind as a character that interests. A life of 
 vanities and fopperies, of egoism and weakness, though passed 
 amidst the beauties of art and the excitement of literary 
 society, was still a life without divinity ; and we turn, with 
 feelings stronger even than disapproval, from the contempla- 
 tion of the marriage, and the neglect of the young wife, while 
 
 1 The Honourable Spencer Cowper, brother to Lady Jocelyn. 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 153 
 
 at the same time he squandered her patrimony. When he was 
 friendless and fallen we feel, not sorrow, but a sort of gladness 
 that retribution was exacted ; and then only when he is weak 
 and suffering, wounded and broken in spirit, does the man 
 attain any dignity in our eyes. Suffering seems to purify and 
 ennoble all natures, for we recognise it as the shadow of God's 
 presence upon a human life. But one has true pity for the 
 sunny heart darkened into error by the force of circumstances 
 and the harsh will of those who ruled its fate. The biography 
 of a woman is always sad — a war between feeling and destiny 
 — but that of a gifted woman especially so ; for high intellect 
 and vivid passions are hard to rule and tame and formalise ; 
 and such exceptional natures seem to have a singular inapti- 
 tude for the contracted sphere within which society places 
 them. 
 
 Even in the limited space of the last half century, how 
 many, if not wretched, at least unhappy hearts and blighted 
 lives can be enumerated amongst those who possessed the 
 fatal gift of intellect ? Mrs. Hemans ; the beautiful and most 
 richly endowed Caroline Norton ; Lady Lytton Bulwer, who 
 seems to have flung down the gauntlet to male humanity with 
 helpless rage ; they only smile at her indignant sense of 
 wrong, and bid her suffer and be silent. And, saddest of all, 
 lies ' L. E. L.' in her death-sleep on that fatal foreign shore ; 
 but we cannot think beside such a grave, it is enough to 
 weep. 
 
 All these lives were, no doubt, beautiful in their aurora 
 light, but the moment they rose in mental power above the 
 prescribed level of their sex the lightning struck them. 
 
 Lady Blessington was not exempt from this apparent law 
 of Providence ; her own testimony of herself is, ' I have drunk 
 the cup of bitterness to the very dregs.* The great fault of 
 her character seemed be an incapacity for profound thought 
 on any subject. She lived on passionately from day to day 
 — excitement the very vital breath of her existence ; never 
 caring or thinking whither it was all tending, but purposing, 
 some day or other, when she had time, to think seriously about 
 
154 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 religion ; and thus it was till the end came. There is, there- 
 fore, no tragedy in her life, no deep earnestness, and therefore 
 no despair. If she begins a letter with a few melancholy- 
 phrases, she ends : ' The opera is charming ; I never miss a 
 night.' 
 
 Though born and reared a Roman Catholic, yet she talks 
 of herself on one occasion as ' a stern Protestant,' merely 
 because those around her were so ; and she forgot for the 
 moment exactly what she believed. Another time, with the 
 same comprehensive sympathy, she speaks of her 'proud 
 feelings as an Englishwoman,' quite oblivious of Tipperary 
 and the murdered Sheehys ; though, when writing to Dr. 
 Madden, her love for 'her poor country' is ardently expressed, 
 and this not from the falsehood but the levity of her nature ; 
 for, being herself incapable of deep fanatic feeling on any 
 subject, she unconsciously, or good-naturedly, from a wish 
 to please, echoed the sentiments of those more earnest souls 
 with whom she came in contact. Therefore we seek in vain in 
 her writings for any revelations of the inner world, wrought 
 out of earnest, patient reflection on the mystery and the sacred 
 ends of life. No spirit-voice chanted to her, as it has done to 
 higher natures : — 
 
 Each word we speak has infinite effects ; 
 Each soul we pass must go to heaven or hell — 
 God ! fight we not within a cursed world ; 
 And this, our one chance through eternity ? 
 Be earnest, earnest, earnest : mad, if thou wilt ; 
 Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, 
 And it thy last deed, ere the judgment-day. 
 
 Yet every life, however weak, has something in it which may 
 teach, either as a warning or a model. It is only in the lives 
 of others, not in our own, that we can study human life as a 
 whole ; our own life is fragmentary. We pass blindfold into 
 each successive moment with trembling volition, knowing not 
 what the dictum of our decision may bring forth. Clear vision 
 comes only when it is too late, and we see then how error and 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 155 
 
 misery came of egoism and blind passion. But in biography, 
 if written truly, we trace clearly the inseparable connection 
 between weakness and suffering, error and punishment, sin 
 and remorse, and we start back warned from the same fatal 
 path; while, on the other hand, the records of courage will 
 strengthen and earnestness inspire, long after the heroes or 
 martyrs have been laid low in their graves. And thus it 
 is that the hands of the dead guide us best through the 
 future. 
 
 The correspondence of Lady Blessington is full of interest, 
 for though she herself did not contribute much to it either of 
 wit or learning, yet she elicited both in a remarkable degree 
 from those who came within her influence, and we can esti- 
 mate the power she exercised over her age by the number of 
 celebrated men who felt proud to be ranked amongst her 
 correspondents. 
 
 A woman truly is the genius of epistolary communication. 
 Men always write better to a woman than to their own sex. 
 No doubt they conjure up, while writing, the loving listening 
 face, the tender, pardoning heart, the ready tear of sympathy, 
 and passionate confidences of heart and brain flow rapidly from 
 the pen — confidences that never would have been revealed to 
 spirits made of sterner stuff. 
 
 There is one noticeable characteristic of Lady Blessington's 
 own letters, which is, the entire absence of literary egotism. 
 There is no seeking for praise or compliment upon her own 
 works ; on the contrary, they are treated of slightly, thrown 
 off in a phrase as things of no value ; while whatever concerns 
 the friend she may be writing to, his acts, words, works, and 
 feelings are discussed with the most ardent and apparently 
 genuine interest. 
 
 Always she has some pleasant word of praise to utter, or 
 favourable notice of them to repeat, which had come to her 
 knowledge. Besides which, we find her aiding them always, as 
 best she could, with publishers and the public ; getting their 
 works printed, often correcting the proofs herself, and under- 
 taking to write favourable reviews in the leading journals. 
 
156 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 No wonder that all her friends loved to hear from her, and to 
 cultivate the correspondence of one who never wrote but to 
 please. Landor, in one of his letters to her, says with an in- 
 tensity of appreciation one cannot help feeling half jealous 
 of when uttered by such a man : ' With your knowledge of 
 the world, and, what is rarer, of the human heart, the man is 
 glorified who enjoys your approbation ; what, then, if he en- 
 joys your friendship ? ' 
 
 What articles of kind flattery and graceful falsehood she 
 must have poured from her pen for the thousand literary friends 
 who all wrote books or verses, and who all demanded from her 
 praise public or praise private ! Every literary journal pro- 
 bably could bear evidence of this amiable mendacity of friend- 
 ship. Vicomte d'Arlingcourt, a French gentleman who tra- 
 velled through England and Ireland, and who assisted, it is 
 said, at the coronation of O'Connell upon Tara of the Kings, 
 writes to her ladyship on the publication of his travels in this 
 strain : — 
 
 ' I long to hear what the London journals say about it. 
 No doubt at your solicitation they will accord me a favourable 
 notice. Let some rays of your glory fall upon my humble 
 work laid at your feet, and its success will be brilliant, and its 
 author will bless you.^ 
 
 Again : — 
 
 ' Sweet sister, my travels will soon appear ; oh, sustain 
 them, protect them ! Let a palm leaf from your coronal fall 
 on them as a talisman of protection. There is no need to 
 recommend my pecuniary interests, for I know that you will 
 look after them also. 
 
 ' Talk of my book ! Make it talked of ! Patronised by 
 you it must become the fashion. . . . My tutelary angel, a 
 thousand thanks for your charming article in the '' Court Jour- 
 nal." Continue to help my book, sweet sister ; sustain its 
 steps upon a foreign soil.' 
 
 The correspondence, indeed, includes every memorable name 
 in English literature, from Lord Byron to Walter Savage 
 Landor, that noblest of literary veterans, the last of a Titan 
 
LADY ELESSINGTON 157 
 
 race, who retained the energy and force of youth with the 
 matured wisdom of an eighty years' life. His letters alone, full 
 of originality and deep thought, are worth the whole of Moore's 
 published correspondence put together, and what wisdom, 
 beauty, poetry, and sublimity in his immortal ' Conversations ! ' 
 Lady Blessington tells him in one of her letters how he is 
 praised, and he answers scornfully yet feelingly : — 
 
 ' I did not believe such kind things would be said of me 
 for a century to come. Perhaps, before we meet, even fashion- 
 able persons will pronounce my name without an apology, 
 and I may be patted on the head by dandies, with all the gloss 
 on their coats and unfrayed straps to their trousers. 
 
 ^ It occurs to me that authors are beginning to think it an 
 honest thing to pay their debts, and that they are debtors to 
 all by whose labour and charges the fields of literature have 
 been cleared and sown. We have been a rascally gang hither- 
 to. Few writers have said all the good they thought of others, 
 and fewer have concealed the ill. They praise their friends, 
 because their friends, it may be hoped, will praise them. As 
 these propensities seem inseparable from the literary character, 
 I have always kept aloof from authors where I could. 
 
 ' Southey stands erect, and stands alone. I love him no 
 less for his integrity than his genius. No man in our days 
 has done a twentieth part for the glory of literature/ 
 
 Of Coleridge he says : — 
 
 ' The opium-eater calls Coleridge the largest and most 
 spacious intellect, the subtlest and most comprehensive that 
 has yet existed amongst men. Impiety to Shakspeare ! treason 
 to Milton ! I give up the rest, even Bacon. Certainly since 
 their day we have seen nothing at all comparable to him. 
 Byron and Scott were but as gunflints to a granite mountain. 
 Wordsworth has one angle of resemblance ; Southey has 
 written more, and all well, and much admirably. Foster has 
 said grand things about me ; but I sit upon the earth with my 
 heels under me, looking up devoutly to this last glorious 
 ascension. Never ask me about the rest. If you do, I shall 
 only answer in the cries that you are likely to hear at this 
 
158 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 moment from your window — ^* Ground ivy ! ground ivy ! ground 
 ivy !"^ 
 
 One would like to quote every line that Landor has written, 
 but, as that is impossible, let us content ourselves with pluck- 
 ing and setting down a stray thought here and there. 
 
 Of Byron he says : — 
 
 ^Do not be angry with me for my sincerity as regards 
 Byron. The bosom of Byron never could hold the urn in 
 which the muse of Tragedy embalms the dead. There have 
 been four magic poets in the world. We await the fifth mon- 
 archy, and, like the Jews with the Messiah, we shall not be 
 aware of it till it comes.' 
 
 ' The Rhine, exclusive of its castles and legends, will bear 
 
 no comparison with the Lake of Como. It wants majestic 
 
 trees, it wants Italian skies, it wants idleness and repose — the 
 
 two most heavenly of heavenly things, the most illusory of 
 
 illusions — 
 
 ' Most things are real to me, except realities.' 
 
 'I detest the character of Rousseau, but I cannot resist his 
 eloquence. He had more of it, and finer than any man. 
 Demosthenes' was a contracted heart, and even Milton's was 
 vitiated by the sourness of theology.^ 
 
 ' I have this instant sent your note to poor . It has 
 
 made him very ill. He is about to publish a drama on the 
 Deluge, on which he tells me he has been engaged for twenty 
 years. You cannot be surprised that he is grievously and 
 hopelessly afflicted, having had water on his brain so long.' 
 
 ' I find that Coleridge has lost the beneficent friend at 
 whose house he lived. George IV., the vilest wretch in 
 Europe, gave him 1001. a year— enough, in London, to buy 
 three turnips and half an egg a day. Those men surely were 
 the most dexterous of courtiers who resolved to show William 
 that his brother was not the vilest, by dashing the half egg and 
 three turnips from the plate of Coleridge. No such action 
 as this is recorded of our administration in the British annals.' 
 
 ' The author of the " Arabian Nights " was the greatest 
 benefactor the East ever had, not excepting Mahomet. How 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 159 
 
 many hours of pure happiness has he bestowed on six-and- 
 twenty millions of hearers ! All the springs of the desert 
 have less refreshed the Arabs than those delightful tales, and 
 they cast their gems and genii over our benighted and foggy 
 regions.' 
 
 ' I am sorry you sent my '' Examination " by a private 
 hand. I never in my life sent even a note by a private hand. 
 Nothing affects me but pain and disappointment. Hannah 
 More says : "There are no evils in the world but sin and bile.'* 
 They fall upon me very unequally. I would give a good 
 quantity of bile for a trifle of sin, and yet my philosophy would 
 induce me to throw it aside. No man ever began so early to 
 abolish hopes and wishes. Happy he who is resolved to walk 
 with Epicurus on his right and Epictetus on his left, and to 
 shut his ears to every other voice along the road.' 
 
 ' After a year or more I receive your '' Reminiscences of 
 Byron." Never, for the love of God, send anything again by 
 a Welshman — I mean anything literary. Lord D.'s brother, 
 like Lord D. himself, is a very good man, and if you had sent 
 me a cheese would have delivered it safely in due season.' 
 
 ' When I was at Oxford I wrote my opinion on the origin 
 of the religion of the Druids. It appeared to me that Pytha- 
 goras, who settled in Italy, had ingrafted, on a barbarous and 
 bloodthirsty religion, the humane doctrine of the Metempsy- 
 chosis. It would have been vain to say, '^ Do not murder." No 
 people ever minded this doctrine ; but he frightened the sav- 
 ages by saying : '' If you are cruel, even to beasts and insects, 
 the cruelty will fall upon yourselves ; you shall be the same."' 
 
 ' Pardon me smiling at your expression, going to the root of 
 the evil. This is always said about the management of Ireland. 
 Alas ! the root of the evil lies deeper than the centre of the 
 earth.' 
 
 ' The surface of Wordsworth's mind — the poetry — has a 
 good deal of staple about it, and will bear handling ; but the 
 inner, the conversational and private, has many coarse, 
 intractable, dangling threads, fit only for the flock-bed 
 equipage of grooms. I praised him more before I knew more 
 
160 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 of him, else I never should ; and I might have been unjust to 
 the better part had I remarked the worse sooner. This is a 
 great fault, to which we are all liable, from an erroneous idea 
 of consistency/ 
 
 ' Infinite as are the pains I take in composing and correct- 
 ing my imaginary conversations, I may indulge all my idleness 
 in regard to myself. Infinite pains it has always cost me, not 
 to bring together the materials, not to weave the tissue, but 
 to make the folds of my draperies hang becomingly. When I 
 think of writing on any subject I abstain a long while from 
 every kind of reading, lest the theme should haunt me and 
 some of the ideas take the liberty of playing with mine. I do 
 not wish the children of my brain to learn the tricks of others.' 
 ' There are single sentences in the world far out-valuing 
 three or four hundred authors, all entire, as there have been 
 individual men out-valuing many whole nations. Washing- 
 ton, for instance, and Kosciusko, and Hofer, were fairly worth 
 all the other men of their time.' 
 
 ' I fee] I am growing old, for want of somebody to tell me 
 that I am looking as young as ever. Charming falsehood ! 
 There is a vast deal of vital air in loving words. ^ 
 
 'I will never write to please the public, but always to 
 instruct and mend it. If Colburn would give me twenty 
 thousand pounds to write a taking tiling^ I would not accept 
 it.' 
 
 These are but a few fragments chipped ofi* a great, re- 
 splendent mind ; yet we can judge of the quality by the 
 specimen. Most true, as the age and posterity will affirm, is 
 the testimony he has given of himself. Landor has never 
 written a line that does not speak to the spirit of man, as 
 with an angel's voice, bidding him come up higher ; though 
 he has selected pagan forms to be the oracles of his wisdom, 
 and shrined his genius in the old marble gods of the past. 
 
 The letters of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer and those of 
 Charles Dickens overflow with humour and radiant, playful 
 brilliancy, though the contrast of the two natures is mani- 
 fested in every opinion uttered. Dickens evidently looks on 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 161 
 
 life with the same earnest sadness and grave humour that 
 characterise his works ; while the sparkling, mocking irony of 
 Bulwer is flung recklessly over everything ; one true, sad feel- 
 ing, however, pervades his letters : ' Primavera per me non e 
 piu mai / ' (with me the spring of life is over). The contrast 
 of the two minds is strikingly shown in their opinions upon 
 Italy. Bulwer writes : — 
 
 ' I freeze in the desolate dulness of Home, with its prosing 
 antiquaries and insolent slaves. In Venice I found myself on 
 board a ship, viz. in prison, with the chance of being drowned. 
 In Florence I recognised a bad Cheltenham. In Naples I for 
 the first time find my dreams of Italy. What a climate, and 
 what a sea ! I should be in Paradise but for the mosquitoes ; 
 they devour me piecemeal ; they are worse than a bad con- 
 science, and never let me sleep at night.' 
 
 Of his Italian tour, Dickens writes : — 
 
 ' I had great expectations of Venice, but they fell im- 
 measurably short of the wonderful reality. The short time 
 I passed there went by me in a dream. I hardly think it 
 possible to exaggerate its beauties. A thousand and one 
 realisations of the thousand and one nights could scarcely cap- 
 tivate and enchant me more than Venice. . . . Naples dis- 
 appointed me greatly. If I had not mud I had dust, and 
 though I had un I still had the Lazzaroni ; and they are so 
 ragged, so dirty, so abject, so full of degradation, so sunken 
 and steeped in the hopelessness of better things, that they 
 would make heaven uncomfortable if they ever get there. I 
 did not expect to see a handsome city, but I did expect some- 
 thing better than that long dull line of squalid houses, which 
 stretches from the Chiaja to the Porta Capuana ; and while I 
 was quite prepared for a miserable populace, I had some dim 
 belief that there were bright rags among them, and dancing 
 legs, and shining, sun-browned faces ; whereas the honest 
 truth is, that connected with Naples I have not one solitary 
 recollection. The country round it charmed me. Who can 
 forget Herculaneum and Pompeii ? As to Vesuvius, it burns 
 away in my thoughts, beside the roaring waters of Niagara, 
 
 M 
 
162 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 and not a splash of the water extinguishes a spark of the fire ; 
 but there they go on, tumbling and flaming night and day, 
 each in its fullest glory.' 
 
 If Bulwer was not satisfied with Italy, he was at all events 
 more than pleased with Ireland, and writes thus : — 
 
 * I have been enchanted with the upper Lake of Killarney, 
 and a place called Glengariff ; and I think that I never saw a 
 country where nature more meant to be great. It is thoroughly 
 classical, and will have its day yet. But man must change 
 first.' 
 
 In one of Dickens's letters we have an interesting glimpse 
 of his own state of mind while composing those wondrous 
 novels that once enchanted the world. He writes from 
 Milan :— 
 
 ' I have been beset in many ways ; but I shut myself up 
 for one month, close and tight, over my little Christmas book, 
 " The Chimes." All my affections and passions got twined and 
 knotted up in it, and I became as haggard as a murderer long 
 before I wrote the end. When I had done, I fled to Venice, 
 to regain the composure I had lost.' 
 
 Again, two years later, when from the ocean-depths of 
 thought a new creation is about to rise, he writes : — 
 
 ' Vague thoughts of a new book are rife within me just 
 now, and I go wandering about at night into the strangest 
 places, according to my usual propensity at such a time, seek- 
 ing rest and finding none.' 
 
 How completely this description gives one the idea of a 
 man 'possessed,' spirit-driven — a prophet commissioned to 
 utter the life-giving word to men's souls, and finding no rest 
 until he uttered it ! And this is no extravagant expression of 
 the mission of a great writer — one who, like Dickens, could 
 descend even to the very depths of physical wretchedness to 
 show us that God's impress of divinity on man is universal 
 and eternal. 
 
 But we might continue stringing epistolary gems ad 
 ivfi7iitum from the Blessington correspondence. There are 
 letters from that wonderful compound of poetry and iDolitics, 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 163 
 
 D'Israelij in which can be traced evidence of both these 
 tendencies, along with the sarcastic contempt he seemed 
 to cherish for all political parties ; and eulogistic letters 
 from the great Wellesley, and friendly ones from the greater 
 Wellington — one of whose wise remarks touching visits of 
 ceremony is worth quoting. He writes : ' There is no time 
 so uselessly employed as by a visitor, and him upon whom 
 the visit is inflicted.' In fact, the ceremonies of Jus*£rer- 
 naut are mild to the sacrifices exacted by social ceremonial. 
 There the body only is killed — crushed, and killed at once — 
 but in the meaningless morning visitings of ladies, deliberate 
 murder and patient suicide of souls is perpetrated with 
 remorseless punctuality. 'Time,' says Goethe, 'is a great 
 curse to those who believe that they are born only to kill it.' 
 When will men and women learn the value of our most 
 precious heritage — the golden sands of life ? 
 
 Sir William Gell and Jekyll are the two correspondents 
 who pour forth best that clever gossip in the French style of 
 a century ago. The latter tells anecdotes pleasantly ; as thus : 
 ' We had at the bar a learned person, whose legs and arms 
 were so long as to afford him the title of Frog Morgan. In 
 the course of an argument he spoke of our natural enemies, 
 the French ; and Erskine, in reply, complimented him on an 
 expression so personally appropriate.' 
 
 ' A toady of old Lady Cork, whom she half maintains, 
 complained to me of her treatment. " I have," she said, " a 
 very long chin, and the barbarous countess often shakes me 
 by it." It seemed without remedy, as neither the paroxysm 
 nor the chin could be shortened.' 
 
 Jekyll's love for London life was so great that he said, if 
 he were compelled to live in the country, he would have the 
 approach to his house paved like the streets of London, and a 
 hackney coach to drive up and down all day long. 
 
 An act of kindness towards the memory of ' L. E. L.' gives 
 Dr. Madden the opportunity to introduce a vast deal of most 
 interesting matter concerning the last few fatal months of 
 Mrs. Maclean's life at Cape Coast Castle. Lady Blessington 
 
 M 2 
 
164 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 had commissioned the editor to erect, at her expense, a marble 
 slab over the grave of the unhappy poetess, which up to that 
 time (three years after her death) had remained without a 
 record. Dr. Madden having an official appointment at the 
 time on the West Coast of Africa, became a guest of Mr. 
 Maclean at Cape Coast Castle for some weeks, and thus had 
 ample means of informing himself as to the kind of person 
 with whom ' L. E. L.' had unfortunately united herself, and 
 also could judge of the desolate existence for which she had 
 exchanged the brilliancy of a successful London literary career. 
 No European lady resided at the settlement. The castle was 
 nothing better than a lone dismal fort, near a village of 
 half-caste population. The scenery, ' a wilderness of seared 
 verdure, a jungle and a swamp, realising the very ideal of 
 desolation/ And the husband of the first lyric poetess of 
 England, the Sappho of the age, is described by Dr. Madden 
 as a person whose only intellectual qualification was a study 
 of barometers and thermometers, and whose only taste was for 
 algebraic calculations. ' He spoke contemptuously of litera- 
 ture, and affected scorn, even loatJiing^ for poetry and poets. 
 By long privation of the society of educated women previous 
 to his marriage he had become selfish, coarse-minded, cynical, 
 a colonial sybarite, who, when his bouts of revelry were 
 over, devoted himself to theodolites, sextants and quadrants.' 
 Openly he expressed to his wife his contempt for verse-making, 
 and wished to force her to devote her entire time to the 
 performance of the lowest household duties. 
 
 Everyone knows what led her into this fatal marriage. 
 Unlike Lady Blessington, she had no prestige of rank or 
 wealth to enable her to bear up against social opinion, whether 
 slanderous or true ; and, to escape the evils of her position, 
 she rashly, in a fit of terrible desperation, resolved to go 
 through with the marriage then offered to her, at all hazards, 
 even of her life. Her feelings at the time may be judged of 
 by some verses, ahnost the last she wrote, and which conclude 
 with these mournful stanzas : — 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 165 
 
 Still is the quiet cloister wanted, 
 For those who look with weary eye 
 On life, hath long been disenchanted, 
 Who have only one wish — to die. 
 
 Then were that solemn quiet given. 
 That life's harsh, feverish dreams deny ; 
 Then might the last prayer rise to heaven, 
 * My God I I prithee, let me die 1 ' 
 
 The circumstances of her death are also familiar to every- 
 one. On the morning of October 15 she rose early to 
 write letters to some friends in England, by a ship to sail 
 next day. In about an hour she called for a cup of coflfee ; 
 and when the attendant brought it to her chamber, ' L. E. L. ' 
 lay stretched a corpse upon the floor — she had drunk poison. 
 That same night she was buried, just four months after her 
 ill-omened marriage. 
 
 These events are known, but not the secret misery she had 
 endured during those four months, and which she revealed but 
 to one person. All her other letters, Avritten to friends and 
 acquaintances, are full of fabled accounts of her happiness. 
 And if the poison-cup was lifted to her lips intentionally^ we 
 cannot wonder after reading those revelations. 
 
 Lady Blessington, in a letter full of startling details, gives 
 the true account of ' L. E. L.^s ^ position, as she had it herself 
 from the one only person to whom the unhappy Mrs. Maclean 
 confided the misery endured in her African bondage. The 
 letter is here given entire, as every line has interest : — 
 
 * Gore House : January 29, 1839. 
 
 ' My dear Madam, — Indisposition must plead my excuse 
 for not having sooner given you the sad particulars I promised 
 in my last ; when that cause for my silence had subsided, the 
 dangerous illness of Lord Canterbury threw me into such 
 alarm and anxiety, that it is only to-day, when letters from 
 Paris assure me that he is recovering, that I feel equal to the 
 task of writing. 
 
166 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 ' Poor dear L. E. L. lost her father, who was a captain in 
 the army, while she was yet a child. He had married the 
 widow of an army agent, a woman not of refined habits, and 
 totally unsuited to him. On his death, his brother, the late 
 Dean of Exeter, interested himself for his nephew and niece, 
 the sole children left by Captain Landon ; and deeming it 
 necessary to remove them from their mother, placed the girl 
 (Poor L. E. L.) at school, and the boy at another. At an 
 "unusually early age she manifested the genius for which she 
 afterwards became so deservedly popular. On leaving school, 
 her uncle placed her under the protection of her grandmother, 
 whose exigence rendered the life of her gifted grandchild any- 
 thing but a happy one. Her first practical eff*usions were 
 published many years ago, and the whole of the sum they 
 produced was appropriated to her grandmother. 
 
 ' Soon after, L. E. L. became acquainted with Mr. , 
 
 who, charmed with her talents, encouraged their exertion by 
 inserting her poems in a literary journal with all the en- 
 comiums they merited. This notice drew the attention of 
 publishers on her, and, alas ! drew also the calumny and 
 hatred of the envious, which ceased not to persecute her 
 through her troubled life, but absolutely drove her from 
 her native land. There was no slander too vile, and no 
 assertion too wicked to heap on the fame of this injured 
 
 creature. Mr. , a married man, and the father of a 
 
 large family, many of whom were older than L. E. L., was said 
 to have been her lover, and it was publicly stated that she had 
 become too intimately connected with him. Those who dis- 
 believed the calumny refrained not from repeating it, until it 
 became a general topic of conversation. Her own sex, fearful 
 of censure, had not courage to defend her, and this highly 
 gifted and sensitive creature, without having committed a 
 single error, found herself a victim to slander. More than one 
 advantageous proposal of marriage was made to her ; but no 
 sooner was this known than anonymous letters were sent to the 
 persons who had wished to wed her, filled with charges against 
 her honour. Some of her suitors, wholly discrediting these 
 
LADY BLESSINGTON 167 
 
 calumnies, but thinking it due to her to refute them, insti- 
 gated inquiries to trace them to the original source whence 
 they came ; not a single proof could be had of even the 
 semblance of guilt, though a thousand were furnished of 
 perfect irnocence. Wounded and humiliated, poor L. E. L. 
 refused to wed those who could, however worthy the motive, 
 seem to doubt her honour or instigate inquiry into her 
 conduct, and from year to year dragged on a life of mortifi- 
 cation and sorrow. Pride led her to conceal what she 
 suffered, but those who best knew her were aware that for 
 many months sleep could only be obtained by the aid of 
 narcotics, and that violent spasms and frequent attacks of the 
 nerves left her seldom free from acute suffering. The effort to 
 force a gaiety she was far from feeling increased her sufferings, 
 even to the last. The first use she made of the money pro- 
 duced by her writings was to buy an annuity for her grand- 
 mother ; that grandmother whose acerbity of temper and 
 wearying exigence had embittered her home. She then went 
 to reside in Hans Place with some elderly ladies, who kept a. 
 school, and here again calumny assailed her. Dr. M., a 
 married man, and father of grown daughters, was now named 
 as her paramour ; and though his habits, age, appearance and 
 attachment to his wife ought to have precluded the possibility 
 of attaching credence to so absurd a piece of scandal, poor 
 L. E. L. was again attacked in a manner that nearly sent her 
 to the grave. This last falsehood was invented a little more 
 than four years ago, when some of those who disbelieved 
 the other scandal affected to give credit to this, and stung 
 the sensitive mind of poor L. E. L. almost to madness by 
 their hypocritical conduct. About this time Mr. Maclean 
 became acquainted with her, and after some months proposed 
 for her hand. Wrung to the quick by the slanders heaped on 
 her, she accepted his offer ; but he deemed it necessary to 
 return to Cape Coast Castle for a year before the nuptials 
 could be solemnised. He returned at the expiration of that 
 term, renewed his offer, and she — poor dear soul ! — informed 
 all her friends, and me amongst the number, of her acceptance 
 
168 MEN, WOMEN, AND LOOKS 
 
 of it, and of her intention of soon leaving England with him. 
 Soon after this Mr. Maclean went to Scotland, and remained 
 there many months, without writing a single line to his 
 betrothed. Her feelings under this treatment you can well 
 imagine. Beset by inquiries from all her friends as to where 
 Mr. Maclean was, when she was to be married, &c. &c., all 
 indicating a strong suspicion that he had heard the reports 
 and would appear no more, a serious illness assailed her, and 
 
 reduced her to the brink of the grave ; when wrote 
 
 and demanded an explanation from Mr. Maclean. 
 
 ^ He answered that, fearing the climate of Africa might 
 prove fatal to her, he had abandoned the intention of marry- 
 ing, and felt embarrassed at writing to say so. 
 
 ^ She, poor soul ! mistook his hesitation and silence for 
 generosity, and wrote to him a letter fraught with affection ; 
 the ill-starred union was again proposed, but on condition 
 that it should be kept a secret even from the friends she was 
 residing with. From the moment of his return from Scotland 
 to that of their departure he was moody, mysterious, and ill- 
 humoured — continually sneering at literary ladies — speaking 
 slightingly of her works — and, in short, showing every 
 
 symptom of a desire to disgust her. Sir remonstrated 
 
 with her on his extraordinary mode of proceeding, so did all 
 her friends ; but the die was cast. Her pride shrunk from 
 the notion of again having it said that another marriage was 
 broken off, and she determined not to break with him. 
 Mystery on mystery followed ; no friend or relative of his — 
 thoucrh an uncle and aunt were in London — sanctioned the 
 marriage ; nay, more, it is now known that, two days previous 
 to it, he, on being questioned by his uncle, denied positively 
 the fact of his intention to be married. 
 
 ' The marriage loas a secret one, and not avowed until a 
 very few days previous to their sailing for Africa ; he refused 
 to permit her own maid, who had long served her, to accom- 
 pany her, and it was only at the eleventh hour that he could 
 be induced to permit a strange servant to be her attendant. 
 His conduct on board ship was cold and moody ; for her 
 
L.IDY BLESSINGTON 169 
 
 broken-hearted , whom I have seen, told me that the 
 
 captain of the ship said that Mr. Maclean betrayed the 
 utmost indifference towards her. This indifference continued 
 at Cape Castle, and, what was worse, discontent, ill-humour 
 and reproaches at her ignorance of housekeeping met her 
 
 every day, until, as she writes to , her nerves became so 
 
 agitated that the sound of his voice made her tremble. She 
 was required to do the work of a menial ; her female servant 
 was discharged, and was to sail the day that the hapless 
 L. E. L. died. She has come to Enorland. L. E. L. thus 
 
 writes to her : '^ There are eleven or twelve chambers 
 
 here empty, I am told, yet Mr. Maclean refuses to let me have 
 one of them for my use, nor will he permit me to enter the 
 bedroom from the hour I leave it, seven in the morning, until 
 he quits it at one in the afternoon. He expects me to cook, 
 wash, and iron ; in short, to do the work of a servant. I 
 never see him till seven in the evening, when he comes to 
 dinner ; and when that is over he plays the violin till ten 
 o'clock, when I go to bed. He says he will never cease correct- 
 ing me until he has broken my spirit, and complains of my 
 temper, which, you know, was never under heavy trials bad.'' 
 
 ' This was the last account Mr. ever received. Judge, 
 
 then, of his wretchedness. 
 
 ' It is now known that Mr. Maclean had formed a liaison 
 at Cape Castle with a woman of the country, by whom he had 
 a large family ; such liaisons are not considered disreputable 
 there, and the women are treated as wives. This person lived 
 in the castle as its mistress, until the arrival of Mr. Maclean 
 and poor L. E. L., when she was sent off up the country. This 
 woman was the niece of one of the merchants who sat on the 
 inquest. All the servants, with the exception of the man and 
 his wife brought out by L. E. L., were the creatures of the 
 former mistress ; the whole of the female natives detest English 
 women, because the presence of one then banishes them from 
 the society where they are tolerated in their absence. 
 
 ' Mr. Maclean admits that indisposition and mental annoy- 
 ance must have rendered him far from being a kind or agree- 
 
170 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 able companion to poor Letitia ; but adds that, had she lived a 
 little longer, she would have found him very different, as he was, 
 when not ill and tormented by various circumstances, which he 
 does not explain, easy and good-tempered to a fault. He says, 
 that never w^as there so kind or so faultless a being on earth 
 as that poor girl, as he calls her, and that he never knew her 
 value until he had lost her. In fact, his letter seems an answer 
 to charges preferred against him by the departed, and, what is 
 strange, the packet that brought the fatal news brought no 
 
 letter of recent date for , though she never missed an 
 
 opportunity, and they occur rarely, of writing to him. Her 
 letters, all of which have breathed the fondest affection for him, 
 admit that she had little hope of happiness from her stern, cold 
 and morose husband. I have now, my dear madam, given you 
 
 this sad tale. I have perused all her letters to , as well as 
 
 Mr. Maclean's to him. I ought to add that, when they landed 
 in Africa, Mr. Maclean set off, leaving his wife, and proceeded 
 to the castle, to dislodge his mistress and children. The 
 natives were angry and offended at seeing their countrywoman 
 driven from her home. 
 
 ' Believe me, my dear Madam, 
 
 ' Your ladyship's very sincerely, 
 
 ' M. Blessington.' 
 
 This is a mournful tale, but it may be accepted as a perfectly 
 true statement of the sad fate of England's sweetest singer. 
 
171 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 George Eliot was decidedly the most popular of all the 
 female novelists of recent times ; and is still adored, as with- 
 out rival or equal, by a vast world of fanatical worshippers. 
 Her reputation was world-wide ; and she exacted homage 
 from all the leading men of the day, more, however, by her 
 conversation, which was singularly profound and interesting, 
 than even by her works. She achieved also an unexampled 
 financial success. No other woman, perhaps, of her generation 
 realised forty thousand pounds by writing. And she deserved 
 it, for she strove earnestly to perfect her work, though often 
 in the effort to seem wise she attained only to being dull. 
 Yet ' Romola ' is a great book to add to literature ; sufficient 
 to ensure lasting fame to the author, even had she written 
 nothing else ; but in ' Daniel Deronda ' and several of her 
 later works she enforces her views with rather too much 
 wearisome prolixity and assertive dogmatism. She is deter- 
 mined on teaching, and will interrupt a love-scene with a dis- 
 quisition on the return of the Jews or the appearance of 
 infusoria under the microscope. 
 
 She also abounds in commonplaces, delivered in language of 
 oracular obscurity, as if they were deep truths brought to the 
 surface for the first time, and given to us covered with the 
 hard grit of primitive formations. 
 
 ' Middlemarch ^ especially exhausts our patience by page 
 after page of pretentious commonplace ; and probably no 
 amount of bribery would induce anyone to read it through a 
 second time. 
 
172 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Midcllemarch is a small provincial place, within and around 
 which are located the persons introduced to our notice. Chief 
 of those is the heroine, Miss Brooke — a young lady of birth 
 and fortune, whose head is filled with schemes of social regen- 
 eration, to be worked out mainly by improved labourers' 
 dwellings, for which she is always drawing new plans, while 
 teasing her friends incessantly on the subject. A young lady 
 of birth, beauty, and fortune devoting herself to social regen- 
 eration might be made a very splendid central figure of a 
 drama ; and we are led to expect great things from the preface, 
 where Santa Theresa — the most gifted of female writers, as well 
 as the holiest of women, whose words glowed with a lofty and 
 spiritual eloquence seldom equalled, and whose life was an 
 incessant manifestation of angelic zeal in the cause of God and 
 for the good of humanity — is presented to us as the type from 
 which Miss Brooke is drawn, but with what miserable result 
 all readers can judge for themselves. The lofty, ideal woman, 
 with the ' soul-hunger ' for some great purpose, ' enamoured of 
 intensity and greatness,' ' yearning to sway the destinies of 
 mankind,' which the author tells us she is going to describe, 
 is never manifested by word or deed. Dorothea Brooke is 
 simply a foolish young person, with a brain full of crotchets, 
 but utterly devoid of common sense ; and with her prosy say- 
 ings and stupid projects is about the most wearisome creation 
 ever introduced into a novel. Before the volume is half 
 ended she marries an old philosopher, equally prosy, described 
 by a lady friend, with a coarseness not unusual to George 
 Eliot, as ' bad as the wrong physic ; nasty to take, and sure 
 to disagree.' 
 
 About this period of the story we get a glimpse of a cousin 
 of the ancient bridegroom, a young man of Polish blood, an 
 artist — poor, clever, and evidently unscrupulous ; and we feel 
 that something may be worked out of him. He may fall in 
 love with the young woman who 'yearns/ or poison the 
 ancient philosopher, who already fears that his young wife 
 may be troublesome while he is writing his great history of 
 the Aryan Myths. But for this faint hope of a passion and a 
 
GEOEGE ELIOT 173 
 
 tragedy no one would have courage to cut the leaves of the 
 second volume. Of the bridegroom, we are told that ' his 
 blood under a microscope was found to be all semicolons and 
 parentheses/ and of the young cousin, that he laughed deri- 
 sively to himself when he beheld the ill-assorted pair. 
 
 The philosophic husband, in fact, only wants a steady good 
 young person to look after his house and comforts and read 
 aloud to him, as his eyes are failing. Yet, even though his 
 blood did run into punctuation, George Eliot need not have 
 made him write love-letters of such ponderous obscurity as 
 the one where he tells Miss Dorothea Brooke of his desire to 
 marry her in adverbs of extraordinary length. 'A conscious- 
 ness,' he says, ' of need in my own life arose contemporane- 
 ously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with 
 you ! and I find in you an eminent fitness to supply that 
 need, connected, I may say, with such activity of the affections 
 as even the preoccupation of a work too special to be aban- 
 doned would not uninterruptedly dissimulate.' 'And,' he 
 adds, ' I now felt convinced emphatically of the feelings I had 
 preconceived, thus evoking more decidedly those affections to 
 which I have referred.' 
 
 No man of ordinary human nature, and more than average 
 intellect, could indite such jargon, and the author has failed 
 completely in her endeavour to sketch either the man of letters 
 and learning or the woman of lofty aims and high purpose. 
 "When De Stael wished to give the world a picture of a woman 
 of genius, passion, and poetry, she drew Corinne, and has made 
 the type immortal ; Bulwer, in his Lady Florence Lascelles, 
 has perfected the vision he had dreamed of one of the queens 
 of society reigning by sovereign right of beauty, rank, wealth, 
 and brilliant intellect ; and Disraeli, when he created ' Theo- 
 dora,' gave a magnificent illustration to literature of one of 
 those rare and splendid women who can inspire multitudes and 
 sway nations by the powerful and magnetic force of their pas- 
 sionate convictions. But George Eliot has added no new page 
 to the history of what a woman might be, nor has she created 
 a type, except in 'Romola ,' to interest and inspire. A whole 
 
174 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 intinity separates her heroine, Dorothea Brooke, from the glow- 
 ing, impassioned, eloquent Santa Theresa, whose words and works 
 can still kindle an answering fire in human hearts, though the 
 shadow of three centuries rests on them. 
 
 George Eliot has a keen insight into ordinary human life 
 and commonplace natures ; some humour — a strong trenchant 
 way of describing what lies on a certain low social level, and a 
 sharp, rough power of sarcasm. These are her gifts as a writer, 
 and not without fitness has she assumed a man's name, for she 
 has more of the masculine nature, strong, hard, keen, and some- 
 what coarse, than of the passionate, glowing, sympathetic 
 woman's intellect. There is a rector's wife in the book who, 
 though described as well-born and bred, utters many of those 
 coarse phrases in which George Eliot's works abound. This 
 lady describes the philosopher as ' a great bladder for dried peas 
 to rattle in ;' she believes in birth and no birth, ' as in game 
 and vermin ;' she says, ' Some people never know vinegar from 
 wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic ;' she calls a 
 gentleman ' pulpy.' However, there is some humour in the 
 description of the philosopher's family arms, 'three cuttle 
 fish, sable, and a commentator rampant.' Celia Brooke is 
 rather amusingly drawn — the young lady who hates energy and 
 emphasis, and wonders how well-bred people can distort their 
 faces by excitement and look like turkey cocks. The uncle, 
 also, Mr. Brooke, is cleverly touched off. The man who has 
 travelled in his youth and met many celebrities, and trifled over 
 every science, and who is ready at any moment to take a mental 
 scamper over all countries and all subjects with the most ready 
 and voluble incoherence — he is described as having ' a glutin- 
 ously indefinite mind.' 
 
 But there is too much exhaustive analysis of all the petty 
 people of the petty town of Middlemarch. Why are we to be 
 bored with the sayings and doings of these very commonplace 
 persons — the mayor and his wife, who was an innkeeper's 
 daughter, and their pseudo-fashionable children, who are 
 ashamed of their mother's English ; the old miser with his 
 horrid lot of r3lations, each striving for his money ; and the 
 
GEOEGE ELIOT 175 
 
 doctor, and the banker, and the f oxhunter, who swears ' By God ' 
 on the most trivial occasions, which is very offensive — could 
 not the author make him say ' By Jove ! ' it is at least harmless — 
 and she is fond of classic allusions ? Indeed, there is one passage 
 about Herodotus and lo so very misty that we should require 
 that ' commentator rampant ' of whom she speaks to make it 
 intelligible. These provincial people seem in no way connected 
 with the story of the lady who has the ' soul-hunger ^ for exalted 
 deeds, and it would be well, perhaps, to kill them all right off 
 by a railway smash in the early part of the next volume. 
 
 Altogether, ' Middlemarch ' is a dull book, without any 
 development of that mystic working of a gifted woman's mind 
 foreshadowed in the preface. Occasionally there are glimpses 
 of that insight into life for which the author has been celebrated, 
 as in the expression of truths like this: ' There is a wonderful 
 frank charm in the intimacy between a man and a woman 
 where there is no passion to hide or to confess.' But these 
 passages of simple truth, expressed in clear, lucid language, are 
 few and far between. George Eliot's style in general has the 
 fatal affectation of being learned. There is an illustration, 
 d propos of match-making, taken from vortices, hairlets, water- 
 drops, and infusoria, which has too much of a polytechnic 
 flavour ; also, her comparison of the mind of a woman to ' an 
 irregular solid.' Women are very pretty story-tellers, but they 
 are only good writers through sympathy and love. They should 
 know the range of their limited mental powers, and keep within 
 it if they wish to interest. An affectation of learning spoils 
 them, because it is never more than an affectation ; no woman 
 is really learned ; perhaps she would be very disagreeable if she 
 were so. A logical dogmatic female is detestable. The great 
 charm of the sex is in that light superficiality, which gives 
 sympathy so readily ; believes everything through love, and 
 seeks no grounds for belief beyond faith in the one beloved. 
 Our legions of female novelists — and they submerge the land — 
 ou<^ht to know that their peculiar mission is to reveal and 
 anahse the working of the heart ; in this they may succeed 
 better than men, but they can never expect to vie in power, 
 
176 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 knowledge of life, in the eloquence that comes by culture, or 
 the wit that comes by nature, with the more richly endowed 
 and more highly educated sex. Mca are perpetually adding 
 names to literature that will last for all time — women never. 
 Amongst the male novelists of the day, this age crowns two 
 at least with immortality — Bulwer and Disraeli — but not 
 one woman, though they write by thousands. Not even George 
 Eliot herself, called by the London critics the greatest female 
 writer of the world, can hope to live beyond the passing moment. 
 The fragrance distilled from the glowing feelings, crushed lives, 
 and perhaps broken hearts of literary women may refresh a few- 
 idle hours of man's more earnest life. It is enough — the world 
 asks no more from them than to amuse or soften through 
 sympathy the powerful ruling race for whom woman was cre- 
 ated only to be the helpmeet ; but no one can be expected to 
 care much or long for vanished fragrance, a crushed flower, a 
 faded life, or the wrecks of broken hearts, from which most 
 female writers draw their experiences, unless, indeed, the love 
 tales were embalmed in such prose and verse as men only can 
 write, and which women have never equalled. 
 
 Why cannot English novelists see the superior force, 
 beauty, and power of the French style of writing, where a 
 line, a word, is made to unfold a character or express a 
 dramatic situation, and the line or word reveals more of 
 both in a sudden flash than all the long-winded descriptive 
 sentences of English writers, with their numerous clauses and 
 concatenations ? 
 
 George Eliot has much of this fatal tendency to the in- 
 sufferably prosy. She is always sermonising in an instructive, 
 parochial way, and giving us her own views, in place of 
 allowing her characters to reveal them by swift, dramatic 
 touches. Nearly all the second volume, for instance, is entirely 
 destitute of incident or scenic efiect. It consists simply 
 of a treatise on medical jurisprudence, hard, harsh, and pre- 
 tentious in style, inspired by a Dr. Lydgate, who seems a pet 
 of the author's, or at least a peg to hang her theories on 
 concerning jurymen, medicines, and medical law. All the 
 
GEOEGE ELIOT 177 
 
 characters talk with a ponderous verbosity in sentences of at 
 least twenty lines long, and of the most involved construction, 
 as if, like those of a legal document, they were to be paid for 
 according to their obscurity and length. 
 
 There is also much entomology in this portion of the work, 
 and a great deal about anatomy, with incidental phrases too 
 coarse for quoting ; so that altogether it is wearisome and 
 disagreeable, and does not in the least tend to the develop- 
 ment of the plot. The remainder of the volume has more 
 human interest. We are brouQ:ht to Rome, where Dorothea 
 (the girl of suppressed passions and undirected intellect) and 
 her grave, philosophic husband are passing the honeymoon, 
 but not too happily ; he, still collecting materials for his great 
 work on ancient myths, shut up all day in libraries, writing all 
 the evening ; she, weary, listless, solitary, sauntering through 
 picture-galleries with her maid and a paid guide ; and when 
 at home looking silently and wearily at her husband, walled 
 round by his books and papers, as if on an inaccessible island, 
 far away from her and all her feminine yearnings for love, 
 kind words, and sympathy — for, like all women, Dorothea 
 pined for companionship, for some expressions of gentle, genial 
 interest in her life, pleasures, employments, and pursuits. 
 These would have been more to her than all the picture- 
 galleries in the world ; but the grave, silent man, cd trenched 
 within his fortifications of manuscript and books, uever 
 dreamed that the poor, etiolated plant outside the circum- 
 vallation was dying for want of the sunshine of affection and 
 sympathy. Yet he liked her after a fashion — the cold literary 
 fashion — that is, he required her not to interrupt him by 
 word or caress, and, in return, he sent her off* to do Rome 
 with a hired cicerone, and thought he had thus arranged 
 everything necessary for their mutual happiness. He was an 
 excellent man in every respect ; still a suspicion would some- 
 times rise in his wife's heart that he was withal only a selfish 
 egotist who knew nothing of the needs of a woman's heart. 
 And he, who expected a wife to be a mere passive creature, 
 docile to orders, grateful for small favours, and without any 
 
 N 
 
178 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 aim beyond ministering to his comforts and securing to him 
 perfect quiet, was startled and troubled at the least claim she 
 made upon his time or attention. In fact, she was in his way, 
 except when he wanted a listener to whom he could expound 
 his views ; or some one to sort his papers and arrange his 
 notes. Thus, both began to see their illusions of happiness 
 crumbling to dust. Dorothea was often in tears, and her 
 husband looked graver and sterner than ever. In place of 
 the intellectual companion she had expected in a literary 
 husband, she finds that she has wedded only a composing 
 machine whose ' blood runs in semicolons.' And he feels 
 disturbed at the petulance that sometimes rises to her lips, as 
 it interrupts the cohesion of his ideas upon the great subject 
 of the common origin of myths. 
 
 It is just at this time that the Polish cousin comes again 
 
 upon the scene, and the drama begins to be interesting — 
 
 through the evidently coming conflict of passions and duties. 
 
 The brilliant, gifted, poetical artist becomes the companion of 
 
 Dorothea to the studios and picture-galleries, in place of the 
 
 hired guide, and a new fascination dawns upon her Ufe. 
 
 'There is a great charm,' George Eliot has said, 'in the 
 
 intercourse between a man and woman where there is no 
 
 passion to conceal or to confess,' but the difficulty is to have 
 
 the intercourse and intimacy without the passion. Few attain 
 
 to the philosophical balance, especially when genius lights up 
 
 and intensifies all words and feelings. We perceive at once 
 
 that these two — Dorothea and the artist — are falling helplessly 
 
 into a metaphysical passion of so-called friendship, fed with 
 
 much aesthetic talk over art and poetry and subtle analysis of 
 
 feelings. But Dorothea is pure as an angel all the while ; she 
 
 does not know that there are some people mystically and 
 
 mysteriously dangerous to others, who exercise an electric 
 
 influence over their mind and soul, an influence impossible 
 
 to resist, for it seems the product of some mystic and eternal 
 
 law of spiritual affinity ; and so she allows this subtle power 
 
 — call it mesmerism, magnetism, or psychic force — radiated 
 
 from her companion's presence to enfold her round without 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 179 
 
 an effort at resistance. The husband — when he lifts his 
 head from his books and his history — has some instincts of 
 jealousy, and his manner becomes more stern and sombre than 
 ever. So the second volume ends, leaving a grand opening 
 for a psychological study of human hearts, and a tragic 
 involvement of human lives to be worked out in the con- 
 cluding part of the work. George Eliot has a deep and 
 penetrating insight into life. And so we leave the three 
 principal actors in the drama to their fate in her powerful 
 hands. Will she save or slay ? Probably the latter, for such 
 tragic involvements seldom end happily. Will the husband, 
 from being only stern, become cruel ? Will the lover — 
 brilliant, reckless, loving, daring, passionate, and utterly un- 
 scrupulous — exert his fatal influence to the utmost ? — and the 
 woman, with all her noble resolves, her sacred, saintly sense 
 of wedded vows, her devotion to the good, the beautiful, and 
 the true — her lofty ideal of life — will she suffer herself to be 
 led to the edge of the precipice whose depth is infinite, while 
 all the time she fancies that her soul is springing forward on 
 a path of light to loftier regions and a diviner life ? The 
 flame has been kindled, the spell has been woven, and the 
 magnetic circle is closing around these three related lives ; 
 but we leave the reader to study the concluding volume, that 
 will give an answer as to the final result. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL 
 
 ft 
 
 Every important movement in history is associated with the 
 name of one great man, the guide, inspirer, leader, and victor 
 in the revolutions that change the destiny of nations. 
 
 The masses follow as he directs, act as he orders, and 
 achieve the victory as the result solely of his all-powerful 
 intellect and all-compelling force of will. So the name of 
 O'Connell is for ever associated with Catholic emancipation, 
 for by his will and intellect alone it was gained for the Irish 
 nation ; and the light of all the ages will rest on him while 
 the world endures, as the hero of a great work accomplished 
 for humanity. O'Connell's life truly was a wondrous drama, 
 with Ireland for the theatre and the whole civilised world as 
 spectators ; an apostolate of freedom, which, though limited 
 to his own country and race, yet acted, through sympathy, on 
 the farthest lands ; and finally, it was one long gladiatorial 
 wrestle against oppression and bigotry in which every step 
 was a combat, but every combat a factory. 
 
 What the sword was to Napoleon the brain was to O'Con- 
 nell — both mighty conquerors, one of the outer, the other of 
 the inner world ; one casting down crowns to prepare the 
 reign of democracy, the other overthrowing prejudices to 
 prepare the reign of truth. The life of O'Connell is, indeed, 
 the history of Ireland for nearly a century. Her sufferings, 
 her struggles, and her triumphs are indissolubly connected 
 with his name. He lived through all, incarnated all, and was 
 the avenger, the apostle, and the prophet of her people. 
 
 The Clan Conal, from which he descended, was an ancient 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 181 
 
 and heroic race ; and if pedigree be of value to a man who 
 
 could ennoble any name, he might trace his line through chiefs, 
 
 princes, and kings. 
 
 The year of his birth, 1775, was announced to the world 
 
 by the first cannons of American independence ; but on what 
 
 a land of slaves did his young eyes open ! 
 
 The penal laws were then in full force. One generation 
 
 had died in their fetters, another was passing away, and a 
 
 third springing to manhood, the slaves of this atrocious system, 
 which excluded the whole Roman Catholic nation from every 
 benefit of the constitution. ' It was a machine,' says Burke, 
 speaking of the penal laws, 'of wise and elaborate contrivance, 
 and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and 
 degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human 
 nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity 
 of man.' 
 
 Although but seven years of age when the glories of Grattan 
 and the Volunteers of '82 thrilled through the country, O'Con- 
 nell must have been old enough to feel that he belonged to a 
 proscribed and outcast race, who had no right to lift their 
 voice in the triumph which they were too degraded even to 
 assist in achieving. 
 
 As he grew older, and the ambitious spirit woke within 
 him with its consciousness of power and instincts of command, 
 can we not fancy how it chafed and fretted with indignant 
 scorn at beholding every avenue to fame, wealth, honour, glory, 
 banned and barred against him by England ? Excluded by 
 law from the university, the bar, the senate, and the army of 
 his own country ; even the facilities of common education 
 denied to him ; even the very ground he trod, descended to 
 his family from a long line of ancestors, was theirs only by 
 the sufi^erance of some conniving Protestant— what wonder 
 that the Catholic of that day had all the vices of a slave, and 
 only the virtues of a victim ? 
 
 All Catholics who could afford it resorted then to the 
 foreign colleges for education, and O'Connell left Ireland for 
 St. Omer's when he was fifteen. There is a letter of the 
 
182 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 president's extant, describing the impression made on him by 
 the future world-shaker. He writes — ' With respect to the 
 young O'Connell, I have but one word to utter. I never was 
 more mistaken in my life than I shall be if he is not destined 
 to make a remarkable figure in society.' 
 
 The French Revolution was then approaching its crisis, and 
 the degraded victim of the penal laws heard the rights of man 
 preached by thirty-five millions of self-emancipated people. 
 The very laws which made him an outcast threw him into the 
 arms of liberty, and thus destiny was working out a just 
 revenge on England. But the horrible excesses of anarchy 
 disguised under the mask of freedom which O'Connell witnessed 
 at the same time, also impressed him forcibly ; and, probably, 
 were influential in making him, throughout his long political 
 career, the earnest undeviating advocate of religion, peace, 
 and order. In '93 he returned to Ireland, a youth of eighteen, 
 with a fine manly person, fluent of speech, with something of 
 a French accent, and a brave, daring, upright, earnest heart. 
 With a strong prescience of his own powers he at once chose 
 the profession which would the soonest bring him into public 
 life and aff'ord him the noblest opportunities for the promotion 
 of his great objects, so he commenced his studies for the bar, 
 a profession of which Catholics had only recently obtained the 
 privilege of becoming members. 
 
 The severity of the penal laws had been gradually relaxed 
 by England in consequence of the American example of how 
 a country may retaliate on a government, and concessions 
 continued to be made, not from the dignity of attitude assumed 
 by the Catholics, but from the terror of French progress both 
 in ideas and arms. A century of slavery had, indeed, so de- 
 based the Catholic party of that day, that the removal of their 
 fetters gave them only political but no moral freedom, for 
 the iron had entered into their soul. In estimating the value 
 of O'Connell's efforts, we must consider this moral debasement 
 in which he found the Catholic nation when he became their 
 leader, and the fearless self- relying position they attained 
 through his teaching and guidance. It was a period when, as 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 183 
 
 Keogh describes, ' the Catholic would scarce dare to walk up- 
 right and erect as other men, but was marked by a certain 
 timidity of gait and demeanour, when the meanest Protestant 
 that crawled the streets considered himself a divinity compared 
 to him ; ^ so sunk and abject, that Catholics finally believed in 
 their own inferiority, and when petitioning to obtain the right 
 of voting, admission to the bar and the army, actually abjured 
 the idea of desiring or expecting unlimited and total emanci- 
 pation. The Catholic aristocracy held aloof from the people, 
 with the cold proud feelings of the old feudal times strong in 
 them, and, in their haughty Jacobinism, disdained to sue for 
 rights to a monarchy whose claims to allegiance they denied. 
 For the most part, therefore, they became voluntary exiles, and 
 attained rapidly those honours and distinctions in foreign lands 
 which were denied them in their own. But while the genius 
 and valour of the Irish nobles were raising other nations to 
 glory, the people of their own sank into a dull lethargy, in 
 which a sullen sense of wrong and desire for revenge without 
 the power were the only living principles. A benumbed 
 torpidity, like that which follows from protracted torture ; a 
 frozen deadly stillness, in which no generous emotion, no pas- 
 sionate enthusiasm could exist. A state like that loivest hell, 
 described by Dante, as of ice. 
 
 So long had they been outcasts from the constitution and 
 the privileges of education, that they were finally denied the 
 riofhts of fifentlemen ; and the descendant of some Protestant 
 base-born adventurer shuddered at familiar intercourse with 
 the proscribed race as much as a European might at contact 
 with a negro. The admission of the Catholic into society 
 was tabooed ; and while a foreign faction usurped his birth- 
 right in his own land, there was scarcely left to him even the 
 name of Irishman. Well might the victim of the penal laws 
 exclaim— 'The wretched have no country. That dear name 
 comprises home, kind kindred, fostering friends, protecting 
 laws— all that binds man to man. But none of these are 
 mine ; I have no country.' ^ 
 
 ^ Maturin's Bertram, 
 
184 MEN, WOIIEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Thus O'Connell found Ireland at the commencement of his 
 career, bound between apathy and brutal fanaticism. But he 
 at once placed himself at the head of the peojole^ and elevated 
 them to a sense of their own value, power, numerical influence, 
 and dip"nity of position, as the true Irish nation. He raised 
 them to such a preponderating force as a political engine that 
 all minor parties and timid cliques were constrained to join 
 the mi<^hty march of the masses or be trampled beneath their 
 feet. He cast down the pride of the cold, supercilious Catholic 
 aristocracy, by showing them that not their isolated attempts, 
 but the organised strength of the people, alone could break 
 their fetters. He then engaged the Catholic priesthood by 
 interest and affection to join the movement openly ; and so 
 for the first time, Ireland beheld all forces combined into one 
 overwhelming mass, whose voice, united and firm, no govern- 
 ment could resist — the voice of the leagued aristocracy, priest- 
 hood, and people, against English insolence, tyranny, and 
 oppression. 
 
 Keogh, the predecessor of O'Connell— and, as far as his 
 light and ability went, a consistent worker for Catholic free- 
 dom — was content with abject petitions for the repeal of the 
 penal laws, but was too timid to extend his views or desires 
 further. He never had the daring to stand on equal ground 
 with Protestants, and trembled to evoke a nation to his aid. 
 This tremendous engine in modern social revolutions — the 
 majestic force of a resolute, organised people was unknown to 
 him. O'Connell first discovered and then proved its efficacy : 
 and so, while Keogh and his colleagues toiled in their com- 
 mittees and uttered their supplications in so feeble a voice 
 that Ireland could not hear, and England despised them, the 
 mass of the people in their blind efforts to find the path to 
 freedom for themselves formed secret associations, with only 
 revenge for their counsellor and ignorance for their leader. 
 This preparation, or rather this chaotic tendency, made them 
 willinof instruments of the Revolution of ^98. 
 
 Although this rebellion was wholly a Protestant movement 
 and its object a Republic, the Catholics joined it because they 
 
DANIEL O'COXNELL 185 
 
 were promised freedom by so doing, but otherwise appear to 
 have taken no interest in the projects of the leaders. The 
 priesthood as a body was violently opposed to the movement ; 
 France had too lately trampled on the cross with the crown 
 for them to peril religion by a similar demonstration in Ireland. 
 Besides, the effect of the penal laws on Catholics was not to 
 turn them into Republicans, but rather to make them cling 
 with something of a chivalrous devotion to the memory of 
 that Stuart race who had lost a kingdom by attachment to 
 their faith, and at all times there is a much stronger affinity 
 between Protestantism and the Republican form of government 
 than between the Catholic and Republicanism. 
 
 Even now, when democratic and republican teaching is 
 permeating every corner of the world, and in England the 
 entire of the trading and working classes is deeply imbued 
 with its spirit and determined to carry out its doctrines, the 
 subject excites little sympathy amongst the Irish masses. 
 There is so deep a principle of veneration in the Celtic Irish 
 character, that it is perpetually tending to slavish submission ; 
 even to idol-worship. 
 
 In short, they are genuine hero-worshippers ; thus they 
 nearly elevated Father Mathew to a god and O'Connell to a 
 king ; and if a Republic should ever be established here as the 
 most fitting form of Irish government, the people will vainly 
 try to enlarge their hearts into a pantheon for the whole 
 Executive Government — their idolatry always taking the 
 monotheistic form ; and the President, whoever that fortunate 
 man may be, if he once possesses the affections of the people, 
 will find much difficulty in escaping the permanent honours of 
 Royalty from their devoted hands. 
 
 It was through their affections, far more than their inter- 
 ests, that O'Connell attained such imperial sway. Anyone 
 who attended a crowded meeting where O'Connell presided, 
 could not fail to be struck with wonder at the mass of human 
 faces all upturned to him in almost religious adoration ; these 
 rude and rugged countenances, furrowed by toil and want 
 and suffering, or with the savage instincts yet untamed by 
 
186 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 any civilisation, distinctly marked ; ready to avenge an insult 
 by a murder, yet all bent on him with childlike faith and trust 
 and love, believing everything he uttered, and believing even 
 the impossible possible because he uttered it. It was thus by 
 concentrating all affections that O'Connell combined all parties, 
 directed unopposed all forces, and brought them to bear with 
 tremendous, united, crushing power, upon the barriers which 
 exclude the people from the constitution. 
 
 O'Connell never in any manner countenanced the revolu- 
 tionary efforts of '98. On the contrary, we find him then in 
 the Lawyers' Corps, helping to keep the country for his 
 Majesty. Indeed, at no period of his life was he remarkable 
 for Republican tendencies, but rather was distinguished for 
 deference to rank, and a courteous admission of those privi- 
 leges usually conceded to persons in authority, but above all 
 for an unswerving determination to uphold order, even at the 
 sacrifice of rights. 
 
 He was called to the bar in the year 1798, and during that 
 stormy period devoted himself to intense study of his profes- 
 sion, rising at four o'clock of a winter's morning to light his 
 own fire, that he might commence his studies. This intense 
 application was one cause of his subsequent great success, for 
 perfect knowledge of a subject at once commands the attention 
 of an audience. He knew well that talent and genius are but 
 the rough material given by Nature — of no value to the world 
 until they take a definite form, and incarnate themselves in 
 some visible, tangible shape, either of beauty or utility ; and for 
 this there must be heart- crushing, and brain-sweat, and days 
 of solitude and nights of toil, and mind and body must be 
 taxed to the uttermost, before the rude marble of Paros can 
 rise into the majesty of the Parthenon. 
 
 His immediate success at the bar was unexampled, for, be- 
 sides perfectknowledge always of his subject and of his audience, 
 he had tact, wit, sarcasm, humour, irony, a great memory, and 
 the courage and self-possession of conscious power. Every 
 case in which he was named counsel was considered gained. 
 Jurors could not resist his persuasions, counsel his arguments, 
 
DANIEL O'CONXELL 187 
 
 nor judges his bold, unflinching daring, though but too often 
 ermined dogmatism, from its high places, strove to put down 
 the popular advocate by intimidation. At one trial he argued 
 clearly a disputed point, but the court ruled against him. 
 Next day the judge announced that he had discovered Mr. 
 O'Connell was right. ' Good God ! my lord,' he exclaimed, 
 ' if your lordship had known as much law yesterday morning 
 as you do this, what an idle sacrifice of time and trouble you 
 might have saved me.' On another occasion he offered some 
 advice to a witness. ' Have you a brief in this case, Mr. 
 O'Connell ? ' inquired the judge, wdth peculiar emphasis. ' No, 
 my lord,' he replied, ' but I loill have one when the case goes 
 to the assizes.' 'When /,' rejoined the judge, throwing him- 
 self back with an air of lofty scorn, ' was at the bar it was not 
 my habit to anticipate briefs.' ' When you were at the bar,' 
 retorted O'Connell, ' I never chose you for a model ; and, now 
 that you are on the bench, I will not submit to your dicta- 
 tion.' 
 
 His professional emolument reached finally to 10,000?. a 
 year, when he threw it all up to devote himself wholly to the 
 people, and his private fortune after he succeeded to Darry- 
 nane amounted to 4,000Z. a year ; so that it is absurd in the 
 highest degree to suppose that a man of 14,000?. a year could 
 have been influenced in establishing a political agitation by 
 the mere desire of pecuniary benefit. 
 
 In 1800 O'Connell first came forward in political life by a 
 speech against the Union. The Catholics in general made no 
 opposition to the passing of this measure, but rather give it a 
 tacit assent ; for Pitt promised concessions to them from the 
 Imperial Parliament of those rights wdiich the Protestant Irish 
 Parliament denied them. Such a bribe was not to be resisted ; 
 indeed, when Protestants chose to sell their own Parliament it 
 is not wonderful that Catholics, who derived no benefit from 
 its enactments, should care little for its continuance, compared 
 with the prospect of obtaining their freedom. 
 
 But Pitt deceived and betrayed them ; and though the 
 Union was effected Emancipation was as far as ever. 
 
1 88 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 It is singular that O'Conneirs first and latest efforts were 
 anti-union. In this, his maiden speech, he declared that he 
 would prefer even to have the penal laws re-enacted sooner 
 than give his consent to the annihilation of our native Parlia- 
 ment. From the moment of his entrance into public life he 
 became the soul of the Catholic party. 
 
 He was then twenty-five, with a fine, tall, manly, athletic 
 figure, and a noble, commanding air, with considerable dignity 
 about the carriage and movements of the head and shoulders. 
 Amongst ten thousand a stranger's eye would at once have fixed 
 on him as the true king. Even to the last he retained this 
 majesty of bearing. In his intelligent, expressive face, feel- 
 ing, passion, and quick emotion were more evident than great 
 intellect. The most striking characteristic of the countenance 
 was the excessive beauty and whiteness of the forehead. It 
 was delicately formed, too, rather broad than high, with no 
 demagogical lowering preponderance over the eyebrows. It 
 was the forehead of a poet much more than that of a logician. 
 His eyes were chameleon ; thoughtful or animated, or spark- 
 ling with wit and humour, according as the spirit moved him. 
 Yet, sometimes, particularly at crowded assemblies or meet- 
 ings on which some destiny was depending, there was a dream- 
 like, visionary, far-seeing stillness about them, as if he were 
 looking onwards from the present into futurity ; but the two 
 natures of which each individual character is composed were 
 united in the mouth — the passionate and the powerful, the 
 poet and the gladiator. Its form was true Celtic ; the long 
 upper lip denoting genius, and the flexibility of muscle which 
 shows a predestination for eloquence. Every emotion, from 
 tenderness to the bitterest sarcasm, this mouth could portray, 
 but the habitual expression was one of calm and dignified 
 mildness. Then, when those lips parted, what exquisite 
 modulations poured forth from them. Never, perhaps, since 
 sirens gave up sitting and singing upon rocks, did such witch- 
 music fall on the ear of listener. The effect was magical — it 
 acted like some potent spell ; Paracelsus never devised a 
 greater. Men were charmed, subdued, enchanted — forgot 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 189 
 
 everything but him, and could not choose but listen, love him, 
 and swear to do or die for him. 
 
 In the early part of O'ConnelFs career, his oratory was 
 highly finished, and often elaborately perfect, although he 
 never wrote his speeches previous to delivery ; but latterly he 
 seemed to disdain all massive phrases, and gave his ideas in 
 the briefest, simplest form, apparently quite careless of the 
 language in which they were conveyed — conscious that any 
 words were powerful, not from their own value, but because 
 he uttered them. He was often rude and coarse, when bold 
 rough words suited his purpose, for he could fight with all 
 weapons, from a boomerang to a jewelled bodkin. But this 
 very rudeness was often necessary to his success, and employed 
 upon principle. 
 
 Think of the fawning, crouching, servile habits he had to 
 conquer in his countrymen, the growth of a century of serf- 
 dom, by accustoming them to fight the oppressing dominant 
 faction with their own weapons. True, he sometimes rudely 
 tore the trappings and the stars from official villany and 
 coronetted corruption, but it was to show the people who were 
 the men who dared to trample on them. For example, the 
 superb insolence of his speech in ' Magee^s ' case is unsurpas- 
 sable for withering scorn and keen cutting sarcasm, which 
 never descends to use the war-club of invective, but kills with 
 a stroke like the electric fluid, as terrible, as impalpable, and 
 as deadly. This very daring was a triumph, although the 
 cause sustained a defeat. Each individual Catholic felt that 
 he was elevated by his leader's courage, and ennobled by the 
 lofty independence of this man who knew no fear. 
 
 O'Connell's powerful style, the strength with which he 
 wrestled with an argument, and hurled defiance or extorted 
 conviction, the athletic suppleness of his combats with men 
 and ideas, remind one of Luther's ' strong smiting words that 
 cleave into the very heart of a matter ; ' and of him also is 
 true what Jean Paul said of the monk of Eisleben, ' his speech 
 was a combat : few deeds ever equalled his words.' He had 
 much, too, of the eloquence foudroyante of Mirabeau, and of 
 
190 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 that haughty impatience of opposition which made the French 
 orator exclaim of his opponents, ' When right I argue : when 
 wrong / crush them ; ' something also of the tempestuous 
 energy of Danton, when his words like a rush of armed men 
 swept all obstacles before them ; but he had the eloquence of 
 Mirabeau without his egoism, and the energy of Danton with- 
 out his fierce recklessness of means. 
 
 Yet while O^Connell raised the passions of his hearers to 
 enthusiasm, to delirium, he himself never seemed under the 
 influence of passion as the exciting cause of eloquence. He 
 evidently stood far beyond that tempest region in the serene 
 heights of calm conviction. One other Irish orator possessed 
 this serene calm while swaying the feelings of a multitude, 
 as a moon to the ocean of their passions, and that was Father 
 Mathew. 
 
 From the commencement to the close of O'Conneirs life 
 he consistently maintained the same mode of warfare with 
 England — fighting within the lines of the constitution, Dever 
 outside them — and the grand forces he employed were organi- 
 sation, combination, union. Then, as Sheil said, ' the Catholics 
 of Ireland stood up in a solid square, and the tramp of six 
 millions of men was heard afar off.' At the same time he 
 affected gratitude for no concessions, but boldly and openly 
 before God and man demanded those rights which God had 
 bestowed and human reason consecrated, by one word — 
 justice. But so difficult a task was this organisation, that in 
 1805, when the first petition of Catholic claims was presented 
 to Parliament, much fear was entertained that a sufficient 
 number of signatures could not be procured ; yet O'Connell 
 ' was never weary when others fainted — never stopped when 
 others fell.' Even after twenty years of unceasing labour to 
 elevate and organise the people, to make them self-reliant, 
 morally courageous, with a sense of their own dignity and 
 rights as a nation, he could scarcely obtain forty members for 
 the first meeting of the Catholic Association, the same that 
 afterwards achieved Emancipation. It was founded in 1823, 
 and O'Connell describes himself as standing upon Carlisle 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 191 
 
 Bridge to kidnap, as it were, wavering men, and weak men, 
 and induce them to join the meeting. Yet these unpromising 
 efforts were so successful, that in one year the ' rent ' had 
 reached 1,000^. a week, and after the Clare election in '28 it 
 amounted to the enormous sum of 2,000/. a week. 
 
 Modern revolutions have been accomplished in a few 
 weeks, or even a few days, by the brave heroes of a barricade 
 with nothing but their stout arms and fearless hearts to aid 
 them ; but O'Connell toiled for thirty years before he could 
 attain his object. 
 
 He commenced the work in the prime, and vigour, and 
 first enthusiasm of twenty-five ; but the yellow had gained 
 upon the green of life before he triumphed. 
 
 He was fifty-four ere he could lift his head to Heaven as a 
 free man in his own land. However, the intervening period 
 was not spent in idle declamation. It was a period of moral 
 training and of steady progression ; it was a probation neces- 
 sary to make the slave of 1800 worthy to be the freeman of '29. 
 Every step of O'ConnelFs career was an advance, and every 
 advance a permanent possession, for rights demanded by 
 the firm and fearless voice of a united people and enforced by 
 the array of their majestic strength can never be resisted nor 
 revoked. O'Connell found a vast amount of quick excitable 
 feeling, a burning, intense sense of wrong pervading the 
 Catholic body ; but these feelings, undirected, uncombined, 
 only corroded hearts, but broke no fetters. They were rapidly 
 changing the free, open, generous Irish nature into a false, 
 malignant, cruel, revengeful national character, and no great 
 deeds can spring from such elements. He could easily have 
 directed all this wild power into a war of independence, but 
 the people had not yet reached to that state of organisation and 
 moral training which would have rendered defeat impossible. 
 Strong but blind, like Samson, they might indeed easily have 
 hurled down the edifice of English supremacy and crushed 
 their tyrants, but they themselves would have perished in the 
 ruins. His clear intellect saw at once that the only revolu- 
 
192 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 tionary forces fitted for that time were reason and common 
 sense. 
 
 He combated tyranny by public opinion, and, to make this 
 public opinion effective, he toiled to amass its force in 
 organised associations ; there the collected will, the concen- 
 trated volition of individual minds was piled up into a 
 tremendous galvanic battery, whose aggregate power nothing 
 could resist. 
 
 His first eff*orts were thus directed towards making the 
 degraded Catholics feel their own dignity — their own equal 
 position before God and man with the dominating faction. 
 He broke the moral fetters by teaching them clearly their 
 rights^ and placed their petitions for freedom on the higher 
 ground of a demand for justice, rather than as a favour to be 
 sued for from a government. At the same time, while awaken- 
 ing them to a consciousness of their power, he aroused in the 
 people a moral energy sufficient amid the highest exaltations 
 of patriotism to control their passions and enable them to 
 fulfil their duties. 
 
 During the thirty years' war of Catholic independence, 
 
 every means were tried to silence him but in vain. Each 
 
 shallow government fancied they could stifle the cry for fiee- 
 
 dom by placing the hand of the police upon the mouth of the 
 
 country ! Each ministry in turn thought itself strong to crush 
 
 him either by bribes or persecution : but all failed ; he made 
 
 each in turn subservient to his purpose, then flung them aside 
 
 in disdain when they had accomplished it ; flattering them 
 
 sometimes, because he knew all were corrupt — despising them 
 
 at all times, because none were sincere. So the great game 
 
 was played out for thirty years — the policy of England being 
 
 to treat Ireland like a salad, with oil and vinegar — alternate 
 
 coaxing and coercion — and O'Connell's to take all they gave, 
 
 and laugh at all they threatened. His thorough knowledge 
 
 of human nature, profound judgment, his sagacity, clairvoyance 
 
 of the future, guiding him like a Providence. Seldom indeed 
 
 was he known to fail even on minor points. His life was a 
 
 triumph over every government, without producing anarchy : 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 193 
 
 and he overthrew all laws that stood in his path without violat- 
 ing one. That he was the first statesman of his age is proved 
 by his success. The man who could rule the English Cabinet 
 — the mere Irish Catholic barrister — from his arm-chair at 
 Derrynane, without ever resorting to or inculcating one act of 
 violence to terrify it into submission, must have had an intellect 
 so great that we can only comprehend it partially by studying 
 some of its effects, and finding that, as he had no equal, so 
 he left no successor. True, the path he trod was often 
 tortuous. Noble, sensitive, poetical minds w^ould sometimes 
 prefer failure to success by such means as statesmen must 
 employ. These poet minds would rule well in some Utopia 
 where all were as pure and noble as themselves ; but in this 
 wicked world of ours, falsehood, cunning and malignity are 
 the arms generally selected by the opponents of right, and 
 against these, poetic virtues are no adequate defence. Nothing 
 can be more attractive than the theory of politics to a sublime, 
 elevated mind, for it is the science of human happiness ; but 
 the practical working out of details may be often revolting. 
 
 O'Connell, however, seized every weapon that came in his 
 way, with the audacity of conscious force, and trod down 
 fearlessly all opposition, all the old miserable cant that tlie 
 nation would be ruined if Catholics were admitted to political 
 and social equality with the Protestants of the Empire. 
 
 It is not, therefore, wonderful that the Irish people finally 
 believed in him with a faith that became almost part of their 
 religion, and loved him with an affection that was almost 
 idolatrous. Yet this mighty power which ruled Ireland, 
 controlled England, and influenced Europe, was not exercised 
 to aggrandise himself ; for who doubts but that the English 
 Ministry would gladly have purchased his silence at any price, 
 or that he could have raised himself to any elevation if he had 
 possessed the ambition, as he had the genius and the daring, of 
 a Wallenstein ? But in O'Connell there was no petty egotism 
 that would sell his country for a title and a ribbon, like the 
 traitors of 1800 or the inexorable ambition that would break 
 hearts to pave his path to power. And so he who could easily 
 
 o 
 
194 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 have become in reality the crowned monarch at Tara, was 
 content to die, as he had lived, only the tribune of the people. 
 
 Shiel, who had been his co-worker through all the Eman- 
 cipation struggle — the winged Ariel of the mighty Prospero 
 — yet with all his brilliant genius could never contest the 
 leadership with him. There was too much egotism in ShieFs 
 nature. His struggles for Emancipation were sincere — for 
 they were to emancipate himself ; but, that once gained, he 
 forgot that he had a country, and self-aggrandisement seemed 
 thenceforth the passion of his life and the motive of bis 
 actions. 
 
 When the victory of Emancipation had been gained, that 
 splendid moment of O^Conneirs career, the war of Repeal 
 began ; but, though O'Connell's personal influence and power 
 increased every year, he never could awaken the same all- 
 conquering enthusiasm for Repeal as for Emancipation. The 
 Act of '29 was a positive, tangible good. Every Catholic felt 
 its influence the moment it became law. But Repeal is not 
 a positive good — only a means to it. It does not give good 
 laws — only offers a better chance of having them passed. It 
 may effect all we wish ; but still it is only a captivating 
 hypothesis. In fact, it is but a word which, indeed, conveys 
 definite ideas of advance and improvement to the politician 
 and the philosopher, but nothing practical by which the 
 senses of the people can be excited. A Republic, on the 
 contrary, is an object which could easily enlist the passions of 
 the lower classes ; for the attainment of everything for which 
 they strive is necessarily included in the word. I^ot only in 
 theory does it offer the best chance of prosperity and liberty, 
 but certain great benefits must instantly fall to the lot of the 
 people the moment it becomes the government of the country, 
 such as diminution of taxes by the abolition of an expensive 
 royalty, equal rights to the soil of the country by the abolition 
 of primogeniture, and the rights of the people guaranteed by 
 their having a voice in the legislature. These are advantages 
 which a Republic necessarily brings with it, and, consequently, 
 it is an object which above all others awakens a permanent 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 195 
 
 and well-grounded enthusiasm, and justifies the most strenuous 
 efforts of the people to obtain. But the Irish people were 
 then quite unfitted for the heroic virtues which a Republic 
 demands. They knew nothing of governments but their 
 tyranny — of justice but its violation— of law but its relent- 
 lessness. A people whose rulers had made them thus debased, 
 degraded, and ignorant, were as inadequate to the duties of 
 self-government as the poor slaves who first leapt from their 
 chains in the emancipated colonies. O'Connell, therefore, 
 acted with consummate wisdom in not placing complete inde- 
 pendence before their eyes as the object to be gained : for, 
 without a high sense of duty, and the heroism of mutual 
 forbearance — a virtue then unknown to the contending parties 
 in Ireland — no independent government of stability and order 
 could exist. Even a native Parliament, had it been restored 
 at that time, would have produced no benefit to the nation, for 
 the Catholics were not then either strong enough or organised 
 enough to make their voice feared and respected ; consequently 
 the parliament would have fallen again into the power of the 
 same faction who had previously sold it to England. 
 
 In order, therefore, to make the Repeal of the Union poss- 
 ible yet gradual in its attainment, O'Connell year after year 
 fought for the attainment of minor measures, which, when 
 passed, gave real visible advantages to the national party ; thus 
 foot by foot gaining higher ground for the people, and, according 
 as he elevated, training them in the duties necessary for their 
 hio-her and more influential position. These minor measures 
 were in fact the real attraction which induced the people to 
 follow him in the onward path to Repeal ; and while thus 
 strengthening the national party, O'Connell knew he was in 
 the same proportion bringing the grand ultimate measure every 
 year more within the limits of possibility ; for in politics as in 
 literature, Goethe's advice is admirable, ' Aim at the highest, 
 but begin at the lowest.' 
 
 His moral-force agitation was a mighty ocean perpetually 
 heaving and dashing, and making fresh inroads upon the fixed 
 rocks of prejudice and bigotry, whirling into its vortex whatever 
 
 ^ 
 
196 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 stately vessel or tiny craft of a measure was put forth by 
 Ministers, absorbing its riches and then casting back the dis- 
 mantled hulk to the despairing launchers. He knew that Irish 
 independence could never be achieved by epileptic fits of mad 
 ferocity, and through his consummate leadership he gained 
 all for which he combated ' without the stain of a single crime 
 resting on the national cause/ 
 
 Many books have been written upon O'Connell, but mere 
 historical details of his life can give no adequate idea of his in- 
 finite humour ; his wit, equal to Talleyrand's ; and the singular 
 magnetism of his voice and presence, which made him rule as a 
 despot over people, county and political parties by the right 
 divine of innate, conscious force which crushed all opposition 
 and dominated all minds that came under his personal influence. 
 There was also in his nature a genial, broad human-heartedness 
 in which there was much to be loved and honoured, especially 
 in the domestic relations of life that surrounded him. Of this 
 quality many instances can be gathered from the O'Connell 
 correspondence — a work of great interest, recently published by 
 the eminent writer, W. J. Fitzpatrick, F.S.A., to whom Irish 
 biography is already deeply indebted. An important volume 
 by Mr. Fagan, M.P., brings down the history of the Liberator to 
 the year 1829, the epoch that crowned his life with victory. 
 O'Neil Daunt takes it up at that date in a volume entitled 
 ' Personal Recollections,' abounding in clever stories and 
 sayings, traits of character and personal demeanour, and 
 anecdotes of O'ConnelFs wit and wisdom, durinor all the fluctu- 
 tions of the Repeal warfare, with its many exciting episodes, 
 from the crowning at Tara to the prison cell at Richmond, 
 down to the sad but stately closing scene at Genoa. 
 
 Very mournful are the details of O'Connell's later years, 
 when life was but a slow death ; and an infinite, wordless 
 melancholy fell upon his spirit, from the consciousness of 
 failing power, and the wasting away of that splendid brain 
 whose every thought had been for Ireland. 
 
 Yet there is also something very pathetic in the last scenes 
 of O'Conneirs life. Like some altar of an ancient faith which, 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL 197 
 
 though the sanctuary fire has long been extinguished, men yet 
 reverence for its traditions of glory, so the proudest bent in 
 homage, and the noblest vied in showing honour to the dying 
 tribune, majestic though in ruins, whose strength had been in 
 his ' words of truth,' whose dominion was in the hearts of the 
 people, and whose reward was the imperishable homage of a 
 world. The very lands he trod were destined a few months 
 after his death to be strewn with fallen crowns and broken 
 sceptres, but the glory that rests on the brow of him who 
 fought and suffered to elevate a degraded and despairing people 
 will never be effaced, for the light is consecrated to immor- 
 tality on the page of history and in the heart of an emanci- 
 pated nation. 
 
198 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND DR. DOYLE 
 
 ' The Life and Labours of Bishop Doyle ' is one of the most 
 interesting of the many biographies of Irish celebrities contri- 
 buted by Mr. J. Fitzpatrick, the popular author, to Irish history 
 during recent years. For Bishop Doyle and O'Connell were 
 the great central figures of the Emancipation era, and equally 
 powerful, though their tactics were different. O'Connell's 
 rallying cry was ' Agitate ! ' Dr. Doyle's was ' Educate ! ' 
 O'Connell held the passions of the people like a thunderbolt 
 in his hand, ready to hurl against oppression ; but the Bishop 
 swayed the intellect of the nation, and brought over to the 
 side of freedom not only the leading men of highest influence 
 in Ireland, but finally the English Senate and the English 
 Ministry. Besides his rare gifts of learning and intellect, he 
 had the warmest zeal for the right and the true ; and his 
 teaching, full of the noblest influences, was enforced by a 
 splendour of eloquence unsurpassed even in Ireland, that land 
 of orators. 
 
 He was born under the Penal Laws, and suffered keenly 
 from all the bitterness of the degradation. No education at 
 home being then possible to a Catholic, he went for some 
 years to the great College of Coimbra, in Portugal, and on his 
 return speedily became famous. He was appointed Professor 
 of Theology at the Carlow College, afterwards of Bhetoric, 
 and finally, when scarcely more than thirty, was elected to the 
 Bishopric of Kildare and Loughlin. 
 
 The country was then (1827) in a fever of excitement over 
 the Catholic claims. A petition signed by three millions of 
 
THE RIGHT EE\^REXD DR. DOYLE 199 
 
 Catholics had been ignommiously rejected by England, and as 
 an answer from the Government, three million rounds of 
 cartridges were ordered to Ireland. 
 
 Then it was the young Bishop threw himself heart and soul 
 into the movement, and the series of those wonderful political 
 addresses began to appear that electri&ed the nation by their 
 force and fire, and at last extorted the attention of Ministers, 
 who finally consented to argue the question seriously, and Dr. 
 Doyle was summoned over to give evidence before the House 
 of Lords. It was a trying moment for the priest of the pariah 
 race, and at first he was anxious and nervous, knowing that a 
 strong army of the enemies to his creed and people were well 
 fortified with questions to torture and confute him ; while on 
 their side an easy victory was expected. But they soon found 
 in the young Irish Bishop an antagonist who was their master. 
 At times when their Lordships put questions showing absurd 
 ignorance of Irish matters, he set the matter in another form, 
 helping them to some degree of sense ; and this with the most 
 perfect courtesy and grace. 
 
 Some one asked the Duke of Wellington, who was going in 
 and out of the House, ' Well, are they examining Doyle ? ' 
 
 ' ISTo,' replied the Duke with a grim smile, ' it is Doyle who 
 is examining us.^ 
 
 His triumph in London was complete. Everyone spoke of 
 him with respect and admiration, and from that time the success 
 of Emancipation was assured. The Duke sent over a draft of 
 the Bill for his approval, and finally, though the King nearly 
 died of alarm, and had to be coerced into giving his assent, the 
 measure became law in 1829, and the bondage of centuries was 
 
 broken. 
 
 The important aid given by the Bishop was fully acknow- 
 ledged, and amongst other testimonies, he received from the 
 Duke of Sussex a copy of his own speech on the question, richly 
 bound, and inscribed to him in letters of gold. 
 
 It is sad to find how brief was the career begun so nobly. 
 He survived this great victory only six years ; and, after the 
 excitement of the Emancipation struggle was over, we hear of 
 
200 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 him complaining constantly of a terrible lassitude that had fallen 
 upon him. 
 
 Still he worked, and wrote, and organised ; rising at five in 
 the mornings, and allowing no moment for selfish ease. The 
 acts of violence practised by the illegal societies at that time 
 filled him with horror, and his addresses to the people overflowed 
 with pathetic entreaties and vehement condemnation of their 
 vain and wicked strivings against law. ' Wicked,^ he said, 
 ' because all crime confirms the power of the oppressor ; and 
 vain, because the efforts of a disorganised rabble can never 
 achieve success.^ 
 
 ' And who are these,^ he asks, ' who would subvert the laws 
 of the country by violence ? Men without education, without 
 money, without arms, without counsel, without a leader, with- 
 out discipline ; kept together by a bond of iniquity which it is 
 a duty to violate, a crime to observe. Men destitute of religion, 
 with blasphemy in their mouths and their hands filled with 
 rapine and blood. Can such as these regenerate a country, and 
 make her free and happy ? ^ 
 
 One deeply touching scene is recorded when he addressed an 
 immense crowd of the kneeling and weeping people, leaning 
 for support upon his crosier, for he was weak and faint ; but 
 the majesty of his presence, and the gleaming eyes that lit up 
 the pale, worn face, inspired such awe that groans and sobs were 
 heard on all sides. 
 
 'Remember,' he said, 'that revenge is God's alone. Let 
 this truth sink deep in your souls. Tell it to your children in 
 your huts and cabins ; and, if turned forth to starve and die, 
 tell it amid the darkness of the night, in the storm and rain, 
 in your hunger and raggedness, still ever, ever repeat, " Revenge 
 is God's alone." ' 
 
 Wasted with anxiety, and already standing within the 
 shadow of death, it was sublime to see him thus warrins" and 
 striving against the moral degradation of the people. Once, 
 when some terrible acts of cruelty came to his notice, he fell 
 into a profound melancholy that lasted for days. 
 
THE EIGHT EEVEREND DR. DOYLE 201 
 
 ' These savages !' he exclaimed ; ' they are not fit for 
 liberty ! ' 
 
 But he knew well, also, that the mere act of emancipation 
 could not all at once redeem the soul of a people that had been 
 degraded for centuries through ignorance and oppression. To 
 raise them by education to the level of civilised men was the 
 dream and passion of his life, and for this he laboured unceas- 
 ingly. He likened the youth of the nation to a captive in 
 prison, incapable almost of counting by notches the days of his 
 captivity. His aim was to teach them their rights as men, and 
 their duty to their country, to enrich her by the products of 
 labour and art. Up to that time there was only the hedge- 
 school for the children of the people. The priest was a hunted 
 outlaw, and their only temple of worship some wretched cabin 
 hid in a bog. 
 
 By his exertions schools were founded in every parish, and 
 chapels for worship rose in every district in his diocese. The 
 splendid cathedrals also of Dublin and Carlow owe their origin 
 to him. He endeavoured likewise to found a national insti- 
 tute for teaching science, history, and all that concerned their 
 own country, to the people. No man had ever nobler aims, 
 or uttered nobler words to a nation. And how pathetically 
 he pleads for Ireland — ' always unhappy, always oppressed, 
 reviled when she complains, persecuted when she struggles ; 
 her evils suffered to corrode her, her wrongs never to be 
 redressed.' 
 
 And he continues, with his passionate Irish eloquence : 
 
 ' Her pastures teem with milk ; her fields are covered with 
 bread ; her flocks are numerous as the bees in a hive ; her 
 ports are safe and spacious ; her rivers deep and navigable ; 
 her inhabitants are brave and intelligent as any people in the 
 world. Nature seems to have intended her as the emporium 
 of wealth, the mart of universal commerce ; yet her children 
 are the most wretched of any civilised people on the face of 
 
 the globe !' 
 
 Such words plead like tears, and there was a vital force in 
 them that stirred the hearts of his hearers even beyond the 
 
202 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 harmonies of the eloquence. Yet with all the splendour of 
 his fame and acknowledged power over the nation, there was 
 in his life entire humility and self-abnegation. He cared for 
 no pomp, and would not even use a carriage, though one was 
 given to him. Frugal as an anchorite as regarded his own 
 ease and pleasure, yet to his guests a prince in dignity and 
 hospitality. 
 
 Speaking of himself, he said : 
 
 ' I am a Churchman, but without ambition ; a Catholic, 
 but without bigotry ; an Irishman hating with my whole 
 soul the oppression of my country, but my desire is to heal 
 her wounds, not to aggravate her sufferings. What I desire 
 above all is her freedom, and the union of her people. I 
 would free religion from the slavery to the State, and 
 let the ministers receive their hire from those for whom they 
 labour.' 
 
 But one must study the whole life-work of this remarkable 
 man to comprehend fully the wise and far-seeing policy of his 
 national teaching. His great eloquence added much to his 
 influence over the people ; it was both logical and impassioned. 
 Cobbett named him as the best writer in the English language ; 
 and Montalembert noticed the elegance of his manners, and 
 his perfect style of expression. His appearance also hispired 
 deference and respect : of lofty stature and impressive dignity 
 of bearing, with a noble head, high brow, and large hazel eyes, 
 he was the true type of a leader of men. 
 
 The abject, servile demeanour of the people, the result of 
 generations of oppression, pained him deeply ; and using all 
 his influence as a Bishop he sedulously watched over the in- 
 struction and manners of the priesthood, teaching them to 
 know their own value and the nobility of their office. Thus 
 by every means he strove to make the down-trodden serfs 
 worthy of freedom, and to give them dignity, self-reliance, and 
 a proper pride in their country. 
 
 The last scenes of this noble life, devoted so earnestly to 
 the service of humanity, are deeply pathetic. The lassitude 
 of which he complained increased day by day, the tall figure 
 
THE EIGHT EEVEREND DK. DOYLE 203 
 
 wasted to a fleshless form, and the large eyes lit up a face 
 already pale as the dead. Still he worked on, the soul never 
 weary, the fortitude unshaken, the intellect clear to the last. 
 He was then but forty-seven, and in the very prime of mental 
 power, when they told him that the death-liour was certain 
 and was approaching. So young to leave his work, and 
 so much work to be done, there was the sadness of it. But 
 his calm dignity never forsook him. He made his will. It 
 consisted of but two lines : — ' All things that I possess came 
 to me from the Church ; to the Church and to the poor I 
 leave all/ 
 
 Then, by his desire, he was lifted to the window, once 
 more to look on the last glories of a June morning ; and so 
 he passed to death, leaving a name to be for ever honoured in 
 Irish history, and the memory of one of the noblest workers 
 that ever toiled and strove for political freedom and the moral 
 and intellectual elevation of a people. 
 
204 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 LORD LYTTON. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from the heavily-weighted sentences of 
 George Eliot, to the work of a perfectly trained artist in ex- 
 pression like Lord Lytton. But his latest work, ^ Kenelm 
 Chillingley,' appeals to us with even a stronger feeling than 
 admiration, as the last utterance of one of the most brilliant 
 intellects of the age ; and a sense of vain regret is felt that 
 lips so eloquent, a heart that vibrated rhythmically with all 
 the highest aspirations of the soul, should be stilled for ever 
 more on earth. If destiny would but leave the gifted to us a 
 little longer than the brief miserable span awarded to human 
 life, and be content with a yearly holocaust of the stupid ! 
 Commonplace souls are so plentiful and could so easily be re- 
 placed by millions as dull and idealess — but nature never 
 repeats a great intellect. No successor by right divine of 
 equal powers ever ascends the throne left vacant by the kings 
 of mind. Great genius, in whatever peculiar form it may be 
 incarnated, is manifested but once, like the apparition of those 
 mysterious comets in space whose orbit is so vast that probably, 
 while this mundane scheme continues, they will never again 
 cross the earthly field of vision. Genius comes like the avatar 
 of a god — a revelation to humanity of what is possible to the 
 human ; writes its signature on the world in immortal char- 
 acters, and returns to the spiritland from whence it came. 
 Earbh waits and watches through the centuries, but no second 
 Homer, nor jEschylus, or Dante, or Shakespeare, or Rafiaelle, 
 or Michael Angelo appears ; and probably never again will be 
 given to the world that peculiar combination of great mental 
 
LORD LYTTON 205 
 
 gifts, that richly endowed organisation, with its spiritual in- 
 sight and passionate eloquence, from which emanated the series 
 of splendid and thoughtful works, from ' Pelham ' to ' Zanoni,' 
 and from ' Zanoni ' unto this last. 
 
 ^ Kenelm Chillingley ' combines all the characteristics of 
 Lord Lytton's genius in an eminent degree, and is filled to 
 overflowing with epigram, genial humour, and polished sarcasm ; 
 profound reflections over life, and lofty aspirations towards the 
 highest good, with mocking aphorisms that show the hoUowness 
 of modern social life, and satire keen and flashing as the 
 spear of Ithuriel when shams and falsehood are to be un- 
 masked. Every thought is philosophy, every word is gold. 
 It is a work to be read and re-read, studied, appropriated, 
 assimilated till the deep truths it inculcates become part of the 
 inner life, bringing forth much fruit. The language alone is 
 a study for all writers in this degenerate age of fast slang and 
 fashionable argot. Without effort, the words gather and group 
 themselves into harmonious forms, as if at the impulse of some 
 hidden music. All the graces of classical style, the riches of 
 modern culture, and the glowing passion which genius alone 
 possesses and radiates, are found united in the wonderful 
 o-olden flow of Lord Lytton's eloquence. The English language 
 is truly a powerful instrument of thought to a practised writer, 
 but no modern author has swept the range of its chords with 
 so divine a hand as the great dead master, the last echo of 
 whose exquisite music now vibrates through our hearts. 
 
 The purpose of the book is also in the highest degree noble, 
 and nobly worked out. This purpose (to express it in the phrase - 
 olof^y with which he has made us familiar) is to evolve the 
 ideal from the real, to awake the slumbering divinity within 
 each human soul, and arouse it to conquest over the lower 
 nature, which too often forces the soul to be its slave. The 
 hero Kenelm Chillingley, is an aristocrat, heir to ten thousand 
 a yeLr and a baronetcy ; that is to say, he is born into a false 
 life where he stands idle, with the privileged few, upon a 
 crilded dais, looking down upon the toiling many who have to 
 ficrht with destiny and the world for their daily bread. He goes 
 
206 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 through the usual routine of tutorism and college, and returns 
 home educated up to the latest modern idea, saturated with the 
 beliefs and tendencies of the modern age, and in his own 
 person is the perfect exponent of the character that results 
 from the teaching. He has all the assumption and apathy, 
 the dogmatism and indifference, the self-assertion and entire 
 want of reverence which characterises the new generation that 
 never knew youth, because curiosity is satisfied before it is 
 awakened, and desire satiated before it is aroused. The 
 generation that looks with ineffable disdain upon marriage, 
 creeds, parental authority, and authority of all kinds ; that 
 yawns but never enjoys ; that sees in God only a metaphysical 
 expression, in nature a mechanical series of external phenomena, 
 in man only a developed ape ; in the soul an incomplete 
 embryo ; which believes nothing but what can be proved, and 
 in whose mind logic has overthrown Faith. Kenelm is the 
 perfect representative of these modern philosophers : 'A man 
 who thought himself so much wiser than his parents ; who 
 had gained honours at the university ; a man of the finest 
 temperament ; a man so nicely critical in mind that there 
 was not a law of art or nature in which he did not detect a 
 flaw.' 
 
 His father. Sir Peter, a sterling gentleman of the old 
 school, mourns greatly over the apathy and languid indifference 
 of his splendid son, from whose talents so much was expected, 
 and tries to arouse his ambition by the prospect of entering 
 Parliament. Accordingly the tenants are gathered together 
 to meet the young heir, and Kenelm, who really loves his ex- 
 cellent father, promises, for his sake, to go through the dreadful 
 ordeal of coming of age. Immense rejoicings take place, and 
 Sir Peter fondly hopes to see his son gaining all hearts and 
 votes by his tact and eloquence. But the speech in which 
 Kenelm responds to the cheers for his health and happiness is 
 more startling than pleasing, though the manner was eminently 
 graceful, and the intonation perfect. He tells the people that 
 he is not really worth the fuss they make about him ; his 
 family, certainly, had lived on the one spot of earth for about 
 
LOED LYTTON ' 207 
 
 the fourth part of the world's duration, but seemed to have 
 made the world no better for their existence. For himself, he 
 had, indeed, gained honours at college — that is, he was first of 
 the first in the very worst system of education that could be 
 devised to fit young men for life ; of which the principal and 
 most glorious epochs were boat races and college suppers, where 
 each man tried to make himself utterly incapable of uttering 
 or comprehending an idea ; not that it was much matter, for man 
 was only an advanced gorilla. Life was a wretched affair, and 
 no one could tell if there were any other or better ; old age 
 meant simply disease and humiliation, therefore, in wishing 
 them good health, he by no means wished them long life, for 
 the two were incompatible, and, indeed, the sooner they had 
 all done with the one they knew, the better. Of course. Sir 
 Peter was aghast, and the farmers and people much dis- 
 comfited. But Kenelm quietly returns to his usual occupa- 
 tion, languidly catches trout, and seems much surprised that 
 everyone does not see the matter of life-philosophy quite as 
 
 he does. 
 
 Sir Peter then invites fashionable company to the house to 
 try the effect of society upon his son. Amongst them are some 
 admirably drawn social types — Mivers Chillingley, one of the 
 best — he is the editor of the ' Londoner,' in which a caustic and 
 clever weekly review is easily recognised, a journal set up on 
 the principle of contempt ; which admires nobody, believes in 
 nothing, and finds fault with everything, but never says how 
 anything can be done better ; which annihilates an author with 
 the refined cruelty of sarcasm, and would dismiss a contributor 
 ignominiously who permitted a single good-natured word to 
 appear in his estimate of a man, a book, a painting, or a political 
 project. Mivers Chillingley, as a man of letters, despised the 
 world ; as a man of the world he despised letters ; as repre- 
 sentative of both he revered himself. There was nothing 
 violent about him. ' Avoid ambition ' is one of his axioms, it is 
 gouty ; and earnestness is exceedingly vulgar, noisy and re- 
 volutionary. He patronises Christianity, for it does no harm ; 
 and is part of social order, like a white necktie for evening 
 
208 * MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 dress. In short, he is thoroughly realistic ; content with the 
 neutral tints of life, and of the school of ' Eclectical Christo- 
 logy.' His social maxims are marked by an admirable and 
 amusing cynicism ; marriage he postpones until woman^s rights 
 make her man's equal ; then she will no longer seize upon the 
 two drawing-rooms as her right, and leave the husband to a 
 den on the ground floor looking out upon a yard ; they will 
 toss up for the back parlour ; nor will his brougham be torn 
 from him by the angel of his house, at the most unseasonable 
 hours, to be filled with crinolines and chignons ; the wife must 
 work, too, for her share in the expenditure ; no work, no 
 equality. However, after all, he is content with single life. 
 ' Nothing ages like matrimonial felicity,' and youth, or the ap- 
 pearance of it, is a treasure to be preserved. ' 1 mean to remain 
 thirty-five,' he says, ' all my life. If I am more I shall not own 
 it. No one is bound to criminate himself — never say you are 
 ill. Refuse to be ill. Begin your wig early, and the world 
 will never know the moment at which you become gray.' 
 
 In contrast with this sarcastic and amusing cynic is Gordon 
 Chillingley, the astute, bland, insinuating politician, who has 
 no scruples, for he has no creed, and believes in nothing but 
 himself. If in his aim to be Prime Minister, Christianity 
 stood in his way, he would bring in a bill to abolish Christianity, 
 maintaining, at the same time, that it would be the best possible 
 thing for the Christians themselves. 
 
 But Kenelm grows weary of all our hollow social system, 
 fashionable and political, and above all he is weary of himself. 
 He wants the great stimulants to work — poverty, ambition, 
 or love. The latter he considers an abnegation of intellect, 
 and marriage, or life-long bondage, as the insane result. He 
 looks upon all the women of society as shams, and all the men 
 as false. Seeming, seeming, he abhors it — will no one show 
 him true life, where people will not seem, but be 1 Then Sir 
 Peter suggests travel ; prepares introductions to all the Courts 
 of Europe, and engages a courier versed in all languages ; but 
 when the day arrives for departure, Kenelm has disappeared 
 — gone forth alone to seek true life, no one knows whither ; a 
 
LOED LYTTON 209 
 
 divme discontent is on him, he has no fixed purpose ; but at 
 least he can quit the deep-worn grooves of civilisation— he 
 can be free. We follow him in his wanderings. He buys a 
 peasant's garb, conceals his name and all evidences of his 
 rank, and proceeds in a direction where he cannot be known. 
 His first new sensation is work and its reward. He helps to 
 gather in the hay for a farmer, doing his work well, as a 
 gentleman always does when work is required of him, and re- 
 ceives in return a couple of shillings and his dinner. He is 
 hungry, and the pleasure of a healthy appetite is revealed to 
 him. Other adventures follow. More work is done ; he be- 
 comes the hero of the village, setting all wrong right, turning 
 all dissonance to harmony ; he helps lovers, aids the poor, 
 comforts the afflicted, softens the rugged. He is the Dens ex. 
 machind of the small world around him, even finding it 
 necessary for the general good to fight the great bully of the 
 place, a ferocious fellow, a blacksmith ; he does tight him and 
 conquers. It is a combat of rude, blind, brute strength against 
 educated force, and the trained force, as it always will, gains 
 the mastery ; then he sets himself the task of redeeming the 
 cowed and conquered savage, and from the brute state to 
 elevate him to a man. An interest arises in him to work on 
 the coarse elements of this strong soul and infuse into them 
 a higher life. He succeeds. The savage is humanised, and 
 all the strength that had run to waste in brute ferocity is 
 turned into a lever to lift the soul and the life of the man 
 up to intellect and order. ' You,' he says to Kenelm, ' first 
 taught me to think, first showed me that the body should be 
 the servant of the mind.' 
 
 A wider field of interest now opens before Kenelm ; he 
 feels that he stands in a world of dead intellects, and he tries 
 to arouse the slumbering angel within each heart to a sense of 
 purity, nobleness, justice and truth. At last he has found the 
 stimulus that makes life endurable— he is doing good. His 
 influence is an Anastasis, a resurrection power. The dry bones 
 live and as his own life is brought into relation with the 
 multiform life of humanity through sorrow, and with the 
 
 p 
 
210 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 infinite life of God through good, all weariness and bitter sense 
 of isolation pass from his heart. 
 
 Female influence now comes at last to spiritualise his life, 
 and draw him into divine sympathy with another soul : that 
 kind of sympathy, quite distinct from passion, which one meets 
 only once in life, and never more. He is thrown into the 
 society of a girl of his own rank, an heiress, handsome, intel- 
 lectual, high-bred, with that fascination of manner where quiet 
 is combined with dignity and grace ; a woman gently true and 
 kindly loving, with woman's best attributes, intense feelings 
 and intense sense of duty ; with whom a man of intellect 
 and culture can converse on equal terms and feel that he 
 is appreciated and understood. Kenelm is proud of her 
 friendship, feels nobler by her influence — still he does not 
 love, though why he does not is a mystery even to himself. 
 But Cecilia loves him with that silent, strong devotion which 
 demands nothing, but is ready to sacrifice all. She is content 
 to be the Egeria of his life, to wait and hope, and for his sake 
 she refuses all the brilliant oflfers made for her hand. 
 
 Meanwhile another influence touches Kenelm's heart, and 
 at last melts the ice of egoism and apathy. A fairy, a vision 
 crosses his path, a spirit- child, that in her graceful, beautiful 
 youth seems scarcely to touch earth ; with no knowledge of 
 life, no training, no culture, but with all the instincts of 
 Heaven. Suddenly his whole being leaped out of philosophy 
 into passion. No one can unravel the mystery, but most of 
 us have known ' the attraction that draws one human being: to 
 another, and makes it so exquisite a happiness to sit quiet 
 and mute by another's side ; which stills for a moment the 
 busiest thoughts of the brain, the most turbulent desires of 
 the heart, and renders us conscious but of one present, inef- 
 fable idea.' Kenelm gives himself up to this magnetic influence, 
 but before the union he contemplates can be accomplished 
 death shakes the beautiful blossom from the tree, and he first 
 learns sorrow by the grave of his first love. 
 
 There seems to be an occult meaning in this episode of 
 love. This spirit-child may symbolise the ideal which had 
 
LOED LYTTON 211 
 
 flitted before his youth in vague, shadowy aspirations— not yet 
 brought into fixed relations with actual life, but, the ideal 
 passes, and as illusions vanish, his views of the world, life, and 
 society become truer and clearer. He returns to his class, 
 and to the duties of the station in which he was born. ' I have 
 known hfe,' he says ; ' I have known sorrow, and now I do not 
 say I will die, but I will live the life of work and action.' He 
 finds that rank and wealth are powerful adjuncts to a man's 
 career ; with character and ability they ensure success, but 
 there are two special vices from which men are seldom lifted, 
 and which insure degradation— drinking and gambling. Men 
 are not born equal ; the axiom is false ; but each is given a 
 sphere wherein to work. Some are leaders of men by mental 
 and moral elevation ; others are the toiling labourers in the 
 vineyard ; but all are doing God's work as He has appointed, 
 if they work with truth and earnestness. ' Love for men, 
 reverence for God, is the true basis of action, and no character 
 is sound that enlarges its surface at the expense of these sup- 
 ports.' The true equality is not to level down society to the 
 coarse and unlettered mob, but to lift democracy to nobility 
 through culture, and to make all men Aristos by noble 
 principle, high purpose, gentleness, goodness, truth. True 
 nobility is in the life, not in birth or riches. A life of low 
 aims is a vulgar life, no matter how gilded it may be. A man 
 with the lineage of kings, estates more than royal, may sink 
 below the level of the meanest by the meanness of his tastes, 
 habits and pursuits. These are the views that now dawn on 
 Kenelm's mind, rectifying the dreams of his youth and nerving 
 him for the combat with evil, for ' all life is agonistical, and 
 earth is the wrestling-ground, not the resting-place of man.' 
 
 His father welcomes him back gladly, and bids him make 
 the senate of his country the arena of his combat against sin 
 and sufiering, and ignorance and debasement, for ' the true 
 problem of a Legislature is how to increase a people's splendour 
 and virtue, and how to diminish its penury and crime.' They 
 are in London; musing over the tide of human life as they 
 stand upon Westminster Bridge. His father speaks : ' You 
 
\ 
 
 212 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 stand by the stream of a mighty river, before you the senate 
 of an empire greater than Alexander's ; behind you the market 
 of a commerce to which that of Tyre was but a pitiful trade ; 
 beyond, the squalid hordes of lives to be redeemed and lifted ; 
 and, out of sight but not far distant, the nation's Valhalla, 
 the glory symbolised in the war-cry, " Victory or Westminster 
 Abbey.'' ' And so we leave the hero on the threshold of a 
 new life. 
 
 The philosophy of the book is not new ; others have also 
 preached this great gospel of work — lahorare est orare — but it 
 seems to come to us now with a mystic strength, as from a 
 spirit voice, and with a loftier and more triumphant sense of 
 man's destiny here and hereafter. Very touching are these 
 last noble words of the great author, already passing within 
 the veil even as he wrote, for the shadow of death is upon 
 the page, and we see that he flings his thoughts heavenward 
 with heavenward eyes. This man knew all life, was versed in 
 all knowledge, dowered with every gift, crowned with all the 
 splendours of fame ; and surely it cannot but nerve the will, 
 strengthen faith, elevate the mind, and ennoble effort to find 
 that the experience of this splendid life found its result in 
 these last divine words he has left to the new generation : 
 iieve, love, work ; live for good and you will live for God ' 
 
213 
 
 DISRAELI AND 'ENDYMION' 
 
 It is not often that a Prime Minister writes a novel, especially 
 one in which he is supposed to introduce ail his friends and 
 acquaintances, while professing to deal with the celebrities of 
 the past. 
 
 So the critics, one and all, fell upon Lord Beaconsfield's 
 latest work, ere yet it was a day old, with a terrible and fierce 
 voracity ; tore it limb from limb in extracts and summaries, 
 and scattered the disjecta membra far and wide over the 
 broad pages of the dailies and weeklies. Yet, why this eao-er 
 haste? Why should it be necessary for all the critics to rush 
 at once upon a book, tear the heart and life out of it, and 
 then fling it dead upon the shelf, to be named or thought of 
 no more ? Would not the various critical estimates be more 
 interesting after one had been given time to read, mark, and 
 inwardly digest the contents of a work, than the present sys- 
 tem of rapid reviewing, by which the public is forcibly spoon- 
 fed by the professional thinkers on their condensed literal y 
 pemmican before a single independent opinion has had time to 
 form in the brain of the intelligent reader ? The system is also 
 unfair to the author, and a clause should really be introduced 
 into the Copyright Act prohibiting reviews for at least three 
 months after the publication of any work. Now, an unhappy 
 author is o^iven but a few days to live, and after a week or so 
 the best work, it may be, of a man's life falls into oblivion ; 
 the excitement is over, the interest dead, and the critics set to 
 work ao-ain with their exhaustive reviews upon some other 
 theme— the nature of elephants, perhaps, or monkeys, or ' the 
 
211 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 intelligent turnip ' — and the name even of ' Endymion ' is 
 heard no more. 
 
 Yet, though he has been brayed in a mortar, there is 
 still something left in ' Endymion ' worth our study. More 
 especially in the aphorisms, from which we obtain strange 
 glimpses into the workings of an exceptional mind and nature 
 — mystic, many-gifted ; one not passively led by events, but 
 that seems to coerce destiny by the strength of a remorseless, 
 fixed, unalterable will. In strong volition lies the secret of 
 the great statesman's success : what Danton calls Vaudace^ 
 encore Vaitdace, Over and over again he reiterates that 
 what a man wills strongly he achieves finally. Vouloir c'est 
 jwuvoir ; this was the creed of his life. Ambition and voli- 
 tion, according to him, are the two forces that lead a man 
 to victory over all things — fate, fortune, or adversity ; and 
 the story of Endymion is a mythus in which this doctrine is 
 incarnated. 
 
 There is little involvement of plot, or excitement of dra- 
 matic situation in the construction of the novel ; nor have 
 the characters any distinct entity, but they have all a subtle 
 meaning which is far more interesting. They are types, ab 
 stractions, allegories ; and we accept them as such, without 
 caring much for the exactness of individual portraiture. 
 
 There is a tailor, for instance, who turns afterwards into 
 the Eailway King. He is the type of the middle-class, rising 
 through trade and speculation to wealth, which means power ; 
 and, through this power, becoming at last the guest, friend, 
 and helper of princes. 
 
 There is a writer, sketched with keen, incisive humour ; 
 brilliant, versatile, capable of illustrating all subjects, by his 
 omnivorous reading and omniscience, with 'a bubbling ima- 
 gination, alternating between St. Just, Laud, and the God- 
 dess of Reason,' who may be any of the persons named by 
 the critical guessers, but who also certainly represents the 
 dogmatism and egoism and self-assertion of the philosophical 
 school of the day, which accepts everything indiscriminately, 
 from Buddha to Huxley, but reverences nothing ; and we are 
 
DISEAELI AND ' ENDYMION ' 215 
 
 amused 1 y the extravagance of the paradoxes without caring 
 in the least to read the riddle of the personality. 
 
 ihe haughty, magnificent Zenobia represents the proud 
 patrician nobility in the vain, luxurious era before the passing 
 of the Reform Bill ; the splendid insolence of caste, rank, 
 birth, and blood ; of the privileged race that believed in the 
 sacredness of 'the great families,' disdained the middle- class, 
 and utterly ignored the idea that the people had any human 
 rights ; who looked on the world as created only for the 
 alternation of Whig and Tory, to fill their purses, gild their 
 names, supply places, pensions, bishoprics, and colonial govern- 
 ments for their sons and cousins, put a star on the breast, and 
 a garter on the knee ; pomp and power their only aim ; the 
 worship of themselves their only religion ; the race that 
 hated railroads, hated gas, hated everything that levelled and 
 gave the people a chance of progress ; while the people them- 
 selves knew little of their rights ; ' they were only half- 
 born.' 
 
 Contrasted with this picture islmogene — Lady Beaumaris. 
 She represents society after the passing of the Reform Bill, 
 w^hen the middle-classes were forcing their way into notice 
 and the sacred circles ; and the people, just awakening to a 
 sense of their lost birthright, were sending up, like Esau, an 
 exceeding bitter cry to Heaven. Imogene is a daughter of 
 the people — her mother a dressmaker, her sister owner of a 
 boarding-house — but, fascinating and clever, she wins the 
 heart of a peer, and becomes, through wealth and political 
 influence, the recognised leader of a great and powerful party. 
 
 ' Was she not a shop-girl, or something V asks one of the 
 great ladies contemptuously. 
 
 Still, they all rush eagerly to her strawberry parties ; for 
 the delicate patrician is always ready to quaff the cup of 
 pleasure, no matter who offers it, when royalty leads the 
 way. This sketch will be easily recognised ; but it is drawn 
 with no ill-natured hand and in no unkindly spirit. It may 
 be noticed, en passant, that Maturin, the Irish novelist, is 
 the only author named throughout the work ; Imogene— Lady 
 
216 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Beaumaris — being called after the heroine of Maturin's tragedy 
 of ' Bertram,' which set the town on fire when played by 
 Kean ; while O'Connell is the only political leader mentioned 
 directly, and his advent to Parliament is characterised as one 
 of the great events of the century. Yet Ireland complains of 
 being neglected ! 
 
 In Mrs. Neuchatel, the great banker's wife, one cannot 
 help thinking that a certain illustrious lady is slightly in- 
 dicated, who cares little for her enormous wealth, but loves 
 to retire to her remote country residence, where she attends 
 to her schools and gives balls to her servants. She laments 
 constantly over the magnificence of her position, and always 
 wears the plainest dress ; is accomplished, an artist, musician, 
 and even learned ; asks innumerable questions, fixes her eyes 
 on the speaker, and loves to be talked to on all subjects, and 
 to hear all the new theories of the day ; is clever at her pen, 
 writes endless letters to her daughter, and is altogether a very 
 remarkable woman. 
 
 The Empress Eugenie, as Queen Agrippina, is sketched 
 with some delicate compliments on her figure, her hair (the 
 loveliest in Europe), and the ceaseless grace and irresistible 
 charm of her Court ; and a portrait of the young Prince 
 Imperial is also given, but this is altered subsequently — 
 perhaps after his sad death — to one of his father, the Emperor, 
 when he dared and gained a throne. The Empress likewise 
 becomes transformed to Myra, and again to the Princess 
 Alexandra, the lovely hair being changed to ' a crop ' over the 
 high white brow, to suit the Princess of Wales ; while the 
 arrival in England, the reception by the Prince of the young 
 Danish bride, and public procession afterwards, are made to 
 do duty for the marriage of Eugenie and Napoleon. 
 
 It is these sudden transformation scenes, these topsy- 
 turvyisms, which render it so difficult to catch a true likeness 
 in the shifting phantasmagoria. 
 
 The real interest, however, lies not in the fanciful political 
 history, but in the thinly-veiled autobiography ; for Endymion 
 — with his youth of splendid illusions and broken hopes ; his 
 
DISEAELI AND ' ENDYMION ' 217 
 
 failures, trials, and triumphs ; with no inheritance but his 
 genius, and no hand to aid him save a woman's — is the 
 author himself ; while beside hhn, ever inseparable, all-daring, 
 the sustainer of his courage, the inspirer of his Kfe, stands 
 his twin-sister Myra. 
 
 But these things are an allegory. These twin-children of 
 the soul — Endymion and Myra— haughty and beautiful, re- 
 present the two great propelling forces of his life— genius and 
 ambition : genius loving life in all its fulness, through all 
 moods, splendours, failures, victories ; and ambition that loves 
 nothing but success, cold, calm, resolute— guiding all the 
 passionate impulses of Endymion, and bending them to serve 
 one over-mastering purpose, which is the attainment of power. 
 This is the meaning of the myth, the solution of Myra's cha- 
 racter ; for, as the representative of ambition, no petty events 
 touch her ; no family ties interest ; no love melts ; no fluc- 
 tuations of fortune shake her pride or her courage. She holds 
 herself apart from all weakness or frivolity — her glance ever 
 lifted above, never on the earth she treads. She marries 
 twice, but not from love — for ambition never loves — but from 
 the motive to gain social recognition as the first step to social 
 power. Yet she makes a good wife, and fulfils all her duties ; 
 for temptation and sin are for lower natures, for those that 
 stand on lower levels than the one she treads with such 
 haughty and passionless pride. 
 
 To lift Endymion to power, with her steadfast mind, while 
 her steadfast eyes are fixed on the sun, fearless as the eagle, 
 this is the sole aim of her existence. When finally, in the 
 course of the fantastic story, she becomes a queen, it is at the 
 same moment Endymion is made Prime Minister— ruler of 
 England— and, as such, ruler of half the world besides ; and 
 when the crown is placed on Myra's head the victory is com- 
 plete — ambition and genius have triumphed. 
 
 The allegory is perfect and beautiful, strangely mystic, yet 
 not difficult to follow when one has caught some idea of the 
 meanincr. When Endymion returns home, wearied with the 
 ceaseless war of destiny against his young Hfe, it is Myra 
 
218 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 tlirows the pine logs on the fire to light up their gloomy home ; 
 even here there is a symbol and meaning. Amongst the 
 aphorisms many refer to ambition as the strongest impulse to 
 action, the great tangential force of a human life ; ambition 
 not for ease, luxury, or wealth, but for power. Attain this, 
 and all the rest will follow. The world is yours to rule, and 
 men will be your bondslaves. ' Great men should only aim 
 at power, and all the accidents of life should be considered 
 only with reference to this one aim.' Again : ' Great men 
 think only of opportunity, not of time ; to wait for time 
 is the sign of the weak and feeble-minded.' This is an 
 aphorism worth remembering. 
 
 The manners, also, should suit the aim of life ; this he 
 considers of vast importance. ' Avoid social familiarity.' 
 * You never know what you may be, and to have to change 
 your manner is awkward ; give your hand, therefore, as if you 
 might one day be a Sovereign, or at least President of a 
 Republic. Men of destiny should avoid badinage. Stately 
 reserve has a certain power. Young men, politically, should 
 join the party of progress ; but, socially, youth should have 
 ceremonious manners ; a country of fogs and a powerful 
 middle class with enormous appetites demands gravity.' 
 
 The happiness which the English people seem to find in 
 food is evidently abhorrent to his fastidious temperament. 
 ' The French idea of patriotism,' he says, ' was cosmopolitan ; 
 but nationality in England means simply increased exports. 
 An insular nation with an enormous appetite cannot be cosmo- 
 politan.' 
 
 The condensed wisdom of a successful life is worth study- 
 ing on all subjects. Here is some good social advice : 'The 
 secret of popularity is, no violent originality, not too positive 
 assertion, and, above all, no controversy.' 'The art of con- 
 versation is to be prompt without being stubborn ; to refute 
 without argument, and to clothe grave matters in motley ; ' 
 one should remember, also, that ' knowledge is the foundation 
 of eloquence.' 
 
 He has so fully fathomed life that all men seem to him 
 
DISRAELI AND ^ ENDYMION ' 219 
 
 merely as tools and instruments. A thorough cynicism is 
 the outcome of his experience. He believes in no one, save, 
 perhaps, in women. They evidently exert, and have exerted, 
 an immense influence over him. He glories in their beauty, 
 their divine sympathy, their magical powers of inspiration, the 
 exquisite grace they give to life ; their devotion and courage, 
 which can lift a man to greatness and make him great. And 
 he loves to surround this idol with splendour and magnificence 
 and to cover her with jewels as a queen. The style he most 
 admires has all the richness of Eastern colouring — a splendid, 
 haughty, gorgeous, voluptuous beauty, with something Oriental 
 and fantastic in dress is his ideal. To him woman is the 
 queen, the priestess, the Pythia of society. Her influence may 
 be occult, but is all-powerful. ' Women make and unmake 
 ministries.' ' Great men seem to govern, but in reality it is 
 some hidden hand that leads, probably a woman's.' He also 
 holds them to be especial favourites of destiny. 
 
 ' Most men of mark are victims ; but a great woman must 
 always have her way.' ' A man may work all his life, and 
 at the last, when he has one leg in the grave and no hair on 
 his head, he manages to get a coronet ; but a woman sits next 
 some man at dinner, smiles, fascinates, and is made a duchess 
 at once.' He never forgets how much his own life owed to a 
 woman. And it is the homage of gratitude when he represents 
 ambition in a woman's form as the inspiration and guide of his 
 hero's career, the twin- sister of his soul. To aim highly, will 
 strongly, dare biavely, and take a woman's hand to guide — 
 this seems the secret of his success, the prologue and epilogue 
 of his career. But the glare of his splendid position does not 
 blind him to the darkness gathering on the horizon. In the 
 spirit of Semitic prophecy he sees that we are approaching a 
 great world crisis, and recognises the communistic influence 
 that is undermining all the thrones of Europe. He feels the 
 power of the secret societies, and dreads it ; for it is merciless, 
 without pity, without remorse. A terrible revenge lies at the 
 base of it— a revenge for six thousand years of oppression, 
 waitino" only its opportunity to destroy all civilisation and all 
 
220 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 religion. Yet he has no gospel to preach to the people. He 
 never touches on the deeper mysteries of life, nor its higher 
 aspirations ; and this world of party politics, of warring 
 egoisms, of fierce and feverish greed of power, is a fruitless 
 land to live in, where no food grows for hungering souls. No 
 lofty purpose can be traced in all his political religion ; no 
 broad scheme for lifting up the masses from want and 
 bondage ; nothing but the triumph of individual ambition, the 
 despotism of power. And yet, though so much has been 
 gained, the cry of unsatisfied desire still seems rising from his 
 heart. A spirit of gloom and sadness is over this latest work, 
 as if already he stood within the dark shadow of the grave, 
 and felt, with a bitterness of indignation against destiny, that 
 life had so much more to give, if only there were time. 
 
 What is a title, or a ribbon, to a man of supreme intellect, 
 who feels and knows how much above all title he stands by 
 right of his intellect ? And if he accepted them, it was only to 
 prove to this privileged class, scorned by him in the depths of 
 his soul, that he could be, when he chose, their equal — and 
 master. 
 
 Had he been given a few more years of power, he might 
 have achieved something to satisfy even his ambition. He 
 would have advanced the Eastern question, of which the 
 annexation of Cyprus was the first step, by the acquisition of 
 Palestine, either by treaty or by purchase, the Rothschilds 
 and all the Hebrews of the world contributing. Then a 
 moment might have come — a moment of destiny — when he 
 could have proclaimed himself Lord over Edom ; perhaps, 
 even, of Jerusalem. The Semitic aspirations would thus have 
 been satisfied. And genius and ambition, Endymion and 
 Myra, might rest content with their mission in the world and 
 their place in history. 
 
221 
 
 THOMAS MOORE 
 
 Strong nations fight^ oppressed nations sing ; and thus, not 
 with armies and fleets, but with the passionate storm of lyric 
 words have the Irish people kept up for centuries their cease- 
 less war against alien rule. For words have a mystic power 
 over men, and with the word Liberty on their lips, and the 
 ideal of Nationhood in their hearts, the Irish have been 
 preserved by their poets and orators from degenerating into 
 the coarse vulgarisms of music and song so popular amon^^st 
 a people who have no aspirations, no ideal beyond the greed 
 of gain and the plenitude of all the sensuous enjoyments of 
 life. 
 
 It is Ruskin who says ' all that is best in a nation comes 
 from the spirit of revolt,' and it is this spirit, transmitted 
 through successive generations, that has kept Ireland from 
 much that is debasing and degrading in the ordinary life and 
 amusements of more prosperous nations. All honour, then, to 
 the chief of Irish poets, ^ the sweetest lyrist of her saddest 
 wrong,' as Shelley has so beautifully designated Moore, Love 
 of country was the source of all his highest utterances, the 
 divine fire that kindled his genius, and has given enduring 
 vitality to his words ; for the Irish melodies will live for ever 
 in the heart of the Irish race, though everything else he wrote 
 may be forgotten. Through Moore's lyrics, set to the pathetic 
 Irish music, the wrongs of Ireland were first made known to 
 Europe, and the sympathy excited by them for a people so 
 drifted and so unfortunate materially helped to break the 
 terrible and insulting bondage of the penal laws. 
 
222 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Moore was born in 1780, the same year as Beranger, the 
 national poet of France, and both sprang from the people. 
 But while Beranger's genius was nourished by the revolution 
 that established the rights of man, the young Irish poet found 
 himself a degraded serf in his own land, the crushed and 
 helpless victim of a foreign tyranny. A]] progress, all dis- 
 tinctions, all means of education were forbidden to Catholics. 
 They were not allowed the common rights of citizens, and 
 were even denied the exercise of the franchise. It was not 
 till 1793, when Moore was old enough to be conscious of the 
 degradation of his race and creed, that Catholics were allowed 
 to enter Trinity College, though all university honours and 
 emoluments were still withheld from them. Moore was one 
 of the first of the young helots who accepted the privilege of 
 entering the university, and in time he stood for a scholarship, 
 to which he was entitled by his answering, but was refused on 
 account of his religion. 
 
 What wonder if he felt bitterly, and expressed openly his 
 detestation of English rule ? The college authorities grew 
 alarmed ; a spirit of nationality, which in Ireland is supposed 
 to mean rebellion, was suspected amongst the students, and the 
 most daring and fiery and gifted of the young alumni were 
 arraigned before the Board, and subjected to the ordeal of a 
 trial for sedition and sympathy with revolution. Moore behaved 
 nobly on this occasion, denying nothing he had said or done, 
 but refusing by a word to implicate others with his own ex- 
 pressed opinions. The authorities were awed, and he was per- 
 mitted to continue his college course without further molesta- 
 tion. His time then was devoted to literature and study. 
 Buried amongst the old books of Marsh's Library, the Psyche 
 wings began to unfold themselves, and before he was twenty 
 the ' Anacreon,' which first made him celebrated, was 
 finished. 
 
 He went to London with the manuscript, and fortune and 
 fame quickly followed on its publication. The first red-rose 
 dawn of a new and true poet- soul appearing above the literary 
 horizon was at once recognised and welcomed. From the 
 
THOMAS MOORE 223 
 
 Regent down, society seized on the young poet, and nearly 
 strangled all that was good in him, Armida-like, with chains 
 of roses. 
 
 The ' Anacreon ' suited the taste of the luxurious, sensual- 
 ised age, and in his next work, ' Little's Poems,' Moore un- 
 happily degraded his genius to the level of the society that 
 worshipped him. The 'Anacreon' had not the immortal 
 element in it, still it lives, and is sometimes read ; but ' Little's 
 Poems ' had the seeds of death in them, and they died. The 
 true fount of eternal song had not yet opened in Moore's soul. 
 He was himself unconscious where his great strength lay, 
 and wasted in the sentimentalities of frivolous and aflfected 
 feeling the power that was made to move the world's great 
 heart. 
 
 The magic influence that at last unsealed the fount, and 
 revealed to the poet the riches of his own genius, came from 
 the divinely beautiful spirit of Irish music. At once, when it 
 touched his soul, the hidden stream of inspiration rushed up 
 to heaven, clear and pure and sparkling, and fell to earth 
 again in showers of many coloured splendours, strengthening 
 and refreshing not only his own loved land, but stimulatiiig 
 amongst the far-off nations the growth of Freedom's goodly 
 
 tree. 
 
 Moore himself describes the effect which Irish music had 
 on him when he first began to study it for the purpose of 
 writing words suitable to the airs— this mournful music, so 
 sad and so expressive, that made Beethoven exclaim, when he 
 first heard it, ' That must be the music of an oppressed and 
 suffering people.' The w^hole history and genius and tempera- 
 ment of the nation can be traced in its fluctuations of mirth 
 and sadness, its transient discords, and triumphant marches 
 mingled with wailing, pathetic minors, the alternate languor 
 andliurbulence, the despondency and defiance, so characteristic 
 of the vain but ceaseless eflorts of a nation to throw off an 
 
 intolerable yoke. ^ ^ 
 
 All this Moore found in our national music, whose origin 
 . j^g^ -j^ the night of time, but whose sweetest and saddest 
 
224 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 airs date from the cruel era of the Tudors ; and his genius 
 flowed rapidly in a divine harmony with its blended gaiety 
 and gloom. It was no effort to him to write then ; the 
 thoughts came with tears, and crystallised into imperishable 
 gems of song. He had felt and he had suffered, that was 
 sutFicient ; he was one of the helots, with the penal brand on 
 him, and he appealed to a whole people who burned with the 
 same indignant sense of wrong. It was not the voice of one 
 heart, but the cry of a nation that went up from his verses, 
 and startled the world into sympathy and pity for Ireland. 
 
 Translations of the * Melodies ' were rapidly made into all 
 the tongues of Europe. Wherever oppression existed, they 
 helped to give resistance utterance. They passed from nation 
 to nation, as a burning torch passes from hand to hand, the 
 signal of the uprising of a people against tyranny ; and so 
 they exist an enduring portion of the world's heritage, graven 
 with a diamond pen upon the rocks for ever. 
 
 The enthusiasm kindled by them in Ireland alarmed the 
 Government. Their tendency was pronounced ' mischievous,' 
 and the idea was entertained of forcibly suppressing their pub- 
 lication. Moore had to defend himself against the charge of 
 'stirring up the passions of a turbulent mob.' ' To those,' he 
 says, ' who can identify nationality with treason, I shall not 
 deign to offer an apology for the political sentiments expressed ;' 
 ' besides,' he adds sarcastically, ' this volume is for the piano- 
 fortes of the rich, for those who can afford to have their 
 national zeal a little stimulated, without exciting much dread 
 of the excesses into which it may lead them ; and whose nerves 
 may be alarmed with advantage, since more may be expected 
 from their fears than could be gained from their justice.' 
 
 Moore was then but twenty-seven, in the full flush of youth 
 and genius, and that inspiration which fame gives to the poet 
 while she crowns him. Whatever was best and truest in his 
 nature he enshrined in these national songs, and by them he 
 lives ; all else he has written, rich as they are in fancy, beauty, 
 and exquisite diction, are almost unheeded by the people ; the 
 ' Melodies ' form the true pedestal of his glory. He has been 
 
THOMAS MOORE 225 
 
 niade immortal by a hundred songs. His principles, also 
 triumphed at last over the petty factions of the hour, and what 
 was pronounced ' sedition ' when he wrote, soon, by the over- 
 whelming power of public opinion, was forced to become law 
 The strong arm of O'Connell guided the passions, and directed 
 those mighty energies evoked by the divine gift of song, and 
 the fetters lifted from a nation by the Act of Emancipation 
 fell as a trophy at the poet's feet. Moore's verses were the 
 inspiration of ' the Liberator,' and even Wellington may have 
 been touched by this noble appeal : — ■ 
 
 Yet, still the last crown of thy toils is remaining, 
 
 The grandest, the purest even thou hast yet known, 
 Tho' proud was thy task other nations unchaining. 
 
 Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own. 
 At the foot of that throne for whose weal thou hast stood, 
 
 Go ! plead for the Land that first cradled thy fame, 
 And bright o'er the flood of her tears and her blood 
 
 Let the rainbow of hope be her Wellington's name. 
 
 The history of Ireland repeats itself from age to age with 
 such a mournful rhythm, that Moore's poems find as quick a 
 response in the hearts of the people now as when first pub- 
 lished. Each generation goes through the same phases — 
 resistance, defeat, despair. The new generation follows with 
 hopes as brilliant and resolves as bold, again to try, again to 
 fail. And so the sad trilogy is acted from age to age, while 
 the nation can only helplessly mourn, as victim after victim 
 falls dead in the dust of the arena. 
 
 Moore was the truest interpreter of these successive moods 
 of aspiration and gloom ; and his verse so simple, yet so pas- 
 sionate and powerful, has become almost the national idiom for 
 the expression of national feeling. No poet is so often quoted. 
 His lyrics are in the hearts and on the lips of our people, and 
 our orators still wing their arrows against oppression with a 
 line from Moore to make the aim more fatal. 
 
 A very perfect and beautiful translation of the ' Melodies ' 
 into Irish was made by Dr. M'Hale, the learned and patriotic 
 Archbishop of Tuam ; and as the impetuous peasantry of the 
 
 Q 
 
226 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 West listen with tears, or wild applause to Moore's verses, suncr 
 to their national music in their native tongue, one feels that 
 love of freedom and dreams of independence can never die out 
 amongst a people so sensitive to all that is noble, tender, and 
 heroic. Moore knew that his glory was linked with these 
 songs : for all poets that have once touched the nation's heart 
 live evermore with the nation's life. It was the passionate 
 wail of an oppressed people he uttered, and all nations adopted 
 it. It was the cry of humanity against wrong, and found a 
 universal echo. The prophetic words have been fulfilled which 
 he wrote with prescience of his own world-wide fame — 
 
 The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains, 
 The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep, 
 
 Till thy masters themselves as they rivet our chains, 
 Shall pause at the song of their capiives and weep. 
 
 When the ' Melodies ' were completed, Moore was at the 
 summit of liis glory. The world and its publishers were at his 
 feet. At once he received an offer of 3,000?. for any poem ho 
 would choose to write on an Eastern subject. Moore describes 
 his own anxieties after the acceptance of this splendid offer, 
 No inspiration came ; for he had none, he says, unconnected 
 with country ; no strength unless he lay on the breast of his 
 mother earth ; and the very magnitude of the offer seemed to 
 weigh clown and deaden all thought and fancy in him. ' At 
 length,' he adds, ' the thought occurred to me of founding a 
 story on the fierce struggle between the Ghebers, the ancient 
 fire-worshippers of Persia, and their haughty Moslem masters. 
 From this moment a new and deep interest took possession of 
 me, and the spirit that had spoken in the ''Melodies" of 
 Ireland soon found itself a home in the East.' 
 
 Thus, the true inspiration came, and the poem flowed on 
 rapidly. 
 
 ' The Fire Worshippers,' though the scene is laid in Persia, 
 is, in fact, an episode of '98, and the portrait of Hafed, the 
 young dauntless hero, is drawn from Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 
 Though Moore sang of Iran, his thoughts were of Erin ; and 
 
THOMAS MOOEE 227 
 
 underlying every page of the poem is an allusion to the wrongs 
 
 which Ireland has suffered from her conquerors ; while all the 
 
 smouldering indignation of his own feelings is expressed in 
 
 the lines : — 
 
 Yes, I am of that ontcast few, 
 To Iran and to vengeance true ; 
 "Who curse the hour your Arabs came 
 To desolate our shrines of flame ; 
 And swear, before God's burning eye, 
 To break our country's chains, or die. 
 
 While the passionate but vain efforts of the Ghebers to throw 
 off the yoke of the intolerant invader recall the story of the 
 fated Geraldine, who is described as 
 
 One of the ancient hero line, 
 Along whose glorious currents shine 
 Names that have sanctified their blood. 
 As Lebanon's small mountain flood 
 Is rendered holy by the ranks 
 Of sainted cedars on its banks. 
 
 And our own people may find their likeness drawn in — 
 
 Iran's sons that never, never 
 
 Will stoop to be the victor's slaves. 
 
 While heaven has light or earth has graves ! 
 
 Spirits of fire, that brood not long, 
 
 But flash resentment back for v^rong ; 
 
 And hearts where slow, but deep, the seeds 
 
 Of vengeance ripen into deeds. 
 
 Who tho' they know the riven chain 
 
 Snaps but to enter in the heart 
 
 Of him who rends its links apart, 
 
 Yet dare the issue, blest to be, 
 
 Even for one bleeding moment free, 
 
 And die in pangs of liberty ! 
 
 The allusions, also, to the desecrated altars of the people 
 
 are numerous : — 
 
 The fierce invaders pluck the gem 
 From Iran's broken diadem, 
 And bind her ancient faith in chains. 
 
 q2 
 
228 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 In the fall of the young chief, who fought for freedom 
 ' on the green sea brink/ we recognise the fate of Lord 
 
 Edward : — 
 
 'Tis come, his hour of martyrdom 
 
 In Iran's sacred cause, is come ; 
 
 And tho' his life hath passed away, 
 
 Like lightning on a stormy day, 
 
 Yet, shall his death-hour leave a track 
 Of glory, permanent and brighl, 
 
 To which the brave shall long look back 
 With fond regret, and by its light 
 Watch through the hours of slavery's night. 
 
 So dies the Gheber chief : 
 
 His glories lost, his cause betrayed, 
 Iran, his own loved country, made 
 A land of carcases and slaves ; 
 One dreary waste of chains and graves ! 
 
 But he and his band meet death heroically, as many an Irish 
 patriot has done, and call 
 
 For God and Iran ! as they fall. 
 
 Then the informers are denounced, as they might often be 
 in Irish history before and since : 
 
 Oh ! for a tongue to curse the slave 
 
 Whose treason, like a deadly blight, 
 Comes o'er the councils of the brave, 
 
 And blasts them in their hour of might. 
 His country's curse, his children's shame. 
 Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame. 
 
 Even the captor of Lord Edward, the exceedingly unpopular 
 gentleman who was generally believed to be both sanctimonious 
 and cruel, is drawn with the characteristics attributed to him 
 by the Irish people, who detested his name : — 
 
 He sleeps 
 Calm while a nation round him weeps ; 
 While curses load the air he breathes, 
 And falchions from unnumbered sheaths 
 
THOMAS* MOOEE 229 
 
 Are starting to avenge the shame 
 His race hath brought on Iran's name, 
 Hard, heartless chief, unmoved alike 
 Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike, 
 One of that saintly murderous brood, 
 Who think through unbeliever's blood, 
 Lies their direct est path to heaven — 
 One who will pause, and kneel unshod 
 In the warm blood his hand hath pour d, 
 To mutter o'er some text of God, 
 Engraven on his reeking sword. 
 
 The perfect and beautiful poena of ' Lalla Rookh ' was re- 
 ceived by the public with the most intense enthusiasm, and ' The 
 Fire Worshippers ' was pronounced the best of all the tales, 
 probably because it was vital with true feeling. Lord Jeffrey, 
 m the ' Edinburgh,' gave it the palm for excellence, though he 
 entirely overlooked its cryptic political signification. Moore 
 was engaged for two years on this work ; for he says of him- 
 self that he worked slowly, and was a far more painstakiny 
 workman than people imagined. 
 
 For his next poem, ' The Loves of the Angels,' he received 
 1,000/. And his charming prose tale followed, ' The Epicurean,' 
 which, though closely imitated from the French romance of 
 ' Sethos,' is yet full of Moore's peculiar beauties. Then he 
 worked for years at his history of Ireland, which, if somewhat 
 imperfect for want of adequate knowledge, is yet a model of 
 style in eloquence and diction. When the first glow of youth 
 was over, Moore led a retired life in his English home, far 
 from the brilliant world, in the soul's quiet that genius loves. 
 Sometimes he visited his native country, and was always 
 received with triumphs and ovations. When he entered the 
 theatre at Dublin the whole audience rose up to welcome him 
 as if he were a king ; and he was a king over the hearts of the 
 nation, and this spontaneous homage was the sacred symbol of 
 the poet's coronation. 
 
 His last years were made sad and desolate by home sorrows ; 
 all his children died before him. His family became extinct ; 
 the race culminated and ended with him. But that which is 
 
230 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 best in the utterance of a great human soul can never die ; 
 the children of the poet's brain are immortal — 
 
 And the hearts and the voices of Erin prolong 
 Through the answering future his name and his song. 
 
 His library and his harp, that Irish harp which gave 
 him inspiration, have been placed in the keeping of the Royal 
 Irish Academy, as heirlooms of the nation, and a room has 
 been set apart for their reception, which is now called ' The 
 Moore Library ; ' while his statue, the first ever publicly 
 erected in Ireland to an Irishman, has, by a kind of poetical 
 justice, been placed in sight of the college that tried to have 
 him expelled for his nationality ; and was inaugurated by the 
 Viceroy of the Government that would willingly have stopped 
 the publication of the ' Irish Melodies ^ and had the poet 
 prosecuted for sedition. 
 
 But Moore lies in his death-sleep in English earth. Is this 
 right ? Should not the poet's sacred dust be laid in holy 
 Ireland, amidst the people to whom his genius was consecrated ? 
 Let us hope that a day will come when his mortal remains will 
 be brought back to the land he loved so well, with the reverent 
 homage of a nation, and then a fitting monument will be raised 
 in the Irish capital to the great national poet of Ireland, and 
 the most perfect lyrist of the age. 
 
231 
 
 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 As poet, dramatist, critic, essayist, novelist, and political 
 writer, Leigh Hunt's genius flashed brilliantly and success- 
 fully through all realms of literature, illuminating everything 
 he touched ; uniting grace and melody, power and feeling, wit 
 and good sense, in a degree beyond most of his contemporaries. 
 And alongside of his genius flowed a genial daily life — that of 
 an amiable, kindly, patient-suSering, loving, human-hearted 
 man. He also interests as having lived among the great men 
 of a great era — receiving their light and flashing back many 
 a ray to us in those sunny, sparkling pages of a self- told life, 
 where the old man's fancy, still vivid with eternal youth, 
 trails vinelike round all subjects, the simplest and barest, and 
 leaves them rich with purple clusters of depending fruit. He 
 himself, one of the last of that great Titan brood who warred 
 against the elder gods and overthrew them, with all their 
 sheep-and-buttercup literature, Strephons and Delias, flutes 
 and crooks, shepherds and ' tender fairs ' — altogether bucolical 
 and mournful to think of. 
 
 Leish Hunt's influence on literature was even more re- 
 niarkable than any work which he produced. Amongst them 
 all, none, perhaps, will travel far down the stream of time, 
 except that sweet 'Story of Rimini,' well deserving to be 
 stereotyped on the human heart ; but the influence and 
 direction he gave to poetry, with the echo of all his sweet har- 
 monies, will be permanent. He was the first to break up the 
 stiff, monotonous cadence which had twanged for a hundred 
 years, from Pope to Cowper, into a thousand graceful, flowing 
 
232 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 curves and modulations, that made the English language in 
 his hands seem as flexible, soft, and musical as the Italian. 
 All the younger poets followed his example ; and if our poetry 
 now excels in varied cadence it is to his exquisite gift of 
 musical utterance the important change is mainly owing. 
 
 It would be a difficult task to assign Leigh Hunt's true 
 place among the nations — not for the Homeric reasons, but 
 because his ancestry mingle the most various biological 
 elements. By the father's side, for many generations, all 
 were ' Barbadians born ; ' his grandmother an O'Brien, right 
 proud of her royal Irish blood ; his father, a West Indian, 
 reared in Philadelphia, marries an American of Quaker lineage, 
 with perhaps some Indian tinting ; thus, tropical fire, Irish 
 wit and fancy, mitigated by Quakerism, combined to build up 
 his poet- frame. Not uncongenial elements, however, for a 
 oflowino; son of Helicon. 
 
 When the American revolution began, his father, being a 
 loyalist and true Guelph, quitted the rising republic and 
 took refuge in England. There, in 1784, his youngest and 
 only English child was born at Edmonton (famed for its 
 merry witch, and now for the grave of Charles Lamb), and 
 was christened Leigh, after a member of the great Chandos 
 race, to whom his father had become tutor. 
 
 After his settlement in England, Mr. Hunt the elder took 
 orders, obtaining in course of time a living and much celebrity 
 as a popular preacher. He was a man of wit and taste, with 
 a fine voice, which charmed away the heart of the lady he 
 afterwards married ; and was altogether a gay, pleasant, 
 for-ever-impoverished, sanguine, planning, projecting, light- 
 liearted fragment of humanity, who wrote a volume of sermons 
 that never sold, and innumerable titles for non-existincf books. 
 Latterly he and his wife became Unitarians and Universalists, 
 or believers in the final salvation of all — doctrines inherited 
 by their poet-son. 
 
 The American mother of Quaker-race was a tall, fine 
 brunette, with eyes and hair kissed black by the sun, and two 
 grand virtues to begin with — a love of nature and a love of 
 
LEIGH HUNT 233 
 
 books. She had known Franklin in her youth —the mild, 
 musical philosopher ; and Thomas Paine, with his terrible 
 countenance, never to be forgotten — traditions that made her 
 interesting to her son. He says of her that she never smiled, 
 while his father ever laughed. This commingling of grave and 
 gay was calculated to produce the true poetic temperament — 
 ever changing, ever passing through every arc of the circle of 
 emotion. From his mother, likewise, along with her shadow- 
 ing melancholy, that indispensable background for all high 
 mental life, the young poet received his southern tint and 
 Petrarch eyes, large, deep, and dark as a lake at midnight, 
 with the tall, slender, half Indian frame, that seemed to 
 have sprung up amidst the broad savannahs of the New 
 World. 
 
 After the usual childhood of genius — weak health and 
 mental precocity — he was admitted to Christ's Hospital — the 
 very school to make one dream of celebrity and authorship. 
 Camden and Richardson ; Stillingfleet, and Barnes, who reared 
 the ' Thunderer,^ and Mitchell, with his Greek soul, had all 
 gone forth from it ; but, more than all, Coleridge and Charles 
 Lamb. Many were the winged spirits fledged in these old 
 cloisters, built for God's worship and the soul's sanctuary 
 by Franciscan saints ; taken from them by the polygamic 
 Henry, ' Defender of the Faith,' and bestowed on the citizen 
 children of London by the young Edward, whose meek face 
 still remains the badge of the Foundation. 
 
 In the intervals of the much-wearing classics and still less 
 endurable arithmetic — for he confesses that the multiplication 
 table was ever to him a sealed mystery — the poet-boy exulted 
 in sonorous cadence and fancy flights with Grey, Collins, 
 Spenser and the ' Arabian Nights.' The result was a volume of 
 poems published, immediately on leaving school, by subscription 
 amono-st kind friends, and received with such success as 
 made the youthful bard at once a celebrity. Thus early began 
 his public career ; ushered into the world with a flourish of 
 trumpets before he was twenty, he was immediately absorbed 
 into the vortex of newspapers, reviews, critiques, and all that 
 
234 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 brilliant ephemera which are born and die in light, their life 
 but an hour, still it is one in the plane of the sunbeam. 
 
 Besides all this casting forth of brain-fritters, he acted as 
 clerk in the War Office ; for genius is none the worse in having 
 a fixed solid centre, round which all the luminous centrifuoral 
 particles of its nature may be forced to centripetalise. Charles 
 Lamb for thirty years was clerk in the India House ; Cole- 
 ridge, schoolmaster, public lecturer, newspaper and magazine 
 contributor, anything, everything that came in his way, and 
 in all things great ; Horace Smith, a stockbroker. All these 
 men, and others many, turned over the clods of life with some 
 instrument or other, and, like Elisha, ploughed and prophesied, 
 not deadened, but strengthened rather, Antaeus-like, by touch- 
 ing earth and standing in the furrows. 
 
 In 1804 the witty and clever Whig ' Examiner ' commenced 
 its existence, with Leigh Hunt as editor. The name was 
 adopted after Swift's paper, in compliment to the brilliant 
 reminiscences and unrivalled powers of the mighty Dean, 
 whose caustic and terrible wit became the model of the new 
 writers. Amongst them were 'men of renown' — Hazlitt, 
 Shelley, Lamb, and others, giants if not Titans. The wit, 
 poetry, and criticism of the new organ, together with the 
 strong aid given to the measure of reform, raised it at once 
 into flourishing altitude. But a change arrived. The Prince 
 became Regent and a Tory, and the result was an indictment 
 for libel against the editor of the ' Examiner,' who had 
 ventured to designate the royal Adonis ' a corpulent gentle- 
 man of fifty,' the trial terminating in a sentence of imprison- 
 ment for two years against Mr. Hunt, rigorously carried out 
 to the very letter. Two years robbed from the very prime 
 and crowning of life's vigour, physical and mental, when every 
 year is worth ten of the before and after ! What a mockery 
 this law ! — blindly crushing with its iron hand the powers of 
 one of the strongest working minds of the age, to gratify the 
 wounded vanity of the weakest, most licentious, worthless 
 human being then existing, probably, in the three kingdoms. 
 
 The prison cell, however, was papered with a trellis of 
 
LEIGH HUNT 235 
 
 roseSj a fond delusion for lie poet's fancy ; the ceiling painted 
 in clouds and sky ; Venetian blinds, piano, bookcase, flowers 
 added ; all that could veil iron gratings, deaden the discord of 
 bolts and bars, and paraphrase the jailor into a graceful 
 seneschal. Still, it was a dungeon for the soul^ with all its 
 ghastly prison sounds, that act on the nerves worse even than 
 fetters on the frame ; its narrow strip of sky flecked with 
 iron all of God's universe left visible ; and the air from the 
 courtyard, dense with the breathings of crime, all of the 
 mighty rushing winds of heaven permitted to visit the poet's 
 cheek. 
 
 No wonder, when he walked forth free after two years of 
 young life had been thus murdered, he should describe his 
 ' bewildered ' feel, as of a bird long caged and suddenly set 
 free ; no wonder the influence of this most terrible of all 
 tortures to which a man of genius can be subjected remained 
 paramount, and that a languor for life rested upon the spirit 
 which nothing after could dissipate. 
 
 But for us, readers merely, the prison scenes are full of 
 interest. All the celebrities of the day visited the captive 
 poet, singing, Tasso-like, through the bars ; and we seem to 
 assist at a conversazione with all the splendours of the past, 
 lending willing ears to a gossip made glorious by great 
 
 names. 
 
 There came the small, white-haired Fuseli, with his fierce 
 energy of Italian nature, making himself still fiercer for efiect ; 
 Bonnycastle, tall, gaunt, long-headed, large-featured, with 
 deep, internal voice, equine laugh, and who ' goggled over his 
 plate like a horse ' — enchanted above all things with an Arabic 
 translation of his works, which the pious Moslem prefaces by 
 a thanksgiving that it had pleased God to raise us up a Bonny- 
 castle ! and Campbell, small, handsome, compact, and elegant ; 
 
 a ' French Virgil,' classical and accomplished, with a ' refining 
 and diminishing nature, like a drawing-room mirror;' a severe 
 autocritic, for w^hich reason he wrote so little, but wrote so 
 well ; vain and envious, the world said, yet withal having a 
 heart laro-e enough to worship Freedom. What a contrast 
 
236 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 the hypercritical Campbell with Theodore Hook, who poured 
 forth heart-and-brain streams without waiting for any filter 
 to stop the rougher particles ! 
 
 Amongst the wits came Charles Lamb — he who met you 
 r^^ with laughter and so often left you weeping ; the strangest 
 \ compound nature ever formed out of genius and a tragic 
 destiny. Thought and feeling in his fine eyes, delicate 
 features, and fragile figure — but no vigour ; strength enough 
 only in him, apparently, to be an idolater of those he loved. 
 And the less strangely gifted but clever Horace Smith, whose 
 ' Rejected Addresses ^ are sure of no rejection from our litera- 
 ture. What can be more ludicrously exquisite, for instance, 
 than this parody of Wordsworth's 'Betty-Foybles,' as Hood 
 called them : — 
 
 My brother Jack was nine in May, 
 And I was eight on New Year's Day, 
 
 So in Kate Wilson's shop, 
 Papa ! — (he's my papa, and Jack's) — 
 Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, 
 
 And brother Jack a top. 
 
 Jack's in the pouts — and this it is, 
 He thinks mine came to more than his, 
 
 So to my drawer he goes. 
 Takes out the doll, and oh, my stars ! 
 He pokes her head between the bars, 
 
 And melts off haK her nose ! 
 
 Or the solemn imitation of the great Kantian prophet, moving 
 rhythmically in such lines as these : — 
 
 My pensive Public ! wherefore look yon sad ? 
 I had a graxidmother — she kept a donkey I — 
 
 Making laughter and a thought of Coleridge for the first 
 time, probably, simultaneous. 
 
 But the fine form of the Bard of Skiddaw himself, grave 
 and ^schylean, like Strength or Force on their way to 
 Prometheus with a message from Jupiter, passes across the 
 field of vision, with eyes — but Mr. Hunt must describe them : 
 
LEIGH HUNT 237 
 
 ' I have never beheld eyes that looked so inspired, so super- 
 natural, as Wordsworth's. They were like fires, half-burning, 
 half- smouldering, with a sort of acrid fixture of regard, and 
 seated at the further end of two caverns. Ezekiel or Isaiah 
 might have had such eyes.' 
 
 Byron, too, was a prison visitor. ' An elegant, spiritual 
 head and face, with a proud stormy look about the brows.' 
 Thus he is sketched. And once — but this after his release — 
 the poet of E/imini sees the pretty, earnest ' pippin-face ' of 
 Lady Byron, as she herself defined it. 
 
 Contrasting strongly with the refined, affected, hlase^ 
 Juanesque Byron appears the tall, solid figure of Coleridge, 
 with his white hair, though but fifty, blanched and scorched 
 by the inner fire of the brain. A great calm temple of 
 thought, with heavy, indolent features, like those old 
 Egyptian gods, still gazing upon the ages from their land 
 of mystery. All but the eyes displayed this silent majesty. 
 There the Soul sat, performing her magical incantations, 
 while above them rose the prodigious forehead, ' a great piece 
 of placid marble,' and the lips poured forth their fine and 
 solemn monologues. ' Give me to eternity new " Talk " by 
 Colerido-e, and new " Essays " by Charles Lamb ! ' exclaims 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott an d Leigh Hunt were never warm friends. 
 By his ' Feast of the Poets/ published some time before his 
 imprisonment, the latter had made all poets and poetlings his 
 enemies. Scott, amongst others, was discontented with too 
 little praise, for his genius was never rated as high by his 
 brother-authors as by the public. Even in calm, cool prose 
 Mr. Hunt pronounces him ' a poet of a purely conventional 
 order warmed with a taste for old books ; a critic more 
 ao-reeable than subtle ; a bitter, not a large-minded politician ; 
 but a third-rate Shakespeare, wanting the feminine side of 
 
 genius grace and music ; and the least quotable for senten- 
 
 tiousness, or wit, or any other memorable brevity, in the whole 
 circle of illustrious writers.' 
 
 Coleridge is still more coldly critical. In one of his letters 
 
238 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 he calls ^ Ivanhoe ' and the * Bride of Lammermoor ' ' those 
 wretched abortions ; ' speaks of his translating into Leaden- 
 hall-Street-Minerva-Library-sentences the common incidents 
 of ' D'Urfe and Scuderi ; ^ asserts that ' not twenty lines of 
 Scott's poetry will reach posterity ; it has relation to nothing; ' 
 but that he is popular because ' his works amuse without 
 requiring thought and without exciting deep emotion.' All 
 true, perhaps. All this residuum may really have been left 
 in the critic's crucible, yet still the subtle vital element of 
 Scott's creations escapes all analysis. That magic vitality by 
 which he swayed the hearts of all Europe, as no man ever 
 moved them but Shakespeare, founded a School of Literature 
 throughout all Europe, and so interpenetrated his country 
 with his genius, civilising, giving it more impulse on the path 
 of progress than a century of railroads could have done — 
 glorifying all its natural loveliness with his ideal beauty, so 
 that our bewildered senses scarcely distinguish the God-created 
 from the Genius- superadded^stamping every mountain, from 
 the North Sea to the Clyde, with his eflBgy (for not Athos 
 alone has here been carved into an Alexander) — until Scotland 
 for ever more to all the world means in its highest and proudest 
 significance, the land of Scott. 
 
 Gifibrd, editor of ' The Quarterly Review,' was also indig- 
 nant at the unceremonious manner in which he had been pre- 
 sented to Apollo in ' The Feast of the Poets.' The dramatists 
 had just vanished — 
 
 All the worst playwrights from Dibdin to Terry, 
 
 when — 
 
 A hemming was heard, consequential and snapping, 
 And a sour little gentleman walked with a rap in. 
 ' And pray,' cried the god in high glee, 
 
 * And pray, my frank visitor, who may you be ? ' 
 
 * Who be ? ' cried the other : * why, really, this tone- 
 William Gifford 's a name, I think, pretty well known I ' 
 ' Oh, now I remember,' said Phoebus, * ah, true — 
 
 The Anti-La-Cruscan who writes the Review : 
 
 But, my visit just now is to poets alone. 
 
 And not to small critics, however well known.' 
 
LEIGH HUNT 239 
 
 So saying, he rang, to leave nothing in doubt, 
 And the sour little gentleman bowed himself out. 
 
 Of this ' small, bilious, and querulous-looking despot of 
 Parnassus, this lover of small victims,' Mr. Hunt had indeed 
 but a poor opinion, and says of him : ' He had not a particle 
 of genius. He was only ill-natured and unscrupulous, and, 
 like Attila, spared neither age nor sex.' 
 
 Gifford revenged himself as only reviewers can ; and for 
 some other reasons the Whig ' Edinburgh ' was equally cold in 
 Leigh Hunt's praise, or, worse even, often quite silent. There 
 is a pathos in Mr. Hunt's slight discomposure on the subject ; 
 for it is a sad evil of our days that all talent, even the highest, 
 is so dependent for recognition or oblivion upon the petty 
 personal feelings, envies, and jealousies of reviewers. He 
 says, innocently and sadly : ' I think the '' Edinburgh Review'^ 
 might have noticed my books a little oftener. I am sure it 
 would have done me a great deal of worldly good by it, and 
 itself no harm in these progressing days of criticism.^ One 
 thinks here of poor Southey's emotion at seeing his poems 
 lying in piles, dusty, untouched, unsold, on the bookseller's 
 shelves, and writing to Coleridge ; ' Oh, puff me, Coleridge ; if 
 you love me, puff me ; puff a couple of hundreds into my 
 pocket, good Coleridge !' 
 
 The ' Story of Rimini ' was written in prison. Strange 
 inspiration for that sunny idyll, deepened to tragedy, as if a 
 thunderstorm had suddenly gathered over a summer landscape. 
 It is a tale old as six centuries, yet young with the eternal 
 youth of passion — founded on that passing vision of Dante's, 
 as he wandered through the eternal darkness of the Inferno ; 
 that gleam of youth, beauty, and deathless love, flung like a 
 rainbow on the midnight of hell. A tale older even than 
 Dante — that of forbidden love, waiting but some poet's hand 
 to unclasp the volume, and we find every page steeped in tears 
 and inundated with beauty. 
 
 The story of Francesca, Count Guide's daughter, is given 
 in full ; her fatal marriage with the old, deformed, hateful, 
 
240 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Lord of Kimini ; her fatal love for his young brother, Paulo, 
 to whom she had been first affianced. Her life in her new 
 home made bearable by that defiant resignation, so strong till 
 tempted ; her saintly, though loveless life, yet not unloved, 
 for Paulo was near her, her husband's guest at their castle, 
 and his eyes spoke what his lips feared to utter : 
 
 Love by the object loved is soon discerned, 
 
 And grateful pity is love half returned. 
 
 Of pity for herself the rest was made 
 
 Of first impressions and beliefs betrayed. 
 
 Bright grew the morn whenever Paulo came ; 
 
 The only word to write was cither's name ; 
 
 Soft in each other's presence fell their speech ; 
 
 Each tho' they looked not, felt they saw but each ; 
 
 'Twas day, 'twas night, as either came or went, 
 
 And bliss was in two hearts with misery strangely blent. 
 
 The catastrophe is given almost in the words of Dante. 
 Francesca one day, ' one gentle, autumn noon,' came to her 
 accustomed haunt, where — 
 
 Twas rugged trunks 
 
 Throned in dark pillars up the gold green light, 
 
 And fell to reading. 
 
 'Twas * Launcelot of the Lake,' a bright romance, 
 
 Which, like a trumpet, made young pulses dance. 
 
 There she reads how the young Launcelot came to King 
 Arthur's Court and displayed such knightly graces— 
 
 That what with all his charms of look and limb, 
 The Queen Ginevra fell in love with him :— 
 And here, such interest in the tale she took, 
 Francesca's eyes went deeper in the book. 
 
 Ready she sat with one hand to turn o'er 
 The leaf to which her thoughts ran on before, 
 The other on the table, Imlf enwreathed 
 In the thick tresses over which she breath'd ; 
 So sat she fixed, and so observed was she 
 Of one who at the door stood tenderly— 
 
LEIGH HUNT 241 
 
 * May I come in ? ' he said— it made her start — 
 
 That smiling voice : she coloured, press'd her heart 
 
 A moment, as for breath, and then with free 
 
 And usual tone, said : * 0, yes, certainly.' 
 
 There 's wont to be, at conscious times like these, 
 
 An affectation of a bright -eyed ease, 
 
 As if to seem so were to be secure. 
 
 With this the lovers met, with this they spoke, 
 With this sat down to read the self-same book, 
 And Paulo, by degrees, gently embraced 
 With one permitted hand her lovely waist ; 
 And both their cheeks like peaches on a tree, 
 Came with a touch together thrillingly, 
 And o'er the book they hung, and nothing said, 
 And every lingering page grew longer as they read. 
 
 As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart 
 Their colour change, they came upon the part 
 Where fond Ginevra, with her flame long nurst, 
 Smil'd upon Laancelot, when he kiss'd her first — 
 That touch at last through every fibre slid, 
 And Paulo turn'd, scarce knowing what he did, 
 Only he felt he could no more dissemble. 
 And kiss'd her, mouth to mouth all in a tremble. 
 Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long kiss : 
 Sacred be love from sight whate'er it is ; 
 The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er, 
 Passionate the joy, that day they read no more. 
 
 With this — 'Quel giorno piu non vi legemmo avante^ — 
 Dante ends the tragedy ; but Mr. Hunt continues to the retri- 
 bution. The lovers are betrayed, and murdered by the fierce 
 Lord of Rimini : 
 
 What avail'd grief, strength, despair ? 
 Or what the two poor hands put forth in prayer ? 
 Hot is the dagger from the brother's heart, 
 Deep in the wife's — dead both and dashed apart — 
 Mighty the murderer felt as there they lay ; 
 Mighty, for one huge moment, o'er his prey ; 
 Then, hke a drunken man, he rode away. 
 
 Much of the mournful beauty of ' Parasina/ of which the 
 o-olden-haired Guiccioli was the heroine-original, evidently was 
 
 R 
 
242 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 suggested by this ' Story of Rimini ; ' and younger poets caught 
 the echo of its fanciful, capricious music, and set their thoughts 
 to it lovingly. 
 
 In 1821, the 'Examiner' having declined in popularity, 
 Shelley invited Mr. Hunt to join him and Byron in Italy, and 
 set up a Liberal paper in concert. The periodical did not 
 succeed, though how it failed with such men as Shelley, Hazhtt 
 and Hunt for contributors is a marvel. However, to Leigh 
 Hunt's residence in Italy we are indebted for some brilliant 
 sketches of Italian scenery and Italian humanity ; not that 
 he admires either much. The best of its scenery, he thinks, 
 exists chiefly in the ' Landscape Annual,^ and the beauty of 
 these children of the sun in our own imaginations. But he 
 can write well about everything, fling rich colours on his 
 canvas, and while wandering through these Italian towns, 
 whose very names are music, sketch Italian women for us like 
 a Titian, with their stately ' peacock ' walk, that Petrarch 
 lauds in his ' Laura ' — so Yolumnia might have trod the pave- 
 ment of old Rome — and their eyes, full of love's own fire — 
 with such Juliet may have gazed on Romeo. Yet they are 
 not handsome as a race ; though passion, when earnest and 
 deep, as in these Italian natures, will always give a certain 
 wild beauty and meaning to a countenance — a glowing, illu- 
 minating, irradiating splendour. Premature old age, however, 
 is the penalty for the sun's warm kisses, and ' no ugliness can 
 equal the aged ugliness of Italy.' 
 
 Neither are the vines a lovely object, though they trail so 
 beautifully in verse and tourists' note-books ; and much of 
 the horizon sweep of the eye is flat, monotonous, dusty, sun- 
 burned — yet, over all the variegated, picturesque, moving 
 human life beneath, springs the bright azure dome of Heaven — 
 an atmosphere where painters learn to paint. What have 
 we to do with Art in our dull mist- woven sky ? We, who 
 have never seen a colour, who know not what it is, until per- 
 chance some day the scarlet herrettas of the Neapolitan fisher- 
 men flash on us between the silver waves and the blue sky, and 
 
LEIGH HUNT 248 
 
 we then may comprehend what scarlet is, and feel with a 
 heart-throb that it is like the sound of a trumpet. 
 
 But we have pictures of still grander mould in these 
 sketches. Shelley is drawn well, with his profound religious 
 instincts ] profound sympathy with humanity, that could not 
 look on pain or misery — ever striving to rush with soul and 
 fortune to the rescue ; his passionate love of all nature — 
 wood, water, sun, and stars ; his artist love of beauty, which 
 led him to place the sculptured forms of the Vatican Apollo 
 and the Phidian Venus in his study, that he might think and 
 write before them, beauty intoxicated ; a grave, serious, in- 
 spired nature, suiting well with his seraph-face — all beauty, 
 grace, music, love, lit up by his large wild eyes, immortal eyes, 
 and shadowed by his rich, iSowing hair. 
 
 He was then but twenty-nine, and married to his second 
 wife, the beautiful, intellectual, but calm, cold, emotionless 
 daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, who seemed to 
 look at all life through a passionless medium, neither experi- 
 encing pleasure nor regret. 
 
 His first wife, from whom he had parted, destroyed herself 
 previous to his second happier marriage, 
 
 Leigh Hunt found him living a pure, hermit, poet life in 
 Italy, neither tasting meat nor wine — feeding on light and air 
 chameleon-like. But the doom had already gone forth against 
 him. In a few weeks after, his ' frail form ' was mingling 
 with the elements, a portion of the nature he worshipped ; 
 and his ' pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift,' had entered 
 ^ behind the veil ' which his daring hand had so often vainly 
 tried to lift. Leigh Hunt was one of those who witnessed the 
 last strange, impressive scenes of his fatal destiny — the storm, 
 the antique funereal rites, and the burial in the capital of the 
 universe, beside the Adonais he had immortalised. 
 
 After Shelley's death Byron grew tired of Italy. Love, 
 
 <yenius and celebrity all fatigued him. He longed to live in 
 
 action, no longer in poetry ; then the Greek fire came to warm 
 
 his blood, and he went forth to the land which gave him life, 
 
 e2 
 
244 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 but death likewise. So he sleeps at Missolonghi, crowned 
 with the laurel and the bay. 
 
 Leigh Hunt returned to England. The ' Liberal' had failed ; 
 but, untiringly, he raised up new periodicals and wrote a novel 
 for bread — yes, literally living on the payment, chapter by 
 chapter. This novel of need was ' Sir Ralph Essher,^ a frag- 
 ment of life taken from the reign of the ' Merry Monarch,' 
 and full of brilliant Court pictures ; but, as a whole, devoid 
 of interest, and rather unreadable. Prose, he says himself, 
 he writes with a headache ; but verse comes calmly, pleasantly, 
 and spontaneously, as if music were his nature. 
 
 Still he had to work at the periodical ephemera for sub- 
 sistence. Southey knew something of this degrading neces- 
 sity — this conscious suicide of all the highest mental powers ; 
 and Coleridge, too, for he complains bitterly in one of his let- 
 ters of ^ this " periodical " writing for bread ' — ' picking black- 
 berries for chance customers ; ' and when his soul is ' full of 
 great thoughts for fame and the world, being condemned to 
 scribble an article for " Blackwood '^ for money.' 
 
 But Leigh Hunt, though accepting the necessity of the 
 age, and content to write for the passing hour, yet threw 
 vitality into all he touched, incarnated some portion of his 
 nature, and sent forth nothing to the public that did not tend 
 to make it wiser and better. 
 
 While inspired by Italy, he wrote that charming and un- 
 rivalled poem, ' Bacchus in Tuscany,' where the verse dances, 
 wild as a chorus of Bacchantes, and pours down a dithyrambic 
 torrent of sweet words, submerging the very soul in cascades 
 of the purple Nepenthe. 
 
 His lyrics, too, gush forth with a spontaneous melody, like 
 the carol of birds. 'The Song of the Flowers,' for instance, 
 beginning : — 
 
 We are the sweet flowers, 
 
 Born of sunny showers, 
 Think, whene'er you see us what our beauty saith ; 
 
 Utterance mute and bright, 
 
 Of some unknown dehght, 
 We fill the air with pleasure by our simple breath, 
 
LEIGH HUNT 245 
 
 All who see ns, love ns ; 
 
 We befit all places ; 
 Unto sorrows we give smiles, and unto graces, graces. 
 
 See, and scorn all duller 
 
 Taste, how Heaven loves colour — 
 How great nature, clearly, joys in red and green ; 
 
 What sweet thoughts she thinks, 
 
 Of violets and pinks, 
 And a thousand flashing hues, made solely to be seen. 
 
 See her whitest lilies chill the silver showers, 
 And what a red mouth has her Rose, the Woman of the Flowers I 
 
 In a graver style is a sonnet, entitled ' An Angel in the 
 House,' where a beautiful thought shines in perfect setting : — 
 
 How sweet it were if, without feeble fright, 
 
 Or dying of the dreadful, beauteous sight, 
 
 An Angel came to us, and we could bear 
 
 To see him issue from the silent air. 
 
 At evening in our room, and bend on ours 
 
 His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers 
 
 News of dear friends, and children who have never 
 
 Been dead indeed, — as we shall know for ever. 
 
 Alas ! we know not what we daily see 
 
 About our hearths— Angels that are to be, 
 
 Or may be if they will, and we prepare 
 
 Their souls and ours to meet in happy air — 
 
 A child, a friend, a wife, whose soft heart sings 
 
 In unison with ours, breeding its future wings. 
 
 His play, ' The Legend of Florence,' had great success when 
 acted ; but the reading merely does not move one much, 
 though the tale is one of pathos, and the blank verse always 
 rich and sonorous. Perhaps it wants variety of incidents. 
 The heroine does nothing but weep till she dies, and when 
 she comes to life again from her deadly trance the curtain 
 falls, precisely and tantalisingly at the moment of highest 
 interest, when the pale grave-risen Ginevra has to decide 
 between the husband, the lover, and the convent. Did the 
 poet fear to take the responsibility of her selection ? 
 
 So Leigh Hunt passed to old age, still working energetic- 
 ally for light and progress, with the fine- edged tools of intel- 
 
246 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 lect God had given him. And the home light rested long upon 
 his house, of which he has so touchingly sung in those sweet 
 lines addressed to his wife, entitled : — 
 
 A Heaven upon Earth 
 
 For there are two Heavens, sweet, 
 
 Both made of love — one inconceivable 
 
 Even by the other, so divine it is ; 
 
 The other, far on this side of the stars, 
 
 By men called Home, where some blest pair are met 
 
 As we are now ; each at its gentle task 
 
 Of book, or household need, or meditation, 
 
 By summer noon or curtained fire in frost ; 
 
 And by degrees there come — not always come. 
 
 Yet mostly — other smaller inmates there. 
 
 Cherubic-faced, yet growing like these two. 
 
 And so 'twixt joy 
 And love, and tears, and whatsoever pain 
 Man fitly shares with man, these two grow old ; 
 And if, indeed, blest thoroughly, they die 
 In the same spot and nigh the same good hour, 
 And setting suns look heavenly on their grave. 
 
247 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Wordsworth's long life was not passed in vain for humanity. 
 As an apostle of the Divine^ a light-bringer to his age, leading 
 many souls up from darkness to the serene harmony of the 
 higher spiritual life, the great poet nobly fulfilled his mission 
 and left the impress of his genius indelibly stamped on the 
 literature of his country. Then he passed away, not in gloom 
 but glory. He went forth by the gate of victory to the tomb. 
 
 Wordsworth's outer life was singularly uneventful. No 
 trials or sorrows touched him, no torturing and ignoble poverty, 
 that usual martyrdom of genius, and no suffering in the home 
 life, till the death of his daughter shadowed his last years with 
 the darkness of grief. 
 
 Except two short visits to the Continent and an excursion 
 to Scotland, which he has immortalised in verse, his whole life 
 was passed peacefully amid the tranquil and beautiful scenery 
 of the English lakes. From them he drew his inspiration ; 
 they are now and for ever associated with his name, and there 
 he died, at his far-famed residence, Rydal Mount, just as he 
 had completed his eightieth year. 
 
 There is an idea current that brain-work kills sooner than 
 hand-work ; yet Goethe and Chateaubriand, both contempo- 
 raries of Wordsworth, equalled him in years. Calderon, also, 
 lived to eighty, and Carlyle may now be added to the instances 
 of extreme longevity in great authors. 
 
 But the passionate poets seem to die younger than the 
 reflective — Burns, at thirty-seven ; Byron, thirty-six ; Shelley, 
 at thirty; and Keats, at twenty -five. There are some singular 
 
248 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 circumstances also observable in the Avatar of Genius in the 
 world. The phenomena of its appearance seem to follow some 
 definite laws. A rush of the Divine Spirit comes breathing on 
 a generation, imparting some special gift that gives an onward 
 impulse to the human soul in one particular path, which 
 advance is a permanent conquest. The soul discovers its 
 capabilities, and is henceforth never content with efforts that 
 do not equal this revealed perfection. All the great painters of 
 the Middle Ages came together. So did the great dramatists of 
 English literature. And the chief musicians belong to one age. 
 Between these Pentecosts of genius are the eras of imitation, 
 which last until the thoughts of the great masters are diluted 
 and filtered through every heart, and the soul, languishing for 
 new food, is prepared to try its wings on some other path. 
 
 Sometimes the spirit of one age is continued by a repre- 
 sentative in the next, through a kind of psychological descent, 
 as if the metempsychosis were not a mere Hindu fiction, and 
 that souls did reappear on earth to fulfil the working out of 
 the ideas they had begun to develop while in another human 
 form. Thus Newton was born the year Galileo died ; Words- 
 worth the same year that Akenside died — the poet of all 
 others with whom his spirit has strongest afiinities. Aken- 
 side died young, at forty-nine. His genius was not powerful 
 enough to work alone with visible effect upon the materialistic 
 tendencies of his century. He dies, and the same spirit comes 
 forth again in Wordsworth, strong to battle for the right and 
 conquer, assisted by such a band of co-workers as Truth never 
 before had on her side in one age. 
 
 Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Wordsworth head the four 
 great epochs of English poetry — each different in modes of 
 thought and modes of utterance. Spenser leads the Saxon 
 school. His verse affords the richest specimens of the mediaeval 
 mind — gorgeous and decorated as the florid Gothic architecture 
 of the period. 
 
 His influence reigned down to Milton, when the Latin 
 style became the favourite of that severe, learned, scholastic, 
 theological age. The Restoration was the transition period 
 
WOEDSWOETH 249 
 
 between that and Pope, when French taste predominated, and 
 literature was distinguished for cultured elegance but shallow 
 thought. 
 
 The writers of that age have the sole merit of having 
 brought the language to a state of high perfection — made it a 
 graceful and flexible medium for the interchange of social 
 thought (as far as its inherent rudeness and roughness will 
 permit), for it must be confessed that English, in preceding 
 ages, was but a clumsy instrument wherewith to convey the 
 delicate and subtle elegancies of conversation. Fifty years 
 after Pope, Cowper commenced the reaction against the French 
 artificial school ; but no great poet — (for Cowper only wrote 
 excellent common sense in rhyme) — intervenes between Pope 
 and Wordsworth, when the Teutonic influence began to be 
 felt, and that increased depth of thought and power in utter- 
 ance characterised our literature, which is always the result 
 the nearer we approach the Teutonic element and recede from 
 the Latin in our language. 
 
 The French Revolution closed the eighteenth century with 
 a chaos, in which faith, reverence, custom, law and tradition 
 were engulfed and all existing ideas shattered. Man, like the 
 first man, stood in life without a past, and plunged deep into 
 his own soul, its passion-world, its sense- world, its faith and 
 spirit-world, to construct new systems in the void. Power- 
 ful guides were needed then for the human race, and three 
 men appeared, in three different countries, adequate to the 
 task — three men of exalted faith, hope, and mental strength, 
 that no rush of circumstances could make swerve from the 
 truth. Like the three advanced stars of the great stellar 
 car, they led the chariot of human thought through the wide 
 fields of drifting space, round the fixed polar-star of eternal 
 truth. These men were Goethe, Chateaubriand, and Words- 
 worth. They all worked together in one cause — on the one 
 plank of time, and all lived to see their work bear fruit. It 
 was they who held up the human mind from sinking utterly 
 in that terrible abyss into which atheism and emancipated 
 passions had nearly hurled the soul of man. And foot to foot 
 they waged war against the desolating influences of the age 
 
250 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Each of these men had numerous co-workers, but they 
 reigned supreme. Never in England was seen a more splendid 
 array of genius than that which stood with Wordsworth upon 
 the summit of the nineteenth century and plunged down its 
 dark depths, carrying light, truth, faith, reverence to the 
 coming years. His contemporaries have never been surpassed 
 in any age or any land — Walter Scott, Coleridge, Byron, 
 Shelley, Moore, Southey, Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, and, 
 of minor names, a race that would alone have made an age 
 famous — Keats, Kirke White, Hogg, Hemans, Landon, Hood, 
 Heber, Ebenezer Elliott ; and these are but a fragment of the 
 list. Every one of these writers was born after Wordsworth ; 
 but all died before him, except Moore and Landor. Never 
 was there a more noble guild of poets ; and all of them, how 
 opposite soever their paths of action may seem, yet worked 
 together to build up the one temple — truth. All aided to 
 advance the progress of the human soul. Walter Scott taught 
 reverence, which is the first step to faith. Byron spoke the 
 want of every young heart. His literature of despair was the 
 anguished cry of a God-bereft humanity seeking its lost hope 
 and immortality. 
 
 Nations are like individuals. They pass from doubt to 
 faith ; but the transit is the. most fearful phase of a human 
 life. It is the desert from Egypt to Canaan. Byron was the 
 poet of this transition state — the incarnation of his own era. 
 The corroding wretchedness, the unsatisfied aspirations, the 
 infinite yearnings of the human heart found in him their 
 complete utterance. Byron's mission was to awaken, not to 
 teach. He was the poet of doubt, showing man to himself 
 amid the icy glaciers of an uncomprehended present and a 
 silent future. Coleridge and Wordsworth, the deepest minds 
 of the age, were unheeded at the very time that Byron reigned 
 in the zenith, because the human soul was not yet fitted to 
 receive their teaching. Shelley was the interpreter of the 
 awakened soul of man. With an almost phrenetic agony he 
 searched the universe for the resolution into harmony of the 
 dissonance which alone Byron had struck. A deep mystic 
 
WOEDSWOETH 251 
 
 sorrow for ever brooded over his God- sick spirit, raging with 
 desire to find an infinite object for his infinite love ; and 
 though he seemed, by his reckless scorn of creeds and dogmas 
 of religion, to impel the soul of man still further from the sun 
 of truth, he was even then but accelerating its progress to 
 plunge into the light again. Byron and Shelley had thus 
 made man feel his misery ; his need of something beyond the 
 passion-world and sense-world for happiness. Then Words- 
 worth's reign began. His voice was listened to while he solved 
 the problem which Byron and Shelley could only utter. His 
 calm, divine spirit seemed a clear mirror, in which God was 
 reflected as in the pages of inspiration ; and his words were 
 like the mystic western wind, commissioned to breathe on the 
 dry bones that they should live. His genius, like an electric 
 flash, passed through the dark opaque of human existence, at 
 once rendering it diaphanous ; and as through a crystal wall 
 men beheld the life within the life — the inner spiritual which lies 
 hid beneath the rude external material, the true life of which 
 the outward is but the transitory accessory. ' The whole outer 
 world,' says Schleiermacher, ' is an allegory, a lofty allegory, 
 of the inner world — man is eternal, life but a passing vibration.' 
 Wordsworth was the interpreter of this lofty allegory — 
 
 With mind that sheds a light on what he sees. 
 
 He had the spiritual vision which sees through the heart of 
 things, and he stood face to face with the primal eternal idea 
 shrined in them. Unheeded, scorned, preaching to deaf adders, 
 like all divine men when they first go forth on their mission, 
 so he passed many years ; but, unlike most of the gifted, he 
 lived to that futurity which all genius anticipates, and assisted 
 at his own apotheosis. The earliest of his published poems 
 were written when he was only seventeen. These were followed 
 by lyrical ballads, all bearing the same peculiar characteristics 
 that marked the productions of his maturer years. Speaking 
 of himself he says : — 
 
 Wisdom and spirit of the universe 1 
 
 From my fir^st dawn 
 
252 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me 
 The passions that built up our human soul, 
 Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, 
 But with high objects, with enduring things — 
 With life and nature purifying these, 
 And sanctifying by such discipline 
 Both pain and fear, until we recognise 
 A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 
 
 His ballad of ' Peter Bell/ published in 1819, but written 
 long before, excited a storm of ridicule, and yet it is one of the 
 finest in the language. The only point open to satire is the 
 appellation of the hero and his calling, both of which have 
 certainly an anti-poetical effect in this stanza : — 
 
 There sit the vicar and his dame, 
 And there my good friend, Stephen Otter, 
 And ere the light of evening fail 
 , To them I must relate the tale 
 
 Of Peter Bell the Potter. 
 
 Had he been called Conrad the Corsair the public, no doubt, 
 would have received the poem with rapture. Wordsworth's 
 great work, the one on which his fame rests, ' The Excursion,' 
 was published when he was forty-four. Here again the selec- 
 tion of ' a superannuated pedlar ' for his hero, exposed him to 
 the keenest satire. Yet the personality of his hero is but a 
 shadow. The work throughout is a transcript of the workings 
 of the human soul under diiferent trials, treated with a meta- 
 physical power and acuteness which is unsurpassed in the 
 English language — the human soul as it exists alike in king 
 and peasant, not modified or contracted by any outer circum- 
 stances of position. 
 
 Wordsworth, indeed, seems incapable of contracting his own 
 mind to the limits of an ordinary individual : he drawls not 
 men but Man. What he has uttered will be true as long as 
 our race exists, independent of all circumstances. With ple- 
 beian names and callings he introduces no narrow, circum- 
 scribed, vulgar thoughts. His pedlar talks and reasons as Plato 
 
' WOEDS WORTH 253 
 
 might before an assembly of kings. Through all these shadowy 
 personalities, which are little more than mere appellations, it 
 is the great philosopher and poet who is himself speaking to 
 us. His poems are thoroughly subjective, filled with that 
 sublime egoism of genius which one so readily pardons, for it 
 is the revelation of our own higher nature, too often world- 
 shrouded. He has transfused into all beautiful forms the 
 emotions of the different phases of his life as they swept over 
 the mirror of his own mind. His poems are his psychological 
 biography, for his genius is abstractive, profound, analytical, 
 not creative. Every page of his works proves the serious and 
 solemn awe with which he contemplated the soul of man as the 
 only true life whose history was worth a record. All external 
 relations and positions, rank, title, dignity, were to him but 
 fleeting, unreal dreams. He says : — 
 
 Not chaos, not 
 The darkest pit of lowest Erebus 
 Can breed such fear and awe 
 As fall upon us often, when we look 
 Into OUT minds, in^to the mind of man. 
 My haunt and the main region of my song. 
 
 Nature has more vital sympathies with his soul than the 
 toilinof, turbulent world. In ' The Wanderer ' he describes the 
 emotions of his own youth : — 
 
 While yet a child 
 Had he perceived the presence and the power 
 Of greatness. . . . The clouds were touched. 
 And in their silent faces could he read 
 Unutterable love. Sound, needed none, 
 Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 
 The spectacle. Sensation, soul, and form 
 All melted into him ; they swallowed up 
 His animal being. In them did he live, 
 And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
 But in the mountains did he/6^^Z his faith. 
 
 All things there 
 Breathed immortality, revolving life, 
 And greatness still revolving ; infinite 
 
254 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 There littleness was not ; the least of things 
 Seemed infinite : 
 
 What wonder if his being thus became 
 Sublime and comprehensive ! 
 
 In the lines on Tintern Abbey this passionate love of nature 
 is still more beautifully expressed : — 
 
 I cannot paint 
 What then I was. The sounding cataract 
 Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 Their colours and their forms were then to me 
 An appetite, a feeling, and a love 
 That had no need of a remoter charm 
 Unborrowed from the eye. 
 
 But to this sensuous pleasure was added a deeper sympathy 
 
 in maturer years : — 
 
 For I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 
 And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused. 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Here the true poet sees not only the beauty of each symbol 
 in nature, but its significance, and whether eternal or evan- 
 escent, each symbol speaks to his soul. In one of the sonnets 
 to the river Duddon there is this noble thought : — 
 
 Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide, 
 The form remains, the function never dies ; 
 While we, the brave, the mighty and the wise, 
 
 We men, who in our morn of youth defied 
 
WORDSWOETH 255 
 
 The elements, must vanish. Be it so ! 
 Enough, if something from our hands have power 
 To live and act and serve the future hour ; 
 
 And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, 
 Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, 
 
 We feel that we are greater than we know. 
 
 Yet he is no stranger to the agonistical destiny of humanity 
 — this 'eternal objective Christ' — to use Schelling's phrase — 
 * in whom the mortal and the God are ever warring.' How 
 the human soul with its weaknesses and aspirations flows freely 
 out in these lines : — 
 
 'Tis by comparison an easy task 
 
 Earth to despise ; but to converse with Heaven — 
 
 This is not easy : to relinquish all 
 
 We have or hope of happiness or joy, 
 
 And stand in freedom loosened from the world, 
 
 I deem not arduous ; but must needs confess 
 
 That 'tis a thing impossible to frame 
 
 Conceptions equal to the soul's desires; 
 
 And the most difficult of tasks to keep 
 
 Heights which the soul is oompeteiit to gain. 
 
 Again, still working out the same thought, he exclaims : — 
 
 Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, 
 This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs 
 Though inconceivably endowed, too dim 
 For any passion of the soul that leads to ecstasy. 
 
 Then he teaches how the soul may be assisted in the con- 
 flict, in a passage of the divinest philosophy : — 
 
 But, above all, the victory is most sure 
 
 For him who, seeking faith by virtue, strives 
 
 To yield entire submission to the law 
 
 Of conscience — conscience reverenced and obeyed 
 
 As God's most intimate presence in the soul 
 
 And his most perfect image in the world. 
 
 By these helps 
 
 Doubt shall be quelled and trouble chased away 
 With only such degree of sadness left 
 
256 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 As may support longings of pure desire 
 And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly 
 In the siilflime attractions of the grave. 
 
 Everything that aids this progression of the soul, even 
 suffering, is welcomed by him, of which these lines are a noble 
 illustration : — 
 
 Action is transitory — a step, a blow, 
 
 The motion of a muscle — this way or that 
 
 'Tis done ; and in the after vacancy 
 
 We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed : 
 
 Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, 
 
 And has the nature of infinity. 
 
 Yet through that darkness gracious openings lie 
 
 By which the soul, with patient steps of thought, 
 
 Now toiling, wafted now on wings of prayer. 
 
 May pass in hope, and though from mortal bonds 
 
 Yet undelivered, rise with sure ascent 
 
 Even to the fountain-head of peace divine. 
 
 Of his power as a poet, in all the combined brilliancy of 
 grandeur of thought and glorious beauty of utterance, the 
 ' Intimations of Immortality ' would be the best evidence. 
 Nothing in our language equals these few lines, already con- 
 secrated in many a heart : — 
 
 There was a time when meadows, grove, and stream, 
 The earth and every common sight 
 
 To me did seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light, 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 It is not now as it hath been of yore : 
 Turn wheresoever I may 
 By night or day. 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 
 
 The rainbow comes and goes, 
 And lovely is the rose ; 
 The moon doth with delight 
 Look round her, when the heavens are bare. 
 Waters on a starry night 
 Are beautiful and fair ; 
 
WORDS WOETH 257 
 
 The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
 But yet I know, where'er I go, 
 That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting ; 
 The soul that rises v/ith us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar 
 Not in entire f orgetf ulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy I 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy ; 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows. 
 
 He sees it in his joy. 
 The youth who daily farther from the East 
 Must travel still, is Nature's priest. 
 
 And by the vision splendid. 
 
 Is on his way attended : 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 Wordsworth's style is clear and idiomatic — earnest and 
 impressive, but never passionate — perfectly harmonious, but 
 seldom lyrical. His ideas are often condensed like equations. 
 He affects no imagery, no illustrations, yet sometimes one word 
 will bring to the mind a whole attendant train of the sublimest 
 images, as in that line — 
 
 Trailing clouds of glory do we come. 
 
 His thoughts speak so directly to the human soul that he 
 has no need of images, which are but pictures held up to the 
 senses to complete what language left deficient in the utter- 
 ance of the thought. The most perfect writer is he who can 
 find the most perfect formula for an idea, and who, conse- 
 quently, leaves nothing unexpressed to be supplied with a 
 picture. 
 
 There is a stately meditativp beauty about many of his 
 
 s 
 
258 IMEN, WOMEN, ANI> BOOKS 
 
 minor poems, particularly where woman is the subject, as if 
 he viewed the sex not only with graceful human tenderness 
 but with reverence. Amongst the most remarkable is the one 
 with this fine opening : — 
 
 How rich that forehead's calm expanse ! 
 How bright that heaven-directed glance I 
 
 And another, not less striking, in the commencement, for 
 W ordsworth excels in the first lines of his minor poems and 
 
 sonnets : — 
 
 Her eyes are wild, her head is bare — 
 The sun has burned her coal-black hair. 
 Her eyebrow had a rusty stain. 
 And she was far from over the main. 
 
 A gipsy is sketched with these Murillo tints : — 
 
 Her skin was of Egyptian brown — 
 
 Haughty, as if her eye had seen 
 Its own light to a distance thrown — 
 
 She towered — fit person for a queen. 
 To lead these ancient Amazonian files, 
 Or ruling bandit's wife amid the Grecian isles. 
 
 The creature 
 Was beautiful to see — a weed of glorious feature ! 
 
 Softer is this picture : — 
 
 She was a phantom of delight 
 
 When first she gleamed upon my sight ; 
 
 A lovely apparition sent 
 
 To be a moment's ornament ; 
 
 Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, 
 
 Like twilight, too, her dusky hair ; 
 
 But all things else about her drawTi 
 
 From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 
 
 A dancing shape, an image gay, 
 
 To haunt, to startle, to waylay. 
 
 I saw her, upon nearer view, 
 
 A spirit, yet a woman too ! 
 
 Her household motions, light and free. 
 
 And steps of virgin liberty ; 
 
WOEDSWOETH 259 
 
 A creature not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food ; 
 Nor transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. 
 
 And now I see with eye serene 
 The very pulse of the machine. 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
 A perfect woman, nobly planned 
 To warn, to comfort, to command ; 
 And yet a spirit still and bright 
 With something of an angel light. 
 
 In a poem entitled 'The Triad' there is another fine 
 
 portrait : — 
 
 Her brow hath opened on me — see it there 
 Brightening the umbrage of her hair ; 
 So gleams the crescent moon that loves 
 To be descried through shady groves. 
 Tenderest bloom is on her cheek, 
 Wish not for a richer streak, 
 Nor dread tlw depth of meditative eye ; 
 But let thy love upon that azure field 
 Of thoughtfulness and beauty yield 
 Its homage offered up in purity. 
 
 This poem was written when Wordsworth was fifty-eight, 
 a proof that advancing age had in no degree chilled the genial 
 flow of feeling nor deadened susceptibility. Up to sixty -five 
 he continued his publications still in the same track he had 
 commenced at seventeen. No sarcasm had ever made him 
 yield one of his poetic theories. He waited, patiently and con- 
 fidently, till the mind of man grew to his stature. He was 
 conscious that ' an original writer must create the taste by 
 which he is to be enjoyed, and must reconcile himself for a 
 season to but few and scattered hearers.' He lived for thirty - 
 five years after penning that phrase, and saw himself not only 
 throned as the first and chief poet of the century, but the 
 founder of the entire modern school of poetry, and inspirer of 
 
260 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 all our more thoughtful literature, whether in prose or verse. 
 Strange destiny for one whose verses were received for many 
 a year, as he himself testifies, ' with contempt and aversion,^ 
 though, at the same time, he acknowledges that they had in 
 them enough of the ' vision and the faculty divine ' to insure him 
 a permanent place in English literature^ 
 
261 
 
 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 
 
 I. ' FESTUS ' 
 
 It seems strange that the name of one of England's greatest 
 modern poets should already have passed almost into oblivion ; 
 yet, when it first appeared, Bailey^s wonderful poem of ^ Festus ' 
 was received with rapture ; and soon after passed through six 
 successive editions with a ceaseless chorus of enthusiastic 
 praise. 
 
 He was but twenty-three, with life at blood heat, when the 
 young poet poured forth this passionate torrent of thought and 
 inspiration, and startled society with his new reading of life's 
 dark problems, as if he were preaching a new religion, yet now 
 all seems forgotten. ISTo new editions of his works appear, and 
 ' Festus ' is no longer quoted or even named by the omniscient 
 critics and writers of the press, although the poem still remains 
 unsurpassed in the literature of the age for depth, beauty, and 
 sublime spiritual insight. 
 
 Perhaps the author may never be a popular poet ; for a 
 serious, reflective spirit, a soaring heavenward nature, a devout, 
 believing attitude towards the mystic unseen world, are all 
 requisite for him who would comprehend, and fully absorb 
 into his mind the whole meaning and mystery of Mr. Bailey's 
 great work. Deep thinkers speak only to high and lofty minds, 
 and by such only can be interpreted. 
 
 Wordsworth was the least read of English poets by the 
 masses, while Byron was found everywhere, down to the parlour 
 
262 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 window of an inn ; and Tennyson's sweet, silvery earth music 
 is in every heart, while Bailey in vain 
 
 Sweeps from end to end the world's great chord. 
 
 None but those who are spiritually related to him seem to 
 hear the tones. 
 
 It is not the weak mind feels the great mind's might ; 
 None but the great can test it. Does the oak 
 Or reed feel the strong storm most ? 
 
 In a very beautiful scene where Festus and his friends dis- 
 course of ' Bards and Poesie ' we obtain some glimpses of his 
 nature as described by himself, and penetrate the soul of the 
 artist through his work. His life seems to have been pre- 
 maturely saddened, gloom to have risen up like an opaque 
 wall between him and the world, to force his eyes heavenward, 
 towards the light that cometh from above. 
 
 Earthlike, no sooner made than marred. Though young, 
 He wrote amid the ruins of his heart. 
 
 Of the formation of his spiritual nature we read : — 
 
 He had no times of study, and no place ; 
 All places and all times to him were one. 
 His soul was like the wind harp which he loved, 
 And sounded only when the spirit blew. 
 
 All things were inspiration unto him — 
 Wood, wold, hill, field, sea, city, solitude. 
 And crowds, and streets, and man, where'er he was, * 
 
 And the blue eye of God which is above us. 
 All things to him bare thoughts of minstrelsy. 
 
 The world is full of glorious likenesses — 
 The poet's power is to sort these out. 
 And to make music from the common strings 
 With which the world is strung. 
 
 Thus the divine effluence interpenetrated his soul through 
 nature, which is the divine mind made visible by symbols; 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY • 263 
 
 and to looli on beauty became with him a need, a thirst, a 
 passion : — 
 
 He knew himself a bard ordained 
 More than inspired, by God inspirited, 
 Making himself like an electric rod 
 A lure for lightning feelings ; and his words 
 Felt like the things that fall in thunder. 
 He spoke to spirits with a spirit tongue, 
 And rayed them round him from the ends of heaven. 
 For spirits wing about to wait on us 
 While yet the hour of enchantment is, 
 And we can force them to our bidding. 
 
 And he raised 
 The rebel in himself, and in his mind 
 Walked with him through the world. 
 
 These lines contain the origin and scope of ^Festus.' It is 
 all life concentrated in a single soul ; all being — God, angels, 
 man, fiend. They divide the empire within, and rule, and 
 combat, and conquer by turns. All states are mirrored like- 
 wise in this one soul — earth, heaven, hell — for each has a 
 subjective reality within man, as v>^ell as an objective reality 
 without him. The hero is the world-man, as he stands related 
 to eternity, not to social life. The history is that of the immortal 
 soul, in all its moods, passions, azid aspirations, through trials 
 and temptations, breathed into time. The stage of the drama 
 is life in its fullest development through love, joy, knowledge, 
 passion, pleasure, power ; and the aim is to prove^ that through 
 all things the soul is disciplined, even by sin itself, but can 
 never finally he lost. That whatever power evil gains over it, 
 the power of God is stronger and can redeem ; that all evil has 
 its mission, and works out the will of God, yet is but finite, 
 for that it is impossible sin and sufi'ering could be eternally 
 antagonistic to Almighty love and power. Thus the enigma 
 of the existence of evil is solved. Suffering, he assumes, is not 
 sent for punishment, but trial ; pain is punishment, not for 
 vengeance but purification ; and the object of all pain and woe 
 on earth is an assaying process by which men's souls are saved. 
 
 There is a very beautiful Hindu legend concerning the 
 
264 . MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 origin of our race, which tells how we are the fallen angels of 
 heaven, doomed to the earthly life of expiation for our re- 
 bellion against the Most High, but for whom this life is also 
 to be one of redemption. When the lost angel bows his head 
 beneath the portal of the tomb, he lifts it again beyond it, to 
 re-enter the golden gate of heaven. Mr. Bailey's theory is 
 somewhat similar. He maintains that purification, redemp- 
 tion, and final salvation are contained in the primal idea 
 of life : — 
 
 Evil and good are God's right haod and left. 
 By ministry of evil good is clear, 
 And of temptation, virtue : as of yore 
 Out of the grave rose God. 
 
 Nothing is lost in nature ; and no soul, 
 Though buried in the centre of all sin, 
 Is lost to God ; but there it works his will 
 And acts conformably. 
 
 Nor power, nor knowledge, love nor pleasure, makes 
 The heaven-affianced spirit false to God. 
 Though Doubt for aye may triumph, and Despair 
 Lead the soul blindfold to the edge of hell. 
 
 Many striking passages illustrate this dogma, that evil is 
 not eternal. Tyranny forces a reaction to liberty ; super- 
 stition to truth ; poverty and misery awaken the noble deeds, 
 words, and works of pity and compassion. Always from sin 
 and evil comes the reaction of the soul a thousandfold more 
 energetically back to God ; for all life has come forth from 
 Him, and all spirit aspires to return to Him. Being a por- 
 tion of His own nature, the soul is incapable of permanent 
 alloy. Progression, not retrogression, is the law of our spiritual 
 nature : — 
 
 Step by step, and throne by throne, we rise 
 Continually towards the infinite ; 
 And ever nearer — never near — to God. 
 
 TI] rough all sin, through all excesses of pleasure the soul 
 may seek an object to still its infinite desires, but in no case 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 265 
 
 can be made happy by these things : sin never yet satisfied 
 an immortal human heart. Such is the theology of the 
 poem. 
 
 Satan is drawn as a passive, not a malignant spirit ; an in- 
 strument of God necessary to the divine scheme of human 
 redemption : searching by temptation whether any soul will 
 be found content with less than God. This picture of the 
 angel of suffering and woe, the passive instrument of God, 
 working out his will through temptation, as Christ through 
 love, is grand, solemn, and touching ; and more in accordance 
 with our idea of the limitless power of God than Milton's idea 
 of a spirit of evil rival in power, and like hiui eternal in dura- 
 tion. Festus asks wherefore he seeks to destroy men's souls. 
 
 Lucifer answers : — 
 
 It is my part. 
 
 "Woe here, woe there, woe, woe everywhere ! 
 It is not for me to know, nor thou, the end 
 Of evil. I inflict and thou must bear. 
 The arrow knoweth not its end and aim, 
 And I keep rusLing, ruining along 
 Like a great river rich with dead men's souls, 
 For if I knew I might rejoice ; and that 
 To me by nature is forbidden. I know 
 Nor joy nor sorrows ; but a changeless tone 
 Of sadness like the night-wind's is the strain 
 Of what I have of feeling. I am not 
 As other spirits ; but a solitude 
 Even to myself. I the Sole Spirit, sole. 
 
 Lucifer is in fact the embodiment of the unsanctified 
 intellect with all the doubt, cold, walled-round egoism, mis- 
 trust, and unbelief, which are its characteristics, apart from 
 the love and faith which alone can bring a soul into communion 
 with God, or what is the same thing, into a life of eternal light 
 
 and joy. 
 
 The spirit of doubt within man is the ever-present demon :— 
 
 All are devils to themselves 
 And every man his own great foe. 
 
 It is men who are deceivers, not the devil. 
 
266 IVLEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat 
 Oneself. All sin is easy, after that. 
 
 And hell in man is the spirit of despondency and gloom 
 which sin and unbelief generate : — 
 
 An ever-great'ning sense of ill and woe 
 
 By crushing down the soul but filling never 
 
 Its infinite capacity for pain. 
 
 Hell is God's justice — Heaven is his love ! 
 Probe the profound of thine own nature, man. 
 And thou mayest see reflected ev'n in life. 
 The Worlds, the Heavens, the Ages. 
 
 In the poem this inner universe is laid bare — the veil is 
 rent. We see the soul of Festus, type of all souls, the battle- 
 ground of God and Satan. Heaven and hell the reward of 
 each act. Heaven, the freedom, peace and glory of a will con- 
 formable to God ; hell, doubt, gloom, fear, despondency, de- 
 spair ! The soul dead in sin is in hell already in this world. 
 The soul dead to sin has sprung from the tomb and ascended 
 through the resurrection of Faith and Repentance into heaven, 
 which is the new life of holiness and love. Heaven is 
 
 The consciousness of happiness and power. 
 
 Prayer, faith, and a pure heart can draw down heaven. 
 
 And yet is heaven a bright reality 
 As this or any of yon worlds. A state 
 Where all is loveliness and power and love. 
 Where all sublimest qualities of mind 
 Not infinite are limited alone 
 By the surrounding Godhead. And where naught 
 But what produceth glory and delight 
 To creature and Creator is ; — where all 
 Enjoy entire dominion o'er themselves — 
 Acts, feelings, thoughts, conditions, qualities, 
 Spirit and soul and mind — all under God, 
 For spirit is soul deified. 
 
 In the first scene Festus is drawn doubting, despairing, 
 wearied with the hollow vanities of the world, longing, like 
 all youth, for the cataract-like rush of life ; for more love, 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 267 
 
 more freedom, power, spiritual and temporal, than is permitted 
 to man. He is discontented and ambitious (the malady of 
 youth and genius), ready even to take the path of sin, so as it 
 leads to power. Yet is it a noble ambition, though reckless 
 of means : — 
 
 It matters not how long we live, but how. 
 
 God of might, 
 We love and live on power, it is the spirit's goal. 
 Mind must subdue — to conquer is its life. 
 Why mad'st thou not one spirit like the sun, 
 To king the world ? and, oh ! might I have been 
 That sun-mind, how I would have warmed the world 
 To love, and worship, and high life 1 
 
 It is then Lucifer appears to him, the shadow of his own 
 thought, pride, ambition, self -trust, impatience of destiny. He 
 is the rebel spirit of man's own heart, seeking to build up a 
 throne to reign, a heaven to enjoy, independent of God. 
 
 The tempting and redeeming influences are symbolised by 
 female characters through the work, in accordance with the 
 doctrine which teaches the mysterious agency of woman, in 
 both the fall and the redemption of the human race. Woman 
 lost the world, but woman was mother of the Redeemer who 
 saved the world. 
 
 Angela is the first love of Festus. She represents the 
 spirit of faith, love, and trust. The holy spirit of first youth, 
 when all is aspiration towards the Good, the Beautiful, and 
 the Lofty. She had died just before Lucifer appears, and 
 Festus thus describes her : — 
 
 I loved her, for that she was beautiful ; 
 And that to me she seemed to be all nature, 
 And all varieties of things in one. 
 Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise 
 All light and laughter in the morning : fear 
 No petty customs nor appearances, 
 But think what others only dreamed about. 
 And say what others did but think, and do 
 What others would but say, and glory in 
 
268 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 What others dared not do ; so pure withal 
 In soul, in heart, and act, such conscious, yet 
 Such careless innocence, she made round her 
 A halo of delight. 
 
 But now that all the illusions of bold, beautiful, and defiant 
 
 youth have passed away, he feels the intense weariness of 
 
 life — the agonised longing for death even, since it would 
 
 bring to him something new and untried in existence. And 
 
 he says : — 
 
 It is wretchedness or recklessness alone 
 Keeps us alive. I like to think on death — 
 It is but the appearance of an apparition. 
 Give me the long, high-bounding feel of life. 
 Which cries, * Let me but leap unto my grave, 
 And I'll not mind the when nor where — 
 Oh I I should love to die.' 
 
 Then comes this fine passage on the true worth of life : — 
 
 And yet men love to live 
 As if mere life were worth their living for. 
 Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood : 
 It is a great spirit and a busy heart. 
 The coward and the small in soul scarce live. 
 One generous feeling — one great thought — one deed 
 Of good ere night, would make life longer seem 
 Than if each year might number thousand days. 
 We live in deeds, oiot years ; in thoughts, not breath ; 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who tliinlis most^feels the noblest, acts the hest. 
 Life's but a means unto an end. 
 Why will we live and not be glorious ? 
 We never can be deathless till we die. 
 It is the dead win battles. 
 
 Then he longs to learn the mystery of mind ; to lift the 
 
 future's sable shroud ; to leave the impress of his soul in some 
 
 great deed : — 
 
 Oh I the brave and good who serve 
 
 A worthy cause can only one way fail 
 
 By perishing therein. Is it to fail ? 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 269 
 
 No : every great or good man's death is a step 
 
 Firm set towards the end. 
 
 The world must have great minds, even as great spheres 
 
 To govern lesser minds. 
 
 To live in light, or die in light-like dew, 
 
 Either. I should be blest, 
 
 Clara next takes possession of his heart. She is the spirit 
 of truth, of pure love that would elevate the object it loves. 
 She tells him : — 
 
 I cannot sing the lightsome lays of love. 
 Many thou knowest who can ; but none that can 
 Love thee as I do — for I love thy soul ; 
 And I would save it, Festus I 
 
 She paints true bliss— the life of high calm souls^ shining 
 and pure as the gold gates of heaven : — 
 
 High above cloud and storm of life. 
 All peace, and power, and passionless purity, 
 A boundless scope — a high uplifted life 1 
 Man, like the air-born eagle, who remains 
 Only on earth to feed, or sleep, or die, 
 But whose delight is on his lonely wing, 
 Wide sweeping as a mind— immortal man 
 Ptushes aloft, right upwards into heaven. 
 
 And though existence has but one main sorrow — life : — 
 
 For what can Spirit severed from its God 
 Feel but a grievous longing to rejoin 
 Its infinite — its author — and its end ? 
 Yet is life a thing to be beloved 
 And honoured holily, and bravely borne. 
 
 After Clara leaves him, Lucifer returns. The chill ice 
 breath of doubt once more passes over his mind, and his life is 
 
 Like a cold column in the sunshine 
 Projecting darkness. 
 
 Under the guidance of the Spirit of Evil he traverses the 
 earth and universe, and tries to find the infinite to still his 
 
270 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 soul's yearning, by plunging into the gulf of reckless enjoy- 
 ment : — 
 
 Let me but look on aught which casts 
 
 The shadow of a pleasure, and here I bare 
 
 A breast which would embrace a bride of fire. 
 
 Oh I give me to the young, the fair, the free — 
 
 The brave who would breast a rushing, burning world 
 
 "Which came between them and their hearts' delight. 
 
 None but the brave and beautiful can love. 
 
 Oh I for the young heart like a fountain playing ! 
 
 Flinging its bright fresh feeling to the skies 
 
 It loves and strives to reach — strives, loves in vain : 
 
 It is of earth, and never meant for heaven. 
 
 Oh ! it is great to feel we care for nothing — 
 That hope, nor love, nor fear, nor aught of earth, 
 Can check the royal lavishment of life ; 
 But like a streamer strown upon the wind, 
 We fling our souls to fate and to the future. 
 
 His next love, Helen, is the type of earthly passion to 
 which he now gives up his soul : — 
 
 She did but look upon him, and his blood 
 Blushed deeper even from his inmost heart. 
 
 She spake, 
 And his love-wildered and idolatrous soul 
 Clung to the aery music of her words, 
 Like bird on bough high swaying in the wind. 
 He looked upon her beauty and forgot, 
 As in a sense of drownings all things else ; 
 And right and v^^rong seemed one, seemed nothing ; she 
 Was beauty, and that beauty everything. 
 He looked upon her as the sun on earth, 
 Until, like him, he gazed himself away 
 From heaven so doing. 
 
 Then comes the descent into hell with Lucifer — ^ 
 
 For all life's sinful follies run to hell. 
 
 And there he falls in love with Elissa, the betrothed of 
 Lucifer. She symbolises Error : — 
 
PHILIP JAIIES BAILEY 271 
 
 For when Love 
 Merges in creature-worship let us mind, 
 We know not what it is we love : perhaps 
 It is incarnate evil. 
 
 Lucifer leaves her in the charge of Festus, who falls under 
 the strongest temptation— Ae loves what is forbidden, and 
 reasons away his scruples thus : — 
 
 What ? What is wrong ? 
 Shall my love never bound 'neath beauty's touch. 
 Heart throb, nor eye thaw with hers, when her tears 
 Drop quick and bright upon her glowing brow 
 Plunged in her bosom ; because, forsooth, 'tis wrong ? 
 Let it be wrong I it is wrong, it is wretchedness 
 That I would lose both sense and soul to suffer ! 
 
 The might and truth of heart is never shown 
 But in loving those whom we ought not to love. 
 
 Under the influence of this wild passion he is willing to 
 renounce life, soul, immortality for her love, and exclaims :— 
 
 Thou knowest I love thee, 
 Worship thee : oh ! it's a world more than worship. 
 The cold obedience which we give to God. 
 Since I have known thee I have done naught else. 
 All hours not spent with thee are blanks twixt stars. 
 I love thee I love thee I love thee I madly love thee 1 
 Oh I thou hast drunk my heart dry of all love I 
 It will be empty to aught after thee. 
 Lady 1 how long am I to love thee thus ? 
 Never did angel love its heaven, nor king 
 Crown, as I thee. 
 
 During this scene Lucifer enters unperceived, and upbraids 
 Festus and Elissa. They part, and in the next Elissa dies, 
 killed by the power and at the word of Lucifer, showing ' how 
 evil works its victim's death ; ^ and Festus finds that sinning 
 cannot sate the soul. He has drained Life of all Love, the 
 universe of all Knowledge, and found that all was madness 
 and perdition. The soul writhed amongst such joys, only 
 
 Like to a half -crushed reptile on a rose. 
 
272 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 He looks back now from the mid zone of life upon the paradise 
 he has lost, and finally turns with a repentant, humbled heart 
 to God. Lucifer vanishes as Festus prays, and Clara, the pure 
 spirit of Truth, comes to him once more. He repents at her 
 feet, and asks : — 
 
 Canst thou forgive ? reconsecrate the heart, 
 Recledicate the temple ? 
 
 Confesses that he had worshipped idols and foreswore his 
 early faith to her but — 
 
 The love with which the spiritual starts, 
 
 Weak'ning, and dark'ning, strained through gloom and gleam, 
 
 Sets oft enough in sense, but never ends. 
 
 And mortal knowledge, which is error, dies, 
 
 And spiritual truth alone outlasts 
 
 All nature. 
 
 Power is the last temptation olBTered by Lucifer, and the 
 scene opens with Festus throned, at a gathering of kings and 
 people, to whom he preaches much in the style of the latter- 
 day pamphlets, telling them 
 
 All unobstructed power is sanctified ; 
 Divine rule is a tyranny of good] 
 Mine shall be like it. Tyrant I Well, I am, 
 What is above this soul of mine but heaven ? 
 
 And Democracy he strikes down in true Carlylese : 
 
 What if a million molehills were to league 
 Their meannesses together with due pomp, 
 And to some mountain say, ' In the name of God, 
 Whither dost thou aspire 1 ' Does any deem 
 That great imperial creature would descend 
 From those sublimest solitudes of heaven, 
 Where it had dwelt in snowy sanctity 
 For ages, ere the mud -made v^orld below 
 Was more than half conceived, to parley there 
 At its own footstool, and lay down its crown 
 And elemental commune with the skies 
 Because its height was so intolerable, 
 An its supremacy termed tyranny ? 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 273 
 
 But neither kings nor the unkinged crowd are content witli 
 this tyranny, even though it be of the noblest ; and the rule 
 of Festus ends somewhat abruptly in the general destruction 
 of his subjects, the last scene figuring forth the rule of mind 
 which is to precede the final judgment of the world. 
 Clara clings to Festus to the last, for — 
 
 Love, pure love, 
 Is the last of mortal things that nestles in the heart. 
 
 Then dies ; for all things lovely and divine go back to God. 
 And Festus, having now sounded all the depths of 
 
 Feeling, passion, pleasure, woe, 
 
 The mysteries and dread delights of spirits, 
 
 longs to try the world-life of the future. He feels that he 
 is dying, and reviews his past life with all its sins, which yet he 
 feels will not debar him eternally from the presence of God, 
 nor condemn him to an eternity of pain. 
 
 This divinest truth God has inspired ; 
 
 Mercy to man is justice to Himself. 
 
 He his hand opened, and the world was born ; 
 
 He shuts it, and the essential nothingness 
 
 Embodied dies its everlasting death. 
 
 Open thine arms, Death ! thou fine of woe 
 
 And warranty of bliss ! 
 
 The spirit's infinite purity consumes 
 
 The sullied soul. Eternal Destiny 
 
 Opens its bright abyss, and I am God's ! 
 
 Thus dies Festus : type of our suffering, sinning, redeemed, 
 
 immortal race. 
 
 The poem closes with a scene in the millennial earth, 
 where all creation meet saved and sanctified. Lucifer, having 
 fulfilled his allotted destiny, is again received to heaven, and 
 purity and bliss. Evil is vanquished for eternity by Almighty 
 God, and hell dashed from creation ; and the poem concludes 
 with a prophecy in which is contained the central dogma of 
 
 T 
 
274 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 the entire work : that God and heaven will finally reign 
 over and conquer Sin and hell. 
 
 Time there hath been when only God was all, 
 And it shall be again. The hour is named 
 When seraph, cherub, angel, saint, man, fiend, 
 Made pure, and unbelievably uplift 
 Above their present state — drawn up to God, 
 Like dews into the air — shall be all heaven, 
 And all souls shall be in God, and shall be God, 
 And nothing but God be. 
 
 Thus musically ends this lofty drama of life. All disson- 
 ance is destroyed, for the full melody is completed, of which 
 half the chord only had been struck on earth. 
 
 ' Festus ' is, indeed, a great and singular production. No 
 poem in the language contains such a mass of grand images, 
 of profound thoughts, sublime strains of feeling, golden apo- 
 phthegms, rich veins of deep reflection, and lofty aspirations 
 after all the kingly ends of life. It is almost o^er-freighted 
 with thought, for the intellect is detained so much on single 
 passages that the mind cannot without effort grasp the entire 
 idea of the work in its unity. As a dramatic poem it wants 
 some fixed point of interest, more vivid personality. The 
 personages are abstractions, not living forms in which a 
 thought is embodied. It is, in fact, less a drama than one 
 long monologue of the author's soul, rolling its mighty stream 
 of thought from first to last through all moral and emotional 
 phases of our common nature. Still no grander soul has ever 
 uttered soliloquy. 
 
 11. *THE ANGEL WORLD.' 
 
 During the ten years that elapsed between the writing of 
 ' Festus ' and ' The Angel World,' no change, apparently, 
 paifsed over the author's soul ; the gospel his genius was given 
 him to utter, all the glowing passions, lofty thoughts, and 
 infinite aspirations of heart, brain and soul ; his whole life, 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 275 
 
 with its worlds of sense, feeling and intellect, seem incarnated 
 in that wonderful poem of his youth. Nothing further of 
 mystery and beauty was left for the development of future 
 years. All the God came rushing on him at once ; and, though 
 the divine frenzy has not passed away, yet no additional acce^'ss 
 of inspiration has come during those ten years of life, when 
 passion, thought, energy, youthful enthusiasm, with its trust 
 and hope, which is almost genius ; ail the feelings, faculties, 
 and emotions of our dual nature, half earth, half heaven, reach 
 their culminating-point ; the bright decade of life's highest 
 capabilities, efforts, and enjoyment; for all before is hope — 
 all after is memory ; the Olympic course which youth traverses 
 as an athlete, and quits crowned and conqueror if ever wreath 
 is destined for the brow. The poet of ' Festus,' however, has 
 already been proclaimed victor, and still bears the olive crown 
 without a rival ; but he has not added another circlet of fame 
 during the two Olympiads that have passed since his first 
 coronation. 
 
 The philosophy of ' The Angel World ' is identical with that 
 of ' Festus.' It teaches the subordination of all evil to eood and 
 the final spJvation of the human race ; but the subject, being 
 treated allegorically, fails to excite the same vivid human 
 interest. All allegories are dull and troublesome. The mind 
 becomes wearied with the efforts to follow both the visible and 
 the cryptic meaning, and refuses to resign itself wholly to the 
 influence of either. Each page is a series of enigmas, which 
 exercise the intellect but rarely arouse any sympathetic feel- 
 ings — a fatal defect in poetry ; and emotion, even of the 
 faintest kind, is scarcely possible when the personalities by 
 which abstract faculties are symbolised belong not to our own 
 human nature, but to a phantom-realm of the author's imagi- 
 nation, as in this poem of ' The Angel World.' ' Festus ' 
 plunged us into the vivid, burning realities of human passion, 
 suffering, and aspiration. Our own nature stood before us in 
 that grand work of genius in its fullest reality and profoundest 
 meaning. The earthly, the spiritual, and the mystic, were 
 combined in it. Yet it was not a symbolical but a natural 
 
 T 2 
 
276 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 history of the human soul ; for this triad exists in all Hfe. 
 The beautiful feminine forms by which are figured forth the 
 abstract ideas of truth and error ; the passionate earthly love 
 in which the soul seeks vainly to quench its aspirations for 
 union with the divine which is the archetype of all human 
 love ; the gloomy rebel spirit of Doubt and Mistrust, at once 
 within man and beside him, are all shadows of the Actual ; for 
 every object of human affection may be, and is in reality to us, 
 angel or devil, according to the influence they exercise over 
 our minds. Some guiding us up to the very Throne of God ; 
 others darkening the soul, and leading it, a blind chained 
 captive, down through the mire of Sensism to the very lowest 
 level of mere animal existence. Everything in ' Festus ' has 
 a literal as well as a mystical significance. But in ' The Angel 
 World ' all is allegory. Nothing is capable of literal appUca- 
 tion. No human emotion is excited, and indeed, from the very 
 nature of the allegory, all human emotion is inadmissible. 
 Mystical metaphors, which may be apprehended by the soul, 
 become debased if translated into ordinary language ; such a 
 metaphor is that which represents humanity as the Bride of 
 Christ. And the ineffable mystery of this union of the mortal 
 and the God forms the theme of the poem. Still the grandeur 
 of the poet's ideas has a singular fascination, and diffuses an 
 almost sanctifying influence over the soul. This inspired 
 guide, with the St. John-like love, which alone brings a soul 
 into full communion with the spiritual, leads us up into liigh, 
 pure regions of thought, where the whole universe lies before our 
 eyes as one mighty hieroglyph of the divine mind, and through 
 all symbols we discern some mystery of the fathomless abyss 
 of human nature ; while he himself, standing within life, yet 
 apart from it, seems a poet-apostle, missioned, sent forth to 
 teach and preach the eternal relation between the divine and 
 the human, and the ultimate glorious destiny of crowned, 
 immortal humanity. 
 
 Eeason and Faith are represented in the poem as two 
 angel sisters of whom the elder — Reason or Human Nature, is 
 betrothed to an angel ; but, tempted by evil influences, she 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 277 
 
 disdains his alliance, and finally banishes him from the orb 
 where she reigns empress. The younger sister meanwhile 
 remains faithful, and accompanies him to a distant world, 
 where they both watch and wait until sin has worked repent- 
 ance and suffering purification in the heart of the false queen. 
 At length ruin, woe and darkness fall on the orb which she 
 governs, and she herself is dungeoned, and almost bereft of 
 life by the tempter- spirits for whom she first renounced her 
 angel-lover. Repentance comes at last through suffering, and, 
 at the prayer of her holy and unfallen sister, her betrothed 
 bridegroom frees her from thrall, and leads her up humbled, 
 pardoned, saved, and sanctified to heaven, where they are 
 united for eternity. Purified humanity has become the bride 
 of Christ, and the allegory of the soul's history closes. 
 
 The story is told in the form of a narration. The angel- 
 lover, on his way to the highest heaven to seek the pardon 
 of his affianced bride, pauses to rest in one of the pure and 
 happy worlds, ' which claim identity with heaven,' and there 
 relates the fall of the orbs which he had himself created, 
 and the doom of the rebel queen to the bright angels who 
 encircle him. 
 
 The world in its paradisiacal state, or, what is the same, 
 humanity in its primal innocence— for the world in its beauty 
 or degradation is still but the symbol or shadow of the soul — 
 is thus described : — 
 
 This orb myself had framed, 
 Myself with life endowed, and loving things, 
 All life is sacred in its kind to heaven, 
 And all things holy, beautiful and good, 
 There angels dwelt as in the bosom of bliss : 
 Peace, piety, and innocence and joy 
 Made up the square of being. Worship was 
 The very air they live in. Righteousness 
 The ground they trod and builded on. 
 
 The younger sister reigns over the orb for a series of ages 
 under the gufdance of wisdom, when suddenly bands of foreign 
 ancrels invade the realm, beautiful, seductive, and— 
 
278 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 with a shining grace 
 V/hich like a lodestar chained, unf elt, the eye ; 
 And made their loveliness exceeding far 
 The holy beauty of the original tribes. 
 
 These— 
 
 First tuned their l}Tes 
 To angel-love alone ; but, half divine, 
 First taught to separate self from Deity. 
 
 When questioned of their origin they replied — 
 
 They were the youngest ofi'spring of the heavens, 
 
 Children of bliss and knowledge, richly dowered 
 
 With singular joys and rare immunities; 
 
 That they were spirits of freedom, and their suit 
 
 And servage voluntary ; that all good 
 
 {Sprang from the natural impulse of their souls, 
 
 And the proud pleasure of pure liberty ; 
 
 That they the measure of the skies fulfilled, 
 
 The complement of all extremes of light ; 
 
 Of all celestial essence they the sum. 
 
 And after them was nothing ; which to preach 
 
 Of their own selves was their sole business there. 
 
 Wandering where'er to wander pleased them best. 
 
 This invasion of the domain of Faith and Reason has soon 
 the most fatal effects. "Wisdom is wiled away from inculcat- 
 ing her holy lessons, wdiich the tempters assert can only 
 narrow and mar the free action of the soul in the angelic 
 sisters. Faith is dethroned, and Reason is hailed queen 
 by the tumultuous crowd as alone worthy to reign over 
 them. 
 
 Her angel-lover — Divine Truth — in vain strives to make 
 his warnings heard. He is driven forth with curses, taunts, 
 and jibes, and, as he passes manacled the crowned traitress on 
 her throne, exclaims : — 
 
 ' Behold me thus : I quit thee ; 'tis th}^ will. .* 
 Me thou forswearest, who had loved thee more 
 Than all the tribes of angels, love thee still, 
 Despite the flatteries wherewith now thy soul 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 279 
 
 Is darkened and degraded — 
 
 Watch, for I come again.' 
 
 She answered with a smile, but trembled whilst ; 
 
 And he departed that unhallowed hall. 
 
 A change now comes over that pure, serene orb. Mirth 
 and reveh^ resound day and night ; no one recked of ' natural 
 order, dues divine,' and the meek younger sister dwells like a 
 menial at the gates of her haughty empress-sister, who in 
 her proud, self-reliant spirit has banished Faith, Truth, and 
 Wisdom. 
 
 The darkness of the soul under this rule of human 
 
 reason separated from the divine is imaged by a striking 
 
 analogy : — 
 
 No lack was there 
 Of direful sign and portent ; chief was this — 
 Each day grew murkier, for the light of truth 
 Suns those serenest firmaments ; and all 
 The falsehoods each one uttered, lie by lie, 
 Rolled into rings of darkness round their heads ^ 
 Till the conglomerate gloom oltscured, the day. 
 
 And still 
 With gathering shades the stranger spirits grew 
 Still lovelier, and, like light outletting Jiowers, 
 Glowed in the lengthening eve. 
 
 Tempted by the fascinations of beauty and pleasure, 
 Conscience, the oldest counsellor of reason, strays a willing 
 captive into the soft luxurious bowers, where they lay — 
 
 Eeclined on fragrant flowers, as though 
 Dreaming, yet only half-dissolved in sleep ; 
 The radiant chaplet drooping, and the zone 
 Coerulean, featly tricked, with sunblent stars, 
 Unloosened for repose. 
 
 There Conscience is lulled to sleep, and the god of the tempt- 
 ino- spirits, or Error, in the form of a hideous monster, 
 appears demanding the sacrifice of Faith. For sin becomes 
 visible in all its deformity, reigning as a despot in the soul as 
 
280 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 soon as Conscience has been silenced ; and requires the com- 
 plete and utter sacrifice of Faith, or the principle within that 
 still clings to the divine. So the allegory continues, syinbolis-» 
 ing all the acts and phases of the spiritual nature by these 
 forms of the imagination, sometimes with startling vividness 
 and power, at others with a fatiguing and unnecessary 
 obscurity — a somewhat too Sphinxian love of riddles. The 
 merit of the poem arises, indeed, far less from the general 
 structure than from the extreme beauty of many of the 
 isolated passages ; such, for instance, as the description of the 
 Angel of Truth, when he descends to combat Error and break 
 the bonds of Faith. But, after the victory, the wrath of the 
 sinniDg spirits falls on him because he had slain their god : — 
 
 High upwards rose, then in heaven's darkening face 
 Wide waverings with innumerable tongues, 
 Like to the desert sand-cloud or simoom, 
 The columned execrations of the crowd. 
 
 And they cast the angel-youth down upon the dead body 
 
 of the beast, which for three days and nights consumes away 
 
 with fire, by which the mystery of the death of Christ, and 
 
 his descent into hell is shadowed. He afterwards quits the 
 
 sinful orb with the younger sister, whom he had rescued ; 
 
 and the state of the world when Truth and Faith have 
 
 departed is drawn with a few gloomy but powerful 
 
 touches : — 
 
 Meanwhile, in that wretclied orb 
 Prevailed continuous night, and all things died 
 That drew their life from light ; the flowers their life 
 Breathed out in incense, and the trees laid down 
 Their leafy crowns forlorn ; the herbed earth 
 In withered, barren, senseless nakedness 
 Lay like a clay-cold corpse. 
 
 The rebel queen, proud, imperious Reason, is now laughed 
 to scorn, deposed and dungeoned, chained as mad by the all- 
 powerful and usurping Senses. 
 
 But the Divine is born 
 Ever of bitterness, and well I ween 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 281 
 
 Where sacrifice is not is never fire. 
 
 There lay the stricken despot humbled down 
 
 Into a penitent angel, sad and meek. 
 
 Punishment is the doom of sin, but its aim is purification ; 
 the burning fire of God's wrath descends on the guilty orb : — 
 
 From pole to pole it blazed : from sea to sea, 
 Eound the horizon, one unbroken ring 
 Of round beleaguering fire, which swift as thought 
 The nations all into one death-doomed fiock 
 Eelentless hunted. 
 
 But on the wreck and ruins of the burning world a sun- 
 bright cross descends — 
 
 'Neath whose redemptive light, 
 And restorative radiance all the seeds 
 Of life leapt upwards in the face of heaven. 
 
 The prisoned queen, saved, restored, and purified by sufier- 
 ing, is clothed in the shiny bridal robes by her meek young 
 sister, with whom she awaits the coming of her angel-lover. 
 The regenerated world soars up again to heaven in all its 
 primal bliss and beauty, and the angels looking down into it, 
 behold the two sisters. Faith and Reason — 
 
 Pale, perfect, and serene, between whom passed 
 
 A smile of mutual sympathy and trust, 
 
 As though their lot were linked. At last 
 
 One to the other spake : ' Sweet sister, mine. 
 
 Sleep thou, and let me wait his coming sole ; 
 
 Me he expects to watch, but would not thee.' 
 
 Thereon that lovely lady laid her down 
 
 Below a rock, whereby in woods embowered 
 
 And scented all with flowers, the rivers flowed— 
 
 Her last words, * Watch ; in sooth, he will not come ^ 
 
 Or not to me, who brought him so great fall.' 
 
 And the sun set ; still watched the maiden meek, 
 And at midnight she prayed 
 
 While she was thus praying, the angel-god ' upon whose 
 
282 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 breast the sun blazed, stood between them, and the lady rose 
 
 all pale.' 
 
 Then one by either hand, he led them up — 
 This, with the holy presence and august, 
 Most like the mother goddess, city crowned, 
 No w tiar'd as with the towers of Paradise ; 
 That, with the lucid crescent on her brow — 
 To the high seats of old prepared for both. 
 
 Then is fulfilled the vision of the Apocalypse. Humanity 
 is seen throned in heaven — symbolised in that mystic book 
 by the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under ber 
 feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars ; and the poem 
 terminates by the completion of the ineffable mystery of the 
 union of the mortal with the eternal. 
 
 The primal truth in the poet's philosophy — that on which 
 he founds the doctrine of the final salvation of the human race 
 — is the identity of all spirit with God's spirit, and its progres- 
 sive absorption into the divine essence, ' for ever nearing, never 
 near to God.' All life, he holds, proceeds from Him, and all 
 will return to Him. Breath of His breath, it can in no wise 
 fall permanently under the power of evil. In one of his minor 
 poems, entitled ' Prayer,' there is a fine passage on this sub- 
 ject. Comparing the transitory existence of suns and systems 
 with that of the eternal human souls, he says : — 
 
 ^ Man the while 
 Restored into tlie essence whence he came^ 
 One with the great ones who have dwelt in kim^ 
 Who cannot deal with less than infinites, 
 Kor utter what is not divine and true — 
 Shall ripen in thy bosom till he grows 
 Through endless heavens triumphant and serene, 
 Into the throned God thou bad'st him he' 
 
 Revelation teaches that even here God dwells in humanity, 
 as in a living temple. Yet each soul has a distinctive existence, 
 though, being a portion of the divine essence, it is ever aspir- 
 ing to blend again with the infinite. We are prisoned angels ; 
 gods, shrouded in clay ; Man, Angel, Deity, in one mysterious 
 
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 283 
 
 combination ; and the highest aim of all noble life is the per- 
 feet manifestation of this mystic triad. As the whole universe 
 is an illuminated missal, on which we read the name of God, 
 so all the sublime creations of human genius, the lofty deeds 
 of heroism and self-sacrifice, are true theophanisms— mani- 
 festations of God in beauty, harmony, love, or holiness. 
 
 It is amidst these high and elevating thoughts the author 
 of ' Festus ' loves to dwell. No writer of the age has trod the 
 inner and the supersensual world with so firm a step or so 
 clear a spiritual vision. Like the mystic theosophists of earlier 
 ages, his spirit seems wholly sublimated from earth and con- 
 centrated upon the one lofty object — how best to penetrate 
 and reveal the mystery of life. But thoughts like his must be 
 apprehended by sympathetic minds, rather than stated with the 
 precision of theological dogmas. Faith, love and purity are 
 necessary for the heart that would enter, like his, into full 
 and true communion with the divine spirit of the universe. 
 Like the prophet-child of old, he can hear the voice of God in 
 the Temple, while it is inaudible to less pure and holy minis- 
 trants at the altar. We must bring our souls into the same 
 spiritual relation with the divine which he has done before we 
 can fully comprehend the thoughts he utters. Most spirits 
 amongst us are bound down, chained, and fettered by a thou- 
 sand cords to earth — to the mere actual and visible that appeals 
 to the senses ; but the poet dwells freely in the centre of all 
 thought, like the angel standing in the sun ; and from this 
 lofty height can trace the links of the infinite chain connecting 
 all life with Deity, as circling systems revolve round their 
 primary, and the relation of all laws, physical and moral, their 
 mutual symbols and illimitable correspondences, where souls 
 dwelling on lower levels see only isolated facts, 'in disconnec- 
 tion, dead, and spiritless.' 
 
 All great minds tend to synthesis, because their range of 
 vision is wider. They rise from the contemplation of the end- 
 less diversity of phenomena to the fundamental unity in which 
 all laws meet, whether of mind or matter. And as we ascend 
 in physical or psychological science, the notion of an eternal 
 
284 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 principle or force, not under the control of the divine will, or 
 distinct from it, vanishes away. There is no place for the 
 notion of an independent antagonism to God in any enlarged 
 theory of physics or morals. Everywhere, indeed, in the 
 material as well as in the spiritual world, we see two forces 
 acting in opposite directions. Antagonism and dualism seem 
 the law by which all results are produced ; but they are God's 
 right hand and left. The planet is retained in its beautiful 
 ellipse by the opposing action of two influences — the tangential 
 and the gravitating. Were one or other removed, it would 
 either fall into the centre of the sun or rush onwards eternally 
 through space ; but by the attraction of opposites it moves in 
 a definite path, and its progress is the result of a series of falls, 
 or alternate deflections, in the direction of one or the other 
 force. So, by good and evil, is the soul kept in its distinct 
 orbit round the eternal centre of all soul. Like the path of 
 the planet, its progress may be but a succession of falls and 
 restorations ; still, the eternal attraction towards its divine 
 original is never overbalanced. And as no planet escapes from 
 the laws of its primary, and passes forth to wander, in sola- 
 tion and darkness, through the lone infinite of space, so no 
 soul can ever break the silver chord of spiritual gravitation by 
 which it is forced to circle eternally around the divine. The 
 laws of life are best read in the laws of the universe ; but the 
 connection of the physical and mental sciences has yet to be 
 written. Poets feel the analogies, and utter them in the 
 mystic language of symbol and metaphor ; philosophy has yet 
 to state them logically to the understanding as facts. Power- 
 fully and beautifully, Mr. Bailey reveals these infinite mysteries, 
 and arouses the soul to their contemplation. How his sublime 
 genius, glowing with love and spiritualism, contrasts with the 
 chill, cold Deism of almost all the literature of the present 
 day ! The truest criticism on a work of art is its efiect on the 
 mind, and no soul can give itself up to his guidance without 
 rising into devotion. One feels as if standing in sunlight on 
 a mountain, while beneath roll the mists of earth ! All that 
 lifts thought above sense sublimates, purifies and exalts the 
 
PHILIP JAMES EAILEY 285 
 
 feelings, exercises a religious influence ; for religion may be 
 manifested in silent worship, aspiration, elevation of soul above 
 self and the senses ; and no artist can be ranked amongst the 
 true kings of soul whose works fail in producing these en- 
 nobling, spiritualising emotions. Were all genius directed to 
 the same lofty ends as those which have absorbed the life of 
 the poet whose works we have been studying, the pure, elevated, 
 heaven-attracted spirits amongst us would not aspire after 
 death, as they do now, as the portal by which they may pass 
 forth to a nobler life ; for all life would be noble — would be 
 heavenly ; and humanity, lifted by its poets, prophets, guides, 
 and teachers, would then reach those serene heights of holiness 
 and purity where, in the poet's own sublime words, 
 
 Life would be one great ritual, and God's laws 
 Writ in the vital rubric of the blood. 
 
286 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 I. *THE PRINCESS' 
 
 Music that softer falls 
 Than petals from blown roses on the grass 
 
 It would be impossible to find a more accurate description of 
 the peculiar sweetness and beauty of Tennyson's verses than 
 the above cjuotation from one of his own poems. He plays 
 divinely on the chords of the heart, but his genius is not 
 formed to excite, or madden it into action or heroism. He 
 never rages Liszt-like, as the spirit of the storm over the 
 vital keys of feeling, but rather dwells with full indescribable 
 tenderness, sentiment, and expression on some plaintive minor 
 notes that make the tears well up softly and slowly within the 
 eyes — music you could die to, but which would never nerve 
 the soul for the combat of life. One would say of Tennyson 
 that he must have a calm, steadfast nature, never shattered by 
 storms of past passion ; not earthquake-riven ; no shreds of 
 his life have been left hanging on the sharp thorns of past 
 experience. He seems to dream through existence, rocked by 
 zephyrs and the soft motions of undulating flowers, watched 
 by visionary angels ; a man whose soul spreads out like a still 
 lake, broadly and beautifully, to the sun, but wherein are no 
 deep caves, no caverns fathoms down for the wrecked gold 
 and fragments of a shipwrecked past. Or, if the still waters 
 do rise, it is into artificial cascades, sending back the com- 
 monest sunbeam changed into a glittering scarf of Orient- 
 tinted jewels, and falling again graceful and beautiful as the 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 2S7 
 
 folding wings of an angel. There is no agony in his sufferings. 
 His melancholy exhales itself in an ecstasy of sadness like the 
 spiritual murmurings of a dying Weber. His calm is not 
 conquest, but the languor of emotion when the soul furls its 
 wings on earth, nestled in the bosom of love, and looks shudder- 
 ingly at the lone infinite beyond — its true home, but whither 
 it never seeks to soar. There is no strong Handelian chorus 
 in his pages to vibrate through the eternal chords of Being, 
 and send thought onward and upward until the sense of the 
 timeless rushes overpoweringly on the soul, and men feel their 
 divinity. No voice in his ' Voices ' says to the earth-bound 
 spirit, ' Arise, let us go hence ! ^ In fine, there are no ' inti- 
 mations of Immortality ' in Tennyson's half-pagan graceful 
 Grecian worship of to KaXov. Wordsworth charms human 
 souls from Hades and the Underworld up to the clear, bright, 
 pure aether of heaven with his Orphic song ; while Tennyson 
 chains them down with bands of linked roses in an Armida 
 garden, where the winds are formed of the odours of fiowers 
 and vibrations of silver laughter, and sweet voices singing of 
 ' love in loneliness ' to their lute-strings. For Tennyson does 
 not even draw life boldly and distinctly. His pictures want 
 breadth and colouring ; his forms want substance. They are 
 neither divine nor earthly, but shadowy, dreamlike, unsub- 
 stantial, mist-wraiths between us and heaven. He sings with- 
 in the gates of Paradise, and his women have not yet known 
 the taint, the mystery, and the strife that shadow existence 
 since the fall. These 'rare pale Margarets,' 'shadowy, dream- 
 ino" Adelines,' are people one never meets. You seek humanity 
 and find phantoms ; but exquisite phantoms, made up of 
 moonbeams and snowdrift. 
 
 With all his beautiful epithets and sunny words, he has 
 aiven no historical personality to any one of his creations. Is 
 he capable of breathing a living soul into a Juliet, a Rebecca, 
 a Gulnare, a Mignon ? Or even comparing him with Keats, 
 whose spirit his resembles, and whose lavish gorgeousness of 
 phrase he almost equals, could he rival or has he rivalled the 
 life-like pictures of Madeline or the Lamia ? 
 
288 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 This absence of vitality in his creations may be the reason 
 why Tennyson has not founded a school of thought, profound 
 or melancholy, daring or sublime, as Wordsworth, Byron, and 
 Shelley have done ; but he has founded a school of Diction. 
 All the younger poets of the day kneel to him as their gran 
 maestro. Felicitous phrase and the varied music of metre and 
 rhythm are attainable even by artists of mediocrity, and the 
 age is growing rather too well contented with these sensuous 
 melodies addressed only to the auditory nerve. There is a 
 psychological beauty, however, in Tennyson's verse which no 
 imitator has ever reached ; a charm distinct from the material 
 melody. It is the metaphysical power peculiar to his genius, 
 by which he analyses our own hearts for us — ' unties our 
 folded thoughts, until they dangle loose as a bride's hair ' — 
 reveals feelings and sensibilities that lay dark, formless, and 
 indistinct, until his words flashed up an inner light that makes 
 them start into vivid beauty, as the forms on an alabaster 
 vase when illuminated from within. Keats was a more con- 
 summate painter ; his Madeline is a gorgeous Titian ; his 
 Lamia a passionate Correggio ; and Shelley's genius was still 
 more harmonically related to nature ; each faintest, fleeting, 
 exquisite cloud-tiiit was mirrored in his soul ; and to his ear 
 the faintest sphere music is audible, even that within the lily 
 
 bell— 
 
 Music so delicate, soft, and intense. 
 
 That it seems like an odour within the sense. 
 
 But Tennyson can at times be more gently, lovingly 
 human. We need not soar to meet him. He descends and 
 walks with us in the guise of everyday humanity, as Apollo 
 with the shepherds of Admetus. This removes him as far as 
 possible from all comparison with Shakespeare. Shakespeare's 
 characters are not natural, but they are possible. In that lies 
 their grandeur. He creates wondrous types of humanity in 
 words, as the Greek artists in marble, which might be, but 
 have never yet been realised. He neither reveals himself in 
 his works nor reveals us who read. No author leads to so 
 little introspection — he lifts the soul rather completely up out 
 
ALFRED TE^TNYSON 289 
 
 of personality and individual consciousness, to a sphere where 
 the beings seem made for the orbit of Jupiter, not of Eartlu 
 Radiating from the centre commonplace of everyday hu- 
 manity, his genius sprang in every direction to the limits ol: 
 the periphery that bound the utmost possible of humanity ; 
 whereas Tennyson dwells amid the masses whose souls circu- 
 late in the ordinary orbit, or if he passes that, it is not in the 
 Shakespearean track, still along the vital radii of life to the 
 circling limit where they touch infinity, but up into a cloud- 
 roofed azure concave, where we meet, not forms of more power- 
 ful and mightier organisation than our own, but merely an 
 atmospheric mirage of what we left on earth. Yet, though 
 his characters have no vitality, he himself talks to us through 
 them in the sweet simple language of familiar life, as the 
 living priest within the statue of the lifeless simulated god. 
 Tennyson has much in common with that glorious race of men 
 who rank just below Shakespeare in our literature — there are 
 passages in Beaumont and Fletcher that seem written by him ; 
 and much in Tennyson's moods and modes of thought per- 
 petually suggest their exquisite melody of verse and pervading 
 sentiment, coming directly to our hearts ' like the voice of one 
 beloved singing to us alone,' but likewise their deficiency in 
 strong, bold, vivid, creative power. It is, however, ungenerous, 
 and almost ignoble to criticise a great poet ; for, after all, the 
 understanding can only define faults ; the beauty felt by the 
 soul for ever eludes our words. Rather let us bless God for 
 him as he is ; for a poet is a heaven's gift to a generation. 
 How like breathing free pure mountain air is a half-hour in 
 their atmosphere ! We love, weep, tremble for the once, 
 without one throb of selfishness marring the sacred, holy, and 
 spiritualising influence of emotion upon our nature ; forget- 
 ting our sadnesses and woes, our envies and ambitions, we 
 are noble, tender, generous, heroic, according as the poet- 
 mesmeriser lays his finger on our brain ; and we rise by 
 magnetic sympathy to the level of his creations, and yet more, 
 to the level of himself ; he shrouds us in his own divinity, and 
 earth for a while is hidden and forgotten. Even when we 
 
 u 
 
'290 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 return to the sordid and selfish world, the light still rests 
 upon the countenance that has gazed face to face upon the 
 poet. Alas, that it should so soon vanish ! Still, if he can 
 divinise clay even for a moment, the poet has not lived in 
 vain. Why, then, should the critics come and crush the 
 beautiful winged Psyche in their wooden hands, impale it, not 
 on pins but pens — to numljer the many eyes with which it 
 looks out on infiinty — the spots on its wings — and anatomise 
 and microscopise, and tear it in pieces to ascertain why it 
 pleased us ? Is it not enough that we are pleased ? The most 
 exquisite things in nature please we know not why. Sunset, 
 a still lake, the roaring rush of ocean on the rocks, the mist 
 rolling up a mountain, the golden and green light glancing 
 through the undulating leaves of a forest— flowers, odours, 
 music, motion graceful as a feathery acacia or terrible as a 
 tempest — all in which there is Beauty, Beauty alone, without 
 the Utility that at once connects an object with earth, pleases 
 with the impossibility of defining wherefore. They speak to 
 the soul, and the soul comprehends their language, though 
 material organs cannot express the subtle spiritual ideas they 
 awaken. It is a silent emotion of which the upraised eye, 
 the parted lips, and cheek pale with the presence of the 
 spiritual, are the only interpreters. 
 
 Tennyson has much of this indefinable beauty which no 
 criticism can reach, and by which we know that he is a true 
 poet-priest, one who has entered within the veil, and stands 
 beneath the shadow of the cherubim, although his trailing 
 sacerdotal robes may have gathered somewhat of earth as he 
 passed along the outer courts, before treading the golden floor 
 that leads up into the Sanctuary. 
 
 The poem of ' The Princess ' especially has a profounder 
 meaning, deeper feeling in place of sentiment, and the cha- 
 racters are drawn with firmer, bolder outline. His figures 
 altogether cast more shadow. They are more lifelike and 
 less vague, both in personality and spiritual nature, and there 
 is a superb woman for a heroine — heroic and beautiful ; like 
 that Venus of Egypt sculptured standing upon a lion. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 291 
 
 It is one of those poems we should say a grace before read- 
 ing, as Lamb suggested, in due acknowledgment of its merits. 
 Full of rich spontaneous music, as if the thoughts grouped 
 themselves harmonically of their own accord, like sand upon a 
 glass at the vibration of melody ; mingled with elaborate arti- 
 ficial dissonances — for there is no poet of the age who more 
 earnestly and devoutly studies the perfection of his work as 
 an artist than Tennyson. The very grace and freedom of his 
 versification, so often appearing like facile improvisation, is 
 the result of the profoundest elaboration of all the mysteries 
 of form and sound. How often do some rippling words break 
 up a sweet cadence, else too uniform, or a storm of rough con- 
 sonants disturb the lulling flow of gentle vocables, like sum- 
 mer hail falling upon flowers in the stillness of a sultry noon ! 
 His fine musical skill always sets ideas to the fittest words — 
 of this instances occur in every page. Describing a toy rail- 
 way, he says : — 
 
 ^ A dozen angry models jetted steam. 
 
 Here the ""words are a succession of gasps ; while the slow 
 sailing motion of the balloon is perfectly expressed in the sus- 
 tained utterance of these two lines : 
 
 A fire balloon 
 Kose gem-like up before the dusky groves, 
 And dropt a faery parachute and past. 
 
 Venus is more than described, she is seen here : 
 
 When she came 
 From barren deeps to conquer all with love, 
 And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 
 Far-fleeted by the purple island sides 
 Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
 To meet her Graces, where they decked her out 
 For worship without end. 
 
 Tennyson is more a musician than a painter. He repre 
 sents ideas by sounds rather than images. A quick sugges- 
 tive faculty— a vivid perception of analogies is one of the 
 
 u 2 
 
292 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 most distinguishing marks of genius. Browne, indeed, in his 
 ' Philosophy of the Mind,' asserts that it constitutes genius in 
 itself. Tennyson, however, does not possess the faculty in the 
 same exuberant fulness as Keats and Shelley, though some- 
 times one meets with a specimen of picture-writing from his 
 hand worthy of a true hierophant of the temple of genius. 
 
 For instance : — 
 
 A babe, 
 
 Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede^ 
 
 Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass. 
 
 A lady's writing : — 
 
 In such a hand, as when a field of corn 
 Bows all its ears before the roaring East. 
 
 A voice that like a bell, 
 Toird by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
 Kang ruin. 
 
 Many a little hand 
 Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 
 Man}^ a light foot shone, like a jewel set 
 In the dark crag. 
 
 He started to his feet — 
 Tore the king's letter — snowed it down. 
 
 The tear 
 She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
 Lost in her bosom. 
 
 Lovers' meeting eyes are- 
 
 Star sisters answering under crescent brows. 
 
 The melody produced by alliteration seems also to have 
 great charms for Tennyson's ear, for no writer employs the 
 ' artful aid ' so frequently : — 
 
 With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
 And sweet girl graduates in their golden hair. 
 
 , ^ The summer of the vine in all his veins, 
 
ALFKED TENKYSON li93 
 
 The reiteration here also makes the idea more impressive : 
 
 The crane, I said, ma}^ chatter of the crane, 
 The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, 
 A71 eagle clang, an eagle to the sphere. 
 
 But there is scarcely a line in which some artistical word 
 artifice is not employed. 
 
 The first intention of the poem of ' The Princess ' seems 
 to have been a playful satire, sharp and fine as fairy lances — a 
 feathered shaft aimed at Woman's Progress ; but the poet's 
 soul discerned as he proceeded the truth and beauty that lay 
 at the foundation of the idea symbolised by this much-vilified 
 phrase, and the result was a solemn, beautiful and philosophic 
 ending in which some very noble teaching concerning the 
 rights of female souls has been evolved, and the efforts jus tided 
 of those who would 
 
 Lift the woman's fallen divinity 
 Upon an even pedestal with man. 
 
 There is no probability in the tale. It is a fantasia, an 
 ' enchanted reverie,' and openly declared as such, as if the poet 
 was afraid the world would think him turning dogmatic, and 
 philosophic, and prosy, and consequently one of the progress 
 
 school. 
 
 The ^ silken-sandled ' Lilia calls on him to relate a tale to 
 pass away a summer's day. ' Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' 
 exclaims her brother, and ' make her some great princess, six 
 feet high, grand, epic, homicidal.' 
 
 The little Lilia, it seems, has strong feelings on the subject 
 of woman's emancipation, and maintains that nothing 
 
 * But convention keeps them down. 
 It is but bringing up, no more than that ; 
 You men have done it : how I hate you all I 
 Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
 Some mighty poetess, 1 would shame you then, 
 That love to keep us children ! Oh ! I wish 
 
294 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 That I were some great princess, I would build 
 Far off from men a college like a man's, 
 And I would teach them all that men are taught. 
 We are twice as quick I ' And here she shook aside 
 The hand that played the patron with her curls. 
 
 Lilia's suggestion is taken for the tale — ' a tale of college 
 and of ladies' rights/ with a heroine, terrible and beautiful as 
 Etty's Judith, upon whom all the new light concentrates 
 which the women-apostles of the age have been flashing on the 
 dark barriers of convention. But the poet's theory differs 
 somewhat from Lilia's ; he maintains that men and women 
 are not similar but diverse — that male and female natures are 
 the complement one of the other ; halves of one perfect human 
 nature that existed in Adam before the deep sleep fell on him 
 from whence arose the crowned consort Queen of Creation. 
 But the qualities proper to perfect humanity were not equally 
 divided between them. Man, with more powerful senses, was 
 given a strong judgment and clear reason to keep them in 
 control, so that his life is destined to be agonistical. Woman, 
 too weak even to war against herself, in default of strong judg- 
 ment was left the angel instincts unclouded by the senses, 
 which guide her right always and unerringly, independent of 
 all reason. All that is beautiful in a woman's nature is in- 
 .stinctive : all that is noble in a man's is attained by conquest 
 — therefore, having no strong sensuous nature rising as an 
 opaque medium to cloud the sinless instincts of the soul, 
 
 woman is — 
 
 Truer to the laws within. 
 
 Severer in the logic of a life. 
 
 Twice as magnetic to sweet influence 
 
 Of earth and heaven. 
 
 Not like the piebald miscellany, man. 
 
 Bursts of great heart, and slips of sensual mire, 
 
 But whole and one. 
 
 The superb heroine of the tale, however — the Princess Ida 
 — holds loftier notions of the force, judgment, and reason 
 inherent in her sex. 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 295 
 
 Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
 The woman were an equal to the man 
 
 So she obtains a summer palace from her father, which, with 
 the aid of two widows, she transforms into a ' University 
 for maidens,' wdth lectureships and professorial chairs, of 
 course all filled by the fair sex,^ she herself 'the Head,' 
 and they pass a law making it death for any male thing but 
 to peep at them. 
 
 But this princess, ' grand, epic, homicidal,' has a lover 
 betrothed to her from infancy, who, undeterred by her san- 
 guinary code and restrictions not to wed, resolves to seek her 
 within the very walls of her college, and see if love cannot 
 . conquer learning in a woman's soul. For this purpose, he and 
 two trusted friends assume woman's attire as the only means 
 of gaining entrance, and visiting her father, old King Gama, 
 en route, hear from him how the two widows. Lady Psyche 
 and Lady Blanche, first fed her theories about woman's equal 
 rights. With this he says : — 
 
 * Our banquets rang 
 Nothing but this ; my ears were very hot 
 To hear them. Knowledge— so my daughter held— • 
 Was all in all. They had but been, she thought, 
 As children : they must lose the child, assume 
 The woman. Then, sir, awf al odes she wrote 
 About this losing of the child, and rhymes 
 And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 
 Beyond all reason. These the women sang ; 
 And they that know such things would call them 
 Masterpieces. They mastered me.' 
 
 Nothing daunted, the prince-lover and his friends proceed 
 
 1 ThP idea howeTer, is not new ; a good many years ago, Johnson writes of 
 >T 1 1 tlfr'^ttlr of Easselas • 'The Princess thought that of all sublunary 
 Nekayah, the sister ot ^asseias . -^ g^.^t to^iearn all sciences, and 
 
 things knowledge was the best she desued ^i. ^^^^.^^ ^^^^ ^^^^, 
 
 *VV CTy c?nve°"w\ Str educating the young, she might 
 
 siae, that, by conveism^ w . . . ' . communication of wisdom, and 
 
 S upI'X nSge tti^rorXi'^'^a P.t.»»a of pie.,.' 
 
1^96 MEX, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 to the college, where they are admitted to the presence of Hhe 
 Head/ and the Prince thus describes her : — 
 
 ' There at a board, by tome and paper, sat 
 With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, 
 All beauty compassed in a female form, 
 The Princess. Liker to the inhabitant 
 Of some clear planet close upon the snn, 
 Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, 
 And so much grace and power breathing down 
 From over her arched brows.. 
 She rose her height, and said, " We give you welcome. " ' 
 
 After this they take the oaths, and the Princess bids thera 
 look round the hall and at the statues — 
 
 * Not of those that men desire ; 
 Sleek odalisques or oracles of mode, 
 Nor stunted squaws of East and West ; but she 
 That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she, 
 The foundress of the Babylonian rule. 
 The Carian Artemisia, strong in war. 
 The Khodope that built the Pyramid. 
 Cloelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
 That fought Aurelian, and the Eoman brows 
 Of Agrippina.' 
 
 * Dwell with these/ she exclaims, ' and lose convention ; since 
 to look on our noble forms makes noble through the sensuous 
 organism that which is higher.' 
 
 In the professor's hall they find the Lady Psyche giving a 
 lecture, Lady-Morgan-Avise, upon 'Woman and her Masterj' 
 to a patient range of pupils — 
 
 Who sat along the forms like morning doves 
 That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch. 
 
 Slie herself — 
 
 Erect behind a desk of satin wood, 
 
 A quick brunette, w^ell-moulded, falcon-eyed. 
 
 And on the hither-side or so 
 
 Of tw^enty summers. At her left, a child. 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 297 
 
 In shining draperies, headed like a star, 
 Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
 Aglaia slept. 
 
 Florian, one of the Prince's friends, discovers his sister in 
 the Lady Psyche, but the three young men hold their peace 
 and listen to the lecture, in which she took 
 
 A bird's eye view of all the ungracious past, 
 Kan down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
 Of empire, and the woman's state in each 
 How far from just. 
 
 Yet scattered stars had already shown what woman could be. 
 
 In arts of government, 
 Elizabeth and others ; arts of war, 
 The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace, 
 Sajjpho and others vied with any man. 
 
 At last ' she rose upon a wind of prophecy.' Woman was to 
 leign joint sovereign with men in council, wealth, science, art, 
 business, and life, throughout all its phases — 
 
 Should bear a double growth of those great souls, 
 Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world. 
 
 After listening in turn to all the lectures — 
 
 With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 
 
 By violet-hooded doctors; elegies, 
 
 And jewels five words long 
 
 That on the stretched forefingers of all time 
 
 Sparkle for ever. 
 
 ' Why, sirs, the}^ do all this as well as we,' 
 
 exclaims the Prince. 
 
 * They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, ' very well : 
 JBut 7vJie7i did woinen ever yet invent ? ' 
 
 After a lecture upon Primary Strata by the Princess, the 
 tent is pitched in the valley, and feast and song aid the hours 
 
298 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 to pass. The Prince attempts something sentimental which 
 Ida criticises : — 
 
 ' A mere love poem I ! f or such, my friend, 
 We hold them slight. They mind us of the time 
 When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men 
 That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 
 And dress the victim to the offering up, 
 And play the gates of hell with paradise. 
 And paint the slave to gain the tyranny. 
 So they blaspheme the Muse I But great is song 
 Used to great ends. Ourself have often tried 
 Valkyrian hymns, or into rltythm have dash'd 
 The passio7i of the ^^rojjhetess, ' 
 
 She spoke and turn'd her sumptous head with eyes 
 
 Of shining expectation fixed on mine, 
 
 The while I dragg'd my brains for such a song. 
 
 But before the Prince can speak, Cyril, who had been 
 draining the wine flask rather more frequently than befitted 
 his garb feminine, began 
 
 To troll a careless, tavern- catch, 
 
 Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
 
 Unmeet for ladies. 
 
 The secret is soon discovered. ' Then rose a shriek as of a 
 city sacked.' 
 
 The Princess escaping is flung into the river, from which 
 her lover rescues her ; but she is stern still and implacable, 
 and summons them to trial : — 
 
 ' They haled us to the Princess, where she sat 
 High in the hall. Above her droop'd a lamp, 
 And made the single jewel on her brow 
 Barn like the mystic fire on a masthead 
 Prophet of storm. A handmaid on each side 
 Bow'd towards her, combing out her long black hair, 
 Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
 Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, 
 Huge women, blowzed with health, and wind, and rain. 
 And labour. Each was like a Druid rock, 
 
ALEEED TENNYSON 299 
 
 Or like a spire of land that stands apart, 
 Cleft from the main. 
 
 These are the executioners of her decrees. Psyche has 
 escaped, but left her ' lily shining child ' behind. And Lady 
 Blanche is Attorney-General. But while the trial proceeds, 
 letters come from old King Gama, stating that his territory 
 has been invested by the Prince's father, who holds him 
 prisoner until his son is safely delivered up ; and a second 
 ;from the angry father himself, running thus : — 
 
 * You have onr son ; touch not a hair of his head ; 
 Eender him up unscathed ; give him your hand. 
 
 Though indeed we hear 
 You hold the woman is the better man ; 
 A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
 Would make all women kick against their lords.' 
 
 The alarm amongst the maidens at the approach of the 
 hostile army is then exquisitely described. It is a picture of 
 the Venetian school : — 
 
 From the illumined hall 
 Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press 
 Of snowy shoulders thick as herded ewes, 
 And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes 
 And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 
 Fluctuated, as flowers in a storm, some red, some pale, 
 All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light, 
 Some crying there was an army in the land, 
 And some that men were on the very walls ! 
 
 While high above them stood 
 
 The placid marble muses looking peace. 
 
 The Princess, rising up ' robed in the dark night of her 
 lon^ hair,' addresses these timid allies of woman's rights in a 
 speech of considerable violence, yet blames them not so much 
 for fear. She says :— 
 
 ' Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
 From which I would redeem you.' 
 
300 MEN, "WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Still, shamed at their weakness, she vows to dismiss them on 
 the morrow, to live with those 
 
 Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 
 Bat fib to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 
 To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to sew — 
 For ever slaves at home and fools ahroad. 
 
 Equally ignominious is the dismissal of the Prince and his 
 friends : — 
 
 * I wed with thee ' [she exclaims] ; ' / bound by pre-contract 
 Your bride, your bond-slave I Not, though all the gold 
 That ruins the world were pack'd to make your crown. 
 Here, push them out at gates.' 
 
 Thereupon they are seized by the eight mighty daughters 
 of the Plow, who, ' with grim laughter,' thrust them out at 
 gates. A tourney follows, in which the Prince with fifty 
 knights fights against Ida's brother with fifty more. 
 
 Ida, strong-hearted, fit to sit ' upon a king's right hand in 
 thunder storms,' watches the combat from her palace battle- 
 ments : — 
 
 Highest among the statues, statne-like, 
 
 Between a cymbaled Miriam and a Jael, 
 A single hand of gold about her Jiair, 
 Like a saint's glory ujj in heaven. 
 
 The Prince and his knights are vanquished, he himself 
 wounded apparently to death. Upon which, ' like the great 
 Dame of Lapideth,' Ida from her palace roof chants a hymn 
 of triumph ; then issuing forth with her maidens through the 
 great bronze gates — 
 
 The lovely, lordly creature, floated on 
 
 To where her wounded brethren la}^ 
 
 And called them dear deliverers, immortal names, 
 
 And said, ' Ye shall not lie in the tents but here. 
 
 Nursed by female hands and hospitality.' 
 
 A Dantesque picture of the father ' lifting his grim head ' 
 from her lover's wounds at last melts her to pity, and a tide 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 301 
 
 of human feeling for the first time rushes over her soul. She 
 desires all the wounded warriors to be carried to her palace 
 — Psyche regains her star-headed babe and is restored to 
 favour— she sees the denouement approaching with a fatality 
 like a catastrophe— pity unbars the heart, and love enters the 
 defenceless citadel. She feels herself already dragged down 
 from her fixed height, to mix with 
 
 The soft and milk}^ rabble of womankind, 
 Poor weaklings even as they. 
 
 In vain Lady Blanche remonstrates on breaking the laws 
 and allowing the men to enter — a law she had herself pro 
 posed, for she says : — 
 
 * I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
 And blocked them out.' 
 
 The maidens came, they talked, 
 Hung round the sick, till she, not fair, began 
 To gather light, and she, that was, became 
 Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 
 With books, with flowers, with angel offices, 
 Like creatures native unto gracious acts, 
 And in their own clear element they moved. 
 
 The scene where the Prince awakens to consciousness from 
 his long delirium is exquisitely beautiful. Ida is beside 
 
 him : — 
 
 Palm to palm she sat ; 
 
 The dew dwelt in her eyes, 
 And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
 So drench 'd it is with tempest, to the sun. 
 
 He turns to her, and utters whisperingly :— 
 
 * If 3^ou be that Ida whom I knew, 
 
 I ask for nothing : only if a dream, 
 
 iSweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
 
 •Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die. 
 
 She turn'd ; she paus'd ; 
 She stoop'd, and out of languor leap'd a cry ; 
 Leapt fiery passion from the brink of death ; 
 My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips.' 
 
302 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Like that kiss, tutto tremante, of the lovers of Rimin' 
 which still thrills along the centuries through the chords of 
 human hearts : — 
 
 * Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose. 
 Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
 Her falser slipped from her like a robe, 
 And left her woman ; but mute she glided forth, 
 Nor glanc'd behind her, and I sank and slept, 
 Fiird through and through with love in happy sleep.' 
 
 In the deep night she comes to watch by him, and reads 
 low-toned to herself a small sweet idyll, while he listens with 
 shut eyes : — 
 
 ' Come down, oh maid, from yonder mountain height, 
 But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine, 
 To set a star upon the sparkling spire, 
 And come, for love is of the valley, come.' 
 
 We see how the woman's heart is melting — all her cold 
 isolated theories break up and drift away like blocks of ice 
 beneath the power of a genial sun. 
 
 * Her voice 
 Choked, and her 'forehead sank upon her hands, 
 And her great heart, through all the faultf ul past 
 Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break.' 
 
 Ida is almost too repentant here of her proud theories of 
 womanhood. Love, as it always does, is turning her woman's 
 nature to a slave's. Still powerful in revolt against all theories 
 of woman's independence was that instinct of her nature 
 which seems satisfied only with self-sacrifice, self-immolation 
 for the one beloved. Ida is rapidly falling into this utter pro- 
 stration before the heart conqueror, but her lover saves her 
 dignity by admitting a theory which allows her still to reign 
 as well as to love. Reign equally with the man, but in 
 diff^erent spheres. He says : — 
 
 * The woman's cause is man's. They rise or sink 
 Together. Dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free ; 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 303 
 
 If she be small, slight natiired, miserable, 
 
 How shall men grow ? But work no more alone ; 
 
 ^ye two will serve them both in aiding her — 
 
 Will clear away the parasitic forms. 
 
 That seem to keep her up but drag her down,' 
 
 * Let her be 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood ; 
 For woman is not undevelopt man, 
 But diverse. Could we make her as the man 
 Sweet love were slain. 
 
 Yet in the long years liker must they grow — 
 The man be more of woman, she of man. 
 He gain in sweetness, and in moral height, 
 She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care 
 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind. 
 Till at the last she set herself to man 
 Like perfect music unto noble words.' 
 
 Ida having expressed her fear that these things never 
 could be accomplished, the Prince continues : — 
 
 ' Dear, but let us type them now 
 In our own lives ; seeing either sex alone 
 Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
 Nor equal, nor unequal. Each fulfils 
 Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
 Purpose in purpose, will in will they grow, 
 The two-cell'd heart beating with one full stroke.' 
 
 There is nothing in the whole poem more exquisitely tender 
 and beautiful than the whole of this passage where woman's 
 place in the scheme of humanity is drawn with such sublime 
 truth, and at last the grand-souled Ida, ' three times more 
 noble than three score of men,' the 'cymbaled Miriam,' 
 falls low as the enemies she sang of, drowned in the deep sea 
 of love ; but, after all, what woman, genius or not, could resist 
 the tender, subduing sentiment, feeling, passion, and melody 
 of that last speech in which her lover woos her ? Divine 
 thoughts, divinely uttered ! We half forgive Ida that she 
 yielded. 
 
304 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 II. *IHE HOLY GKAIL' AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 The old Arthurian legends have always had a magic charm 
 for Tennyson, and seem to have haunted him with their mystic 
 shapes of loveliness since first he uttered thought in verse. In 
 his earliest published volume appeared ' Morte d' Arthur/ and 
 also the exquisite dreamy music of 'The Lady of Shalott,' 
 floating down the river to die, with her eyes fixed upon the 
 towers of Camelot. 
 
 The later idylls are also rich in those wonderful Tenuy- 
 sonian lines of beauty that send an electric flash quivering 
 throu«:h the frame and are remembered for ever. Yet the 
 language is the simplest vernacular, mostly monosyllabic, 
 almost curiously and affectedly so ; and on analysing it one 
 feels surprised to find such soft tenderness and sweet music 
 evolved from elements so simple. There are whole passages 
 composed of monosyllables only, as thus : — 
 
 — And sad 
 At times he seemed, and sad with him was I ; 
 Stern, too, at times, and then I lovei him not. 
 But sweet again, and then I loved him well ; 
 And now of late I see him less and less. 
 
 Yet, throughout there is a noble grace, a solemn cadence in 
 the music which diff'uses a holy calm over the spirit, such as 
 one might feel on entering suddenly from the strong glare of 
 noon into the still silence of a temple of God. There are 
 few illustrations, few similes, and those only of the antique 
 Homeric type, struck from the sympathy of the poet with 
 common life and nature, or with the simple unchanging mani- 
 festations of human feeling. There is truly much of the 
 antique mind in Tennyson ; especially that innate strong sense 
 of harmony and proportion which makes all he touches flow 
 into graceful forms. Above all things, there is never any 
 straining after violent exaggerated expression in his verses, no 
 mad beautiful raving of the delirious senses, like the Swin- 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 305 
 
 bnrne music, so deadly sweet, so intoxicated by passion 
 These two poets, Swinburne and Tennyson, are indeed tlie 
 exponents of two eternally opposite natures. How little 
 there is of deep spiritual thought in all the lava floods of 
 fiery images, the ocean waves of purple words that burn and 
 foam through Swinburne's poems, beautiful as they are in 
 their thrilling accentuated rhythm ; while Tennyson can con- 
 vey in the simplest forms all that is noblest, loftiest, and 
 purest in the soul's highest aspiration. He expends all his 
 power in heightening the glory of the gem, while Swinburne 
 thinks only of the gorgeous splendour of the setting. Espe- 
 cially in his later poems Tennyson seems to disdain and 
 intentionally cast aside all sensuous allurements of word, or 
 phrase, or metaphor. A holy earnestness is over his spirit — 
 a calm dignity as of one who stands on the heights from which 
 he can already see the far-off spiritual land. All self-seeking 
 and self-glorification are lost in these sublime moments, when 
 the divine fire burns on the prophet's lip, and he calls to the 
 souls wandering in the mists of low desire to come up and 
 stand with him on the mount. His whole soul is thrown into 
 the ideal, and it wakes to life vivified with the breath of his 
 power and animate in the beauty of his creations ; while 
 Swinburne radiates round him such intense egotism that, 
 lookino- down into the mirror of life, he obscures heaven and 
 sees only himself. There is something deeply affecting in 
 the solemn calm, the purity, the sadness, and the spiritual 
 grandeur of the region Tennyson lifts us to ; at least souls of 
 the highest order will feel the wonderful influence of his guid- 
 ino- hand. With the crowd, this volume, in its holy, truthful 
 beauty, may not be popular ; but, at all events, it may defy 
 the stino-s and arrows of a shallow criticism. Besides, wdiat- 
 ever a o-reat poet writes should be accepted reverently, not 
 criticised coldly. Prophets are still with us ; inspiration is 
 still with us. We have more need of faith than of judgment. 
 A most sweet singer, a man of noble genius, has written a 
 poem full of noble thought ; let us keep silence, and submit 
 ourselves trustingly to his guidance while we sit at his feet 
 
806 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 and learn wisdom. Has not Tennyson himself denounced 
 ' the blatant magazines ^ that dare to utter oracles, as if they 
 were the Urim and Thummim, and were the true priests of 
 God. And with what proud scorn he warns the critics — 
 
 Vex not thou the poet's mind 
 
 With thy shallow wit. 
 Vex not thou the poet's mind, 
 
 For tlioit canst not fathom it. 
 
 The first idyll opens with a description of the young Kino* 
 Arthur, who is then forming his government and studying 
 how to fulfil its duties. He sees Guinevere, a king's daughter, 
 and loves her, for 
 
 She is fairest of all flesh on earth, 
 
 and he sends his best-beloved and most trusted knight, 
 Launcelot, to fetch her to his Court, where they are to be 
 wedded ; and here was the origin and beginning of the fatal 
 passion which was the madness and the sin of Launcelot's life. 
 Then we are told how Arthur forms his celebrated Order of 
 Knights, and addresses them 'with large, divine, and comfort 
 able words,' while Wisdom stands beside him. The Lady of 
 the Lake, ' who knows a subtler magic than his own/ clothed 
 in white samite, mystic, wonderful — 
 
 A mist 
 Of incense curled about her, and her face 
 Well nigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 
 But there was heard among the holy hymns 
 A voice as of the waters — for she dwells 
 Down in a deep calm, whatsoever storms 
 May shake the world ; and when the surface rolls, 
 Hath power to walk the waters like Our Lord. 
 
 The character of Arthur is drawn from first to last with 
 the most perfect and noble touches. Even in his love for 
 Guinevere aspiration is still stronger than passion, and he 
 yearns for that love to be returned, that so through it he may 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 307 
 
 rise into a higher life of intellect and lofty aims. Without 
 her he feels that his life passes ' vext with waste dreams/ 
 
 * But were I joined with her, 
 Then might we live together as one life, 
 And, reigning with one will in everything, 
 Have 'poiver on this dark land to lighten it, 
 And power on tills dead world to make it live.'' 
 
 The first idyll closes with the wedding of the great king to 
 her ' who was the fairest under heaven/ and the second is: 
 devoted to ' The Holy Grail,' which, though it gives the title to 
 the volume, occupies but a small portion of it. The story of 
 the ' Sangreal ' is one of the most beautiful of the mediaeval 
 legends, full of a deep and mystic symbolism. The old German 
 version describes with wonderful pathetic power how the young 
 hero. Sir Percival, w^as reared by his mother in a lonely wood, 
 where, with still nature and the voice of birds, he grew up till 
 his soul became J&lled with a burning desire to do great deeds, 
 and he resolved to go to King Arthur's Court. There he 
 became celebrated above all the other knights for perfect noble- 
 ness and purity, and in one of his knightly wanderings he came 
 to the castle of the Priest-King, Titurel of Spain, built by him 
 as a shrine for the Sangreal, or Holy Cup, the same from which 
 Our Lord himself drank at the Last Supper, and in which 
 Joseph of Arimathea afterwards caught some drops of the 
 precious Crucifixion blood. The cup had wonderful properties, 
 and selected its own guardian, who gained it only after loi.g 
 striving towards the attainment of perfect purity. 
 
 Sir Percival, filled with holy zeal to become a Templar, or 
 guardian of the Temple of the Grail, renounced all worldly 
 glory and affections, devoting himself to the study of God, 
 salvation, and human destiny, till he reached such a height of 
 spiritual perfection that, for his soul's great victory over evil, 
 he was crowned king of the mystic Grailburg. A profound 
 meaning lies hidden in this ancient legend. The silent, lonely 
 rearing of the young hero symbolised the perfecting of the soul 
 in the"" sanctity of stillness, apart from all the devastating 
 
 I X 2 
 
308 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 passions of life. It was a mystic and a sad metaphor ; for this 
 sublime wine-cup is the cup of suflfering, and the question 
 which age after age still hears from the lips of Christ : ' Can 
 ye drink of the cup which I drink of ? ' has an infinite depth of 
 sorrow in it, for it means, ' Can ye suffer as I have sulBfered, 
 yet triumph and conquer through all as I have done ? ' 
 
 The quest of the Holy Grail is, in truth, the quest of all 
 great souls who pine after perfection. To them, as to the young 
 hero, all men and women are but as phantoms. They no longer 
 live within life but above it ; and through the fires of suffering 
 the dross of earth is burned away, and the soul thrills with but 
 one emotion, that divine aspiration to God of which all earthly 
 love is but the symbol. 
 
 In Tennyson's poem the profound significance of the legend 
 is scarcely worked out with sufficient clearness. The meaning 
 is left shadowy and vague. We do not stand as it were face 
 to face with the young hero in his combats with temptation 
 and sin. There is no dramatic action, for when the poem opens 
 we are told that Sir Percival is already dead, and the story of 
 his life is narrated by a monk as he had it from the lips of the 
 dying hero, and who tells, in the words of Sir Percival, how 
 the frenzy seized on him and others to go in quest of the Holy 
 Grail. His nun-sister was the inspirer, with 
 
 Her eyes 
 Beyond my knowing of them beautiful ; 
 Beyond all knowing of them wonderful ; 
 Beautiful in the light of holiness. 
 
 Of the knights some went forth from vanity, but soon 
 returned from weariness ; and Launcelot to seek a cure for that 
 fatal passion for the queen that consumed him like a fever ; 
 but Galahad, the youngest and most beautiful of King Arthur's 
 knights, went forth with Sir Percival, from the earnest long- 
 ing they had for the cup of purity and holiness, for Galahad 
 had seen and talked with the holy sister, whose words were 
 
 inspiration — 
 
 And as she spake 
 
 She sent the deathless j^f^ssion in her eyes 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 309 
 
 Through him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
 On him, and he believed with her belief. 
 
 The knights meet in the great hall of Arthur's palace, with 
 its four zones of sculpture, the mystic symbols of the progress 
 of humanity. 
 
 And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, 
 And in the second men are slaying beasts, 
 
 And in the third, are warriors perfect men, 
 
 And in the fourth ^ are men with growing wivgs. 
 
 They take leave of the king, who has tried in vain to dis- 
 suade them from this visionary purpose, and they go forth on 
 the quest. Sir Percival passes through the beauty of earth, 
 and sees the beauty of fair women and the glory of life, and 
 hears the wisdom of the sage ; but as he approaches, and feels 
 his heart touched by them, they crumble into dust, and he is 
 ' left alone, and thirsting in a land of sand and thorns/ Then 
 he finds he lacks one grace — humility — and he sets out a second 
 time on the quest, more strong because less proud, and 
 less confident in his own strength. But Galahad, the gentle, 
 pure, and holy Galahad, sped on untroubled by the phantoms 
 of earth, and every bridge turned to fire as he passed over it, 
 and he enters into the glories of the stars and the thunders 
 that seemed to him like the shouting of the sons of God, and 
 at lensfth reaches the eternal sea, and floats like a luminous 
 cloud within the gate, all of one glorious pearl, and there the 
 veil is rent from his eyes, and he beholds the Holy Grail, 
 ' which never eyes on earth again shall see,' for it is Death 
 that rends the veil ; it is Death that crowns the victim. This 
 whole passage in the poem is full of a resplendent and most 
 spiritual beauty. Faint, weary, and dispirited, the other 
 knights return to Arthur's Court. They had caught glimpses 
 of the Holy Grail at times, but the vision soon passed away, 
 for they failed in earnestness, and passion clouded their eyes, 
 and they even became ' too blind to have desire to see,' and so 
 <^ave up the quest, some from indifference, others from despair. 
 When all the knights are reassembled. King Arthur questions 
 
810 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 them of their adventures, their success, or their failure ; and 
 turning to Launcelot, asks how it was that he, beyond all 
 men, so brave and so noble, could have failed to obtain the 
 mystic cup. 
 
 Above all the characters drawn by Tennyson in his 
 Arthurian sketches, this one of Sir Launcelot, the best beloved 
 friend of the king, is painted with the most human and the 
 most pathetic touches. With what intense and tearful power 
 lie shows us the loving, erring, sinning, yet proud and loyal- 
 hearted Launcelot, struggling in his heart with the fatal love 
 for the queen which was the madness of his life, and the bitter 
 consciousness of the treachery to his king and friend which 
 made its agony and despair. There is nothing in all human 
 emotion more tragic than the wild intoxication of sinful love 
 surging in the heart along with the terrible self-condemnation 
 of a lofty and noble nature which feels the degradation but 
 cannot lift itself above the sin. The tragic element, too, is 
 heightened by the entire trust with which the king meets his 
 friend ; too noble-minded to be suspicious, too pure to fear 
 treachery, he welcomes back Launcelot to his Court with the 
 free joy and love of unshaken confidence. Launcelot, con- 
 sumed by love, tortured by remorse, had gone forth filled 
 with wild hope and desire to attain the Holy Grail, and so 
 free his soul from temptation ; but for him, sin-marred and 
 passion- struck, the Grail is not. In vain he tries, he cannot 
 reach it ; so with the doomed sin still on him he returns, and 
 when the king questions him, Launcelot answers : — 
 
 A dying fire of madness in his eyes. 
 ' Ob, King, my friend, if friend of thine I be, 
 
 In me there lived a sin 
 So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure. 
 Noble and knightly in me twined and clung 
 Eound that one sin, until the wholesome flowers 
 And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
 Not to be plucked asunder ; and when thy knights 
 Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 
 That could I touch or see the Holy Grail, 
 They might be plucked asunder. 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 311 
 
 And forth I went, and while I yearned and strove, 
 My madness came upon me as of old. 
 And in my madness to myself I said, 
 I will embark, and I will lose myself, 
 And in the great sea wash a^ay my sin.' 
 
 Then he describes how he reached a castle built high upon a 
 rock, and through the crevice of the closed door he saw a 
 glorious light streaming, and heard the chant of glory to the 
 Grail, and continues : — 
 
 ' Then in my madness I essayed the door, 
 
 It gave ; and thro' a stormy glare, a heat, 
 
 As from a seven times heated furnace, I, < 
 
 Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, 
 
 With such a fierceness that I swooned away. 
 
 And but for all my madness and my sin. 
 
 And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 
 
 The Holy Grail — but what I saw was veiled. 
 
 And covered ; and the quest, 'tv^^as not for me.' 
 
 \Yhen Launcelot ends, a silence falls upon the hall, but Arthur 
 comforts him, and will not believe that all honour and pure 
 nobleness is so twined round one sin that true kniofhthood can 
 be utterly lost. Then he chides his knights for having left 
 human wrongs to right themselves while they went forth on 
 visionary quests, and tells them : — 
 
 ' Man may not wander from the allotted field 
 Before his work be doue.' 
 
 But with true work will come divine visions of the night and 
 
 day : — 
 
 ' In moments when lie feels Tie cannot die.'' 
 
 With this mingling of the ideal and the actual in Arthur's 
 noble speech the idyll ends, and from it we have glimpses of 
 the deep meaning that underlies this most beautiful poem. 
 
 The next idyll, 'Pelleas and Ettarre,'is a tale of love and 
 jealousy ; of a light woman's light love contrasted with the 
 loyal passion of a man's strong heart. Ettarre is a vain, 
 
312 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 haughty, beautiful woman — a lady of the land — who would 
 have all men slaves to her imperial nature ; a woman bom to 
 receive homage but who could never give back love. She 
 flatters and beguiles Pelleas with the glamour of her beauty 
 in order that he may fight at the tourney for her sake and 
 win the golden circlet for her, which is the prize. But when 
 he places the crown upon her brows in sight of all the world 
 she scorns him, and henceforth bids her minions to drive him 
 from her castle walls, for earnest love wearies a shallow heart. 
 She cared only for conquest ; her triumph was to drive her 
 chariot over crushed lives ; her lovers must be her victims. 
 
 But to Pelleas, and to natures like his, love comes but 
 once in life, and never more — subduing, terrible, eternal. 
 His soul lies within her guarded castle gates, and he cannot fly 
 the spot, but waits and hopes, and loves through all the scorn 
 she heaps upon him. But thus his life is lost, his sword lies 
 idle, the world and all the workFs work become but shadows 
 to him, and nothing real is left but the passion and the torture. 
 So from noon to midnight he feeds upon the thoughts of her 
 
 beauty — 
 
 For large her violet eyes looked, and her bloom 
 A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heaven : 
 And but for those large eyes — the haunts of scorn — 
 She might have seemed a toy to trifle with. 
 
 But while he gazed 
 The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy, 
 As if it 7vere the beauty of her soul. 
 
 This noble constancy is felt by Ettarre as a reproach to her 
 own levity ; and she has her lover bound and brought to her 
 presence that she may insult him before her court. But he 
 rebukes her with such grave gentleness, telling her : — 
 
 * I had rather you were worthy of my love, 
 Than that you loved me ' — 
 
 that, at last, a sense of her ow^n false, shallow nature comes 
 over her, and in anger, because feeling her own inferiority 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 313 
 
 compared to his nobleness, she drives him forth acain, mur- 
 muring : — 
 
 ' He would not love me if he knew me well.' 
 
 Sir Gawain — the light-hearted, light-loving Gawain — 
 
 happening to ride by, meets Pelleas, and hears his tale. Then 
 
 Gawain swears by all things, sacred and profane, that he will 
 
 avenge his friend and bring this haughty woman to reason. 
 
 So he gains entrance to the castle, meaning honestly to plead 
 
 for Pelleas ; but to see Ettarre is to fall under her sorcery. 
 
 Gawain loves her and forgets his friend. Three days Pelleas 
 
 waits, wandering about the land. On the third day he returns. 
 
 The castle gates are open — there has been a revel, and all 
 
 the servitors and the guard and the watch are sleeping. He 
 
 passes on through the gardens, all silent save for the murmur 
 
 of the rivulet that spilt itself among the roses. Pie reaches 
 
 the pavilions, and behold, in one, Gawain and Ettarre lay asleep, 
 
 she with the golden circlet on her brow. Pelleas draws his 
 
 sword to kill them, but hesitates. He cannot slay a sleeping 
 
 knight — 
 
 Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid 
 The naked sword athwart their naked throats. 
 There left it, and them sleeping, and she lay, 
 The circlet of the tourney round her brow, 
 And the sword of the tourney across her throat. 
 
 Then dashed the rowel into his horse 
 And bounded forth and vanished through the night. 
 
 He no longer loves her, but loathes her ; but she, when she 
 awakes and finds the sword of her lover, struck by a sense of 
 her sin, and recognising for the first time the grandeur and 
 deep love of the heart she had flung away and lost, pines and 
 wastes for sorrow and vain love ; but Pelleas returns no 
 
 more. 
 
 The third and last idyll, ' The Passing of Arthur,' has an 
 addition of about a dozen pages to the poem already so well 
 known as the ' Morte d'Arthur.' Nothing can surpass the 
 o-rand and exquisite music of the sublime chant of death. The 
 three dark queens bear away the kingly spirit of the stainless 
 
314 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 king to the land of shadows, to abide with the dead heroes of 
 the past, and with this wonderful vision, divinely solemn, closes 
 the most perfect work of an almost perfect poet. Tennyson 
 stands alone on the Peak of Parnassus he has reached and 
 made his own. He is the laureate of deep, pure, holy thought, 
 beyond all the living poets of the age. In many others we 
 find, indeed, the oratory of strong feelings, mighty as ocean 
 floods, but as reckless in their dash and roll ; or the passion 
 waves, burning and devastating, as if upheaved by an earth- 
 quake and heated by a volcano. But true poetry dwells above 
 and beyond all these disturbing influences in a serene calm of 
 lofty, spiritual thought. Tennyson has reached this height, on 
 which Wordsworth stood before him, and his poems, like the 
 sculptured gods of the Greek Pantheon, manifest the divine 
 idea in the most perfect and beautiful of material forms. 
 
 Of the remaining poems in the volume, two have already 
 appeared in magazines — ' The Victim ' and ' Lucretius.' In 
 the latter we have glimpses of Tennyson's own mind — the 
 aspirations, the questionings, and the sadness of the gifted 
 soul chafing in its fleshly fetters. He seems to speak to us 
 beneath the mask of the old Roman philosopher, who preferred 
 death, it is said, to the bondage of the senses. And this poem 
 has also a mystical meaning, for the female influence which 
 tries to draw dow^n the intellect of the philosopher to its own 
 low level symbolises the eternal conflict between the Under- 
 standing and the Reason, to use the phraseology of Coleridge ; 
 between the spirit of the animal that goeth downward, and 
 the spirit of a god which goeth upward, both of which dv^^ell 
 within us, and both of which are ever at war, one against the 
 other. 
 
 Lucretius mourns bitterly over the bondage to the senses, 
 these glowing delusive Hetairai that tempt the soul downward 
 and earthward. All great souls feel and have felt the same. 
 Wordsworth has said with deep truth and profound self- 
 knowledge : — 
 
 'Tis the most difficult of tasks to keep 
 Heights which the soul is competent to gain. 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 315 
 
 And the true tragedy of the soul is the remorse and self- 
 condemnation which is sure to avenge even a momentary 
 enthralment of the higher to the lower nature. From this 
 conflict, this dissonance, these alternations of aspiration and 
 degradation, and from the miserable doom of disease and 
 ' wretched age ' that awaits humanity, Lucretius resolves to 
 free himself by death, that so he might give back to nature 
 the frame and spirit he had received from her, to be dashed 
 again into new forms, 
 
 Through all her cycles into man once more. 
 
 With this he drove the knife into his side, and the asDirine, 
 immortal spirit passes from the fleshly bondage ; but whither — 
 who can tell ? 
 
 ' The Golden Supper ' is a gracefully written tale from 
 Boccaccio, but contains none of those passages of striking beauty 
 that impress themselves for ever in the memory. Julian, the 
 hero, loves his cousin Camilla, but she weds his rival, Lionel, 
 and Julian buries himself in solitude far from the sight of her. 
 After a year's marriage Camilla dies, and is laid in the family 
 vault with uncovered face, as the usage was. Lionel in deep 
 grief leaves the country immediately after the funeral and goes 
 no one knows whither. But Julian, longing to behold the face 
 of her he loved once more, descends into the vault and rever- 
 ently kisses her. The kiss thrills her blood to life and she rises 
 from the death-trance that had seemed as death. Then Julian 
 carries her to his mother's house and tends her with saintly 
 purity, watching for Lioners return. At length, still ignorant 
 of his wife's restoration, Lionel appears, and Julian invites him 
 and all their friends to a banquet, called from its magnificence 
 ' The Golden Supper.' A picture of Camilla is placed at the 
 head of the banquet-hall, but still Julian has not revealed the 
 secret, until at a sign from him Camilla enters, ' crossing her 
 
 own picture as she came.' 
 
 On her head 
 
 A diamond circlet, and from under this 
 
 A veil, that seemed no more than gilded air 
 
316 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze, 
 With seeds of gold — so, with that grace of hers 
 Slow moving, as a wave against the wind, 
 That flings a mist behind it in the sun — 
 Sad, sweet, and strange together — floated in, 
 And slowly pacing to the middle hall. 
 
 There paused, and stood ; her breast 
 Hard heaving, and her eyes upon her feet, 
 ISot daring yet to glance at Lionel. 
 
 After this very beautiful and dramatic eflfect Julian leads 
 her to her husband's arms ; and the story ends with a picture 
 of their complete wedded happiness, while Julian — the noble- 
 hearted Julian — proud of his victory over himself, yet sad with 
 deathless love, bids farewell toall^ and passes away into foreign 
 lands, to live or end his life. 
 
 The most remarkable of the minor poems is that entitled 
 ' The Higher Pantheism,' full of the faith which springs from 
 spiritual insight, and is the product of the transcendental 
 reason. In the rush and frenetic haste of daily life it is diffi- 
 cult to give up ourselves completely to the train of thought 
 out of which such a poem was generated, to shut out the 
 glare of life, and try to read the hidden writing of God upon 
 the heart. To many, no doubt, it will seem obscure ; but 
 those gifted with the spiritual sense will discern its meaning. 
 A simple poem, called ' Wages,' also reveals something of the 
 poet's creed : — 
 
 Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song. 
 
 Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea ; 
 Glory of virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong. 
 
 JS'ay, but she aimed not at glory ; no lover of glory she. 
 
 Give her the glory of going on, and still be. 
 The wages of sin is death, if the ^vages of virtue be dust. 
 
 Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm or 
 the fly ; 
 She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just. 
 
 To rest in a golden grove, or bask in a summer sky : 
 
 Give her the glory of going on, and not to die. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Tennyson, who is such a master 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 317 
 
 of all the gamut of sweet sound, should have given us in this 
 volume none of those exquisite and perfect lyrics, like heaven- 
 born music, in which he excels all the poets of the age — lyrics 
 like ' Tears, idle tears,' or ' Too late, too late, ye cannot enter 
 now,' from the idyll of Queen Guinevere's repentance, that 
 faultless and beautiful poem, the gem of all modern poetry. 
 But, in place of the divine lyrism in which he has no .equal, 
 we have the rough, rugged ballad of ' The Northern Farmer,' 
 companion to the worthy gentleman who has been already 
 before the public. The English critics seem amazingly 
 delighted with these northern ballads ; but, to one unused 
 to it, considerable time is required to spell out the sound and 
 meaning of the barbarous words, along with all those mys- 
 terious dots powdered over the vowels, by which the poet 
 tries to indicate the pronunciation. In Ireland we have no- 
 thing analogous to these uncouth English dialects. All Irish 
 peasants who speak English do so with singular grammatical 
 purity and precision, simply because they have acquired the 
 lansruaofe either from intercourse with the liio^her classes or at 
 the village schools. An uncouth, savage dialect is the product 
 of centuries of unlettered barbarism ; but the Irish only 
 became acquainted with the English language after it had 
 reached an organised perfection through literature. Yet, even 
 then it must have seemed harsh to the speakers of the soft 
 caressing Celtic tongue ; for who can forget the great O'Neill's 
 response when requested to converse in English with the envoy 
 who had come to treat with him ? — ' What ! shall an O'Neill 
 writhe his mouth in clattering English 1 ' 
 
 It is strano-e that, in this nineteenth century, when educa- 
 tion has made such progress, that not only English peasants, 
 but even wealthy English farmers, should still talk the dialect 
 of savages in place of the literary language of their country. 
 It must be very painful indeed to a sensitive ear to live 
 amoncrst a people who converse like the northern farmer. A 
 Parliamentary Commission should at once be established to 
 take measures for teaching the English how to speak their 
 own toncrue, and we could, if required, send over to them a 
 
318 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 dozen or so of Irish schoolmasters fully adequate to the task. 
 There is, however, some humour in the ballad of the 'Northern 
 Farmer^ to repay one for the immense trouble of getting 
 through it, and some very sound advice also on the propriety 
 of marrying for money in place of love ; for, as the farmer 
 observes, with considerable acuteness, to his son, who is about 
 making a fool of himself in the matter of love — (we translate 
 the verse into ordinary English, the sense of the original not 
 being in the least intensified by the rugged orthography or 
 mysterious vowel points) : — 
 
 ' Me an' thy mother, Sammy, has been talking of thee ; 
 Thou's been talkin* to mother, an' she's been a tellin' it me. 
 Thou'll not marry for money — thou's sweet upon Parson's lass; 
 No, thou'll marry for love — an' we both on us think thee an ass. 
 Love I What's love ? Thou can love thy lass and her money too— 
 IMakino^ 'em go together, as they've good right to do. 
 Couldn't I love thy mo'ther, by cause of her money laid by? 
 ^^Jifor I loved her a vast sight more for it — reason why.' 
 
 The youth of the country should ponder over these last 
 wise and excellent sentiments. 
 
 III. *IN MEMORIAM' 
 
 Unlike Tennyson's other poems, ' In Memoriam ' will ap- 
 peal to the sympathies of only a limited audience — those 
 who have known that deepest sorrow of humanity, to stand 
 by the grave of one beloved— a grief that made even the 
 Redeemer weep. The emotions that crowd upon the soul at 
 such an hour — the hopes, fears, doubts — the troubled question- 
 ings of a dark and silent future — the agonising, yet often vain 
 efforts to pierce the gloom of the grave and realise the spirit 
 walking in brightness beyond — are all echoed here, in the 
 wild, broken chords of a trembling faith, or the soft music of 
 
ALFEED TENNYSON 319 
 
 an assured hope, that will wake up tears again in many 
 eyes- 
 
 The elegiac poems of Milton and Shelley, on the contrary, 
 awaken sympathies of a wider rauge. They touch all hearts 
 — all that are susceptible to grandeur of diction, richness of 
 imagery, and fervour of passionate excitement ; not merely those 
 who have wept and suffered. They have raised temples where 
 the illustrious dead lie in state of pomp and pall, while the 
 whole universe, material and spiritual, is brought to mourn over 
 the bier ; and the pageant of beauty and sublimity affects the 
 imagination irresistibly, though the heart, perhaps, may never 
 have known the meaning of sorrow. Milton calls upon the 
 vales and winds to mourn with him, and bids them 
 
 Bring the rathe primrose, that, forsaken, dies — 
 
 The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine ; 
 
 The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet ; 
 
 The glowing violet ; 
 
 The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine ; 
 
 With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head, 
 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears, 
 
 To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies. 
 
 And in Shelley's gorgeous poem, what processions, dazzling 
 the brain with glory and beauty, come fleeting and intermin- 
 able, like the friezes of Grecian architecture, by the grave of 
 Adonais ! While Love conquers Death ! and the light from 
 the far heaven pours into the desolated soul, like starlight 
 throu^'*h a ruined temple, till even Scepticism chaunts the 
 Hymn of Immortality. 
 
 In Tennyson's verses we find neither these gorgeous 
 pao-eantries nor the vivid faith that recognises in Death the 
 white-robed messenger of Glory. His sorrow is clothed in 
 more ascetic raiment; the measure adopted throughout is 
 crrave and monotonous as the tread of pall-bearers : doubt and 
 mistrust shadow his spirit in those first dark moments of 
 bereavement, when the fiat which consigns youth, genius and 
 virtue to the grave seems so unintelligible to human hearts, 
 and his faith in the unseen glories behind the veil scarcely 
 
320 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 rises beyond a vague perhaps. The mournings are but of one 
 solitary soul, beside a lonely tomb, musing on thoughts com- 
 mon to all who mourn, only uttered in that exquisite word- 
 music of which Tennyson is master. Yet the earnest, simple 
 truth of the emotions portrayed constitutes the very charm 
 that makes one linger fascinated, though saddened, over these 
 canticles of sorrow and love. 
 
 The cry of the soul is too true and too mournful not to 
 waken sympathy in all who have been tried with like suffer- 
 ins:. The tears are not simulated. You feel them faUinsr 
 fresh and warm on the page as he writes ; and, though these 
 records of a spirit militant extend over a period of seventeen 
 years, yet we find no diminution of the sorrow, even while he 
 is learning the sublime and spiritualising uses of afiliction. 
 Ever still we track his agonies and triumphs by his tears, as 
 the path of the gladiator in the arena by his blood, whether 
 the end be conquest or defeat. 
 
 But we have here more of the religious views worked out 
 by suffering, the tendencies and aspirations, the human- 
 heartedness and elevated philosophy, of the great poet's mind, 
 than in any other of his works. Yet the faith never attains 
 to the lofty calmness of Wordsworth, nor do the aspirations 
 reach the sublimity of 'Festus.' Gentle, genial human tender- 
 ness, feelings that sympathise with all the common thoughts of 
 common grief, doubting through human weakness, and aspiring 
 throu2:h the force of human love — these are the characteristics 
 throughout. 
 
 With what simple, natural grace, for instance, he tells how 
 fi^rief wrouo:ht in him to write : — 
 
 < I sin^ to him who rests below, 
 
 And since the grasses round me wave, 
 I take the grasses of the grave, 
 And make them pipes whereon to blow/ 
 
 All familiar feelings are touched upon, and made to clang 
 musically with loftier thoughts. The passing of the 'dark 
 house ' in ' the long unlovely street ' : — 
 
 "^ 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 321 
 
 Doors where my heart was used to beat 
 So quickly, waiting for a hand*' 
 
 The memories of the lost and loved that come thronging 
 round the Christmas hearth, though the gay pastimes are con- 
 tinued — 
 
 making vain pretence 
 Of gladness, 7vith an awful sense 
 Of one mute shadow watching all. 
 
 The restless questioning of the spirit when some * divinely 
 gifted man ' is struck down in his youth, before the object of 
 his creation seems to have been realised — 
 
 So many worlds, so much to do, 
 So little done — such things to be : 
 How know I what had need of thee, 
 
 For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 
 
 And the inner trouble vexes the soul — 
 
 The spectral doubt that makes me cold, 
 That I shall be thy mate no more. 
 
 Though following with an upward mind. 
 The wonders that have come to thee, 
 Thro' all the Secular to be, 
 
 But evermore a Life behind. 
 
 These unquiet doubts, however, are conquered by the 
 stroncr love that worketh faith, and sees the dead with calm 
 ^yes, standing like angels sustaining those who are still 
 wanderers in the dreary mists of life. How beautiful this 
 invocation ! — 
 
 Be near me when my light is low. 
 
 When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
 And tingle ; and the heart is sick. 
 
 And all the wheels of being slow. 
 
 Be near us when we climb or fall : 
 Ye watch, like God, the roUing hours 
 With larger, other eyes, than ours, 
 
 To make allowance for us all. 
 
322 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 But in the workings of the mind, as in the material world 
 light and darkness, tumult and peace are ever alternating ; 
 and though he has fought with doubt, like Paul with beasts at 
 Ephesus, yet the monster is hydra-headed, and springs to life 
 again under new forms, whenever the mind feels the fatal 
 limitation of the senses, which cannot guide her beyond the 
 visible ; and he exclaims bitterly : — 
 
 * I falter where I firmly trod, 
 
 And falling with my weight of cares 
 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs, 
 
 That slope through darkness up to God.' 
 
 Death seems to him now but ' The Shadow ^ — 
 
 Who keeps the keys of all the Creeds ; 
 
 as if the true creed were to him still a barred mystery, 
 and the plaints of the soul become what he himself terms 
 
 them : — 
 
 Wild and wandering cries, 
 
 Confusions of a wasted youth. 
 
 Immortality rises before him, but as a dream of the ima- 
 gination : — 
 
 When Lazarus left his charnel cave, 
 
 And home to Mary's house returned, 
 
 Was this demanded — if he yearned 
 To hear her weeping by the grave ? 
 
 * Where wert thou, brother, those four days ? ' 
 
 There lives no record of reply, 
 Which, telling what it is to die. 
 Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 He appeals to nature. Shall 
 
 * Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, 
 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies. 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer 
 
• ALFEED TENNYSON 323 
 
 Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or sealed within the Iron Hills ? ' 
 
 She answers : — 
 
 ^ Thou makest thine appeal to me ; 
 I bring to Life, I bring to Death ; 
 The Spirit does but mean the breath. 
 I know no more.' 
 
 At length, after many efforts to tune the ^ jarring lyre — 
 
 He fought his doubts, and gathered strength ; 
 
 He would not make his judgment blind ; 
 
 He faced the spectres of the mind. 
 And laid them. Thus he came at length 
 To find a stronger faith his own. 
 
 And Power was with him in the night, 
 
 Which makes the darkness and the light. 
 And dwells not in the light alone. 
 But in the darkness and the cloud. 
 
 As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
 
 While Israel made their gods of gold. 
 
 The solemn but sanctifying meaning of that divinest 
 lesson of Christianity is at last recognised, that sorrow works 
 out purification ; and the man ' crowned with attributes of 
 woe ' has learned that ' life is not as idle ore/ 
 
 JBnt up dug from the central gloom^ 
 
 And heated hot with 'burning fear s^ 
 
 And dipt in iaths of hissing tears^ 
 And battered witli the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual Feast, 
 
 Move upward, working out the beast, 
 And let the Ape and Tiger die. 
 
 The faith which realises the spiritual presence of those di- 
 vided from us by the grave is beautifully expressed in the 
 
 lines commencing : — 
 
 y2 
 
324 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 
 
 I hear thee where the waters run ; 
 
 Thou standest in the rising sun 
 And in the setting thou art fair. 
 
 They remind one of Goethe's often imitated but never 
 equalled ' Ich denke dein ' : — 
 
 I think of thee, when, o'er the ocean glancing, 
 
 The sunlight gleams ; 
 I think of thee, when, on the fountain dancing. 
 
 The pale moon beams. 
 
 I see thee when, afar, the whirlwind tosses 
 
 The dust-cloud light ; 
 When the frail bridge the trembling wand'rer crosses 
 
 At dead of night. 
 
 Again, we may compare the setting of the same thought 
 in Bailey's poem of 'Festus/ where love also creates the faith in 
 the invisible and immortal : — 
 
 I see thee in the dead of night. 
 
 And the full life of day ; 
 I know thee by a sudden light — 
 
 It is thy soul, I say. 
 If yonder stars be filled with forms 
 
 Of breathing clay like ours, 
 Perchanc^ the space that spreads between 
 
 Is for a Spirit's powers ; 
 And loving as we too have loved. 
 
 In spirit and in heart. 
 Whether to space or star removed 
 
 God will not bid us part. 
 
 Though the diction of the poem appears of the simplest 
 form on a first perusal — sometimes even daring to be coUo- 
 qixial — yet a critical examination of the structure will show 
 that it is, perhaps, even more artificial than any of Tennyson's 
 preceding poems ; though he has already given abundant 
 evidence in his verses of how much the industry of the artist 
 aids the inspiration of the poet. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 325 
 
 Lord Lytton, in the preface to the last edition of his 
 works, states that he never accomplished anything in litera- 
 ture without laborious study. It would be well if writers 
 with natures less gifted would learn from the great masters, 
 that if even high genius requires intense study, application, 
 and labour to bring a work to perfection, how much more 
 will they all be needed to assist the inspirations of mediocrity ! 
 
326 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 WORLD LEADERS 
 
 The schools of poetry, so scornfully characterised by Carlyle 
 as the Border-thief school, the Cockney, and the Satanic, 
 which ruled over the heart of this century during its child- 
 hood, have already vanished from the earth ; their influence 
 has passed away ; their heroes have died out and become ex- 
 tinct. The heads and leaders, indeed, the authors of ' Mar- 
 mion ^ and ' The Giaour ' still wear, and will for ever wear 
 their crowns in the Valhalla of the ages ; but their imitators 
 and disciples are no more. A new race of poets has arisen, 
 and the commencement of a new epoch has been marked by 
 the simultaneous tendency of all writers, whether of prose or 
 verse, towards the elaboration of truth, as the aim and reward 
 of all their mental toil ; the deep eternal truth which lies at 
 the base of all human life. 
 
 Of these great teachers, with their world-wide sympathies, 
 human tenderness, profound love for the good and beautiful; 
 and scorn of the untrue, who proudly stand on the summit of 
 the age, and preach earnestness, faith, truth, and self- reverence 
 in all life work, Carlyle may be named the leader in philo- 
 sophy and E/Uskin in art ; whilst fiction has its crowd of 
 witnesses, and poetry its priesthood, all devoted to the same 
 high mission. 
 
 All these writers — poets, whether in prose or verse — aim at 
 representing in their works the tendencies of the time towards 
 Truth, Light, and Freedom. 
 
 In the ^ Sartor Resartus ' of Carlyle is depicted, with that 
 quaint humour and pathetic eloquence in which he has no 
 
WOELD LEADERS 327 
 
 rival or equal, the progress of a human soul from doubt to 
 faith. In Bailey's ' Festus ' we have the history of every 
 human soul, symbolised by the history of one in its progress 
 from sin to suffering, and through suffering to purification and 
 redemption ; while in ' Aurora Leigh ' we stand before our 
 unveiled social life, and see the eternal war between deep true 
 human feeling and false shallow conventionalism : and the 
 grand superiority of nature's nobility over the mere aristocracy 
 of castes and circles is asserted and proved. 
 
 ' Time in Dreamland ' belongs also to this modern philo- 
 sophical school, and is distinguished by the same high aim.s. 
 The subject is the history, not as in ' Festus,' of a single 
 soul working out its own purification through suffering, but of 
 the great soul of humanity itself considered in its unity — its 
 moral evolution and growth through the progressive intellec- 
 tual development of the race. 
 
 Humanity is a thought of God, and human history its 
 manifestation ; this is the idea of the poem. 
 
 The world-plan unfolds itself to the author as a gradual 
 revelation or incarnation of this divine thought. But he pro- 
 ceeds by no mere historical sequence ; he rejects details, and 
 selects his illustrations only from those philosophical epochs 
 distinguished by their essential nature, as influencing the 
 development of the soul ; periods which some grand and sudden 
 apocalypse of intellect made splendid, fruitful, and elevating, 
 and the effects of which were permanent upon the moral con- 
 dition of the human race. 
 
 These remarkable epochs of mental advance when the soul 
 seems to receive a fresh impetus, and rushes onward to the 
 light, are always found illuminated by the name of some one 
 great man ; for all history shows that individuals alter the 
 world, not the masses. These are the men to whom power is 
 given to pierce the depths of human sympathy, and touch the 
 springs of human thought. Their object is always mental 
 freedom ; for thought must precede action as light preceded 
 creation.' The mental view of things must be cleared before 
 the brain will stir the muscles of the arm to dare and do. 
 
328 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 And it is strange, though a sure proof of the innate grandeur 
 of the soul of man, that no great flame of enthusiasm ever yet 
 was kindled in the world for anything that concerned merely 
 the physical bettering of human condition. 
 
 Man has the permanency of an animal in his mere animal 
 habits — the eating, drinking, clothing, sheltering modes of 
 life ; there it is always hard to move the masses ; there they 
 are always suspicious or careless of change. But when the 
 spark touches the mental nature, when the soul comes in con- 
 tact with an idea, a mere abstraction that seems in no way 
 connected with man's daily life, then enthusiasm burns fiercely 
 and irresistibly, and overbears all opposition. Liberty, 
 Truth, Patriotism, these are but words ; yet for such words 
 only are men found willing to die. For there is no true life 
 but in the soul, and it is only in those high moments, when 
 the heart is lifted above the transitory into the eternal, and 
 all that holds of the Godlike within us is aroused, that we have 
 the sublime consciousness of our privileges as a race ' only a 
 little lower than the angels.' 
 
 The prophets and teachers whose aim in life was to lift 
 human souls to this elevation are the heroes of Frazer Corkran's 
 poem. The men who, in their age, advanced the landmarks of 
 knowledge and planted their banners on the reclaimed space, 
 inscribed for all time with their name ; who fought the battle 
 of life bravely for the sake of an idea, but an idea that could 
 free the soul and regenerate humanity. Cosmocrators — world - 
 leaders — the okl Platonists would call them. Carlyle names 
 them heroes ; Emerson, representative men ; but all alike have 
 the one object, the spiritual and intellectual elevation of man- 
 kind. And the period of time selected, wherein such men best 
 acted out their destiny as regenerators, is that wondrous era 
 of mental development dating from the fall of the Byzantine 
 Empire to the close of the sixteenth century ; a period which 
 included the grandest discoveries — the greatest men — the 
 sublimest manifestations of art, and the most important 
 events that ever influenced the mental progress of our race ; 
 events whose pulsations still vibrate in the great heart of the 
 
WOELD LEADERS 329 
 
 world. A new continent was discovered, and the ocean path 
 to India opened, the kingdoms of Europe were consolidated, 
 national languages organised and perfected, literature was 
 freed from its monastic bondage and diffused to the millions 
 by the invention of printing, philosophers weighed the stars, 
 while navigators were revealing the earth, and science rose from 
 the knowledge of facts to laws. Civil freedom was established 
 on the ruins of feudalism, and religious freedom was won by 
 Luther from a tyrannical and demoralised priesthood. 
 
 Whatever is most beautiful in Christian architecture, 
 sculpture, and painting falls within this period. All the 
 great artists were living then ; and while Michael Angelo 
 raised a firmament of marble to heaven, Raphael filled the 
 Vatican with forms of ideal beauty. Centuries have passed 
 by, but still this century remains unsurpassed. In art, 
 science and literature, religion and government, the soul was 
 liberated in light, freedom, and beauty ; and the old world 
 rose regenerated from a baptism of intellectual glory. 
 
 The events and the men of such an era form a magnificent 
 programme for a poem ; while the requirements are indeed 
 great that could do them justice : a philosophic intellect, the 
 comprehensive learning of the student, the lyric power of the 
 poet, and much of the sad wisdom of life ; yet the author is 
 never beneath either his subject or his purpose. In every line 
 there is the inspiration of a calm, noble, reflective mind ; and 
 with a generous enthusiasm the temple doors have been opened 
 wide to all great souls, no matter what their sect or calling. 
 All who have gained or given rights to humanity find welcome 
 to the brotherhood of the Heroes of the World. 
 
 Historic truth, meanwhile, has been carefully preserved, 
 and the historic characters are so faithfully drawn that the 
 poem comes to us like a voice that has traversed the ages 
 and spoken with the men of all time, in their own language, 
 and in sympathy with their own thoughts. 
 
 The fall of Byzantium was the fall of an epoch of the 
 world ; the close of a cycle which began when ancient Rome 
 ' perished like a mammoth in a drift of northern snows ; ' and 
 
380 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 ended when the last of the Eastern Caesars fell beneath the 
 sword of Mahomet. 
 
 A thousand years separated these two events ; seven 
 hundred of which are stigmatised in history as ' The Dark 
 Ages ^ — dark through ignorance, and barbarous through 
 poverty, during which period, says Hallam, ' but two really 
 great men appeared in literature, John, surnamed Scotus, of 
 Ireland, and Pope Silvester 11/ 
 
 From the twelfth century light began to dawn, and the 
 elemental strivings of human intellect towards development 
 can be detected. Dante and Giotto were ' The Witnesses ' in 
 the fourteenth century ; and ever stronger and brighter grew 
 the light till it culminated in the splendour of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. 
 
 But, truly, when Byzantium fell, in the middle of the 
 fifteenth century ; when the Eastern empire lay waste and 
 desolate ; its Christian altars overthrown, its children fugi- 
 tives, and the triumph of barbarism seemed complete over the 
 luxurious civilisation of a thousand years, no one could have 
 foreseen that, from these very smouldering ashes of a ruined 
 empire. Western Europe was to gain all its light. Yet such 
 was the hidden plan of Providence. The cultivated Greeks, 
 who fled from their fallen capital, carried with them their 
 science, arts, language, literature, and refinements of civilisa- 
 tion ; and thus the Greek mind, with its high culture, was 
 flung upon half-barbarous Western Europe, and gave that 
 immense irrepressible stimulus to thought which produced all 
 that has made modern Europe what it is. 
 
 Florence and the Medici were foremost to ofier the fugi- 
 tives a sanctuary, and in return they gave Florence and the 
 Medici their glory. From Duke Cosmo, who welcomed them, 
 down to the pontificate of his grandson, Leo X., all that was 
 eminent throughout Italy, in learning, philosophy, and the fine 
 arts, owed its origin to Greek teaching, and Italy radiated ihe 
 li<2:ht that kindled souls throughout the world. 
 
 The great epochs of development which followed this event 
 are brilliantly illustrated in Mr. Corkran's poem. It is a 
 
WOELD LEADEES 831 
 
 synthesis of human progress, thrown into the poetic form — 
 sometimes narrative, sometimes dramatic — with all the li^ht 
 concentrated upon the representative man of each epoch ; for 
 in every deliverance from bondage there is a Moses ; for every 
 great idea given to the world, there is some one living man its 
 exponent to the age in which it is revealed. Thus, the vital 
 life of history is reflected, not its details ; the life within the 
 life : it is the privilege of the poet to grasp and illustrate 
 results ; details are for the statist and politician, but the poet 
 stands in the centre where all radii meet, and follows out each 
 line of human life to where it blends with the Infinite and 
 Eternal. 
 
 By the author of ' Time in Dreamland,' the significance of 
 each historical event is measured only by its influence on the 
 eternal element within man's nature. His epic is the libera- 
 tion of the soul, with its manifestations and triumphs ; and the 
 only heroes he recognises are the men who, in whatsoever mode 
 they teach or preach, by art, science, moral nobleness, or heroic 
 action, show to the world that every onward step in human 
 perf ectness is a true manifestation of the divinity in humanity. 
 
 As it is the soul's history, the soul alone perceives it. A 
 vision falls upon the poefc, in which, unfettered by the laws of 
 duration or space, he beholds the whole great era of human 
 progress revolve before him through its zodiac of living lights. 
 It is 'An Hour in Dreamland,' but that hour is a century. 
 The poem opens with a pretty prologue in which the poet and 
 his wife discuss the ideas of the age : — 
 
 * Tremendous social questions, waiting for 
 
 The purif}dng powers of thought and time. 
 
 '' The Eights of Woman "—woman haik great rights, 
 
 And well she uses them. Hers is the right 
 
 To form the infant mind, to sow the seeds 
 
 Of knowledge and of virtue, and to strike 
 
 Deep through the unsteady soul the piles on which 
 
 God's Temi)le, character, must firm he huilt: 
 
 ' Hath she no wrongs ? 
 
 Hath heaven no wrongs ? What do we not profane ? 
 Save her at least from equal rights of sin.' 
 
332 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 From the present age the philosopher is led back to con- 
 sider the origin of all the great ideas which now influence 
 mankind, with the epochs that produced them, and finds 
 that 
 
 Enterprises influencing deep 
 
 The destinies of states and mankind's fate 
 
 Are ever ,wrought by one inspired man ; 
 
 Men who gave their lives 
 
 For the world, and whom the world hated. 
 
 Great forward leaps 
 Followed by fainting falls have marked Time's course, 
 Each revelation to mankind vouchsafed 
 Hath come encompassed by mighty storms. 
 Each gift from Heaven 
 
 Hath claimed its price in combat, for without 
 Battle unto the death is nought obtained. 
 
 Then, as in a vision, he beholds a great crowd standing 
 in the sunlight — a lustrous crowd with calm majestic eyes. 
 And a voice tells him whom he is looking upon : — 
 
 By psalmist?, prophets, stand the wise of Greece, 
 
 Plato, Pythagoras, and Socrates ! 
 
 And Eome's majestic Pagan heroes give 
 
 To mightier Fathers of the Church the hand. 
 
 They are gathered together to look upon the fall of Byzantium, 
 while Michael the Archangel stands by the soul of the dead 
 Constantino and unfolds before him the new phase of human 
 history which is to rise from the ruins of his empire. He 
 shows him the Spirit of Truth going forth from Heaven to 
 preach a new evangel to man ; and the Spirit of Falsehood 
 swift foUovv^ing from Hell to turn all virtues into vices. Thus, 
 by her influence, reverence for authority becomes abject 
 slavery ; religion becomes fanaticism, and human freedom 
 changes to the wildest licence and infidelism. But still 
 
 Truth rises fresh 
 From the eternal combat with the false. 
 The conquest of the worst lasts but a day, 
 The ever-living word immortal burns. 
 
WORLD LEADERS 333 
 
 Then the vision changes, and the poet sees 
 
 Those Grecian wise 
 Whose features Raphael to us revealed 
 When Athens' school arose before his eyes. 
 
 Their eyes are bent upon fair Florence, where the fugitive 
 Greeks of fallen Byzantium have found repose — 
 
 And pay 
 The merchant Cosmo back with deathless fame. 
 
 Already out of evil has sprung forth good, and the first sparks 
 of intellectual power in Europe rise from the ashes of the 
 empire which the Turk had trampled beneath his feet. A 
 description follows of the Court of Lorenzo 'the Magnificent,' 
 with his learned friends Mirandola the poet, and the quaint 
 Ficinus the Platonist, and how in their warm philosophic 
 enthusiasm 
 
 They wept o'er Socrates as 'twere to-day 
 
 He drank the hemlock and spoke words divine ; 
 
 Discoursed of Plato — how he taught 
 
 That love of the Creator leads to love 
 
 Of all which doth show forth our Maker's laws. 
 
 But the vision changes again suddenly from these refined and 
 spiritual Platonists to the tragedy of the Pazzi — a conspiracy 
 instigated by Pope Sixtus lY. against the Medici, whose 
 towns he coveted and whose glory he envied. Falsehood has 
 now her hours of triumph, masked in the garb of religion ; 
 Giuliano, brother to the great Lorenzo, is stabbed by a priest 
 as he kneels to receive the Host at the altar, and Lorenzo him- 
 self is wounded, but not slain. He lives for vengeance ; and, 
 by his orders Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, head of the con- 
 spiracy, and two priests beside, are hung in the streets of 
 Florence, while the crowd shout — ' Unto the Pazzi death ! ' 
 
 Savonarola now appears upon the scene— the inspired, 
 doomed Dominican ; with his fierce denunciations against sin, 
 whether beneath the cowl or the tiara ; his fiery wrath against 
 aU that taints and corrupts the soul ; and his burning words 
 
334 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 of love, tenderness, and pity, for all human weakness ; the 
 divine-souled yet human-hearted man who wrote these words : 
 ^ I entered the cloister to learn how to suffer ; and when 
 sufferings visited me, I made a study of them ; and they taught 
 me to love always, and to forgive always.' The vision passes 
 on and shows us Savonarola in prison with the patriot 
 Machiavelli, and Saint Augustine is seen weeping in heaven 
 with his mother Monica, while they gaze on Florence — 
 
 Behold, she said, yon martyrs who redeem 
 The wickedness of men with agonies. 
 
 And then comes the death-tragedy ; there is an altar in 
 the market-place — but the altar is of faggots piled for a funeral 
 pyre, and the victim is Savonarola 
 
 Bound in the talons of a fiery woe. 
 
 But 
 
 Where in the market-place the people see 
 A felon burning — angel eyes discerned 
 A sacrifice. 
 
 Again, a prison : — 
 
 There a wan, old man ; a dungeon deep 
 
 And men with faces clammy as cold walls, 
 
 And hearts unfeeling as the flag they tread, 
 
 Stand pen in hand — and no confession comes. 
 
 Nature can bear no more — he swoons, he swoons ! 
 
 Nicholas Machiavelli swoons in sleep 
 
 As the deep grave profound. His towering mind 
 
 Boundless as space and time, thick thronged with stars, 
 
 Is trampled out as by the foot of beast. 
 
 Falsehood has had her revenge in martyrdom ; but the torch 
 of truth that fell from the hand of the dead Savonarola is 
 grasped by the young Luther, and the miner's son kindles a 
 blaze in Germany that speedily lights the world. 
 
 Truth flies from Papal Italy ; and we behold her next 
 standing by the side of the aged Guttenburg, at the moment of 
 success, when intellectual freedom has been achieved by his 
 discovery. Faust, and his daughter, Faustine, appear upon 
 
WORLD LEADERS 335 
 
 the scene to share his joy, with Schoeffer, Guttenburg's 
 assistant, who is the lover of the young Faustme. But their 
 marriage had been opposed by her father for want of means. 
 Guttenburg, the lone, old man, who has no passion but science, 
 no joys but in contemplating its grand results, and to whom 
 both fame and fortune would now come too late — generously 
 imparts the secret to his assistant, which enables him to win 
 bride, and fame, and fortune, all together, and thus the triumph 
 of intellect becomes the sacrament of love, for — 
 
 Upon the marriage-altar of this pair, 
 
 See the first printed Holy Bible laid ; 
 
 Thronged down the angels ; they that temple filled, 
 
 And from the temple, up to space and space, 
 
 A broadening beam of angels, to the Throne ! 
 
 Truth held the Bible in her own fair hands. 
 
 While Falsehood, scathed and wounded, fied the light. 
 
 Yet breathed she still, in consciousness that yet 
 
 The struggle was not o'er for many an age. 
 
 Again the vision changes. The human mind has already 
 sprung to adolescence, and over all the broad continent of 
 Europe can be traced the strong efforts of the soul to liberate 
 itself in all modes of human life, social, political, and moral. 
 
 Luther smites down corruption as with an archangers 
 sword and the Reformation is achieved. 
 
 Feudalism sinks beneath the keen-edged wit of Erasmus ; 
 and the civil and sacerdotal tyrannies, which for a thousand 
 years had ' ground down men's bones to a pale unanimity,' 
 tremble and fall before the strong words of a few earnest, 
 
 heroic men. 
 
 Science, too, at the same moment, by maritime discovery, 
 opened the ocean highways to commercial freedom and a 
 universal brotherhood of nations. The men of the epoch pass 
 before us as in a vision, grand and calm in the consciousness 
 of all they have achieved. Let us arrest some of these 
 maiestic shadows as they pass. 
 
 *^Two men are standing by a vessel's stern, one, Martin 
 Benem, who gave the Brazils to Portugal ; the other a despised 
 
336 MEN, WOMEN, AND EOOKS 
 
 Jew, but the inventor of the astrolabe, by whose aid navigators 
 dared to track the wild wide ocean ; yet here, as upon all bless- 
 ings given to man, falsehood contrives to set her curse. The 
 ship that brings the tidings to King John of Portugal of his 
 new possession briugs also a cargo of human slaves, the first 
 offering these rich lands lay at his feet. ' The star-seer is the 
 slave maker/ 
 
 Then Columbus passes along the scene — 
 
 A sweet, composed, and gentle man, 
 Eyes deep and full, as if they drank in heaven. 
 
 First we see him a wanderer at the Courts of unbelieving 
 monarchs, with no proof to offer for the world he promised save 
 his own intense faith — ' Faith, the souFs sense, that to the 
 Infinite soars.' 
 
 The cold, crafty Ferdinand of Spain, however, is too intent 
 on expelling the Moors, that he may plunder their fair cities, 
 to heed him, save 
 
 With scornful eye, and cold deceptive smile, 
 But, whilst he is surrounded by his knights ; 
 A goodly sight in sun-flamed coats of mail, 
 His saintly and heroic Isabel, 
 Attracted by the glorious light of Truth 
 Over his countenance suffused, gives ear 
 Unto Columbus looking grandly poor. 
 
 Upon Columbus, Isabel her ej^es 
 Turned their full orb'd weightiness of strength. 
 And his blenched not. There was a breadth of calm, 
 A purity and gentleness, diffused 
 Over the visage of that marvellous man ; 
 And in his darkly glowing eyes, a depth 
 Of patient power which the Queen subdued 
 To equalising sympathy. She asked, 
 With sweet serenity of smile, the road 
 Which to those unknown kingdoms rightly led ! 
 Thereupon to her he told the tale 
 Of agitated hopes that round his mind 
 Shook like a bannered army. 
 She paused in silent prayer : what passed within 
 
WOKLD LEADERS 337 
 
 The infinite world of her soul, there were 
 Around me hosts of spirits who could tell, 
 But on mine own the mortal veil still hung-. 
 I could but watch and listen, and I heard 
 As Isabel bent down her head, these words :— 
 * I'll pledge my jewels for this enterprise * 
 That whispered word gave to Castile a world. 
 
 This description is beautiful ; also the account of the 
 approach of Columbus to that new world, hitherto seen only in 
 his dreams, believed in only by faith. Winged messengers come 
 to him ' over the waters to his Ark,' prophetic of success. 
 
 But Falsehood follows quick to mar the good and blight the 
 blessing. By her promptings, Christian men, under the plea of 
 religion, murder from lust of gold ; while in Spain, the Inquisi- 
 tion, under the banner of the cross, tortures and kills for the 
 sake of God, and shrieks of agony from the victims of both 
 hemispheres rise together before the throne of the Highest. 
 
 A ghastly crowd of victims makes a wall between heaven 
 and the terrible Torquemada, who sinks back to utter darkness, 
 and retribution falls on Spain, for from that hour her gold and 
 her glory began to depart from her. 
 
 Another scene of the drama, and Erasmus is before us, his 
 delicate feeble frame contrasting with his giant mind ; and 
 Luther, the last great hero of the century, the man who, 
 above all others, influenced Europe ; who rent the human 
 mind from its old moorings, and gave that impetus to religion, 
 and civil and intellectual freedom, which still vibrates through- 
 out the world. We see him first, the young monk of Erfurth, 
 struggling in such mental agonies with the dawning truth that 
 his frame wasted, and he often fell down insensible, till the 
 monks restored him by soft low music. Then, warring against 
 the visible devil at Wartburg — warring against and conquering 
 that false fiend — 
 
 Who never in his proudest hours of might 
 Dared meet a man whose soul rose fixed on God. 
 
 Again we see him, the apostle of spiritual freedom, com- 
 missioned by the Almighty, standing in the might and power 
 
 z 
 
338 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 of that divine diploma undaunted before the Council at Augs- 
 burg, before his subtle enemy the Cardinal Legate, and the 
 chief amongst Italian and German nobility ; see there this 
 solitary, humble, low-born, spirit-worn monk, prostrating his 
 body three times in the abject humility of old servitude before 
 the proud Cardinal ; but again, the next moment, with bold 
 inspired force and eloquence, he smites down one after another 
 the hollow shadows they oppose to the truth, till the legate's 
 face grew white with wrath, and his heart quailed, and he 
 dismissed the assembly with a faint sarcasm on the man he 
 could not confute. The monk had conquered. The weary 
 worn ascetic that day lit a torch whose light still burns after 
 three hundred years. 
 
 Some striking lines may be found in the scene where the 
 tempter tries to dissuade Luther from his work of Reformation 
 by fear of the results. He tells him — 
 
 The rude peasants 
 Tumultuously meet in arms. They say 
 The light that thou hast let into their hearts 
 Shows their condition to be brutes, not men. 
 
 Luther answers : — 
 
 Combat's the test of Truth. Good men and brave 
 Baptise their faith in blood. 
 The world is all a battle-ground — each man 
 At battle to himself, by battle tried. 
 
 Again the tempter pleads by the beauty and the blessed- 
 ness of ' Peace.' Luther answers : — 
 
 That is to say, corruption : 
 
 When it doth mean submission unto ill ; 
 
 When it doth mean surrender of the man — 
 
 His heart, his soul, his thoughts to priestly powers ; 
 
 The abdication of his royal rights ; 
 
 Peace doth stagnating rottenness become. 
 
 The results of Luther's teaching are then sketched boldly 
 and vividly. The peasants gather round their watch-fires at 
 night with low mutterings of bright hopes and stern resolve to 
 
WOELD LEADEES 339 
 
 claim or take their rights. They demand freedom from the 
 oppression of the nobles ; from the greed and tyranny of the 
 Church ; and the last words rang on the listener's ears ' like 
 a hymn of holiest justice.' 
 
 Chivalrous Barons in brave council sit, 
 Passing bright Ehenish round, and lo ! a spy 
 Eeports the immetJiodical rude strength, 
 In which enthmiasm hreathes a living so7cL 
 
 A sound word from a sound heart has rushed like a storm 
 upon the old social systems of Europe and shivered them to 
 dust. Men begin to think, to reason, to compare the dogmas 
 of the Church and the codes of kings with the original hand- 
 writing of God upon the tables of the heart ; and steel- 
 girded chiefs 'shake in their armour when a true voice 
 speaks.' 
 
 ' The Peasants' War ' flames up throughout all Germany, 
 and heroes are with them to lead them or to die for them : — 
 
 The patriots Hutten, Sickingen, and Goetz — 
 Great hearts which stormy sunset's flame sublime 
 Do swathe with soft rich beauty. 
 
 The sympathising Alps flash signals back ; the watch-fires 
 of freedom flush every mountain-peak like sunset, and Zwin- 
 glius associates his name for ever with his country as the 
 apostle and the martyr of Switzerland. 
 
 Heaven hath lighted up with sacred fire 
 The Alps' stupendous altar. Victory 
 Shines from the mountain to reflecting lake, 
 And looks into the watcher's tears with light. 
 
 Thus everywhere from the liberated earth to heaven rises 
 up the hymn of thanksgiving for the passage from darkness to 
 lio*ht from bondage to freedom. Meanwhile Falsehood has 
 raised up an agent to mar the good work ; for, according to 
 the idea of the poem. Falsehood follows Truth perpetually as 
 her shadow— a powerful agent gifted v/ith zeal, courage, 
 enero-y, and strong will, equal to Luther's own ; a man of 
 
 z2 
 
340 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 heroic endurance, infinite self-devotion and abnegation; yet 
 whose aim, while he fancies he is doing God's work, is only to 
 bind the fetters again upon the freed mind of man ! 
 
 This was Ignatius Loyola, who, recoiling from Luther's 
 doctrines in direst antagonism, stabbed to death every vital 
 energy, every human feeling, every independent mental effort 
 in his disciples, and left only one principle remaining — a mute, 
 blind, passive, unquestioning obedience. 
 
 Contrasting strongly with Loyola is a sketch of Calvin — 
 the founder of Republicanism in Christianity — Calvin, with 
 his cold, pure intellect, resolute will, and terrible zeal — the 
 type after which fashioned themselves the republicans of Crom- 
 well and the stern old heroes of ' The Covenant.' 
 
 The vision passes on now to the tragic scenes of ^ Saint 
 Bartholomew ;' and the spirit of fierce hatred and bigotry that 
 produced that darkest chapter in religious history is traced to 
 the teaching of Loyola's disciples the Jesuits. 
 
 It is the night of the massacre : Catherine, the Queen 
 
 Mother, has just given her daughter Marguerite in marriage 
 
 to Henry of Navarre, whom she destines to be the first of her 
 
 victims : — 
 
 The Huguenots are in the snare at last, 
 For Catheiine hath with her own fair child 
 The scene obscuring incantation crowned. 
 
 Then a moan, like human sorrow, is heard among the spirits 
 
 in Heaven, and a voice tells : — 
 
 They are Medici s, 
 Who felt the Pazzi^s dagger at the mass ; 
 And mourn in Heaven, to see that one of theirs — 
 A woman, too, of their own house and kin — 
 Hath gone beyond the Pazzi's crime profane. 
 
 While the bell tolls for the massacre. Falsehood and the 
 Evil One, triumphant and exultant, chant the death-song of 
 the victims and the progress of the assassins. 
 
 But the next scene shows us retribution following closely 
 on crime, in the death of the miserable weak-minded Charles 
 IX. :— 
 
WOELD LEADERS 341 
 
 One night he broke from tortured sleep, and stood 
 Before his mother, in a rain of blood, 
 Wrenched by remorse from his mad heart, 
 Through every pore, as if a drop were claimed, 
 With its life particle, for every life 
 Taken in the massacre. So died King Charles. 
 
 Meanwhile, the spirit of Loyola is working in Spain also, 
 producing the dark cruelties and crimes of the bigot, the 
 stern-hearted Philip ; while the spirit of Luther — the spirit of 
 truth and freedom — rushes up in light from the swamps of 
 Holland, making the name of the Netherlands synonymous in 
 history with heroism and glory, and Falsehood trembles before 
 
 These children of no soil ; 
 These dwellers on the land where dwells the sea. 
 
 A grand scene follows : the defence of Leyden, made 
 memorable by that splendid act of William of Orange, who, 
 finding no other way to dislodge the enemy, ordered the dykes 
 to be broken, and thus, submerged his country to save his 
 country. Falsehood sees with dread that 
 
 Midst these unfavoured shoals, where man hath nought 
 Save his own right unconquerable soul, 
 A true, strong man hath risen. 
 
 This true, strong man must be got rid of; this man who 
 stands right in the way of bigotry and oppression. And the 
 Jesuit Balthazar, the disciple of Loyola, is found a ready 
 instrument for the dark deed. 
 
 William of Orange, the lionhearted defender of his country's 
 rights, is assassinated by the secret orders of Philip of Spain, 
 who vainly thinks that truth and freedom will fall by the 
 same blow. But, as he falls, England grasps the flag of 
 freedom from the dying hero and nurtures it evermore upon 
 
 English soil. 
 
 Henceforth Spain and England represent the two antago- 
 nistic forces of Truth and Falsehood. One comes with the 
 might of the Armada, haughty in power, certain of triumph, 
 
342 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 dares, and fails. The other, strong in right, humble in spirit, 
 dares, and conquers. Then comes the award of divine justice. 
 Philip of Spain, the gloomy, relentless bigot, dies a loathsome 
 mass of corruption, haunted by the image of his own murdered 
 son ; while the murdered William of Orange beholds from 
 heaven his grandson mount the throne of England ; the repre- 
 sentative to the world of those eternal human rights for which 
 he had fought and fallen. And the poem ends with a chant 
 of glory to England and her mighty Shakespeare, whom the 
 poet considers as the result and crowning of the great century 
 whose storms had produced him. 
 
 A genius cradled in the Armada storm 
 And in his magnitude of deathless song 
 Will mankind grow familiar with an age 
 The greatest in the world, because it brought, 
 Through its capacity, this genius forth, 
 Its glories full incarnated in him. 
 
 Even these few fragmentary quotations will prove the 
 beauty of the work, which abounds in passages that are 
 vigorous in thought, epigrammatic in terseness, and resonant 
 with harmony of expression. 
 
 Nor does the poem fail to touch by sympathy while it 
 elevates by admiration. The characters are not abstractions 
 merely. A human heart vibrates in each of them, and some 
 natural touch of affection shows the human tenderness with 
 the divine power. 
 
 ' All heroes,' says Fichte, ' offer up their lives for the race. 
 Every thing great and good on which our age rests has been 
 bought by the sacrifices made by the heroes of the past for 
 ideas ;' and he defines the hero — ' Heroes are men who sacrifice 
 life and its enjoyments for the sake of the idea. They enter 
 into a new life-element of spiritual clearness and purity, 
 whereby life in any other form becomes absolutely distasteful 
 to them.' 
 
 But what have we that is not bought with suffering ? by 
 lives that toil on in darkness and gloom to hew out for others 
 the elements of heat and light. World-saviours and light- 
 
WOELD LEADERS 343 
 
 bringers, all are doomed, like the workers at the Gobelins 
 tapestry, to work a life-long ever at the bright threads, but 
 at the hack of the picture — never seeing the result, never 
 hearing the praise. Yet, one day the work is done, and then, 
 face upward to the light of heaven, it meets the admiration of 
 the world, but — the worker is in his grave. 
 
344 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 CHARLES KEAN AS KING RICHARD 
 
 Kean's Richard the Third was a glorious triumph of art and 
 genius. All that the most consummate artist or poet could 
 conceive as necessary to the delineation of this wonderful 
 creation of Shakespeare he realised. And of all Shakespeare's 
 heroes, Richard demands the highest amount of power, varied 
 energy and artistical skill in an actor. 
 
 In fact the mere reading of the play gives no idea of the 
 strong terrible nature which it incarnates, compared to that 
 which can be evolved by the genius of a great actor. Simple 
 phrases one scarcely notices in the reading become of a tre- 
 mendous significance in the acting. Kean's very silence at 
 times thrilled one with a sense of coming horror that no words 
 could awaken. His face, too, was cast in the very mould of 
 genius. The broad, bold, convex forehead ; the full artistical 
 brows, shadowing his dark flashing, glowing, fierce, tender, 
 scathing, loving eyes — eyes full of all imaginable antithesis — at 
 least they seemed all this and more in that all-comprehend- 
 ing, ever-changing character of Richard. There could be no 
 finer study for a painter than to watch how that expressive 
 countenance of his mirrored all these changes, from the 
 stormiest energy of reckless ambition to the cold, cutting, sar- 
 castic bitterness of the diplomatist, or the subtle insinuating 
 flatteries of the wooer, who knows not only human nature, 
 but, what is more, woman's nature so well that he can tread 
 all its mazes with the easy security of certain victory ; for 
 though the scene with Lady Anne is in the highest degree im- 
 probable, yet it is not impossible that a woman could love a 
 
CHAELES KEAN AS KING EICHAED 345 
 
 man through crime, when he swears that these crimes were 
 committed solely for love of her ; and Kean's consummate 
 acting in this scene — the daring avowals at once of crime and 
 love — the courage and the passion blended so bewilderingly 
 together, might have tempted stronger hearts and clearer 
 heads even than poor Lady Anne's into a belief of his 
 truth. 
 
 Nothing could be finer either than his attitudes, all 
 superbly statuesque — the pose firm yet free — the outlines so 
 clear and well defined, that they impress themselves on the 
 memory like those which Greece has transfixed eternally in 
 marble ; while in the ever-fluctuating curves of his expressive 
 mouth there was an eloquence, power, passion, dignity, and 
 sensibility that no painter could ever adequately imitate. It 
 was the soul itself that was revealed there. 
 
 Of all the characters of Shakespeare, Richard is the one 
 which gives most scope for the display of powerful and com- 
 prehensive genius. No other of the Shakespearean creations 
 has the same severe, concentrated unity of purpose with end- 
 less diversity of action. The character of Richard is a grand 
 study of humanity. Here is a tremendous idea standing 
 visibly face to face with you, glaring into you, yet not 
 shadowed by the impossible — a man struggling single-handed 
 against fate, destiny, earth, heaven, and hell — the visible 
 and invisible — the terrors of Tartarus and Gehenna— and yet 
 never faltering. From the first we feel the sombre grandeur 
 of his powerful nature. ' Sin, death, and hell have set their 
 mark upon him.' His youth ' frightful, desperate, wild and 
 furious ; his manhood daring, bold and venturous ; his age 
 confirmed, proud, subtle, sly and bloody.' 
 
 All the elements of a mighty mind are found in him : 
 ambition, energy, an iron will, haughty self-reliance, a clear 
 and piercing intuition, that sees through the souls of men, and 
 how tame and commonplace they seem, measured by his 
 standard ! Vapid, weak wavering fools— ' shallow Richmond' 
 _Hhe fearful and despairing Henry '—' deep, revolving, 
 witty Buckingham ' — as he terms him in scorn. He feels 
 
346 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 within him the right, because he has the power, to dominate 
 above all these ; and he sees through himself. No vanity 
 blinds him ; he has the courage to look well upon himself — 
 what few have ; he is sensitive, painfully sensitive, like all 
 genius, to his personal defects, for genius has an imperial 
 spirit, and would reign by all and over all — beauty, wealth, 
 station — by whatever confers pov:>er ; for to attain this is the 
 instinctive aspiration of all such natures. 
 
 Ambition is peculiarly the passion of great minds. It is the 
 aspiration after a sphere of those who feel within them the 
 capability of filling one. The ambition of such is not the 
 vulgar passion for the possession of an object, be it a fortune 
 or a crown, but a passionate desire for the jyoiuer which 
 accompanies such possession, enabling the hand to execute 
 what the soul conceives. Every great soul has necessarily an 
 unlimited thirst for power. It must have room, freedom, 
 liberty to evidence itself, or it writhes in torments unutterable. 
 Let every soul amongst us who has a spark of the divine fire 
 judge this for himself. Does he not feel born to reign ? — to 
 be a king over men ? Do not all the tinsel pretensions of law- 
 made elevations fill him with a bitter sense of injustice, as if 
 these feeble, hereditary possessors of power had usurped his 
 place ? And so they have, for the true king is the man who 
 is born mentally greater than other men. So, amongst all 
 around him, Kichard feels, and we feel, that his is the only 
 hand strong enough to hold the sceptre. The elements of his 
 nature are all grand ; if they had not been so perverted in the 
 exercise he might have made the greatest of kings ; for his 
 acts are neither from impulse nor passion : these are the 
 motive powers of inferior minds. He has not the feline 
 cruelty of Nero nor the brute ferocity of Caligula ; nor is he 
 depravedly sensual in his egoism, like Tiberius. He has no 
 passions — only one great aim, which fills up his existence — 
 power. He sees at once that he cannot rule through Beauty or 
 Love, that he cannot grasp the delicate fibres of hearts ; but 
 rule he must — it is necessary to his existence. So he resolves 
 it shall be by station, position — by force of will. Once 
 
CHAELES KEAN AS KING EICHARD 347 
 
 resolved he flings all the concentrated volition of his mighty- 
 nature into this one idea. Now, with this unswerving resolu- 
 tion, this courage that never quails, give the moral sense that 
 shrinks from crime, and we have the type of the hero-man — 
 potent, self-reliant, his nature centred deep and sure on an in- 
 flexible purpose. We may learn som>ething even from Richard, 
 for not even crimes can sully the eternal beauty of courage. 
 This severe concentrated volition gives something supernatural 
 to his power. He is terrible as one of the primal Titans war- 
 ring against Olympus. We tremble at the human spirit that 
 rises up thus before us, dim and shadowy in its vast propor- 
 tions like one of the genii of Eastern fable, still growing more 
 vast and terrible as we gaze, until the colossal properties seem 
 to fill the whole field of vision, and we feel that nothing 
 human can stand before it. From the moment he is resolved 
 he treads onward, cold and inexorable as fate, irresistible as a 
 blind and silent destiny, terrible and swift as the lightning ; 
 all that stands in the line of that dread course is blasted, must 
 perish. Yet there is no passion in his cruelty, no revenge in 
 his murders, no desire in his love. He is a man without one 
 human emotion. The blood in his veins is iced and frozen as 
 the North Sea. His heart is cold, bleak, and lonely as a peak 
 of the Apennines ; he marches on to his aim with a relent- 
 less fatality like the unswerving laws of nature ; for, in truth, 
 volition is in its essence almost omnipotent. We do not yet 
 know all that this mighty power within us can accomplish, 
 because we do not test it to the utmost. What is the power 
 within us which we are told can move mountains, if it be not 
 volition ? In all common minds it is weak, therefore they 
 fail ; but in all great minds we find the same fierce resiliency 
 of the will against all opposing obstacles, which makes them 
 for the time omnipotent. A hero-man is one who would swim 
 the Rubicon with C^sar or burn his ships with Cortez. But 
 earth o-ives few such men, and, when one does arise, he 
 dominates over his fellows by reason solely of his stronger will : 
 for men rule the minds of others in the direct ratio of the 
 intensity of their volition. 
 
348 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 All Richard's crimes are in a grand artistical unity with 
 this lofty, unyielding, concentrated nature of his, and in the 
 unity is the grandeur of the character as a work of art. 
 All weakness, tenderness is forbidden ; the weeping wife, the 
 bereaved mother, the murdered children, he has no tears for 
 them. His march is still onward, his glance still upward ; 
 he cannot pause to look at the poor worms that are writhing 
 beneath his foot. One touch of ordinary human nature 
 would have marred the unity, weakened the vast outline of 
 this terrible conception of a will that nothing human could 
 influence. One moment of hesitation, one thrilling of a 
 human fibre^ one pang of remorse, and the unity is lost — he 
 comes within the measure of a man. But there are none 
 such ; and in the tremendous fidelity with which Kean 
 sustained the ideal in the character, and the genius with which 
 he grasped and comprehended all the details of its Titanic 
 proportions, was evinced a mind almost equal in power to 
 that of the poet who created it. 
 
 We see Richard's character from the very first : the egoism 
 that walls him round like ice from all human sensibilities — 'I 
 that did never weep,' he says ; the doomed loneliness of his 
 existence, isolated as Satan's from all human sympathies — ' I 
 that have neither pity, love, nor fear ; ' the gloom and mystery 
 of his destiny which seems to sever him from human ties, with 
 them, but not of them — ' I have no brother, I am like no 
 brother ; ' the strong, defiant spirit with whom success is 
 nature, for in his own words, ' Fearless minds climb soonest 
 unto crowns ; ' the deep, subtle dissimulation that can smile 
 and murder while he smiles ; the haughty self-reliance — ' I 
 am myself alone ! ' he exclaims. And what fierce demon energy 
 and ' cold premeditation ' in that speech where his dark purpose 
 first takes a shape in words : ' Would he were wasted, marrow, 
 bones and all ! ' Yet with this dark soul, almost without the 
 pale of humanity, thus laid before us, our sympathies through- 
 out are with Richard, and herein is one of the greatest 
 triumphs of Shakespeare's genius. It is, in fact, to produce this 
 efiect that courage is given to him ; for courage is sublime, and 
 
CHAELES KEAN AS KING EICHAED 349 
 
 in itself, and by itself alone, is capable of casting a gloomy 
 grandeur over the criminal, though it does not lessen the 
 horror of the crime. We feel this grandeur in the Titan 
 struggle which he maintains against earth and heaven, the 
 living and the dead. He inspires awe, hut he has no weak- 
 nesses to excite contempt ; and, with all his crimes, he makes 
 us feel that our nature has something yet unfathomed, some- 
 thing glorious in the extent of its powers, when one iron will 
 can have such a repulsive force against a universe. 
 
 Everywhere comes this terrible volition — direct, potent, 
 irresistible as a flash of lightning. The whole interest is con- 
 centrated on him. This man of crime, and power, and 
 destiny is a hero ^schylus might have chosen. The clear 
 defined outline of his nature rises up with a sort of sculptured 
 distinctness from amidst the commonplace that surrounds 
 him. We feel that he incarnates a grand fragment of a grand 
 nature, and when he falls we tremble, though we cannot 
 mourn, to see so mighty a spirit prostrate. We hold our 
 breath, we shudder at the stroke that is to doom this colossal 
 force to annihilation. One looks for portents when he dies. 
 A star seems to have shot from space into the abysses. No 
 waves of common life can rush in and fill up the void. His 
 place is vacant on earth, as Lucifer's in heaven. 
 
 Kean fully and nobly comprehended this ideal, and flung 
 his soul free and fetterless, with the true abandonment of a 
 possession, into the character. In the first scene, where he 
 kills the king, some critics have objected that he was too 
 passionless ; but this very coolness, on the contrary, proved his 
 just conception of the character. There is no passion in 
 Richard ; when it does appear it is only feigned for a purpose. 
 It is not from impulse or excitement he kills Henry, but from 
 cold premeditation. He is throughout only watching his 
 opportunity. There is no hatred, no anger, no passion ; he is 
 calm, cold, and relentless as fate. His aim is fixed ; whoever 
 stands in the path of it must fall, king or woman, prince or 
 child, the aged Henry, or Hhe gallant springing brave Plan- 
 ta^enet • ' he crushes them with scarce a thought, without 
 
350 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 one human emotion. He goes on direct, deadly, impassible 
 as the electric fluid ; they stand in his path, he passes, and 
 they lie scathed and blasted in his track. 
 
 In Milton's Satan there is envy, remorse, despair. Richard 
 is grander : he has none of these, only a terrible concentrated 
 volition. From the time the golden circlet of fire is on his 
 brow he is superb. Even though the dusky shades from 
 Tartarus rise up all dripping with the blood he has shed ; still 
 he fights foot to foot against heaven and earth. There is 
 heroism, courage in it. He rises from a man to the lofty pro- 
 portions of a fallen angel, defiant, powerful, terrible as Lucifer. 
 His haughty reliance on himself ne^er forsakes him. Defec- 
 tions from his cause follow quick on one another ; still he will 
 not stoop either to keep or gain an ally. When Buckingham, 
 his tool and instrument, sues him for the promised reward, 
 with what insolent impatience he flings him off as he would 
 shake a stinging insect from his hand ! There is no room in 
 his mind for gratitude or fear, or any idea not connected 
 necessarily with his grand aim. What superb contempt there 
 was in Kean's ' Thou troublest me ; I am not in the vein ! ' 
 But the sombre foreshadowings of his destiny are gathering 
 thick around him, and his eye has a thoughtful, visionary glare 
 when he bids them ' Saddle white Surrey for the field to- 
 morrow.' Some terrible shadowy forms are present to him 
 rising from the abyss of the past. He speaks not, but we 
 feel them gaining on him, absorbing him in their dark shadows. 
 We know the Invisible is crushing him. Nothing could be 
 finer in effect than Kean's silence here : ^ the vocal silence of his 
 eye,' when the great gloom of his approaching fate overshadows 
 him, and he looks back at the sea of blood he has crossed to a 
 crown. The visionary eye fixed on the ' signless inano,' the 
 fingers playing convulsively and unconsciously with the hilt of 
 his half lifted sword. There are terrible thoughts in that 
 doomed heart at the moment. His spirit has gone forth to the 
 last battle with the avenging destinies. But he yields not — 
 the ghastly visions from Tartarus cannot affiight him. After 
 a few moments of this silent, wordless warfare he comes back 
 
CHAELES KEAN AS KING EICHAED 351 
 
 to the present, and the ' Good night, my lords/ shows him the 
 calm and the unconquered once more. 
 
 When the curse of his mother falls on him, when the 
 accusing queens arraign him by the souls he has murdered, 
 with what haughty insolence he calls on the drums to beat 
 that heaven may not hear these women ' rail on the Lord's 
 anointed ' ! In the sleeping scene the terrors of an awakened 
 conscience are displayed with awful fidelity. The light, the 
 terrible light of God shines in upon him at last, and reveals 
 all the blackness of his soul. The long train of accusing spirits, 
 bidding him 'despair and die,' at last shakes his mighty 
 nature, and when he starts from his couch all the thrilling 
 horrors of anticipated judgment ilit across his pallid face like 
 the wild drifting wrack of a stormy sky. We read them there 
 and tremble. Awfully, shudderingly, gloomily did they seem 
 to rise before the souL This is the last hour in which pardon 
 may yet reach him. The soul that is awakened may repent — 
 all his several sins ' throng to the bar, crying guilty ! guilty ! ' 
 His eternal fate hangs on this moment. But he fights his 
 last fight with conscience. He extinguishes the light of God, 
 and stifles the terrors of hell as he had before trod down all 
 of humanity within him ; and exclaims, defiant to the last, 
 ^ Conscience is but a word that cowards use/ But though his 
 spirit stands unbroken, his nerves falter ; and the startled 
 * Who's there ? ' when he totters back weak and trembling 
 against a pillar, is one of the finest and most subtle delineations 
 of the separate workings of frame and spirit ever imagined. 
 
 Had the spirit faltered but for one instant, the tremendous 
 unity in which lies all the significance of the character were 
 lost ; but never is that iron will stronger, that soul more lofty 
 than at the close of this scene, when, defying heaven as he had 
 hitherto defied earth and Hades, he exclaims : ' Richard's 
 himself a^-ain ! ' There was a terrific truth in Kean's acting 
 throuo-hout this terrible scene ; and in the rush and excitement 
 that follow on the last great conflict, when crown and life are 
 staked upon the die, no words are adequate to describe the 
 emotions he excited. The whole audience thrilled, and trembled 
 
352 MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS 
 
 with him, and were swayed as the mind of one man by the 
 electric influence of his genius. Never was there more perfect 
 sympathy established between author, actor and audience ; 
 they seemed to form together one mighty human mind — one 
 
 * over soul ; ' all individual feeling was absorbed in the common 
 sympathetic emotion that made each feel with the aggregated 
 intensity of all. In the glorious fire of his eyes — the sculp- 
 tured beauty of his gestures — the powerful thrilling tones of 
 his voice, there was a revelation of force, majesty and harmony 
 that could not be surpassed. All hung suspended on his dying 
 breath in the last conflict, none cared for the fate of Richmond, 
 
 * shallow Richmond.' Humanity had a more powerful re- 
 presentative, though the mighty spirit was only hovering on 
 the extremest verge of life ; and when he falls, the breathless 
 silence which pervaded the house proved the tension of excite- 
 ment in which the audience were held. Then a storm of 
 applause rent the air, the involuntary and well-deserved tribute 
 of every human heart present to dramatic genius. 
 
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