^ik^MMiAdd^A LIBRARY ANNEX _^^^^^llljjglj^ jgSggij^ ^^^^^ =SSmtmmmim nw rfRv Ir-i ?' .78U6 Cornell University Library PR1145.P96 The Victoria regia; a volume of original 3 1924 013 285 410 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013285410 THE Wuhm Upgia : A VOI.UMK OP ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS IN POETRY AND PROSE. ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY EMILY- FAITHPULL AND CO., Widorm '§us», (iox t^e ^mplngmcnt of Momtn,) G K E A T C O II A M S T R E K T, Vr.C. 186L DEDICATED |5ii S|jtcinl permission TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY THE QUEEN. WHESr ON THE SHINING WATERS OF THE WEST AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER SAW THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS, HE SOUGHT A NAME WHEREBY MIGHT BE EXPREST THE CHIEFEST GLORY OF THIS WORLD OF OURS. VICTORIA REGIA!— NEVER HAPPIER NAME A FLOWER, A WOMAN, OR A QUEEN COULD CLAIM! SO WE THIS TITLE WITH DUE REVERENCE CHOSE FOR THIS OUR FLOWER, WHICH WE ASPIRE TO LAY AT HER DEAR FEET ROUND WHOSE DOMINION FLOWS THE PERFECT LIGHT OF UNDECLINING DAY. VICTORIA REGIA! MAY OUR BLOSSOM HOLD IN PURE WHITE LEAVES A LOYAL HEART OF GOLD. PREFACE. HE attention of the Council of the National Asso- ciation for the Promotion of Social Science was forcibly called, in the month of November, 1859, to the necessity for providing new channels for the remunerative employ- ment of women. No attempt at any interference with the natural laws regulating the supply of labour or the rate of wages was recommended to the Council, or for a moment entertained by them. They were well aware that any such attempt would be equally foolish and futile. But it appeared to tbem that the miserable condition of the women employed in several branches of industry and the artificial obstacles raised to any extension of their employments by social prejudice or trade jealousies, certainly called for inquiry, and, if that were found practicable, for redress. A Com- mittee was accordingly appointed to inquire and report on this question, and the Council, convinced of the good that would result from enlisting the aid of educated and intelli- gent women in the cause of the less fortunate of their sex, resolved that this Committee should be constituted of an equal number of gentlemen and ladies, of whom the latter TRKFACE. especially were chosen for the practical interest they had already shown in the subject.* The Committee, which was ultimately merged in the So- ciety for Promoting the Industrial Employment of Women, collected a considerable amount of evidence, and among the rest they were informed of the suitableness of the printing trade — at least in some of its branches — for women, and of the various attempts that had been made to intro- duce female labour into the business of compositors. The Committee were satisfied by the testimony of experienced persons, both master printers and compositors, that such an employment, requiring chiefly a quick eye, a ready hand, lightness of touch, and steady application to work, — involving no exposure to weather — no hard labour, properly so called, — was suitable for women, and that the failures hitherto ex- perienced in the attempts to introduce them into the trade were owing to exceptional and preventable causes. Such was the opinion of the Committee; and Miss Parkes was so convinced of the opening afforded by the print- ing trade, and that nothing but sufficient capital and a fair trial were required for success, that she purchased a small press, in order to make herself practically acquainted with the art of printing, and capable of assisting in the direction of any * The members of the Committee were : — The Eavl of Shaftesbury. The Hon. Arthur Kinnah-d, M.P. Mr. Edward Akroyd. Mr. G. W. Hastings. Mr. Horace Mann. Mr. W. Strickland Cookson. Mrs. Jameson. Miss Bessie Parkes. Miss Adelaide Procter. Miss Boucherett. Miss Isa Craig. Miss Emily FaithfuU. PllEPACE. effort that might be made for training female compositorti At this press I had the opportunity of working, and when some weeks' assiduous labour, though of course it taught me little, had satisfied me that any intelligent industrious girl, under a proper apprenticeship, could earn her living as a compositor, I resolved on opening an office for the purpose of employing women in the trade, and thus giving tangible purpose to our idea. A gentleman who is well known for his efforts in the cause of social improvement offered to share the risk of starting such an office and of giving a fair trial to the experiment, on condition that I would make myself responsible for the conduct of the business. With this encouragement, the Victoria Press was opened on the 25th of March, 1860; and though many unforeseen difficulties arose, and though we met with some disappointments, con- siderable progress was made during the first year, as evidenced by the work we managed to get through, among which I may be permitted to mention the printing of the English Woman'' s Journal, and of the "Transactions" (an octavo volume of 900 pages) of the Association for the Promotion of Social Science. In the early part of this year it was suggested to me that I should publish a volume as a choice specimen of the skill attained by my compositors.* The idea has been realized in the pages of this work, enriched by contributions from many of the first authors of the day, and, by Her gracious per- * The initial letters, &c., &c., of this Volume have been designed by a lady intimately connected with our work, and engraved by women, some of whom are pupils in the Female School of Art in Queen Square. — vii — niEFACE. mission, dedicated to Her Majesty, whose royal a2)proval had been ah-eady signified to the undertaking which bears Her name. I trust that the Victoria Regia will be found a not unworthy record of the literature adorning the rule of a Sovereign who has known how to unite the dignified dis- charge of public duties with a constant regard for the cares of domestic life ; and who has thus borne a noble and enduring testimony to the value of woman's intellect and heart. Among the contributions to this Volume will be found one by the late Mrs. Jameson, whose name will be always remembered by those interested in the employment and elevation of women, as that of the writer who first pleaded their cause before the public, and the friend whose wise and faithful counsels were only ended by her death. In conclusion I can only say that the generous aid and encouragement I have received from so many quarters, sup- port me in the midst of no little toil and difficulty, and confirm my resolution to carry on the work I have under- taken to permanent success. EMILY FAITHFULL. November, 1861. CONTENTS. DEDICATION ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN . THE SAILOR BOY MOUNTAINS THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE VOICES THE RED THREAD OP HONOUR. . A BOY OP PIPE ... . . . E. B. B. . . A WINTER SONG . . . A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE A DESIGN POR A GEM . . THE LITTLE DELL THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP . STANZAS .... BY THE STREAM THE FATAL CURIOSITY MEDIEVAL SKETCHES . . . HELIOS^ HYPERIONIDES . LINES ... . THE DYING GIRL'S SONG THE BIRTH OP A FREE NATION SEASONS THE THREE GUESTS A LEAP OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK . Bessie R. Paekes . , Mrs. Grote f Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., ( Poet Laureate . . . . Hamilton Aide T. Adolpiihs Trollope IsA Blagdbn . Sir p. Dotle ( Author op " Mrs. Margaret [ Maitland," etc., etc. Sydney Dobell . Aubrey de Verb . . . TiiEODOsiA Trollope . . Henry Reeve . . W. Allingham . fTHE Lady Georgiana Ful- ( LEETON f Henry Tayler, Author of ( " Philip Von Arteveldt Henry P. Chorley . . James Russell Lowell Geraldine Jewsbury Owen Meredith . Helen Lowe . . . Theodore Martin . . . Harriet Martineau . , ( V, Author op " IX. Poems,' ( " Paul Perroll," etc. The Earl of Carlisle. . W. M. Thackeray . . 18 If) 18 28 29 34 41 42 44 55 5G 59 79 81 8.1 85 95 96 97 98 111 115 118 CONTEXTS. PAUE' LAST NOT LOST JIary Howitt .... iiii; THE CIRCLES . . . COVEXTRY PaTMORE 12'.J OTTO STEINMETZ : A Legend of One taken' OUT OF God's Hands . . ■ • •. Hoi.ME Lee . . . 131 AT FIRST . . .... Bessie R. Parkes . 108 AT LAST IsA Craio . . . 170 FAR-OFF SUNSHINE .... f Author of " John Halifax [ Gentleman," etc. . . 171 SORROW Mary Carpenter . 172 A SOUTHERN NIGHT Matthew Arnold . 177 THE GOLDEN KEY . Georqe MaoDonald . 184 THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA Anthony Trollope 187 THE CLERK OF ROHAN. (From the Bketon.) Tom Taylor ... 215 ONE-SIDED TROTH .... .... R. M. Milnbs . . . 220 STRAFFORD'S YOUTH John Fokstee . 227 OH GRIEF! WHAT HAVE I DONE? . . The late Mrs. Jameson 254 DEATH. A Fbagment ... The late Leigh Hunt 256 THE SILENT CHAMBER Isabella Law . . . 257 JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS ... Julia Kavanagh 259 SECOND CHILDHOOD .... R. MONOKTON MlLNES 277 THEN AND NOW Matilda M. Hays . . 279 TWO OF THE MOB Barry Cornwall 281 ON CRITICS Rev. F. D. Maurice 282 THE CICALA The Dean of St. Paul's 309 RIVAL LOVERS Hon. Mrs. Norton 810 RECOLLECTION OF A PENNY-A-LINER. . B. W. Procter . . 313 HIGH AND LOW : A trde Tale of Traquair f Author of " Guy Living- ( STONE," etc. . . 320 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH Anna Mary Howitt Watts * 323 AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY A-shford Owen, Author oi " A Lost Love " . . 320 MARGUERITE . . . Amelia B. Edwards 333 LINKS WITH HEAVEN Adelaide A. Procter . 335 ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE .... G. S. Vekables . . . 337 THE VICTORIA REGIA Edwin Arnold . . 348 §n %xt, %muxxt Kub ^ohxn. By Mrs. Gkote. HIS vast theme, to the illustration of which the ^ finest intellects and the most assiduous study- have been for ages directed, can hardly be approached without temerity by an amateur, whose knowledge must be, necessarily, super- ficial and incomplete, compared with that possessed by professional students. As, how- ever, I have been invited to aid in weavino- ^/ a "garland" of literary leaves, destined to be laid at the feet of our illustrious sovereign, I will do my best to justify the compliment. Whilst renouncing the pretension to offer any novel or striking views on the subject, I propose to take a short survey of the comparative position occupied by the arts, and of the character imparted to them by cotemporary influences, at different stages of the history of mankind. That the function of art is to act upon the imagination through the senses, is a proposition familiar to all of us. TJie — 3 — ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. precise form, however, in which this action shall exert itself must depend upon the state in which the popular imagination of the period happens to be. In an early stage of social development the prevalent ideas are few, simple, and deep- seated. The ancient architecture of the world accordingly combines grandeur and simplicity with perfect adaptation to its ends. In pictorial efforts, the primitive features of interest ever present in early societies constitute the sub- jects ; as war, hunting, and pompous ceremonials. In pro- portion as the course of human thought advances, subjects multiply. The introduction of female figures attests a certain improvement in the social habits. Farther on, a conception of grace united with strength is engendered by the habitual contemplation of the unclothed human body ; and the pour- trayal of this, under diversified action, comes to be regarded with pleasure. It was among the small Greek communities that this power of producing, in marble and on canvas, examples of the finest forms of both sexes reached its climax. An attentive study on the part of their artists of the living beauty and symmetry continually present to their eye, was of incalculable importance in the culture and practice of imi- tative art. To this they superadded the closest devotion to the technical branch of their art; the "treatment," the dis- position of drapery, the composition and character of their figures. The minute study of external configuration did, in fact, with the Greek sculptors, supply the absence of ana- tomical science ; and It may admit of a question whether a knowledge of this would have enhanced the effect or the accuracy of their delineations; such was the familiarity of their eye with the situation and functions of the muscles, and with the mutual relations of the osseous structure. The — 4 — ON ART, AXCIENT AND MODERN. sources from whence we derive our widest acquaintance with the pictorial genius of the ancient Greeks, are their vessels of earthenware, to which may be added a small number of fresco paintings. In the urns and vases, of which innumerable specimens are to be found in public collections and many in private dwellings, the subjects almost exclusively consist of men, women, and animals, of which endless groups are arranged, illustrative of habits, manners, and, sometimes even, of passions ; not unfrequently the mythology of the heathen world furnishes the matter of the composition, and nothing can surpass the charm which is present in these poetical representations when executed by the best artists of the period. In the relics of ancient Greece, then, are to be found the highest examples of that branch of art which is devoted to the human form and its attributes. That nations, sprung into existence since that time, have reached considerable excellence in art, is indisputable ; but not one has arrived at equal mastery with the Greeks, in the creative vein of sculpture. To enter upon a speculative disquisition, as to the causes which gave rise to this acknowledged supremacy, would be a task too comprehensive for the present occasion. If I may be permitted to express an opinion, it is that the two main sources whence this supremacy took its rise, were — 1. The peculiar cast of the Greek mind, demanding, as it did, to be occupied with the study of man, to the exclusion of the rest of creation, and thus craving, at the hands of art ministers, exhibitions of the human effigy under interesting aspects, suggestive of some dominant sentiment, whether heroic, reli- gious, or amorous; and 2. The advantages enjoyed by the artists of constant, familiar observation of the nude figure, — 5 — ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. whether under the excitement of active games or in the varied attitudes of repose and recreation. The Greeks, it must be remarked, took no delight in contemplating the beauty of the external Avorld, or in what is commonly termed the "Poetry of Nature." Man, in his corporeal and physical aspects, and Man, as a social and intellectual being, seem to have absorbed the attention of artist, dramatist, and thinker respectively, among that remark- able people. Under the Roman dominion, the character of the arts of sculpture and painting lost much of their dignity, becoming subservient to the degraded tastes and corrupted manners which prevailed among that people. When, in the fourth century, the protection of the Koman Emperor was accorded to the Christian form of worship, the artists from various quarters who flocked to. the new capital, Byzantium, shared the patronage of the Pagan with that of the Christian world ; so that, for some considerable time, a mixed style of art obtained the ascendancy : blending the still extant, though impure, types of Grecian civilization with the Oriental style of treatment ; and pictures and frescoes abounded, blazing with colour and glittering with meretricious, and even with metallic, ornament. After the sixth century, the gradual increase and spread of Christianity enabled its professors to substitute paintings illustrative of their own sacred origin and history for the representations of subjects familiar to the older world. Such few vestiges as remain to us of these primitive efforts are, of course, injured and defaced ; but, viewed as paintings, they could never have been other than barbarous productions. Passing over the feeble endeavours made during the dark — 6 — OiSr ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN". ages to keep alive the embers of art, as serving both to kindle and to propagate the religious sentiment, we find so early as the eleventh, and notably in the twelfth century, a marked progress, of which the Church was naturally the chief pro- moter, in the form and character of Christian, or Pure Art.* The subjects on which the painters of this period occupied their skill, partook of the religious feeling to an almost exclu- sive degree. And this concentration of the powers of the pencil on one vein of sentiment, produced in these works an engaging simplicity of design, a profound devotional expres- sion, together with a certain naivete of composition, which qualities have always commanded the homage of connoisseurs, although not generally attractive to the unlearned. Through successive phases, such as an inquiring student will find no difficulty in tracing from Cimabue onwards, the capacity for expressing deep sentiment gradually allied itself with an improved faculty of composition and skill of hand, until the Umbrian and Florentine painters carried this divine art to a point of perfection which has never since been reached; their works having continued to be regarded as models of excellence, with admiration and emulous imitation, by each successive age. * In a work on Italian art, recently published in Paris, the author,, M. Charles Clement, mentions, as being among the most striking efibrts ot the eleventh century, some of the mural picitures in mosaic woi'k, especially those of Sicily and Venice : — " Ces gigantesques figures a demi barbares, dessinees sans art, qui n'ont ni modele ni perspective, placees contre les parois, et dans le fond de vastes edifices obscurs, les remplissent de leui' presence. Elles resplendissent, sur leur fond d'or, d'un eclat mysterieux et terrible ; et si le but de I'art religieux est de frapper vivement I'imagination je ne pense pas qu'il I'ait jamais plus completement attcint que dans les mosai'qucs." ox ART, ANCIENT AlsD iMODERX. Although painters of unquestionable genius and wide- spread fame continued to enrich European edifices and gal lories during a considerable number of years, it is generally admitted that Italian art, after the sixteenth century, under- went a gradual decline; insomuch that the glories of the pencil and the chisel were, in the seventeenth, assigned Id other lands. The sculptors of Germany and the painters of the Low Countries, together with a few eminent masters among the French, took a prominent lead in their respective departments, producing works which continue to enjoy a deservedly high repute to this day. And it is easy to understand how that the arts, no longer exclusively devoted to the sustentation of religious faith, but encouraged by the laity with liberal hand, broke into a variety of channels — secular, historical, volup- tuous, architectural, festal, and. the like. Landscape painting, too, assumed a more important character, and began to display the charm and captivation of which it is avowedly capable. Thus, the increase of wealth, the multiplication of objects of curiosity, and of means of enjoyment, contributed to diversify the productions of art, and to engender new styles ; at the same time, by this active movement, the earnest, meditative compositions of the early painters became much less sought after. The tone of the period was changed. During the eighteenth century no country would seem to have produced better painters than the British; our native artists maintaining a creditable position in that walk of art, though the sculptors of the Continent were confessedly superior to our own, and, I am afraid, continue to be so. The works ])r()duced in the latter portion of the century seem to rise, ralhcr than decline, in public estimation, especially in respect — 8 — ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. to portraits, a branch of art in which the moderns scarcely reach the standard of their predecessors. However, the rich products of the pencil in the nineteenth century surpass, in most other respects, those of the previous period. Stimulated by the growing appetite of the community for art, accom- panied by an extraordinary increase of the purchasing power, the painter of modern days has invented new methods, employed the science of chemistry to improve his colours, and cultivated fresh fields in choosing subjects for the easel. The foreign schools have likewise developed considerable activity, and many of their professors exhibit a dexterity of handling, a correctness of drawing, and a finish which com- mand unqualified admiration. Yet, with these painters, as with us, high art is in some sort eclipsed by general subjects, and, especially amongst the French, by such as are connected with battles and victories. As to the predominant taste of the English in matters of art, it would puzzle the most attentive observer to characterize it suitably ; so multiform are the fruits of the pencil in our day. I will venture, nevertheless, to employ one epithet, (which indeed seems applicable to modern feeling in general,) and say that it inclines to the realistic in art. Even in pictures of a religious class, we may observe how far this element has superseded the ideal and the pathetic. Pious ecstasies, eloquent agonies, are no longer in demand ; the sober Protestant form of faith, conjoined with amiable and homely forms of sympathy — domestic incidents and every-day inte- rests — such are the subjects which command the attention and ensure the gaze of " the multitude," rich and poor, of our time. And these predominate through the range of modern artistic productions, reflecting indeed very correctly the tone — 9 — C ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. in vvhicli popular serial literature has, for some ten or twenty years back, been composed. " The applause of the exquisite few," said Wilkie, in one of his published letters, " is better than that of the ignorant many. But I like to reverse received maxims. Give me the , many who have admired, in diiferent ages, Kaffaelle and Claude." On which passage, Mr. Leslie, in his own memoirs, published in 1860, comments thus: — "But have the many, in any age, admired Kaffaelle and Claude? I certainly believe not." , . . And again, Leslie remarks that, "Wilkie's works wer^ popular from the first, because the public could understand his subjects, and natural expression is always responded to. But the beauty of his composition, the truth of his ' effects,^ the taste of his execution, were no more felt by the multitude than such qualities are felt in any class of painting, by any but those whose perceptions of art are cultivated. . , . An artist must belong to the multitude to please the multi- tude." In these remai'ks I own I am disposed to concur, whilst guarding mysolf against being supposed to disparage the taste of " the multitude." It is certainly a most pleasing circum- stance that so large a portion of our countrymen and country- women should indulge a liking for art. Nevertheless, a faculty of nicely discriminating between true and false great- ness in painters can only, in my judgment, be exercised by a comparatively small class amongst us — composed of indi- viduals who possess leisure, opportunities of travel and of study, aptitude for observation and comparison, and a natural disposition to derive enjoyment from the contemplation of objects of art. On them the duty rests of upholding the eternal principloe on which true art is based. English — 10 — ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. amateurs — from Royalty downwards to the merchant — have; always fostered the arts ; not alone encouraging living artists, but coming forward, with alacrity, to possess themselves of really valuable specimens of bygone times, when offered, at intervals, in the market. And the English Government also displays unremitting zeal in the acquisition of works calcu- lated to encourage the public to interest themselves in the higher excellences of painting. It would be matter of real gratification to feel that these could be exemplified in the performances of modern professors. Let us hope that such will be forthcoming at no distant day. The very narrow space into which it has been requisite to compress this sketch, precludes the addition of farther remarks suggested by the actual condition of art, and the influence of opinion bearing upon it in this country. I must content my- self with saying that if, indeed, " the many " now form the bulk of the purchasing class, and bestow the widest fame upon professors of art, it may safely be added that never were " the many " so well served as now. For every variety of taste, a painter brings the supply ; (often, indeed, creating it;) yet the teeming abundance of artistic talent — diffusing itself, as it does, along countless channels, and offering meritorious and attractive works in all styles, — seems destined, in some degree, to supplant the cultivation of the noble and elevated type. If each period of history bears its characteristic stamp, surely in none has the impress of contemporary feeling and thought been more discernible than in the art, and I must permit myself to add, the literature of fiction, of our own era. It may be fairly presumed, I think, that the Important step taken in a high quarter, within these few years, to improve the means of art education among the people, was owing to — 11 — ON ART, ANCIENT AND MODERN. a perception of the tendencies above indicated. To furnish to the humble youthful student, gratuitously, assistance in forming a taste for the higher attributes of art, and, next, in carrying even into the material products of the country some traces of their refining influence, was, indeed, a project dictated by a discerning comprehension of the value of sound elementary study. The foundation of the South Kensington Museum, due In great part to the Prince Consort's agency, may, it is to be hoped, operate as a counterpoise to the causes which for some considerable period would seem to have modified and, in a measure, vulgarized the character of British Art. That relish for striking effect, both of colour and expression, for exquisitely high-wrought finish, and for melo-dramatic com- position, which now pervades the community, may possibly be one day superseded by a preference for loftier qualities in painting. Should such a change arrive, we may safely ascribe much of it to the salutary, the instructive, study of the masterpieces of all kinds and all countries, ancient and modern, which are to be seen in our principal national depositories: accompanied and seconded by the lessons of competent professors under the direction of the managers of the Kensington Museum, working in harmony with the great schools of the Royal Academy. AnguHt, 1861. 12 — L E rose at dawn and flushed with hope Shot o'er the seething harbour-bar, . And reached the ship and caught the rope. And whistled to the morning star. And while on deck he whistled loud He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, " Boy, though thou art young and proud, I see the place where thou wilt lie. The sands and yeasty surges mix In caves about the dreary bay ; And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, And in thy heart the scrawl shall l)Iay ! " " Fool ! " he answer'd, " Death is sure To those that stay and those that roam : But I will never more endure To sit with empty hands at home. — 13 — THE SAILOR BOY. My mother clings about my neck. My sisters clamour, ' Stay, for shame ! ' My father raves of death and wreck. They are all to blame, they are all to blame. God help me ! save I take my part Of danger on the roaring sea, A Devil rises in my heart. Far worse than any death to me." Alfred Tennyson. — 14 — 0Mta[itts* MOUNTAINS ! inaccessible, nigh Heaven, We gaze in wonder. Hearing your deep mysterious answers given To God's voice. Thunder. Ye seem to hold communion with the Immortal : First on your summit. The fiery steeds, let loose from Heaven's portal. Strive to o'ercome it. And while in impotent wrath they split the pine roots. And downwards hunt them. Tearing up valleys where the tender vine shoots ; — Unmoved, ye front them, Unmoved, regard the tongue of fire that splinters Forests beneath ye ; Your crowns, impearled with snow of countless winters. Still proudly wreathe ye. — 15 — MOUNTAINS. Ye drink the sunshine in your morning revels, While we are sleeping, And stars, invisible at lower levels. Their vigils keeping. In nebulous depths of blue, to your keen focus. Are ever patent; Yet know ye. Mountains, more than the gold crocus At your feet latent ? Have ye the knowledge of a Power sustaining. More deep and serious. Than thrills throughout its delicate gold veining. With sense mysterious? Wist ye what mighty Arm, Oh Eocks, hath driven Those snow-flakes o'er ye? When, to their base, surrounding hills were riven. What hands up-bore ye? Have }'e more knowledge of the Love that showers Its dew, caressing, Than the small weeds that lift their thankful flowers. To drink the blessing ? Image of intellectual power, the glory Of Man's endeavour. In your great solitudes. Oh Mountains hoary. Are ye for ever! — 16 — MOUNTAIN'S. Breathing an atmosphere of rarer essence. The ages show them, Sending the shadow of their mighty presence On all below them. And in those heights where soar the eagles only. From our sight clouded. The pride of human intellect dwells lonely. With mists enshrouded. Striving to reach that yet-unfathomed power — Insight not given — What fuller knowledge than the humblest flower Has it of Heaven ? Of that great Love pervading all creation, TJncomprehended ? The subtle problem of our destination When life is ended ? Knowledge of "Power and Glory" never-ending To whom is given ? Are not the heights and depths of understanding Herein made even ? The lessons, these. Oh Mountains, that ye teach. If men receive them : The loftiest human intellect cannot reach — The low — believe them ! Hamulton Aibe. — 17 — D *\ ^t Smi 5^g ^t <^^w ^kIMoxl By T. Adolphtis Troli.ope. V# MONG the many specially notable features whicli have been fixed on as pre-eminently characterizing the age we live in, Hukry, it seems to me, is the most unmistakeably pre-eminent. The nineteenth century is the age of Hurry. Everybody — at least among those nations who lead the van of civilization — is occupied in the con- stant endeavour to make each four-Und-twenty hours hold more, whether of work or pleasure, than can be packed into it. Hence the innumerable contrivances in every department of life for shortening processes, and methods of saving time; — hence the absolute necessity for all who make appeal to the public, to ask, whatever else they may demand, as little of their timo as possible; — hence undertakings which can be thrust under the noses and into the path of this hurry-skurry public, prosper, while those which lie but a stone's-throw out of the way, fail and perish ; — _ 18 _ THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. hence a grocer or a mercer in a great thoroughfare shall make a large fortune, while another, selling, mayhap, better goods round the corner, shall go into the Gazette. No man has time to go far out of his way in search of even that which he abso- lutely requires ; and no attention or interest whatever can be hoped for by things indispensable, unless they lie absolutely in his way. One curious result of this tendency of the times is the shape into which English familiarity with the other countries of Europe has fashioned itself. If every four-and-twenty hours in the year are to be crammed to overflowing, much more so is this the case with those of the thrice precious month or three months devoted to an autumn holiday, and the trip on which it is to be expended. Above all else, our pleasure sight-seeing is done at high-pressure and in hot haste ; and the consequence is, that English acquaintance with the most frequently visited parts of Europe is confined to certain lines and strips of country. The course of a navigable river or a railway makes a certain series of cities and scenes familiar and famous, while it condemns all that lie out of its track to obscurity and oblivion. The old-world city, however storied its streets and walls, however rich in artistic or natural beauties it may be, if it lie but a mile or two out of the beaten track, is condemned to the same fate which awaits the dealer, how ever good his wares, who hoists out his ensign in a thoroughfare deserted by the tide of traflic ; and no country has from this cause been more whimsically divided into thoroughly well-known and almost utterly unknown districts than Italy. Who has not seen and lionized Siena, Perugia, Terni, Viterbo, &c., &c.? Who knows anything about Gubbio, Urbino, Pitigliano, or Volterra? The first lie in every traveller's way, and the — 19 — THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. Others out of it. Like the heroes before Agamemnoiij who missed their meed of fame for want of a sacred bard to sing their deeds, these, and hundreds other such luckless cities, are left unwatered by the fertilizing showers of the flying tourist's interest — and cash, for want of a favouring post-road or rail. It was at the last of the above mentioned neglected places that the circumstances occurred which I am about to recount ; and of course the reader has never been at Volterra. How should he ? It does not lie in the way to any place. Unless he had started from Florence, Leghorn, or Siena, with malice prepense to visit Volterra, and then come back the way he went, nothing could ever have taken him there. And with the rare exception of here and there an energetic student of Etruscan antiquities, few are likely to have found time for penetrating into such a cul-de-sac. Yet Volterra, with its matchless Etruscan arch, Etruscan walls, Etruscan tombs, and Etruscan museum, has in this, and in many other respects, more to interest almost any traveller than most towns. My present business, however, does not need that I should either give the reader extracts from, or supply the omissions of, the guide-books. But any one who had been on the spot, would comprehend more clearly the nature and appearance of certain very remarkable and peculiar features of the place — a due conception of which is necessary to the full understanding of my story — than, I fear, those who have never been there will be able to do from my description. I must do my best, however, to make the nature and appearance of the " Baize ^^ at Volterra (so the spot is called) as intelligible as may be. The city is situated on the top of a mountain, one of the furthest outposts of the great chain of the Apennines, — 20 — THE LAST DAT AT SAN SALVATOEE. immediately overlooking the Maremma of Tuscany. The Maremma (or Marittima, i. e. the sea^coast district) is a low- lying region much infested by malaria, which has been formed in the course of ages, and is still being formed, by the detritus from the friable sides of the mountain range.* This friability is especially characteristic of all this part of the Apennine range; and the consequences arising from it have produced mischief very difficult to deal with in many parts of Italy. But the disasters liable to be caused by it nowhere present themselves to the eye in so visible, immediate, and urgent a form as at Yolterra. On the north side of the mountain its almost precipitous flank is deeply cut by a huge ravine or gorge of the most hideous appearance. No green thing of any kind, no blade of grass even, clothes any part of the ghastly sides of this gaping wound in the earth's face. The colours of the naked soil — a variety of unsightly and unwhole- some-looking yellows, blues, greens, and blacks, smeared and mixed and striped by the action of the oozing water, which trickles out of the sides in many places — declare plainly enough the inability of this accursed-looking heap of Nature's refuse-materials to bring forth any good thing. As one stands, — cautious, and with carefal attention to one's foot- hold — on the dizzy brink of ~the repulsive chasm, looking down into its weird depths and the billowy mud-sea which seems to be its far-away bottom, and appears to overflow in a river of barrenness far over the plain below ; — standing there, with the fine old city and the green of earth's surface all behind one, the hideous scene below might seem the monstrous and accursed failure of some geologic-minded Faust. Such is the appearance of the "Baize" at Volterra, — a place to be shunned, and as far as possible kept out of sight — 21 — THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. by the city condemned to its vicinage, to be made a bugbear to children by cross nurses, and a terror to morbid imaginations by yet more unkindly superstitions. And such may the place have been considered by the people of Volterra till about the end of the sixteenth century. Since that time they have been compelled to bestow a far larger and more serious consideration on the fearful wound in the side of their mountain. For at that period it began to become evident that the hideous precipice was approacliing their city ! The foul open-throated monster began slowly but certainly to move ! And since that time it has never ceased to advance towards the dismayed city. In 1627, the church of San Giusto and the neighbouring habitations were engulphed. A quarter of a century more, and another church, which was supposed to be too far from the fatal brink to be in danger, went down the insatiable maw I No ruins, no stone, no trace to be seen below ! All gone, swallowed up in fathomless abysses of the billowy mud-sea ! Means, such as science could suggest, have been adopted for staying the onward progress of the devouring gulf; but all in vain. Cosmo II. made attempts to collect the subter- ranean waters, — which doubtless are excavating far away below what will one day be the grave of Volterra — and carry them away by an artificial channel. All in vain. The insatiable gulf moves steadily onwards towards the walls of the city. It is now not far from the old Etruscan wall ; and doubtless, ere long, those huge stones, which have remained in their places some three thousand years, will topple over into the mud-sea which has swallowed the more puny buildings of later generations. But the mighty old walls of those giant builders will yet see the doom-day of another ancient fabric, still in its — 22 — THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. infancy according to their standard of duration, before their own last day shall arrive. The fine old Camaldolese church and monastery of San Salvatore now stands, waiting its sure and not distant doom, on the fatal brink of the precipice. Since the eleventh century it has stood there ; and now each winter is likely to be its last. So precarious had its position become some few years since, that it was deemed necessary, as a measure of prudence, that the Camaldolese family which inhabited it should be removed. The simple-minded old fathers would fain have remained within the venerable walls which had sheltered them so long. True, the seniors of the convent could not deny that the extreme edge of the threat- ening gulf had been much farther off from the Convent wall in the days of their novitiate. One ancient recluse could remember, as if it had been yesterday, gathering flowers for the decoration of the Virgin's altar, from a white thorn, then ■growing in a hedge that skirted the Convent paddock, whole yards of which had since that time sunk into the abyss ! But that was when his beard was black, and his back straight, some sixty years ago. A younger brother had taken note of the day when the tall crucifix, which stood by the side of the path, at that time leading from the Convent to another suburb of the city, had disappeared. But that, too, was a good twenty years ago. The crucifix had stood much nearer to the Convent than the white thorn. That could not be denied. But still, twenty years was a long time — more than enough to place most of those who were called on to turn out of their old home beyond all danger of gulfs and precipices. Perhaps not beyond all danger though ! For it was sad to think of the fate that surely awaited the last resting-places of the past generations of the monastic family — Saints and Abbots, whose — 23 — THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. grey moss-grown tombstones expressed the fond hope that the dust of their tenants would rest in peace, where their brethren had laid them, tiU it should be recalled to life hj the last trumpet ! All these, and the memory of them, must go down in hideous and confused ruin, together with the walls, which they had sanctified by long years of penance, prayer, and holy living, down into the unfathomable and voracious mud-sea below them ! Yet the white-robed old men looked wistfully at the walls which had become a part of their lives, and of each man's individual consciousness ; and would fain have remained to share the fate of their dwelling, be that what it might, " putting their trust in Providence," instead of in the trouble- some and disagreeable dictates of worldly prudence. The poor old fathers could not be permitted, however, to decide for themselves in this matter. The civil authorities of the city deemed it their duty to provide against the chance of a disaster ; and a day was fixed, on which the fine old Abbey was to be deserted and left to its fate. Very memorable, of course, was that day of flitting in the uneventful lives of the recluses ; but not a little memorable, also, to those who witnessed the scene, was that last day of leave-taking and that last night in the old home. There had been much ado, of course — real heavy work, and long preparation for the moving of all the conventual valu- ables and property. But it was in that last night that each sorrowing inmate of the Abbey had to take leave of his own cell, and to collect and prepare for transport the little matters of individual property — some half-crown's worth, perhaps, per man — infinitesimal infractions of the law of monastic poverty ; — minima ; so small that not even the minuteness of monastic — 24 — THE LAST DAT AT SAN SALVATORE. law could take heed of them ; — a small provision of snuffy a favourite crucifix, a well-thumbed devotional volume or two ; — but all precious to their simple owners as the jewels of a duchess to the possessor of them. And it was strange, and almost piteous, to mark the bustle, the fuss, the cares, of the old men engaged in a work which was not only new to them, but which it had never entered their imaginations as possible that they should ever have to perform in this world. A farewell mass had, of course, to be said during the morning hours of that last day, at each of the many altars in the church and its adjacent chapels, before each of them was dismantled and desecrated; but one was 'left till the morning itself of the flitting, for the performance of the necessary duties of the rule by the fathers, before they started on their sorrowful pilgrimage. Then came the last meal in the old refectory, duly accompanied, according to rule, by a reading from some approved author by one of the community. Then every part of the venerable edifice had to be visited and revisited — chapels, garden, cloisters, chapter- house, and last, not least, the modest cemetery, so soon to be itself buried with all its tenants ! There was little of rest and less of sleep within the Abbey of San Salvatore that night. The monastic rule requires certain services to be performed during the hours of the night; and on this occasion there were assuredly no absen- tees; and the little congregation was in no hurry to return to their pallets in each narrow cell. Much of the night was spent by many of them in prayer and devotional meditations ; and it is not dlflScult to imagine the nature of the petitions preferred, and the thoughts which occupied the minds of the poor old exiles during those hours of disquietude and strange — 25 — E THE LAST DAY AT SAN SALVATORE. excitement to men unused to events of any kind, and utterly confounded and unnerved by one of so unprecedented and terrible a character. At last came the moment at which it was necessary to start on their short, but to them fearful journey. Of course it was to be performed processionally. Out from the great doors of the church, thrown wide for the last time, till they shall be flung in ruin from the toppling walls, came forth the little band, — the crucifix and sacred banners leading the way, the fathers two and two, then the aged abbot, and the lay brothers behind him. Chanting a penitential psalm as they went, with many a reverted look, they advanced towards the gate of the city. But ere they entered it, when the procession had reached the last spot from which the doomed Abbey was yet visible, by common accord the whole band paused, and turned round to take a last, long look at the walls, which were so much more to them in many ways than a free secular home can ever be to its inhabitants. For awhile they stood, gazing, absorbed, the banners planted on the ground, the chant fallen to silence. Then, with an effort, their leading cross was again lifted, they raised again the wailing psalm- tune, and turned their faces to the new home prepared for them in the city. The fine old Abbey stands yet hovering on the edge of the crumbling, faithless soil, but must soon — very soon — ^follow the many buildings which have been swallowed up before it ; and must precede the too certain ruin of those behind it at no very distant day. When the writer last left the fatal spot, there were still a couple of lay brothers left in charge of the building, (under cautious daily surveillance,) for it had not yet been — 26 — THE LAST DAT AT SAN SALVATORE. completely denuded of the pictures and other works of art which adoi^ed its walls. But the desolation of the spot, as it stood there with gaping windows and unclosed doors, awaiting from day to day the hour of its sure destruction was striking enough. And when — this winter, probably — that hour shall arrive, it will hardly make so strong an impression on the little world of Volterra as did the day on which the sad procession of monks filed through their streets on their way to a new home. — 27 — YOUTH, LOVE, AND DEATH, CUEEENT, rapid, buoyant, clear, Whose blithe fresh song wo pause to hear ; A choral dance of tireless feet ; Youth's voice is music joyful-sweet — Joyful-sweet ! II. A melody in minor key ; Poem, where grief and ecstasy In sudden thrills of passion meet; Love's voice is music bitter-sweet — Bitter-sweet I III. , A nightingale's triumphant strain. Victorious over thorny pain. Sublime, pathetic, full, complete. Death's voice is music angel-sweet — Angel-swect ! — 28 — IsA Blagdek. t §.tix ^l^watr 0f S'^uonx. TOLD TO THE AUTHOR BY TH"? LATE SIB CUABLES NAPIJEB. %^4rjf LEVEN men of England A breastwork charged in vain, Eleven men of England Lie stripped, and gashed, and slain. Skin ; but of foes that guarded Their rock-built fortress well, Some twenty had besn mastered "When the last soldier fell. Whilst Napier piloted his wondrous way Across the, sand-waves of the desert sea. Then flashed at once, on each fierce clan, dismay. Lord of their wild Truckee. These missed the glen to which their steps were bent. Mistook a mandate, from afar half-heard. And, in that glorious error, calmly went To death, without a word. — 29 — THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. The robber chief mused deeply Above those daring dead. " Bring here," at length he shouted, " Bring quick, the battle thread. Let Eblis blast for ever Their souls, if Allah will ; But we must keep unbroken The old rules of the Hill. " Before the Ghiznee tiger Leapt forth to burn and slay. Before the holy Prophet Taught our grim tribes to pray. Before Secunder's lances Pierced through each Indian glen. The mountain laws of honour Were framed for fearless men. " Still, when a chief dies bravely, "We bind with green one wrist — Green for the brave, for heroes One crimson thread we twist. Say ye, oh gallant hillmen. For these, whose life has fled. Which is the fitting colour. The green one or the red?" " Our brethren, laid in honoured graves, may wear Their green reward," each noble savage said ; " To these, whom hawks and hungry wolves shall tear. Who dares deny the red ? " — 30 — THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. Thus, conquering hate, and steadfast to the right. Fresh from the heart that haughty verdict came ; Beneath a waning moon, each spectral height Rolled back its loud acclaim. Once more the chief gazed keenly Down on those daring dead ; From his good sword their heart's blood Crept to that crimson thread. Once more he cried, " The judgment. Good friends, is wise and true. But though the red be given, Have we not more to do ? " These were not stirred by anger. Nor yet by lust made bold ; Benown they thought above them, Nor did they look for gold. To them their leader's signal Was as the voice of God : Unmoved, and uncomplaining, The path it showed they trod. " As, without sound or struggle. The stars unhurrying march. Where Allah's finger guides them. Through yonder purple arch. These Franks, sublimely silent. Without a quickened breath. Went, in the strength of duty. Straight to their goal of death. — 31 — THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. " If I were now to ask you, To name our bravest man. Ye all at once would answer. They called him Mehrab Khan, He sleeps among his fathers, Dear to our native land. With the bright mark he bled for Firm round his faithful hand. " The songs they sing of lioostum Fill all the past with light; If truth be in their music. He was a noble knight. But were those heroes livinsc. And strong for battle still. Would Mehrab Khan or Roostum Have climbed, like these, the hill?" And they replied, " Though Mehrab Khan was brave. As chief, he chose himself what risks to run ; Prince Roostum lied, his forfeit life to save, Which these had never done." " Enough ! " he shouted fiercely, " Doomed though they be to hell. Bind fast the crimson trophy Round both wrists — bind it well. Who knows but that great Allah May grudge such matchless men. With none so decked in Heaven, To the fiend's flaming den." — 32 — THE KED THREAD OF HOSTOUK. Then all those gallant robbers Shouted a stem Amen ; They raised the slaughtered sergeant. They raised his mangled ten. And when we found their bodies Left bleaching in the wind, Axovmdboth wrists in glory That crimson thread was twined. Then Napier's knightly heart, touched to the core. Rung, like an echo, to that knightly deed : He bade its memory live for evermore. That those who run may read. r. D0T13. 3.3 — By the Author of "Mrs. Maegaeet Maitland," etc., etc. £'LL no' meddle wi' ye," said a small voice close to the hedge. The little owner of it stood defiant but trem- bling, looking from under the shadow of his sunburnt frowning eyebrows, with eyes that but for very terror would have been full of tears, at the little group of young men approaching him. It was twilight, and all that little Walter could see of the wayfarers was, that they were sailors, and that the leader had a gold band round his cap. The child discerned instinctively that he had encountered a party from that dreaded cutter which lay up the Frith like a bird of prey, to pounce on all unwary seamen. For it was " the time of the war " — significant sound to all ears that remember it ; and the British navy, popular as it was, had to be recruited by means of something worse than conscription, by impressment ; and in this little suffering community the horror of the press sat heavy on all souls, kindling precocious notions of fear and self-defence even in infantine bosoms. Little Walter Erskine was six years old. He stood with his little brown hands knotted together in an attitude of — 34 — A BOY OF FIFE. suspicion, defiance, and concealed terror, which no anxious family father could have surpassed; lowering with his blue eyes upon the laughing young lieutenant who stood willing to parley. The hedge was wet with recent rain, the sky all shrouded with tumbled heaps of clouds, and the sound of unseen running water, " the running of the paths after rain," blending with the soft distant rustle of the unseen sea. " I'll no' meddle wi' ye," said Walter, edging backwards to the termination of the hedge, where, if he could but reach the spot, there was a chance of flight. The Kttle party which had caused such fright to "Walter stood before him, vast in the darkness, one figure behind the other, watching the child's retreat with silent amusement ; but when he had edged along to that object of his hopes, and with a cry of terror and temerity rushed across the road towards the visible village houses where he could obtain shelter, the little fugitive was pursued and brought back, with remorseless laughter. Struggling desperately, and with a heroic effort of manliness resisting the temptation to bite and scratch and cry, the boy was brought before the leader of the dreaded band. Here, taking courage from desperation, Walter changed his tactics. " Ye canna meddle wi' me — ^ye canna press me like you do the other men !" cried the boy, "for I have my protection. Tell him to baud off his hand, and I'll let you see't." " But if I baud off my hand," said the man who had caught him, in a voice strangely familiar to belong to one of the cutter's men, " you'll rin away." Walter made no answer, but stood firm, eyeing with profound contempt the mean Colossus who had doubted his honour. Then, after much rummaging in his boyish pocket, full of a salt water miscellany, the child produced proudly the — 35 — A BOY OF FIFE. protection which was to save him from the press. Such a travestie of a scene, sometimes heartrending enough, as the young officer well knew, subdued his mirth a little. He looked at the bit of paper which Walter rested his hopes on, and bowed in mock respect. "It's all right, my man — ^it appears I can't take you," said the good-humoured lieutenant. " If all the men in Anster were as well off, we might turn back and go no further. So your name's Erskine ? That's not a fisher's name." " I'm no' a fisher's son," said Walter, indignantly : then pausing with a generous artifice ; "if I was you I would gang away back to the cutter ; plenty more in Anster have protec- tions as well as me," said the child, with a glance from under his sunburnt eyebrows — "and oh, man, if ye saw the wives greetin' ! — I would turn a rebel, if it was me I " The burst of laughter with which this valorous sentiment was received roused Walter's wrath. He faced upon his persecutors, turning from one to another, with his little brown fists clenched tight. "If I was a man I would fecht ye a'l" cried the child, in shriU passion. "I would think shame to come into folks' houses, and carry their men away, if I was you. I would rather be a fisher and gang to the drave, than wear a gold band on my bonnet and steal away the women's men ! " This outcry of natural indignation had a great effect upon Walter's unseen adversaries. With various exclamations they turned away, some rubbing rough hands over their eyes. The lieutenant laid his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder. " Come along, little hero — I am not going to steal away the women's men," said the young officer. " Did you never hear that the minister had a son in the cutter who would never — 36 — A BOY OF FIFE. harm hie old friends ? — and look here," said the good-humoured sailorj seizing the child and tossing him up to his shoulder, on a level with the faces, unrecognisable in the darkness, of the men he had defied : "Look here — do you think that big fellow there is one of a press gang ? " Walter uttered a cry of surprise and disgust, and struggled down from the stranger's grasp. " It's big Jamie Horsburgh," cried "Walter — ^"its no' the cutter's men! Te've a' been making a fool of me. Let me go ; and a' this time they'll think I'm pressed, that I've no' come hame ! " With which indignant words the child struggled to his feet, plunged his hands into his pockets, and disdaining to look behind him or take any notice of his persecutors, marched, affionted and defiant, home. Ten years after this childish burlesque of one of the saddest features of the time, the entire township of St. Monance was fluttered by the sudden appearance of a strange sail, fighting gallantly through a gale on the Frith, and aiming distinctly at the harbour of that picturesque but most fishy sea-village. A very strange sail ; of foreign lig and outlandish aspect, and altogether unknown to the oldest and wisest of those fisher- patriarchs, the business of whose life it was to inspect and keep a record of all the wayfarers who went up and down the Frith. The excitement caused by this sudden appearance brought all the population to the shore. The women stayed the needle in the net, the very hubbub about the newly arrived boat in the harbour, with its silvery cargo of "baddies" was hushed in the greater excitement. The spray dashing over the low black lines of rock, the roll of heavy waves upon — 37 — A BOY OF FIFE. that broken coast, the sinister white that broke into angry snarls the dark, broad, frowning surface of the Frith, increased the stir by providing a fit landscape for its fear and wonder. On the extremity of the pier, groups were collected in earnest discussion. "She's no Dutch. Na, na, far ower licht for a Dutch boat^^nor out o' none of the north ports where I'm acquaint," said an old sailor, watching through his glass every movement of the doubtful stranger. "Let me see," exclaimed a veteran with a medal on his breast, lately invalided, and an authority on strange sails — - " Dutch ! ye may say sae ! She's just a French sloop and no other thing — a creature of a gunboat, a' fire and flame. Bring out the auld cannon that's in Newark yonder. Lads, light the beacon on the Billy-ness. Do ye hear what I'm saying — its the French ! Afore she wins up further to do mischief a gun might bring her to! She's but the vanj tak' ye my word there's mair behind." " Oh, but if ane might ken what spite the French could have at St. Monance!" said a young woman. "I would be real sure before I would fire a gun." "Far mair like it's a prize," said another worthy — "there's nae pennon ; but I'm for doing nothing rash ; let the lads watch, if ye will — but I would wait the morning light." This prudent decision was gradually resolved upon. The spectators dispersed by degrees, driven off by the storm and the darkness, and inhospitable aspect of the night ; while the pressure of private anxieties touching "our men," many of whom were at sea, sufficed to occupy the domestic mind, and divert it from the terrors of a local invasion. Nevertheless, thebaillies held solemn council on the subject over their toddy, and with a thrill of excitement and possible danger, the — 38 — A BOY OF FIFE. distinction of the advanced guard in a peril more imaginary than real, the little poptdation went to rest. In the morning the strange craft lay in the harbour, with the English flag waving triumphant from her masts : and just as the roused community began to pour out of all its cottage doors to inquire about and inspect the stranger, a trim man-of- war's boat shot through the little harbour. The morning was bright and mUd, full of that sweet calm after a storm which gives a kind of infantine freshness and exhilaration to the tranquil sea, still owning a thriU of the agitation which is past. The spray dashed in playful handfuls over the rocks, the old church rose grey and calm into the sunshine, the green corn waved all dewy in the morning air. The boats in St. Monance harbour lay motionless, scarcely swaying with the stir of that silvery water, all dappled with streaks of colour, like the sky with clouds. Kapidly the boat from the strange craft came in over those soft ripples. In the bows sat a figure not unfamiliar to the eyes of St. Monance. Bold eyes, full of sweet boyish pride and laughter, cheeks as brown as those of the sailors by his side — there he sat, full sixteen, with his little dirk, dear warlike symbol, his cap with its band of lace, his air of command and authority. There went a cry over the whole town, east and west. The sound of it penetrated the stillest, most secluded house in the place — and drew down to the beach, all trembling with terror and hope, a mother who could not believe her ears. It was little Walter ErsMne, no longer in any terror of being pressed; ready, on the contrary, with inimitable airs of despotism, to press the biggest man in St. Monance ; a midshipman, happiest of middies, intrusted with the bringing home of a French prize, which the daring imp had brought into his native waters by the way — — 39 — A BOY OF FIFE. being bound for SpitheadI If anybody can fancy anything more joyful or triumphant than the young hero's state of mind after this achievement, I leave it to such a glowing imagina- tion to complete the tale. But somewhere within British boundaries there may still survive a grey-haired captain, whose conscious imagination reminds him of that little harbour of St. Monance, and of this daring freak of the sailor boy — 40 — ^. HIGH of the Angels sang so well in Heaven That the approving Archon of the choir Cried " Come up hither ! " and he, ^''-- going higher. Carried a note out of the choral seven ? Whereat that Cherub to whom choice is given. Among the singers that on earth aspire. Beckoned thee from us, and thou, and thy lyre. Sudden ascended out of sight. Yet even In Heaven thou weepest. Vain (true wife !) to drown Thy voice ; for while that harp is thine, new grace Will bid thee on from him thou wouldst await. Ah ! beg thy neighbour's harp and lend thine own ; So thou, uncalled, shalt still sit next the gate. And at thy faithful side renew a vacant place. StDSET DoBELl. -*I"'f""'j^ ^ Wimhx <^0ii|j[» I. HAT dost thou, laggard Daffodil, Tarrying so long- beneath the sod? Hesper, thy mate, o't r yonder hill Looks down and strikes with silver rod The pools that mirrored thee last yeai-. But cannot find thee far or near. II. Pale Primrose 1 for a smile of thine Gladly to earth these hands would pour An ivied urn of purple wine, Such as at Naxos Bacchus bore Watching with fixed black eyes the while That pirate barque draw near his isle I III. Shake down, dark Pine, thy scalp of snow — Pais ) witch, stripped bare, grim Ash-tree tall I Ye ivy masses that now swing slow — 42 — A WINTER S0>;G. Now shudder in spasms on the garden wall, Shake down your load and the borders strew — The rosemary borders and banks of rue. IV. The Robin, winter's Nightingale, Hung mute to-day on the blackthorn brake ; We heard but the water-fowl pipe and wail Fluting aloud on the lake ; Who hears that bell-note so clear and free Though inland he stands, beholds the sea. As the moon that rises of saffron hue Ascending, changes to white. So the year, with the Daffodil rising new. On Narcissus will soon alight : — Rise up, thou Daffodil, rise ! With thee The year begins, and the springtide glee ! AUBBET DE VeKE. — 43 — By Theodosia Teollope. «»<» T is a fact too trite to require proving, that no migratory creature carries the hahlts and require- ments of his home-life so obstinately round the world with him, in the teeth of opposing circum- stance, as the travelling Englishman. Whether on the southern shore of the Channel, or the banks of the White Nile, wherever he sets up his temporary rest, he generally manages to gather his household gods or Iheir substitutes about him, and with little allowance for foreign usage, and less for foreign climate, intrenches himself within the i-ampart of the tenth-rate England he sets up, through the loopholes of which he scarcely deigns to give a glance at the social existence around him, except when grumblingly compelled by some irresistible necessity to do so. Until within the last very few years, of the thousands of wandering English who duly did their Italy from Turin to Sorrento and back again — art galleries, brie a brae shops. Church ceremonies, and Court fStes inclusive — not one in five hundred knew a whit more when he rumbled out over the Corniche road than when he rumbled in over the Cenis, of the people among whom his six or eight months had been spent. — 44 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. Things are somewhat changed now. The name of Italy has become a living voice, not a mere dead echo, in the ears of a large number of our countrymen, and it is the fashion with a still larger portion, to know something more of the national life of the beautiful Peninsula, than could be gathered from a passing intercourse with couriers, valets de place, vetturini, antiquity-vendors, and the whole hungry tribe of parasites who live by, and on, the passing stranger. In the winter season too, and amid the carnival gaieties of the great cities, they may catch stray glimpses now and then of Italian society, though probably neither of the worthiest nor the most characteristic kind. But of the summer existence of the Italians, the homely and utterly unpretentious amusements of the Villeggiatura in Spring or Vintage time, and the peculiar life of the coveted sea-side trip, so dear to the higher and middle classes of the inland cities in the burning heats of July and Au'gust, very few English, except those long resident in Italy, have any but a very vague idea ; for the first warm days of June send them rushing like a flock of scared sheep, either to the shadow of the Alps, or to an Anglicised inland nook or two where the territory and all its plenishings seem so exclu- sively their own, that the passing presence of any but an English or American face among the visitors, appears rather an intrusion than a matter of course. This is especially the case in Tuscany, and though in the course of the season its two sea-bathing places, Leghorn and Viareggio, are visited by not a few of our countrymen and women, yet the immense preponderance of the genuine Italian element in the social life of those places compels the English, either to swim with the stream, or to undergo the isolation of a very small minority ; for nothing can be much — 45 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. more unlike the ways of an English sea-side life than that of a Tuscan bathing-place. Let us take Leghorn for instance ; a common-place seaport town, with a chance medley of population, and no marked character to speak of at any other time of the year, Leghorn has no particular town or country beauties to boast of; neither churches, palaces, nor galleries, picturesque points of view, nor fashionable reading rooms. Worse than this, it has neither sands nor bathing machines, nor even the poor consolation of the narrowest shingly beach for the use of its thousands of bathers and promenaders. Yet more of bathing, out-of-doors junketing and promenading, goes on there during the dog-days every year, than it would seem possible to cram into a similar amount of hours, though it not unfrequently happens that the calm hot weather, deemed indispensable to sea-side life in Italy, lasts unbroken through the whole of the two months' bagnatura or bathing season, and leaves every day and night available for all the pleasures that haunt the shore of the tepid, turquoise-blue Mediterranean. To make up for the above-mentioned lack of beach and bathing machines, Leghorn displays a handsome sea-side pro- menade, leading from the Porta a Mare, as far as the Ardenza, a large boarding Establishment nearly two miles distant on the shore. For a good part of the way a similar broad gravelled walk and a carriage road, always well watered, and lined with stone benches and pallid young trees, run parallel to that at the water's edge, which is divided from them by grass-plots and hedges of the faded grey-green tamarisks, whose foliage can brave the sea wind and spray. At three or four points of this pleasant promenade, which is skirted by lodging-houses of all sorts and sizes, low bridges and piers of masonry run out into the shallow sea, and on these are erected every spring whole — 46 — A MEDITEHUANEAN BATHING-PLACE. colonies of small booths, made up of wood-work and canvas curtains, which can be speedily taken down in rough weather. Each booth forms a shady and commodious bathing-place among the shoaly rocks. Some are deeper, some shallower ; some more, some less exposed ; and through them the rippling waves from the open sea run in and out, and the bather, if an expert swimmer, by merely Ufting the canvas curtain at the end, can strike out into the broad sunshine across the tempting expanse of glittering water. Each separate colony of baths has its staff of women, engaged exclusively in drying and arranging the piles of linen required by the bathers, and of sun-bronzed, barelegged, and barefooted young bathing-men, teaching the neophytes and children to swim in the shallow water, between the knots of canvas booths, and near the bridges with their white awnings, under which lounge groups of lookers-on, chiefly female, chattering, encouraging and laughing at the ungainly attempts of the dripping and panting swimmers. The largest and most frequented of the bathing- places is that called the Bagni Pancaldi, which boasts of no less than fifty-seven baths on a labyrinth of little piers con- nected by bridges, so as to allow fuU passage to the waves, and numbers as many as seven hundred bathers a day in the height of the season. It has its cafe, which serves out ices and refreshments, as well as breakfasts, luncheons, and suppers innumerable, from dawn tiU midnight, on the broad platform on which it stands. It has its military bands and impromptu dances from time to time, its saloon with a smart chandelier, and a long-sufiering piano a good deal the worse for the sea damp, and in every nook and corner it has its voluminous stacks of homely chairs, to be brought out at dusk v/hen the lamps are lighted under the awnings, and occupied in hundreds, — 47 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. by rows and groups of full-dressed belles and their attendant cavaliers. And truly, the belle of the Leghorn hagnatura enjoys no sinecure if she be exact in the performance of the duties of her station, to which three or even four toilettes a day are absolutely indispensable ; for the daily life of the sea-side Lionne — la Marchesa we will call her— is usually parcelled out after this wise. She must rise early, however late she may have gone to bed, and drive to the baths, where, towards nine o'clock she may be seen, both before and after her bath, in her trailing white robes, (half a yard at least of whose embroidery must sweep the pavement,) her brilliant-coloured waist ribbons, and tiny diadem-shaped hat and plume, seated wherever the air blows freshest, languidly chatting, fan in hand, with a select circle of worshippers, straw-hatted, and clad in white or pale grey suits from head to heel, while more than one of the party has probably acquired something of a Bedlam air, by having his head close shaved all over, in a manner more common than becoming among young Italians during the summer heats. Our Marchesa may breakfast with her children, if she have any, al fresco at the baths, in which case she remains there till after mid-day ; but she more probably returns to take her meal at her apartment, in one of the tall balconied houses which front the sea. Her noble spouse, if not a totally idle man, is meanwhile, most likely, spending his August between the old ancestral town palazzo, and the equally ancient family villa, nestled against its hill-side of vine and olive, in the midst of a country solitude, and will only run down to see her on Sunday by the pleasure-train from Florence, which weekly brings in above two thousand persons in the cool of the morning, and whisks them back again to the capital about ten at night. After her breakfast the Marchesa — 48 — A MEDITERRAITEAN BATIIIN^Q-PLACE. may snsitch a couple of hours' sleep, and then, newly and more quietly attired, drive into town, if the heat be not too fierce, to pay a few visits, or cheapen an African Bournous or a Chinese fan at Arbib's ; thence to return to her three o'clock dinner, and its following siesta under the mosquito curtains, with carefully closed Venetian blinds, at almost the only period of the four and twenty hours which gives a little respite from the roll of carriages on the promenade, hurrying to and from the different bathing-places. At seven in the evening forth comes the Marches a again in all her glory, and her well- appointed open carriage, which the transparent skirts of her elaborate toilette overflow with their delicately tinted furbelows, and bonnetted after the most approved mode ; for the jaunty charms of the little plumed hat she mojt commonly leaves to the adornment of damsels in their teens, when she assumes the severer panoply of the evening drive. Mingling with the crowd of carriages, gigs, and riders, along the sea road to the Ardenza, when arrived there, her equipage falls into the string of carriages moving at a snail's pace round and round the formally planted parterres, where the almond scent of the clusters of pink oleander flowers is heavy on the air, or stops awhile by the breezy parapet of the piazzone skirting the sea, that she may exchange smiles, or the pretty Tuscan hand- flutter of greeting, common to high and low, with others of her kind ; while the sun goes down behind the pale lilac outlines of Elba in a crimson haze of splendour, and the fantastic profile of the beautiful Carrara mountains and the far-stretching coast of the Eiviera make a rosy background to the glittering fortifications and tall dark masts of the Port. Returning homewards about eight o'clock, under the starlight, which follows hard upon sunset south of the Alps, the — 49 — H A MEDITERRANEAN BATIIING-rLACE. Marchesa dismisses her carriage at the gate of the PancaMi baths, where some obsequious cavalier is sure to be in waiting for her coming to lead her to her wonted chair in the wonted circle of her habitues, where with ices and small talk time wears away till ten. Then if, as often happens, she have to appear at one of the balls so frequently given during the bathing season, especially by such of the wealthy Livornese as are blest with the possession of a town garden adaptable to the purposes of f^te-giving, the fair Marchesa must needs desert her pleasant gossipping lounge at the baths for the important labours of her fourth toilette. If no such duty summon her homeward, she will remain in the baths till after midnight, and then will very probably join one of the merry supper parties, which are the delight of all classes of sea-side going Italians. These suppers sometimes number as many as forty or fifty guests, especially when composed of the bourgeois portion of the visitors. The tables are always spread in the open air, or with only a canvas awning overhead, and the fare, though good in its way, is not particularly choice, consisting chiefly of cold meats, oysters, various kinds of small shell fish, dressed in a peculiar fashion, which bears the queer name of *' cacciuco^'' with yolk of egg and lemon ; fried red mullets, and above all abounding platters of heaped up maccaroni swimming in butter and covered with grated cheese, for the preparation of which dainty, one of the restaurateurs on the promenade is especially famous. Good native, and indifferent foreign, wines wash down the repast, wliich is not seldom enlivened by a band of music and followed by dancing, till daylight begins to glimmer over the dim blue outline of Montenero, high up on whose slope is perched the famous sanctuary of the Madonna, whose church, overlooking a wide expanse of sea, is so — 50 — A MEDITERRAITOAN BATHING-PLACE. strangely hung about with oflFerings and votive pictures by the sailors of the coast, as to form one of the very few remarkable points of excursion in the neighbourhood. The three or four hours of rest which Intervene betwixt these late night watches and the morning bath would be a very insufficient modicum of sleep for the bathers, were it not for the after-dinner siesta in which almost every one indulges ; but it is strange to see the small amount of sleep which appears to suffice for Italians of all ranks during the summer months, when mere infants may constantly be seen playing before the doors without a sign of weariness till ten or eleven o'clock at night, aud parties of young men wander about quavering their stornelli in chorus till so late an hour, that in truth they never seem to go to bed at all. The bathing itself is a much more lazy and luxurious affiiir than on our English coasts, with their sharper breezes and lashing waves. Many a bather In the Mediterranean who has no knowledge of swimming, wiU yet stay from half an hour to an hour in the glittering transparent water, which rocks him languidly as it rustles in and out of his curtained bathing- place. Many take two such baths a day, and some few enjoy this pleasure after night-fall, when, at a moment's notice, lamps are duly placed in the baracche or booths for their accommodation. But to see the prettiest phase of the Leghorn hagnatura, one must be present at one of its crowded evening sea-side promenades on some Sunday or festa day in August. The sky has been cloudless and breathless ever since the Florence pleasure-train brought down its thousands of holiday-keepers at nine o'clock a.m. The attendants at every bathing-place, and the coatless waiters at every trattoria on the shore, have — 51 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. been worried to desperation by frantic calls for an impossible amount of service. Towards sunset a soft, light air begins to breathe up from the sea, and here and there a narrow band of amethyst shot with blue crosses the molten glass of the water, on which the long drawn reflections of the tall lighthouse, the shipping and the snowy-sailed fishing boats, tremble and glimmer, down to the shallows which skirt the sea wall. The Avhite canvas roofs and awnings of the different colonies of baths, with their tricoloured flags gaily fluttering in the evening air, make them look so many miniature camps pitched in the cool water, and little pleasure boats with flounced awnings and gay pennants paddle hither and thither, while the big black and red steamboat, bound for Naples, glides out from behind the lighthouse and takes her way southwards with a dignified business-like air, leaving a red grey fan-streak of smoke a mile behind her. Anon from the Porta a Mare comes pouring out all Leghorn and a good portion of Florence in its best bravery. Smart carriages and cabs, which in Leghorn are especially neat and well appointed, light phaetons and farfalline or butterflies, with here and there one of the small springless baroccini of the country, drawn at a headlong pace by a stout little black pony with queer brass-studded harness and lon^ scarlet and white tassels floating from his ears, form a con- tinuous stream along the carriage drive. A very large portion of the dames and damsels reclining in these equipages, fan in hand, are in full evening dress, with bare neck and arms, shaded by a light lace shawl. The throng of pedestrians, too, is full of gay and rather exaggerated toilettes, to which the great prevalence of white gives a pleasant airy effect. There are numbers of pretty children skirmishing on the out- skirts of the crowd and standing round the itinerant water-melon — .'-,2 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. vendors' table and basket piled with great shining green fruit, with a huge bunch of rosy oleander flowers in the centre, and one of the melons divided in half to show the cold crimson pulp within. Buxom Lucchese and Eoman nurses meantime saunter along, dandling their curly-pated charges, the Romans resplen- dent in scarlet ribbons and gilt bodkins passed through their thick black braids, and the Lucchese wearing the eminently graceful silken or embroidered muslin head-kerchief hanging from the knot of hair behind and showing off their pretty and delicate though sunburnt faces and flashing teeth to the best advantage. But the real helles of the promenade on these festa days are the Llvornese Grisettes, a class famous throughout Italy for their personal charms, while they halt not a whit behind their sisters of France in their skill in adorning them. The Livornese Grisette is considerably above the common height, and especially proud of her lithe easy shape and the softly rounded contours of her throat and bust. Whether olive- pale brunette, or, as often happens, delicate blonde, she never looks faded, either in dress or complexion. The outline of her features finely cut and regular, and the beauty of the eyes and eyebrows remarkable even in Italy. She wears simple materials made up in the extreme of the reigning mode. Her mass of glossy hair is arranged with infinite skill and care, and just at the present time she delights in raising it from the fore- head into a double or triple top knot of snaky waves, something resembling the wonderful Court head-dresses of our grand- mothers' day, and finishing off in a huge chignon on the neck. Over this, low down on the head behind, and fastened lightly under the chin, is the veriest phantom of a coquettish little white veil or gauzy handkerchief, coaxed into its difiicult posi- tion by some recondite artistic process, and putting to shame — 53 — A MEDITERRANEAN BATHING-PLACE. by its simple elegance the costly head millinery of wealthier dames. Among the lowest class of Livornese women too — the fruit-vendors, fishwomen, and water-carriers — the same type of beauty in face and figure may be traced, and these also have the same graceful knack as the Grisettes, of half- hiding their well-dressed hair under a silk handkerchief, sometimes of pure white, sometimes with a bright coloured border, as on the festa day they step jauntily along the gravel walk towards the Ardenza, two or three abreast, chattering and flirting their fans in concert, with strings of coral round their brown throats, and flaring silk aprons often of the three national colours, for your Livornese fish-wife is generally of ultra-liberal politics. So merrily moves the great crowd of carriages and pedes- trians along the shore, and so returns again, though in more disjointed fashion, after the Ave Maria bell has sounded to its city home ; such as can afford the luxury, to enjoy an ice or a glass of lemonade at one of the cafSs in Via Grande, and the poorer to refresh themselves with a farthing slice of ice-cold water-melon and a gossip in front of the house door, before they betake themselves to bed. — 54 — S §efji0it for n ^m. To TlIE COOSTESS GdiCCIOH WITH HKR IIaIB UKBOUSD. LlHE Italian Muse, from whose enchanting eyes Great England's Poet drew his melodies. Sate floating in a solitary shell On the calm lake of an Ausonian dell : One hand festoon'd her amber-scented tress The loosen'd scarf of Love in idleness. An amorous zephyr touch'd that silken sail Whose golden meshes caught the struggling gale ; Then, like an ivory spar, her arm she spread To hold the breezes flutt'ring o'er her head — The yielding shallop sklmm'd across the flood. And bore the truant to her sisterhood. II. Eeeve. ^t iittk g^ii O solitude, triste et tranqmllel Petits plaisirs ! OLEFTJL was the land, Dull on every side, Neither soft nor grand, Barren, bleak, and wide; Nothing look'd with love ; All was dingy brown ; The very skies above Seem'd to sulk and frown. Plodding sick and sad. Weary day on day ; Searching, never glad, Many a niiry way ; Poor existence lagg'd In this barren place ; While the seasons dragg'd Slowly o'er its face. — 56 — THE LITTLE DELL. Spring, to sky and ground. Came before I guess'd : Then one day I found A valley, like a nest 1 Guarded with a spell Sure it must have been — This little faery dell Which I had never seen. Open to the blue. Green banks hemm'd it round ; A rillet wander'd through With a tinkling sound ; Briars among the rocks A tangled arbour made ; Primroses in flocks Grew beneath their shade. Merry birds a few, Creatures wildly tame, Perch'd and sung and flew ; Tawny fieldmice came ; Ants among the moss Hasten'd here and there ; Butterflies across Danced through sunlit air. There I often redd. Sung alone, or dream'd ; Blossoms overhead. Where the west wind stream'd. — 57 — THE LITTLE DELL. Small horizon-line. Smoothly lifted up, Held this world of mine In a grassy cup. The barren land to-day Hears my last adieu : Not an hour I stay ; Earth is wide and new. Yet, farewell, farewell ! May the sun and show'rs Bless that Little Dell Of safe and tranquil hours ! W. Al/LINGHAM. 58 — ^t §hclmxi^ of %utkzx^^. N an autumnal evening, in a narrow, obscure, but picturesque street of the old town of I Antwerp, more than three hundred years ago, a blacksmith's forge was throwing out bright sudden flashes of light, which cast at intervals a ruddy glow on the faces of the workmen, whose strong Flemish arms were making the anvil ring with their sturdy blows. The scene was an animated one ; the noise and the warmth within the precincts of the forge presenting a marked contrast to the gloom of the Ill-lighted and un- frequented street, where a drizzling rain was beginning to fall. Attracted by the influence of the light within, some idlers had assembled at the entrance of this swarthy region under the shelter of its projecting roof, and, as far as the noise would permit, carried on a desultory conversation with the men who were at work. 59 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. Amongst this group was a young girl of about seventeen or eighteen years of age, accompanied by her maid, her fair face and sunny hair just visible under the black hood and mantilla, worn in the Spanish fashion, prevalent at that period in the Low Countries. She stood at the door hesitating to advance and reluctant to withdraw. As the sparks flew from the anvil like rockets on a birthday night, and a bright flicker- ing light illuminated for an instant the whole interior of the forge, she cast a hasty glance into its inmost recesses. Having done so once or twice she at last put down her veil, and making a sign to her companion, was moving away. At that instant an old man, one of the most inveterate gossip- mongers of the town, happened to be entering. Her first impulse was to wrap her mantilla more closely around her, and to avoid his notice ; but on second thoughts she turned back, and asked him, " Has Quintin Matsys been here to-day ? " " Quintin Matsys, maiden ? Yes, indeed, he was here this morning I happened to be passing this way as the town clock was striking eleven, and, observing that a crowd had gathered round the door of the forge, I stopped to inquire what was the matter, and I heard that Quintin Matsys had been taken ill and fainted, after spending some hours at work at the anvil." "Again !" ejaculated the maiden, wi-inging her hands. " It is but two days ago that he was carried home in a dead swoon." " Of course he was ; and how should it be otherwise ? The stripling is too weak for this sort of work. He will kill himself; there can be no doubt of it. Dr. Armen has said so ever since last Michaelmas, when he sickened with the asue. But the lad is obstinate. It is always the same story. He — 60 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. must needs support his mother. Much good it will do her to have him lying in the churchyard. He is making his way there as fast as he can, for he is like the steward in the Gospel: he cannot work, and to heg he is ashamed. But whither are you hurrying,. Mistress Genevieve Claes ? Let me hold an umbrella over your head, and escort you home. Is it true that your father has invited to Antwerp Master von Daxis of Haarlem, and that he is to exhibit in the town hall his great picture of the Raising of Lazarus ? Oh, you are not going straight home ! You have a call to make on your way! It is a wet evening for young damsels to be visiting about the town. Perhaps I may look in on your father in an hour or two, when the rain has abated." Genevieve had glided out of sight whilst her companion was still speaking. "With hurried steps she hastened down a narrow little street at the back of the forge. Gretchen, her maid, had great trouble to keep up with her. The rain was beating against their faces ; but there were tears as well as drops of rain on the young girl's cheeks. The words of the old man had deeply aifected her. The mother of the blacksmith had been her nurse, and the little low house behind the forge the home of her childhood. Her father, Hans Claes, a painter of some reputation, who had risen by means of his talents from an obscure station in life, was noted in his native town of Antwerp as well for his eccen- tricities as for his passionate devotion to his art. He had lost his wife soon after the birth of his little girl, and had consigned the latter to the care of Madame Matsys, the blacksmith's wife, whilst, through great hardships and poverty, he had pursued his studies at Eome and at Bologna. Quintin Matsys was the foster-brother of Genevieve — 61 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. Claes. They had been playmates in infancy, and companiona in childhood. The forge had been a kind of fairy world to the two children, and Genevieve, who since her father's return from Italy had dwelt under his roof, often timidly made her way to the favourite haunt of her earlier days — and still thought the sparks very beautiful as they flew upward in fiery spangles — and the sound of the hammer as it fell on the anvil pleasant music to the ears — and the face of Quintin Matsjrs, her old playfellow, with his fair hair and ruddy com- plexion besooted and begrimed by the labours of the forge, the handsomest she had ever set eyes on. She never shook off those old impressions. They had become part and parcel of her nature. She had for some time suspected that those she so dearly loved were in poverty. Old Matsys, Quintin's father, had been dead about a year, and since then, his son had had to work far harder than he had ever done before. Indeed, he worked hard for the first time in his life, for he had always been of a delicate constitu- tion, and his strong and loving father was wont to take the hammer out of his hands on hot summer days, and to send him to walk in the green fields on the margin of the Scheld, where he often met Genevieve and her maid Gretchen, and watched by her side the bright red sunset-clouds fading away into the grey hues of twilight, and the barges gliding lazily along the sluggish stream — even as they had been used when children to watch the sparks dying in the embers, or the panting of the ever-sounding, ever-restless bellows. He had never known what it is to toil with aching limbs, to labour with sinking strength, until that tender, fatherly heart had ceased to beat in the strong frame, and the hands Vifhich had so long worked for others were mouldering in the — 62 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. grave. But if Quintin was weak in body he was not faint- hearted. Patiently and manfully he strove to make up by energy of will for the physical strength which he lacked. Day after day he worked at the anvil in that forge where he had been so happy as a child, till the light seemed to grow lurid in his eyes, and the sound of the hammer's strokes . reverberated through his brain with a maddening force. At last his shrunken, wasted arm sought in vain to wield the heavy sledge ; the hectic spot on his cheeks assumed a deeper hue, and he fainted away at his work as the old man had told Genevieve. Now with his eyes mournfully closed he was lying on a low trestle bed in his mother's little chamber, and a feeling of despair was creeping into his heart, as when the first chill of an ague fit invades a sick man's frame. Poverty was staring him in the face ; no, not poverty, that he had always known, and never dreaded ; but want and starva- tion in their sternest form. Genevieve had suspected that it was even so, and pondered deeply on the means of relieving, without wounding, those she was so devotedly attached to. Her father was a parsimonious man, and though he furnished her with whatever was neces- sary for her support and proper appearance amongst those in her own rank of life, she had seldom any money at her own disposal. If she wanted to buy a new kirtle, or to give an alms, she had to make her request at a well-chosen moment ; when, for instance, Hans Claes had just put the finishing touch to a picture purchased by the Town Councillors, or received an order for an altar-piece in his favourite style. She had now hoarded a small sum out of her own expendi- ture, and had been watching for an opportunity of giving it to Quintin for his mother's use. She thought it would be easier — 63 — THE BLACKSMITH OP ANTWERP. to make him accept it in this way, and had gone to the forge in the hope of seeing him privately, and making her little offer- ing in such a manner as would insure his not refusing it. But having been disappointed in her expectation, she resolved, at all events, to satisfy herself by a visit at their house, that he and his mother were not actually in want, and, if possible, to press upon one of them, for the sake of the other, the small purse which she held tightly grasped in her hand. When she had knocked at the door, and Madame Matsys had opened it, and exclaimed, " Here is Genevieve Claes ! " her son started up and held out his hand to her with an attempt at a smile. " You are ill," she said, placing her cold hand, wet with the rain, in his burning one. " What ails you, Quintin?" " I believe the work is too hard for me just at present,," he answered; "but in a short time I dare say I shall be stronger." " The truth is — " began Madame Matsys. " Don't talk nonsense, mother," interrupted her son. " How do you know what I was going to say ? The truth is, that- — " " No, it is not the truth." " The fact is, Genevieve — " " No, it is not the fact." " Genevieve knows as well as I do — " " She knows nothing at all about it." " He is breaking his heart, Genevieve, because he has not strength to go on working at the forge, and that he foresees I shall have to go to the almshouse." " No such thing, mother ; you don't know what you are talking about. Just open the window, will you, and let in the — 64 — THE BLACKSanTH OP ANTWERP. fresh air ; there, now I breathe easier. I thought you never meant to come and see us again, Genevieve. My mother has been fretting sadly at your staying away." "But, Quintin, you know you said — " " Ay, I know what you are going to say. The day you told me of your father's writing in his Missal that he wouLl never give you in marriage to any one but a painter, I was so vexed, so angry, that I was fool enough to exclaim that if that was true we had better not meet again, as I could not bear to see you, and think that I was never to be your husband. Well, I have found out since that there is something still more difficult to bear — never to see you at all ; not for days toge- ther to hear the sound of your voice. I am afraid it makes me hate your father when I think of this cruel fancy of his." " Oh, that is dreadful, Quintin ! I shall not love you any more if you hate my father." " But it is very wrong of him to have written such words as those in a book, and a holy book too.'" " Yes ; in the beautiful Missal painted by the monks of Bruges, which he values as the apple of his eye ; that is what makes me so afraid that he will never change his mind." " That book ought to be burnt, pictures and all," " I should like very much to throw it into the fire, only it would be a sin ; and then, you know, it would not prevent him keeping to his resolution." " People have no business to make such resolutions." " "Well, I don't think they should. It is very hard upon a girl who does not care at all for pictures to be obliged to marry a painter ; but, Quintin, you must not hate my father for all that. Promise me not to hate him," " Genevieve, as long as I thought I might have married — 65 — K THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. you, if it had not been for his mania about paintings and painters, I could hardly keep down the bitter angry thoughts that were ever rising in my mind. But perhaps, just because of those thoughts, Almighty God has humbled me by taking away my strength and making us poor. I used to talk of supporting a wife by my labour, and now I am become a burthen on my mother in her old age. Oh! it is a great and bitter trial ! " He covered his face with his hands, and tears trickled down his cheeks. " Quintin, if it were God's will that we should never marry ? " said Genevieve earnestly, as if her very soul was looking out of her clear calm blue eyes. " Well, and if it were so, how would it mend the matter ? " he answered, sorrowfully and half-reproachfuUy. " Why, we could not. You would not be angry with Him?" The young man reverently looked up to Heaven, and in a low voice said, "No." " God is so good and He loves us so much ! " continued Genevieve, leaning her head against the back of the chair on which he was sitting. "I know it," Quintin answered, in a subdued manner; "I know He is good. Did He not make you, Genevieve? He must be very good Himself to have made any one so good as you. I have always felt that." After a pause he added, "Now, Genevieve, I will tell you a thought that has come into my head even whilst we have been talking ; I think it must have been my good angePs doing. To-morrow, you know, is the festival of our Lady of Antwerp. Numbers of sick people come and pray at her altar, and many of them are often cured. I will go with the rest and get the Archbishop's blessing, — 66 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. and the picture which he gives to all the members of the Confraternity. You have always been a great hand at praying, Genevieve; lam sure your prayers will be heard: and then, as the priest told us last Sunday, when he was preaching about the Confraternity, when two or three are agreed to ask something of God He gives it to them. And you and my mother and I, we make three, besides all the other people who wUl be praying too." "But, dear Quintin, if God should think it better for you not to get strong again at present, you will be patient, won't you ? " A cloud passed over the young man's face. "It is not for my own sake," he somewhat bitterly said, " that I want my strength. It is easy to speak of patience." " Oh, Quintin ! " exclaimed Genevieve, her eyes filling with tears, "do you think I do not feel for you ?" "I know you do, dearest; forgive my hasty words. But if you will think of all that is involved in the word health" — (he glanced at his mother, who was crossing the room with feeble footsteps,)^" you would indeed pity and excuse me. But don't weep so bitterly, dear love ; I think our Lady will do something for- me to-morrow." Genevieve wiped her eyes, kissed Madame Matsys, forced into her hand the little green purse which she had held concealed in her own during her whole visit, silenced her with another kiss on the lips when she tried to remonstrate, and glided out of the house, followed by the son's loving glance and the mother's murmured blessing. On the following day the sun shone forth brightly, gilding with its autumnal rays the quaint picturesque buildings of the old Flemish city. Its inhabitants were stirring at an — 67 — TUE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWEKP. early hour, and crowds from the neighbouring villages kept flocking in at the gates,. dressed in their best Sunday clothes. Many a peal from church and convent tower gladdened the air with silvery tones whilst the procession formed in the principal streets. From every window and over every door- way hung rich carpets of rare tapestry, and damask silks of gorgeous colours, decking and adorning the grim sober old town in a bright and fanciful attire. The Church of Our Lady of Antwerp was soon filled to overflowing. There were reserved seats in front of the altar for the members of the Confraternity and those infirm and sick persons who were joining in the devotions with the hope of obtaining relief. Quintin was amongst them, and looked flushed and excited. His mother and Genevieve, who occupied seats in another part of the church, kept watching him with anxiety. Genevieve could scarcely endure the sight of his eager countenance, fixed with feverish intensity on the preacher about to begin his sermon. AVhen mention was made in the discourse of the answers to prayer which had often been vouchsafed on such occasions, his eyes flashed with joy, and his whole face brightened up ; but when the priest spoke of resignation, of denials sometimes sent in mercy, and patience under disappointment, his lips quivered and his countenance became dejected. At last Genevieve could no longer bear to watch those wild, varying expressions in the face she loved. Bowing down her head, she poured forth silent supplications — pure, ardent, and unselfish as those of a guardian angel for his human charge. She had no hopes of happiness for herself: — " Hers was no fond imaginative dream, Gilding the future with illusive beam." — 68 — THE BLACKSMITH OP ANTWERP. Sorrow seemed before her whichever way she looked ; an^ her father's decree, to whicli it never occurred to her that it would be possible to offer any opposition, so strict at that period was considered the duty of filial obedience, robbed the future of all glad anticipations. One sentence of the sermon she carried away with her, and laid it up in her heart. " Every prayer is heard," the preacher had said, " even though it may remain apparently unanswered." Once more she bowed her head in intense supplication. When she raised it again the Archbishop was distributing little pictures to those who knelt in rows before the altar. An instant afterwards Quintiu rose and left the church. She followed him with her eyes, but soon lost sight of him in the crowd. The evening came, and the sun, which had shone brilliantly all day, was now sinking peacefully to rest in a bank of purple felouds. The flat level plain which surrounds Antwerp was studded with groups of country people, slowly wending their way home through the green misty meadows or alongside the banks of the " lazy Scheld ;" little children running to and fro gathering daisies and singing songs about cows and butter- cups. The streets had become solitary; the churches were shut up ; the sound of footsteps on the uneven pavement less and less frequent. Peace and stillness reigned over the old city, so full of animation a few hours before. Genevieve Claes sat at her window looking at Gretchen walking down the street. She had sent her on an errand which she would fain have performed herself. Since her re- turn from church she had been watching for an opportunity to go and inquire after Quintin's health, but her father had kept her closely occupied in his studio preparing colours and clean- ino- his brushes, which was one of her habitual tasks, and now — 69 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. he had ordered her not to go abroad that day, for he expected his friend, Master von Daxis, from Haarlem, and Genevieve must be at home to receive him and attend to all the duties of hospitality. Her heart sank within her, for she foresaw what this meant ; but it was better not to let Quintin expect to see her that evening and disappoint him at last, so she dispatched Gretchen to say she was detained at home, to ask how he did, and give her love to Madame Matsys. The lamp was not yet lighted in the blacksmith's house. His mother sat at the window as Genevieve had done, but not to look out into the street, only to catch the last rays of light wherewith to finish mending her son's stockings. Now and then she turned towards him, and noticed that his much-loved face was looking still paler and more wan than usual, except when the hectic flush of fever brought a fitful colour into his thin cheeks. Dark shadows were passing that evening over his countenance^ even as the clouds were swiftly careering across the sky, which had suddenly become stormy. "Mother," exclaimed Quintin, raising himself from his couch after a long silence, and leaning on his elbow ; " mother, just look out and see if it is raining." At that moment Gretchen knocked at the door. He sprung to his feet, but fell back disappointed when he saw that it was only Gretchen. " My mistress," said the handmaid, " sends her love to you, Madame iMatsys, and these preserves, which she bade me say are of her own making, and begs to know if your son is less ailing than when she called on you last night. She cannot leave home this evening, as my master is expecting company." " Company !" ejaculated Quintin, faintly. It " Yes ; company from Haarlem. The worthy Master von — 70 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. Daxis, head of the school of painting in that city. He is bringing to Antwerp his famous picture of the Raising of Lazarus, which is to be exhibited in the town hall, and to carry off the prize too, it is supposed. What answer shall I take back' to my mistress ? I am afraid you are no better, sir," she added, as the young man leant back on his couch with a face as pale as ashes and a quivering lip. " Tell Genevieve to pray for us," said Madame Matsys, in a sorrowful voice. " What is the use of praying ! " exclaimed her son, with bitterness ; and when the door had closed upon Gretchen he broke forth, in passionate lamentations, "I have prayed for days; prayed through long sleepless nights; prayed to be saved from starvation, beggary, disgrace; prayed that this poor weak arm might be strengthened to work. Look at it, mother, how wasted it is — weaker than ever to-night. I have never felt so ill as to-day. That is all the answer that my prayers, and yours, and hers, have received. And yet I had so hoped, so trusted, that for Genevieve's sake they would have been heard! If ever there was a good little soul on earth—" " Of course she is," chimed in his mother. " The best csreature that ever breathed, and the prettiest into the bargain. It is a shame and a sin that her father should compel her to marry that old hideous Von Daxis just because the man can hold a painting-brush between his fingers." " Oh ! mother, do not talk of that ; you torture me — you drive me wild I My head is burning, and I lie here and think and think till my brain seems on fire." " Nay, but that will never do, my boy," said a rough, good-humoured voice at his elbow. — 71 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. "Dr. Armen! is that you? Oh, sir, you can do nothing for me ; and the Blessed Virgin will not help me ! " " And cannot you do something to help yourself, my boy ? Why are you lying there, idling away your time ? " " Doctor, this is cruel. God and my mother know that I would give away half my life for the strength to do a day's work." "Nobody wants half your life, or any part of it either. But there must be an end of this doing-nothing system ; it is enough to give you a brain fever ? " "But when a man cannot so much as lift a hammer ? " " And who wants you to lift a hammer, you booby ? Has the Almighty made nothing in this world but black- smiths and hammers ? Sit up. What, too weak to stand ! Not such a very weak pulse, though — nothing but exhaus- tion from fretting, I suspect. Come, mother, prop him up with pillows, and bring that candle here. Now, what will you do? Anything but lie there, thinking?" "He has not closed his eyes for several nights," said Madame Matsys. " I should not wonder at all. More shame for him ! What have we got here — a picture ? " " Ah ! when that picture was put into my hand this morning, I did hope — " " Never mind what you hoped this morning. Here is a sheet of paper and a pencil ; copy for me, directly, those figures and that queer little bit of landscape in the background." "I have never in my life held a pencil, sir." " What does that signify ? Do as I bid you. Try." A faint smile passed over the young man's face. " It is a new sort of physic you are prescribing for me, sir." — 72 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. "Ah! there are more medicines in this world, my boy, than are found in chemists' shops, or than wiser heads than yours have ever heard of. I shall call again in two or three hours, and if you have not followed my prescription I shall never come near vou again." So saying, the little doctor departed, and Quintin set about examining the picture he was desired to copy. It was a stiff and somewhat angular reprot^uction of the work of some great master, and represented the figure of our Lord as He stood at the door of St, Peter's house, healing all manner of diseased persons. Quintin gazed upon it long and steadily, and then began his task. His fingers felt very stiff and awkward at first, but gradually he grasped the pencil in a firmer manner, and as he proceeded his whole soul was absorbed in his employment. The burning flush on his cheeks subsided ; a calmer expression stole over his face. When he had com- pleted the principal figure and saw that it was not unlike the original, that there was even something more noble and more easy in the attitude of the one he had drawn than in that of the woodcut engraving, a look of pleasure beamed in his eyes. He copied it over and over again ; and when he sketched the face of a young girl just restored to health, and gazing on our Lord with enraptured gratitude, he made the features like to those of Genevieve, and gave them her expression. Then a strange kind of joy rose in his heart and quieted his. brain. But he was very weak, and as the fever on his spirits subsided he grew sleepy ; his head fell back on the pillow ; and wlien the doctor returned he was lying fast asleep, with his pencil in his hand and tlie drawing before him. As Dr. Armen gave a glance at the paper, a broad smile spread over his good-natured face. " Hum ! " he said to himself, — 73 — I4 THE RLACKS]\rrTH OF ANTWERP. " I think I see my way to a still more efficacious medicine for this complicated case than even my prescription of to-night has furnished. Twenty grains of bodily repose and as many of intellectual employment, mixed up with as many ounces of happiness; if that recipe does not succeed, let me never be called again a good physician. Let him sleep on as many hours as possible, good mother," he said, taking leave of Madame Matsys ; " and when he wakes tell him the doctor has stolen away his drawing." Genevieve was presiding the next morning at the substantial Flemish breakfast, to which her father and Master von Daxis were doing ample justice. Though she answered very prettily when spoken to, she did not appear much inclined to converse. Once only she answered a question with considerable energy. Their guest inquired if she cared for paintings. "No, sir," Genevieve replied, "I don't like them at all." "I hope, fair maiden," he rejoined, "that this dislike does not extend to painters ? " " My father is a painter, sir," she replied, with a deep blush. "But for that circumstance you would, perhaps, have answered in the affirmative ! " exclaimed Von Daxis, laughing. " It is strange* how seldom talents and tastes are hereditary ! " "That is quite true, sir," she eagerly observed. "I never could draw at all." " What a blessing for your husband. Mistress Genevieve ! His clothes will then have a chance of being properly mended, and his dinner properly cooked." Genevieve bit her lip and, for the first time, wished herself endowed with the genius of an Elizabeth Sirani. Dr. Armen was at this moment announced. He was a favourite both with Hans Claes and with his daughter. — 74 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWEKP. After he had seated himself at the breakfast table and been helped to Westphalia ham, he drew from his pocket a thick roll of paper. " Look at this, sirs," he said, addressing the two painters ; " you both well know what talent is ; there are no two better judges of design than Master Claes and Master von Daxis. The sketches which you see before you are the performance of a man who never, till yesterday, had held a pencil in his hand, or drawn a line on jiaper. What say you, good sirs, to the promise of genius such a first attempt holds forth ? What think you of it, my masters ? " Hans Claes put on his spectacles, and his friend looked over his shoulder. On their grim faces stole a look of wonder, and then they turned to each other and smiled. " Can you give me your word of honour. Dr. Armen," said Hans Claes, " that the person who made this copy had never before attempted to draw?" " I can take my oath of it. Master Claes." "But hold I" exclaimed the Haarlem painter; "'tis not altogether a copy I suspect. Look at that face. Master Claes. W ho is it Uke, should you say ? " " Why, it strikes me that it is a likeness, and a good one too, of my daughter — the expression of the eyes has been hit off to the life. Dr. Armen, listen to me ! " cried Hans Claes, striking the table with his fist. "If you warrant me that the man who has made those sketches be an honest fellow, though he should be ever so poor — yea, though he should be begging his bread — I will take him into my school, I will teach him myself, I will provide for his wants, and if, in time, he arrives at being what he should be with such a master, (though I say it that should not,) why, if he cares to have her, I will give him that girl there for a wife. I — 75 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP. beg your pardon. Master von Daxis — there was nothing agreed upon, you know, between us — and this man, whose first attempt I hold in my hand, will prove, please God, an honour to the good town of Antwerp, and to bis master, Hans Claes." Genevieve turned her eyes reproachfully on Dr. Armen. He was looking so provokingly pleased, as if he could hardly contain his joy. It was unkind of him, she thought, not to feel for a poor girl who was made the sport and the victim of her father's fanatical passion for his art. "Is that really a promise. Master Claes?" the doctor said ; " for, mind you, this incipient limner, who is as worthy a fellow as ever breathed, is, as it happens, a friend of mine, and as sure as my name is Armen I will keep you to your word." "I give you my hand upon it, doctor. Master von Daxis, you know I made you no promise ! " " And if you had, good Master Claes, I would release you from it. Your daughter hates paintings and painters, and it is a shame to force her inclinations. If I were you — " " If you were me. Master von Daxis, you would consult your child's best interests by bestowing her hand on one who will share with her an honoured name. To be the wife of a great painter is more glorious by far than to wed a monarch ! And now let me know the name of your friend, who will be to-morrow my pupil, and, if he wraps not his talent in a napkin, one day my son-in-law." Dr. Armen smiled, and played with his teaspoon. With- out raising his eyes, he said, " Quintin Matsys, the blacksmith." Hans Claes made an exclamation of surprise; Genevieve clasped her hands together and looked at her father with an - 76 — THE BLACKSIMITII OF ANTWERP. imploring countenance. " The world will one day hear of ' the Blacksmith of Antwerp ! '" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm, " Fetch the boy here. His mother, too — she nursed that child of mine for many a long year. We have neglected her too much. Ay, indeed, you may smile. Mistress Genevieve — you may kiss your old father and hang about his neck — but mind, girl, if Quintin Matsys is ever to be thy husband, he must be also an eminent painter. And hark ye, one thing more I have to say, there must be no love-making in the school — no cleaning of brushes or preparing of colours, to distract the youth from his studies. Genevieve looked very humble and submissive ; and when Quintin Matsys entered the house from which he had been so long excluded, still walking feebly and leaning on the doctor's arm, but with a look of returning health in his face, she tried very hard not to smile or to cry, but when she kissed his mother, try as hard as she would, she did both. Later in the day, too, when Master von Daxis maliciously reminded her that she hated paintings and painters, she laughed outright ; and when Quintin Matsys whispered to her, " I will never say again, ' What is the use of praying ? " ' her tears fell fast. The little Confraternity picture was framed and hung up in the room of the blacksmith of Antwerp when he married; and every year, with his wife Genevieve, he went on the day of the Procession to return thanks at Our Lady's Altar, where jC once thought he had 2>rayed in vain. The painter Quintin Matsys was born in the year 1450, in tlie town of Antwerp. He has been known by the name of " the Blacksmith of Antwerp " on account of his having exercised that arduous profession until ne was twenty years of age. A long and dangerous illness reduced his — 77 — THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTAVERP. strength so mucli, that he became unable to earn his own livelihood and to support his mother. He complained of this to those who came to visit him. It is related, that at an annual religious procession, which used to take place in his native town, for lepers and other sick persons, little woodcut engravings were distributed to the members of the Confraternitj, and that to the circumstance of one of these happening to fall into his hands he owed the discovery of his talent for drawing. Somebody advised him to try and copy it in order to while away the time. He did so, and succeeded so well that he pursued the study of design, and became in time an eminent painter. Some writers state that it was his attachment to a girl whose father was determined that she should only marry a painter which induced him to exchange the hammer for the pencil. The young person in question returned his affection, and in order to marry her he devoted himself to the art in which he became so great a proficient. [These two accounts have been thrown together and form the groundwork of this little story.] One of Quintin Matsys' best pictures is the Descent from the Cross, in the Church of Our Lady at Antwerp. He painted it for the Joiners' Guild. It was chiefly in sacred subjects that he excelled. — From the '■'■Lives of Flemish Painters,'" ly J. O. Descainp, Professor of Design at Rouen in 1753. Georgiana Fdllertom. ^taiTias SKNT, WITH SOME LEAVES AKD W,OWERS POUND IN A BOOK, TO THB PB^S3N WHO HAD PDT THEM THEKE THIRTY YEABS BErOBE. H tender leaves and flowers I \ Though withered, tender yet. What privilege of joy was ours In youth when.first we met. Bright eyes beheld your bloom, Fair hands your charms caressed. And not irreverent was the doom That laid you here to rest. Sweet phantoms, from your bed Thus re-arisen, you paint The likeness of a love long dead. In faded colours faint. — 79 — STAXZAS. Oh tender flowers and leaves ! I^ y all our vanished joys — By glittering Si)ring-tide that deceives, By Winter that destroys, Though naught can now restore The perished to its place, Eyes dimmed hy time and tears once more Shall look you in the face. Henry Tayi-er. — 80 (for mdsic.) T was on a summer night With its heaven of blue, When the roses glimmered white Heavy with the dew. That he said a single word Ere he went away. Full of all his hope deferred Many a weary day — Summer's sun and winter's rain Will not bring that word again. Lone ! lone ! I am lone. And when all to rest are gone I awake and dream. Where the moonlight lieth on The lily of the stream. What, though others call me proud. If I will not hear Lovers' vows by lovers vowed Tender and sincere — — 81 — M BY THE STREAM. Let them think my heart asleep And that I forget, If my lips the secret keep Of my eyes unwet. But the Lady Moon could show If I recollect or no : — Lone ! lone ! sadly lone ! And when all to rest are gone, I awake and dream, Where from high she smilcth on The lily of the stream ! II. P. ClIOHLET. ;^%Nt^P«"" — - 82 %h iM (^mmiiy^. OME cliarm was round me, night and day, That made my life seem just begun ; A presence was it? Eather say The warning aureole of one. And yet I felt it everywhere ; Walked I the woodland aisles along. It brushed me with ambrosial hair ; Bathed I, T heard a mermaid's song. How sweet it was ! a buttercup Could liQld for me .a day's delight, A bird could lift my fancy up To ether free from cloiid or blijrht. What was the Nymph? Nay, I will sec, Methought, and I will know her near ; If such, but guessed, her charm can be. Were not possession triply dear? — 83 — THE FATAL CURIOSITY. So every magic art I tried, And spells as numberless as sand. Until one midnight by my side I saw her glowing fulness stand. I turned to clasp her — but, " Farewell," Fading, she sighed, " we meet no more ; Not by my hand the curtain fell That leaves you conscious, wise, and poor. " Since you have found me out, I go ; Another lover I must find Content his happiness to know, Nor strive its secret to unwind." J. R. Lowell. — 84 — tbmM ^Mdj^s. By Gebaldike Jewsdhky. oJOio No. I. THE DIVERSIONS OF THE COURT OF BURGUNDY, AND THE NOBLE TOURNAMENT OP THE " TREE OF CHARLEMAGNE." EACE had been made between the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, by whose assistance the English had been driven out of the kingdom. Good order and prosperity had succeeded to the frightful disorder and misery of the past. The Duke of Burgundy having now no affairs of im- portance on his mind, and seeing his kingdom become daily more flourishing and happy, found nothing better to do than to celebrate • this blessed state of things by festivals, tournaments, and all manner of stately and magnificent diversions. — 85 — MKDLEVAL SKETCHES. In April, 1443, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy held their Court at Dijon, to celebrate the marriage of Jean de Chalons, son of the Prince of Orange, with Madame Catherine of Brittany, the daughter of the Conestable de E-ichmont. There was in Dijon, at that time, a great concourse of noble and distinguished visitors from different countries. The Duke loved magnificence — he enjoyed his own power and grandeur very much, and he was always pleased when a good opportu- nity offered of displaying them. The Duchess of Burgundy was surrounded by a brilliant company of noble ladies, but Lady Blanche de St. Simon was remarked above all others for her beauty. No Court in Europe was to be compared to the Court of Burgundy for magnificence and luxury, and at this time nobody thought of anything but amusement ; it was one continued course of feasts, balls, tournaments, hunting parties, and mummeries — everything followed in its turn. The Sire de Charni, who thought these somewhat trifling amusements, resolved to give the very finest encounter of arms that had ever been known. At his own expense he sent heralds into all the kingdoms of Christendom, to publish the following challenge : — • "In honour of our Saviour and of His glorious Mother, of Madame St. Anne and of my lord St. George, I, Peter of Bauffremont and Lord of Charni, give notice to all Princes, Barons, Chevaliers, and Squires without reproach, that, to do honour to the very noble art and exercise of arms. It is my desire, along with the twelve chevaliers, esquires, and gentle- men, (whose names here follow,) to guard a passage of arms upon the high road between Dijon and Auxonne, beneath the tree of Charlemagne, in the parish of Marcenay : _ 86 — MEDIEVAL SKETCHES. " Two escutcheons — one black, seme de larmes cCor, the other violet, seme de larmes noires, will be suspended to this tree. Those who, through their heralds, shall touch the first escutcheon, will be bound to make a passage on horseback against me and my knights. "He who shall be unhorsed and thrown to the ground shall be bound to give the victor as fine a diamond as he shall require. Those who prefer a combat on foot will touch the violet shield. He who fighting thus shall be thrown so as to touch the ground either with his knee or his hand, shall be obliged to give his opponent a ruby of such price as he shall require. If he is thrown his full length, he wiU be considered a prisoner, and bound to pay a ransom of at least fifty crowns. " Every knight or squire passing within a quarter of a league of the tree of Charlemagne will be considered to have touched one of the shields, and must give either his sword or spurs as a pledge." The conditions of combat were then carefully regulated in order that all might pass loyally. The passage of arms was to continue forty days, to commence from the 12th of July, 1443 : it was conducted by the permission of the Duke of Burgutidy, who appointed the Count d'Etampes as judge. When the time appointed arrived, the Duke of Burgundy (although much serious business had arisen for him since the enterprise was proclaimed) did not fail to be at Dijon ; he brought with him his cousin Louis the Duke of Savoy. A Spanish knight, very renowned for these enterprises, named Pedro Vasco de Saavedra, and who had recently acquired great honour in tournaments at Cologne and in England, was the first combatant. He had touched both the shields. The lists were magnificently adorned, the tents were — 87 — MEDIEVAL SKETCHES covered with the banners of the knights, and nothing could exceed the richness of the armour, the trappings of the horses, and the dress of the respective pages. Everything passed with courage and courtesy; all the champions showed so much strength and address, that, al- though there was some splendid fighting, nobody was con- quered. There was not even any accident, except a slight wound received by a knight from Piedmont, named the Count de St. Martin, whilst he was jousting with the Sire Guillaume de Vauldrei. The two shields had been suspended a whole month to the tree of Charlemagne, but the period for which the passage of arms was to be held had not yet expired, and there were still two jousts to take place — between the Count de' St. Martin and Guillaume de Vauldrei, also between Don Diego de Valllere and Jacques de Challant. The Duke called them before him and told them that he was obliged to go to war without delay, and to take his knights along with him — as his army had already entered Luxembourg — and that he would hold it as a favour if. they would withdraw their challenges and consider the tournament at an end. He made them all magnificent presents, and spoke to them so nobly that they knelt down to return their thanks. The Count de St. Martin entered his service. The holders of the tourna- ment then went to the Church of the Holy Virgin at Dijon and made an offering of the two shields, which were hung up in the church; after which the Duke of Burgundy and his knights departed to the war in Luxembourg. — 88 — MEDIEVAL SKETCHES. No. n. THE NOBLE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN THE SIRE DE TERNANT AND THE SIGNOR GALEOTTO BALTAZIN. The Duke of Burgundy having brought the war in Luxem- bourg to a fortunate conclusion in the month of November, 1443, he went with his Court to Mons, designing to have great festivities and amusements. In the midst of these diversions there one day arrived at Court a certain esquire, named Galeotto Baltazin, Chamber- lain to the Duke of Milan. He was on his travels from country to country seeking to gain renown by feats of arms. He was very handsome, tall, well made, and of a most intrepid countenance. He brought along with him a suite of near thirty horses. The Duke of Milan, his master, was the friend and ally of the Duke of Burgundy, and he had forbidden the Signor Galeotto to provoke any combat in the States of Burgundy without the special permission of the Duke. The Signor intended to pass over to England in case he did not meet an adversary amongst the Burgundians — which, however, he could scarcely fail to do. The Sire de Ternant, amongst "others, had long desired such an opportunity. He obtained the Duke's permission to hold an enterprise of arms. He then began by wearing, as a pledge of his undertaking, a lady's sleeve in rich lace, beautifully embroidered, fastened to a knot of pearls and diamonds by a bodkin of black and blue. — 89 — N >IEDLEVAL SKETCHES. Toison d'Or, the herald of the Duke, of Burgundy, then went to announce to the Signor Galeotto that if he would repair at noon to the great hall in the Duke's palace, he would there find a knight who wished to engage with him. The Signor did not fail to be punctual ; and putting one knee to the ground he first requested the Duke to grant his permission, which having obtained, he advanced to the Sire de Ternant, and making a profound reverence he laid his hand upon the sleeve which the Sire de Ternant wore upon his left arm, and said, "Noble sir, I touch the pledge of your enterprise ; and by the blessing of God I will accomplish your desire, whether on foot or on horseback." If instead of touching the gage he had plucked it from the arm, it would have been a sign that it was not a ques- tion of simple chivalry, but a combat '' ■witness the spectacle of civilization . .f/'"'^/''^ %iS;.»>^^ iV:.'' arising, complete and healthy, out of barbarism, within the memory of living persons. Such a spectacle is before the world now ; and nothing that is going on elsewhere should render the world careless of the merits, or indifferent to the fate of Hayti. On a mild day, early in December, 1492, Columbus was on deck, after leaving Cuba, when he caught sight of a magni- ficent mountain outline, on the south-eastern horizon. He made sail towards it, and by the next morning was disposed to believe the land before him to be the most beautiful he had yet seen in the New World. Eocky peaks, which seemed dyed in sky colours, sprang from dense tropical forests ; and other mountains rose to a great height so gradually, and were so verdant, that the Spaniards were confident that the plough could be driven up to their very summits ; a feat which they — 98 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATION". afterwards performed. At sunset the last level rays shot in under the noble trees which overhung the sea in the western bay ; and the golden light disclosed long green alleys in the forest which covered a part of the plain. The other part was under tillage ; and dwellings, thatched with palm leaves, stood here and there on the banks of the broad river which came down from the mountains to the sea. Columbus said he should land ; but the Indians whom he carried with him as guides and interpreters among the islands made abject entreaties to him to spare them that peril. The inhabitants, they said, were too dreadful to be encountered. They had only one eye, and ate strangers. An adverse wind rose ; and the Spaniards had to spend the night at sea. As soon as it grew dark, lights began to appear on shore : and in a short time there were so many that Columbus supposed the place to be thickly peopled. There were not only clusters of lights where the villages stood in the plains, but others were scattered along the shore, and high up the mountains, till they seemed to mix with the stars. In the morning Columbus ordered out his boats, and made for the shore. The fish not only visibly thronged the bay, but leaped into the boats ; and the trees that fringed the shore were seen to be laden with fruit. On land there was every sio^n of natural wealth : and the deserted houses were full of the luxuries belonging to the climate. The Spaniards had never seen such trees, nor dreamed of such crops in the month of December ; and they declared this the sovereign of the new lands they had discovered. Thenceforth this island was called the Queen of the Antilles. As they strolled inland the Spaniards found the woodpaths strewn with flowers ; and they heard a bird which they took to be the nightingale. The — 99 — THE BIRTH OP A FREE NATION. climate was delightful to them, and felt like home. They discovered more and more objects which reminded them of Andalusia ; and their commander called the place Hispaniola, or Little Spain. He set up a cross at the entrance of one of the northern harbours, and declared his determination to become acquainted with the natives, and make Christians of them, however diJBScult it might be to catch them, and how- ever fierce they might prove to be. The first to be caught was a young woman who wore a piece of gold in her nose. She was kindly treated, clothed, and adorned; and she made a very good mistress of the ceremonies when her husband and her tribe came down to look for her. Columbus himself, and Peter Martyr from his testimony, give a more glowing account of the virtues and happiness of these natives than of those of any other country In the western hemisphere. They worked enough to supply themselves with whatever they desired ; had their land and Its produce In common, and lived at peace with one another and the world outside. They were governed by caciques, who ruled In patriarchal style ; and there seemed to be little for their chiefs to do but to receive popular homage. Such Is the first view we have of Hayti. The vicissitudes of Its fortunes began Immediately. The Spaniards coasted round It, and learned that It was an island, and about four times the size of Jamaica: that Is, as the English observed, when they came to know it, nearly the size of Ireland. There were presently two settlements of Spaniards. They were disappointed to find that the gold of the island was aU to be seen In the noses and ears of the people: but they discovered other sources of wealth, and were prosperous for two or three generations. But the longing — 100 — THE BIRTH OP A FREE NATION. for gold carried off the settlers when the American continents were disclosed ; and, when the colonists were gone, it was found that but a few natives remained. There might be many in retreat among the high lands in the interior ; but the Savannahs were deserted, and the mornes (valleys, whose bounding hiUs are backed by mountains) were more silent than the woods. Next, we find the people on the little island of Tortuga, overlooked by Hayti, sending a deputation to France. These people were buccaneers ; and they proposed to appropriate the coasts which the Spaniards had left. Louis XIY. sent them a Governor; they settled, not only Tortuga but the opposite shores ; and by the close of the seventeenth century, the western part of the island belonged to France, and was considered the most valuable colony she had ever had. The next phase was, as we now see it, a melancholy one, though the owners of the soil were far from thinking so. Throughout the eighteenth century we scarcely find a trace of the gentle and happy natives. By his well-meant but fatal policy of introducing Africans to spare the feebler Indians, Las Cases had doomed the natives to destruction, and the negroes to slavery. As the century drew on, the colonists grew rich, and the plains were covered with plantations of the sugar-cane, coffee, cocoa, and spices, till the French territory, — about one-third of the island, — produced crops estimated at £8,000,000. The drawback in the life of the planter was the presence of the mulatto race — the Brown people, as they were called — ^in whom the current of native feeling still ran strong, whether mixed with the pride of the Whites on the one hand, or the terror of the negro soul on the other. The planters incessantly protested that they were not afraid of the negroes, as all slaveholders are always protesting: but no man pre- — 101 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATION. tended that the presence of the Brown people was not the plague of his life. In the whole history of human strife, there is nothing on record which exceeds the mutual hatred of the Whites and the Browns in Hayti in the eighteenth century. "When the French revolution was reported from Europe, the planters took part in it with true colonial vehemence, and the short-sightedness which belongs to it. They shouted the Marseillaise in the theatre and at their banquets, forgetting the risk they ran of the imitative and musical negroes echoing the song and the sentiment when out of earshot. The Brown people were loyalists ; and so were the negroes, as far as they knew. They had been bred up in homage to France ; and they supposed that and homage to the King to be the same thing. The Browns took advantage of this, when desperate under the oppression of the Whites. One day the wife of a planter was dressing for a dinner-party when her maid, a slave, told her a secret. With an air of command which completely cowed her mistress, the woman informed her that she was going to save her life that night, at great risk to herself. She told of a rising of the negroes, to take place in the evening, and explained how the lady herself was to escape. But, if she breathed a word of it, to her husband or any one else, the instant slaughter of the whole party would be the consequence. In vain the lady hoped and strove to find some means of giving the alarm. Slave women always stick to their mistresses so that there is no getting them out of the room : and the case here was worse. The woman stationed herself opposite her mistress — even at table — choosing to stand be- hind her master's chair ; and whenever the unhappy hostess looked up, the woman fixed her eye, and showed in her — "i02 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATION. bosom the handle of a carving-knife. By nightfall the hostess was only not quite mad. Then the glare of the fires began, and the flight of such families as escaped the slaughter. She lived to tell in France of that dinner party; and she, and aU her class, always declared that, but for the Brown people, the slaves would not have risen. Of the fearful season which followed, it is unnecessary to say more than that the worst horrors were a mere copy of the cruelties previously inflicted by the white colonists. The tortures which they had devised for the leaders of the mulattoes, and for any suspected neighbour, were practised on themselves ; and at the hands of the Browns, more than the Blacks. The Blacks were presently brought under a noble discipline by the noblest of Black chiefs, — ^If indeed we might not say the noblest of the world's generals. Toussaint I'Ouverture had been a slave ; but he had obtained an education, and was a great reader. He took Epictetus to heart, till the Bible became known to him : and the rest of his reading was, for the most part, of a military quality, or classical biography. In a short time, he had achieved the liberation of his race in Hayti : he had shipped off those of the planters who wished to go to France or elsewhere, sending after them any proceeds of their property that he could obtain: and he carefully protected those who chose to remain : he had settled the negroes upon the fer- tile lands, to till them as if their masters were still present : he had established a strong control over the Brown people ; and had stopped all cruelty by proclaiming, as gospel instruction, the principle of No Betaliation. He forgave all his own enemies (and he had many among the Browns) and required of everybody a similar closing of all accounts in which the — 103 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATIOX. passions were concerned. Under his rule order reigned, in- dustry was vigorous, the land became settled, and mansions were rebuilt. The people felt secure and happy, because the revolutionary government at Paris had proclaimed the liberty of the negroes : but their prosperity was not to last this time. Napoleon, the great soldier, whose glory was dazzling the world, grew the more jealous the more he was supreme. Toussaint saw a resemblance in their destiny ; and he said so : and in saying so, he pronounced his own doom. Rumours spread in the ports from passing ships that the French were coming to restore the planters, and put down the negro govern- ment, and reverse all that had been done for the retrieval of Hayti. Toussaint did not know what to expect, or what to believe. He went to the eastern extremity of the island, in the course of one of his progresses from town to town : and alone, from the heights on Cape Samana, he saw the French fleet approach; — a fleet of war ships, crowded with soldiers, which left him no doubt of the nature of the coming encounter with the messengers of the First Consul. One object was to get possession of Toussaint himself; and this was soon effected. By treachery he was seized in the night, fettered, carried on board ship, and despatched to France. Napoleon had conceived an insane idea that Toussaint had buried vast treasures in the mornes ; and the captive was kept in the Temple at Paris, under a treatment of alternate coaxing and menace, till it was found hopeless to press him further for disclosures. How he was then lost to the world, Words- worth's noble sonnet will never let the world forget. He was then among the snows of the Jura, in a cell floored with ice in winter, and dripping with damp in summer ; and there, starved — 104 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE KATlOlf. with cold and hunger, he died in 1803, as was afterwards discovered by some who would not rest till they had ascer- tained his fate. The scene in Hayti meanwhile was fearful. The climate m autumn was the ally of the negroes; and loyalty to Toussaint and dread of slavery were a sufficient inspiration to the negroes. The better part of the French soldiery were disgusted with the barbarity of the war, even more than by living in a pestilence. Some officers threw up their commis- sions, and one destroyed himself, rather than participate in the cruelties perpetrated when black leaders were taken. Of such negro leaders there was never any lack. One after another came forth from mountain or valley, to harass the French, tiU France could send no more thousands to die of the pestilence, and the last remnant of famishing soldiers had cooked and eaten the last of the bloodhounds that had been brought from Cuba to hunt down the negroes in the woods and nooks of the mountains. When the French were all gone, leaving 100,000 of their countrymen in their graves, the independence of Hayti was formally proclaimed on the 29th of November, 1802. In that memorable proclamation, all proprietors are invited back to the island, and assured of protection to life and property, provided no attempt was ever again made to establish slavery. The history of Hayti from that date has been accepted by hasty and superficial observers as an evidence of the unfitness of negroes to form a civilized community, under a liberal government. There is nothing in the case to warrant such a conclusion. The slaves in Hayti were freed without preparation, without warrant or protection of law, and merely for vin- — 105 — P tHE BIHTII OP A FREE NATION. dictive purposes, and to be the tools of the free mulatto population. Under such extreme disadvantages, Toussaint took them up, and showed what could be done with them. After being maddened by his abduction and the return which France made to their hope of alliance, they naturally lapsed into indolence and carelessness, as soon as the pressure was removed. For forty years they were all for an easy life; and they basked in their balconies and roamed their woods, and amused themselves in the towns, and cultivated their gardens, and fished their blue sea, with only so much toil in the field, and in the bays, and on the wharf, as was needed to provide them with the means of living. All the noise, such as it was, was made by military officers, or other ambitious men, who formed factions, and fought with one another for posts in the government. Some of the rulers of Hayti have been very able men; one has been weak, and another a despot: one was a president, and another an emperor: but meantime, the people have grown up, under cover of these changes, as our English middle class grew up under the wars of the Roses, exhibiting an industrial and intelligent population when, at the close of the strife, the House of Peers had only a handful of members left to assemble. The Haytians have been quietly maturing their purpose to elevate their race by maintaining their inde- pendence: they have been hospitable to whites who went for good purposes, and especially to any American abolitionist who might pay them a visit, while making no secret of their opinion that they themselves are as good as anybody, and better than other people at home, and in their own particular circumstances. They cannot but feel their superiority to the half-breeds who inhabit St. Domingo, the eastern, and — 106 — THE BIRTH OP A FREE NATION. commonly called the Spanish part of the island. And this brings us to the present phase of affairs, — which is to us more interesting than any that has gone before. Both sections of the island have a republican form of government: but St. Domingo has a bad President, and Haytl a good one. The question is whether the bad passions of some European potentates will so work with the bad President as to over- whelm the happier republic which is blessed with a faithful and devoted ruler. In 1855, Spain recognised the independence of St. Do- mingo: and if the popular candidate for the Presidentship, Baez, had been a match for the traitor Santana, all would now have been well : but Baez is in exile, and Santana has sold the republic of St. Domingo to Spain, in payment of certain pressing debts of his own. The ships and troops of Spain have put down the popular resistance to this loss of independence : and it was found necessary, a few weeks since, to put down Hayti as well. Hayti is governed by General Geffrard, as President of the Republic. He is a man of enlightenment, spirit, and devotedness. Through several years he has been encouraging his people to a more strenuous and varied industry ; and the result is seen in the trade returns for 1860, which show a recent increase in the revenue of one-third, and an income far exceeding any obtained before, within this century. The coffee shipped last year exceeds the largest former amount by ten million and a half pounds : but the extension of cotton- growing is yet more striking. It is done chiefly by encou- raging the immigration of American negroes, to whom land is assigned, and aid till they can sell their first crop. These settlers had last year dug a considerable portion of a canal ; ^ 107 -^ THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATION. but, to save time, the President has awarded to them a grant of 60,000 dollars. He has caused schools to be opened in every village; and the people are growing up intelligent and animated, as every educated community is. In the midst of all this promise, while American negroes, skilled in agriculture, are finding a home among their own race in Hayti, without forfeiting the privileges of civilization which they had learned to value in America : while an open- ing was offering for the settlement of some of the multitudes who must shortly cease to be slaves in the American States : while Hayti was preparing to supply the new demand for cotton from England and France, — a deadly fear arose to paralyze the Kepublic and its President together. It was but too like Toussaint's watch from Cape Samana and his dismay at the endless procession of the French fleet, when his successor. President Geffrard, a few weeks since saw, from the hill behind Port-au-Prince, the arrival of six Spanish ships of war in the harbour, A demand was brought to him that his forts should salute the Spanish ships as repre- sentatives of the sovereignty of St. Domingo; a recognition which it was hard to make when the people of St. Domingo were resenting the intrusion of Spain, and dreading, as the Ilaytians do, the renewal of the domination of the white race. A further demand was made of a sum of money of monstrous amount, on pretence of damage done to property in St. Domingo by a patriot force collected within the Haytian frontier. But for the British Consul, Mr. Byron, who inter- posed with kindly zeal, the Spaniards might have fulfilled their threat of bombarding Port-au-Prince. As it was. General Geffrard, a dignified and gallant soldier, could not restrain his tears in giving the order for the inevitable salute, — 108 — THE BIETII OF A YKEE NATION. The other matter was postponed, and has been compromised for the moment. Between the rational fear of the encroachments of Spain on the independence of the negro republic, and the yet deeper dread of France following the example of Spain, and con- triving to recover Hayti as a possession. President Geffrard might well quail, but for his trust in England and the United States. President Lincoln has found leisure, in the midst of his own engrossing business, to remonstrate with Spain on its menaces to Hayti, and its audacious annexation of St. Domingo. Lord Palmerston announces that he has obtained from the Spanish Government an express pledge that no attempt shall ever be made to restore slavery. For the rest, the Haytians look to England. They believe and trust that the British Sovereign, parliament and people will watch over the rising and spreading civilization of the first free negro State, already Christian and enlightened, and anxious to lead the African races and their offspring everywhere out of barbarism, and into the liberty of which the Haytians have shown themselves worthy. When the wife and daughters of the Haytian King Christophe were in England, great surprise was expressed at the propriety and refinement of their manners. The same impression has been made on every visitor to Hayti, — ^in the same way that the personal beauty and dignity of the Kroomen and their wives, and of the African tribes have impressed Europeans who had before known no negroes but slaves and their immediate descendants. We must keep our minds open to the capacity of the Haytians for political liberty and sosial progress, and justify their hope that we will -protect their onward career. — 109 — THE BIRTH OF A FREE NATION. A civilized community has arisen suddenly out of the chaos of tyranny and slavery : and we must hold our attention and sympathy ready, in the certainty that, at this crisis, such attention and sympathy will render the redemption of Hayti secure : and Hayti stands for the whole negro race. " Is there any reason for doubt ? " it may be asked. " If Spain is bound to exclude slavery from that island, what evil can happen?" The answer is that France, — or Frenchmen at the Em- peror's service, — have recently been reviving those associations with Hayti as a French colony which are agreeable to none but Frenchmen. It is believed that there is a treaty in the way of re-annexation. There is, at all events, an obstacle in the reliance of Hayti on England ; a trust which England will justify. Sept. 17, 1861. no - Br V, Author os " IX. Poems," " Paui. Fbkeoij.," etc. PKING comes and goes with sun-lit showers. Brown tints, and Buds enclosing Flowers, Birds who for love contrive the Nest, And Broods who love the sheltering breast. Trees which have felt their sap-stirred roots Unfolding Leaves, preparing Fruits — For Life in its mysterious phase Pervades the ever-lengthening days. Enkindling Nature far and wide, A scene where nothing yet has died. Next, Summer reigns, with wealth of leaves A robe of unstained green it weaves. Clear Brooks reveal their stony bed Which lift o'er broken waves, the head ; Warm breezes flatter as they pass Scent-loaded jfrom the new-mown grass. And Upland, Wood, and breezy Plain, A Sunmier-parlour make for Men. — Ill — SEASONS. Then Autuma days, the Season bless. And Life and Death in splendour dress ; They paint the Fruit with yellow gold, The Corn in amber waves is rolled. Bright scarlet clothes the Poppy's head. The red rose wears intenser red ; And the same gold and crimson lie On leaves that are about to die. Blue mists arise, and pass away As warms the sky to middle-day, And on the Evening's coloured Breast The Mountain's marble outlines rest. While Cold intruding on the year Just crisps the sunset atmosphere. Then Winter enters, and restores With home-made heat the chamber-hours ; All day the burning logs expire, And loose the Spirit forth of fire ; All night the lamp with shades at strife Gives us the gayest hours of Life — Friends seek us. Summer's work is done. Strong Winter-sport comes boldly on. And books and play and Earth's brief rest Make present Winter, best of best. One Season more, is coming still Which its own pleasures doubtless fill. The Grave extends its tranquil couch. Where Care has often longed to crouch. And Age lies down relieved, and sighs — 112 — SEASONS. "At last, I, need no more arise." Or else perchance in that new home To which thro' unknown paths we couie, The grave will loose with potent spells Its dweller's fleshy manacles. And leave his unencumbered Will A Spirit, with man's wishes still. At times when words have made me sigh, That told of torrent, city, sky, Where freer feet than mine might trace Each lonely and each peopled place, I've pondered thus — I soon shall lie In the green earth with those that die. And leaving clay with clay, the soul AVill be alone, my being's whole. The soul it is which longrs to flee O'er mountain white and icy sea. To glide behind the falling veil Of torrents leaping to the dale ; To see the hours and spots, where rise Such glories of the earth and skies As grace each day the solitude Of Alpine height, or dawn-touched flood. And rarely in his earthly span Greet the delighted eye of man. This cannot be while wear I must My injured garb of mortal dust; The strong of limb, the fleet, the free May see them, but I may not see. 'No matter — there is time to come Beyond, as now before, the tomb, — 113 — SEASONS. When cumbering flesh, no more can stay Mind on its unobstructed way. And as these thoughts their image gain Within the mirror of my brain, I smother the superfluous sigh And say — I'll go there when I die. — 114 %]jt %h-n 6iwsts, HE World was dark, and comfortless, and chill, The haunt of sordid care, and hideous ill ; Till three bright guests, beyond all utterance bright, Trod the dull orb, and woke it into light. First Beauty came, from soft Italian bowers, Nursed mid the stealthy dew of summer flowers. She came with faltering step and downcast eye, She came with mantling blush and melting sigh, She came with brow of sway and glance of flame. In doubt, in hope, in ecstasy she came. In each mood various, as In each supreme. She scattered conquest from her rosy beam. Subdued alike the needy Heirs of toil. The Lords of luxury, the Sons of spoil. Each sterner passion in its turn controlled, The thirst of Empire, and the lust of gold. And saw before her bow the wise and brave, Caesar her suppliant, Solomon her slave. Next bounded forth young Poesy — her hair In golden tresses floated on the air, Her roving eye a wayward lustre shed. But lofty thought sat throned on her head ; — 115 — THE THREE GUESTS. Calm as a seraph, sportive as a child She trod the rocky beach, or heathy wild ; On Ilion's mound her earliest laurel grew, Kich with the freshness of immortal dew ; She nursed mid Attic rills her tragic vein. By smooth Colonus, and Egina's main ; To softer raptures thrilled the lyre awhile With love-taught Sappho in her Lesbian isle ; Urged o'er th' Olympian course the foaming steed, Tn pastoral valleys tuned the pastoral reed, Peeled the high Harp by Mincio's sedgy tide, Breathed the soft lute on Arno's vine-clad side ; Xor yet withheld some notes from Britain's clime, Not all unworthy of her elder time ; And still where'er the vocal strain arose. Mid torrid fervours, or eternal snows. Through every large variety of Man, Savage or Sage, the soft infection ran ; Before the magic of her chorded shell The 'Captive's chain, the Tyrant's madness, fell, And Nature's jarring discord paused to hear The borrowed language of a higher sphere. I turned again — the Minstrel's fire was spent ; I gazed around — the Lover's heart was rent ; Neglect, and penury, and change, and death. Spared not the glowing form, or gifted breath. But quenched in one stern blight of cold decay Love's purple gleam, and Fancy's meteor ray ; Where are ye, solaces of human kind ? I looked — and Piety remained behind ; Upon her radiant cheek, and brow serene, — 116 — THE THREE GUESTS. Xo fevered throb, no fitful flush, were seen ; Through every changing tide of various life. The gaudy sunshine, or the stormy strife. She calmly shook from her resplendent veil The puny drivings of each passing gale, Gave to the earth her transient smile or sigh. Her undetached communion to the Sky : Yet while she longed for that celestial year, Without a limit, and without a tear. Still her bright presence with reflected glow Diffused her own serenity below — The conscious presage of an endless rest, The nether Heaven of a pardoned breast. Ca ri.isi.k. — 117 ^ "§mi out 0! ji <^ketcl)'-§0,crk. By W. M. Thackeray. — »-v-i»s^;t*?>t ' F you will take a leaf out of my sketch-book, you are welcome. It is only a scrap, but I have nothing better to give. When the fishing-boats come in at a watering-place, haven't you remarked that though these may be choking with great fish, you can only get a few herrings or a whiting or two? The big fish are all bespoken in London. As it is with fish, so it is with authors let us hope. Some Mr. Charles, of Paternoster Kow, some Mr. Groves, of Cornhill, (or elsewhere,) has agreed for your turbots and your salmon, your soles and your lobsters. Take one of my little fish — any leaf you like out of the little book — a battered little book: through what a number of countries, to be sure, it has travelled in this pocket ! The sketches are but poor performances, say you. I don't say no ; and value them no higher than you do, except as recollections of the past. The little scrawl helps to fetch back the scene which was present and alive once, and is gone away now, and dead. The past resurges out of its grave: comes up — a sad-eyed ghost sometimes — and gives a wan ghost-like look of recognition, ere it pops down under — 118 — A LEAP OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. cover again. Here's the Thames, an old graveyard, an old church, and some old chestnuts standing behind it. Ah I it was a very cheery place that old graveyard; but what a dismal, cut-throat, crack-windowed, disreputable residence was that " charming villa on the banks of the Thames," which led me on the day's excursion ! Why, the " capacious stabling " was a ruinous wooden old barn, the garden was a mangj- potato patch, overlooked by the territories of a neighbouring- washerwoman. The liousekeeper owned that the water was constantly in the cellars and ground-floor rooms in winter. Had I gone to live in that place, I should have perished like a flower in spring, or a young gazelle let us say, with dark blue eye. I had spent a day and hired a fly at ever so much charges, misled by an unveracious auctioneer, against whom I have no remedy for publishing that abominable work of fiction which led me to make a journey, lose a day, and waste a guinea. What is the next picture in the little show-book? It is a scene at Calais. The sketch is entitled "The Little Merchant." He was a dear pretty little rosy-cheeked merchant four years old may be. He had a little scarlet kepi; a little military frock coat; a little pair of military red trousers and boots, which did not near touch the ground from the chair on which he sat sentinel. He was a little crockery merchant, and the wares over which he was keep- ing guard, sitting surrounded by walls and piles of them as in a little castle, were . . . well, I never saw such a queer little crockery merchant. Him and his little chair, boots, kepi, crockery, you can see in the sketch — but I see, nay hear, a great deal more. At the end of the quiet little old, old street, which — 119 — A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. has retired out of the world's biisiness as it were, being quite too aged, feeble, and musty, to take any part in life — • there is a great braying and bellowing of serpents and bassoons, a nasal chant of clerical voices, and a pattering of multitudinous feet. We run towards the market. It is a Church fSte day. Banners painted and gilt with images of saints are flaming in the sun. Candles are held aloft, feebly twinkling in the noontide shine. A great procession of children with white veils, white shoes, white roses, passes, and the whole town is standing with its hat off to see the religious show. When I look at my little merchant, then, I not only see him, but that procession passing over the place ; and as I see those people in their surplices, I can almost see Eustache de St. Pierre and his comrades walking in their shirts to present themselves to Edward and Pbilippa of blessed memory. And they stand before the wrathful monarch — poor fellows, meekly shuddering in their chemises, with ropes round their necks ; and good Philippa kneels before the royal conqueror, and says, "My King, my Edward, my beau Sire ! Give these citizens their lives for our Lady's gramercy and the sake of thy Philippa!" And the Plan- tagenet growls, and scowls, and softens, and he lets those burgesses go. This novel and remarkable historical incident passes through my mind as I see the clergymen and clergy- boys pass in their little short white surplices on a mid- August day. The balconies are full, the bells are all in a jangle, and the blue noonday sky quivers overhead. I suppose other pen and pencil sketchers have the same feeling. The sketch brings back, not only the scene, but the circumstances under which the scene was viewed. In taking up an old book, for instance, written in former days by your — 120 — A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. humble servant, he comes upon passages -which are outwardly lively and facetious, but inspire their writer with the most dismal melancholy. I lose all cognizance of the text some- times, which is hustled and elbowed out of sight by the crowd of thoughts which throng forward, and which were alive and active at the time that text was born. Ah, my good Sir ! a man's books mayn't be Interesting, (and I could mention other author's works besides this one's which set me to sleep,) but if you knew all a writer's thoughts how interesting his book would be ! Why, a grocer's day-book might be a wonderful history, if alongside of the entries of cheese, pickles, and figs, you could read the circumstances of the writer's life, and the griefs, hopes, joys, which caused the heart to beat, while the hand was writing and the ink flowing fresh. Ah memory ! ah the past, ah the sad, sad past ! Look under this waistcoat, my dear Madam. There. Over the liver. Don't be frightened. You can't see it. But there, at this moment, I assure you, there is an enormous vulture gnawing, gnawing. Turn over the page. You can't deny that this is a nice little sketch of a quaint old town, with city towers, and an embattled town gate, with a hundred peaked gables, and ricketty balconies, and gardens sweeping down to the [river wall with its toppling ancient summer-houses under which the river rushes ; the rushing river, the talking river, that mur- murs all day, and brawls all night over the stones. At early morning and evening under this terrace which you see in the sketch — it is the terrace of the Steiabock or Capricorn Hotel — the cows come ; and there, under the walnut-trees before the tannery, is a fountain and pump where the maids come in the afternoon and for some hours make a clatter as noisy as the river. Mountains gird it around, clad in dark — 121 — li A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. green firs, with purple shadows gushing over their sides, and glorious changes and gradations of sunrise and setting. A more picturesque, quaint, kind, quiet little town than this of Coire in the Grrisons, I have seldom seen ; or a more comfort- able little inn than this of the Steinbock or Capricorn, on the terrace of which we are standing. But quick, let us turn the page. To look at it makes one horribly melancholy. As we are on the inn-terrace one of our party lies ill in the hotel within. When will that doctor come? Can we trust to a Swiss doctor in a remote little town away at the confines of the railway world ? He is a good, sensible, complacent doctor, laus Deo : — ^the people of the hotel as kind, as attentive, as gentle, as eager to oblige. But oh, the gloom of those sun- shiny days ; the sickening languor and doubt which fill the heart as the hand is making yonder sketch, and I think of the invalid suffering within ! Quick, turn the page. And what is here ? This picture, ladies and gentlemen, represents a steamer on the Alabamg, river, plying, (or which plied,) between Montgomery and Mobile. See, there is a black nurse with a cotton handker- chief round her head, dandling and tossing a white baby. Look in at the open door of that cabin, or "state room" as they call the crib yonder. A mother is leaning by a bed place ; and see, kicking up in the air, are a little pair of white fat legs, over which that happy young mother is bending in such happy, tender contemplation. That gentleman with a forked beard and a slouched hat, whose legs are sprawling here and there, and who is stabbing his mouth and teeth with his pen- knife, is quite good-natured, though he looks so fierce. A little time ago as I was reading in the cabin, having one book in my hand, and another at my elbow, he affably took the — 122 — A LEAP OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. book at my elbow^ read in it a little, and put it down by my side again. He meant no harm. I say he is quite good- natured and kind. His manners are not those of May Fair, but is not Alabama a river as well as Thames ? I wish that other little gentleman were in the cabin, who asked me to liquor twice or thrice in the course of the morning, but whose hospitality I declined, preferring not to be made merry by wine or strong waters before dinner. After dinner, in return for his hospitality, I asked Mm if he would drink ? " No, sir I have dined," he answered, with very great dignity, and a tone of reproof. Very good. Manners differ. I have not a word to say. Well, my little Mentor is not in my sketch: but he is in my mind as I look at it: and this sketch, ladies and gentlemen, is especially interesting and valuable, because the steamer blew up on the very next journey : blew up I give you my honour — ^burst her boilers close by my state-room, so that I might, had I but waited for a week, have witnessed a celebrated institution of the country, and had the full benefit of the boiling. I turn a page and who are these little men who appear on it? JiJi and Sadt are two young friends of mine at Savannah in Georgia. I made Sady's acquaintance on a first visit to America, a pretty little brown boy with beautiful bright eyes — and it. appears that I presented him with a quarter of a doUar, which princely gift he remembered years afterwards, for never were eyes more bright and kind than the little man's when he saw me, and I dined with his kind masters on my second visit. Jim at my first visit had been a little toddling tadpole of a creature, but during the interval of the two journeys had developed into the full-blown beauty — 123 — 1 LEAF OUT or A SKETCH-BOOK. which you see. On the day after my arrival these young persons paid me a visitj and here is a humble portraiture of them, and an accurate account of a conversation which took place between us, as taken down on the spot by the elder of the interlocutors. Jim is five years old : Sady is seben : only Jim is a great deal fatter. Jim and Sady have had sausage and hominy for breakfast. One sausage, Jim's was the biggest. Jim cau sing but declines on being pressed and looks at Sady and grins. They both work in de garden. Jim has been licked by Master but Sady never. These are their best clothes. They go to church in these clothes. Heard a fine sermon yesterday but don't know what it was about. Never heard of England never heard of America. Like orangees best. Don't know any old woman who sells orangees. {A pecuniary transaction takes place.) Will give that quarter dollar to Pa. — 124 — A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCii-BOOii. That was Pa who waited at dinner. Are hungry but dinner not cooked yet. Jim all the while is revolving on his axis and when begged to stand still turns round in a fitful manner. Exeunt Jim and Sady with a cake apiece which the housekeeper gives them. Jim tumbles downstairs. In his little red jacket, his little — his little ? — his immense red trousers. On my word the fair proportions of Jim are not exag- gerated — such a queer little laughing blackamoorkin I have never seen. Seen ? I see him now, and Sady, and a half- dozen more of the good people, creeping on silent bare feet to the drawing-room door when the music begins, and listening with all their ears, with all their eyes. Good night, kind little, warm-hearted little Sady and Jim I May peace soon be within your doors, and plenty within your walls ! I have had 80 much kindness there, that I grieve to think of friends in arms, and brothers in anger. — 125 — Matthew, Chap. xx. HE dawn is on the hills and here we stand A group of youthful labourers ; all our powers Vowed to His service whose beloved command Calls us to labour in the early hours. Work in His vineyard is our chiefest pleasure. And His approval payment beyond measure. The Master comes ; He calls His labouring throng. And forth they go obedient to their toil, A blessed company ! I hear the song Of their rejoicing as they till the soil ; Ah, why was I not called ? I thought to speed Amongst the foremost for the Master's need ! But be it so. It is the Master's doing I I will put forth my powers and do His will. Outside His vineyard, ever nobly showing The Master's glory in the servant's zeal ; So in the third hour when His voice is heard. Before all others I shall be preferred. — 126 — LAST NOT LOST. Again passed by ! Oh, Master, this is hard ! Have I not, for my labour's sake, some claim ? I, who have sung Thy praise and won regard From men for my allegiance to Thy name — All know I love Thee, Master, wherefore then Do this despite to me in sight of men ? Forgive me if I murmur ! I will prove Myself more worthy. , Lord, Thou dost not know me But how unwearying is the heart of love. How resolute, how faithful I will show Thee ; So in the sixth hour, when the heat is strong And others faint. Thou wilt repair this wrong. The sixth hour is gone by — and I uncalled ! Alas, dear Master, I the hour forgot ; And, by the business of the day enthralled. My captive senses heard and saw Thee not ; Forgive me. Lord ! I thought not thus to sin ! — But when the ninth hour cometh, call me in ! I am unworthy to be called, unfit For the Great Master's service. He passed by me, Called in the others, and now here I sit. My hands before me idle. Master, try me ! — Cast me not off! let me Thy work essay Though I have been unfaithful through the day ! — 127 — LAST NOT LOST. The sun is setting ; night is coming down, The night when no man works. Oh Lord, dear Lord, Though I am poor, can nothing call my own. Though I have sinned as none before, accord Thy mercy ! By Thy mercy I will stand. Even until midnight, with my empty hand ! Callest Thou, Lord ? I thought I heard Thy voice In this the eleventh hour ! Bid'st Thou me go Into Thy vineyard? May my soul rejoice Lifted by Thee out of this pit of woe ! Speak not of payment. Lord ! But let me prove Thy sweet forgiveness. Thy exceeding, love ! Mart Howitt. 128 ^t €mk^^ oj<«0 ^ITHIN this horrid cirque of war What's hidden that they fight so for?" My guide made answer, "Eich increase Of virtue and use, which are by peace, And peace by war. That inner ring Are craftsmen, working many a thing For many a use, and others, wise. Explore the grass and read the skies." " Can the stars' motions give me peace. Or the herbs' virtues mine increase ? Of all this shell of use," said I, " Would that I might the kernel spy I" " Go further in," he said, "and see. Secure and fair. Society." And so within that busy round I brake, and came to calmer ground. Here men and women, great and small. Were talking, somewhat idly, all. " The lip of scorn may well be curl'd At such excuse for such a world I " — 129 — THE CIRCLES. Sigh'd I ; but, guided through this loud. Elated, and unfruitful crowd. An inner circle still I reach'd. Where sang a few and many preach'd Of life immortal, " But," I said, " The mystery yet I have not read. Life I must know, that care I may For life in me to last for aye." Then he, " These voices are a charra To keep yon dove-cot out of harm." In the centre, then, he show'd a tent Where, laughing safe, a woman bent Over her babe, and, her above, Lean'd in his turn, a graver love. "Behold the two idolatries By which," cried he, "the world defies Chaos and death, and for whose sake All else must war, and work, and wake I " COVJSNTRY PaTMOEE — 130 — A LEGEND OP ONE TAKEN OUT OP GOD'S HANDS. Br Holme Lee. 'T was on a Christmas-eve, In the old Catholic times of Germany, that the little son of Franz Steinmetz, the mason, fell HI of a deadly sickness. The bells at the church hard by began to ring out their peals of solemn gladness just as the physician whispered to the anxious, watching mother that her darling must die. She looked in his grave countenance terrified, clasped her hands in an agony of grief, and, dropping on her knees by the bed whereon the child lay, tried to pray in her soul that God would give her submission to His will ; but there was a wild rending at her heartstrings as her pale lips moved in words of supplication, which was as though her own life were being torn from her with her babe's. She was a devout, simple young woman — a Saint, her neighbours called her — and this was the first threatening of great sorrow that had ever assailed her since she was born.. Her parents still lived ; her husband loved her, and was prosperous. She had a sweet, kind face, which won a kind look back from every other ; a cheerful temper and pure heart, such as create perpetual sunshine and happiness within. — 131 — OTTO STEINMETZ. When her little son was born, he came as the crowning joy of her life, and made it complete. She felt and acknowledged that God had been very good to her. " The gracious Lord has given me all my heart's desires," said she to her own pious mother, presenting the child upon her knees ; " He has withheld from me nothing." " The trial is very great, ray daughter ; see thou bear it with humility," replied the aged Anna : yet her eyes also rested thankfully on her little grandson, and her heart rejoiced because of him, almost as it had done over her own firstborn. The fair young mother drooped her head, but only for a moment ; then she kissed her baby with a passion of love, and, cried, " If a trial, yet a blessing — a God's gift to make my soul glad — my darling, my delight, which no one can take away from me ! " " Which no one can take away from thee but He who gave it. Tempt Him not, my daughter, by making an idol of your treasure." " The Blessed Lord is not jealous of mother-love ! Has He not known it ? The Holy Mother sought Him sorrowing ; followed Him weeping from Jerusalem on the dark way to Calvary ; knelt at the foot of the cross, and suffered death pangs in His death. Oh, leave me my little joy ! There may be anguish for me as vast as hers, coming in God's own time. Why should I forestall sorrow, and go in quest of tears, when my whole being throbs with love, and joy, and thankfulness ? Ah, mother, recal the hour when the Lord gave thee my brother Carl ! " Since the happy day when Margaret made this appeal to her mother's tender memory, three years had slipped by in calm and quietness. The child had grown apace ; he was fair, — 132 — OTTO STEINMETZ. ruddy, and healthy ; self-willed and turbulent at times, but still a cooing dove when his mother folded him to her warm heart, and caressed him in the midst of her prayers. His father held him as the pride of his life, and indulged his fancy in a thousand ambitious day-dreams of the honours in his craft that his bold, bright-faced boy might achieve. Franz Steinmetz had travelled through all Germany during his apprenticeship ; he had worked at the building of the famous Dom of Coin, and had even passed into France, and over seas to England, where his skill in stone- carving had brought him much repute, as one of the mysterious society of freemasons, whose works still exist in the ancient cathedral churches, to testify how men glori- fied God in ancient days with their best labours of hand and brain. It was one of his proudest aspirations to send the boy, when he had instructed him in his craft, as far as he was able, to travel and study in these great religious buildings abroad ; but it was of the temjioral glory only that he then thought; and Margaret would clutch her darling closer to her bosom when she listened to her husband's ambitious projects. Franz was absent on that terrible night when the physician pronounced the child's fate to his shrinking mother. He had gone on foot to Strasbourg to see the glorious spire which had recently been completed, and she did not look for his return until after the great Christmas Festival was over. Ah ! if the child should die in his absence ? "What anguish if, when he called on the name of his little son, there should be none to answer — only a little corpse where he had left the living hope of his life. She knelt and prayed on — prayed almost against hope, — 133 — OTTO STEINMETZ. for faith was eclipsed in this dark hour and she could not find the helping hand for which she groped blindly through her tears. Nearly an hour had elapsed since the physician left her, when there was a loud knock upon the door, and she heard her husband's voice without crying to her. She rose quickly and opened to him ; and as he entered, he said with great haste and tremour, " Margaret, is there aught amiss with thee or the child? I was half way on my journey when a dreadful impression of trouble assailed me, and I turned again on my steps." " It is as thy heart warned thee, Franz ; the child ia very sick — sick unto death," replied she, with the heaviness of exceeding sorrow. " Where is Doctor Baum ? He should be here now I The lad is a poor man's son and he neglects him I" cried the father, in sudden anger. " Nay, Franz, he was very good. When he could do no more, he told me he must go ; for there were others suffering besides ourselves; and so he left the child in God's hand," said the poor mother, humbly. " Left him in God's hands ! and what means that ? Left him to live or to die as the luck may turn ? Nay, but I will have him out of God's hands, and see what some other I)hysician can do for him, though it were the devil himself. He shall not die, Margaret, I tell thee ; he shall not die ! " " Oh ! hush, Franz, hush ! utter not such awful words in the hearing of the angels! But a moment since there was a lovely smile on his face, as if he beheld already the bright- ness of heaven — and now see ! what anguish, what struggle ! Oh, my husband, my lover, what hast thou done ! what hast thou done ! A host of unholy things are plucking at him ! — 134 — OTTO STEINMETZ. Thou hast snatched him out of the hand of God, and death and Satan are contending for him I Look, look ! " Franz stood appalled as the child began to toss, and writhe, and scream, while his mother uttered loud prayerful ejaculations for aid and mercy in his extremity. " Take him. Oh gracious Saviour ! Holy Mother of God, plead for him !" cried she, in her anguish; but the dreadful convulsion ceased not. Franz looked on as if turned to stone, his fingers wrung together, his blood shivering like ice in hia veins, until he felt himself touched on the shoulder, and saw that a stranger had entered unobserved. "The child is very sick," whispered the new comer, in a singularly stiU, passionless voice. " At the point of death I Let his pure soul pass in peace," said the mother, fondling the poor limbs of her darling. " Not so. Stand by, and I will help him," answered the stranger, pressing towards the bed. Margaret stretched forth her arms to shield the child, and besought him to leave them undisturbed, for her own good physician had told her he was beyond hope. "In the devil's name, standby !" exclaimed Franz, pushing his wife angrily aside. "If this wise stranger can save thy son, is it not well?" A smile curled round the lips of the intruder, and he glanced shrewdly at the mason as he advanced, and raised the child on his pillow. " In the devil's name or any other name, what matters it, so long as he live, and become the most famous and skilful of your noble craft, eh, Franz Steinmetz ? " Franz nodded his head abruptly, and watched with great anxiety while the stranger passed his lean^ long fingers: — 135 — OTTO STEINMETZ. slowly over and over again down the child's distorted Innbs. At length his convulsion ceased, a perceptible shiver crisped his flesh, and his eyes opened with a wild affright upon the unknown face that leant over him. Margaret tried to draw his gaze upon herself by little tender words and artifices, but could not until the stranger waved his hand quickly twice or thrice over the child's shrinking eyes, and said, " Now I have saved him — take him again ; but remember he is henceforward always half mine!" He spoke good-humouredly, and Franz began to pour forth eager expressions of gratitude, but Margaret murmured, " Nay, God's and mine, God's and mine," as she hung over her restored darling, in a dreamy, satisfied, half-unconscious tone, as if talking to herself. Upon this the unknown physician exclaimed in anger, "God has no part in him! He was taken out of His hand, else could I have done nothing." "Who art thou ?" asked Franz, with a dark awe creeping over him. " I am he who comes in the extremity of those who distrust and defy God. You called for any help, though it were the devil's — and you have had mine. For that, thank not God, but His Great Adversary." With these words, and the child's gaze pursuing him, as if it were fascinated, the stranger went out into the cold winter night, while the bells of Christmas-eve were still pealing forth their chimes of rejoicing. When he was gone, Margaret lifted the child upon her *ap, and laid his head against her heart, bitterly weeping. He stretched up his little hands to her face and felt the tears ; and there came a weak, wavering, seeking expression — 136 — OTTO STEINMETZ. into his eyes as if he hardly knew her. Franz stood away from them, as though the son of his pride and love were become to him an object of terror and loathing. "It were better that he had died I" said he at last, in a' tone of regretful misery. "Much better, dear Franz," replied Margaret. "We could then have loved him still, though we had seen him no more. If we had no child on earth, we should have had a little innocent awaiting us in Heaven. But now — but now ! " The boy gazed with a wistful uneasiness in his mother's face, and clutched her neck with his tiny hands as if an instinctive doubt of her had smitten his soul, or, at least, she understood him so; for she pressed him with a reassuring passion of fondness to her breast, and cried out, "Thou art mine — mine still I and I will love thee always, and for ever and ever, my darling, my lost darling!" Either her words or her caresses soothed the child's anxiety, and after a little while he fell asleep in her arms. Then Franz approached and looked at him. "He will do well, Margaret — comfort thee," said he, trying to give her the peace he could not feel. "There is an unwonted disquietude in his face — he is disturbed by bad dreams. Oh ! Franz, Franz, it was not thus his dear face was moved when the angels watchedj and he slept safely in God's hands." And again her tears broke forth, and all night she wept and prayed over her darling; and Franz lay in his place with his face to the wall, and wished that his little son had never been born. — 137 — T OTTO STEINMETZ. II. The great Christmas feast was spent by Franz Steinmetz and his wife in the blackness of mourning and despair. Franz sat lowering by the hearth with his head on his hands angered, remorseful, and gloomy ; while Margaret wandered down by the beautiful river in the frozen sunshine, with the child in her arms, and fled beyond the sound of the holy church bells into the solitudes of the lonely hills. Her neighbours missed her from her accustomed place, and carried the tidings to her pious mother who was now bedridden, and to her father, who was blind. Their eldest son Carl and his wife lived with them, took care of them and kept the house ; but this was not like being able to do for themselves, and to come and go how and when they would. "Margaret is ill, or there is somewhat amiss with the child," cried the helpless Anna. " Son Carl, go thou down to Franz Steinmetz' house and see what is wrong there." So Carl went quickly, and came back with the tidings that the mason was drowsing over the fire, too weary or too moody to say aught but that he had returned from his journey the night before, without having accomplished it, and that Margaret had taken the child and was gone down by the water, or over the mountains — which, he knew not. Anna's heart misgave her that some great trouble had intervened between Franz and his wife — ^jealousy, strife, distrust, somethiDg terrible it must be that had driven her daughter on such a holy day from the communion of pious prayerful folks to the desolation of the barren hills. She waited a little while, and then entreated Carl to go again — 138 — OTTO STETNMETZ. and bid Margaret, if she were returned, come down and visit her mother; but this time her son brought back word that the house door was shut, and that he had heard the voice of Father Bruno praying within, and therefore he had not entered. What passed between the priest and his penitents in that awful interview none ever knew. But in the dead of the Christmas night, the watchman in the town street saw a man go by him, wavering as one that walks in his sleep, and on questioning him he found that it was Franz Steinmetz, the mason, clad as for a long journey, and carrying the heavy tools of his craft in a bag slung over his back. Franz did not answer him, but reeled blindly on, moaning aloud the name of his wife. And all through the bitter night, Margaret lay on the stones by their door, her face to the earth and watering it with her tears ; and in the morning her countenance was as that of one who has seen death and felt its cruel sting. Her friends and neighbours let her pass by them in silence as she crept along under the shadow of the houses with her son wrapped in her cloak, and eyed her pitifully as she stole into the darkest corner of the church, and hid her face against the wall in an agony of supplication. " A great calamity has befallen thy dear daughter, Franz Steinmetz' wife," a neighbour said to the aged Anna that day. " I know not what ails her ; but she looks on the ground, and all the lightsome beauty of her youth is gone." Anna's trembling lips moved in silent prayer; but she made no reply, and asked no question. Her heart almost failed her for fear. In the dusk of the afternoon, Father Bruno entered with a holy greeting of peace ; but he brought sorrow, for he came — 139 — OTTO STEIXJIETZ. from Margaret with a message to her people; and having gathered all the household together, he told them what had happened on Christmas-eve ; and how the child, having heen taken by his rash father out of the hands of God, was rescued from Death by Satan, whose possession his innocent body and soul had thus become. The pious Anna and her blind husband listened with fear and trembling to these awful words; and Carl and his young wife shuddered and looked behind them, as if the chill of the fatal physician's presence were creeping over them, " The child is lost for ever, unless it please God to put forth His Almighty strength against the enemy," continued the priest. " Therefore has his father gone forth into the world to labour and sorrow, leaving wife and home, kindred and country, that he may dedicate his soul, while he remains in the land of the living, to mortification and penance, and make atonement for his sin, his deadly sin ! " " Has he left Margaret ? " cried the weeping Anna. " In the flesh she must see his face no more," answered Father Bruno ; " but the child is with her." None dared to speak; but Anna held the hand of her blind husband closer, and Carl's wife clung to his arm as it the stern priest were putting them also asunder, and for- bidding them to love at their mortal perU. " Pray for them, but seek them not," he added. " Draw not Margaret's soul away from the duty of penance and suffering that is laid upon her. Perchance God may be entreated for the child, if his parents purify themselves from every vanity and lust of life." And having said his say, he gave them his blessing and departed. — 140 — OTTO STEINMETZ. III. That night Margaret lay at her mother's feet; and in the morning she rose up, bade farewell to the home of her youth and all in it, and went her way alone with the child to a poor hut, near the convent beyond the town, where she was hence- forward to lead her life of bitterness and sorrow. The house of Franz Steinmetz was to be razed to the ground as an unholy place ; for the great adversary, Satan himself, in bodily presence, had crossed its accursed threshold, and none would dwell in it any more, or pass by it in the dark for fear of his haunting terrors. It was a dreary spot to which the bereft woman fled; a little stone dwelling in a cleft of the rocks, high up on the north side of the mountain, with bare woods closing in behind, and the broad swirl of the river in flood below. When she reached it, the day was far advanced ; her feet were sore, and her limbs ached with weariness as her soul with grief. She sat down in the doorway, holding the boy on her knees, and with fixed mournful eyes watched the blue water flowing on Its swift way to the sea. " Oh, would that the waters of God would bear me away to His blessed eternity ! " was the silent thought of her heart ; and then she looked at her child, and cried in a wild anguish that would not be stilled, " Not without thee, not without thee, my lost darling ! Kather would I wander the earth over till the Great Judgment Day — outcast, lonely, unholy — than pass to the rest of Heaven, and leave thee here!" The boy appeared vaguely concerned at her grief, and began to fret, which partly diverted her thoughts; she prepared some food for him, and, when the evening darkened, — 141 — OTTO STEINMETZ. she laid him down in his soft bed with a yearning kiss. It had been her nightly custom to set him on her knees, and, with tiny clasped hands held in hers, to teach him to lisp a short prayer ; but now she omitted it, and after gazing at her for a moment, he rose up, pressed his little palms together, and waited to be taught. " The Lord look on thee ! the Lord hear thee, thou tender innocent lamb I " cried she ; and then she repeated, sentence by sentence, the baby prayer, his imperfect tongue echoing every word. Then he slept; but his mother's bed was the cold clay floor, and her pillow a stone. As Margaret's life now began, so it continued. The people at the Convent employed her to work in their vine- yard; and this fair young creature, who had been gently nurtured, and cherished with love since the hour she was born, toiled up and down the steep hills from sunrise to sunset, bearing heavy baskets of soil to cover the sunny slopes of the cliffs and fill the chinks wherever a grape-plant would grow ; or in the season, throughout the glowing day, she gathered the abundant harvest, and carried the ripe fruit to the winepress, amidst a laughing troop of men and maids who hushed their mirth, and whispered strange words to each other, as she passed by bending under her load. Her beauty withered like a flower in too fervent heat ; all grace of form left her; the golden ripple of her hair became rusted with long exposure to sun and weather. In her bronzed and haggard face no eye could trace a shadow of loveliness ; and when the old people vaunted of her beauty, the young ones mocked and disbelieved. In her appointed time the aged Anna went to her rest; her blind husband soon followed, and then Carl and his young — 142 — OTTO STEINIIETZ. wife succeeded to the homestead and all its belongings. Meanwhile, Margaret's child grew and throve marvellously, and when he was ten years old there was not a more beautiful child to be found in the province. He had been christened by the name of Otto, and it became almost a proverb amongst the vine-dressers to say, "As fair as the little Otto." Whenever Father Bruno came to the Convent, the boy was taken to him by his mother. On these occasions the priest questioned her closely and sternly of his dispositions ; and she answered him with readiness always. The child, she said, was gay and happy as a bird ; very loving, tender, and obedient ; inquisitive and quick to learn, and beginning already to mould bits of soft clay into the resemblance of creatures with which he was familiar in the forest. Father Bruno would then ask if he yet knew his own history. " Ah, no ! " was Margaret's invariable reply. To keep the dark secret from him was, indeed, become the great task and aim of her life. When she was at work in the vineyards, she carried him with her ; in the evenings she made herself his companion and playmate. She taught him to read, and Father Bruno brought him holy books ; then he learnt to write, and the fathers at the Convent employed him to copy manuscripts for their library. In the summer nights she dragged her tired limbs to a little lake, high amongst the hills, where the white lilies floated like fairy-cups on the blue clear water, because it was his favourite resort. Even thus early he manifested a sensitive love for all that was beautiful in nature, and a keen sympathy in whatever was typical of rest and purity. It was with an anxiety none but herself could comprehend — 143 — OTTO STEINMBTZ. that Margaret watched the bent and inclination of her son's mind. Against the bare stone wall of their hut was hung an oaken crucifix, carved by the hand of Franz Steinmetz him- self; it was of exquisite workmanship, but Otto testified no desire to imitate that. He copied the forms of animals, and groups of foliage and flowers, rudely at first, but in a little while with astonishing power and skill. His first perfect production was a carving of one of the large white water-lilies, in the heart of which he had sculptured an angel's face. He worked at it with the enthusiasm and diligence of genius embodying a lovely fancy, and Margaret sometimes almost forgot sorrow in watching over his absorbed delight. But one autumn evening, returning from her grape- gathering wearied almost to faintness, she found him sitting before his accomplished task with a countenance of strange surprise and disappointment. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and bent over to kiss him, but he scarcely heeded her caress, and only said, " Look, mother, I meant to make my angel smile like little Trista the woodman's daughter ; but behold ! her face is sorrowful like yours." Margaret's heart turned cold. Already was the knowledge of good and evil coming to her darling, and love with its shadow of grief. The next day Father Bruno arrived at the Convent, and Otto carried his Lily- Angel up there to show him. The priest eyed it critically, praised its delicacy, but said, " This is little Trista; only thou hast given her a sad countenance instead of her bright smile — why so. Otto ?" " My father, it was against my will," replied the boy. The priest paused and reflected on this answer for some moments, and then dismissed the young sculptor without — 144 — OTTO STEINMETZ. saying any more ; but in the evening he went down to the hut and talked to Margaret alone. Otto found traces of tears and anguish on his mother's face when he was permitted to enter; and Father Bruno told him the time was now come for him to study and labour regularly at his craft He was of fit age to go into the town, dwell with his work-fellows in the week, and visit the mountain only on Sundays and holidays. Otto was but half-sad to hear this ; he loved his mother, but his wings had now been growing for some time : it was natural that he should long to try Ihem, and the priest had decided that the hour was arrived when he must go forth into the world, and bear his burden like others. Margaret only wept and knelt all night at the foot of the Cross, pleading for him with many prayers. IV. Theee was a new church building in the town when Otto Steinmetz went thither, and he readily found employment on the interior. Ludwig Heine, who was the architect and desionaer of the choir, when he heard Father Bruno extol the young sculptor's genius and industry, and had seen the Lily- Angel, committed to him the execution of some of the finest portions of the work — a preference which did not fail to excite a spirit of anger and jealousy amongst the more experienced craftsmen. Otto did his best to disarm their resentment ; he was always cheerful and good-humoured, and when they gibed at him, he feigned a deaf ear. And, indeed, many of their taunts he was at a loss to comprehend. The Lily-Angel had been so much admired by Ludwig Heine that he caused it to be variously repeated in different — 145 — u OTTO STEINMETZ. parts of the choir where richness of ornament was required. The gracious flow of every line in garland or cluster, the purity and pathos of the seraphic faces in each flower-bell, and the exquisite finish of the workmanship, soon raised Otto Steinmetz to the rank of the ablest of his craft; but his acknowledged superiority raised also an increased enmity against him amongst his work-fellows. " Ah, ah ! but we know who helps him ! " sneered Miiller, the head mason. " No need to marvel that he excels. I would not for my soul's worth set an edge to my tools on his Master's grindstone 1 " Otto heard, and passed by carelessly. Another day, Ludwig Marsch, who, before Otto's coming, had been considered the best skilled hand at oak-carving in the province, drew near to examine his rival's work on the handrail of the pulpit, which was twined round with sculp- tured lilies, leaves, and angels' faces, gazing upwards as on the way to heaven. Ludwig Marsch commended both the design and the workmanship, but said, with an air of remon- strance, "One would hardly go to Paradise with such a sad countenance as thy angels. Otto Steinmetz." " It is strange, Ludwig, but whether I will or no, their expression is always one of mourning," replied Margaret's son, discontentedly ; " they look up, but still they weep ! " Ludwig smiled and turned away, as if he could have explained the mystery, but for kindness forbore ; he had not a bad heart, yet it did not please him to see a stripling like Otto surpass him in the craft over which he had grown grey. On a third occasion. Otto was mounting a scafibld to fix a finished lily-cluster in its place, when his foot slipped, and he fell from a dangerous height to the floor of the building. Several of the workmen ran to his aid, and amongst them was — 146 — OTTO STEINMETZ. Miiller, the head mason, who exclaimed, " Thou shouldest take heed to thy safety, and never ascend the scaffold alone, seeing thou art not in God's hands like the rest of us ! " And then they examined him, and to their astonishment and horror not a limb was broken, neither was he injured in any way beyond a few slight bruises. So they wagged their wise heads over him, and whispered that his Master's hands must have borne him up ; but they would not willingly purchase life at the price of a lost soul. " What mean you ? " cried Otto, impatiently. " One would believe that I had sold myself to the devil ! " " Perhaps the bargain was made for you !" retorted Miiller; and none of the men would utter another word. Otto, angry and confused, and without allowing himself time to cool, ran to Father Bruno in the sacristy, poured out rapid details of what had passed, and demanded explanation. The father soothed him ; and being joined by a younger priest of a wild and anxious countenance, they all three returned to the spot where the sculptor had fallen. Father Bruno measured the height of the scaifold with his eye, and shook his head with gloomy significance. " I cannot understand it. Otto ; any other man would have been taken up dead," said he. "Is the Lord's arm shortened that He cannot save?" cried the strange priest, in a hoarse voice. "Who can limit the power of the Almighty God ? " Otto turned quickly about to look at the speaker, and recognised Father Basil, who had once been accused of divers heresies, tried, tortured, acquitted, and sent back to his convent. He was now reputed mad, but being harmless, was occasionally suffered to go abroad with Father Bruno. The — 147 — OTTO STEINMETZ. young man was, however, too much interested in the mystery that was revealing itself concerning him to have his thoughts long diverted from it by any other object ; and he again sup- plicated the priest, whose visage had been familiar to him since his earliest remembrance, to unveil the secret which was 80 darkly implied in the taunts of his work-fellows. Father Bruno hesitated, and thought of all Margaret's tender care to keep it from her son ; but, being vehemently urged, and almost threatened by Otto, he at last gave way, and detailed the strange events of that Christmas-eve, now nearly a score of years ago, when his father took him out of the hands of God, and he was rescued Irom Death by Satan himself in the guise of a physician. The mad priest listened to the wild history with as intent a heart as the young sculptor himself; but while every sense and emotion of Otto was held in check by the terrible destiny that he saw opening before him. Father Basil interrupted the relation continually with brief ejaculations in the holy words of Scripture, such as might have spoken hope and consolation to the soul of Margaret's son had he been capable of hearing and understanding them. But he was not. He saw before him only the exultant countenance of his Master, who had wrestled with Death for him, and conquered. In a sudden frenzy he rushed away from the presence of Father Bruno, crying in a piercing voice, like the demoniacs of old, " Lost ! lost!" and terrified the masons in the stone-yard by leaping in amongst them, and snatching the mallet and chisel out of the hands of Muller, who had a rough block before him ready to be hewn into a saintly head. Father Brnno followed him, and, with uplifted finge\ warned the workmen not to contend with his young strength — 148 — OTTO STEINMETZ. in his vehement rage, but to let him do after his own will till his passion exhausted itself. And until the night began to close in. Otto Steinmetz stood to his task crying aloud those dreadful words, as he chipped out the semblance of a face in the stone. The mad priest sat on the ground at his feet, with his face bowed upon his knees ; and when Otto flung down his tools, and said that it was finished, he rose up and peered at it with wild gleaming eyes ; then he felt the hard lines and murmured reverently under his breath, " Beautiful, beautiful !" The young sculptor laughed mockingly. " Beautiful ! " echoed he; "how beautiful! It is the likeness of one taken out of God's hands! the likeness of a lost soul!" "Nay, my son, not lost; for behold, it still looks up!" replied Father Basil. " In its countenance there is more of pleading than despair, and more of hope than anguish. Not on such as this does the merciful Lord cast down the veil of His darkness for ever ! " Otto gazed bewildered at what he had done. His mother's grieved eyes appeared to look at him from the stony face, and there was something of little Trista in it too. "It is the Liily- Angel again," said he. " What power works with my hand and does what I would not ? Is it he whom they call my Master ? Help me. Father Basil, that I may break it in pieces ; else they wiU take it and use it for a gurgoyle on the wall, and I shall see my mother and little Trista rejected from amongst the redeemed, and cast out of the presence of God!" The priest seized a heavy hammer and worked with all his might ; in a few minutes the face and the block lay in frag- ments on the ground ; but when the work of destruction was accomplished, both regarded it ruefully. — 149 — OTTO STEINMETZ. " We have done an unwise deed," said Father Basil. '• As the stone fell asunder, I saw the shape of a cross on the breast, and the form of hands folded over it. Carve the image anew. Otto Steinmetz ; and let it stand for one of those who walk in darkness and have no light; yet trust in the name of the Lord, and are stayed upon their God," " In this place shall I work never more I The twilight is falling, but I must go up the mountain to-night, for the voice of my mother cries in my heart in exceeding anguish and distress," said Otto. " I will walk with thee — Father Bruno bade me keep in thy company," answered the priest. " Then I will seek my tools, and thou shalt aid me in carrying them. To-morrow I shall start on my pilgrimage in search of him who took me out of God's hands." " And how wilt thou greet him when he is found ? " " I will cleave his head asunder as we cleft the likeness of the lost soul but now." " Now speakest thou like a true son and servant of him whom they call thy Master ! I will not leave thee nor let thee go until thou hast taken an oath to spare his life!" " Thou must come with me, then, and shrive him," replied Otto, in a cold tone of mockery ; and flinging his bag of tools over his shoulder, he strode out of the stone-yard, with the priest following close at his heels. It was a weird walk up the mountain that the two had. A storm was rising and the clouds piled themselves aloft into gigantic forms which appeared to the distraught fancy of the young sculptor like aerial cathedrals, with arch and spire, buttress and finial, and windows through which shone a pale — 150 — OTTO STEINMETZ. taper light, as from invisible altars. When tliey reached a certain point of the road, Otto, instead of continuing on the way to his mother's dwelling, struck off by a winding path through the forest. " Whither wanderest thou, my son ? " asked the priest. " I go to bid Trista farewell ! " replied Otto. "Who is thy Trista?" " I love her. She is my betrothed." " Alas I my son, what hast thou to do with love and betrothal?" " Nothing — therefore go I to bid Trista farewell." They went forward in silence some distance farther, when they heard a sweet voice singing as it seemed up in a great arching walnut-tree ; but it was Trista singing in her chamber with the window wide. " Trista !" cried Otto, standing below ; " Trista !" The maiden ceased her hymn and looked down on him in amaze, exclaiming, " Otto Steinmetz, is it thou ? What hath befallen thee that thou art straying in the forest after the midnight?" *' What hath befallen thee, Trista, that thou art singing in the storm with thy window wide, instead of sleeping on thy pillow watched by the good angels ? " " I know not. Otto, but that I feel a sore pain, and it seems as if it stretched from thy heart to mine. Thou hast come to bid me farewell!" "Farewell, Trista, thou art holy — farewell I Come not down — I dare not look upon thy face." But while he spoke she was there beside him. " Why is it farewell. Otto ? Thou lovest me — I love thee ! " " Thou wilt pray for me in the Convent, Trista." — 151 — OTTO STEINMETZ. " Thou leavest me ? Ah ! cruel Otto ! I shall soon pray for thee in Heaven!" " Better even so, Trista ! Turn away thy face — cling not so to me ! I cannot tear away thy hands ! " Father Basil covered his eyes at their parting and turned back. In a few moments Otto was again beside him, and they were hurrying on their way to the cottage of Margaret. The low door stood open, and a light from a little lamp before the crucifix shone across the road. Margaret lay prostrate on the clay floor, praying aloud for her son, while her arms embraced the feet of the Saviour. Otto signed to Father Basil to approach softly, and they heard these words of her fervent supplication : " Oh, gracious Redeemer, fight Thou for my son against his adversary ; for now is his temptation come upon him, and Satan claims service of his slave ! Holy Mother, plead with thy Lord that he may be set free of his bonds and received again into the hands of God!" " Mother, I am here ! " cried Otto, and stepping forward, he lifted her up and kissed her. " Oh ! my darling, my Otto ; thou hast learnt my secret — I see it in thy face ! Oh ! my lost darling ! look not on me so sadly ! " "How should I look? When «i fell from the scaffold in the church to-day, they mocked at me and said that but for the help of him whom they call my Master I must have died." "Fools are they and blind!" exclaimed Father Basil. "Who ever heard that Satan bestirred himself in works of mercy ? If he did, then would that haunting heresy of mine, that there is ultimate redemption for the fallen angels, have a — 152 — OTTO strix:mktz. new ground of truth. I begin to doubt it now ; there are devils in men's shape that can never grow into the likeness of God, so deformed are they with malice and cruelty and pious hatred to those who cannot haply travel to salvation by the same way as themselves. The Lord deliver us out of their pit ! " " Amen ! " responded Otto. Margaret held her son's arm and entreated him to cast aside the heavy bag of tools, to lie down and rest until the morning ; for he looked very weary ; but he refused. " I am setting out on a journey, and may not stay nor look behind me. I go to find Franz Steinmetz, thy husband," said he. " I like not thy countenance. Otto — what wouldst thou with that unhappy man ? " questioned Margaret trembling. " I would have his life in exchange for the soul of me," was her son's reply. " It is being paid out for thee day by day in penance, and prayer, and anguish, even like mine. If thou strike him, thou wilt strike through thy mother's heart ! Oh ! my son, leave us our forlorn, our miserable hope that our sacrifices may at the last float thee back within reach of salvation!" " He is within reach of it every moment ! " cried Father Basil in violent excitement. " Let him take it with foi-ce and by faith!" "Wilt thou go with me, mother?" said Otto, disregarding the pleadings of both. " It will be often in weariness, cold, and hunger, but wilt tiiou go?" "I will go, my son — but little Trista?" " She will pray for me in the Convent." " What avail prayers from saintliest lips to one who goeth of set purpose to hang millstones about his own neck that — 153 — X OTTO STEfNMETZ. he may sink, and that speedily, into the lowest pit of perdition ? " interrupted Father Basil. " Forego thy evil desire, and leave vengeance to Him to whom it belongeth." " Art thou ready, mother ? Let us be going," said Otto, as if the priest's words passed him like wind. Margaret meekly took the crucifix from the wall and hid it under her cloak, drew her hood over her grey head, and followed him to the door, having first extinguished the lamp. " Thou hast bidden Trista farewell?" said she, as they crossed the threshold. " I have bidden her farewell." " I dreamed that her love might have been as a step for thee towards Heaven — she hath a pure, pious soul and a tender heart." " The more fit for Heaven, the less meet for me," replied Otto ; and he strode on in the darkness with Margaret and Father Basil behind. Before dawn they met a party of robbers going up into the mountain who asked them whither they journeyed. " On a pilgrimage of penance ; let us pass in peace," answered the priest. So the robbers suffered them to pass. Then they were overtaken by some fierce hunters on their way to the forest, and to their inquiries Father Basil made the same reply. And one carried the tidings to the Convent and the town; and when Father Bruno heard it, he said, " My heart misgives me that Otto will often fall in with his Master, and do more of his bidding than he needs. The flesh and the devil are too much for one who is not in God's hands." But the old priest remembered the pilgrims thrice every day in a special prayer, and Margaret pleaded unceasingly — 154 — OTTO STEINMETZ. with the Lord that He would fight for her son against hia adversary. Therefore could Otto never utterly fall. V. Margaret, her son, and Father Basil, travelled on for three long winters and summers; Otto inquiring of every one that he met, who appeared to belong to their craft, if they knew aught of one Franz Steinmetz, a skilful mason and carver in stone, who had left the Rhine Valley some twenty years before to seek work elsewhere, and had never been heard of by his kinsfolk since. But they could learn no tidings of him by that means. And wherever Otto saw a church or a convent in progress of building or restoration, he went and scanned every face amongst the workmen, and questioned them narrowly whether they had at any time had a comrade of his father's name. Here it now and then happened, that a grey old mason would peer up suddenly from his block and answer, " Yes, he had worked with Franz Steinmetz at such a place in such a year;" but this was always too long ago for it to give any clue to his present abode. Occasionally Otto stayed and worked a month or two in one town to earn the means of subsistence for himself and his companions on their weary pilgrimage. As a boy, he had been so tender-hearted that he would not rob a bird of her fledglings or crush a worm under his foot; but now his temper often broke forth in passionate gusts, and his beautiful countenance grew wild and hard as his soul with brooding over its settled purpose of revenge. Yet he never raised an angry voice against his mother or the poor priest, who — 155 — OTTO STEINMETZ. followed his wanderings with the humble fidelity of a dog, contented with half a crust and a draught of water if he might only be permitted to stay him from his desperate ends. Thus they travelled across France, and through the rich flats by Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp, where, at last, they heard distinct tidings, that Franz Steinmetz had been working in Antwerp for three years, and that only a month ago he had crossed over to England with a party of monks who were going back to their monastery in the North. A fierce gleam of satisfaction shone in the eyes of Otto, as he laid hold of the clue to his meditated vengeance ; but Margaret got her to her knees and the priest to his penance and besieged heaven with prayers that ceased not night nor day as they made their stormy passage to England. Twice it seemed that the great waves must swallow up their ship, but they were preserved as by a miracle ; and though wrecked and cast ashore at last, they were rescued out of the jaws of Death and kindly entreated by the simple people amongst whom the mercy of God had thrown them. Here Margaret fell sick, and they had to wait some days for her recovery, notwithstanding Otto's burning impatience to go on. It was cool spring weather, green and fresh ; and when his mother was able to travel again they set out, going inland through a country of luxuriant forests, having received certain intelligence that Franz Steinmetz had journeyed by that way, to where a magnificent monastery was being built by a company of Benedictine monks, in a beautiful valley of the north-west. Day by day, they now met with persons who had either seen, or heard from others of the monks and tlieir companion the mason; and one quiet evening, towards the sunsctting, they came suddenly on a quarry, where a — 156 — OTTO STEINMETZ. band of workmen were hewing out the bloo.ks of stone for the building of the monastery. Otto bade his mother and the priest wait while he went down to inquire of them ; but Margaret clung to him with quaking limbs, and Father Basil sprang before him and outstript him, bearing the crucifix aloft in his hand. " Here is a priest ! " cried one of the workmen who, with others, was stooping low over something on the ground ; " Holy lather, draw near and receive this man's confession — he is our comrade, and but just now a huge stone fell upon him and crushed him, so that we fear his soul may pass unshrlven ere we can get help from the glen below." Father Basil knelt down and bent his ear to the lips of the dying penitent, over whose countenance was shed the halo of peace mingled with the pallor of dissolution. "Is there any good Christian soul near who will support my head?" murmured he, in a faint voice ; and Margaret ran forward and lifted it upon her knees ; while Otto, in deep pity for the man's anguish of body, wrung liis hard hand and sobbed, " Comfort thee, my father, thou art passing into the rest of God I " " What is thy name ? Doth aught lie heavily on thy soul in this hour ? " whispered the priest. "My name is Franz Steinmetz. My sins have been very great, and my punishment almost more than I could bear ; but I have repented unceasingly before God, and my wicked- ness is done away. He hath given me pardon for the sake of Him who died upon the Cross." " It is enough ! Depart in peace, for that Holy One hath redeemed thee ! " And looking upwards at his last breath, Franz Steinmetss saw Margaret's face leaning over him ; and he knew it, and — 157 — OTTO STEINMETZ. his son's also ; and uttering their names, he thanked God and died. " Oh, Otto, Otto ! " exclaimed Father Basil, when the supreme moment was past, " see how the Lord hath fought for thee against thy adversary, because of thy mother's prayers I Satan set thy heart on slaying thy father ; yet, behold, thou hast been led hither to comfort him in his death." Then the stone hewers lifted their comrade from the ground to bear him to the monastery ; and Margaret still held the head of her husband, but it was the strong arms of Otto that supported both. VI. Fob six days after his father was buried. Otto Steinmetz spoke never word. Night and day he lay out under the sky with his face to the earth, as one who does penance for mortal sin. Father Basil kept watch over him, and a good woman who dwelt in the glen took care of his mother. The seventh day was the Sabbath, and the monotonous sound of the masons' hammers was still. It was in the hush of the morning, while all the monks and work-folk were at prayers, that Margaret came feebly up by the little river to the bridge near the great gates of the holy house where her son was. He had risen and was leaning over the parapet, strewing leaves upon the water as it rippled and glistened, and gurgled, over the stones below, while the priest talked with him. The green waifs whirled round in the little eddies and floated away, one by one, down the stream ; some on a wave of sunlight, some in the shadow of the bank, and some in the chequered reflection of an overhanging tree. — 158 — OTTO STEINMETZ. "Let us go back to the fair Khine valley," Father Basil ■was saying as Margaret drew near ; " thou and thy mother to her kindred, I to the Convent. Perhaps thy little Trista still lives at the cottage in the forest." " Nay, not so. Since I have lain here upon the ground, I have had three visions : — the first was of the Lily-Angel that had Trista's face without her bright smile, smiling in Heaven : — the second was of my father and mother amongst the number of those saved out of great tribulation ; — and the third was of myself, in which it seemed that the tower of the monastery was finished, and that while the bells were pealing forth loud anthems of dedication, I ascended to the roof, and thence cast myself into the hands of God, and was accepted. But before that I must undergo three terrible temptations of my Master and adversary." " The Lord fight for thee against him, as He fought for thee in the matter of thy father ! " said the priest, fervently. " Otto ! " whispered the voice of his mother beside him ; "Otto, art thou come to thyself?" He looked at her with a wild, dreamy air, as of one between whose sight and. sensible objects there floats a mist of vague thoughts and fancies, saying in an awed voice, " Art thou returned ? But yesternight I saw thee in Paradise." " It will not be long — blessed be the good omen, my son ! As the leaves thou art scattering on the stream float away under the bridge and are hidden, so float our lives away, hour by hour, into the shadow of eternity." Then taking his hand, she beguiled him to the doors of the church which were standing open, and though he would not enter, he knelt with her and the priest on the stone — 159 — OTTO STRrXAIRTZ. outside, and heard the monks chanting their solemn hymn of benediction. He afterwai-ds suffered her to lead him home to the house where she had found a shelter. It was a secluded little place on the hill-side, overlooking the glen and the river, and with glimpses between the great trees of the walla of the monastery. Here thoy remained, fed by the charity of the monks, and faithfully guarded by Father Basil, until one day his tools being laid before him and a block of oak, Otto seized his chisel and mallet, and began to hew at the wood with as much ardour and enthu- siasm as formerly. The monks came now and then and looked at his work, and encouraged him ; and one told the Prior how the mad son of Franz Steinmetz, who was killed at the quarry, had all his father's skill and more than his father's genius ; and the Prior himself went up the glen, and saw the young man with his crazed eyes and rusted tawny hair, delicately carving the face of an image, and chanting in a wild piercing voice, accompanied by the priest and his mother, one of the seven penitential psalms. "Thy work is very beautifully wrought, my son," said the Prior. " Thou art almost as skilful as the Italian who is come from Bologna to carve the ornaments of our Chapter House." "I should be more skilful than he, seeing on whose grindstone I sharpen my tools, unless he have taken service under the same master as myself," replied Otto roughly. The Prior signed to Father Basil and his mother not to repi'ove him, and stood watching while, with the tenderest love for his creation. Otto touched and retouched to perfec- tion the exquisite features of the carven face — still that face with the look of Trista, and the same intense mournfulness — 160 — OTTO STEIXMETZ. in the heaven-raised eyes as in the Lily-Angel's. But the hands were stretched downwards and wrung together as of one that looks up for the last time, and pleads, and hears a sentence of dismissal, and turns away. "Wilt thou let me set my image by one of the shafts of the confessional ;' it is a false penitent?" asked Otto pre- sently, pausing from his task. "How a false penitent, my son?" said the Prior. "One who has confessed with the lips, hut whose heart is not right with God ; and while the priest has absolved her, she hears a -s-oice in her conscience crying that her sin is not put away." The Prior glanced suspiciously at Father Basil, who added in a low tone, " There are many such, my son — many such ;" and meeting the stern eye of the monk, his fingers began to move uneasily over the rings round his wrists, which were the marks of old fetters; and his flesh crept and quivered to the marrow of his bones with the remembrance of the tortures of rack and fire, and knife, whereby he had been convinced of his errors and humbled to acknowledge them publicly, but he recollected them in his madness, now and then, and they seemed truer and more full of the mercy and love of God than any of those sharp arguments of his holy superiors had done, even when he had yielded to them, and recanted like a flogged hound. "When thy work is done bring it to the monastery, and if it agree with Ludovico's design, then shall it stand by the confessional. Otto," said the powerful priest : and as he turned away, he beckoned to Father Basil to follow him. He did not return to the cottage that evening, but the next day Otto went up over the bridge and met him coming — 161 — T OTTO STETNMETZ. back looking wilder and more haggard than ever. But he would give no account of what he had suffered; only his lips kept moving incessantly in these words, "He that de- nieth Me before men, him I will deny before My Father which is in Heaven." He sat down on the bank of the river and promised to await the young sculptor's return; and Otto went on his way to the gates, and was admitted, and led to the part of the building where Ludovico was at work. Now the Italian had heard both monks and craftsmen extol the wonderful carving of the mad son of ITranz Steinmetz, but he met their praises with scorn, until the Prior himself told him that the young man had performed a noble work, and was to bring it to the monastery for him to examine, with a view to its being placed by the confes- sional. When Otto appeared, therefore, Ludovico knew what to expect; but he feigned disappointment, though his heart secretly burnt with jealousy, and said the image was admirable for so young a carver, though he would do better yet, and that in ten years' space or so he might aspire to work at the Chapter House, if it were not finished; but, for the present, his ambition must be contented with a 'humbler place. And therefore the beautiful image of Otto was rejected, and he carried it away to his home, forgetting in his anger to call to Father Basil to rejoin him on the way. And that night, Margaret being asleep and the poor priest still absent, his Master came to Otto and whispered to him to rise and follow, so Otto rose, and took his heavy mallet in his hand, and went down the glen side with his companion to the lodging of Ludovico, and crept in by the — 162 — OTTO STEINMETZ. window stealthily, and saw the Italian asleep upon his bed, and he stood looking on him like one walking in a dream. "Why dost thou wait?" whispered his Master. "One stroke of thy mallet and he is dead ! Then thou wilt do the carved work in the Chapter House and the confessional, and thy name will be had in reynembrance so long as the walls of the monastery stand." "For what art thou here, Otto Steinmetz?" asked the hollow voice of Father Basil at the open window. "Is thy Master with thee ? Come away — thou must not fall by this temptation — come away !" and he plucked him by the sleeve, and the young man fled crying loudly up the glen. Margaret had awakened and missed him, and was about to go forth and search when he entered in a frenzy and the priest behind him. " The first of the three temptations is past, and the Lord hath fought for thy son again," said Father Basil; and they knelt down and gave thanks to God for his deliverance until the day dawned. For a whole month after this. Otto haunted the wild hills day and night, terrible to all who met him except Father Basil and his poor mother. At last he went home again, and the first day as he was trying to see a face in the block of oak that he was going to carve, there came by a beautiful maiden, with large blue wandering eyes, ripples of golden hair, and cheeks like the blush of an open rose. He gazed at her, and criedout, asking, "Little maiden, who art thou ? Thou art fair as the damsels who bathe in the sweet Rhine water." "I am Ludovico's betrothed," said she; and danced past, regarding him, half-afraid, out of her bright blue — 163 — OTTO STEIXMETZ. globes of eyes. And the same evening the rosy maiden and her swarthy lover were wandering in the shady ways of the woody glen, when his Master came to Otto again, and put a sharp knife into his hand, and drew him along to the shelter of a great yew tree that grew by a winding path. And as Ludovico and his betrothed strayed near, the Master whispered, "When the Italian passes, strike him to the heart; then the fair damsel will be thine!" And Otto set his teeth, and raised his knife, but a bee settled on his wrist and stung him, so that he dropped the weapon ; and in flinging back his head defiantly before he took it again, he saw the Lily-Angel through the clouds, and heard Trista's voice praying for him in Heaven. And Fatlier Basil came in haste, caught him by the arm, and led him home ; and told Margaret with rejoicing words that the second temptation was over and conquered. Many years now elapsed in that glen of the rich north- west. The great tower of the monastery rose stone by stone, and Ludovico had spent the best half of a life-time in the fine carved work of the Chapter House before Otto's Master came to him for the last time. In the interval, Margaret's son had been sane and good, diligently toiling at the humblest task allotted to him at the monastery, and only here and there varying the design of sculptured boss and finial by some fancy-freak of his own which made it the more grotesque or the more beautiful. He led a life simple and holy, resting in almost childlike trust on his mother and the priest, loving them and being kind and helpful to all in the glen who were poorer or more needy than themselves. Was there an old man failing over his day's toil, Otto would cut and carry his — 1G4 — OTTO STEINJIETZ. fagot of wood from the hill ; was there a child gone astray on the snow-buried moors. Otto would wade through the deep drift until he found it. His great, gaunt figure never darkened door but those in the house blessed him; his foot never crossed threshold that it did not bless. It was on Christmas-eve that his Master came to him for the final temptation — the thirtieth annives.sary of that ter- rible night when he was taken out of the hands of God. Margaret still lived, though very aged and worn down ; and Father Basil also yet kept his faithful watch over the poor lost soul that Father Bruno had committed to his care. A wild storm was sweeping through the glen which almost over- powered the sound of the new bells in the tower, and Otto had piled up a glorious fire of logs upon the hearth to keep out the bitter cold. Suddenly the flames began to leap in a weird dance up the chimney ; then the face of the Master glared out at him from a scarlet cavern, and his voice, sounding like the hiss of a hailstone in the blaze, whispered in Otto's ear, " What a frolic of fire that fine carved work of Ludovico's would make on this dry, windy night! It would warm the starved shavelings like a deed of charity ! Take a burning log from the hearth, and go down the glen ; and if thou meet no one break the rich window and fling in the brand, I will go blow it, and thou wilt make a rare light in the world at last." Otto saw that his mother was slumbering, and that the priest was absorbed in prayerful meditation ; so he cunningly did his Master's bidding, and with the torch blazing above his head rushed through the tempest of wind, unheard and unseen, Satan keeping even pace with him until they — 165 — OTTO STEINMETZ. gained the outer steps by the Chapter House door. But here Otto's foot stumbled ; and lowering his torch to see what barred his way, the light shone on a dead face like his mother's, and with a bitter cry he flung down the brand which fell into a pool of water, and was extinguished. At this moment two monks, hearing loud piteous shrieks, came out at the gates with their lantern, and found Otto grovelling on the earth and calling on the name of his mother, while Father Basil endeavoured to calm his violence by saying, " Thy mother hears thee. Otto ; she hears thee in heaven! A little while ago she rose up and stretched forth her arms, crying to the Lord to save thee, and so died." " She it was who caught my foot but now when I and my JNIaster came hither to burn this beautiful house of God ! " exclaimed Otto. " He whom thou callest thy Master is thy master no longer," replied Father Basil. " Thy last temptation is over- come ! Follow me now, and live like a man ; for thou hast seen by three clear examples that mortals are never wholly given over either to themselves or to Satan. Christ fighteth ever for His own against the adversary !" But Otto broke from both the priest and the monks; and the door to the stair-way of the great tower being open he fled up into the darkness amid the clangour of the bells, and presently those who pursued him heard him cry with a great voice that rang through the arches of Heaven, " I have cast myself back into the hands of God, and He hath accepted me." And they found his bones below the wall of the tower, and buried them between his father and mother, with a — 1G6 — OTTO STEINMETZ. stone cross upon the grave, that its shadow might lie ever over him as a testimony of his salvation through Him who had contended for him against the adversary. And Father Basil returned to his convent in the Rhine Valley, and told Father Bruno that the Holy One had accomplished his work and taken his task from him, and he was come back to die. And he died in peace. 107 — St i'mi ^^ S there any thing, — Kightingales tliat sing — Violets in the Spring — As at first ? Sun and moon arise, But our accustomed eyes Have grown more coldly wise Than at first. All the woods are green, And yet, I think the scene Is not as it hath been — At the first I Where sight or thought can range. Something, just a little, strange, Ah ! so little ! yet a change From the first. My Friends ! all you that hear. Let me whisper in your ear. Do you love all you held dear At the first? — 168 — AT FIRST. Have you come to hold as nought What you blindly, fondly thought By God's special blessing brought At the first? Just as, being dead of pain. It were awfully in vain To bid love, even, live again As at first ! Nay ; even could we choose. Would we seek the hopes we lose — Or the cheating show refuse From the first? Ah ! my heart ! — it may not be ; — Yet I often dream I see All the treasures dear to me Safely nursed, (All 80 bitterly deplored) — With their early light restored. In the keeping of the Lord — As at first. IJEssiE R. Paekes. 169 — %i iasi , T last we meet again I And utter no reproaches for the past — l/^ No need to tell him all my hidden pain. For he knows all — at last I Oh healing touch ! — once more, I take in mine the hand he cannot give, — The fix^d sweetness of that smile before. What bitterness can live ? Oh lips thus sealed for aye ! I give the holy kiss ye cannot take — Death met returning love upon the way. And the once broken bond, renewed to-day. Doth thus eternal make. IsA Craig. — 170 — By the Authok of " John Halifax, G-enteebian.'' SHROUD-LIKE mist creeps o'er the purple hills, .And blots out, line by line, their mystic bound : The wheat lies prostrate on the sodden ground. The swoUen water-course the valley fiUs. Yet while this gloom our inmost being chills. On yonder heights we trace the glimmer plain Of that delicious " shining after rain ; " — Hard sight ! — More hard for him who sows and tills ; Who, while his empty barns still hopeless wait. Hears of glad harvests in another land ; Vet watches, passively, these clouds of fate. Slow moved with equal but invisible Hand. — Ah, blessed he, whose heart from envy sealed. Can " see the sun shine on his neighbour's field."' — )71 — Bt Mabt Cabpentee. LOVE thee. Sorrow, twin Sister of Joy, with thy downcast eye, from which gleam upwards bright glances mid thy falling tears! ». >jiA^ They that live without God in the world love ^^^^^^ thee not, — know thee not ; — they discern thee not *'^^^.^ from that earth-born sorrow which stirs within them thoughts of bitterness, which clouds their vision with impenetrable mists of dark brooding, which chains them to the seen and temporal, and then with a stern and cruel hand tears it from them — which worketh death. But thou ! How shall I speak with mortal tongue thy heavenly beauty ? Thou didst touch with gentle hand the glad child. He had but glimpsed before the twilight haze in which thou hidest thyself from the gay, busy world, — and he feared it, for he knew not what awful form was behind it, and he loved nothing but what was bright as his young heart, and full of springing life like his fresh spirit. But thou didst clasp him lovingly in thy arms, and whisper to him of a fairer garden than that he delighted in, with sweeter flowers ; — of a more beautiful world, — of a happier home. And — 172 — SORROW. when he wept at the first cold touch of Death, thou didst Bhow him blessed spirits that dwell with the Saviour, and that can never change ; thou didst tell him of Heaven. So he loved thee, for he felt that thou camest from the Home of his spirit, to bring him a message from his Father, and he never forgot thy heavenly visit to him. Thy beautiful Sister, Joy, oft precedes thee. At times she joins together two young spirits, and earth seems heaven to them. Joy has ever something in her radiant eye that tells she is not of this world; but yet she hid her wings from them, and they thought that she was theirs for ever. So she was, but not here. For soon she became invisible, and there was only one, instead of two, and thou wast by the mourner ! Yet gentle were thy ministrations. Oh Sorrow, to the lone one. Thy Sister had hid her wings; — thine were outspread softly to shade the grieving one from the world's glare, and to be ready to bear her too aloft when her hour should come. She saw that thou wast from Heaven, and she loved thy gentle pensive look that told her of her lost one, and where he was; — she was refreshed by the dew droppings from thy wings, which revived her fainting spirit ; and with thy tender hand ever guiding her, Joy not being far distant, she went on her way. But in thick darkness dost thou sometimes visit us frail mortals. Ever art thou thy Father's messenger of love, but then even thou hast shrunk from thy dreadful task, and thy hand was icy cold. Thy blow was very hard, though it was in mercy sent. Oh take with thee thy Sisters, Faith and Love, when thou art so awfiil a visitant. The poor sufferer will not perhaps see them at first; but when the midnight gloom is past, when the morning dawns, and the — 173 — SORROW. Star of Hope beams above the horizon, then shalt thou appear in thy true loveliness ; — then shall the mourner greet thee reverentially as one of the Heavenly Father's Angel Messengers. And when the grieving heart is thus humbled, then shall the afflicted one see Joy also, who cometh in the morning after the night of sorrow ; she shall bring with her many blessed gifts, and the earth shall no longer seem a wilderness, but the passage to Canaan; no more the Valley of the Tomb, but the Portal of Heaven. Then again there are fearful storms in the elements, whirlwinds of men's passions, that assail us pilgrims through this passage desert. Perchance we have not a cave to hide us, nor a rock to shelter us from their fiiry. For a season our eyes are blinded, and we are tossed to and fro we know not whither. We prostrate ourselves in the dust, that the hot stormy wind may pass over us, and that we may gather strength from weakness. We listen — it is thy still small voice. Oh Sorrow, that breathes Into our souls God's holy spirit. We rise and take courage, for we see thy form, as one of the Heavenly Messengers, mingling even in the thickest affray of the powers of darkness. We go boldly on, thou leading us, and midst the wild bowlings of the enemy, we hear the sweet accents of Joy, rejoicing that through strength divine we have overcome the world. Yet even fiercer dangers attack the homeward-bound wanderer; the fiery darts of Satan assail him, his soul is pierced, he Is torn asunder with inward agony. He cries aloud, " Is there none to save ? Who shall deliver me from this body of death ? Oh wretched man that I am ! " Thou comest to him. Oh Sorrow, and pourest balm Into his wounded spirit; thou bedewest his burning eye-balls with — 174 — SORROW. refreshing tears; thou anointest him with the softening oii of God's grace ; thou givest him to drink the strengthening ■wine of Christ's love. Now he can look up, his face beaming with faith and joy and hope. Thou hast healed his sores. Oh Sorrow, thou wilt not leave him ; he will have need of thee always while he is here below, for thou bringest him a peace the world knoweth not of, that it can neither give nor take away. Oh Sorrow ! Blessed Messenger from Heaven ! I have known thee long and well! "While the light of new life was first freshly beaming on my young spirit, I was the darling of thy Sister Joy, who tenderly caressed me, and imprinted a kiss on my smooth forehead, yet so that no one should see it but thou; it was never worn off even when that forehead was wrinkled with cares, and seemed old while still young ; — I scarce remember those early days. Then thou, who hadst seen the token on me, didst flutter near me in many different forms, and sometimes overshadow my sun with thick gloom. But I always knew thee to be a Heavenly Messenger, and never tried to shun thee, for I trusted that thou wouldst bring with thee thy Sisters, Faith and Hope ; — I had not learnt yet that Joy is thy twin Sister. When Death's angel bore away from me my beloved one, my Father, then thou camest to me with all thy Sisters to comfort me, and after the first gloom of nature's deep anguish, I saw thee, as thou wast, in all thy beauty. Thou didst not fold down thy wings, for thou knewest that I should never wish thee to leave me ; thy breath was my life, for with it I seemed to be with my lost one. Thus be with me ever. Oh long beloved, till Death's angel summons me also; then, with thy Sisters round thee, bear — 175 — SORROW. me aloft on outspread wings, into the Heavenly Father's presence ; then, when He receives me as His own child, shall I behold thee bright and beautiful as thy twin Sister, Joy, among the Ministering Spirits of God's eternal throne whom He sends to bring us to Himself! — 176 — ^ ^0iitpm girjijt, HE sandy spits, the shorelock'd lakes Melt into open, moonlit sea; The soft Mediterranean breaks — At my feet, free. Dotting the fields of corn and vine. Like ghosts, the huge, gnarl'd olives stand ; Behind, that lovely mountain-line; While, by the strand, Cette. with its glistening houses white. Curves with the curving beach away. To where the Light-house beacons bright. Far in the Bay. Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone. So moonlit, saw me once of yore Wander unquiet, and my own Vext heart deplore. — 177 — A A A SOUTIIKRX NTGIIT. But now that trouble is forgot: Thy memory, thy pain, to-night, My Brother!* and thine early lot, Possess me quite. The murmur of this Midland deep Is heard to-night ai'ound thy grave. There, where Gibraltar's cannon'd steep O'erfrowns the wave. For there, with bodily anguish keen. With Indian suns at last foredone, "With public toil and private teen. Thou sank'st, alone. Slow to a stop, at morning grey, I see the smoke-crown'd Vessel come ; Slow round her paddles dies away The seethino; foam. A Boat is lower'd from her side: Ah, gently place him on the bench 1 That spirit — if all have not yet died — A breath might quench. * The writer's brother, William Del.ifield Arnold, author of " Oalcfielfl ; or Fellowship in the East," and Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, died at Gibraltar, on his way home fi-om India, April the 9th, 1859, at the age of thirty-one. — 178 — A SOUTHERN NIGHT. Is this the eye, the form alert, The mien of youth we used to see. Poor gallant Boy ! for such thou wert. Still art, to me. The limbs their wonted tasks refuse, The eyes are glazed, thou cans't not speak ; And whiter than thy white burnous That wasted cheek. Enough ! the boat, with quiet shock. Unto its haven coming nigh. Touches, and on Gibraltar's rock Lands thee, to die. Ah me ! Gibraltar's strand is far. But farther yet across the brine Thy dear wife's ashes buried are. Remote from thine. For there, where Morning's sacred fount Its golden rain on earth confers. The snowy Himalayan Mount O'ershadows hers. Strange irony of Fate, alas ! Which, for two jaded English, saves. When from their dusty life they pass. Such peaceful graves. — 179 — A SOUTHERN NIGHT. In cities should we English lie, Where cries are rising ever new, And men's incessant stream goes by; We who pursue Our business with unslackening stride, Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast. The soft Mediterranean side. The Nile, the East, And see all sights from Pole to Pole, And glance, and nod, and bustle by. And never once possess our soul Before we die, Not by those hoary Indian Hills, Not by this gracious Midland Sea Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills. Should our graves be. Some Sage, to whom the world was dead. And men were specks, and life a play. Who made the roots of trees his bed. And once a day With staff and gourd his way did bend To villages and haunts of man For food to keep him till he end His mortal span — ]80 — A SOUTHERN UTIGHT. And the pure goal of Being reach. Grey-headed, wrinkled, clad in white. Without companion, without speech. By day and night Pondering God's mysteries untold. And tranquil as the glacier-snows — He by those Indian Mountains old Might weir repose. Some grey crusading Knight austere. Who bore Saint Louis company. And came home hurt to death, and here Touch'd shore to die ; Some youthful Troubadour, whose tongue Fill'd Europe once with his love-pain. Who here outwearied sunk, and sung A dying strain ; Some Girl, who here, from palace-bower. With furtive step and cheek of flame, 'Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower By moonlight came To meet her Pirate-Lover's ship. And from the wave-kiss'd marble stair Beckon'd him on, with quivering lip And floating hair, — 181 — A SOUTHERN NIGHT. And lived some moons In happy trance. Then learnt his death and pined away- Such by these Waters of Romance 'Twas meet to lay. But you — a grave for Girl or Sage, Romantic, solitary, still, Oh, spent ones of a work-day age ! Befits you ill. So sang I ; but the midnight breeze Down to the brimm'd moon-charmed Main Comes softly through the olive-trees. And checks my strain. I think of Her, whose gentle tongue All plaint in her own cause controU'd : — Of thee I think, my Brother ! youfag In heart, high-soul'd ; That comely face, that cluster'd brow. That cordial hand, that bearing free— I see them still, I see them now, Shall always see. And what, but gentleness untired, And what, but noble feeling warm, Wherever shown, howe'er attired. Is grace, is charm ? — 182 — A SOUTHERN NIGHT. What else is all these Waters are, What else is steep'd in lucent sheen, What else is good, what else is fair, What else serene? Mild o'er her grave, ye Mountains, shine ! Gently by his, ye Waters, glide ! To that in you which is divine They were allied. Matthew Aknolu. .\ij^ 183 — %h Mhix f eg. Children are told that where the foot of the rainbow stands, ma}' be found a golden key. IGHT'S drooping flags were slowly furled ; The sun arose in joy ; ^L The boy awoke, and all the world Was waiting for the boy. And out he ran. The windy air Was ready with its play ; The earth was bright and clean and fair. All for his holiday. The hill said " Climb me ; " and the wood, " Come to my bosom, child ; I'm full of gambols : you are good. And so you may be wild." He went and went. Dark grew the skies, And pale the shrinking sun. " How soon," he said, " for clouds to rise. When day was but begun ! " — 184 — THE GOLDEN KEY. The wind grew wild. A wilful power, O'er all the land it swept. The boy exulted for an hour, Then sat hirn down and wept. And as he wept, the rain began, And rained till all was still : He looked, and saw a rainbow span The vale from hill to hill. He dried his tears. " Ah ! now," he said, " The storm brings good to me : Yon shining hill — upon its head I'll find the golden key." But ere, through wood and over fence. He could the summit scale, The rainbow's foot was lifted thence, And planted in the vale. " But here it stood. Yes, here," he §aid, " Its very foot was set ; I saw this Ijr-tree through the red. This through the violet." He sought and sought, while down the skies All slowly went the sun. At length he lifted hopeless eyes. And day was nearly done. — 185 — B B THE GOLDEN KEY. The sunset clouds of radiant red Lay on the western foam ; And all their rosy light was shed On his forgotten home. " So near me yet ! Oh happy me. No farther to have come ! One day I'll find the golden key. But now for happy home!" He rose, he ran, he bounded on. With home and rest before; And just as daylight all was gone. He reached his father's door. His father stroked his drooping head. And gone were all his harms ; His mother kissed him in his bed. And heaven was in her arms. He folded then his weary hands. And so they let them be ; And, ere the morn, in rainbow lands He found the golden key. George MacDonald. 186 t Mmxu^ ia ^kmuk. By Anthony Thollopb. . HEEE is perhaps no form of life, in which men and women of the present day frequently find themselves for a time existing, so unlike their customary conventional life, as that experienced on board the large Ocean Steamers. On the voyages so made separate friendships are formed and separate enmities are endured. Certain lines of temporary politics are originated by the energetic, and intrigues, generally innocent in their conclusions, are carried on with the keenest spirit by those to whom excitement is necessary; whereas the idle and torpid sink into insignificance and general contempt, — it being their lot to do on board ship as in other places. But the enjoy- ments and activity of such life do not display themselves till the third or fourth day of the voyage. The men and women at first regard each other with distrust and ill- concealed dislike. They by no means anticipate the strong feelings which are to arise, and look forward to ten, fifteen, or twenty days of gloom and sea sickness. Sea sickness disappears, as a general condition, on the evening of the second day, and the gloom about noon on the fourth. Then the men begin to think that the women are not so ugly, vulgar, and insipid ; and the women drop their monosyllables — 187 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. discontinue the close adherence to their own niches which they first observed, and become affable, perhaps even beyond their wont on shore. And alliances spring up among the men themselves. On their first entrance to this new world, they generally regard each other with marked aversion, — each thinking that those nearest to him are low fellows, or perhaps worse ; but by the fourth day, if not sooner, every man has his two or three intimate friends with whom he talks and smokes, and to whom he communicates the peculiar politics, and perhaps intrigues, of his own voyage. The female friendships are slower in their growth, for the suspicion of women is perhaps stronger than that of men ; but when grown they also are stronger, and exhibit them- selves sometimes in extremes of feminine affection. But the most remarkable alliances are those made between gentlemen and ladies. This is a matter of course on board ship quite as much as on shore, and it is of such an alliance that the present tale purports to tell the story. Such friendships, though they may be very dear, can seldom be very lasting. Though they may be full of sweet romance, — for people become very romantic among the discomforts of a sea voyage, — such romance is generally short lived and delusive, and occasionally is dangerous. There are several of those great ocean routes, of which, by common consent as it seems of the world, England is the centre. There is the great Eastern line — running from Southampton across the Bay of Biscay, and up the Medi- terranean. It crosses the Isthmus of Suez and branches away to Australia, to India, to Ceylon, and to China. There is tlic great American line, traversing the Atlantic to New York and Boston with the regularity of clockwork. The — 188 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. voyage here is so much a matter of every day routine, that romance becomes scarce upon the route. There are one or two other North American lines, perhaps open to the same objection. Then there is the line of packets to the African coast, — very romantic, as I am given to understand ; and there is the great West India route to which the present little history is attached; — great, not on account of our poor West Indian islands which cannot at the present moment make anything great, but because it spreads itself out from thence to Mexico and Cuba, to Guiana and the republics of New Grenada and Venezuela, to Central America, the Isthmus of Panamd,, and from thence to Cali- fornia, Vancouver's Island, Peru, and Chili. It may be imagined how various are the tribes which leave the shores of Great Britain by this route. There are Frenchmen for the French sugar islands, as a rule not very romantic; there are old Spaniards, Spaniards of Spain, seeking to renew their fortunes amidst the ruins of their former empire; and new Spaniards, — Spaniai'ds, that is, of the American republics, who speak Spanish, but are unlike the Don both in manners and physiognomy, — men and women with a touch perhaps of Indian blood, very keen after dollars, and not much given to the graces of life. There are Dutchmen too, and Danes, going out to their own islands. There are citizens of the stars and stripes, who find their way everywhere — and, alas ! perhaps now also citizens of the new Southern flag with the palmetto leaf. And there are English- men of every shade and class, — and Englishwomen also. It is constantly the case that women are doomed to make this long voyage alone. Some are going out to join their husbands, some to find a husband, some few peradventure — 189 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. to leave a husband. Girls who have been educated at home in England, return to their distant homes across the Atlantic ; and others follow their relatives who have gone before them as pioneers into a strange land. It must not be supposed that these females absolutely embark in solitude, putting their feet upon the deck without the aid of any friendly arm. They are generally consigned to some prudent elder, and appear, as they first show themselves on the ship, to belong to a party. But as often as not their real loneliness shows itself after a while. The prudent elder is not, perhaps,' congenial, and by the evening of the fourth day a new friendship is created. Not long since such a friendship was formed under the^ circumstances which I am now about to tell. A young man — not very young, for he had turned his thirtieth year, but still a young man — left Southampton by one of the large "West Indian steam-boats, purposing to pass over the Isthmus of Panama, and thence up to California and Van- couver's Island. It would be too long to tell the cause which led to these distant voyages. Suffice to say it was not the accursed greed after gold — auri sacra fames — which so took him ; nor had he any purpose of permanently settling himself in those distant colonies of Great Britain. He was at the time a widower, and perhaps his home was bitter to him without the young wife whom he had early lost. As he stepped on board he was accompanied by a gentleman some fifteen years his senior, who was to be the companion of his sleeping apartment as far as St. Thomas. The two had been introduced to each other, and therefore appeared as friends on board the " Serrapiqui ;" but their acquaintance bad commenced in Southampton, and my hero, Kalph — 190 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. Forrest by name, was alone in the world as he stood looking over the side of the ship at the retreating shores of Hampshire, " I say, old fellow, we'd better see about our places," said his new friend, slapping him on his back. Mr. Matthew Morris was an old traveller, and knew how to become intimate with his temporary allies at a very short notice. A long course of travelling had knocked all bashfulness out of him, and, when he had a mind to do so, he could make any man his brother in half an hour and any woman his sister in ten minutes. " Places ! what places ? " said Forrest. " A pretty fellow you are to go' to California. If you don't look sharper than that, you'll get little to drink and nothing to eat till you come back again. Don't you know the ship's as full as ever she can hold?" Forrest acknowledged that she was full. " There are places at table for about a hundred, and we have a hundred and thirty on board. As a matter of course those who don't look sharp will have to scramble. However, I've put cards on the plates and taken the seats. We had better go down and see that none of those Spanish fellows oust us." So Forrest descended after his friend and found that the long tables were already nearly full of expectant dinner eaters. When he took his place, a future neighbour informed him, not in the most gracious voice, that he was encroaching on a lady's seat; and when he immediately attempted to leave that which he held, Mr. Matthew Morris forbade him to do so. Thus a little con- test arose, which however happily was brought .to a close with- out bloodshed. The lady was not present at the moment, — 191 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. and the grumpy gentleman agreed to secure for himself a vacant seat on the other side. For the first three days the lady did not show herself. The grumpy gentleman, who, as Forrest afterwards under- Stood, was the owner of stores in Bridgetown, Barbados, had other ladies with him. First came forth his daughter, creeping down to dinner on the second day, declaring that she would be unable to eat a morsel, and prophesying that she would be forced to retire in five minutes. On this occasion, however, she agreeably surprised herself and her friends. Then came the grumpy gentleman's wife, and the grumpy gentleman's wife's brother — on whose constitution the sea seemed to have an effect quite as violent as on that of the ladies ; and lastly, at breakfast on the fourth day, appeared Miss Viner, and took her place as Mr. Forrest's neighbour at his right hand. He had seen her before on deck, as she lay on one of the benches, vainly endeavouring to make herself comfort- able, and had remarked to his companion that she was very unattractive, and almost ugly. Dear young ladies, it is thus that men always speak of you when they first see you on board ship! She was disconsolate, sick at heart, and ill at ease in body also. She did not like the sea. She did not in the least like the grumpy gentleman, in whose hands she was placed. She did not especially like the grumpy gentleman's wife, and she altogether hated the grumpy gentleman's daughter who was the partner of her berth. That young lady had been very sick and very selfish, and Miss 'Viner had been very sick also, and perhaps equally selfish. They might have been angels, and yet have hated each other under such circumstances. It was — 192 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. no wonder that Mr, Forrest thought her ugly as she twisted herself about on the hard bench, vainly Striving to be comfortable. " She'll brighten up wonderfully before we're in the tropics," said Mr. Morris ; " and you won't find her so bad there. It is she that is to sit next to you." " Heaven forbid ! " said Forrest. But nevertheless he was very civil to her when she did come down on the fourth morning. On board the West Indian packets the world goes down to its meals ; in crossing between Liver- pool and the States, the world goes up to them. Miss Viner was by no means a very young lady. She also was nearly thirty. In guessing her age on board the ship the ladies said that she was thirty-six, but the ladies were wrong. She possessed a good figure, and when seen on shore, in her natural state and with all her wits about her, was by no means without attraction. She was bright-eyed, with a clear dark skin and good teeth ; her hair was of a dark brown and glossy, and there was a touch of feeling and also of humour about her mouth which would have saved her from Mr. Forrest's ill-natured criticism had he first met her under more favourable circumstances. " You'll see a good deal of her," Mr. Morris said to him', as they began to prepare themselves for luncheon by a cigar immediately after breakfast. " She is going across the isthmus and down to Peru." " How on earth do you know ? " "I pretty well know where they're all going by this time : old Grumpy told me so. He has her. in tow as far as St. Thomas, but knows nothing about her. He gives her up there to the Captain. You'll have a chance of making — 193 — c c THE JOURNEY 'J'O PANAMA. yourself very agreeable as you run across with her to the Spanish Main." Mr. Forrest replied that he did not suppose he should know her much better then than he did now ; but he made no further remarks as to lier ugliness. She had spoken a word or two to him at table, and he had seen that her eyes were bright, and had found that her voice was sweet. "I also am going to PanamS," he said to her on the morning of the fifth day. The weather at that time was very fine, and the October sun as it shone on them, while hour by hour they made more towards the South, was plea- sant and genial. The big ship lay almost without motion on the bosom of the Atlantic, as she was driven through the waters at the rate of twelve miles the hour. All was as pleasant now as things can be on board a ship, and Forrest had forgotten that Miss Viner had seemed so ugly to him when he first saw her. At this moment, as he spoke to her, they were running through the Azores, and he had been assisting her with his field-glass to look for orange groves on their sloping shores. Orange groves they had not succeeded in seeing, but their failure had not disturbed their peace. "I also am going to Panamd," he said. "Are you, indeed?" said she. "Then I shall not feel so terribly alone and disconsolate. I have been looking forward with such fear to that journey on from St. Thomas." " You shall not be disconsolate, if I can help it," he said. "I am not much of a traveller myself, but what I can do, I wiU." "Oh, thank you." "It is a pity Mr, Morris is not going on with you. He's — 194 — - THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. at home everywhere, and knows the way across the isthmus as well as he does down Regent Street." "Your friend, you mean." " My friend, if you call him so ; and indeed I hope he is, for I like him. But I don't know more of him than I do of you. I also am as much alone as you are — perhaps more so." "But a man never suffers in being alone." "Oh, does he not? Don't think me uncivil. Miss Viner, if I say that you may be mistaken in that. You feel your own shoe when it pinches, but do not realize the tight boot of your neighbour." "Perhaps not," she said. And then there was a pause, during which she pretended to look again for the orange groves. "But there are worse things, Mr. Forrest, than being alone. It is often a woman's lot to wish that she were let alone." Then she left him, and retreated to the side of the grumpy gentleman's wife, feeling perhaps, that it might be prudent to discontinue a conversation which, seeing that Mr. Forrest was quite a stranger to her, was becoming particular. "You're getting on famously, my dear," said the lady from Barbados. "Pretty well, thank you, ma'am," said Miss Viner. " Mr. Forrest seems to be making himself quite agreeable. I tell Amalia," — Amalia was the young lady to whom, in their joint cabin. Miss Viner could not reconcile herself, — ■ "I tell Amalia that she is wrong not to receive attentions from gentlemen on board ship, if it is not carried too far," — and she put great emphasis on the "too far," — "I see no harm in it." — 195 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. "Nor I either," said Miss Viner. " But then Amalia is so particular." " The best way is to take such things as they come," said Miss Viner ; perhaps meaning that such things never did come in the way of Amalia. " If a lady knows what she is about, she need not fear a gentleman's attentions." " That's just what I tell Amalia ; but then, my dear, she has not had so much experience as you and I." Such being the amenities which passed between Miss Viner and the prudent lady who had her in charge, it was not wonderful tbat the former should feel ill at ease- with her own "party," as the family of the grumpy Barbadian was generally con- sidered to be by those on board. "You're getting along like a house on fire with Miss V.," said Matthew Morris to his young friend. "Not much fire, I can assure you," said Forrest. " She isn't so ugly as you thought her ? " " Ugly ! No ; she's not ugly — I don't think I ever said she was. But she is nothing particular as regards beauty." " No ; she won't be lovely for the next three days to come, I dare say. By the time you reach Panamd, she'll be all that is perfect in woman. I know how these things go." " Those sort of things don't go at all quickly with me," said Forrest, gravely. " Miss Viner is a very interesting young woman, and as it seems that her route and mine wiU be together for some time, it is well that we should be civil to each other. And the more so, seeing that the people she is with are not congenial to her," " No ; they are not. There is no young man with them. I generally observe, that on board ship no one is congenial — 196 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. to unmarried ladies except unmarried men. It is a recog- nised nautical rule. Uncommon hot, isn't it? "VVe are be- ginning to feel the tropical air. I shall go and cool myself with a cigar in the fiddle." The fiddle is a certain part of the ship devoted to smoking, and thither Mr. Morris betook himself. Forrest, however, did not accompany him, but going forward into the bow of the vessel, threw himself along upon the sail, and meditated on the loneliness of his life. On board the " Serrapiqui " the upper tier of cabins opened on to a long gallery which ran round that part of the ship immediately over the salon, so that from thence a pleasant inspection could be made of the viands as they were being placed on the tables. The custom on board these ships is for two bells to ring preparatory to dinner, at an interval of half an hour. At the sound of the first ladies would go to their cabins to adjust their toilets, but as dressing for dinner is not carried to an extreme at sea, these operations are generally over before the second bell, and the lady passengers would assemble in the balcony for some fifteen minutes before dinner. At first they would stand there alone, but by degrees they were joined by some of the more enterprising of the men, and so at last a kind of little drawing-room was formed. The cabins of Miss Viner's party opened on to one side of this gallery, and that of Mr. Morris and Forrest on the other. Hitherto Forrest had been contented to remain on his own side, occasionally throwing a word across to the ladies on the other ; but on this day he boldly went over as soon as he had washed his hands, and took his place between Amalia and Miss Viner. " We are dreadfully crowded here, mamma," said Amalia. — 197 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. " Yes, my dear, we are," said her mother. " But what can we do ? " " There's plenty of room in the ladies' cabin," said Miss Viner. Now if there be one place on board a ship more distasteful to ladies than another, it is the ladies' cabin. ^Ir. Forrest stood his ground, but it may be doubted whether he would have done so had he fully understood all that Amalia had intended. Then the last bell rang. Mr. Grumpy gave his arm to Mrs. Grumpy, the brother-in-law gave his arm to Amalia, and Forrest did the same to Miss Viner. She hesitated for a moment and then took it, and by so doing transferred her- self mentally and bodily from the charge of the prudent and married Mr. Grumpy to that of the perhaps imprudent and certainly unmarried Mr. Forrest. She was wrong. A kind- hearted motherly old lady from Jamaica, who had seen it all knew that she was wrong, and wished that she could tell her so. But there are things of this sort which kind-hearted old ladies cannot find it in their hearts to say. After all, it was only for the voyage. Perhaps Miss Viner was im- prudent, but who in Peru would be the wiser? Perhaps indeed, it was the world that was wrong, and not Miss Viner. "Honi soit qui mal y pense" she said to herself, as she took his arm, and leaning on it felt that she was no longer so lonely as she had been. On that day she allowed him to give her a glass of wine out of his decanter. " Hadn't you better take mine. Miss Viner ? " asked Mr. Grumpy, in a loud voice; but before he could be answered the deed had been done. "Don't go too fast, old fellow," Morris said to our hero that night, as they were walking the deck together before — 198 - THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. they turned in. " One gets Into a hobble in such matters before one knows where one is." "I don't think I have anything particularly to fear," said Forrest. " I daresay not ; only keep your eyes open. Such harridans as Mrs. Grumpy allow any latitude to their tongues out In these diggings. You'll find that unpleasant tidings will be put on board the ship going down to Panamd, and everybody's eye will be upon you." So warned, Mh Forrest did put himself on his guard, and for the next day and a half his intimacy with Miss Yiner progressed but little. These were, probably, the dullest hours that he had on the whole voyage. Miss Viner saw this and drew back. On the afternoon of that second day she walked a turn or two on deck with the weak brother-in-law, arid when Mr. Forrest came near her she applied herself to her book. She meant no harm, and if she were not afraid of what people might say, why should he be so ? So she turned her shoulder towards him at dinner, and would not drink of his cup. "Have some of mine. Miss Viner," said Mr. Grumpy very loudly — but on that day Miss Viner drank no wine. The sun sets quickly as one draws near to the tropics, and the day was already gone and the dusk had come on when Mr. Forrest walked out upon the deck that evening a little after six. But the night was beautiful and mild, and there was a hum of merry voices from the benches. He was already uncomfortable and sore with a sense of being deserted. There was but one person on board the ship that he liked, and why should he avoid her, and be avoided ? He soon perceived where she was standing. The Grumpy — 199 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. family had a bencli to themselves, and she was opposite to it, on her feet, leaning against the side of the vessel. " Will you walk this evening, Miss Viner?" he asked. " I think not," she answered. " Then I shall persevere in asking you till you are sure. It will do you good, for I have not seen you walking aU day." " Have you not ? then I will take a turn. Oh, Mr. Forrest, if you knew what it was to have to live with such people as those." And then out of that, on that evening, there grew up between them something like the confidence of real friendship. Things were told such as none but friends do tell to one another, and warm answering words were spoken such as the sympathy of friendship produces — alas ! they were both foolish, for friendship and sympathy should have deeper roots. She told him all her story. She was going out to Peru to be married to a man who was nearly twenty years her senior. It was a long engagement, of ten years' standing. When first made, it was made as being contingent on certain circumstances. An option of escaping from it had then been given to her, but now there was no longer an option. He was rich, and she was penniless. He had even paid her passage money and her outfit. She had not at last given way and taken these irrevocable stejjs till her only means of support in England had been taken from her. She had lived the last two years with a relative who was now dead. " And he also is my cousin — a distant cousin : you understand that." "And do you love him?" " Love him I What ; as you loved her whom you have — 200 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. lost. As she loved you, when she cluug to you before she went. No; certainly not — I shall never know anything of that love." "And is he good?" " He is a hard man. Men become hard when they deal in money as he has done. He was home five years since and then I swore to myself that I would not marry him. But his letters to me are kind." Forrest sat silent for a minute or two, — for they were up on the bow again, seated on the sail that was bound round the bowsprit ; and then he answered her : " A woman should never marry a man unless she loves him." " Ah," said she, " of course you will condemn me. That is the way in which women are always treated. They have no choice given them, and are then scolded for choosing wrongly." " But you might have refused him." "No; I could not — I cannot make you understand the whole; — how it first came about that the marriage was proposed and agreed to by me under certain conditions. Those conditions have come about, and I am now bound to him. I have taken his money and have no escape. It is easy to say that a woman should not marry without love ; — as easy as it is to say that a man should not starve. But there are men who starve, — starve although they work hard." " I did not mean to judge you. Miss Viner." " But I judge myself, — and <;ondemn myself so often ! Where should I be in half an hour from this if I were to throw myself forward into the sea. I often long to do it. Don't you feel tempted sometimes to put an end to it all?" — 201 — D D THE JOURNIOY TO PANAMA. " The waters look cool and sweet, but I own I am afraid of the bourne beyond." " So am I; and that fear will keep me from it." " "We are bound to bear our burdens of sorrow — mine, I know, is heavy enough." " Yours, Mr. Forrest ! Have you not all the pleasure of memory to fall back on, and every hope for the future ? What can I remember, or what can I hope ? But, heavens ! it is near eight o'clock, and they have all been at tea this hour past. What will my Cerberus say to me? I do not mind the male mouth, if only the two feminine mouths could be stopped," Then she rose and went back to the stern of the vessel; but as she slid into a seat, she saw that Mrs. Grumpy was standing over her. From thence to St. Thomas the voyage went on in the customary manner. The sun became very powerful, and the passengers in the lower part of the ship complained loudly of having their port holes closed. The Spaniards sat grumbling in the cabin all day, and the ladies prepared for the general move which was to be made at St. Thomas. The alliance between Forrest and Miss Viner went on much the same as ever, and Mrs. Grumpy said very ill- natured things. On one occasion she ventured to lecture Miss Viner; but that lady knew how to take her own part, and Mrs. Grumpy did not get the best of it. The dangerous alliance, I have said, went on the same as ever; but it must not be supposed that either person in any way committed aught that was wrong. They sat together and talked together, each now knowing the other's circum- stances; but had it not been for the prudish caution of some ladies there would have been nothing amiss. As it — 202 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAIHA. was there was not much amiss. Few of the passengers really cared whether or no Miss Viner had found an admirer. Those who were sroing down to Panamd. were mostly Spaniards, and as the great separation became nearer, people had somewhat else of which to think. And then the separation came. They rode into that pretty harbour of St. Thomas early in the morning, and were ignorant, — the most of them,— that they were lying in the very worst centre of yellow fever among all those plague-spotted islands. St. Thomas is very pretty as seen from the ships; and when that has been said, all has been said that can be said in its favour. There was a busy bustling time of it then. One vessel after another was brought up alongside of the big ship that had come from England, and each took its separate freight of passengers and luggage. First started the boat that ran down the Leeward Islands to Demerara, taking with her Mr. Grumpy and all his family. " Good bye. Miss Viner," said Mrs. Grumpy. " I hope you'll get quite safely to the end of your voyage ; but do take care." "I'm sure I hope everything will be right," said Amalia, as she absolutely kissed her enemy. It is astonishing how well young women can hate each other, and yet kiss at parting. " As to everything being right," said Miss Viner, " that is too much to hope. But I do not know that anything is going especially wrong. Good bye, sir ; " and then she put out her hand to Mr. Grumpy. He was at the moment leaving the ship laden with umbrellas, sticks, and coats, and was forced to put them down in order to free his hand. — 203 — 'J'lIK JOURNEY TO PANAIMA. " Well, good bye," he said. " I hope you'll do till you meet your friend at the isthmus." " I hope I shall, sir," she replied ; and so they parted. Then the Jamaica packet started. " I dare say we shall never see each other again," said Morris, as he shook his friend's hand heartily. " One never does. Don't interfere with the rights of that gentleman in Peru, or he might run a knife into you." "I feel no inclination to injure him on that point." " That's well ; and now good bye ;" and thus they also were parted. On the following morning the branch ship was despatched to Mexico ; and then on the afternoon of the third day that for Colon — as we Englishmen call the town on this side of the Isthmus of Panamd,. Into that vessel Miss Viner and Mr. Forrest moved themselves and their effects ; and now that the three-headed Cerberus was gone she no longer hesitated in allowing him to do for her all those little thino;s which it is well that men should do for women when they are travelling. A woman without assistance under such circumstances is very forlorn, very apt to go to the wall, very ill able to assert her rights as to accommodation ; and I think few can blame Miss Viner for putting herself and her belongings under the care of the only person who was disposed to be kind to her. Late in the evening the vessel steamed out of St. Thomas' harbour ; and as she went, Ralph Forrest and Emily Viner were standing together at the stern of the boat, look- ing at the retreating lights of the Danish town. If there be a place on the earth's surface odious to me, it is that little Danish isle to which so many of our young seamen are sent to die, — there being no good cause whatever for such sendino-. — 204 — THE JOUKNEY TO PANAMA. But the c[uestion is one which cannot well be argued here. "I have five more days of self and liberty left me," said Miss Yiner. " That is my life's allowance." "For heaven's sake, do not say words that are so horrible !" "But am I to lie for heaven's sake, and say words that are false; or shall I be silent for heaven's sake, and say nothing during these last hours given to me for speaking ? It is so. To you I can say that it is so, and why should you begrudge me the speech." "I would begrudge you nothing that I could do for you." " No, you should not. Now that my incubus has gone to Barbados, let me be free for a day or two. What chance is there, I wonder, that the ship's machinery should all go wrong, and that we should be tossed about in the sea here for the next six months— I suppose it would be very wicked to wish it." "We should all be starved; that's all." "What with a cow on board, — and a dozen live sheep, and thousands of cocks and hens! But we are to touch at Santa Martha and Cartagena. What would happen to me if I were to run away at Santa Martha?" "I suppose I should be bound to run with you." "Oh, of course; and therefore as I would not wish to destroy you, I won't do it. But it wouldn't hurt you much to be shipwrecked, and wait for the next packet." "Miss Viner," he said, after a pause— and in the mean- time he had drawn nearer to her, too near to her considerins: all things — "in the name of all that is good, and true, and womanly, go back to England. Witli your feelings, if I -- 205 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. may judge of them by words which are spoken half in jest—" "Mr. Forrest, there is no jest." "With your feelings a poorhouse in England would be better than a palace in Peru." "An English poorhouse would be better, but an English poorhouse is not open to me. You do not know what it is to have friends — no, not friends, but people belonging to you — just so near as to make your respectability a matter of interest to them, but not so near that they should care for your happiness. Emily Yiner married to Mr Gorloch, in Peru, is put out of the way respectably. She will cause no further trouble, and her name may be mentioned in family circles without annoyance. The fact is, Mr. Forrest, that there are people who have no business to live at all." "I would go back to England," he added, after another pause. "When you talk to me with such bitterness of five more days of living liberty, you scare my very soul. Return, Miss Viner, and brave the worst. He is to meet you at Panamd. Remain on this side of the isthmus, and send him word that you must return. I will be the bearer of the message." "And shall I walk back to England?" said Miss Viner. "I had not quite forgotten all that," he replied very gently; "there are moments when a man may venture to propose that which under ordinary circumstances would be a liberty. Money, in a moderate way, is not greatly an object to me. As a return for my valiant defence of you against your West Indian Cerberus, you shall allow me to arrange that with the agent at Colon." — 206 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. " I do so love plain English, Mr. Forrest. You are pro- posing, I think, to give me something like fifty guineas." " Well ; call it so if you will. If you will have plain English, that is what I mean." " So that by my journey out here I should rob and deceive the man I do know, and also rob the man I don't know. I am afraid of that bourne beyond the waters of which we spoke, but I would rather face that than act as you suggest." " Of the feelings between him and you I can, of course, be no judge." " No, no ; you cannot. But what a beast I am not to thank you. I do thank you. That which it would be mean in me to take, it is noble — very noble — in you to offer. It is a pleasure to me, I cannot tell why ; but it is a pleasure to me to have had the offer. But think of me as a sister and you wUl feel that it could not be accepted — could not be accepted even if I could bring myself to betray that other man." Thus they ran across the Caribbean Sea, renewing very often such conversations as that just given. They touched at Santa Martha and Cartagena on the coast of the Spanish Main, and at both places he went with her on shore. He found that she was fairly well educated, and anxious to see and to learn all that might be seen and learned in the course of her travels. On the last day, as they neared the isthmus, she became more tranquil and quiet in the expression of her feelings than before, and spoke with less gloom than she had done. " After all, ought I not to like him ? " she said. " He is coming all the way from Callao merely to meet me. — 207 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAJIA. What man would go from London to Moscow to pick up a wife?" " I would — and thence round the world to Moscow again — if she were the wife I wanted." " Yes ; but a wife who has never said that she loved you I It is purely a matter of convenience. Well, I have locked my big box, and I shall give the key to him before it is ever again unlocked. He has a right to it, for he has paid for nearly all that it holds." " You look at things from such a mundane point of view." " A woman should, or she will always be getting into difficulty. Mind, I shall introduce you to him, and tell him all that you have done for me ; how you braved Cerberus, and the rest of it." "I shall certainly be glad to meet him." " But I shall not tell him of your oiFer to send me back to England; not yet at least. If he be good and gentle with me, I shall tell him that too after a time. I am very bad at keeping secrets, as no doubt you have perceived. I think we go across the isthmus at once, do we not ? " " So the captain says." " Look ! " and she handed him back his own field- glass ; " I can see the men on the wooden platform — yes ; and I can see the smoke of an engine." And then in a little more than an hour from that time the ship had swung round on her anchor. Colon, or Aspinwall as it should be called, is a place in itself as detestable as St. Thomas. It is not so odious to an Englishman, for it is not used by Englishmen more — 208 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. than is necessary. We have no great depot of traffic there which we might with advantage move elsewhere. Taken, however, on its own merits, Aspinwall is not a delectahle place. Luckily, however, travellers across the isthmus to the Pacific are never doomed to remain there long. If they arrive early in the day the railway thence to Panamd takes them on at once. If it he not so, they remain on board ship till the next morning. Of course it will be understood that the transit here chiefly affects Americans, as it is the high road from New York to California. In less than an hour from their landing, their baggage had been examined by the Custom House officers of New Granada, and they were in the railway ears crossing the isthmus. The officials in these out-of-the-way places always seem like apes imitating the doings of men. The officers at Aspinwall open and look at the trunks just as monkeys might do, having clearly no idea of any duty to be performed, nor any conception that goods of this or that class should not be allowed to pass. It is the thing in Europe to examine luggage going into a new country — and why should not they be as good as Europeans? " I wonder whether he will be at the station," she said, when the three hours of the journey had nearly passed- Forrest could perceive that her voice trembled as she spoke and that she was becoming nervous. "If he have already reached Panam^, he will be there. As far as I could learn, the arrival up from Peru had not been telegraphed." " Then I have another day — perhaps two. We cannot eay how many. I wish he were there. Nothing is- so intolerable as suspense." — 209 — E E THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. " And the box must be opened again." When they reached the station at Panam& they found that the vessel from the South American coast was in the roads, but that the passengers were not yet on shore. Forrest therefore took Miss Viner down to the hotel, and there remained with her, sitting next to her in the common drawing-room of the house, when she had come from her own bed-room. It would be necessary that they should remain there four or five days, and Forrest had been quick in securing a room for her. He had assisted in taking up her luggage, had helped her in placing her big box, and had thus been recognised by the crowd in the hotel as her friend. Then came the tidings that the passengers were landing, and he became nervous as she was — "I will go down and meet him," said he, ''and tell him that you are here. I shall soon find him by his name." And so he went out. Everybody knows the scrambling manner In which pas- sengers arrive at an hotel out of a big ship. First came two or three energetic heated men, who, by dint of screeching and bullying, have gotten themselves first despatched. They always get the worst rooms at the inns, the innkeepers having a notion that the richest people — those with the most luggage — must be more tardy in their movements. Four or five of this nature passed by Forrest in the hall, but he was not tempted to ask questions of them. One, from his age, might have been Mr. Gorloch, but he instantly declared himself to be a Spanish count. Then came an elderly man alone, with a small bag in his hand. He was one of those who pride themselves on going from pole to pole without encumbrance, and who will be behoved to no one for the carriage of their luggage. To — 210 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. him, as he was alone in the street, Forrest addressed himself. "Gorloch," said he — "Gorloohl Are you a friend of his?" " A friend of mine is so," said Forrest. " Ah, indeed ; yes," said the other ; and then he hesitated. " Sir," he then said, " Mr. Gorloch died at Callao just seven days before , the ship sailed. You had better see Mr. Cox." And then the elderly raaji passed on with his little bag. Mr. Gorloch was dead ! " Dead I " said Forrest to himself, as he leaned against the wall of the hotel, still standing on the street pavement. " She has come out here ; and now he is gone!" And then a thousand thoughts crowded on him. Who should tell her ? And how would she bear it ? Would it, in truth, be a relief to her to find that liberty for which she had sighed ? Or might it be, now that this terrible test of her true feelings had come to her, that she would regret the lo^s of home and wealth, and such position as life in Peru would have given her? And, above all, would this suddeji death of one who was to have been so near to her strike her to the heart? But what was he to do ? How was he now to show his friendship? He was returning slowly in at the hotel door, where crowds of men and women were now thronging, when he was addressed by a middle-aged, good-looking gentleman, who asked him whether his name was Forrest. " I am told," said the gentleman, when Forrest had answered him, " that you are a friend of Miss Viner's. Have you heard the sad tidings from Callao ? " It then appeared that this gentleman had been a stranger to Mr. Gorloch, but had undertaken to bring a letter up to Miss Yiner. This letter was handed to Mr. Forrest, and he found himself burdened with the task of breaking the news to his poor friend. Whatever he did — 211 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. he must do at oncej for all those who had come up by the Pacific steamer knew the story, and it was incumbent on him that Miss Viner should not hear the tidings in a sudden manner, and from a stranger's mouth. He went up into the drawing-room, and found Miss Viner seated there, in the midst of a crowd of women. He walked up to her and, taking her hand, asked her in a whisper whether she would come out with him for a moment. "Where is he?" said she. "I know that something is the matter. "What is it?" " There is such a crowd here ! Step out for a moment." And he led her away to her own room. "Where is he?" she asked. "What is the matter? He has sent to say that he no longer wants me. Tell me ; am I free from him?" "Miss Viner, you are free." Though she had asked the question herself, she was astonished by the answer ; but, nevertheless, no idea of the truth had yet come upon her. " It is so," she said. " Well ; what else ? Has he written ? He has bought me as he would a beast of burden, and has, I suppose, a right to treat me as he pleases." " I have a letter ; — ^but, dear Miss Viner — " "Well, tell me all — out at once. Tell me every tldng." " You are free. Miss Viner ; but you will be cut to the heart when you learn the manner of your freedom." "He has lost everything in trade! He is ruined!" " Miss Viner, he is dead." She stood staring at him for a moment or two as though she could not realize the information which he gave her. Then gradually she retreated to the bed, and sat upon it, — 212 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. "Dead — Mr. Forrest," she said. He did not answer her, but handed her the letter, which she took and read as though it were mechanically. The letter was from Mr. Gorloch's partner, and told her everything which it was necessary that she should know. " Shall I leave you now ? " he said, when he saw that she had finished reading it. " Leave me ; yes — no. But you had better leave me, and let me think about it. Alas ! me, that I should have so spoken of him." "But you have said nothing unkind." " Yes ; much that was unkind. But spoken words can- not be recalled. Let me be alone now, but come to me soon. There is no one else here that I can speak to." He went out, and finding that the hotel dinner was ready, he went in and dined. Then he strolled into the town among the hot, narrow, dilapidated streets ; and then after two hours' absence returned to Miss Viner's room. "When he knocked, she came and opened the door, and he found that the floor was strewn with clothes. " I am pre- paring, you see, for my return. The vessel starts back for St. Thomas the day after to-morrow." " You are quite right to go — ^to go at once. Oh, Miss Viner — Emily, now, at least — ^you must let me help you." He had been thinking of her much during those last two hours, and her voice had become pleasant to his ears, and her eyes very bright to his sight. " You shall help me," she said. " Are you not helping me when at such a time you come to speak to me ? " " And you will let me think that I have a right to act as your protector ? " — 213 — THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA. " My protector I I do not want eucli aid as that. During the days that we are here together you shall be my friend." "You shall not return alone. My journeyings are no- thing to me. Emily, I will return with you to England," Then she rose up from her seat and spoke to him. " Not for the world," she said. " Putting out of ques- tion the folly of your forgetting your own objects, do yoii think it possible that I should go with you, now that he is dead ? To you I have spoken of him harshly ; and now that it is my duty to mourn for him, could I do so heartily if you were with me ? While he lived, it seemed to me that in those last days I had a right to speak my thoughts plainly. You and I were to part and meet no more ; and I regarded us both as people apart, who, for a while, might drop the common usages of the world. It is so no longer. Instead of going with you farther, I must ask you to forget that we were ever together." " Emily, I shall never forgot you." " Let your tongue forget me. I have given you no cause to speak good of me, and you will be too kind to speak evil." After that she explained to him all that that letter con- tained. The arrangements for her journey home had been made. Money had been sent to her, and Mr. Gorloch in his will had provided for her, not liberally, seeing that he was rich, but still sufficiently. And so they parted at Panamd. She would not allow him even to cross the isthmus with her, but pressed his hand warmly as he left her at the station. " God bless you ! " he said ; " And may God bless you, my friend," she answered. Thus alone she took her departure for England, and he went on his way to California. —",14 — (From the Bketon.) Fttte I. N the house of Rohan is a maiden fair, (No daughter besides her mother bare,) Twelve years have passed o'er her gentle head. Ere she hath given her will to wed. Ere she hath willed, as maidens use. From Knights and Barons a mate to choose — From Barons and Knights that made resort To offer this lovely ladye court. She looked at all, but her heart would stay On none save only the Baron Mah6, The Lord of the Castle of Traon-joli, A powerful Peer of Italic — He only her heart could win and wear. So loyal he was, and so debonair. Three years, and half a year beside. They pass'd in happy wedding-tide. When came the tidings, near and far. How Eastwards gathered the Holy "War. — 215 — THE CLERK OF ROHAN. "As noblest of blood I first am boune To take the Cross against Mahoune; So since no other choice may be. Fair Cousin, I trust my wife to thee. I trust my wife, and my baby dear. Good Clerk, see no ill comes them near." As morning broke, on his war-horse stout. Armed at all points, he was riding out, "When lo, there came his ladye fair Adown the steps of the Castle-stair. Her babe in her lily arms she bore. And oh, but I ween her sobs were sore. As anigh her husband's side she drew. And clung his armSd knee unto. And as she clung, she wept amain. Her tears they flecked the steel like rain. "My honey Lord, for God's dear grace, Leave not your wife in lonely case." Her lord sore moved reached down his hand. Where by his side she kept her stand. And lovingly lifted her, louting low. And set her down on his saddle-bow. And there he held her a little space, And gently he kissed her pale sweet face. "My Jannedik, darling, but dry thy tear, Thou'lt see me again, before the year." — 216 — THE CLEIIK OF ROHAN. With that he took his little child From off the lap of the ladye mild ; Between his arms the babe he took, And he fixed on its face such a loving look — "How say'st, my son? When tall and stout With thy father wilt ride to battle out?" As he rode forth from his castle-hold. There was weeping and wail from young and old ; From young and old came sob and cry. But the Clerk — he looked with a tearless eye. Fytte II. The days they went and the days they came. When the felon Clerk bespake his dame, "The year hath drawn unto its close. And so mote the war, I well suppose; The war hath come to its end, perdi. Yet comes not thy Lord to his castle and thee. "Now answer, sweet sister and ladye mine. What whispers that little heart of thine ? Holds still the fashion for ladies to stay Sad widows, whose lords live far away?" "Now peace, vile Clerk — thy heart within Is full, to running o'er, with sin: Had he been here, who calls me wife, 'Twere pity of thee, both limb and life." — 217 — F F THE CLERK OF KOIIAX. When the Clerk this heard, with an evil look To the kennel his secret way he took, And he hath ta'en my lord's best hound. And hi? throat he hath severed, round and round. He hath caught of the thick blood — hath caught of the thin. And he hath written a letter therein, Hath written and sent to the Lord Mahe, Where far in the East he at leaguer lay. And thus it ran, in the good hound's blood : " Thy Ladye, my Lord, is sad of mood : Sweet Ladye fair, she is sorry of cheer. For an ill-hap late befallen here : To the green-wood she went to hunt the roe And your good dun hound is dead, I trow." The Lord Mahe read the letter through. And this was the answer he sent thereto : "Bid my sweet ladye smooth her brow — Of the red, red gold we have store enow. "What if my dun hound dead should be? When I come, I'll buy as good as he. But warn her, in green-wood 'twere pity she ride, For hunters are gamesome, and ill might betide." — 218 THE CLERK OF ROHAN". Fytte III. A SECOND time to the gentle dame. This felon Clerk by stealth he came: "Fair ladye, your beauty will fade away. Thus weeping ever both night and day." "Oh, little I reck of beauty and blee. When my own true lord is away from me." "If that your lord bide still from you, 'Tis that he's slain, or hath wed anew. "In the land of the East are ladies fair. Ladies with dowers both rich and rare — In the land of the East are swords and strife. And many a good knight leaves his life. " Beshrew him, an if new wife he has wed. Forget him, an if he be stricken' dead." " I'll die if he be wedded again : I'll die if that he hath been slain." "Who flings in the fire a casket of cost. Because the key thereof is lost? Far better, I ween, is a new, new key. Than ever the olden one mote be." "Now avaunt, foul Clerk, thy wicked tongue With lewdness and leasing is canker-clung." The Clerk he heard with an evil look; To the stable his secret way he took. — 219 — THE CLEUK OF ROHAN. Tliere he was ware of liis lord's destrier. The fairest steed in the country near — As smooth as an egg, and as white as curd. Fiery, and fleet of pace as a bird. That never meaner forage had seen Than crushed broom-boughs, and the buck-wheat green. He hatli aimed — he hath thrust, — and his dao^scer liath gone To the haft behind the broad breast-bone. He hath caught of the thick blood, hath cauglit of the thin, And he hath written this letter therein : " An ili-hap hath befallen here — Let not my lord make angry cheer — From a merry night-feast as my dame rode back. Hind leg and fore your best horse brake." Oh dark was the Baron's eye that read — " Ill-hap indeed ! my destrier dead 1 My dun hound gone, and my choicest steed ! Clerk-Cousin — advise her to better heed. " Warn her — but gently — not chiding her sore — To such night-feasts that she go no more. Not horses alone such junkets undo, But marriages may be marred there, too." — 220 — THE CLERK OF ROIIAX. Fytte IV The days they went — the daj-s they came, When the felon Clerk bespake the dame : " Or give me my will, or ware my knife, For I therewith will have thy life.'' '•' A thousand deaths I'd rather win Than anger my God with mortal sin." The Clerk such answer he mote not brook, So fierce a wrath his spirit shook. His dagger forth the sheath he drew. And he launched it at her, straight and true : But the ladye's white angel turned his hand. And the dagger-point in the wall did stand. And the ladye scatheless to flight hath ta'en. And hath barred her door with bolt and chain — But the Clerk his knife from the wall plucked out, As mad as a dog in the summer drought. And down the Castle-stair so wide. Three steps to a bound, and two steps to a stride. On to the chamber his way doth keep, Where the babe was sleeping its quiet sleep. The little babe lay all alone — One arm outside the cradle thrown. One little rosy arm outspread. The other folded beneath its head. THE CLERK OP ROHAN. The little heart all bare to tlie blow — » # fi » » Oh, mother, that weeping henceforth must go ! Again the Clerk hath clomb the stair, And in black and red hath written fair, — Oh fast and flyingly went his pen — • " Quick — quick, dear Lord, ride home again. " Spare not for spur, and never draw rein. Here's need that order by you were ta'en. Your hound is dead, and your white horse lost. But 'tis not this that grieves me most. " What's hound that's gone — or steed that's sped ? Out and alas ! your babe is dead ! " The big sow hath eaten your baby bright. The while my ladye was dancing light With the miller — a gentle gallant is he — In your garden he's planting a red rose-tree." Fytte V. This letter it came to the Lord Mahe, As home from the war he hath ta'en his way — As his happy homeward way he hath ta'en A march to the merry trumpets' strain. — 2^i2 — THE CLERK OF ROHAN. The while he read the letter o'er His mood it kindled more and more, Till, when he had finished the clerkly scroll. In his hands he crumpled the parchment roll. And he tore it in pieces with his teeth. And he trode it his horse's feet beneath — " To Brittany ! — Ho ! — fast — fast as ye may — I'll drive my lance through him would delay." Fast, fast, he rode to his castle yett. And struck three strokes on the oaken gate ; Three strokes he struck, so loud and clear. That all in the Castle astert to hear. The felon Clerk, as the strokes he heard. He ran to open with never a word — " Clerk-Cousin, accursed mote thou be ! Did I not trust my wife to thee ? " In his open mouth he hath driven his spear. That out at his neck the point came clear. And hath sprung up the stair so fierce and fast. And into his ladye's bower hath past; And or e'er she spake word, that ladye true With, his sword he hath stabbed her through and through. 223 '11)1'; CLElllv OF noiIAX. Fytte VI. " Xow tell me, Sir Priest, if told it may be, A\"]iat sight in the castle did ye see?" " I saw such sight of woe, I ween. That sadder ne'er in the world was seen : A saint slain, all for her love and truth, And her slayer well-nigh dead for ruth." " Xow tell me. Sir Priest, if told it may be. What sight at the cross-roads did ye see ? " " I saw a carrion corpse flung bare To the beasts of the field, and the birds of the an-." " And what did ye see in the churchyard green. By the light of the moon, and the star-light keen?" "I saw a fair ladye in white yclad. And she sat on a grave that was newly made. "AVith a baby clasped her breast unto, His little heart stabbed through and through ; A dun deer-hound on his right did stand. And a snow-white steed on the other hand. "The throat of that hound it gapeth wide, There's a red, red wound in that horse's side. And they reach out their muzzles, lithe and light. And they lick her hands so soft and white. — 224 — THE CLERK OF ROHAN. "And she strokes good hound and good horse the while. And smiles on both with a tender smile ; And then the babe, as jealous he were. He strokes the cheek of his mother fair. "This sight I saw till set o' the moon. And I saw but the mirk around and abo'on ; But I heard the clear sweet nightingales ring. The song that in Heaven the Angels sing." Tom Tati-or — 225 — G G )m-uhh %toil]. T is not for what he could be to me now. If he still were here, that I mourn him so ; It is for the thought of an early vow And for what he was to me long ago. Strange ! while he lived and moved upon earth, Though I would not, and could not, have seen him again, Ilis being to me had an infinite worth. And the void of his loss is an endless pain. I had but to utter his name, and my youth Rose up in my soul, and my blood grew warm. And I hardly remembered the broken truth. And I wholly remembered the ancient charm. I watched the unfolding scenes of his life From the lonely retreat where my heart reposed ; 'Twas a magical drama, a fabulous strife; Now the curtain has fallen, the volume is closed. The sense of my very self grows dim With nothing but self either here or beyond, That self which would have been lost in him, Had we only died ere he broke the bond. K. M. MiiNEs. — 226 — ^tmff0i:ir's ffowilj. I. AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. U. IN FRANCE AND ITALY. III. MEMBER FOR YORKSHIRE JET. 21. Br John Fokster. AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. _O^IB, WILLIAM WENTWORTH, an En- fflisli knight of very large estate in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign, represented one of the oldest houses in the West Eiding of Yorkshire. His grandfather had been in Henry the Eighth's service, and was privileged to stand covered in the royal presence; and from his father he inherited a manor which had descended, from father to son, through all the generations since the Conquest. Seated at Wentworth Wood-house, in the Wapentake of Strafford, this ancient family were connected, by blood and marriage, with the oldest and noblest in England ; from the younger branches of the stock, while yet its chief remained untitled, the Peerage had drawn more than one recruit; Edward the Third had found among them his Metropolitan and Chancellor; and, claiming no — 227 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. distant kindred even with Lancasters and Plantagenets, they carried the Lions in a corner of their shield. They never- theless, in the person of Sir William, contracted marriage -with the daughter of a city lawyer and Gloucestershire 'squire, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn still practising at Westminster, in whose house in Chancery Lane, on the 13th April 1593, the Good Friday of that year, Thomas, the most famous man of the Wentworth race, was born. Such alliances were common in that age; and may be taken as indications of the clash and encounter of new and old, and yet older things, of Plantagenet Lions with City Precedents and parchments, out of which were also born the liberties it has bequeathed to us. When Thomas Wentworth first became known, there went abroad a story of his father which was thought to carry with it an evil presage. Children had been born to him, but not a son; when, one day, during an illness so severe that it had brought him nigh to the point of death, he fell suddenly into a profound sleep, wherein he lay so long and quietly that his young wife, fearing he might have ceased to breathe, bent over and gently touched him. He started up in much agitation. A voice had been speaking to him in his dream. You will have a Son, it said, who will be a very great and eminent man. But — . And there the touch awoke him. She who so soon was to give him the supreme blessing he coveted, had saved him from the knowledge of an infinite sorrow. "This I heard," says the trustworthy Sir Philip Warwick, " when this Lord was but in the ascent of his greatness, and long before his fall ; and afterwards, conferring with some of his nighest rela- tions, I found the tradition was not disowned." — 228 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. But ! The word not unfitly stands upon the threshold of so great a life, followed by so doubtful a fame. Of the city lawyer's grandson small trace is disco- verable in the education of Thomas Wentworth. The heir of the old Yorkshire house presents himself at once. His childhood and youth are passed on his father's estates, amid the well-stocked manors, of which the names still recur in his letters, of Wood-house, Ledston, Ledsham, Gawthorpe, Kimberworth, Righton, and Tabkersley. Those letters, to the end of the life they illustrate, carry upon them deep tracks of the field-sports in which the boy had indulged; as well as abundant proof of the scholarly and more cultivated tastes which, at the beginning of life, had also happily struck root in him. His passion for hawking, his love of hunting and fishing, not more certainly date from boyish days, than his enjoyment of the best English as well as Latin and French writers, his familiarity with Chaucer, Spenser, and Donne, as well as with Ovid, Virgil, and Montaigne, conspicuous in all his correspon- dence. Only the pleasures and pursuits connected so vividly with that spring-time of youth, have intensity and force to survive completely the griefs and distractions of later life. Wentworth's cares and grandeur in Ireland were witnessed by two friends, to whom his early Yorkshire days were thoroughly familiar ; and they saw him, again and again, without surprise, " ankle deep in mud and wet," forgetting both grandeur and care in his retreat amid the Wicklow Mountains. With a true relish to the last he quoted his Virgil and Ovid; he fluttered Donne in the faces of Court ladies, in the very presence of the Queen ; and from Chaucer he would draw, ever apt and ready to his use, — 229 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. the wittiest turns of observation and humour. These are friends who remain always true and constant to us. At the very close of all, when everything around him had darkened, as he wrote from the home of his ancestors the day before he quitted It for ever, he invoked, in one of Spenser's long luxurious lines, the solitary hope that then was left to him, " God help the man thus \yTapt in EiTour's endless train ! " That letter was written, to KadclifFe, one of the associates of his boyhood. Greorge Radcliffe, who attended Strafford through life so steadily that the melancholy privilege devolved to him of receiving his last message from the Tower, and of acting as guardian to his children, was the only son of a retired lawyer of old family, now a respectable squire of the West Riding, living at Overthorpe near Thornhill; and had been born but a few days later than the heir to the Wentworths. Radcliffe's father managed the affairs of a branch of the family of the Saviles of Thornhill, the elder and legitimate branch of a famous Yorkshire name, with whom his ancestors had been connected by marriage, and with whom the "Wentworths had such friendly relations that Sir William's eldest daughter became ultimately the wife of the eldest son and representative of the Saviles. But a more intimate connexion between the youths, who, with intellect, rank, and fortunes widely differing, were yet so closely to travel life's journey together, sprang from the extraordinary attach- ment borne by both to the Reverend Charles Greenwood. Greenwood, himself a man of good family which had intermarried with that of the Radcliffes, and a fellow and tutor of University College Oxford, which by his will he befriended, had the charge of Sir William AYentwortli's — 230 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. eldest sou before he was entered at Cambridge; and received afterwards, for the service so rendered, the valuable prefer- ment of Thornhill, where the Saviles, and near to where the Radcliffes, lived. The excellent Abbot, Laud's predecessor in the See of Canterbury, and master of Greenwood's College, describes him later, with an accurate measure of his worth, as a wise and learned man, a good preacher, and one who in his younger years, by his travels beyond the seas, had gained much more experience than common scholars have. The union of scholarship and travel explains doubtless the fascination of his intercourse to youth. George Radcliffe, designed for a practising barrister, and left early under his widowed mother's care, was sent to University College to enjoy the advantage of Greenwood's direction and controul while in residence as tutor there ; and as soon as young Wentworth had completed his studies at the sister-uni- yersity. Greenwood accompanied him as travelling tutor (^"governour" Radcliffe calls it) to France. More than thirty years later, this good man, who had declined to leave his English country cure to follow even the sovereign for-' tunes of his patron,' had occasion to thank upon his knees the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for the long series of unmatchable favours which he had been pleased to pour upon his grateful servant since those early days of his happy attendance and duty ; and the great Minister on his part, writing then to that old tiitor and companion from the summit of predominance and power, subscribed himself, not Wentworth or Strafford, not Lord Deputy or Lieutenant-General, but " one who on a good occasion would not deny his life to you." Addressing his nephew Savile upon his entrance into the world, and eager for the — 231 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. welfare of his eldest and favourite sister's son, he can but make it his first injunction and his last, to " Consult Mr. Greenwood." He was the man, he tells the youth, his father loved and trusted above all men. His advice would be always right. He was such a friend as would be found the greatest and noblest treasure this world could make any man owner of. Even that treasure, Wentworth's earliest years had found in him. Leaving for a time this priceless teacher and adviser, Wentworth was placed, when hardly fifteen years of age, as a fellow-commoner at St. John's in Cambridge; a college probably selected for the reason that his family claimed kindred with its foundress, the grandmother of Henry the Seventh. Here too his memory, tenacious of every service, struck grateful root. Only two years before his death, he found occasion to record how very mindful he had continued to be of the ancient favours he received in that Society of St. John's while he was a student there ; and between himself and Laud, a member of St. John's in the other university, who, being then in his twentieth year, had taken his bachelor's degree in the year of Wentworth's birth, there was ever a playful conflict kept up between their rival " JolinnismsP But the circumstance of greatest interest connected with his residence in Cambridge, is that of the intimacy here strengthened and made lasting, if not originally formed, with Christopher Wandesforde. The Wandesfordes, of Kirklington in the North Riding, had a family alliance with the Wentworths, and the youths were in all probability known to each other before they met at college. But it is doubtless to their college inti- macy Wandesforde refers in that passage of his Instructions — 232 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. to his Son where he characterizes it as the supreme happiaess and honour of his life to have received a considerable part of his education in company with Wentworth. He was the elder by little more than six months, and went up to Clare Hall in the same year when Wentworth entered St. John's. The one was in his seventeenth year, the other in his sixteenth ; and thence onward for four and thirty years, with an intimacy of intercourse unweakened amid life's utmost vicissitudes and disparities, and unruffled by the most violent contrasts of fortune, their friendship continued. With less of Radcliffe's unquestioning spirit of clanship, the sentiment of equality drew yet nearer to Wentworth this other Yorkshire friend; carrying with it, also, certainly not less of an absorbing personal devotion. Kadcliffe lost his activity and enjoyment, when the blow fell on Strafford ; but it broke Wandesforde's heart. The claims and memories of both have been eclipsed by the grander fame ; but, as will be seen abundantly in this memoir, there was nothing merely servile or common-place in either of the men. To neither did Wentworth at first present himself but as the heir to a wealthy family akin to their own; and he had won from both an unflinching allegiance before he was known out of Yorkshire. While, on his side, his noble instincts at once showed him qualities in both that might correct his' own defects of character, it needed on their part but his sovereignty of intellect to work the rest of the charm on them. " Known everywhere now," says Wandes- forde in his bequest to his son, "are his vast abilities; but to me, I confess, they seem more instructive than all that I have ever heard or read of others." Of the course of under graduate study in Cambridge — 233 — II H STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. ill tlie early years of tlie seventeenth century, not niucli is known ; but the Greek Chair was held by Andrew Downes, the man whom Joseph Scaliger pronounced to be the best Grecian in Europe. When Simon D'Ewes went up to St. John's ten years later, he found this famous scholar, still Greek professor, lecturing on the De Corona of Demosthenes ; and, as he afterwards saw him in his house, near the public school, where the admiration he ex- cited in his class carried many students to talk to him, we may see him still through D'Ewes's clear and watchful eyes, and in a few words call him up life-like before us. In person tall and big, long-faced and ruddy-coloured, and with eyes of unabated light and liveliness though then nearly seventy years old, he was sitting in a chair with his legs upon a table that stood by him ; and, as D'Ewes en- tered, neither stirred his hat nor his body, but in that posture took the new-comer by the hand, and talked imme- diately of learning and criticism and the ancient eloquence. When Wentworth attended him he was ten years younger, but even then had occupied the chair nearly twenty years ; and it taxes the fancy little to imagine how such a man as this Greek professor, and such a subject as the ancient eloquence, are likely to have interested him who afterwards bore away crown and palm from the most eloquent of his time. Wentworth stayed at St. John's nearly three years ; going doubtless through all the problems, sophisms, decla- mations, and scholastic exercises, which the higher order of students attended; less closely caring, we may presume, for the divinity acts in the public schools and catechizings in the College Chapel, which formed the chief delight of — 231 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. devoiiter undergraduates of puritan habit; turning steadily away, we niay be certain, from the " swearing, drinking, rioting, and hatred of all piety and virtue, under false and adulterate nicknames," which but a few years later D'Ewes found abounding in that college, as indeed too generally throughout the university; taking, we will not question, as much healthy pleasure as any other high-born Johnian felt, in the noble walks, the bowling-ground and tennis-court, which that magnificent college provided for her students ; and, in the end, bringing back into Yorkshire the taste and habit of scholarly study and pursuit, which, when joined to such love of active and manly recreation as he also possessed, constitutes still our most perfect ideal of the thorough-bred English gentleman. He returned to Wentworth Wood-house in the summer of 1611. II. IN FRANCE AND ITALY. Family negotiations had been meanwhile on foot which concerned not a little the future lord of Wood-house, Gawthorpe, and Tankersley. The feuds so rife in olden time between the Yorkshire and Border families were now replaced by very different forms of conquest and submission, and the bright-eyed daughter of the house of Cumberland had enslaved young Wentworth. The year which saw his father consent to become twenty-third in that new creation of " Baronets " with which James the First was now striving to replenish his starved exchequer, was the same in which the son left Cambridge, became himself Sir Thomas by the — 235 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. purchase of a knighthood, and married the Lady Margaret, eldest daughter to that proud old Earl of Cumberland whom Sir John Holies, grandfather of Denzil and father to the first Lord Clare, refused to wed his daughter to because he would not be obliged to stand cap-in-hand to his son-in-law. We may feel tolerably certain that no condition was made with Lady Margaret's bridegroom imposing on him the necessity to stand cap-in-hand even to his father-in-law. The marriage was celebrated towards the close of the year, and the Secretary of State's license to Sir Thomas Wentworth of Wentworth "Wood-house to travel, bears date the 8th of December 1611. The Rev. Charles Greenwood joined the young pair in Paris, and from France they passed on into Italy. Sir Henry Wotton was then ambassador at Venice ; and the friendship formed with him, and charming recollections of delightful days enjoyed in that " sublimated " air, recur often in the letters of Wentworth. But his most enduring impressions were derived from his French expe- riences. The sight of France as she then was, wasted by long civil wars, and no longer sustained and ennobled by her gallant and generous king ; with Sully in disgrace, the Parliament crushed, and Marie de Medicis regent; dis- heartened and depressed him. He never showed himself afterwards able, whatever his better thoughts may have been, to do perfect justice to the cause which Henry the Fourth had BO gloriously championed. His desires went with it too sluggishly to make effectual stand against the impression he must also now have received, from the vaster image of material power presented by its triumphant opponents, Austria and Spain ; the two great Roman Catholic countries with which the Protestant States of the Continent seemed — 236 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. then inadequate to cope, and which threatened to give to the House of Hapsburg the entire domination of the world. While Wentworth pursued his travels, the preferment had fallen vacant which his father designed for his fellow- traveller and tutor Greenwood, and this would probably have hastened their return if an occasion yet more pressing had not called them back. Sir William Wentworth had fallen so ill towards the close of 1612 that it was judged right to dispatch a special messenger into France, where the young knight and his lady had again arrived from Italy, to bring Sir Thomas home. During their absence George Eadcliffe had brought to a close his under graduate days in Oxford, and was now a student at Gray's Inn ; occupying lodgings at an " honest old widow's house in Gray's Inn Lane end in Holborn," till he could get a chamber in the Inn ; and writing letters to his widowed mother of wonderful gravity, thoughtfulness, and sobriety of tone, in which his public and private gossip strangely mixes up the most ordinary matters of daily com- mon-place with what are now the momentous facts of English history. In the first he writes to her from London, on the 30th of November 1612, when the heir of Wood-house and his cousin Greenwood have been nearly twelve months abroad, he adjures her to send him up the black cloak which his uncle Savile had given him some little time before : because now, he says, the untimely death they are lament- ing " hath brought that colour into fashion." It is the event which brought the ill-fated Charles Stuart to the steps of the throne. It is the death of the high-spirited chival- rous Henry, the darling of the People, among whom the — 237 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. mourning for him was as universal and sincere, as, at the Court, where he had earned a noble unpopularity, it was partial and false ; entirely disregarded by many, and quickly flung aside by all. Pass but two brief months, and Whitehall is in a blaze of festivity and splendour for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth. RadclifFe has had no alternative, as a member of Gray's Inn, but to divest him- self of his black cloak, and everything else of sombre colour, and take part in the grand lawyers' masque in honour of the nuptials at Shrovetide. So writes he to his "honoured mother" on the 1st of February 1612-13, in a letter which closes thus : " We heare not yet out of France, but looke for them every day ; for we heare that Sir Thomas Wentworth was sente for a good while since." Their safe arrival is noted on the 20th of the same month. The danger of Sir William Wentworth was less immi- nent than had been supposed. He survived for upwards of a year from this time ; though he took no further part in the affairs of his county, and seems to have been only anxious to settle becomingly the succession of his son. His wife had borne him twelve children, of whom three daughters had died early ; and the necessary provisions and charges on the estate were the subject of frequent conversations between himself and his heir. The patrimony was very large for those days ; the rental, after deducting all family charges, yielding a clear six-thousand a year on Sir Thomas's accession ; yet the details of these charges, and their effect upon the inheritance, were not less carefully discussed. The eldest daughter, Anne, had now wedded the wealthy Sir George Savile, and borne him sons ; the second, Mary, was married to Sir Eichard Horton ; but, excepting the second — 238 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. son William, who had lately finished his under graduate career and was studying for the bar, at which he afterwards became distinguished, the other children were still at school. As we shall see, when years move on, the third son, John, after much travel became a gentleman of the Court ; the fourth, Matthew, died early ; the fifth, Michael, became a soldier ; the sixth, George, took the place of duty and attend- ance, and ultimately of confidence and friendship, by his great brother's side ; and the youngest daughter, Elizabeth, married James Dillon, afterwards second Lord Roscommon, to whom she bore Wentworth Dillon the third earl, whose name is in the list of English poets celebrated by Samuel Johnson. " How often," exclaimed Lord Wentworth, more than twenty years after his father's death, writing to his old tutor Greenwood as to one not unfamiliar with the family discus- sions at this early time ; " how often hath my father been pleased to excuse unto me the liberal provisions taken forth of my estate for my brothers and sisters ! and as often hath been assured by me, I thought nothing too much that he had done for them. And yet I can make it confidently appear that he left not my estate better to me than my grandfather left it to him by £200 a year ; nay, some that understand it very well have been very confident, upon speech had with me about it, he left it me rather worse, than better, than he received it." Strange, that from a father such excusings should have passed to a son not yet in his nineteenth year ! but it shows the influences that acted upon Wentworth from his boyhood ; how deep and exact was the perception, drawn from these earliest years, of his social position and its ad- vantages ; and what force must have been given, by his early independence of controul, to that over-mastering sense — 239 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. of hereditary privilege and right which everything around him made intense and strong. While yet indeed he is but the elder son, and nearly twelve months wanting to the age of manhood, the scene of public life opens to him, and his father stands aside that he may enter. There are rumours of a Parliament ; and it is resolved, because of Sir William's failing health, to put forward as member for Yorkshire the son and heir of Wentworth. III. MEMBER FOR YORKSHIRE iET. 21. James the First's struggle with his first Parliament had continued through six or seven years of quarrelling, pro- roguing, and reassembling, the breach ever widening between them, when at length his Majesty determined to raise money for himself; and, taking up the trade of projector, purveyor of titles for a due consideration, and farmer of monopolies, he sent the gentlemen of England home, to study -De Tallagio nou Concedendo in their several shire's. But four years of living on his wits proved too much for even the sharp-witted monarch, and the gentlemen of England had to be called back again. James was over-cunning. All the art and ingenuity of Sir Francis Bacon had failed to overcome his dislike to a parliament ; he had shut his ears to every argument of reason in favour of that course ; until Sir Henry Kevile went to him from the Favourite with a plan for managing the elections. At the same time, a project that was on foot for making a great financial push by creating fifty — 240 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. new Barons at six thousand pounds a piece, had to be given up, because of the extreme unlikelihood that there would be more than five bidders. "Though the world be as vain and ambitious as ever," wrote Chamberlain to Carleton, "yet money goes low." So low with his Majesty, as with every one else, that he was fain to listen to Nevile; who was undoubtedly an able, and, as times went, not a dishonest man. We will answer for both boroughs and shires, said that candidate for the Secretaryship. We have engaged supremely skilful people to manage the elec- tions, and they undertake that your Majesty shall have a majority. Whereupon, writs went out for the Undertakers' parliament. The undertaking did not turn out well, and a private letter of the 3rd of March 1613-14 goes far to tell us why, " Here is much justling for places in parliament and letters fly from great personages extraordinarily ; wherein methinks they do the King no great service, seeing the world is apt to censure it as a kind of packing." Which yet indeed, in spite of censure, was a kind of packing that might have won the game, if the people themselves had not still insisted on re-shuffling the cards. It was this that made useless all the ingenious packing. The same correspondent writes, only a fortnight later, that the coun- tenance and letters of the great personages aforesaid "had not been found so powerful as was imagined even in the meaner boroughs"; and Bacon in effect says the same, when he attributes the ill result to the great suing, stand- ing, and striving about elections and places, to the general noise of Undertaking, and to the opposition thereunto made by others. More characteristically, if not so correctly, he — 241 — II STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. adds that this had prevented the wisest and ablest persons of the kingdom from desiring to be of the House ; so that three parts "were such as had never been of any former parliament, and many of them young men, and not of any great estate or qualities." Wentworth was a young man ; but though he did not yet possess, he represented, an estate of six thousand a year; and in other cases, as in his, amid the unusual excitements of those " strange kind of beasts of undertakers," (as the King christened them when they failed him,) the chiefs and heads of families may have stood aside, putting the younger in their place. But not from the young men came the opposition which Bacon counted ill success. At least a sufficient number of the leaders in former parliaments reappeared. Sir Edwin Sandys and his brother, Sir William Stroude and Sir James Perrott, Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Hobby, Sir Edward Giles and Sir Koger Owen, Sir Dudley Digges and Sir Francis Goodwyn ; and, among the lawyers, Crewe, Hakewell, Hoskins, Whitelocke, and Hyde; were all honour- ably known, and as high-spirited a company of brave and independent gentlemen followed them as had probably ever come together in the Old Chapel of St. Stephen. Among those returned for the first time, like Wentworth, and like him to take silent part in what waited to be done, was a Somersetshire gentleman named John Pym, a coun- cillor and client of the great family of the Bedfords, who had served in some of the lesser offices of state, and was now member for the borough of Calne. Bacon himself, who had at length obtained the Attor- ney-Generalship, took his seat for Cambridge. But, to his amazement, one of the first questions raised was upon his — 242 — STEAFFORD'S YOUTH. right as Attorney to sit at all. It was argued that if a man already representing any place assumed that office, he might continue to serve in the Lower House ; but that, being appointed Attorney, he could not afterwards offer himself to represent a constituency. His place in parliament would then have become simply, as expressed in his writ of office, to advise the House of Lords ; and to appear by the woolsack was the due return to his writ. A Committee of precedents was at once appointed ; and though, strange to say, no direct instance of a King's Attorney returned by a constituency and sitting in the Lower House could be found, it was clear that the King's Solicitor and Serjeant had done so, and the analogy was sufficiently close in fairness to have settled the question. But the House continued firm to the principle of exclusion ; though not indisposed, in the particular instance, to a conciliatory arrangement. Sir Koger Owen would have had it broadly affirmed as the rule of the ancient time, that not Attorneys only, but Privy Councillors, and all who took the King's livery, were disqualified for that house. Sir John Savile on the other hand would have moved, that such Privy Councillors as had obtained seats might stay for that time, excepting only Mr. Attorney, In the end, a middle course was taken. Exemption was made for Mr. Attorney Bacon to remain during this parliament, but never was any Attorney-General in future to serve in the Lower House. The objection was not to Bacon personally. It was jealousy of the influence of the Crown. It was a resolve that as few as possible " wearing the livery " of the King should sit among them, and was their earliest and promptest mode of protesting against the meddling of His Majesty's — 243 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. Undertakers. Indeed the very next question went straight to that source of discontent. The House had hardly entered upon business, when Sir Edwin Sandys brought forward the subject of Freedom of Election, and the whole matter, reserving the ultimate decision as to Mr. Attorney's seat, was referred to a Committee. Sandys, who played a distinguished part in this and the succeeding parliament, was the second son of the Archbishop of York of that name who served Elizabeth ; and was now in his fifty-third year. He was a scholar, and had written learnedly against Popery. The Undertakers had succeeded in excluding him froin Kent, disputing the second seat with Sir Francis Walsingham ; but the burgesses of Rochester had meanwhile elected him, and he paid back with interest from the chair of the Committee on Elections, as a few instances will show, the ill-turn the Court had done him. Against all use and wont in the City, the Recorder, Sir Henry Montagu, being also King's Serjeant, had been driven out ignominiously, to find a seat elsewhere ; and this exclusion was now confirmed. In Cambridge, Sir John Cutts and Sir Thomas Chichely had succeeded by dint of the Under- takers; and they Avere now promptly unseated. In like manner, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Edward Phillips of Montacute, was made to resign his seat to Sir Maurice Berkeley ; while his son, Sir Robert Phillips, now began his illustrious and too brief career. So, the Chancellor of the Duchy, Sir Thomas Parry, had to make way for an independent member; and Sir Walter Cope, Sir Henry Wallop, Sir John Chamberlain, and Sir Henry Waller, underwent the same fate. So numerous indeed were the returns brouglit into question, and so vehement and sharp — 244 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. the disputes they occasionedj that Mr. Attorney found himself obliged to remind the House that " We live not in Plato his Commonwealth, but in times wherein abuses have got the upper hand." This was by way of abatement or deprecation of its wrath, but not to dispute its justice in the abstract. Bacon never calls the wrong right, or makes elaborate attempt to justify it. He does his utmost to amend it; but is unhappily not at all reluctant to give way, and make the best of it, when the other effort is unavailing. Modern writers have doubted whether "Wentworth really sat in this parliament ; but it is to be placed beyond further question that he did so. The Manuscript Journals establish it ; and he is always marked out from his namesake, " Mr. Thomas Wentworth " of Oxford, with whom he frequently serves on the same Committee, as " Sir Thomas." His name so appears in several Committees, as well those to which questions of disputed seats are referred, as where the matter in debate is of Impositions and Burdens on Commerce ; and where the subject aifects his county or its neighbourhood, be it an election or a manufacture, his name almost certainly recurs. The Durham Franchise Committee, and the Committee of Apparel with its dis- cussions on the burdens of clothiers, may be specially mentioned. But in all such popular matters, I must add, his colleague in the representation of the county outstripj^ed him. Strange to say, he had been returned in connection with the old enemy of his father's house. Sir John Savile of Howley, chief of the illegitimate but hardly less powerful branch of the great Yorkshire stock, and the declared — 245 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. rival of the Saviles of Thornhill and their allies the Wentworths. The feud became one of no ordinary kind in after years, when Court partizans and favourites had in many ways inflamed it, and, besides the county quarrels inherited from his father, Wentworth saw in Sir John and his son a bar to the full inheritance of his eldest sister's family ; but, even thus early, it was sufficiently strong to render it certain, that, but for unusual election excitements, the young heir of Wentworth and the old gallant of Howley would not have stood, with any chance of success to both, upon the same hustings. On this occasion, however, there is little doubt, they stood together by some compromise among the gentry ; Wentworth as the Court candidate, and Savile as the popular man. For, though Savile, who was now past his fifty-sixth year, had served many county offices in the Old Queen's time, and retained still a place of the highest local consideration as Keeper of the Archives and Writs of the West Hiding, he had of late lost favour with the Court, and had been working his way with no small success into the common people's liking. While the leading magistrates of the county were memorializing the Lord Chancellor against him, and denouncing his violent and quarrelsome temper he had been elected the first Alderman of Leeds. By incessant agitation, he procured for that rising town some of its most important privileges ; and against many attempted encroachments of the old gentry, he actively stood their friend and successfully upheld them. The respective position of the two members for York- shire received early and significant illustration in the House itself. Wcntworth's seat was disputed before Sandys' Com- — 246 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. mittee, but Savile's was left unquestioned; and the fact of the former return having been favoured by the Court, doubtless led to the objections raised. They fell through, as a matter of course. It was found impossible effec- tually to question a title doubly strong, powerful in itself and backed by the largest estates in Yorkshire ; but the contrasting influences on the two members continued to be traceable. Wentworth served on Committees, keeping silence in the House. He had imposed upon himself the rules of a modest watchfulness, not hastening to speak till he had obtained experience, which we shall see him hereafter enforce upon other youths at their entrance into life; but of the line he was ready to take, in the absence of such self-imposed restraint, he made no secret. He sat by and shared counsel with his friend Sir Henry Wotton, who had been returned for one of the Cinque Ports on leaving Italy, and was supporting the Court with extreme warmth. Savile, on the other hand, was eager for the popular side. He would at once, as we have seen, have turned out His Majesty's Attorney-General; and he was mainly instrumental in keeping up the excite- ment on the subject of the elections, which was only quelled at last by Sir Henry Nevile frankly taking all "the undertaking" on himself. The House began by this time to see that the conception of the notable scheme had involved no ill compliment to their influence, and that its failure had certainly not diminished their power. And so, in reasonable good temper, they betook themselves to the business awaiting them. The most important was to determine, whether the — 247 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. King had, or had not, the right to burden the people by- impositions and monopolies without the consent of parlia- ment. In the time of the Great Queen there had been six ; now, there were one hundred and thirty -four ; and in his speech at opening the session, James had claimed them as a flower of the Crown. Amid much excitement, Sir Edwin Sandys protested against that claim. Other princes had laid impositions, but never prince till now had claimed the right in open parliament. Why, by the same reason- ing, a prince, unadvised by parliament, might make laws! Edward the First, pursued Sir Edwin, first laid impositions. The Danes had not done it, the Saxons had not done it. Nor had Edward himself imposed, except for war; re- fraining also at the prayer of the Commons. The third Edward had done the like. " So, when the Lion preyeth, and pleadeth necessity, no cause to think it his right." Admirably was Sir Edwin seconded by Sir James Whitelocke, (the father of Bulstrode,) who sate for Wood- stock ; and who had distinguished himself, some years before, by disputing the judgment on Impositions in the Exchequer, In Bates's case. He Avent through all the precedents to satisfy his Majesty that this was no flower of his crown. He dared affirm that no man could show, upon record, any Imposition before the first Edward; and none by him, but such as were also taken off by him; and this at .the com- plaint of his people, as wrongfully imposed. Nay more, that prince, a soldier, tied himself to impose no more with- out a parliament. His successor, the second Edward, was no soldier, and he imposed also : but moderately, by way of loan: yet even this led to an ordinance against impositions, so that at his death he left them free. With the third — 248 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. Edward again came war, and he also laid on some ; but to be, in like manner, taken ofF as wrongfully laid. From that until Queen Mary's time, none were imposed. " So, if a flower of the crown, a long winter ! no budding in one hundred and sixty years ! " The result was, that Sandys carried his resolution against the King's asserted right to levy impositions ; the great lawyer Hakewell intimating, that ■whereas he formerly had thought such right existed, he was now decided the other way. The precedents were irresistible . That excitement should be occasioned by these brave expositions of constitutional usage, from men of so much weight, was natural; and it received increase from circum- stances already pointed at. There were a number of young men in the House. The estimate that more than three hundred, out of the four hundred and seventy-five members had been returned for the first time, is overstated ; but there was probably no exaggeration in what Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, that " many sat there who were more fit to have been among roaring boys than in that assembly." So incessant, at times, were the cheering and interrupting, that on Wednesday the 5th of May Sir Jerome Horsey had to call Sir Herbert Crofts to order for comparing the House to a cock-pit. The House itself was less scrupulous with another honourable member who offended it. Mr. Bawtrey had spoken up loudly for his Majesty's prerogative ; charac- terizing it as the two silver trumpets of calling together and dismissal, and stigmatizing the unseemly fire of the House as wild-fire; when the House fell to "hissing" him so roundly, that, say the Journals, " Mr. Speaker repre- hendeth this." Already had Mr. Attorney Bacon been moved to exclaim, with quaint reference to the desire pre- — 249 — K K STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. viously manifested to turn him oft" to the L'ords' House, that " he wisheth -himself, not only in the Upper House, but in the Upper "World, because of this discord." An extremely sharp debate fell out in the middle of May. The new patent for dyeing and dressing cloth came in question, and Sir John Savile described its evil effects in Yorkshire. He declared the grievance to the clothiers to be intolerable ; that several thousand pounds' worth of cloth lay upon their hands; and that this condition of their county could not safely endure a month. Two or three days later, the Court party put up Sir William Cavendish to make a counter-statement; whereupon the choleric old Yorkshireman attacked him for delivering a written speech, and Sir Jerome Horsey had to remind the worthy gentleman that " divers of the House have usually helped their memories with their notes." Next stood up the King's Carver, Sir William Chute ; (who, having fallen into disrepute as one of the Undertakers, and since attempted to recover himself by what Wotton calls " a dedamation against the times," was now out of favour with both sides, being more than suspected of the double gani6 of: telling tales of the House to the King and of the King to the House ;) and after enlarging upon the King's more than fatherly, " his . motherly," affection to them all, protested against the disrespect evinced ' to the King's prerogative. Then came a warning from Sir Edward Hobby. " Woe to that time, when an humble petition of the grieved gentry of England shall be called an entering upon the King's prerogative ! " The end was now fast approaching. From the very next discussion, the House received its death-warrant. — 250 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. On tlie 26tli of May, Sir Henry Wotton made a final stand for the King's right to lay impositions. He spoke, writes the judicious Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, " a very mannerly and demure speech for the maintenance of them, alleging Spain, France, and Italy for examples." Secretary Winwood seconded Wotton ; and Sir Thomas Lake detailed, by way of confirming the example cited from France, how many millions the impost of salt, the Gabelle, amounted to. But these Court speakers met with prompt reply. We are to be governed by our own laws, said Savile and others ; not by foreign example. The exactions quoted might be de facto, but were not de jure. For Spain and Frante, they seldom or never have had any parliament or assemblies ; and for the governments of Italy, there was no other consideration to be had of them than as of petty tyrannies rather than just principalities. " Sir Edwin Sandys," says a private letter of the time, " went further, and was more bitter in the conclusion of his speech. But the boldest Bayard of all was Wentworth" (namesake of the young member for Yorkshire, himself member for the city of Oxford, whose Kecorder he was) "who said that the just reward of the Spaniards' Imposition was the loss of the Low Countries ; and for France, that their late most exalting kings died like calves upon the butcher's knife ; and that such princes might read their destiny in the forty- fifth of Ezekiel, verse seven or thereabouts, but specially in Daniel, the eleventh chapter, verse twenty." At which culminating point, certain personages in the Upper House took violent offence; and, upon a subsequent proposal for a Conference, my Lord Bishop (Neale) of Lincoln, holding strong opinions oj)posed to Mr. Went- — 251 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. worth's, denounced the whole Lower House as a factious, mutinous, seditious assembly, that struck not any more at the branches, but at the root, yea at the very Crown and Sceptre itself! The Court was frantic with delight at this episcopal sally ; and " a plain man " told some of the leading members that " they knew who looked over Lincoln, but now Lincoln had looked over them," and put an end to their prating. It was too true. The entire House responded in a flame to the scurrilous Bishop, and Dissolution was no longer avoidable. It took place on Tuesday the 7th of June. Six days before, the House had been endeavouring so to amend a Crown Improvement Act as to rescue the very poor from some part of the hardship inflicted by it, and to secure the insertion therein of a provision against the erection of more playhouses. But it did not pass. The House had been sitting a couple of months, and had passed nothing. The 7th of June came, and they were still an " addle " parliament ; when the usher of the Lords called them to their Dissolution, and found them cheering for Savile against Wentworth's friend Wotton. " Sir Henry Wotton," writes Chamberlain, " for some indiscreet and indecent language used to Sir John Savile, was cried down, and in great danger to be called to the Bar, but escaped narrowly." The day after the Dissolution, Sandys, Crewe, Whitelocke, and the rest of the twelve members named to conduct the Conference against Impositions, were summoned to bring to the Council-Table all the notes and arguments they had prepared ; and there, while the Clerk of the Council set fire to them, Whitelocke caught sight of the King in the adjoining Clerk's Chamber, — 252 — STRAFFORD'S YOUTH. peeping through a hole in the arras to enjoy the bonfire ! "I saw him," says Whitelocke, after mournfully recording the fact of his having seen his " twenty-four sides in folio," all written with his own hand, burnt by Mr. Cottington, " I saw him look throughe an open place in the hanging, about the bignes of the palm of one hand, all the while the lords were in withe us." The Lords having thus disposed of those learned and elaborate arguments in a manner much more effectual than by handling them in Conference, proceeded to sign warrants for committal of Mr. Recorder Wentworth and three others to the Tower. At the same time intimation was given to Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Edward Giles, Sir Roger Owen, Mr. Nicholas Hyde, and others, that their names had been removed from the Commission of Peace. A graver step seems at first to have been contemplated in regard to "Sir John Savile, Knight for Yorkshire," of whom bonds and sureties were taken; but at length, "after confinement to this town for a time," as a private letter informs us, he was released to his friend^. Unmolested, but also undistinguished, and hardly perhaps much gratified by the scenes he had abstained from takino- part in, the other ex-member for Yorkshire went back to Wood-house; and so ended the Parliament of 1614, "in that manner," says the good Sir James Whitelocke, "that all good people wear verye sorye for it. I think it not fit to play, the part of a historiographer about it, but I pray God wee never see the like." vS!^55ji — 253 ®Ij §xufl Mmi Ijii^^ I imt^? WISH that I had perlsh'cl Or had vow'd myself a Nun, Ere I cross'd the wide Atlantic — Oh Grief! what have I done? Like a desert without water, Like a sky without a sun, Is this loveless life, this joyless — Oh Grief! what have I done? 'Tis so cold — so drear around me : These forests wild and dun, ■ That frozen lake before me — Oh Grief I what have I done? My heart is very heavy Ere the long day is begun — But 'tis heavier far at evening : Oh Grief! what have I done? — 2,54 — on GRrEF! WHAT HAVE I DONE? The stranger's eye it freezes me, The stranger's hearth I shun — The stranger's voice is harsh to me : Oh Grief! what have I done? The friends I lov'd so dearly, The gentle hearts I won, I left them all — I left them — Oh Grief! what have I done ? They cry " Come back, come back to us ; " And thither would I run. But the ocean rolls between us — Oh Grief! what have I done? Anna Jameson. — 255 — 5)rHtIj» (A Fragment.) EATH is a road our clearest friends have gone ; Why, with such leaders, fear to say " Lead on?" Its gate repels, lest it too soon be tried; But turns in balm on the immortal side. Mothers have passed it; fathers; children; men, "Whose like we look not to behold again; Women that smil'd away their loving breath. — Soft is the travelling on the road of death. But guilt has passed it ? Men not fit to die ? — Oh hush — for He that made us all, is by. Human were all ; all men ; all born of mothers. All our own selves, in the worn shape of others.' # * At * * Leigh Hunt. — 256 %h ^ilmi ^hxmhw EEP within the heart's recesses, Curtained from the outward life, Hidden stands a silent chamber From Earth's busy change and strife. All the walls arc Imng with pictures. Some in corners dim with gloom : Others gleaming in the sunshine. Lighting up the magic room. All the air is filled with echoes. Sounding ever faint and low : Quiet voices speaking softly. As we heard them long ago. Quiet footsteps moving noiseless, Up and down the silent floor. Passing by each other; changing Kindly greetings ever more. — 257 — L L THE SILENT CHAMBER. Quiet music sounding solemn. In the silences apart: Like the far notes of an organ Stealing softly on the heart. There in shadow and seclusion, Curtained from the outward life : There the spirit may retire, From Earth's busy change and strife. There may sit, and muse, and listen. While the music swells and falls. There may watch the silent pictures. Lighting up the magic walls. There may hear the quiet footsteps Moving noiseless to and fro. And the voices speaking softly. As it heard them long ago. Isabella Law. 258 ijj|tt's i'xh §omh. By Ji'LiA Kavan,igh. '^'^ HE Uxbridge road lay calm and still in «i=x ■« ''^'iv^:- the mellow light of declining day. ~^y/-ti7(i:rr "" From the west a warm, golden glow streamed over field and woodland, touched a grassy slope with light, then went down behind it and was lost in soft shadows. The sky was clear; the air mild and breathless. The sails of the windmill stood idle and motionless, waitins: outstretched for the wakening of the breeze. A wa<2;on of hay slowly journeyed along, raising a cloud of yellow dust on its way ; on the top soundly slept the wagoner, with upturned face and dangling legs. A few children lingered by the green hedge singing as they went and plucking the ripe blackberries. Two tall coiintrymen in smock frocks stood outside the low village alehouse over- shadowed by its broad elm. They leaned against the wall and smoked in an indolent and phlegmatic sort of fashion, now and then exchanging a few words. At their feet a dog- lay stretched in the sun; farther on an old horse drank slowly from a wooden trough and looked half-asleep; the very ducks and geese in the little green close by, strutted — 259 — JOHN'S FIVE FOUNDS. and cackled idly, as if they too felt what a lazy autumn afternoon this was. " If you please," inquired a young but clear and distinct voice, " is this the way to London ? " The two tall countrymen looked down surprised at the interruption. Before them a lad of twelve or thirteen stood quietly waiting for a reply. He was decently clad, as might be the son of a working man out for a holiday, but his garments were covered with dust, and a small bundle was fastened at the end of the stick he carried on his shoulder. Save these signs of a journey, lonely for one so young, there was nothing striking or remarkable about the boy. He was neither plain nor yet good-looking; but he had a broad brow bold and handsome, steady hazel eyes, with something honest, though rather silent in their look, and a quiet sagacious mouth. It was the face of one who would neither tell a lie nor, unless he chose, answer a question. " The way to London ? " said one of the two countrymen thrusting his tongue in his cheek, " Why, take the first turning to your left, then the second to your right, then the third, and any body will tell you the way to London after that." " Thank you," laconically replied the lad ; and it was impossible to tell from his countenance whether he was deceived or not. The two countrymen- looked after him curiously. He walked on until he caine to a pump that stood by the green, he took down the rusty iron bowl, filled it, drank off its con- tents, and without even giving it a look, he passed by the first turning to his left — a muddy lane leading to an old farm — and steadily pursued his journey along the main road. — 260 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. " Mind you don't miss it," jeeringly shouted the other countryman; and both laughed derisively. The boy never so much as looked back. Temperament had given him what philosophy rarely bestows, a happy indifference to foolish jests and unmeaning taunts. He walked at a rate that showed him to be familiar with the exercise ; examining curiously everything he saw, but never relaxing in his speed. Thus he reached and passed Shep- herd's Bush, Notting Hill, Bayswater, Kensington Gardens, and finally, Hyde Park. On the spot where Tyburn Gate once stood, and beyond which now rises the Marble Arch, the lad paused with a beating heart. London — vast, mighty London, as mysterious and un- fathomable an abyss as ancient Averniis — lay before him. Behind him in the west set the red sun hidden by trees and buildings, but casting his flame and glow over the whole of the broad blue sky, and just gilding the highest roofs and houses and the overhanging dun vapour of the great city. Hyde Park fresh and green, and the marble arch were on his left ; on his right rose the stately houses of Cumberland Place, and before him stretched away Oxford Street, with its countless multitudes and its ceaseless din and tumult. The boy's embrowned face flushed slightly ; his eyes kindled ; ardently and eagerly he plunged into the mighty thoroughfare, and vanished in its depths. He was not destined to go far. As he crossed Park Street, a carriage, driving rapidly towards Oxford Street, suddenly knocked him down. The coachman drew up in time not to run over him, and two men simultaneously rushed forward and dragged him to the pavement. At the same moment a pale, middle-aged man stepped out of the carriage — 261 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. and broke through the crowd that had at once gathered around tlie spot where the lad lay stretched on the flags, pale and senseless. The gentleman bent ovea* him, felt his pulse, and said decisively : " He will do. Just heliJ me to carry him into the car- riage, will you, my man ? Oh I that is his bundle, is it ? All right— drive home, Barker." The boy was laid on the seat, the gentleman slipped a shilling into the hand of the man who had helped him, then stepped into the carriage and closed the door, whilst the coachman drove off, leaving behind the gaping and dissatis- fied crowd. A few turnings brought them to a quiet street and a plain house, on the brass door-plate of which was engraved the name of Mr. Kichakd Mooke. An elderly, sour- faced woman who opened the door received them, and with- out much appearance of surprise, saw the lad lifted out of the carriage and brought in by her master and his servant. "I told you so," she composedly said. "I knew you would run over some one before the day was out." " You have known it these ten years," growled the man. "Besides, it was his own fault to stop and stare in the middle of the street. Shall I go for the doctor, sir ? " " Doctor ! why / am a surgeon — I suppose you know that. Besides, there is nothing the matter with the lad. He is coming round, you see." The little traveller was indeed reviving fast. He not only became conscious, but was able to answer Mr. Moore's questions. He did not feel hurt, he said, but a little giddy and faint; he did not think any of his limbs were injured, and when told to do so, he moved them freely. — 262 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. " All right," said Mi'. Moore. " And now, my lad, what is your name? where were you going? and does any one expect you to-night?" The boy took his time to reflect before he cautiously answered : " ]\Iy name is John Read, sir. I am well enough to go now." " Time enough for that," said Mr. Moore, giving him an inquiring look of his grey eyes. " Mrs. Bates will give you anj'thing you want. I shall come back in an hour, and then we shall have some talk together. Stay quiet, will you?" He left the room, and John Read was still too much stunned with his fall to attempt to resist the behest ; but he looked around him and thought he had never been in so singular a place as this. Everywhere shelves of books appeared reaching to the ceiling, and all the tables were covered with cases full of the strangest things — pebbles, insects, some of them eerie creatures. " Specimens," said Mrs. Bates. " Mr. Moore is a learned man." The boy said nothing, but seemed to ponder over her words. " What brings you to London ? " she pursued. "Business," he laconically replied. " Business — and what business ? " " That is no matter." Mrs. Bates stared ; but before she could make any re])ly, the door broke open, and in darted a little dark-haired girl. " INIiss Lizzie, you must not stay here ! " crossly said Mrs. teates. — 26.3 — JOTIX'S FIVE POUNDS. " I will," said JA'/Me, wliaking her curls ; " f will stay with the boy Barker ran over."' Mrs. Bates stretched her arm to catch Miss Lizzie, who nimbly stepped aside. A chase round tlie room began, but Miss Lizzie was too light and too supple for Mrs. Bates, who angrily gave in, muttering something about monkeys and beggars, and slamming the door after her as she left the room. At once Lizzie sprang on the sofa where the boy had sat all the time looking on. '• I am so glad yoTi are come," she said, shaking back her curls and speaking as if she had been expecting him. The boy looked at her doubtingly ; she was a strange little creature — a part of the new world he had so suddenly entered — and she both perplexed and fascinated him. "Can you dance?" she suddenly asked. " No," he said shortly. "I can- — look." She sprang to the middle of the floor, raised her arms above her head, threw back her curls, and snapped her fingers by way of castanets; then suddenly stopping short, she asked : " Where are your books ? " " I have got none," slowly said the bov. " Oh ! come and look at mine." She rose with sudden alacrity. She led him to a lower shelf and showed him a few volumes. His face flushed; his look kindled, but he did not speak. " Take one down," patronizingly said Miss Lizzie. His hand shook a little as he obeyed. He took a book, the first at hand, a treatise on Geology. "What's that about?" he said sharply. — 264 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. Lizzie shook her curls. " I hate geology," she said cordially ; " and you ? " He was not heeding her; the opening page had caught and fascinated his attention; The earth, the wonderful earth on which he had so often carelessly trod, assumed a new aspect. Grenerations of unknown creatures passed before him ; creatures of strange form and huge stature progressing until they ended in the crowning work of creation — man. The rocks and mountains yielded their testimony in this romance of nature, and still he read like one intoxicated or dreaming, whilst Lizzie pulled his sleeve and impatiently exclaimed: " What's your name ? Come and play, will you ? " He neither heard nor felt her ; yet he closed the book and said excitedly : "Does it take long to earn five pounds in London?" Lizzie shook her curls and opened her eyes at the ques- tion, which her father, who opened the door and entered the room, answered with another. " And what do you want five pounds for, John Read ? " " I am so glad your name is John," said Lizzie. John in the meanwhile had put down the book, and was pondering before he answered: " I want five pounds, sir." Mr. Moore sat down and looked at him searchingly. " You are an odd boy," he said. " Are your parents living?" "No, sir." "Who reared you? The parish?" "My grandmother, sir." " Is she living ? Yes ? — then what brings you to London ? " — 265 — MM JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. " I came to work, sir." "At what?" " I am willing, sir." "It will take you long to earn five pounds." " I can wait, sir." " Oh ! you can — can you ? " Then changing his tactics, Mr. Moore added: "What book were you so deep in when I came back?" " It was my geology," cried Lizzie, anxious to put in a word. " Your geology indeed ! but it would soon be John's with that head of his. He would like to learn it." John Eead's broad forehead flushed, but resolutely he replied : " No, sir, thank you." Mr. Moore nodded, as much as to say, "I don't believe a word of that ; " then he rang to have the gas lit ; and when from the dimness of twilight the room had passed into dazzling brightness, he rose, and beckoning to the boy he led him round the apartment. They stopped before a case — it was full of mineral treasures from coal to diamond, — and in clear, forcible language Mr. Moore explained their nature and properties. They paused before another case — a crystal prison, in which hard and valuable metals lay quiet and passive, waiting their homely or formidable uses. Then they looked at insects, long-horned, broad-winged creatures, some strange in their beauty, others in their ugliness; some natives of our own clime, which John Read knew by sight; others born in distant countries, children of the wilderness or the jungle, pursued to death by silent, pitiless science, and shipped home to adorn a collection. Then came the shells — few, but beautiful and — 266 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. rare — the only specimens at which Lizzie, who hated this miniature musemn, ever looked with pleasure. "I want that pink one," she said plaintively, "you know I do, papa." " Hush ! you true woman," contemptuously said her father. " Shells for you ? beads will do as well — go and dress — go and dress and dance — all you are fit for." He waved her away and looked at John Read. "Well," he said, "what would you say to living here, and looking at these, and reading the books the whole day long. That would be good, eh?" " It would, sir," vaguely replied John. "I want a boy," pursued Mr. Moore, speaking com- placently, "a boy that will become a man — they do not all; such old boys I know — that will walk in my steps, study, learn, and live for science like me. That wretched little woman will only break my shells, or give my specimens to her children when I am gone. I have been looking out for one — you will do. It's in your eye — and you have no one to interfere — only a foolish old grandmother in the country. I like that." " I can't, sir," impressively said John Read. "Why so?" . "I must earn five pounds first." " Earn five pounds I Nonsense; you must stay, that's all." " Oh do ! " cried Lizzie. John did not answer. He allowed Lizzie to make him sit down ; he did not repulse her when softly climbing up by him she whispered, "Stay — pray do." Mr. Moore's pale face caught a sarcastic smile. "A woman — a true woman," he muttered ; and he watched them curiously. — 267 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. "Don't go, John," whispered Lizzie, "and I shall give you all my books." John's features relaxed; he was but a boy, yet the charm and power of woman were on him for a moment. She was a strange little creature, with fine, loving eyes and a sweet mouth. She looked at him so fondly, for the friendship of childhood is rapid and entire ; there was such sweet entreaty in her whole aspect, that the very heart of the boy, unused to anything like this from so dainty- looking a little lady, was stirred. "Well, what do you say to this young lady's offer?" asked Mr. Moore. "Don't go," again entreated Lizzie; "I shall be so dull without you." Poor John Kead looked sorely troubled; his coolness quite forsook him. Mr. Moore added to the trials of this scene of temptation by opening one of the cases and dis- playing its contents — crystals and spars of great beauty. The boy looked at them, then at Lizzie ; he saw their shining aspect, and he heard her soft whisper: "I shall love you so if you stay." He glanced around the won- derful room, at Mr. Moore, at Lizzie again — his fortitude was failing him fast, he felt it — and looking bewildered and scared he set his teeth and said : " I must go." And starting up, he was out of the room in a moment. " The little wretch is gone, I vow ! " exclaimed Mr. Moore, amazed as he heard the street door close. He walked out into the hall: the bundle and stick were gone. He looked out into the dark street; a heavy drizzling rain was falling and not a soul was to be seen. Mr. Moore's — 268 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. whims were never persistent ; the boy was gone^ — let him gp. He calmly closed the door, and re-entering the room where Lizzie was kicking and sobbing, " I want John — I want him ! " he rang for Mrs. Bates and had Miss Lizzie taken away and sent to bed, to that grim lady's satis- faction. Days, weeks, and months slipped by, and John Kead, after whom Mr. Moore, to get rid of Lizzie's entreaties and laments, caused some vague inquiries to be instituted, was neither traced nor found. Poor little faithful Lizzie — faithful though she hated geology more and more, as she grew older — looked out of the carriage window every time she drove out, expecting him to be knocked down again and brought home. She watched for him over the banisters every time a single knock or ring gave promise of some humble visitor, but in vain: John Read had vanished. A happy child would have forgotten him quickly ; but childhood, which saved Lizzie from sadness, could not give her joy. Her mother was dead. Mrs. Bates was cross though not ill-natured, and her father was alternately kind and careless. He indulged her through indolence as much as through love ; but her light mind, which showed a decided aversion to science, awoke his contempt. He had undertaken to educate her himself, and stormy was the task : many tears did the lessons cost Lizzie, and little fruit did they bear. In these trials and troubles her little mind and heart reverted to John •Kead. He came in the shape of a playmate, companion and friend — blessings unknown to her solitary childhood. For his social inferiority she did not care : she saw that her father admired him, and Mrs. Bates' arguments against — 269 — JOHN'S FIVE POUJSTDS. him as a peasant and a beggar, she scorned from the spirit of opposition. Lizzie was sure he was neither, and what- ever he was she liked him, and she wished, she did, that he would come back ; but he did not. Winter and spring passed away and brought no token of John Kead. Meanwhile Mr. Moore was getting more and more disgusted with his task of educator ; and one morning, after an agitated lesson in which Lizzie had sobbed herself into utter incapacity of answering the simplest questions, he dismissed her from the "museum," as he sometimes called it, with the scornful declaration which generally ended those unfortunate attempts at teaching, " Go away, child, go away — I suppose it is no fault of yours if you are a woman ! " Lizzie left the room depressed with the consciousness of her inferior sex, and Mr. Moore, throwing hii;aself back in his chair, exclaimed with an unphilosophic mixture of indignation and remonstrance, " I wonder why Mrs. Moore would have a girl ! " He was still considering this melan- choly subject when the door burst open, and in rushed Lizzie, no longer weeping, but breathless with excitement and joy. " Well ! " said Mr. Moore ; but Lizzie had no need to speak : behind her stood John Read. He was thin, pale, and much altered ; his clothes, though still clean, were worn threadbare. John Read had seen hard days, it was plain, since they had parted nearly a year back; but his eye was bright and hopeful, his countenance beamed with quiet triumph, and with ill-subdued excitement he, without preface, announced his object. " Please, sir, I have got the five pounds. Only I should — 270 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. like a note, and I thought you would perhaps give me a good one — I meant in exchange for the gold, of course." " Oh ! you have got the five pounds, have you ?" said Mr. Moore, very much surprised. " And how, pray ? " " I worked, sir," was the sturdy reply. "What sort of work though?" " Honest, sir," shortly said John, not a whit more willing than of old to answer questions. " A queer lad ! " said Mr. Moore. "Don't go away again," whispered Lizzie. John smiled at her, but kept his anxious eyes fixed on her father's face. " And pray why do you wish for a note instead of gold?" asked Mr. Moore. John reddened, but answered at once : " It's grandmother's fancy, sir." " Oh ! the money is for her ? " " It is, sir. She has wished all her life for a five- pound note, so I thought I would get her one ; and here's the gold, sir." He produced five gold pieces and handed them to Mr. Moore, who examined them one by one and pretended to doubt the last. " It's good, sir," eagerly said John ; " it is, sir." " Well, I suppose it is ; and here's a five-pound note for you," he added, carelessly tossing him one out of his pocket-book. John took it and his whole being thrilled with delight. The silken paper rustled softly in his hardened fingers — toil, privation, hunger, and cold, were forgotten in the vision which flitted across his mind. He saw a poor room in a — 271 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. poor dwelling far away — a room that looked over a green field to a quiet little church ; by the open window an aged woman sat working — a woman who had reared him, and the longing, childish ambition of whose whole life that bit of paper would fulfil. Mr. Moore watched his expressive face and smiled. " I suppose you will be off with that note to-morrow ?" he said. " No, sir," replied John, wakening from his dream and carefully putting the note away ; " I cannot afford to travel yet." "Don't go," entreated Lizzie; "stay — pray do." " And what will you do in London now ? " pursued Mr. Moore. "I shall work, sir." " Stay — pray do," again said Lizzie. There was a pause. " "Well," said Mr. Moore, " you have your money, John Read; what more do you want with me? I asked you to stay and study some months ago, but you would not, and such chances do not come back. You preferred making up those five pounds for your grandmother and you must abide by the choice." It was plain poor John Kead had expected something else; but his pride supported him under the disappoint- ment. " Thank you all the same, sir," he said firmly. " I am not sorry for what I have done. I did not pro- mise grandmother the five pounds ; but when I left her, and saw how sorely the parting grieved her, I resolved she should have what she had longed for her whole life. She — 272 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. shall have it, with God's help, and she shall know that I was neither undeserving nor ungrateful. It will make her happy to know that I thought of her all this time. Jfow I am free, and can begin on my own account." He paused, then quietly added, "Good morning, sir." " Good morning," nodded Mr. Moore, carelessly. John Kead moved towards the door, Lizzie set up a shrill remonstrance of "Don't go," and Mr. Moore, smiling, called him back. "You are a fine little fellow," he said, clapping him on the back. "My word is my bond. You are as welcome to stay now as you were last year, and, what is more, you owe me little thanks; for if I teach you, I expect you to be of much use to me." John turned pale with the sudden joy, whilst Lizzie danced about the room clapping her hands. A few days saw the boy settled in his new home. Good food, rest, new clothes, wrought their change and softened his aspect. The expectations of Mr. Moore, who at once set him to work, were far outstripped by the reality. John Kead was not merely what is called intelligent; his mind was as evidently framed for science as poor little Lizzie's was averse to it. He seized principles and followed conse- quences with singular rapidity; drawing, music, dancing, for which, in her childish way, Lizzie showed decided talent, left him cold; and, on the other hand, all that she hated most, geology in particular, he loved to passion. Yet they were almost constantly together, for both liked it, and Mr. Moore was too careless and too indolent to object, spite of all Mrs. Bates' hints and remonstrances. They were thus alone one morning in the museum ; John — 273 — N N JOHN'S FIVE rouxns. reading, and Lizzie interrupting liim every now and then with some futile remark, when the little girl suddenly- observed : "John, what did you want five pounds for?" "For grandmother." " Is she very poor ? " " She is poor, but she will not spend the five pounds." "What does she want them for?" " To keep in the teapot, I believe. It is a whim of hers — she is old, you know. She says it is such a thing to have a five-pound note in the house." The necessity was beyond Lizzie's comprehension. "How she did wish for those five pounds," pursued John, "and how I have worked for them ! I thought of it first thing in the morning and last at night. I dreamed of it ; every shilling saved seemed a God-send. She has her five-pounds by this, poor old granny." He mused a while, then was again deep in his book, Lizzie's had not the same charm for her; she soon put it by and said querulously : " I do not understand it." "Don't you? and it is so easy." "But I do not like it." " Not like it ? — yet it is so beautiful ! " Lizzie yawned, then shook her curls, then laid her head on the lad's shoulder, and smiled up at him. John Head's love for learning was not proof against this gentle coaxing. His look softened, his gaze sank kindly on her little pale, elfish face ; his hand softly parted the curls from her forehead ; quiet content beamed in his aspect. Plc.i'ant day-dreams were with him in that wonderful room — 274 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. of which the memory had haunted him so long. He saw himself a man, learned and honoured, and Lizzie a girl, fond, trusting, not very learned, leaning her weakness on his strength. He did not go quite so far as to calling her his wife, but it was something very like it ; for she was ever near whilst he studied; she sat by him or moved around him, and he felt her and remembered her without effort. Lizzie's dreams were more definite. " I shall marry John," she thought ; " not yet of course, but when I am seventeen like Miss Hill." She remembered Miss Hill's bridal costume, wreaths, lace and virgin white ; the post- chaise, the liveries: then she suddenly thought of a wild seashore and saw herself picking up shells with John Read : then vacancy followed, and Lizzie was fast asleep. A sudden shock awoke her. John was no longer by her side. He stood on the middle of the floor, white as ashes, his quivering lips apart, his eyes fixed, his two hands firmly clenched. Before him stood Mr. Moore, an open letter in his hand and concern on his face. " John — John ! " cried Lizzie, very much frightened. He did not heed her — her father called her away. " Hushj child ! " he said, drawing her to him, " John is in great grief — his grandmother is dead." Do not speak to him, Lizzie, you are powerless over that grief — the first of his young life ; the greatest perhaps of his whole existence. Poor grandmother dead, in her poverty passing from her little room to the green churchyard before it, with her humble wish unfulfilled. The sun is shining on her grave, the birds are singing over it — little she cares for the five pounds now. And poor John Read! In a moment he has gone over — 275 — JOHN'S FIVE POUNDS. the last year's track — his journey to London, along the hot Uxbridge road ; his first meeting with Lizzie Moore ; the struggle between love for that poor grandmother at home and books, knowledge and honourable ambition, — all have rushed back to him at once. Then the dark dream of those twelve gloomy months in London dens, whence he issued proud, un- corrupted, rich of five honestly, though Heaven knows how humbly, earned sovereigns ; then the hope, the sweetness of a new life ; then the bitter news ! dead ! dead without know- ing all his love, without suspecting that her wish was granted — that for her and her alone had been all his toil. Poor John Kead ! life is before him — a long, prosperous and happy life — a Hfe of labour, science, honour, and repute — a life blessed with Lizzie's love, with suflBcient wealth, chil- dren and friends ; but even as an old, yellow five-pound note will remain unchanged, unspent, in a corner of his desk — a memorial of his struggling boyhood's ambition and love — so far away in his heart, hidden and buried beneath the happy stores of youth and manhood, there will ever lie a sorrow and a disappointment — the first keen sting, the first real bitterness of life's long probation. — 276 — ^mnb ^fiIh]^xrjolr, AKE not Childhood's name in vain — Give it not to him : Can the lees of life retain Bubbles from the brim ? What can Childhood — made to deck Time with early flowers — Have in common with the wreck Of uncounted hours ? Nothing but the ignorance. Not of things unknown. But forgotten, like a glance. Vanished like a tone ! Nothing but the froward will Now without controul. Self-absorbed for good or ill Of body and of soul. Childhood without dignity — Childhood without grace — Childhood with the sunken eye And the wasted face: Childhood vain of petty skill. Proud of little lore — Yet devoid of power or will To advance to more. — 277 — SECOND CHILDHOOD. Oh ! that each of us might die When we're at the best — Pass away harmoniously To some fitting rest : No travestied Childhood then Could abuse the word ; Each would say, a man to men, " I go— so wills the Lord." Then the few, whose age endured With untarnished worth. Would go down with fame assured. Moral kings of earth : Then such memories as the young Now can only claim Would entrance the loving tongue With the honoured name. Think not that the world would lose By th' arrested heart — All men at some moment choose The diviner part : — ■ Happy then to share that lot Wheresoever found — Garnered up, not left to rot On th' ungenial ground. K. MoNCKTON JIlI.NES. — 278 — %hn ii\ih H^offtj. (LIND with malice, wrath and pride, rebuked throughout their sinful life. Those men of Israel's latter days, rose up with clamour and with strife. To claim upon that fatal night — not robbei'-chief or murderer vile. As ancient usage gave the right — but One in all things free from guile, A Man all other men above, mighty in Sorrow and in Love, God-sent to teach what man may be — -how noble is humanity — But He God-sent — the rabble crew With ribald mockery took and slew — Yet as upon the Cross He hung With every quivering nerve unstrung One prayer alone His great and loving spirit knew^- Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And are not we in these our days, still hard of heart and blind of eyes — Do we not martyr Truth and Right, and pawn our souls for silver lies ? — 279 — THEN AND NOW. Do we not lift a hasty hand to smite an erring brother down — And often in our selfish quest, give even to Love a thorny- crown ? Yet are we brethren in the land, sharing alike that great command Which echoes still — " to others do, what you would have them do to you." God help us in our hour of need. And if with cold or cruel deed Some hand we love should deal the blow That lays our smitten spirit low. May our hearts frame the prayer the loving Jesus knew — Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ! Matilda M. Hays. — 280 — »0 of ii]t i:#. E are not " Nobles," you and I, Not Nobles as the heralds write; Yet we, like them, can face the sky. And read the secrets of the Night: And we can work, and earn the bread That props us through our rugged way ; And thoughts may spring from either head May lend a light unto the day. The violet shrinks not from our touch ; The stars smile sweetly on our sleep. And kind hearts love us, overmuch: What more from earth do Nobles reap ? Familiar both with Life and Death, We tread the road which kings have trod ; Die as kings die ; breathe equal breath ; Then rest, and rise, perhaps, — to God! Barry Cornwall. — 281 — - O O #]t Crilixs/ By the Rev. F. D. Maukicb. oJOio N the year 1801 a periodical was established in Edinburgh -which has exercised a considerable influence upon the thought and the criticism of this country during the last half-century. Those who com- menced this work took for their motto the words, "The judge is condemned when the guilty man is absolved or escapes condemnation." They therefore proclaimed them- selves judges; their function was to decide what writers were deserving of punishment ; on those who did, they pledged themselves to inflict it summarily. It is said, that of the persons who felt themselves called to this ofiice and who formed this determination, scarcely one had passed his twenty-first birthday. That may appear an early time for men to take their seats upon the bench; yet many of us can recollect that at that age, though we might have few or none of the gifts which these Edinburgh B,e- viewers gave ample evidence that they possessed, we thought ourselves perfectly competent to assume the same position and to pass sentence upon the universe. If we did not think so then, we probably should never have arrived at the belief afterwards ; for as we grow older painful doubts of our ♦ A Lecture delivered at the Brighton Athenteum, 1856. — 282 — ON CRITICS. infallibility spring up within ourselves, and are encouraged by the persons with whom we converse. It now and then occurs to us that perhaps the judge is condemned for his severity as well as for his leniency, and that he may some- times mistake an innocent man for a guilty one. Nay, the judge may even feel that his own office, grand as it is, does not quite satisfy his human cravings. He may wish for a little sympathy with his fellow-creatures; he may dream that he would be more comfortable if he were more on their level, if he stood at least on a not quite immeasurable height above them. He would like not always to be laying down the law, and to be occasionally receiving wisdom as well as giving it forth. Such desires and regrets begin to be awakened in us about that time when, as Young says, a man suspects himself a fool, — they have ripened consider- ably by that maturer time, when, according to the same authority, he knows it. One who was in his youth a severe, though certainly, on the whole, a genial critic, has said: — "A something whispers in my heart That as we downwai-d tend, LyOoris, life requires an art. To which our souls must bend ; A skill, to balance and supply ; And ere the flowing fount be diy, As soon it must, a sense to sip And drink, with no fastidious lip." But although great weight is due to this experience, it is also true that we may learn more of the tendencies of an age from young men than we can fi-om old men. • These accomplished Edinburgh lleviewers, and other reviewers much less accomplished, would not have aspired to such great tasks when they were young, and would not have produced so — 283 — ox CRITICS. much effect, and excited so much rivalry, if there had not been a bias in our time towards criticism -which there never was to the same degree in any former time, and which it is not possible — and therefore, if we admit a Providence over the minds of men, which it is not desirable — to counteract, Shakespeare has put into the mouth of his worst character the words, " I am nothing if not critical." I believe it may be true of the very best men of our time that they are nothing if not critical. But then I apprehend that they have taken some pains with themselves that their criticism shall not be of the same kind with lago's — that it shall not be cold, suspicious, hateful, quickly detecting all that is evil in things or in men, very slow in, discovering the good because there is no wish to discover it. I think they must be aware how easily they may slide into that lago temper, and must have sought help in cultivating that which is the direct con- trary of it. In what I say to you this evening about critics, my object will be to point out, so far as I am able, how we may become critics of the one sort or of the other. It is far enough from my intention to say who are of the one sort or of the other. I speak of errors which I know in myself, much more than of any I know in my neighbours. I be- lieve the capacities for both characters lie in each of us, and that it is almost certain that we shall all of us sink into the one if we do not rise into the other. The word " critic " unquestionably means a judge. The motto of the Edinburgh Reviewers gives it its literal force. But if you have been at a criminal trial in English Courts of Justice, and have marked the demeanour of the wisest and most righteous of the men who preside in them, I think you will have observed that the task of pronouncing sentence — 284 — ON CRITICS. — even the task of laying down the law for the guidance of the jury — is not the greatest or the most difficult which they perform. In our days, at least — I do not know how it may have been in the more hanging days of our fathers, — the black cap is not regarded by the spectators, certainly not by him who puts it on, as the most w-orthy or distinctive ensign of his office. Sadly and reluctantly he resorts to it at last — not till he has exercised all his higher faculties in discriminating between conflicting points of evidence ; not till after the most patient toil in severing facts from guesses, truth from ap- pearances—after the most scrupulous allowance for unfair- ness in narrators, and for reasons why the act should not have been committed — he has been driven to the conclusion that it has been committed, and that the doer of it is before him. Even then, by the provisions of our law, he cannot, as you know, take the decision into his own hands. He can only use the light that has been given him to direct the minds of the twelve men who are to try the case ; he is at best their mouth-piece. This distinction of duties is repre- sented, I think, by the two names for a judge in the language from which we have borrowed the word " critic." Mr. Grote, in his "History of Greece," uses very often the word "Dicast." That describes accurately the work which the judge has to perform at last ; but his criticism has been exercised before. If I am right in these remarks, a critic upon any subject whatever — whether he speaks of books, or art, or men — is not to think first or chiefly what judgments he may pass upon that which he is occupied with. He may be a long time before he finds himself able to pass a judgment. Per- haps he may be less able and less willing to do it after a lono- consideration than he was at the first moment. But — 285 — ON CRITICS. he may be cultivating his judgment; he may be acquiring a habit of discernment which he certainly had not at first, and which he will find much more valuable to him for his own sake, and for all the business of lif^, than the power of laying down the law respecting books, or art, or men, supposing he could have the largest circle to listen to his decrees and to accept them, supposing he had the power of enforcing punishments for the transgression of his laws, sup- posing he could cause the largest number of men to smart under the rod or to suffer capitally under the axe. I will try to illustrate what I have been saying in a few particular cases. I will begin with books. I fancy there is nothing we more like to exercise our criticism upon than on the style of the books that come in our way, I am thinking now chiefly of books in prose ; of poetry I may speak a little by and by. Such a style we pronounce is an affected style, or an un-English style, or an unintelligible style, or a pompous style, or a too colloquial style, or a style that departs from all good models, or a style that is a mere imitation of certain models. Some one of these phrases is applied to a particular writer, first, per- haps, by some oracle in a drawing-room circle, or it may have come forth with the anonymous weight of some news- paper. It gets quickly into circulation. Then some one rises up in defence of the writer. He likes the affected or the un-English, or the irregular, or the imitated style ; per- haps he adopts it and exaggerates it. He, too, has his set of followers. There are some who listen to his decrees ; perhaps he can get them into print. Thus a great amount of criticism is abroad ; a number of judges are condemnino- the guilty man, trembhng lest they should be condemned — 286 -^ ON CRITICS. if he is absolved. But after all, what has been gained ? What real critical faculty has one of these judges been exercising? Those epithets which he has bestowed upon the style do not tell you In the least what an English style, or a correct style, or a true style is. That secret is hid in the heart of the commentator. He may hold up a few sentences to ridicule, with a " Look there ! How bad that is ! What nonsense this is ! " He may even hint what he thinks is the proper model for all people to follow. But by saying that, he does not the least help us to avoid these faults, if they are faults, or to follow the right leader, if he is a right one. He leaves the impression upon our minds that he is a standard of taste, and that he knows that he is. It is a comfortable conviction certainly, as long as he can retain it; but I cannot see that mankind is any degree improved by his possession of a quality which it seems that he is utterly unable to impart. Is there, then, to be no criticism of style ? Is there no such thing as style? Do we mean nothing when we say that the style of Milton is altogether diiferent from the style of Burke ? _ I apprehend that we do mean very much ; just as much as when we say that the handwriting of two men is diiferent, or their walk, or their voice, or their manners in a room. All these are real differences ; some of them, if not all of them, are helps to tell us wherein the men differ from each other, what is the characteristic peculiarity of each. And that is the good which one gets from the style of a book. If it is not the expression of what a man is, it is absolutely worthless, with whatever rules it may be in conformity; if it is, it is one means of getting acquainted with him. It will not tell you all you — 287 — ON CRITICS. want to know of him, but It will tell you something. It may show you, no doubt, his weakness as well as his strength ; it may explain to you what he cannot do as well as what he can. But, at all events, let us try to know what it does say before we proceed to classify it or to pass sen- tence upon it. It is wonderful how much our faculties of discernment will grow and unfold themselves if we begin by throwing all our notions about style overboard, and simply come to be taught why this author spoke in this way and that in another, Avhy this was significant of him and of the time in which he lived, and another belonged to a person who lived in a different time and who had another work. The process may be a slow one — we may make no sensible advance in it, we may not be able to set down the results to our own satisfaction — but then see how much more interesting the process itself is than that for which we exchange it. When I am setting myself up as a judge of authors for the purpose of condemning the guilty, I shall look out for those who are likely to give me most occupation by their absurdities. I shall consider that my business is with the bad, though I may chance now and then to light upon something good. What effect must this continual familiarity with what is mean and vulgar, with that which I prefer because it is mean and vulgar, have upon my own mind? Suppose I continue to denounce it, suppose I continue to find a delight in denouncing it, must I not insensibly acquire its likeness or else become intolerably conceited because I am above it? But in the other case I must look out for the best and ablest writers, because they are the best worth hearing, and because I want their styles only to manifest them, I must mix constantly — 288 — ON CRITICS. with those who will make me ashamed, not proud of myself. And I shall at last get more than I sought for. The great man is the man who most reflects the temper and spirit of his time. Though he will write differently from his contemporaries, you may discover from him what those con- temporaries were, what they were thinking, feeling, suffering. I should like to gi^e you specimens of what I mean from the two authors whom I named casually just now. There are no two styles in our language perhaps more unlike each other than the style of John Milton and the style of Edmund Burke. I will not attempt to express the dif- ference in words. You cannot read any paragraph of the one or of the other without feeling it. And I do not think you can read any paragraph of one or of the other, whether you agree with it or not — whether it strikes at some cherished opinion of yours or supports one — without feeling that it is the genuine, noble, natural expression of the mind of a genuine and noble man, without feeling that they could not be changed for one another or blended together but at the peril of both becoming false, without feeling that the one belongs to the England of the seYcnteenth century and the other to the England of the eighteenth, without learning how different those two periods were, without feeling taht the nation in both was the same nation. Let me read you a passage from " Milton's speech for the liberty of unlicensed Pi-inting," and then one from Burke's speech to the Electors of Bristol, then I think that you will understand how much the style of an author may teach us respecting him, and respecting ourselves, if we do not apply to it our narrow measures and tie it down by our petty rules of art : — — 289 — P p ON CRITICS. "I deny not but that it is of greatest concern in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye hovr Bookes demeane themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors: For Bookes are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of Life in them to be as active as that soule whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve; as in a vial [the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect^ that;;^bred them.— I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons' teeth ; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be used, as good almost kill a Man, as kill a good Booke ; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God's Image ; but hee who destroyes a good booke kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the Eye. Many a Man lives a burden to the Earth ; but a good Booke is the pretious life- blood of a master-spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, where perhaps there is no great losse ; and revolutions of ages doe not oft recover the losse of a rejected Truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we spill that season'd life of man preserv'd and stor'd up in Bookes ; since we see a kind- of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall life, but strikes at that sethereall and fifth essence, the breathe of reason itsehe, slaies an immortality rather than a life." From Bui-lie's Speech at Bristol previous to the Election. " Gentlemen, — Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. In such a country as this, they are of all bad things the worst, worse by far than anywhere else ; and they derive a particular malignity even fi-om the wisdom and soundness of the rest of our institutions. " For very obvious reasons you cannot trust the Crown with any dis- pensing power over any of your laws. However, a government, be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary power, discriminate times and persons, and will not ordinarily pursue any man, where its own safety is not concerned. A mercenary informer knows no distinction. Under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves, not only to the government, but they live at the mercy of every individual ; they are at once the slaves of the whole community, and of every part of it • and — 290 — ON CEITICS. the worst and most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend. " In this situation men not only shrink from the frowns of a stern magia-i trate ; but they are obliged to fly from their very species. The seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes. The blood of wholesome kindi-ed is infected. Then: tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the means given by Providence to make life safe and comfort- able, are perverted into instruments of terror and torment. This species of universal subserviency, that makes the very servant who waits behind your chair the arbiter of yom- life and fortune, has such a tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of mind, which alone can make us what we ought to be, that I vow to God, I would sooner bring myself to put a man to imme- diate death for opinions I disliked, and so to get rid of the man and his opinions at once, than to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep him above ground, an animated mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and corrupflhg all about him." But if the study of such passages as these may expand as well as elevate our minds, and give us some sense of the very different ways in which great principles may be uttered by the men who have been possessed of them, do we not want some warnings against the errors of style into which great men often fall, and especially against that terrible error of affectation ? If rules would help us in this matter, we want them exceedingly. If we could ever be preserved from writing or speaking anything that is not simple and natural . and manly, he who suggested the means of preservation would be worthy of our highest gratitude. But let me say it once for all, he that wants to be saved from this fault will never be saved from it by looking for it in another. The good which converse with noble writers will do him is that they will enable him to detect it in himself. They will be very helpful in teaching us our un-English ways and our — 291 — ON oniTics. affected ways. Sometimes they will teach it by the con- trast of their own truthfulness and simplicity, sometimes by the pain which we shall find in seeing their deviations from the excellences which they have taught us to admire. I am touching here upon a very severe kind of criticism, a very disagreeable kind. It is when the judge discovers the culprit at his own door, in his own home. It is when he is brought to confess, " The things which I fancied I saw outside are here in me. This guilty man must not be let free, or I shall indeed be condemned." I suppose we should all like to escape that criticism if we could; but those who have had to undergo it have reason to thank God that they could not escape it, and to confess that all their notions of criticism were utterly false till they had passed through it. I have spoken too long upon this subject, partly because as we all write prose we are all criticising ourselves when we speak of that, whereas if I passed to verse I should be entering upon a subject of which experience can tell me nothing. For that reason, if I thought criticism consisted in finding fault, or in laying down laws, or in punishing the guilty, I should hold my peace; because for me to under- take any one of these functions would be the sheerest usurpa- tion. But upon the other principle, he who has least of the poetical faculty may be most indebted to poets; they may have awakened in him perceptions and given him an in- sight which but for that influence he would have wanted more than any. And using this test, I believe we are not likely to become indiscriminate devourers of poetry or to fail of a certain keen sense of what has power in it and what has not. We may find, indeed, that that does us good at one — 292 — ON CRITICS. period which we thought lightly of at another. Comets that we wondered at may pass away, and stars that were hidden may come forth and shine very brightly. Every day there- fore may make us more afraid of laying down censures or of accepting those which would exclude this or that man from the roll of poetical teachers. But, on the other hand, every day will make us more indiiferent to that which does not speak to ourselves, which merely plays about us with- ovit entering into us. There is no occasion to tell any person who admires such verses that he must not do so. We cannot the least tell that he must not. It may be very good for him that he should. All we have to do is to be honest; not to pretend to be affected by that which does not affect us if it is ever so popular, not to deny that any does which is ever so unpopular ; to sympathize with other people in their feelings as much as we can, and not to say more about our own than the circumstances demand. So by trying to be true and not false with ourselves, we shall come to have a relish for truth and a dislike to falsehood wheresoever we meet with it. But here again a caution is to be observed. The poetry which is not true in itself, which is merely imitated or adopted from others, may, nevertheless, not unfrequently be the expression of a true heart. This is a paradox which I can explain to you far better in the words of a very earnest and real poetess of our own day than in my own : — " Many fervent soiils Strike rhyme on rhyme, who would strike steel on steel If steel had offered, in a restless heat Of doing something. Many tender souls — 293 — ON CRITICS. Have strung their losses on a rhyming thread As children cowslips, the more pains they take The work more withers. . . . You catch a glimpse of Nature earliest. In full front sun face, and your eyelids wink And drop before the wonder of 't ; you miss The form through seeing the light. I lived those days, And wrote because I lived, unlicensed else My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood Abolished bounds, and which my neighbour's field, Which mine, what matter' d ? It is so in youth : We play at leapfrog over the Grod Term. The love within us and the love without Are mixed confounded, if we are loved or love We scarce distinguish. So with other power : Being acted on and acting seem the same ; In that first on-rush of life's chariot-wheels We know not if the forests move or we. And so like most young poets in a flush Of individual life, I poured myself Along the veins of others and achieved Mere lifeless imitations of live verse. And made the living answer for the dead. Profaning Nature. . . . We call the Muse, ' Oh Muse, benignant Muse,' As if we had seen the pm'ple-braided head With the eyes in it start between the boughs As often as a stag's. What make-believe With so much earnest ! What effete results Prom virile efforts ! What cold wire-drawn Odes From such white heats ! Bucolics where the cows Would scare the writer if they splashed the mud In lashing off the flies ! Didactics driven Against the heels of what the Master said, And counterfeiting Epics, shrill with trumps A babe might blow between two straining cheeks Of bubbled rose to make his mother laugh 1 And elegiac griefs, and songs of love, Like cast-off nosegays picked up on the road The worse for being warm : all these things writ — 294 — ON CRITICS, On happy mornings mth a morning heart That leaps for love, is active for resolve, Weak for art only." I hope I need not say that I understand Mrs. Browning to speak in these verses as a dramatist, not as an auto- biographer. If I took them in the latter sense I should have to protest against them as very unjust to many true poems which bore the name of Elizabeth Barrett, which were no mere " cowslips on a rhyming thread," which have not withered, nor are likely to wither. Subject to that remark, I accept her words as a description no less wise and faithful than it is beautiful, of the true and honest and deep impulses which may lead young poets to write what is in itself feeble and short-lived. The lesson should not be lost on any critic who cares to do good and not to inflict pain. The guilty men whom the original Edinburgh B.evlewers desired to take vengeance upon were chiefly among their contemporaries. But it is impossible that our judgments should be limited to them. Old writers, especially the writers of history, must stand a trial in our courts. And we shall deal with them upon the same principles, whoever they be, that we followed in the other case. A venerable person, say Herodotus or Livy, or one of our old English Chroniclers, is brought to the bar. It is discovered that certain stories occur in one or other of these writers which must be regarded as fables, not as authentic narratives. The rapid judge, terribly afraid that he shall be condemned if the culprit escapes, immediately writes "mythical" or " legendary " against the old book. " Very pretty," he says, " no doubt, for children. It is quite proper that they should have nursery tales such as we had in our days. But what — 295 — ON CRITICS. are they to us? We know them to be false." A peremp- tory decision — perhaps satisfactory to him who makes it ; but not quite satisfactory to those who believe that there is such a thing as history, and who Avish to discover what it is. They know that Sir Robert Walpole told his son not to read him history, for that he knew to be false. The clever statesman did not speak at all of the history which contains allusions to supernatural beings. He meant that with which he had been conversant all his life — that which he had been contributing to make. He meant the policy of Courts and Prime Ministers. He meant the speeches and votes in the House of Commons, and all the bye-play that preceded them. These he had the best pos- sible reasons for knowing to be false, or, at least, to contain a preponderating element of falsehood in them. And yet, out of these materials — out of memoirs written often by very dishonest men who did not wish to tell the truth, out of letters, and documents, and debates, often contrived for the very purpose of mystifying it — we do suppose we can extract something which is real, something which did actually happen. We even call that which is liable to all these perversions and contradictions the historical period ; we boast that there we are out of the reach of legends. Therefore this kind of treat- ment — these broad classifications — will avail us very ill if we are really wanting to understand the course of the world and what has been done in it. There seems to be another kind of criterion altogether different from this ; much more sifting, and at the same time much more reverent. The true critic must desire to pierce through the confused and inco- herent statements of one time as much as of another. And being convinced that there is eternal Truth at the bottom, — 296 — ON CRITICS. that the world is God's world, and that no crafts or trickeries of men can cause it to be otherwise, he must always wish to get through every fiction that men have devised into the fact that is hidden beneath it. The most honest and faithful criticism of this time, instead of treating the old histories with contempt, has restored them to honour. It has acknow- ledged that the legends which they contain are often much more worthy of examination and study than those with which Sir Robert Walpole was conversant. A patient critic may not be sure that he has discovered what they mean. He may see glimpses of meaning which others may follow out ; or he may have mistaken their meaning, and others may find the clue to it. But every step in his progress convinces him that it is there ; that men did not make it, but found it, and generally marred it. He does not believe them to be liars because they thought the world was under supernatural guidance. Xle does not find that those whom Sir Kobert Walpole knew, who had no such faith, lied less because they thought all things were left to them and their manage- ment. He is astonished to find how much the histories of all nations are involved with these supernatural records. He thinks that a fact well worth looking into. If he could find an interpretation of it, much would be cleared up to him that has puzzled him. He even hopes that such an inter- pretation may exist. This is the other kind of criticism to which I alluded ; and I believe there are many honour- able and admirable specimens of it in pur day. I think all good may be hoped for from such critics, because they believe in Truth, and because they are convinced that it can only be sought for in humility. Before I quit this subject of historical or, as it is — 297 — Q Q ON CRITICS. sometimes called, philological criticism, I may give you an instance of the way in which the same man may exhibit the most clear and masterly judgment when he takes one of those courses of which I have been speaking, and may become feeble and contemptible when he deviates into the other. I believe it will be allowed by foreign scholars, as well as by English, that our countryman Richard Bentley was one of the subtlest diviners of the meaning of obscure passages, one of the most skilful detectors of forgery, one of those who understood best how to follow out a course of evidence, and to see how each point of it bore upon every other. Considering that he was naturally a rash, dogmatical, ill-tempered man, it is wonderful how all these bad qualities were held in check, and with what patience he could devote himself to the working out of a difficult historical problem when that was his object, only allowing his talent for guessing, which was unrivalled, to assist him in catching at hints which were afterwards to be verified by experiment. In this sense he is the beginner of a method in philological and historical studies very like that which B^pn began in physical studies. But this same man, in an evil hour, set himself up as a judge and improver of " Paradise Lost." He could not admire the book, he knew nothing about it; but because he was a great critic he fancied he was a judge of poets, and was able to set them right. His emendations of this poem remain the greatest monument of 'absurdity that an ingenious man ever raised. They should be read by young men, not that they may laugh at one who was vastly superior to any critic of his own or perhaps of later times, but as a solemn warning that the greatest possessor of the — 298 — ON CRITICS. critical faculty becomes a fool when he thinks he can look down upon great authors instead of looking up to them, — when he fancies that he can measure them by his rules, instead of seeking to know what were their rules and what they themselves were. But there are subjects more interesting to us — at least to most of us — than the mere examination of the sources of history ever can be. We may look at great periods of history; we may study the feelings and passions and objects of those who were the actors in them. Here is a field for those two kinds of critics I have been speaking of to try their different plans in. When I speak of plans, however, I do not mean that all the plans of those who set up for judges, and look down upon the events and doers of past times as something far beneath them, will be the same. Of necessity they will be very various. Each of them stands on his own pinnacle; he contemplates the ground below from that. One takes his measure from what he thinks the peculiar distinctions and glories of the nineteenth century. By these he judges of the twelfth century, or the sixteenth, or the seventeenth. So far as they departed from these they are all pronounced evil; so far as any approximates to these, there is in it an element of good. Another takes his stand on the maxims of the party in which he has been educated ; everything is seen from a Whig or from a Tory point of view. One set of actors is seen to be fighting for everything that is holy and precious, the other for everything that is mean and detestable. There may be degrees of excellence on the one side, and degrees of villany on the other; but one carries the black flag and the other the white ; that decides the — 299 — ON CRITICS. question generally about leaders as well as privates. Another spectator dwells upon a more serene height than either of these. He looks down with impartial pity and contempt upon the whole struggle ; all are foolish, all are wrong. He is ashamed of belonging to so contemptible a race of beings; it is quite amazing to him how he ever came to belong to them, why his habitation was not assigned him in some fixed star entirely out of the reach of their passions and turmoils. I do not say which of these different judges I should most wish to follow, if I must follow one of them. I will frankly tell you which I should least like to follow. I would rather be the most vehement and mad partisan than one of those cold contemners of all parties and of all men. Wordsworth speaks of one of his heroines " As dwelling in a sky Of undisturb'd humanity." I never liked the phrase or envied the position. But it seems to me that these men have attained a sky of undisturbed inhumanity; and therefore I could most heartily say in this sense, " Save, oh save me from the impartial man ! " But I apprehend that there is a kind of criticism which does not make it needful that we should be partisans in order to escape from this worse calamity. If we once abdicate that high position of being law-givers and wish rather to know what the law is under which we are all placed, and to obey that, we may take most interest in those parts of our history which have been most stirring; we may wish nothing less than that they had not been stirring, Ave may complain of nothing less than the earnest- — 300 — ON CRITICS. ness of those who were engaged in them on either side. It is not their earnestness which hurts us, except as it shames us for having so little of the same quality, for be- lieving so little, for being so cowardly in asserting what we believe. Their earnestness, we may be sure, was given to them because they were asserting a principle which it was worth while to live and to die for, — I mean that each party was asserting such a principle, that in our civil wars, for instance, there was not one atom too much of zeal on either side for what that side felt to be at stake, not one atom which we could afford to dispense with — the absence of which would not have been to us the most grievous loss. It is the pettiness and selfishness which mingled with this earnestness, the little low motives which had nothing to do with the principle and which curdled and made sour that which had to do with it, this is what we are to hate ; for this is what we know in ourselves to be the cause of all our individual feebleness, of all our national degeneracy. We cannot criticise it in them till we have criticised it first in ourselves. When we have, the more heartily we condemn it the more heartily we shall reverence all the better thoughts and feelings which were struggling against it in every party and in every man; the more we shall be sure that those had a divine origin and a permanent strength; the more we shall be sure that they have each brought in their contri- bution to the national strength, and that they will unite to make it stronger still when the spirits that have de- graded and held them down shall be cast out. In what I have said on this subject I have thought par- ticularly of the period of our own civil wars, because that has suffered more than perhaps any from the partial as well — 301 — ON CRITICS. as the pseudo-impartial temper, and because no time would reward us more if it were studied in a hearty, sympathizing, reverential spirit, which would not suiFer us to pervert or warp any documents to suit a purpose of ours, which would enable us to discern, much more clearly than we ever have done, that divine purpose which is working itself out through all the most contradictory and self-willed movements of men. But the principles which are applicable to this crisis are applicable to all times. They would enable us to do justice even to those torpid and stagnant times which often follow great excitements, into which great men seem not to be born, or in which they become changed into little men, being dwarfed, not by their circumstances, but by their own submission to circumstances, by their want of earnest faith in a power that could raise them above circumstances. Even in such times as these, the true critic of history will see that the same laws are at work as in those which bring forth all the good that is in men, and all the evil, into full display. They will learn that nothing is so ignominious as that craving for great men to appear, as if the universe depended upon them; as if each man may not do right in his own sphere without waiting for them, or asking whether there are such or not ; as if the very longing for them were not a part of that restlessness which interferes with all greatness and checks the growth of it. In fact, what I have been chiefly maintaining throughout this lecture is, that the desire to be kings, and judges, and law-makers, has been one main cause why we have not done more, and are not capable of more, and that if we would turn the faculty which we suppose qualifies us for kings and law-givers to another use, we might obtain blessings and honours of which our ambition — 302 — ON CRITICS. to be grand deprives us. I am, however, very far from thinking that one of the main uses of criticism is not to recover the illustrious men whom God has given us jfrom the misrepresentations of opponents who hated them, or of admirers who did not understand them. In every case, I think we shall find that those who have spoken of great men either as their men, those who were doing their work, and propagating their opinions, or who have attacked them because they were not doing their work and propagating their opinions, or have overlooked them as if they were their inferiors, and might receive a sentence of applause or disap- proval from them, have always done something to distort facts, and to make their biographies false. And I believe every one who has aifectionately, and in a serious respectful spirit tried to understand what they meant, and what they were living for, has found apparently the most heterogeneous testimonies, helping him to bring out the live man who had been turned into a hero or a monster, or into a mere collec- tion of dried bones, which is something worse than a monster. It is not, of course, possible to prove this in all cases, because people write biographies from many mixed motives; and genuine affection, which is always favourable to truth, may miy with party motives, which are favourable to falsehood ; but I think that our age has furnished abundant examples to prove that biography may be the most worthless or the most profitable of all studies. And in every case where it is profitable, we owe it to a resolute determination on the part of the biographer not to put himself in the place of his subject, or above his subject. It is, I know, very difficult indeed to avoid this temptation. The thought will be suggested again and again to the biographer by others, — 303 — ON CRITICS. and it will rise up in himself, " Ought not I to be moralizing upon this or that fact of the life ? Am I right if I do not express my opinion about it ? " And then comes the wish to see the thing just a little different from what it was — the desire, if possible, to make the facts tell a tale, so that they shall point the moral better. The temptation is great. But if we are assured that it is a temptation to do an immoral and a false thing, we can resist it. Now, I apprehend, the desire to moralize upon the acts of our fellow-creatures rather than to exhibit them as they are, arises from the very same motive which leads painters to put into nature what they do not find there. I know nothing of Pre-Raphaelite controversies, and am too stupid about art to be able to say one word on the criticism which has reference to it. But if any persons say that we ought to look straight at Nature, hoping that she will in due time reveal her meaning to us, if it is ever so slow in coming, and that in the mean time we are not to anticipate her lessons, or to put any of our notions or fancies into her, by way of making her look prettier and more agreeable, this seems to me honest and true doctrine, which I suppose must apply to that depart- ment because I know no other connected with human life to which it does not apply. In biographies I am afraid that religious men are often the most prone to depart from it, though they have the least excuse for doing so, and the most solemn and encouraging warning to do otherwise. For in the Book which they regard as their rule and model, there is no moralizing about the lives which are given to us. They contain their own moral. We profane it and destroy it when, instead of seeking to bring It forth, we adorn it with additions of our own. — 304 — ON CRITICS. I have spoken more than once of the danger we are in of judging other times by the standard of our own, and of the correction of this tendency, which lies in the true criticism that seeks to see ages and men just as they were. But the judging lordly temper may take another and ap- parently opposite direction. We may utterly scorn our own time and set up some other time against it. We may fill the air with wailings about the decay of all heroism, the loss of all wisdom in that century in which it is our bitter misfortune to be born. This is, no doubt, a reaction against the other tendency. We may often oscillate be- tween the one and the other, and when we have settled that we will like some period in the world's history better than this, we may often change our opinions which it shall be, the Classical Ages, or the early Christian Ages, or the Middle Ages, or the Age of the Reformation. It is scarcely possible that we should rest in any one of these ; we shall probably try them all in turn. For each one will show us some bright image which we feel that we have need of; and then each one will turn its darkened side to us and will show us deformities which we have never dreamt of. How can there be any end of this? Shall we ever come at the heroic period, the golden age ? No, thank God ; that is not in any one of the ages, but in all of them. The good men, the heroes, whenever such appeared, sought for it close to them and not at a distance. And they were able to see it because they were not going up into the heaven or down into the deep to discover it. We want a criticism which shall do justice to the time in which we are born, to the men who live in it, just as much as to any time gone by, — which shall do justice not to its modes — 305 — E R ox CRITICS. and fashions, which ai-e worth just as much as the modes and fashions of any other age and no more; not to its inventions, though we may rejoice in them, and do all honour to the patient toil and thought which has produced them ; but to that in it which is most common, most human, to that which does not separate us from other times but unites us to them. May not our work to find out this common bond of fellowship give it a higher dignity, than all those peculiar treasures that we think others had and we have lost? If we are driven in our weakness to ask how all may be men, can we not leave the heroes to the elder generations? Is it not possible, after all, that a man may be more glorious than a hero? that to be on a level with all, and to feel that the lowliest is the highest, may be better than to vaunt of some great champions and representatives who make us think even more highly of ourselves than of them ? It appears to me that this may be the function of that criticism which I said, in the beginning of my lecture, our age was in some especial manner bound to cultivate. "When it takes that form, which I have endeavoured to show is its only reasonable form, it puts us in commerce with all generations and with all human beings. It may enable us to make all their possessions our own while we are most ready to acknowledge them as theirs. That true critical discernment which separates that which is capricious and transitory from that which abides, that which belongs to all from that which may be the rightful and proper inhe- ritance of some here and some there, must make every one richer. That criticism which distinguishes between the substance and the shadow, the reality and its counterfeit, — 306 — ON CRITICS. must bring us into nearer connexion with truth and there- fore with freedom. That criticism which leads us to humble ourselves that we may see a beauty and a goodness and a glory which are not ours, must be a great deliverance from the frivolity and vanity which are so natural to us and which the false habit of criticism is continually fostering. Whether this is the style of criticism which prevails most among us in the present day, whether it is this which has given popularity to our periodical literature, whether it is this which guides the judgment of our newspapers respecting books or art or men, I do not take upon myself to decide. I am not a judge either to absolve them or to condemn them. I am not afraid of being judged for not judging. But I am sure, that whether it has established Itself or not into a rule and habit, the impulse to prefer this kind of criticism to the other is growing amongst us and that some of our best writers of books, if not of periodi- cals, have done much to encourage it and to show us excel-r lent examples of it; and that wherever such examples are presented to any class of our countrymen, especially, if I may be allowed to say so, to the largest and most important class of all, there is a cordial response to them. I might repeat many names which it would be an honour to me to speak and which you would hear with respect and gratitude, I will allude to but one, which in this town I could hardly pass over, and yet which it is unnecessary and somewhat bold in me to refer to in your presence. There was a lecture delivered between four and five years ago — I do not know whether it was in this hall or to this society, — which most of you will have read and all will have heard of. It was a lecture on the influence of poetry, addressed especially to — 307 — ON CRITICS. the working classes.* It appears to have been called forth by a particularly vulgar criticism upon one of the greatest poems of our day or of any day. It is itself a specimen of that best kind of criticism which delights to draw forth the sense and beauty of a book and is able to do so because the heart of the critic is in sympathy with, the heart of the writer. Though with much rarer opportunities than you had of being acquainted with the speaker, I can bring before myself the look of scorn which must have been on that beautiful countenance when he denounced the low wit of the reviewer, and that look of genial cordial appreciation which spoke of the sorrow, the conflicts, and the hopes of the poet. He knows, as we do not, what is the full explanation of such sorrows and the fulfilment of such hopes. But this we may know, no instance can more feelingly remind us of it, that the words which come forth out of lips that have been touched with a fire from heaven spread furthest and exercise the mightiest power when those lips are closed ; that he who is severest to himself is the most tolerant of others ; that there is no criticism which reaches our follies and our sins like that of a warm-hearted and loving man. * Lecture by the Kev. Frederick Robertson. — 308 VOTIVE INSCRIPTION PROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGT. HCEBUSI on thy shrine we place Thine own Cicala, wrought in brass; Memorial of the victor crown By Eunomus the Locrian won. To the lyre's sweet strife we came (Parthes was my rival's name.) To the plectrums' touch of fire Scarce had rung the Locrian lyre ; With the sharp and sudden strain Burst the thrilling string in twain. Ere the halting harmony On the listening ear could die. Sate the insect nestling Softly on the broken string. In the same unfailing note. Warbling from her mimic throat. She whose song of old beguiled Only woodland echoes wild. Sang in sweetest unison To the harp's unwonted tone. Hence, Latona's son divine ! Votive on thy holy shrine. From our glad and grateful hands The little brazen minstrel stands. H. H. MiLMAN. — 309 — xM Kohtx^. CUKSE thee not for having won The love I strove to gain ; I curse thee not for years long gone Wasted by me in pain : I curse thee not for thy success, Which dazed my sweet love's eyes And made her proud thy fate to bless With a yet dearer prize. I curse thee. Oh ! thou shallow heart, That, being so adored,^ — Made of that angel nature part As Husband and as Lord, — She we both yearned for, being tliine. Thy wavering fancy knew No sense of loving things divine No touch of being true. I am not like thee. Ah! I dare Say that to-day with scorn, — Which, when her eyes did us compare. Made me to grieve and mourn ! I have not comeliness and grace. Nor smiles to win the crowd ; No glances watch my passing face No whispers make me proud. — 310 — RIVAL LOVEUS. I have no sparkling tricks of speech Dull hours and days to cheer, No coaxing tones young hearts to reach Like music through the ear : No bright celebrity hath set A halo round my head. To make men boast how me they met And what the words I said: No speech of mine lives on in print For meaner men to read, No volumes bound in purple tint AYoo lovely eyes to read : I live a life without event. And no one knows or cares If, long divorced from all content. My heart break unawares ! Ah ! wretch, that robbed my eager youth Of what my age had blest, I know not if thou feelest ruth For all her sad unrest; But I know her, and how at night She weeps for vanished days. And how she loathes the momina: lisht However bright its rays. And how at noon she wanders out Among her garden flowers — Feeling as faded as a rose Beat by incessant showers ; And stares at Nature's wealth of bloom With wistful dreamy eyes. And thinks what flowers grow round the tomb — 311 — RIVAL LOVERS. And turns away and sighs ; Until for weariness she sits, — Her clasped hands in her lap. Wishing, by sinful starts and fits Her thread of life would snap. And I know this — that could the past Be all a bitter dream, — Could the stamped die be now re-cast And a new glory gleam,— Could / be precious in her sight And thou pass careless by, A flattered stranger chance had brought, The god of the world's eye, — Better that humbler lot would prove Than hers can ever be, — Far happier stooping to my love. Than trampled on by thee ! Carolinr Norton. / ..'••^■tvo^ ...'••--■■■;■ % •■ ^"■••■<$H;;;r I'ft^ ^... ■•••... "''" me ^ 312 — By B. W. Procter. ACK TRUEPENNY was one of those people who go for nothing in the " scale of civilization." He had done nothing, it was said, to win the world's regard ; to advance its interests ; to make him- self a mark or a wonder in the eyes of his fellow-men. He had not written an epic poem, nor won a battle, nor talked " the House " to sleep at St. Stephen's ; and assuredly he was without any of the odour of sanctity. There are many such. They are the drops (not the bubbles) of common water in the great sea, — the particles of sand in the Arabia Deserta of human life ; — born to be blown aside or trodden under foot, at the caprice of any traveller. They are made up, indeed, of flesh and blood and bone; veins and sinews; trembling nerves and pulsing arteries ; sensations, appetites, perceptions, like a king or an Archbishop of Grenada. And yet they live and breathe, and crawl, grow old, (perhaps,) and die, and are never heard of. Theirs seems to be a poor and injurious destiny. They dwell seemingly in a barren country : — yet it may have its green nooks and sunny places, if we only knew where to find them. Jack, then — or rather, John Truepenny, — was the son of respectable cottagers in the village of E. , in one of the western counties. I could never ascertain with any precision — 313 — s s EECOLLECTTO>r OF A PENNY- A-LTNER. the line of his ancestry. But it has occurred to me, that his forefathers dwelt in this country at the time of Canute or Harold, (or earlier,) and that he had descended probably from that ancient "Old Truepenny," whom the famous Prince of Denmark addresses with such affectionate familiarity. He was not a genius, nor a dunce. He did not make such a figure in letters as his parents hoped in his childhood, yet he "kept up" tolerably well with his class; and in despite of the not unfrequent tasks to which he was subjected, and occasionally of some school indignities, he stood well with all his fellows. Quick in small matters, good-natured, and of an easy (not to say lazy) disposition, he floated onwards contentedly. Whether he wore his new Christmas clothes on Sundays, or was ragged and as bare as Lazarus, was all the same to him. The love of his young cotemporaries, at all seasons, — sometimes their admiration, when he had " swarmed " a fir-tree, or vanquished the prickly hostilities of a thorn, (for the sake of a bird's-nest,) — more than sufficed. At last, the timp for leaving school arrived. He was almost a man in stature ; and although his acquaintance with Xenophon and Cicero was not of that intimate kind which proud parents delight in, he had many of the impulses of manhood. Indeed, some of the brightest visions of more advanced life surrounded and dazzled him, when, at the age of nineteen or twenty, he suddenly fell in love with Sophy Arnold. It was then that the great Future for the first time dis- played itself, and accelerated his maturity. Hope " waved her golden hair" before him. Encouraged by Sophy's tender- ness, and stimulated by her wishes and gentle prophecies, he turned stoutly back to those studies through which he had — 314 — RECOLLECTION OF A PENNY-A-LINER. previously hurried, and gave his soul, for some months, to books. The same motives afterwards induced him to bestir himself, and look around for some happy road that might lead to independence, and entitle him to claim the hand of Sophy. Eventually, ambition (that sin by which angels fell) tempted him to dabble in ink. And this — after a few flights in the County newspaper — led him finally to London. I remember him when he first came to town, a fine young fellow, liked by everybody, and always ready to dine at any one's expense. He it was who first introduced me to the Cyder Cellar, to Evans's, and to Ofiley's, all then in great reputation. I do not propose to speak much of his London rambles, for I have not very full particulars of this part of his life ; but he mingled with the smaller contributors to the press — a careless, jovial set of people — to whom similar labours, as well as his own natural disposition, allied him : and in this society he lived for several years. Although toiling (often for a scanty meal) in the hot and turbid atmosphere of London — and, indeed, not averse to the tumult around' him — yet his memory would revert, in leisure moments, to the soft and quiet aspect of the little village in which he was born. There was its grey church half-way up the hill ; its green churchyard, where his father and mother lay; its river, that ran shining and shivering through the rich meadows ; and above all the little cottage, ivy-grown, near the cluster of elms, in which a grave and patient girl was wont to instruct the children of the cottagers around, in the mysteries of reading and writing, for — we know not how many pence a week. Poor Sophy Arnold, how often amidst her hunible labours and — 315 — RECOLLECTIOX OF A PKNNY-A-LTNER. plncliing penury did she not behold a region of encliantment open ; valleys in which the wild rose blew ; where the vine and the olive abounded; and pastures in which dwelt the forgetful shepherd who won her heart almost ten years before, and yet delayed to claim it. Alas I there he was, bustlinsc and strugglinsr in the heated air, a candidate for O CO O -' wealth and fame, left— ill luck ! at a mighty distance from both, — often a laggard in the race, — perhaps jostled and elbowed even from his true position ;— still penniless, and still as full of hope as when he first set foot in the great capital. He wrote at long intervals, — always hurriedly, sometimes briefly, — but now and then pouring out his remorse in lengthened letters. " As soon as I have realized £100 — only £100," said he, — "I'll furnish a couple of rooms, ask for a Aveek's furlough, and go down for Sophy." And fifty times some small advance was made towards the desired sum; a few trifling pieces of (ornamental) furniture were actually bought; but a loan to a friend, a dinner to a brother of the press, a something^anything — wrought upon his infirm and easy nature, and stopped him from further progress. He never went back to his native village. Sophy, who for years had indulged in baseless hopes, at last sickened and pined, and grew hopekssly ill. The efforts, by which she had supported herself and her young sister, slackened; revived by feverish fits, slackened again, and ceased. — She died, of that complaint which has no name, and of which so many die. She was buried according to her wish, near his father and mother; "hoping to belong to them," she said, "some time or other: in this world or the next." Mary Arnold, the sister of Sophy, after many struggles — 316 — EECOLLECTION OF A PENNY-A-LIXER. and without a friend, (for the pittance bestowed by a rela- tion towards her support did not entitle him to that name,) grew up in her turn. She became indeed a very beautiful woman. And she attracted the love of a man named Elliott, of energetic disposition, whose brother had some years before emigrated to America. His prospects were very considerable; and it was agreed that Elliott and his wife should live in America, with this brother. But before going thither, Mary resolved, if possible, to see Truepenny, to ascertain his condition, and to give him certain tender messages which the tender and unforgetting Sophy had, on her dying bed, required her to give. Mary had already made various endeavours to communicate with him, but all, (from his change of residence and uncertain mode of life,) had failed. For this purpose she and Elliott came to London. After many difficulties they found Truepenny', in a poor lodging, in a poor street. He had the same hopes and visions — the same means and necessities, as heretofore. He had not gone back, nor forward. He made good resolu- tions daily, all of which he broke. He was so accustomed to these failures that he ceased to feel either shame or remorse. He owed a few small debts, which the labour of the coming month would enable him to discharge ; but no money could remain in his hands, even for a day. He looked shabby, and worn, and dissipated; his face was red, almost bloated, and he complained of " twinges of gout." Should he die in the next week, there was no doubt that the parish of B would have to sustain the cost of his funeral. Before leaving England, Elliott and his wife (after ex- pending a small sum for Jack Truepenny's " comforts ") — 317 — KECOLLEC'l'IOX OF A PENXY^-A-LINER. pressed him to accompany them. " A literary man like you must do well in America," said Elliott. But Jack declined. " I shall only be a burthen to you," said he. "No, no; I'll stay here for a few years — thi-ee or four years — and if I work hard and save — and I will save — why I shall put by something for rainy weather. Yes, yes," added he, warming into his old delusion, " I have no doubt that in three years I shall start for your log house. What shall I bring you, Mary — eh? Something for the children?" "But if — " interposed Mary. " Well, and suppose I don't," broke in Jack, — " what ! You'll give me a crust and a cup of milk, and a bench in the chimney corner, I am certain." — They bade him farewell — they, with bright visions of the future — well-founded hopes — he, with golden dreams also, which enriched and covered the poverty by which he was sur- rounded. # * * # * A few words will complete this little story. — " As for Elliott and his wife," said an American, when giving me an account of some poor emigrant families, " they got on admir- ably. They were just the sort of people to thrive in a young colony. They had some money ; a good deal of prudence; could put up with hardships; and were not afraid of work. Their children are healthy, their land well culti- vated, and their neighbours intelligent and social." They, however, sincerely pitied and desired to help the poor man left in England — him whom Sophy Arnold had so long loved. They wrote to him repeatedly, but obtained no answer ; they remitted him money for his journey, but in vain. At first, they were grievously disappointed ; but custom inures us to almost everything. They would not — 318 — RECOLLECTION OF A PENNY-A-LmSK. give up all hope of his coming; yet they taught them- selves to expect disappointment. When the spring came round, as usual, Mrs. Elliott would say, "I hope poor Mr. Truepenny will come out with the emigrant vessels ;" but he failed to come. And the next year passed, and the next, — and the next, — and he never came ! He lived, for a few years, after the departure of the Elliotts, still the same infirm, profitless, struggling, dream- ing man as formerly. Without any strong affections, but with the same appetites as ever, the same hopes, (never realized and never abandoned,) he travelled onwards, on the great journey which is common to all; stumbling, at last, into a parish grave ; without money or friends, or help of any kind; and leaving nothing behind him, except a moral by which, perhaps, no one will ever be wise enough to j)rofit. — 319 — Uicjir miii Saltr, A TRUE TALE OF TRAQUAIR. Br THE Author or "Gur Livingstoke." f ADY HELEN called on her foster-sister — Said — "Come thou hither, my May, A dead man cumbers my bower to-night: 'Tis time the corpse were away : Foul shame it were, if they found him there, Sith to-morrow's my wedding day." lie lay, with blue eyes open wide. One hand on his sword-hilt pressed. His brow just curved in a startled frown, A round red stain on his breast. And just in the midst of the sanguine spot Where the doublet had fallen apart, A portrait, tied to a silky tress. Kept its place, on the pulseless heart. "Now lift thou the corpse's head, my May, And I will carry his feet; We will cast him in at the mouth of the linn Where the tide and the torrent meet." — 320 — HIGH AND LOW. Maid May, she stood at her mistress' side And gazed in the face of the dead Till her cheek grew whitest of the three. But never a, word she said. One at his head, one at his feet. Slowly they bore him down, To where the rush of the rising tide 'Counters the torrent brown. Under the moonlight met like swords The eyes of the living two; Lady Helen's lip was steady as stone. Maid May's was bitten through. The moon shone full on portrait and tress. And lighted the features fair: No living face save dark-browed May's Might match their beauty rare. The tress was black as mirk of nights When the year is at full Yule-tide: Red-brown, as waning Autumn's leaves Were the curls of the great Earl's bride. "Though his blood is wet upon my hand Thine is the deadlier sin: But I wed at the noon, and the East is grey — See — I curse thee not, but I only pray By the mother that nursed us both, false May, Help me to cast him in!" — 321 — T T HIGH AND LOW, Maid May she staggered as tho' she would swoon But answer made she none. Looked up with a smile in her lady's face And lifted the dead — alone. The linn raved, foam-flecked, past their feet Lip-high in spate and rain — But Avhen it met the tide that night It carried out corpses twain. Next morning all in bower and hall Sought high and low for May Till a whisper spread — "Yestreen she fled With a stranger across the bay " — ■ And all the while the bells clanged out For the great Earl's wedding-day. The Bride she turned to her tiring maids As they wound the pearls round her head, (Her train was waiting in the court,) And wild the words she said — "Ah, woe is me ! The dead rest well — For the North Sea, fathoms deep Covers their happy marriage-bed — I wonder when I shall sleep ! " 322 — t fjjia of t&^ Cljurclj Telleth or THE Lord's Holy Dealings with Heb and of His Victory. "I sleep, but my heart waketh: It is the voice of my Belqved that tnocketh." — Song op Solomon. " He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." — St. Johs. " And the Spiiit and the Bride say, Come ! " — Revelatioj:. At midnight the Voice of the Lord speaketh. »T night I slept, or seemed to sleep, -when echoing through the gloom, Methought I heard at intervals, three knocks upon the gate, Methought I heard vibrating, in soft music through the room. Tones of tenderest accent breathing, " Child, although the hour be late. Wake ! arise ! unbar the wicket unto Me, who watch and wait ! " The Church struggleth with slumber and replieth feebly. Instinctively I strove to rise and hasten to the door. But a sudden tremor filled my breast and paralysed my brain. And my eyes seemed steeped in slumber as though drenched with madragore, A slumber deadening every sense except the sense of pain. And I sighed, " I am too weak to rise, Lord, even Thy love to gain ! " — 323 — THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. The Saviour speaketh. "Cast off this deadly stupor, this sickly robe of grief!" Eeproachfully renewed the Voice, soft pleading in my ear ; " A second time I call thee, I, alone, can give relief. Can burst the bonds which bind thee down, then where- fore dost thou fear? Danger and Death are where thou art, but Love and Life are here !" The Church pleadeth with her Saviour. " My sleep it is so heavy, it drowneth all my life, I love Thee, Lord, Thou knowest, but alas ! I cannot rise. Come Thou to me, and heal me, and subdue this bitter strife. Give courage and awake me. Thou all-potent and all-wise, Who canst open, as Thou didst of old, even Death-sealed eyes." The Church sinheth once more into slumber. Again I sank in slumber, and dreamed a fevered dream, That I wandered very wearily through countries far away. In wilderness and waste land without a single gleam Of the golden Sun of Life I loved, and seemed to seek alway. And darker, drearier grew the night, and farther seemed the day. The Voice of the Spirit arouseth the Church, Then pealed a voice of thunder, "Awake, Oh "Woman dead ! A third last time I call thee now ! Rise ere it be too late, I sought to woo thee joyfully, my arm beneath thy head. When thou sinkest dreaming back again into thy lost estate. Relapsing into Earth-life, with Eden at thy gatel" — 324 ■— THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. The Church ariseth in awe and deep anguish. Up sprang I, wonder quickened, and gazed with awe around, A sudden germ of newness within my heart was born, A sudden sense of blessedness which all my being crowned. Although my hands and feet were pierced, my brow was wreathed with thorn, And in the world I seemed to stand imprisoned and forlorn. The Church, at length quickened, recogniseth the Voice of the Seraphic Host. As though upheld by angels in that sweet hour of dread A marvel to myself I stood, rejoicing in my pain. When lo ! I heard the Seraphs' wings which veil the great Godhead, Fanning in wondrous cadence low, a glorious mystic strain. The praise of mighty angelhood, God's threshed and win- nowed grain. Singing Glory to the Holy of Holies. Glory to God Creator, Father of Light and Love, Glory to God Redeemer, sole Victor over sin. Glory to God Consoler, the Spirit and the Dove, Bridegroom that knocketh at the heart He hath engaged to win. And Bird that broodeth till the Ark unbar to let Her in. A. M. IIowiTT Watts. ^•^o %\x M MamM\ ^tcrrg* By Ashford Owen, Author of "A Lost Lova." 5.OU ask me to tell you a story. I can tell ■^'^f4 you nothing but the very simple story of our fishipg village, to my mind well worth describing. No fishing villages are supposed to be very interesting but those in Scotland ; and this one is not in Scotland, but not far oif it. The women are standing in blue flannel petticoats, most of them with their feet bare, waiting to fill their creels with fish, before going to the large town ten miles off, or to the other town — nearly as large, black, and smoky — which lies across the river. Before they really start, however, they usually assume their shoes and stockings, and then go off bendiug under their heavy baskets, and getting rapidly over a great extent of ground with a shambling awkward gait, their legs generally wide apart; and if you try to keep up with them, and with their loads, you will find it very difficult. Of course you know that fish on the sea-shore is seldom to be got good. Boatfuls are bargained for by anticipation, — 326 — AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY. before the boats are filled ; and the moment they touch the shore, contractors either buy their whole contents, or are waiting to claim what is already their property. Cen- tralization will soon leave nothing to us country people — the best fish cannot be bought by the seaside — and who knows whether the very sand will long be left free to us. Some of the fish is hawked about the streets by the women. They go by railroad to Hardcastle ; and their prin- cipal extravagance in the great town, when their pockets are full of money, is to buy a pound of Queen cake, or a quantity of sweetmeats sufficient to appal people of the strongest digestions and to astonish even pastrycooks. AH this they eat on their way home again. Before the days of railroads, some of the women walked the ten miles to Hardcastle and the ten back again. Think of that, and of the Queen cakes — and envy them I' The rights of women are more practically respected amongst the fisher people than I ever knew them to be elsewhere. When once the men have brought their catch of fish to shore, their task is ended, and they subside into the most listless, careless, and indiiFerent of all the drowsy loungers on the beach. The women clear the lines, they seek fish-bait and bait the hooks, they weigh the fish, they clean and sell it, the money is paid to them, and they keep a good deal of it. Here, where they are equal to the men in many departments of skilled labour, they certainly enjoy a large share of independence and of authority in the household. The rude health of these people and their dirty habits would drive a sanitarian mad. The population is constantly increasing — within the last — 327 — AX OLD WOMAN'S STORY. twenty years it has nearly doubled — and yet not anothei* house has been built in Ettercoats. The men sleep a good deal by day ; and it is fortunate that they do so, for one can hardly understand how whole families can go to bed at once. The boats generally start at night — that is to say, at one or two A.M. — and from eight till ten in the morning you can watch the groups of men and women, the boats returning, and the confusion. But all this is much the same every- where — a pretty thing to see, and very tame to describe. The afternoons are the most peaceful time in our village, when the boats are rocking in the bay, the men sleeping at home, or sitting on a bench above the little pier. The women are walking away by twos and threes along the sand to dig for bait, and many of them have not yet come back from the towns. Each fisherman has his bed of mussels, which he has brought from the musselscarps, at the mouth of the Tyne and the Tees; for mussels will not grow except in their own peculiar places, in brackish water, just where the sea and river mingle. They will live for a while where they are put by the fishermen till they are required for bait, but they will not thrive or multiply. As to the worms, it is weary work often for the women to tramp for miles along the shore, on the wet misty afternoons, digging little holes in the sand to find them ; and it is not in all parts of the sand that they live. As a man must have bait it follows naturally, that as soon as he has a boat, and even before that if he wants to get on, he must have a wife. The young men, of course, begin life as subalterns to some experienced veteran ; but the object of one's life hejPC- is to — 328 — AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY. be master, or, at least, joint proprietor of a boat, and it is for this that men serve and strive. They are the most independent race in all the indepen- dent North; still it is more easy to make acquaintance with them, than with any other people hereabouts. The whole village has intermarried . for generations, and three or four family names are common to the whole community. Taylors and Storys seem, to a casual inquirer, to comprise the entire village. .The most neglected portion of the population are the children ; for the hard work which "their mothers carry on out of doors utterly prevents all efficient care of the little ones. The babies cry and roll about utterly unheeded, under the charge of children some three or four years older than themselves. When the boys grow up they are quite untractable — " one can do nothing with them," said my informant. "When are they made of some use?" I asked. " The herrings sober them." " The herrings?" I asked. " Yes ; in the herring season almost every one goes out. They put a lad of fourteen or fifteen into a boat, and the responsibility sobers him at once ; most of them grow steady then." " Do they go to school?" " Now they do; but the former generation seldom knew how to read." Every Sunday you hear the Eanters singing in the street, and I fancied at first that their worship consisted only in street psalm-singing; but I found that the Ranters had their meetings on Sunday, morning and evening, and that the psalmrsinging was but an extemporaneous addition — 329 — u u AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY. of the more demonstrative members of the society. The history of their simple faith is, that they have never had a church in their village, and that nearly all who are con- sidered religious belong to the Ranters, or Primitive Metho- dists. The street^singing sounds strangely on windy afternoons when the singers seem bent on making their voices heard, and on screaming down the wind, that the words of their hymn may reach the higher. These same Kanters conduct the Sunday school, some five or six amongst their leaders teaching it; and no other person has ever attempted a Sun- day school in Ettercoats. Who that has ever known these people can think lightly of the Kanters ? For many years an old Independent minister has come every Sunday from some miles off to preach in Ettercoats, and he has done this for years without pay, without great success or praise, for his small congregation has never borne any proportion to that of the Ranters. There is a church newly opened near the village, and in the winter, when the gentlefolks have left the place, and there is room in the church, some of the fishermen may go to It, I am told; but very few of this generation will ever leave their old form of worship. With the next it will be very different; as surely as they receive education so surely will they leave the Ranters. The repose of their rude lives, combined with the hard work which ages them so soon. Is very striking. Why should Taylors and Storys wish to leave their houses? The pitmen and the farm hands are always shifting from one colliery and one farm to the other. With these people the case is different; the sea is free to all, and where they have grown up, and — 330 — AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY. have first been awakened to the responsibilities of life in a herring boat, and to religion by the Ranters' hymns — there they spend their lives. The consumption of fish is much increased throughout all England, and so have the number of fishermen; there- fore it is natural that each boat should catch less — but they say that the fish themselves have decreased, that the shoals are not so numerous, and that the fish is never now caught so large as it used to be. This may be but the natural tendency which we all have to look back to the good old days which are no more. The acquaintance of the fisherwomen with all the gossip of the country is very great: they discuss the histories of their summer visitors with a racy impartiality which Is very diverting. The affairs of people who live miles away and who are known to them but by name are repeated with the greatest accuracy — their marriages, their chances of matrimony, their mistakes and their flirtations, all duly chronicled. There are so few trees here that were it not for luxuriant fields of grass and corn, it would be difficult sometimes to know summer from winter. The sea, the sunshine, the dark rocks and the mild changing clouds, are all the beauties of this East coast. The sunsets stretch far away over the open country and the sun rises in the sea, (that is from hearsay, for I have never seen it.) Our village lies on one side of the little harbour opposite our house ; beyond the rocks which form the other side of the bay there comes a long reach of sand, and then begins the nearest town, part of which is built on bold dark rocks ; and the ruins of the Priory stand out clearly against the — 331 — AN OLD WOMAN'S STORY. evening sky. At nights we can see the beacon in the lighthouse and all day can watch the shipping pass in and out of the river. There is more of cheerfulness in the changes of the waves and clouds than in the deepening tints of the most beautiful forest trees. The sea and sky own no winter, and the autumn never saddens them. On the autumn days, when the fog has covered everything, and, " The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth," you hear the waves, which you cannot see, rolling and tumbling behind their white curtains, and you never lose the sense of companionship which they give. The sea- weeds spread themselves in the deep rock pools day by day ; each day the waves cover them, and each day they seem to be rejoicing in their respite from the tumbling of the frothy waters and in receiving the light into their untroubled depths. The waves are always busy in the harbour, on the sands beyond, or dashing over the boulders at the foot of the rocks. They never feel the winter chill, and the stagnation which rests upon the earth; they fret and chafe with their sense of wrong and spirit of resistance, but death and change have left the waves untouched and so they cannot be sad. If you doubt all this, come and see. 332 — (fob music.) AEGUEEITE! Marguerite! Charming, scornful Marguerite ! See how she lores to tease me ! Just now her words were soft and sweet As if she meant to please me; Yet, look you, if we chance to meet To-morrow in the village street. She'll be so cruelly discreet Her very looks will freeze me ! You've robb'd me, saucy Marguerite; And yet you've so bewitch'd me. That I am more than half inclin'd To call your very scornings kind. And swear that, though my peace of mind Be stolen, you've enrich'd me ! Marguerite ! Marguerite ! Artful, mocking Marguerite ! She'll sometimes try to charm me ! Or else, her triumph to complete. With cold disdain alarm me ! — sas — MARGUERITE. And then, -with laughter wild and sweet, She'll taunt me with my own defeat. Dance round me on light elfin feet And once again disarm me ! You've robb'd me, saucy Marguerite, And yet you've so bewitch'd me, That I am more than half inclin'd To call your very scornings kind, And swear that, though my peace of mind Be stolen, you've enrich'd me ! Amelia B. Edwards. - 334 hKhXL UR God in Heaven, from that holy place. To each of us an Angel guide has given ; But Mothers of dead children have more grace — For they give Angels to their God and Heaven. How can a Mother's heart feel cold or weary Knowing her dearer self safe, happy, warm? How can she feel her road too dark or dreary Who knows her treasure sheltered from the storm? How can she sin? Our hearts may be unheeding — Our God forgot — our holy Saints defied — But can a Mother hear her dead child pleading And thrust those little angel hands aside ? Those little hands stretched down to draw her ever Nearer to God by mother love : — we all Are blind and weak, — yet surely She can never With such a stake in Heaven, fail or fall. — 335 — LINKS WITH HEAYEN. She knows that when the mighty Angels raise Chorus in Heaven, one little silver tone Is hers for ever — that one little praise. One little happy voice is all her own. We may not see her sacred crown of honour. But all the angels flitting to and fro Pause smiling as they pass — they look upon her As mother of an angel whom they know. One whom they left nestled at Mary's feet — The children's place in Heaven — who softly sings A little chant to please them, slow and sweet. And smiling strokes their little folded wings. Or gives them her white lilies or her beads To play with : — yet, in spite of flower or song They often lift a wistful look that pleads And asks her why their mother stays so long. Then our dear Queen makes answer they may call Her very soon: meanwhile they are beguiled To wait and listen while She tells them all A story of her Jesus as a child. Ah, Saints in Heaven may pray with earnest will And pity for their weak and erring brothers! Yet there is prayer in Heaven more mighty still — The little Children pleading for their Mothers. Adelaide A. Pkoctek. — 336 — (!Bss:m 0it Estkl Simlulf^cie. By G. S. Venabi.hs. HE term useful knowledge is employed like all common phrases to express a vague Bnd inaccurate meaning. It is difficult even to supply a negative definition of the words; but in general it may be said that the reflected or indirect operation of knowledge on the mind of the student is excluded from the popular conception of utility. The implied advantages must be external and practical, although advocates of useful knowledge readily allow that according to the Latin common- place the pursuit of liberal arts refines the moral character. The attempt to classify branches of learning according to their supposed objects and tendencies seems perfectly legitimate, and it is only on closer examination, or through actual experiment, that the arbitrary and intangible nature of the distinction becomes apparent. Many years ago the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge under- took to solve the problem by publishing valuable treatises on the pure and applied sciences, and on other grave and solid topics. The promoters of the enterprise took it for granted that algebra, chemistry, and mechanics were useful, and by a liberal interpretation they included in — 337 — X X ESSAY OX USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. their scheme the histories of Greece, of Rome, and of England. A subsequent series, called the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, perhaps derived its title from the belief that one condition of usefulness consisted in the absence of amusement; but the real object of the Society was not to exemplify a logical definition, but to provide cheap elementary works in the principal departments of learning. On the well-founded assumption that education is desirable, good rudimentary treatises must necessarily be useful. Whether the attainments which were contem- plated as the object of the undertaking tended to ulterior utility was a question which scarcely concerned the founders of the Society. Some reflection is required before it is possible to appre- ciate the remoteness of scientific and intellectual pursuits from the practical results with which they are associated in popular belief. The mechanical principles which are illus- trated in the construction of a pump are highly interesting to the cultivated mind ; but mathematicians seldom build pumps, and it is perfectly unnecessary that pumpmakers should understand mathematics. Some valuable discoveries have been made by accident, some have resulted from purely theoretical reasoning, and the great majority are due to the combined use of abstract science and of experiment. All contrivances which promote human convenience, when they have once been devised, are thenceforward dependent on rules and formulas which can be applied without scientific knowledge of principles. Experience shows that almost every discovery leads to useful consequences, but the ordinary student can only hope to verify the experiments and demonstrations of others, and the artificer or engineer starts — 338 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. where the theoretical inquirer has left off. There is no reason why the constructor of a railway should understand Euclid, and on the other hand an algebraist or astronomer may not improbably be a secluded and disinterested dreamer ; yet the exact and mixed sciences are among all branches of human knowledge most confidently regarded as useful. In the question of the mathematician in Joe Miller, "what Paradise Lost proved?" there is^a fallacy behind the fallacy which the story is intended to expose. The quei'ist is supposed to be a practical man, incapable of extending his mental view beyond definite and tangible results. The audience smile with a complacent sense of superiority at the assumption that a poem is worthless because it contains no demonstration ; but they tacitly admit the pretensions of the exact reasoner by recognising the greater utility of his pursuit: yet a geometrical theorem understood by one more student, after it has been familiar to fifty generations, is as barren of material consequences as the grandest of Milton's metaphors. The so-called induc- tive philosophy of Bacon is exclusively directed to objects of practical utility, or, in the language of its eloquent author, to the relief of man's estate, or for purposes of edification, to the glory and incidentality of God. It is true that through induction or other intellectual pro- cesses, man's estate has been largely relieved by valuable inventions, but the material benefactors of mankind are the inventors and not the mere students who learn to apprehend the principles of their discoveries. Scientific trainins is an admirable instrument of education: but the world at large has nothing to do with the choice between lumiiious and fruitful experiments. In Miss — 339 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy, the model boy of seventy- years ago is represented as busying himself incessantly with barometers, spirit levels, and other mechanical instru- ments and devices ; Harry's antitype in real life would probably have been able to make a pump, but the best way of getting a supply of water from underground is to employ a pumpmaker. The same prejudice of the eighteenth century is exemplified in the story in Sandford and Merton, of the master and servant who, when cast on a barbarous island, find that their relative social posi- tion is inverted through the comparative helplessness of the gentleman. The savages prefer the stranger who is skilful with the axe and the spade, and the juvenile English reader is expected to adopt their judgment, and to apply it to a civilized society. At a more advanced age, he perhaps learns that no accomplishment would be more useless to a landowner or to a merchant than the art of handling a pickaxe like a navvy. Nine-tenths of the acquirements which are popularly regarded as parts of useful knowledge are as incapable of useful application as a pickaxe in the hands of a gentleman. Bread studies, as the Germans call them, or professional specialities, though highly useful to those who require them, are often utterly unconnected with the knowledge which is considered useful. A governess must be able to play upon the piano, an equity lawyer ought to understand the learning of contingent remainders, and a candidate for an appointment in the numismatic department of the British Museum may as well be capable of recog- nising the date of an Assyrian coin. The kind of utility which is the present subject of inquiry is supposed to be — 340 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. inherent in certain kinds of knowledge, and not to be de- pendent on personal and exceptional relations. Music is not a species of useful knowledge, but an art ; and Archse- ology in all its branches, unless it furnishes the means of subsistence, is generally regarded as a hobby. The law of real property is only studied by legal practitioners ; and if a layman were by some strange accident to find himself thoroughly familiar with conveyancing, he would carefully abstain from employing his skill in the conduct of his own affairs. The profit which is derived from the exhibition of skill in any art or science is entirely irrelevant to the intrinsic utility of the pursuit. The experiment of walking on a rope across the Crystal Palace produced abundant fruit to the dexterous acrobat, but the feat would scarcely have been recognised by Bacon as an experimentum fructiferum. As it appears that the exact and physical sciences are, for the most part, not included in the definition of useful knowledge, it seems worth while to ascertain whether the studies which are laxly described as moral present a better claim to the character of usefulness. Philosophy, more commonly known as metaphysics, notwithstanding its ele- vating influences and its tendency to strengthen the reason- ing powers, would certainly be excluded by popular opinion from the sphere of useful knowledge. First causes are proverbially barren, and the result of the inquiries which occupied Berkeley and Kant, Fichte and Hegel, can only be discerned by the intellect. A novice once complained that after a laborious calculation he found the end of an equation no better than the beginning, because the answer as well as the problem was expressed in algebraic symbols which he had not yet learnt to understand. The multitude of — 341 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. those who believe in the benefits of useful knowledge would like the end of Locke's Essay, or of Kant's Treatise on Pure Reason, not at all better than the beginning. History is more entertaining than philosophy, and of all branches of study it is perhaps the most generally recog- nised as useful. For the few statesmen who can influence public affairs and for the more numerous class which desires to understand them, a knowledge of history may possess a certain external utility. At some periods entire populations have been led into practical error by historical ignorance or misconception. The follies of the French Eevolution were oc- casionally facilitated or exaggerated by the inaccurate theories of ancient history which the half-taught orators of the time deduced from an exclusive acquaintance with the translation of Plutarch. It was an encouragement to a blood-thirsty rabble to believe that Cato and Brutus had been Jacobins. A later generation learnt from Beranger and Thiers to reve- rence Napoleon as a demigod. Historical questions admit of a degree of misrepresentation which is impossible in dis- quisitions on natural history and physical science. It is desirable that popular works on history should be true, and this object is most effectively secured when a check is im- posed on inaccuracy by the presence of a competent number of educated critics. The study is also a valuable part of liberal education, but in ordinary cases the direct use which is made of historical knowledge is infinitesimal or imaginary. If any well-informed woman will reflect how often in the course of life her own actions have been influenced by the History of England, she will acknowledge that one more item must be struck off from the list of studies which con- stitute useful learning. — .342 — ESSAY OX USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. An acquaintance with the rules of political economy may perhaps admit of more frequent application to the conduct of life. The relations of tradesmen and customers, of employers and workmen, of landlords and tenants, are governed by the same principles which ought to regulate the intercourse of nations. All persons are occasionally called upon to form economical judgments, which may some- times influence their acts ; and comparatively few have the firmness to adhere consistently to the primary doctrine of non-interference. The use of the study is chiefly controver- sial, and its importance depends on the lingering pertinacity of a heresy which was once universally prevalent. The orthodox faith which has scarcely dawned on the Continent or in America, is rapidly extinguishing the opposite super- stitions in England. When the prejudice in favour ,of arti- ficial high prices is universally renounced and extirpated, the work of the economical missionary will be fully accom- plished. The laws of exchange will always deserve recog- nition from philosophers, but the knowledge of their nature will hereafter be as inoperative in practice as a familiarity with mechanics, with chemistry, or with the History of Greece. Poetry, and the higher forms of imaginative literature are by common consent excluded from the domain of useful knowledge. The j^rocess of purifying the feelings by pity and terror produces no visible or ponderable results. Although the works of great poets contain many weighty precepts for the government of daily life, sententious apophthegms form but an insignificant fragment of the pur- pose or subject-matter of poetry. Dramatic impersonations are at the same time more essentially connected with the creative faculty, and more fertile of instruction, but the — 343 — ESSAY OX USEFUL KXOWLEDGK, practical lessons are easier when imaginary models assume less heroic proportions. Agamemnon and Achilles are too remote from ordinary experience, and the tragic emotions of Lear and Othello are fortunately not adapted to common occasions. On the whole, perhaps contemporary novels convey a larger amount of direct and a\ailable instruction than any other literary compositions. A memory saturated with modern stories of sentiment and society, is for certain purposes almost equivalent to the personal experience of more than one lifetime. All but the silliest novels contain records of actual feeling, and of observation which is often singularly minute and accurate. Many of the characters are directly copied from life, and the likeness is marked out by the unconscious exaggeration of jjrominent features under the influence of predilection and spite. Common prejudice or conventional propriety regards novel-reading as a mere recreation, while the study of a treatise on ferns or molluscs is recognised as a creditable and useful employ- ment. It might be urged, on the other hand, that the dealings and sentiments of common-place men and women concern their fellow-creatures more nearly than "the vege- table loves" of plants, or the instincts of oysters. Parents and governesses may perl aps be well advised in their de- nunciation of novels, but their arguments ought not to be founded on a false assumption that the pursuit is unfruitful and uninstructive. A dispassionate investigation seems to lead to the unex- pected conclusion that the material utility of knowledo-e varies inversely with the dignity and severity of the cor- responding studies. Perhaps it may be conjectured that the chief use of mental cultivation consists in the pi-ocess — 344 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. of acquisition, although it is hecessary that an external object should be presented to the imagination. The elevating and refining tendency of a love for that kind of knowledge which may be called useless seems to counte- nance the same apparently paradoxical conclusion. It is at least fortunate that unprofitable subjects possess for certain minds an attraction which is wholly independent of all tangible advantage. To those especially who are immersed in the practical business of life, a genuine love of useless knowledge is the best preservative against narrow- ness, and against the dull frivolity which attends the vulgarer forms of worldliness. Those who have enjoyed the society of great scholars can seldom have failed to admire the simplicity and delicacy of mind which are preserved in their original freshness under the shelter of a love for abstruse researches. There is generally a wholesome and humorous ori- ginality in the intellectual recreations of the learned. Hiero- glyphics, Coptic philology, astronomy as it existed before the laws of the heavenly bodies were discovered, the true flotation of triremes, the depths of the fords by which Alexander crossed the Granicus or Csesar the Kubicon, all scientific and historical inquiries which can serve no practical purpose, supply matter for the intellectual activity which is its own sufficient reward. The energy of local antiquarians in raking up their little heaps of rubbish justifies itself against oflJcious scepticism by occasional discoveries which rise into the region of history ; but the real value of such pursuits consists in the security which they afford against the wearing and deteriorating influ- ences of ordinary life. The mind which can take a genuine interest in any branch of useless knowledge neither rusts with laziness, iior becomes choked with worldly cares, and it is — 345 — Y Y i:ss.VV ON' USIOFUL KXOAVLKDCE. not, often fretted away in tlie pett)' worries of domestic vexation. The best ideal type of tlie fancifully earnest student is to be found in Mr. Shandy. Although the oddity of his pursuits is somewhat exaggerated for the purposes of comic fiction, his earnestness, his laborious ingenuity and his indiffe- rence to external sympathy and to material results, render him the fit representative of eccentric and disinterested learning. Sterne might boast of having created one of the half-dozen imaginary men of genius who have been produced since the birth of literature. Hamlet, Don Quixote, the Ulysse of the Odyssey, the Socrates of the Platonic Dialogues, though the range of their powers may be lower, are not more original than the commentator on Slawkenbergius. Shut up in a dull village in the tamest part of England during its most prosaic age, Mr. Shandy and his brother find an inexhaustible source of pleasure and inspiration in the pursuit of their equally vinremunerative studies. "While Uncle Toby compares Stevinus with Peireskius, that he may apply the art of fortification to his bowling green, Mr. Shandy elaborates his theory of Christian names and his ideal system of education. When his son is accidentally baptized Tristram instead of Trismegistus, his first consola- tion is derived from the discovery communicated by the great canonists Triptolemus and Didlus, that the mother is not, in contemplaticn of law, in any degree of kindred to the child. His brother's less purely intellectual nature expresses itself in the practical conclusion that " let the learned say what they will, there must certainly have been some sort of consanguinity between the Duchess of Suffolk and her son." The unfortunate propensity of Sterne to disfigure — .346 — ESSAY ON USEFUL KNOWLEDdE. his admirable fiction with the vilest admixture of unsavoury allusions, only renders more conspicuous the refined delicacy which his principal characters retain in perfect consistency with their studious habits. Though they are the contempo- raries and social equals of Fielding's and Smollett's heroes, Mr. ShansJy and Uncle Toby are gentlemen of as pure tastes and perfect breeding as the Knight of The Canterbury Tales. In real life it is perhaps scarcely desirable that self-denying genius should occupy itself with the mysterious properties of Christian names, or with the theory of noses. The knowledge which is called useful is at least more solid and systematic, and it connects itself more conveniently with every-day pursuits and interests. It is only on reflection that the candid scholar will find how little he has either desired or attained any result of external and practical use. — .347 — S^Ir^ f ict^riit gle^iit. liOUD, — on the bosom of the River, White-winged, the vessels come and go Dropping down, with ingots to deliver Drifting up, lordly, on the flow ; Free, as the wilful waters under. Free, as the winds above, they speed ; Kings of the sunshine and the thunder Come they and go they, at their need. Chained, — in the shallows of the river Rises the lily all alone ; Quiet, on the quiet waters, ever. Who knows the lily-bud is blown? Who cares to think that life's billows, Rocking the great ships to sea. Under the shade, too, of the willows Rocks the red lily and the bee ? — 348 — THK VICTOKIA RKGIA. Rocks the red lily with its burden, Only some worker bees at most Working for nothing but the guerdon To live on their honey in the frost. Turn where the river ripples stilly ! Into the shallows row ! and see What lovely leaves are in our lily. What a brave worker is our bee. Edwin Arnom). — 349 peisteh ey kmii.t faithfi'i-l and co. victoeia pees8, (fou the empiotment of women,) great coram 8tbeet, w.c. ?.^ef,r 'VJB pip? ,, Bi::iJ sainssimH iHS^iii^ 't.llilV?*:!?!..!.' ri.. . ; v