LITTELLS LIVING AGE. No. 1244. April 4, 1868. CONTENTS. PAGE 1. The Three Lyrists, Horace, Burns, Bdranger Cornhill Magazine, 3 2. Vesuvius 14 3. A Sad Hour. By Miss Thackeray 21 4. Linda Tressel. Part vi Biaclcwoods Magazine, 29 5. Ecce Homo. By Mr. Gladstone Part iii Good Words, 40 6. Mr. Adams aturday Review, 50 7. Dr. Newmans Poems London Review, 53 8. Memoirs of Lord Brougham Athenenm, 54 9. The Study of the New Testament London Review, 55 57 10. The Poetry of the Middle Ages 11. Jealousy The Leader, 12. An Old Ladys Recollections London Review, 60 POETRY: Spring, 2. Excelsior, 2. Bishop Gray, 2. Comfort for Ex-Kings, 28. The Sham Sacerdos, 64. Middle Age, 64. SHORT ARTICLES : Eccentricities of the Flesh, 39. Effect of Absence of Sound, 63. Human Nature, 63. BRowNLows, by Mrs. Oliphant, has been published at this office, price 37 cents. Sent by mail, prepaid, (or that price. New Books ON THE HEIGHTS. A Novel. By Berthold Auerbach. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Preparing for Publication at this Office LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of Nina Balatka.~ THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PIIINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By Mr. Trollope. OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE. By Edward Garrett. A SEAOOARD PARISH. By George McDonald. PEEP INTO A WESTPHALIAN PARSONAGE. Just Published at this Office THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. 37 cents. THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu. 50 cents. OLD SIR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 75 cents. SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE. New Edition. 50 cents. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTO,N. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. Fon EIcsaaT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually for- warded for a year, free of postage. Bet we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second 20 50 Third 32 80 The Complete Work, 96 240 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volemnes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. SPRING. EXCELSIOR. BISHOP GRAY. SPRING. Nimium ne crecle. SPRING is coming! It uncloses Tiny leaves on all the roses! Snowdrop, hyacinth, and crocus An inquiring eye can focus Nature says that Spring is coming And the hees will soon be humming!. Spring is coming! By degrees Rise the rows of early peas! Sprin~ is coming, sure and steady Slugs and snails have come already! Nature says that Springs approaching, On the Winters steps encroaching Spring is coming! Elm and chestnut Horse-, of course, and not the best nut Put forth buds; and larches slender Wear a green thats fresh and tender! Nature says that Spring is nearing, Soon the cuckoo youll be hearing! Spring is coming! From their sleeping Beds the tulips now are peepin~ Birds are singing, blithely winging, Mid the swinging branches clin~ing! Nature says that Spring is near us Thats a prospect which should cheer us! Spring is coming! But her pleasing Promises may end in freezing! All the buds and blooms are lost, May or April bringing frost. Nature cries that Spring is coming, But experience says shes humming. Fun. EXCELSIOR! THE chains of Trade were falling fast, As to~the Tory benches passed A youth, through social snow and ice, Who bore a flag with the device Excelsior! His brow was brass his eye, beneath, Slept like a dag~er in its sheath; And, twixt the sta of his keen tongue, Ever in under-tone there rung Excelsior! He smote his foemen black and blue, His friends he served, a henchman true; He turned from Truths white mountain-throne, And upwards pressed, with stifled groan -~ Excelsior! Try not that road! Experience said, Truths rocks hang threatening oer thy head; The stream of Proof runs deep and wide. But, firm, that stubborn voice replied, Excelsior! Oh, stay, fair Fiction cried,and rest A laurelled head upon my breast! A flash awoke his slumbrous eye, But faded, as he gave reply, Excelsior ! Ware Toryisms rotten branch! Ware democratic avalanche! Such was calm Cautions last good-night: A voice replied, from Treasury height, Excelsior! As Tory Chieftains officeward Expectant turned their keen regard, Discussin.g chances, hopes, and fears, His voice burst on their startled ears Excelsior ! There, on Ambitions topmost round, This climber at his goal was found, Triumphant over snow and ice, True to his flag and its device, Excelsior! For all his triumph, in cold blood, Passionless, hut not proud, he stood: As from Truths peaks, crowned with her star, A proud voice rang above him far, Excelsior! Punch. BISHOP GRAY. (Dedicated to A. C. LONDON.) HES all your fancy painted him; A sound High Church divine; But Natal it is anothers See mo more void than mine. You shoved not out one never shoved With shove in legal way: Oh the law, the lawll he broken By the move of BISHOP GRAY! The mitre leave suspended oer His brow at airy height; The new lawn sleeves put by for him Whilst you are hound by right. His mitre name no more to me; His sleeves take hence away: Oh the law, the lawll he broken By the move of BISHOP GRAY! I shrunk not, when they summoned me To swell the censures blast, But due tribunal there was none; No valid judgment passed. Then since that truth must be confest, Dont give us cause to say, Oh the law, the law was broken By the move of BISHOP GRAY. Punch. 2 THE THREE LYRISTS. From Tue Corahill Ma,,azine. THE THREE LYRISTS; HORACE, BURNS, AND BERANGER. THE mystical fascination which the Num- ber Three used to exercise over the human mind, receives some excuse from interesting facts in the history of literature. Thus, there are three supreme epic poets, Homer, Vira ii, and Milton. There are three mas- ters of Greek tragedy, iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. There are three unrivalled satirists, Aristophanes, Rabelais, and Swift. And there are three lyrists, who stand out in the annals of song, enJoyin.~ a popularity beyond all competition, horace, Burns, and B~ianger. It is with the last triad that our business lies at present. It seems to us that each of them may he better understood if all three be compared together; and that whatever essential similarity can he shown to exist between them, will tend to throw light on the lyrical character and the lyrical genius. The points of coincidence in the condi- tion and temperament of these men of dif- ferent nations, are curious, to begin with. They were all of humble degree by birth, yet more or less fortunate in some circum- stances of their training. They were all, for parts of their career, in Government employ- ment. They all early found patrons amcng men of rank. They all held a kind of mLxe(l politics, the result of the fluctuations of the ages in which they lived. They all enjoyed popularity during their lifetimes. All three were strongly susceptible of reli- gious impressions, but hostile to prevailing dogmatism and superstition; keenly alive to the love of friends, and the charm of wo- men; deeply tinged with melancholy, though cheerful at ordinary times, and hilarious on festal occasions. All were patriotic to a de- gree exceedin~ the zeal of common men. And though the basis of their genius in each casd was a gift of creative pontaneity which defies analysis, they all alike worked on traditionary material, literary and musi- cal; and worked on it in the true artistic spirit, with much love of form, finish, symmetry, and grace. Finally, what is profoundly sig~iificant, these three song-writ- ers all began with satire, a thoroughly hu- morous vein of satire being c0mnTlon to the group. In order to draw out this parallel with any fuhuess, it will be best that we should take a glance at each of our lyrists separate ly. B6ianger has been little discussed in England, considering his European celeb rity, and the material illustrative of him at the disposal of students. Horace and Burns are more talked of; hut the latest views re- garding even these poets are far from being as generally known as some people suppose. It is a strange thing to reflect upon, that Horace, who died one winters day just eigh- teen hundred and seventy-five years ago, should have more readers even yet, than either Burns or B6ranger. We apprehend, however, that this admits of no doubt. It is another piquant fact of the kind, th even these evergreen classical reputations have their good and bad seasons, their periods of fashion and of neglect. In the eighteenth century, we hear of Horace everywhere, from the pulpit to the ball- room. But for many years after our own century opened. lie was no longer the mode. lie ceased, as Niebithr says, to have justice done him and in the lectures which Niebuhr delivered at Bonn in 18289 that ~reat scho- lar protested naniust the reaction. Since then, there has been a highly active Hora- tian movement in literature. Hofinan Peerl- kamp, a Dutch professor of great distinction, gave an impulse to this, in an unusual way. He issued, in 1833, a work, the object of which was to show that a good deal of the present text of Horace is spurious and sup- posititions. Such audacity roused the Ger- mans, and the subject can hardly be said to have gone to sleep again yet. But the re- vival exten(led beyond the province of crit- icism, strictly so-called. Cation Tate and Dean Mihnan in England, Baron Valcke- naer and others in France, conducted e~- cellent investigations of the poets whole life and genius, and, indeed, his life had been treate(l with injustice as well as his muins. a Translations, too, have multiplied, till a cer- tain impatience of them has become mani- fest. Some are spirited and sympathetic par- aphrases, like those of Father Prout and Lord Derby; some are more severe, but equally able, like those of Professor Coning- ton. Others, aaain, repeating the error of Francis in new shapes, are loose in style, and modern in character, echoes of Moore rather than of Horace. Meanwhile, substantial agreement may be said to have been arrived at on some long- agitated Horatian questions. The old poets character emerges out of the latest discus- sions as soun(l and hoveable as ever. A Bin. tus and Cassius man in his youth, he gave in his intellectual adhesion to the Emperor only when the Empire had become a dis- tinct and beneficent necessity. It was, in fact, his own cause, for the raisin~ of new men, and the encouragement of letters were 3 THE THREE LYRISTS. essential parts of the Czesarean policy. But he could still sing the praise of the noble death of Cato. Nor was there anything servile in his attitude towards Augustus, whose services to the State he celebrated in a manly and independent kind of way. Augustus chid him playfully for not court- ing him more. Compared with the attitude of Boilean to such a ruler as Louis Quatorze, that of Horace towards Augustus who, whatever else we may think of him, was one of the ablest sovereigns that ever lived stands out with something of a classical dig- nity. With regard to his private life, what writer has shown more filial piety, nr shown it with a finer disregard of all the mean social fears which beset low natures in un- expected prospcrity? What man has ever been more familiar with the rarer and sweeter natures of his time? As for his morals, he would not have understood what is held on some branches of morals by the modern world, which has no right to meas- ure bim by its own standards. And Butt- mann did a good deal to put people right on one matter at least, when he subjected the heroines of the love-songs to a critical in- quiry. There are some eighteen of them, but they vanish away when looked at close ly. The Pyrrhas and Glyceras are mere Greek statuettes. The Lalage of one lyric is not the Lalage of another; and Lydia dis- solves into two figures, one as shadowy as its sister. Mr. Newman contends for the his- torical reality of Cinara, and is a little an- noyed with Horace for not having married her. But even Cinara proves to have been a mere name on investi~ation. These homiris of literature, with yellow and myrrh- scented hair, and crowns of ivy or rose leaves, were just as much Greek ornaments of horaces library as the figures wh5ch Atticus bought in Athens for the library of his trien(l Ciceros Tusculan villa. The fact is, that in one whole class of his Odes, our friend the Venusian simply used the Latin langua~, e as an ivory on which to paint Greek subjects. This is so indisputable, that he has often been treated within the last half century or so as a mere imitator, whose satires and epistles alone deserve much admiration. But to talk in this way, is to talk just as great nonsense as those gentlemen who pretend to know all about the family of Tyndaris; or who believe Horace to be in downright earnest when he relates how, having fallen asleep in his child- hoo~.l on Mount Vultur in Apulia, doves came and covered him with leaves of laurel and myrtle. He imitated the Greek lyrists Who can even imagine a stanza like this undoubtedly; and there is a sense in which being sung by a coantry girl, while spread- Burns imitated the old Scotch song-writers, and B6ranger the chansonniers of the eigh- teenth century. Tradition is essential to the popular lyrist, who must also avail him- self, in order to seize the popular heart, of known and familiar artistic forms, just as of known and familiar airs or tunes. Bnt through imitation Horace learned to be original. The charming odes addressed to his friends Septimius, Pompeitis, Varus, and others, are not fancy-pieces, but fresh from life; while such noble passages as the description of Regulus in the C~lo to- nantem are thoroughly Roman. Scholars who insist too much on the imnitative side of horaces labours, seem to forget that the Greek lyrists Alc~us, Sappho, and others, continued to exist alongside him for many ages, and that, if he had been anything like a mere echo of them, his works would have been allowed to fall into oblivion. As it was, he appears to have been as popular through the whole Roman empire as B6ran- ger in France, or Burns in Great Britain. We cannot say, indeed, how far it was possi- ble for a writer to penetrate the masses in a civilization of which slavery formed so large a feature; but there is evidence enough that Horace was as widely known as any classi- cal writer could become. Now, it is a car- dinal point about our three lyrists, and their own peculiar triumph, that they gained the multitude without losing the cultivated classes. If anybody provokes me, boasts Horace, he shall weep for it, and be sung about all through the city. B~ranger, whose songs were heard in every cabaret, tells us, not without complacency, that Louis XVIII. was accused of having them on his night-table when he died. Who such a formidable enemy of the Bourbons as B6ran- ger? But the head of the Bourbons was a great lover of Horace, and knew a truly good song when he saw it. Success of. this double kind is by no means the necessary attendant of all kinds of lyrical greatness. Odes like those of Gray or Wordsworth, even songs like some of Mr. Tennysons, are not addressed to the people. What can be grander in its way, for example, than Tenny- sons bugle-song? But take a stanza of it O love, they die, in yon rich sky, They faint on hill, and field, and river; Our echoes roll from 5Otii to sonl, And grow for ever and for ever. 4 THE THREE LYRISTS. ing her webs to bleach near a running stream? This illustration of a poets popularity is taken from Allan Cunningham, who re- cords it as his own experience in the mat- ter of the popularity of the songs of Burns. Burns, like lilorace, has been differently es- timated at different periods, since his death in 1796, ten years after his poems burst up- on the world. His first biographers, in- cluding even Dr. Currie, obviously under- rated him ~ and Walker especially (of whom the world would never have heard but for his acquaintance with the great man) writes in an intolerable and con- temptible strain of patronage. It was the misfortune of Burns to be born in an age when Scotland had ceased to be a king- dom, without having reconciled herself to the condition of a province. In an earlier time he would have been happier, for whatever his circumstances his heart would have been more at peace. In a later time, be would have emigrated young, risen to fame and fortune, and left, probably, great- er contributions to literature than any of those for the sake of which the world cher- ishes his memory. As it was, he fell up- on a generation whose society and litera- ture were both eminently artificial, and wrote his best things in a lan~,uage the doom of which was already sealed. His whole life was thus a moral struggle, as well as a physical and social one; a strug- gle between a loyal romantic Scots heart, and a society fallen into narrow divisions, with their class prejudices and local mean- nesses between the consciousness of original power, and the check imposed by the over- valuino of mere formal education on the part of an a~,e which had forgotten what poetic originality really was. We hear much of Burnss flattering reception, in the winter of 1786, by the Edinburgh men of letters. But they were after all mere me- diocrities; for the era of flume had passed away, and the era of Scott had not opened. flume was dead; Adam Smith was in de- clining health, and suffering from the de- pression of spirits which overtook him a~ter the loss of his mother. Those whose names one hears as receiving Burns let us say Blair and Mackenzie, for instance want- ed a relish for real genius, and evidently regarded the poor bard as a miraculous Ayrshirc ploughman who thought much too highly of himself. Indeed, gross cx g~era- hon long prevailed on the subject of Burnss actual position and attainments. He was not a peasant at all, to begin with, but came of an old stock of Kineardine shire farmers, who seem to have been peo- ple of some superiority, for his grandfather is found joining his brother agriculturists in setting up a school. His readinu, from boy- hood upwards, was what would have been thought respectable in almost any class of life at that time; for, with all the talk about Scotch education, it is the diffusion, rather than the degree of knowledge of any kind, that makes the Northern king- dom remarkable. But though in reality no vulgar portent, Burns was too much treated as such and he left Edinburgh with stin0s lurking in his breast, for which the hospitality that curiosity about him had excited did not compensate. His drinking-bouts with what he calls the stately patricians of Edinburgh, produced not only headaches, but heartaches, which were much worse to bear. That Burnss poems should have been admired, can hardly be claimed as a credit for that generation. Their power is so glaringly undeniable; they are so superior to any Scottish poems that the country had seen for centuries; that to overlook them would have been simple barbarism. Yet they only reached two editions in Burnss life-time, though he lived ten years after achieving his fame. Nor are those apolo- gists more successful who would extenuate the meanness of the sordid patronage which placed him in an employment of seventy pounds a year. Scotland, through the influence of Dundas, had a large share of crown patronage at that time, but it was bestowed on those who had no claims but relationship, or who made up f3r the want of that, by the qualities so ad xirably por- trayed in Sir Pertinax Macsycophant. Lord Brougham and the late Mr. McCulhoch are not unnaturally surprised that Adam Smith should have been fobbed off with a commis- sionership of customs. But this was a joke to making Burns a gau~,er. And it is no excuse to say that he was a poet, and as a poet unfit for business. There are, in- deed, some morbid modern poets of pecu- liar schools who shrink even from criti- cism; who are afraid of being looked at; and who are capable of nothing but pro- ducing their highly artificial stuff in a re- tirement cheered by the occasional com- pany of toadies. But the type of poet we are investigating just now is quite a differ- ent kind of man. Whether it be the strong vein of humour which seems an es- sential part of him, that widens the lyrist of this class, or not, certainly he has always sound common-sense, and tact, and a prac- tical faculty for affairs. Burns astonished 5 THE THREE LYRISTS. people as much by the judgment with which he behaved in a society quite new to him, as by his genius. His talk and corre- spondence were admirable, and the extant papers of the excise show that he quickly learned, and excellently discharged, all kinds of business that came in his way. The similar qu lities of Horace, whose lot was cast arnontr a more generous people, were chiefly displayed in the mixture of taste and discretion with which he filled his place in the high Imperial society. As for Bdranger, some of the ablest men in France loved to illustrate his good worldly wisdom by comparing it to that of Frank- lin. Burns was undoubtedly the least fortu- nate man of our group, from every point of view. The best friend that his genius got for him, the Earl of Glencairn, who might perhaps have been to the poet something of what Mtecenas was to Horace, or Prince Lucien Bonaparte to Bdranger, was cut off by death. Yet his name will last if only in these beautiful lines: The bridegroom may forgct the bride, Was made his wedded wife yestreen; The monarch may forget the crown That on his head an hour has been; The mother may for~,et the child, That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; But Ill remeinher thee, Glencairn, And a that thou hast done for me. For this Lament promises to live as long as the Tyrrlierta regum progenies on the one hand; or the declicace of the Chansons published in 1833, on the other. There was a strong romantic element a feudal feelinn akin to that of Sir Walter in the original attitude of Burns towards the an- cient Sootch families. It is seen very clearly in his curious Jacobite letter to Lady Winifred Maxwell, the heiress of the Earl of Ni hsdale; in his correspondence with Mrs. Dunlop, who came of the Wallace blood; in the dedication of his second edi- tion to the Caledonian Hunt; and in the lYgh-spirited, heart-stirring Address to Edinburgh. We are reminded in the last poem ot the Quid debeas, 0 Roma, Neronihus, Testis Metaurem flumen and not a fi~w similar passages, of Hor- ace. But the stern experience of life tiught Burns that the time for generous il- lus;ons was gone by. The Jacobite became a Jacobin, or something like it. The poet who had addressed Mr. Tytler, the cham- pion of Mary Stuart, in such verses as these My fathers that name have revered on a throne, My fathers have fallen to right it; Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son, That name should he willingly shi~ht it lived to sing A Mans a Man for a that, and to welcome the French Revolution. If, at one end of his career, lie could, like the Roman poet, think kindly of the Etru- nan grandees, and of the Claudii, and Lamite, of his Northern land, at the other end of it, he handed over his torch to one who cared little indeed for such recol- lections and associations, a child of the Revolution destined to pepetuate its glories, and to continue its work. Fate seems to have curiously linked together these lyr- ists and Bdranger, who knew neither the language of Rome, nor of Great Britain, lived to be repeatedly entitled the Horace, and the Robert Burns, of France, by men well competent to judge of both. Burns, like Horace, had enjoyed the ad- vantage of being the son of a good and wise fiather ; and of receiving that sound domestic training which books cannot give, and which the want of books does not ne- cessarily impair. It is curious to compare the Roman poets grateful record of the ex- cellent old freedman who kept his youth pure from all corruption, Servavit ab omni Non solum facto, verum opprohrio quoque turpi, with the Scotch poets similar testimony to the equally humble and admirable cotter of Ayrshire : My father was a farmer upon the Carrick bor- der, 0, And carefttlly he bred me in decency and order, 0. Pierre Jean de B6ranger, born in the Rue Montorgueil,in Paris, in August, 1780, was less happily sitfiated in this important respect. His father was a Picard from the neighbourhood of Th5ronne, a good-natured careless Freachnian, of volatile character, nd wandering habits, in whom, or his ca- reer, we can trace none of the soid quali- ties which belong to his celebrated son. The father of this Dc Bdranger had kept a cabaret near Kronne, having been aban 6 THE THREE LYRISTS. 7 doned by his father, who re-married in October of the same year, 1789, while England, and whose name and. designation walking with one of his aunts, they found were Th5ranger de Formentel. But in spite theodelves surrounded by a crowd of men, of their condition, the father and grand- and of women of dreadful appearance. father of the poet resolutely maintained a They were carrying the bloody heads of claim to belong to the noblesse, and be- the gardes-du-corps, massacred at Ver- qucathed him (their only legacy) a gene- sailles, on pikes; and one of these heads alogy in which they asserted themselves to passed quite close to the shuddering boy. be descended from the great house of the When thinking of it, adds he long after- Counts of B6ranger in Provence. The wards, I can see it yet; and he thanked poet was described as De B~ranger in his Heaven that he had been away from Paris acte de naissance, and through life adhered during the Terror. to the particle; that famous particle, the He escaped the scenes of that worst period right to bear which is so fertile a theme for of the Revolution (which, Republican as he pleasantry among the wits of Paris, and was, he always deplored,) by having been about which Balzac was so persistently tor- sent to an aunt at Thironne. The good poor mented. B6ranger, we need not say, be- woman looked at the lad of nine years and a came as, fervent a democrat as his father half, whose grandfather could no longer was a royalist, and made the de the oc- maintain him; whose father freed himself casion for a celebrated song: from him as a burden; whose very mother gave herself no thought about his fate; and Et quol! japprcnds que lon critique, who had been sent to her by the diligence be de qui prbc~de mon nom. . as a kind of worthless parcel of humanity to * * * * be stowed away as she best could. It is im- Je suis vilain et tr~s-vilain ... possible for me to charge myself with him, Je suis vilain, said she, in her perplexity; and & ranger Vilain, vilain. never forgot that moment. Scenes like He tells us, however that he could have these, he remarks, quickly ripen reason in those who are born to a little of it! But passed for a noble if he had liked; though the honest kindly aunt, a moment after- it is no wonder that he never cared for the subject, bred among the people as he was, wards, clasped little Pierre Jean, with tears and making of the ideas of the Revoha- in her eyes, and exclaimed, Pauvre aban- tion a life-long worship. His youthful donnJ! I will be to you a mother! training was of a vague and various kind. Never, writes the grateful poet, never His father, after havina been a lawyers was promise better kept! She will be re- clerk in the provinces, came to Paris, where membered in literary history, in her turn, he fell in love with the lively and attract- with the libertinus of Venusia and the grave -ive~ daughter of. a tailor, in whose house kindly Scots father, who sleeps in Alloway the song-writer was born. The father and kirkyard. Biniranger calls her his real mother separated in six months. The father mother; and describes her as a woman of wandered away to Anjou and elsewhere in superior mind, who had made up for a de- search of employment, and the mother went fective education by serious and select read- mc? He was still unable to read aloud when to live by herself; while young Pierre Jean she received him, though he had already continued under the roof of the good old contrived to get through the Henriade. She tailor. Sometimes he went to see her, and took him in hand, with the aid of a Racisae, she would take him to the theatres in the Boulevards, or to little dances im~ the coun- a Tilm~maque, and Voltaires dramas; and an .try; so that he learned something of the old schoolmaster taught him to write and ci- strange drama of human life in Paris even pher. before learning to read. And what a drama This excellent aunts position was that of life in Paris was during the boyhood of B6- keeper of a small inn; and, as may be sup- ranger, who grew up in a Revolution, as posed, she could not bestow on her nephew Horace had done before! At nine years of anything like a high education. He re- age he saw the taking of the Bastille from mained throu ~ h life, in his own, words, una- the roof of a house in the Faubourg St. An- ble to decline musa, a muse, or rosa, a rose; tome, where he had been sent to school, and ignorant of every language but that of his own land. We all know the attitude but where he got no other lesson, he says, than the lesson of that spectacle.* In the less excellent than his verse. In the satires and epistles of Horace we can see the capacity for a * Mu Biographie a posthumous work, and an . prose style~ if need be; while that of Burns admirable contrihution to autobiographical litera- (though occasionally turgid) is full of vigour and ture. the prose of Wranger is scarcely, if at all, animation. THE THREE LYRISTS. towards the ancient masters which a misfor- tune of this kind would have caused a nar- row-minded ine(liOcrity to assume. Such a man would have gone through life protest- ing that the Falernian grapcs were sour; would have sneered at classical scholars; and made hazardous jcsts about Greek particles without any distinct idea of the place occupied by the particles in the struc- ture of the language. But Wranger was a man of gpnius, and an honest man. Circum- stances did not enable him to teach himself Latin, as Rousseau had done. But he al- ways deplored his want of such knowledge as a misfortune; and he has expressed the feelin~ in remarkable passages of his letters. His ignorance of Latin gave him more pain, he declares, than all that he suffered from the poverty of his youth. Horace is to me, he writes, the Unknown God . * The happiness I most envy is that of know- ing Greek. I But perhaps he exaggerated his disadvantages alter all. For he was a great student of the best translations, to be- gin with; especially those of Aristophanes, who had a perfect fascination for him. And then there were the best models of his own brilliant and graceful literature, which he studied thoroughly. From a very early pe- riod he loved the standard old French mod- els, in spite of his sympathy with the Revo- lution, and its influence on literature. He had no respect for the extravagance and ec- centricities to whjch the Romantic move- ment led; or with the easy writing of later times~ If this sort of thing goes on, are his words, Racine and La Fontaine will soon be in want of translators. We shall soon have people writing, observes he elsewhere, who have not learned to read. He did not belong, he protests, to the crea- ~ors of what is called la littgrature facile, the mortal foe of that other literature which has been the joy of my life, and was once the pride of France! In precisely the same spirit, Horace toiled lovingly at the exeinpiaria Orceca; and Burns compared, sifted, analysed, the old Scotch ballads and songs, and the poenis of Thomson, Collins, Shenstone, and the Queen Anne men. B6ranger remained in F6ronne till he had reached the age of fifteen, having passed two years of the time in a printing-office a part of his experience to which he always looked back with interest, lit had also at- tended, during a small portion of this pe- riod, a gratuitous ~)rimary school, one of the thousand new schemes which the ferment of revolution had inspired. Meanwhile, the Revolution itself, and its results, were giving him an education of their own, which blended strangely with the charm of the so- norous elegance, or exquisite and delicate playfulness, of the writers of Louis Qua- torze. He attended a club where republi- can songs were sung, and republican speeches made, an influence to which he attributed the birth in him of le goat de la chanson. His aunt herself was full of the enthusiasm of the hour, with which the whole moral air of France was hot. The boom of the cannon of the English and Austrian fbrces besieging Valenciennes reached P6ronne at the dis- tance of sixteen leagues across the plains of Picardy, and woke an echo of hatred of the foreigner in young B~ran~ers sensitive heart. When a salute announced to the town that Toulon had been retaken; he was on the ramparts, and at every gun his heart throbbed with such violence that he was obliged to sit down to recover his breath. If young Burns, some twenty-five years be- fore, had glowed with patriotic passion on reading of Wallace, what must have been the emotions of a French youngster of kin- dred soul, with the enemy on the frontier? The love of the national flag, and a certain jealousy of the foreigner, lasted with Beran- ger through the whole of his long life. In spite of all his admiration for Voltaire, both as genius and reformer, he scarcely ever forgave him his zeal for foreighers, and he never forgave him his outrage to the mem- ory of Joan of Arc. When Baran~er returned to Paris, not long before the time of Burnss death at Dumfries, he found his father and mother living together again, and his father en- ea~ed in operations on the Bourse, and Roy- alist intrigues. B~rangers mother, whom, as he relates, he nowise resembled, either physically or morally, died soon afterwards her life having been shortened by her i;nprudences at the age ofthirty-seven. The young B~ranger joined his father in his money dealings, and became a clever financier; and he got some near glimpses of the kind of men who were plotting for the return of the Bourbons. But in 1798 the house broke down, and the growing poet for he had already written much verse found himself plunged in poverty. This period of his life corresponds to the period which intervened in the life of Horace be- tween the battle of Philippi and the gift from M~cenas of the Sabine farm. Among the earliest of Horaces writings were his Archilochian lambics against upstarts like * 6orrespondauee de B~rassger, vol. ~. ~. 137-212. Vedius Rufus; B6ranger wrote Alexan tlb. vol. lii. 410. drines against Barras and his adherents; 8 THE THREE LYRISTS. and rejoiced when Bonaparte overthrew the Directory. Republican as he was, he thought Napoleon just as Horace thought Augustus at Rome the only man capable of governing his disordered country. He admired him, besides, for the genius which had covered the French arms with glory; and sympathised with him, as a new man whose career was itself an embodiment of the hopes and ideas of the Revolution. Look- ing back to those days, long afterwards, he speaks of them as a time when I was often hungry, but when France was great and glorious! He was, indeed, poor enough; poorer than Horace had ever been in his worst days, without, like Horace, having enjoyed a high cultivation. He lived in a garret on the sixth story, in the Boulevard Saint Martin, where the new century found him living on bread and cheese and writing poetry, with a wardrobe consisting of three bad shirts, ( quune main arnie se fatiguait ~i raccomoder,) and everything else to match. I was so poor ! he tells a friend of after years. ~ The humblest party of pleas- ure forced me to live on panade which I ma(le myself. * Yet there were such little parties, sometimes; and there were friends, and love, and songs; and, in spite of all its hardships, B~ranger seems to have looked back to that phase of his life with much more pleasure than pain. It was the period of the Grenier and of Lisette, and is repre- sented by some of the most charming of his songs; for the song-writer, more than any other poet, pours out himself, and his life may be traced from point to point in his strains, as the year is marked by the suc- cession of the notes of different birds. B6ranger was cheerful and hopeful; but the view from his little garret-window, in spite of its occasional adornment by a cur- tain in the shape of Lisettes shawl, contin- ued to be dark. One day in the beginning of 1804, it occurred to him to send some of his manuscript poems to Lucien Bonaparte, the most lettered man of the Bonaparte family. He selected for the purpose two copies of dithyrambic verses of four or five hundred lines, and enclosed them with a private cQmmunication. Two days passed, when a letter arrived, which B~ranger opened with a trembling hand. The sena- tor had read the poems, and wished to see the poet! My eyes filled with tears, are B& angers words; and I gave thanks to God, whom I have never forgotten in my moments of prosperity~ The reader can fancy the situation. It was that of Horace, when, after the introduction of Varius and ~ Correspondance, vol. i. 42.3. Virgil,. the Etruscan grandee opened bi~ heart to him; that of Burns, when the let ter of good Dr. Blacklock reached him, just as, flying from bailiffs and intolerable misery, he was about to embark at Gree- nock for the West Indies. B~ranger bor- rowed some better clothes than his own, and hastened to present himself to the brother of the First Consul. Lucien received him with every kindness, and having to leave for Rome soon afterwards, assigned to him his allowance as a member of the Institute. There were three years of the traitement in arrears, which B6ranger received at once. The lyrist is a kindly and loyal man. B6- ranger made over the greatest part of thjs sum to his father; exactly as Burns ad- vanced two hundred of the five hundred pounds which he got for his second edition to his brother Gilbert. The good effect of having Lucien for a patron did not stop with the income of a thousand francs a year. It indirectly led to B~rangers being em- ployed by the painter Landon in prepar- ing a list of drawings of the pictures and statues in the galleries of the Louvre, then yearly enriched by the plunder of Eu- rope. The poet could now help, not only his father, but his sister, and the widow of the good old tailor, as he always calls him, his grandsire. Three years later, and still through the indirect operation of the patronage of Lu- cien, B~ranger obtained a clerkship in the department of Public Instruction. He be- gan to be known, too, among men of letters; and his genius ripened under the influence of his constant reading and observation. The writings of Chateaubriand made a deep impression upon B~ranger. He owed it to Chateaubriand, he says, that he was ever any thing .more than a Voltairian, and that he remained through life a spiritualist rath- er than a materialist in his philosophy. The spirit, of the nineteenth century finding expression through an improved form of the style of the eighteenth, that is the combi- nation which the songs of B6ranger present to us. Though ~ writer of songs from early youth, B6ranger tried several other species of composition before devoting himself entirely to the genre. We hearofapoem about Clovis;of a poem about Joan of Arc; of comedies. But he never contrived to satisfy himself in these fields; nor was it till 1813 that ~his reputation as a song-writer began to spread, and to encourage him to cultivate more than ever his special talent. The Se~nateur, the Petit Uornrne Gris, the (Jueux, but above all the Roi d Yvetot, ran through society in manuscript copies, and delighted the by- 9 THE THREE LYRISTS. ers of such things, always, observes B6ran- ger, a numerous body in France. The Roi dYvetot that delightful little portrait of a kind of French King of Brentford, whose crown was a nightcap; his guard a dog; and ~who journeys round his kingdom on a donkey was a comic but kindly satire on the Im- perial policy, and had a great success Oh! oh! oh oh! ab! ah! ali! ali! Quel hon petit Rol cetait la! La, 1a. B6ranger was elected to the Caveau, a club of wits and song-write~, presided over by D6saugiers, who held a place in it cbr- responding to that held by Charles Coll6 in the Cavrau of the previous century. Of all the song-writers of tbat centurV which loved song so much, Colk was the gayest and most pungent. There is a neatness and grace, a smartness, piquancy, and pret- tiness together, suggesting a kind of cracker bonbons for the suppers of the gods, about his chansons jayeuses. But, unfor- tunately, it is almost impossible to quote them; they are fit only for that private room in the Bourbon Museum at Naples, which zeal for classical learning alone (no doubt) induces so many travellers to visit, but from which youths under eighteen are rigorously excluded. Coll6 was private reader to the Duke of Orleans, for the en- tertainment of whom and his friends he wrote songs, and little theatrical pieces, and he knew the tone of his society. There is, gaillardise enough in B6rangers songs, es- pecially the early ones. But B~ranger, and this is his great distinction, elevated the chanson, both morally and intellectually. In the hands of Colh~, it was an aristocratic toy; in the hands of B6ranger, it became a popular weapon. The return of the Bourbons gave B6ran- ger an admirable opportunity of employing it in its uew character. Although a Bona- p artist, he had never been an Imperiahst. But when he saw foreign troops in posses- sion of Paris, and a king whose very pres- ence suggested national humiliation, his sense of the despotic character of Napo- leons government gradually grew weaker, and was succeeded by a kind of romantic tenderness for a name and family associated with so much glory and so much misfortune. The violet became in a kind of manner, to him, what the white rose once w~as to Burns; and his Charlie was so far away over the water, all the weary way to an island in another hemisphere! There were other Conditions of the Restoration hateful to B& ranger. Grandees of the emigration had come back, cherishing the vain hope that the whole changes of the last thirty years could be reversed, and the old society re- stored with the old dynasty. The Marquis de 13arabas was the type of this class of inane fogies in B~rangers satire : * * * Vers son vieux castel Ce noble mortel Marche en brandissant Un sabre innocent. Chapeau bas I chapeau has! Gloire an Marquis de Carahas! Nor were the Marquesses of Carabas the only unwelcome visitors in B~rangers eyes. On all hands he heard the re-establishment of religious orders hopefully advocated. The Capuchins were to begin life again; the Jesuits were busy; a whole swarm of dusky creatures came to the light, like disagreeable reptiles, of the slug or beetle kind, after a thundershower! In the pow- erful satire, Le Bon Dieu, there is a piquant stanza on such as these : Je nourris dautres nains tout noirs Dont mon aez craint les encensoirs. us font de la vie un car~me, En mon norn lanceat 1anathbme Dans des sermons fort beaux; ma foi, Mais qui sont de lhebreu pour moi. Si je erois rien de ce quon y rapporte, Je veux, inns enfants, que le diable memporte, Je veux bien que Ic diable memporte. In Les Capuci s, too, there is a lively satir- ical movement: La faim dSsole nos provinces; Mais In pi6t6 len bannit; Chaque fete graces a nos princes, On pent vivre de pain bdnit. Btinis soient Ia Vierge et les saints; On r~tablit les Capucins! In these ecclesiastical satires we have the counterparts of those which Burns pro- duced during the Old and New Light con- troversy in Ayrshire The Twa Herds, for exaniple, and Holy Willies Prayer. But while the Scot had a miserably narrow field of action dealing, as he did, with the provincial squabbles of an unlettered clergy, and writing in a patois the French- mans audience soon became European. The annoyance of the Government, and its prosecutions, cost him the loss of his pla c in the bureaux of the university, and two 10 TILE THREE LYRISTS. terms of imprisonment, one in 1821, in St. Pelagie; the other in 1828, in La Force. But the sale of his volumes not only more than compensated for his ph~ce, but became a source of revenue for life. Success raised Burns to the position of a gauger; with the privilege of dining at the houses of lairds who made him drunk, and whose wives sometimes cut him for the breaches of manners which such drunkenness pro- duced. Success made B~ranger not only independent in means, but one of the chiefs of the Opposition in France the associ- ate in poiitics of Lafayette, Dupont (de 1Eure), Benjamin Constant, Manuel, Thiers; the friend of Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Lamennais, Lamartine. Under Louis Phi- lippe, office was open to him if he had been ambitious. A hint would have secured him a fauteuil in the Academy. But he kept aloof from such worlds; lived nuch in re- tirement part of the time at Passy, Fon- taineblean, and Tours; did a thousand acts of kindness and generosity, and lived and died a simple chansonnier. In the course of the last Revolution he was elected to a seat in the Assembly, but he resigned it almost immediately. When his life closed at a great age in 1857, so potent was the magic of his name, that the Imperial Gov- ernment feared a republican movement at his funeral, and gave him public obsequies itself. The old tailors grandson went to his grave between troops of soldiers stretch- ing fbr miles, and with a whole city lookin~ on, from roof to pavement. Shouts of Honneur iz Biranger! rose and fell along the streets as the procession passed. These were, no doubt, what Horace would have called supervacui konores; but they are pleasant to think of as signs of the gratitude of a nation. We have indicated, we think, not a few points of similarity in the fortunes and charact ~rs of the Three Lyrists; and such might be remarked even in the persons of at least two of them. Horace and Thran- ger were both little men; stoutish in mid- dle age; one of them gray, the other bald, before his time; and of simple costume and manners. Of the face of Horace, we only know that his eyes, which were apt to suffer from weakness, were dark. The eyes of B6- ranger were large and blue; and his arched lips, sensitive and voluptuous, gave peculiar expression to a smile at once kindly and melancholy. The little Frenchman, too, had a large head, leaniii~, towards his right shoulder, which was quaintly compared by one of his friends to a skull of St. Chry sostom, with a face of Bacchus. * horace and B6ranger were men of town life men formed by capitals; and the effect of this is seen in their writings. Bums had much of the character, as of the ap- pearance, of the farmer; his manly build, his fresh complexion lighted up by dark eyes of singular lustre and beauty, suggest- ed recollections of the hills and rivers, and the rainy West. The emphatic distinction of the song- writer is not only that his songs are him- self, but that in hin~self he is a high poetic representative of the common man. There are poets, and some of the greatest, who form a kind of caste, a sacred college, among themselves. One cannot fancy a small 2Eschylus, a little Milton, a miniature Wordsworth. If an ordinary writer attempt- ed to write like these demigods of litera- ture, he would give pleasure to no human being. In their high walk, you must he a demigod, or nothing. But the kind of charm which belongs to a Horace or a B& ranger is simply the highest expression of a keenness of sense and quickness of feeling, which exist in less degree among many in- ferior men. They are the poets of the common world not the commonplace world, which is a separate thing but still the every-day world of their own genera- tion. They express, with the peculiar and incomparable felicity of genius, the prevail- ing half-conscious thought of their time, and give voice to the universal passions which play through the life of the human race. Hence, each of them is a man rel- ished by his contemporaries, and strongly national; and hence, also, their resem- blance to each other, in spite of differences of race, epoch, and language. For the great elementary conditions of hum u exist- ence are pretty much the same every- where. All nations and ages worth taking cognizance of in literature have enjoyed the praises of good and the ridicule of had men; the celebration of national glory, the beauty of the revolving seasons, or the pleasures of love and wine. The son~-wri- ters soul is not a st r that dwells apart. Fle is a man of the world, with the sympathies and interests of the mass of men, and with his share of their frailties. In a paper of this kind, where our object is to illustrate the type, rather than to analyze minutely the individual, we natn- rally dwell on the resemblancos by which the existence of the type is proved, and its essential characteristics distinguished. All * B ranger et Lamennais. Paris, 1861. 11 THE THREE LYRISTS. their lover among the rigs o barley, or p3rting with him by the banks of a country stream. Many of tbe heroines of all these are imaginary, as we have before observed of the Greek statuettes of Horace. There seems to have been an historical Lisette,* though the name is not always consistently used but Rosette, Margot, Fr~tillon, Jeanneton, obviously answer to Pyrrha, Myrtale, Lalage, and that ideal sisterhood; and the same may be said of Tibbie Dun- bar, Eppie Adair, and other Scotch lasses of homely names, the echoes of which will last ion0 in Ayrshire and Nithsdale, and many a land far enou~,h away from that whieh holds the singers grave. Of the drinkina songs, we may say, that in all these poets, they exhibit identity of inspira- tion, with a dissimilarity of details pro- duced by diversity of lati~udc and climate. Horace calls for the amphora of Massican, which has been ripening in the famarium ever since be was born. It is champagne that Bdranger summons when he wants to see Margo ts eyes sparkle : the leading themes of the song-writer are handled by these three lyrists in a similar spirit. Horace has his vein of natural pie- ty, but he is against superstition. He tells rustic Phidyle that the simplest offering irom a pure hand and an open heart is as welcome to the gods as the slaughter of ponderous oxen a doctrine quite in accord- ance with that of the Cotters Satardaq Night, and with the inspiration of Bd- rangers Dieu des Boanes gens. He loves the coolness of wells and the plash of foun- tains; the shale of the poplar and pine, the sound of music among the Sabine rocks; as Burns the wimpling of a Scotch stream through a glen or underneath the hazels as Bdrangcr the spring notes of birds in the woods and gas~dens sloping down to the Loire. Each poet, of course, re,ards such en from a point of view of his own: the Roman under his hot sky, and musing on a phiosophy which preached pleasure, but could not. escape a tinge of melancholy, seeks shade and repose; and momentary foreetfuiness of thc imperial city to which lie knows that he intends to return. The ParisU ns feeling is nearer to the Romans than to that of their brother the Scot; hot he colours even external nature with a tint from the politics of his age; nay, is some- times unwillin0 that the birds should sing to any but his favourite idol, the people * In the Scot we have a deeper relation to scenery. lie is a man of the North, with a vein of the mysticism of the Scandinavian blood; and he goes to nature for sympathy with his sorrow, as well as for a tender ob- livion of it, and throws over the landscape the sentiment, whatever it may be, which has possession of his soul. We have said already that Burns is emphatically the in ral lyrist of the three, though equally at home with human character, such as other influences contribute to make it. This ap- pea~s in the love songs, as in all the rest. The heroines of Horace, whenever they ap- pear to have any reality, arc dwellers in the capital; damsels of the lute and lyre, whose beauty is the natural ornament of feasts, and of rooms laughing with silver. Those of B6ranger (a democrat even in his loves!) are gri~ettes; it is part of thelr poetry that, however charming the taste of their siam- ple and cheap attire, they shall be of humble belongings and occupation, daughters of the classes whose work is done in towns. We never hear of either batch of them as coming through the rye, or encountering * Sainte-Beave, though a friend and admirer of * See Gorrespom~ianee de B& anger, I., 423; and Bcranger, has not hesitated to censure this extrav- La Lisette Baanger, by Thales Bernard. (1864.) ag~ uce. Causeries du Lundi, 2d ed., vol. ii. The last title reminds us that we have seen a spe. (1832.) cial dissertation called Gonjectures on Tyndaris! Le verre an main, voyez-la, Commc a table chic 1)abihlc! Qoci air Ct quels yenx dIe a Qoani Ic champagne p~tille! The Northern bard likes wine, too: Go fetch to me a pint o wine, And fill it in a silver tassie That I may drink before I go A service to my bonnie lassie he exclaims; and a still better and more passionate effusion be,,ins : Ycstrcen, I had apint o wine. But it is to malt, rather than to the graj)C, that we owe Burnss b st drinking songs, of which none perhaps are more ad- mirable than Willie Brewed a Peck o Maut. Such a stanza as : It is the moon, I ken her horn, Thats blinkin in the lift sac hie; She shines sac bright to wylie us liame; Bat by my sooth shell wait a wee! isthe very essence of poetic and bacchana- lian fun. To attempt anything like a Plutarchian ahy,cpeasg or comparison of these lyrists, with a view to pronouncing on their relative 12 THE THREE LYRISTS. 1~3 power, for terse, concise, epi~rammatic finish of expression, we can desire nothing better than B~rnnger. His satire dances to his music as charmingly as Puck at one of the balls of the Queen of the Fairies. But this is not all. There is a fine vein of tender sentiment in such son~s as Qnelle est jolie Les Etoiles qui Filent, La Bonne Vieille, Les Souvenirs du Peuple, and La Yienx Caporal; a vein sufficiently proving Bdranger to be a poet, as well as a delightiirl humourist and wit. Burns, how- ever, we cannot hut think, reaches a lofrier height, and strikes a deeper chord. B6- ranger is a song-writer in the best so rise, hut also in the narrowcst sense of the word, as, of course, he well knemv himself. He is a song-writer, and nothing more. H~ has not felt behind him a tale like Tam o Shanter; a pastoral picture, or relinious idyl, of grave and earn-st beauty, like The Cotters Saturday Night. Again, there is, to- borrow an image from the cedar, more body in the humour and tenderness of Berns, than of B~iranger. Tue irocy of some of holy Willies Prayer; the mix- ture of ludicrous delineation, with seornfrA mirth, in Thee Holy Fair, these pass beyond the sprite-like mockery with which the Frenchman taunts the Jesuits. Burns s s tire has a dash of Ilogarthian poetry, too, as in Death and Dr. Hornbook. which Bi~rangers satire does not reach. On the other hand, it would be still vainer to seek in the alwoys ple~esant, and sometmes sweet and touching songs of B~irangers graver mood, anything so Isrolonodly heart- moving as the songs of Burns on highland Mary. We cannot, indeed, read without a thoughtful melancholy La- l3onne Vieille, already referred to. He opens with a soft music : powers and merit, is a difficult and unin- viting task. It is easy to decide that they stand nearer on a level with each other than any song-writer outside the tio stands towards either of them. The songs of Moore, however clever, are artificial mere strings of epigrams for drawing-rooms. Those of iDibdin are some of them vi~,orous and nat- ural, but on the whole, they have a fac- titious charact r, and one seems to see the Admiralty mark on them, as if they were served out with other stores. Excel- lent songs are scattered about our literature, singly or in small groups; hut as two or three epigrams do not make an epigramma- tist, so two or three songs do not make a song-writer; and the Three are all fertile. [here is a cert in right of primogeniture in literature, as elsewhere, and to this Horace is entitled. His culture was far higher than that of the other two. He wrote not songs only, but odes, ranking with the higher grade of the lyrical art; as a moralist and satirist, and author of the Ars Poetic in, he has a station of his own among the m ig- nates of letters which demands deference; and he has exercised a great influence over modern Europe. When Thiers said to B& ranger, on his death-bad, Do you know what I call you, Bdranger? I call you the horace of France, the chaosonnrer an- swered, with admirable readiness and good taste, But what would the other one say? lie ought not to suflkrr for his modesty the honest chaesoeuier, who alxvavs seems h~ If ashamed of his great fame; yet it is not un- just to place him below an elder brother. I-low, then, rank him with the Scot, whose external history his own more resembles, though he was infinitely better appreciated and rewarded by his nation? Here another I difficulty comes in the dan5er of bein~ warped by national prepossessions; to which one must add the prodigious disadvantage at which every foreigner stands in attempt- ing to grasp all the merit of works like~ B6ran~er~s, of which he him~elf s.rys that they are intimately French. We cannot find that Bdranger who must have read Horace over and over again in translations owed anything in that kind of way to Burns. He formed himself on his own liter- ature; and we have a right to remember, in measuring him with Burns, that the strong point of that literature was never pure poe- try poetry proper, strictly so called. In what may be defined as the worl fly-poetic But, element that which we see in oa~ English banks and bracs arid strcamns around Popes and Gays, as distinct from the Sb. ha- Ye The castle ut M)mirgornery peares and Shelleys France is stro.~g. Accordingly, for urban pengeney of comic Arid, Yeas vieilhirez 6 ma belle maitresse! Vous vieillirez, et je no semi plus. And the last stanza sustains the feeling: Objet cbfri, quand mon renom futile Dc vos vieux ans charmera los doulcurs, A mon portrait quand votre main ddbile C liaque printe raps, suspendra quciques flours, Lerca ics yeux vers cc inonde invisible, Oh pour toujours nous nous rfrinnissons; Er bouno vicille, an coin dun fon paisible, I)e votre ami r~p~tez los cliansons. 14 V ES UVI US. Thou lingerin,, star ~vith lessning ray, belong to a different world. Indeed, they are perhaps too deeply tender for common singing. They are hymns rather than songs. ad would hardly be out of place in churches. We may remark, in conclusion, that, for the present, the kind of lyrical J)oetry of which horace, Burns, and B6ran~er are the masters, seems to be extinct. We are in a literary winter when there are no singing birds; though, here and there, a Theban eagle may be sailing overhead, but corn- mnunicating no delight to the multitude, out of sight of whom he wings his way through the azure depths. The multitude have to fall back on the trash of the hour, which does not connect them by any link with the high literature of the world. B6ranger and Burns have been in themselves an edu- cation for the poor of Prance and Scotland, a consolation in their hard struggles, a joy in their hours of mirth, a voice for the feelings to which otherwise they could have given no adequate utterance. The want of living poets of such a class is a kind of national misfortune; hut the best remedy for the want is the diffusion of the books which have been handed down to us from inure opulent tinacs. From The Cornimill Magazine. VESUVIUS. THE eruption in progress, as we write, from Mount Vesuvius, and the numecous and violent eruptions from this mountain during the two last centuries~ seem to af- ford an answer to those who would see traces of a gradually diminishing activity in the earths internal forces. That such a diminution is taking place we may admit, hut that its rate of progress is perceptible that we can point to a time within the historical epoch, nay even within the limits of geological eTidenee, at which the earths internal forces were certainly more active than they are at the present time, may, we think, be denied absolutely. When the science of geology was but young, and its professors sought to co. - press within a few years (at the outside) a series of events which (we now know) must have occupied many centuries, there was room, indeed, for the supposition that modern volcanic eruptions, as compared with ancient outbursts, are but as the ef- forts of children compared with the work of giants. And, accordingly, we find a dis- tin ~uished French geologist writing, even so late as 1829, that in ancient times tons les ph6nomhnes ~, holo~iques se passaicat dans des dimensions ceduples de celles quils pr~sentent aujourdhui. But now we have such certain evidence of the enor- mous length of the intervals within which volcanic regions assumed their present ap- pearance; we have such satisfactory aneans of determining which of the events occur- ring within those intervals were or were not contemporary, that we are safe from the error of assuming that Nature at a sin- gle effort fashioned widely extended dis- tricts just as we now see them. And, ac- cordingly, we have the evidence of one of the most distin~uished of living geoio~ists, that there is no volcanic r!uass of ancient date, distinctly referable to a single erup- tion, which can even rival in volume the matter poiped out from Skapttir Jokul in 1783. in the volcanic region of which Vesu- vms or Somma is the principal vent, we have a remarkable instance of the decep- tive nature of that state of rest into which some of the principal volcanoes frequently fall for many centuries together. For how many centuries before the Christian era Vesuvius had been at rest, is not known but this is certain, that from the landing of the first Greek colony in Southern Italy, Vesuvius gave no signs of internal activity. It was recognized by Strabo as a volcanic mountain, but Pliny did not include it in the list of active volcanoes. In those days~ the mountain presented a very different appearance from that which it now exlaib- its. In place of the two peaks now seen, there was a single, somewhat flattish sum- mit, on which a slinht depressinn marked the place of an ancient crater. The fertile sldpes of the mountain were covered with well-cultivated fields, and the thriving cit- ies ilerculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabime, stood near the base of the sleeping moun- tain. So little (lid any thought of danger suggest itself in those times, that the hands of slaves, murderers, and pirates, which flocked to the standard of Spartacus, fhund a refu0 e, to the number of many thousands, the vcry crater itself But though Vesuvius was at rest, the re- gion of which Vesuvius is the main vent was far from being so. The island of Pith- ecusa (the modern Isehin) was shaken by frequent and terrible ~monvulsions. It us even related that Prochyta (the modern V ESU WI US. Procida) was rent from Pithecusa in the course of a tremendous upheaval, though Pliny derives the name Prochyta (or poured forth ) from the supposed fact of this island having been poured forth by an eruption from Isehia. Far more proba- bly, Prochyta was formed independently by submarine eruptions, as the volcanic islands near Santorin have been produced in more recent times. So fierce were the eruptions from Pithe- cusa, that several Greek colonies which at- tempted to settle on this island were com- pelled to leave it. About 380 years be- fore the Christian era, colonists under King hero of Syracuse, who had built a fortress on Pithecusa, were driven away by an erup- tion. Nor were eruptions the sole cause of danger. Poisonous exhalations, such as are emitted by volcanic craters after eruption, appear to have exhaled, at times, from ex- tensive tracts on Pithecusa, and thus to have rendered the island uninhabitable. Still nearer to Vesuvius lay the celebrat- ed Lake Avernus. The name Avernus is said to be a corruption of the Greek word Aornos, signifying without birds, the ~o~- sonous exhalations from the waters of the lake destroying all birds which attempted to fly over its surface. Doubt has been thrown on the destructive properties as- signed by the ancients to the vapours as- cending from Avernus. The lake is now a healthy and agreeable neighbourhood, fre- quented, says Humboldt, by many kinds of birds, which suffer no injury whatever even when they skim the very surface of the water. Yet there can be little doubt that Avernus hides the outlet of an extinct volcano; and long after this volcano had become inac- tive, the lake which concealed its site may have deserved the appellation of atri janua Ditis, emitting, perhaps, gases as destruc- tive of animal life as those suffocating va- pours given out by Lake Quilotoa, in. Quito, in 1797, by which whole herds of cattle were killed on its shores, or as those delete- rious emanations which annihilated all the cattle in the island of Lancerote, one of the Canaries, in 1730. While Isehia was in full activity, not only was Vesuvins quiescent, but even Etna seemed to be gradually expiring, so that Seneca ranks this volcano among the num- ber of nearly extinguished craters. At a later epoch, A~lian asserted that the moun- tain itself was & nking, so that seamen lost sight of the summit at a less distance across the seas than of old. Yet within the last two hundred years there have been erup- tions from Etna rivalling, if not surpassing, 15 in intensity the convulsions recorded by ancient historians. We shall not here attempt to show that Vesuvius and Etna belong to the same vol- canic system? though there is reason not only for supposing this to be the case, but for the belief that all the subterranean fbrces whose effects have been shown from time to time over the district extending from the Canaries and Azores, across the whole of the Mediterranean, and into Syria itself, belong to but one great centre of in- ternal action. But it is quite certain that Ischia and Vesuvius are outlets from a sin- gle source. While Vesuvius was dormant, resigning for a while its pretensions to be the princi- pal vent of the great Neapolitan volcanic system, Isehia, we have seen, was rent by frequent convulsions. But the time was ap- proaching when Vesuvius was to resume its natural functions, and with all the more energy that they had been for a while sus- pended. In the year 63 (after Christ) there oc- curred a violent convulsion of the earth around Vesuvius, during which much injury was done to neighbouring cities and many lives were lost. From this period shocks of earthquake were felt from time to time for sixteen years. These grew gradually more and more violent, until it began to be evident that the volcanic fires were about to return to their main vent. The obstruction which had so long impeded the exit of the con- fined matter was not however readily re- moved, and it was only in August of the year 79, after nnmerous and violent inter- nal throes, that the superincumbent mass was at length hurled forth. Rocks and cinders, lava, s~ind, and scoriie, were prop~lled from the crater, and spread many miles on every side of Vesuvius. We have an interesting account of the great eruption which followed, in a letter from the younger Pliny to the younger Ta- citus. The latter had asked for an account of the death of the elder Pliny, who lost his life in his eagerness to obtain a near view of the dreadful phenomenon. Lie was at that time, says his nephew, with the fleet under his command at Misenuui. On the 24th of August~ a~u~ one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to ob- serve a cloud of very extraordinary size and shape. He had just returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and, after bathing himself in cold water, and taking a sli0ht repast, had retired to his study. He arose at once, and went out upon a height whence he might more distinctly view this strange 16 YES UVIUS. phenomenon. It was not at this distance discernible from what mountain the cloud issued, hut it was found afterwards that it came from Vesuvius. I cannot give a more exact description of its figure than by coin- paring it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself at the top into a sort of branches; occasioned, I suppose, either by a sudden gust of air which impelled it, whose force decreased as it advanced up- wards, or else the cloud itself, being pressed back by its own weight, expanded in this manner. The cloud appeared sometimes bright, at others dark and spotted, as it was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. These extraordinary appearances at- tracted the curiosity of the elder Pliny. He ordered a small vessel to be prepared, and started to seek a nearer view of the burn- ing mountain. His nephew declined to ac- company him, being engaged with his stud- ies. As Pliny left the house he reeeived a note from a lady whose house, being at the foot of Vesuvius, was in imminent danger of destruction. He set out accordingly with the design of rendering her assistance, and also of assisting others, for the villas stood extremely thick upon that lovely coast. He ordered the galleys to be put to sea, and steered directly to the point of danger, so cool in the midst of the turmoil around as to be able to make and dictate observations upon the motions and figures of that dread- ful scene. As he approached Vesuvius, cinders, pumice-stones, and black fragments of burning rock, fell on and around the ships. They were in danger, too, of run- ning aground, owing to the sudden retreat of the sea; vast fragments also~ roll~d down from the mountain, and obstructed all the shore. The pilot advising retreat, Pliny made the noble answer. Fortune befriends the brave, and bade him press onwards to Stabiie. Here he found his friend Pompo- nianus in great consternation, already pre- pared for embarking, and waiting only for a change in the wind. Exhorting Pomponia- nus to be of good courage, Pliny quietly ordered baths to be prepared; and having bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfiilness, or at least (which is equally heroic) with all the appearance of it. As- suring his friend that the flames which ap- peared in several places were merely burn- ing villages, Pliny presently retired to rest, and being pretty fat, says his nephew, and breathing hard, those who attended without actually heard him snore. But it became necessary to awaken him, for the court which led to his room was now almost filled with stones and ashes. He got up and joined the rest of the company, who were consulting on the propriety of leaving the house, now shaken from side to side by frequent concussions. They (lecided on seeking the fields for safety, and fastening pillows on their heads to protect them from falling stones, they advanced in the midst of an obscurity greater than that of the darkest night, though beyond the limits of the great cloud it was already broad day. When they reached the shore they found the waves running too high to suffer them safely to venture to put out to sea. Pliny having drunk a draught or two of cold water, lay down on a cloth that was spread out for him; but at this moment the flames and sulphureous vapours dispersed the rest of the company and obliged him to rise. Assisted by two of his seivants, he got upon his feet, but instantly fell down dead; suffocated, I suppose, says his nephew, by some gross and noxious vapour, for he always had weak lungs and suffered from a difficulty ofbreathing. Hi body was not found until the third day after his death, when for the first time it was light enough to search for him. He was found as he had fallen, and looking more like a man asleep than (lead. But even at Misenum there was danger, though Vesuvius was distant no less than fourteen miles. The earth was shaken with re- peated and violent shocks, insompeb, says the younger Pliny, that they threatened our complete destruction. When morning came, the light was faint and glimmering; the buildings around seemed tottering to their fall, and, staiiding on the open ground, the chariots which Pliny had ordered were so agitated backwards and forwards that it was imrossible to keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea was relled back upon itself, and many marine animals were left dry upon the shore. On the side of Vesuvius, a black and ominous cloud, bursting with sul l)hure- ous vapours, darted out lon~ trains of fire, resembling flashes ot lightning, but much larger. Presently the great cloud spread over Misenum and the island of Capre~. Ashes fell around the fugitives. On every side nothing was to be heard but the shrieks of women and children, and the cries of men: some were calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their voices: one was lament- ing his own fate, another that of his family; some wished to die, that they might escape YE S U VI US. 17 the dreadful fear of death; but the greater the catastrophe, is sufficient to prove how part imagined that the last and eternal terrible an impression bad been made upon night was come, which was to destroy the the inhabitants of Campania, from wbose gods and the world together. At length descendants he in all probability obtained a light appeared, which was not, however,: the materials of his narrative. He writes the day, but the forerunner of an outburst that, durino the eruption, a multitude of of flames. These presently disappeared, men of superhuman stature, resembling gi- and again a thick darkness spread over the ants, appeared, sometimes on the mountain, scene. Ashes fell heavily upon the fugitives, and sometimes in the environs; that stones so that they were in danger of being crushed, and smoke were thrown out, the sun was and buried in the thick layer rapidly hidden, and then the giants seemed to rise covering the whole country. Many hours again while the sounds of trumpets wei~e passed before the dreadful darkness began heard with much othe~ matter of a sim- slowly to be dissipated. When at length ilar sort. day returned, and the sun even was seen In the great eruption of 79, Vesuvius faintly shining through the over-banging poured forth lapilli, sand, cinders, and fra~.- canopy of ashes, every object seemed ments of old lava, but no new lava flowed changed, being covered over with white from the crater. Nor does it appear that ashes as with a deep snow. any lava-stream was ejected during the six It is most remarkable that Pliny makes eruptions which took place during the follow- no mention in his letter of the. destruction ing ten centuries. In the year 1036, for the of the two populous and important cities, first time, Vesuvius was observed to pour Pompeii and Herculaneum. We have seen forth a stream of molten lava. Thirteen that at Stabias a shower of ashes fell 50 years later, another eruption took place; heavily that, several days before the end of then ninety years passed without disturb- the eruption, the court leading to the ance, and after that a long pause of 168 elder Plinys room was beginning to be years. During this interval, however, the filled up. And when the eruption ceased, volcanic system, of which Vesuvius is the Stabias was completely overwhelmed. Far main but not the only vent, had been dis- more sudden, however, was the destruction turbed twice. For it is related that in 1198, of Pompeii and Herculaneum. the Solfatara Lake crater was in eruption; It would seem that the two cities were and in 1302, Ischia, dormant for at least first shaken violently by the throes of the 1,400 years, showed signs of new activity. disturbed mountain. The signs of such a For more than a year earthquakes had con- catastrophe have been very commonly as- vulsed this island from time to time, and at signed t? the earthquake which happened in length the disturbed region was relieved by 63, bat it seems far more likely that most of the outburst of a lava stream- from a new them belong to the days immediately pre- vent on the south-east of Isehia. The lava ceding the great outburst in 79. In Pom- stream flowed right down to the sea, a dis- peii, says Sir Charles Lyell, both public tance of two miles, For two months, this and private buildings bear testimony to the dreadful outburst contiiiued to rage; many catastrophe. The walls are rent, and in many houses were destroyed; and although the in- places traversed by fissures still open. It is habitants of Isehia were not completely ex- probable that the inhabitants were driven pelled, as happened of old with the Greek oy these anticipatory throes to fly from the colonists, yet a partial emigration of the in- doomed towns. For though Dion Cassius habitants took place. relates that two entire cities, Herculaneum The next eruption of Vesuvius took and Pompeii, were buried under showers of place in 1306; and then, until 1631, there ashes, while all the people were sitting in occurred only one eruption, and that an Un- the theatre, yet the examination of the important one, in 1500. It was remarked, two cities enables us to prove, says Sir says Sir Charles LyclI, that thiouglmout Charles, that none of the people were de- this long interxial of rest, Etna was in a state stroyed in the theatres, and, indeed, that of unusual activity, so as to lend countenance there were very few of the inhabitants who to the idea that the great Sicilian v6lcano did not escape from both cities. Yet, he may sometimes serve as a channel of ds- adds, some lives were lost, and there was charge to elastic fluids and lava that would ample foundation for the tale in all its otherwise rise to the vents in Campania. most essential particulars. Nor was the abnormal activity of Etna the We may note here, in passing, that the only sign that the quiescence of Vesuvius account of the eruption given by Dion Cas- was not to be looked upon as any evidence sius, who wrote a century and a half after of declining energy in the volcanic system. LIVING AGE. VOL. ix. 318. 18 VESUVIUS. In 1538 a new mountain was suddenly thrown up in the Phiegrinan Fields a dis- trict including within its bounds Pozzuoli, Lake Avernus, and the Solfatara. The new mountain was thrown up near the shores of the Bay of Bahe. It is 440 feet above the level of the bay, and its base is about a mile and a half in circumference. The depth, of the crater is 421 feet, so that its bottom is only six yards above the level of the bay. The spot on which the moun- tain was thrown up was formerly occupied by the Lucrine Lake; but the outburst filled up the greater part of the lake, leaving only a small and shallow pool. The accounts which have reached us of the formation of this new mountain are not without interest. Falconi, who wrote iri 1538, writes that several earthquakes took place dtiring the two years preceding the outburst, and above twenty shocks on the day and night before the eruption. The eruption began on September 29, 1638. It was on a Sunday, about one oclock in the night, when flames of fire were seen be- tween the hot-baths and Tripergola. In a short time the fire increased to such a de- gree that it burst open the earth in this place, and threw up a quantity of ashes and pumice-stones, mixed with water, which covered the whole country. The next morning the poor inhabitants of Pozzuoli quitted their habitations in terror, covered with the muddy and black shower, which continued the whole day in that country flying from death, but with death painted in their countenances. Some with their chil- dren in their, arms, some with sacks full of their goods; others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, towards Nat. ples, & c. . . . The sea had retired on the side of Babe, abandoning a considerable tract; and the shore appeared almost en- tirely dry, from the quantity of ashes and broken pumicestones thrown up by the eruption. Pietro Giacomo di Toledo gives us some account of the phenomena which preceded the eruption: That plain which lies be- tween Lake Avernus, the Monte Barbaro, and the sea, was raised a little, and many cracks Were made in it, from some of which water issued; at the same time the sea im- mediately adjoining the plain dried up about two hundred paces, so that the fish were left on the sand a prey to the inhabitants of Pozzuoli. At last, on the 29th of Sep- tember, about two oclock in the night, the ,earth opened near the lake, and discovered a horrid mouth, from which were vomited furi- ously smoke, fire, stones, and mud composed of ashes, making at the time of the opening a noise like the loudest thunder. The ~tones which followed were by the flames converted to pumice, and some of these were larger than an ox. The stones went about as high as a cross-bow will carry, and then fell down, sometimes on the edge, and sometimes into the mouth itself. The mud was of the colour of ashes, and at first very liquid, then by degrees less so; and in such quantities that in less than twelve hours, with the help of the above-mentioned stones, a mountain was raised of 1,000 paces in height. iNot only Pozzuoli and the neighbouring country were full of this mud, but the city of Naples also; so that many of its palaces were defaced by it. This eruption lasted two nights and two days without intermission, though not always with the same force; the third day the eruption ceased, and I went up with many people to the top of the new hill, and saw down into its mouth, which was a round cavity about a quarter of a mile in circum- ference, in the middle of which the stones which had fallen were boiling up just as a cauldron of water boils on the fire. The fourth day it began to throw up again, and the seventh day much more, kut still with less violence than the first night. At this time many persons who were on the hill were knocked down by the stones and killed, or smothered with the smoke. And now, for nearly a century, the whole district continued in repose. Nearly five centuries had passed since there had been any violent eruption of Vesuvius itself; and the crater seemed gradually assuming the condition of an extinct volcano. The interior of the crater is described by Bracini, who visited Vesuvius shortly before the eruption of 1631, in terms that would have fairly represented its condition before the erup- tion of 79 ; The crater was fiv~e miles in circumference, and about a thousand paces deep; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the bottom there was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody parts, wild boars frequently liar- boured. In one part of the plain, covered with ashes, were three small pools, one filled with hot and bitter water, another salter than the sea, and a third hot, but tasteless. But in December, 1631, the mountain blew away the covering of rock and cinders which supported these woods and pastures. Seven streams, of lava poured from the cra- ter, causing a fearful destruction of life and property. Resina, built over the site of Herculaneum, was entirely consumed by a raging lava-stream. Heavy showers of rain, generated by the steam evolved during the VESUVI US. eruption, caused, in their turn, an amount of destruction scarcely less important than that resulting from the lava-streams. Foi-, falling upon the cone, and sweeping thence large masses of ashes and volcanic dust, these showers produced destructive streams of mud, consistent enough to merit the name of aqueous lava commonly as- signed to it. An interval of thirty-five years passed before the next eruption. But, since 1666, there has been a continual series of erup- tions, so that the mountain has scarcely ever been at rest for more than ten years together. Occasionally there have been two eruptions within a few months; and it is well worthy of remark that, during the three centuries which have elapsed since the formation of Monte Nuovo, there has been no volcanic disturbance in any part of the Neapolitan volcanic district save in Vesu- vius alone. Of old, as Brieslak well re- marks, there had been irregular disturb- ances in some pai-t of the Bay of Naples once in every two hundred years; the erup- tion of Solfatara in the twelfth century, that of Isehia in the fourteenth, and that of Monte Nuovo in the sixteenth; but the eighteenth has formed an exception to the rule. It seems clear that the constant se- ries of eruptions from Vesuvius during the past two hundred years has sufficed to re- lieve the volcanic district of which Vesu- vius is the principal vent. Of the eruptions - which have disturbed Vesuvius during the last two centuries, those of 1779, 1793, and 1822, are in some respects the most remarkable. Sir William Hamilton has given a very interesting account of the eruption of 1779. Passing over those points in which this erup- tion resembled others, we may note its moie remarkable features. Sir William Hamilton says, that in this eruption molten lava was thrown up, in magnificent jets to the height of at least 10,000 feet. Masses of stones and scorhe were to be seen propelled along by these lava jets. Vesuvius seemed to be surmouiited by an enormous column of fire. Some of the jets were directed by the wind towards Ottajano; others fell on the cone of Vesuvius, on the duter circular mountain Som- ma, and on the valley between. Falliun- still redhot and liquid, they covered a dis: trict more than two miles and a half wide with a massoffii-e. The whole space above this district, to the height of 10,000 feet, was filled also with the rising and falling lava streams; so that there was continually present a bcindy of fire covering the extensive space we have mentioned, and extending nearly two miles 19 high. The heat of this enormous fire-col- umn was distinctly perceptible at a distance of at least six miles on every side. The eruption of 1793 presented a differ- ent aspect. Dr. Clarke tells us that milliong of red-hot stones were propelled into the air to at least half the height of the cone ittelf; then turning, they fell all around in noble curves. They covered nearly half the cone of Vesuvius with fire. Huge mas- ses of white smoke were vomited forth by. the disturbed mountain, and formed them- selves, at a height of many thousands of feet above the crater, into a huge, ever-moving canopy, through which, from time to time, were hurled pitch-black jets of volcanic dust, and dense vapours, mixed with cas- cAdes of red-hot rocks and scori~. The rain which fell from the cloud-canopy was scalding hot. Dr. Clarke was able to compare the dif- ferent appearances presented by the lava when it burst from the very mouth of the crater, and lower down, when it had ap- proached the plain. As it rushed forth from its imprisonment, it streamed a liquid, white, and biilliantly pure river, which burned for itself a smooth channel through a great arched chasm in the side of the mountain. It flowed with the clearness of honey in regular channels, cut finer than art can mutate, and glowing with all the splendour of the sun. Sir William Hamilton had con- ceived, adds Dr. Clarke, that stones thrown upon a current of lava would pro- duce no impression. I was soon convinced of the contrary. Light bodies, indeed, of five, ten, an(l fifteen pounds weight, made little or no impression, even at the source but bodies of sixty, seventy, and eighty pounds were seen to form a kind of bed oa the surface of the lava, and float away with it. A stone of three hundred Weight, that had been thrown out by the crater, lay near the source of the current of lava. I raised it up on one end, and then let it fall in upon the liquid lava, when it gradually sank beneath the surface and disappeared. If I wished to describe the manner in which it acted upon the lava, I should say that it was like a loaf of bread thrown into a bowl of very thick honey, which gradually involves itself in the heavy liquid, afld then slowly sinks to the bottom. But, as the lava flowed down the moun- tain slopes, it lost its brilliant whiteness; a crust began to form upon the surface of the still molten lava, and this crust broke into innumerable fragments of porous matter, called scori~. Underneath this crust across which Dr. Clarke and his companions 20 YE SU V LU S. were able to ass without other injury than forth. At first the lava formed a lake of fire, p the singeing of their hoots the liquid lava but the seething mass found an outlet, and still continued to force its way onward and poured in a wide stream towards Ottajano. downward past all obstacles. On its arrival Masses of red~hot stone and rock are hurled at the bottom of the mountain, says IDr. forth, and a vast canopy of white vapour Clarke, the whole current, encumbered hangs over Vesuvius, forming at night, when with huge masses of scori~, resembled noth- illuminated by the raging mass below, a ing so much as a heap of unconnected cia- glory of resplendent flame around the sum- ders from an iron-foundry, rolling slowly mit of the mountain. along, he says in another place, and fall- It may seem strange that the neighbour- ing with a rattling noise over one another. hood of so dangerous a mountain should be After the eruption described by Dr. inhabited by races free to choose more peace- Clarke, the great crater gradually filled up. ful districts. Yet, though Herculanenmn, Lava boiled up from below, and small craters, Pompeii, and Stabime lie buried beneath the which formed themselves over the bottom lava and ashes thrown forth by Vesuvius, and sides of the great one, poured forth lava Portici and Resina, Torre del Greco and loaded with scorke. Thus, up to October Torre dell Annunziata have taken their 1822, there was to be seen, in place of a reg- place; and a large population, cheerful and ular crateriform opening, a rough and un- prosperous, flourish aroumid the disturbed even surface, scored by huge fissures, whence mountain, and over the district of which it vapour was continually being poured, so as is the somewhat untrustworthy safety-valve. to form clouds above the hideous heap of It has, indeed, been well pointed out by ruins. But the great eruption of 1822 not Sir Charles Lyell that, the general tenden- only flung forth all the mass which had ac- cy of subterranean movements, when their cumulated. within the crater, but wholly effects are considered for a sufficient lapse of changed the appearance of the cone. An ages, is eminently beneficial, and that they immense abysm was formed three-quarters constitute an essential part of that mechan- of a mile across, and extending 2,000 feet ism by which the integrity of the habitable downwards into the very heart of Vesuvius. surface is preserved. Why the working of this Had the lips of the crater remained un- same machinery should be attended with, so changed, indeed, the depth of this great gulf much evil, is a mystery far beyond the reach would have been far greater. But so terrific of our philosophy, and must probably remain was the force of the explosion that the whole so until we are permitted to investigate, not of the upperpart of the cone wascarriedclean our planet alone and its inhabitants, but away, and the mountain reduced in height other parts of the morel and material uni- by nearly a fu4l fifth of its original dimen- verse with which they may be connected. sions. From the time of its formation the Could our survey embrace other worlds and chasm gradually filled up; so that, when the events, not of a few centuries only, but Mr. Scrope saw it soon after the eruption, of periods as indefinite as those with which its depth was reduced by more than 1,000 geology renders us familiar, some apparent feet. contradictions might be reconciled, and some Of late, Vesuvius has been as busy as difficulties would doubtless be cleared up. ever. In 1833 and 1834 there were erup- But even then, as our capacities are finite, tiomis; and it is but twelve years since a while the scheme of the universe may be in- great outburst took place. Then, for three finite, both in time and space, it is presump- weeks together, lava streamed down the tuous to suppose that all source of doubt amid mountain slopes. A river of molten lava perplexity would ever be removed. On the swept away the village of Cercolo, and ran contrary, they might, perhaps, go on aug- nearly to the sea at Ponte Maddaloni. There menting in number, although our confidence were then formed ten small craters within in the wisdom of the plami of nature should the great one. But these have now united, increase at time same time; for it has been and pressure from beneath has formed a justly said (by Sir humphrey Davy) that vast cone where they had been. The cone the greater the circle of light, the greater has risen above the rim of the crater, and, as the boundary of darkness by which it is sur- we write, torrents of lava are being poured rounded. A~SAD HOUR. 21 From The Cornhull Magazine. up above in the study, and was christened Lady Marjory by the young people who did A SAD HOUR. not know the little ladys real name. And it happened that, one night in this long ago THIS little introduction is to open the of which I am writing, one of these young door of a home that was once in a house in folks, sitting basking in the comfortable a pleasant green square in London, a warmth of the fire, dreamt out a little his- comfortable family house, with airy and light tory of the pictures they were ii, hting up in and snug corners, and writin~ -tables, and the firelight, and nodding and smiling at her with pictures hanging from the~walls of the as pictures do. It was a revelation which drawing-room, where the tall windows looked she wrote down at the time, and which she out upon the trees, and of the study up- firmly believed in when she wrote it; and stairs where the father sat at his work. perhaps this short explanation will be enough Here were books and china pots and to make the little history intelligible as it silver inkstands, and a hundred familiar was written, without any other change. things all about the house, which the young people had been used to for so lon,, that There was once a funny little peasant they had by degrees come to live for them maideii in a big Normandy cap and blue with that individual life with which inani- stockings, and a bright-coloured kerchief, mate things live for the young. Sometimes who sat upon a bank, painted all over with in the comfortable flicker of the twilight fire heather and flowers, with her basket at her the place would seem all astir in the dance feet, and who looked out at the world with of the bright fires which burned in that two blue eyes and a sweet, artless little smile hearth fires which then seemed to be, which touched and softened quite gruff old perhaps, only charred coal and wood and ladies and gentlemen who happened to see ashes, but whose rays still warm and cheer her hanging up against the parlour wall. those- who were gathered round the home Opposite to the little peasant maiden was hearth so many years ago. a lady of much greater pretensions. No On one side of the fireplace hung a pie- other than Petrarchs Laura, indeed, in a ture which had been painted by Miss Edgar, pea-green gown, with a lackadaisical ex- and which represented a pretty pale lady, pression and her head on one side. But it with her head on one side. The artist had was in vain she laiguished and gave herself christened her Laura. On the chimney- airs; everybody went up first to the grin- piece, behind the old red pots, the little ning little peasant maid and cried, Oh, Dresden china figures, the gilt and loudly what a dear little girl! ticking clock, stood the picture of a kind At first the child, who, you know, was a old family friend, with a friendly, yet little French child, did not understand what trouhiled expression in his countenance; and they were saying, and would beg Mrs. then, against a panel, hung a -little water- Laura to translate their remarks. This colour painted by hunt, and representing lady had brought up a large family (so she the sweet little heroine of this short history. explained to the old gentleman over the Opposite to her for a while, was a vacant chimney-piece), and did not think it right to space, until one summer, in Italy, the father turn little girls heads with silly flattery; happened to buy the portrait of a little and so, instead of translating rightly, she Dauphin or Neapolitan Prince, with a broad would tell the little maiden that they were ribbon arid order, and soft fair harr; and laughing at her big cap or blue stockings. when the little Prince had come back from Let them laugh, says the little maid, Italy and from a visit to Messrs. Colnaghiis, sturdily; I am sure they look very good- lie was nailed up in his beautiful new frame natured, and dont mean any harm, arid so on the opposite panel to the little peasant she smiled in their faces as sweetly as ever. girl. There had been some discussion as to And quite soon she learnt enough to under- where lie was to be placed, and one night stand for herself. he was carried up into the study, where he Although Laura was so sentimental she was measured with another little partner, was not utterly heartless, and she rath r liked but the little peasant girl matched him best; the child; and sometimes when she was in a although the other was a charming and good temper would tell hem great long stories high-born little girl. Only a short time be- about her youth, and the south, and the fore Messrs. Colnaghi had sent her home in gentlemen who were in love with her, and a gilt and reeded frame, a lovely little priiit fhat one in particular who wrote such heaps of one of Sir Joshuas pictures. She lived and heaps of poetry; and go on about A SAD HOUR. troubadours and the belle-passion, while the little girl wondered and listened, and re- spected Laura more and more every day. How can you talk such nonsense to the child, said the old gentleman over the chimney. Ah! that is a mans speech, said the lady in green, plaintively. Nonsense! yes, silent devotion. Yes, a heart bleeding inwardly breaking without one outward sign; that is, indeed, the nonsense of a faithful womans love! There are some things no man can understand, no man! I am surprised to hear you say so, said the old gentleman, politely. Are you alluding to that creature Petrarch? cried Laura. He became quite a nuisance at last. Always groaning and sighing, and sending me scrawls of son- nets to decipher, and causing dissension be- tween me and my dear husband. The man disgraced himself in the end by takin,, up with some low, vulgar miux or other. That is what you will find, she continued, ad- dressing the little girl, men are false; the truth is not in them. It is our sad privi- lege to be faithful to die breathing the name beloved; heighho! and though she spoke to the little girl, she looked at the old gentleman over the chimney-piece. I hear every day of a new arrival ex- pected among us, said he, feeling uncoin- t~rtable, and wishing to change the subject; a little Prince in a blue coat all covered over with diamonds. A Prince! cried Laura, brightening up, delightful! You are, perhaps, a- ware that I have been accustomed to such society before this? This one is but a child, said the old gentleman; but they say he is a very pretty little fellow. Oh, I wonder I wonder if lie is the little Prince I dreamt of, thought the little girl. Oh, how they are all talking about him. Of course they will put him in here, said Laura. I want to have news of the dear court. They were talking of it, said the old gentleman. And the other night in the study they said he would make a nice pen- dant for our little friend here. When the little peasant maiden heard this, her heart began to beat, so that the room seemed to swim round and round, and if she had not held on by the purple bank she would certainly have slipped down on to the carpet. I have never been into the study, said Laura, fractiously; pray, who did you meet there when they carried you up the other night to examine the marks on your back? A very delightful circle, said the old gentleman; several old friends, and some very distinguished people Mr. Washing- ton, Dr. Johnson, the Duke, Sir Joshua, and a most charming little lady, a friend of his, and all his R.A.s in a group. Our hosts great-grandfather is also there, and Major Andr6, in whom I am sure all gentle ladies must take an interest. I never heard of one of them, said Laura, tossing her head. And the little girl, pray who is she? A very charming little person, with round eyes, and a muff, and a big bonnet. Our dear young friend here would make her a nice little maid. The little peasant childs heart died with- in her. A maid! Yes, yes; that is my station. Ah, what a little simpleton I am. Who am I that the Prince should look at me? What was I thinking about? Ah, what a silly child I am. And so, when night came, she went to sleep very sad, and very much ashamed of herselg upon her purple bank. All night long she dreamed wild dreams. She saw the little Prince coming and going in his blue velvet coat and his long fair hair, and sometimes he looked at her scornfblly. You low-born, wretched little peasant child, said he, do you expect that I, a prince, am going to notice you? But sometimes he looked kind, and once he held out his hand; and the little girl fell down on her knees, in her dreams, an~l was just going to clasp it, when there came a tre- inendous clap of thunder and a great flash of lightning, and waking up with a start, she heard the door bang as some one left the room with a candle, and a clock struck eleven, and some voices seemed dying away, an(l then all was quite dark and quiet again. But when morning came, and the little girl opened her eyes, what was, do you think, the first thing she saw leaning up n~ainst the back of a chair? Anybody who has ever been in love, or ever read a novel, will guess that it was the little Prince, in his blue coat, with all his beautiful orders on, and his long fair hair, and his blue eyes already wide open and fixed upon the little maid. Ah, madam, said he, in French, at last we meet. I have known you for years past. When I was in the old palace in Italy, I used to dream of you night after night. There was a marble terrace outside the window, with statues standing in the sun, and orange-trees blooming year by year. ,There was a painted ceiling to the room, 22 A SAD HOUR. with flying figures flitting round a circle. There was a treat blue sky without, and deep shadows came striking across the mar- ble floor day after day at noon. And I was so weary, oh! so weary, until one night I saw you in my dreams, and you seemed to say, Courage, little Prince, courage. I, too, am waiting for you. Courage, dear little Prince. And now, at last, we meet, madam, he cried, clasping his hands. Ah! do not condemn me to despair. The little peasant maiden felt as if she could die of happiness. Oh, Prince, Prince, she sobbed, oh, what shall I say? Oh, I am not worthy of you. Oh, you are too good and great for such a little wretch as I. There is a young lady upstairs who will suit you a thousand times better; and I will be your little maid, and brush your beautiful coat. But the Prince laughed away her scruples and terrors, and vowed she was fit to be a princess any day in all the year; and, indeed, the little girl, though she thought so humbly of herself; could not but see how well he thought of her. And so, all that long happy day, the children talked nnd chattered from morning to night, rather to the disgust of Laura, who would have preferred holding forth herself. But the old gentleman over the chimney looked on with a gentle smile on his kind red face, and nodded his head encouragingly at them every now and then. All that day the little peasant maiden was perfectly happy, and, when evening fell, went to sleep as usual upon her flowery banl~, looking so sweet and so innocent that the little Prince vowed and swore to him- self that all his life should be devoted to her, for he had never seen her like, and that she should have a beautiful crown and a velvet gown, and be happy for ever and ever. Poor little maiden! When the next morn- ing came, and she opened her sweet blue eyes, alas, it was in vain, in vain in vain to this poor little loving heart. There stood the arm-chair, but the Prince was gone. The shutters were open, the sunshine was streaming in with the fresh morning air; but the room was dark and dreary and empty to her. The little Prince was no longer there, and, if she thought she could die of happiness the day before, to-day it seemed as if she must live forever, her grief was so keen, the pang so cruel, that it could nevet~ end. Quite cold and shivering, she turned to Laura, to ask if she knew anything; but Laura could only inform her that she had always said so men were false silent de votion, hearts breaking without one sign, were a womans privilege, & c. But, indeed, the little peasant girl hardly heard what she was saying. The housemaid carried him off into the study, my dear, said the old gentleman, very kindly, this morning before you were awake. But never mind, for she sneezed three times before she left the room. Oh, what is that to me? moaned the little peasant maiden. Dont you know 2 said the old gentle- man, mysteriously. Three sneezes on a Friday break the enchantment which keeps us all here, and to-night at twelve oclock we will go and pay your little Prince a visit. The clock was striking twelve when the little peasant girl, waking from an uneasy dream, felt herself tapped on the shoulder. Come, my dear, jump, said the old gen- tleman, holding out his hand, and leaving the indignant Laura to scramble down by herself as best she could. This she did, showing two long thin legs, cased in blue silk stockings, and reached the ground at last, naturally very sulky, and greatly offended by this want of atten- tion. Is this the way I am to be treated? said she, shaking out her train, and brush- ing past them into the passage. There she met several ladies and gentle- menhurryin~ up from the dining-room, and the little Prince, in the blue coat, rushing towards the drawing-room door. You will find your love quite takers u~ with the gentleman from the chimney- piece, said Laura, stopping him spitefully. Dont you see them coming hand-in-hand? lIe seems quite to have consoled her for your absence. And alas! at that instant the poor little. maiden, in an impulse of gratitude, had flung her arms round her kind old protector. Will you really take me to him? she cried; oh, how good, how noble you are. Didnt I tell you so? said Laura, with a laugh. The fiery little Prince flashed up with rage and jealousy. He dashed his hand to his forehead, and then, when the little peas- ant maid came up suddenly, all trembling with shy happiness, he made her a very low and sarcastic bow and turned upon his heel. Ah. me! Here was a tragedy. The poor little girl sank down in a heap on the stairs all insensible. The little Prince, 23 A SAD HOUR. never looking once behind, walked up very stately straight into the study again, where he began to make love to Sir Joshuas little lady with the big bonnet and the big round eyes. There was quite a hum of conversation going on in the room. Figures coining and going and saluting one another in a courtly old-fashioned way. Sir Joshua, with his trumpet, was walking up and down arm-in- arm with Dr. Johnson; the doctor scowling every now and then over his shoulder at Mr. Washingtons bust, who took not the slightest notice. Ha! ten minutes past midnight, observed ~the General, looking at the clock. It is, I believe, well ascer- tained that there exists some considerable difference between the hour here and in America. 1 know not exactly what that difference is. If I did I could calculate the time at home. Sir, said Doctor Johnson, any fool could do as much. The bust met this sally with a blank and haughty stare, and went on talking to the French lady who was leaning against the cabinet. In the meantime the members of the Royal Academy had all come clambering down from their places, leaving the model alone in the lamp-lighted hall where they had been assembled. He remained to put on his clothes and to extinguish the lights which had now been burning for some hun- dred years. At night, when we are all lying stretched out on our beds, how rarely we think of the companies gathering and awakening in our darkened rooms below. Mr. II. C. Andcrsen was one of the first to note these midnight assemblies, and to call our attention to them. In a very wise and interesting book called The Nutcracker of ATure,nberg (written by some learned Ger- man many years ago) there is a curious ac- count of one of these meetings, witnessed by a little wakeful girl. On this night, alas, no one was waking ; the house was dim with silence and obscurity, and the sad story of my little peasant maiden told on With no lucky interruption. Poor, poor little maid- en! There she lay a little soft round heap upon the stairs. The people coming and going scarcely noticed her, so busy were they making the niost of their brief hour of life and liberty. The kind okl gentleman from over the chimney-piece stood rubbin, her little cold hand in his, and supporting her drooping head upon his knee. Through the window the black night trees shivered and the moon rose in the drifting sky. The church steeple struck the hal& hour, and the people hurried faster and faster. Tim, lira, lira, sung a strange little fig- ure dre ~sed in motley clothes, suddenly stop- ping on its way. What have we here? What have we here? A little peasant maid fainting in the moonlight an old gentleman trying to bring her to! is she your daughter, friend? Is she ,dead or sick or shamming? Why do you waste your precious moments? Chuck hei~ out of win- dow, Toby. Throw the babby out of win- dow. I am Mr. Punch off the inkstand; and with another horrible chuckle the little figure seemed to he skipping away. Stop, sir, said the old gentleman, very sternly. Listen to what I have to tell you. If you see a little Prince upstairs in a blue velvet coat tell him from me that he is a villain and a false heart and if this young lady dies of grief it is lie who has killed her; she was seeking him when he spurned her. Tell him this, if you please, and ask him when and where he will be pleased to meet me, and what weapons he will choose. Ill tell him, said Mr. Punch, and he was off in a minute. Presently he caine back (somewhat to the old gentlemans surprise). I have seen your little Prince, said he, and given him your message; hut 1 did not wait for an answer. Twere a pity to kill him, you cruel-hearted old gentleman. What would the little girl say when she came to life? And Punchinello, who was really kind-hearted, although flighty at first and odd in manner, knelt down and took the little pale girl into his arms. Her head fell heavily on his shoulder. Oh, dear! What is to be done with her? sighed the old gentleman, helplessly wrin~ing his hands and looking at her with pitiful eyes; and all the while the moon streamed full upon the fantastic little group. Meantime the little Prince upstairs had been strutting up and down band in hand with the En~lish beauty, little Lady Mar- jory, of the round brown eyes. To be sure he was wondering and longing after his little peasant maiden all the while, and wistfully glancing at the door. But not the less did he talk and make gallant speeches to her little ladyship, who only smiled and took it all as a matter of course, for she was a young lady of the world and accustomed to such attentions from gentlemen. It nat- urally followed, however,. that the Prince, who was thinking of other things, (lid not shine as usual in conversation. Laura had made friends with the great- 24 A SAD HOUR. grandfather, who was an elegant scholar and could speak the most perfect Italian. See what a pretty little pair, said he; how well matched they are. A couple of silly little chits, said she, what can they know of love and pas- sion? and she cast up a great quavering glance with her weak blue eyes. Ah! be- lieve me, sir, said she, it is only at a later age that women learn to feel that agonizing emotion, that they fade and pine away in silence. Ah-ha! What a tale would it be to tell, that untold story of womans wrongs and un unrequited love! Ookedookedoo, theres a treat in store for you, young man, said Mr. Punch, skip- ping by. Will you have my ruffles to dry your tears? Go it, old girl. And~ away he went, leaving Laura speechless from indig- nation. He went on to whcre the Prince was standing, and tapped him on the shoul- der. Where do you come from, you strange little man? said Lady Marjory. There are many strange things to be seen to-night, said Punch, mysteriously hissing out his words. Theres a little peasant girl fainting and dying in the moon- light; she was coming to find her love, and he spurned her; and there is an old gentle- man trying to bring her to life. Her heart is breaking, and he wants blood to anoint it, he says, princely blood shed in the moonlight, drop by drop from a false heart, and it is for you to choose the time and the place. This lady will have to find another cavalier, and will she like him, Prince, with fools cap and bells, i~ud a hump before and behind? In that case, says Mr. Punch, with a caper, I am her very humble ser- vant. Lady Marjory did not answer, but looked very haughty, as fashionable young ladies do, and Mr. Punch vanished in an instant. I hope I shall never see that person ai~ain, said she. The forwardness of common people is really unbearable. Of course he was talking nonsense? Little Prince, would you kindly hold my muff while I tie my bonnet-strings more secure- lv? The Prince took the muff without speak- ing, and then dropped it on the floor uncon- sciously. Now at last he saw clearly, in an instant it was all plain to him; he was half distracted with shame and remorse. There was a vision before his eyes of his little peas- ant maiden loved so fondly, and, alas! wantonly abandoned and cruelly deserted cold and pale and dying down below in the moonlight. He could not bear the thought; he caught Lady Marjory by the hand. Come, said he, oh, come. I am a wretch, a wretch! Oh, I thought she had deceived me. Oh, come, come! Oh, my little peasant maiden. Oh, how I loved her! Lady Marjory drew herself up. You may go, Prince, wherever you may wish, she said, looking at him with her great round eyes, but pray go alone; I do not choose to meet that man again. I will wait for you here, and you can tell me your story when you come back. Lady Marjory, generous and kind-hearted as she was, could not but be hurt at the way in which, as it seemed, she too had been deceived, nor was she used to being thrown over for little peasant maidens. The little Prince with a scared face looked round the room for some one with whom to leave her, but no one showed at that instant, and so, half-bewildered still and dreaming, he rushed away. Only a minute before the old gentleman had said to Punchinello, Let us carry the little girl out upon the balcony, the fresh air may revive her. And so it happened that the poor little Prince came to the very landing where they had waited so long, and found no signs of those for whom he was looking. He ran about desperately, everywhere asking for news, hut no one had any to give him. Who ever has? He passed the win- dow a dozen times without thinking of looking out. Blind, deaf, insensible, are we not all to our dearest friend outside a door? to the familiar voice which is calling for us across a street? to the kind heart which is longing for us behind a plaster wall maybe. Blind, insensible indeed, and alone; oh, how alone! He first asked two ladies who came tottering upstairs, helplessly on little feet, with large open parasols, though it was in the middle of the night. One of them was smelling at a great flower with a straight stalk, the other fanning herself with a dried lotus-leaf; but they shook their heads idiotically, and answered something in their own language one of those sen- tences on the tea-caddies, most likely. These were Chinese ladies from the great jar in the drawing-room. Then he met a beautiful little group of Dresden china chil- dren, pelting each other with flowers off the chintz chairs and sofas, but they laughed and danced on, and did not even stop to answer his questions. Then came a long procession of persons all dressed in black and white, walking sedately, running, slid. 25 A SAD HOUR. ing up the banisters, riding donkeys, on horses, in carriages, pony-chaises, omni- buses, bathing-machines; old ladies with bundles, huge umbrellas, and band-boxes; old gentlemen with big waistcoats; red- nosed gentlemen; bald gentlemen, mud- dled, puzzled, bewildered, perplexed, in- dignant. Young ladies,. dark-eyed, smil- ing, tripping and dancing in hats and feathers, curls blowing in the wind, in ball- dresses, in pretty morning costumes; school- boys with apple cheeks; little girls, babies, pretty servant-maids; gigantic footmen (marching in a corps); pages walking on their heads after their mistresses, chasing Scotch terriers, smashing. crashing, larking, covered with buttons. What is this crowd of phantoms, the ghosts of yesterday, and last week? We are all the people out of Mr. Leechs picture-books, says an old gentle- man in a plaid shooting-costume; my own name is Briggs, sir; I am sorry I can give you no further information. Any other time, and the little Prince must have been amused to see them go by, but to-night he rushes on despairingly; he only sees the little girls pale face and dying eyes gleaming through the darkness. More Dresden, more Chinese; strange birds whirr past, a partridge scrambles by with her little ones. Gilt figures climb about the cornices and furniture; the book-cases are swarming with busy little people; the little gold cupid comes down off the clock, and looks at himself in the looking-glass. A hundred minor person- ages pass by, dancing, whirling in bewilder- ing circles. On the walls the papering turns into a fragrant bower of creeping flowers; all the water-colour landscapes come to life. Rain beats, showers fall, clouds drift, light warms and streams, water deepens, wavelets swell and plash tranquilly on the shores. Ships begin to sail, sails fill. and away they go gliding across the lake- like waters so beautifully that I cannot help describing it, though all this, I know, is of quite common occurrence and has keen often written about before. The little Prince, indeed, paid no attention to all that was going on, but went and threw himself down before the purple bank, and vowed with tlespair in his heart he would wait there until his little peasant maiden should come again. There Laura saw him sitting on a stool, with his fair hair all dishevelled, and his arms hanging wearily. She had come back to look for one of her pearl earrings, and when she had discovered it, thought it would be but friendly to cheer the Prince up a bit, and, accordingly, tapped him face- tiously on the shoulder, and declared she should tell Lady Majory of him. Wait- ing there for the little peasant child; oh, you naughty fickle creature! said she, playfully. You have made mischief eiiough for one night. Go ! said the Prince, looking her full in the face with his wan wild eyes, so that Laura shrank away a little abashed, and then he turned his back upon her, and hid his face in his hands. So the sprightly Laura, finding that there was no one to talk to her, frisked up into the study again, and descrying Lady Mar- jory standing all by herseit; instantly joined her. This is certainly a lachrymose history. Here was Lady Marjory sobbing and crying too! Her great brown eyes were glisten- ing with tears, and the drops were falling pat pat upon her muW and the big bonnet had tumbled off on her shoulders, and the poor little lady looked the picture of grief and melancholy. Well, I never! said Mrs. De Sade. More tears. What a set of silly children you are! Here is your ladyship, there his little highness, not to mention that absurd peasant child, who is coming upstairs and looking as white as a sheet, and who fainted away again when I told her that the Princes intended was here, but not the Prince. As for heri never had any pa - His highness? The Prince do you mean, is he safe then? said Lady Mar- jory, suddenly stopping short in her sobs. Tell me immediately when, where, how, did you see him? The naughty creature, I gave him warning, said Laura, holding up one fin- ger, and so I may tell your ladyship with- out any compunction. Heigho; I feel for your ladyship. I can remember past times; woman is doomed, doomed to lonely memories! Men are false, the truth is not. - Has he fought a duel, is he wound- ed 2 Oh, why did I let him go! cried Lady Marjory, impetuously. He is wounded, said Laura, looking very knowing; but men recover from such injnries. It is us poor women who die of them without a g-g-groan. Here she looked up to see if the bust of General Washington was listening. Lady Marjory seized her arm with an im 26 A SAD HOUR. patient little grip. Why dont you speak out instead of standing there maundering! she cried. Hi-i-i, squeaked the green woman. Well, then, he likes the peasant girl better than your ladyship, and it is his h-heart which is wounded. It would be a very un- desirable match, she continued confiden- tially, recovering her temper. As a friend of the family, I feel it my duty to do every- thing in my power to prevent it. Indeed, it was I who broke the affair off in the first in- stance. Painful but necessary. Who cares for a little shrimp of a peasant, at least I am rather sorry for the child. But it cant be helped, and nobody will miss her if she does die of grief. Die of grief! said Lady Marjory, won- deringly. La, my dear, its the commonest thing in the world, remarked Laura. Die of grief, repeated Lady Marjory; and just as she was speaking, in came through the door, slowly, silently stopping every now and then to rest, and then advan- cin~, once again, the old gentleman, and Punchinello, bearing between them the life- less form of the little peasant maiden. They came straight on to where Lady Marjory was standing: they laid the child gently down upon the ground. We brought her here, said the old gen- tleman gloomily, to see if the Prince, who has killed her, could not bring her to life ac~ain. 0 dear, 0 dear, sighed Punchinello, almost crying. Poor little thing, dear little thing. This was from Lady Marjory, suddenly fall- ing on her knees beside her, rubbing her hands, kissing her pale face, sprinkling her with the contents of her smelling-bottle. She cant, and shant, and mustnt die, if the Prince or if I can save her. He is heart- broken. You, madam, she cried, turning to Laura, go down, do you hear, and bring him instantly? Do you understand me, or you will repent it all your life. And her eyes flashed at her so that Laura, looking quite limp somehow, went away, followed by Punchinello. In a minute the Prince came rushing in and fell on his knees beside Lady Marjory. And so it happened that the little peasant maiden lying insensible in Lady Marjorys arms, opened her sad eyes, as the Prince seized her hand. His presence had done more for her than all the tender care of the two old fellows. For one instant her face lighted up with life and happiness, b~t then looking up into Lady Marjorys face, she sank back with a piteous, shudderin,, sigh. The old gentleman was furious. Have you cpme to insult her? he said to the Prince. To parade your base infidelity, to wound and to strike this poor little thing whom you have already stricken so sorely? You shall answer for this with your blood, sir, and on the spot I say. Hold your stupid old tongue, you silly old gentleman, said Mr. Punch. See how pale the little Prince looks, and how his eyes are dimly flashing. He has not come hither to triumph, but to weep and sing dirges. Is it not ~o, little Prince? Weep, yes, and sing dirges for his own funeral, cried the old gentleman, more and more excited. Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you are a gentleman. But Lady Marjory, turning from one to the other, exclaimed, Prince, dear Prince, you will not fight this good gentleman, who has taken such tender care of your little peasant maiden. Sir, to. the old gentleman, it wOul(l be you who would break her heart, were you to do him harm. And why should you want to do him harm? said the little peasant, rousing her- self and looking up, with a very sweet imploring look in her blue eyes, and clasp- ing her hands. lie has done me none. It is the pride and happiness of my life to think that he should ever have deigned to notice me. It would not have been fit, indeed, that he, a Prince, should have married a little low-born peasant like my- self7 The Prince, scarce knowing whaf he did, heat his forehead, dashed hot burning tears from his eyes. Sir, said he to the old gentleman, kill me on the spot; it is the only fate I deserve, it wlll be well to rid the earth of such a monster. Farewell, little maiden; farewell, Lady Marjory. You will cornfoi~t her when I am~ gone. And do not regret me; remember only that I was un worthy of your love or of hers. And he tore open his blue velvet coat, and presented his breast for the old gentleman to pierce through and through. Now Lady Maijory began to smile, in- stead of looking as fhghtened and melan- choly as everybody else. Button up your coat, dear little Prince, said she. You will have to wait long for that sword-thrust you ask for. Meantime you must console the little peasant ,girl, not I; for it is I who bid you farewell. 27 COMFORT FOR EX-KINGS. Ab, gracious lady, cried the poor little monster, covering her hand with kisses, it is too late, too late; a man who has broken her heart, who has trifled with yours so basely, deserves only to die only to die. Let me make a confession, said Lady Marjory, speaking with a tender sprightli- ness, while a soft gleam shone in her eyes. Our ~English hearts are cold, dear Prince, and slow to kindle. It is only now I learn what people feel when they are in love; and my heart is whole, she added, with a blush. Such kind words and smiles could not bu~ do good work. The little Prince almost left off sobbing, and began to dry his eyes. Meanwhile, Lady Marjory turned! to the little peasant maiden. You must not listen to him when he talks such nonsense, and is so tragic and sentimental, she said. He thought you had deceived him, and cared for some one I else. He sobbed it in my ear when he went away to find you. Iley-de-dy-diddle, cried Punchinello, capering about for joy; and I know who told him the woman in gre en, to be sure. I heard her. Oh the lan,~,iiishino~ creature! Oh the pining wild cat! Oh what tender hearts have women I Oh what feelings what gushing sentiment! You hold your tongue, you stupid Mr. Punch, said the old gentleman, who had put up his sword, and quite forgiven the little Prince. And so good-by, dear friends, said Lady Marjory, sadly indeed, but with a face still beaming and smiling. See the moon i~ settin~ our hour is ended. Fare- well, farewell, and she seemed to glide away. Ah, farewell! echoed the others, stretching out their hands. The last rays were streaming from be- hind the house-tops. With them the charm was ending. The Prince and the peasant girl stood hand in hand in the last lingering beams. Good-night, said Punchinello, skipping away. Farewell, said the old gentleman. Goodness! make haste, said Laura, rushing downstairs, two steps at a time. It seemed like a dream to the little peasant child, still standing hewildered. One by one the phantoms melted away, the moon set, and darkness fell. She still seemed to feel the clasp of the little Princes hand in hers, she still heard the tunes of his voice ringing in her ears, when she found herself once more on her bank of wild-flowers, and alone COMFORT FOR EX-KINGS. EX-KINGS, and Princes dispossessed, Doth Europe not afford to you, Each resting in his feathered nest, A gratifying view Armed against one another, blows Prepared to strike, her nations stand. Amongst them see how prosper those Who cast off your command! Their soldiers serve against their will, Lose limbs, and find untimely graves; Endure hard discipline, and drill, Meanwhile: what else than slaves? The part that drew the luckier lot Groan under war exaction; they Who are not forced to face the shot, Are forced the shot to pay. Conscription those, taxation these Burdens, grinds down, oppresses, wrings Much more than when, ex-Majesties, They had yourselves for kings. Not one of you, with despots might, Used any subjects ever worse Than those whom he compelled to fight, Or whom he touched in purse. Behold the food for steel and lead, Drawn up in phalanx and in line I Thralls of Democracy, instead Of kindly Right Divine. Praise France, who puts on self-defence The neighbours whom she cannot fear, With armaments whose scale immense Means aim to domineer. Praise France, from you, ye Bourbons, free. Much freedom hers! what land has less? A military tyranny, Tied tongues, and shackled Press. And her Elect keeps thee, old Man Of Rome, upon thy priestly throne, Whilst thou dost the foundation ban Whereon was built his own. And Europe is a general camp, Or garrison prepared for siege, Since France must on a sister stamp For what she calls prestige. Puack. 28 LINDA TRESSEL. LINDA TRESSEL. PART VI. ChAPTER X. PETER STEINMARO, now that he was an engaged man, affianced to a young bride, was urgent from day to day with Madame Staubach that the date of his wedding should be fixed. He soon found that all Nurem- berg knew that he was to be married. Perhaps Herr Molk had not been so silent and discreet as would have been becoming in a man so highly placed, and perhaps Peter himself had let slip a word to some confidential friend who had betrayed him. Be this as it might, all Nuremberg knew of Peters good fortune, and he soon found that he should have no peace till the thing was completed. She is quite well enough, I am sure, said Peter to Madame Stau- bach, and if there is anything amiss she can finish getting well afterwards. Mad- ame Staubach was sufficiently eager herself that Linda should be married without de- lay; but, nevertheless, she was angry at being so pressed, and used rather sharp language in explaining to Peter that he would not be allowed to dictate on such a subject. Ah! well; if it isnt this year it wont be next, said Peter, on One occa- sion when he had determined to show his power. Madame Staubach did not believe the threat, but she did begin to fear that, perhaps, after all, there might be fresh ob- stacles. It was now near the end of No- vember, and though Linda still kept her room, her aunt could not see that she was suffering from any real illness. When, however, a word was said to press the poor girl, Linda would declare that she was weak and sick unable to walk; in short, that at present she would not leave her room. Madame Staubach was beginning to be angered at this; but, for all that, Linda had not left her room. It was now two weeks since she had suf- fered herself to be betrothed, and Peter had twice been up to her chamber, creak- ing with his shoes along the passages. Twice she had passed a terrible half-hour, while he had sat, for the most part silent, in an old wicker chair by her bedside. Her aunt had, of course, been present, and had spoken most of the words that had been ut- tered during these visits; and these words had nearly altogether referred to Lindas ailments. Linda was still not quite well, she had said, but would soon be better, and then all would be properly settled. Such was the purport of the words which Madame Staubach would speak on those occasions. Before Christmas? Peter had once asked. No, Linda had replied, very sharply. It must be as the Lord shall will it, said Madame Staubach. That bad been so true that neither Linda nor Peter had found it necessary to express dissent. On both these occasions Lindas energy had been chiefly used to guard herself from any sign of a caress. Peter had thought of it, but Linda lay far away upon the bed, and the lover did not see how it was to be man- aged. He was not sure, moreover, wheth- Madame Sta ubach would not have been shocked at any proposal in reference to an antenuptial embrace. On these considera- tions he abstained. It was now near the end of November, and Linda knew that she was well. Her aunt had proposed some day in January for the marriage, and Linda, though she had never assented, could not on the mo- ment find any plea for refusing altogether to have a day fixed. All she could do was to endeavour to stave off the evil. Madame Staubach seemed to think that it was indispensable that a day in January should be named; therefore, at last, the thirtieth of that month was after some fash- ion fixed for the wedding. Linda never actually assented, but after many discours- es it seemed to be decided that it should be so. Peter was so told, and with some grumbling expressed himself as satisfied; but when would Linda come down to him? He was sure that Linda was well enough to come down if she would. At last a day was fixed for that also. It was arranged that the three should go to church together on the first Sunday in December. it would be safer so than in any other way. He could not make love to her in church. On the Saturday evening Linda was down-stairs with her aunt. Peter, as she knew well, was at the Rothe Rosse on that evening, and would not be hom~ till past ten. Tetchen was out, and Linda had gone down to take her supper with her aunt. The meal had been eaten almost in si- lence, for Linda was very sad, and Madamc Staubach herself was beginning to feel that the task before her was almost too much for her strength. Had it not been that she was carried on by the conviction that things stern and hard and cruel would in the long-run be comforting to the soul, she would have given way. But she was a woman not prone to give way when she 29 30 LINDA TRESSEL. thought that the souls welfare was con- cerned. She had seen the shrinking, re- treating horror with which Linda had al- most involuntarily contrived to keep her distance from her future husband. She had listened to the girls voice, and knew that there had been no one light-hearted tone from it since that consent had been wrung from the sufferer by the vehemence of her own bedside prayers. She was aware that Linda from day to day was be- coming thinner and thinner, paler and still paler. But she knew, or thought that she knew, that it was Gods will; and so she went on. It was not a happy time even for Madame Staubach, but it was a time in which to Linda it seemed that hell had come to her beforehand with all its terrors. There was, however, one thing certain to her yet. She would never put tier hand into that of Peter Steinmarc in Gods house after such a fashion that any priest should be able to say that they two were man and wife in the sight of God. On this Saturday evening Tetchen was out, as was the habit with her on alternate Saturday evenings. On such occasions Linda would usually do what household woi~k was necessary in the kitchen, prepar- atory to the coming Sabbath. But on this evening Madame Staubach herself was em- ployed in the kitchen, as Linda was not considered to be well enough to perform the task. Linda was sitting alone, between the fire and the window, with no work in her hand, with no hook before her, thinking of her fate, when there came upon the panes of the window sundry small, sharp, quickly-repeated rappings, as though gravel had been thrown upon them. She knew at once that the noise was not acci- dental, and jumped upon her feet. If it was some mode of escape, let it be what it might, she would accept it. She jumped up, arid with short hurried steps placed her self close to the window. The quick, sharp, little blows upon the glass were heard again, and then there was a voice. Linda, Linda. Heavens and earth! it was his voice. There was no mistaking it. Had she heard but a single syllable in the faint- est whisper, she would have known it. It was Ludovic Valcarm, and he had edme for her, even out of his prison. He should find that he had not come in vain. Then the word was repeated Linda, are you there? I am here, she said, speaking very faintly, and trembling at the sound of her own voice. Then the iron pin was with- drawn from the wooden shutter on the out- side, as it could not have been withdrawn had not some traitor within the house pre- pared the way for it, and the heavy Vene- tian blinds were folded back, and Linda could see the outlines of the mans head and shoulders, in the dark, close to the panes of the window. It was raining at the time, and the night was very dark, hut still she could see the outline. She stood and watched him; for, though she was willing to be with him, she felt that she could do nothing. In a moment the frame of the window was raised, and his head was with- in the room, within her aunts parlour, where her aunt might now have been for all that he. could have known; were it not that Tetchen was watching at the corner, and knew to the scraping of a carrot how long it would be before Madame Staubach had made the soup for to-morrow s dinner. Linda, he said, how is it with you? Oh, Ludovic! Linda, will you go with me now? What, now, this instant? To-night. Listen, dearest, for she will he back. Go to her in ten minutes from now, and tell her that you are weary and would be in bed. She will see you to your room pcrhaps, and there may be delay. But when you can, come down silently, with your thickest cloak and your strongest hat, and any little thing you can carry easi ly. Come without a candle, and creep to the passage window. I will be there. If she will let you go up-stairs alone, you may he there in half-an-hour. It is our only chance. Then the window was closed, and after that the shutter, and then the pin was pushed back, and Linda was again alone in her ~unt~s chamber. To be there in half-an-hour! To com- mence such a job as this at once! To go to her aunt. with a premeditated lie that would require perfect acting, and to have to do this in ten minutes, in five minutes, while the minutes were flying from her like sparks of fire! It was impossible. If it had been enjoined upon her for the morrow, so that there should have been time for thought, she might have done it. But this call up- on her for inttant action almost paralysed her. And yet what other hope was there? She had told herself that she would do any- thing, however wicked, however dieadful, that would ~ave her from the propose(l mar- riage. She had sworn to herself that she would do somethinr~ for that Steinmares wife she would never be. And here had come to her a possibility of escape, of es~, cape too which had in it so much of sweet- 31 LINDA TRESSEL. ness! She must lie to her aunt. Was not every hour of life a separate lie? And as for acting a lie, what was the difference be- tween that and telling it, except in the capability of the liar. Her aunt had forced her to lie. No truth was any longer possible to her. Would it not be better to lie for Ludovic Valcarm than to lie for Peter Stein- marc? She looked at the upright clock which stood in the corner of the room, and, seeing that the ten minutes was already passed, ~he crossed at once over into the kitchen. Her aunt was standing there, and Tetchen, with her bonnet on, was standing by. rfetchen, as soon as she saw Linda, ex- plained that she must be off again at once. She had only returned to fetch some article for a little niece of hers which Madame Stau- bach had given her. Aunt Charlotte, said Linda, I am very weary. You will not be angry, will you, if Igo tobed? It is not yet nine oclock, my dear. But I am tired, and I fear that I shall lack strength for to-morrow. Oh, Linda, Linda! But, indeed, had you foreseen the future, you might have truly said that you would want strength on the morrow. Then go, my dear; and Madame Stan bach kissed her niece and blessed her, and after that, with careful hand, threw some salt into the pot that was simmering on the stove. Peter Steinmarc was to dine with them on the morrow, and he was a man who cared that his soup should he well seasoned. Linda, terribly smitten by the consciousness of her own duplicity, went forth, and crept up-stairs to her room. She had now, as she calculated, a qi~arter of an hour, and she would wish, if possible~ to be punctual. She looked out for a moment from the window, and could only see that it was very dark, apd could hear th~t it was raining hard. She took her thickest cloak and her strong- est hat. She would ~o in all things as he bade her; and then she tried to think what else she would take. Sl~e was going forth, whither she knew not Then came upon her a thought that on t~e morrow, for many morrows afterwards, perhaps for all morrows to come, there would be no com- fortable wardrobe to which sh~e could go for such decent changes of raiment as she re- quired. She looked at her frock, and hav- ing one darker and thicker thap that she wore, she changed it instantly. And then it was not only her garments that~ she was leaving behind her. For ever afterwards, for ever and ever and ever, she must be a castaway. The die had been thrown ~iow, and everything was over. She was leaving behind her all decency, all feminine respect, all the clean ways of her pure young life, all modest thoughts, all honest, service- able daily tasks, all godliness, all hope of heaven! The silent, quick-running tears streamed down her face as she moved rapid- ly about the room. The thing must be done, must be done, must be done, even thouah earth and heaven were to fail her for ever afterwards. Earth and heaven would fail her for ever afterwards, but still the thing must be done. All should be en- dured, if by that all she could escape from the man she loathed. She collected a few things, what little store of money she had, four or five guI- den, perhaps, and a pair of light shoes and clean stockings, and a fresh handker- chief or two, and a little collar, and then she started. He had told her to bring what she could carry easily. She must not disobey him, but she would fain have brought more had she dared. At the last moment she re- turned, and took a small hair-brush and a comb. Then she looked round the room with a hurried glance, put out her candle, and crept silently down the stairs. On the first landing she paused, for it was possible that Peter might be returning. She listened, and then remembered that she would have heard Peters feet even on the walk outside. Very quickly, but still more gently than ever, she went down the last stairs. From the foot of the stairs into the passage there was a moment in which she must be within sight of the kitchen door. She flew by, and felt that she must have been seen. But she was not seen. in an instant she was at the open window, and in another instant she was standing beside her lover on the gravel path. What he said to her she u~d not hear; what he did she did not know. She had completed her task now; she had done her part, and had committed herself entirely into his hands. She would ask no question. She would trust him entirely. She only knew that at the moment his arm was round her, and that she was being lifled off the bank into the river. Dearest girl! can you see? No; noth- ing, of course, as yet. Step down. There is a boat here. There are two boats. Lean upon me, and we can walk over. There. Do not mind treading softly. They cannot hear because of the rain. We shall be out of it in a minute. I am so sorry you should be wet, but yet it is better for us. She hardly understood him, but yet she did as he told her, and in a few minutes she was standing on the other bank of the river, in the Huden Platz. Here Linda LINDA TR1~SSEL. perceived that there was a man awaiting them, to whom Ludovic gave certain orders about the boats. Then Ludovic took her by the hand and ran with her across the Platz, till they stood beneath the archway of the brewery warehouse where she had so often watched him as he went in and out. Here we are safe, he said, stooping down and kissing her, and brushing away the drops of rain from the edges of her hair. Oh, what safety! To be there, in the mid- dle of the night, with him, and not know whither she was to go, where she was to lie whether she would ever again know that feeling of security which had been given to her throughout her whole life by her aunts presence and the walls of her own house. Safe! Was ever peril equal to hers? Linda, say that you love me. Say that you are my own. I do love you, she said; otherwise how should I he here? And you had promised to marry that man ! I should never have married him. I should have died. Dearest Linda! But come; you must not stand here. Then he took her up, up the warehouse stairs into a gloomy chamber, from which there was a window lookino on to the Ruden Platz, and there, with A~any caresses, he explained to her his plans. The caresses she endeavoured to avoid, and, when she could not avoid them, to moder- ate. Would he remember, she asked, just for the present, all that she had gone through, and spare her for a while, because she was so weak? She made her little appeal with swimming eyes and low voice, looking into his face, holding his great hand the while between her own. He swore that she was his queen, and should have her way in every thing. But would she npt give him one kiss? He reminded her that she had never kissed him. She did as he asked her, just touching his lips with hers, and then she stood by him, lean- ing on him, while he explained to her some- thin~, of his plans. He kept close to the window, as it was necessary that he should keep his eyes upon the red house. His plan was this. There was a train which passed by the Nuremberg station on its way to Augsburg at three oclock in the morning. By this train he proposed that they should travel to that city. He a , he said, the means of providing accommodation for her there, and no one would know whither they had gone. He did not antici- pate that any one in the house opposite would learn that Linda had escaped till the: next morning; but should any suspicion have been aroused, and should the fact be ascertained, there would certainly be lights moving in the house, and light would be seen from the window of Lindas own chamber. Therefore he proposed, during the long hours that they must yet wait, to stand in his present spot and watch, so that he might know at the first moment whether there was any commotion among the in- mates of the red house. There goes old Peter to bed, said he; he wont be the first to find out, Ill bet a form. And afterwards he signified the fact that Mad- ame Staubach had gone to her chamber. This was the moment of danger, as it might be very possible that Madame Staubach would go into Lindas room. In that case, as he said, he had a little carriage outside the walls which would take them to the first town on the route to Augsburg. Had a light been seen but for a moment in Lindas room they were to start; and would certainly reach the spot where the carriage stood before any followers could be on their heels. But Madame Staubach went to her own room without noticing that of her niece, and then the red house was all dark and all still. They would have made the best of their way to Augsburg before their flight would be discovered. During the minutes in which they were watching the lights Linda stood close to her lover, leaning on his shoulder, and fup- ported by his arm. But this was over by ten, and then there remained nearly five hours, during which they must stay in their present hiding-place. Up to this time Lin- das strength had supported her under the excitement of her escape, but now she was like to faint, and it was necessary at any rate that she should be allowed to lie down. He got sacks for her from some part of the building, and with these constructed for her a bed on the floor, near to the spot which he must occupy himself in still keeping his eye upon the red house. He laid her down and covered her feet with sacking, and put sacks under her head for a pillow. He Was very gentle with her, and she thanked him Over and over again, and endeavoured to think that her escape had been fortunate, and that her position was happy. Had she not succeeded in flying from Peter Stein- marc? And after such a flight would not all idea of a marriage with him be out of the question? For some little time she was cheered by talking to him. She asked him about his imprisonment. Ah ! said he; if I cannot be one too many for such an old fogey as Herr Molk, Ill let out my 32 LINDA TRESSEL. brains to an ass, and take to grazing on thistics. his offence had been political, and had been committed in conjunction with others. And he and they were sure of success ultimately, were sus~e of suc- cess very speedily. Linda could understand nothing of the subject. But she could hope that her lover might prosper in his under- taking, and she could admire and love him for encountering the dangers of such an enterprise. And then, half sportively, half in earnest, she taxed him with that matter which was next her heart. Who had been the young woman with the blue frock and the felt hat who had been with him when he was brought before the magistrates? Young woman;with blue frock! who told yo of the youn~ woman, Linda? He came and knelt beside her as he asked the que3tion, leaving his watch for the mo- ment; and she could see by the dim light of the lamp outside that there was a smile upon his face, almost joyous, full of mirth. Who told me? The magistrate you were taken to; Herr Molk told me himself, said Linda, alii~ost happily. That smile uponhis face had in some way vanquished her feeling of jealousy. Then he is a greater scoundrel than I took him to be, or else a more utter fool. The girl in the blue frock, Linda, was one of our young men, who was to get out of the city in tfiat disguise. And I believe Herr Molk knew it when he tried to set you against me, by telling you the story. Whether Herr Molk had known this, or whether he had simply been fool enough to be taken in by the blue frock and the felt hat, it is not for us to inquire here. But Ludovic was greatly amused at the story, and Linda was charmed at the explanation she had received. It was only an extra feather in her lovers cap that he should have been connected with a blue frock and felt hat under such circumstances as those now explained to her. Then lie went back to the window, and she turned on her side and attempted to sleep. To be in all respects a castaway, a wo- man to whom other women would not speak! She knew that such was her posi- tion now. She had done a deed which would separate her for ever from those who were respectable, and decent, and good. Peter Steinmare would utterly despise her. It was very well that something should have occurred which would make it impossible that he should any longer wish to marry her; but it would be very bitter to her to be rejected even by him because she was unfit to be an honest mans wife. And LIVING AGE. VOL IX. 319. then she asked- herself questions about her young lover, who was so handsome, sobold, so tender to her; who was in all outward re- spects just what a lover should be. Would lie wish to marry her after she had thus consented to fly with him, alone, at night: or would he wish that she should be his light-of-love, as her aunt had been once cruel enough to call her? There would be no cruelty, at any rate no injustice, in so call- ing her now. And should there be any hesitation on his part, would she ask him to make her his wife? It was very terrible to her to think that it might come to pass that she should have on her knees to implore this man to marry her. He had called her his queen, but he had never said that she should be his wife. And would any pastor marry them, coming to him, as they must come, as two runaways? She knew that certain preliminaries were necessary, certain bidding of banns, and processes be- fore the magistrates. Her own banns and those of her betrothed, Peter Steinmare, had been asked once in the church of St. Law- rence, as she had heard with infinite dis- gust. She did not see that it was possible that Ludovic should marry her, even if he were willing to do so. But it was too late to think of all this now; and she could only moisten the rough sacking with her tears. You had better get up now, dearest, said Ludovie, again bending over her. Has the time come? Yes; the time has come, and we must be moving. The rain is over, which is a comfort. It is as dark as pitch, too. Cling close to me. I should know my way if I were blindfold. She did cling close to him, and he con- ducted her through narrow streets and pas- sa~,es out to the city gate, which led to the railway station. iNuremberg has still gates like a fortified town, and there are, I believe, porters at the gates with huge keys. Nurember~ delights to perpetuate the mem- ories of things that are gone. But ingress and egress are free to everybody, by night as well as by day, as it must be when rail- way trains arrive and start at three in the morning; and the burgomaster and wardei-s, and sentinels and porters, though they still carry the keys, know that the glory of their house has gone. Railway tickets for two were given to Linda without a question, for to her was intrusted the duty of procuring them; and they were soon hurrying away towards Augsburg through the dark night. At any rate they had been successful in escaping. After to-morrow we will be as happy as 33 LINDA TRESSEL. the day is lone,, said Ludovic, as he pressed his companion close to his side. Linda told herself, but did not tell him, that she never could be happy again. CHAPTER XI. THEY were whirled away through the dark cold night with the noise of the rat- tling train ever in their ears. Though there had been a railway running close by Nuremberg now for many years, Linda was not herself so well accustomed to travelling as will probably be most of those who will read this tale of her sufferings. Now and again in the day time, and generally in fair weather, she had gone as far as Fiirth, and on one occasion even as far as Wiirzbtirg with her aunt when there had been a great gathering of German Anabaptists at that town; but she had never before travelled at night, and she had certainly never before travelled in such circumstances as those which now enveloped her. When she en- tered the carriage, she was glad to see that there were other persons present. There was a woman, though the woman was so closely muffled and so fast asleep that Linda, throughout the whole morning, did not know whether her fellow-traveller was young or old. Nevertheless the presence of the woman was in some sort a comfort to her, and there were two men in the car- riage, and a little boy. She hardly under- stood why, but she felt that it was better for her to have fellow-travellers. Neither of them, however, spoke above a word or two either to her or to her lover. At first she sat at a little distance from Ludovic, or rather induced him to allow that there should be some space between them; but gradually she suffered him to come closer to her, and she dozed with her head upon his shoulder. Very little was said between them. He whispered to her from time to time sundry little words of love, calling her his c~ueen, his own one, his life, and the joy of his eyes. But he told her little or noth- ing of his future plans, as she would have wished that he should do. She asked him, however, no questions ; none at least till their journey was nearly over. The more that his conduct warranted her want of trust, the more unwilling did she become to express any diffidence or suspicion. After a while she became very cold; so cold that that now became for the moment her greatest cause of suffering. It was mid- winter, and though the cloak she had brought was the warmest garment that she pos sessed, it was very insufficient for such work as the present night had brought upon her. Besides her cloak, she had nothing where- with to wrap herself. Her feet became like ice, and then the chill crept up her body; and though she clung very close to her lover, she could not keep herself from shivering as though in an a~ue fit. She had no hesitation now in striving to obtain some warmth by his close proximity. It seemed to her as though the cold would kill her before she could reach Augsburg. The train would not be due there till nine in the morning, and it was still dark night as she thought that it would be impossible for to sustain such an agony of pain much longer. It was still dark night, and the violent rain was patterin~ against the glass, and the damp came in through the crevices, and the wind blew bitterly upon her; and then as she turned a little to ask her lover to find some comfort for her, some mitigation of her pain, she perceived that he was asleep. Then the tears began to run down her cheeks, and she told herself that it would be well if she could die. After all, what did she know of this man who was now sleeping by her side, this man to whom she hadi~trusted everything, more than her haopiness. her very soul? How many words had she ever spoken to him? What assurance had she even of his heart? Why was he asleep, while her sufferings were so very cruel to her? She had encoun- tered the evils of this elopement to escape what had appeared to her the greater evils of a detested marriage. Steinmarc was very much to be hated. But might it not be that even that would have been bet- ter than this? Poor girl! the illusion even of her love was being frozen cold within her during the agony of that morn- ing. All the while the train went thunder- ing on through the night, now rushing into a tunnel, now crossing a river, and at every change in the sounds of the carriages she almost hoped that something might be amiss. Oh, the cold! She had gathered her feet up and was trying to sit on them. For a moment or two she had hoped that her movement would waken Ludovic, so that she might have had the comfort of a word; but he had only tumbled with his head hither and thither, and had finally settled himself in a position in which he leaned heavily upon her. She thought that he was heartless to sleep while she was suffering; but she forgot that he had watched at the window while she had slumbered upon the sacks in the warehouse. At length, how- ever, she could bear his weight no longer, 34 LINDA TRESSEL. and she was forced to rouse him. You are so heavy, she said; I cannot bear it; when at last she succeeded in inducing him to sit upright. Dear me! oh, ah, yes. How cold it is! I think I have been asleep. The cold is killing me, she said. My poor darling! What shall I do? Let me see. Where do you feel it most. All over. Do you not feel how I shiver? Oh, Ludovic, could we get out at the next station? Impossible, Linda. What should we do there? And what shall we do at Augsburg? Oh dear, I wish I had not come. I am so cold. It is killing me. Then she burst out into floods of sobbing, so tbat the old man opposite to her was aroused. The old man had brandy in his basket and made her drink a little. Then after a while she was quieted, and was taken by station after station without demanding of Ludovic that he should bring this weary journey to an end. Gradually the day dawned and the two could look at each other in the grey light of the morning. But Linda thought of her own appearance rather than that of her lover. She had been taught that it was required of a woman that she should be neat, and she felt now that she was dirty, foul inside and out, a thing to be scorned. As their companions also bestirred them- selves in the daylight she was afraid to meet their eyes, and strove to conceal her face. The sacks in the warehouse had, in lieu of a better bed, been acceptable; but she was aware now, as she gould see the skirts of her own dress and her shoes, and as she glanced her eyes gradually round upon her shoulders, that the stains of the place were upon her, and she knew herself to be unclean. That sense of killing cold had passed off from her, having grown to a numbness which did not amount to present pain, though it would hardly leave her without some return of the agony; but the misery of her disreputable appearance was almost as had to her as the cold had been. It was not only that she was untidy and dishevelled, but it was that her condition should have been such without the com- pany of any elder female friend whose presence would have said, This young woman is respectable, even though her dress he soiled with dust and meal. As it was, the friend by her side was one who by his very appearance would condemn her. No one would suppose her to be his wife. And then the worst of it was that he also would judge her as others judged her. He also would say to himself that no one would suppose such a woman to be his wife. And if once he should learn so to think of her, how could she expect that he would ever persuade himself to become her hus- band? How she wished that she had re- mained beneath her aunts roof! It now occurred to her, as though for the first time, that no one could have forced her to go to church on that thirtieth of January and be- come Peter Steinmares wife. Why had she not remained at home and simply told her aunt that the thing was impossible? At last they were within an hour of Augs- burg, and even yet she knew nothing as to his future plans. It was very odd that he should not have told her what they were to do at Augsburg. He said that she should be his queen, that she should be as~ happy as the day was long, that everything would be right as soon as they reached Augsburg; but now they were all but at Augshurg, and she did not as yet know what first step they were to take when they reached the town. She had much wished that he would speak without being questioned, but at last she thought that she was bound to question him. Ludovic, where are we going to at Augsburg? To the. Black Bear first. That will be best at first. Is it an inn? Yes, dear; not a great big house like the Rothe Ross at Nuremberg, but very quiet and retired, in a back street. Do they expect us? Well, no; not exactly. But that wont matter. And how long shall we stay there? Ah! that must depend on tidings from Berlin and Munich. It may be that we shall be compelled to get away from Bavaria altogether. Then he paused for a moment, while she was thinking what other question she could ask. By the by, he said, my father is in Augsburg. She hal heard of his father as a man altogether worthless, one ever in difficulties, who would never work, who had never seemed to wish to be respectable. When the great sins of Ludovics father had been magnified to her by Madame Staubach and by Peter, with certain wise hints that swans never came out of the eggs of geese, Linda would declare with some pride of spirit that the son was not like the father; that the son had never been known to be idle. She had not attempted to defend the father, of whom it seemed to be acknowledged by the common consent of 35 LINDA TRESSEL. all Nuremberg that he was utterly worth- less, and a disgrace to the city which had produced him. But Linda now felt very thankful for the assurance of eveu his pres- ence. Had it been Ludovics mother, how much better would it have been! But that she should be received even by his father, by such a father, was much to her in her desolate condition. Will he be at the station? Linda asked. Oh, no. Does he expect us? Well, no. You see, Linda, I only got out of prison yesterday morning. Does your father live in Augsburg? He hardly lives anywhere. He goes and comes at present as he is wanted by the cause. It is quite on the cards that we should find that the police have nabbed him. But I hope not. 1 think not. When I have seen you made comfortable, and when we have had something to eat and drink, I shall know where to seek him. While I am doing so, you had better lie down. She was afraid to ask him whether his father knew, or would suspect, aught as to his bringing a companion, or whether the old man would welcome such a companion for his son. Indeed, she hardly knew how to frame any question that had application to herself. She merely assented to his proposition that she should go to bed at the Black Bear, and then waited for the end of their journey. Early in the morn- ing their fellow-passengers had left them, and they were now alone. But Ludovic distressed her no more by the vehemence of his caresses. He also was tired and fagged and cold and jaded. It is not im- probable that he had been meditating whether he, in his present walk of life, had done well to encumber himself with the burden of a young woman. At last they were at the platform at Augsburg. Dont move quite yet, he said. One has to be a little careful. When she attempted to raise herself she found herself to be so numb that all quick- ness of motion was out of the question. Lu- dovic, paying no attention to her, sat back in the carriage, with his cap before his face, lookin~ with eager eyes over the cap on to the platform. May we not go now? said Linda, when she saw that the other passengers had alighted. Dont be in a hurry, my girl. By God, there are those ruffians, the gendarmerie. Its all up. By Jove! yes, its all up. That is hard, after all I did at Nuremberg. Ludovic ! Look here, Linda. Get out at once and take these letters. Make your way to the Black Bear, and wait for me. And you ? Never mind me, but do as youre told. In a moment it will be too late. If we are noticed to be .together it will be too late. But how am I to get to the Black Bear? Heaven and earth! havent you a tongue? But here they are, and its all up. And so it was. A railway porter opened the door, and behind the railway porter were two policemen. Linda, in her dismay, had not even taken the papers which had been offered to her, and Valcarm, as soon as he was sure that the police were upon him, had stuffed them down the receptacle made in the door for the fall of the window. But the fate of Valcarm and of his papers is at the present moment not of so much mo-. ment to us as is that of Linda Tressel. Val- carm was carried off, with or without the papers, and she, after some hurried words, which were unintelligible to her in her dismay, found herself upon the platform amidst the porters. A message had come from Nuremberg by the wires to Augsburg, requiring the arrest of Ludovic Yalcarm, but the wires had said nothing of any com- panion tha~t might be with him. Therefore Linda Was left standing amidst the porters on the platform. She asked one of the men about the Black Bear. He shook his head, and told her that it was a house of a very bad sort, of a very bad sort indeed. cHAPTER XXII. A DOZEN times during the night Linda had remembered that her old friend Fanny Heisse, now the wife of Max Bogen, lived at Augsburg, and as she remembered it, she had asked herself what she would do were she to meet Fanny in the streets. Would Fanny condescend to speak to her, or would Fannys hu band allow his wife to hold any communion with such a castaway? How might she dare to hope that her old friend would do other than shun her, or, at the very least, scorn her, and pass her as a thing unseen? And yet, through all the days of their life, there had been in Lindas world a supposi- tion that Linda was the good young woman, and that Fanny Heisse was, if not a cast- away, one who had made the frivolities of 36 LINDA TRESSEL. the world so dear to her that she could be acconuted as little better than a castaway. Lindas conclusion, as she thought of all this, had been, that it would be better that she should keep out of the way of the wife of an honest man who knew her. All fellowship hereafter with the wives and daughters of honest men must be denied to her. She had felt this very strongly when she had first seen herself in the dawn of the morning. But now there had fallen upon her n trouble of another kind, which almost cru~hed her, in which she was not as yet able to see that, by Gods mercy, salvation from ut- ter ruin might yet be extended to her. What should she do now, now, at this moment? The Black Bear, to which her lover had di- rected her, was so spoken of that she did not dare to ask to be directed thither. When a compassionate railway porter pressed her to say whither she would go, she could only ktter to a seat against the wall, and there lay herself down and sob. She had no friends, she said; no home; no pro- tector except him who had just been car- ried away to prison. The porter asked h~r whether the man were her husband, and then again she was nearly choked with sobs. Even the manner of the porter was changed to her when he perceived that she was not the wife of him who had been her companion. He handed her over to an old woman who lookedafter the station, and the old woman at last learned from Linda the fact that the wife of Max Bogen the lawyer had once been her friend. About two hours after that she was seated with Max Bogen himself in a small close carriage, and was being taken home to the lawyers house. Max Bogen asked her hardly a question. He only said that Fanny would be so glad to have her; Fanny, he said, was so soft, so good, and so clever, and so wise, and always knew exactly what ought to be done. Linda heard it all, mar- velling in her dumb half~consciousness~ This was the Fanny Heisse of whom her aunt had so often told her that one so given to the vanities of the world could never come to any good! Max Bogen handed Linda over to his wife, and theu disappeared. Oh, Linda, what is it? Why are you here? Dear Linda. And then her old friend kissed her, and within half an hour the whole story had been told.. Do you mean that she eloped with him from her aunts house in the middle of the night? asked Max, as soon as he was alone with his wife. Of course she did, said Fanny; and so would I, had I been treated as she has been. It has all been the fault of that wicked old saint, her aunt. Then they put their heads together as to the steps that must be taken. Fanny proposed th4t a letter should be at once sent to Madame Staubach, explaining plainly that Linda had run away from her marriage with Steinmare, and stating that for the present she was safe and comfortable with her old friend. It could hardly be said that Linda assented to this, because she accepted all that was done for her as a child might accept it. But she knelt upon the floor with her head upon her friends lap, kissing Fannys hands, and striv- ing to murmur thanks. Oh, if they would leave her there for three days, so that she might recover something of her strength! They shall leave you for three weeks, Linda, said the other. Madame Staubach is not the Emperor, that she is to have her own way in every thing. And as for Peter Pray, dont talk of him ; pray, do not, said Linda, shudderin,. But all this comfort was at an end about seven oclock on that evenin~,. The second train in the day from Nuremberg was due at Augsburg at six, and Max Bogen, though lie said nothing on the subject to Linda, had thought it probable that some messen- ger from the former town might arrive in quest of Linda by that train. At seven there came another little carriage up to the door, and before her name could be announced Madame Staubach was standing in Fanny Bogens parlour. Oh, my child! she said. Oh, my child, may God in His mercy forgive my child! Lin- da cowered in a corner of the sofa and did not speak. She hasnt done any thing in the least wrpng, said Fanny; nothing on earth. You were going to make her marry a man she hated, and so she came away. If father had done the same to me, I wouldnt have stayed an hour. Linda still cowered on the sofa, and was still speechless. Madame Staubach, when she heard this defence of her niece, was hardly pushed to know in what way it was her duty to answer it. It would be very expedient, of course, that some story should be told for Linda which might save her from the ill report of all the world, that some excuse should be made which might now, instantly, remove from Lindas name the blight which would make her otherwise to be a thin~ scorned, de- famed, useless, and hideous; but the truth was the truth, and even to save her child from infamy Madame Staubach would not listen to a lie without refuting it. Tbe pun- ishment of Lindas infamy had been deserved, 37 38 LINDA TRESSEL. and it was right that it should be e.ndured. ceived at once that the longer this interview Hereafter, as facts came to disclose them- between the aunt and her niece could be selves, it would ~be for Peter Steinmarc to delayed, the longer that it could be de- say whether he would take such a woman layed, now that they were in each others for his wife; but whether he took her or company, tbe lighter would be the storm whether lie rejected her, it could not be well on Lindas head when it did come. After that Linda should be screened by a lie from supper, Madame Staubach; Linda wants any part of the pupishment which she had her supper; dont you, my pet? Linda deserved. Let her go seven times seven answered nothing. She could not even look through the fire, if by such suffering there up, so as to meet the glance of her aunts might yet be a chance for her poor desolate eyes. But Fanny Bogen succeeded in ar half-withered soul. ranging things after her own fashion. She Done nothing wrong, Fanny Heisse! would not leave the room, though in sooth said Madame Staubach, who, in spite of her her presence at the preparation of the sup- great fati~,ue, was still standing in the mid- per might have been useful. It came to be dle of the room. Do you say so, who have understood that Madame Staubach was to become the wife of an honest God-fearing sleep at the lawyers house, and great changes man? were made in order that the aunt and But Fanny was determined that she would niece might not be put in the same room. not be put down in her own house by Mad- Early in the morning they were to return ame Staubach. It doesnt matter whose together to Nuremberg, and then Lindas wife I am, she said, and I am sure Max short hour of comfort would be over. will say the same as I do. She hasnt done She had hardly as yet spoken a word to anything wrong. She made up her mind her aunt when Fanny left them in the car- to come away because she wouldnt marry riage together. There were three or four Peter Steinmarc. She came here in com- others there, said Fanny to her husband, pany with her own young man, as I used to and she wont have much said to her beibre come with Max. And as soon as she got she gets home.~~ here she sent word up to us, and here she is. But when she is at home! Fanny only If theres anything very wicked in that, Im shrugged her shoulders. The truth is, you not religious enough to understand it. But know, said Max, that it was not at all the I tell you what I can nnderstand, Madame proper sort of thing to do! Staubach, there is nothing on earth so And who does the proper sort of horribly wicked as trying to make a girl thing? marry a man whom she loathes, and hates, You do; my dear. - and detests, and abominates. There, Mad- And wouldnt you have run away with ame Staubach; thats what Ive got to say; me if father had wanted me to marry some and now I hope youll stop and have supper nasty old fellow who cares for nothin~ but his with Max and Linda and me. pipe and his beer? If you hadnt, Id never Linda felt herself to be blushing in the have spoken to you again. darkness of her corner as she heard this ex- All the same, said Max, it wont do cuse for her conduct. No; she had not her any good. made the journey to Augsburg with Ludo- The journey home to Nurember~, was vic in such fashion as Fanny had, perhaps made almost in silence, and things had been more than once, travelled the same route so managed by Fannys craft that when the with her present husband. Fanny had not two women entered the red house hardly a come by night, without her fathers knowl- word between them had been spoken as to edge, had not escaped out of a window; nor the affairs of the previous day. Tetchen, had Fanny come with any such purpose as as she saw them enter, cast a guilty glance had been hers. There was no salve to her on her young mistress, but said not a word. conscience in all this, though she felt very Linda herself, with a veil over her face grateful to her friend, who was fighting her which she had borrowed from her friend battle for her. Fanny, hurried up-stairs towards her own It is not right that I should argue the room. Go into my chamber, Linda, said matter with you, said Madame Staubach, Madame Staubach, who followed her. Lin- with some touch of true dignity. Alas, I da did as she was bid, went in, and stood by know that which I know. Perhaps you will the side of her aunts bed. Kneel down with allow me to say a word in privacy to this un- me, Linda, and let us pray that the great gift fortunate child. - of repentance may be given to us, said Mad- But Max Bogen had not paid his wife a ame Staubach. Then Linda knelt down, false compliment for cleverness. She per- and hid her face upon the counterpane. LINDA TRESSEL. All her sins were recapitulated to her dur- face to face across the table. And she icc- ing that prayer. The whole heinousness of ognised the truth of the prayer, and shc was the thing which she had done was given in thankful that no allusion was made in it to its full dctails, and the details were repeated Peter Steininarc, and she endeavoured to ac- more than once. It was acknowledged in knowledge that her conduct was that which that prayer that though Gods grace might her aunt represented it to be in her strong effect absolute pardon in the world to come, language. When the prayer was over Mad- such a deed as that which had been done by ame Staubach stood before Linda for a this young woman was beyond the pale of while, and put her two hands on the girls l)ardon in this world. And the Giver of all arms, and lightly kissed her brow. Liii- mercy was specially asked so to make things da, she said, with the Lord nothing is im- cicar to that poor sinful creature, that she possible; with the Lord it is never too late; might not be deluded into any idea that the with the Lord the punishment need never thing which she had done could be justified. be unto death! Linda, though she eouhd She was told in that prayer that, she was utter no articulate word, acknowledaed to impure, vile, unclean, and infamous. And herself that her aunt had been good to her, yet she probably did not sufh~r from the and almost forgot the evil things that her prayer half so much as she would have suf. aunt had worked for her. fbred had the same things been said to her ECCENTRICITIES OF THE FLESH. There and was, as usual, obliged to retire from the are some people ~vho are so peculiarly consti- table, although lie had not partaken of any dish tuted that matters the niost harmless of the ostensibly containing rice. It appeared, on mass of mankind act upon them in the most investigation, that some white soup, with which distressin, manner. For instance, some per- he had commenced his dinner, had been thick- sons cannot eat a lobster salad without its hay- ened with ground rice. In another case sim- ing a very curious effect upon their complexion. ilar symptoms have come on after a gentleman We know a lady who once indulged at supper- had partaken of bottled beer; this apparently time in a salad of this kind, and upon her return extraordinary fact was explained by the pres- to the ball-room her face and neck immediately ence in the bottle of a few grains of rice, which became covered with spots, obliging her to re- had been placed there to excite a secondary tire. Cockles and shrimps have the like effect fermentation. But what is this to the perverse upon persons thus peculiarly constituted. A stomach of a gentleman in a case cited by Dr. medical friend tells us that eating veal gives a Prout, who was poisoned by eating a mutton lady of his acquaintance the nettle-rash, and chop l The most digestible of all flesh to the that orange-peel has produced great nervous ordinary mortal, was to him positively as poi- excitement. Figs, a.,ain, give rise in some sonous as though he had eaten toadstools. It people to what is termed formication, or a was at first imagined by his physicians that his sensation like the tickling movement Qf ants dislike to this kind of food arose from mere upon the palate. The most extraordinary cx- fancy, and in order to test him mutton dis- ample of the adverse influences of a common guised was served to him as other flesh-meat, article of food upon the human stomach is but always with the same result violent related by a, surgeon of one of our public hos- vomiting and diarrhea. Indeed, the effect pitals. He says that a patient of his cannot upon him was so great, that, had he been kept touch rice without the most extreme discomfort. upon a mutton diet, Dr. Prout believed he . On one occasion, when at a dinner-party, he would have died. Cassells Magazine. felt the symptoms of rice-poisoning come on, 40 ECCE HOMO. From Good Words. ECCE HOMO. PART III. BY THE RIGHT HON. W. H. GLADSTONE. IN two former papers I have presumed in some sense to speak for the author of Ecce Ilomo; In this the third and last he will speak for himself; in passages which I shall select by no means with a view to exclude what may he open to criticism or objection, hut in the hope of exhibiting a fair sample hoth of the matter and manner of the work, with something like a connect- ed idea of its .contents. After a brief chapter on John the Bap- tist, which appears to be scarcely equal to the general standard of the work, our au- thor comes to the Temptation, and here he glances at the subject of miracle Miracles are, in themselves, extremely improbable things, and cannot be admitted unless supported by a great concurrence of evidence. For some of the Evangelical miracles there is a concurrence of evidence which, when fairly considered, is very great indeed; for example, for the Resurrection, for the appearance of Christ to St. Paul, for the general fact that Christ was a mi- raculous healer of disease. The evidence by which these facts are supported cannot be tolerably accounted f?r by any hypothesis except that of their being true. And if they are once admitted, the antecedent improb- ability of many miracles less strongly at- tested is much diminished. Nevertheless nothing is more natural than that exagger- ations and even inventions should be mixed in our biographies with genuine facts. (P. 10.) The general view taken of the Tempta- tion affords a pointed example ?f.what may be termed our authors naturalistic method of handling:. Now the story of Christs temptation is as unique as Christs character. It is such a temptation as was never experienced by auyone else, yet just such a temptation as Christ, and Christ in those peculiar circum- stances, mi,,lit be expected to experience. And further, this appropriateness of all the circumstauces hardly seems to be perceived by the Evangelists themselves who narrate them. Their narrative is not like a poem, though it affords the materials for a poem; it is rather a dry chronicle. Let us consider the situation. We are to fix in our minds Christs peculiar charac ter, as it has been gathered from the Bap- tists description of him. His character then was such that he was compared to a lamb, a lamb of God. He was without ambition, and he had a peculiar, unrivalled simplicity of devout confidence in God. Such is the persofi to whom it is now an- nounced by a great prophet that he has been called to a most peculiar, a pre-emi- nent career. But this does not fully de- scribe the situation; a most important cir- cumstance has yet to be mentioned. From the time of his temptation Christ appeared as a worker of miracles. We are expressly told by St. John that he had wrou~,ht none before, but all our authorities concur in rep- resenting him as possessing and using the ,ift after this time. We are to conceive him therefore as becoming now for the first time conscious of miraculous powers. Now none of our biographies point this out, and yet it is visibly the key to the whole narra- tion. What is called Christs temptation is the excitement of his mind which was caused by the nascent conscioususs of su- pernatural power. (Pp. 11, 12.) Another and perhaps less startling speci- men of his method is supplied by the ac- count oF the Third Temptation, in which our Lord was solicited to fall down and worship Satan: We are perhaps to understand that he was tempted to do something which on re- flection appeared to him equivalent to an act of homage to the evil spirit. What then could this be? It will explain much that follows in Christs life, and render the whole story very complete and consistent, if we suppose that what he was tempted to do was to employ force in the establishment of his Messianic kingdom. On this hypoth- esis, the third temptation arises from the same source as the others; the mental strug- gle is still cause(l by the question how to use the supernatural power. Nothing more natural than that it should occur to Christ that this power was expresslygiven to him for the purpose of establishing, in defiance of all resistance, his everlasting kingdom. He must have heard from his instructors that the Messiah was to put all enemies under his feet, and to crush all opposition by irresistible God-given might. This cer- tainly was the general expectation; this appeared legibly written in the prophetical books. And, in the sequel, it was because Christ refused to use his supernatural power in this way that his countrymen rejected him. It was not that they expected a ECCE HOMO. king, and that he appeared only as a teacher; on the contrary, he systematically described himself as a king. The stum- bling-block was this, that, professing to be a king, he declined to use the weapons of force and compulsion that belong to kings. And as this caused so much surprise to his eountrymen, it is natural .that he should himself have undergone a struggle before he determined thus to run counter to the traditional theory of the Messiah and to all the prejudices of the nation. The tempter, we may suppose, approached him with the whisper, Gird thee with thy sword upon thy thigh; ride on, and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. If this was the temptation, then again how characteristic of the Lamb of God was the resistance to it, and at the same time how incomparably great the self restraint involved in that resistance! One who be- lieves himself born for universal monarchy, and capable by his rule of giving happiness to the world, is entrusted with powers which seem to afford the ready means of attaining that supremacy. By the overwhelming force of visible miracle it is possible for him to establish an absolute dominion, and to give to the race the laws which may make it happy. But he deliberately determines to adopt another course, to found his empire upon the consent, and not the fears of man- kind, to trust himself with his royal claims and his terrible purity and superiority de- fenceless amon0 mankind, and, however bit- terly their envy may persecute him, to use his supernatural powers only in doing them good. This he actually did, and evidently in pursuance of a fixed plan; he persevered in this course, although politically, so to speak, it was fatal to his position, and though it bewildered his most attached fol- lowers; but by doing so he raised himself to a throne on which he has been seated for nigh two thousand years, and gained an authority over men greater far than they have allowed to any legislator, greater than prophecy had ever attributed to the Messiah himself. (Pp. 1617.) Next we take the immeasurable diver- gence of His own idea of the coming king- dom from that current among his adversa- ries and critics It will soon become necessary to consider at Leisure in what sense Christ understood his own royalty. At present it is enough to remark that, though he understood it in a very peculiar sense, and though he abdi- cated many of the functions of a sovereign, 41 he yet regarded it as a royalty not less sub- stantial, and far more dignified, than that of his ancestor David. We may go one step farther before entering into the de- tails, and note the exact ground of the quarrel which the Jews had with him. He understood the work of the Messiah in one sense, and they in another, but what was the point of irreconcilable difference? They laid information against him before the Roman government as a dangerous character; their real complaint against him was precisely this, that he was not danger- ous. Pilate executed him on the ground that his kingdom was of this world; the Jews procured his execution precisely be- cause it was not. In other words, they could not forgive him for claiming royalty and at the same time rejecting the use of physical force. His royal pretensions were not in themselves distasteful to them; backed by a military force, and favoured by success, those pretensions would have been enthusiastically received. His tran- quil life, passed in teaching and healing the sick, could not in itself excite their ha- tred. An eloquent teacher, gathering dis- ciples round him in Jerusalem and offering a new and devout interpretation of the Mo- saic law, might have aroused a little spite, but not the cry of Crucify him! They did not object to the king, they did not object to the philosopher; but they objected to the king in the garb of the philosopher. They were offended at what they thought the degradation of their great ideal.. A king who neither had nor eared to have a court or an army; a king who could not en- force a command; a king who preached and lectured like a scribe, yet in his weakness and insignificance could not forget his dig- nity, had his royal title often in his mouth, and lectured with an authority that no scribe assumed; these violent contrasts, this disappointment of their theories, this homely parody of their hopes, inspired them with an irritation, and at last a malignant disgust, which it is not hard to understand. (Pp. 28, 29.) The author is struck hy three points es- pecially, in the desi,n of Christ When we contemplate this scheme as a whole, and glance at the execution and re- sults of it, three things strike us with aston- ishment. First, its prodigious originalitj, if the expression may be used. What other man has had the courage or elevation of mind to say, Iwill build up a state by the mere force of my will, without help from the 42 ECCE HOMO. kings of the world, without taking advan- tage of any of the secondary causes which unite men together unity of interest or speech, or blood-relationship. I will make laws for my state which shall never be re- pealed, and I will defy all the powers of de- struction that are at work in the world to destroy what I build? Secondly, we are astonished at the calm confidence with which the scheme was car- ried out. The reason why statesmen can seldom work on this vast scale is that it commonly requires a whole lifetime to gain that ascendency over their fellow-men which such schemes presuppose. Some of the leading organizers of the world have said, I will work my way to supreme power, and then I will execute great plans. But Christ overleaped the first stage altogether. lie did not work his way to royalty, but simply said to all men, I am your king. He did not struggle forward to a position in which he could found a new state, but sim- ply founded it. Thirdly, we are astonished at the pro- digious success of the scheme. It is not more certain that Christ presented himself to men as the founder, legislator, and judge of a divine society than it is certain that men have accepted him in these characters, that the divine society has been founded, that it has lasted nearly two thousand years, that it has extended over a large and the most highly civilized portion of the earths surface, and that it continues full of vigour at the present day. (Pp. 41, 42.) This chapter, on Christs Credentials, is the noblest we have yet encountered. We must he content with giving the paragraph in which it is summed up: To sum up the results of this chapter. We began by remarking that an astonishing plan met with an astonishing success, and we raised the question to what instrumen- tality that success was due. Christ an- nounced himself as the Founder and Legis- lator of a new Society, and as the Supreme Judge of men. Now by what means did he procure that these immense pretensions should be. allowed? He might have done it by sheer power; he might have adopted persuasion, and pointed out the merits of the scheme and of the legislation lie pro- posed to introduce. But he adopted a third plan, which had the effect not merely of securing obedience, but of exciting enthu- siasm and devotion. He laid men under an immense obligetion. He convinced them that he was a person of altogether transcen dent greatness, one who needed nothing at their hands, one whom it was impossible to benefit by conferring riches, or fame, or dominion upon him, and that, being so great, lie had devoted himself of mere benevo- len.e to their good. He showed them that for their sakes he lived a hard and laborious life, and expos~d himself to the utmost mal- ice of powerful men. They saw him hun- gry, though they believed him able to turii the stones into bread; they saw his royal pretensions spurned, though they believed that he could in a moment take into his hand all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; they saw his life in danger; they saw him at last expire in agonies, though they believed that, had he so willed it, no danger could harm him, and that had he thrown himself from the topmost pinna- cle of the temple lie would have been softly received in the arms of ministering angels. Witnessin~ his sufferings, and convinced by the miracles they saw him work that they were voluntarily endured, mens hearts were touched, and pity for weakness blending strangely with wondering admiration of un- limited power, an agitation of gratitude, sympathy, and astonishment, such as nothing else could ever excite, sprang up in them; and when, turning from his deeds to his words, they found this very self-denial which had guided his own life prescribed as the principle which should guide theirs, grati- tude broke forth in joyful obedience, self- denial produced self-denial, and the Law and Law-Giver together were enshrined in their inmost hearts for inseparable venera- tion. (Pp. 50, 51.) Here is a beautiful conception of faith; faith in its initial stage, but as including moral elements Justice is often but a form of pedantry, mercy mere easiness of temper, courage a mere firmness of physical constitution; but if these virtues are genuine, then they indi- cate not goodness merely, but goodness con- siderably developed. A man may be poten- tially just or merciful, yet from defect of trainin, he may be actually neither. We want a test which shall admit all who have it in them to be good whether their good qualities be trained or no. Such a test is found in faith. He who, when goodness is impressively put before him, exhibits an in- stinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts himself to it, such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is in such a man. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal and faithful instinct in him will ECCE HOMO. place him above many that practise virtue. He may be rude in thought and character, but he will unconsciously gravitate towards what is right. Other virtues can scarcely thrive without a fine natural organization and a happy training. But the ~iost neg- lected and ungifted of men may make a be- ginning with faith. Other virtues want civilization, a certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in half-brutal countenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness. The savage, who can do little else, can won- der and worship and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know that some one else knows, he who has no law may still have a master, he who is in- capable of justice may be capable of fidelity, he who understands little may have his sins forgiven because he loves much. (Pp. 66, 67.) The following passages compare the pleas for toleration in cases of belief and of con- duct: We ought to be just as tolerant of an imperfect creed as we are of an imperfect practice. Everything which can be urged in excuse for the latter may also be pleaded for the former. If the way to Christian ac- tion is beset by corrupt habits and mislead- ing passions, the path to Christian truth is overgrown with prejudices and strewn with fallen theories and rotten systems which hide it from our view. It is quite as hard to think rightly as it is to act rightly, or even to feel rightly.. And as all allow that an error is a less culpable thing than a crime or a vicious passion, it is monstrous that it should be more severely punished; it is monstrous that Christ, who was called the friend of pub- licans and sinners, should be represented as the pitiless enemy of bewildered seekers of truth. How could men have been guilty of such an inconsistency? By speaking of what they do not understand. Men, in gen- eral, do not understand or appreciate the difficulty of finding truth. All men must act, and therefore all men learn in some de- gree how difficult it is to act rightly. The consequence is that all men can make ex- cuse for those who fail to act rightly. But all men are not compelled to make an independ- ent search fortruth, and those who volun- tarily undertake to do so are always few. They ought, indeed, to find pity and charity when they fail, for their undertaking is full of hazard, and in the course of it they arc too apt to leave friends and companions bebind them, and when they succeed they bring back glorious spoils for those who re- mained at home criticising them. But they cannot expect such charity, for the hazards and difficulties of the undertaking are known to themselves alone. To the world at large it seems quite easy to find truth, and inex- cusable to miss it. And no wonder! For by finding truth they mean only learning by rote the maxims current around them. (Pp. 72, 73~) The author is greatly struck with the per- emptory and universal character of the in- stitution of baptism, which he perceives to be made as indispensable to membership, as that spiritual inspiration which is member- ship itself in the new and Divine Society. The method of this society he considers to be broadly distinguished from that of the moral philosophy which has often laboured to improve mankind. The whole argument of the ninth chapter on this contrast will well reward perusal. The subjoined are two passages from it Philosophers had drawn their pupils from the elite of humanity; but Christ finds his material among the worst and meanest, for he does not propose merely to make the good better, but the bad good. And what is his machinery? He says the first step to- wards good dispositions is for a man to form a strong personal attachment. Let him first be drawn out of himself. Next let the object of that attachment be a person of striking and conspicuous goodness. To worship such a person will be the best exer- cise in virtue that he can have. Let him vow obedience in life and death to such a person; let him mix and live with others who have made the same vow. He will have ever before his eyes an ideal of what he may himself become. His heart will be stirred by new feelings, a new world will be gradually revealed to him, and, more than this, a new self within his old self will make its presence felt, and a chan~e will pass over him which he will feel it most appropriate to call a new birth. This is Christs scheme stated in its most naked form; we shall have abundant opportunities in the sequel of ex- pounding it more fully. Of these two influences that of Rea- son and that of Living Example which would a wise reformer reinforce? Christ chose the last. He gathered all men into a common relation to himself, and demanded that each should set him on a pedestal of his heart, giving a lower place to all other ob- jects of worship, to father and mother, to husband or wife. In him should the loyalty of all hearts centre, lie should be their pat- tern, their Authority, and Judge. Of him 43 ECCE HOMO. and his service should no man be ashamed, but to those who acknowledged it morality should be an easy yoke, and the law of right as spontaneous as the law of life; sufferings should be easy to hear, and the loss of worldly friends repaired hy a new home in the bosom of the Christian kingdom; finally, in death itself their sleep should he sweet upon whose tombstone it could be written, Obdormivit in Christo. (Pp. 98, 101, 102.) Having thus far traced, as he considers, the rise of the Monarchy of Christ, in his second part, which commences with chapter x., the author professes to treat of the legis- lation by which that Monarchy is governed, The Christian philosophy of pleasure is strik- ingly handled in the following passage This paradoxical position that pleas- ure is necessary for us, and yet that it is not to be sought; that this world is to be re- nounced, and yet that it is noble and glori- ous might, if it had been taken up by a philosopher, have been regarded as a sub- tlety which it would be impossible to act upon. But as the law laid down by a King and Master of mankind, every word of whom was treasured up and acted out with devotion, it has had a surprising influence upon human affairs. In the times of the Roman Emperors there appeared a sect which distinguished itself by the assiduous attention which it bestowed upon the bodily wants of mankind. This sect set the first example of a homely practical philanthropy, occupying itself with the relief of ordinary human sufferings, dispensing food and cloth- ing to the destitute and starving. At the same perioci there appeared a sect which was remarkable for the contempt in which it held human suffering. Roman magistrates were perplexed to find, when it became ne- cessary to coerce this sect by penal inflictions, that bodily pains, tortures, and death itself, were not regarded as evils by its members. These two sects appeared to run into con- trary extremes. The one seemed to carry their regard for the body to the borders of effeminacy; the other pushed Stoical apa- thy almost to madness. Yet these two sects were one and the same the Christian Church. And though within that body every conceivable corruption has at some time or other sprung up, this tradition has never been long lost, and in every age the Christian temper has shivered at the touch of Stoic apathy and shuddered at that of Epicurean indolence. (Pp. 118, 119.) He shows how little had yet been accom- plished towards establishing the true brother- hood of mankind, notwithstanding the mar- vellous achievement of the Romans in con- solidating so many nations into a political unity; without which it is indeed difficult to see how the physical and social barriers to the spreading of Christianity could have been surmounted A number of nations which had before waged incessant war with one another had been forced into a sort of unity. What court-poets call a golden age had set in. Round the whole shore of the Mediterranean~ Sea, and northward to the Danube and be- yond the British Channel, national antipa- thies had been suppressed, and war had ceased, while the lives of men were regulat- ed by an admirable code of laws. Yet, except to court-poets, this age did not seem golden to those who lived in it. On the contrary, they said it was something worse than an iron age; there was no metal from which they could name it. Never (lid men live under such a crushing sense of degrada- tion, never did they look back with more bitter regret, never were the vices that spring out of & espair so rife, never was sen- suality cultivated more methodically, never did poetry curdle so readily into satire, never was genius so much soured by cynicism, and never was calumny so abundant or so gross or so easily believed. If morality depended on laws, or happiness could be measured by comfort, this would have been the most glo- rious era in the past history of mankind. It was in faet one of the meanest and foul- est, because a tone or spirit is necessary to morality, and self-respect is needful to hap- piness. (Pp. 132; 133.) And now, what followed? The city of God, of which the Stoics doubtfully and feebly spoke, was now set up before the eyes of men. It was no insub- stantial city, such as we fancy in the clouds, no invisible pattern such as Plato thought might be laid up in heaven, but a visible corporation whose members met to~,ether to eat bread and drink wine, and into, which they were initiated by bodily immersion in water. Here the Gentile met the Jew whom he had been accustomed to regard as an enemy of the human race; the Roman met the lying Greek Sophist, the Syrian slave, the gladiator born beside the Danube: In brotherhood they met, the natural birth and kindred of each forgotten, the baptism 44 ECCE HOMO. alone remembered in which they had been born again to God and to each other. (P. 136.) In the closing pages of this chapter (xii.) the question of slavery is ably dealt with. Perhaps the whole history may be summed up in this. The Gospel was its death- warrant; and execution was only delayed until the religion, then infant, was adult, and had strength enough to deal the blow. In the thirteenth chapter the author ap- proaches that doctrine of enthusiasm, or pas- sionate devotion which has been regarded as so peculiarly his own. Christianity did not, he says, leave us a code of morals, in the ordinary sense Instead of giving laws to his Society, he would give to every member of it a power of making laws for himself. He frequently re- peated that to make the fruit of a tree good you must put the tree into a healthy state, and, slightly altering the illustration, that fruit can only be expected from a fruit-tree, not from a thistle or thorn. The meaning of this plainly is that a mans actions result from the state of his mind; that if that is healthy they will be right, and if not, they will be wrong. Such language was new in the mouth of a legislator, but not at all new in itself. It was an adoption of the style of philosophy. Philosophers had al- ways made it their study to bring their minds into a healthy condition, fru.i emendaio ariimo. When, however, we inquire what Christ considered a healthy condition of the mind to be, we do not find him in agreement with philosophers. The law-making power of which mention has been made, which, raised to predominance, issues in an unerring tact or instinct of right action, was differ- ently conceived by him and by them. They placed it in reason, and regarded passion as the antagonistic power which must be con- trolled and coerced by it. Christ also con- siders it necessary to control the passions, but he places them under the dominion not of reason but of a new and more powerful passion. The healthy mind of the philoso- J)hers is in a composed, tranquil, and impar- tial state; the healthy mind of Christ is in an elevated and enthusiastic state. Both are exempt from perturbation and unsteadi- ness, but the one by being immovably fixed, the other by being always powerfully at- tracted in one direction. (Pp. 144, 145. See also pp. 253,254.) This enthusiasm was justified by the char-. acter of the object proposed to the eyes and hearts of men: Did the command to love go forth to those who had never seen a human being they could revere? Could his followers turn upon him and say, How can we love a creature so degraded, full of vile wants and contemptible passions, whose little life is most harmlessly spent when it is an empty round of eating and sleeping; a creature destined for the grave and for oblivion when his allotted term of fretfulness and folly has expired? Of this race Christ him- self was a member, and to this day is it not the best answer to all blasphemers of the species, the best consolation when our sense of its degradation is keenest, that a human brain was behind his forehead and a human heart beating in his breast, and that within the whole creation of God nothing more elevated or more attractive has yet been ,found than he? And if itbe answered that there was in his nature something excep- tional and peculiar, that humanity must not be measured by the stature of Christ, let us remember that it was precisely thus that he wished it to be measured, delighting to call himself the Son of Man, delighting to call the meanest of mankind his brothers. If some human beings are abject and con- temptible, if it be incredible to us that they can have any high dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great a height as Christ? Are we likely to be more pained by their faults and deficiencies than he was? Is our standard higher than his? And yet he associated by preference with these meanest of the race; no contempt for them did he ever express, no suspicion that they might be less dear than the best and wisest to the common Father, no (lOubt that they were naturally capable of rising to a moral elevation like his own. There is nothing of which a man may be prouder than of this; it is the most hopeful and re- deeming fact in history; it is precisely what was wanting to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory has been shed upon the human race by the. love Christ bore to it. And it was because the Edict of Universal Love went forth to men whose hearts were in no cynical mood, but possessed with a spirit of devotion to a man, that words which at any other time, however grandly they might sound, would have been but words, penetrated so deeply, and along with the law of love the power of love was given. Therefore also the first Christians were enabled to dispense with philosophical phrases, and instead of saying that they loved the ideal of man in man, ECCE HOMO. could simply say and feel that they loved Christ in every man. We have here the very kernel of the Christian moral scheme. Pew of us sympathise originally and di- rectly with this devotion; few of us can per- ceive in human nature itself any merit suffi- cient to evoke it. But it is not so hard to love and venerate him who felt it. So vast a passion of love, a devotion so comprehen- sive, elevated, deliberate and profound, has not elsewhere been in any degree ap- proached save by some of his imitators. And as love provokes love, many have found it possible to conceive for Christ an attachment the closeness of which no words can describe, a veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within them, that they have said, I live no more, but Christ lives in me. Now such a feeling carries with it of necessity the fieling of love for all human beings. It matters no longer what quality men may exhibit; amiable or unamiable, as the brothers of Christ, as belonging to his sacred and consecrated kind, as the objects of his love in life and death, they must be dear to all to whom he is dear. And those who would for a moment know his heart and understand his life must begin by thinking of the whole race of man, and of each member of the race, with awful rever- ence and hope. (Pp. 16416 7.) The consequence has been a product al- together new in the world: that of holiness, exhibited in the human life and charac- ter: But 1~hat Christs method, when rightly applied, is really of mighty force, may be shown by an argument which the severest censor of Christians will hardly refuse to ad- mit. Compare the ancient with the mod- ern world; Look on this picture and on that. One broad distinction in the char- acters of men forces itself into prominence. Among all the men of the ancient heathen world there were scarcely one or two to whom we might venture to apply th~ epi- thet holy. In other words, there were not more tfian one or two, if any, who besides being virtuous in their actions were pos- sessed with an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice regarded even a vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will deny that in Chris- tian countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness, has existed. Few will maintain that it has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth is, that there has scarcely been a town in any Christian coun try since the time of Christ where a eentury has passed without exhibiting a character of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed the bad and made the good better, and has been felt at times like the presence of God Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed? or can.Christianity die? His biography may be summed up in the words, he went about doing good; his wise words were secondary to his benefi- cial deeds; the latter were not introductory to the former, hut the former grew oocasion- ally, and, as it were, accidentally, oat of the latter. The explanation of this is that Christ merely reduced to practice his own principle. His morality required that the welfare and happiness of others should not merely be remembered as a restraint upon action, but should be made the principal motive of action, and what he preached in words he preached still more impressively and zealously in deeds. He set the first and greatest example of a life wholly gov- erned and guided by the passion of human- ity. The very scheme and plan of his life differed from that of other men. He had no personal prospects, no fortune to push, no ambitions. A good man before had been understood to be one who in pursuit of his own personal happiness is careful to consider also the happiness of those around him, declines all prosperity gained at their expense, employs his leisure in relieving some of their wants, and who, lastly, in some extreme need or danger of those con- nected with him, his relations or his coun- try, consents to sacrifice his own life or welfare to theirs. In this scheme of life humanity in its rudimentary forms of family feeling or patriotism enters as a restraining or regulating principle; only in the extreme case does it become the main spring of ac- tion. What with other good ipen was the extreme case, with Christ was the rule. In many countries and at many different times the lives of heroes had been offered up on the altar of filial or parental or patri- otic love. A great impulse had overmas- tered them; personal interests, the love of life and of the pleasures of life, had yielded to a higher motive; the names of those who had made the great oblation had been held in honour by succeeding ages, the place where it was made pointed out, the circum- stances of it proudly recounted. Such a sacrifice, the crowning act of human good- ness when it rises above itself, was made by Christ, not in some moment of elevation, not in some extreme emergency, but habit- ually; this is meant when it is said, he went about doing good, nor was the sacri 46 ECCE HOMO. flee made for relative or friend or country, but for all everywhere who bear the name ofman. (Pp. 171, 187189.) The authors view of the law of philan- thropy, and of the adaptations which it ac- quires from the circumstances of modern society, is to be found in chap. xvii., which xviii not bear being represented by extracts, and in chaps. xix.xxiu. The subject of Authority, and its place in regulating the moral action of the world, has not been evaded. The broad and dis- tinct general proposition with regard to its weight, which is contained in the following extract, will tempt many readers to wish for a fuller development Preaching is moral suasion delivered formally at stated intervals. In good edu- cation there is an equal amount of moral suasion, delivered far more impressively be- cause delivered to individuals and at the. moment when the need arises, while be- sides moral suasion other instruments are employed. Of these the principal is Au- thority, a most potent and indispensable agent. We have traced above the process by which mankind were ripened for the re- ception of Christianity. For many ages peremptory laws were imposed upon differ- ent nations and enforced by a machinery of punishment. During these ages, out of the whole number of persons who obeyed these laxvs, very few either knew or in- quired why they had been imposed. But all the time these nations were forming habits of action which gradually became so familiar to them that the nations who wanted similar hThits became to them ob- jects of contempt and disgust as savages. At last the time came when the hidden principle of all law was revealed, and Christian humanity became the self-legis- lating life of mankind. Thus did the Law brim, men to Christ. Now what the Law did for the race the schoolmaster does for the individual. He imposes rules, assign- ing a penalty for disobedience. Under this rule the pupil grows up, until order, punc- tuality, industry, justice and mercy to his school-fellows, become the habits of his life. Then when the time comes, the strict rule relaxes, the pupil is taken into the masters confidence, his obedience becomes reasona- ble, a living morality. (Pp. 219, 220.) The law of the Christian sabbath is also touched, too briefly for our desires, in p. 222; as is that commutation of personal service in the cause of humanity (p. 224) for money payments, often none of the most copious, to which the modern ar- rangemet~t of working by societies, in many respects excellent, and apparently indis- pensable at the present day, yet cannot but afford an unhappy facility. The depth of the mercy of Christ to women who have compromised their own peculiar glory, is exhibited in discussing two incidents which, says the author, may be seen as specimens of Christs redeeming power. And here we come upon that great issue, which ought in truth to be used as a touchstone of all religions and of all states of society, their effect upon the character and social position of Woman The female sex, in which antiquity saw nothing but inferiority, which Plato considered intended to do the same things as the male, only not so well, was under- stood for the first timg by Christ. His treatment brought out its characteristics, its superiorities, its peculiar power of grati- tude and self-devotion. That woman who, dried with her hair the feet she had bathed in grateful tears has raised her whole sex to a higher level. But we are con- cerned with her not merely as a woman, but as a fallen woman. And it is when we consider her as such that the prodigious force and originality of Christs mercy makes itself felt. For it is probably in the case of this particular vice that justice ripens the slowest and ,the seldomest into mercy. Most persons in whom the moral sense is very strong are, as we have said, merciful; mercy is in general a measure of the higher degrees of keenness in the moral sense. But there is a limit beyond which it seems almost impossible for mercy, properly so called, to subsist. There are certain vices which seem to indicate a criminality so engrained, or at least so in- veterate, that mercy is, as it were, choked in the deadly atmosphere that surrounds them, and dies for want of that hope upon which alone it can live. Vices that are incorrigible are not proper objects of mercy, and there are some vices which virtuous people are found particularly ready to pro- nounce incorrigible. Few brave men have any pity to spare for a confirmed coward. And as cowardice seems to him who has the instinct of manliness a fatal vice in man as implying an absence of the indispensable condition of masculine virtue, so does con- firmed unchastity in women seem a fatal vice to those who reverence womanhood. And therefore Jittle mercy for it is felt by those who take a serious view of sexual relations. There are multitudes who think lightly of it, and therefore feel a good deal 47 ECCE IJOMO. of compassion for those who suffer at the hands of society such a terrible puifishment for it. There are others who can have mercy on it while they contemplate it, as it were, at a distance, and do not realize how mortal to the very soul of womanhood is the habitual desecration of all the sacra- ments of love. Lastly, there are some who force themselves to have mercy on it out of reverence for the example of Christ. But of those who see it near, and whose moral sense is keen enough to judge of it, the greater number pronounce it incurable. We know the pitiless cruelty with which virtuous women commonly regard it. Why is it that in this one case the female sex is more hard-hearted than the male? Proba- bly hecause in this one case it feels more strongly, as might be expected, the heinous- ness of the offence; and those men who criticise women for their cruelty to their fallen sisters do not really judge from the advanced stage of mercy, but from the lower stage of insensibility. It is common- ly by love itself that men learn the sacred- ness of love. Yet, though Christ never entered the realm of sexual love, this sacredness seems to have been felt by him far more deeply than by other men. We have already had an opportunity of observ- ing this in the case of the woman taken in adultery. He exhibited on that occasion a profound delicacy of which there is no other example in the ancient world, and which anticipates and ekcels all that is noblest in chivalrous and finest in modern manners. In his treatment of the prosti- tute, then, how might we expect him to act? Not, surely, with the ready tolerance of men, which is but laxity; we might ex- pect from him rather the severity of women, which is purity. Disgust will overpower him here, if anywhere. lie will say, Thy sins not accidental, but a trade. . . . Tis best that thou diest quickly. There is no doubt that he was not wanting in severity; the gratitude that washed his feet in tears was not inspired by mere good-nature. But he found mercy too, where mercy common- ly fails even in the tender hearts of women. And mercy triumphed, where it commonly dies of mere despair. (Pp. 247249.) in Worthy of special notice is the treatment pp. 2678 of the Pharisees, as what may be called the sepulchre-builders, with their successors in all times but let us hasten on to the concluding chapter. Once more he presents to us a glowing picture of the Christ of the Gospels: Once more, how is this enthusiasm kindled? All virtues perpetuate them- selves in a manner. When the pattern is once given it will be printed in a thousand copies. This enthusiasm, then, was shown to men in its most consummate form in Jesus Christ. From him it flows as from a fountain. How it was kindled in him who knows? The abysmal deep~ of person- ality hide this secret But since Christ showed it to men, it has been found possible for them to imitate it, and every new imitation, by bringing the marvel visi- bly before us, revives the power of the original. As a matter of fact the Enthu- siasm is kindled constantly i new hearts, and though in few it burns brightly, yet perhaps there are not very many in which it altogether goes out. At least the con- ception of morality which Christ gave has now become the universal one, and no man is thought good who does not iu some measure satisfy it. Living examples are, as a general rule, more potent than those of which we read in books. And it is true that the sight of very humble degrees of Christian humanity in action will do more to kindle the Enthu- siasm, in most cases, than reading the most impressive scenes in the life of Christ. It cannot, therefore, be said that Christ is the direct source of all humanity. It is handed on like the torch from runner to runner in the race of life. Still it not only exists in Christ in a pre-eminent degree, but the circumstances of his life and death gave pre- eminent opportunities of displaying it. The story of his life will always remain the one record in which the moral perfection of man stands revealed in its root and its unity, the hidden spring made palpably manifest by which the whole machine is moved. And as, in the will of God, this unique man was elected to a unique sorrow, and holds as undisputed a sovereignty in suffering as in self-devotion, all lesser ex- amples and lives will for ever hold a subor- dinate place, and serve chiefly to reflect light on the central and original Example. In his wounds all human sorrows will hide themselves, and all human self-denials sup- port themselves a~ainst his cross. (Pp. 321, 322.) This passage appears to us without as- serting to disclose, and thus to teach more winningly than if it drily asserted, that dis- tinction in kind between the life and char- acter of our Lord, and the lives and char- acters of other men good and gre t in their measure, which forms at once the most 48 ECCE JIOMO. natural and the most solid ground for the new conviction of His Deity in minds that have yet to learn the Christian alphabet, and which strengthens and refreshes that conviction, where it has been from the cradle upwards an original and primal truth. I have omitted the few words which fill the blank, it was the will of God to beget no second son like Him; for they seem to deal with things that we know not of, and are ill able to touch. Presently the author gives us a solemn and much-needed warning The creed which makes human nature richer and larger, makes men at the same time capable of profounder sins; admitted into a holier sanctuary, they are exposed to the temptation of a greater sacrilege; awakened to the sense of new obligations, they sometimes lose their simple respect for the old ones; saints that have resisted the subtlest temptations sometimes begin again, as it were, by yielding without a struggle to the coarsest; hypocrisy has become ten- fold more ingenious and better supplied with disguises; in short human nature has inevitably developed downwards as well as upwards, and if the Christian ages be com- pared with those of heathenism they are found worse as well as better, and it is pos- sible to make it a question whether man- kind has gained on the whole. (P. 326.) Yet I venture to record dissent from the concluding words~ No doubt wickedness is more wicked now, as well as goodness holier and higher, than it was in ante- Christian times. But surely the question, whether mankind has gained on the whole? is one that we may regard as car- ried by the airs of heaven out of the ocean of argument into the haven, for us at least, of admitted truth. It is enough to appeal to social changes of a palpable character and of the broadest range. Take for in- stance the uplifted idea and state of wo- man; the second, and we may trust final, triumph, now all but accomplished, of the Gospel over slavery in its modern and most insidious form; the general retire- ment of social infamies into the shade; the acknowledgment of the obligation to pro- vide systematically for the sick, the sorrow- ing, and the very poor; the creation and visible growth of some idea of right as be- tween nations, however separated; the ac- knowledgment of peace, and not war, as the natural and normal state of man; the endeavour, not always successful, to LIVING AGE. VOL IX. 320. 49 create by municipal law a legal and judi- cial equality on behalf of all members of the community, in despite of all the contrasts of fortune and even of character. These are some of the changes, effected. by Chris- tianity in the very same regions, and among the same races, and now become part of the patrimony of civilisation, which appear to be in themselves decisive. And if they are in themselves decisive, the force of the decision is much enhanced when it is borne in mind that all this ground has been made good at a time when, through the wider prevalence of a quickened intelli- gence, a far more extended scope and range than the old world ever knew have been given to those temptations to selfishness and sin (in every form except that of violence), which beset on the right hand and on the left the path of every human pilgrim as he travels towards his home. Finally: it is in no narrow spirit that the author exhibits to us the Church of Christ standing in the midst of the triumphs, of which it has been the organ The triumph of the Christian Church is that it is there, that the most daring of all speculative dreams, instead of being found impracticable, has been carried into effect, and, when carried into effect, instead of being confined to a few select spirits, has spread itself over a vast space of the eartbs surface, and, when thus diffused, instead of giving place after an a~,e or two to some- thing more adapted to a later time, has en- dured for two thousand years, and, at the end of two thousand years. instead of linger- ing as a mere wreck spared by the tolerance of the lovers of the past, still displays vigour and a capacity of adjusting itself to new con- ditions, and lastly, in all the transformations it undergoes, remains visibly the same thing and inspired by its Founders universal and unquenchable spirit. The achievement of Christ, in founding by his single will and power a structure so durable and so universal, is like no other achievement which history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and common in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation flimsy and insub- stantial. When we speak of it the common- places of admiration fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality of the design, of the skill displayed in the execution? All such terms are inadequate. Originality and contriving skill operated indeed, but, as it were, implicitly. The creative effort which produces that against which, it is said, the gates of hell shall not prevail, cannot be analyzed. No architects designs were fur- MIt. ADAMS. mshed for the New Jerusalem, no committee drew up rules for the Universal Common- wealth. If in the works of Nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of in- genuity, then in Christs work it may be that the same indications occur. But these inferior and secondary powers were not con- sciously exercised; they were implicitly pres- ent in the manifold yet single creative act. The inconceivable work was done in calm- ness; before the eyes of men it was noiseless- ly accomplished, attracting little attention. Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the formation of speech which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these thin~,s can explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must be enough to say, the HAy Ghost fell on thdse that believed. No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfin- ished walls and unpaved streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe; it descended out of heaven from God. (Pp. 327, 329, 330.) With tbis noble specimen of the authors eloquence, the volume closes. I have al- ready spoken of the method it pursues with reference to its main object, the exhibition of the august, though simple figure of our Lord in His Life and Work. Next to this in power, is his conception of the institution, to which the prosecution of that work from the day of Pentecost onward was committed, and by which the most ethereal and sublime spreulation ever opened to the flight of the imagination, was reduced to a body of fact without rival in human experience. Nor should the reader pass unnoticed the broad and masculine grasp with which this work handles the subject of Christian morality both personal and social. And it is doubt- less needful that popular theology, which like everything else tends to settle down into mere formulas, should thus be shaken up from time to time, and measured and ad- justed by its eternal standards; that we may come at least nearer to a sense how truly the treasure is divine which is lodged unworthily in us poor earthen vessels: how the dispen- sation provided for us in Christ our Lord, without in the least pretending to solve off- hand all the problems that surround and per- plex our state, yet is thoroughly adapted to all our capacities as well as all our practical and present needs: how lofty it is, and yet how lowly, how sublime, and yet how solid, with its head in the highest heavens, and with its feet upon the solid earth. I must not close without wishing the au- thor well in what remains unaccomplished of his, work. What and how much that is the public is unaware; and in wbat manner he will acquit himself we can only augur from the powerful specimen of his handiwork which is already before us. It is to be hoped that the consciousness of his strength will not lead him to attempt too much. To trace histori- cally and philosophically the construction of the Christian system in institutions and in doctrines, would be the work not (so to speak) of stolen leisure, but of a life, and would require not less of reverence than of courage, of caution than of comprehension. Let us, however, leave to the exercise of his freedom one whom we have already thanked for his use of it. To him, or to any of us,it will be a great calamity should he in such a matter be misled. But what has here been written, if it could be supposed to have a val- ue, is not a retaining fee: it is simply a rec- cord of service done, and of gratitude gal- lantly and fairly earned. From The Saturday Review, 29 Feb. MR. ADAMS. THE general esteem and respect which attend Mr. Adams on his departure from England ought not to impair his popular- ity with his fellow-citizens. No wise Eng- lishman desires that the representative of a foreign country should identify himself with the interests of the State to which he is temporarily accredited. It is enough that he should be exempt from narrow prejudice, and that he should be able and willin~, to. appreciate alien customs and modes of thoug~it. As long as international relations are exclusively conducted among crowned heads and Cabinets, a versatile diplomatist of the school of TALLEYRAND has the best chance of winning in the political game; but where public affairs are directly or vir- tually controlled by general opinion, it is. above all things necessary that an ambassa- dor should share and understand the feel- ings of his own countrymen. Even at Eu- ropean Courts, English Ministers have sometimes been delicately rallied on the long course of professional employment which was supposed to have dulled their sympathy with the course of public opinion 50 MR. ADAMS. at home; and, indeed, the only plausible argument against a special diplomatic ser- vice is founded on the advantage possessed by a statesman who comes fresh from con- tact with domestic affairs. The son and grandson of Presidents of the United States, a INew Englander from the model State of Massachusetts, once a Republican member of the House of Representatives, and the as- sociate of the principal leaders of the party, Mr. ADAMS night be expected to be an American of the Americans, and he has never belied his character. A moi~e pliable Minister would have been less efficient for the task of preserving the peace in a time of extraordinary irritation. A certain im- passiveness and severity of demeanour pre- vented the most sanguine En0lish politi- cians from assuming that the American en- voy repudiated for himself the tone of re- monstrance which he was constantly in- structed to use. To command personal def- erence in English society, a diplomatist must be a gentleman; but if he is to be the faithful exponent of American feeling, he may advantageously dispense with the ex- ternal qualities of a courtier. The friendly regard which Mr. ADAMS has earned in Eno-land has frequently found expression in public and in private; but the most awk- ward of his admirers has never committed the blunder of paying him a compliment on any supposed superiority to his countrymen at large. On occasions on which a certain expansiveness of sentiment would not have been inappropriate, Mr. ADAMS has perhaps erred on the side of sternness and indiffer- ence. Of the genuine burst of regret which was caused by the murder of Mr. LINCOLN he took little notice; but, if he has not been demonstrative of kindly feeling, he has also abstained from passionate and discourteous language when the wildest invective against the English Government would have in- creased his popularity at home. The students of Mr. SEWARDS despatch- es will best appreciate the tact and prudence which rendered the communications of the American Minister with the English Gov- ernment not altogether intolerable. The transmission of a long series of eloquent lectures on the duties of nations must have been an invidious task when it became necessary to inform Lord RUSSELL or his successors, in personal interviews, that, in the judgment of the American SF~CRETARY of STATE, they had perpetrated almost every conceivable wrong. The style of composition preferred by Mr. ADAMS him- self contrasted strongly with the ornate co- piousness of his official superior. A close reasoner, and sometimes almost a pugna- cious litigant, Mr. ADAMS never indulges in rhetorical amplifications, or in the gener- alities which find favour on platforms and with political assemblies in the United States. His arguments are as dry and as calm as if they were presented to a Court of Equity, while Mr. SEWARD seems always anxious to prove that his opponent is main- taining an untenable position in violation of the most sacred principles. It is not im- probable that the SECRETARY of STATE and the representative of his Government in England cultivated a perfect mutual un- derstanding, and that they half uncon- sciously effected between themselves a con- venient division of labour. It was the business of Mr. ADAMS to persuade, to con- vince, or to confute the FOREIGN SECRE- TARY, and the English Cabinet; but Mr. SEWARD wrote as much for his own coun- trymen as for the English Government, and American taste requires that the candle of patriotism should not be hidden under the bushel of conciseness. There is reason for be- lieving that from the beginning of the Amer- can troubles Mr. SEWARD has siucerely de- sired to preserve peace with England. Dur- ing a considerable part of Mr. LINCOLNS ten- ure of office, the able SECRETARY of STATE directed the Government under the name of his inexperienced chief; and it is certain that, on the important occasion of the seiz- ure of the passen0 ers on board the Trent, Mr. SEWARD almost alone prevented the PRESIDENT and the Cabinet from yielding to the popular clamour for an immediate rupture. It is not necessary to suppose that Mr. SEWARD cherishes friendly feelings to England; but, notwithstanding his ha- bitual flux of oratory, he is a patriotic and cautious statesman. During the war he knew that a conflict with England, and rrobablv with France, would have estab- lished the independence of the South; and, on the return of peace, it would have placed insuperable difficulties in the way of finan- cial improvement. To satisfy his fellow- citizens, and perhaps to indulge his own feelings, he wrote volumes on volumes of complaint; and, down to the present time, he has refused to settle pending disputes, except on conditions which the English Government holds to be inadmissible. Yet peace has been preserved during the seven years of his administration; and a large share of the credit must be distributed be- tween the SECRETARY of STATE and the American Minister in England. One or two of Mr. SEWARDS most eloquent and disagreeable despatches were not even pre 51 MR. ADAMS. sented to the English Government; and it is not known that Mr. ADAMS was censured for the prudence which dictated the sup- pression. Although the retiring Minister has always been welcomed in English society, his public position during a portion of his term of service must have been in some respects unpleasant. He arrived in England in the early summer of 1861, only two or three days after the issue of the celebrated procla- mation of neutrality; and he had a plausi- ble grievance in the alleged precipitation of a measure to which he might be supposed to have been prepared with objections. He probably soon satisfied himself that the recognition of neutrality, whatever may have been the merits or the policy of the proceeding, had been made in good faith, without intention of offence to himself or to his Government; but it must be assumed that he believed in the substantial justice of the charge of premature interference which it has ever since been his principal business to reiterate. To Englishmen in general it seemed, at the commencement of the seces- sion, that a great nation had permanently divided itself into two sections, and that it was neither prudent nor justifiable to take part with either belligerent; but Mr. ADAMS represented only one of the con- tending parties, and it was his duty to claim for the residuary Government the exclusive recognition which had formerly related to the whole Union. As the fortune of war afterwards justified his contention, he may naturally hold, in common with his coun- trymen, that a policy founded, as events proved, on ignorance of the future, was erroneous and unjust. The accident of his arrival after the proclamation of neu- trality might have excused an asperity of language and manners which his sound sense taught him to avoid. He probably remembered some circumstances which the violent. English adherents of the Republi- can party in the United States have for- gotten; if they ever knew them, His pred- ecessor, Mr. DALLAS, was a Democrat, rep- resenting a President who was the zealous supporter of the South; and Mr. DALLAS had succeeded Mr. BUCHANAN, who, during his residence in England, plotted the acqui- sition of Cuba, for the avowed purpose of securing the maintenance of slavery in the Southern States. The same statesman had, only six months before the arrival of Mr. ADAMS in England, declared to Congress, in a Presidential Message, that the Consti tution provided no means of reclaiming by force any State which might secede from the Union. It was not the business of for- eign politicians to take part in the domestic contests of the United States, or to with- hold credit from the official utterances of American Presidents and Ministers Plenipo- tentiary. The sudden revolution of ofrn- ion which followed the capture of Fort Sumter ought perhaps to have been foreseen by sagacious observers, but it could not with propriety have been formally anticipated. Mr. ADAMS himself had in Congress acted with the moderate party which would will- ugly have averted the secession by any practicable sacrifices. In England he may perhaps have been sometimes amused with the ignorance of the philanthropic fanatics who were the noisiest devotees of his own policy and Government. In subsequent discussions with the Eng- lish Government, Mr. ADAMS maintained with inflexible tenacity the American doc- trines of the day; but he never lost his temper, he never aggravated unavoidable differences by offensive language, and, above all, he never diverged into eloquence. For two or three years it was of vital im- portance to the United States to preserve the peace, although almost every American speaker an(l writer appeared to be bent on bringing on an immediate quarrel with Great Britain. The amateur assistants whom Mr. SEWARD despatched from time to time to aid Mr. ADAMS in his arduous duty contrib ted little or nothing to the maintenance of peace;. and they probably sometimes emb rrassed the Minister by their officious interference. Archbishop HUGHES, of New York, thought it his duty to fulfil Mr. SEWARDS pacific instructions by making anti-English speeches in Ireland; and other agents confined themselves to the society of strong American partisans. Mr. ADAMS, even if he had shared in any respect the nature of a demagogue, would have abstained from impertinent intrusion into the domestic quarrels of a foreign coun- try. From first to last he has faithfully represented his Government, and he has presented to Englishmen the character of a worthy descendant of the grave and digni- fied statesmen who illustrated the earlier days of the Republic. If his countrymen hereafter require the services of a prudent and experienced counsellor, they may possi- bly think that the highest dignity in their gift would be well bestowed on hereditary merit even in the third generation. 52 DR. NEWMANS POEMS. From The London Review. The effect of this constant motive underly- ing the whole current of his reflections, is to make the reader wish for a moment that the writer could feel with an ordinary pulse. The nearest approach to a sense of grief to be found in this book is in the following po- em, a very beautiful poem, severe and classic in its shape., and replete with a music, mel- ancholy and sweet, but still seeming to be far away from us on lonely and inaccessible heights As a rule, Christianity is not happy in its poets. Singers like to catch strains nearest the earth, and it is rare to find a soul em- bracing angels only, and never striving to warm the dead Greek gods into life or to seek objects for its poetic passion in the forms of flesh. Here we breathe a cool, religious air, and, if we follow the writer in his thoughts, find that his verses are condensed from an abstract mood whose pivot is God. For him there are no Pagan images or ac- cessories. He rejects an ornament for his lines, with a false colour on it, as an imper- tinence. His ideas are purged and clarified to an extreme and thin degree ,but this very thinness gives them a force to penetrate deep into sentiments of the noblest and most worthy kind. There is no effort at dra- matic performance, and still nothing can be more perfect in its way than the dramatic in- stinct which achieves its result without an apparent exertion. One of the greatest charms also about Dr. Newmans poetry is its intense conviction and certainty. It is as distinct as logic. A cloud never passes across the sun on which his eyes are fixed. The full devotedness of a mind all surren- dered to its own theory of existence is his. You can trace in every line the per- petual consciousness of the man, his un- swerving determined belief in the utter in- significance of the things of the world, and the absorbing, nearly selfish, vigour with which he has set himself to follow to the very end those views which he is satisfied entail an immortality. The expression de- votional, however, would very adequately describe the characteristic feature of these verses. There is an absence of that warmth and familiarity with which we are usually accustomed to identify devotional poems. Warmth with Dr Newman would be obtru- sive; he prefers to offer up a cold and clari- fied homage, a distant petition for help, for aid; but he waits at the gate of the Temple. The want of a little common humanity in the verses must be felt. Of a wide intellec- tual sympathy there is a great deal; but the sympathy is purely intellectual, and offered only to be drawn back and have substituted in its l)lacc a compassion which for ever in- sists- on becoming a religious virtue. Dr. Newman does not waste a freling upon pity which he could convert into a pearl, for which he would have a reward in heaven. * Verses on Various Occasions. London : Burns, Oates, & Co. CoNsoLATIONs IN BEREAVEMENT. Death was full urgent with thee, Sister dear, And startling in his speed; Brief pain, then languor till thy end came near Such was the path decreed, The hurried road To lead thy soul from earth to thine owa Gods abode. Death wrought with thee, sweet maid, im- patiently : Yet merciful the ha*te That baffles sickness ; dearest, thou didst die, Thou wast not made to taste Deaths bitterness, Declines slow-wasting charm, or fevers fierce distress. Death came unheralded: but it was well; For so thy Saviour bore Kind witness, thou wast meet at once to dwell On His eternal shore; All warning spared, For none He gives where hearts are for prompt change prepared. Death wrought in mystery; both complaint and cure To human skill unknown : God put aside all means, to make us sure It was His deed alone; Lest we should lay - Reproach on our poor selves, that thou wast caught away. Death urged as scant of time : lest, Sister dear, We many a lingering day Had sickened with alternate hope and fear, The agne of delay; Watching each spark Of promise quenched in turn, till all our sky was dark. Death came and went: that so thy image might Our yearning hearts possess, Associate with all pleasant thoughts and bright, With youth arid loveliness; Sorrow can claim, Mary, nor lot nor part in thy soft soothing name. DR. NEWMANS POEMS. * ti3 MEMOIRS OF LORD BROUGHAM. Joy of sad hearts, and light of downcast eyes! Dearest, thou art enshrined In all thy fragrance in our memories; For we must ever find Bare thought of thee Freshen this weary life, while weary life shall he. The excessive spiritualism of these poems is indeed remarkable. Dr. Newman breaks through the crust (as it seems to him) which envelops earth, air, and sea, and speaks di- rectly to beings of another order and dwelling, who, according to him, have cer- tain agencies to do here. In fact, with him, it is the unseen world which is alone real. He almost says this literally: SUBSTANCE AND SHADOW. They do but grope in learnings pedant round, Who on the fantasies of sense bestow An idol substance, bidding us bow low Before those shades of being which are found, Stirring or still, on mans brief trial-ground; As if such shapes and moods, which come and go, Had aught of Truth or Life in their poor show, To sway or judge, and skill to stain or wound. His good angel is always beside him. The dead are gazing on us from their .homes above. Taking ever an interest in our pur- suits, our sorrows; our triumphs A sea before The Throne is spread ; its pure still glass Pictures all earth-scenes as they pass. We, on its shore, Share, in the bosom of our rest, Gods knowledge, and are blest. The workings of God are actual and vivid, not mysterious, either, for Dr. Newman rec- ognises angels here and angels there, and tangible devils with qualities as discoverable by him as the bad arguments of his ol~l op- ponent, the Rev. C. Kingsley. Nothing, perhaps, could give us a stronger proof of the filtrating power possessed by this keen and beautiful intellect than the manner in which these phantoms are always preserved from vulgarity or tawdriness. An angel in a miracle play an(l an angel of Dr. New- mans faith or fancy would be two very dif- ferent things, and yet both would spring from the same theological origin. Any- thing more lovdy or more fascinating than the angels lie dreams of it is impossible to conceive. He places those glorious creatures, as it were, at different ranges, to mark in some way the illimitable gulf between the Deity and us. He has a singular apprehen- sion of this gulf. Behind his faith there is also a perpetual threat. God is unwea- ned, the Lord is dread, he will punish severely even those saved from the eternal burnino And yet there are times when this sp~it is abandoned, and when the Soul puts itself in submissive love and obedience at the Almightys direction without a pang of fear or misgiving : THE PILLAR AND THE CLOUD. Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene, one step enough for me. I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on, Oer moor and fen, oer crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. Need we say, after what we have written, that we commend this book? Nobody can read it without entertaining the sinccrest respect for its writer. Seldom, indeed, do we find ourselves in contact with a mind so definite, so exalted, and so faithful to its pure and sanctified impulses to its de- sires, fed at sources which none but fools could mock. From The AthenEum. MEMOIRS OF LORD BROUGHAM. A CURIOUS case has been heard before Mr. Church, chief clerk of the Master of the Rolls. It is well known that the death of Lord Campbell removed from Lord Broughain that apprehension which he said would add a last pang to the agonies of a dying bed the fear that Campbell would write his life. Still, it was likely enough that the task of writing a life of the famous orator would fall into some other hands; and therefore the cx- 54 STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Chancellor bethought him that he would snatch the fearful opportunity from all his rivals by doing the work himself publish- ing in his own day and under his own name a proper account of his career. All the world, we may say, expected from him an autobiography. All the world, however, imagined that it would have to wait until he had passed away from the region of criticism before it could enjoy the pleasure of reading a book which, whenever it appears, can hardly help being a wonderful and dramatic story. More than a year ago, Lord Brougham decided otherwise. Why should he not put forth his labour now, and hear what was said about his work while there was yet time to correct mistakes and reply to malevolence? Yes; lie would publish now. Great collections of materials had been made, and many chapters, it is understood, had been already written by the learned Lord. Yet much remained to be done. Like Lady Morgan, Lord Brougham appears to have kept all his correspondence; and a room full of letters requires a good deal of adroit winnowing. We hear of a gentleman having had under his care a batch of thirty thousand letters! Such a mass of papers would need for their perusal and arran~e- ment a pair of youilg eyes; and the aged orator consulted a friend as to the hire of a gentleman who could read and write, and would not object to assist in making the pro- jected work readable and popular. Dr. Joseph Cauvin was recommended by that friend, and his services were accepted by Lord Brougham on rather vague terms of remuneration. On one point, however, there was no vagueness. Dr. Cauvins share in the labour was to be almost wholly intellectual. He was to draw up a regular plan, to suggest subjects for treatment, and determine which letters out of the mighty mass of correspondence should be inserted in the book. But he was to labour for hire, and not for fame. It was expressly stipulated that he wasnot to expect publicity and pop- ularity. His name was not to appear on the title-page. He was to be content with money. So far, so good. Dr. Cauvin fell to work, reading the matters already set down in writing, going through a collection, as he says, of thirty thousand letters, submitting plans for the general treatment, and other- wise carrying out his part of the undertaking. The work seems to have made pro~ress; and, bu~ for the subsequent quarrel, we suppose that some part of it might have been by this time before the public. But a day arrived when the editor wished for payment on account. Then arose the question of how much he ought to be paid for doing the brain-work and foregoing the reputation to be won by intellectual toil. On this point, the two parties displayed differences of opinion which were not to be overcome by reference to their common friends. Dr. Cauvin, to speak in general terms, put his service at the figure of 1,0001. The other side contended that this sum was not only too high, but so high as to prevent any publisher from under- taking the work subject to so heavy an edi- torial charge. INow came the dead lock. Dr. Cauvin, who had possession of the Brougham letters and papers, fancied he had a right to keep them until his claim was finally discharged. Hence, an appeal has been made to the Masters chicf clerk, which must have been highly distasteful to all the parties concerned, since all the parties in it appear to a disadvantage. Mr. Church de- cided that Dr. Cauvin had no right over the papers. He admitted, ~inowever, that the case was exceptional, and recommended that the documents should be handed over to some man of letters with power to arrange about the proper terms of remuneration for the labour done. Until this course could be adopted the papers were to be deposited in the Rolls Court. Meantime, the Life and Times of Lord Brougham is necessarily de- layed. From The London Review. THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.* DEAN ALFOED gives us in this volume the method he would advise for the study of the Epistles. In an introductory chapter, suggestive of much which might not strike ordinary readers of the Bible, he gives the keynote of his discourse by observing that the Gospel which was founded by deeds was spread by narration. This is to sonic extent true, but it is not wholly true. The Gospel was as much evidenced in the lives of the Apostles, as it was in the history they had to relate, and the doctrine they had to expound. At the same time that they preached, they proved their mission by working miracles. They were, in a manner, to be the Gospel as well as to preach it. And it was, no doubt, this concurrence of a doctrino and lwacti e so opposite to those which then prevailed * How to Study the New Testament. By Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Londou $tra- han & Co. 55 STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. amongst the nations, that produced such start- ling results in the way of conversion. But that does not lessen the interest which attaches to the narrative of their labours, or to those epistles by whieb they endeavoured to nourish and confirm the faith which they had implanted. Habit has somewhat drilled us to the value of these extraordinary docu- ments; and Dean Alford observes, with much force, that perhaps we do not suffi- ciently realize in our imaginations the state of the newly-founded Churches during this first and deeply interesting period; and that, consequently, we do not appreciate the full significance of the Apostolic epistles, and their entire appropriateness to the work which was then to he done. This may ap- pear a trite ohservation, hut it is in truth not so. It is plainly impossible that we should realize the force of the Epistles without some help from the imagination not to construct for uC a world which had no reality, hut to recall for us tlmat very world to which, im- mediately after the Ascension of our Saviour, His Gospel was preached. Let us, says Dean Alford, hy way of introduction to the Epistles, take the case of one such Church, in Asia Minor, or on the opposite shores of Greece, and endeavour to enter into its state and its wants. Then he pro- ceeds: Imagine a fair plain, with sheltering moun- tains. The scenery differs not much from that which some o f~js have seen in the south of Iraly, save tIN the palm has somewhat en- croached on the cypress and the olive; which latter trees, however, are found prevalent, and in luxuriance. The plain is bestridden with the arches of aqueducts, which have for their cen- tre a fair group of buildings, whose columns are marked out by the fierce Eastern sun into lines of hright and dark alternating. That is the Acropolis the temple fortress the abode of the tutelsr deities, whose images may he seen glittering in the sun, aswe see to this day the saints on St. John Lateran glittering miles off over the Campagna at Rome. We nrc in a heathen land. But let me enter the city: let inc deliver my Christian note of intro- duction. The scene is very strange to me. Amidst the crowd of loungers, half-clad slaves, all(l children wholly naked, moves the heathen proces;ion, with its ox adorned with garlands, and its s:mcrificing priest, girt at the waist, and his axe at his shoulder. It is plain who is in possession. But where is the little seed out of which shall grow the great tree whose roots shall thrust out the Islant that now fills the land? I deliver my letter. I enter into con- verse. What do I find I A few months hefore, a holy man has taken his departure. He had been with them some weeks golden weeks weeks of blessedness to their furthest memory. It had been an angels visit. They take me up the Acropolis; there he stood and prayed; then he told them this or that Christian truth the very cornices of the temple, the very coin- cident points in the look-out over land and dis- tant sea, are full of the good tidings xvbich he brought I re-enter the city with them, and in the shade of evening, and agaiii under the moist dawn, I resort to their humble room of worship. Here is the centre and focus of the light whichi has been poured upon them. Here, from day to day the holy man poured out his treasury of golden words doubly precious now that the tone of his voice has de- pdrted. To keep alive the impressions thus made, the apostolic teachers were directed to the expedient of writing letters to the churches which they had founded, or which owed their existence to emissaries sent from them- selves. Thus we came by the Epistles. And surely no plan could have been more effectual, whether for the present emergency, or for the future profit to the Church. The ques- tions which would need determining would be just those which were likely to recur again and again during the spread of the Gospel, and during the pro~ress of individual churches. The relations of Christianity to social life, and to heatmien practices, the observance of days and the abstinence from meats and other doubts arising from circumstances would furnish examples of the application of the com- mands and niaxinis of Christ, and would call up the mention of first principles in a way which, when once exemplified, it might he easy to continue. And such letters would naturally also he employed in taking notice of army points in the conduct of those addressed which re- quired correction, and thus would be led to di- late upon the great requirements of Christian morality. And when the writer was conscious of certain doctrines having been hut insuffi- ciently explained, he would natnrally enlarge upon them; and would establish and enforce the belief of such as were likely to be called in question. The reader has in these extracts the key to Dean Alfords method of studyin~ the Epistles. It is a subject, of course, upon which a variety of theories might be con- structed, but there is nothing contrary to probability in that which the Dean pro- pounds, while his (lissertations on the Epis- tles themselves are full of instructive matter, recalling for the reader tIme peoples, their cities and surroundings, to whom they were addressed. On the whole, we seldom see a work of the kind so popularly written, and so free from religious slang. .56 POETRY OF MIDD~LE AGE. THE POETRY OF MIDDLE AGE. THERE is a singular tendency abroad at present towards the investigation of ideal- isms. We must have everything in heaven and earth reduced to the terminology of the exact sciences; and there shall be no more love, hope, or piety, without its coriespond- ing physiological cause. Religious enthusi- asm is the product of disorder of the brain self-denial is only the result of an undue ex- citement of certain nervous susceptibilities. Poetry is the sublimation of strong passions; it is the superfluous vigour of youth project- ed into the realms of the imagination; it is the subtle product of a resplendent igno- rance of the world. Apollo, therefore, must be young; he must have a splendid circulation; his mental and physical organi- zation must be replete with unnecessary force. Not reflection, but anticipation, must be his watchword; and it is his duty to sing loudly and strongly of the impossi- ble glories which his juvenility hi,, green- ness, in fact suggests. When he passes from this brief period of probation, the sober truths of middle age temper his hopes and extinguish his rhapsodies. He proceeds to demonstrate heaven by scientific method. His vague idealisms are vanished; he seizes hard matters of fact; and it is only too well with him if he does not cry with Faust, Was kanu die Welt mir wohl gew~hren ~ Entbehren solist du! solist entbehren 1 That some such theory is the actual and practical belief of most people whom one meets, is not to be doubted. Youth is the time for illusions; middle age lays the cold hand of experience on these flushed aspira- tions. Youth dreams; midddle age sees; old age reflects, and grumbles. Youth paints the coming years, the coming mis- tress, the coming fame, in rainbow hues; middle age deals with the temperature of the wine-cellar, and is particular to see that the woodcock have hung long enough before being cooked for supper. But the least ef. fort of reflection will show us that the self- deceiving powers of human nature if it is necessary to talk of idealization, as a process of self-deception are always present, and that the different effects they produce at different stages in a mans life are solely due to the changing of the material upon which they work. It is merely a matter of literary history that the noblest idealizations human nature has produced have been the work of ripe middle age. The Inferno, From The London Review. Paradise Lost, and King Lear were the work of workers who more than most men had been buffeted about and tried in the sobering school of experience. The Wahlverwandtschaften is surely of more value to us than the peevish impulses of young Werther. And in ordinary every- day life we constantly meet with men who, themselves devoted to the barest material- ism in theory, and apparently living the most prosaic life imaginable, are nevet-the- less possessed by some occasional illusion which, transfigures their poor existence, and makes it less animal and more human. It may be some divine tenderness for their grandchild, or some incomprehensible affec- tion for their favourite horse, or some impul- sive longing to be near the sea. One who has devoted a true poetic gift to the study of middle age we mean Mr. James Hed- derwick who, writing for the secret thrill of a remote applause, has been too much and unaccountably overlooked in these times of rapid literary changes has described a wretched miser whose mania has procured him only the contempt and aversion of all who know him. But the miserable old man has more than his money over which to gloat; that does not quite satisfy him; and sometimes he takes from a secret drawer A faded writing and a lock of hair. Humanity on mathematic~4 principles is impossible. No attainable ciAThre can ban- ish those redeeming weaknesses of unreason and blind affection which fall to the lot nf the most logical of human beings. The sympathies of middle age have merely al- tered their horizon. They embrace other objects, and are concentrated on other aims. The writer of whom we have just spoken has endeavoured to sketch these new rela- tions fbrmed by the growth of a mans na- ture between himself and the world. He has his apology ready for that leaning to- wards the res angustce domi which has been too often satirized by intellectual Bohemi- ans Man soars into the wide eternities, Till, wildered in their awful solitudes, He shrinks for soothing to the homely moods Of womanly affection, and the wise, Calm faith of childhood, and the love displayed In the familiar smile the season wears. It is the blindness of youth which does not perceive the signification of common things; which fails to grasp the tender i(lealisms which may be concealed in the ordinary acts 67 58 POETRY OF MIDDLE AGE. of an ordinary life. Youth paints life with line of conduct which it demands. Fifteen the melodramatic brush of a Victor Hugo; or twenty years afterwards, he may still en- middle age observes it with the serenity of a tertain a high respect for political economy Goethe. But there is no lack of passion in as a science; but the spectacle of an old middle age. Surely that is not the strongest man shivering on a frosty night, and mutely passion which cries the loudest; nor yet is asking for the dry bread of charity, is only that strength, as Mr. Carlyle has observed, too likely to appeal to some higher instinct the most useful strength which takes the than a belief in Bentham, let us say. And form of hysterics. Supp?se wego to thepo- so with a hundred other matters. An en- lice courts for a little inductive teaching. largement of sympathy naturally begets in The police reports in our morning newspa- middle age a corresponding charity of judg- pers are, so far as they go, a much safer ment, a highly laudable distrust of ones own guide to certain phases of modern life than infallibility, and a clearer and kindlier vis- the dainty selections of the three-volume ion. It is in middle age, also, that all the novel. Who, then, is it whom we find fig- specially transitive good qualities of human uring in that lurid lime-light, which the nature assert themselves. Proselyting crime of infidelity throws upon a man and which is simply philanthropy pies a strong us surroundings? Not, as a rule, the young conviction of some kind or other is sel- man who has been jilted, who bewails the dom the bent of a man under forty; and to destruction of his idealisms in weak verse, be a proselytizer demands a considerable and for a time becomes a nuisance to him- substratum of that idealization which in an- self and his friends; but the middle-aged other form becomes poetry. What really man whom sudden passion compels to cut seems to be the rock on which most peoples the throat of his children in order that he notions about the poetry of youth and the may revenge himself upon their mother. prose of middle age split, is a confusion of Middle age attains to a maturity .of emotion terms in mixing up the illusion of ignorance as well as to a maturity of intellect; and with the illusjon of the imagination. What when the judgment of a full-grown man is is called the romantic period of a mans life set aside, and he is resigned to the fierce im- is the period in w?iich he is most prone to pulses of passion, the result is of corre- receive and act upon views of life which are sponding intensity and horror. merely untrue. It will happen occasionally A pleasanter theme is the pious aspira- that such a mistaken belief may produce a tions of middle age, with their tendency dramatic complication or climax, which is towards immediate faith and rest. The end in itself poetical; but that is an accident. of life does not necessarily become the more The romance of a youth of nineteen is, as a awful the nearer we approach to it; rule, founded upon ignorance; the romance although, as Mr. Hedderwick says of middle age is the result of developed character, passion, or tragic situation. It is A chill is wafted from the fleeting years, not quite so with women; for a woman Great heaven! what doom it were to walk reaches maturity before middle age, arid alone may have, as a girl, a quite surprising wo- To the final Mystery! but hand in hand, manliness ofjudgment and intensity of char- With all the generation journeying on, acter Generally speaking, however, the We face with courage due the shadowy land, loves and feelings and aspirations of a young And scarce would lag behind our marching girl are as vapid and weak as those of a peers. young man; and as little to be depended In one way, however, the habit of mid- upon as bei~g~an~ index to the ultimate na- dle age is cowardly. A young man boldly ture or possibilities of the in(lividual. She accepts the conclusions to which the ordi- may be a sort of undeveloped Undine in ap- nary processes of logic drive him. Middle pearance, and afterwards turn out a cruel age has either less belief in the infallibility and avaricious termagant; while he, after of human reason, or is desirous of immedi- having worn long hair, and worshipped ate personal comfort at any price. The Fichte, and written verses for half a dozen young man who first approaches the study years, may more or less suddenly become a of political economy, and believes it to highly matter-of-fact banker, with a we contain the whole duty of man, may con- ness for croquet. In either case, whatever vince himself that it is clearly his duty to there is in the individual organization of true society and to himself to discountenance poetic idealism as distinguished from fool- promiscuous almsgiving. Having logically ish anticipations or reflected sentiment demonstrated this truth, he puts it into his will only be evolved by the slow process of creed, and will in nowise budge from the years. JEALOUSY. 69 From The Leader. JEALOUSY. ONE of the most difficult of the emotions to analyse and do justice to is jealousy. No woman will thank you for the love that is without it; and yet the love that is with it is always treated with ridicule. It is cer- tainly one of the drollest emotions that an outsider can contemplate. It works a kind of tragical expression in the face which is almost as exaggerated and comical as the blood-thirsty seowl of the branspontine vil- lain. It is odd that with this emotion, which most men and women have experienced in a greater or less degree in their lives, almost nobody will sympathise. We suppose that there is some philosophic reason for this; yet it is certainly a curious consideration, for all that. Shakespeare in six lines has pretty well said all that can be said of love It shall suspect where is no cause of fear; It shall not fear where it should most mis- trust lit shall be merciful, and too severe, And most deceiving when it seems most just. Perverse it shall be where it shows most to- ward; Put fear to valour, courage to the coward. It must be believed that it is just because love works in this subtle yet incongruous manner because its obstinate operations can never find a right interpretation even by the most reflective observer, that the unfor- tunate emotion that dogs its expression al- ways fails in winning the sympathy, even the recognition, that it would be found to deserve were it nakedly unfolded before us. Judging of jealousy in the abstract, it is certainly more pardonable than love. It might be defined as a second love, growing, as it were, out of the parent-feeling, refined by its very exaltation into a sensitiveness that can be. made to quiver with a kind of agony by a doubtful smile, or glance, or movement of the head. Whom can you ex- pect to sympathise with such a sensitive con- dition of being? The old, .who might be thought to understand it because they have experienced it, think it unnatural, and, of course, unjustifiable; the young laugh at it, if it be obvious, and wonder at its cause; whilst the jealous themselves are the most hard upon it, as if hating their own degrada- tion in the degradation which they witness in others. Jealousy, so far from meriting contempt, will generally be found to deserve pity. There arc signs in the eyes and utterances in smiles which the keen intelligence of love is quick to interpret. Love after all is right- fully exacting. Let a man love a woman devotedly, let him concentrate in her his noblest emotions, his most refined feelings, let him environ her with a love-lighted halo, and contemplate his future peace- ful in the mellowing beauty of her pies- ence. A mighty trust is his; in her heart will be found enshrined all that he has of honour, of virtue, of hope. Is he to be ridiculed for jealously interpreting the move- ments of the life which he has rounded with his love? Even let the interpretation be false, jealousy is not blamable. Every woman knows how requisite is tact when once she is conscious of being in possession of anothers love. There is never jealousy without some provocation; it may be faint or obvious in proportion to the nature of the love; but inquire into apparently the most groundless jealousy and you will find a cause somewhere. People will think themselves quite justified in ridiculing jealousy that is provoked by the most harmless actions. What are these harmless actions? They may mean a waltz, a protracted t~te-h-t~1e apart, a whisper, a smile, a thousand things seemingly too trifling to mention. People will tell you that it is the nature of woman to love admiration. They will as- sure you that she will woo it so long as she has any pretensions (and after) to support the wooing; that you may be quite sure that her love is yours only, and that if she flirts with others it is very harniless indeed, and means no more than her way of enjoying herself. All this of course is very pretty consolation. But is the jealousy unjustifi- able that is provoked by it? We think not. A girl who insists upon waltzing after she is engaged is much better left alone. True love will never care to clasp the waist that can be clasped by any coxcombs arm. True love will never care to enjoy the privi- leges that seem accorded to any drawing- room snob who may wish to claim them. There must be some distinction between the before and the after. If love does not suggest a reserved and consistent de- meanour to an cnga,ed girl, tact should, and if tact does not, then it is plain that the sooner the lover surrenders the fair one to the full enjoyment of her own uncontrolled actions, the better. She will be found use- ful as a dancer, but dangerous as a wife. Of course, our remarks hold equally good with men. Bnt it will generally be found that a man, unless he has a title, or plenty of money, or a very handsome face, will not be half so much courted as a girl. He is ia AN OLD LADY $ RECOLLECTIONS. less danger of violating the conditions im- posed upon him by love. He therefore wants less tact than a woman. We shall, of course, be thought very straight-laced for what we have said, and shall be accused of taking the subject of jealousy merely as an excuse for attacking at least two-thirds of the engaged girls of the day. Well, we will not disclaim the charge; we should only just like to add, in conclusion, that if the motive of flirtation in a girl after she is en- gaged be merely a womanly love of admira- tion, she sets about her labours to secure it in the very last way those men whose ad- miration she courts would suggest. A girl who is not ashamed of letting the world know that she regards herself in the light of a wife; who does not blush to refuse a waltz, not only because her own love tells her that the spectacle of her whirling entertainment may pain a very honest and very manly af- fection, but because her sense of womanly dignity would be offended hy the pressing contact of a strangers arm; who does not indulge in those little innocent recrea- tions so very much practised by a certain class of young ladies who are deterutuined to let people see that they are not yet married (a great joke, by the way, amongst them); such a girl, we say, is far more likely to se- cure the ennobling opinion of an order of men, not so rare as is imagined, who think for the most part upon women in the light of flowers, fit only to be picked for their per- fume, then thrown aside. From The London Review. AN OLD LADYS RECOLLECTIONS.* THERE are few long lives the reminis- cences of which would not furnish some mat- ter of interest to others. The garrulity of age is excusable; nay, is often the means of making us better acquainted with the char- acteristics of preceding times than we other- wise should be. Of late years we have had several collections of personal gossip which have heightened and enlarged our knowl- edge of the wonderful epoc Ii when ]3uona- parte was overrunning the Continent, and we were fighting against enormous odds, not only for supremacy, but for existence; an epoch which steam and electricity seem to have isolated as completely as the middle * Recollections from 1803 to 1837. With a con- clusion in 1868. By the honorable Amelia Murray. London: Longmaus & Co. ages. To these works the Hon. Miss Mur ray now adds another, referring for the most part to the same period a volume which, though brief and slight, will be found not devoid of amusing anecdote. Miss Murray is the daughter of Lord George Murray, Bishop of St. Davids, who married a Miss Annie Grant, daughter of General Grant. The paternal grandfather of Miss Murray was the Duke of Athole; but the family had settled in England, and the authoress of the present volume seems to have been horn in Surrey. Lord Gcoj~ge died prema- turely in 1803, and his widow was left in straitened circumstances, which were to some extent relieved by a pension granted to the widow and daughters by Pitt, in con- sideration of the deceased bishop having in- vented and organized one of the first at- tempts at telegraphic communication, which was carried on by means of a series of shut- tles, and which saved the country much ex- penditure during the war. Ijust remember, says Miss Murray, seeing one of these tele- graphs on the roof of the Admiralty: it sent messages through others on corresponding heights, and by this means notice was given to the different ports, which enabled the fleets to unite; and a great naval victory was gained in consequence. I rather be- lieve a model of the old telegraph is still preserved at Somerset House. The year 1804, the second of Lady George Murray8 widowhood, was passed at Shepperton, on the Thames. At Oatlands, on the opposite bank, the Duchess of York had a cemetery for do,~,s, with little headstones to mark where her especial favourites were interred. In 1805, the Murray family went to Wey- mouth, where they attracted the attention of George III. and Queen Charlotte, who appear to have treated them with great kindness, inviting them to the lodge, loading them with presents, and taking them for trips in the royal yacht. I have been seated On the old Kings knee, says Miss Murray; and I remember he charged me always to wear a pocket, for George III. was shocked by the scanty dresses then in fashion, which made it out of the question for ladies to wear pockets. We have, of late returned to the fashions of 1805 in this respect; though whether it is again out of the ques- tion for ladies to wear pockets is a delicate matter into which we will not inquire. The costume of girls in those (lays seems to have been much more simple than it is now. Then it was only the married women who were attired expensively, satins and velvets being considered too heavy and old-looking for maidens. It was regarded as the 60 AN OLD LADYS RECOLLECTIONS. thing for ladies to cover their foreheads with a broad band; but we fancy that Miss Murray is mistaken in saying that it was not considered delicate or refined to leave the forehead exposed. The fashion, if we mistake not, was introduced by Mrs. Sid- dons as an offering to the Tragic Muse, and was afterwards followed, as other fashions are, because women like to be in acc& rdance with the mode. A stranger habit in those days was for ladies who had passed their youth to wear wigs. The Princesses, we are told, had their heads shaved, and wore wigs ready dressed and decorated for the evening, to save time. Widows almost always shaved their heads, and mourned in perukes. The shaving of the head as a to- ken of grief is a very ancient custom; but the wearing of a wig as the sign of widow- hood is peculiar. At the time to which Miss Murray is alluding, the use of wigs had been very generally given up by men, but it seems to have survived for awhile with the ladies. About 1808, the King appointed Lady George Murray a lady-in-waiting on his two eldest unmarried daughters, the Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth. It was the custom of the Kings household in those days to have no regular luncheon; but each lady had a chicken, a plate of fruit, and a bottle of Kings cup brought to her room, every day the same. What, it may be asked, was Kings cup? It was a bever- age invented by the great George himself, and consisting of an infusion of lemon-peel in cold water, sweetened with sugar. We cannot say that the description of this nec- tar at all tempts us: it bears too great a re- semblance to the drink which the poor little half-starved Marchioness improvised out of orange-peel and water, and which, if you persuaded yourself very much, you might accept for wine. Miss Mnrray says nothing in praise of Kings cup, and, as her loy- alty is evidently such that she would gladly commend if she could, we conclude that her silence is fatal. The system of fees and perquisites existed in those times to a mon- strous degree. On all the highest saints days, a tinsel cross of divers colours was placed on the tables of the ladies, or sent to their residences, and a guinea was under- stood to be due in return. A bottle of wine every two days, and unnecessary wax can- dles, were the perquisites of the ladies maids. The pages would sometimes be seen walking out of the presence of Royal- ty with a bottle of wine sticking out of each pocket; and the State pa?e would coolly go round to those persons w~ o had attended the drawing-rooms, and, book in hand, de- mand his fees for nothing in particular. Miss Murray denies, or at least doubts, the statement that Queen Charlotte was stern and severe in her enforcement of eti- quette. She repeats from recollection some anecdotes which she heard her Majesty tell of her early years in this country: The English people did not like me much, because I was not pretty; but the King was fond of driving a phaeton in those days, and once he overturned me in a turnip-field, and that fall broke my nose. I think I was not quite so ugly after dat. Lady Henderland was one of my ladies. She was left to sit with me in the evening, when. the King went to business at nine oclock. I sat, and the good lady sat, and we both got very tired. At last Lady Henderland said, Perhaps your Majesty is not aware that I must wait till your Majesty dismisses me I Oh, good my lady! I said; why did you not tell me dat before l The King went on one occasion into Kent, to review the volunteers at Lord Rounceys. He was accompanied by the Queen. I was in atent, she said. There was a sentinel, but I suppose he was looking at some- thing else; so an old Kentish woman, in a red cloak, made her way in; and she stood staring at me with her arms akimbo. At last she said, Well, she is not so ugly as they told me she was ! Well, my good woman, I replied, I am very glad of dat. Here follows an anecdote of the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) and his love of swearing : A The Princes frequently visited their sisters at my mothers; and enjoyed being received into what, for the time, was a family circle. My youngest brother was then a child. The Duke of Clarence came to spend a few days. It was too much the fashion then for gentlemen to use language which would not now be tol- erated in any civilized society. My mother asked as a favour of the Duke that he would avoid making use of some expletives, which her little boy would certainly copy; and think himself justified, after such an example, in making use of. The Duke took this hint most amiably; and, before leaving Weymouth, he said, Lady George, have I not been very careful ~ I am sure your boy has not learnt any naughty words from me. I do feel very grateful, sir, was her reply; but if your Royal Highness could refrain for a week, why not give up a bad habit altogether ~ I have understood that Queen Adelaide, after her marriage, induced King William to relinquish this practice; and that in the latter 62 years of the Sailor Monarchs life he was never known to utter an oath. Several great fires, believed to be the work of incendiaries, took place in London about that time, creating an amount of ex- citement equal to that which followed the Fenian outrage in Clerkenwell last Decem- ber. The Prince of Wales was believed to have received an anonymous letter, with the information that he would bear of many public buildings being on fire, and it was whispered that a train of gunpowder was happily discovered in time at the Opera House. The Fenians of those days were the disaffected English who objected to the ruinous taxation consequent on the war, and who wished to follow in~ the wake of revolutionary France. Of Lord Eldon we have a good story. Dining one day with the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Man- ners Sutton) at the Kings table, he said, It is a curious fact that your Majestys Archbishop and your Majestys Chancellor both married their wives clandestinely. I had some excuse, for Bessie Surtees was the prettiest girl in all Newcastle; but Mrs. Sutton was always the same pumpkin-faced thing she is at present! The King was much amused, and told the story to the Princesses. The subjoined anecdote, il- lustrative of the stinginess of Sir William Scott, brother of Lord Eldon, is not new, but it is good At the conclusion of a weeks visit, in a large house, Lady Scott came down to her hostess, with arms extended, carrying a huge number of towels. Madam, look here! she said. I think it my duty to make you aware of the extravagance of your housem ids: day after day I have locked up useless towels that have been put into mine and Sir Williams rboms; yet they were always replaced. Look at all this linen, maam! towel upon towel, and during all this week one has served us both! The daughter of Lord Eldon told Miss Murray that she and her mother had but one bonnet between them! At the time of the Court mourning, the Chancellor would send his daughter a piece of tape, telling her to measure carefully the length of her petticoat, that there might be no unneces- sary waste in the quantity of bombazine to be sent. Coming to the year 1809, we read that Sir Humphrey Davy gave it as his opinion that it would be as easy to bring down a bit of the moon to light London as to suc- ceed in doing so with gas. Scientific men AN OLD LADYS RECOLLECTIONS. are as liable to make mistakes in science as theologians in religion Robert Stephen- son affirmed that to make a canal across the Isthmus of Suez was an impossibility; yet M. de Lesseps has triumphed neverthe- less. Miss Murray is rather severe on the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caro- line. She writes There was about this period (1809) an ex- travagant furore in the cause of the Princess of Wales. She was considered an ill-treated woman, and that was enough to arouse popular feeling. My brother was amCng the young men who helped to give her an ovation at the Opera. A few days afterwards he went to a break- fast at a place near Woolwich. There he saw the Princess, in a gorgeous dress, which was looped up to show her petticoat, covered with stars, with silver wings on her shoulders, sitting under a tree, with a pot of porter on her knee; and, as a finale to the gaiety, she had the doors opened of every room in the house, and, select- ing a partner, she galloped through them, de- siring all the guests to follow her example! It may be guessed whether the gentlemen were anxious to clap her at the Opera abain. The intended marriage of the Princess Charlotte to the Prince of Orange is said by Miss Murray to have been broken off owing to the intrigues of the Grand Duch- ess of Russia, who made the Prince drunk at a party at which he was to have waltzed with the Princess, and so disgusted the lat- ter that she gave her hand to Prince Leo- pold of Coburg (the late King of the Bel- gians), to whom she had previously formed an attachment. Miss Murray is of opinion that the Princess was in fact starved to death. She was found one day in tears over her luncheon of tea and bread-and- butter. She had been accustomed to take a mutton chop and a glass of port wine, and she said she felt quite weak for want of it Sir Richard Croft having forbidden any meat in the middle of the day. She required a generous diet, and, having always been used to it, she felt the loss; yet the orders of her physician were strictly obeyed, and I think her life was the sacrifice. We certainly manage bet- ter in these respects now. With a letter from Mrs. Jameson to the authoress, written from Lake Superior at the time of the accession of our present Queen, we must close this amusing vol- nine We hailed a schooner with, What HUMAN NATURE. news? William IV. dead, and Queen Victoria reigning in his stead! We sat there silent, looking at one another, and at that moment the orb of day rose ont of the Lake, and poured its beams full in our dazzled eyes. Many thoughts came into my mind, some tears rose into my eyes, not certainly for that dead King, who, in ripe age and in all honour, was gathered to the tomb; hut for that living Queen, so young and fair. As many hopes hung on that noble head As there hang blossoms on the bou~hs in May. And what will become of them of her? The idea that even here, in this new world of woods and waters, amid these remote wilds, to her utterly unknown, her power reaches, and her sovereignty is acknowledged, filled me with compassionate awe. I say com- passionate, for if she feel in its full extent the liabilities of her position, alas for her! and if she feel them not, oh! worse and worse. I tried to recall her childish fi~ure and features. I thought over all I had ever heard concerning her. I fancied her not such a thing as they could make a mere pageant of; for that, there is too little without, too much within. And what will they make of her? for at eighteen she will hardly make any thing of them J mean of the men and women around her. It is of the woman I think more than of the Queen; for, as part of the State machinery, she will do quite as well as another, better perhaps; so far, her youth and her sex are absolutely in her favour. If she be but simple-minded, and true-hearted, and straight- forward, with a common portion of intellect; if a Royal education have not blunted in her the qnick perceptions and pure, kind instincts of the woman; if she has only had fair play, and carries into business plain distinct notions of ri~ht and wrong, and- the fine moral sense that is not to be confounded by diplomatic ver- biage about expediency, she will do better for us than a whole Cabinetful of cut-and-dried oflXcials, with Talleyrand at the head of them. And what a fair heritage is this ~vhich has fallen upon her ! a land young like herseW a land of hopes; and fair, most fair. Does she know, does she care any thing about it? while hearts are beating warm towards her, and voices bless her, and hands are stretched out towards bar, even from these wild lake shores. We are indebted to Miss Murray for a pleasant collection of gossip. None of her matter may be valuable, and some may be trivial; but her little volume helps to ren- der more vivid the England of a vanished day, and on that account it will be read and prized by many. EFFECT OF ABSENCE OF SOUND. Dr. H. Ralls Smith, of Louisville, Kentucky, by certain investigations, claims to have estab- lished the truth of the theory that animals living permanently in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky are not only without a trace of the optic nerve, but are also destitute of the sense of hearing. - At one time, writes the New York Tribune, he penetrated about four miles into the interior of the cave, and some four hundred feet below the surface of the earth, the solitude and total absence of sound produced a very distressing and almost in- supportable effect upon him, resulting in a very perceptible, although temporary, defec- tion of hearing and aberration of mind. This explains the fact why persons lost in the cave for one, two, or three days have al- ways been found, when rescued, in a state of temporary insanity. The mind and spe- cial senses, deprived oftheir natural pabulum and stimulus, gradually become weakened, paralyzed, atrophied, and finally as far as ex- ternal manifestations are concerned, nearly if not quite extinct. This fact may afford some clue to the cause of cretinism in the Alpine valleys. HUMAN NATURE. And withal, I suppose there was never an age in which a more genu- ine enthusiasm was felt and manifested by all classes for country pursuits. I do not mean merely that Englishmen are more eager than ever afier country sports. But the whole ten- dency of the modern English mind seems to be towards naturalism. Our best art is naturalis- tic. This century has seen the creation of a school of water-colour painting whose aim is the delineation of realistic landscape. And nat- ural history seems likely to become the favour- ite pursuit of our boys and ~irls, since the study of it has been taken up with enthusiasm by clever men who are also pol)ular writers. And the frame of mind which impels men to the study of natural history is one which can be very easily understood. Undoubtedly the proper and the natural study of mankind is man. There can be no such subject of ititerest for the human mind as that which is affordel - by the hopes, the fears, the interests, the habits, the progress or retrogression of thehuman race. Whether regarded in the light of history, or politics, or religion, or ethics, or metaphysics, the lmumani niliji alienum is a touch of nature which will always wring plaudits from pit, gal- lery, and boxes from all Uasses and condi- tions of men. And at first sight it does seem a monstrous thing, or the mark of a very little mind, to quit the study of men of a man, look you, the heir of all ages: so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties, in form and moving so 63 64 MIDDLE AGE. express and admirable, in action so like an an- gel, in apprehension so like a God! to quit, I say, the study of man, that one may employ oneself in studying an oyster or a shrimp. But the explanation of this is not difficult to find. The young enthusiast of human nature,, fresh from the study of history and philosophy, tries to apply what he has learnt in hooks to the livin,, subject, man. He starts with a generous enthusiasm of humanity; he enters upon a pro- fession; he mixes with men. But he is brought to a sudden pause hy the dead weight of prac- tical experience. Like a young horse starting with his first load, instead of moving onward ~vith a slow and steady pull, he attempts a rush: the dead weight checks him, the collar galls him, and he becomes for the time a jibber. To drop metaphor, there probably comes a time in the experience of most men when the study of human nature, of their fellow-man, his pursuits, his aims, his hopes a study which they en- tered upon with such avidity at first becomes distasteful to them. Practically, they find him to be a meaner being, occupying a lower place in the scale of creation than they had thought. As their knowledge of the world widens, they find that some one or two men whom they had looked up to as their guides and teachers are not perfect or infallible. They find out in them that weaker side of humanity in which all men, share. And so, from being hero-worshippers, Lhey be- come for a time misanthropists. The fact is, they have probed just deep enou,,h to find the devil in man, but they have not probed deep enough to find the angel. And the worst of itis that the devil they get. at in most modern men is such a poor devil after all, deteriorated, says the sneer- ing philosopher, by much intercourse with man; who does not seem to know how to sin upon a grand scale, but is a compound of meanness and petty shifts not Miltons devil, but rather G6thes; a sneering, shifty Mephistophelian fiend, and not the primteval Satan at all. Macmillans Magazine. THE SHAM SACERDOS. (Itituali8t sings) AMO a mass; I make a lass, Of conscience nice and tender, Upon her knee Confess to me, For shes of the feminine gender! Harum scarum, Bssno~ SARUM, Horum corum, shrive, 0! Tag-rag, M. B. waistcoat, chasuble and hatband, Hic, hoc, humbug vocativo. MIDDLE AGE. I. JusT a little dowly I sit alone to-night, And see on the far horizons verge the line of pale gray light, And hear the mystic music, the deep unceasing roar, As the restless billows swell and break along the level shore. II Just a little dowly as I know the hill is turned, And what of all the glorious things for which my spirit yearned, While yet the eager footstep sprang along the upward way My dreams lie shivered at my feet, and my hair is turning gray! I Just a little dowly, fool that I am, een still! Because all beauty as of yore my heart and eyes can fill; Because the grandeur of the sea I prize as truly now - As when its breezes blew bright curls front an unwrinkled brow; Iv. Because a high heroic act; because sweet poet- words, Bright poet-fancies, echo yet back from my spirit-chords; Because my love is warm and frank; because my pulses hold Their whilome power -~ I half forget that I am growing old. V. Till, just a little sadly, some trifle brings it all Sweeping across my sunshine, turning my wine to gall; And anxious thoughts, and fearful doubts, and yearning sorrows come: Ah, little fear that Times stern voice should over-long be dumb! VI- Just a little dowly ah, come my bonnie balms; Let Grief, and Loss, and Memory brood oer their rising cairns! Creep close to me, my maidens; laugh out my noble boy! God spare my flowers, and middle-age claims fearlessly her joy. S. R. r. Punck. Tinsleys Magazine

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. No. 1245. April 11, 1868. CONTENTS. PAGZ 1. Church Parties: Past, Present, and Future Contemporary Review, 67 2. The Friendship of Jonathan. By Dr Guthrie Sunday Magazine, 81 3. All for Greed. Part v Saint Pauls, 85 4. Phineas Finn. Part v 96 5. The Peers and their Position Spectator, 112 6. Hindoo Conservatism 114 7. The Muratorian Canon Saturday Review, 116 8. Sir Walter Scott and the Dies Irm . Spectator, 120 9. David Garrick Saturday Review, 123 10. Mr. Plurnptre London Churchman, 127 POETRY: Mother Country, by Miss Rossetti, 66. Tom Noddys Lament, 66. Sleeping in Church, 84. Unter der Linden, 95. Three 1~eetings, by the author of John Halifax, ill. Hear! Hear! 128. To My Nose, 128. BRowNLows, by Mrs. Oliphant, has been published at this office, price 37 cents. Sent by mail, prepaid, for that price. Preparing for Publication at this Office LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of Nina Balatka. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER By Mr. Trollope. OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE. By Edward Garrett. A SEABOARD PARISH. By Geor,,e McDonald. PEEP INTO A WESTPHALIAN PARSONAGE. Jtrst Published at this Office THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. 37 cents. THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu.. 50 cents. OLD SIR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 75 cents. SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE. New Edition. 50 cents. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. Foa EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publislsers, the Living Age will be punctually for- warded for a year, free of postege. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second 20 50 Third 32 80 The Complete Work, 96 240 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. 66 MOTHER COUNT1LY.TOM NODDY S LAMENT. MOTHER COUNTRY. OH what is that country, And where can it be, Not mine own country, But dearer far to me? Yet mine own country, If I one day may see Its spices and cedars, Its gold and ivory. As I lie dreaming It rises, that land: There rises before rue Its green golden strand, With its bowing cedars And its shining sand; It sparkles and flashes Like a shaken brand. Do angels lean nearer While I lie and long I see their soft plumage And catch their windy song, Like the rise of a high tide Sweeping full and strong I mark the outskirts Of their reverend throng. Oh what is a king here, Or what is a boor? Here all starve together, All dwarfed and poor; Here Deaths hand knocketh At door after door, He thins the dancers From the festal floor. Oh what is a handmaid, Or what is a queen? All must lie down together Where the tnrf is green, The foulest face hidden, The fairest not seen; Gone as if never They had breathed or been. Gone from sweet sunshine Underneath the sod, Turned from warm flesh and blood To senseless clod, Gone as if never They had toiled or trod, Gone out of sight of all Except our God. Shut into silence From the accustomed song, Shut into solitude From all earths throng, Run down tho swift of foot, Thrust down tho strong; Life made an end of Seemed it short or long. Life made an end of, Life but just begun, Life finished yesterday, Its last sand run; Life new-born with the morrow, Fresh as the sun: While done is done for ever; Undone, undone. And if that life is life, This is but a breath, The passage of a dream And the shadow of death; But a vain shadow If one considereth; Vanity of vanities, As the Preacher saith. CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. Macmillans Magazine. TOM NODDYS LAMENT. Ata I Cannot Sing the Old Songs. I CANNOT eat the old horse I rode long years ago; Im sure my teeth would fail me, And foolish tears might flow. For bygone hunts come oer my heart With cuts from round and side, I cannot eat the old horse On which I used to ride. I cannot eat the old horse, For visions come again Of glorious meets departed, And runs in soaking rain. But perhaps when raging hunger Shall set its band on me; I then may eat the old borse, And hope hell tender be. Peach. CHURCH PARTIES. From The Contemporary Review. CHURCH PARTIES, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. THE saying ascribed to Lord Chatham,* that the Church of England had a Popish Liturgy, Calvinistic Articles, and an Armini- an clergy, was, like most epigrammatic state- ments, the exa,,geration of a truth. It is historically true that the Prayer-Book rep- resents, for the most part, the element which we have inherited from medimval Latin Christendom, that whenever any tendencies to move Romewards have shown themselves in the history of the English Church, they have worked primarily through the cuitus which the Prayer-Book sets forth, and been defended in things external by its rubrics, and in matters of doctrine by the language of its formularies. It is not less true that, though the phraseology of the Articles may have more affinities with the Confession of Au,,,sburg than with any of the doctrinal statements of the French or Swiss Reform- ers, they have upon them the stamp of that theology which found in Calvin its ablest and most logical exponent. It was true, lastly, of the clergy of Chathams time, that they, in the antagonism of their theology to the Calvinism of Dissent, and in the hatred of Popery which they had inherited from the Revolution of 1688, might be popularly described as Arminian. Actually, indeed, the points at issue between Calvinists and Arminians, Supralapsarians and Sublapsa- rians, the old battle-ground of the Quin- quarticular controversy, were rather laid on one side altogether, than debated with the eagerness which gives birth to party action. To the supercilious judgment of the states- man, perhaps to many of the clergy, Wesley and Whitefield, Law and Toplady, any teachers of earnest evangelical religion would have seemed equally Calvinistic. What characterized the great body of the clergy of that time was rather a popular, un- theoretical Pelagianism, a non-emotional re- ligion, a non-afsthetic cultus, the assertion of mans power to will, of the inalienable prerogatives of conscience, of the authority of the faculty which was known by various names, as right Reason, the Moral Sense, the Light of Nature, and the like. On this ground, chiefly, it opposed the Calvinism which, under Whitgift and Abbot, had once been dominant in the Church of England, as inconsistent with * The saying has been often quoted. I confess myself unable to verify it in what I know of Lord Chathams speeches, letters, or life. man s conceptions of the moral attributes of God. But the characteristic feature of Chat- hams epigram is, that it treated the Liturgy and the Articles as dead and obsolete, things belonging to the past, decaying and wax- ing old, and ready to vanish away. They were there, remnants of a by-gone age, in glaring contrast with whatever was living and energetic in the actual teachers and representatives of the Church. The one thing that did not enter into his calculations was that the two elements which seemed to have lost their power should start up into a new vitality, prove themselves to be not dead but sleeping, sweep away almost or altogether the so-called Arininianism of the clergy, and divide them into two hostile camps, watching each other with suspicion and distrust, sometimes breaking out into acrimonious bitterness, sometimes entering on the pitched battles of legal prosecutions. So, however, it has been. High Church and Low Church, Anglican and Evangeli- cal, Ritualistic and Protestant these names bear witness of a strife which, far from be- ing extinct, waxes fiercer and hotter every day. Prayer-Book and Articles are each represented by large and active parties, bound, of course, theoretically to acknowl- edge both, and to prove their agreement with each other, yet each also striving, con- sciously or unconsciously, to subordinate one to the other, to make the most of what- ever fits into its owts system, to i,~nore, or pass over lightly the inconvenient passages which bear testimony to that of its oppo- nents. And to these two great parties there has been added of late years a third, which may be said roughly to represent the Arminian clergy .of Chathams aphorism. Theoreti- cally, indeed, the chief leaders among those to whom some one in an evil hour gave the nickname of the Broad Church * party, are as far as possible fror~ symbolizing with the scholastic technicalities of Arminian theol- ogy. They, too, leave it on one side, or fling it behind them with a contemptuous apathy. But so far as they represent the spirit of private judgment in opposition to Church authority; of critical inquiry into Scripture and its sources instead of a prac * The phrase appears,recognised as already cur- rent, in an article on Church Parties, by Mr. Cony- beare, in the Eclleburgh Review for Oct., 1853, and beyond all question acquired through that article a wider and more lasting notoriety. Attention had, however, been drawn to the rise of a new School, likely to be a formidable competitor with the then dominant Tractarianism, by the present Bishop of London, in the Preface to his University Sermons, published in lS~6. 67 CHURCH PARTIES. tical acceptance of its infallible authority as it meets us in the English version, and a theoretical assertion of its infallibility in the original; of a religion predominantly ethical in contrast with one chiefly emotional, or dogmatic, or liturgical, they answer to many of the thinkers and scholars of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries whom Chat- ham had in view. They are the heirs of Chillingworth and Hales, of Tillotson and Burnet, of Baigny and Butler, of Clarke and Paley, if we may include foreign theo- logians in the list, of Grotius and Le Clere. The existence of such a party introduces a new complication into the problem. There is the risk of divergence in three directions till the body is rent asunder. There is the risk also of the combination of any two of the factions in order for a time to triumph over, and, it may be, expel the third. All such classifications, however servicea- ble for purposes of rough analysis, are, of course, only approximately accurate. There are, let us thank God for it, very many who cannot be well classed with any party, and who yet (or therefore) do their work fhith- fully and loyally. There are affinities which draw together those who are labelled as an- tagonists. The influence of free and open speech, and friendly meetings, brings out latent sympathies that were hardly dreamt of. The moderate Churchman and the moderate Evangelical are often as near each other as are the Liberal-Conservative and the ConservativeLiberal. A section, at least, of the Evangelical school, has been more or less faithful to the principle of free inquiry. There have been approximations to union, in their common desire for a wider basis than the Tudor platform of the Eng- lish Church, even between High and Broad. And each party, again, let us remember, is seen at its worst rather than its best, in what we have learnt to call its organs and its representatives. The real mas- ter-minds on either side may understand and so appreciate each other, may come into occasional collision, and yet lose no jot of mutual admiration and esteem; but the followers, the journalists, the frothy talkers, exaggerate all differences, and sharpen all animosities. Paul, Cephas, Apollos, may represent but different phases of the truth, phases conditioned by the inevitable dif- ferences of education, temperament, mental constitution. It is by the men who cry I am of Cephas, and I of Apollos, and I ot Paul, that Christ is divided and the unity of the Church imperilled. One who has never been able to attach himself to the ranks of any of these parties, or to use its Shibboleths, who shrinks more and more from the organized action which characterises their movements, and who yet finds much to reverence and sympathise with in all three, may perhaps be permitted to note what it is that he admires in each, what it is that keeps him from joining any one until it becomes other than it is. A position of comparative isolation, if it bring with it many drawbacks, the loss of the sense of strength in belonging to a compact body, the loss of influence over many whom one would gladly reach, of apparent and even real opportunities for good, brings with it also the compensation of a judgment, which, if it be erroneous, is at least not em- bittered, which may fail through igno- rance or unconscious prepossesion, but is, at least, not swayed by personal or contro- versial antipathies. Such an one may hope to do justice to those who are arrayed in hostile ranks, even where they are least able to do justice to each other. He may render to each the service of helping it to see its own defects, and to recognise the merits of its opponents. The words of the great Epicurean poet * might speak but of a lofty selfishness: Suave marl magno, tur bantibus requora yen- tis, E terifi magnum alterius spectare laborem. * * * * * * Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri Per campos instructa, tu~ sine parte pen- There may be a terrible temptation, an in- tellectual voluptuousness, in the sweetness of which he speaks : Sed nil duilcius est bene quam munita tenere Edita doctnina sapientum templa serena, Despicere nude qucas alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palanteis qunrere vital. But one who stands apart from the battle may at least interpose the friendly offices of a neutral hetwe~n the two belligerents. One who, in seeking the via vitce, has not travelled with this crowd or that, may be able to see, though on no loftier eminence than others, that those who look upon each other as hopelessly lost, ignorant and ogt of the way, are yet in it, and to direct the notice of each to the points where it has turned aside from the straightest or the easiest way, and to the snares and pitfalls that beset it. I. It hasbeen too much the fashion with superficial writers of the opposing schools to * Lueretius, ii., 110. e~8 CHURCH PARTIES. depreciate the character of the Evangelical party, and the services which it has ren- dered to the cause of English Christianity. It is represented not seldom as a party all but effete, wanting in intellectual power, having no hold on the minds or affections of the great body of Englishmen. I believe that an impartial survey of its history and present state would lead to a very different conclusion. Faults there have been, faults there are, which are sapping its strength, mistakes in principle or policy which have threatened its vitality, but as a whole, its results may challenge comparison on many grounds with those of any party in the Church. it would not be easy to fix the date when the school in question could be said to have begun its organized existence. The Puritan tradition, though it had been thrust out vio- lently by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, though discouraged alike by the churchman- ship of Sancroft and the latitudinarianism of Tillotson, though retreating into obscurity before the cold morality of the educated clergy, and the coarse Toryism of the uned- ucated squireens who filled most of the coun- try parishes, had never quite died Qut. Leighton, and Bunyan, and Baxter had readers and disciples even among the clergy, and yet more among the middle-class laity. Beveridge, high enough in his churchman- ship on some points, and rich in ecclesiastical learning, might well be recognised as a repre- sentative teacher on most of the cardinal doctrines of Evangelical theology. The movements of Wesley and Whitefield began within the Church, and had they been met with the wisdom which looks before and af- ter, instead of with blind panic or blinder irritation, might have been kept within it as a source of new life and strength. And out of this tradition (I do not forget that they themselves would have ascribed the work to a higher Worker) sprang those to whom we may look as to the patriarchs of the more mod- ern schools; Toplady, and Cowper, and New- ton,and Cecil, and Romaine, followed, scarce- ly a generation later, by Wilberforce and Sim- eon, and those whose lives and characters have beea portrayed so vividly by Sir James Stephen as the Clapham Sect. It is, of coursu, undeniable that the Evan- gelical succession includes but few names of men eminent for the vower which shows itself in Biblical scholarship or philosophical theology. Scott stands almost alone as their great master of exegesis. Mimer is their one ecclesiastical historian, it was true then, as it had been at an earlier time, that not many wise men were called. Human learning, if not formally condemned, was practically disparaged. The Bible, and the Bible alone, was the religion of Protes- tants, and by the Bible was meant the Au- thorised Version, accepted without inquiry as to the history of its contents, or the accu- racy of its renderin~s. The claims of rea- son to interpret Scripture, as any other book, were set aside as impious arid pre- sumptuous. The true interpretation was to be found not intellectually, but experimen- tally, and men were assured, with a vehe- mence which roused consciences and emo- tional natures could hardly withstand, that this experimental knowledge could only issue in the acceptance of the characteristic doctrines of the school. When men, and yet more when women, are told that they are lost, unregenerate, unco~iverted, unless they believe this or that dogma, the result in most cases (those excepted in which there is the vi~our that shows itself in reaction an(l resistance) is, that they pray to believe, will to believe, in order to deliver them- selves from the misery or, it may be, the disgrace of not believing. It has been, I believe, a great blessing for the Evangelical party as such, and yet more for the millions whom they influence directly or indirectly, that they have had no one teacher of commanding, logical, inexorable intellect. A religion may meet the emo- tional and moral wants of mens nature, may foster many, if not all, of the graces of the Christian character, and yet become startlmn~, portentous, repulsive, if developed philosoph- ically and pushed to its speculative conse- quences. To preach that men are recon- ciled to God by the death of his Son, may come as a message of glad tidings to weary and sin-laden souls; they may accept and rejoice in the thought that the burden of their sins has been removed and that Christ has borne it; and yet the popular theory of the Atonement, the reciprocated transfer of imputed guilt and imputed righteouness, the satisfaction made to the Infinite Righteous- ness which demands the punishment of every sinner by the wrath poured out on the sinless One, the equivalence of sufferings borne by the God-man for a few hours or years with those decreed for the whole hu- man race through the ages of eternity, the seeming antagonism between the stern avenging righteousness of the Father, and the milder, more compassionate purpose of the Son, the forensic justification which is separable in thought and fact from any right- eousness in the justi~led, these, when worked into a system by a keen and logical intellect, issue in conclusions which alike perplex the 69 70 CHURCH PARTIES. questioning minds of children and childlike would have found its escape from the di- souls, and repel those of maturer manhood, lemma in denying that those convictions are who connot reconcile what is offered to them more than misleading phantoms. It would as theology with their deepest convictions of have told us, as its only logical defenders the truth and righteousness of God. So, in have done, that we can form no estimate like manner, the sense of election, of being from the meaning of true, just, by- the object of Divine love, predestined, cho- ing, merciful, when predicated of men, sen, called, sanctified, is doubtless, as the as to what they mean when they are predi. Seventeenth Article of the Church of Eng- cated of God, that we must use them in laud says, full of sweet, pleasant, and un- prayer and worship as men use the titles of a speakable comfort to those who have be- great king in a foreign speech which they fore felt desolate and fatherless, to whom the do not understand, but that they are not love of God has come with a power to meant for us to ponder over and trust in. quicken, and who have looked with joy as They are but regulative formul~ of upon the brightness of a Fathers face. And thought; one might also say, regulation yet, who that has followed the theory of Elec- forms of etiquette. tion,looking before and after, back to the The gr~at body of Evangelical writers immutable decrees, forward to the irreversi- and workers have escaped this danger. Re- ble doom, has not felt misgivings, shrinkings, gardless of logical consistency, they have shudderings~ as he gazed on the abysses that proclaimed election as inviting every man to opened on every side around him? The eter- claim it. They have preached the atone- nal condemnation to everlasting tortures of ment as St. Paul and St. John preached it, the whole human race, except an infinitesi- as made, and that not fruitlessly, for all men. mally small fraction of the visible Israel and They have taught men that the root of per- the visible Church of Christ; the exclusion sonal religion lies deeper than in sacerdotal from eternal life of all the souls who have or ritual acts, or moral actions; that the passed away in unconscious infancy, hap- abysmal depths of personality must feel tized or unbaptized, except the few, un- the, spirit of God moving upon the face of known to us, very few out of very many, the waters, and that there must be a change, though each wailing mother may cheat her- a turning, a conversion of the soul. And if self with the hope that her own darlings are the tree, is to be known by its fruits, the among them; the horri4ile decretum Evangelical party can point to what it ha~ which makes the salvation of the saved, and done within the last seventy or eighty years, the perdition of the lost, equally the result to what it is doing now, as proofs that it of a force irresistible, and irrespective of all has not been altogether barren. To it we human will these are what the doctrine owe the whole work that has been done by issues in when it is brouTht into a system by the Church Missionary and the British and a remorseless intellect like that of John Cal- Foreign Bible and the Religious Tract So- yin or Jonathan Edwards. It is among the cieties; and whatever view we may take marvels of religious history that such a sys- of their machinery, or their teaching, they tem should have been accepted by so large represent, beyond all question, an enor- a portion of Protestant Christendom in the mous amount of zeal, energy, and wealth, sixteenth century as the truest form of which men have devoted to the glory Christianity, that confessions of faith like the of God and to the service of their fel- Lambeth Articles, and those of the Synod of lows, instead of spending it on their pleas- Dort, and of the Westminster divines, should ures or investing it for their profit. To it, have held their ground so long. It has been, in the first instance, we owe also the pem~ I repeat, a gain for English Christianity that sonal activity of laymen and women in v~ it- but few representatives of the Evangelical ing the sick, teaching in Sunday s~ahools, schools have pushed the premises which they helping the clergy in the mechanises of re- hold to these conclusions; that those who lief. Even the Simeon Trust 4whatever have done so have been of the fanatic, un- we may think of the policy of~such an or- cultivated, unreasoning type, not those who ganization) represents an immense improve- might have guided and moulded the convie- ment in the feelino with wliich ecclesiastical tions of lar~e masses of their followers. Had patronage had been previously, regarded. it been otherwise, the collision between It was something gained, that rich capitalists these. dogmas and the intuitive convictions should purchase advowsons, not for their as to the Divine Will, to which men cling in sons or nephews, but for strangers, whose proportion as they rise out of mere brutish- one recommendation was that they were de- ness, would have been more violent and vout preachers of the truth. And the same more inevitable, and Evangelical philosophy zeal, let it be remembered, has ramified in a CHURCH PARTIES. 71 thousand different directions. More than present, apart; but it is right to own that most others, the Evangelical party have the division which now exists has in it hard- shown that they possess that enthusiasm ly any of the characteristics of the guilt of of humanity which, as a phrase, they now schism, and the Evangelical party have shudder at and condemn. To them rightly welcomed all lawful opportunities helped, it is true, by the Liberal party, who for showing that their feelings towards had an enthusiasm of humanity of an- dissenting ministers and dissenting laity other type we owe the abolition of the are those of Christian brotherhood, that slave-trade and the emancipation of our they can in many works make common slaves. The long list of Exeter Hall socie- cause with them. And they have done ties represents money and time and labour well, also, in holding out the right hand of given to the work of saving our soldiers and fellowship, as the fathers of the English sailors from the moral perils to which they Reformation, and many even of the Stuart m~re specially exposed; to that of rescuing divines did, to the Reformed Churches of n~mn and women who were plunged in the the Continent. They hav& not learnt to depths of shame and misery. Refuges, re- find closer ties of sympathy with the de- forii~atories, ragged schools, if not theirs cx- crepitude of the Greek or the corruptions of clusively, have been theirs primarily and the Latin Church than with those who promns~ ently. The City Mission and Pas- were the children of the Germans, the torai Lid Socie ties, sermons in theatres and Swiss, the French, the Dutch, with whom midnigl4 meetings (with whatever draw- our fathers had made common cause in the backs they may be accompanied) have been, I struggle against Rome. With Cosin and at least, n~ble efforts in the great conflict of with Sancroft, no less than with Hooker light agaii\st darkness, and good against and Ahbot, with Cranmer and Ridley, they evil; The ~epresentative leader of all at- did not look on the loss of the Apostolical tempts to rei~edy some of the worst social succession as excluding the Protestant and sins of Englan~, to save women and children Reformed communities of the Continent from the evils of crushing and debasing from the pale of the visible Church, or the labour in factor\~s and mines and agricul- interchange of Christian friendliness. tural gangs, to mvke our treatment of con- And yet it is clear, in spite of all that is victs remedial as nell ~s penal, to keep the, thus worthy of honour in their past and management of theinsmne from falling into present action, that the Evangelical school unfit hands, has beei\ als~ the representative is, as a whole, losing ground; that it does leader of the Evang~lical party. I differ not promise, as it is~ to be prominent as an widely on many points frou the theological element for good in the future history of the opinions of Lord Shaftesbuy; I regret the English Church. The children of Evangel- violence and want of ~ha~ity which has ical parents are seldom faithful to the tra- sometimes characterized hii language in ditions of their fathers; often they pass speaking of other parties~ in the Church; over to swell the ranks of Ritualists or Pos- hut I own that his public life, ~evoted, as it itivists. Whatever temporary pred?mi- has been, with a resolute renNunciation of the nance they may have gained in the Episco- ordinary prizes which tempt oth~r men of pate is too clearly traceable to the influence like rank, to labours such as these, seems to of their leader over the mind of Lord Pal- me almost the pattern life of ar~ TZnglish merston to give much hope of its being per- peer. It would be well if it could provoke manent. They have little power over the others who belong to different schools to a minds of younger men among the clergy, or noble jealousy. at the universities. They are not gaining In yet another respect the school Qf it over the great masses of the people. which I am now speaking has done good And the causes of the failure are not far to service to the cause of English 1 do not seek. shrink from adding, to that of Catholic (1.) The preaching of the clergy of this Christianity. , It has recognized, as far school has been at once pitched in too high a as it could, that in the divisions which key, and too bounded in its ran~re. Assum- have separated so many of our countrymen in~ that the whole work of the preacher was from the English Church, the fault has not the conversion of the sinner, the salvation been all on one side. We are heirs of the of mens sQuls, and that this was to be attained evils of a past age, and the sins of the fath- by setting forth the doctrine of the Atone- ers are visited upon the children. Inherit- ment in its fulness, they have left the wide ed prepossessions on the one side, the tram- range. of Cheistian ethics, one mght almost mels of Acts of Parliament and a cumbrous say the rich treasures of Scriptut-al exege- machinery on the other, keep us, for the sis, comparatively untouched. In the hands CHURCH PARTIES. even of a master mind, intensely earnest, and throwing his whole soul into every ser- mon7 such a course would be subject to the invariable law that passive impresSions, by being repeated, grow weaker, and those who listened to them would grovV cal- lous or indifferent. Satisfied that the work of conversion had in their case been ac- complished long ago, on them the stimu- lant would act as a narcotic, and lull them to an unprogressive, undiscerning slum- ber. But when it comes to be the stereo- typed discourse of men of little culture or spiritual experience, just fresh from a pass examination at Oxford or Cambridge, or from a theological college; when from year to year there is but the substance of one sermon, whatever may be the text; when the preacher goes on semper eandem ca- nens cantilenam, the natural, inevitable ef- fect has been that of stunted intellectual and moral growth; at the worst (perhaps rather at the best, for here there is, at any rate, a sign of life), of irritation, repulsion, scepticism. (2.) It has been the weakness of the Evangelical school to ignore, more or less completely, the influence of art on mens religious life. Holding, and rightly holding, that there is nothing elevating and purifying to man, or acceptable to God, in a merely iesthetic worship, they have taken any arrangements which they found, have looked only to the accommo- dation of a large number of hearers at the lowest possible rate, have acquiesced in, if not introduced, the arrangement which places pulpit, reading-desk, and clerks dit- to, in an unlovely prominence in front of the communion-table, have set their faces against choral services, surpliced choirs, processions and processional hymns, floral decorations, and the like. Trusting to the continuance of emotions which in their na- ture cannot continue, they have forgotten the importance of associating the thought of worship with joy, beauty, brightness ; of enlisting, as far as may be, the willing ser- vices of men, women, and children in min- istering to its completeness. As their pre- decessors under Elizabeth and James shrank with horror from the Surplice as a rag of Popery, so they have shrunk fr6m or shuddered at anything beyond the sur~ plice, or at the surplice itself, if carried in- to the pulpit. So far as their objection to the latter practice had any iiinaning at all, it implied (not, of course, that they intend- ed such an inference), that they thought that teaching and worship ought to be dis- sociated from each other, and that the preacher should appear in his chatneter as an academic, and not as a minister of the Church of Christ. And so, in many cases (I gladly acknowledge a mar~ked improve- ment of late years both as to the architect- ure of the churches they have built and the choral element of worship), their cu1tw~ has been heavy, flat, uninviting; and those whom they did not supply With Wholesonie food have drifted off (I can scltrceiy blame them) in search of something to satisfy cravings which are in themselves natural and innocent, and cannot safely be n~gliecP ed. (3.) At the risk of entering on deli- cate and dangerous ground, I cannot shrink from declaring my conviction thai the school of which I speak has all alo~g been singularly unfortunate in its represe~r- tative organ in the press. That lhey wished for a newspaper which sbould deal with public mAtters on Christian ~rinci- ples, which should exclude the pruriz~nt de~. tails of crime and the chronicle f vices and dissipations hardly lou offensvd; that they were not satisfied thirty fears ago with the Times for daily, or the Jo/in Bull for weekly food, this is every ~-ay to their ci~edit, but the result has Sho~n~ how hard it is to be religious in l~ading articles to order; how much easier it to minister to the passions and preju4ice*, yet more, per- haps, to the timidity,of a ~eligious party. The representative cfgas thus set on foot has been conspicuous chiefly for its abseDee of candour, manliness, and generosity. There is hardly a (listinguished thinker or Worker in the Church whom it has not worried and deAourced. It has exaggerat- ed whatever ~f narrowness and prejudice it found withia tha ranks of its party, and stirred them to a perpetual policy of sus- picion and alarm. It has done all it could to keep ojien and to widen the gap be- tween Evungelical and other schools. The appearan6e of a penny paper set on foot by the same party, unless it indicate, as it may do; their desire to have some better representative than the Record, does not augur well for any closer approach to unity. What then are the hopes, what the policy, ~hat the probable future of the Evangelical party? No one who looks at the work which it has done and is even now doing, would wish to see it deprived of its due place and influence in the counsels of the English Church. Even those who were furthest re- moved from Mr. Gorhams peculiar paradox might legitimately rejoice in the decision which saved the Church of England from a probable disruption, and rescued at least one- third of its clergy from the alternative of ac- cepting the formularies of the Church in a 72 CHURCH PARTIES. sense repugnant to their reason and con- science, or taking up a position of sectarian- ism. But the risk which they then ran ought to have taught them a lesson which they have been slow to learn. They have yielded once and again to the temptation which the present tripartite division of the English Church presents to men who calculate on party combinations, and fight with carnal weapons, to coalesce with one section of their opponents against the other. When mens minds were agitated by Essays and Re- views, they joined with Dr. Pusey and his followers in the protests and declarations which issued in a prosecution, forgetful of the fact that no criticism or exegesis in that volume could be more at variance with the apparent meaning of the formularies of the Church of England generally than their view of baptism and absolution from the lan- guage of the B~raismal Service, and that for the Visitation of the Sick. They are now taking advantage of the popular middle-class antipathy to Ritualism, to organize a pros- ecution at the cost of 50,000 (that, at least, is the amount named for the guarantee fund), against incense, lights, and the so- called elevation of the sacramental ele- ments, * forgetful of~ the fact that no ex- cesses on the side of ritual can be more di- vergent from the letter which they press than their own neglect and non-observance. Their wisdom, we believe, would be to preach, write, in every way proclaim what they believe to be the truth, and to abstain carefully from all such coalitions and prosecu- tions. The greatest risk which lies before them is the possible success of the party which five years ago they joined, in their movement in Convocation, and Congresses, and Conferences, for a new Court of Final Appeal in Spiritual Causes, consisting wholly or chiefly of bishops and divines. Should such a court ever be established, it may be questioned whether their position in the Church of England would be worth ten years purchase, and they might then regret that they had alienated those who, in all pre- vious crises, had pleaded for the cause of freedom. But there is also the risk of a struggle of another kind. The action of a Reformed Parliament in matters ecclesiasti- cal may be quicker and sharper than men imagine. There may be a struggle between the maintenance of any national religious in- stitutions an(l pure voluntaryism, between any form of Christian education and pure * The question of vestments, it must be remem. bered, 18 not even raised in the St. Albans ease. Do the promoters of the prosecution acknowledge their legality? secularism, and they may then be glad enough to welcome the co-operation of those whom they now seek to drive from the Church, even though they should still wear chasubles, and burn incense, and have lights upon their altars. But if the Evangelical party, as such, can escape the ban which falls on those who learn nothing and forget nothing, they have still a great work to do, and may do it so as to be a blessing to the Church and nation. As yet the phase of Christian truth presented in their teaching is the only one that has been found to exert any strong influence for good over our sol- diers and our sailors, our navvies, and our roughs, and they may find there a rich harvest yet waiting to be gathered, or go on sowing that others may reap after them. They may bear their witness, in ways far more eloquent than the five-days orations of counsel, against a sensuous and Roman- ising ritual, against a perverted sacramental theory, against an unscriptural sacerdotalism. They are strong in numbers, wealth, influ- ence. If they would accept, as indeed many are accepting, from one school something of its ardour in the interpretation of Scripture and of all that illustrates it, and from another something of its love for beauty and order, and colour and brightness, as accessories of worship, and from a third its earnestness in dealing with the great social evils of our time largely and systematically, it may yet renew its youth as the eagles, and the latter days be better than the former. II. The High Church party (I am reluc- tantly compelled to use these nick-names), if we think of it as distinguished from the so-called Ritualists, is conspicuous, at pres- ent, as being, though not, it may be, the most numerous, yet the loudest, the most energetic, the most organized. The motto, in quietness and in confidence shall be yourstrength, which was its watchword in the earlier days of the Oxford movement, has long since been forgotten, and every thing is done by Caucuses and Committees, and all the machinery of public agitation. It would be idle and unjust to forget that they too have the standing-ground of pre- scription in the English Church; that the principles which they profess were promi- nent (though with a larger mixture of Cal- vinism than they would willingly accept) under Elizabeth and James, ran a headlong career and had a headlong fall under Char- les I., and rose again, rabid and rampant, at the Restoration. The secession of the Non- Jurors after the revolution of ~688, on purely politico-religious grounds, weakened the party within the Church. Old Angli 73 CHURCH PARTIES. canism passed into an easy-going Erastian- ism among Court divines, or subsided into the Church and King ~ and three times three of country squires and rectors. Doubtless here and there, as Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble have told us, the traditions of Anglo-Catholicism were kept up, and the seed sown which was afterwards to bear fruit with such unexpected productiveness. The exciting cause of the movement which has had such wide issues, and is likely to have yet wider, was the triumph of liberal- ism in the Reform Bill.* The leaders of the party looked on this as inaugurating a series of revolutionary attacks on all things sacred. In the bill for the suppression of some Irish bishoprics they saw the commencement of an Atheistic policy, and heard the foot- falls of the coming Antichrist. The inter- vention of the Committee of Council on Na- tional Education, even the abolition of sla- very in the West Indies, were part and par- cel of the same Godless system. It was time to blow the trumpet in Zion, and the trumpet accordingly was sounded. The Tracts for the Times were issued. It is not difficult to trace the causes of the success which the movement had during the first ten or twelve years. Much, doubtless, was due to the indescribable influence of personal character, to the sort of fascination which John Henry Newman exercised on those who came in contact with him; the guilelessness which had the effect of guile, or guile which had the effect of guileless- ness; the touch of hand, the glance of eye, the tone of voice, which riveted their hearts and bound their intellect to the subtle spell. But there was much in the teaching of the school which was attractive both to higher and lower natures. It transformed the un- reasoning antipathy to the middle-class dis- senter, which the sons of country gentlemen and clergy brought with them, into a reli- gious duty. It offered those who craved for something more than an emotional individu- alism in religion, and were yet afraid of Popery, the appearance, at least, of histori- cal continuity, of fellowship with distant ages and remote Churches, of a unity which corruptions and schisms might impair, but which they could not utterly destroy. It gave men the sense, always more or less ennobling, of a corporate life, of belonging to a visible society for which they were to live and work. It led many, for the first time, to the thought of self-conquest, self- denial, as a law of life. The leaders of the movement were men thoroughly in ear- * Comp. Newmans History of my Religious Opinions, pp. 33, 34. nest, as waging war with deadly foes, and cared little for the msthetic decorations which have since become so prominent. On what eloquent prelates have recently described as the coruscations of a stream of molten metal flowing thrice-purified from the furnace, Newman, as with an impatient contempt, flung the epithet of the gilt-gin- gerbread school, and for a time it stuck.* The secession of many of the leaders of the party to the Church of Rome, which seemed at first to threaten its existence, was eventu- ally an element of strength. It freed them from the dangerous influence of men of genius whose course cannot be calculated; it left them to the~ guidance of men of ste- reotyped convictions, who repeated the axioms of a theory when those that had built it up confessed that it had broken under their feet, and whose line of action could always be predicted. ii~ooking to the work which the clergy and laity of this school have done both before and since the great defection, it is but simply just to acknowledge that they, too, may point to works which entitle them to our warmest gratitude. They have been munificent in building churches and schools, in the sup- port of all distinctively Church societies, in the extension of the colonial episcopate. They have aimed at a more systematic peni- tential discipline for the fallen; at the revival of sisterhoods, which are, with whatever drawbacks, at least protests against worldli- ness and frivolity. They have done much to make the worship of the English Church hearty and real, to clothe it with a decorous brightness. They have done much, also, to counteract our tendency to a self-satisfied insularity, by stretching out their hands to the Churches of the East. There is some- thing to sympathise with even in their wish to fraternise with Western Christendom, in their acknowledgment that. the light of Christian truth was not wholly extinct even in the Dark Ages; in their refusal to treat the Latin Church as simply the home of Antichrist and the dwellino of the Beast. They have, lastly, added lai~ely and richly to our hymnody and devotional literature. If much of the latter seems to a healthy taste morbid and un-English, if the extent to which the system of the confessional has been carried seems to us fatal alike to true manliness and true womanliness, we can yet acknowledge that it is but the exaggeration of a much-neglected duty. * The word was applied to the portions of the Ilomish ritual which have since been most eagerly reproduced, in the British Critic for 1840, quoted in the History of my Religious Opinions, p. 127. 74 CHURCH PARTIES. But the school, both in its wider action, and in the more extreme forms which have within the last three or four years become conspicuous, has many weak points in its system, and has made many fhlse steps in its action. It has treated the great work of the Reformation as an unlucky episode, a limb badly set, which must be broken before it can be set rPiht ao~ain; spoken and written as if the Anglican reformers were martyrs either for an opinion which was itself heretical, or through sheer stupid incapacity to perceive that their teaching and that of the Church of Rome were sub- stantially identical. It has left the Protes- tant ground of faith, and set up in its place the vague, uncertain standard of Catholic consent and Church authority, ~ undisputed general councils, and a stream of patris- tic writers. It has carried its sacramental and sacerdotal theories to the extent of practically denying all trace except through ecclesiastical ordinances, all forgiveness of sins except through priestly absolutions; unchurchin~ all Christian societies that are wanting in the continuity of a so-called apostolical succession, leaving English Dis- senters, and Scotch Presbyterians, and for- eign Protestants, to uncovenanted mercies. In its more advanced sections, it has adopted all that it can adopt of the pre-Reformation system: dresses, acts, gestures, have been resuscitated after a lapse of three centuries, with the avowed purpose of symbolising a do& rine which also belonged, in the judg- ment of most. English theologians, to the dogmatic system of the Middle Ages, and was deliberately rejected by our Reformers. It mattered not that congregations were offended, that Bishops disapproved, that the legality of the usages was at least question- able. They were adopted and maintained expressly because they were symbols of medimval doctrine, because they were a de- fiance of popular and episcopal opinion. And the spirit which led to this defiance has shown itself; also, in determined anta~o- nism to the State. The sovereignty of law, the supremacy of constitutional tribunals in matters ecclesiastical, has been denounced with a parrot-like repetition as mere Eras- tianism. In the repeated attempts, at the risk, of varying and contradictory decisions, to obtain a new Court of Final Appeal in which clerical influence shall be dominant, or to establish a voluntary Court side by side with that which alone the Constitution of England recognises; in the manifest eagerness with which the snapping of every link that brought the colonial churches of the Anglican communion under the same system as the national Church itself, has been hailed as an augury of freedom; in the strange, hot haste which has turned the consecration of a bishop into something like a Fenian conspiracy, needing the vigilance of ecclesiastical detectives; in the fierceness with which men have fought against the shadowy grievance of the Conscience Clause, and so hastened the growth of a system of secular education against which the acceptance of that clause would be the best, if not the only safeguard; in all this we may trace a feverish restlessness, a vain attempt to put back the hands of the clock of Time, a reactionary policy which is to the Christianity of England what Ultramonta- nism is to the Christianity of the Continent. If in its more moderate phases its represen- tatives in the press as the Guardian, the Christian Reasernbrancer, and the Ecclesias- tic have been characterized for the most part by modera ion, reverence, and culture, its more recent developments and its cheaper organs have shown an absence of those qualities even more conspicuous than that of the worst moments of the Record. It may seem a legitimate conclusion from these premises that one who holds them should urge the measures of repression in which some seem to find the one pathway of safety. To prosecute Ritualists on every debateable point of divergence from common usage, and when thai experiment fails, or before it is fully tried, to pass an Act of Parliament for the purpose of restraining or expelling them ; to occupy the time of the Lords and Commons of England with de- bates on the pattern of a surplice or the colour of a stole, this may appear to many the policy of a true statesmanship, the test of a true Protestantism. I own, with whatever reluctance, that even when it springs from a natural and noble anxiety to protect the peace of the Church against those who trouble it, I see little prospect of any such measures being successful; that the temper which clamours for them seems to me to be too often that of panic, irritation, unwisdo~n. It profits but little to drive in the external, eruptive symptoms of disease, while the disease itself remains unhealed. You may restrain, by pains and penalties, those who find in vestments, lights, incense, gestures, the witnesses to what they hold as the truth of the Real Presence, but if you leave the doctrine itself unquestioned, you do but tempt them to a more explicit asser- tion of it in words, and a more subtle in- veativeness in the art of evasive interpreta- tion. It will be difficult for the most ac- complished jurist to draw up an antiritual 75 CHURCH PARTIES. ist .A~ct of Parliament through which a ritu- aiist pleader will be unable to drive his proverbial coach and six. * And if you make your assault upon the doctrine itself, then, over and above all the evils which at- tend the discussion of such a question in the hands of paid advocates, you are risking, on the one hand, failure, and, on the other, the disruption of the Church of En,land. You are, at least, trying to abridge the liberty of speculation in a region where, within very wide limits, short of a formal, as distinct from an inferential, acceptance of the dog- ma of Transubstantiation, it has hitherto been nIb wed, where logical clearness and clear definition are all but unattainable. When men once begin to brood over the spiri~uai presence of a bocl~,, they may be pardoned if they sometimes lose their way in the labyrinth of metaphysical, cobwebs spun out of the subtleties of schoolmen. It is hard to visit them with severer measures than those which we apply to men whose divergence from the tone and temper, from the letter and the spirit, of the Prayer- Book is unquestionably far wider. What we need in such matters, and at such a time, is to enlarge instead of narrowing our list of adiaphora. Ascertain, if you will, what vestments or ceremonial acts are lawful, but if any hitherto unusual are declared to be lawful, let us refuse to recognise them as badges of a party, and they will soon cease to be valued because they are so. If a dozen cler~ymen of well-known Evangeli- cal or broad proclivities were to appear in chasubles and birettas, the gloss of those * Three methods for settling the difficulty have been proposed. (I.) A simple repeal of the rubric under cover of which most of the changes identified with the word Ritualism have been intreduced, as going hick to such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof as were in th~ Church of England by the authority of Parliamentin the sec- ond year of King Edward the Sixth, might seem to cut away the ouly ground upon which they have beeu defended. But if this were all, then there would be absolulely no legal direction whatever as to the apparel of tue clergy in Divine service. We should be thrown back upon custom or upon ihe Canons, and, as neither of th.ese have the authority of an Act of Parliament, prosecutions to restrain offenders would be more instead of less difficult. (2.) If it is thought that, without this repeal, any ease in which a dispute has been raised between a clergyman and any of his parishioners should be re- ferred to the decision of a bishop, there conies a dilemma froin which it is not ea y to escape. Either he is to decide, as a judge weuld do, accordin, to what tue law actually is, not according to what he w uld wish it to be; and in this case, in the extreme -uncertainty which surrounds the whole question, he may have to sanction, against his will, some of the practices which are most objected to; or else be is to he intrusted with the dangerous power of setting the law aside to meet his own views of fitness and expeidieney. In either case there is the risk of great diversity of usage in different dioceses, of irritat. lug intetference in one with practices which are tol- erateid, oreven encouraged, inatiother; of the waste garments in the eyes of ritualists would soon be gone, and before long we should see them falling back upon the safe simplicity of the surplice. If such an experiment seem too bold or too ludicrous, it might surely be within the limits of a wise forbearance to treat the glorious apparel of the gilt gin~ gerbread school as among the tolerabiles ineptiffi, which it is not worth while to fight about. Either course seems less hazardous than that of a prolonged and costly litiga- tion, not unlikely to fail of its purpose, or an abortive attempt at a legislation de mtns- mis in a reformed House of Commons, and by way of interlude to a Bill for the sup- pression of the Irish Church Establishment. Above all, too, we. have to bear in mind that the inevitable effect of all repressive measures of this nature is to encourage the type of tame, routine mediocrity, to dis- courage the nobler and more heroic, more saintly forms of excellence. Surtout, point de z~te, may be a fit motto for a secular diplomatist. It is hardly fit to be the watchword of a true statesman, still less to be the guiding principle of any portion of the Church of Christ. And if we want zeal, we must be coEtent to accept it as we find it, with more o~ less of the impul- siveness, exaggeration, want of discernment, which are its almost inevitable accompani- ments. You cannot get it to order, how- ever desirable the union may btv~ combined with a given per-centage of moderation apd discretion. The men who have beenprom- inent in the work of what is called the Catholic Revival have shown, for tiac of a bishops time and energy in discussing the most trivial ceremonials. His pastoral functions would be almost merged in those of an arbiter elegan. tiarurn in matters of ecclesiastiCal millinery. (3.) Should the failure of these methods suggest, as the one way of cutting the knot, an Act enacting that the white surplice, the black stole, the academic hood, should be all that men should wear, questions without end mi,ht still be raised. Whet is a s5er- puce ~ Must it be of stout linen or fine lawn, down to the knees or down to the ankles, ti,ht or loose, with or without pattern in the texture, with or without borders, w n over a cassock or over coat and trousers I . And what colours are permissible in these under-garments black only, or Oxford mix- turs, or shepherds plaid, or bishops purple? And hpw is the stole to he worn over one shoulder or-both, with or without fringes or ornamental symbols I And what are the limits of variation as to the slse, and colour, and mode of wearing the hood l Here, too, there might be room for start- ling diversihies of tint and texture, for an approxi- mation to the dress of a past age or an alien Chhrch. Unless we legislate specifically from the crown of a priests head to the sole of his foot, or nail, not a bed, but a surplice of Procrustes in the Jeru- salem Chamber as an invariable standard, we are all at sea again, and shall be driven to fail back on that trust in the effect, in the long run, of pubi e opinion, andin the good sense and feeling of the clergy, thetemporary loss of which is now driving us upon prosecutions and Acts of Parliament. 76 CHURCH PARTIES. most part, that they had this zeal as their characteristic. They have taken a course which exposes them to the fi~owns of bishops, to the disfavour of most patrons, to the in- suits and outrages of well-dressed or ill- dressed mobs. They have been content to throw themselves on the sympathy of those who were like-minded with them. They have stripped themselves, wherever they could, of the secure income of pew-rents, and with no endowments, or miserably small ones, have trusted to the fluctuating receipts of offertories. Self-will, the love of notoriety, the pleasure of defying a bish- op, or resisting the aggrieved parishioner, may, if you will, have mingled as secondary motives in much that they have done. But there remains, after all deductions, a resid- uum of courage, zeal, devotion, which how- ever misapplied or wasted, is in itself worthy of honour. It had been well (most English Churchmen will confess it now) if those in high places had done something more than they did towards retaining Wesley and his followers within the Churchs pale, in spite of what was then called their dangerous enthusiasm. The future historian of the nineteenth century may wonder at the lack of power to discern the signs of the times which made its rulers eager to legislate for the suppression of a vestment, or the expul- sion of its wearers, while its judicial courts were throwing wide the gates of doctrine, and ~iving an almost unrestrained license in criticism and exegesis. G maliels coun- sel -has been worn so threadbare as a quo- tation, that it seems almost a platitude to refer to it, nor can I say that the case seems doubtful enough to be judged by such a standard. I find a more suggestive warn- ing in another incident of the same period. The Jewish priesthood also had then a vest- ment question which pressed, they thought, for a decision. The Levites claimed, and the priests resisted their claim, to wear a linen ephod. The strugglo went on for years. It was settled at last in favour of the claimants by the authority of the second Agrippa. Within a few months more the Temple in which priests and Levites minis- tered was a heap of blackened ruins.* I cannot, for one, bring myself to believe that if the Refbrmed House of Commons enters at all upon the task of legislating for the Church of England, it will confine it- self within the narrow limits of Lord Shaftes- burys or any kindred bill. I can hardly bring myself to wish, believing, as I do, that if men do not alter them for the bet- * Josephus, Ant., xx. 8, 6. ter, time alters all things for the worse, that we should transmit for two or three generations more, and carry into all lands, without change or revision, the Prayer-Book and the Articles, which bear, in every page almost, traces of the traditions, controver- sies, compromises of the Tudor and Stuart periods traces, one must add, of obvious haste, and want of elasticity and variety. Our Lectionary, our Rubrics, our Order for Morning and Evening Prayer, our reading of the Psalms, our occasional Services all call with more or less urgency for a revision. which shall give them greater life and elas- ticity, and make our worship at once less monotonous and more intelligent. And if as yet, in the discords and confusions that belong to the period of transition in which we live, the time for the greater work seems not fully conte, it will be at least our wis- dom to contemplate and provide for it as a necessity which must inevitably be met, rather than by partial and premature action to accelerate a crisis, arid, possibly, a dis- ruption. Those who believe that there is any real danger of the predominance of Ro- manism, or even of so-called Sacerdotalism, among us, until men have passed through a more fiery struggle, and seek, after it, the narcotic of repose at any price, must be strangely blind to the signs in the heavens, and deaf to the mutterings of the coming storm. Left to itself, without the stimulus of prosecutions, commotions, popular out- rages, threatened legislation, the Ritualist movement will either collapse altogether, or leave, as its contribution to the Churchs life, some new element of strength and beauty. The Sacramental and Sacerdotal theories, of which the Ritual is the expres- sion, will take their place with all other ex- aggerations of half-truths, having borne their witness that man does not live by bread alone, and has other needs than those which are satisfied by any political organi- sation or merely intellectual culture. 111. There remains the third school. I have said that its accepted nickname was~ given to it in an evil hour. I will add that less than either of the others has it any claims to the praise or the censure which attaches to the party character. On the one hand, it has done no great work, es- tablished no conspicuous institutions, sel- dom acted with any concert or organisa- tion, and then in no wide scheme of be- nevolence or devotion. On the other hand, it has not descended to the debasement which so often attends on party action, has kept its bands clean from the taint of personal calumny, has been ready to ac 77 CHURCh PARTIES. knowled~,e the good which it found on either side. I believe that this is, in many Ways, the position which those who are la- belled as belonging to this school should be content to occupy, that they will be unwise if they attempt to change it for greater ac- tivity and more effective combination. It is every way good that there should be many men who see the falsehood of ex- tremes and keep their heads cool, when others are excited into panic and passionate irritation. It is well that they should be content to work with the machinery which they find in Church and State, in societies and parishes, modifying, expanding, improv- ing, as they have opportunity. So acting, they may render good service, as they have rendered, in checking the violence of party action, and maintaining, even, it may he, widening the Church of Englands limits. But if they were to appear with a cry to go to the country with, to assume the char- acter and adopt the tactics of a party, their work would be, I believe, simply mischiev- ous. They have, no bond of union but the claim for freedom of inquiry, and that free- dom may issue in widely different results. Whatever combinations for defence may have been forced upon them when freedom was threatened in their own persons, are in their natdre simply temporary. In the few instances in which their action has been aggressive, the result has been disastrous. They have done rash and reckless things for the sake of showing that they are free, and so caused the panic of which they nar- rowly escaped being victims. They held Bibliolatry to be the fons et origo of all evils in English Christianity, and so they appeared in the character of iconoclastic reformers, exaggerating or inventing diffi- culties and inconsistencies in the Book which Christendom has accepted as the gift of God. Their contributions to the study of the Bible have left on many minds, unin- tentional as the result might be, the impres- sion that it was not worth studying at all, ~except as containing the literature of~ an an- cient and interesting people. But apart from any such immediate consequences of single acts, what I lay stress on is that the principles which they hold in common are too negative in character to enable them to do any effective work as a party in our na- tional or eciesiastical life, however great the service that may be done by individuals. Were the changes and chances of that life to give them a momentary predominance, the history of the Girondists would probably repeat itself. They too would be swept away by a torrent of religious Jacohinism against which they would struggle vainly. The Broad party of the Church would prove to he the pioneers of Positivism. Confining ourselves to what has been done by those who are thus described, as individ- ual writers, we cannot doubt, I believe, that they have rendered great service to the in- tellectual and religious life of England. They have filled up the gap which the other parties had neither the will nor the power to fill. The best commentaries, the best dic- tionaries of the Bible, the best histories of the Church, the fullest and most vivid word- pictures of sacred places, are all due, with hardly an exception, to those who, as being neither High nor Low, Ritualist or Evan- gelical, must be classed with this school. From the days of Dr. Arnold onwards they have been prominent in the work of educa- tional progress, breaking through the tram- mels of prejudice and routine, and seeking to compel every time-honoured institution, every misused endowment, to contribute its maximum of good towards the great work of making the civilization of England purer and more humane, and therefore more Christian. They have, for the most part, been prominent in the endeavour to redress social wrongs, to bridge over the widening chasm which threateiis to divide class from class. Thej have shown more than most others their belief that Christian men may find in political life a nobler sphere of action even than that of being distributers of aln~s, or acting on committees of religious societies. They have kept, and, we may hope, will yet keep, the Church of England from stagnating in self-satisfied ignorance and sluggishness, or lap sing into an obsolete Medimvalism, or stiffening into a narrow Puritanism. But with these manifold excellences, there are also defects which may not be passed over. As yet hardly one of those of whom I have spoken has shown any power of so speaking as to awake a responsive echo in the hearts of the millions of ignorant and poor with whom English Christianity has to deal. Men of culture themselves, they re- quire culture in their hearers. There are no books, sermons, pamphlets, tracts, be- longing to this school, which find, like those of the Evangelical school, their twenty or thirty thousand readers. As yet they have made but scanty contributions to the hym- nody or devotional literature of the Church of England.* Earnest, eloquent, noble as many of their words have been, kindling a * Here, too, it is simply just to note the names of the Deans of St. Pauls and Canterbury as excep- tions to the general statement. 78 CHURCH PARTIES. responsive glow in the hearts of those like- minded with themselves, they have failed to reach the hearts of the millions round us even more than those of the Evangelical or Medimval parties have failed. Men have kit the need of something more than even the noblest aspects of Christian ethics, something more than the most vivid pic- tures of the pattern life of Christ. The characteristic defect of the teaching of the school has been, that in its bearing on the conscience it appeals to the sense of imper- fection and infirmity, rather than to that deeper misery which attaches to the thought of sin. It trains the soul which as yet is in average health to run the race and to fight the battle of life, but it fails to come to the help of those whose limbs are weary, or who lie naked and wounded after the conflict. It may stir men on to high endeavours, and teach them a scorn of baseness ; but the souls of those who hear, if roused at all, feel that they have a witness within which brings a far sharper accusation, and a bur- den from which they seek to be delivered, which that teaching does not seem to touch with one of its fingers. To men who have gone, or are going, through the conflict be- tween light and darkness, life and death, ethical teaching, however lofty, narrative of scriptural facts, however graphic, is but as parmaceti for an inward wound. They crave for the message, Thy sins be for- given thee, which reaches them in different forms and through different agencies, from the Evangelical and Sacerdotal schools. The old words, sacrifice, atonement, justifi- cation, are necessary to meet their wants, to sustain their life. It is, I believe, for this reason a matter for rejoicing that the chief positions of in- fluence which the representatives of this school have hitherto attained, have been chiefly educational. This has indeed been the natural result of their generally higher culture, and wider knowledge, and greater sympathy with the spirit of the age. But it has also put the right men in the right place, and given them the work for which they were, and the others were not, fitted. A school on the principles of the Record would tend, in the first instance, so far as it was successful, to the intellectual narrowness of Puritanism. Whole regions of literature would be looked on as tabooed; science taught with a perpetual distrust and fear of going too far; boy-nature would be forced by hot-house culture into a precocious spir- itual experience, sometimes hysterical, some- times simulated lines of demarcation would be drawn between the converted and the unconverted. The minds of some among them might be wrecked for life by brooding over the dark mysteries of Gods election. A rigid Sabbatarianism would crush the elasticity of boy-life, or develop those who were not crushed into censorious Pharisees. A school on the principles of the Ghurch Times, on the other hand, would, as far as it succeeded, na~turalize among us the features of the Semin~Pist type of character. What we note now chiefly in boys who have had no good school-training, and come under the guidance of ritualist clergy, would then he seen on a larger scale. The practice of con- fession, not as the medicine for special dis- eases of the soul, but as part of its diet and habitual training, would sow the seeds of the very evils against which it was meant to guard, and fill the mind with ever-recurring spectral horrors, which a healthier system would seek to counteract by influences that are to the sick soul as fresh air and bright sky are to the diseased body. The souls of those so trained would learn to think that the one sufficient and indispensable condition of forgiveness for themselves and others was the priests absolvo te. The ritual element of religion would receive an undue prominence in their thoughts. The last new pattern of chasubles, the correct colour for a stole on the Festival of St. Agatha, the proper angle of inflection at the Doxology, the last exposure of the igno- rance and Erastianism of bishops in the weekly organs of the Church party, would be the prominent topics of conversa- tion in such a school-room. And in either case there would, sooner or later, be a reac- tion. Driftings to Rome, to Positivism, to practical or speculative Atheism, would be the natural outcome of systems which were in different ways inconsistent with a culti- vated mind and with healthy manliness. For boy-life on the other hand, for that of those who are passing out of boyhood into the work of life, the teaching of the third school is likely to be at once strength- enin~ and attractive. Its high ethical tone, its appeal to wide, far-reaching laws of duty as distinguished from the stress laid by oth- ers on this or that positive commandment, the extension of its symapathies beyond the limits which others have marked out, its fearlessness as to the result of critical or sci- entific inquiries; all these will give, as they have given it, an influence over the edu- cated youth of England which brings with no light responsibility. They have be- fore them the golden opportunity of a nohlc 79 CHURCH PARTIES. work. They are exposed to many special dangers which may lead to their letting it slip. (1.) As the first and chiefest of these per- ils I note once more the tendency to give an undue prominence to the merely negative aspects of their teaching. They find the minds of men bowed, as they believe, with a false reverence before the dogma of the infallibility of a Book, or that of the author- ity practically treated as infallible of the Church. They look upon that rever- ence as idolatrous, and they rush, as I have said, into the opposite extreme of a rabid iconoclasm. They write essays, reviews, treatises, commentaries, which seem to have but the one aim of showing that the Bible is full of erroneous statements, and the date and authorship of its books uncertain. They seem sometimes only able to assert their new-won freedom as Caliban asserted his. I do not say that this has hitherto been the characteristic of the represcntative men of the school, but it tends to be more and more that of the rank and file, of the more hot-headed and reckless men among the leaders. Those who wish it well, and see in its existence a ground of thankfulness and hope, must wish also that it should remem- ber that men cannot live upon negations that it is the work of Christian teachers to build up rather than to destroy. Let them, if they choose, assume the fallibility of the Bible and of the Church; but if they retain sufficient reverence, for the former to believe that it contains the truth which is the founda- tion of the latter, it should be their task to bring out and to proclaim that truth., rather than to parade with an offensive ostentation the inconsistencies in matters of fact, or modes of thought, with which it seems to them to be accompanied. (2.) Though in a less degree than is the case with others, the men who are popularly classified as of this school are liable to the incapacity of recognising excellence in those who differ from them. Their very latitudi- narianism may make them narrow; their very zeal for tolerance, intQlera~t. They may be tempted to catch at opportunities of party combinations, to employ the machine- ry of prosecutions or legislation to harass or expel the antagonists who for the time seem to them most formidable. They may fail to see that they are wanting in what gives the others a command over mens af- fections which they themselves as yet have but seldom gained. If they could bring themselves to sympathize, not only with efL forts after moral greatness and the assertion of intellectual freedom, but with sin-stricken and contrite hearts, they might then preach Christ and Him crucified with a power all the more mighty and victorious, because of the freedom with which it would be asso- ciated. If they would remember that affec- tions, imagination, even the perception of beauty of form, colour, sound, all enter into worship as well as the intellect in its cold and clear serenity, they would welcome and adopt (so far as the Churchs law and that of the nation permitted), instead of opposing, whatever has given life and beauty to the ritual which they condemn. They would accept even chants and processions, sym- bolic acts and symbolic colours, architecture in its noblest forms, painting and sculpture, flowers and banners, as accessories of devo- tion. (3.) In the national crisis through which we are passing, there are two great ques- tions in ~vhich they, more than members of the other schools, have it in their power to exercise an influence for good. Ignorance and pauperism, the startling forms of which reveal themselves in colossal and ever- increasing proportions whenever we look below the surface of social life, these are what we have to deal with, and they need to be dealt with, as the author of Ecce Homo has reminded us, on no narrow or sectarian principles, but also on no principles that are at variance with the mind of Christ. To grapple with these evils as men who neither on the one side forget the laws of all human society, nor on the other of that special so- ciety which He came to found, who can bring forth out of their treasures things new and old, tied neither to the traditional palhiatives of the two great evils, nor to the nostrums of empirics, this is the work on which they seem specially called upon to enter. If the advancing democracy, which seems, in some form or other, inevitable, is not to pass into utter and reckless anarchy, it must be Christianized, and their very sym- pathy with it and with its struggles may en- able them to reach, through this agency, those who have proved impenetrable to more di- rect appeals. Lastly, if those who are thus ticketed and labelled wish to avoid the fate of other par- ties in past ages or the present, let them shun, as they would the taint of pestilence, the un- clean element of party organization. The worst enemies of the Broad Church school could not wish for it a more evil destiny than that it should attach itself to the agency of Caucuses and Committees, to an unscrupu- lous propagandism, to cheap oyans in the newspaper press. In every such action, it must be repeated, the worse and not the 80 THE FRIENDSHIP OF JONATHAN. better elements are prominent, and the worse elements of this school would probably be far more evil than those which we have already witnessed in the others ; just because it would be more difficult to distinguish be- tween the destructiveness of a cynical unbe- lief and that of an over-zealous display of freedom. Whatever excellence attaches to journals which are associated with this school now, belongs to them because they repre- sent the minds of independent thinkers, not the action of a party. What future lies before the Church of England, or before the English people, we can but dimly guess. Changes of political organization, of social order, of ecclesiastical arrangement, of religious conviction, may be impending, of the magnitude of which we can form no conception. But whatever comes, each of the parties within the Church, with all its errors, and half-truths, and pas- sionate prepossessions, has, I believe, a work to do, and should be helped, not hindered, in doing it. The time for antagonism or re- crimination is surely past. We waste our strength in fighting old battles over again, as a kingdom divided against itself. There are evils round us greater than Romanism, greater than Ritualism, greater than Ration- alism, and against these the word of the Lord calls us to fight, even when it comes from the lips of the apostles of unbelief. The trumpet which summons us to that bat- tle gives no uncertain sound. E. H. PLUMPTRE. From The Sunday Magazine. THE FRIENDSHIP OF JONATHAN. BY THEEDITOR, DR. GUTERIE. MANY friendships traceable to near neighbourhood, a common playground, the same form at school, some accidental meet- on a road or in a room spring from trivial eircumstances. Growing strong only with the progress of years, they resemble our streams which, though at length swelling into rivers, are at first but tiny rills feeble in their beginning, and springing from mossy wells, of obscure and humble birth. It was not so with Jonathans friendship. It finds its type in those rivers, the Rhine and Rhone for instance, which, fed by exhaust- less snows, and springing into light in lofty re~ious, high above the sea to whose (listant shores their waters wend, are rivers at their LIVING AGE. VOL IX. 322. birth bursting from the icy caverns of Al- pine glaciers in full, impetuous flood. It had its origin in a very memorable event, and on one of the most notable days in the whole history of Israel. The peasant had left his plough in the furrow, the fisherman his boat on the lake, the shepherd hi~ flock to the care of boys and women and gathering from the hills of Bethlehem, and the shores of Galilee, and the remotest ends of the country, its best and bravest sons had mustered to its defence. With Saul at their head and their fathers swords in their hands, they have set the battle in array against the Philistines in the valley of Elam yet shrink from it. They are appalled. A giant who stalks forth day after day into the valley that divides the op- po~ng hosts, and challenges Israel, and blasphemes Israels God, hasstruck the bold- est ~vith terror. No lingerer at home in such a crisis, no coward, but distinguished as much for his bravery as for his rank, Jonathan was there and I can fancy how his heart was ready to burst with vexation, how he chafed and fretted, as, slowly ~e- treating before the steps of this terrible an- ta~onist, he obeyed his fathers orders, and yielding to the dictates of prudence de- clined Goliahs challenge refusing to fling away his life in such an unequal contest. Grieved at the insults cast on the arms of Israel; trembling with anxiety for his fathers life and crown wounded to the heart by the blasphemies of the uncircum- cised Philistine often withdrawing from the bustle and distractions of the camp to seek on his knees light and help from God, and cry to Him, in his despair of any from man, ~ How long, 0 Lord, how long! Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: as smoke is driven away, so drive thou them away as wax melteth be- fore the fire, so let the wicked perish in the presence of God; with such feelings I can fancy that of all the eyes that day turned on David, Jonathans watched him with the greatest agitation. What astonishment and admiration he felt for the gallant stripling! what anxious prayers he put up on his be- half, as he saw him, clad in a shepherds garb, his heart armed with faith, but his hand 6nly with a sling, step out boldly from the lines to accept the challenge to bring away the giants head, or leave his own to feed the fowls of heaven! The stone sped on its fatal errand. Gohiah falls; and with a shout that rends the air, Israel hails the conqueror. And when the striphing, so young and yetso brave, crowned with such 81 THE FRIENDSHIP OF JONATHAN. honour and yet so modest, so full of love to his country and piety to his God, advances to lay his bloody trophy at the feet of Saul, Jonathans whole heart flows out to him; he becomes at once the object of a deep and deathless love. It came to pass, to use the beautiful language of Scripture, that, when David modestly replying to Sauls question, Whose son art thou? I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite, had made an end of speaking, the soul of Jona- than was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. So their friendship began; and its continuance, under the most adverse circumstances, was even more remarkable than its commence- inent. The friendships are few that survive years of separation; the shock of conflicting in- terests; the drain made on our old affections by new claims; the trials they are put to by infirmities of temper, by plain dealing with faults, by. a manly independence, by re- quests refused, by favours unrequited, by the rivalries of business, by the partisanship than springs from creeds or politics, and by a thousand other nameless circumstances. Fragile as the flowers the winter frost traces on our windows, there are friendships that a breath will melt away. It may be very wrong and very pitiful, but, ns the wise man says, a whisperer separateth chief friends; and who lives long lives to see so many, like leaves the frost has nipped, fall off, and the ties which friendships had lbrmed, so often and sometimes so easily dissolved, that he comes to read with little astonishment, and no great sense of exagge- ration, the words of one who, describing his relationships, said, Though the church would not hold my acquaintances, the pulpit is lar,.,e enough to hold all my friends. Happily, there are friendships that stand the test of time and the severest strains; but among these, what poet or panegyrist has recorded with glowing pen one to be compared with Jonathans? It is quite unique; remarkable as his fathers stature when Saul, shrinking, as great men have done, from an, ofilce of reat responsibility, hid himself among the stuff, and, directed by God where to find him, the people ran and fi~tclied him thence: and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward; and Samuel said, See ye him whom the Lord hitth chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? The words of th9 poet may be justly applied to Jonathan, - None but himself could be his parallel. For example, men will praise their friends, but how few are generous enough without jealousy to hear others praise them, at their expense, in eulogiums they feel to be dis- paraging to themselves. There is no passion more natural to us, man or child, than jeal- ousy. Seehow it broke out against David from the lips of his own brother! Indignant at the striplin,, for talking as if he would meet the giant, and carry off the palm from his brethren and all the host of Israel, Eliab sharply rebuked him, asking, Why camest thou down thither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart. And who that knows his own heart will refuse some sympathy to Saul for taking offence however unjustifiable his way of expressing it at the disparaging comparison in the song of the maidens when dancing before David, they sung, Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. We wonder not at Sauls offence, but at Jonathans generosity. The song that grated so harshly on his fathers ear, stirred up nor envy, nor jealousy, in him. Rejoicing in anothers honour, he hailed the rise of a sun that paled his own star; and thou,,h, as Sauls eldest son, standing next the throne, Jonathan was content to be second to the good, brave ,gal- lant shepherd, who had gone forth in the name and strength of the Lord to shut the mouth of the blasphemer, and peril his life for the safety of his country and the honour of his God. Then see what severe trials this friend- ship endured; and enduring, triumphed over. Sauls gloomy, eye fixed on David, the jave- lin he hurled to pin him to the wall, the aries of his soldiers echoing from the rocks as they hunted the fugitive from cave to cave, and hill to hill, not more illustrat- ing the words, Jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, than the friendship of Jonathan did those which follow, Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. Happier in his eldest son than David in Absalom, than many fathers, and most kings. in theirs, Saul had a pious, most noble, brave, and dutiful son in Jonathan. XVhat piety, for example, in the words he addresses to his armour-bearer, when, pointmn~ across the gorge to a garrison of the Philistmnes, he proposed, single-handed, to attack it, saying, Come and let us go over; it may be that the Lord will work for us: for there is no restraint to the Lord, to save by many or by few? What exploit in the annals of war braver, or so brave, 82 THE FRIENDSHIP OF JONATHAN. as that which followed when, scaling their xocky fastness on his hands and knees, he leaped headlong among a swarm of Philis- tines, and, receiving the battle on his single shield, mowed them down like grass before the scythe? Thus gloriously broke the day on Israel filling the hearts of her warriors with courage for the coming battle; but, like many that rise with dawn of brightest promise, it had nearly set in the deepest gloom. The victory is won; but at what a price! His father has made a rash vow; and he now requires that Jonathan shall die. It was hard to part with wife and children, hard to leave the world in the flush of life and the very hour of victory, yet he submits himself to the lathers will. Baring a bosom seamed and scarred with wounds suffered in that fathers cause, he stands ready to receive the strok a sac- rifice to filial piety; and had fallen, but that the people, brandishing swords red with the blood of the Philistines, broke out into open revolt, and throwing themselves before Saul, said, Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation for Israel? God fbrbid: ns the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground. So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not. The reed that bends its head to a breath of wind, and the old grey rock which with- stands the hurricane that strews the plain with trees and the foaming shore with wrecks, are not more unlike than Jonathan where his own interests, and the same Jonathan where Davids interests were con- cerned. Such was the depth and power of his affection for his friend. Here neither Sauls entreaties, nor anger, nor violence could move him. He would part with life to please his father, but not with his love for David. When Saul, to the astonish- ment of the host, proposed to sacrifice his son to a rash and wicked vow, Jonathan neither made resistance nor remonstrance like Him whose divine i~iendship his recalls, he was dumb, opening not his mouth. But when Saul threatens Davids life, he refhses ubedience, and becomes the advo- cate of his friend; in words replete with affection, a . pious spirit, and unanswera- ble arguments, he pleads with his father; he remonstrates with him, saying, Let not the king sin against his servant, against David, because he has not sinned against thee, and his works to theewarcl have been very good; for he did put his life in his hand and slew the Philistine; and the Lord wrought a great salvation for all Israel; thou sawest it, and didst rejoice; wherefore wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause? Saul makes many attempts to awaken Jonathans jealousy, and kindle in his sons bosom the hatred that burned and raged in his own. But they are vain. Nor does he succeed any better when all his pent-up pas- sions burst forth in volcanic fury on discov- ering that l)avid, the object of his hatred,I to be the successor to his throne. In that discovery he flatters himself he holds a spell of power to turn Jonathans love into the. bitterest hatred, and raise all the devil in his son. There was no devil to raise. The dreadful secret is revealed; but whatever pain it inflicted, whatever struggle it cost, whatever tears it wrung from ~Jonathans eyes, it kindles no bad passions in that pious, generous, and loving heart. If piety is shown by a regard to God and a childlike submission to his sovereign will, by taking up our cross and denying our- selves daily that we may follow Christ, by saying, like Jesus himself, as he took the bit- ter cup of our sorrows from his Fathers hand, Father, not my will, but thine be done, what finer example of this grace than Jonathan? David is to supplant him; David is to enter on the honours and fortune he expected to enjoy; and out of the ruins of Sauls house David is to build his own; yet Jonathan ceases not to regard him with una- bated and the tenderest affection. For this his father loads him with i~rucl reproaches; and borne away on the foaming torrent of his passions, insults the very name and memory of his mother; calling him the son of a rebellious and perverse woman. But these reproaches like the javelin his mad hand hurled at his son are all in vain. Jonathan leaves the presence of his father to seek David, and warn him of what was no longer doubtful, his imminent danger. With what affection they meet; with what bitter sorrow and loving vows they part; tender as brave, they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded; and Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever. Once again they met. It was in the wood of Ziph, and prob- ably under the cloud of night. There, strong in faith and clinging to the hope of better days, Jonathan sets himself to comfbrt the friend of his bosom. Fear not, he says to David, for the hand of Saul, my father, shall not find thee; and thou shalt be 83 SLEEPING IN CHURCH. king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and so, neither of them anticipating that this was to be their last meeting on earth, they parted never to meet more; Jonathan to leave behind him a name sacred to friendship, and enter, ere long, through a bloody passage into welcome rest; David to mourn his loss, and cherish Jonathans sweet memory, and lay on his grave the finest wreath ever bedewed with tears and woven in honour of the dead. Tender as a woman, and yet true as steel, overflowing with generous kindness, utterly devoid of selfishness, trusting as much as he was trusted, with a heart that reflected Da- vids as face answereth to face in water, Jonathan was the paragon, and perfect pat- tern of a friend. Many a fond lie has been written on tombstones; and with all their good qualities magnified by the tears through which we gaze on them, the dead appear fairer, dearer, and better than they ever seemed in life; but Jonathan was altogether worthy of this grand eulogium The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen I Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philis- tines rejoice, lest the daughters of the un- circumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely, cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives; and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. flow are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! 0 Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! SLEEPING IN Cuuncs. They woud scarcely believe him when he told them that, when in Thurso some time ago, he on one occasion saw six hundred people asleep in church. [Speech of Dr. Gutherie.] OEa their devoted head, While the law thunderd, Snugly and heedlessly Snored the six hundred. Great was the preachers theme; Screwd on was all the steam; Neither with shout nor scream Could hedisturh the dream Of the six hundred. Terrors to right of them, Terrors to left of them, Terrors in front of them Hell itself plundered Of its most awful things, Weak-minded preacher flings At the dumhfounderd. Boldly he spoke and well; All on deaf ears it fell; Vain was his loudest yell Volleyd and thunderd; For, caring the truth to tell Neither for heaven nor hell, Snored the six hundred. Still, with redoubled zeal, Still he spoke onward, And, in a wild appeal, Striking with hand and heel Making the pulpit reel, Shaken and sundered Called them the Churchs foes, Threatened with endless woes Faintly the answer rose (Proofs of their sweet repose) From the united nose Of the six hundred. L Envoll. Snu~IoNs of near an hour, Two much for human power; Prayers, too, made to match (Extemporaneous hatch, Wofully blundered); With a service of music Fit to turn every pew sick Should it be wondered ~ Churches that will not move Out of the ancient groove Through which they flounderd, If they will lag behind, Still must expect to find Hearers of such a kind As the six hundred. 84 ALL FOR GREED. CHAPTER XIV. THE BRIDEGROOM. TIME wore on, the winter passed over, and early in the spring Monsieur de V6ran- cour had been brought to regard as admissible the event which had at first appeared in his sight as so enormously ridiculous ; the pos- sible marriage, namely, of his eldest daughter with Richard Pr~vost. It must not, however, be supposed that this was easily accomplished. F~licie did not find it sufficient to gain one or two isolated battles; she had a complete cam- paign to undertake, and her final victory was due only to her patience and consum- mate good generalship. She never lost her temper and never lost a point; but let what would be the insignificance of her gain of the previous day, she always contrived to add some small gain to it on the following one, so that, in the course of a month or two, by dint of clever treatment, the Vicomte got quite accustomed to his new position, and, in the prospects of her future wealth, consented tolose sight of the fact that his daughter would become the wife of a valet de chain- bres grandson. One thing was settled at the very outset, and that was, that the mat- ter should be kept secret; that no word of the future engagement should transpire; and that not until Monsieur Richard had left D~---, and taken rank in the depart- ment as Monsieur de Ch& teaubr~ville, should he be presumed to have aspired to the hon- our of Mademoiselle de V6rancours hand. What principally (lisposed the Vicointe in favour of the coming mdsalliance was, that, besides the wealth of the bridegroom, the whole proceeding had about it a charac- ter of barter that was serious and satisfac- tory. There was nothing sentimental in the whole concern. All was business-like and full of calculation. Had the unfortunate Monsieur Richard put himself in the light of an aspiring lover, of a man who, for the sake of becoming F6licies husband, would sacrifice every other earthly consideration in life, it is probable that the young lady her- self would have crushed his hopes with with- ering contempt, and it is certain that on such terms the Vicomte would never have consented to accept Monsieur Richard as his son-in-law. But the latter was wise enough to understand this, and he never once alluded to the possibility of his marriage being anything more than a business trans- action. This put all parties at their ease, and made the situation clear and comprehen- sible.. Monsieur Richard, having a very lai-ge fortune, which, situated as he was, could be of no use to him, found means, through the condescension of the V6rancour family, of securing to himself a status in soci- ety, and of being admitted to spend his money among people of birth and rank. This, of course, could not be purchased at too high a rate, and, in fact, Monsieur Richard got it a vast deal too cheap. On the other hand, Mademoiselle F~licie, in- stead of being condemned to lead a life of single blessedness in an out-of-the-way prov- ince, with not enough to live upon decently, acquired the free disppsal of an income much exceeding that of the most fashionable ladies for several miles round. This was as it should be, and there was a sense of fitness in the fact of a V6rancour enjoying a hundred thousand francs a year. The work of renovation and embellish- ment at Chateaubr6ville went on apace, and would have been in an advanced stage of completion, had it not been for poor Mon- sieur Richards health. The winter had been extremely severe, and the unlucky young man had been a frequent sufferer. His lungs were said to be delicate, though the fhct was made a matter of dispute be- tween two rival practitioners; the old doc- tor at D declaring for the weakness of the chest, and a young doctor, lately settled at Cholet, taking the part of nerves, and at most only tolerating the notion of bron- chial susceptibility. But then this new dis- ciple of 2Esculapius was a man who made light of everything, according to the way of the modern Parisian school. It was a won- der he believed in death, some said he called it an accident, and he did not prom- ise to have any success in his provincial sphere. He treated pooi- Monsieur Richard somewhat severely, never called him poor at all, and shrugged his shoulders at those who did. He openly declared that the ail- ments of Monsieur Richard were only lazi- ness and self-indulgence, and told him to his face that he would never be well till he took more exercise, lived more in the air, washed more in cold water, and eat fewer sweet- meats. He affirmed that whatever harm there was, came from the liver and the mu- cous membrane, and that the patients ab- surd mode of life was answerable for the whole. But then this young man, Doctor Javal by name, was of a hard and unkind nature, and did not sympathise readily with people who complained overmuch. It is certain that Monsieur Richards mode of living was unwholesome, but that struck no one else, for it always has been a theory in France, in the provinces above all, 85 ALL FOR GREED. that the amount of pampering a man enjoys should be measured only by the power of paying for that whereby you are to be pampered. Therefore, Monsieur Richard, being rich, was quite right to indulge him- self in every possible way, as he did. The atmosphere he kept up in his room was that of a forcing-house, and when he went out of doors he muffled himself up into a per- manent state of perspiration. He had or- dered down a neat little brougham from Tours, and drove about with shut windows and a foot-warmer, never walking save on the brightest, wariu~ist days, and for very short distances. Warm baths he allowed himself with the approbation of the old doc- tor at DT--, who was forever vaunting their cooling and calming action! And sweetmeats he indulged in te a de,,ree that met with the appropation of no one at all, not even of Madame Jean, who had to make them. Altogether the winter had severely tried Monsieur Richard, and his appearance was unhealthy, as he would sit shivering over the fire in the salon of the Chflteau, where the inmates never attained beyond a very moderate degree of warmth. With all this, his impatience to he in the Kill enjoyment of his riches seemed daily to increase in ardour. He was fretful with de- sire to see the house at Ch& teauhr6ville fit to be inhabited, and would sometimes avow to Mademoiselle F6licie that he counted the days and hours till he should have en- tered upon his new duties as head of one of the principal establishments in the depart- ment. Curiously enough; by degrees, as the state of his health became less satisfac- tory, fortune appeared intent upon favour- ing him more. An enterprise in which his uncle had invested a considerable sum, full fifteen years ago, a copper mine in Chili, and which had been supposed to be an unlucky venture, suddenly turned up a prize, and Monsieur Richard found himself, from day to (lay, far richer than he thought. It was evident now that he would enter upon his proprietorship of Chf~teaubrivi1le with out having to deduct from his capital the amount that the improvements there would have cost. Well, Monsieur Richard was a lucky man! Only it was just at this identical moment that his health gave symp- toms of the greatest weakness. 9 Compensation! said the public of D; and perhaps it was so. Perhaps it woold not have been just if, in addition to his extraordinary good luck in every other respect, Monsieur Richard had had the ro- bust health and solid nervous system of sumc others who have their livelihood to earn. It is a just dispensation of Provi- dence that the possession of great joys and the power of enjoying them seldom go to- gether; it consoles those who have only the capacity for enjoyment without anything to enjoy, and prevents them from cutting their neighbours throats, or their own. But what would most have surprised any English observer, had he had occasion to examine minutely the feelings of the vari- ous persons we have introduced to him, would have been to notice the comparative absence of what is usually called feeling in any one of them. Here was a father about to see one of his daughters take the gravest step that ever is taken in a womans life; here was a girl under twenty about to assume upon herself the responsibilities of wedlock; and here was a man about to give all his worldly ad- vantages for the privilege of calling this girl his ; yet in all this, where was the love? where the sentiment, compared to which everything else is as nothing? Monsieur de V6rancour, amongst all the objections he saw to Fdicies marriage with Richard Pmivost, never adverted to the pos- sible existence of a moral one; never so much as asked himself whether she would be happy with this man, or whether she could be pure and worthy and good; whether, at the end of a few years of such a union, the immortal part of her would be better, nobler than now, or weakened and debased. He simply did not think of any- thing of the kind, because no one that he ever heard of was in the habit of so doing. and because his duty was merely to place, to establish his children ; having done which, he was entitled to hold up his hands to the Almighty, like Simeon, and chaunt his Nunc Dimittis in all confidence. Monsieur de Wrancour was. as times ~o, a very ex- cellent father; and no one in their. senses would dream of demanding from him an iota more than what he was doilig. And P6licie? F~hicie was, according to the worldly morals of France, a thoroughly right-minded person, a person upon whom you could count. This means that all the figures you take the trouble to cast up in relation to her would he found correct; all the calcu- lations you make would be unerring, be- cause you never would have to fear one of those perturbations which are brought about by the ill-regulated, comet-like vagaries of a sentiment. Fihicie was reliable. I will not speculate upon what a lover or even a friend might wish, but depend upon it there is not in all France a father or mother who 86 ALL FOR GREED. would not be full of pride and delight if heaven sent them only such a daughter as Fdicie de Y6rancour. As to Monsieur Richard, the future bride- groom of the fascinating Fdlicie, his nature was too thoroughly feeble a one to bear the strong tree Qf love ; but he was possessed by an unceasing desire to call the girl his, and only refrained from manifesting it be- cause his instinct told him that such a mani- festation would be prejudicial to his interests. One person alone, in this assemblage of eminently reasonable individuals, was un- like the rest, and that person was V6vette. She was a stray flower in this garden of 1)ot-herbs, a wild rose upon the wall des- tined only to foster fruit. Such being the nature of her character and life, Vdvette was not regarded by those around her as altogether safe; and, if she had not been such a very child, she would have been narrowly watched, and made to undergo a due and proper course of training. It was tacitly understood between the Vicomte and his eldest daughter that whenever the latter became Madame de Chateanbr6ville, and was the sovereign mistress of her mag- nificent household, she should take her younger sister to live with her, and do the best she could for her advancement in life. Vdvettes turn, as she had practically expressed it, would then come, and neither Fdlicie nor her father had the slightest doubt of how exemplary it would he on their parts to contrive that that turn should be an advantageous one. The whole of poor little Vdvettes life had been of a kind to mislead her in all her ap- preciations of herself and of others. She had lost her mother too young to have seen, from her example, how perfect a merely loving woman, aiming at nothing loftier, could be; and she was far too humble to imagine that whatever instinctive sentiment she possessed could be otherwise than blame- able. Of course, her convent education had been for her, with her peculiar disposition towards timidity and diffidence, the worst possible education. Convent discipline, the most enlightened as well as the worst, can seldom or never he good for any save the haughty and rebellious in spirit, whom it does sometimes modify, and to whom it teaches worldly wisdom as well as the justice of concession. To the naturally meek and humble, convent diacipline is simply de- struction. It roots up self-reliance and preaches dependence as a virtue, and you 87 may pretty surely predict of a convent favourite that her notions of right and wrong are not innate, but imposed upon her from without. Now, although poor little Vivettes na- ture was too sweet and pure a one to be spoilt by all these mistakes of education, her peace of mind was destroyed by them, and her simplicity of heart perturbed. Whilst in reality all her own native instincts were towards the fair and the noble and the generous, she was driven into being perpetu- ally at war with herself, and into believing that whatever she thought, or wished, or did, must be wrong. On all sides she had heard her sister lauded as the pattern of everything a woman should be, and her own inmost soul, when questioned, told her she could not be like F~licie. It was one of the causes of her love for IRaoul, that, recognising as he did the beauty of her nature, he gave her whether she would or not a kind of trust in her- self. The great cause of the love, however, was the impossibility of avoiding it. They were left to themselves, and they loved, just as it was natural they should do. But this was precisely one of poor V~vettes greatest troubles. From the same source whence she had drawn her piety, her faith in all divine truths, from that same source flowed a doctrine which condemned her to be incessantly at war, with herself. That nature was to be vanquished, and that all Love was a sin, this was the doctrine of her teachers. And what was she to do with such teaching as this? Instead of loving frankly and gladly, and hopefully and strongly, and finding virtue in the truth of devotion, the poor child struggled against what was best an(l noblest in herself, and though with her whole heart she loved Raoul, the innocence of the passion was overcast, and ~she was doomed to the torture of an unquiet conscience, aunl to what was worse still, the knowledge that far from bringing happiness to him she best loved, she, by her own uncertainties atid alarms, brought him perpetual perplexity and pain. But in this little out-of-the-way town of D, events were in store which threat- cued to force the persons we have been at- tempting to describe out of their conven- tional parts into the real characters which has been allotted to them in the grave and serious drama of life. ALL FOR GREED. CHAPTER XV. THE BRIDE. As the domain of Chflteaubr& ville lay at the other side of the department, to the north-east, if you went from ID by the road, it was a good half~days work to get there. The usual manner of performing the journey was to drive over to one of the railway stations on the banks of the Loire, and from thence proceed by rail to the post town nearest to the chateau itself, whence a vehicle could be despatched to meet you. This was Monsieur Richards mode of proceeding, and it had now become his habit, when he went over to inspect his future residence, to pass one night always, and occasionally two or three, at the chateau. It took four hours of tolerably good driving, with a rest of half-an-hour at the half-way auberge, to get from D to the station, and another good hour and a half were required before landing you at the hall door of Chateaubr6ville. The expedition, therefore, was not possible in the short days of winter. But Monsieur Richard was growing very anxious that his future wife should give her opinion upon some of the interior arrangements of what was to be her home, and his anxiety would, if he had dared, have been tiresome; as it was, it was only fidgety, and he was for ever recurring to his fear lest too much delay would be engendered by the want of certain details being positively fixed upon. March was drawing to an end, and the weather had, for the last ten days, been singularly fine, the genial warmth of the sun bringing forth vegetation in what was an exceptional manner even for the soft climate of western France. It was decided to take~ a journey to Mon- sieur Richards new estate, but to take it in a form that should not awaken the curiosity of the inhabitants of D. Monsieur Richard himself was to go over to Chateau- br~ville the day before, pass the night there, and prepare every thing for the reception of the Vicomte and his daughters on the morrow. The remarkable old conveyance which, in the days of the Restoration, had been a cal~che, drawn by two stout perche- rons, was ordered out, and Baptiste, in his time-worn livery, prepared to get all the work he could out of the one aged horse which on such like occasions had the hon- our of transporting the V6rancour equi- page of state from place to place. Why his master and his fitmily were go- ing early in the morning to the N. sta.. tion Baptiste did not guess, which was no wonder, seeing that Baptiste was not bright ;. but the lynx-eyed Suzette, his bet- ter half, did not guess it either, which was wonderful. So the Vicomte and the two girls really did accomplish their journey without all the gossips in D knowing whither they were bent, and the general opinion was that they had gone to see the Miire Sup6rieure of a very famous convent on the Nantes Line, in order to arrange for the noviciate of Mademoiselle V~vette, who was all but certain one day to take the veil. The N station was reached, the down train duly caught, and the party safely set down at the village where Mon- sieur Richard was to be found in waiting. And there he was sure enough, and all four packed themselves into the vehicle he had brought for their convenience; and the big, finely gilt clock just over the vestibule door was striking one when they got out at what was one day to be F6licies future home. The few hours allotted to the visitors they were forced to leave again at a little after five were, as you will easily con- ceive, amply employed by all they had to see. F6hicie proved herself thoroughly equal to the duties of her furure position, and inspected everything as though she had all her life been the mistress of a large house, and reigned over a numerous estab- lishment. Nothing was beyond or beneath her; nothing, in fact, out of her competen- cy. She dived down into the kitchens, and soared up into the attics, authorita- tively decreeing what was requisite for each individual servant as long as he or she was in the exercise of their func- tions for the masters benefit, and how little was sufficient for them when they were consigned to the privacy of their own rooms. She was brilliant on the subject of pantries, larders, and store-closets, and hit upon all the dry corners in which it was best to keep provisions and linen; and in the wash-houses absolute inspiration visited her, and she overturned all the plans which had been adopted for heating the caldrons, substituting for them others which were, as she victoriously showed, far more economical. The architect who had been appointed to meet them, awd who knew nothing of the names of the persons with whom he spoke, was penetrated with admiration of the wise and omniscient F& licie, and could not help repeating at every fresh defeat of his combinations by 88 ALL FOR GREEb. her suggestions Voil~ une petite dame bien entendue! Poor V~vette felt, as usual, thoroughly crushed into nothing by her sisters superi- ority. So did the Vicomte; but then he liked it, which V6vette did not. No true woman can bear to think of herself as fem- ininely inferior, that is, inferior in those qualities which constitute a woman. The decision and practical ability of F~licie overawed V~vette; and feeling that nothing could ever make her emulate her sisters vir- tues, she began to regard herself as useless, i.e., incapable of imparting happiness; and the inevitable consequence was discourage- ment and deep self-dissatisfaction. Poor V& vette! She resolutely admired Fdiicie be- cause she had been told to do so fiom child- hood upwards; but do what she would, she felt she could not like her ways. This visit to Chateaubr6ville was a sore trial for Monsieur Richard, for almost all the arrangements to which he had been consenting for four months were disputed and in most cases changed. Of course, on the alterations made in the inside of the house Monsieur Richard had never given an opinion, he had none, but had allowed his architect to go his owa way, and the architect had aimed chiefly at two things filling his own pockets, and giving to the general aspect of the dwelling a suffi- cient air of richness. In neither of these aims did Mademoiselle F6licie at all acqui- esce, and she made comparatively short work with the bourgeois-like splendour which was about to flaunt from every wall and window of the renovated old place. What on earth has made you think that the panels in this small drawing-room should be gilt? asked she, smiling, but with at the same time an air of such exqui- site impertinence that a spectator must have had a curious idea of what the hus- bands life would be who would daily en- dure such treatment. What is the use of gilding here? It is richer, replied both Monsieur Richard and his architect at once. The elegant Fdicie curled her lip, and used an inexpressibly disdainful accent whilst echoing the word richer! And she meant this as much for her own sire as for Monsieur Richard, for she could not avoid seeing that the Vicomte was every bit as unable to resist the temptation of what was gaudy as was his base-born son-in- law elect. Why, what would you furnish these sa- lons with? she continued, always imper- turbably smilin0, and looking so pretty! Would you hang them with crimson dam- ask? Crimson damask is very handsome, ob- served the architect, rather abashed. Then what is to become of your beautiful old meuble in white wood, and Beauvais tapestry, which is absolutely priceless for any connoisseur? Well, ventured to remark Monsieur Richard, Monsieur and I thought of put- ting that into the rooms up-stairs, and But she quickly cut him short, and laid her law of elegance down, which was mani- festly to be without appeal. No one but parvenus, said she, mercilessly, though in honey-sweet tones, ever put gilding and silk or satin stuffs into country houses. Richness, or even pomp, is all very well for a Paris residence, and in your drawing- rooms in Paris you can be as lavish of gold and crimson damask, within a certain meas- ure, as you choose; but freshness is the no- .tion that ought to be inspired by the aspect of a country abode. Renovate, by all means, the old boiseries of these salons, but keep themmwhat they are; wood, plain wood, white upon pearl grey~ and no gold! for Heavens sake, no gold! Monsieur Richard looked utterly disap- pointed, and as if half his satisfaction in his wealth were taken from him. He pleaded for just a little show, for here and there a patch of garish colouring or of costly ma- terial, and finding no other, he invariably made use of the same argument, and vaunted the richness of what he proposed. A~ainst all the delicate-tinted, though per- hapi a little faded, Beauvais and Gobelins furniture, which Mademoiselle de Wran- cour advocated, he opposed his bran new, gorgeous tissues, of which he lugged about a huge roll of patterns. ~ See how rich this is! he repeatedly said. But it is bad in taste! was the only answer he got, and this answer reduced him to silence. And so it was with everything. What he had thought fair or fitting was not discussed, or superseded by something fairer or more fitting; but the standard by which he could by any possibility judge of its fit- tingness or fairness was not explained to him. lie was put from the starting-point out of the pale of whatsoever was connected with taste And I dont say that, from the artistic point of view, Mademoiselle IXilicie was wrong, for I am tolerably certain that no teaching and no change of habits could ever have given Richard Pr6vost the fine per- ceptions that are requisite to be able to judge the beauty of external objects, just as 89 ALL FOR GREED. probably no mere circumstance would have ever destroyed them in Fdicie. But it was a hard case, for here were this man and this woman about to enter upon a compact to exist side by side during the term of their natural lives, without one single point in their respective modes of life being other- wise than calculated to keep them morally asunder. They went through the house, up-stairs and down-stairs, and every step made it ev- ident how perfectly at home Filicie would be in this fine old mansion when she came to be its mistress, and how no amount of mas- tership would ever make of Richard Pr& yost anything else save an intruder. But though each, perhaps, may have instinctive- ly felt this, neither saw in it anything which appeared like a warning, and the man was as ready as before to buy the wife who would despise him, and the wife equally ready to accept the husband with whom while she lived she could never have one single moments community of thought. They rambled through the gardens and shrubberies, and visited greenhouses and poultry-yards and stables, and here, as in- doors, the captivatin,, F6licie promulgated her dogmas, and put out of the question all attempt at a retort or a counter-objection by the fatal sentence: It is not the proper thing, or It is bad taste. When the time came for going, Made- moiselle F6licie was well pleased with her expedition, and when she stepped into the vehicle which was to take them back to the station, she felt that upon the whole she had spent a pleasant day. Monsieur Rich- ard could not make up his mind as to whether the day had been altogether a pleasant one to him, and for the first time since they had met, the future father and son-in-law cherished a sort of mutual sym- pathy; for they had been equally snubbed by the same person. At the N station who should they meet but the Cur6 of D, who had been sent for by the bishop, and was returning to his parish by a late train. They made him the offer of a fifth place in the venera- ble old cal& che, which necessitated the piti- less squeezing to~ether of the two young la- dies, but thoroughly convinced Baptiste that the object of the journey had really been the convent at which Mademoiselle Y~vette would one day take the veil. It was striking seven when they started on their homeward course, but the old horse, eager for his stables, did his best, and Baptiste affirmed that they should reach D~~ before the four hours usually required would be over. The night was a warm but windy one; fitful, as the finest nights in early spring are wont to be, and after the moon had silvered the whole road before them and the tall trees along its edge, her light ~would be suddenly eclipsed by the dusky veil of some swiftly drifting clouds. We are going through your prdperty here, are we not, Monsieur le Vicomte? asked the Cur6, at; the carriage jolted out of a very ill-repaired by-way into a tolerably smooth road skirted by young woods. No, no; thats none of mine, was the reply. I wish it were. Les Grandes Bruyi~res lie much higher up to the left. We have just come across old Riviisres fields, and at this moment we are entering on Monsieur Richards woods. A valuable property, suggested the Cur6. Humph grunted.the Yicomte. Yes, valuable enough, hut atrociously ill kept, I must say. What can one do? objected Monsieur Richard. It would be the work of an ac- tive stout-bodied man to superintend the cuttings hereabouts. I know that, and old Prosper is assuredly not fit for the post; but if I were to turn him away what would be- come of the old fellow? He is already in a very shaky state of health. More than that even, Monsieur Rich- ard, replied the (3ur6; the man seems to me absolutely shattered; he is so wasted away as to he hut the shadow of himself; and his temper is strangely gloomy. Have you seen him lately? inquired Monsieur Richard eagerly. Not very lately, and you? Oh! I never see him, was the prompt rejoin(ier. When he comes, he sees Mad- ame Jean, or he goes to the notary. Poor old man ! said Y6vette gently; his must be a sad life up all alone there in his woods. XVas he always quite alone in the world? As long as I have known him, always, answered Monsieur Richard. Yes, added the Cur6, and as far as I know, he was always of the same unsociable disposition; a born solitaire, but, after his fashion, sincerely pious. Poor old man I said V6vette again. The carriage rolled and jolted on, and the third quarter past ten was just to be heard from the church belfry as it came up- on the stones at the entrance into ID~. There ends my land, said Monsieur Richard, as he pointed to a steep wooded bank just outside the town which sloped down into the road. Up that little path 90 ALL FOR GREED. you can go on to the very top of the hill and past M. Rivi~res new farm. And straight up to old Prospers hut, added the Yicomte. I know the road well, and take it often out shooting. Theres somebody coming down it now ; just look! It never can be old Prosper at this hour. The moon at this noment was shin- ing very brightly, and gave plainly to view the figure of a man coming out of the little winding path into the road. He was evi- dently about to cross it, but was stopped by the advance of the old horse that was trot- ting forwards under Baptistes whip. He drew up and waited. The carriage passed, and as it did so the moonbeams fell full up- on his face. Why, its IRaoul ! exclaimed Filicie. Nonsense! said her father. IRnouls in Paris doing his office work. Besides, what should he be about in the middle of the night on a lonely path leading only through my woods? muttered Monsieur Richard. I dont suppose he has conferences with Prosper up in his hut. I dont mind that, continued F6licie; it was Raoul. V~vette felt a shudder go through her whole being, without knowing what it was that aifrighted her. CHAPTER XVI. THE LITANIES FOR THE DEAD. A FEW days went by, and it was found to have really been Raoul de Morville whom the V~rancours had seen coming down into the road on the night of their return from Chateaubr~ville. But the way in which this was found out was rather strange, and did not leave a very satisfactory impression. Raoul had called upon the Yicomte, and stated that a sudden illness of his fathers had summoned him from Paris, and that he had obtained a months leave of absence from his office. Old Morville had had a kind of paralytic seizure, and was very weak and ailing; but no one in D had heard of this, lbr little or no intercourse was kept up between the, inhabitants of the town and those of La Morvilli~re. When did you come, Raoul ? asked Fdicie, carelessly. On Wednesday, was the answer. Why, Raoul, was the rejoinder, with a mocking smile, you positively do not know what you are saying. You came on Tuesday, and you have been here four whole days without coming to see us. Oh! dont deny it, for we saw you on Tuesday night coming down into the road by the path lead- ing from the woods. Surely you must have remarked us. You must have recognised Baptiste in the moonlight. Raoul looked singularly annoyed and embarrassed, and at last ended by admit- ting that he had arrived on the Tuesday night, and that, not finding the D dili- gence at the station, he had come on foot, taking a short road across the hill and through the woods. Short road if you will, my lad, ob- served the Vicomte; but its a good fourteen miles walk. And I really cannot think how you came not to see the carriage. The moon was quite bright just then, persisted F6licie. Well, I think I remember that I did see a carriage, replied young Morville; but I certainly did not recognise the man who was driving it. I suppose I was thinking of something else. You must have been deeply absorbed in your thoughts then, exclaimed F6licie; for Baptiste is not precisely a microscop- ical personage, and you have known him ever since he used to wheel us all together up and down the garden in his barrow. Raoul was evidently uncomfortable, Filicie was malicious in her playfulness, and V~vette was miserable, she neither knew why nor wherefore. The whole was un- satisfactory and odd. Every one thodght so, but no one said it. Vivette felt that some harm threatened Raoul de Morville. What might be its nature, or whence it came, she knew not, but the instinct was as strong as it was sure; and from the moment in which this unmis- takable touch of reality came upon her, all the fictions of her education flew to the winds. Raoul was in danger, and now she knew how she loved him. What the dan- ger was, what the harm that menaced him, that she could not define; but in the dread of his having to pass through some hard and terrible suffering, everything else was lost to her sight. She did not stop to discuss whether it was wrong to love thus; she did not ask herself even whether she should ever be Raouls wife; she simply felt that she would risk life, happiness, every- thing, sooner than that harm should come to him. IIaoul had avowed, or rather he had not denied to her, on the last day when they met ; that he had some trouble. What was it? How could she find out? How could she help him? Poor V6vettes experience of life was as limited as that of 91 92 ALL i~oi~ GREED. a child, and all that she did know led her had to settle accounts with the Brigadier, to suppose that no one bad any grief uncon~- who, on market days, was almost always to nected with money. Since she was in ex- be seen in the near neighbourhood of Mad- istence she had always heard talk of money, awe Jean, lending her an importance which and always been forced to conclude from neither she nor those about her disdained. what she heard that the aim of every ones But the sword yields precedence to the life was to keep his own money and add to Church, and Monsieur Fr6d~ri fell back it that of other people. It is true she respectfully when he saw Monsieur le Cure had been invariably taught that the mere approaching Madame Jean. possessors of wealth were to be despised, I wish you would tell me what you and that honour was due alone to good know of old Prosper Morel, were the first birth; but, at the same time, she had had it words addressed by the parish priest to strongly borne in upon her that the well- Richard Pr~vosts housekeeper. As far born were somehow or other to be made as I have remarked, he has been more than rich, and that in their achievement of riches two months without coming to church; for lay the perfect fitness of things. him that is odd. V~vettes mere judgment, then, told her Madame Jean looked the Curd full in the that Raonl was probably suffering some face. Two months! echoed she; why, grievous pecuniary embarrassment; but saving your reverence, I dont believe hes something beyond her judgment, higher put his foot there for for let me see, than it, told her it was a peril of a graver and she counted on her fingers, one, two, kind that threatened him. She half de- three, four, five yes, five, and then she terruined to consuE the Cnr~, but hesitated mumbled, March, February, January, Dc- for many reasons, one of which was, that cember, November five full months. I Monsieur le Cur6 himself was just then not dont believe, Monsieur le Cur6, that old so accessible as usual, but seemed to be al- Prosper has ever been inside the church most out of temper, and to hold converse since the day of the Feast for the Dead. unwillingly with those who sought him. On Impossible! retorted the Curd. Im the other hand. Raoul came but seldom to quite certain Ive seen him since then. the Chateau, declaring that his father took So you may, but not in church. Seen np his whole time; and when he did come, him! Oh yes, so have I, too; but how? Wvettes stolen glances at him were met by Hulking and skulking about, crawling along looks so mournful in their lovln~,ness, that close to the wails, and never speaking to misery and dread entered deeper and deeper mortal creature, but making off if you see into the poor childs heart. What could be him, like an owl with the daylight let in impending? upon him! The Cur6 had remarked that for many But Prosper is a good Christian, urged weeks the Breton woodcutter had neglected the Cur6. Lie never would stay away from attending mass, and though it was not his church in that way. custom either to note down those who re- Madame Jean turned up her nose, and mained away from church, or to think less sniffed the air with a look of something like well of them because they did so, still, the indignation. peculiar character of Prosper Morel, and Church, indeed ! she exclaimed. his strong superstitious tendencies, made it Why, Monsieur le Cure, if one is to be- strange that he should thus absent himself lieve all one hears, the old savage those for a continued length of time from all ccl- bas Bretons are no better has been and ebration of divine worship. built himself some sort of a church or chap- One morning in April Monsieur le Curd el of his own, where he keeps up a psalm- sallied forth after early mass, and took a singing and a howling day and night, just turn through the market-place. It was as if he were a heretic, neither more nor market-day, and all the housekeepers of the less. town and its environs were busy haggling Have you spoken to Monsieur Richard and clamouring over their bargains. Mad. about him? inquired the Cur6 very calm- nine Jean was busier and more authoritative ly, and in nowise allowing himself to be than any one else, for she had the counte- prejudiced. nance of military authority wherever she Well now, really, Monsieur le Curd, went, and woe betide any luckless peasant retorted Madame Jean, where would be woman who might attempt to gain, no the good of speaking to Monsieur Richard? matter how little, upon the weight of what Primo, hes always for showing every indul- she sold, or prevaricate upon the freshness gence towards old Prosper, under pretence of eggs, butter, or poultry. She would have that he was nursed by Prospers wife; ALL FOR GREED. and, secundo, he dont get stronger or bet- ter able to bear worry than he used to be. Hes very weak indeed, is Monsieur Richard, and nobody knows the trouble I have with him only to persuade him to .eat a little wholesome soupe grasse, or a white of a chicken, and not to be always stuffing him~ self with sweets, creams, and jellies, and sugar-plums, that only turn on his stomach nud make him sickly, and shivery, and fractious, just like a baby! And thats what he is, poor Monsieur Richard; for all the world, just like a baby! While Madame Jean was delivering herself ofthisharangue, the Cure had been apparent- ly communing with himself rather earnestly. With one hand shoved into the pocket of his soutane, he employed the other in shifting his black calotte about upon his big head, now bringing it down to his very nose, and then shoving it back to the nape of his neck. Then he suddenly fished up a blue checked cotton handkerchief from the depths of his pocket, blew his nose vigorously, put the kerchief back, rammed both hands into his pockets, said, Bon jour, Madame Jean, rather abruptly, and marched off, across the Place, to the side street which led him up to his own dwelling. A quarter of an hour later, Monsieur le Cur6 might be seen, with his broad-brimmed hat upon his head, and a good strong stick in his hand, walking over the stones to the spot where they cease at the entrance into the town of D. The day was bright and warm, soft and sunny, and though it was only the first week in April, there was green everywhere, that beautiful, delicate green through which the sun shines so pleasantly, and which is so suggestive of youth, the youth of the year. When Monsieur le Cur6 got upon the high road, he suddenly turned to the left, and struck into the little path that led up the bank, and passed, as we have already been told, through Richard Pr~vosts woods. He walked on up the hill till at the top he reached a flat part of the country, di- vided between cornfields and woods; nud skirting a field where the young wheat was just beginning to throw its verdant robe over the brown earth, he plunged completely into the shade of the woods, and made for the plantations of tall timber. in the middle of a clearing, which our pe- destrian soon reached, ten long and tolerably straight alleys met, and a board nailed to the stem of a beech-tree informed you that this was called LEtoile des dix routes. Be- tween two of these forest avenues, and backed by thick towering woods, in which the axe had not been busy for some years, stood a solid, well-enough built woodmans hut. The door was well-hinged, and the window-panes unbroken. All looked to be in fairly good order. This was Prosper Morels abode, and Monsieur le Cur6 went straight up to the door, knocked at it, and got no answer. He tried to open it. It was locked. He examined the two windows. The board serving as a shutter was up at both. Monsieur le Cur6 walked round and round, and called Prosper with a loud voice, but got no answer. All was still, and as Monsieur i.e Curd had had a good stout walk, and bad left home before the hour at which he usually partook of his second breakfast, he felt hungry, and not undesi- rous of a little repose. He seated himself on the log of a felled tree, and took from his pocket a large slice of bread, a piece of cheese, and a book. When he had eaten the bread and cheese, he partook him- self to the book, and read, and rested him- self for half an hour. At last he rose, and looked again on all sides, and called, but still no one came; and so Monsieur le Cure got up. to go home, saying to himself, I can make out nothing that looks like a chapel. He proceeded home leisurely and musingly, and every now and then stopping to take off his hat, and rub his hand over his forehead.. He had got more than half way upon his journey back to D, when he heard what he supposed to be the call of one woodsman to another, or of a shepherd to his dog. He stopped and listened. It was very indis- tinct; but still he heard it again. It seemed to be a good way off, and to come from the part where the woods were thickest. At last he clearly made out that the direction he was taking led him nearer to the souu~ and lie pursued his path, listening, stopping, and then instinctively holding his breath, in order to listen better. The sound was an in- explicable one somethiu~ between a moan and a yell; and as the Cur6 got nearer, he perceived that it was, in fact, a succession of continuous sounds, and that when the louder cries ceased, they were exchanged for a rapid droning sort of utterance, which at first he could not rightly understand. The wood grew very thick as he advanced, and the path very narrow, winding through tangled brushwood and briars, and extremely damp under foot. For a moment or two the sounds had ceased, but the Cure kept on his path cau- tiously, for fear of being heard. Through a break in the bushes he now saw a small open space where the grass grew high, and at one end of which had been raised a species of shed. It was a queer, rude kind of construc~ 93 ALL FOR GREED. tion, thatched with straw, quite open as far as one half of it went, and the other half was rudely and imperfectly closed by very clum- sily made hurdles. The Cur6 had hardly had time to render to himself an account of what he saw, when the chaunting recoin- menced. It was the Litanies for the dead. The droned or muttered parts were the repeated appeals of the actual Litany, whilst the words Libera me! were shouted out with terror-stricken force, and with what was really sometimes a perfect yell. At first the Cur6 could not see the man who chaunted the dismal invocation, for he was seemingly behind the shed, but a few seconds brought him to view. It was old Prosper Morel, who, with a crucifix in his hands, strode round and round the shed, at a solemn measured pace, and as though fol- lowing the procession before Mass on All Souls Day. The wood-cutter was so altered that he looked as though twenty years had passed over him. The flesh had appar- ently dried up, and only wrinkled skin cov- ered the bony structure of the man. The joints seemed absolutely monstrous, and knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, and wrists stood out in huge disproportion to the shrunk and dwindled portions of the frame they held together. The nose was a very vul- tures beak, rising between the two sharp protruding cheek-bones that literally over- hung the hollow cavities where the cheeks had sunk in. But what struck you more than all were the eyes. Naturally enlarged by the shrinking of the flesh from the other features, their balls seemed starting from their sockets. But it was less the glare of the eyes that arrested your attention than their fixity. They appeared invariably to stare at some one object, and the lids did not look as though they could ever close over the eyes themselves. What with his emaciation, and the patched. and tattered condition of his raiment, Pros- per was a grim object as he went stalking round and round, staring through space, with his crucifix clutched with both hands, close to his breast, and chaunting the Lita- nies for the dead. The Cur6 resolved to watch minutely the movements of the man, and his whereabouts, before coming forward to make himself known. Accordingly, therefore, as the Bre- ton went to this side or that, he, too, shifted his hiding-place, going from behind one large tree to another. What he saw was this ; there, where the shed was open, there was visible inside it, and at the back, under the slope of the roof, a sort of chapel. Several large logs of wood piled up together, and covered with a sheet, made a kind of altar, and on this were grouped specimens of most- of the things used in connection with the ceremonies of the Church. There were images of every description, large and small, in wood and in wax; images of the Virgin and of our Saviour, and of various Saints. There were candlesticks of copper, brass, and tin, with tapers in them; and hung all round there were pictures of Holy Families or Martyrs, such as you buy from pedlars and hawkers for .a few sous. The back of the shed was formed by a flat blank wall of planks coarsely nailed to- gether and painted black, on which were drawn in white chalk a most confusing mass of hieroglyphical signs and figures, disjointed words, huge capital letters, verses of Psalms, and uncouth portraitures of human beings. While the Cur6 was busy trying to make out what these extraordinary drawings could mean, the chaunting ceased, and in a few minutes the bficheron came round with heavy, drawling steps, without his crucifix, but with something in his hand which the Cure could not distinguish. his eyes were still fixed on vacancy, and he was muttering a prayer half aloud. He walked straight up. to the blackened wall, rubbed out a string of words and figures with his sleeve, and with what he held in his right hand be- gan to write down others in their place. The operation was a slow one, but by de- grees, as the Cur6 watched, he saw grow under the old mans fingers the phrase De profundis elamavi Just then rang out clearly in the distance the chimes of the church of D, and the twelve strokes marking the hour of noon. This proved to Monsieur le Cure that he was nearer to the town than he had at first supposed. He determined now to try the effect of personal communication, and stepping for- ward from behind the cover of his tree, he addressed the man. Prosper Morel, said he, coming straight up to the bficheron, what is it you are doing here? The old man sprang back with an agility you could not have imagined to belong to him, and then suddenly, as it were, collapsed altogeth- er, and fell down at the root of a tall syca- more, huddled up, and with only his two arms stretched out to their utmost length, as though to ward off some attack. Prosper, repeated the Curd, coming closer, but speak- ing very gently, I have not come to harm you. Tell me why you are here? 94 ALL FOR GREED. But, seemingly, speech was impossible, for the woodcutter only writhed and gib- bered, and stretched out his hands against the intruder more and more. At last, by a violent effort, he raised himself against the trunk of the tree, and stood upright, glow- ering at the Cur6, whose quiet persistence nevertheless appeared to be acting magnet- ically upon him. After a few minutes struggling, speech, though imperfect, caine; and then, with a scream of terror, he spoke. Master! mas- ter! shri~ked Prosper, I wont ~o alone with you! Take him too ; take Jiim ! Do you not know me, Prosper Morel? asked the Cur6, as he thought he perceived some sign of wavering in the man s eye. Yes! yes! he gasped in agony, clasp- ing his hands with convulsive energy. Know you? yes. It is you who told him to come for me, told me he would come, UNTER DEN LINDEN. WIFE, at her piano. I. IN the early morning, when the gauzy mist Skyward vanished in the lift, while the sun had kissed But a dewdrop here and there, leaving brighter yet All the wealth of gems wherewith earths cor- onet was set, Oh! but it was pleasant, in the olden times, In the fresh May morning, underneath the limes! II. In the winking noon-tide, when with drowsier tune Evn the hee went humming through the breath- less June, And the flecks of golden light fell few and far between, Little restless wanderers, lost in a maze of green, Oh! but it was pleasant, in the olden times, Youths delicious daydream, underneath the limes I and look at me face to face, hut I wont go; and he threw his arms behind him fiercely, round the trunk of the tree; I wont go alone with him. Tell him to take the othcr too, the other, the other! Tell him to take him! And then his hold relaxed, his knees knocked together, his body bent forwards, and he dropped sense- less to the ground. * * * * * When Monsieur le Curd reached his home that afternoon he was no wiser than he had been when he left it. He felt that there was something wrong somewhere; but what seemed to him the most evident result of the whole was that, with his sermon on All Souls Day, he had completely deranged the old woodcutters already weak intellect. But was Prosper only mad? or . . . . It was a terrible question, and Monsieur Le Cure was sorely perplexed. III In the closing twilight, when the first white smile Shimmered of the waking moon down the leafy aisle, And some one mocked the nightingale, swear- ing every tone Of one voice he knew was softer, sweeter, thaa her own, Oh! but it was pleasant, in the olden times, Pacing slowly, whispering lowly, underneath the limes Iv. HUsuAND, in his easy chair. Sunrise l ab! the mushrooms then are gathered best, they say! Noon l I love to perch, with the peach, on the sunny side o the way! Moonlight Nonsense! poke the fire! What keeps our Tom so late Out, amid the gathering damps, with that bag- gage, Kate Pleasant ah! whiit trash these Poets babble in their rhymes! Ugh! the cold I caught last night un~ derneath the limes! Once a Week. 95 PHINEAS FINN. CHAPTER XVI. IHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO KILLAI~OE. PHINEAS FINNs first session of Parlia- ment was over, his first session with all its adventures. When he got back to Mrs. Bunces house, for Mrs. Bunce received him for a night in spite of her husbands ad- vice to the contrary, I am afraid he al- most felt that Mrs. Bunce and her rooms were beneath him. Of course he was very unhappy, as wretched as a man can he; there were moments in which he thought that it would hardly become him to live un- less he could do something to prevent the marriage of Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy. But, nevertheless, be had his consolations. These were reflections which had in them much of melancholy satisfaction. He had not been despised by the woman to whom he had told his love. She had not shown him that she thought him to be unworthy of her. She had not regarded his love as an offence. Indeed, she had almost told him that prudence alone had forbidden her to re- turn his passion. And he had kissed her, and had afterwards l)arted from her as a dear friend. I do not know why there should have been a flavour of exquisite joy im the midst of his agony as he thought of this ; but it was so. lie would never kiss her again. All future delights of that kind would belong to Mr. Kennedy, and he had no real idea of interfering with that gentle- man in the fruition of his privileges. But still there was the kiss, an eternal fact. And then, in all respects except that of his love, his visit to Loughlinter had been pre- eminently successful. Mr. Monk had be- come his friend, and had encouraged him to speak during the next session, setting be- fore him various models, and prescribing for him a course of reading. Lord Breutford had become intimate with him. He was on pleasant terms with Mr. Palliser and Mr. Gresham. And as for Mr. Kennedy, he and Mr. Kennedy were almost bosom friends. It seemed to him that he had qilmite surpassed the Ratlers, Fitzgibbons, and Bonteens in that politico-social success which roes so far towards downright politi- cal succes~, and which is in itself so pleas- ant. He had surpassed these men in spite of their ofliecs and their acquired positions, and could not hut thirtk that even Mr. Low, if he knew it all, would confess that he had been right. As to his bosom friendship with Mr. Ken- ne(ly, that of course troubled him. Ought lie not to be driving a poniard into Mr. Kennedys heart? The conventions of life forbade that; and therefore the bosom friend- ship was to be excused. If not an enemy to the death, then there could be no rea~n why he should not be a bosom friend~ He went over to Ireland, staying but one night with Mrs. Bunce, and came down upon them at Killaloe like a god out of the heavens. Even his father was wellnigh overwhelmed by admiration, and his mother and sisters thought themselves only fit to min- ister to his pleasures. He had learned, if he had learned nothing else, to look as though he were master of the circumstances around him, and was entirely free from internal embarrassment. When his father spoke to him about his legal studies, he did not ex- actly laugh at his fathers ignorance, but he recapitulated to his father so much of Mr. Monks wisdom at second hand, showing plainly that it was his business to study the arts of speech and the technicalities of the House, and not to study law, that his father had nothing further to say. He had become a man of such dimensions that an ordinary father could hardly dare to inquire into his proceedings; and as for an ordina- ry mother, such as Mrs. Finn certainly was, she could do no more than look after her sons linen with awe. Mary Flood Jones, the reader I hope will not quite have forgotten Mary Flood Jones, was in a great tremour when first she met the hero of Loughshane after re- turning from the honours of his first session. She had been somewhat disappointed be- cause the newspapers had not been full of the speeches he had made in Parliament. And indeed the ladies of the Finn house- hold had all been ill at ease on this head. They could not imagine why Phineas had restrained himself with so much philosophy. But Miss Flood Jones in discussing the matter with the Miss Finns had never ex- pressed the slightest doubt of his capacity or of his judgment. And when tidings came, the tidings came in a letter from Phineas to his father, that ~he did not in- tend to speak that session, because speeches f4zom a young member on his fir~t session were thought to be inexpedient, Miss Flood Jones and the Miss Finns were quite will- ing to accept the wisdom of this decision, much as they might regret the effect of it. Mary, when she met her hero, hardly dared to look him in the face, but she remem- bered accurately all the circumsiances of her last interview with him. Could it be that he wore that ringlet near his heart? Mary had received from Barbara Finn cer- tain hairs supposed ~o have come from the 96 PHINEAS FINN. head of Phineas, and these she always wore near her own. And moreover, since she had seen Phineas she had refused an offer of marriage from Mr. Elias Booker, ~ had refused it almost ignominiously, and when doing so had told herself that she would never be false to Phineas Finn. We think it so good of you to chine to see us again, she said. Good to come home to my own peo- ple? Of course you might be staying with plenty of graudees if you liked it. No, in(leed, Mary. it did happen by accident that I had to go to the house of a man whom perhaps you would call a gran- dee, and to meet grandees there. But it was only for a few days, and I am very glad to hc taken in again here, I can assure you. You know how very glad we all are to havc you. Are you glad to sec me, Mary? Very glad. Why should I not he glad, and Barbara the dearest friend I have in the world? Of course she talks about you, and that makes me think of you. If you knew, Mary, how often 1 think about you. Then Mary, who was very happy at hearing such words, and who was walking in to dinner with him at the moment, could not refrain herself from pressing his arm with her little fingers. She knew that Phineas in his position could not marry at once; hut she would wait for him, oh, for ever, if he would only ask her. He of course was a wicked traitor to tell her that he was wont to think of her. But Jove smiles at lovers perjuries ; and it is well that he should do so, as such pex~juries can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a successful gentlemans life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, but he was almost forced to be a traitor by the simple fact that Lady Laura Standish was in London, and Mary Flood Jones in Kil- laloe. He remained for nearly five months at Killaloe. and I doubt whether his time was altogether well spent. Some of thc books recommended to him by Mr. Monk he prob- ably did read, and was found often to be encompassed by blue books. I fear that there was a grain of pretence about his blue books and parliamentary papers, and that in these (lays lie was, in a gentle way, some- thing of an impostor. You must not be angry with me for not going to you, he said once to Marys mother when he had declined an invitation to drink tea; but the fact is that my time is not my own. Pray dont make any apologies. We are LIVING AGE. VOL IX. 323. quite aware that we have very little to offer, said Mrs. Flood Jones, who was not altogether happy about Mary, and who per- haps knew more abo.ut members of Parlia- inent and blue books than Phineas Finn had supposed. Mary, you are a fool to think of that man, the mother said to her daughter the next morning. l I dont think of him, mamma; not particularly. He is no better than anybody else that 1 can see, and he is beginning to give himself airs, said Mrs. Flood Jones. Mary made no an- swer; but she went up into her room and swore before a figure of the Virgin that she would be true to Phineas for ever and ever, in spite of her mother, in spite of all the world, in spite, should it be necessary, even of himselfl About Christmas time there came a dis- cussion between Phineas and his father about money. I hope you find you get on pretty well, said the doctor, who thought that he had been liberal. Its a tight fit, said Phineas, who was less afraid of his father than he had been when he last discussed these things. I had hoped it would have been ample, said the doctor. Dont think for a moment, sir, that I am complainincr said Phineas. I know it is much more than I have a right to ex- pect. The doctor began to make an inquiry within his own breast as to whether his son had a right to expect any thing ; whether the time had not come in which his son should be earning his own bread. I sup- pose, he said, after a pause, there is no chance of your doing any thing at the bar now? Not immediately. It is almost impossi- ble to combine the two studies together. Mr. Low himself was aware of that. But you are not to suppose that I have given the profession up. I hope not, after all the money it has cost us. By no means, sir. And all that I am doing now will, I trust, be of assistance to me when I shall come to 4vork at the law. Of course it is on the cards that I may go into office, and if so, public business will become my profession. And be turned out with the Minis- try! Yes; that is true, sir. I must run my chance. If the worst comes to the worst~ I hope I might be able to secure some per- manent place. I should think that I can hardly fail to do so. Bat I trust I may never be driv~n to want it. I thought, 97 98 however, that we had settled all this before. Then Phineas assumed a look of injured innocence, as though his father was driving him too hard. And in the mean time your money has been enough? said the doctor, after a pause. I had intended to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds, said Phineas. There were expenses to which I was driven on first entering Parliament. A hundred pounds. If it be inconvenient, sir, I can do with- out it. He had not as yet paid for his gun, or for that velvet coat in which hehad been shooting, or, most probably, for the knickerbockers. He knew he wanted the hundred pounds badly; but he felt ashamed of himself in asking for it. If he were once in office, though the office were but a sorry junior lordship, he would repay his father instantly. You shall have it, of course, said the doctor; but do not let the necessity for asking for more hundreds come oftener than you can help. Phineas said that he would not, and then there was no further discotirse about money. It need hardly be sai~l that he told his father nothing of that bill which he had endorsed for Laurence Fitzgibbon. At last came the time which called him no-am to London and the glories of London life, to lobbies, an(I the clubs, and the gossip of men in office, and the chance of promotion for, himself; to the glare of the gas-lamps, the mock anger of rival debaters, and the prospect of the Speakers wig. During the idleness of the recess he had resolved at any rate upon this, that a month of the session should not have passed by before he had been seen upon his legs in the House, had been seen and heard. And many a time as he had wandered alone, with his gun, across the bogs which lie on the other side of the Shannon from Kilalloe, he had practised the sort of ad- dress which he would make to the house. He would be short, always short; and he would eschew all action and gesticulation; Mr. Monk had been very urgent in his instructions to him on that head; but he would be especially careful that no words should escape him which had not in them some purpose. He might be wrong in his purpose, but purpose there should be. He had been twitted more than once at Killaloe with his silence ; for it had been con- ceived by his fellow-townsmen that lie had been sent to Parliament on the special ground of his eloquence. They should PHINEAS FINN. twit him no more on his next return. He would speak, and would carry the House with him if a human effort might prevail. So he packed up his things, and started again for London in the beginning of Feb- ruary. Good-bye, Mary, he said, with his sweetest smile. But on this occasion there was no kiss, and no culling of locks. I know he cannot help it, said Mary to herself. It is his position. But whether it be for good or evil, I will be true to him. I am afraid you are unhappy, Barbara Finn said to her on the next morning. No; Jam not unhappy,not at all. I have a great deal to make me happy andj proud. I dont mean to be a bit unhappy. Then she turned away and cried heartily, and Barbara Finn cried with her for com- pany. CHAPTER XVII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO LONDON. PHINEAS had received two letters dvring his recess at Killaloe from two women who admired him much, which, as they were both short, shall be submitted to the reader. The first was as follows Sanisby, October 20, 186. My DEAR Mn. FINN, I write a line to tell you that our mar- riage is to be hurried on as quickly as possi- ble. Mr. Kennedy does not like to be absent from Parliament; nor will he be con- tent to postpone the ceremony till the session be over. The day fixed is the 3rd of December, and we then go at once to Rome, and intend to be back in London by the opening of Parliament. Yours most sincerely, LAURA STANDISH. Our London address will be No. 52, Grosvenor Place. To this he wrote an answer as short, ex- pressing his ardent wishes that those winter hytueneals might produce nothing hut hap- piness, and saying that he would not be in town many days before he knocked at the door of No. 52, Grosvenor Place. And the second letter was as follows: Great Marlborough Street, December, 186. DEAR AND HONOURED SIR, Bunce is getting ever so anxious about the rooms, and says as how he has a PHINEAS FINN. young Equity draftsman and wife and baby as would take the whole house, and all be- cause Miss Pouncefoot said a word about her port wine, which any lady of her age might say in her tantrums, and mean noth- ing after all. Me and Miss Pouneefoots knowed each other for seven years, and whats a word or two as isnt meant after that? But, honoured sir, its not about that as I write to trouble you, but to ask if I may say for certain that youll take the rooms again in February. Its easy to let them for the month after Christmas, because of the pantomimes. Only say at once, be- cause Bunce is nagging me day after day. I dont want nobodys wife and baby to have to do for, and d sooner have a Par- liament gent like yourself than any one else. Yours umbly and respectful, JANE BUNCE. To this he replied that he would certainly come back to the rooms in Great Marl- borough Street, should he be lucky enough to find them vacant, and he expressed his willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February. And on the 3rd of Feb- ruary he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs. Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefbot and to stave off the Equity draftsmans wife and baby. Bunce, how- ever, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot. If he means well, why did he go and stay with them lords down in Scotland. I knows all about it. I knows a man when I sees him. Mr. Low, whos looking out to be a Tory judge some of these days, is a deal better; because he knows what hes after. Immediately on his return to town, Phin- eas found himself summoned to a political meeting at Mr. Mildma~s house in St. Jamess Square. Were going to begin in eariiest this time, Barrington Erle said to him at the club. I am glad of that, said Phincas. I suppose you heard all about it down at Loughlinter? Now, in truth, Phineas had heard very little of any settled plan down at Lough- linter. He had played a game of chess with Mr. Gresham, and had shot a stag with Mr. Palliser, and had discussed sheep with Lord Breatford, but had hardly heard a word about politics from any one of those influential gentlemen. From Mr. Monk he had heard much of a coming Reform Bill; 99 but his communications with Mr. Monk had rather been private discussions, in which he had learned Mr. Monks own views on certain points, than revelations on the in- tention of the party to which Mr. Monk belonged. I heard of nothing settled, said Phineas; but I suppose we are to have a Reform Bill~ That is a matter of course.~~ And I suppose we are not to touch the question of ballot. Thats the difficulty, said Barrington Erle. But of course we shant touch it as long as Mr. Mildmay is in the Cabinet. He will never consent to the ballot as First Minister of the Crown. Nor would Gresham, or Palliser, said Phineas, who did not choose to bring for- ward his greatest gun at first. I dont know about Gresham. It is im- possible to say what Gresham might bring himself to do. Gresham is a man who may go any lengths before he has done. Planty Pall, for such was the name by which Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was ordinarily known among his friends, would of course go with Mr. Mildmay and the Duke. And Monk is opposed to the ballot, said Phineas. Ah, thats the question. No doubt he has assented to the proposition of a measure without the ballot; but if there should come a row, and men like Turnbull demand it, and the London mob kick up a shindy, I dont know how far Monk would be steady. Whatever he says, hell stick to. He is your leader, then? asked Bar- rington. I dont know that I have a leader. Mr. Mildmay leads our side; and if anybody leads me, he does. But I have great faith in Mr. Monk. Theres one who would go for the bal- lot to-morrow, if it were brought forward stoutly, said Barrington Erle to Mr. Ratler a few minutes afterwards, pointing to Phin- eas as he spoke. I dont think much of that young man, said Ratler. Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Ratler had put their heads together during that last even- ing at Loughlinter, and had agreed that they did not think much of Phineas Finn. Why did Mr. Kennedy go down off the mountain to get him a pony? And why did Mr. Gresham play chess with him? Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen may have been right in making up their minds to think bat little of Phincas Finn, but Bar- rington Efle had been quite wrong when he had said that Phineas would go for the PHINEAS FINN. ballot to-morrow. Phineas had made up his mind very strongly that he would al- ways oppose the ballot. That he would hold the same opinion throughout his life, no one should pretend to say; but in his present mood, and under the tuition which he had received from Mr. Monk, he was prepared to demonstrate, out of the House and in it, that the ballot was, as a political measure, unmanly, ineffective, and ener- vating. Enervating had been a great word with Mr. Monk, and Phineas had clung to it with admiration. The meeting took place at Mr. Mildmays on the third day of the session. Phineas had of course heard ofsuch meetings before, but had never attended one. Indeed, there had been no such gathering when Mr. Mild- mays party came into power early in the last session. Mr. Mildmay and his men had then made their effort in turning out their opponents, and had been well pleased to rest awhile upon their oars. iNow, however, they must go again to work, and therefore the liberal party was collected at Mr. Mild- mays house in order that~ the liberal party might be told what it was that Mr. Mild- may and his Cabinet intended to do. Phineas Finn was quite in the dark as to what would be the nature of the perfbrm- ance on this occasion, and entertained some idea that every gentleman present would be called upon to express individually his assent or dissent in regard to the measure proposed. He walked to St. Jamess Square with Laurence Fitzgibbon; but even with Fitzgihbon was ashamed to show his igno- rance by asking questions. After all, said Fitzgibbon, this kind of thing means nothing. I know as well as possible, and so do you, what Mr. Mildmay will say, and then Gresham will say a few words; and then Turubull will make a murmur, and then we shall all assent, to anything or to nothing; and then it will be over. Still Phineas did not understand whether the assent required would or would not be an individual personal assent. When the affair was over he found that he was disap- pointed, and that he might almost as well have stayed away from the meeting, ex- cept that he had attended at Mr. Mildmays bidding, and had given a silent adhesion to Mr. Mildmays plan of reform for that ses- sion. Laurence Fitzgibbon had been very nearly correct in his description of what would occ~r. Mr. Mildmay made a long speech. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical of the day, the man who was supposed to represent what many called the Manchester school of politics, asked half a dozen questions. In answer to these Mr. Gresham made a short speech. Then Mr. Mildmay made another speech, and then all was over. The gist of the whole thing was, that there should be a Reform Bill, very generous in its enlargement of the franchise, but no ballot. Mr. Turabull expressed his doubt whether this would be ~ati factory to the country; but even Mr. Turnbull was soft in his tone and complaisant in his man- ner. As there was no reporter present, that plan of turning private mectin,s at gentlemens houses into public assemblies not having been as yet adopted, there could be no need for energy or violence. They went to Mr. Mildmays house to hear Mr. Mildmays plan, and they heard it. Two days after this Phineas was to dine with Mr. Monk. Mr. Monk had asked him in the lobby of the House. I dont give dinner parties, he said, but I should like you to come and meet Mr. Turnhuil. Phineas accepted the invitation as a matter of course. There were many who said that Mr. Turnbull was the greatest man in the nation, and that the nation could be saved only by a direct obedience to Mr. Turn- bulls instructions. Others said that Mr. Turnbull was a demagogue, and at heart a rebel; that he was un-English, false, and very dangerous. Phineas was rather in- clined to believe the latter statement; and as danger and dangerous men are always more attractive than safety and safe men, he was glad to have an oppo~tunity of meet- ing Mr. Turnbull at dinner. In the meantime he went to call on Lady Laura, whom he had not seen since the last evening which he spent in her company at Loucrhlinter, whom, when he was last spea~idng to her, he had kis~ed close beneath the falls of the Linter. He found her at home, and with her was her husband. Here is a Darby and Joan meetin~,, is it not, she said, getting up to welcome him. He had seen Mr. liennedy before, and had been standing close to him during the meet- ing at Mr. Greshams. I am very glad to find you both to- gether. But Robert is going away this instant, said Lady Laura. Has he told you of o~r adventures at Rome. Not a word. Then I must tell you; but not now. The dear old Pope was so civil to us. I came to think it quite a pity that he should be in trouble. I must be off, said the husband, get- tin~ up. But I shall meet you at dinner, I believe. 100 PHINEAS FINN. Do you dine at Mr. Monks? Yes, and am asked expressly to hear Turnbull make a convert ~f you. There are only to be us four. Au revoir. Then Mr. Kennedy went, and Phineas found himself alone with Lady Laura. He hardly knew how to address her, and remained si- lent. He had not prepared h~nself for the interview as he ought to have done, and felt himself to be awkward. She evidently ex- pected him to speak, and for a few seconds sat waiting for what he might say. At last she found it was incumbent on her to begin. Were you surprised at our suddenness when you got my note? A little. You had spoken of waitino~ I had never imagined that he would have been impetuous. And he seems to think that even the bu~iness of getting him- self married would not justify him in stay- ing away from Parliament. He is a rigid martinet in all matters of duty. I did not wonder that he should be in a hurry, but that you should submit. I told you that I should do just what the wise people told me. I asked papa, and he said that it would be better. So the lawyers were driven out of their minds, and the milliners out of their bodies, and the thin,~, was done. Who was there at the marriage? Oswald was not there. That I know is what you mean to ask. Papa said that he might come if he pleased. Oswald stipulated that lie should be received as a son. Then my father spoke the hardest word that ever fell from his mouth. What did he say? I will not repeat it, not altogether But he said that Oswald was not entitled to a sons treatment. He was very sore about my money, because Robert was so generous as to his settlement. So the breach between them is as wide as ever. And where is ChiltA~u now? said Phineas. Down in Northamptonshire, staying at some inn from whence he hunts. He tells me that he is quite alone, that he never dines out, never has any one to dine with him, that he hunts five or six days a week, and reads at night. That is not a bad sort of life. Not if the reading is any good. But I cannot bear that he should be so solitary. And if lie breaks down in it, then his coin- panions will not be fit for him. Do you ever hunt? Oh yes, at home in county Clare. All Irishmen hunt. I wish you would go down to him and see him. He would be delighted to have you. Phineas thought over the proposition be- fore lie answered it, and then made the re- ply that he had made QnCe before. ~ I would do so, Lady Laura, but that I have no money for hunting in England. Alas, alas said she, smiling. how that hits one on every side! I might manage it, foracoupleof days, in March. Do not do what you think you ought not to do, said Lady Laura. No; certainly. But I should like it, and if I can I will. He could mount you, I have no doubt. He has no other expense now, and keeps a stable full of horses. I think he has seven or eight. And now tell me, Mr. Finn; when are you going to charm the House? Or is it your first intention to strike terror? lie blushed, he knew that he blushed as he answered. Oh, I suppose I shall make some sort of attempt betbre long. I cant bear the idea of being a bore. I think you ou~ht to speak, Mr. Finn. I do not know about that, but I certain- ly mean to try. There will be lots of op- portunities about the new Reform Bill. Of course you know that Mr. Mildmay is go- ing to bring it in at once. You hear all that from Mr. Kennedy. ~And papa has told me. I still see papa almost every day. You must call upon him. Mind you do. Phineas said that he certain- ly would. Papa is very lonely now, and I sometimes feel that I have been almost cm 4 in deserting him. And I think that he has a horror of the house, especially later in the year, always fancying that lie will meet Oswald. I am so unhappy about it all, Mr. Finn. Why doesnt your brother marry? said Phineas, knowing nothing as yet of Lord Chiltern and Violet Efllngbam. If lie were to marry well, that would bring your father round. Yes,it would. And why should he not? Lady Laura paused before she answered; and then she told the whole story. lie is violently in love, and the girl hp loves has refused him twice. Is it with Miss Effingham? asked Phineas, guessing the truth at once, and re- membering what Miss Effingham had said to him when riding in the wood. Yes; with Violet Effln~hamn; my fathers pet, his favourite, whom he loves next to myself, almost as well as myself; 101 PHINEAS FINN. whom he would really welcome as a daugh- ter. He would gladly make her mistress of his house, and of Saulsby. Everything would then go smoothly. But she does not like Lord Chiltern? I believe she loves him in her heart; but she is afraid of him. As she says her- self, a girl is bound to be so careful of her- self. With all her seeming frolic, Violet Effingham is very wise. Phineas, though not conscious of any feeling akin to jealousy, was annoyed at the revelation made to him. Since he had heard that Lord Chiltern was in love with Miss Effingham, he did not like Lord Chil- tern quite as well as he had done before. He himself had simply admired Miss Effing- ham, and had taken pleasure in her society; but, though this had been all, he did not like to hear of another man wanting to marry her, and he was almost angry with Lady Laura for saying that she believed Miss Effingham loved her brother. If Miss Effingham had twice refused Lord Chiltern, that ought to have been sufficient. It was not that Phineas was in love with Miss Effingham himself. As he was still violently in love with Lady Laura, any other love was of course impossible; but, nevertheless, there was something offensive to him in the story as it had been told. If it be wis- dom on her part, said he, answering Lady Lauras last words, you cannot find fault with her for her decision. I find no fault; but I think my brother would make her happy. Lady Laura, when she was left alone, at once reverted to the tone in which Phineas Finn had answered her remarks about Miss Effingham. Phineas was very ill able to conceal his thoughts, and wore his heart al- most upon his sleeve. Can it be possible that lie cares for her himself? That was the nature of Lady Lauras first question to herself upon the matter. And in asking herself that question, she thought nothing of the disparity in rank or fortune between Phineas Finn and Violet Efflagham. Nor did it occur to her as at all improbable that Violet might accept the love of him who had so lately been her own lover. But the idea grated against her wishes on two sides.. She was most anxious that Violet should ultimately become her broth- ers wife, and she could not be pleased that Phineas should be able to love any woman. I must beg my readers not to be carried away by those last words into any errone- ous conclusion. They must not suppose that Lady Laura Kennedy, the lately mar- ned bride, indulged a guilty passion for the young man who had loved her. Though she had probably thought often of Phineas Finn since her marriage, her thoughts had never been of a nature to disturb her rest. It had never occurred to her even to thihk that she regarded him with any feeling that was an offence to her husband. She would have hated herself had any such idea presented itself to her mind. She prided herself on being a pure high-principled woman, who had kept so strong a guard upon herself as to be nearly free from the dangers of those rocks upon which other women make shirwreck of their happiness. She took pride in this, and would then blame herself for her own pride. But though she so blamed herself; it never oc- curred to her to think that to her there might be danger of such shipwreck. Sb had put away from herself the idea of love when she had first perceived that Phineas had regarded her with more than friendship, and had accepted Mr. Kenne- dys offer with an assured conviction that by doing so she was acting best for her own happiness and for that of all those concerned. She had felt the romance of the position to be sweet when Phineas had stood with her at the top of the falls of the Linter, and had told her of the hopes which he had dared to indulge. And when at the bottom of the falls he had pre- sumed to take her in his arms, she had for- given him without difficulty to herself; tell- ing herself that that would be the alpha and the omega of the romance of her life. She had not -felt herself bound to tell Mr. Kennedy of what had occurred, but she had felt that he could hardly have been angry even had he been told. And she had often thought of her lover since, and of his love, telling herself that she too had once had a lover, never regarding her husband in that light; but her thoughts had not frightened her as guilty thoughts will do. There had come a romance which had been pleasant, and it was gone. lt had been soon banished, but it had left to her a sweet flavour, of which she loved to taste the sweetness though she knew that it was gone. And the man shou1d be her friend, but especially her husbmds friend. lt should be her care to see that his life was successful, and especially her husbands care. It was a great delight to her to know that her husband liked the man. And the man would marry, and the mans wife should be her friend. All this had been very pure and very pleasant. Now an idea had flitted across her brain 102 PHLNEAS FINN. that the man was in love with some one else, and she did not like it! But she did not therefore become afraid of herself, or in the least realise at once the danger of her own position. Her immedi- ate glance at the matter did not go beyond the falseness of men. If it were so, as she suspected, if Piiineas Finn had in truth transferred his affections to Violet Efling- ham, of how little value was the love of such a man! It did not occur to her at this moment that she also had transferred hers to Robert Kennedy, or that, if not, she had done worse. But she did remember that in the autumn this young Phmbus among men had turned his back upon her out upon the mountain that he might hide from her tha agony of his heart when he learned that she was to he the wife of another man; and that now, before the winter was over, he could not hide from her the fact that his heart was elsewhere! And then she speculated, and counted up facts, and satisfied herself that Phineas could not even have seen Violet Effiugham since they two had stood together upon the moun- tain. How false are men ! how false and how weak of heart! Chiltera and Violet Efllngham! said Phineas to himself, as he walked away from Grosvenor Place. Is it fair that she should be sacrificed because she is rich, and .be- cause she is so winning and so fascinating that Lord Brentford would receive even his son for the sake of receiving also such a daughter-in-law? iPhineas also liked Lord Chiltern; had seen or fancied that he had seen fine things in him; had looked forward to his regeneration, hoping, per- haps, that he might have some hand in the good work. But be did not reco~,nise the propriety of sacrificing Violet Effiugham even for work so good as this. If Miss Effingham had refused Lord Chiltern twice, surely that ought to be sufficient. It did not as yet occur to him that the love of such a girl as Violet would be a great treas- ure to himself. As regarded himself, he was still in love, -~ hopelessly in love, with Lady Laura Kennedy! CHAPTER XVIII. MR. TURNBULL. 103 am doing butler, said Mr. Monk, who had a brace of (lecanters in his hands, which he proceeded to put down in the neighborhood of the fire. But I have finished, and now we will go up-stairs to receive the two great men properly. I beg your pardon for coming too ear- ly, said Finn. Not a minute too early. Seven is sev- en, and it is I who am too late. But, Lord bless you, you dont think Im ashamed of being found in the act of decanting my own wine! I remember Lord Palmerston saying before some committee about salaries, five or six years ago now, I daresay, that it wouldnt do for an English Minister to have his hall door opened by a maid-servant. Now, lam an English Minister, and Ive g~t nobody hut a maid-servant to open my hall door, and Im obliged to look after my own wine. I wonder whether its improper? I shouldnt like to be the means of injuring the British Constitution. Perhaps if you resign soon, and if no- body follows your example, grave evil re- sults may be avoided. I sincerely hope so, for I do love the British Constitution; and I love also the respect in which members of the Eng- lish Cabinet are held. Now ~?urnbull, who will be here in a moment, hates it all; but he is a rich man, and has more powdered footmen hanging about his house than ever Lord Palmerston had himself. lie is still in business. Oh yes; and makes his thirty thousand a year. Here he is. How are you, Turn- bull? We were talking about my maid- servant. I hope she opened the door for you properly. Certainly, as far as I perceived, said I Mr. Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. A very respectable young woman I should say. ~There is not one more so in all Lon- don, said Mr. Monk; but Finn seems to think that I ought to have a man in livery. It is a matter of perfect indifference to me, said Mr. Tnrnbull. I am one of those who never think of such things. Nor I either, said Mr. Monk. Then the laird of Loughliater was announced, and they all went down to dinner. Mr. Turnbull was a good-looking robust man about sixty, with long grey hair and a reds complexion, with hard eyes, a well-cut nose, Ir was a Wednesday evening, and there and full lips. He was nearly six feet high, was no House ; and at seven oclock stood quite upright, and always wore a Phineas was at Mr. Monks hall door. He black swallow-tail coat, black trousers, and was the first of the guests, and he found a black silk waistcoat. In the House, at Mr. Monk alone in the dining-room. I least, he was always so dressed, and at din- PHINEAS FINN. ner tables. What difference there might be in his costume when at home at Staley- bridge few of those who saw him in London had the means of knowing. There was nothing in his face to indicate special talent. No one looking at him would take him to he a fool; but there was none of the fire of genius in his eye, nor was there in the lines of his mouth any of that play of thought or fancy which is generally to he found in the faces of men and women who have made themselves great. Mr. Turubull had .ertainly made himself great, and could hardly have done so without force of intel- lect. He was one of the most popular, if not the most popular, politician in the coun- try. Poor men believed in him thinking that he was their most honest public friends and men who were not poor believed in his power, thinking that his counsels must saie- ly prevail. He had obtained the ear of the House and the favor of the reporters, and opened his voice at no public dinner, on no platform, without a conviction that the words spoken by him would be read by thousands. The first necessity for good speaking is a large audience; and of this advantage Mr. Turnbull had made himself sure. And yet it could hardly be said that he was a great orator. He was gifted with a powerful voice, with strong, and I may, perhaps, call them broad convictions, with perfect self-reliance, with almost unlimited powers of endurance, with hot ambition, with no keen scruples, and with a moral skin of~ great thickness. Nothing said a~,ainst him pained him, no attacks wounded him, no raillery touched him in the least. There was not a sore spot about him, and prob- ably his first thoughts on waking every morning told him that he, at least, was totus teres atque rotundus. He was, of course, a thorough radical, and so was Mr. Monk. But Mr. Monks first waking thoughts were probably exactly the reverse of those of his friend. Mr. Monk was a much hotter man in debate than Mr. Turnbull; but Mr. Monk was ever doubting of himself, and never doubted of himself so much as when he had been most violent, and also most ef- fective, in debate. When Mr. Monk jeered at himself for being a Cabinet Minister and keeping no attendant grander than a parlour-maid, there was a substratum of self-doubt under the joke. Mr. Turnbull was certainly a great Rad- ical, and as such enjoyed a great reputa- tion. I do not think that high office in the State had ever been offered to him; but things had been said which justified him, or seemed to himse!t to justify him, in declar ing that in no possible circumstances would he serve the Crown. I serve the people, he had said, and much as I respect the servants of the Crown, I think that my own office is the higher. He had been greatly called to task for this speech; and Mr. Mildmay, the present Premier, had asked him whether he did not recognise the so- called servants of the crown as the most hard-worked and truest servants of the people. The House and the press had sup- ported Mr. Mildmay, hut to all that Mr. Turubull was quite indifferent; and when an assertion made by him before three or four thousand persons at Manchester, to the effect that he, he specially, was the friend and servant of the people, was re- ceived with acclamation, lie felt quite satis- fied that he had gained his point. Progres- sive reform in the franchise, of which man- hood suffrage. should be the acknowledged and not far distant end, equal electoral dis- tricts, ballot, tenant right for England as well as Ireland, reduction of the standing army till there should be no standing army to reduce, utter disregard of all political movements in Europe, an almost idolatrous admiration for all political movements in America, free trade in everything except malt, and an absolute extinction of a State Church, these were among the principal articles in Mr. Turnbulls political cata- logue. Arid I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words as he stood upon his legs, and had so mastered his own voice as to have obtained the ear of the [louse, the work of his life was not dif- ficult. Having nothing to construct, he could always deal with generalities. Being free from responsibility, he was not called upon either to study details or to master even great facts. It was his business to inveigh against existing evils, and perhaps there is no easier business when once the privilege of an audience has been attained. It was his work to cut down forest-trees, and he had nothing to do with the subse- (luent cultivation of the land. Mr. Monk had once told Phineas Finn how great were the charms of that inaccuracy which was permitted to the opposition. Mr. Turubull no doubt enjoyed these charms to the full, though he would sooner have put a padlock on his mouth for a month than have owned as much. Upon the whole, Mr. Turubull was no doubt right in resolving that he would not take office, though some reti- cence on that subject might ha ie been more becoming to him. The conversation at dinner, though it was altogether on political subjects, had in it 104 PHINEAS FINN. nothing of special interest as long as the girl was there to change the plates; but when she was gone, and the door was closed, it gradually opened out, and there caine on to be a pleasant sparring match between the two great Radicals, the Radical who had joined himself to the governing powers, and the Radical who stood aloof. Mi. Kennedy barely said a word now and then, and Phin- eas was almost as silent as Mr. Kennedy. He had come there to hear some such dis- cussion, and was quite willing to listen while guns of such great calibre were being fired off for his amusement. I think Mr. Mildmay is makinr a great step forward, said Mr. Turnbull. I think he is, said Mr. Monk. I did not believe that he would ever live to go so far. It will hardly suffice even for this year; but still, coming from him, it is a great deal. It only shows how far a man may be made to go, if only the proper force he applied. After all, it matters very little who are the Ministers. fhat is what I have always declared, said Mr. Monk. - Very little indeed. We dont mind whether it be Lord De Terrier, or Mr. Mild- may, or Mr. Gresham, or you yourselg if you choose to get yourself made First Lord of the Treasury. I have no such ambition, Turabull. I should have thought you had. If I went in for that kind of thing myself, I should like to go to the top of the ladder. I should f~el that if 1 could do any good at all by becoming a Minister, I could only do it by becoming first Minister. You wouldnt doubt your own fitness for such a position? I doubt my fitness for the position of any Minister, said Mr. Turnbull. You mean that on other grounds, said Mr. Kennedy. I mean it on every ground, said Mr. Ti~irnbull, rising on his legs and standing with his back to the fire. Of course I am not fit to have diplomatic intercourse with men who would come to me simply with the desire of deceiving me. Of course I am unfit to deal with members of Parliament who would flock around me because they wanted places. Of course 1 am unfit to an- swer every mans question so as to give no information to any one. Could you not answer them so as to give information? said Mr. Kennedy. But Mr Turnbull was so intent on his speech that it may be doubted whether he heard this interruption. He took no notice of it as he went on. Of course I am unfit to maintain the proprieties of a seeming con- fidence between a Crown all-powerless and a people all-powerful. No man recognises his own unfitness for such woik more clearly than I do, Mi. Monk. But if I took in hand such work at all, I should like to be the leader, and not the led. Tell us fairly, now? what are your convictions worth in Mr Mild- mays 4Dabinet? That is a question which a man may hardly answer himself, said Mr. Monk. It is a question which a man should at least answer for himself before he consents to sit there, said iVIr. Turubull, in a tone of voice which was almost angry. And what reason have you for suppos- ing that I have omitted that duty ? said Mr. Monk. Simply this, that I can not reconcile your known opinions with the practices of your colleagues. I will not tell you what my convidtions may be worth in Mr. Mildmays Cabinet. I will not take upon myself to say that they are worth the chair on which I sit when I am there. But I will tell you what my as- pirations were when I consented to fill that chair, and yott shall judge of their worth. I thought that they might possibly leaven the batch of bread which we have t