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THE  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS 
AND  ALL  AGES 


iA''**^-mj)'P«*<v?Ct>*v^ 


C.    vo■^    BOOENHAJSES,    Piv 


LORELEI 


THE 


Literature  of  All  Nations 

AND  ALL  AGES 


<y 


HISTORY,    CHARACTER,    AND  INCIDENT 


EDITED    BY 

JULIAN  HAWTHORNE  JOHN  PORTER  LAAIBERTON 

OLIVER  H.  G.  LHGH  JOHN  RUSSELt  YOUNG 


INTRODUCTION   BY 

JUSTIN    MCCARTHY 

Member  of  Parliament,  1879-1899 

Author    of   'HISTORY    OF    OUR    OWN    TIMES."    "DEAR    LADY 
DISDAIN."  AND  OTHER  NOVELS    •••••••«>«• 


Oae  Bmilrtd  Ddiii-tehite  Plat($  from  Paintinfls  by  tbc  World's  Bc$t  Jlrti$t$ 
COMPLETE  IN  TEN  VOLUMES 

VOLUME  X 


CHICAGO  NEW  YORK  MELBOURNE 

E.  R.  DuMONT 

1901 


Copyright,  1899, 
By  ART  LIBRARY  PUBLISHING  CO. 


Copyright,  1900, 
By  E.  R.  DU  MONT 


FAGS 

RUSSIAN  LITERATURE— PERioB  II 9 

The  Nineteenth  Century 9 

N.  M.  Karamsin II 

L  A.  KRItOFF 12 

The  Monarch  Cahib 13 

Ai,EXANDER  Pushkin 14 

Tatiana's  Retrospect - i^ 

TTie  Lot  of  Man 17 

The  Vanity  of  Life 17 

My  Monument '8 

Nikolai  V.  Gogoi, 18 

The  Cossack  Mother 20 

The  Cossack  Father 22 

Apostrophe  to  Russia 23 

IVAN  S.  Turgenieff 24 

The  Nihilist 27 

Feodor  M.  Dostoievsky 37 

The  Murderer^s  Confession  to  Sonia 38 

Count  L.  N.  Tomtoi 45 

Napoleon  and  the  Wounded  Russians 48 

Levin  and  the  Mowers 52 

Anna's  Visit  to  Her  Son 57 

Marie  Bashkirtsefe ^^ 

Extract  from  Herfoumal 62 

ITALIAN  LITERATURE— period  VIII • 63 

Ugo  Foscolo °5 

Great  Men's  Monuments •   •   •  ^6 

Suvio  Pblwco '  •  •  ^^ 

The  Jailer's  Daughter 68 

I  ft. 


2  TABI,B  OP  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ITALIAN  LITERATURE— Pbriod  VIII.  (ContinuBD). 

Al,BSSANBRO  MaNZOMI ^2 

The  Death  of  Napoleon 75 

The  Interrupted  Wedding 76 

ViNCBNzo  Monti , 79 

The  Soul's  Ascension 80 

GlAMBATTISTA  NlCCOUNI 8l 

The  Foscarini 82 

P.  D.  GUERRAZZI 84 

Beatrice  Cend 84 

Isabella  Orsini 8$ 

Apostrophe  to  Italy 86 

GlACOMO  Lboparbi 87 

The  Last  Song  of  Sappho 89 

The  Villagers'  Saturday  Night 91 

QlUSBPPB  GlUSTI  , 92 

Student  Days 92 

FRENCH  LITERATURE— PBRIOD  VIII 94 

Thb  French  Novei, 94 

AltBXANDRB   BUMAS 97 

The  Defence  of  Bastion  St.  Gervais 99 

HoNORB  DB  Bai,zac 109 

Eugenie  Grandet 112 

Cisar  Birotteau's  Failure 121 

X.  B.  Saintinb 125 

Picciola 126 

TH]goPHii,B  GatjTier 128 

Departure  of  the  Swallows 130 

Looking  Upward 131 

Al,FRBD  DB  MUSSET I32 

Venice 133 

Tuana .  134 

To  Plpa 13s 

Octave  FBmi,i,ET 136 

Julia's  Marriage • 137 

GUSTAVB  Fl,AUBERT 141 

Salammbd  and  the  Serpent 142 

Erckmakn-Chatrian 147 

Ike  Conscript's  Duel 148 


TABtB  OF  CONTENTS.  3 

FAOB 

FRENCH  LITERATURE— Period' VIII.  (Contintod). 

Jui,Es  Vernb 151 

The  Bottom  of  the  Sea 152 

ACPHONSB  Daudbt 155 

Tartarin  of  Tarascon 157 

Gxry  DB  Maupassant 161 

The  Piece  of  String 162 

ESfii.S  Zoi,A 166 

A  Fight  with  Flails 169 

LpDovic  Hai,6vy » 174 

Abbi  Constantin  and  His  Guests i74 

GERMAN  LITERATURE— Period  VI 181 

The  Nineteenth  Century  . 181 

LvRisTs  OF  THE  War  of  Liberation 183 

Sword-Song 184 

Song  of  the  Fatherland 186 

Barbarossa 187 

The  Soldier's  Morning-Song 188 

The  Suabian  Poets 189 

The  Minstrel's  Curse 189 

The  Water  Sprite 191 

Heinrich  Heine 192 

Boyhood  in  Diisseldorf 196 

The  Lorelei .   •  •  200 

The  Sea  Hath  its  Pearls 201 

The  Pilgrimage  to  Kevlaar , 202 

The  Two  Grenadiers 204 

Only  Kiss  and  Swear  No  Oath 205 

Enfant  Perdu 205 

The  Devil 206 

Joseph  V.  Von  Scheffel 207 

The  Baron's  Cat  Hiddigeigei 208 

The  Baron's  Tobacto  Pipe 209 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE— Period  VIII 215 

W.  M.  Thackeray 218 

The  Mahogany  Tree 222 

Rawdon  Crawley  Goes  Home 225 


4  TABtS  OF  CONTENTS. 

PACI 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE— PBRIOD  VIII.  (ContinuBP). 

Thomas  Cari,yi,e *** 

The  Attack  Upon  the  Bastille 231 

Work  . «33 

Ai,FRBD,  Lord  Tbnnyson ^35 

Tears,  Idle  Tears 239 

Of  Old  Sat  Freedom  on  the  Heights 240 

Elaine'' s  Letter  to  Guinevere  .   .   •   • 240 

From  "  In  Memoiiam^' 244 

Crossing  the  Bar 24S 

Robert  Browning 246 

Pippa'sSong 250 

The  Lost  Leader 250 

Incident  0/ the  French  Catnp 251 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra 252 

Mrs.  E.  B.  Browning -  .  .  .   .    254 

Cowper's  Grave 255 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese 257 

George  Ewot 258 

Romola  and  Her  Father 260 

The  Choir  Invisible       264 

Ai^ERNON  C.  Swinburne 265 

The  Making  of  Man  •   •   ■  ^ 267 

William  Shakespeare « 268 

Ben  Jonson 268 

In  a  Garden 269 

Matthew  Arnold       270 

Balder  Dead 271 

The  Remnant  in  America 272 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 275 

The  Transformation 277 

RuDYARD  Kipling 281 

The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd .,  .   .    283 

AMERICAN  LITERATURE— Period  IV 287 

View  of  Recent  Literature 287 

James  Russell  Lowell 289 

The  Courtin' 291 

7^e  Day  of  Decision 294 

A  Ruined  Life 295 


TABtE  OF  CONTENTS.  $ 


PAGB 


AMERICAN  I/ITERATURB— Period  IV.  (ConThtobd). 

James  Russeli,  Imwkixi — 

Abraham  Lincoln 296 

English  View  of  America 397 

OuvEE.  Wendeli,  Hoi,iies 301 

The  Chambered  Nautilus 303 

The  Three  Johns 304 

John  G.  Whittier 306 

The  Rpes  at  Lucknow 308 

The  Mother 309 

Skipper  Ireson's  Ride 310 

Bayard  Tayi,or ,  313 

Bedouin  Song 315 

TTi^  Song  of  the  Camp 316 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson 317 

Only  an  Indian  Baby 318 

Edward  Everett  Hai,b 322 

Death  of  Philip  Nolan ' 323 

Ma-rk  Twain 326 

Scatty' s  Interview  with  the  Minister 337 

JOEi.  Chandler  Harris 332 

Why  the  Moon's  Face  is  Smutty 332 

Walt  Whitman 334 

In  All,  Myself 335 

The  Pegan  of  Joy 336 

Francis  Bret  Harte 337 

The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp 338 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  . 343 

Unguarded  Gates 343 

William  Dean  Howells 345 

Basil  and  Isabel  on  Goat  Island 346 

Henry  James 35^ 

Madame  Merle 352 

EuoENE  Field 35^ 

Chaflotte  Rooza 357 

Jambs  Whitcomb  Riley 35* 

A'  Old  Played-out  Song • 35* 

Beautiful  Hands 359 


6  TABI,E  OF  CONTENTS. 

FASB 

POLISH  LITERATURE 361 

Henry  Sibnkiewicz 3^3 

Vinicius  and  Lygia 3^5 

BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS 369 

CHRONOLOGICAL  VIEW  OF  LITERATURE 400 

Egyptian  - 400 

Assyrian ' 400 

Chinese 400 

Indian  (Sanskrit) 400 

Buddhist 401 

Persian 401 

Hebrew 401 

Arabian 401 

Greek 401 

Latin 402 

Cei,tic 403 

DOTCH 403 

French 403 

proven5ai, 403 

German 405 

italian 4c36 

Russian 406 

Scandinavian 407 

Danish 407 

Swedish 407 

Spanish 407 

Portuguese 408 

English  (including  Anglo-Saxon) 408 

Scotch 410 

American 4,, 

ENGLISH  POETS  LAUREATE ' 4,1 

FRENCH  ACADEMY  (1898) 412 


GENERAL  INDEX   TO    "LITERATURE    OP   ALL   NATIONS," 
Volumes  I.-X 


413 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOLUME  X. 


I^VBXSX C.  Von  Bodenhausen  .  Frontispiece 

BiANCA  Cjlteouo  and  Lorenzo  .   .   .  A.  D.  Pinelli 86 

!Piccioi,A A.  Salles 127 

SAi,AMMBd Jules  Toulot 144 

Tartarin  and  Thb  Lion L.  A.  Jamison 160 

Abbe  Constantin  and  His  Guests  .  H.  Brispot 176 

The  Baron  and  His  Pipe F,  Schmid-Breitenbach  ....  aog 

Ei,AiNB  Beaks  Her  Letter  to  Guinevere  .  L.  Falero 242 

RoMoi,A  AND  Her  Father E.  Blair  Leighton 263 

Art,  Song  and  Literature  ,.../.  L.  G.  Ferris 369 

7 


ions. 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE. 


Period  U.— The  Nineteenth  Centurv. 


i  MITATION  of  French  models  was  the  basis  of 
Russian  literature  until  the  excesses  of  the 
opening  of  the  French  Revolution  startled  the 
Czarina  Catherine  II.*  Then  she  prohibited 
the  publication  of  French  books  in  her  domin- 
But  even  aside  from  politics,  the  French  arti- 
ficial style  had  begun  to  pall  on  the  Russians.  Von 
Visin  in  his  comedy,  "The  Brigadier,"  had  derided  those 
whose  only  reading  was  French  romances ;  and  Kropotof,  in 
his  "  Funeral  Oration  of  Balabas,  My  Dog,"  congratulated 
that  animal  on  never  having  read  Voltaire  !  With  the  Napo- 
leonic invasion  the  national  spirit  burst  forth  in  the  most 
bittet  and  violent  odes  and  writings  of  a  "patriot  war."  In 
tragedy,  Ozerof  wrote  "  Dmitri  Donskoi,"  recalling  the  strug- 
gles of  Russia  against  the  Tartars.  Krioukovski  wrote  the 
tragedy  of  "  Pojarski,"  the  hero  of  i6i 2.  The  poet  Zhukovski 
sang  the  exploits  of  the  Russians  against  Napoleon  and  stirred 
all  anti-Napoleonic  Europe  with  his  "  Bard  in  the  Camp  of 
the  Russian  Warriors."  Even  the  childlike  Kriloff  satirized 
the  French  fashions  of  the  Russian  court  in  "  The  School  for 
Young  Ladies"  and  "The  Milliner's  Shop." 

The  great  literary  event  of  the  reign  (i  801-25)  of  Alexander 
I.  was,  however,  the  "History  of  Russia"  by  Nikolai  Mik- 
hailovitch  Karamsin.  Before  Karamsin  there  was.no  inspiring 
picture  of  Russia's  past,    Nestor  had  brought  his  crude  annals 

*  For  Early  Russian  lyiterature,  see  Volume  III, ,  pp.  386-400. 

9 


10  LITBRATURE  OF  All.  NATIONS. 

down  to  Alexis  Mikhailovitch,  father  of  Peter  the  Great. 
Patistcheff,  his  successor,  was  rough  in  style.  Faithful 
pictures  of  the  old  barbaric  Russia  had  been  given  in  the 
"Russkaia  Pravda"  (code)  of  Yaroslaff— the  Russia  of  Ivan  the 
Terrible,  after  the  lifting  of  the  Mongolian  yoke  (i  238-1462) ; 
in  Monk  Sylvester's  "  Domostroi "  (Household  Instruction), 
before  the  Mongols;  and  in  Vladimir  Monomakh's  "Pouchev 
nie"  (Instruction),  a  quaint  picture  of  the  daily  life  of  ab 
ancient  Slavonic  prince.  But  these  bald  records  of  barbarism 
were  not  attractive.  It  needed  the  pen  of  Karamsin  to  cast  Ji 
halo  about  the  old  Slav  warriors.  He  admired  Ivan  the  Ter- 
rible. After  the  fashion  of  Scott  he  put  a  romantic  glo&s 
over  the  real  coarseness.  He  stirred  the  imagination  and  the 
patriotism  of  his  countrymen.  Kollar  sounded  the  slogan  of 
Panslavism.  Pushkin  became  the  laureate  of  Nicholas  an<^ 
Russia's  greatest  poet ;  Gogol  mirrored  in  his  Cossack  tales 
the  life  of  I/ittle  Russia ;  and  Ivan  Turgenieff  revealed  tLe 
misery  and  despair  of  the  serf,  and  caught  the  rising  muttet- 
ings  of  Nihilism.  Ivan  KrilofF,  the  Russian  Lafontaine, 
supplied  his  countrymen  with  distinctively  national  fables, 
abounding  in  vigorous  pictures  of  Russian  life. 

Pushkin  was  succeeded  by  Mikhail  Yurevitch  Lermou- 
toflF,  known  as  the  poet  of  the  Caucasus,  and  by  Nichola? 
Nekrasoflf.  LennontoflF's  first  noteworthy  ode  was  an  appeal 
to  Russia  to  avenge  the  killing  of  Pushkin  in  a  duel,  lest  she 
receive  no  more  poets.  His  lyrics  are  wild  and  varied  and 
beautiful  as  the  scenery  of  the  Caucasus  and  Georgia.  Nekra- 
soflf's  realistic  poems  present  the  melancholy  feature  of  Rus- 
sian life.  It  would  not  be  right  to  forget  Taras  Shevchenko, 
the  national  poet  of  Little  Russia,  whose  grave  near  K.anioff 
on  the  Dnieper  has  been  marked  with  a  cairn  and  cross  and  has 
become  a  patriotic  shrine  for  all  the  Ukraine.  Shevchenko, 
bom  a  serf,  but  bought  and  set  free  by  the  poet  Zhukovski, 
not  only  sang  the  old  days  of  the  Ukraine,  but  became  the 
voice  of  the  Haidamaks  in  their  national  struggle  against  the 
Tsar.  Gogol  probably  had  Shevchenko  in  mind  in  naming 
his  great  Cossack  hero  Taras  Bulba,  for  Taras  is  just  such 
a  hero  as  Little  Russia's  poet  loved  to  celebrate  in  song. 
Shevchenko  died  in  1861. 


RUSSIAN  UTBRATURB.  II 

The  novel,  now  regarded  as  the  chief  form  of  Russian 
literature,  was  first  cultivated  by  Zagoskin  and  Lazhechnikoff 
under  the  Scott-like  influence  of  Karamsin.  It  has  since 
reached  its  height  of  unforgiving  and  terrible  realism  in  the 
minutely  psychological  and  morbid  stories  of  Dostoievski, 
whose  "Clime  and  Punishment"  is  his  masterpiece,  and 
Count  Lyof  Tolstoi,  whose  greatest  works  are  "War  and 
Peace,"  a  tale  of  the  Napoleonic  War,  and  "  Anna  Kar^nina," 
an  impressive  picture  of  erring  womanhood.  His  "  Kreutzer 
Sonata"  was  a  sensational  attack  on  marriage.  In  other 
works  he  has  advocated  a  return  to  primitive  Christianity 
and  an  extreme  literal  observance  of  the  precepts  of  Jesus. 
Nihilism  has  had  its  most  famous  novelist  in  Stepniak,  who 
lived  in  exile  in  England  until  his  death  in  1896.  Two  young 
Russian  women,  Marie  Bashkirtseff  and  Sonya  Kovalevsky, 
have  attracted  attention  by  their  startling  revelations  of  an 
inner  soul  life  which  mirrors  the  extreme  yearnings  and  woes 
of  modem  womanhood. 

N.  M.  KARAMSIN. 

The  poet  Pushkin  declared  that  Karamsin  had  discovered 
ancient  Russia  no  less  than  Columbus  discovered  America, 
since  he  gave  the  empire  its  first  great  history.  His  European 
travels,  while  saturating  his  literary  spirit  with  the  senti- 
mentalism  of  the  English  Sterne  and  Goethe's  "Sorrows  of 
Werther,"  convinced  him  that  his  countrymen  could  "in 
Russia  alone  become  good  Russians."  He  struck  the  keynote 
of  Slavophilism,  which  Turgenieff  was  to  oppose  later,  just  as 
Pushkin  was  to  rise  from  Karamsin's  sentimentalism  into  a 
grander  romanticism.  This  sentimentalism  was  reflected  in 
Karamsin's  treatment  of  his  country's  history.  He  idealized 
Ivan  the  Terrible  as  a  kind-hearted  autocrat  His  panegyrical 
history  has  been  styled  "the  Epic  of  Despotism."  Choosing 
Ivan  III.  and  Ivan  the  Terrible,  instead  of  Peter  the  Great,  as 
the  real  founders  of  Russia's  greatness,  he  pictured  the  me- 
diaeval, barbarous  Russia  in  a  falsely-enchanting  light.  In  his 
tale  of  "Martha,  the  Mayor's  Daughter,"  he  had  declared: 
"  Political  order  can  exist  only  where  absolute  power  has  been 


12  LITBIIATURB  OF  AI,!,  NATIONS. 

established."  As  Pushkin  once  wrote,  only  to  have  it  blotted 
out  by  the  censor,  Karamsin  "admired  absolutism  and  the 
charms  of  the  knout"  (introduced  by  Ivan).  Karamsin  divided 
Russian  history  arbitrarily,  to  fit  his  own  conception,  into 
three  epochs :  Rurik  to  Ivan  III.,  representing  the  principle  of 
division  ;  Ivan  to  Peter  the  Great,  representing  unity  ;  Peter 
to  Alexander  I.,  representing  regeneration  of  social  life.  But 
though  utterly  wrong  in  his  philosophy  of  history,  he  painted 
its  external  aspects  with  an  eloquent  pencil.  His  portraits  of 
the  old  Russians  are  magnificent,  and  his  battle-pictures— 
such  as  the  Field  of  Koulikovo,  and  the  Taking  of  Kazan — 
are  thrilling. 

Nikolai  Mikhailovich  Karamsin  was  bom  in  1766,  and 
lived  from  the  first  years  of  Catherine's  reign  to  the  death  of 
his  patron,  Alexander  I.  He  died  in  the  imperial  palace, 
having  brought  the  eleventh  volume  of  his  History  down  to 
the  accession  of  Michael  Romanoff",  in  1613.  Muravieff"  had 
made  him  Court  historigrapher.  His  melodramatic  History 
has  been  since  displaced  by  the  greater  works  of  more  scien- 
tific historians. 

I.  A.  KRIIvOFF. 

To  Ivan  Andreevitch  Kriloff"  properly  belongs  the  surname 
of  the  Russian  Lafontaine.  Not  only  was  he  a  born  fabulist, 
whose  fables  are  on  every  Russian's  lips,  but  he  was  strangely 
like  Lafontaine  in  his  simple-hearted  nature,  his  careless  life, 
and  his  uncouth  personality.  A  tutor  to  the  children  of  Prince 
Galitzin,  and  under  that  noble's  protection  in  the  middle  part 
of  his  life,  he  was,  in  his  childhood,  the  care  of  a  poor, 
illiterate  widow,  whose  father  had  fought  against  the  Cossack 
Pougatcheff".  During  these  early  days  the  young  Ivan  was 
always  strolling  about  the  wharves,  among  the  markets,  and 
through  the  streets  of  his  native  Moscow,  and  on  these  roam- 
ings  he  stored  his  mind  with  the  familiar  idioms,  the  humor- 
ous scenes,  the  Russian  spirit,  a;ll  of  which  is  so  strikingly 
conspicuous  in  his  fables.  Poverty  drove  him  to  journalism 
and  dramatic  writing,  but  in  1809,  when  he  was  forty-five 
years  old,  he  published  his  first  "Fables,"  twenty- three  in 
number.     His  very  first — "  The  Oak  and  the  Reed" — was  a 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE.  1 3 

translation  from  I^fontaine.  Before  his  death  he  had  written 
one  hundred  and  ninety-eight,  of  which  one  hundred  and 
sixty-one  were  of  his  own  invention.  In  1838,  a  jubilee  festival 
was  celebrated  in  his  honor,  and  after  his  death,  in  1844,  a 
statue  was  raised  to  his  memory  in  the  Summer  Garden. 

The  Monauch  Cahib. 

Cahib  was  a  mighty  sovereign,  and  of  course  renowned 
for  his  wisdom,  though  he  never  read  nor  consulted  a  book, 
since  books  are  seldom  written  by  caliphs,  and  it  would 
have  been  beneath  his  dignity  to  learn  from  any  of  lower 
rank  than  himself.  He  patronized  literature  and  science, 
but  in  a  judicious  way;  for,  by  occasionally  hanging  a  few 
of  the  learned  men  of  his  country,  he  took  care  that  their 
number  should  never  become  dangerously  great:  "since  they 
are  like  candles:  let  a  moderate  number  bum,  and  a  pleasant 
light  is  provided,  but  have  too  many,  and  there  is  danger 
of  a  fire."  His  palace  was  furnishe^  with  every  luxury, 
and  amongst  other  curiosities  could  boast  of  a  small  but 
unique  collection  of  apes,  which  had  been  trained  to  bow 
and  grimace  with  such  elegance,  that  many  of  the  nobility, 
in  their  eagerness  to  learn  graceful  manners,  did  their  best 
to  imitate  these  clever  animals,  and  succeeded  so  well  that  it 
was  difficult  to  decide  which  made  the  best  courtiers,  they 
or  the  apes. 

Naturally  Cahib  had  in  his  retinue  paid  poets,  who  never 
failed  to  turn  their  verses  to  good  account.  One  of  them, 
indeed,  once  wrote  a  glowing  ode  in  honor  of  a  certain  vizier, 
but,  when  he  came  to  present  his  poetical  tribute  of  homage, 
was  informed  that  the  minister  had  been  beheaded  early  that 
morning,  whereupon  he  immediately  changed  the  title,  and 
dedicated  it  to  his  late  patron's  enemy  and  successor;  "for 
odes,"  as  he  slily  remarked  to  a  friend,  "  are  like  silk  stock- 
ings, and  can  be  stretched  to  fit  any  foot."  When  Cahib's 
poets  did  not  write  odes,  they  indulged  in  idyllic  descriptions 
of  the  innocence  and  charms  of  shepherd  life,  and  so  excited 
the  caliph's  curiosity  that  he  resolved  with  his  own  6yes  to 
enjov  the  sight  of  nistic  felicity.  Accordingly  one  day  he 
set  forth,  accompanied  by  two  or  three  wise  viziers,  and  in 


14  WTERATUKB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

truth  found  a  shepherd  sitting  beneath  a  hedge,  though  he 
was  not  playing  on  an  oaten  reed,  but  crunching  a  morsel  of 
stale  bread ;  and  when  the  monarch,  surprised  that  he  was 
not  being  cheered  by  the  company  of  his  sweet  Lesbia,  in- 
quired where  the  shepherdess  was,  he  was  told  that  "she  had 
gone  to  town  to  sell  a  load  of  wood  and  their  last  fowl  in 
order  to  buy  some  food," 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  in  every  respect  Cahib  was 
the  happiest  of  rulers,  and  no  sovereign  could  boast  of  minis- 
ters more  devoted,  or  less  disposed  to  question  the  wisdom  of 
his  decisions,  or  contravene  any  of  his  fancies  or  caprices. 
And  the  means  by  which  he  contrived  to  surround  himself 
with  such  pliant  and  faithful  servants  were  as  simple  as  they 
were  effectual.  He  did  not  fail  to  assemble  them  on  stated 
occasions  in  solemn  council,  and  invariably  commenced  their 
deliberations  by  informing  them  what  line  of  policy  he 
wished  to  pursue,  and  then  solicited  their  advice  by  address- 
ing them  in  a  speech|to  the  following  purport ;  "Gentlemen, 
if  any  one  of  you  desires  to  express  his  views  on  the  matter, 
he  is  at  liberty  to  speak  freely  and  without  restraint,  having 
first  received  fifty  stripes,  after  which  we  shall  be  most  happy 
to  listen  to  what  he  has  to  say.' '  In  this  way  the  wise  Cahib 
escaped  an  immense  amount  of  palaver,  secured  the  unanimity 
of  his  ministers,  and  never  experienced  the  annoyance  of 
hearing  opinions  that  were  contrary  to  his  own. 

ALEXANDER  PUSHKIN 

Prince  of  Russian  poets  was  Alex- 
ander Pushkin,  the  laureate  of  Czar 
Nicholas.     Zhukovski  was  really  the 
originator  of  the  new  Romantic  school 
in  poetry,  twenty  years  before  this  over- 
shadowingj  disciple  of  Byron  stepped 
in  and  bore  off  all  the  laurels.     But  it 
jljllli^  needed  the  giant  genius  of  Pushkin  to 
™'    transform  the  sickly  sentimentality  of 
the  Russia  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  into    a    more   vigorous    and 
more  truly  national  romanticism.     He  was  descended  from 


RUSSIAN  IJTERATURE.  1 5 

an  Abyssinian  negro,  a  slave  in  the  seraglio  at  Constan- 
tinople, who  had  been  stolen  and  brought  to  Russia  by  a 
corsair,  and  then  not  only  adopted,  but  ennobled  by  Peter 
the  Great.  Pushkin  was  really  proud  of  his  thick  lips 
and  crisp  curly  hair.  He  was  "a  drop  of  Afiric  blood  on 
Arctic  snows."  Perhaps  this  same  blood  kept  him  from  be- 
coming truly  Russian  as  Gogol,  Turgenieff,  and  Tolstoi  were, 
just  after  him.  One  has  only  to  compare  Pushkin's  "Songs 
of  Western  Slavs  "  with  Tolstoi's  "  Cossacks  "  to  appreciate 
the  essential  difference  of  spirit.  Pushkin,  admired  by  Pros- 
per Merimde,  did  not  venture  far  from  the  Byronic  manner. 
He  had,  however,  just  found  his  path  when  he  was  killed  in 
a  self-provoked  duel,  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-eight  (1837).  He  may  be  said  to  have  inspired  Gogol 
and  paved  the  way  for  him. 

Pushkin  was  but  twenty-one  years  old  when  he  pub- 
lished his  romantic  poem  "Ruslan  and  Liudmila,"  the 
scene  of  which  was  laid  at  Kieff,  and  the  story  of  which  has 
been  beautifully  rendered  in  opera  by  Glinka.  Vladimir,  the 
"  Bright  Sun  "  of  the  old  legends,  shines  again.  Then,  ban- 
ished, because  of  a  daring  "  Ode  to  I^iberty,"  to  the  sea  regions 
of  the  Danube  and  the  Crimea,  Pushkin  sang  of  the  "  Foun- 
tain of  Bakhchisarai,"  the  old  palace  of  khans.  In  "The 
Prisoner  of  the  Caucasus  "  he  glorifies  the  love  of  a  Circassian 
girl  for  a  captive  Russian  officer  (Pushkin  was  a  general  of 
dragoons  himself).  He  sang  gipsy  (Tzigani)  songs  of  love 
and  vengeance.  On  leaving  Odessa  he  wrote  a  Byronic  "Ode 
to  the  Sea."  In  1825  he  gave  the  Russian  stage  its  first  play 
in  Shakespearean  style  in  his  tragedy  of  "Boris  Godunoff," 
the  great  usurper  who  ranks  with  the  Pretender  Dmitri  as  a 
dramatic  figure.  Mazeppa's  treachery  is  lashed  in  his  "  Pol- 
tava," a  narrative  poem  in  which  the  battle  scene  of  Pultowa 
is  described  in  glowing  colors.  He  also  undertook  a  history 
of  Pougatcheff's  revolt  against  Catherine,  left  unfinished,  and 
wrote  some  prose  tales,  such  as  "The  Captain's  Daughter." 
But  his  masterpiece  was  "  Eugene  Oneguin  "  {1837),  who  was 
an  incarnation  of  the  purposeless,  restless  Russian  nobleman 
of  that  day.  The  hero  of  the  poem  flies  the  court  to  escape 
ennui,  rejects  the  passionate  love  of  the  countryfied  Natalia, 


I6  LITERATURE  OF  ALI.  NATIONS. 

and  only  learns  to  love  her  when  she  becomes  a  social  queen 
and  it  is  too  late.  An  "  Ode  to  Napoleon "  by  Pushkin  is 
inferior  to  a  similar  ode  by  Lermontoff,  his  natural  successor, 
whose  poem  of  "  The  Demon  "  is  noteworthy. 


Tatiana's  Retrospect. 

(From  "Eugene  Oneguin.") 

I  was  younger,  then,  Oneguin, 

And  it  seems  to  me,  I  was  better  then. 

And  I  loved  you, — and  what  WdS  my  reward  ? 

What  did  I  find  in  your  heart  ? 

What  response  ?    Naught  but  coldness. 

Is  it  not  true  that  for  you 

A  simple  maiden's  love  was  no  novelty  ? 

And  now — God ! — my  blood  runs  cold 

Even  at  the  bare  remembrance  of  that  icy  look. 

And  the  homily  you  read  me.     But  do  not  think, 

I  blame  you.     In  that  awful  hour 

You  acted  well  and  honorably ; 

You  were  right  in  all  you  said  and  did ; 

And  I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart. 

But  to  me,  Oneguin,  this  worldly  glare, 

This  tinsel  blaze  of  an  empty  life, 

My  triumphs  and  successes  in  the  world, 

My  fashionable  home  and  gay  evenings ; 

What  are  these  to  me?    This  minute  I'd  gladly 

exchange 
All  this  masquerading  frippery. 
All  this  noisy,  vaporish  pomp. 
For  the  old  shelf  of  books,  the  wild  garden, 
The  poor,  humble  village  home. 
The  spot  where  first  I  saw  you,  Oneguin, 
Or  for  the  quiet  churchyard, 
Where  now  a  cross  and  the  shade  of  cypress-tree 
Mark  the  grave  of  poor  old  nurse. 
For  happiness  was  so  conceivably  possible. 
So  nearly  within  our  grasp.     But  my  fate 
Is  now  decided.    Inconsiderately, 
It  may  be,  I  acted : 
But  with  tears  and  conjuring  prayers 


RUSSIAN  LITSRATURE.  17 

My  mother  entreated  me,  and  for  poor  Tatiana 

All  sacrifices  were  alike  .... 

I  married,  and  now  you  must, — 

I  implore  you, — you  must  now  leave  me. 

I  know  that  in  your  heart  you  own 

The  stern  claims  of  pride  and  honor. 

I  love  you,  why  seek  to  play  the  hypocrite  ? 

But  I  am  given  to  another, 

And  will  forever  remain  true  to  him. 

.The  Lot  op  Man. 

The  common  lot  of  men  awaited  him ; 
The  years  of  youth  would  quickly  pass, 
The  glow  of  fancy  growing  cold  within  him, 
Till  in  all  he  would  be  changed, 
Bid  adieu  to  poetry,  and  take  a  wife,        / 
Live  a  country  life,  contented  arid  a  cuckold, 
Wear  all  day  his  loose  striped  dressing-gOwn, 
And  come  to  know  the  frets  and  woes  of  life : 
From  his  fortieth  year  feel  the  twinging  pangs 

of  gout ; 
Eat,  drink,  mope,  grow  fat  and  weak, 
Till  last  scene  of  all,  he  dies  quietly  in  his  bed. 
Tended  by  his  wife  and  children, 
The  village  leech  and  whining  nurse. 

The  Vanity  of  Life. 

Vain  gift, — gift  of  chance, 
O  life,  why  wert  thou  granted  me  ? 
Or  why,  by  fatfe's  mysterious  decree, 
Wert  thou  foredoomed  to  sorrow  ? 

What  god,  with  unfriendly  power. 

Called  me  forth  from  nothingness. 

Filled  my  soul  with  passion. 

And  troubled  my  mind  with  torturing  doubt? 

An  aimless  future  lies  before  me, 
My  heart  is  dry,  my  mind  is  void, 
My  soul  is  dulled  arid  blighted 
By  the  monotony  of  life's  riot, 
X — 3 


18 


WTERATURS   OF  ALL  NATIONS. 


My  Monument. 

I  have  reared  to  myself  a  monument  not  made  with  hands, 
And  the  feet  of  many  pilgrims  shall  tread  the  path  to  it  all  smooth, 
Where,  with  proud  unbending  head,  it  shall  tower 

Higher  than  Napoleon's  column. 
No !  I  shall  not  wholly  die,  the  soul  that  inspires  my  sacred  muse 
Shall  outlive  my  dust,  and  shall  defy  corruption ; 
And  I  shall  be  glorious,  whilst  in  our  sublunary  sphere 

Breathes  a  single  poet  to  chant  his  lays. 


NIKOI.AI  GOGOIv. 

Modern  Russian  realism  is  traced  to 
Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol  (1809-1852). 
Born  in  the  government  of  Poltava, 
his  grandfather  had  been  one  of  those 
Zaparog-Cossacks  whose  heroic  ex- 
ploits Gogol  was  to  celebrate  in 
his  great  epopee  of  "Taras  Bulba." 
His  childhood  was  fed  on  the  leg- 
;  ends  of  the  Malo-Russians,  and  in 
later  life  he  ransacked  the  memo- 
ries of  all  his  relatives  and  friends 
for  these  old  traditions.  Naturally 
his  initial  apprenticeship  to  the  romantic  phase  of  Pushkin 
lasted  but  a  brief  time  and  was  quickly  cured  by  the  ridicule 
which  greeted  his  weak  German  idyll,  Hans  Knechel  Garten, 
In  1830  appeared  the  first  story  of  his  Cossack  series,  "  Even- 
ings at  the  Farm,"  purporting  to  be  narrated  by  Rudui  Panko 
(Sandy  the  little  nobleman).  This  work  has  been  well  des- 
cribed as  being  "at  once  modern  and  archaic,  learned  and  en- 
thusiastic, mystic  and  refined — in  a  word,  Russian."  The  tales 
are  divided  into,  two  parts  named  respectively  after  the  two 
towns  of  Didanka  and  Mirgorod.  The  former  contains  the 
story  of  "The  Fair  at  Sorotchinsui,"  of  which  the  devil  is 
hero.  Another  is  a  witch  tale.  The  latter  included  "Old- 
Time  Proprietors"   (a  delightful  provincial  picture  which 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE.  1 9 

somewhat  foreshadowed  TurgenieflF's  "Virgin  Soil"),  and 
"Taras  Bulba,"  the  germ  soon  after  expanded  into  a  wonder- 
ful romance.     "When  Gogol  set  the  colossal  Taras  on  his 
feet,"  declared  Turgenieff,  "he  revealed  genius."     The  ex- 
panded tale  is  a  grand  masterpiece  of  Cossack  color,  spirit 
and  lore.     It  deals  with  the  Atamdn  Taras  Bulba  and  his  two 
sons,  whom  he  takes  to  the  Setch  camp  of  the  Zaporozhtsui 
on  an  island  in  the  Dnieper  to  make  them  warriors.     Andre 
deserts  to  the  Poles  through  love  of  a  Polish  sweetheart, 
meets  his  father  face  to  face  in  battle,  and  is  executed  by  the 
stern  parent.     The  rigor  of  these  primitive  times  is  stirringly 
reproduced.     The  success  of  this  masterpiece  led  Gogol  to 
plan  a  History  of  Little  Russia,  but  he  was  to  be  inspired  to 
a  greater  work.     From  a  comedy,  "  The  Revizor  "  (Inspector- 
General),  in  which  he  satirized  ofl&cial  cupidity,   arrogance 
and  corruption,  he  ro£".e  to  a  powerful  satire  on  all  Russia  in 
his  weirdly-named  romance,  "  Dead  Souls."    The  hero,  Tchit- 
chikof,  is  an  impecunious  adventurer  who  buys  the  dead  and 
runaway  slaves  since  the  last  Russian  census,  intending  to 
raise  a  large  loan  by  mortgaging  these  imaginary  human 
chattels.     He  journeys  from  estate  to  estate  in  his  leather- 
flapped  britchka,  accompanied  by  his  stupid  lackey  Petrushka 
and  his  talkative  coachman  Selifan.     Every  small  proprietor 
is  described  in  a  vivid  portrait.     The  strokes  are  cruel,  but 
just.     There  are  such  psychological  and  picturesque  types  as 
Plushkin,  the  miser,  which  stamp  themselves  indelibly  on  the 
memory.     Not  only  are  the  repellent  traits  of  the  owners  of 
serfs  portrayed,  but  the  cruelty  of  the  subaltern  burmistrs  and 
the  corruption  of  the  Russian  Tchinoviks.     Terrible  was  the 
picture  Gogol  drew  of  the  Russia  of  his  day.     He  looked  to 
Tzar  Nicholas,  who  had  issued  a  ukaze  abolishing  serfdom 
and  then  had  cancelled  it  under  pressure  from  the  nobility, 
to  remedy  this  grievous  situation.     But  Gogol  failed  to  paint 
the  woes  of  the  serf  himself  and  his  innate  human  nature. 
Emancipation  waited,  therefore,  for  the  pen  of  revelation  of 
Ivan  TurgenieflF.    As  for  poor  Gogol,  who  had  passed  from 
fantasy  and  imagination  to  satire  and  then  to  mysticism,  his 
brain  finally  broke  down,  and,  after  burning  many  pages  of 
hi§  "  Pea4  SqiiIs,"  he  died  insane  in  Italy  in  1 852.    His  earlier 


so  tITERATURB  OF  AI,I.  NATIONS. 

tales  are  full  of  the  beauty  of  the  great  Russian  steppes  and 
the  Ukraine  nights.  There  is  an  appreciable  element  of 
savagery  in  Gogol,  relishable  to  the  Russian.  His  characters 
are  the  half-barbarous  peasants  and  Cossack  lads  of  the  ham- 
lets bordering  on  the  infinite  steppes. 

The  Cossack  Mother. 

(From  "Taras  Bulba.") 
BuLBA  was  soon  snoring,  and  all  in  the  courtyard  fol- 
lowed his  example.  All  who  were  lying  stretched  in  its 
different  corners  began  to  slumber  and  snore.  The  first  to 
fall  asleep  was  the  watchman,  for  he  had  drunk  more  than 
the  rest  in  honor  of  his  master's  arrival.  The  poor  mother 
aloue  could  not  sleep.  She  hung  over  the  pillow  of  her  detff 
sons,  who  were  lying  side  by  side.  She  gently  smoothed 
their  young  dishevelled  locks  and  moistened  them  with  her 
tears.  She  watched  them  long  and  eagerly,  gazing  on  them 
with  all  her  soul,  yet,  though  her  whole  being  was  absorbed 
in  sight,  she  could  not  gaze  enough.  With  her  own  breast 
she  had  nourished  them  ;  she  had  lovingly  tended  them  and 
watched  their  youth ;  and  now  she  has  them  near  her,  but 
only  for  a  moment.  '  Sons,  my.  dear  sons,  what  fate  is  in 
store  for  you?  If  I  could  have  you  with  me  but  for  a  little 
week.'  And  tears  fell  down  on  the  wrinkles  that  disfigured 
her  once  handsome  face.  .  .  .  In'truth,  she  was  to  be  pitied,  as 
was  every  woman  in  those  early  times.  She  would  see  her 
husband  for  two  or  three  days  in  a  year,  and  then  for  years 
together  would  see  and  hear  nothing  of  him.  And  when 
they  did  meet,  and  when  they  did  live  together,  what  kind 
of  life  was  it  that  she  led?  Then  she  had  to  endure  insults 
and  even  blows;  no  kindness,  save  a  few  formal  caresses, 
did  she  receive ;  she  had,  as  it  were,  no  home,  and  was  out  of 
her  place  in  the  rough  camp  of  unwedded  warriors.  She  had 
seen  her  youth  glide  by  without  enjoyment,  and  her  fresh 
cheeks  grew  wrinkled  before  their  time.  All  her  love  all 
her  desire,  all  that  is  tender  and  passionate  in  woman,  all 
was  now  concentrated  in  one  feeling,  that  of  a  mother. 
And  like  a  bird  of  the  steppe,  she  feverishly,  passionately, 
tearfully  hovered  over  her  children.     Her  sons,  her  darling 


RUSSIAN  LITBRATURB.  21 

sons,  are  to  be  taken  away  from  her,  and  it  may  be  she  will 
never  see  them  again.  Who  can  tell,  but  that  in  the  first 
battle  some  Tartar  may  cut  off  their  heads,  and  she  not  even 
know  where  to  find  their  corpses,  and  those  dear  bodies,  for 
each  morsel  of  which,  for  each  drop  of  whose  blood  she  would 
gladly  give  the  world  in  exchange,  be  cast  away  for  wild  ra- 
venous birds  to  tear  in  pieces?  Sbbbingly  she  looked  on 
them,  while  heavy  sleep  began  to  weigh  down  their  eyes,  and 
she  thought,  'Ah,  perchance,  Bulba,  when  he  awakes,  will 
delay  his  departure  for  a  day  or  so,  and  it  may  be  that  it  was 
only  in  his  drink  he  thought  to  set  out  so  quickly.' 

The  moon  had  risen  in  the  heavens,  shining  down  on  the 
yard  covered  with  sleeping  Cossacks,  on  the  thick  sallows, 
and  on  the  high  grass  which  had  overgrown  the  palisade  that 
surrounded  the  court.  But  the  mother  still  sat  beside  her  dear 
sons,  not  once  taking  her  eyes  off  them,  never  thinking  of  sleep. 
Already  the  horses,  scenting  the  dawn,  had  lain  down  on  the 
grass  and  ceased  to  feed;  the  upper  leaves  of  the  sallow  began  to 
wave  gently,  and  the  wind's  murmuring  breath  softly  touched 
the  branches  beneath.  But  the  mother  still  sat  watching  till 
dawn  ;  she  felt  no  weariness  ;  she  only  prayed  that  the  night 
might  not  come  to  an  end.  The  shrill  neighing  of  steeds 
was  to  be  heard  from  the  steppe,  and  the  red  streaks  of  the 
rising  sun  brightly  illumined  the  sky. 

Bulba  was  the  first  to  awake  and  spring  to  his  feet.  He 
well  remembered  all  that  he  had  ordered  the  evening  before. 
'  Now,  lads,  no  more  sleep :  it  is  time  to  get  up  and  feed  the 
horses.  Where  is  the  old  woman?  Quick,  old  woman,  get  us 
something  to  eat,  but  quick,  for  we  have  a  long  march  before 
us.'  Three  saddled  horses  stood  before  the  door  of  the  hut. 
The  Cossacks  leaped  on  their  steeds,  but  when  the  mother  saw 
that  her  sons  had  also  mounted,  she  rushed  to  the  younger, 
whose  traits  wore  a  somewhat  tenderer  expression,  caught  his 
stirrup,  clung  to  his  saddle,  and  with  despair  in  her  every 
feature,  refused  to  free  him  from  her  clasp.  Two  strong  Cos- 
sacks gently  loosened  her  hold,  and  carried  her  into  the  hut. 
But  when  they  had  passed  under  the  gateway,  in  spite  of  her 
age,  she  flew  across  the  yard  swifter  than  a  wild  goat,  and 
with  the  incredible  strength  of  madness  stopped  the  ]iorse, 


i2  tlTERATTJRB  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

and  clasped  her  son  with  a  wild  rapturous  embrace.    And 
once  more  they  carried  her  into  the  tent. 


The  Cossack  Father. 

Andre  saw  before  him  nothing,  nothing  but  the  terrible 
figure  of  his  father.  "Well,  what  are  we  to  do  now?"  said 
Taras,  looking  him  full  in  the  face.  But  Andre  could  find 
nothing  to  answer,  and  remained  silent,  his  eyes  cast  down 
to  the  ground.  "To  betray  thy  faith,  to  betray  thy  brothers. 
Dismount  from  thy  horse,  traitor."  Obedient  as  a  child,  he 
dismounted,  and  unconscious  of  what  he  did  remained  stand- 
ing before  Taras.  "Stand,  do  not  move,"  cried  Taras: 
"  I  gave  thee  life  ;  I  slay  thee."  And  falling  back  a  step,  he 
took  his  gun  from  his  shoulder.  Andre  was  deadly  pale  ;  his 
lips  moved  slowly  as  he  muttered  some  name ;  but  it  was  not 
the  name  of  his  mother,  his  country,  or  kin  ;  it  was  the 
name  of  the  beautiful  Polish  girl.  Taras  fired.  The  young 
man  drooped  his  head,  and  fell  heavily  to  the  ground  without 
uttering  a  word.  The  slayer  of  his  son  stood  and  gazed  long 
upon  the  breathless  corpse.  His  manly  face,  but  now  full  of 
power  and  a  fascination  no  woman  could  resist,  still  retained 
its  marvellous  beauty ;  and  his  black  eyebrows  seemed  to 
heighten  the  pallor  of  his  features.  "What  a  Cossack  he 
might  have  been,' '  murmured  Taras :  "so  tall  his  stature, 
so  black  his  eyebrows,  with  the  countenance  of  a  noble,  and 
an  arm  strong  in  battle." 

Not  long  after  Taras  had  thus  sternly  vindic^ited  the 
honor  of  his  race,  he  and  Ostap  are  waylaid  and  surrounded 
by  a  body  of  Poles.  Long  and  desperately  they  fight,  stub- 
bornly they  dispute  each  inch  of  ground,  to  the  last  they  re- 
fuse to  yield  ;  but  what  can  two  effect  against  a  score  ?  Taras 
is  struck  senseless  to  the  earth,  and  Ostap  is  taken  prisoner 
and  carried  off.  The  bereaved  father  awakes  only  to  dis- 
cover his  heavy  and  irreparable  loss  ;  the  days  henceforth  pass- 
wearily,  and  he  no  longer  .finds  pleasure  in  battle  or  in  war- 
like sports.  ' 

He  went  into  the  fields  and  across  the  steppes  as  if  to 
hunt,  but  his  gun  hung  idly  on  his  shoulder,  or  with  a  sor- 


RUSSIAN  WTERATURE  23 

rowful  heart  he  laid  it  down  and  sat  by  the  seashore.  There 
with  his  head  sunk  low  he  would  remain  for  hours,  moaning 
all  the  while,  '  Oh,  my  son,  Ostap.  Oh,  Ostap,  my  son.' 
Bright  and  wide  rolled  the  Black  Sea  at  his  feet,  the  gulls 
shrieked  in  the  distant  reeds,  his  white  hairs  glistened  like 
silver,  and  the  large  round  tears  rolled  down  his  furrowed 
cheeks. 

But  this  agony  of  uncertainty  is  too  great  to  bear ;  at  all 
cost  he  will  seek  out  his  son,  weep  for  him  if  dead,  embrace 
him  if  living.  With  the  assistance  of  a  Jewish  spy,  named 
Yankel,  he  makes  his  way  in  disguise  to  Warsaw,  where  they 
arrive  only  to  learn  that  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day  his 
brave  boy  is  to  suffer  an  ignominious  death.  He  proceeds  to 
the  place  of  execution,  takes  up  his  stand  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd,  and  watches  in  silence  the  hideous  formalities  by 
which  the  sharpness  of  death  is  made  more  bitter. 

Ostap  looked  wearily  around  him.  Gracious  God,  not 
one  kindly  look  on  the  upturned  faces  of  that  heaving  crowd. 
Had  there  been  but  one  of  his  kin  there  to  encourage  him.  No 
weak  mother  with  her  wailings  and  lamentations ;  no  sobbing 
wife,  beating  her  bosom  and  tearing  her  hair ;  but  a  brave 
man,  whose  wise  word  might  give  him  fresh  strength  and 
solace.  And  as  he  thus  thought,  his  courage  failed  him,  and 
he  cried  out,  '  Father,  where  art  thou?  Dost  thou  not  hear 
me? '  '  I  hear,  my  son,'  resounded  through  the  dead  silence, 
and  all  the  thousands  of  people  shuddered  at  that  voice.  A 
party  of  calvary  rode  hurriedly  about,  searching  among  the 
crowd  that  surrounded  the  scaffold.  Yankel  turned  pale  as 
death,  and  when  the  soldiers  had  riden  past^  looked  furtively 
to  where  Taras  had  been  standing,  but  Taras  was  no  longer 
there  ;  no  trace  of  him  was  left. 

Apostrophe  to  Russia. 

Russia,  Russia !  My  thoughts  turn  to  thee  from  my  won- 
drous beautiful  foreign  home,  and  I  seem  to  see  thee  once  more. 
Nature  has  not  been  lavish  in  her  gifts  to  thee.  No  grand 
views  to  cheer  the  eye  or  inspire  the  soul  with  awe;  no  glorious 
works  of  art,  no  many-windowed  cities,  with  their  lofty  pal- 
aces, no  castles  planted  on  some  precipice,  embowered  in 


24  LITERATURE  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

groves  and  ivy  that  clings  to  the  walls,  amidst  the  eternal 
roar  and  f>.aia  of  waterfalls.  No  traveler  turns  back  to 
gaze  on  high  masses  of  mountain  granite,  that  tower  in 
endless  succession  above  and  around  him.  No  distant, 
far-stretching  lines  of  lofty  hills  ranging  upwards  to  the 
bright  blue  heavens,  and  of  which  we  catch  faint  glimpses 
through  dim  arches  entwined  with  vine  branches,  ivy,  and 
myriads  of  wild  roses.  All  with  thee  is  level,  open  and 
monotonous.  Thy  low-built  cities  are  like  tiny  dots  that 
indistinctly  mark  the  centre  of  some  vast  plain,  nor  is  there 
aught  to  win  and  delight  the  eye.  And  yet,  what  is  this 
inconceivable  force  that  attracts  me  to  thee?  Why  do  I  seem 
to  hear  again,  and  why  are  my  ears  filled  with  the  sounds  of 
thy  sad  songs,  as  they  are  wafted  along  thy  valleys  and  huge 
plains,  and  are  carried  hither  from  sea  to  sea?  What  is  there 
in  that  song,  which,  as  it  calls  and  wails,  seizes  on  the  heart  ? 
What  are  those  melancholy  notes  that  lull  but  pierce  the 
heart  and  enslave  the  soul?  Russia,  what  is  it  thou  wouldst 
with  me  ?  What  mysterious  bond  draws  me  towards  thee  ? 
Why  gazest  thou  thus,  and  why  does  all  that  is  of  thee  turn 
those  wistful  eyes  to  me  ?  And  all  the  while  I  stand  in 
doubt,  and  above  me  is  cast  a  shadow  of  a  laboring  cloud,  all 
heavy  with  thunder  and  rain,  and  I  feel  my  thoughts  be- 
numbed and  mute  in  presence  of  thy  vast  expanse.  What 
does  that  indefinable,  unbounded  expanse  foretell  ?  Are  not 
schemes  to  be  bom  as  boundless  as  thyself,  who  art  without 
limit?  Are  not  dpeds  of  heroism  to  be  achieved,  where  all 
is  ready,  open  to  receive  the  hero?  And  threateningly  the 
mighty  expanse  surrounds  me,  reflecting  its  terrible  strength 
within  my  soul  of  souls,  and  illumining  sight  with  unearthly 
power.     What  a  bright,  marvellous,  weird  expanse  1 

IVAN  S.  TURGENIEFP. 

In  that  region  of  Russian  fiction  which  Gogol  opened, 
Ivan  Sergeyevitch  TurgeniefF  achieved  a  marvellous  success, 
which  resulted  in  a  Focial  revolution.  He  was  born  neat 
Orel,  November  o,  1818,  only  nine  years  after  the  birth  ol 
Gogol.     He  not  only  took  up  the  new  type  of  fiction'  but 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE.  Sj 

achieved  the  preliminary  work  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
serf  in  which  Gogol  had  only  half  succeeded.  While  Gogol 
stopped  short  with  his  terribly  realistic  revelation  of  what 
the  owners  of  the  serfs  were,  Turgenieff  forced  the  gaze  of  all 
Russia  to  the  wretched  and  cruelly  oppressed  serfs  them- 
selves. His  "Annals  of  a  Sportsman,"  which  appeared  in 
1846,  may  be  regarded  as  having  been  the  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin "  of  Russia.  It  undoubtedly  contributed  much  to 
Alexander  II. 's  decree  (1861),  abolishing  serfdom. 

This  curse  of  serfdom  dated  from  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  had  become  consecrated  as  a  legal  institution  in  1609. 
Denis  von  Visin  had  in  "Nedorosl"  (The  Minor)  touched 
upon  the  ill-treatmeut  of  the  serfs ;  but  the  condition  of  the 
French  peasant  in  his  day  was  even  more  terrible.  It  was  by 
a  strange  decree  of  fate  that  Turgenieff  came  into  such  ap- 
preciative contact  with  the  Russians  of  the  yoke.  His  grand- 
mother was  just  such  a  choleric  baruina  of  the  old  school  as 
he  afterwards  painted  in  his  story,  "  Punin  and  Baburin," 
Her  cruel  treatment  of  her  serfs  was  extreme.  As  might  be 
expected  of  such  an  old-style  Russian  lady,  she  forbade  her 
grandson  the  study  of  the  native  Russian  tongue.  It  was 
only  spoken  by  her  servants.  The  young  Ivan  was  not  to  be 
hindered,  however,  in  his  childish  thirst,  and  he  learned  not 
ofaly  the  old  Russian  legends,  but  the  Russian  speech  from 
one  of  his  grandam's  serfs.  In  later  years  his  memory  re- 
turned to  one  of  these  unfortunates  when  he  drew  the  charac- 
ter of  the  dumb  giant  porter,  Mumu.  Turgenieff's  grand- 
mother never  forgave  him  for  adopting  the  degrading  voca- 
tion of  literature — he,  a  son  of  an  heiress  of  the  Litvinoffs ! 
Perhaps  it  was  the  contrast  of  the  innate  human  virtues  of 
the  ser's  with  this  cruel  nature  of  his  ancestress  that  quick- 
ened Turgenieff's  appreciation  of  the  real  humanity  of  these 
chattels  of  the  Russian  estates. 

He  conceived  a  profound  affection  for  the  muzhik,  or  pea- 
sant. As  he  afterward  declared,  he  "swore  a  Hannibal's 
oath "  never  to  compromise  with  the  barbarous  system  of 
serfdom,  but  to  fight  it  even  to  the  death.  And  he  accom- 
plished his  lofty  purpose  by  opening  the  eyes  of  the  Russian 
court,  as  his  own  eyes  had  early  been  unveiled,  to  the  true 


26  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

inherent  worth  of  the  despised  serf.  In  1846  the  first  story 
of  his  "Annals  of  a  Sportsman"  appeared,  under  the  title  of 
"  Khor  and  Kalinuitch."  These  characters  represented  two 
types  of  serf :  Khor,  the  cautious  and  practical  creature,  Kal- 
inuitch, the  dreamy  enthusiast ;  but  in  both  he  revealed  the 
essential  human  nature.  These  and  the  succeeding  pictures 
of  Russia's  wretched  serfs  really  effected  a  revolution  in  the 
aristocratic  mind,  and  hastened  the  ukaze  of  enfranchised 
Russia.  When  Turgenieff  himself  sought  for  a  term  of  praise 
for  Alexander  II.,  the  highest  he  could  find  was  to  call  him 
"  the  Emperor  of  Muzhiks." 

But  while  Turgenieff  was  thus  striking  the  blow  that  was 
to  shatter  the  shackles  on  the  wrists  of  millions  of  his  en- 
slaved brother  men,  he  was  not  so  absorbed  in  the  serf  that 
he  did  not  behold  the  dawning  of  a  new  Russia.  In  the 
character  of  "  Dmitri  Rudin,"  in  "On  the  Eve,"  he  drew  a 
youth  of  1 840,  such  an  epoch  as  Pisemsky  has  pictured  in  his 
"People  of  the  Forties."  This  youth  was  cast  in  a  generous 
but  passive  mold.  His  defect  was  revealed  by  the  restless 
Lavretsky,  of  "  The  Nest  of  Nobles  "  (1859),  whose  propa- 
ganda to  the  youth  of  Russia  was  "  You  must  act."  Lavret- 
sky was  the  herald :  the  apostle  came  in  Bazarof,  the  hero  of 
" Fathers  and  Sons"  (1862),  and  his  new  gospel  proved  to  be 
"  Nihilisrri."  In  a  famous  passage  Turgenieff  coined  this 
new  word  which  has  traveled  over  the  world.  Turgenieff 
has  characterized  Bazarof  as  "  that  quick  spirit,  that  harbin- 
ger type."  His  creed  was  not  based  on  any  of  the  old  worn- 
out  ones :  it  was  to  tear  down,  to  clear  the  ground,  to  build 
an  entirely  new  social  fabric.  The  vague  feeling,  the  still 
nebulous  faith  of  the  new  generation,  was  crystallized  at  last 
around  a  definite  nucleus.  The  new  era  of  Russian  socialism 
found  its  voice  in  the  word,  "Nihilism."  The  government 
and  the  agitators  against  the  government  both  accepted  the 
term.  Fathers  and  sons  began  to  be  divided,  in  truth.  De- 
spite his  half  wolfish,  half  pessimistic  spirit,  the  young  medi- 
cal student  Bazarof  typified  the  Russian  soul  with  its  aspira- 
tion towards  progress.  However  Turgenieff  may  have  felt 
towards  the  radically  developed  Nihilism  of  a  later  day,  he 
certainly  put  his  whole  heart  into  Bazarof.     Nevertheless  he 


RUSSIAN  WTBRATURE.  27 

was.  destined  to  be  soon  disillusionized  of  many  of  his  dreams 
of  a  better  Russia.  His  intercourse  with  boastful  Russians 
at  Baden  Baden  soon  led  him  to  discover  that  many  of  the 
new  ideals  were  mere  chimeras.  His  disappointment  found 
expression  (in  1867)  in  the  romance  "Smoke."  His  faith  in 
Russia's  future  was  not  crushed,  but  he  idealized  in  lyitvinof 
her  gloomy  and  painful  destiny,  since  amply  fulfilled. 

For  ten  years  Turgenieff  then  held  his  peace  while  bitterly 
assailed  by  Liberals  and  Nihilists  alike  as  a  renegade.  But 
in  1877,  on  the  eve  of  the  great  Nihilist  suit  against  the  One 
Hundred  and  Ninety-Three,  he  broke  his  silence  with  ■  his 
grand  masterpiece,  "  Virgin  Soil."  In  this  novel  the  theoretical 
Nihilism  of  his  "  Fathers  and  Sons"  and  "Smoke  "is  be- 
held in  action.  Neshdanof,  the  hero,  represents  the  new  type 
of  Nihilistic  propagandist.  So  true  was  the  portrait  that, 
while  it  was  attacked  at  the  outset,  Turgenieff  was  soon  ac- 
cused of  having  been  paid  50,000  rubles  by  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment thus  to  popularize  its  case.  In  Neshdanof  the  Nihi- 
list is  still  the  dreamer,  unable  to  interest  the  masses  or  to 
achieve  his  revolution.  Still  it  cannot  be  said  that  Turge- 
nieff does  not,  after  all,  sympathize  with  Neshdanof.  His 
character  possesses  an  inalienable  nobility.  Nihilists  have 
ground  to  claim,  as  they  continue  to  do,  that  Turgenieff's 
heart  was  really  with  them  to  the  last.  An  exile  from  Russia 
through  troubles  with  the  censorship  (due  to  an  article  on 
Gogol),  his  declining  years  were  embittered  by  the  attacks  on 
him  from  all  sides.  This  bitterness  is  revealed  in  his  fare- 
well poems,  "Senilial"  He  died  in  Paris  on  September  3, 
1883,  still  true  to  the  Russian  people,  even  if  warning  them 
against  Slavophilism  and  advising  them  to  profit  by  Euro- 
pean civilization. 

The  Nihilist. 

"Where  is  your  new  friend ?"  he  asked  Arkadi. 

' '  He  has  gone  out  already.  He  generally  gets  up  very 
early  and  makes  some  excursion.  But  I  must  tell  you,  once 
for  all,  that  you  need  not  take  any  notice  of  him ;  he  does 
not  care  for  conventionalities." 

"  Yes,  so  I  perceive." 


28  LITERATURE  OF  AI,!,  NATIONS. 

Paul  Petrovitch  began  slowly  to  spread  butter  on  his  bread. 

"Will  he  remain  here  any  length  of  time?" 

"That  depends.     He  will  go  from  here  to  his  father's." 

"  And  where  does  his  father  live?" 

"In  our  distiict;  eighty  versts  from  here.  He  has  a 
little  estate  there.     He  used  to  be  the  regimental  doctor." 

"Ta-ta,  tata!  I  have  been  continually  asking  myself, 
where  could  I  have  heard  that  name  before?  Bazarof, 
Bazarof !  Nicholas,  do  you  not  remember  that  in  our  father's 
division  there  was  a  Dr.  Bazarof?" 

"I  seem  to  remember  something  of  the  sort." 

"Yes,  it  is  right  enough.  So  this  doctor  is  his  father 
— hm!" 

Paul  Petrovitch  twisted  his  moustache. 

"Well,  and  what  is  Mr.  Bazarof  junior?"  asked  he  slowly. 

"What  is  Bazarof?"  Arkadi  smiled.  "  Shall  I  tell  you, 
uncle,  what  he  really  is  ?  " 

"  Do  me  that  favor,  my  dear  nephew." 

"He  is  a  Nihilist." 

"What?"  asked  Nicholas  Petrovitch. 

As  for  Paul  Petrovitch,  he  suddenly  raised  the  knife,  on 
whose  point  was  a  little  piece  of  butter,  and  remained 
motionless. 

"  He  is  a  Nihilist,"  repeated  Arkadi. 

"  Nihilist !"  said  Nicholas  Petrovitch.  "The  word  comes 
from  the  Latin  nihil^  nothing,  as  far  as  I  can  tell,  and  there- 
fore designates  a  person  who  acknowledges  nothing. ' ' 

"Or  rather,  who  respects  nothing,"  said  Paul  Petrovitch, 
who  recommenced  buttering  his  bread. 

"  Or  rather,  who  regards  everything  from  a  critical  point 
of  view,"  remarked  Arkadi. 

'•Does  not  that  come  to  the  same  thing?"  asked  Paul 
Petrovitch. 

"  No,  by  no  means.  A  Nihilist  is  a  man  who  bows  to  no 
authority,  who  accepts  no  principles  on  faitli  alone,  however 
high  may  be  the  regard  in  which  this  principle  is  held  in 
human  opinion." 

"And  do  you  consider  that  right?"  asked  Paul  Petro- 
vitch. 


RUSSIAN  UTERATXJRB.  29 

"That  depends  on  the  point  of  view,  uncle;  some  think 
it  right,  while  others  consider  it  quite  wrong." 

"  Indeed.  Well,  I  see  it  is  not  our  point  of  view.  We  of 
the  old  school  are  of  opinion  that  without  principles,  that 
are  received  on  faith  alone,  as  you  express  it,  the  world  could 
not  exist.  But  vouz^  avez  change  tout  cela.  Well,  may  God 
give  you  good  health  and  the  rank  of  general ;  as  for  us,  we 
will  be  content  with  admiring  you,  you — what  do  you  call 
yourselves?" 

"Nihilists,"  said  Arkadi,  accenting  each  syllable. 

"  Yes.  We  used  to  have  Hegelists,  now  we  have  Nihilists. 
We  shall  see  how  you  manage  to  exist  in  the  nothing,  the 
vacuum,  as  under  an  air-pump.  And  now,  brother  Nicholas, 
be  so  good  as  to  ring ;  I  should  like  to  drink  my  cocoa." 

The  combat  took  place  the  same  evening  at  tea.  Paul 
had  come  down  into  the  drawing-room  in  a  state  of  irritation, 
and  ready  for  the  fight.  He  only  awaited  an  opportunity  to 
throw  himself  on  the  enemy;  but  he  had  long  to  wait. 
Bazarof  never  spoke  much  before  the  "two old  fellows,"  as 
he  called  the  two  brothers  ;  besides,  he  did  not  feel  very  well 
this  evening,  and  swallowed  one  cup  of  tea  after  another  in 
silence.  Paul  was  devoured  by  impatience :  at  length  he 
found  the  opportunity  he  had  been  seeking. 

The  conversation  turned  on  one  of  the  neighboring 
landholders. 

"  He  is  a  simpleton,  a  bad  aristocrat,"  said  Bazarof,  who 
had  known  him  at  St.  Petersburg. 

"  Permit  me  to  ask  you,"  said  Paul,  with  trembliug  lips, 
"whether  the  words  '  simpleton '  and  '  aristocrat'  are  in  your 
opinion  synonymous?" 

"I  said  'bad  aristocrat,'"  replied  Bazarof  carelessly,  sip- 
ping his  tea. 

"  That  is  true ;  but  I  assume  that  you  rank  aristocrats 
and  bad  aristocrats  in  the  same  category.  I  think  it  right 
to  inform  you  that  such  is  not  my  opinion.  I  venture  to  say 
that  I  am  generally  considered  a  liberal  man  and  lover  of 
progress ;  but  it  is  just  on  that  account  that  I  respect  the 
aristocrats,  the  true  aristocrats.  Consider,  my  dear  sir" — 
Bazarof  fixed  his  eyes  on  Paul — "  my  dear  sir,"  continued  he. 


30  LITBRATURB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

with  dignity,  "  consider  the  English  nobility :  they  do  not 
give  up  one  iota  of  their  rights,  and  yet  they  respect  the 
rights  of  others  just  as  much ;  they  demand  what  is  due  to 
them,  and  yet  they  are  always  careful  to  render  their  due  to 
others.  It  is  the  nobility  that  has  given  England  its  liberty, 
and  that  is  its  strongest  support." 

"That  is  an  old  song  we  have  often  heard,"  replied  Baza- 
rof ;  "  but  what  do  you  mean  by  it  ?" 

' '  I  mean  to  prove  by  it,  my  dear  sir,  that  without  the  con- 
sciousness of  one's  own  dignity,  without  self-respect — and 
all  these  sentiments  prevail  among  the  aristocracy — there  can 
be  no  solid  foundation  for  the  commonwealth,  for  the  edifice 
of  the  State.  The  individual,  the  personality,  my  dear  sir 
— that  is  the  essential ;  a  man's  personality  must  stand  firm 
as  a  rock,  for  everything  rests  on  this  basis.  I  know  quite 
well  that  you  think  my  manners,  my  dress,  even  my  habit  of 
cleanliness,  absurd ;  but  all  this  springs  from  self-respect, 
from  a  feeling  of  duty — yes,  yes,  sir,  from  a  feeling  of  duty. 
I  live  in  an  out-of-the-way  corner  of  the  province ;  but  I  do 
not  neglect  my  person  on  that  account — in  my  own  person  I 
respect  the  man." 

"Excuse  me,  Paul  Petrovitch,"  replied  Bazarof;  "you  say 
that  you  respect  yourself,  and  you  sit  there  with  your  arms 
crossed.  What  advantage  can  that  be  to  the  commonwealth? 
If  you  did  not  respect  yourself  you  would  not  act  differently." 

Paul  Petrovitch  turned  pale. 

"  That  is  quite  another  matter,"  replied  he.  "  I  have  no 
intention  of  telling  you  why  I  stay  with  my  arms  crossed,  as 
you  are  pleased  to  call  it.  I  merely  wished  to  tell  you  that 
aristocracy  depends  upon  principle ;  and  it  is  only  immoral 
or  worthless  men  who  can  live  nowadays  without  principles. 
I  said  so  to  Arkadi  the  day  after  his  arrival ;  and  I  am  merely 
repeating  it  to  you  to-day.  Is  it  not  the  case,  Nicholas 
Petrovitch?" 

Nicholas  Petrovitch  nodded  assent. 

"Aristocracy,  liberalism,  principles,  progress,"  repeated 
Bazarof— "all  are  words  quite  foreign  to  our  language,  and 
perfectly  useless.    A  true  Russian,  need  not  use  them." 

"  What  does  he  need,  the-n,  in  your  opinion?    According 


RUSSIAN  LITER ATURB.  3 1 

to  you,  we  are  outside  the  limits  of  humanity,  outside  its 
laws.  That  is  going  rather  too  far;  the  logic  of  history 
requires — " 

"  What  do  you  need  that  logic  for  ?  We  can  do  very  well 
without  it. 

"How?" 

"  I  will  give  an  example.  I  fancy  that  you  do  not  need 
the  aid  of  logic  in  carrying  a  piece  of  bread  to  your  mouth 
when  you  are  hungry.  What  is  the  use  of  all  thepe  abstrac- 
tions?" 

Paul  lifted  up  his  hands. 

"  I  no  longer  understand  you,"  said  he.  "You  insult  the 
Russian  people.  I  do  not  understand  how  it  is  possible  not 
to  acknowledge  principles — rules  !  What  have  you,  then,  to 
^ide  you  through  life?" 

"  I  have  told  you  before,  uncle,"  interposed  Arkadi,  "  that 
we  do  not  acknowledge  any  authorities." 

"We  act  according  as  anything  seems  useful  to  us," 
added  Bazarof ;  "  to-day  it  seems  to  us  useful  to  deny,  and  we 
do  deny." 

"Everything?" 

"  Absolutely  everything." 

"What?  Not  only  art,  poetry,  but  even — I  hesitate  to 
say  it." 

"Everything,"  repeated  Bazarof,  with  most  indomitable 
calm. 

Paul  looked  at  him  fixedly.  He  had  not  expected  this 
answer.    Arkadi  blushed  with  pleasure. 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Nicholas,  "you  deny  everything,  or, 
to  speak  more  correctly,  you  destroy  everything;  but  you 
must  also  rebuild." 

"That  does  not  concern  us.  First  of  all,  we  must  clear 
the  ground." 

"The  present  state  of  the  people  requires  it,"  added 
Arkadi  seriously.  ' '  We  must  fulfill  this  duty ;  we  have  no 
right  to  abandon  ourselves  to  the  satisfaction  of  our  personal 
vanity." 

This  last  speech  did  not  please  Bazarof.  It  smacked  of 
philosophy,  that  is,  of  romanticism ;  for  he  gave  this  name 


32  UTERATURB  OF  Att  RATIONS. 

even  to  philosophy.     But  he  did  not  think  this  a  fitting 
moment  to  contradict  fiis  young  pupil. 

"No,  no!"  exclaimed  Paul,  with  sudden  emotion.  "I 
will  not  believe  that  you  gentlemen  have  a  right  idea  of  the 
Russian  people,  and  that  you  express  its  real  wants^  its  surest 
wishes.  No,  the  Russian  people  is  not  what  you  represent  it. 
It  has  a  reverent  respect  for  tradition ;  it  is  patriarchal ;  it 
cannot  live  without  faith." 

"  I  shall  not  attempt  to  contradict  you,"  replied  Bazarof. 
"I  am  even  ready  to  admit  that  this  once  you  are  right." 

"But  if  I  am  right?" 

"  That  proves  nothing  whatever. ' '     , 

"Nothing  whatever,"  repeated  Arkadi,  with  the  assur- 
ance of  an  experienced  chess-player,  who,  having  foreseen  a 
move  that  his  opponent  considers  dangerous,  does  not  seem  in 
the  least  disconcerted  by  it. 

"How  can  you  say  that  proves  nothing?"  said  Paul, 
stupefied.    "  Do  you  then  separate  yourself  from  your  people?" 

"  And  what  if  I  did  ?  The  people  believe  that  when  it 
thunders,  the  prophet  Elijah  is  riding  over  the  heavens  in  his 
chariot.  Well,  must  I  share  its  opinion  in  this  matter?  You 
think  you  will  confound  me  by  telling  me  that  the  people  is 
Russian.     Well,  am  not  I  Russian,  too  ?" 

"  No  ;  after  all  that  you  have  just  said,  you  'are  not.  I 
will  no  longer  acknowledge  you  to  be  Russian." 

"  My  grandfather  followed  the  plough,"  replied  Bazarof, 
with  lofty  pride.  "Ask  any  one  of  your  peasants  which  of 
us  two — you  or  me — he  is  readiest  to  acknowledge  as  his  fel- 
low-citizen.    You  cannot  even  talk  to  him." 

"And  you,  who  can  talk  to  him,  you  despise  him." 

"Why  not,  if  he  deserves  it?  You  condemn  the  ten- 
dency of  my  ideas  ;  but  how  do  you  know  that  it  is  accidental, 
that  it  is  not  rather  determined  by  the  universal  spirit  of  the 
people  whom  you  defend  so  well  ?  " 

"  Come,  the  Nihilists  are  very  useful." 

"Whether  they  are  or  not  is  not  for  us  to  decide.  Do  not 
you  also  think  that  you  are  good  for  something?" 

"Gentlemen,  gentlemen,  no  personalities,"  exclaimed 
Nicholas,  rising. 


KtrssiAN  utbraturb.  33 

Paul  smiled,  and  placing  his  hand  on  his  brother's  shdul- 
ier,  forced  him  to  sit  down  again. 

"Set  your  mind  at  rest,"  said  he;  "I  shall  not  forget 
tayself,  if  only  because  of  that  feeling  of  dignity  of  which 
this  gentleman  speaks  so  scornfully.  Excuse  me,"  continued 
he,  once  more  addressing  Bazarof ;  "you  probably  think  that 
your  mode  of  looking  at  things  is  a  new  one ;  that  is  a  mis- 
take on  youT  part.  The  materialism  you  profess  has  been 
held  in  honor  more  than  once,  and  has  always  proved  itself 
insufficient." 

"  Another  foreign  word ! "  replifed  Bazarof.  He  was  begin- 
ning to  become  bitter,  and  the  complexion  of  his  face  was 
assuming  an  unpleasant  yellow.  "  In  the  first  place,  let  me 
tell  you  that  we  do  not  preach  ;  that  is  not  one  of  our  habits." 

"  What  do  you  do,  then  ?  " 

"  I  will  tell  you.  We  have  begun  by  calling  attention  to 
the  extortionate  officials,  the  need  of  roads,  the  absence  of 
trade,  the  manner  of  executing  justice. " 

"Yes,  yes;  5-ou  are  informers,  divulgators,  that  is  the 
name  given  to  you,  if  I  am  not  much  mistaken.  I  agree  with 
you  in  many  of  your  criticisms ;  but — " 

"  Then  we  soon  discovered  that  it  was  not  enough  to  talk 
about  the  wounds  to  w'hich  we  are  succumbing,  that  all  this 
only  tended  to  platitudes  and  dogmatism.  We  perceived  that 
our  advanced  men,  our  divulgators^  were  worth  nothing  what- 
ever ;  that  we  were  taking  up  our  time  with  follies,  such  as 
art  for  art's  sake,  creative  power  which  does  not  know  itself, 
the  parliamentary  system,  the  need  of  lawyers,  and  a  thousand 
other  foolish  tales ;  while  we  ought  to  have  been  thinking  of 
our  daily  bread ;  while  we  were  overwhelmed  by  the  grossest 
superstition ;  while  all  our  joint-stock  companies  were  becom- 
ing bankrupt.  All  this  is  only  because  there  is  a  dearth  of 
honest  men ;  while  even  the  liberation  of  the  serfs,  with 
which  Government  is  much  occupied,  will  produce  no  good 
effects,  because  our  peasants  are  themselves  ready  to  steal,  so 
that  they  may  go  and  drink  poisonous  drugs  in  the  taverns." 

"Good,"  replied  Paul,  "very good.     You  have  discovered 
all  that,  and  all  the  same  you  are  determined  to  undertake 
nothing  serious?" 
X— 3 


34  UTBRATURB  OP  Ail,  NATIONS. 

"  Yes,  we  are  determined !  "  repeated  Bazarof,  somewhat 
sharply. 

Suddenly  he  began  to  reproach  himself  for  having  said  so 
much  before  this  gentleman. 

"And  you  confine  yourself  to  abuse  ?  " 

"We  abuse,  if  necessary." 

"  And  that  is  what  is  called  Nihilism  ?  " 

"  That  is  what  is  called  Nihilism  !  "  repeated  Bazarof,  this 
time  in  a  particularly  irritating  tone. 

Paul  winced  a  little.  • 

"Good!"  said  he,  with  forced  calm  and  constrained  man- 
ner. "  The  mission  of  Nihilism  is  to  remedy  all  things,  and 
you  are  our  saviours  and  our  heroes.  Excellent !  But  why 
do  you  abuse  the  others  so  much,  and  call  them  chatterboxes? 
Do  you  not  chatter  as  much  as  the  rest  ?  " 

"  Come,  if  there  is  anything  we  have  to  reproach  ourselves 
with,  it  is  certainly  not  this,"  muttered  Bazarof  between  his 
teeth. 

"What!  can  you  say  that  you  act,  or  even  prepare  for 
action?" 

Bazarof  remained  silent.  Paul  trembled,- bnt  he  restrained 
his  anger. 

"Then  act,  destroy,"  continued  he;  "but  how  dare  you 
destroy  without  ever  knowing  why  you  destroy  ?  " 

"  We  destroy  because  we  are  a  force, "  said  Arkadi,  gravely. 

Paul  looked  at  his  nephew  and  smiled. 

"Yes,  force  is  responsible  to  no  one,"  continued  Arkadi, 
drawing  himself  up. 

"  Wretched  man,"  exclaimed  Paul  Petrovitch,  no  longer 
able  to  contain  himself,  ' '  if  you  would  but  consider  what  you 
assert  of  Russia  alone,  with  your  absurd  phrases !  No,  it 
would  require  an  angel's  patience  to  endure  that  force !  The 
Mongol  and  the  savage  Kalmuk  have  force,  too.  But  how 
can  this  force  help  us  ?  What  ought  to  be' dear  to  us  is  civili- 
zation ;  yes,  yes,  my  dear  sirs,  the  fruits  of  civilization.  And 
do  not  tell  me  that  these  fruits  are  worthless ;  the  merest 
dauber  of  signboards,  the  most  wretched  fiddler,  who,  for  five 
kopecks  an  evening,  plays  polkas  and  mazurkas,  are  more 
useful  than  you,  because  they  are  representatives  of  civiliza- 


RUSSIAN  LITBRATURE.  35 

tion,  and  not  of  the  Mongolian  brute  force  I  You  consider 
yourselves  advanced,  and  your  proper  place  would  be  in  a 
Kalmuk  kibitka.  Force  !  Consider  one  moment,  you  strong 
gentlemen,  that  at  most  there  are  only  a  few  dozen  of  you, 
while  the  others  may  be  counted  by  millions,  and  that  they 
will  not  allow  you  to  tread  under  foot  their  most  sacred  tradi. 
tions;  no,  they  will  tear  you  to  pieces." 

"If  they  tear  us  to  pieces,  we  must  put  up  with  it,"  re- 
plied Bazarof.  "  But  you  are  quite  out  in  yot^r  reckoning. 
We  are  not  so  few  as  you  suppose. " 

"  What !  You  seriously  believe  that  you  will  be  able  to 
bring  the  whole  people  into  your  ranks  ?  " 

"  Do  you  not  know  that  a  kopeck  candle  is  enough  to  set 
the  whole  city  of  Moscow  on  fire  ?  ' '  answered  Bazarof. 

"  Excellent !  First,  almost  Satanic  pride,  and  then  irony 
which  reveals  your  bad  taste.  This  is  how  youth  is  carried 
away ;  this  is  how  the  inexperienced  hearts  of  these  boys  are 
seduced.  Look  !  there  is  one  of  them  by  your  side  ;  he  almost 
worships  you."  Arkadi  turned  away,  frowning.  "And  this 
contagion  has  already  spread.  I  have  been  told  that  at  Rome 
our  painters  no  longer  set  foot  into  the  Vatican ;  they  call 
Raphael  a  bungler,  because,  as  they  say,  he  is  considered  an 
authority^and  those  who  say  this  are  themselves  incapacity 
personified  ;  their  imagination  cannot  soar  beyond  the  '  Girl 
at  the  Well ;'  however  they  may  try,  they  cannot  attain  any- 
thing better  !  And  how  ugly  is  this  '  Girl  at  the  Well ! '  I 
suppose  you  have  the  highest  opinion  of  these  fellows,  have 
you  not  ?  " 

"As  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  replied  Bazarof,  "I  would 
not  give  twopence  for  Raphael,  and  I  do  not  suppose:  that  the 
others  are  worth  much  more." 

"Bravo,  bravo!  Do  you  hear,  Arkadi?  That  is  how 
young  people  should  express  themselves  now!  O,  I  can  quite 
understand  why  they  follow  in  your  footsteps!  Formerly 
they  used  to  feel  the  need  of  learning  something.  As  they 
did  not  wish  to  be  considered  ignorant,  they  were  forced  to 
work.  But  now  they  need  only  say,  *  There  is  nothing  but 
folly  and  rubbish  in  the  world ;'  and  there  is  an  end  to  every- 
thing.    The  students  may  well  rejoice.     Formerly  they  were 


36  UTBRATUKS  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

only  foolish  boys — behold  them  suddenly  transformed  into 
Nihilists  1" 

"  It  appears  to  me  that  you  are  forgetting  the  sentiment 
of  personal  dignity,  on  which  you  laid  so  much  stress  just 
now,"  remarked  Bazarof  phlegmatically,  while  Arkadi's  face 
flushed  with  indignation,  and  his  eyes  flashed.  "  Our  dispute 
has  led  us  too  far.  I  think  we  should  do  well  to  stop  here. 
Yet,"  added  he,  rising,  "I  should  agree  with  you  if  you  could 
name  to  me  a  single  institution  of  our  social,  civil,  or  family 
life,  which  does  not  deserve  to  be  swept  away  without  mercy.' ' 

"I  could  name  a  million  such,"  exclaimed  "Paul  Petrovitch^ 
"a  million !    Take,  for  instance,  the  commune." 

A  cold  smile  passed  over  Bazarof 's  lips. 

"As  for  the  commune,"  said  he,  "yoii  had  better  talk  to 
your  brother  about  that.  I  suppose  he  must  know  by  this 
time  what  to  think  of  the  commune,  the  solidarity  of  the 
peasants,  their  temperance,  and  similar  jokes." 

"And  the  family,  the  family,  such  as  We  still  find  it 
among  our  peasants ! "  exclaimed  Paul  Petrovitch. 

"In  my  opinion  that  is  another  question  that  you  would 
do  well  not  to  examine  too  closely.  Come,  take  my  advice, 
Paul  Petrovitch,  and  take  two  days  to  consider  the  matter. 
Nothing  else  will  occur  to  you  just  at  present;  consider  all 
our  institutions  one  after  another,  and  contemplate  them  care- 
fully.    Meantime  Arkadi  and  I  will — " 

"Turn  everything  to  ridicule,"  interrupted  Paul  Petro- 
vitch. 

"  No ;  dissect  frogs.  Come,  Arkadi.  Good  afternoon, 
gentlemen." 

The  two  friends  went  out.  The  brothers  remained  alone 
together,  and  for  some  time  could  only  look  at  each  other  in 
silence. 

"So  that  is  the  youth  of  to-day,"  began  Paul  Petrovitch 
at  length ;'  "those  are  our  successors ! " 


RUSSIAH  UTSRATURK.  37 


FEODOR  M.  DOSTOIEVSKY. 

Younger  than  Turgeniefif  by  three  years,  Feodor  Mik- 
hailovitch  Dostoievsky  died  three  years  before  that  great 
novelist.  He  was  bom  at  Moscow  in  1821  and  died  February 
9,  1881.  He  did  not  accept  exile,  as  did  TurgenieflF,  but  re- 
mained in  Russia,  became  implicated  in  the  Petrashevsky 
Society  conspiracy,  and  tasted  the  bitterness  of  Siberia.  His 
life  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  destined  to  gloom  from 
the  start.^  The  child  of  a  hospital  surgeon,  he  first  opened 
his  eyes  in  a  charity  hospital.  Throughout  his  life  he  was  a 
victim  of  hallucinations.  No  wonder  he  was  moved  to 
become  the  psychological  analyst  of  morbid  and  diseased 
characters.  At  first,  however,  he  was  drawn  by  pity  to  write 
a  heart-stirring  revelation  of  the  miseries  of  the  poor  of  St 
Petersburg.  His  "Poor  People,"  published  while  he  was 
only  twenty-three  years  old,  won  for  him  the  title  of  "the 
new  Gogol."  Extreme  wretchedness  was  shown  in  the  cat- 
astrophe of  the  love  idyl  of  the  poor  clerk  Drevushkin,  who 
loses  the  solace  of  his  poverty  in  the  marriage  of  his  poor  girl 
companion  to  a  rich  merchant.  But  the  story-teller  himself 
was  to  experience  an  even  more  cruel  fate.  Implicated  indi- 
rectly in  the  plot  against  Emperor  Nicholas,  he  was  cast  into 
prison,and  condemned  to  death.  On  the  morning  of  the  day 
of  doom  he  made  his  toilet,  donned  the  white  shirt,  kissed 
the  cross,  and  had  the  sabre  broken  over  his  head.  At  the 
last  moment,  however,  a  messenger  arrived  from  the  Czar. 
Dostoievsky  was  transported  to  Siberia.  Being  a  sub-lieu- 
tenant of  St.  Petersburg  School  of  Military  Engineering,  he 
was  put  to  work  in  the  mines.  Religion  alone  upheld  him 
during  these  terrible  four  years  (1849-54).  His  memories  of 
that  burial  alive  were  soon  after  given  to  the  world  in  his 
vivid  "Recollections  of  a  Dead  House,"  which  moved  all 
Russia.  But  his  morbid  tendencies  gained  the  upper  hand  in 
his  later  novels.  "Heavens!"  exclaimed  TurgenieflF,  after 
reading  one  story  by  this  doctor's  son,  "what  a  sour  smell ! 
What  a  vile  hospital  odor !  What  idle  scandal  !  What  a 
psychological  mole-hole ! "     The  pathological  phase  of  his 


38  UTERATURB  OF  AJ^Z,  NATIONS. 

romances  renders  them  truly  unwholesome,  although  in 
"Crime  and  Punishment"  he  has  made  au  overwhelmingly 
impressive  study  of  a  brain  diseased.  Raskolnikoflf,  the 
weak  hero,  plans  a  deliberate  rnurder  and  robbery  through 
merely  accidental  suggestion.  Ultimately  he  breaks  through 
the  moral  fog  enshrouding  him,  and  by  the  sympathetic  self- 
sacrifice  of  the  fallen  Sonia,  the  heroine,  starts  for  Siberia  to 
spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  repentance.  Other  novels  by 
Dostoievsky  are  " Idiots "  and  "Devils,"  two  social  satires, 
and  "  The  Degraded." 

The  Murderer's  Confession  to  Sonia. 

(From  "  Crime  and  Punishment.") 

Raskolnikoff  wished  to  smile,  but,  do  what  he  woum, 
his  countenance  retained  its  sorrow-stricken  look.  He  lowered, 
his  head,  covering  his  face  with  his  hands.  All  at  once,  he 
fancied  that  he  was  beginning  to  hate  Sonia.  Surprised, 
frightened  even,  at  so  strange  a  discovery,  he  suddenly  raised 
his  head  and  attentively  considered  the  girl,  who,  in  her  turn, 
fixed  on  him  a  look  of  anxious  love.  Hatred  fled  from  Ras- 
kolnikoflf's  heart.  It  was  not  that ;  he  had  only  mistaken 
the  nature  of  the  sentiment  he  experienced.  It  signified  that 
the  fatal  moment  had  come.  Once  more  he  hid  his  face  in 
his  hands  and  bowed  his  head.  Suddenly  he  grew  pale,  rose, 
and,  after  looking  at  Sonia,  he  mechanically  went  and  sat 
on  her  bed,  without  uttering  a  single  word.  Raskolnikoff's 
impression  was  the  very  same  he  had  experienced  when 
standing  behind  the  old  woman — he  had  loosened  the  hatchet 
from  the  loop,  and  said  to  himself:  "There  is  not  a  moment 
to  be  lost ! " 

"  What  is  the  matter? ' '  asked  Sonia,  in  bewilderment. 

No  reply.  Raskolnikoff  had  relied  on  making  explanations 
under  quite  different  conditions,  and  did  not  himself  understand 
what  was  now  at  work  within  him.  She  gently  approached 
him,  sat  on  the  bed  by  his  side,  and  waited,  without  taking 
her  eyes  from  his  face.  Her  heart  beat  as  if  it  would  break. 
The  situation  was  becoming  unbearable  ;  he  turned  towards 
the  girl  his  lividly-pale  face,  his  lips  twitched  with  an  effort 
to  speak.     Fear  had  seized  upon  Sonia. 


,  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE.  39 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?"  she  repeated,  moving 
slightly  away  from  him. 

"Nothing,  Sonia ;  don't  be  afraid.  It  is  not  worth  while ; 
it  is  all  nonsense!"  he  murmured,  like  a  man  absent  in 
mind.  "Only,  why  can  I  have  come  to  torment  you?" 
added  he  all  at  once,  looking  at  his  interlocutress,  "  Yes, 
why?  I  keep  on  asking  myself  this  question,  Sonia." 

Perhaps  he  had  done  so  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before,  but 
at  this  moment  his  weakness  was  such  that  he  scarcely  re- 
tained consciousness;  a  continued  trembling  shook  his  whole 
frame. 

"  Oh  !  how  you  suflFer  ! "  said  she,  in  a  voice  full  of  emo- 
tion, whilst  looking  at  him. 

"It  is  nothing!  But  this  is  the  matter  in  question, 
Sonia."  (For  a  moment  or  so,  a  pale  smile  hovered  on  his 
lips. )  "  You  remember  what  I  wished  to  tell  you  yesterday  ?  " 
Sonia  waited  anxiously.  "  I  told  you,  on  parting,  that  I  was, 
perhaps,  bidding  you  farewell  for  ever,  but  that  if  I  should 
come  to-day,  I  would  tell  you  who  it  was  that  killed  Eliza- 
beth." She  began  to  tremble  in  every  limb.  "Well,  then, 
that  is  why  I  have  come." 

"I  know  you  told  me. that  yesterday,"  she  went  on  in  a 
shaky  voice.  "  How  do  you  know  that?"  she  added  viva- 
ciously. Sonia  breathed  with  an  effort.  Her  face  grew  more 
and  more  pale. 

"I  know  it." 

"Has  he  been  discovered?  sne  asKed,  timidly,  after  a 
moment's  silence. 

"No,  he  has  not  been  discovered." 

For  another  moment  she  remained  silent.  "Then  how 
do  you  know  it  ?  "  she  at  length  asked,  in  an  almost  unintel- 
ligible voice. 

He  turned  towards  the  girl,  and  looked  at  her  with  a 
singular  rigidity,  whilst  a  feeble  smile  fluttered  on  his  lips. 
"Guess!"  he  said. 

Sonia  felt  on  the  point  of  being  seized  with  convulsions. 
"But  you, — rwhy  frighten  me  like  this?"  she  asked,  with  a 
childlike,  smile. 

"  I  know  it, -because  I  am  very  intimate  with  him  I ' '  went 


40  WTERATURS  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

on  Raskolnikoff,  whose  look  remained  fixed  on  her,  as  if  he 
had  not  strength  to  turn  his  eyes  aside.  "Elizabeth — he 
had  no  wish  to  murder  her — he  killed  her  without  premedi- 
tation. He  only  intended  to  kill  the  old  woman,  when  he 
should  find  her  alone.  He  went  to  her  house — but  at  the 
very  moment  Elizabeth  came  in — he  was  there-^and  he 
killed  her." 

A  painful  silence  followed  upon  those  w'brds.  For  a  mo- 
ment both  continued  to  look  at  one  another.  "  And  so  you 
can't  guess?"  he  asked  abruptly,  feeling -like  a  man  on  the 
point  of  throwing  himself  from  the  top  of  a  steeple. 

"No,"  stammered  Sonia,  in  a  scarcely  audible  voice. 

"Try  again." 

At  the  moment  he  pronounced  these  words,  Raskolnikoff 
experienced  afresh,  in  his  heart-of-hearts,  that  feeling  of  chil- 
liness he  knew  so  well.  He  looked  at  Sonia,  and  suddenly 
read  on  her  face  the  same  expression  as  on  that  of  Elizabeth, 
when  the  wretched  woman  recoiled  from  the  murderer  ad- 
vancing towards  her,  hatchet  in  hand.  In  that  supreme  mo- 
ment Elizabeth  had  raised  her  arm,  as  children  do  when  they 
begin  to  be  afraid,  and  ready  to  weep,  fix  a  glaring  immov- 
able glance  on  the  object  which  frightens  them.  In  the 
same  way  Sonia's  face  expressed  indescribable  fear.  She  also 
raised  her  arm,  and  gently  pushed  RdskolnikoflF  aside,  whilst 
touching  his  breast  with  her  hand,  and  then  gradually  drew 
back  without  ceasing  to  look  hard  at  him.  Her  fear  affected 
the  young  man,  who,  for  his  part,  began  to  gaze  on  her  with 
a  scared  expression. 

"  Have  you  guessed?"  he  murmured  at  last. 

"  My  God ! "  exclaimed  Sonia. 

Then  she  sank  exhausted  on  the  bed,  and  buried  her  face 
in  the  pillows ;  a  moment  after,  however,  she  rose  with  a  rapid 
movement,  approached  him,  and,  seizing  him  by  both  hands, 
which  her  slender  fingers  clutched  like  nippers,  she  fixed  on 
him  a  long  look.  Had  he  made  a  mistake?  She  hoped  so, 
but  she  had  no  sooner  cast  a  look  on  Raskolnikoff's  face  than 
the  suspicion  which  had  flashed  on  her  mind  became  certainty. 

"Enough,  Sonia!  enough  I  Spare  me!"  he  implored  in 
a  plaintive  voice.     The  event  upset  all  his  calculations,  for 


RUSSIAN  LITERATtTRE.  4 1 

it  certainly  was  not  thus  that  he  had  intended  to  confess  his 
crime. 

Sonia  seemed  beside  herself ;  she  jumped  from  her  bed, 
went  tb  the  middle  of  the  room  wringing  her  hands,  she  then 
quickly  returned  in  the  same  way,  sat  once  more  by  the 
young  man's  side,  almost  touching  him  with  her  shoulder. 
Suddenly  she  shivered,  uttered  a  cry,  and,  without  knowing 
why,  fell  on  her  knees  before  Raskolnikoff.  "  You  are  lost ! " 
she  exclaimed,  with  an  accent  of  despair.  And,  rising  sud- 
denly, she  threw  herself  on  his  neck,  and  kissed  him,  whilst 
lavishing  on  him  tokens  of  tenderness. 

Raskolnikoff  broke  away,  and,  with  a  sad  smile,  looked  at 
the  girl :  "  I  do  not  understand  you,  Sonia.  You  kiss  me 
after  I  told  )ou  that — .  You  cannot  be  conscious  of  what 
you  are  doing." 

She  did  not  hear  the  remark.  "  No,  at  this  moment  there 
cannot  be  a  more  wretched  man  on  earth  than  you  are ! ' '  she 
exclaimed  with  a  transport  of  passion,  whilst  bursting  into 
sobs. 

Raskolnikoff  felt  his  heart  grow  soft  under  the  influence 
of  a  sentiment  which  for  some  time  past  he  had  not  felt.  He 
did  not  try  to  fight  against  the  feeling ;  two  tears  spurted  from 
his  eyes  and  remained  on  the  lashes.  "Then  you  will  not 
forsake  me,  Sonia?  "  said  he  with  an  almost  suppliant  look. 

"  No,  no  ;  never,  nowhere !  '*  she  cried,  "  I  shall  foUowyou, 
shall  follow  you  everywhere !  Heaven  !  Wretch  that  I  am  ! 
And  why  have  I  not  known  you  sooner?  Why  did  you  not 
come  before?    Heaven  ! " 

'*  You  see  I  have  come. " 

"Now?  What  is  to  be  done  now?  Together,  together  " 
she  went  on,  with  a  kind  of  exaltation,  and  once  more  she 
kissed  the  young  man.  "  Yes,  I  will  go  with  you  to  the 
galleys ! " 

These  words  caused  Raskolnikoff  a  painful  feeling ;  a  bit- 
ter and  almost  haughty  smile  appeared  on  his  lips.  "  Per- 
haps I  may  not  yet  wish  to  go  to  the  galleys,  Sonia,"  said  he. 

The  girl  rapidly  turned  her  eyes  on  him.  She  had  up  to 
the  present  experienced  no  more  than  immense  pity  for  an 
unhappy  man.    This  statement,  and  the  tone  of  voice  in 


42  WTBRATURE  OF  AX,h  NATIONS. 

■which  it  was  pronouticed,  suddenly  recalled  to  the  girl  that 
the  wretched  man  was  an  assassin.  She  cast  on  him  an  as- 
tonished look.  As  yet,  she  did  not  know  how  nor  why  he 
had  become  a  criminal.  At  this  moment,  these  questions 
suggested  themselves  to  her,  and,  once  more  doubting,  she 
asked  herself:  "He,  he  a  murderer?  Is  such  a  thing  possi- 
ble? But  no,  it  cannot  be  true!  Where  am  I?"  she  asked 
herself,  as  if  she  could  have  believed  herself  the  sport  of  a 
dream.  "  How  is  it  possible  that  you,  being  what  you  are, 
can  have  thought  of  such  a  thing?     Oh  !  why  ?  " 

"To  steal,  if  you  wish  to  know.  Cease,  Sonia ! "  he 
replied  in  wearied  and  rather  vexed  accents. 

Sonia  remained  stupefied ;  suddenly  a  cry  escaped  her : 
"Were  you  hungry?  Did, you  do  so  to  help  your  mother? 
Speak  ! " 

"No,  Sonia  !  no  ! "  he  stammered,  drooping  his  head.  "  I 
was  not  so  poor  as  all  that.  It  is  true  I  wanted  to  help  my 
mother,  but  that  was  not  the  jeal  reason. — Do  not  torment 
me,  Sonia ! " 

The  girl  beat  her  hands  together.  "  Is  it  possible  that 
such  a  thing  can  be  real  ?  Heaven!  is  it  possible?  How  can 
I  believe  such  a  thing?  You  say  you  killed  to  rob ;  you,  who 
deprive  yourself  of  all  for  the  sake  of  others!  Ah  ! "  she  cried 
suddenly.  "  That  money  you  gave  to  Catherine  Ivanovna ! 
— that  money!     Heavens  !  can  it  be  that?  " 

"No,  Sonia!"  he  interrupted  somewhat  sharply.  "This 
money  comes  from  another  source,  I  assure  you.  It  was  my 
mother  who  sent  it  to  me  during  my  sickness,  through  the 
intervention  of  a  merchant,  and  I  had  just  received  it  when  I 
gave  it.  Razoumikin  saw  it  himself,  he  even  went  so  far  as 
to  receive  it  for  me.  The  money  was  really  my  own  prop- 
erty." Sonia  listened  in  perplexity,  and  strove  to  understand. 
"  As  for  the  old  woman's  money,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  really  do 
not  know  whether  there  was  any  money  at  all,"  he  went  on 
hesitatingly.  "  I  took  from  her  neck  a  well-filled  chamois-' 
leather  purse.  ]put  I  never  examined  the  contents,  probably 
because  I  had  no  time  to  do  so.  I  took  different  things, 
sleeve-links,  watch-chains.  These  things  I  hid,  in  the  same 
way  as  the  purse,  on  the  following  day,  under  a  large  stone 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE.  43 

•  in  a  yard  which  looks  out  on  the  V Prospect.     Every- 
thing is  still  there. ' ' 

Sonia  listened  with  avidity.  "  But  why  did  you  take  no- 
thing, since,  as  you  tell  me,  you  committed  murder  to  steal?" 
she  went  on,  clinging  to  a  last  and  very  vague  hope. 

"  I  don't  know — as  yet  I  am  undecided  whether  to  take 
this  money  or  not,"  replied  RaskolnikoflF  in  the  same  hesita- 
ting voice  ;  then  he  smiled.  "  What  silly  tale  have  I  been 
telling  you?" 

"  Can  he  be  mad?  "  Sonia  asked  herself,  but  she  soon  dis- 
pelled such  an  idea ;  no,  it  was  something  else,  which  she 
most  certainly  did  not  understand. 

"  Do  you  know  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  Sonia?  "  he 
went  on  in  a  convinced  tone  :  "  If  nothing  but  need  had  iirged 
me  to  commit  a  murder,"  laying  stress  on  every  word,  and  his 
look,  although  frank,  was  more  or  less  puzzling,  "I  should 
now  be  happy!  Let  me  tell  you  that!  And  what  can  the 
motive  be  to  you,  since  I  told  you  just  now  that  I  had  acted 
badly?"  he  cried  despairingly,  a  moment  afterwards.  "What 
was  the  good  of  this  foolish  triumph  over  myself?  Ah!  Sonia, 
was  it  for  that  I  came  to  you?"  She  once  more  wished  to 
speak,  but  remained  silent.  "Yesterday,  I  made  a  proposal 
to  you  that  we  should  both  of  us  depart  together,  because  you 
are  all  that  is  left  to  me." 

"Why  did  you  wish  me  to  accompany  you?"  asked  the 
girl  timidly.  ^ 

"  Not  to  rob  or  to  kill,  I  assure  you,"  answered  Raskolni- 
kofiF,  with  a  caustic,  smile.  "  We  are  not  of  the  same  way  of 
thinking.  And — do  you  knOw,  Sonia? — it  is  only  of  late  that 
I  have  known  why  I  asked  you  yesterday  to  accompany  me. 
When  I  asked  you  to  do  so,  I  did  not  as  yet  know  what  it 
would  lead  to.  I  see  it  now.  I  have  but  one  wish — it  is  that 
you  should  not  leave  me.  You  will  not  do  so,  will  you, 
Sonia?  "  She  clasped  his  hand.  "And  why  have  I  told  her 
this?  Why  make  such  a  confession?"  he  exclaimed,  a  mo- 
ment afterwards.  He  looked  at  her  with  infinite  compassion, 
whilst  his  voice  expressed  the  most  profound  despair.  ' '  I  see, 
Sonia,  that  you  are  waiting  for  some  kind  of  explanation,  but 
what  am  I  to  say  ?    You  understand  nothing  about  the  mat- 


44  UTBRATURB  OF  KLX.  NATIONS. 

ter,  and  I  should  only  be  causing  you  additional  pain.  I  see 
you  are  once  more  commencing  to  weep  and  to  embrace  me. 
Why  do  so  at  all  ?  Because,  failing  in  courage  to  bear  my 
own  burden,  I  have  imposed  it  on  another — because  I  seek  in 
the  anguish  of  others  some  mitigation  for  my  own.  And  you 
can  love  a  coward  like  that  ? ' ' 

"  But  you  are  likewise  suflFering  1 "  exclaimed  Sonia. 

For  a  moment  he  experienced  a  new  feeling  of  tenderness. 
"  Sonia,  my  disposition  is  a  bad  one,  and  that  can  explain 
much.  I  have  come  because  I  am  bad.  Some  would  not 
have  done  so.  But  I  am  an  infamous  coward.  Why,  once 
more,  have  I  come  ?    I  shall  never  forgive  myself  for  that ! " 

"  No,  no  ! — on  the  contrary,  you  have  done  well  to  come," 
cried  Sonia;  "  it  is  better,  much  better,  I  should  know  all ! " 

Raskolnikoff  looked  at  her  with  sorrowful  eye,  "  I  was 
ambitious  to  become  another  Napoleon;  that  was  why  I  com- 
mitted a  murder.     Can  you  understand  it  n9w  ?  " 

"No,"  answered  Sonia,  naively  and  in  a  timid  voice. 
"  But  speak  !  speak  ! — I  shall  understand  all ! " 

"You  will,  say  you?  Good!  we  shall  see!"  For  some 
time  Raskolnikoff  collected  his  ideas.  "  The  fact  is  that,  one 
day,  I  asked  myself  the  following  question :  *  Supposing  Na- 
poleon to  have  been  in  my  place,  supposing  that  to  com- 
mence his  career  he  had  neither  had  Toulon,  nor  Egypt,  nor 
the  crossing  of  Mont  Blanc,  but,  in  lieu  of  all  these  brilliant 
exploits,  he  was  on  the  point  of  committing  a  murder  with  a 
view  to  secure  his  future,  would  he  have  recoiled  at  the  idea 
of  killing  an  old  woman,  and  of  robbing  her  of  three  thou- 
sand roubles  ?  Would  he  have  agreed  that  such  a  deed  was 
too  much  wanting  in  prestige  and  much  too — criminal  a  one  ? ' 
For  a  long  time  I  have  split  my  liead  on  that  question,  and 
could  not  help  experiencing  a  feeling  of  shame  when  I  finally 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  not  only  would  not  have  hesi- 
tated, but  that  he  would  not  have  understood  the  possibility 
of  such  a  thing.  Every  other  expedient  being  out  of  his 
reach,  he  would  not  have  flinched,  he  would  have  done  so 
without  the  smallest  scruple.  Hence,  I  ought  not  to  hesitate 
— ^being  justified  on  the  authority  of  Napoleon  1 ' ' 


RUSSIAN  LITBRATXJRS. 


45 


COUNT  L.  N.  TOLSTOI. 

The  greatest  Russian  figure 
in  the  world  of  thought  at  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  Count  Lyof  Nikolaivitch 
Tolstoi,  who  is  in  many  respects 
the  most  remarkable  literary 
product  of  the  vast  empire  of 
the  Czars.  He  has  become  one 
of  the  oracles  of  the  modem 
civilized  world.  When  he 
speaks  all  Europe,  and  even  the  New  World,  turns  to  listen. 
He  has  come  to  be  the  prophet  of  a  new  religion,  rather  than  a 
new  literature ;  indeed,  he  has  denounced  all  fiction  as  licen- 
tious ;  and  yet  his  development  has  been  steadily  mirrored  in 
his  literary  work,  and  he  is,  after  all,  a  great  literary  influence 
rather  than  a  great  social  factor.  What  he  has  done  for 
Russian  literature  may  be  epitomized  in  a  brief  sentence :  he 
has  painted  her  aristocratic  classes,  as  Gogol  painted  her 
small-property  classes,  and  as  Turgenieff  painted  her  peasants 
and  Nihilists.  For  Europe  Tolstoi  has  pictured  the  horrors 
of  war,  not  simply  its  dangers  and  bloodshed,  but  its  Sadden- 
ing effects  on  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  soldiers,  the 
monotony  of  the  siege,  the  curious  spirit  of  patriotism  behind 
the  moving  armies.  For  the  world  he  has  preached  a  powerful, 
even  if  strange,  sermon  on  the  unhappiness  of  marriages,  the 
real  social  sin  behind  the  sins  of  adultery,  the. divine  necessity 
for  foi:giveness,  the  crime  of  divorce.  His  doctrines  hive  led 
him  to  a  variously  iiiterpreted  mysticism,  but  he  has  written 
at  least  one  great  Russian  work,  "  The  Cossacks,"  and  two 
great  world-books,  "War  and  Peace"  and  "Anna  Karenina." 
Bom  on  August  28,  1828,  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  near  Tula, 
a  descendant  of  Peter  the  Great's  honored  Count  Piota  Tolstoi, 
young  Lyof  (Leo)  had  thjC  training  of  a  noble.  The  university 
could  not  hold  his  attention,  however;  he  broke  from  his 
studies  against  the  earnest  exhortations  of  his  professors,  and 


46  LITERATURE  OP  AI<L  NATIONS. 

retired  to  the  paternal  estate.  In  those  days  he  was  sowing 
his  wild  oats.  He  nearly  came  to  disgrace  through  an  inordi- 
nate passion  for  gambling:  the  character  of  the  ruined 
gamester  in  his  "Recollections  of  a  Scorer"  being  partly 
autobiographic.  At  that  time,  too,  Tolstoi's  ideal  was  force. 
He  admired  all  the  manifestations  of  individual  force,  such 
as  ambition,  cupidity,  lust,  pride,  wrath  and  vengeance.  ' '  In 
reality,"  he  has  confessed,  "I  loved  only  force,  and  when  I 
found  it  without  alloy  of  folly,  I  took  it  for  truth."  It  was 
only  natural,  therefore,  that  one  day  he  should  have  started 
for  the  Caucasus,  where  his  elder  brother,  Nikolai,,  was  serving 
as  captain.  Lyof  Tolstoi  took  part  in  guerrilla  warfare  in 
Circassia  and  was  shut  up  in  Sebastopol.  At  the  age  of 
twenty- six  he  left  the  army,  but  published  a  record  of  his 
impressions  and  recollections  in  his  "  Military  Sketches  "  (col- 
lected in  1856),  which  describe  the  siege  rather  than  the  battles 
of  the  English  and  French  invasion.  The  realism  of  these 
sketches  at  once  attracted  attention.  In  St.  Petersburg  he 
became  interested  in  the  "mission  of  the  men  of  thought." 
He  wrote  "  Childhood  and  Youth,"  a  study  of  Russian  family 
life.  He  became  an  educationalist,  and,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  "got  upon  stilts  to  satisfy  his  desire  for  teaching." 

But  sickened  by  the  immorality  of  the  educated  class, 
Tolstoi's  mind  reverted  to  the  more  natural,  even  if  animal- 
like, life  of  the  steppe.  "I  -went  forth,"  he  has  declared, 
"  among  the  bashkirs  to  breathe  the  pure  air,  to  drink  kumis, 
and  to  lead  an  animal  life.' '  A  similar  flight  from  the  wick- 
edness of  city  life  that  he  makes  Olenin,  the  hero  of  "The 
Cossacks  "  (1856)  take  at  the  start  of  that  romance.  Turge- 
niefF  has  praised  this  work  as  "an  incomparable  picture  of 
men  and  things  in  the  Caucasus."  The  wild,  almost  lawless 
state  of  nature  among  the  children  of  the  Caucasus  is  not  only 
revealed  in  the  turbulent  Marianka,  with  whom  Olenin  falls 
in  love,  and  in  her  wooer,  the  daring  and  handsome  Lukashka, 
but  also  in  old  Yeroshka,  the  giant  huntsman,  a  regular 
savage  who  has  the  indelible  odor  ■of  vodka,  powder,  and  dried 
blood.  Iviikashka  is  killed  by  a  vengeful  foe,  but  Marianka 
cannot  understand  Olenin's  nature  and .  he  departs  without 
his  wild  Cossack  bride.     Not  only  his  Caucasan  memories 


RUSSIAN  LITBRATURB.  47 

were  thus  utilized,  but  in  "War  and  Peace"  (i860)  he  drew 
upon  his  recollections  as  an  ensign  and  aide  on  Prince  Gortch- 
akof 's  staflF  in  the  Crimea.  He  chose  for  his  canvas,  however, 
the  Napoleonic  invasion  of  1812.  This  romance  is  full  of 
wonderful  realistic  scenes  of  camp  life,  of  battle,  of  military- 
art  and  strategy,  of  great  warriors  from  the  German  officers  to 
the  life-like  and  untheatrical  Napoleon.  Upon  this  lurid 
background  Tolstoi  placed  a  sociological  tragedy. 

Pierre  Bezukhofj  the  typical  Russian,  marries  the  sensual 
beauty,  Elen  Kuragina,  against  his  own  reason  and  through 
mere  animal  lust.  She  proves  unfaithful.  He  slays  her  lover 
and  separates  from  her.  Then  he  saves  Natasha  Rostof  from 
betrayal  by  a  rake.  She  learns  to  love  him,  but  he  does  not 
seek  a  divorce.  His  wife's  death  permits  a  new  and  happier 
marriage.  Thus  Tolstoi  emphasized  his  doctrine  that  divorce 
is  wrong.  And  yet  in  this  story  Bezukhof  had  not  forgiven 
his  wife,  nor  had  she  sought  a  divorce  to  free  herself. 

"  Anna  Karenina  "  (1876)  became  an  even  more  tragic  tale 
of  adultery.  Anna  marries  Aleksei  Karenin,.a  husband  ut- 
terly unfitted  to  her.  As  a  result  of  this  mismated  union,  she 
proves  untrue.  A  flagrant  liaison  ensues  with  the  dashing 
young  Baron  Vronsky.  Aleksei  is  an  upright  man.  ,  At  first 
full  of  the  most  bitter  hate,  he  is  at  last  moved  to  forgive  her 
through  her  sufferings,  her  remorse,  and  her  devoted  maternal 
love  of  their  little  boy.  Vronsky,  with  all  his  nobler  traits 
aside  from  his  passion  for  Anna,  perceives  in  Aleksei,  although 
he  cannot  understand,  a  greater  nature  than  his  own.  But 
Aleksei,  who  had  at  the  outset  urged  divorce  in  vain,  at  last 
refuses  to  consent  to  it.  He  considers  that  it  would  be  a  sin. 
Anna  and  Vronsky  grow  unhappy  together ;  they  part ;  and 
a  suicide,  foreshadowed  on  the  first  page,  ends  her  sinning 
and  misery.  Despite  their  crime  Anna  and  Vronsky  retain  a 
certain  hold  on  our  sympathy,  but  the  disagreeable  Aleksei 
really  rises  to  the  noblest  level.  And  yet  we  feel  that  he  is 
partly  responsible  for  his  wife's  sin.  This  point  Tolstoi 
sought  again  to  emphasize  in  the  sensational  and  overwrought 
"  Kreutzer  Sonata,"  in  which  the  viciousness  of  the  husband 
is  made  the  cause  of  crime,  "but  in  which  the  institution  of 
marriage  itself  is  almost  deplored,  owing  to  its  abuse.    Tolstoi 


48  UTBRATURB  OP  Ail,  NATIONS. 

has  been  misunderstood  by  those  who  claim  that  he  has  wished 
to  end  the  human  race  through  universal  celibacy.  He  sim- 
ply preaches  a  purer  youth  and  a  holier  marriage  than  is  now 
the  rule.  In  the  wooing  and  honeymoon  of  Konstantin  Levin 
and  Katia,  in  "Anna  Karenina,"  he- has  given  an  idyl  of  a 
happy  marriage.  In  that  novel  Tolstoi  has  also  emphasized 
his  opposition  to  war,  and  has  treated  the  social  and  agricul- 
tural problems  of  serf-liberated.  Russia.  His  experiment  of  a 
Slavic  commune,  afterward  to  be  tried  on  his  own  estate,  was 
hinted  at.  His  extreme  doctrines  of  "  non-resistance  to  evil 
and  force, "  and  of  a  soC:ialism  based  on  the  Gospels  have  been 
revealed  in  "My  Confession"  and  "My  Religion." 

Napoleon  and  the  Wounded  Russians. 

(From  "War  and  Peace."    Translated  by  Nathan  Haskell  Dole. 
Copyright,  1888,  byT.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.) 

On  the  Pratzer  hill,  in  the  same  spot  where  he  had  fallen 
with  the  flagstaff  in  his  hand,  lay  Prince  Andrei  Bolkonsky, 
his  life-blood  oozing  away,  and  unconsciously  groaning,  with 
light,  pitiful  groans,  like  an  ailing  child. 

By  evening,  he  ceased  to  groan,  and  lay  absolutely  still. 
He  did  not  know  how  long  his  unconsciousness  continued. 
Suddenly,  he  felt  that  he  was  alive  and  suffering  from  a 
burning  and  tormenting  pain  in  his  head. 

"Where  is  that  lofty  heaven  which  I  had  never  seen 
before,  and  which  I  saw  to-day  ? ' '  That  was  his  first  thought. 
"And  I  never  knew  such  pain  as  this,  either,"  he  said  to  him- 
self. "Yes,  I  have  never  known  anything,  anything  at  all, 
till  now.     But  whe^e  am  I  ?  " 

He  tried  to  listen,  and  heard  the  trampling  hoofs  of  several 
horses  approaching,  and  the  sounds  of  voices,  talking  French. 
He  opened  his  eyes.  Over  him  still  stretched  the  same  lofty 
heaven,  with  clouds  sailing  over  it  in  still  loftier  heights, 
and  beyond  them  he  could  see  the  depths  of  endless  blue.  He 
did  not  turn  his  head  or  look  at  those  who,  to  judge  from  the 
hoof  beats  of  the  horses  and  the  sounds  of  the  voices,  rode  up 
to  him  and  paused. 

These  horsemen  were  Napoleon,  accompanied  by  two 
aides.    Bonaparte,  who  had  been  riding  over  the  field  of  bat- 


RUSSIAN  I.ITBRATUR«.  49 

tie,  had  given  orders  to  strengthen  the  battery  that  was  can. 
nonading  the  dyke  of  Augest,  and  was  now  looking  after  the 
killed  and  wounded  left  on  the  battlefield. 

'■'■  De  beaux  hommes! — handsome  men!"  said  Napoleon, 
gazing  at  a  Russian  grenadier,  who  lay  on  his  belly  with  his 
face  half  buried  in  the  soil,  and  his  neck  turning  black,  and 
one  arm  flung  out  and  stiffened  in  death. 

"The  ammunition  for  the  field-guns  is  exhausted,  sire!" 

"  Have  that  of  the  reserves  brought,"  said  Napoleon,  and 
then  a  step  or  two  nearer,  he  paused  over  Prince  Andrei,  who 
lay  on  his  back  with  the  flagstaff  clutched  in  his  hands  (the 
flag  had  been  carried  off  by  the  French  as  a  trophy). 

"There  is  a  beautiful  death,"  said  Napoleon,  gazing  at 
Bolkonsky.  Prince  Andrei  realized  that  this  was  said  of 
him,  and  that  it  was  spoken  by  Napoleon.  He  heard  them 
address  the  speaker  as  "sire."  But  he  heard  these  words  as 
though  they  had  been  the  buzzing  of  a  fly.  He  was  not  only 
not  interested  in  them,  but  they  made  no  impression  upon 
him,  and  he  immediately  forgot  them.  His  head  throbbed 
as  with  fire :  he  felt  that  his  life-blood  was  ebbing,  and  he 
still  saw  far  above  him  the  distant,  eternal  heavens.  He 
knew  that  this  was  Napoleon,  his  hero ;  but  at  this  moment. 
Napoleon  seemed  to  him  merely  a  small,  insignificant  man  in 
comparison  with  that  lofty,  infinite  heaven,  with  the  clouds 
flying  over  it.  It  was  a  matter  of  utter  indifference  to  him 
who  stood  looking  down  upon  him,  or  what  was  said  about 
him  at  that  moment.  He  was  merely  conscious  of  a  feeling 
of  joy  that  people  had  come  to  him,  and  of  a  desire  for  these 
people  to  give  him  assistance  and  bring  him  back  to  life 
which  seemed  to  him  so  beautiful :  because  he  understood  it 
so  differently  now.  He  collected  all  his  strength  to  move 
and  make  some  sound.  He  managed  to  move  his  leg  slightly 
and  uttered  a  weak  feeble,  sickly  moan  that  stirred  pity  even 
in  himself. 

"Ah  !  he  is  alive !"  said  Napoleon.  "Take  up  this  young 
man  and  take  him  to  the  temporary  hospital,"  Having  given 
this  order,  Napoleon  rode  on  to  meet  Marshal  I/annes,  who, 
removing  his  hat  and  smiling,  rode  up  and  congratulated  him 
on  the  victory. 
X— 4 


50  WTBRATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

Prince  Andrei  recollected  nothing  further;  he  lost  con- 
sciousness of  the  terrible  pain  caused  by  those  who  placed 
him  on  the  stretcher,  and  by  the  jolting  as  he  was  carried 
along,  and  the  probing  of  the  wound.  He  recovered  it  again 
only  at  the  very  end  of  the  day,  as  he  was  carried  to  the  hos- 
pital together  with  other  Russians  wounded,  and  taken  pris- 
oner. At  this  time,  he  felt  a  little  fresher  and  was  able  to 
glance  around  and  even  to  speak. 

The  first  words  which  he  heard  after  he  came  to  were 
those  spoken  by  a  French  officer  in  charge  of  the  convoy, 
who  said, — 

' '  We  must  stop  here ;  the  emperor  is  coming  by  imme- 
diately; it  will  give  him  pleasure  to  see  these  prisoners." 

"  There  Are  so  many  prisoners  to-day,  almost  the  whole 
Russian  army,  I  should  think  it  would  have  become  an  old 
story,"  said  another  officer. 

"Well,  at  all  events,  this  man  here,  they  say,  was  the 
commander  of  all  the  Emperor  Alexander's  Guards,"  said 
the  first  speaker,  indicating  a  wounded  Russian  officer  in  a 
white  cavalier-guards  uniform.  Bolkou'^ky  recognized  Prince 
Repnin  ■\frhom  he  had  met  in  Petersburg  society.  Next  him 
was  a  youth  of  nineteen,  an  officer  of  the  cavalier  guard  also 
wounded. 

Bonaparte  coming  up  at  a  gallop  reined  in  his  horse. 

"Who  is  the  chief  officer  here?"  he  asked,  looking  at 
the  wounded. 

They  pointed  to  Colonel  Prince  Repnin. 

"Were  you  the  commander  of  the  Emperor  Alexander's 
Horse-guard  regiment?"  asked  Napoleon. 

"I  commanded  a  squadron,",  replied  Repnin. 

"Your  regiment  did  its  duty  with  honor,"  remarked 
Napoleon. 

"Praise  from  a  great  commander  is  the  highest  reward 
that  a  soldier  can  have,"  said  Repnin. 

"  It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  give  it  to  you,"  replied  Napo- 
leon.    "  Who  is  this  young  man  next  you  ?  " 

Prince  Repnin  named  Lieutenant  Snkhtelen. 

Napoleon  glanced  at  him  and  said  with  a  smile :  "  He  is 
very  young  to  oppose  us." 


RUSSIAN  I^ITERATURE.  51 

"  Youth  does  not  prevent  one  from  being  brave,' '  replied 
Sukhtelen  in  a  broken  voice. 

"A  beautiful  answer,"  said  Napoleon.  "Young  man, 
you  will  get  on  in  the  world." 

Prince  Andrei,  who  had  been  placed  also  in  the  front  rank, 
under  the  eyes  of  the  emperor,  so  as  to  swell  the  number  of 
those  who  had  been  taken  prisoner,  naturally  attracted  his 
attention.  Napoleon  evidently  remembered  having  seen  him 
on  the  field,  and  turning  to  him  he  used  exactly  the  same 
expression,  "young  man"  as  when  Bolkonsky  had  the  first 
time  come  under  his  notice. 

"Well,  and  you,  young  man?"  said  he  addressing  him. 
"How  do  you  feel,  mon  brave 9^'' 

Although  five  minutes  before  this.  Prince  Andrei  had 
been  able  to  say  a  few  words  to  the  soldiers  who  were  bearing 
him,  now  he  fixed  his  eyes  directly  on  Napoleon,  but  had 
nothing  to  say.  To  him  at  this  moment  all  the  interests 
occupying  Napoleon  seemed  so  petty,  his  former  hero  him- 
self, with  his  small  vanity  and  delight  in  the  victory,  seemed 
so  sordid  in  comparison  with  that  high,  true,  and  just  heaven 
which  he  had  seen  and  learned  to  understand ;  and  that  was 
why  he  could  not  answer  him. 

Yes,  and  everything  seemed  to  him  so  profitless  and  insig- 
nificant in  comparison  with  that  stern  and  majestic  train  of 
thought  induced  in  his  mind  by  his  lapsing  strength,  as  his 
life-blood  ebbed  away,  by  his  suffering  and  the  near  expecta- 
tion of  death.  As  Prince  Andrei  looked  into  Napoleon's  eyes, 
he  thought  of  the  insignificance  of  majesty,  of  the  insignifi- 
cance of  life,  the  meaning  of  which  no  one  could  understand, 
and  of  the  still  greater  insignificance  of  death,  the  thought  of 
which  no  one  could  among  men  understand  or  explain. 

The  emperor,  without  waiting  for  any  answer,  turned  away, 
and  as  he  started  to  ride  on,  said  to  one  of  the  oflScers, — 

"  Have  these  gentlemen  looked  after  and  conveyed  to  my 
bivouac  ;  have  Doctor  I,arry  himself  look  after  their  wounds. 
Au  revoir,  Prince  Repnin,"  and  he  touched  the  spurs  to  his 
horse  and  galloped  away. 

His  face  was  bright  with  self-satisfaction  and  happiness. 

The  soldiers  carrying  Prince  Andrei  had  taken  from  him 


52  tITERATURB  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

the  golden  medallion  which  the  Princess  Mariya  had  hung 
around  her  brother's  neck,  but  when  they  saw  the  flattering 
way  in  which  the  emperor  treated  the  prisoners,  they  hastened 
to  return  the  medallion. 

Prince  Andrei  did  not  see  how  or  by  whom  the  medallion 
was  replaced,  but  he  suddenly  discovered  on  his  chest,  cut- 
side  of  his  uniform,  the  little  image  attached  to  its  slender 
golden  chain. 

"It  would  be  good,"  thought  Prince  Andrei,  letting  his 
eyes  rest  on  the  medallion  which  his  sister  had  hung  around 
his  neck  with  so  much  feeling  and  reverence,  "  it  would  be 
good  if  everything  were  as  clear  and  simple  as  it  seems  to  the 
Princess  Mariya.  How  good  it  would  be  to  know  where  to 
find  help  in  this  life,  and  what  to  expect  after  it, — beyond  the 
grave  !  How  happy  and  composed  I  should  be,  if  I  could  say 
now,  '  Lord  have  mercy  on  me ! '  But  to  whom  can  I  say 
that!  Is  it  force — impalpable,  incomprehensible,  which  I 
cannot  turn  to,  or  even  express  in  words,  is  it  the  great  All 
or  nothingness,"  said  he  to  himself,  "or  is  it  God  which  is 
sewed  in  this  amulet  which  my  sister  gave  me  ?  Nothing, 
nothing  is  certain,  except  the  insignificance  of  all  within  my 
comprehension  and  the  majesty  of  that  which  is  incompre- 
hensible, but  all-important." 

Levin  with  the  Mowers. 

(From  "  Anna  Karenina."    Translated  by  Nathan  Haskell  Dole. 
Copyright,  1888,  by  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.) 

The  labor  seemed  lighter  to  Levin  during  the  heat  of  the 
day.  The  sweat  in  which  he  was  bathed  refreshed  him  ;  and 
the  sun,  burning  his  back,  his  head,  and  his  arms  bared  to 
the  elbow,  gave  him  force  and  energy.  The  moments  of 
oblivion,  of  unconsciousness  of  what  he  was  doing,  came  back 
to  him  more  and  more  frequently;  the  scythe  seemed  to  go 
of  itself.  These  were  happy  moments.  Then,  still  more 
gladsome  were  the  moments  when,  coming  to  the  riverside, 
■  the  siarik,  wiping  his  scythe  with  the  moist,  thick  grass, 
rinsed  the  steel  in  the  river,  then,  dipping  up  a  ladleful  of 
tlie  water,  gave  it  to  Levin.  , 

"  Mi-ka,  my  kvas/    Ah,  good  ! "  he  exclaimed,  winking. 


RUSSIAN  I.ITERATURB.  53 

And,  indeed,  it  seemed  to  Levin  that  he  had  never  tasted 
any  liquor  more  refreshing  than  this  pure,  lukewarm  water, 
in  which  grass  floated,  and  tasting  of  the  rusty  tin  cup. 
Then  came  the  glorious  slow  promenade,  when,  with  scythe 
on  the  arm,  there  was  time  to  wipe  the  heated  brow,  fill  the 
lungs  full,  and  glance  around  at  the  long  line  of  hay-makers, 
and  the  busy  life  in  the  field  and  forest. 

The  longer  Levin  mowed,  the  more  frequently  he  felt  the 
moiAents  of  oblivion,  when  his  hands  did  not  wield  the  scythe, 
but  the  scythe  seemed  to  have  a  self-conscious  body,  full 
of  life,  and  carrying  on,  as  it  were  by  enchantment,  a  regular 
and  systematic  work.  These  were  indeed  joyful  moments. 
It  was  hard  only  when  he  was  obliged  to  interrupt  this 
unconscious  activity  to  remove  a  clod  or  a  clump  of  wild 
sorrel.  The  starik  found  it  mere  sport.  When  he  came  to 
a  clod,  he  pushed  it  aside  with  repeated  taps  of  his  scythe,  or 
with  his  hand  tossed  it  out  of  the  way,  and  while  doing  this 
he  noticed  everything  and  examined  everything  that  was  to 
be  seen.  Now  h^  picked  a  strawberry,  and  ate  it  himself 
or  gave  it  to  Levin  ;  now  he  discovered  a  nest  of  quail  from 
which  the  cock  was  scurrying  away,  or  caught  a  snake  on  the 
end  of  his  scythe,  and,  having  shown  it  to  Levin,  flung  it 
out  of  the  way. 

But  for  Levin  and  the  young  fellow  behind  him  these 
repeated  observations  were  difficult.  When  once  they  got 
into  the  swing  of  work,  they  could  not  easily  change  their 
movements,  and  turn  their  attention  to  what  was  before  them. 

Levin  did  not  realize  how  the  time  was  flying.  If  he  had 
been  asked  how  long  he  had  been  mowing,  he  would  have 
answered,  "A  quarter  of  an  hour;"  and  here  it  was  almost 
dinner-time.  The  starik  drew  his  attention  to  the  girls  and 
boys,  half  concealed  by  the  tall  grass,  who  were  coming  from 
all  sides,  bringing  to  the  hay-makers  their  bread  and  jugs  of 
kvas^  which  seemed  too  heavy  for  their  little  arms. 

"Seel  here  come  the  midgets,"  said  he,  pointing  to 
them ;  and,  shading  his  eyes,  he  looked  at  the  sun. 

Twice  more  they  went  across  the  field,  and  then  the  starik 
stopped. 

"^M  barin!  dinner,"  said  he  in  a  decided  tone. 


54  WTKRATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

Then  the  mowers,  walking  along  the  river-side,  went  back 
to  their  kaftans  [coats],  where  the  children  were  waiting  with 
the  dinners.  Some  clustered  around  the  telyegas ;  others 
sat  in  the  shade  of  a  laburnum,  where  the  mown  grass  was 
heaped  up. 

^L,evin  sat  down  near  them :  he  had  no  wish  to  leave  them. 
All  constraint  in  the  presence  of  the  barin  had  disappeared. 
The  muzhiks  prepared  to  take  their  dinner.  They  washed 
themselves,  took  their  bread,  emptied  their  jugs  of  kvas,  and 
some  found  places  to  nap  in,  while  the  children  went  in 
swimming. 

The  starik  crumbed  his  bread  into  his  porringer,  mashed 
it  with  his  spoon,  poured  water  on  it  from  his  tin  basin,  and, 
cutting  off  still  more  bread,  he  salted  the  whole  plentifully; 
and,  turning  to  the  east,  he  said  his  prayer.  Then  he  in- 
vited Levin. 

Levin  found  the  tiurka  so  palatable  that  he  decided  not  to 
go  home  to  dinner.  He  dined  with  the  starik^  and  their  con- 
versation turned  on  his  domestic  affairs,  in  which  the  barin 
took  a  lively  interest,  and  in  his  turn  told  the  old  man  about 
such  of  his  plans  and  projects  as  would  interest  him.  He 
felt  as  though  the  starik  were  more  nearly  related  to  him 
than  his  brother,  and  he  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  feeling 
of  sympathy  w^hich  this  simple-hearted  man  inspired. 

When  dinner  was  over,  the  starik  offered  another  prayer, 
and  arranged  a  pillow  of  fresh-mown  grass,  and  composed 
himself  for  a  nap.  Levin  did  the  same;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
fleas  and  insects  tickling  his  heated  face,  he  immediately 
went  off  to  sleep,  and  did  not  wake  until  the  sun  came  out  on 
the  other  side  of  the  laburnum  bush,  and  shone  brightly 
above  his  head.  The  starik  was  awake,  but  was  sitting 
down  cutting  the  children's  hair. 

Levin  looked  around  him,  and  did  not  know  where  he 
was.  Every  thing  seemed  changed.  The  mown  field  stretched 
away  into  immensity  with  its  windrows  of  sweet-smelling  hay, 
lighted  and  glorified  in  a  new  fashion  by  the  oblique  rays  of 
the  sun.  The  bushes  had  been  cut  down  by  the  river;  and 
the  river  itself,  before  invisible,  but  now  shining  like  steel 
with  its  windings  ;  and  the  busy  peasantry  ;  and  the  high  wall 


KUSSIAN  WTBRATURH.  55 

of  grass,  where  the  field  was  not  yet  mowed ;  and  the  young 
vultures  flying  high  above  the  field, — all  this  was  absolutely 
new  to  him. 

Levin  calculated  what  his  workmen  had  done,  and  what 
still  remained  to  do.  The  work  accomplished  by  the  forty- 
two  men  was  considerable.  The  whole  field,  which  in  the 
time  of  serfdom  used  to  take  thirty-two  men  two  days,  was 
now  almost  mowed  :  only  a  few  corners  with  short  rows  were 
left.  But  he  wanted  to  do  still  more  :  in  his  opinion,  the  sun 
was  sinking  too  early.  He  felt  no  fatigue :  he  only  wanted 
to  do  more  rapid,  and  if  possible  better,  work. 

"  Do  you  think  we  shall  get  Mashkin  Hill  mowed 
to-day?"  he  demanded  of  the  starik. 

"  If  God  allows :  the  sun  is  still  high.  Will  there  be  little 
sips  of  vodka  [whiskey]  for  the  boysf'' 

At  supper-time,  when  the  men  rested  again,  and  some  of 
them  were  lighting  their  pipes,  the  starik  announced  to  the 
boys,  "Mow  Mashkin  Hill — extra  vodka!" 

''Eka!  Come  on,  Sef!  Let's  tackle  it  lively.  We'll 
eat  after  dark.  Come  on  ! "  cried  several  voices  ;  and,  even 
while  still  munching  their  bread,  they  resumed  their  work 
again. 

*"  Nu  /  Oh,  keep  up  good  hearts,  boys  1 "  said  Sef,  setting 
off  almost  on  the  run. 

' '  Come,  come  ! "  cried  the  starik,  hastening  after  them. 
"I  am  first.     Lookout!" 

Old  and  young  took  hold  in  rivalry  ;  and  yet  with  all  their 
haste,  they  did  not  spoil  their  work,  but  the  windrows  lay  in 
neat  and  regular  lines. 

The  triangle  was  finished  in  five  minutes.  The  last  mowers 
had  just  finished  their  line,  when  the  first,  throwing  their  kaf- 
tans over  their  shoulders,  started  down  the  road  to  the  hill. 

The  sun  was  just  going  behind  the  forest,  when,  with  rat- 
tling cans,  they  came  to  the  little  wooded  ravine  of  Mashkin 
Verkh.  The  grass  here  was  as  high  as  a  man's  waist,  tender, 
succulent,  thick,  and  variegated  with  the  flower  called  Jvaft- 
va-Marya.  ■ 

After  a  short  parley,  to  decide  whether  to  take  it  across 
or  lengthwise,  an  experienced  mOwer,   Prokhor  Yermilin,  a 


5<5  UTERATURE  OK  ALL  NATIONS. 

huge,  black-bearded  muzhik^  went  over  it  first.  He  took  it 
lengthwise,  and  came  back  in  his  track ;  and  then  all  fol- 
lowed him,  going  along  the  hill  above  the  hollow  and  skirt- 
ing the  wood.  The  sun  was  setting.  The  dew  was  already 
falling:  Only  the  mowers  on  the  ridge  could  see  the  sun ; 
but  down  in  the  hollow,  where  the  mist  was  beginning  to  rise, 
and  behind  the  slope,  they  went  in  fresh,  dewy  shade.  The 
work  went  on.  The  grass  fell  in  high  heaps:  the  mowers 
came  close  together  as  the  rows  converged,  rattling  their 
drinking-cups,  sometimes  hitting  their  scythes  together,  work- 
ing with  joyful  shouts,  rallying  each  other. 

Levin  still  kept  his  place  between  his  two  companions. 
The  starik,  with  sheepskin  vest  loosened,  was  gay,  jocose, 
free  in  his  movements.  In  the  woods,  mushrooms  were  found 
lurking  under  the  leaves.  Instead  of  cutting  them  ofiF  with 
his  scythe,  as  the  others  did,  he  bent  down  whenever  he  saw 
one,  and,  picking  it,  put  it  in  his  breast.  "Still  another 
little  present  for  my  old  woman.' ' 

The  tender  and  soft  grass  was  easy  to  mow,  but  it  was 
hard  to  climb  and  descend  the  steep  sides  of  the  ravine. 
But  the  starik  did  not  let  this  appear.  Always  lightly  swing- 
ing his  scythe,  he  climbed  with  short,  firm  steps,  though  he 
trembled  all  over  with  the  exercise.  He  let  nothing  escape 
him,  not  an  herb  or  a  mushroom;  and  he  never  ceased  to 
joke  with  Levin  and  the  muzhiks.  Levin  behind  him  felt 
that  he  would  drop  at  every  instant,  and  told  himself  that  he 
should  never  climb,  scythe  in  hand,  this  steep  hillside,  where 
even  unencumbered  it  would  be  hard  to  go.  But  he  perse- 
vered all  the  same,  and  succeeded.  He  felt  as  though  some 
interior  force  sustained  him. 

They  had  finished  mowing  the  Mashkin  Verkh :  the  last 
rows  were  done,  and  the  men  had  taken  their  kaftans^  and 
were  gayly  going  home.  Levin  mounted  his  horse,  and 
regretfully  took  leave  of  his  companions.  On  the  hill-top  he 
turned  round  to  take  a  last  look ;  but  the  evening's  mist, 
rising  from  the  bottoms,  hid  them  from  sight ;  but  he  could 
hear  their  hearty,  happy  voices,  as  they  laughed  and  talked, 
and  the  sound  of  their  clinking  scythes. 


RUSSIAN  UTERATURB.  57 


Anna's  Visit  to  Her  Son. 

(From  "Anna  Karenina."    Translated  by  Nathan  Haskell  Dole. 
Copyright,  1888,  by  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.) 

Anna's  chief  desire  on  her  return  to  Russia  was  to  see  her 
son.  From  the  day  that  she  left  Italy  she  was  filled  with 
this  idea;  and  her  joy  increased  in  proportion  as  she  drew 
near  Petersburg.  She  did  not  trouble  herself  with  the  ques- 
tion how  she  should  manage  this  meeting  which  seemed  to 
her  of  such  importance.  It  was  a  simple  and  natural  thing, 
she  thought,  to  see  her  child  once  more,  now  that  she  was  in 
the  same  town  with  him;  but  since  her  arrival  she  suddenly 
realized  her  present  relation  towards  society,  and  found  that 
the  interview  was  not  easy  to  obtain. , 

She  had  been  two  days  now  in  Petersburg,  and  never  for 
an  instant  had  she  forgotten  her  son,  but  she  had  not  seen 
him.  To  go  straight  to  her  husband's  house  and  risk  coming 
face  to  face  with  her  husband,  seemed  to  her  impossible. 
They  might  even  refuse  to  admit  her.  To  write  to  Aleksti 
Aleksandrovitch  and  ask  permission  of  him,  seemed  to  her 
painful  even  to  think  of.  She  could  be  calm  only  when  she 
did  not  think  of  her  husband ;  and  yet  she  could  not  feel  con- 
tented to  see  her  son  at  a  distance. 

She  had  too  many  kisses,  too  many  caresses,  to  give  him. 
Serozha's  old  nurse  might  have  been  an  assistance  to  her,  but 
she  no  longer  lived  with  Aleksdi  Aleksandrovitch. 

She  decided  to  go  on  the  morrow,  which  was  Serozha's 
birthday,  directly  to  her  husband's  house  to  see  the  child,  no 
matter  what  it  cost  in  fees  to  the  servants,  and  to  put  an  end 
to  the  ugly  network  of  lies  with  which  they  were  surround^ 
ing  the  innocent  child. 

She  went  to  a  neighboring  shop  and  purchased  some  toys, 
and  then  she  formed  her  plan  of  action:  she  would  start  early 
in  the  morning  before  Aleksti  Aleksandrovitch  was  up;  she 
would  have  the  money  in  her  hand  all  ready  to  bribe  the 
Swiss  and  the  other  servants  to  let  her  go  up  stairs  without 
raising  her  veil,  under  the  pretext  of  laying  on  Serozha's  bed 
some  presents  sent  by  his  god-father.    As  to  what  she  should 


58  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

say  to  her  son,  she  could  not  form  the  least  idea;  she  could 
not  make  any  preparation  for  that. 

The  next  morning,  at  eight  o'clock,  Anna  got  out  of  her 
hired  carriage  and  rang  the  door- bell  of  her  former  home. 

"Go  and  see  what  is  wanted!  It's  some  iaruma,^' said 
Kapitonuitch,  in  overcoat  and  galoshes,  as  he  looked  out  of 
the  window  and  saw  a  lady  closely  veiled  standing  on  the 
porch.  The  Swiss's  assistant,  a  young  man  whom  Anna  did 
not  know,  had  scarcely  opened  the  door  before  Anna  thrust  a 
three-ruble  note  into  his  hand, 

"  Serozha— Serg6i  Aleljs'4vitch,"  she  stammered;  then 
she  went  one  or  two  steps  down  the  hall. 

The  Swiss's  assistant  examined  the  note,  and  stopped  the 
visitor  at  the  inner  glass  door. 

"  Whom  do  you  wish  to  see?  "  he  asked. 

She  did  not  hear  his  words,  and  made  r  j  reply. 

Kapitonuitch,  noticing  the  stranger's  confusion,  came  out 
from  his  ofl&ce  and  asked  her  what  she  wanted. 

"I  come  from  Prince  Skorodumof  to  see  Sergei  Aleksi4- 
vitch." 

"  He  is  not  up  yet,"  replied  the  Swiss,  looking  sharply  at 
the  veiled  lady. 

Anna  had  never  dreamed  that  she  should  be  so  troubled 
by  the  sight  of  this  house  where  she  had  lived  nine  years. 
One  after  another,  sweet  and  cruel  memories  arose  in  her 
mind,  and  for  a  moment  she  forgot  why  she  was  there. 

"  Will  you  wait  ?  "  asked  the  Swiss,  helping  her  to  take  oflF 
her  shubka.  When  he  saw  her  face,  he  recognized  her,  and 
bowed  profoundly.  "  Will  your  ladyship  be  pleased  to  enter?  " 
he  said  to  her. 

She  tried  to  speak;  but  her  voice  failed  her,  and  with  an 
entreating  look  at  the  old  servant  she  rapidly  flew  up  the 
stairs.  Kapitonuitch  tried  to  overtake  her,  and  followed 
after  her,  catching  his  galoshes  at  every  step. 

"  Perhaps  his  tutor  is  not  dressed  yet ;  I  will  speak  to  him.'' 

Anna  kept  on  up  the  stairs  which  she  knew  so  well,  but 
she  did  not  hear  what  the  old  man  said. 

"  This  way.  Excuse  it,  if  all  is  in  disorder.  He  sleeps  in 
the  front  room  now,"  said  the  Swiss,  out  of  breath.     "Will 


RUSSIAN  WTBRATURB.  59 

your  ladyship  be  good  enough  to  wait  a  moment  ?    I  will  go 
and  see."     And  opening  the  high  door,  he  disappeared. 

Anna  stopped  and  waited.  "He  has  just  waked  up," 
said  the  Swiss,  coming  back  through  the  same  door.  And  as 
he  spoke,  Anna  heard  the  sound  of  a  child  yawning,  and 
merely,  by  the  sound  of  the  yawn  she  recognized  her  son  and 
seemed  to  see  him  alive  before  her.  "Let  me  go  in — let  me  1 " 
she  stammered,  and  hurriedly  pushed  through  the  door. 

At  the  right  of  the  door  was  a  bed,  and  on  the  bed  a  child 
was  sitting  up  in  his  little  open  nightgown ;  his  little  body 
was  leaning  forward,  and  he  was  just  finishing  a  yawn  and 
stretching  himself.  His  lips  were  just  closing  into  a  sleepy 
smile,  and  he  fell  back  upon  his  pillow  still  smiling. 

"  Serozha  I"  she  murmured  as  she  went  towards  him. 

Every  time  since  their  separation  that  she  had  felt  an 
access  of  love  for  the  absent  son,  Anna  looked  upon  him  as 
still  a  child  of  four,  the  age  when  he  had  been  most  charm- 
ing. Now  he  no  longer  bore  any  resemblance  to  him  whom 
she  had  left :  he  had  grown  tall  and  thin.  How  long  his  face 
seemed  1  How  short  his  hair !  What  long  arms  !  How  he 
had  changed !  But  it  was  still  the  same,— the  shape  of  his 
head,  his  lips,  little  slender  neck,  and  his  broad  shoulders. 

"  Serozha !"  she  whispered  in  the  child's  ear. 

He'  raised  himself  on  his  elbow,  turned  his  frowzy  head 
around,  and  trying  to  put  things  together,  opened  wide  his 
eyes.  For  several  seconds  he  looked  with  an  inquiring  face 
at  his  mother,  who  stood  motionless  before  him.  Then  he 
suddenly  smiled  with  joy,  and  with  his  eyes  still  half-closed 
in  sleep,  he  threw  himself,  not  back  upon  his  pillow,  but  into 
his  mother's  arms. 

"  Serozha,  my  dear  little  boy ! "  she  stammered,  choking 
with  tears,  and  throwing  her  loving  arms  around  his  plump 
body. 

"  Mamma ! ' '  he  whispered,  cuddling  into  his  mother's  arms 
so  as  to  feel  their  encirpling  pressure.  Smiling  sleepily,  he 
took  his  hand  from  the  head  of  the  bed  and  put  it  on  his 
mother's  shoulder  and  climbed  into  her  lap,  having  that  warm 
breath  of  sleep  peculiar  to  children,  and  pressed  his  face  to 
his  mother's  neck  and  shoulders. 


6o  LITERATURS  OF  Atl,  NATIONS. 

"I  knew,"  he  said,  opening  his  eyes;  "to-day  is  my 
birthday ;  I  knew  that  you  would  come.  I  am  going  to  get 
up  now." 

And  as  he  spoke  he  fell  asleep  again.  Anna  devoured  him 
with  her  eyes.  She  saw  how  he  had  changed  during  her 
absence.  She  would  scarcely  have  known  his  long  legs  com- 
ing below  his  nightgown,  his  hollow  cheeks,  his  short  hair 
curled  in  the  neck  where  she  had  so  often  kissed  it.  She 
pressed  him  to  her  heart,  and  the  tears  prevented  her  from 
speaking. 

"What  are  you  crying  for,  mamma?"  he  asked,  now 
entirely  awake.  ' '  What  makes  you  cry  ?  "  he  repeated,  ready 
to  weep  himself. 

"I?  I  will  not  cry  any  more — it  is  for  joy.  It  is  all 
over  now,"  said  she,  drying  her  tears  and  turning  around. 
"  Nu/  go  and  get  dressed,"  she  added,  after  she  had  grown 
a  little  calmer,  but  still  holding  Serozha's  hand.  She  sat 
down  near  the  bed  on  a  chair  which  held  the  child's  clothing. 
"How  do  you  dress  without  me?  How" — she  wanted  to 
speak  simply  and  gayly,  but  she  could  not,  and  again  she 
turned  her  head  away. 

"  I  don't  wash  in  cold  water  any  more ;  papa  has  forbidden 
it :  but  you  have  not  seen  Vasili  Lukitch  ?  Here  he  comes. 
But  you  are  sitting  on  my  things."  And  Serozha  laughed 
heartily.     She  looked  at  him  and  smiled. 

"  Mamma  !  dUskenka,  goKibtchika  ! ' '  [dear  little  soul,  dar- 
ling], he  cried  again,  throwing  himself  into  her  arms,  as 
though  he  now  better  understood  what  had  happened  to  him, 
as  he  saw  her  smile. 

"Take  it  off,"  said  he,  pulling  off  her  hat.  And  seeing 
her  head  bare,  he  began  to  kiss  her  again. 

' '  What  did  you  think  of  me  ?  Did  you  believe  that  I  was 
dead?" 

"I  never  believed  it. ' ' 

' '  You  believed  me  alive,  my  precious  ? ' ' 

"  I  knew  it !  I  knew  it ! "  he  replied,  repeating  his  favor- 
ite phrase ;  and  seizing  the  hand  which  was  smoothing  his 
hair,  he  pressed  the  palm  of  it  to  his  little  mouth,  and  began 
to  kiss  it. 


RUSSIAN  WTERATURB.  6l 


MARIE  BASHKIRTSEFF. 


All  her  life  Marie  BashkirtseflF  (i  860-1 884)  was  a  victim 
to  a  wild  thirst  for  fame ;  through  music,  literature  and  art 
she  sought  successively  to  find  a  road  to  glory.  Dying  in  the 
full  flush  of  ardent  womanhood,  she  received  the  long-coveted 
reward,  only  when  she  lay  in  her  tomb.  Her  "Journal," 
published  a  few  years  after  her  death,  is  a  striking  revelation 
of  inner  self  —almost  as  startling,  though  not  so  scandalous, 
as  Rousseau's  "Confessions."  In  this  "Journal"  the  world 
has  the  confession  (in  the  partipular  case  of  a  fierce-spirited 
girl)  of  that  universal  self-esteem,  vanity,  and  gnawing  hun- 
ger for  fame  which  lies  deep  in  human  nature  itself.  The 
petted  child  of  a  family  of  social  distinction,  idolized  by  her 
mother  and  aunt ;  a  charming  lady  to  whom  the  butterfly- 
world  of  fashion  had  few  closed  doors ;  a  gifted — indeed,  too 
gifted — woman ;  Marie  Bashkirtseff''s  restless  spirit  yearned 
incessantly  to  achieve  something  grand,  that  would  make  the 
whole  world  bow  at  her  feet.  Nothing  was  fine  enough  for  her. 
"  The  offspring  of  Tartar  nobles,  with  savage  instincts  lying 
like  half-tamed  wild  beasts  in  the  background  of  her  con- 
sciousness," is  Mathilde  Blind's  summary  of  her  character, 
adding :  "  She  was  descended  from  owners  of  lands  and  serfs,, 
and  the  instincts  of  command,  the  pride  of  power,  the  love  of 
all  things  splendid,  became  part  of  her  inheritance." 

Later,  studying  art  in  a  Parisian  studio,  she  fell  under  the 
influence  of  Jules  Bastien-Lepage,  head  of  the  new  impres- 
sionistic school.  She  seems  to  have  had  a  hero-worship  for 
him,  and  to  have  lost  herself  to  an  appreciable  degree  in  her 
growing  love  of  art ;  and  yet  throughout  all  preserved  her 
imperious  personality.  As  a  painter  she  acquired  consider- 
able success  in  the  handling  of  Paris  street  scenes  and 
gamins,  sympathetically  and  half-pathetically  treated.  But 
her  lifelong  dream  was  of  a  great  religious  picture,  which 
should  show  the  two  Marys  mourning,  as  deprived  of  support 
and  consolation,  before  the  tomb  of  Jesus. 

The  following  extract  is  from  "Marie  Bashkirtseff.  The  Journal 
of  a  Young  Artist."  Translated  by  M.  J.  Serrano.  Copyright,  1889, 
by  O.  M.  Dunham. 


62  WTBRATURE   OP  ALL  NATIONS. 


Extract  from  Her  Journal. 

Nice,  Wednesday,  May  2j,  1877. — Oh,  -when  I  think  that 
■we  have  only  a  single  life  to  live,  and  that  every  moment 
that  passes  brings  us  nearer  death,  I  am  ready  to  go  dis- 
tracted !  I  do  not  fear  death,  but  life  is  so  short  that  to  waste 
it  is  infamous 

Ah,  what  a  happy  time  youth  is  !  With  wbat  happiness 
shall  I  look  back,  in  times  to  come,  on  these  days  devoted  to 
science  and  art !  If  I  worked  thus  all  the  year  round — but  a 
day,  or  a  week,  as  the  chance  may  be !  Natures  so  richly 
endowed  as  mine  consume  themselves  in  idleness. 

I  try  to  tranquillize  my  mind  by  tbe  thought  that  I  shall 
certainly  begin  work  in  earnest  this  winter.  But  the  thought 
of  my  seventeen  years  makes  me  blush  to  the  roots  of  my 
hair.  Almost  seventeen,  and  what  bave  I  accomplished? 
Nothing !     This  thought  crushes  me. 

I  think  of  all  the  famous  men  and  women  who  acquired 
their  celebrity  late  in  life,  in  order  to  console  myself;  but 
seventeen  years  for  a  man  are  nothing,  while  for  a  woman 
they  are  equal  to  twenty-three  for  a  man. 

To  go  live  in  Paris,  in  the  North,  after  this  cloudless  sky, 
these  clear,  calm  nights  !  What  can  one  desire,  what  can  one 
hope  for,  after  Italy !  Paris — the  heart  of  the  civilized  world, 
of  the  world  of  intellect,  of  genius,  of  fashion — naturally 
people  go  there,  and  remain  there,  and  are  happy  there ;  it 
is  even  indispensable  to  go  there,  for  a  multitude  of  reasons, 
in  order  to  return  with  renewed  delight  to  the  land  beloved 
of  God,  the  land  of  the  blest,  that  enchanted,  wondrous, 
divine  land  of  the  supreme  beauty  and  magic  charm,  of 
which  all  that  one  could  say  would  never  equal  the  truth ! 

When  foreigners  come  to  Italy  they  ridicule  its  mean 
little  towns  and  its  lazzaroni,  and  they  do  this  with  some 
cleverness,  and  not  without  a  certain  show  of  reason.  But 
forget  for  the  moment  that  you  are  clever ;  forget  that  it  is  a 
inai^k  of  genius  to  turn  everything  into  ridicule,  and  you  will 
find,  as  I  do,  that  tears  will  mingle  with  your  laughter,  and 
that  you  will  wonder  at  all  you  see. 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE. 

Period  VIII. 
Nineteenth  Century. 


jOI^ITICAIv  revolutions  have  strongly  affected 
Italian  literature  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
the  century.  Alfieri  adhered  to  the  Classical 
school  in  form  and  endeavored  to  restore  the 
writers  of  the  Greek  tragedy.  But  the  Roman- 
tic school  speedily  prevailed,  though  the  unique 
genius  of  Leopardi  resisted  the  change  of  form.  During  the 
time  that  Napoleon  swayed  the  destinies  of  the  peninsula, 
Ugo  Foscolo  and  Vincenzo  Monti,  belonging  to  Lombardy, 
were  the  chief  poets.  Monti  passed  like  a  shuttlecock  from 
party  to  party  during  the  convulsions  of  the  state.  After 
having  won  the  favor  of  the  Papal  court  by  graceful  odes, 
he  denounced  the  French  Revolution  in  his  powerful  epic, 
"  Bassevilliana,"  then  he  settled  at  Milan  under  Napoleon's 
patronage  .  and  lauded  the  emperor  in  his  tragedies.  Yet 
when  the  Austrians  returned,  he  celebrated  the  expulsion  t)f 
the  French.  Though  his  old  age  was  embittered  with  con- 
troversies and  poverty,  he  continued  to  give  proof  df  his 
splendid  lyric  power.  Ugo  Foscolo  was  a  consistent  Repub- 
lican and  accepted  exile  in  London  rather  than  renounce  his 
opinions.  Though  an  original  poet  of  merit,  his  mission  was 
rather  to  introduce  a  better  knowledge  of  Italian  literature 
into  England. 

When  Austria  had  established  its  power  in  Northern  Italy, 
freedom  of  thought  was  suppressed,  yet  there  was  a  group  of 
notable  literary  men  at  Milan  who  have  become  known  as 

63 


64  WTBRATURB  OF  AXX,  NATIONS. 

the  School  of  Resignation.  The  greatest  of  these  was  Man- 
zoni,  who  atoned  for  the  infidelity  of  his  early  youth  by  the 
fervent  Catholicism  of  his  riper  years.  His  poetic  talents 
were  devoted  to  sacred  hymns,  celebrating  the  Church  festivals, 
and  his  dramatic  ability  was  shown  in  spirited  tragedies,  but 
his  real  fame  rests  upon  his  masterly  novel,  "I  Promessi 
Sposi,"  which  is  still  regarded  as  the  most  characteristic 
Italian  production  of  the  century.  "It  satisfies  us,"  said 
Goethe,  "like  perfectly  ripe  fruit."  Though  his  life  was 
prolonged  fifty  years  after  the  publication  of  this  great  work, 
this  modest  valetudinarian  practically  accomplished  nothing 
more  of  value,  but  endeavored  to  improve  the  diction  of  his 
masterpiece,  by  making  it  conform  to  Tuscan  idiom.  Some 
tragedies  by  the  gentle  Silvio  Pellico,  especially  his  "Fran- 
cesca  da  Rimini,"  are  still  esteemed  in  Italy,  but  the  world  at 
large  remembers  him  only  by  his  pathetic  narrative,  ' '  My 
Prisons,"  a  searching  revelation  of  Austrian  despotism. 
Tommaso  Grossi  was  a  more  versatile  writer,  best  known  by 
his  satires  and  playful  poems. 

Hardly  until  1825  did  Florence,  which  had  been  the 
literary  centre  since  the  Renaissance,  resume  its  fprmer  rank. 
Guerrazzi  as  a  youth  had  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  Byron  and 
was  stirred  to  write  historical  novels  on  Italian  themes  in  imita- 
tion of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  efforts  for  his  native  land.  The 
grander  genius  of  Niccolini  recalled  the  events  of  his  coun- 
try's past  in  noble  tragedies.  Giuseppe  Giusti,  who  possessed 
high  genius  as  a  lyrist,  spent  his  force  in  political  and  social 
satires.  He  was  the  first  of  Italian  satirists  to  reach  and  stir 
the  hearts  of  the  people.  But  great  as  were  the  merits  of 
these  writers,  a  greater  still  remains.  Above  them  towered 
the  unique  melancholy  Leopardi,  doomed  by  ill  health  and 
adverse  circumstances  to  spend  his  powers  in  unavailing 
remonstrances  against  the  decrees  of  fate  and  the  conventions 
of  society.  His  poems  are  unsurpassed  for  refinement  and 
beauty  of  form.  His  prose  dialogues,  written  somewhat  in 
imitation  of  Lucian^  are  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  the 
inevitable  misery  of  mankind,  and  are  recognized  examples  of 
refined  scholarly  pessimism.  While  his  writings  show  his 
determination  to  think  ill  of  mankind  as  a  whole;  he  had 


ITALIAN  UTERATtTRB. 


65 


tender  aflfection  for  certain  individuals.  With  his  view  of  the 
utter  uselessness  of  human  effort,  Leopardi  gave  no  help  to 
the  patriotic  aspirations  of  his  countrymen. 

Northern  Italy  has  still  continued  to  produce  literary  men. 
Verona  was  the  birthplace  of  Aleardi ;  the  border  of  Tyrol 
produced  Prati ;  Dall'  Ongaro  belongs  to  Trieste,  the  Aus- 
trian seaport.  In  contemporary  literature  Giosue  Carducci 
claims  the  foremost  place  as  a  lyric  poet;  Gabriele  D'Annunzio 
shines  as  a  poet,  but  is  more  widely  known  as  a  realistic, 
erotic  novelist.  Edmondo  D' Amicis  by  his  picturesque  books 
of  travel  has  become  a  general  favorite.  Poets  and  novelists 
of  the  present  day  have  abandoned  the  political  themes  of  the 
early  century  and  cultivate  with  success  artistic  literature. 


UGO  FOSCOLO. 

The  Letters  of  Jacopo  Ortis, 
which  has  been  styled  the  Italian 
"  Sorrows  of  Young  Werther,"  was 
the  first  notable  work  of  Ugo  Fos- 
colo  (1777-1827).  Jacopo  was  no 
mere  sentimental  swain,  but  a  pa- 
triot with  whose  love-pangs  was 
mingled  grief  for  the  misfortunes 
of  his  country.  Foscolo,  although 
a  native  of  the  isle  of  Zante,i  with 
Greek  blood  in  his  veins,  and  the 
pride  of  Greek  ancestry,  was  also  of 
Venetian  descent,  and  in  spirit  an 
ardent  Italian.  Upon  the  fall  of  the  oligarchic  Republic  of 
Venice,  he  addressed  an  ode  to  Bonaparte  as  the  liberator. 
When  that  general,  instead  of  making,  Venice  a  free  republic, 
turned  her  over  to  Austria  by  the  treaty  of  Campo  Formo 
(October  17,  1797),  Foscolo  was  painfully  shocked.  Never- 
theless he  did  not  entirely  abandon  hope  of  redress  for  his 
country  from  France.  He  became  a  volunteer  in  the  French 
army,  and  was  present  at  both  the  battle  of  Trebbia  and  the 
defence  of  Genoa  under  Mass6na.  While  recovering  from  a 
wound,  he  put  into  shape  his  "Jacopo  Ortis,"  the  hero  of 
X— 5 


66  WTERATURB  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

which  embodies  the  mental  sufferings  and  suicide  of  an  ar- 
dent Italian  patriot.  The  character  is  said  to  have  had  an 
actual  original  in  a  young  student  at  the  University  of  Padua, 
while  a  true  love  disappointment  of  Foscolo's  formed  the 
basis  of  the  love-tragedy  in  the  romance. 

In  1808  Foscolo  was  made  Professor  in  the  University  of 
Pavia,  but  when  he  delivered  an  address  to  the  students,  bid- 
ding them  seek  iu  their  studies  an  inspiration  to  patriotism, 
his  independence  provoked  Napoleon  to  abolish  all  ihe  chairs 
of  eloquence  in  the  Italian  Univerbities.  His  tragedy  of  Ajax 
increased  the  emperor's  dislike,  and  forced  him  to  remove 
from  Milan  to  Florence.  Ou  the  restoration  of  Austrian 
dominion  Foscolo  retired  to  Switzerland,  and  later  to  England, 
where  for  a  time  he  enjoyed  high  social  distinction,  and  pro- 
moted the  study  of  Italian  literature  by  lectures  and  reviews. 
Yet  he  was  reduced  to  poverty,  and  even  committed  to  prison. 
When  released,  he  had  lost  his  friends.  He  died  near  London, 
after  eleven  years'  residence  in  England.  In  1871  his  remains 
were  carried  back  in  honor  to  Florence,  and  buried  in  the 
Church  of  San  Croce,  beside  the  monuments  of  Machi^velli 
Alfiari,  Galileo,  and  other  great  Italians.  Foscolo  was  worthy 
of  this  tribute  as  a  classic  author,  an  inspirer  of  a  new  move- 
ment in  his  country's  literature,  and  a  prophet  of  Italian  unity. 

The  most  famous  of  his  poems  is  "  I  Sepolcri"  (The 
Sepulchres),  in  which  he  rebuked  the  Milanese  for  allowing 
the  remains  of  Giuseppe  Parini,  author  of  the  mock-heroic 
poem,  "The  Day,"  to  be  interred  in  a  common  burial  ground 
with  robbers.  The  leading  idea  of  the  poem,  however,  was 
to  seek  refuge  from  a  degenerate  present  in  a  glorious  past. 
Foscolo  translated  into  Italian  Sterne's  "Sentimental  Jour- 
ney" after  he  had,  while  serving  with  the  French,  traversed 
much  of  the  ground  gone  over  by  Yorick. 

Great  Men's  Monuments. 

(From  "  The  Sepulchres.") 
The  aspiring  soul  is  fired  to  lofty  deeds 
By  great  men's  monuments, — and  they  make  tair 
And  holy  to  the  pilgrim's  eye  the  earth 
That  has  received  their  trust.     When  I  beheld 


ITALIAN  LITERATURB.  67 

The  spot  where  sleeps  enshrined  that  noble  genius, 

Who,  humbling  the  proud  sceptres  of  earth's  kings, 

Stripped  thence  the  illusive  wreaths,  and  showed  the  nations 

What  tears  and  blood  defiled  them, — when  I  saw 

His  mausoleum,  who  upreared  in  Rome 

A  new  Olympus  to  the  Deity, — 

And  his,  who  'neath  heaven's  azure  canopy 

Saw  worlds  unnumbered  roll,  and  suns  unmoved 

Irradiate  countless  systems, — treading  first 

For  Albion's  son,  who  soared  on  wings  sublime, 

The  shining  pathways  of  the  firmament, — 

"Oh,  blest  art  thou,  Etruria's  Queen,"  I  cried, 

"  For  thy  pure  airs,  so  redolent  of  life. 
And  the  fresh  streams  thy  mountain  summits  pour 
In  homage  at  thy  feet !     In  thy  blue  sky 
The  glad  moon  walks,— and  robes  with  silver  light 
Thy  vintage-smiling  hills ;  and  valleys  fair. 
Studded  with  domes  and  olive-groves,  send  up 
To  heaven  the  incense  of  a  thousand  flowers. 
Thou,  Florence,  first  didst  hear  the  song  divine 
That  cheered  the  Ghibelline's  indignant  flight. 
And  thou  the  kindred  and  sweet  language  gav'st 
To  him,  the  chosen  of  Calliope, 
Who  lyove  with  purest  veil  adorning,— I^ove, 
That  went  unrobed  in  elder  Greece  and  Rome, — 
Restored  him  to  a  heavenly  Venus'  lap. 
Yet  far  more  blest,  that  in  thy  fane  repose 
Italia's  buried  glories ! — all,  perchance, 
She  e'er  may  boast !    Since  o'er  the  barrier  frail 
Of  Alpine  rocks  the  overwhelming  tide  of  Fate 
Hath  swept  in  mighty  wreck  her  arms,  her  wealth, 
Altars  and  country, — and,  save  memory, — all !  " 
Where  from  past  fame  springs'hope  of  future  deeds 
In  daring  minds,  for  Italy  enslaved, 
Draw  we  our  auspices.     Arounds  these  tombs. 
In  thought  entranced,  Alfieri  wandered  oft, — 
Indignant  at  his  country,  hither  strayed 
O'er  Amo's  desert  plain,  and  looked  abroad 
With  silent  longing  on  the  field  and  sky : 
And  when  no  living  aspect  soothed  his  grief, 
Turned  to  the  voiceless  dead ;  while  on  his  brow 
There  sat  the  paleness,  with  the  hope  of  death. 


68  UTERATURB  OF  AW,  NATIONS. 

With  them  he  dwells  forever ;  here  his  bones 

Murmur  a  patriot's  love.     Oh,  truly  speaks 

A  god  from  his  abode  of  pious  rest ! 

The  same  which  fired  of  old,  in  Grecian  bosoms, 

Hatred  ot  Persian  foes  at  Marathon, 

Where  Athens  consecrates  her  heroes  gone. 

SILVIO  PELLICO. 

Many  famous  men  have  suffered  imprisonment,  but  rarely 
has  their  confinement  been  a  direct  cause  of  their  fame.    Silvio 
Pellico  ranks  high  among  the  few  who  owe  celebrity  to  their 
prisons.     Born  of  wealthy  parents  at  Saluzzo  in  Piedmont  in 
1789,  he  was  well  educated,  and  early  devoted  himself  to  lit- 
erature.    As  a  young  man  he  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  Monti 
and   Foscolo,   and  delighted  all   Italy  with   his   tragedy  of 
"  Francesca  da  Rimini."     But  in  his  desire  for  the  freedom  of 
his  country,  he  joined  the  Carbonari,  and  thereby  became  a 
victim  of  Austrian  despotism.     Arrested  in  October,  1820,  he 
was  put  in  prison  at  Milan,  but  was  soon  removed  to  the  state 
prison  at  Venice.     His  trial  in  February,  1822,  resulted  in  a 
sentence  to  death,  but  this  was  commuted  to  incarceration  for 
fifteen  years  in  the  dungeons  of  Spielberg.     In  1830,  when 
the  prisoner  was  almost  reduced  to  death,  he  was  discharged 
by  the  emperor's  command.     Pellico  withdrew  to  Turin  and 
resumed  his'  literary  pursuits.     Among  his  tragedies  is  one  on 
Sir  Thomas  More.     But  his  unique  work  is  "My  Prisons," 
which  has  charmed  every  reader  by  its  unaffected  style,  its 
tender  pathos,  and  its  Christian  charity.     He  died  in  1854  at 
the  villa  of  Marchesa  Barolo,  to  whom  he  had  been  librarian. 

The  Jailer's  Daughter. 

(From  "  My  Prisons.") 
As  it  was  not  always  so  easy  an  affair  to  get  a  reinforce- 
ment of  paper,  I  was  in  the  habit  of  committing  my  rough 
draughts  to  my  table,  or  the  wrapping-paper  in  which  I 
received  fruit  and  other  articles.  At  times  I  would  give 
away  my  dinner  to  the  under-jailer,  telling  him  that  I  had 
no  appetite,  and  then  requesting  from  him  the  favor  of  a 
sheet  of  paper.     This  was,  however,  only  in  certain  exigen- 


ITALIAN  UTBRATtTRB.  69 

cies,  when  my  little  table  was  full  of  writing,  and  I  had  not 
yet  determined  on  clearing  it  away.  I  was  often  very  hun- 
gry, and  though  the  jailer  had  money  of  mine  in  his  posses- 
sion, I  did  not  ask  him  to  bring  me  anything  to  eat,  partly 
lest  he  should  suspect  I  had  given  away  my  dinner,  and 
partly  that  the  under- jailer  might  not  find  out  that  I  had 
said  what  was  not  true  when  I  assured  him  of  my  loss  of 
appetite.  In  the  evening  I  regaled  myself  with  some  strong 
coflFee,  and  I  entreated  that  it  might  be  made  by  the  little 
Sioa  Zanze  [affectionate  abbreviation  of  Signora  Angiola]. 
This  was  the  jailer's  daughter,  who,  if  she  could  escape  the 
lynx-eye  of  her  sour  mamma,  was  good  enough  to  make  it 
exceedingly  good ;  so  good,  indeed,  that,  what  with  the 
emptiness  of  my  stomach,  it  produced  a  kind  of  convulsion, 
which  kept  me  awake  the  whole  of  the  night. 

In  this  state  of  gentle  inebriation,  I  felt  my  intellectual 
faculties  strangely  invigorated ;  wrote  poetry,  philosophized, 
and  prayed  till  morning  with  feelings  of  real  pleasure.  I 
then  became  completely  exhausted,  threw  myself  upon  my 
bed,  and,  spite  of  the  gnats  that  were  continually  sucking 
my  blood,  I  slept  an  hour  or  two  in  profound  rest. 

I  can  hardly  describe  the  peculiar  and  pleasing  exaltation 
of  mind  which  continued  for  nights  together,  and  I  left  no 
means  untried  to  secure  the  same  means  of  continuing  it. 
With  this  view  I  still  refused  to  touch  a  mouthful  of  dinner, 
even  when  I  was  in  no  want  of  paper,  merely  in  order  to  ob- 
tain my  magic  beverage  for  the  evening. 

How  fortunate  I  thought  myself  when  I  succeeded ;  not 
unfrequently  the  coffee  was  not  made  by  the  gentle  Angiola ; 
and  it  was  always  vile  stuff  from  her  mother's  hands.  In 
this  last  case,  I  was  sadly  put  out  of  humor,  for  instead  of  the 
electrical  effect  on  my  nerves,'  it  made  me  wretched,  weak, 
and  hungry;  I  threw  myself  down  to  sleep,  but  was  unable 
to  close  an  eye.  Upon  these  occasions  I  complained  bitterly 
to  Angiola,  the  jailer's  daughter,  and  one  day,  as  if  she 
had  been  in  fault,  I  scolded  her  so  sharply  that  the  poor 
girl  began  to  weep,  sobbing  out,  "  Indeed,  sir,  I  never  de- 
ceived anybody,  and  yet  everybody  calls  me  a  deceitful  little 


70  WTKRATURE  OF  AI.I,  NATIONS. 

"  Everybody!  Oh  then,  I  see  I  am  not  the  only  one  driven 
to  distraction  by  your  vile  slops." 

"I  do  not  mean  to  say  that,  sir.  Ah,  if  you  only  knew; 
if  I  dared  to  tell  you  all  that  my  poor,  wretched  heart " 

"  Well,  don't  cry  so  I  What  is  all  this  ado  ?  I  beg  your 
pardon,  you  see,  if  I  scolded  you.  Indeed,  I  believe  you 
would  not,  you  could  not,  make  me  such  vile  stuff  as  this." 

"Dear  me  !  I  am  not  crying  about  that,  sir." 

"  You  are  not !"  and  I  felt  my  self-love  not  a  little  morti- 
fied, though  I  forced  a  smile.  "Are  you  crying,  then,  be- 
cause I  scolded  yon,  and  yet  not  about  the  coffee?" 

"  Yes,  indeed,  sir  !" 

"Ah  !  then  who  called  you  a  little  deceitful  one  before?" 

''He  did,  sir." 

'  'He  did  ;  and  who  \sheV 

"My  lover,  sir;"  and  she  hid  her  face  in  her  little  hands. 
Afterwards  she  ingenuously  intrusted  to  my  keeping,  and  I 
cpuld  not  well  betray  her,  a  little  serio  comic  sort  of  pastoral 
romance,  which  really  interested  me. 

From  that  day  forth,  I  know  not  why,  I  became  the  ad- 
viser and  confidant  of  this  young  girl,  who  returned  and  con- 
versed with  me  for  hours.  She  at  first  said,  "  You  are  so 
good,  sir,  that  I  feel  just  the  same  when  I  am  here  as  if  I 
were  your  own  daughter." 

"That  is  a  very  poor  compliment,"  replied  I,  dropping 
her  hand  ;  "  I  am  hardly  yet  thirty-two,  and  you  look  upon 
me  as  if  I  were  an  old  father." 

"No,  no,  not  so;  I  mean  as  a  brother,  to  be  sure;"  and 
she  insisted  upon  taking  hold  of  my  hand  with  an  air  of  the 
most  innocent  confidence  and  affection. 

I  am  glad,  thought  I  to  mvself,  that  you  are  no  beauty; 
else,  alas,  this  innocent  sort  of  fooling  might  chance  to  dis- 
concert me ;  at  other  times  I  thought  it  is  lucky,  too,  she  is 
so  young,  there  could  never  be  any  danger  of  becoming  at- 
tached to  girls  of  her  years.  At  other  times,  however,  I  felt 
a  little  uneasy,  thinking  I  was  mistaken  in  having  pronounced 
her  rather  plain,  whereas  her  whole  shape  and  features  were 
by  no  means  wanting  in  proportion  or  expression.  If  she 
were  not  quite  so  pale,  I  said,  and  her  face  free  from  those 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE.  ^l 

marks,  she  might  really  pass  for  a  beauty.  It  is  impossible, 
in  fact,  not  to  find  some  charm  in  the  presence  and  in  tha 
looks  and  voice  of  a  young  girl  full  of  vivacity  and  afiFection. 
I  had  taken  not  the  least  pains  to  acquire  her  good-will ;  yet 
was  I  as  dear  to  her  as  either  a  father  or  a  brother,  whichever 
title  I  preferred.  And  why?  Only  because  she  had  read 
"Francesca  da  Rimini"  and  "Eufemio,"  and  my  poems,  she 
said,  had  made  her  weep  so  often  ;  then,  besides,  I  was  a  soli- 
tary prisoner,  without  having,  as  she  observed,  either  robbed 
or  murdered  anybody. 

In  short,  when  I  had  become  attached  to  poor  Maddalene, 
without  once  seeing  her,  how  was  it  likely  that  I  could  remain 
indifferent  to  the  sisterly  assiduity  and  attentions,  to  the 
thousand  pleasing  little  compliments,  and  to  the  most  deli- 
cious cups  of  coffee  of  this  5  oung  Venetian  girl,  my  gentle  little 
jailer?  I  should  be  trying  to  impose  on  myself,  were  I  to 
attribute  to  my  own  prudence  the  fact  of  my  not  having  fallen 
in  love  with  Angiola.  I  did  not  do  so,  simply  from  the  cir- 
cumstance of  her  having  already  a  lover  of  her  own  choosing, 
to  whom  she  was  desperately,  unalterably  attached.  Heaven 
help  me  !  if  it  had  not  been  thus  I  should  have  found  myself 
in  a  very  critical  position,  indeed,  for  an  author,  with  so  little 
to  keep  alive  his  attention.  The  sentiment  I  felt  for  her  was 
not,  then,  what  is  called  love.  I  wished  to  see  her  happy,  and 
that  she  might  be  united  to  the  lover  of  li°r  choice ;  I  was 
not  jealous,  nor  had  I  the  remotest  idea  she  could  ever  select 
me  as  the  object  of  her  regard.  Still,  when  I  heard  my 
prison-door  open,  my  heart  began  to  beat  in  the  hope  it  was 
my  Angiola;  and  if  she  appeared  not,  I  experienced  a  pecu- 
liar kind  of  vexation  ;  when  she  really  came  my  heart  throbbed 
yet  more  violently,  from  a  feeling  of  pure  joy.  Her  parents, 
who  had  begun  to  entertain  a  good  opinion  of  me,  and  were 
aware  of  her  passionate  regard  for  another,  offered  no  opposi- 
tion to  the  visits  she  thus  mide  me,  permitting  her  almost 
invariably  to  bring  me  my  coflfee  in  a  morning,  and  not 
unfrequently  in  the  evening. 

There  was  altogether  a  simplicity  and  an  affectionateness 
in  her  every  word,  look,  and  gesture,  which  were  really  cap- 
tivating.    She  would  say,   "  I  am  excessively  attached  to 


72 


WTBRATURB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 


another,  and  yet  I  take  such  delight  in  being  near  you! 
When  I  am  not  in  his  company,  I  like  being  nowhere  so  well 
as  here."     (Here  was  another  compliment.) 

"And  don't  you  know  why?"  inquired  I. 

"I  do  not." 

"  I  will  tell  you,  then.  It  is  because  I  permit  you  to  talk 
about  your  lover." 

"That  is  a  good  guess;  yet  still  I  think  it  is  a  good  deal 
because  I  esteem  you  so  very  much !" 

Poor  girl !  along  with  this  pretty  frankness  she  had  that 
blessed  sin  of  taking  me  always  by  the  hand,  and  pressing  it 
with  all  her  heart,  not  perceiving  that  she  at  once  pleased 
and  disconcerted  me  by  her  affectionate  manner.  Thanks 
be  to  Heaven,  that  I  can  always  recall  this  excellent  little 
girl  to  mind  without  the  least  tinge  of  remorse. 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI. 

The  Romantic  School  in 
Italian  literature  was  founded  by 
Alessandro  Manzoni  (1785-1 873). 
His  great  masterpiece,  ' '  I  Pro- 
messi  Sposi"  (The  Betrothed 
I/)vers),  was  inspired  by  the 
romances  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
but  the  magnanimous  Scott 
:  placed  it  before  even  his  own 
novels  and  styled  it  an  ideal 
romance.  Manzoni  was  de- 
scended from  the  fierce  feudal 
lords  of  Valsassina,  and  was  thus  an  appropriate  comrade 
with  the  mighty  magician  of  "Waverly."  But  his  mother 
belonged  to  the  Beccaria  family,  which  has  some  note  in  litera- 
ture. "  I  Promessi  Sposi  "  is  not  merely  an  historical  novel 
or  picture  of  the  past.  The  author  explores  the  innermost 
recesses  of  the  human  heart,  and  draws  thence  the  most 
subtle  motives  for  the  movements  of  his  characters.  The 
ecclesiastical  bias,  due  to  his  early  training  by  the  Barnabites, 
and  the  French  coloring,  due  to  his  frequenting  of  Madame 


ITALIAN  LITERATXJRB.  73 

Condorcet's  salon,  axe  also  visible  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Manzoni's  love-story.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Milan  and  the 
neighborhood  of  Como  and  the  Italian  lakes  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Renzo  and  his  affianced  Lucia  are  two 
simple,  noble-spirited  peasants,  but  around  them  Manzoni 
has  woven  a  plot  which  involves  the  vices  and  virtues,  cus- 
toms and  manners  of  that  age.  Renzo  is  cruelly  victimized  by 
Don  Rodrigo,  whom  he  eventually  forgives.  Lucia  is  assaulted 
by  the  stony-hearted  Innominato  in  his  castle.  There  is  a 
friar,  Fra  Cristoforo,  who  has  devoted  himself  to  a  life  of 
holiness  in  penitence  for  one  impulsive  crime  of  his  yottth, 
and  who  does  his  utmost  to  rescue  the  sweet  lovers  from  the 
devil's  snares  around  them.  Federigo  Borromeo,  Archbishop 
of  Milan,  is  also  a  character  of  saintly  beauty,  A  weak 
priest  is  introduced  in  Abbondio.  Don  Rodrigo  falls  a  victim 
to  the  plague  which  ravaged  Milan  and  its  vicinity  in  1630. 
Manzoni  gives  a  powerful  description  of  this  plague,  which 
emulates  the  work  of  the  great  historian  Thucydides,  the 
poet  Lucretius,  and  the  novelists  Boccaccio  and  Defoe.  From 
use  of  the  original  memoirs,  he  was  enabled  to  paint  the  ter- 
rible picture  in  the  most  vivid,  breathing  colors.  Later  on 
he  wrote  as  a  sequel  to  his  romance  the  story  of  the  "  Colonna 
Infame"  (The  Column  of  Infamy),  a  monument  erected  on 
the  site  of  the  dwelling  of  a  Milanese  suspected  of  having 
spread  this  plague  by  means  of  poison.  The  people  of  Milan 
had  been  unable  to  comprehend  the  true  significance  of  the 
plague,  and  a  rumor  was  circulated  by  certain  miscreants  to 
the  effect  that  it  was  due  to  secret  poison  rubbed  on  the  walls 
of  the  houses.  The  angry  mob  pulled  down  the  house  of 
the  unfortunate  man  accused  of  being  the  arch-conspirator  in 
the  crime.  Manzoni  proved,  in  his  historical  study,  how 
utterly  idle  the  scandal  was,  and  traced  its  origin  and  develop- 
meht.  Critics  have  complained  somewhat  of  the  excessive 
ideality  of  Manzoni's  romance,  but  in  such  of  its  characters 
as  Agnese  he  has  displayed  a  pleasant  and  humorous  realism. 
His  great  work  he  revised  most  laboriously  in  accordance 
with  the  Tuscan  idiom. 

Manzoni  also  enriched  Italian  literature,  if  not  the  Italian 
stage,  with  two  tragedies— " II  Conte  di  Carmagnole"  and 


74  LITERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

"  Adelchi."  The  latter  treats  of  the  expedition  of  Charle- 
magne against  the  last  of  the  Longobardian  chiefs  {772-774). 
Under  the  veil  of  the  L,ombard  domination  in  Italy  Manzoni 
gave  his  view  of  the  existing  Austrian  domination.  He  also 
warned  Italy  to  hope  for  no  foreign  rescuer.  In  "  The  Count 
of  Carmagnola"  he  depicted  a  picturesque  Venetian  Con- 
dottiero  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Manzoni's  literary  motto 
was  "  True  history,  true  morals."  In  these  he  believed  lies 
the  widest  and  the  eternal  source  of  the  beautiful.  His  real- 
ism was  of  this  type,  idealized  by  noble  sentiment. 

Manzoni  in  early  life  had  been  a  follower  of  Voltaire,  but 
was  brought  back  to  Catholicism  by  his  wife,  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  a  Genevese  banker.  This  new  religious  expe- 
rience enriched  Catholic  poetry,  for  Manzoni  was  inspired  to 
compose  a  series  of  "Inni"  (Hymns)  for  the  various  Christian 
festivals.  He  thus  celebrated  " The  Resun-ection, "  "The 
Name  of  Mary,"  "The  Nativity,"  "The  Passion,"  and 
"Pentecost."  But  even  in  these  sacred  poems,  the  poet  did 
not  fail  to  manifest  his  aspirations  for  social  progress.  For 
instance,  in  "The  Nativity"  he  sings  a  sublime  vision  of  a 
Christian  democracy,  and  in  "The  Resurrection"  he  chants 
the  triumph  of  innocence  over  oppression.  He  thus  became, 
in  his  lyrics,  a  champion  of  the  purest  and  most  sublime 
morality.  His  most  famous  ode  is  that  called  "Cinque 
Maggio  "  (The  Fifth  of  May)  on  the  death  of  Napoleon. 

Manzoni  stands  in  marked  contrast  with  his  great  contem- 
porary, the  pessimist  Leopardi.  Manzoni  was  always  serene 
and  had  faith  in  the  divine  government  of  the  world.  After 
the  publication  of  his  great  novel,  in  1822,  and  its  sequel, 
he  wrote  but  little.  His  wife  died  in  1833,  and  though  he 
married  again,  he  outlived  his  second  wife  and  most  of  his 
children,  dying  at  Milan  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight.  His 
funeral  was  attended  with  all  the  manifestations  of  natural 
grief,  and  Verdi  wrote  a  noble  Requiem  in  his  honor.  Man- 
zoni's private  character  was  in  perfect  accord  with  the  best 
utterances  of  his  genius.  ■  Though  his  poetry  is  celebrated 
for  its  lofty  fervor,  it  is  as  a  prose- writer,  and  especially  as  the 
author  of  "  I  Promessi  Sposi,"  that  he  has  attained  his  unique 
place  in  the  literature  of  Italy  and  the  world. 


ITAtlAN  LITERATURE.  75 


The  Death  of  Napoleon. 

(From  "  The  Fifth  of  Ma}'."    Napoleon  died  May  5,  1821. ) 

Hb  was. — As  motionless,  as  lay, 
First  mingled  with  the  dead, 
The  relics  of  the  senseless  clay. 
Whence  such  a  soul  had  fled, — 
The  Earth  astounded  holds  her  breath, 
Struck  with  the  tidings  of  his  death : 

She  pauses  the  last  hour  to  see 
Of  the  dread  Man  of  Destiny; 
Nor  knows  she  when  another  tread. 
Like  that  of  the  once  mighty  dead. 
Shall  such  a  foot-print  leave  impressed 
As  his,  in  blood,  upon  her  breast.. 

I  saw  him  blazing  on  his  throne. 
Yet  hailed  him  not :  by  restless  fate 
Hurled  from  the  giddy  summit  down, 
Resume  again  his  lofty  state : 
Saw  him  at  last  forever  fall. 
Still  mute  amid  the  shouts  of  all : 

Free  from  base  flattery,  when  he  rose ; 
From  baser  outrage,  when  he  fell : 
Now  his  career  has  reached  its  close ; 
My  voice  is  raised  the  truth  to  tell. 
And  o'er  its  exiled  urn  will  try 
To  pour  a  strain  that  shall  not  die. 

From  Alps  to  Pyramids  were  thrown 
His  bolts,  from  Scylla  to  the  Don, 
From  Manzanares  to  the  Rhine,     , 
From  sea  to  sea,  unerring  hurled ; 
And  ere  the  flash  had  ceased  to  shine. 
Burst  on  their  aim,  — and  shook  the  world. 

Was  this  true  glory  ?    The  high  doom 
Must  be  pronounced  by  times  to  come : 
For  us  we  bow  before  His  throne. 
Who  willed,  in  gifting  mortal  clay 
With  such  a  spirit,  to  display 
A  grander  impress  of  his  own. 


76  WTERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

His  was  the  stormy,  fierce  delight 
To  dare  adventure's  boldest  scheme; 
The  soul  of  fire  that  burned  for  might, 
And  could  of  naught  but  empire  dream ; 
And  his  the  indomitable  will 
That  dream  of  empire  to  fulfill, 
And  to  a  greatness  to  attain 
'Twere  madness  to  have  hoped  to  gain : 
All  these  were  his ;  nor  these  alone ; 
Flight,  victory,  exile,  and  the  throne ; 
Twice  in  the  dust  by  thousands  trod. 
Twice  on  the  altar  as  a  god. 

Two  ages  stood  in  arms  arrayed. 
Contending  which  should  victor  be : 
He  spake :  his  mandate  they  obeyed. 
And  bowed  to  hear  their  destiny. 
He  stepped  between  them,  to  assume 
The  mastery,  and  pronounce  their  doom ; 

Then  vanished,  and  inactive  wore 
I^ife's  remnant  out  on  that  lone  shore. 
What  envy  did  his  palmy  state. 
What  pity  his  reverses  move. 
Object  of  unrelenting  hate, 
And  unextinguishable  love ! 

The  Interrupted  Wedding. 

(From  "The  Betrothed.") 

Don  Abbondio  [the  priest]  was  sitting  in  an  old  arm- 
chair, wrapped  in  a  dilapidated  dressing-gown,  with  an  ancient 
cap  on  his  head,  which  made  a  frame  all  round  his  face.  By 
the  faint  light  of  a  small  lamp  the  two  thick  white  tufts  of 
hair  which  projected  from  under  the  cap,  his  bushy  white 
eyebrows,  moustache,  and  pointed  beard  all  seemed,  on  his 
brown  and  wrinkled  face,  like  bushes  covered  with  snow  on 
a  rocky  hillside  seen  by  moonlight. 

"Ah  !  ah  ! '?  was  his  salutation,  as  he  took  off  his  specta- 
cles and  put  them  into  the  book  he  was  reading. 

"  Your  Reverence  will  say  we  are  late  in  coming,"  said 
Tonio,  bowing,  as  did  Gervaso,  but  more  awkwardly. 


ITALIAN  LITBRATURE.  «« 

"  Certainly  it  is  late— late  in  every  way.  Do  you  know 
that  I  am  ill  ?  " 

"  Oh !  I  am  very  sorry,  sir ! " 

"  You  surely  must  have  heard  that  I  am  ill,  and  don't 
know  when  I  can  see  any  one.  .  .  .  But  why  have  you  brought 
that— that  fellow  with  you  ?  " 

"  Oh !  just  for  company,  like,  sir ! " 
"Very  good — now  let  us  see." 

"There  are  twenty-five  new  berlinghe,  sir — those  with 
Saint  Ambrose  on  horseback  on  them,"  said  Tonio,  drawing 
a  folded  paper  from  his  pocket. 

"  Let  us  see,"  returned  Abbondio,  and  taking  the  paper, 
he  put  on  his  spectacles,  unfolded  it,  took  out  the  silver  pieces, 
turned  them  over  and  over,  counted  them  and  found  them 
correct. 

"  Now,  your  Reverence,  will  you  kindly  give  me  my 
Teckla's  necklace?" 

"Quite  right,"  replied  Don  Abbondio;  and  going  to  a 
cupboard,  he  unlocked  it,  and  having  first  looked  round,  as 
if  to  keep  away  any  spectators,  opened  one  side,  stood  in  front 
of  the  open  door,  so  that  no  one  could  see  in,  put  in  his  head 
to  look  for  the  pledge,  and  his  arm  to  take  it  out,  and,  having 
extracted  it,  locked  the  cupboard,  unwrapped  the  paper,  said 
interrogatively,  "All  right?"  wrapped  it  up  again  and  handfed 
it  over  to  Tonio. 

"Now,"  said  the  latter,  "would  you  please  let  me  have  a 
little  black  and  white,  sir?" 

"This,  too!"  exclaimed  Don  Abbondio;  "they  are  up 
to  every  trick !  Eh  !  how  suspicious  the  world  has  grown ! 
Can't  you  trust  me?" 

"How,  your  Reverence,  not  trust  you?  You  do  me 
wrong !  But  as  my  name  is  down  on  your  book,  on  the  debtor 
side,  .  .  .  and  you  have  already  had  the  trouble  of  writing  it 
once,  so  ...  in  case  anything  were  to  happen,  you  know  .  .  ." 
"All  right,  all  right,"  interrupted  Don  Abbondio,  and, 
grumbling  to  himself,  he  opened  the  table  drawer,  took  out 
pen,  paper  and  inkstand,  and  began  to  write,  repeating  the 
words  out  loud  as  he  set  them  down.  Meanwhile,  Tonio, 
and,  at  a  sign  from  him,  Gervaso,  placed  themselves  in  front 


78  UTERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

of  the  table,  so  as  to  prevent  the  writer  from  seeing  the  door, 
and,  as  if  in  mere  idleness,  began  to  move  their  feet  about 
noisily  on  the  floor,  in  order  to  serve  as  a  signal  to  those  out- 
side, and,  at  the  same  time,  to  deaden  the  sound  of  their  foot- 
steps. Don  Abbondio,  intent  on  his  work,  noticed  nothing. 
Renzo  and  Lucia,  hearing  the  signal,  entered  on  tiptoe,  hold- 
ing their  breath,  and  stood  close  behind  the  two  brothers. 
Meanwhile,  Don  Abbondio,  who  had  finished  writing,  read 
over  the  document  attentively,  without  raising  his  eyes  from 
the  paper,  folded  it  and  saying,  "Will  you  be  satisfied  now?" 
took  ofi"  his  spectacles  with  one  hand,  and  held  out  the  sheet 
to  Tonio  with  the  other.  Tonio,  while  stretching  out  his 
hand  to  take  it,  stepped  back  on  one  side,  and  Gervaso,  at  a 
sign  from  him,  on  the  other,  and  between  the  two  appeared 
Renzo  and  Lucia.  Don  Abbondio  saw  them,  started,  was 
dumfoundered,  became  furious,  thought  it  over,  and  came  to 
a  resolution,  all  in  the  time  that  Renzo  took  in  uttering  these 
words  :  "Your  Reverence,  in  the  presence  of  these  witnesses, 
this  is  my  wife  ! "  His  lips  had  not  yet  ceased  moving  when 
Don  Abbondio  let  fall  the  receipt,  which  he  was  holding  in 
his  left  hand,  raised  the  lamp  and  seizing  the  table-cloth  with 
his  right  hand,  dragged  it  violently  towards  him,  throwing 
book,  papers  and  inkstand  to  the  ground,  and,  springing  be- 
tween the  chair  and  table,  approached  Lucia.  The  poor  girl, 
with  her  sweet  voice  all  trernbling,  had  only  just  been  able  to 
say  "This  is  .  .  ."  when  Don  Abbondio  rudely  flung  the 
table-cloth  over  her  head,  and  immediately  dropping  the  lamp 
which  he  held  in  his  other  hand,  used  the  latter  to  wrap  it 
tightly  round  her  face,  nearly  sufibcating  her,  while  he  roared 
at  the  top  of  his  voice,  like  a  wounded  bull,  "  Perpetua ! 
Perpetua !  treason  !  help ! "  When  the  light  was  out  the  priest 
let  go  his  hold  of  the  girl,  went  groping  about  for  the  door 
leading  into  an  inner  room,  and,  having  found  it,  entered  and 
locked  himself  in,  still  shouting,  "  Perpetua !  treason  !  help  ! 
get  out  of  this  house  !  get  out  of  this  house ! "  In  the  other 
room  all  was  confusipn;  Renzo,  trying  to  catch  the  priest, 
and  waving  his  hands  about  as  though  he  had  been  playing 
at  blindman's  buff,  had  reached  the  door  and  kept  knocking, 
crying  out,   "Open!  open!  don't  make  a  noise!"     Lucia 


ITAWAN  LITERATURE.  79 

called  Renzo  in  a  feeble  voice,  and  said  supplicatingly,  "  Let 
us  go  !  do  let  us  go  !  "  Tonio  was  down  on  his  hands  and 
knees,  feeling  about  the  floor  to  find  his  receipt,  while  Gervaso 
jumped  about  and  yelled  like  one  possessed,  trying  to  get  out 
by  the  door  leading  to  the  stairs. 

In  the  midst  of  this  confusion  we  cannot  refrain  from  a 
momentary  reflection.  Renzo,  raising  a  noise  by  night  in 
another  man's  house,  which  he  had  surreptitiously  entered, 
and  keeping  its  owner  besieged  in  an  inner  room,  has  every 
appearance  of  being  an  oppressor, — ^yet,  after  all,  when  you 
come  to  look  at  it,  he  was  the  oppressed.  Don  Abbondio, 
surprised,  put  to  flight,  frightened  out  of  his  wits  while  quietly 
attending  to  his  own  business,  would  seem  to  be  the  victim ; 
and  yet  in  reality,  it  was  he  who  did  the  wrong.  So  goes  the 
world,  as  it  often  happens ;  at  least,  so  it  used  to  go  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

VINCENZO  MONTI. 

Other  poets  have  been  turncoats,  but  few  passed  through 
so  many  changes  of  party  and  profession  as  Vincenzo  Monti 
(1754-1826).  At  first  he  was  merely  a  shepherd  of  the  Arca- 
dian school,  but  the  French  Revolution  converted  him  into  a 
democrat  and  patriotic  poet.  When,  however.  Napoleon  was 
crowned  Emperor,  Monti  hailed  him  in  his  "  Prometeo"  and 
"Musagonia,"  and  received  as  his  reward  a  pension  and  a 
professorship  in  the  University  of  Pavia.  When  shortly  af- 
terward (1815)  the  Austrians  came  back  to  Milan,  the  erst- 
while Napoleonic  idolater  celebrated  without  compunction 
"the  wise,  the  just,  the  best  of  kings,  Francis  Augustus," 
who  "  in  war  was  a  whirlwind,  and  in  peace  a  zephyr."  The 
most  charitable  verdict  on  Monti  is  that  he  was,  after  all,  a 
poet  and  not  a  patriot,  one  who  reflected  in  verse  the  appear- 
ances and  shows  of  the  hour,  and  to  whom  Pius  VI.,  Napoleon 
and  Francis  II.  were  mere  passing  shadows.  He  attacked 
the  Papacy  in  "Fanatismo"  and  "  Superstizione."  His 
great  fame  is  based  on  his  early  epic  poem,  "  Bassevilliana." 
Ugo  Basseville  was  secretary  of  the  French  Legation  at  Naples, 
who  appeared  in  Rome  with  the  tri-color  of  the  Republic  and 
was  killed  by  the  enraged  populace.     In  Monti's  epic  Basse- 


l)b  UTBRATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

ville  repents  of  his  republicanism  in  his  dying  moments,  and 
the  poet  reviews  in  several  cantos  the  woes  which  the  Revo- 
lution has  brought  upon  France  and  the  world.  The  most 
admired  episode  is  the  description  of  poor  l/ouis  XVI.'s  ascent 
into  heaven  from  the  scaffold.  Later  when  attacked  for  the 
sentiments  of  this  Dantesqne  poem  Monti  utterly  repudiated 
them,  declaring  that  he  wrote  the  epic  in  order  to  save  himself 
from  a  similar  fate  as  being  a  friend  of  Basseville's. 

The  Soul's  Ascension. 

(From  "  The  Bassevilliana.") 

Hell  had  been  vanquished  in  the  battle  fought ; 
The  spirit  of  the  abyss  in  sullen  mood 
Withdrew,  his  frightful  talons  clutching  naught ; 

He  roared  like  lion  famishing  for  food ; 
The  Eternal  he  blasphemed,  and,  as  he  fled, 
I<oud  hissed  around  his  brow  the  snaky  brood. 

Then  timidly  each  opening  pinion  spread 
The  soul  of  Basseville,  on  new  life  to  look, 
Released  from  members  with  his  heart's  blood  red. 

Then  on  the  mortal  prison,  just  forsook. 
The  soul  turned  sudden  back  to  gaze  awhile, 
And,  still  mistrustful,  still  in  terror  shook. 

But  the  blessed  angel,  with  a  heavenly  smile, 
Cheering  the  soul  it  had  been  his  to  win 
In  dreadful  battle  waged  'gainst  demon  vile. 

Said,  "  Welcome,  happy  spirit,  to  thy  kin  ! 
Welcome  unto  that  company,  fair  and  brave, 
To  whom  in  heaven  remitted  is  each  sin  ! 

Fear  not ;  thou  art  not  doomed  to  sip  the  wave 
Of  black  Avernus,  which  who  tastes,  resigned 
All  hope  of  change,  becomes  the  demon's  slave. 

"But  Heaven's  high  justice,  nor  in  mercy  blind. 
Nor  in  severity  scrupulous  to  gauge 
Each  blot,  each  wrinkle,  of  the  human  mind, 

' '  Has'  written  on  the  adamantine  page 
That  thou  no  joys  of  Paradise  may'st  know, 
Till  punished  be  of  France  the  guilty  rage. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  wounds,  the  immensity  of  woe, 
That  thou  hast  helped  to  work,  thou,  penitent 
Contemplating  with  tears,  o'er  earth  must  go: 


ITALIAN  tlTERATURE.  8l 

"Thy  sentence,  that  thine  eyes  be  ceaseless  benV 
Upon  flagitious  France,  of  whose  offence 
The  stench  pollutes  the  very  firmament." 


GIAMBATTISTA  NICCOLINI. 

GiAMBATTisTA  NiccoLiNi  (1782-1861)  succeeded  to  the 
work  and  fame  of  Alfieri.  He  was  the  penniless  son  of  a 
cavalier  of  Pistoia,  and  became  the  great  democratic  tragedian 
of  his  country.  His  two  most  brilliant  and  eflfective  dramas 
were  "  Giovanni  da  Procida,"  which  treats  of  the  expulsion 
of  the  French  from  Sicily  and  ends  with  the  Sicilian  Vespers, 
and  "  Arnaldo  da  Brescia,"  in  which  he  reveals  an  emphatic- 
ally anti-papal  spirit.  In  the  former  tragedy  he  lashes  the 
Austrian  oppressors  of  Italy  in  the  French  oppressors  of  Sicily, 
and  in  the  latter  play  he  practically  warns  his  countrymen 
not  to  look  to  Pope  Pius  IX.  as  a  possible  saviour  of  Italy. 
He  shows  how  Nicholas  Breakspear,  Pope  Adrian  IV.  (whom 
he  severely  characterizes),  stooped  to  a  meek  league  with  the 
German  Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa,  in  order  to  secure 
possession  of  Arnaldo.  The  hero  of  his  tragedy  was  really 
more  deserving  of  praise  than  the  later  Savonarola,  and  may 
be  classed  with  the  leaders  of  the  Reformation,  though  he 
preceded  them  by  nearly  four  hundred  years.  Born  in  Lom- 
bardy  in  1105  and  educated  at  Abelard's  famous  school  in 
France,  Arnaldo  attacked  the  papal  claims  of  temporal  power 
within  the  very  priesthood,  and  when  banished  from  Italy  for 
this  boldness  he  became  a  defender  of  Abelard  against  St. 
Bernard.  Returning  to  Rome  he  was  upheld  by  the  Senate 
in  his  patriotic  struggle  against  the  Pope,  but  was  at  last 
exiled  when  the  Pontiff  laid  the  rebellious  city  under  an  in- 
terdict. For  a  time  he  was  shielded  in  secrecy  by  a  count  of 
Campagna,  but  was  delivered  over  to  the  Emperor  by  the 
spies,  his  body  burnt  at  the  stake,  and  his  ashes  given  to  the 
historic  Tiber  (11 55).  Niccolini's  tragedy  opens  on  the  Cap- 
itoline  hill  and  events  move  on  in  serried  force  to  the  catas- 
trophe. The  diction  is  full  of  eloquence,  and  the  tragic 
sentiment  brave  and  robust.  In  "Giovanni  da  Procida,"  the 
■woes  of  Sicily  were  so  irresistibly  applied  to  Italy  that  the 


82  WTERATURB  OF  AI<I<  NATIONS. 

audiences  in  the  crowded  theatre  rose  nightly  and  echoed 
the  words : 

"  Why  should  heaven  smile  so  glorious  over 
The  land  of  our  infamous  woe  ?  " 

A  chorus  of  Sicilian  poets  was  introduced  by  Niccolini  in  the 
square  of  Palermo,  just  previous  to  the  massacre  of  the  French. 
Another  of  his  tragedies,  "Antonio  Foscarini,"  treats  a 
theme  which  has  been  handled  also  by  Byron. 

The  Foscarini. 

(Antonio  Foscarini  meets  his  fathetj  the  Doge  of  Venice,  after  his 
return  from  Switzerland.) 

Doge.  Once  more  in  thine  embrace 
I  weep  glad  tears,  and  feast  my  weary  eyes 
On  thy  dear  face  again.     We'll  part  no  more ! 
Thy  father  gains,  though  the  republic  lose  thee. 

Antonio.  Better  for  me  to  live  my  life  apart 
From  cares  of  state,  and  only  seek  repute 
For  household  virtues,  in  a  land  like  this, 
Where  the  fierce  mastery  of  the  few  still  makes 
The  crown  a  chastisement.     Alas !  how  changed, 
Father !  I  find  thee  now.     Thou  hast  put  on 
The  purple  of  the  slave ;  this  palace  wall, 
This  city's  self,  thy  prison ;  first  to  serve, 
I<ast  to  command,  here  men  have  learned  to  scorn 
The  sovereign  in  the  Doge,  and  he  is  grown 
A  wholesome  butt  for  rude  patrician  pride, 
As  was  the  drunken  Helot  of  old  time 
The  laughing-stock  for  Spartan  boys ! 

Doge Not  so ! 

>  This  yoke  exalts  its  wearer ;  here,  the  law 
Rules  over  all ;  and  I,  my  son !  am  throned 
In  pomp,  a  king — a  citizen  in  power ! 

Antl  Oh,  thou  art  worthy  of  a  better  age, 
A  better  people.'    Answer,  on  thy  truth. 
Is  this. a  Commonwealth  ?— this  State  where  man 
Exists  but  lives  not,  or  where  so-called  life 
Is  an  unending  terror  which  o'errules 
Noble  and  clown  alike,  and  each  aspires 
To  grow  a  tyrant  from  a  voiceless  slave  ? 


ITALIAN  UTBRATURB.  83 

Doge.  The  old  reproach !   Thou  hast  been  taught  to  rail 
Against  the  State  thou  darest  to  disturb, 
By  the  example  of  Helvetian  boors. 
But  the  free  bounty  of  Italia' s  clime 
Disdains  the  virtues  bred  from  penury  .  .  , 
True !  in  the  few  lives  manhood ;  all  the  rest 
Are  a  mere  herd :  yet  where  one  fear  restrains 
Patrician  and  plebeian,  there  is  Venice ! 

Ant.  She  needs  not  tremble  if  she  count  her  tyrants. 
What  path  a  people  grown  corrupt  may  tread 
From  its  old  vices  back  to  liberty 
I  know  not,  Doge !  but  how  canst  thou  extol — 
Thou,  soldier,  and  thou,  sire — the  cruel  sway 
Which  punishes  a  thought  more  than  a  crime. 
And  muffles  justice  up  to  seem  revenge  ? 

Doge.  Her  fame  and  not  her  force  it  is  defends 
Our  city  'gainst  her  foes;  and  I  commend 
The  rule  that  keeps  us  scathless. 

Ant.     ....  To  such  praise 
The  shriek  of  unknown  victims,  done  to  death 
By  unknown  tyrants,  can  make  no  reply. 
The  livid  wave  that  spreads  so  listlessly 
Between  this  fatal  palace  and  the  prisons, 
Hangs  moaning  o'er  their  miserable  heads. 
Stifling  the  echo  that  but  tells  of  pain. 
Here  with  mute  foot  goes  death  about  his  work, 
And  bloodshed  leaves  no  stain  upon  the  floor ! 

Doge.  Ours  is  the  pain.     The  subject  crowd  enjoys 
The  sway  thou  dar'st  condemn,  and  deems  in  us. 
Who  tremble  -while  we  reign,  its  wrongs  avenged. 
The  State,  be  sure,  could  not  endure  a  change. 
I  see  no  glut  of  punishment ;  but  wealth, 
Banquet  and  dance,  and  show,  and  tranquil  days 
Make  Venice  glad.  .  .  . 

Ant.  Ay !  thou  too  wouldst  infer 
A  prostrate  people's  gladness  from  its  vices. 
There  is  a  slavery  that  hath  no  botids. 
No  bloodshed.     There's  a  prudent  tyranny 
Which  pardons — and  degrades.     Out  of  thy  heart 
The  lazy  despot's  mean  example  steals 
All  manliness.     'Tis  that  depraves  the  soul 
Even  while  it  keeps  it  ddwn.    The  base  excess 


84  UTERATURB  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

Of  joyless  pleasure  doth  but  sate  and  shame 
The  low-born  crowd.    Ah !  manhood  hath  been  waked 
Ere  now  by  chains  and  stripes ;  but  worst  of  all, 
The  tyrant  who  destroys  men  with  a  sleep ! 

F.  D.  GUERRAZZI. 

Though  prominent  among  the  republican  agitators  of 
Italy,  Francesco  Domenico  Guerrazzi  (1804- 1873)  is  chiefly 
known  by  his  spirited  historical  romances.  Born  at  Livorno 
(Leghorn),  he  studied  law  at  Pisa,  and  there  was  inspired  by 
Byron  to  engage  in  literary  pursuits.  His  first  novel,  ' '  The 
Battle  of  Benevento  "  (1827),  stirred  the  hearts  of  his  country-, 
men.  His  ardent  republicanism  involved  him  in  a  conspiracy 
for  which  he  suffered  imprisonment  and  banishment  to  Elba; 
but  he  improved  the  time  by  producing  other  romances,  "The 
Siege  of  Florence  "  and  "  Isabella  Orsini,"  which  called  forth 
great  enthusiasm.  Again  in  1844  he  was  exiled,  but  during 
the  revolution  of  1848  he  became  President  of  the  Council  of 
Ministers,  and  in  1849,  along  with  Montanelli  and  Mazzini, 
triumvir  and  dictator  of  Tuscany.  This  government  was  soon 
overthrown,  and,  after  four  years'  imprisonment,  Guerrazzi 
was  sentenced  to  perpetual  banishment.  Meantime  he  de- 
fended his  course  in  his  "Apologia"  (185 1).  While  residing 
in  Corsica  his  restless  energy  drove  him  to  write  his  famous 
"Beatrice  Cenci"  (1854)  and  other  stories.  Later,  at  Genoa, 
he  issued  "  The  Italian  Plutarch,"  and  various  historical, 
biographical  and  satirical  works.  When  the  kingdom  of  Italy 
was  formed  in  1870  the  veteran  Guerrazzi  was  sent  as  deputy 
to  Parliament.  His  last  work,  "The  Dying  Century,"  was 
written  at  a  seashore  villa,  at  Cecin^,  near  Leghorn.  He  died 
September  25,  1873. 

Beatrice  Cenci. 

Beatrice  was  beautiful  as  the  thought  of  God  when  he 
was  moved  to  create  the  mother  of  all  living.  Love  -with  his 
rosy  hands  delineated  the  soft  curves  of  her  delicate  face  and 
pressing  his  fingers  on  the  chin,  to  contemplate  his  lovely 
work,  he  left  there  the  dimple,  true  mark  of  love.  Her  mouth 
was  like  a  flower  freshly  culled  in  Paradise,  breathing  a  divine 


ITAWAN  tiTBRATURS.  85 

fragrance,  and  giving  to  her  countenance  an  expression  more 
than  human,  as  the  ancients  sung,  a  fragrance  of  ambrosia 
revealed  to  mortals  the  presence  of  a  god.  Her  eyes  often 
sought  heaven,  and  fixed  themselves  there  as  if  with  a  desire 
either  of  looking  upon  her  home,  to.  which  she  was  soon  to 
return,  or  to  discover  there  some  mysterious  signs,  revealed 
to  her  alone,  or  because  the  maternal  spirit  beckoned  her  on 
to  it.  

Where  does  the  body  of  Beatrice  now  rest?  From  the 
church  of  St.  Pietro,  in  Montorio,  the  Transfiguration  of 
Rafael  has  disappeared,  and  with  it  the  tombstone  of  the  be- 
trayed girl.  The  picture  of  the  Transfiguration,  placed  in  a 
worthier  situation,  still  receives  the  homage  of  posterity, 
while  the  devout  pilgrim  searches  in  vain  for  the  sepulchre  of 
Beatrice. 

Let  the  pilgrim  whom  love  may  urge  to  go  to  St.  Pietro 
in  Montorio,  stop  before  the  greater  altar,  behind  the  balus- 
trade there,  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  of  the  altar.  Let  him  look 
upon  the  flat,  broad  stone  of  Pentelic  marble,  and  read  : — 
"  Underneath  this  stone  sleep  in  peace  the  bones  of  Beatrice 
Cenci,  a  maiden  of  sixteen  years,  condemned  by  Pope  Clement 
VIII.,  Vicar  of  Christ,  to  an  ignominious  death  for  parricide, 
not  committed." 

ISABEIrLA  Orsini. 

It  is  an  historical  fact  that  Isabella,  Duchess  of  Bracciano, 
was  not  only  an  authoress,  a  poetess,  and  a  composer,  but  she 
was  also  an  improvisatrice.  She  wrote  and  spoke  fluently  in 
Latin,  French  and  Spanish.  In  drawing,  and  in  every  accom- 
plishment that  belongs  to  her  high  station,  and  in  every  lady- 
like elegance  and  refinement,  she  was  so  perfect  as  to  be 
rightly  esteemed  more  wonderful  than  rare.  Blessed  might 
she  have  been  could  she  have  used  such  rich  gifts  of  nature, 
and  high  cultivation,  to  render  her  life  happy,  and  her 
memory  immortal. 


S6  UTERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 


Apostrophe  to  Itai^y. 

(From  "The  Battle  of  Benevento.") 

Did  a  human  being  ever  exist  who  would  deny  the  Italian 
sky  to  be  the  most  pure  and  serene  that  ever  rejoiced  in  the 
smile  of  God  ?  or  who,  when  the  first  son  of  nature  is  vested 
in  his  most  pompous  rays,  has  not  felt  his  mind  kindled  by 
the  greatness  of  those  who  are  no  more  ?  The  impression  of 
whose  names  are  upon  the  soul,  even  as  the  abiding  harmony 
of  the  harp  that  has  ceased  to  be  played  upon  ?  Who  has  not 
been  prostrated  before  that  planet  of  life,  which,  abandoning 
night  to  the  dominion  of  Heaven,  salutes  it  from  the  confines 
of  the  ocean  ?  Who  would  not  implore  to  remain  within  its 
celestial  abode  ?  But  if  he  departs  at  night,  he  returns  with 
the  morning ;  he  sees  centuries  disappear  into  eternity,  gener- 
ations pursued  to  the  tomb,  amid  infinite  vicissitiides  of  virtue 
aqd  crime.  Briefly  fell  its  light  upon  the  honor  of  Italy  ;  long 
upon  her  grief  and  her  rdproach.  Alas  !  never  could  I  have 
believed  the  people  would  have  died  the  death  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Beautiful  art  thou,  O  sky  of  Italy  !  the  day  and  the 
night  rejoices  thee ;  truly  thou  art  a  divine  work.  Thou  wert 
the  requisite  canopy  ;  but  now — thy  brave  are  dead,  thy 
monuments  dispersed,  and  fame  itself  vanished. — Why,  O 
sky,  art  thou  not  changed  in  thy  turn?  Beauty's  funeral 
mantle  is  not  obscured;  the  people  ornament  it  with  the 
flowers  of  joy,  and  try  to  deceive  themselves  over  a  life  that 
is  no  more.  Where  are  the  sighs  and  farewells  that  descended 
into  their  graves,  not  as  to  departed  ones,  but  as  to  the  long 
absent?  The  eternal  wisdom  that  governs  the  creation  grants 
this  beautiful  sky  to  Italy,  whose  splendid  graves  bear  testi- 
mony to  its  day  of  glory,  and  draws  courage  from  the  remem- 
brance for  misfortune  yet  distant.  And  the  earth  ! — every 
clod  contains  the  ashes  of  the  heart  of  a  hero.  We  step  upon 
the  dust  of  the  great.  It  better  became  us  that  our  steps  were 
buried  beneath  that  dust !  May  this  age  pass  away  without 
being  commemorated  in  history  !  May  posterity  leave  us  the 
only  inheritance  of  which  we  are  <i  ^sirous — oblivion. 


COPYRIGHT,     1900 


DE     Pl^ELL^,     P 


BIANCA    CAPELLO    AND    LORENZO    DE    MEDICI 


ITALIAN  MTBRATURB.  87 


GIACOMO  lyEOPARDI. 

Pessimism  found  its  most  thrilling  and  most  sorrowful 
voice  in  the  poetry  of  Giacomo  I,eopardi  (1798-1837).  The 
sorrow  of  life,  which  the  German  Schopenhauer  later  em- 
bodied in  a  definite  philosophy,  was  the  burden  of  Leopardi's 
utterance.  It  has  been  pronounced  "the most  agonizing  cry 
in  modern  literature,  uttered  with  a  solemn  quietness  that  at 
once  elevates  and  terrifies  us,"  In  this  poetry  of  despair 
Leopardi  surpasses  even  Byron  and  Shelley.  But  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Dean  Howells  interprets  Leopardi' s  muse  in  its  national 
aspect.  "  Leopardi  seems  to  have  been  the  poet  of  a  national 
mood;  he  was  the  final  expression  of  that  long,  hopeless 
apathy  in  which  Italy  lay  bound  for  thirty  years  after  the  fall 
of  Napoleon  and  his  governments,  and  the  re-establishment 
of  all  the  little  despots,  native  and  foreign,  throughout  the 
peninsula.  In  this  time  there  was  unrest  enough,  and  revolt 
enough  of  a  desultory  and  unorganized  sort,  but  every  struggle, 
apparently  every  aspiration,  for  a  free  political  and  religious 
life,  ended  in  a  more  solid  confirmation  of  the  leaden  misrule 
which  weighed  down  the  hearts  of  the  people.  To  such  an 
apathy  the  pensive  monotone  of  the  sick  poet's  song  might 
well  seem  the  only  truth." 

The  melancholy  life  of  Leopardi  is  thus  summed  up  by 
the  Neapolitan  writer,  Francesco  de  Sanctis :  "  In  his  boyhood 
Leopardi  saw  his  youth  vanish  forever ;  he  lived  obscure,  and 
achieved  posthumous  envy  and  renown ;  he  was  rich  and 
noble,  and  he  suffered  from  want  and  despite;  no  woman's 
love  ever  smiled  upon  him,  the  solitary  lover  of  his  own  mind, 
to  which  he  gave  the  names  of  Sylvia,  Aspasia,  and  Nerina. 
Therefore,  with  a  precocious  and  bitter  penetration,  he  held 
what  we  call  happiness  to  be  illusions  and  deceits  of  fancy ;  the 
objects  of  our  desire  he  called  idols,  our  labors  idleness,  and 
everything  vanity.  Thus  he  saw  nothing  here  below  equal 
to  his  own  intellect,  or  that  was  worthy  the  throb  of  his 
heart ;  and  inertia,  rust,  as  it  were,  even  more  than  pain,  con- 
sumed his  lifCr  alone  in  what  he  called  this  formidable  desert 
of  the  world." 


88  tlTBRATURB  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

In  plain  prose,  Leopardi  was  a  sensitive  soul  doomed  to 
iuch  early  unsympatlieiic  environment  and  such  later  lack  of 
events  for  enthusiasm  that  he  became  the  victim  of  a  painful 
ennui.  Born  at  Recanati — one  of  the  dullest  of  dull  little 
Italian  towns — he  was  reared  by  a  narrow-minded  father,  who 
crushed  his  aspirations  and  dreams  both  of  liberty  and  love 
in  youth.  Neglected  in  a  literary  way,  he  was  allowed  to  ruin 
his  eyes  and  make  himself  almost  a  hunchback  over  the  books 
in  his  father's  well-stocked  library.  He  thus  managed,  by 
his  precocious  genius,  to  emerge  one  of  the  greatest  philo- 
logists and  critics  of  the  Italy  of  his  day,  but — as  Niebuhr 
saw  him — "  a  mere  youth,  pale  and  shy,  frail  in  person,  and 
obviously  in  ill  health."  Though  permitted  to  leave  the 
prison  of  his  home,  L,eopardi  was  forced  by  his  father  to  live 
most  penuriously,  and  Niebuhr  could  secure  for  him  no  Italian 
office,  because  he  was  not  a  cleric.  Before  leaving  Recanati 
he  had  lost  his  heart  to  a  poor  loom  girl  in  a  cottage  opposite 
his  father's  palace,  but  that  stern  sire  had  promptly  snuffed 
out  this  romantic  first  love.  The  young  girl  died,  and  her 
memory  gave  a  melancholy  tinge  to  all  Leopardi's  life  and 
poetry.  A  second  love  tragedy  occurred  in  Florence ;  only 
this  time  the  beloved  lady  is  reported  to  have  scorned  her 
wooer.  The  Florentine  ladies  are  said  to  have  made  general 
mock  of  the  unprepossessing  young  pessimist. 

Leopardi's  own  progress  in  pessimism  may  be  thus  out- 
lined :  first,  a  view  of  the  ills  of  the  human  race  as  a  result 
of  the  degeneration  of  human  nature ;  then,  as  due  to  the 
woe  itself  of  humanity ;  and,  lastly,  as  a  curse  laid  on  man- 
kind by  both  God  and  nature.  But,  as  has  already  been 
insisted,  pessimism  was  with  Leopardi  not  a  philosophy  but  a 
sentiment  and  habit  of  mind.  His  general  pessimism  was 
embodied,  however,  in  the  "Operette  Morali"  (Moral  Works). 
His  "Bruto  Minore"  is  also  a  condensation  of  his  own  des- 
pair. In  the  biography  of  Filippo  Ottonieri,  he  sketches  the 
life  and  views  of  an  imaginary  philosopher  who  really  repre- 
sents himself  In  his  poems  he  pictures  the  Icelander  com- 
plaining of  nature,  the  soul  rebuking  Creation,  and  the 
human  spirit  denouncing  the  elusive  shade  of  happiness.  In 
*'  La  Ginestra  "  he  compares  the  littleness  of  man  to  the  immen- 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE.  89 

sity  of  Vesuvius  and  nature.  His  sentiments  are  somewhat 
trite  to  modern  view,  but  his  verse  still  remains  exquisite  and 
limpid — the  jewel  casket  that  holds  a  skull.  Among  the 
poems  of  Leopardi's  worthy  of  note  are  his  "Ode  to  Italy," 
and  his  tribute  to  Dante,  which  brought  him  his  earliest  fame, 
at  the  time  when  Florence  was  erecting  a  statue  to  her  exiled 
son.  Leopardi  also  wrote  a  "Sequel  to  the  [pseudo-Homeric] 
Battle  of  Frogs  and  Mice,"  in  which  he  satirizes  the  abor- 
tive Neapolitan  revolution  of  1820. 

The  Last  Song  of  Sappho. 

Thou  peaceful  nigM,  thou  chaste  and  silver  ray 
Of  the  declining  Moon ;  and  thou,  arising 
Amid  the  quiet  forest  on  the  rocks, 
Herald  of  day;  O  cherished  and  endeared, 
"Whilst  Fate  and  Doom  were  to  my  knowledge  closed, 
Objects  of  sight !     No  lovely  land  or  sky 
Doth  longer  gladden  my  despairing  mood. 
By  unaccustomed  joy  we  are  revived 
When  o'er  the  liquid  spaces  of  the  Heavens 
And  o'er  the  fields  alarmed  doth  wildly  whirl 
The  tempest  of  the  winds,  and  whexi  the  car, 
The  ponderous  car  of  Jove,  above  our  heads 
Thundering,  divides  the  heavy  air  obscure. 
O'er  mountain  peaks  and  o'er  abysses  deep 
We  love  to  float  amid  the  swiftest  clouds ; 
We  love  the  terror  of  the  herds  dispersed. 
The  streams  that  flood  the  plain. 
And  the  victorious,  thunderous  fury  of  the  main. 

Fair  is  thy  sight,  O  sky  divine,  and  fair 
,  Art  thou,  O  dewy  Earth !     Alas !  of  all 
This  beauty  infinite,  no  slighest  part 
To  wretched  Sappho  did  the  Gods  or  Fate 
Inexorable  give.     Unto  thy  reign 
Superb,  O  Nature,  an  unwelcome  guest 
And  a  disprized  adorer  doth  my  heart 
And  do  mine  eyes  implore  thy  lovely  forms ; 
But  all  in  vain.     The  sunny  land  around 
Smiles  not  for  me,  nor  from  ethereal  gates 
The  blush  of  early  dawn ;  not  me  the  songs 


90  WTERATURE  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

Of  brilliant-feathered  birds,  not  me  the  trees 
Salute  with  murmuring  leaves ;   and  where  in  shade 
Of  drooping  willows  doth  a  liquid  stream 
Display  its  pure  and  crystal  course,  from  my 
Advancing  foot  the  soft  and  flowing  waves 
Withdrawing  with  affright. 
Disdainfully  it  takes  through  flowery  dell  its  flight. 

What  fault  so  great,  what  guiltiness  so  dire 
Did  blight  me  ere  my  birth,  that  adverse  grew 
To  me  the  brow  of  fortune  and  the  sky  ? 
How  did  I  sin,  a  child,  when  ignorant 
Of  wickedness  is  life,  that  from  that  time 
Despoiled  of  youth  and  of  its  fairest  flowers, 
The  cruel  Fates  wove  with  relentless  wrath 
The  web  of  my  existence  ?     Reckless  words 
Rise  on  thy  lips ;  the  events  that  are  to  be 
A  secret  council  guides.     Secret  is  all. 
Our  agony  excepted.     We  were  born,  , 
Neglected  race,  for  tears ;  the  reason  lies 
Amid  the  Gods  on  high.     O  cares  and  hopes 
Of  early  years  !     To  beauty  did  the  Sire, 
To  glorious  beaut}'  an  eternal  reign 
Give  o'er  this  human  kind ;  for  warlike  deed. 
For  learned  lyre  or  song, 
In  unadorned  shape,  no  charms  to  fame  belong. 

Ah !  let  us  die.     The  unworthy  garb  divested. 
The  naked  soul  will  take  to  Dis  its  flight 
And  expiate  the  cruel  fault  of  blind 
Dispensers  of  our  lot.     And  thou  for  whom 
I/ong  love  in  vain,  long  faith,  and  fruitless  rage 
Of  unappeased  desire  assailed  my  heart, 
Live  happily,  if  happily  on  earth 
A  mortal  yet  hath  lived.     Not  me  did  Jove 
Sprinkle  with  the  delightful  liquor  from 
The  niggard  urn,  since  of  my  childhood  died 
The  dreams  and  fond  delusions.     The  glad  days 
Of  our  existence  are  the  first  to  fly; 
And  then  disease  and  age  approach,  and  last. 
The  shade  of  frigid  Death.     Behold !  of  all 
The  palms  I  hoped  for  and  the  errors  sweet, 


ITAUAN  LITERATURE.  9 1 

Hades  remains ;  and  the  transcendent  mind 
Sinks  to  the  Stygian  shore 
Where  sable  Night  doth  reign,  and  silence  evermore. 

The  Villagers'  Saturday  Night. 

From  copse  and  glade  the  maiden  takes  her  way 

"When  in  the  west  the  setting  sun  reposes  ; 

She  gathered  flowers ;  her  slender  fingers  bear 

A  fragrant  wealth  of  violets  and  roses, 

And  with  their  beauty  she  will  deck  her  hairj 

Her  lovely  bosom  with  their  leaves  entwine ; 

Such  is  her  wont  on  every  festive  day. 

The  aged  matron  sits  upon  the  steps 

And  with  her  neighbors  turns  the  spinning  wheel, 

Facing  the  heavens  where  the  rays  decline ; 

And  she  recalls  the  years, — 

The  happy  years  when  on  the  festive  day 

It  was  her  wont  her  beauty  to  array, 

And  when  amidst  her  lovers  and  compeers 

In  youth's  effulgent  pride 

Her  rapid  feet  through  mazy  dance  did  glide. 

The  sky  already  darkens,  and  serene 

The  azure  vault  its  loveliness  reveals ; 

From  hill  and  tower  a  lengthened  shadow  steals 

In  silvery  whiteness  of  the  crescent  moon. 

We  hear  the  distant  bell 

Of  festive  morrow  tell ; 

To  weary  hearts  how  generous  a  boon ! 

The  happy  children  in. the  open  space 

In  dancing  numbers  throng 

With  game  and  jest  and  song ; 

And  to  his  quiet  home  and  simple  fare 

The  laborer  doth  repair 

And  whistles  as  he  goes. 

Glad  of  tiie  morrow  that  shall  bring  repose. 

Then,  when  no  other  light  around  is  seen, 
No  other  sound  or  stir, 
We  hear  the  hammer  strike. 
The  grating  saw  of  busy  carpenter; 
He  is  about  and  doing,  so  unlike 


92  LITERATURE  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

His  quiet  neighbors ;  his  nocturnal  lamp 
With  helpful  light  the  darkened  workshop  fills, 
And  he  makes  haste  his  business  to  complete 
Ere  break  of  dawn  the  heavenly  regions  greet. 

This  of  the  seven  is  the  happiest  day, 
With  hope  and  joyance  gay; 
To-morrow  grief  and  care 

The  unwelcome  hours  will  in  their  progress  bear; 
To  morrow  one  and  all 
In  thought  their  wonted  labors  will  recall. 

O  merry  youth !    Thy  time  of  life  so  gay 
Is  like  a  joyous  and  delightful  day, — 
A  day  clear  and  serene 
That  doth  the  approaching  festival  precede 
Of  thy  fair  life.     Rejoice  !     Divine  indeed 
Is  this  fair  day,  I  ween. 
I'll  say  no  more ;  but  when  it  comes  to  thee, 
Thy  festival,  may  it  not  evil  be. 

GIUSEPPE  GIUSTI. 

The  satirist  of  the  Italy  that  witnessed  and  was  affected 
by  the  French  Revolution  of  J  830,  was  the  Tuscan,  Giuseppe 
Giusti  (1809-1850),  whom  Mr.  Howells  regards  as  not  only 
"the  greatest  Italian  satirist  of  this  century,"  but  as  even 
"in  some  respects,  the  greatest  Italian  poet."  Giusti's  "St. 
Ambrose  "  has  been  justly  declared  to  be  "  not  only  very  per- 
fect as  a  bit  of  art,  with  its  subtly  intended  and  apparently 
capricious  mingling  of  satirical  and  pathetic  sentiment,  but 
valuable  for  its  vivid  expression  of  Italian  feeling  toward  the 
Austrians."  A  curious  poem  of  his,  "The  I^and  of  the 
Dead,"  is  an  ironic  retort  to  I^amartine,  who  thus  described 
Italy. 

Student  Days. 

Ah  !  well  I  remember  In  Pisa's  old  halls, 

That  long-ago  day.  And  heavy  at  heart, 

When,  with  comrades  around  me        Bid  adieu  to  its  walls, 

In  goodly  array.  And  those  friends  leal  and  true, 

I  took  my  diploma  A  gay,  dare-devil  crew. 


KfAIdAN  WTERATURB. 


93 


I  entered  the  caft 

Heart-weary  and  sore, 
Discharged  a  last  reck'ning 

For  self  and  a  score ; 
Then  out  with  three  paoli. 

An  old  ^ebt  to  pay, 
And  mounting  my  car 

I  was  off  and  away, 
With  my  head  swimming  round 
And  my  eyes  on  the  ground. 

Four  years  quickly  sped 

In  companionship  free. 
With  the  wit  Nature  gives 

To  the  harebrained  in  fee : 
All  our  text-books  laid  by 

In  a  comer  aside. 
How  the  great  Book  of  Life 

At  a  glance  opens  wide. 
And  entices  the  eye 
Its  first  lessons  to  try ! 

You  may  con  tome  by  tome 

All  that  learning  can  span, 
And  be  dubbed  Lly.D., 

Yet  be  never  a  man. 
If  within  your  four  walls 

You  learn  action  alone. 
You  will  stumble,  be  sure. 

On  the  first  outer  stone. 
From  doing  to  talking 
'Tis  pretty  wide  walking. 

Excuse  me !  I  honor 
All  schools  of  advice : 

A  lecture-room  teaches, 
And  so  do  the  dice ; 

If  wanderihg  shows  us 


The  world's  devious  ways. 
Then  a  vagabond  life 

Of  all  lives  I  will  praise. 
Ah !  what  wisdom  may  couch 
In  a  negligent  slouch. 

Once  threadbare  our  jacket. 

And  hearty  our  greeting : 
"Hail  fellow!  well  met," 

At  the  very  first  meeting. 
Virgin-lips  in  those  years 

That  may  ne'er  come  again; 
Virgin-lips,  which  life's  cunning 

Too  early  must  stain : 
Till  we  lie  like  the  best. 
In  politeness  confest. 

In  this  epoch  of  banking, 

Per-cents,  script,  and  par, 
When  'tis  all  what  we  seem. 

And  'tis  nought  what  we  are, 
Who  cares  any  more 

For  those  cynics  of  old 
Who  loved  to  go  fasting, 

Could  live  without  gold, 
Counted  starving  no  blame, 
Nor  held  penury  shame? 

O  days  bright  and  happy ! 

O  evenings  serene ! 
How  we  joked  it  and  quaffed  it, 

And  smoked  it  between ! 
Ah,  that  is  the  life 

For  contentment  alone. 
Which  is  true  to  itself 

As  Time's  changes  speed  on, 
When  the  hair  and  the  brain 
Of  like  aspect  remain. 


-^-^^^^w^^3 


FRENCH  LITERATURE. 


THE  FRENCH  NOVEI*. 


|N  all  European  literature  of  the  present  day  the 
novel  holds  the  throne  of  power,  and  its  supreme 
position  in  France  is  now  fully  allowed  even  by 
the  severest  critics.  It  may  be  well  to  examine 
the  genealogy  of  this  latter-day  sovereign.     It 


is  easily  traced  to  Durf^'s  Arcadian  paslloral  "  Astrde," 
which  appeared  early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  This  was 
succeeded  by  the  lieroic  romances  of  Madeleine  de  Scud^ry 
(1607-1701)  flatteringly  called  "  Sapho  "  by  her  coterie.  The 
most  famous  of  these  romances  were  "The  Grand  Cyrus" 
and  "  Cldlie,"  prodigiously  loqg  and  provokingly  affected  in 
style.  Next  came  Mme.  de  Lafayette's  novels  of  sensibility, 
exemplified  in  "The  Princess  of  Cleves."  But  Antoine 
Furetifere  had,  as  early  as  1666  in  his  "Roman  Bourgeois," 
made  a  collection  of  human  documents  of  middle-class  Paris- 
ian life.  They  may  be  compared  to  some  of  Defoe's  pictures 
of  London  life.  Paul  Scarron's  "  Roman  Comique  "is  a 
coarse  tale  of  strolling  players.  Le  Sage's  "Gil  Bias  "was. 
imitated  from  the  picaroon  romance  of  Spain,  but  improved 
on  the  original.  Abbe  Prevost  in  his  "  Manon  Ivcscaut" 
anticipated  the  French  novel  of  a  century  later,  but  his  work 
had  no  immediate  imitators.  Marivaux  (1688-1763),  how- 
ever, claimed  that  he  had  "  spied  out  in  the  human  heart  all 
the  nooks  where  love  might  hide,"  and  offered  his  "Mari- 
anne "  (1740)  in  proof  of  his  claim. 

But  whatever  critical  interest  may  attach  to  these  works 
94 


FRENCH  UTBRATURE.  95 

and  to  Voltaire's  witty  conies^  to  Rousseau's  "  New  H^loise'' 
and  St.  Pierre's  "  Paul  and  Virginia,"  as  containing  indica- 
tions of  the  future  popular  literature,  the  French  novel  really 
came  in  with  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Romanticists 
Chateaubriand,  Victor  Hugo,  George  Sand,  Dumas  pere  and 
Balzac,  were  its  chief  exponents.  In  them  the  relation  of 
incidents  leads  to  the  revelation  of  character.  Gradually  the 
dialogue  assumes  a  foremost  place  as  an  index  of  the  mind 
and  its  changes.  Next  the  study  of  the  emotions  and  passions 
becomes  the  chief  end  of  the  novel.  Even  in  the  earliest  of 
these  writers  may  be  traced  the  peculiar  elements  marking 
the  latest  French  school.  Love,  pure  or  impure,  is  the  pivot 
on  which  the  whole  fabric  turns.  Finally  the  novel  has 
become  a  mere  exposition  of  the  social  relations  of  the  sexes. 
Yet  long  ago  George  Sand  boldly  set  forth  the  misunderstood 
woman  with  her  ideas  of  free  love.  Balzac  introduced  cour- 
tesans and  unfaithful  -waives.  To  such  an  absurd  pitch  was 
the  treatment  of  the  question  of  sex  carried  that  husbands 
in  some  of  these  stories  were  required  to  kill  themselves  to 
make  way  for  their  wives'  lovers.  Realism,  which  was  insisted 
on  by  Balzac,  descended  through  Flaubert  to  Zola,  who 
became  the  acknowledged  champion  of  that  naturalism, 
which  glories  in  disclosing  the  human  brute. 

Alfred  Victor,  Comte  de  Vigny  (1799-1863)  is  credited 
with  producing  the  best  historical  novel  in  French  literature, 
"Cinq  Mars."  The  hero  is  a  marquis  whose  marriage  is 
opposed  by  Richelieu,  whereupon  the  desperate  lover  plots 
with  the  king's  brother  for  the  cardinal's  overthrow  and  assas- 
sination. But  Cinq  Mars  himself  is  capture;d  and  condemned 
to  death. 

Eugene  Sue  (1804- 1857)  may  be  regarded  as  a  follower  of 
Alexandre  Dumas.  He  catered  to  the  morbid  taste  for  the  ' 
monstrous  and  diabolical.  ,In  "The  Mysteries  of  Paris"  he 
explored  the  lowest  stratum  of  society ;  in  "  The  Wandering 
Jew"  he  attacked  th^Jesuits.  A  later  idol  of  the  masses  is 
Georges  Ohnet  (bom  1848),  whose  most  celebrated  novel  is 
"  The  Iron  Master."  The  stories  of  Huysmans  are  of  more 
offensive  character,  and  belong  to  the  school  aptly  called 
••Satanism." 


96 


tlTBRATURB  OP  AtL  NAWONS. 


Of  higher  rank  is  Charles  de  Bernard  (1804-1850),  the  first 
of  Balzac's  pupils.  Some  of  his  work  was  translated  by 
Thackeray  in  his  "  Paris  Sketch-book.' '  Victor  Cherbuliez 
(born  1829)  reached  the  honor  of  the  Academy.  His  best 
work  is  "The  Romance  of  an  Honest  Woman,"  "Count 
Kostia,"  who  is  a  civilized  demon  of  the  Russian  aristocracy, 
and  "  Meta  Holdenis,"  a  tale  of  temptation.  Octave  Feuillet 
was  the  favorite  novelist  of  the  society  of  the  Second  Empire. 
He  was  regarded  as  the  aristocratic  portrayer  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain.  His  most  powerful  story  is  "Julia  Trecoeur" 
but  the  one  best  known  is  "Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man." 

The  short  story  was  installed  in  French  literature  by  the 
conte  of  Voltaire;  but  it  received  a  new  development  by 
Merimee  and  Gautier,  and  finally  attained  its  perfection  in 
Daudet  and  De  Maupassant.  One  of  the  earlier  masters  of 
this  class  was  Edmond  About  (1828-1855),  a  favorite  of 
Napoleon  III. .  His  ' '  King  of  the  Mountains  "  is  a  tale  of 
bandits  ;  his  "Man  with  the  Broken  Ear  "  is  a  story  of  a  man 
restored  to  life  after  being  embalmed  ;  "The  Notary's  Nose" 
tells  of  a  strange  piece  of  surgery  as  a  sequence  of  a  curious 
duel.  Another  offshoot  of  the  older  novel  is  the  detective 
story,  which  Emile  Gaboriau  (1835-1873)  invented.  His 
masterpiece  is  "M.  Eecoq."  Du  Boisgobey  and  others  have 
followed  in  his  footsteps  with  more  or  less  success. 


AI.EXANDRE  DUMAS. 

One  of  the  most  curious  figures  of  liter- 
ary history  is  Alexandre  Dumas  (1806-70), 
dubbed  by  Thackeray  "Alexander  the 
Great."  His  grandfather,  a  marquis,  mar- 
ried a  Creole  of  Haiti.  His  father,  a  dark- 
colored,  herculean  general  who  fought  bravely,  in  Napo- 
leon's army,  was  wedded  to  an  innkeeper's  daughter.  The 
curly  hair  and  mulatto  complexion  of  the  famous  Dumas  ex- 
pressed the  Afric  character  of  his  inner  self,  his  tropical  lux- 
uriousness  of  temper,  spirit  and  imagination,  the  sunny 
geniality  of  his  genius,  and  the  full-blooded  joyousness  of  his 
romantic  vein.  Capricious,  prolix,  fertile,  puissant,  he  showed 
his  peculiar  semi-barbarism  in  his  prodigal  habits,  his  whims, 
his  strange  adventures,  his  very  works.  The  most  prolific 
and  best  paid  author  of  his  day,  he  squandered  his  money  in 
,a  reckless  hospitality  and  was  ruined  by  building  for  himself 
a  castle  of  Monte  Cristo.  Fond  of  animals,  he  kept  a  mena- 
gerie. He  accompanied  Garibaldi  on  a  campaign  against  the 
king  of  Naples,  and  journeyed  to  Russia  with  a  charlatan 
"  medium."  His.  son  has  shown  his  father  as  the  Count  Fer- 
nand  de  la  Rivonniere  in  his  aptly  named  play,  "  A  Prodigal 
Father."  The  critic  Jules  Janin  thus  summarizes  the  genius 
of  the  elder  Dumas  :  "  A  mind  capable  of  learning  all,  forget- 
ting all,  comprehending  all,  neglecting  all.  Rare  mind,  rare 
attention,  subtle  spirit,  gross  talent,  quick  comprehension, 
execution  barely  sufficient,  an  artisan  rather  than  an  artist.  ' 
Skillful  to  forge,  but  poor  to  chisel,  and  awkward  in  working; 
with  the  tools  that  he  knew  so  well  how  to  make.  An  inex- 
haustible mingling  of  dreams,  falsehoods,  truths,  fancies,  im- 
pudence, and  propriety ;  of  the  vagabond  and  the  seigneur,  of 
X— 7  97 


gS  LITERATURB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

ricli  and  poor.  Sparkling  and  noisy,  the  most  willful  and  the 
most  facile  of  men ;  a  mixture  of  the  tricky  lawyer  and  of  the 
epic  poet ;  of  Achilles  and  Thersites  ;  swaggering,  boastful, 
vain  and — a  good  fellow." 

With  his  native  temperament  it  is  no  wonder  that  Alex- 
andre Dumas  proved  a  born  master  of  romance.  His  father's 
military  feats,  one  of  which  earned  for  General  Dumas  from 
Napoleon  himself  the  title  of  "the  Horatius  Codes  of  the  Re- 
public," must  have  inspired  the  son,  who  after  the  Empire 
was  to  come  under  the  spell  of  Romanticism  and  to  feed  his 
genius  on  Scott  and  Cooper. 

Walking  on  a  Paris  quay  one  day,  Dumas  chanced  upon 
a  musty  little  book  which  purported  to  be  the  ' '  Memoirs  of 
M.  D'Artagnan."  In  these  fictitious  "Memoirs"  Dumas 
found  D'Artagnan  whom  he  has  made  immortal,  and  the  now 
famous  Three  Musketeers — Porthos,  Athos  and  Aramis,  as 
well  as  the  plot  of  Milady.  Here,  too,  he  absorbed  the  local 
color  of  that  age  of  Louis  XIII.,  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin. 
In  his  consequent  great  trilogy — "The  Three  Musketeers," 
"Twenty  Years  After,"  and  "  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne  " — he 
revived  the  romance  of  adventure  and  gallantry.  He  re- 
galvanized  Amadis  de  Gaul,  put  him  into  a  French  cloak  and 
armed  him  with  a  sword.  D'Artagnan  is  a  brisk  and  auda- 
cious young  Gascon  who  blunders  at  first  into  all  manner  of 
mishaps  and  intrigues  from  which  he  extricates  himself  only 
by  his  imperturbable  bravery  and  shrewdness.  He  provokes  a 
quarrel  with  the  Three  Musketeers  at  the  very  outset  but 
secures  their  good  graces,  and  is  educated  by  them  into  the 
beau  ideal  cavalier.  These  three  brother-soldiers  are  delight- 
fully contrasted — the  good-natured  giant  Porthos,  the  dignified 
Athos,  and  the  aristocratic  Aramis,  who  finally  enters  the 
church.  ■  D'Artagnan,  who  goes  up  to  Paris  to  seek  his  for- 
tune with  an  old  horse  and  a  box  of  miraculous  salve  given 
him  by  his  mother,  passes  through  a  series  of  hairbreadth 
escapes  only  to  die  at  last  on  the  field  of  battle.  In  these 
romances  Dumas  fascinates  and  thrills  his  reader.  He,  makes 
the  blood  leap.  He  is  prodigal  of  incident,  even  if  loose  of 
plot,  and  he  is  a  master  of  intrigue  and  action  in  dialogue. 
Stirring  scenes,  indeed,  are  such  as  those  of  the  kidnapping 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  99 

of  Monk,  the  death  of  Porthos  in  the  Grotto  of  Locmaria,  or 
the  scene  under  the  scaflFold  in  "Twenty  Years  After." 

Another  masterful  trilogy  of  this  weaver  of  historical 
romances  consists  of  "Queen  Margot,"  "The  Lady  of 
Monsoreau"  and  "The  Forty-Five,"  which  deal  with  the 
times  and  the  House  of  Valois.  His  other  historical  novels 
include  "  Isabeau  of  Baviere,"  dealing  with  the  anarchy  and 
misery  of  France  before  Joan  d'Arc;  "Joan  d' Arc,"  mainly 
historical ;  "Joseph  Balsamo,"  a  revolutionary  romance  with 
Cagliostro  as  its  central  figure;  "The  Queen's  Necklace," 
the  great  scandal  of  Marie  Antoinette's  court ;  the  two 
"Dianas,"  for  the  age  of  Henry  II.,  and  "  The  Black  Tulip," 
a  charming  tale  of  tulipomania  and  the  Dutch  William. 

It  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  name  the  whole  library 
of  Dumas'  novels,  written,  it  has  been  asserted,  by  a  unique 
bureau  of  collaborating  assistants,  yet  dominated  by  the  mas- 
ter's spirit.  It  is  only  necessary  to  mention,  besides  the 
above,  his  "Isaac  Laquedem,"  a  tale  of  the  Wandering  Jew, 
his  two  clever  stories, — "Chevalier  d'Harmental"  and 
"  Olympe  de  Cleves, ' '  and  his  vastly  popular  ' '  Count  of  Monte 
Cristo."  This  last  may  be  called  the  Arabian  Nights  of  mo- 
dem romance.  Extravagant  in  plot,  everybody  breathlessly  fol- 
lows the  story  of  Edmond  Dantes,  who  is  arrested  on  the  eve  of 
his  wedding,  is  imprisoned  in  the  Chateau  d'lf,  learns  of  a  buried 
treasure,  effects  a  marvelous  escape,  and,  disguised  as  Lord 
Wilmore  and  as  Count  Busoni,  takes  revenge  on  all  his  ene- 
mies. The  count's  adventures,  if  not  his  riches,  are  almost 
too  fabulous ;  but  the  Chateau  d'lf  portion  shows  Dumas  at 
his  best.  The  picture  of  the  troubled  Napoleonic  days  is  also 
powerful.  Dumas  also  wrote  a  number  of  successful  dramas, 
the  most  conspicuous  being  "Henry  III,"  and  the  melodra- 
matic "  Tower  of  Nesle. ' ' 

The  Defence  of  Bastion  St.  Gervais. 

(From  "The  Three  Guardsmen.") 
When  they  arrived  at  the  Parpaillot,  it  was  seven  in  the 
morning,  and  the  day  was  just  beginning  to  dawn.  The  three 
friends  ordered  breakfast,  and  entered  a  room  where  the  land- 
lord assured  them  that  they  would  not  be  disturbed. 


lOO  tlTBRATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

The  hour  was,  unfortunately,  ill-chosen  for  a  conventicle. 
The  morning  drum  had  just  been  beaten;  every  one  was  busy 
shaking  oflF  the  sleepiness  of  night,  and  to  drive  away  the 
dampness  of  the  morning  air,  came  to  take  a  drop  at  the 
tavern.  Dragoons,  Swiss,  guards,  musketeers,  and  light  cav- 
alry, succeeded  one  another  with  a  rapidity  very  beneficial  to 
the  liusiness  of  mine  host,  but  very  unfavorable  to  the  designs 
of  our  four  friends,  who  replied  but  sullenly,  to  the  saluta- 
tions, toasts,  and  jests  of  their  companions. 

"  Come,"  said  Athos,  "we  shall  bring  some  good  quarrel 
on  our  hands  presently,  and  we  do  not  want  that  just  now. 
D'Artagnan,  tell  us  about  your  night's  work:  we  will  tell  you 
ours  afterwards. ' ' 

"In  fact,"  said  one  of  the  light-cavalry,  who  whilst  rock- 
ing himself,  held  in  his  hand  a  glass  of  brandy,  which  he 
slowly  sipped — "  in  fact  you  were  in  the  trenches,  you  gentle- 
men of  the  guards,  and  it  seems  to  me  you  had  a  squabble 
with  the  Rochellois." 

D'Artagnan  looked  at  Athos,  to  see  whether  he  ought  to 
answer  this  intruder  who  thrust  himself  into  the  conversation. 

"Well,"  said  Athos,  "did  you  not  hear  M.  de  Busigny, 
who  did  you  the  honor  to  address  you  ?  Tell  us  what  took  place 
in  the  night,  as  these  gentlemen  seem  desirous  to  hear  it." 

"Did  you  not  take  a  bastion?"  asked  a  Swiss,  who  was 
drinking  rum  in  a  glass  of  beer. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  d'Artagnan,  bowing,  "we  had  that 
honor.  And  also,  as  you  have  heard,  we  introduced  a  barrel 
of  powder  under  one  of  the  angles,  which,  on  exploding,  made 
a  very  pretty  breach,  without  reckoning  that  as  the  bastion  is 
very  old,  all  the  rest  of  the  building  is  much  shaken.' ' 

"And  what  bastion  is  it?"  asked  a  dragoon,  who  held, 
spitted  on  his  sabre,  a  goose  which  he  had  brought  to  be 
cooked. 

"The  bastion  Saint  Gervais,"  replied  d'Artagnan,  "from 
behind  which  the  Rochellois  annoyed  our  workmen." 

' '  And  was  it  warm  work  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes.  We  lost  five  men,  and  the  Rochellois  some  eight 
or  ten." 

"  Balzampleu ! "  said  the  Swiss,  who,  in  spite  of  the  admir- 


FRENCH  LITBRATTJRE.  lOI 

able  collection  of  oaths  whicli  the  German  language  possesses, 
had  got  a  habit  of  swearing  in  French. 

"  But  it  is  probable,"  said  the  light-horseman,  "  that  they 
will  send  pioneers  to  repair  the  bastion  this  morning." 

"Yes,  it  is  probable,"  said  d'Artagna,n. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Athos,  "a  wager." 

"  Ah  !  a  wager,"  said  the  Swiss. 

"  What  is  it?  "  asked  the  light-horseman. 

"Stop,"  said  the  dragoon,  laying  his  sabre  like  a  spit  on 
the  two  great  iron  dogs  which  kept  up  the  fire  in  the  chimney. 
"I  am  in  it!  A  dripping-pan  here,  instantly,  you  noodle  of 
a  landlord,  that  I  may  not  loose  one  drop  of  the  fat  of  this 
estimable  bird." 

"  He  is  right,"  said  the  Swiss,  "  the  fat  of  a  goose  is  very 
good  with  sweatmeats." 

"There!"  said  the  dragoon;  "and  now  for  the  wager. 
We  are  listening,  M.  Athos." 

"Well,  M.  de  Busigny,"  said  Athos,  "  I  bet  you,  that  my 
three  comrades.  Messieurs  Porthos,  Aramis,  and  d'Artagnan, 
and  myself,  will  go  and  breakfast  in  the  bastion  of  St.  Ger- 
vais,  and  that  we  will  stay  there  for  one  hour  by  the  clock, 
whatever  the  enemy  may  do  to  dislodge  us.' ' 

Porthos  and  Aramis  looked  at  each  other,  for  they  began 
to  understand. 

"Why,"  said  d'Artagnan,  stooping  to  Athos's  ear,  "you 
are  going  to  get  us  all  killed  without  mercy." 

"We  shall  be  more  certainly  killed  if  we  do  not  go,"  re- 
plied'Athos. 

"Ah,  faith,  gentlemen,"  said  Porthos,  throwing  himself 
back  in  his  chair,  and  twisting  his  moustache,  "  that  is  a  fine 
wager,  I  hope." 

"  And  I  accept  it,"  said  M.  de  Busigny.  "Now  we  must 
fix  the  stakes. ' ' 

"You  are  four,  gentlemen,"  said  Athos,  "and  we  are  four: 
a  dinner  for  eight — will  that  suit  you?  " 

"Just  the  thing !  "  replied  M.  de  Busigny. 

"  Exactly,"  said  the  dragoon. 

"  That  will  do  ! "  exclaimed  the  Swiss.  The  fourth  aud- 
itor, who  had  remained  silent  throughout  the  conversation, 


I02  WTERATURB  OF  KIX,  NATIONS. 

bowed  his  head,  as  a  sign  that  he  acquiesced  in  the  propo- 
sition. 

"The  dejeuner  of  these  gentlemen  is  ready,"  said  the 
landlord. 

"Well,  then  bring  it  here,"  said  Athos. 

The  landlord  obeyed.  Athos  called  Grimaud,  and  showed 
him  a  large  basket,  which  was  lying  in  a  corner,  and  made 
him  a  sign  to  wrap  up  in  the  napkin  all  the  eatables  which 
had  been  brought. 

Grimaud,  comprehending  at  once  that  they  were  going  to 
breakfast  on  the  grass,  took  the  basket,  packed  up  the  eatables, 
put  in  the  bottles,  and  took  the  basket  up  in  his  arms. 

' '  But  where  are  you  going  to  eat  this  breakfast?  "  said  the 
landlord. 

"What  does  it  signify  to  you,"  replied  Athos,  "provided 
you  are  paid  for  it?  "  And  he  threw  two  pistoles  majestically 
on  the  table. 

"Must  I  give  you  the  change,  sir?  "  said  mine  host. 

"No;  but  add  a  couple  of  bottles  of , champagne,  and  the 
diflFerence  will  pay  for  the  napkins." 

The  landlord  had  not  made  quite  such  a  good  thing  of  it 
as  he  at  first  expected ;  but  he  recompensed  himself  for  it  by 
palming  off  on  his, four  guests  two  bottles  of  Anjou  wine,  in- 
stead of  the  two  bottles  of  champagne. 

"M.  de  Busigny,  will  you  regulate  your  watch  by  mine, 
or  permit  me  to  regulate  mine  by  yours  ?  "  inquired  Athos. 

"Whichever  you  please,"  said  the  light-dragoon,  drawing 
from  his  fob  a  very  beautiful  watch  encircled  with  diamonds. 
"  Half-past  seven,"  added  he. 

" Pive-and-thirty  minutes  after  seven,"  said  Athos;  "we 
shall  remember  that  I  am  five  minutes  in  advance,  sir." 

Then  bowing  to  the  astonished  party,  the  four  young  men 
took  the  road  towards  the  bastion  of  St.  Gervais,  followed  by 
Grimaud,  who  carried  the  basket,  not  knowing  where  he  was 
going,  and  from  the  passive  obedience  that  was  habitual  to 
him,  not  thinking  even  of  inquiring. 

Whilst  they  were  within  the  precincts  of  the  camp,  the  four 
friends  did  not  exchange  a  word :  they  were,  besides  followed 
by  the  curious,  who,  having  heard  of  the  wager,  wished  to 


FRBNCH  UTBRATURB.  I03 

know  how  they  would  extricate  themselves  from  the  affair.  But 
when  once  they  had  got  beyond  the  lines  of  circumnavigation, 
and  found  themselves  in  the  open  country,  d'Artagnan,  who 
was  entirely  ignorant  of  what  they  were  about,  thought  it  high 
time  to  demand  some  explanation. 

"And  now,  my  dear  Athos,"  said  he,  "do  me  the  kindness 
to  tell  me  where  you  are  going." 

"  You  can  see  well  enough,"  replied  Athos:  "we  are  going 
to  the  bastion." 

"But  what  are  we  going  to  do  there?" 

"You  know  very  well — we  are  going  to  breakfast  there." 

"But  why  do  we  not  breakfast  at  the  Parpaillot?" 

"Because  we  have  most  important  things  to  tell  you,  and 
it  was  impossible  to  converse  for  five  minutes  in  that  tavern, 
with  all  those  troublesome  fellows,  who  come  and  go,  and 
continually  address  us.  Here,  at  least,"  continued  Athos, 
pointing  to  the  bastion,  "no  one  will  come  to  interrupt  us." 

Having  reached  the  bastion,  the  four  friends  looked  be- 
hind them.  More  than  three  hundred  soldiers,  of  every  kind, 
had  assembled  at  the  entrance  of  the  camp ;  and,  in  a  sepa- 
rate group,  they  saw  M.  de  Busigny,  the  dragoon,  the  Swiss, 
and  the  fourth  wagerer. 

Athos  took  off  his  hat,  raised  it  on  the  end  of  his  sword, 
and  waved  it  in  the  air.  All  the  spectators  returned  his  salu- 
tation, accompanying  this  act  of  politeness  with  a  loud  hur- 
rah, which  reached  their  ears.  After  this  occurrence  they  all 
four  disappeared  in  the  bastion,  where  Grimaud  had  already 
preceded  them.  As  Athos  had  foreseen,  the  bastion  was  occu- 
pied by  about  a  dozen  dead  bodies,  French  and  Rochellois. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Athos,  who  had  taken  the  command 
of  the  expedition,  "whilst  Grimaud  prepares  the  table,  let  us 
begin  by  collecting  together  the  number  of  muskets  and  am- 
munition. We  can,  moreover,  converse  whilst  we  are  doing 
it.  These  gentlemen,"  added  he,  pointing  to  the  dead  bodies, 
"do  not  hear  us." 

"  But  we  may,  nevertheless,  throw  them  into  the  ditches," 
said  Porthos,  "  having  first  satisfied  ourselves  that  they  have 
nothing  in  their  pockets." 

"Yes,"  replied  Athos,  "but  that  is  Grimaud' s  business." 


I04  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

"  Well,  then, "  said  d' Artagnan,  "  let  Grimaud  search  them, 
and  throw  them  over  the  walls." 

"Not  upon  any  account,"  said  Athos ;  "they  may  be  of 
use  to  us." 

"  These  dead  be  of  use  to  us?  "  exclaimed  Porthos.  ' '  Ah, 
nonsense  !  you  are  getting  crazy,  my  dear  friend  ! " 

"  Do  not  judge  rashly,  say  both  the  gospel  and  the  cardi- 
nal," replied  Athos.  "  How  many  muskets  are  there,  gentle- 
men?" 

"Twelve." 

"  How  much  ammunition  ?  " 

"A  hundred  rounds." 

"It  is  quite  as  many  as  we  need:  let  us  load  our  mus- 
kets." 

The  four  companions  set  themselves  to  work  ;  and  just  as 
they  had  loaded  the  last  gun,  Grimaud  made  a  sign  to  them 
that  breakfast  was  ready. 

Athos  indicated  by  a  gesture  that  he  was  contented  with 
what  was  done,  and  then  pointed  out  to  Grimaud  a  sort  of 
sheltered  box,  where  he  was  to  place  himself.as  sentinel.  But, 
to  alleviate  the  annoyance  of  his  guard,  Athos  allowed  him  to 
take  with  him  a  loaf,  two  cutlets  and  a  bottle  of  wine. 

"And  now,  to  breakfast ! "  said  Athos. 

The  four  friends  seated  themselves  upon  the  ground,  with 
their  legs  crossed,  like  Turks  or  tailors. 

"  And  now,"  said  d' Artagnan,  "  as  you  are  no  longer  afraid 
of  being  heard,  I  hope  that  you  are  going  to  let  us  know 
your  secret." 

"  I  hope  that  I  provide  you  at  the  same  time  both  with 
amusement  and  glory,  gentlemen  ! "  said  Athos.  "  I  have 
induced  you  to  take  a  charming  little  excursion :  here  is  a 
most  nutritious  breakfast ;  and  below  there,  are  five  hundred 
persons,  as  you  may  perceive  through  the  embrasures,  who 
take  us  for  madmen  or  heroes — two  classes  of  fools  who  very 
much  resemble  each  other." 

"But  this  secret?" 

"I  saw  her  ladyship  last  night,"  said  Athos. 

D' Artagnan  was  just  carrying  his  glass  to  his  lips  ;  but  at 
the  sound  of  her  ladyship's  name,  his  hand  trembled  so  that 


PRBNCH  WTERATURB.  105 

he  placed  his  glass  on  the  ground,  in  order  that  he  might  not 
spill  its  contents. 

"  You  have  seen  your  wi —  " 

"  Hush,  then ! "  interrupted  Athos ;  "  you  forget,  my  dear 
fellow,  that^these  gentlemen  are  not,  like  you,  initiated  in  the 
privacies  of  my  family  affairs.     I  have  seen  her  ladyship." 
"And  where  happened  that?  "  demanded  d'Artagnan. 
"About  two  leagues  from  hence,  at  the  Red  Dove-Cot." 
"In  that  case,  I  am  a  lost  man,"  said  d'Artagnan. 
"Not  just  yet,"  replied  Athos;  "for,  by  this  time,  she 
must  have  quitted  the  shores  of  France." 
D'Artagnan  breathed  again. 

" But  after  all,"  inquired  Porthos,  "who  is  this  lady? " 
"  A  charming  woman, "  said  Athos,  tasting  a  glass  of  spark- 
ling wine.  "Scamp  of  a  landlord!"  exclaimed  he,  "who 
gives  us  Anjou  for  champagne,  and  who  thinks  we  shall  be 
deceived  by  the  subterfuge  !  Yes,"  continued  he,  "a  charm- 
ing woman,  to  whom  our  friend  d'Artagnan  has  done  some- 
thing unpardonable,  for  which  she  is  endeavoring  to  avenge 
herself — a  month  ago,  by  trying  to  get  him  shot ;  a  week  ago, 
by  sending  him  some  poison ;  and  yesterday,  by  demanding 
hig  head  of  the  cardinal." 

"What!  demanding  my  head  of  the  cardinal?"  cried 
d'Artagnan,  pale  with  terror. 

"  Yes,"  said  Porthos,  "  it  is  true  as  gospel ;  for  I  heard  her 
with  my  own  ears." 

"And  I  also,"  said  Aramis.  ' 

"Then,"  said  d'Artagnan,  letting  his  arm  fall  in  a  despond- 
ing manner,  "  it  is  useless  to  struggle  longer :  I  may  as  well 
blow  out  my  brains  at  once,  and  have  done  with  it." 

"That  is  the  last  folly  to  be  perpetrated,"  said  Athos, 
"seeing  it  is  the  only  one  which  will  not  admit  of  remedy." 
"  But  with  such  enemies,  I  shall  never  escape,"  said  d'Ar- 
tagnan. "  First,  my  unknown  antagonist  of  Meung ;  then, 
de  Wardes,  on  whom  I  inflicted  four  wounds  ;  next,  this  lady, 
whose  secret  I  found  out;  and,  lastly,  the  cardinal,  whose 
revenge  I  defeated." 

"  Well ! "  said  Athos,  "  and  all  this  makes  only  fo,ur,  and 
we  are  four — one  against  one.    Egad  I  if  we  may  trust,  to  Gri- 


Io6  WTERATURE  OF  AI,!,  NATIONS. 

maud's  signs,  we  are  now  about  to  engage  with  a  far  greatei 
number  of  foes.  What's  the  matter,  Grimaud?  Considering 
the  seriousness  of  the  circumstance,  I  permit  you  to  speak, 
my  friend ;  but  be  laconic,  I  beseech  you.  What  do  you  see ! '' 

"A  troop." 

"How  many  persons ? " 

"Twenty  men." 

"What  sort  of  men?" 

"Sixteen  pioneers  and  four  soldiers." 

"How  far  are  they  off?" 

"  Five  hundred  paces." 

"Good!  We  have  still  time  to  finish  our  fowl,  and  to 
drink  a  glass  of  wine.     To  your  health,  d'Artagnan." 

"Your  health,"  repeated  Aramis  and  Porthos. 

"Well,  then,  to  my  health;  although  I  do  not  imagine 
that  your  good  wishes  will  be  of  much  benefit  to  me." 

"Bah!"  said  Athos,  "God  is  great,  as  the  Mahometans 
say,  and  the  future  is  in  his  hands.' ' 

Then,  having  swallowed  his  wine,  and  put  the  glass  down, 
Athos  carelessly  arose,  took  the  first  musket  which  came  to 
his  hand  and  went  towards  an  embrasure. 

The  three  others  did  the  same.  As  for  Grimaud,  he  had 
orders  to  place  himself  behind  them  and  to  reload  their 
muskets. 

An  instant  afterwards,  they  saw  the  troop  appearing.  It 
came  along  a  kind  of  branch  trench,  which  formed  a  commu- 
.  nication  between  the  bastion  and  the  town. 

"  Zounds  ! "  said  Athos,  "  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  dis- 
turb ourselves  for  a  score  of  fellows  armed  with  pick-axes, 
mattocks  and  spades ! — Grimaud  ought  to  have  quietly  beck- 
oned to  them  to  go  about  their  business,  and  I  am  quite  con- 
vinced that  they  would  have  left  us  to  ourselves. ' ' 

"I  much  doubt  it,"  said  d'Artagnan,  "for  they  come 
forward  with  great  resolution.  Besides,  in  addition  to  the 
workmen,  there  are  four  soldiers  and  a  brigadier,  armed  with 
muskets." 

"That  is  because  they  have  not  seen  us,"  replied  Athos. 

"Faith,"  said  Aramis,  "I  confess  that  I  am  reluctant  to 
fire  upon  these  poor  devils  of  citizens." 


PRBNCH  WTBRATURB. 


107 


"He  is  a  bad  priest,"  said  Portlios,  "who  pities  heretics." 

"Upon  my  word,"  said  Athos  "Aramis  is  right.  I  will 
give  them  a  caution.' ' 

"What  the  plague  are  you  doing?"  cried  d'Artagnan; 
"you  will  get  yourself  shot,  my  dear  fellow." 

But  Athos  paid  no  attention  to  this  warning;  and  mounting 
on  the  breach,  his  fusee  in  one  hand  and  his  hat  in  the 
other: 

"Gentlemen,"  said  he,  bowing  courteously,  and  address- 
ing himself  to  the  soldiers 
and  pioneers  who,  astonished 
by  this  apparition,  halted  at 
about  fifty  paces  from  the 
bastion;  "gentlemen,  we 
are,  some  of  my  friends  and 
myself,  engaged  at  breakfast 
in  this  bastion.  Now  you 
know  that  nothing  is  more 
disagreeable  than  to  be  dis- 
turbed at  breakfast;  so  we 
entreat  of  you,  if  you  really 
have  business  here,  to  wait 
till  we  have  finished  our  re- 
past, or  to  come  back  in  a 
little  while ;  unless,  indeed, 
you  experience  the  salutary 
desire  of  forsaking  the  ranks 
of  rebellion,  and  coming  to 
drink  with  us  to  the  health 
of  the  king  of  France." 

"Take  care,  Athos,"  said  D'Artagnan;  "don't  you  see 
that  they  are  taking  aim  at  you? " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Athos;  "but  these  are  citizens,  who  are 
shocking  bad  marksmen,  and  will  take  care  not  to  hit  me." 

In  fact,  at  that  moment  four  shots  were  fired,  and  the  bul- 
lets whistled  around  Athos,  but  without  one  touching  him. 

Four  shots  were  instantaneously  returned,  but  with  a  far 
better  aim  than  that  of  the  aggressors,  three  soldiers  fell  dead 
and  one  of  the  pioneers  was  wounded. 


Io8  LlTSRATtTRB  OP  AI^I,  NATIONS. 

"Grimaud,"  said  Athos,  from  the  breach,  "another 
musket.' '  ' 

Grimaud  obeyed  immediately. 

The  three  friends  had  also  reloaded  their  arms.  A  second 
discharge  soon  followed  the  first,  and  the  brigadier  and  two 
pioneers  fell  dead.     The  rest  of  the  troop  took  to  flight. 

"  Come,  gentlemen,  a  sortie  !  "  said  Athos, 

The  four  friends  rushed  out  of  the  fort ;  reached  the  field 
of  battle,  picked  up  the  muskets  of  the  soldiers,  and  the  half- 
pike  of  the  brigadier ;  and,  satisfied  that  the  fugitives  would 
never  stop  till  they  reached  the  town,  they  returned  to  the 
bastion,  bearing  with  them  the  trophies  of  their  victory. 

'  "Reload  the  muskets,  Grimaud,"  said  Athos ;  "  and  let  us, 
gentlemen,  continue  our  breakfast  and  conversation.  Where 
were  we  ?  " 

"I  recollect,"  said  d'Artagnan;  " you  were  saying,  that, 
after  having  demanded  my  head  of  the  cardinal,  her  ladyship 
had  left  the  shores  of  France.  And  where  is  she  going  ? ' ' 
added  d'Artagnan,  who  was  painfully  anxious  about  the  itin- 
erary of  the  lady's  journey. 

"  She  is  going  to  England,"  replied  Athos. 

"And  for  what  object  ? " 

"To  assassinate  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  or  to  get  him 
assassinated." 

D'Artagnan  uttered  an  exclamation  of  surprise  and  indig- 
nation. 

"  It  is  infamous  ! "  exclaimed  he. 

" Oh,  as  to  that,"  said  Athos,  "I  beg  you  to  believe  that  I 
concern  myself  very  little  about  it.  Now  that  you  have  fin- 
ished, Grimaud,"  continued  he,  "take  the  half-pike  of  our 
brigadier,  fasten  a  napkin  to  it,  and  fix  it  on  the  end  of  our 
bastion,  that  those  rebellious  Rochellois  may  see  that  they 
are  opposed  to  brave  and  loyal  subjects  of  the  king." 

Grimaud  obeyed  without  reply ;  and  an  instant  afterwards 
the  white  flag  floated  over  the  heads  of  the  four  friends.  A 
cry  of  joy,  a  thunder  of  applause  saluted  its  appearance.  Half 
the  camp  was  at  the  barriers. 


HONORE  DE  BALZAC. 

Balzac  is  regarded  by  French  critics  ^  -^1 
as  not  only  the  greatest    novelist  of  -^^>C!— * 

France,  but  of  the  world.  Taine  pro- 
nounced his  works  "the  greatest  storehouse  of  documents  in 
human  nature."  But  his  style  has  been  criticized  as  "  the 
least  simple,  probably,  that  ever  was  written ;  it  bristles,  it 
cracks,  it  swells  and  swaggers ; "  it  was  the  expression  of  a 
fertile,  intense  and  vivid  imagination.  Owing  to  his  cum- 
brous style  Balzac  was  obliged  to  serve  a  hard  apprenticeship, 
and  his  early  dramas  and  stories  have  fallen  into  neglect.  He 
did  not  show  his  real  merit  until  he  wrote  "  The  Chouans  " 
in  1830.  Finally  he  conceived  the  stupendous  idea  of  the 
"  Com^die  humaine"  (the  cpmedy  of  human  life)  and  carried 
it  into  marvelous  execution,  though  not  completion. 

Honord  de  Balzac  was  born  in  Touraine  in  1799,  and  was 
thus  three  years  older  than  Victor  Hugo.  His  family  wished 
him  to  study  law  and  tried  to  starve  him  out  of  his  literary 
ambition,  but  his  sister  Laura  sustained  his  courage  by  her 
faith  in  his  genius.  He  was  always  fond  of  speculation,  and 
when  his  novels  began  to  attract  attention,  he  entered  into  a 
grand  scheme  of  printing  and  publishing,  which  so  loaded 
him  with  debt  that  his  task  of  novel-writing  became  like  the 
notorious  one  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  declining  years.  But  in 
that  decade,  1830-40,  Balzac,  spurred  on  by  necessity,  pro- 
duced most  of  his  best  works.  His  years  of  terrible  toil  were 
lightened  by  the  hope  of  marriage  with  a  Polish  Countess 
Hanska.  But  the  widow,  out  of  deference  to  the  proprieties, 
delayed  their  wedding  fully  sixteen  years.  At  last  the  worn- 
out  novelist,  then  fifty-one,  was  carried  in  March,  1850,  and 

log 


no  WTBRATURE  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

lived  only  until  August,  without  realizing  that  "  sweetest  of 
all  autumns  "  to  which  he  had  looked  forward. 

It  has  been  declared  that  "  the  great  general  protagonist 
of  the  'Com^die  humaine'  is  the  20-franc  piece."  Money 
certainly  resounds  through  all  of  Balzac's  Inferno  as  gold 
does  through  Dante's  third  circle.  The  miser's  passion  was 
was  that  which  Balzac  was  most  moved  to  depict ;  there  are 
numerous  portraitures — Eugenie  Grandet,  Silvie  Rogron,  the 
heirs  of  Doctor  Mirouet,  Maitre  Cornelius,  Raphael,  the  wife 
of  Marquis  d'Espard,  and  Gobseck,  the  Parisian  usurer.  Bal- 
zac's street-wanderings  and  Parisian  experiences  during  his 
early  years  of  profitless  romance-writing  and  play-making 
were  by  no  means  without  fruit.  In  one  of  the  rare  autobi- 
ographic bits  of  his  "Comedy"  he  pictures  the  young  man 
roaming  the  streets  of  Paris  and  following  other  pedestrians 
to  overhear  their  conversation.  "  In  listening  to  these  people," 
he  makes  his  character  remark,  "  I  could  espouse  their  life. 
I  felt  their  rags  upon  my  back  ;  walked  with  my  feet  in  their 
broken  shoes ;  their  desires,  their  wants — -everything  passed 
into  my  soul,  and  my  soul  passed  into  theirs;  it  was  the 
dream  of  a  waking  man."  And  truly  Balzac  achieved  this 
supreme  transference  in  his  great  romance-scheme.  Scarcely 
ever  do  we  get  a  peep  of  the  author  himself  in  his  "  Com- 
edy ; "  like  Shakespeare,  he  refuses  to  be  autobiographic. 

The  idea  of  the  vast  fabric  of  the  "  Comedy"  was  not  an- 
nounced by  Balzac  until  1 842,  when  he  had  for  twelve  years 
been  busy  in  composing  his  master-pieces.  Then  suddenly 
he  .issued  a  manifesto,  which  should  be  a  preface  to  his  works. 
He  declared  his  intention  of  doing  for  mankind  what  Buffon 
and  Saint-Hilaire  had  done  for  the  animal  kingdom.  He 
undertook  to  analyze  and  classify  man  and  life.  He  called 
himself  the  historian  of  manners,  the  secretary  of  society. 
His  "  Comedy"  does  form  a  wonderful  picture  of  the  mass  of 
French  civilization  of  his  time.  The  imaginary  world  which 
he  revealed  is  a  reflex  of  the  real  French  world.  He  claimed 
to  have  created  at  least  two  thousand  original  characters. 
Open  "l/c  P^re  Goriot"  and  consider  the  peculiar  relations 
of  the  strange  inhabitants  of  the  Maison  Vauquer,  and  you 
find  that  you  have  stepped  into  a  new  world.    That  shabby 


FRENCH  MTBRATTJRB.  Ill 

boarding-house  is  a  stage  of  vast  dramas.  The  same  multi- 
tudinous effect  is  felt  in  the  guests  tha,t  assemble  at  Madame 
Bargeton's  party,  and  in  many  other  places.  Severe  critics 
declare  that  much  of  Balzac's  philosophy  about  his  "Comedy  " 
is  charlatanry  by  which  he  was  himself  duped;  that  his 
scheme  falls  far  short  of  being  comprehensive,  that  his  lim- 
ited experience  and  his  plebeian  origin  (despite  his  fictitious 
"de,"  adopted  late  in  life)  prevented  him  from  properly  de- 
scribing the  Faubourg  St.  Germaine  and  fashionable  life ; 
that  he  had  no  sense  of  morality,  and  that  his  virtuous  women 
are  at  the  best  abstractions,  not  realities ;  that  he  hated  the 
bourgeois  too  much  to  do  them  justice ;  and  that  he  always 
looked  at  provincial  life  with  the  eyes  of  a  Parisian  boulevar- 
dier.  These  charges  are,  in  the  main,  true.  The  scheme  of 
the  "  Comedy "  is  by  no  means  scientifically  exact,  and  the 
divisions  are  arbitrary  and  fantastic.  He  was  thoroughly 
sensual,  and  transferred  his  libertinism  to  the  children  of  his 
fancy.  He  paid  too  much  attention  to  the  vulgar,  the  vicious 
and  the  vile.'  He  himself  wrote  to  George  Sand  :  ' '  Vulgar 
natures  interest  me  more  than  they  do  you.  I  magnify  them, 
idealize  them  inversely  in  their  ugliness  or  folly,  giving  them 
terrible  or  grotesque  proportions." 

The  "  Com^die  humaine  "  -jvas  divided  by  Balzac  into  three 
main  sections — Studies  of  Manners,  Philosophical  Studies, 
Analytic  Studies.  The  Studies  of  Manners  he  subdivided  into 
"  Scenes  of  Private  Life  "  (24  stories),  "  Scenes  of  Provincial 
Life"  (10  stories),  "Scenes  of  Country  Life"  (3  stories), 
"  Scenes  of  Parisian  Life,"  his  most  brilliant  section  (20  sto- 
ries), ^nd  "Scenes  Political  and  IV^litary"  (7  storites).  His 
Philosophical  Studies  comprise  20  stories,  and  his  Analytical 
Studies  only  two.  His  only  truly  political  work  is  the  "  De- 
put^  of  Arcis "  (left  incomplete) ;  his  actual  military  tales 
are  his  early  "  Chouans,"  "Le  Colonel  Chabert"  (in  which 
there  is  a  description  of  the  .battle  of  Eylau  and  the  French 
retreat),  and  "  L' Adieu  "  with  its  battle  scene.  The  "  Passion 
in  a  Desert,"  which  relates  a  panther's  love  for  a  soldier, 
would  now  be  called  a  decadent  tale.  In  "The  Country 
Doctor  "  Balzac  has  expressed  the  French  peasantry's  worship 
of  Napoleon. 


112  tlVfiRATtmE  OF  MX,  NATIONS. 

Among  Bakac's  masterpieces  are  "Le  P^re  Goriot,"  in 
which  old  Goriot,  like  King  Lear,  makes  terrible  sacrifices  for 
his  two  heartless  daughters  ;  "  Eugenie  Grandet,"  in  which  a 
mother  and  a  noble  daughter  are  sacrificed  to  a  sordid  miser ; 
"Poor  Relations"  in  which  Cousin  Pons,  an  old  musician  and 
bric-a-brac  collector  is  left  to  the  mercy  of  rogues  ;  "  Cousine 
Bette,"  which  describes  the  ruin  of  Baron  Hulot  by  that 
queen  of  the  demimonde,  Valerie  Marnefie;  "Lost  Illusions" 
and  "The  Splendors  and  Miseries  of  Courtesans,"  in  which 
Vautrin,  the  king  of  convicts,  uses  the  artist,  Lucien  de  Ru- 
bempr^  as  a  cat's-paw  to  prey  on  society  ;  "  Ursule  Mirouet," 
in  which  heirs  quarrel  for  a  fortune  ;  "  La  Duchesse  de  Lan- 
geais,"  a  study  of  fashionable  life,  containing  a  celebrated 
Spanish  convent  scene  ;  "  The  Grandeur  and  Decline  of  Cesar 
Birotteau,"  in  which  a  pack  of  scoundrels  prey  upon  a  rich 
perfumer;  "The  Magic  Skin,"  in  which  Raphael's  talisman 
is  a  wild  ass's  hide,  that  shrinks  with  every  desire  granted 
and  thus  shortens  his  life  ;   "  The  Search  of  the  Infinite,"  in 
which  Claes,  an  alchemist  and  monomaniac,  melts  up  his. 
family's  fortune  ;  and  "  Louis  Lambert,"  a  mystical  romance. 
Among  his  short  tales  the  most  notable  are  "  The  Passion  in 
a  Desert ; "  "La  Grande  Bretecke,"  in  which  a  husband  walls 
up  his  wife's  lover;  "Gobseck,"  the  Parisian  usurer;  "An 
Episode  under  the  Terror,"  which  tells  the  absolution  of  the 
executioner  of  Louis  Capet;  and  "The  Anonymous  Master- 
piece," in  which  a  painter  realizes  a  splendid  illusion. 

Eugenie  Grandet. 

Nanon,  Madame  Grandet,  and  Eugenie,  who  had  all 
three  been  thinking  with  a  shudder  of  the  old  man's  return, 
heard  the  knock  whose  echoes  they  knew  but  too  well. 

"  There's  papa !  "  said  Eugenie. 

She  removed  the  saucer  filled  with  sugar,  leaving  a  few 
pieces  on  the  table-cloth  ;  Nanon  carried  off  the  egg-cup ; 
Madame  Grandet  sat  up  like  a  frightened  hare.  It  was  evi- 
dently a  panic,  which  amazed  Charles,  who  was  wholly 
unable  to  understand  it. 

"Why!  what  is  the  matter?"  he  asked. 


FRENCH  UTKRATURB.  I13 

•'My  father  has  come,"  answered  Eugenie. 

"Well,  what  of  that?" 

Monsieur  Grandet  entered  the  room,  threw  his  keen  eye 
upon  the  table,  upon  Charles,  and  saw  the  whole  thing. 

"  Ha !  ha !  so  you  have  been  making  a  feast  for  your 
nephew;  very  good,  very  gqod,  very  good  indeed!"  he  said, 
without  stuttering.  "  When  the  cat's  away,  the  mice  will 
play." 

"  Feast ! "  thought  Charles,  incapable  of  suspecting  or 
imagining  the  rules  and  customs  of  the  household.    . 

"  Give  me  my  glass,  Nanon,"  said  the  master. 

Eugenie  brought  the  glass.  Grandet  drew  a  horn-handled 
knife  with  a  big  blade  from  his  breeches'  pocket,  cut  a  slice 
of  bread,  took  a  small  bit  of  butter,  spread  it  carefully  on  the 
bread,  and  ate  it  standing.  At  this  moment  Charles  was 
sweetening  his  coflFee.  P^re  Grandet  saw  the  bits  of  sugar, 
looked  at  his  wife,  who  turned  pale,  and  made  three  steps 
forward;  he  leaned  down  to  the  poor  woman's  ear  and  said, — 

' '  Where  did  you  get  all  that  sugar  ?  " 

"  Nanon  fetched  it  from  Fessard's;  there  was  none." 

It  is  impossible  to  picture  the  profound  interest  the  three 
women  took  in  this  mute  scene.  Nanon  had  left  her  kitchen 
and  stood  looking  into  the  room  to  see  what  would  happen. 
Charles,  having  tasted  his  coffee,  found  it  bitter  and  glanced 
about  for  the  sugar,  which  Grandet  had  already  put  away. 

"  What  do  you  want?  "  said  his  uncle. 

"  The  sugar." 

"Put  in  more  milk,"  answered  the  master  of  the  house; 
"your  coffee  will  taste  sweeter." 

Eugenie  took  the  saucer  which  Grandet  had  put  away 
and  placed  it  on  the  table,  looking  calmly  at  her  father  as  she 
did  so.  Most  assuredly,  the  Parisian  woman  who  held  a 
silken  ladder  with  her  feeble  arms  to  facilitate  the  flight  of 
her  lover,  showed  no  greater  courage  than  Eugenie  displayed 
when  she  replaced  the  sugar  upon  the  table.  The  lover  re- 
warded his  mistress  when  she  proudly  showed  him  her  beau- 
tiful bruised  arm,  and  bathed  every  swollen  vein  with  tears 
and  kisses  till  it  was  cured  with  happiness.  Charles,  on  the 
other  hand,  never  so  much  as  knew  the  secret  of  the  cruel 
»-8 


114  WTERATtTRB  OF  AI,!,  NATIONS. 

agitation  that  shook  and  bruised  the  heart  of  his  cousin, 
crushed  as  it  was  by  the  look  of  the  old  miser. 

"  You  are  not  eating  your  breakfast,  wife." 

The  poor  helot  came  forward  with  a  piteous  look,  cut 
herself  a  piece  of  bread,  and  took  a  pear,  Eug6nie  boldly 
offered  her  father  some  grapes,  saying — 

"Taste  my  preserves,  papa.  My  cousin,  you  will  eat 
some,  will  you  not?  I  went  to  get  these  pretty  grapes  ex- 
pressly for  you. ' ' 

"If  no  one  stops  them,  they  will  pillage  Saumur  for  you, 
nephew.  When  you  have  finished,  we  will  go  into  the  gar- 
den; I  have  something  to  tell  you  which  can't  be  sweetened." 

Eugenie  and  her  mother  cast  a  look  on  Charles  whose 
meaning  the  young  man  could  not  mistake. 

"What  is  it  you  mean,  uncle?  Since  the  death  of  my 
poor  mother  " — at  these  words  his  voice  softened — "  no  other 
sorrow  can  touch  me." 

"My  nephew,  who  knows  by  what  afflictions  God  is 
pleased  to  try  us?"  said  his  aunt. 

"  Ta,  ta,  ta,  ta,"  said  Grandet,  "  there's  your  nonsense  be- 
ginning. I  am  sorry  to  see  those  white  hands  of  yours, 
nephew;"  and  he  showed  the  shoulder-of-mutton  fists  which 
Nature  had  put  at  the  end  of  his  own  arms.  "  There's  a  pair 
of  hands  made  to  pick  up  silver  pieces.  You've  been  brought 
up  to  put  your  feet  in  the  kid  out  of  which  we  make  the 
purses  we  keep  our  money  in.     A  bad  look-out !  Very  bad  !" 

"What  do  you  mean,  uncle?  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  under- 
stand a  single  word  of  what  you  are  saying." 

"  Come  !  "  said  Grandet. 

The  miser  closed  the  blade  of  his  knife  with  a  snap,  drank 
the  last  of  his  wine,  and  opened  the  door. 

"  My  cousin,  take  courage ! " 

The  young  girl's  tone  struck  terror  to  Charles's  heart, 
and  he  followed  his  terrible  uncle,  a  prey  to  disquieting 
thoughts.  Eugenie,  her  mother,  and  Nanon  went  into  the 
kitchen,  moved  by  irresistible  curiosity  to  watch  the  two  ac- 
tors in  the  scene  which  was  about  to  take  place  in  the  garden, 
where  at  first  the  uncle  walked  silently  ahead  of  the  nephew. 
Grandet  was  not  at  all  troubled  at  having  to  tell  Charles  of 


FRSNCH  UTERATURE.  115 

the  death  of  his  father ;  but  he  did  feel  a  sort  of  compassion 
in  knowing  him  to  be  without  a  penny,  and  he  sought  for 
some  phrase  or  formula  by  which  to  soften  the  communica- 
tion of  that  crael  truth.  "  You  have  lost  your  father  "  seemed 
to  him  a  mere  nothing  to  say;  fathers  die  before  their  children. 
But  "  you  are  absolutely  without  means,"— all  the  misfor- 
tunes of  life  were  summed  up  in  those  words!  Grandet 
walked  round  the  garden  three  times,  the  gravel  cruhching 
under  his  heavy  step. 

In  the  crucial  moments  of  life  our  minds  fasten  upon  the 
locality  where  joys  or  sorrows  overwhelm  us.  Charles  no- 
ticed with  minute  attention  the  box-borders  of  the  little  gar- 
den, the  yellow  leaves  as  they  fluttered  down,  the  dilapidated 
walls,  the  gnarled  fruit-trees, — picturesque  details  which 
were  destined  to  remain  forever  in  his  memory,  blending 
eternally,  by  the  mnemonics  that  belong  exclusively  to  the 
passions,  with  the  recollections  of  this  solemn  hour. 

*'  It  is  very  fine  weather,  very  warm,"  said  Grandet,  draw- 
ing a  long  breath. 

"  Yes,  uncle ;  but  why —  " 

"Well,  my  lad,"  answered  his  uncle,  "I  have  some  bad 
news  to  give  you.     Your  father  is  ill —  " 

"Then  why  am  I  here?"  said  Charles.  "Nanon,"  he 
cried,  "  order  post-horses !  I  can  get  a  carriage  somewhere  ?  " 
he  added,  turning  to  his  uncle,  who  stood  motionless. 

"Horses  and  carriages  are  useless,"  answered  Grandet, 
looking  at  Charles,  who  remained  silent,  his  eyes  growing 
fixed.  "  Yes,  my  poor  boy,  you  guess  the  truth, — he  is  dead. 
But  that's  nothing ;  there  is  something  worse :  he  blew  out 
his  brains." 

"My  father!" 

"Yes,  but  that's  not  the  worst;  the  newspapers  are  all 
talking  about  it.     Here,  read  that." 

Grandet,  who  had  borrowed  the  fatal  article  from  Cruchot, 
thrust  the  paper  under  his  nephew's  eyes.  The  poor  young 
man,  still  a  child,  still  at  an  age  when  feelings  wear  no  mask, 
burst  into  tears. 

"  That's  good ! "  thought  Grandet ;  "  his  eyes  frightened 
me.    He'll  be  all  right  if  he  weeps.— That  is  not  the  worst. 


1 16  tiTERATURS  OP  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

my  poor  nephew,"  he  said  aloud,  not  noticing  whether  Charles 
heard  him,  "that  is  nothing;  you  will  get  over  it:  but — " 

"  Never,  never  !     My  father !     Oh,  my  father  ! " 

"  He  has  ruined  you,  you  have  not  a  penny." 

"  What  does  that  matter?  My  father !  Where  is  my  fa- 
ther? " 

His  sobs  resounded  horribly  against  those  dreary  walls 
and  reverberated  in  the  echoes.  The  three  women,  filled 
with  pity,  wept  also;  for  tears  are  often  as  contagious  as 
laughter.  Charles,  without  listening  further  to  his  uncle, 
ran  through  the  court  and  up  the  staircase  to  his  chamber, 
where  he  threw  himself  across  the  bed  and  hid  his  face  in  the 
sheets,  to  weep  in  peace  for  his  lost  parents. 

"The  first  burst  must  have  its  way,"  said  Grandet,  en- 
tering the  living-room,  where  Eugenie  and  her  mother  had 
hastily  resumed  their  seats  and  were  sewing  with  trembling 
hands,  after  wiping  their  eyes.  "  But  that  young  man  is 
good  for  nothing  ;  his  head  is  more  taken  up  with  the  dead 
than  with  his  money." 

Eugenie  shuddered  as  she  heard  her  father's  comment 
on  the  most  sacred  of  all  griefs.  From  that  moment  she 
began  to  judge  him.  Charles's  sobs,  though  muffled,  still 
sounded  through  the  sepulchral  house ;  and  his  deep  groans, 
which  seemed  to  come  from  the  earth  beneath,  only  ceased 
towards  evening,  after  growing  gradually  feebler. 

"  Poor  young  man  ! "  said  Madame  Grandet. 

Fatal  exclamation !  PSre  Grandet  looked  at  his  wife,  at 
Eugenie,  and  at  the  sugar-bowl.  He  recollected  the  extra- 
ordinary breakfast  prepared  for  the  unfortunate  youth,  and 
he  took  a  position  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 

"  Listen  to  me,"  he  said,  with  his  usual  composure.  "  I 
hope  that  you  will  not  continue  this  extravagance,  Madame 
Grandet.  I  don't  give  you  my  money  to  stuflF  that  young 
fellow  with  sugar." 

"My  mother  had  nothing  to  do  with  It,"  said  Eugenie; 
"it  was  I  who — " 

"  Is  it  because  you  are  of  age,"  said  Grandet,  interrupting 
his  daughter,  "  that  you  choose  to  contradict  me?  Remem- 
ber, Eugdnie — " 


FRENCH  UTERATURE.  I17 

*'  Father,  the  son  of  your  brother  ought  to  receive  from 
vs—" 

"  Ta,  ta,  ta,  ta ! "  exclaimed  the  cooper  on  four  chromatic 
tones;  "  the  son  of  my  brother  this,  my  nephew  that !  Charles 
is  nothing  at  all  to  us  ;  he  has  not  a  farthing,  his  father  has 
failed;  and  when  this  dandy  has  cried  his  fill,  off  he  goes 
from  here.  I  won't  have  him  revolutionize  my  house- 
hold." 

"  What  is  '  failing,'  father?  "  asked  Eugenie. 

"To  fail,"  answered  her  father,  "is  to  commit  the  most 
dishonorable  action  that  can  disgrace  a  man." 

"  It  must  be  a  great  sin,"  said  Madame  Grandet,  "  and  our 
brother  may  be  damned." 

"There,  there,  don't  beg^n  with  your  litanies!"  said 
Grandet,  shrugging  his  shoulders.  "To  fail,  Eugenie,"  he 
resumed,  "  is  to  commit  a  theft  which  the  law,  unfortunately, 
takes  under  its  protection.  People  have  given  their  property 
to  Guillaume  Grandet  trusting  to  his  reputation  for  honor 
and  integrity ;  he  has  made  away  with  it  all,  and  left  them 
nothing  but  their  eyes  to  weep  with.  A  highway  robber  is 
better  than  a  bankrupt :  the  one  attacks  you  and  you  can  de- 
fend yourself,  he  risks  his  own  life;  but  the  other — in  short, 
Charles  is  dishonored.' ' 

The  words  rang  in  the  poor  girl's  heart  and  weighed  it 
down  with  their  heavy  meaning.  Upright  and  delicate  as  a 
flower  born  in  the  depths  of  a  forest,  she  knew  nothing  of  the 
world's  maxims,  of  its  deceitful  arguments  and  specious  so- 
phisms; she,  therefore,  believed  the  atrocious  explanation 
which  her  father  gave  her  designedly,  concealing  the  distinc- 
tion which  exists  between  an  involuntary  failure  and  an  in- 
tentional one. 

"  Father,  could  you  not  have  prevented  such  a  misfor- 
tune?" 

"  My  brother  did  not  consult  me.  Besides,  he  owes  four 
millions." 

"  What  is  a  'million,'  father?"  she  asked,  with  the  sim- 
plicity of  a  child  which  thinks  it  can  find  out  at  once  all  that 
it  wants  to  know. 

"A  million? "  said  Grandet,  "why,  it  is  a  million  pieces 


Il8  WTERATURB  OP  ALI,  NATIONS. 

of  twenty  sous  each,  and  it  takes  five  twenty-sous  pieces  to 
make  five  francs." 

"  Dear  me ! "  cried  Eugenie,  "  how  could  my  uncle  possibly 
have  had  four  millions  ?  Is  there  any  one  else  in  France  who 
ever  had  so  many  millions?  P&re  Grandet  stroked  his  chin, 
smiled,  and  his  wen  seemed  to  dilate.  "  But  what  will  be- 
come of  my  cousin  Charles?" 

"  He  is  going  off  to  the  West  Indies  by  his  father's  re- 
quest, and  he  will  try  to  make  his  fortune  there." 

"Has  he  got  the  money  to  go  with? " 

"I  shall  pay  for  his  journey  as  far  as-— -yes,  as  far  as 
Nantes." 

Eugenie  sprang  into  his  arms. 

"Oh,  father,  how  good  you  are  !  " 

She  kissed  him  with  a  warmth  that  almost  made  Grandet 
ashamed  of  himself,  for  his  conscience  galled  him  a  little. 

"Will  it  take  much  time  to  amass  a  million?"  she  asked. 

"Look  here!"  said  the  old  miser,  "you  know  what  a 
napoleon  is?  Well,  it  takes  fifty  thousand  napoleons  to  make 
a  million." 

"Mamma,  we  must  say  a  great  many  neuvaines*  for  him." 

"I  was  thinking  so,"  said  Madame  Grandet. 

"  That's  the  way,  always  spending  my  money  ! "  cried  the 
father.       "  Do  you  think  there  are  francs  on  every  bush?  " 

At  this  moment  a  muffled  cry,  more  distressing  than  all 
the  others,  echoed  through  the  garrets  and  struck  a  chill  to 
the  hearts  of  Eugenie  and  her  mother. 

"Nanon,  go  up  stairs  and  see  that  he  does  not  kill  him- 
self," said  Grandet.  "Now,  then,"  he  added,  looking  at  his 
wife  and  daughter,  who  had  turned  pale  at  his  words,  "no 
nonsense,  you  two  !  I  must  leave  you  ;  I  have  got  to  see 
about  the  Dutchmen  who  are  going  away  to-day.  And  then 
I  must  find  Cruchot,  and  talk  with  him  about  all  this." 

He  departed.  As  soon  as  he  had  shut  the  door  Eugenie 
and  her  mother  breathed  more  freely.  Until  this  morning 
the  young  girl  had  never  felt  constrained  in  the  presence  of 

*  A  neuvaine  or  novena  is  a  devotion  or  prayer  for  a  special  bles- 
sing said  on  nine  successive  days. 


FRENCH  WTBRATXJRB.  II9 

her  father;  but  for  the  last  few  hours  every  tuoment  wrought 
a  change  in  her  feelings  and  ideas. 

"  Mamma,  how  many  louis  are  there  in  a  cask  of  wine  ?  " 

"  Your  father  sells  his  from  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and 
fifty  francs,  sometimes  two  hundred — at  least,  so  I've  heard 
say." 

"  Then  papa  must  be  rich  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  he  is.  But  Monsieur  Cruchot  told  me  he  bought 
Froidfond  two  years  ago;  that  may  have  pinched  him." 

Eugenie,  not  being  able  to  understand  the  question  of  her 
father's  fortune,  stopped  short  in  her  calculations. 

"He  did  not  even  see  me,  the  darling!"  said  Nanon, 
coming  back  from  her  errand.  "He's  stretched  out  like  a 
calf  on  his  bed  and  crying  like  the  Madeleine,  and  that's  a 
blessing !   What's  the  matter  with  the  poor  dear  young  man  ?  " 

"  IvCt  us  go  and  console  him,  mamma  ;  if  any  one  knocks, 
we  can  come  down." 

Madame  Grandet  was  helpless  against  the  sweet,  persua- 
sive tones  of  her  daughter's  voice.  Eug&iie  was  sublime: 
she  had  become  a  woman.  The  two,  with  beating  hearts, 
went  up  to  Charles's  room.  The  door  was  open.  The  young 
man  heard  and  saw  nothing;  plunged  in  grief,  he  only  ut- 
tered inarticulate  cries. 

"  How  he  loves  his  father !  "  said  Eugenie  in  a  low  voice. 

In  the  utterance  of  those  words  it  was  impossible  to  mis- 
take the  hopes  of  a  heart  that,  unknown  to  itself,  had  sud- 
denly become  passionate.  Madame  Grandet  cast  a  mother's 
look  upon  her  daughter,  and  then  whispered  in  her  ear, — 

"Take  care,  you  will  love  him !  " 

"Love  him!"  answered  Eugenie.  "Ah!  if  you  did  but 
know  what  my  father  said  to  Monsieur  Cruchot." 

Charles  turned  over,  and  saw  his  aunt  and  cousin. 

"  I  have  lost  my  father,  my  poor  father  I  If  he  had  told 
me  his  secret  troubles  we  might  have  worked  together  to  re- 
pair them.  My  God!  my  poor  father!  I  was  so  sure  I 
should  see  him  again  that  I  think  I  kissed  him  quite  coldly — " 

Sobs  cut  short  the  words. 

"We  will  pray  for  him,"  said  Madame  Grandet.  "Re- 
sign yourself  to  the  will  of  God." 


I20  UTERATURE  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

"Cousin,"  said  Eugenie,  "take  courage!  Your  loss  is 
irreparable;  therefore  think  only  of  saving  your  honor." 

With  the  delicate  instinct  of  a  woman  who  intuitively 
puts  her  mind  into  all  things,  even  at  the  moment  when  she 
offers  consolation,  Eug6uie  sought  to  cheat  her  cousin's  grief 
by  turning  his  thoughts  inward  upon  himself. 

"  My  honor? ' '  exclaimed  the  young  man,  tossing  aside  his 
hair  with  an  impatient  gesture  as  he  sat  up  on  his  bed  and 
crossed  his  arms.  "Ah!  that  is  true.  My  uncle  said  my 
father  had  failed."  He  uttered  a  heart-rending  cry,  and  hid  his 
face  in  his  hands.  "  Leave  me,  leave  me,  cousin !  My  God ! 
my  God !  forgive  my  father,  for  he  must  have  suffered 
sorely ! ' ' 

There  was  something  terribly  attractive  in  the  sight  of 
this  young  sorrow,  sincere  without  reasoning  or  afterthought. 
It  was  a  virgin  grief  which  the  simple  hearts  of  Eugenie  and 
her  mother  were  fitted  to  comprehetid,  and  they  obeyed  the 
sign  Charles  made  them  to  leave  him  to  himself  They  went 
down  stairs  in  silence  and  took  their  accustomed  places  by 
the  window  and  sewed  for  nearly  an  hour  without  exchanging 
a  word.  Eugenie  had  seen  in  the  furtive  glance  she  cast 
about  the  young  man's  room — that  girlish  glance  which  sees 
all  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye — the  pretty  trifles  of  his  dress- 
ing-case, his  scissors,  his  razors  embossed  with  gold.  This 
gleam  of  luxury  across  her  cousin's  grief  only  made  him  the 
more  interesting  to  her,  possibly  by  way  of  contrast.  Never 
before  had  so  serious  an  event,  so  dramatic  a  sight,  touched 
the  imaginations  of  these  two  passive  beings,  hitherto  sunk 
in  the  stillness  and  calm  of  solitude. 

"Mamma,"  said  Eugenie,  "we  must  wear  mourning  for 
my  uncle." 

"  Your  father  will  decide  that,' '  answered  Madame  Grandet. 

They  relapsed  into  silence.  Eugenie  drew  her  stitches 
with  a  uniform  motion  which  revealed  to  an  observer  the 
teeming  thoughts  of  her  meditation.  The  first  desire  of  the 
girl's  heart  was  to  share  her  cousin's  mourning. 


FRENCH  WTBRATURB.  121 

CfiSAR  BiROTTEAU'S  FAILURE. 

(From  "The  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Cfear  Birotteau.") 

C^SAE.  Birotteau,  ■who  had  acquired  a  fortune  as  a  perfumer,  got 
into  difficulties  and  applied  to  some  of  his  friends  to  assist  him  tem- 
porarily. All  put  him  off,  even  Anselme  Popinot,  whom  he  had  started 
in  business,  and  who  was  in  love  with  C6sar's  daughter.  Stunned  by 
his  refusal,  C6sar  returned  home. 

C^sar  fell  into  a  state  of  prostration  from  which  no  one 
tried  to  rouse  him.  This  species  of  inverted  catalepsy, 
during  which  the  body  lived  and  suffered,  whilst  the  func- 
tions of  the  understanding  were  suspended,  this  chance- 
bestowed  respite  was  looked  upon  as  a  blessing  from  God  by 
Constaiice,  C&arine,  Pillerault  and  Derville,  and  they  judged 
wisely.  Birotteau!  was  thus  able  to  support  the  distracting 
emotions  of  the  night.  He  sat  in  his  easy  chair  on  one  side 
of  the  fire-place,  on  the  other  sat  his  wife  attentively  watch- 
ing him  with  a  sweet  smile  on  her  lips — one  of  those  smiles 
which  prove  that  women  approach  nearer  to  the  nature  of 
angels  than  men,  knowing,  as  they  do,  how  to  mingle  infinite 
tenderness  with  the  most  complete  compassion,  a  secret  pos- 
sessed only<  by  those  angels  seen  in  dreams,  scattered  by 
Providence  at  long  intervals  over  the  path  of  life.  C^sarine 
sat  on  a  small  stool  at  her  mother's  feet,  and  from  time  to 
time  gently  stroked  her  father's  hand  with  her  hair,  trying  to 
give  this  caress  an  expression  of  tenderness  which,  in  a  crisis 
like  this,  is  imperfectly  conveyed  by  the  voice. 

Seated  in  his  arm-chair  as  the  Chancellor  de  I'Hospital  is 
in  his  in  the  peristyle  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  Pillerault, 
the  philosopher,  whom  nothing  astonished,  displayed  in  his 
face  that  intelligence  sculptured  on  the  brows  of  the  Egyptian 
sphinxes,  and  conversed  with  Derville  in  a  low  tone.  Con- 
stance had  advised  consulting  the  attorney,  whose  discretion 
was  beyond  suspicion.  Having  her  balance-sheet  clearly  in 
her  head,  she  had  confided  the  state  of  things  to  Derville. 
After  nearly  an  hour's  conference,  held  under  the  eyes  of  the 
unconscious  perfumer,  the  attorney  shook  his  head  as  he 
looked  at  Pillerault. 


122  WTERATURE  OF  MX,  NATIONS. 

"  Madame,"  said  he,  with  the  horrible  coolness  of  men  of 
business,  "you  must  suspend  payment.  Supposing  that,  by 
some  contrivance  or  other,  you  manage  to  pay  to-morrow, 
you  must  come  down  with  at  least  three  hundred  thousand 
francs,  before  you  can  raise  a  loan  on  any  of  your  lands. 
Against  debts  to  the  amount  of  five  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand francs  you  show  very  good,  very  productive  assets,  but 
they  cannot  be  realized.  You  must  succumb  within  a  given 
time.  My  opinion  is,  that  it  is  better  to  jump  out  of  the 
window  than  to  be  pitched  down  stairs." 

"  That  is  my  opinion  also,  my  child,"  said  Pillerault. 
Derville  was  led  to  the  door  by  Madame  C&ar  and  Pillerault. 

"Poor  papa,"  said  C^sarine,  gently  rising  to  kiss  Cesar's 
forehead.  "  So  Anselme  has  not  been  able  to  do  anything?" 
she  asked,  when  her  uncle  and  mother  came  back. 

"  Ingrate !  "  cried  C6sar,  struck  by  this  name  in  the  only 
conscious  part  of  his  memory — as  the  key  of  a  piano  causes 
its  hammer  to  strike  its  own  peculiar  string. 

From  the  moment  in  which  this  word  had  been  hurled  at 
him  like  an  anathema,  little  Popinot  had  not  had  a  minute's 
sleep — not  an  instant's  rest.  The  wretched  youth  cursed  his 
uncle,  and  had  been  to  see  him.  To  make  this  aged  judicial 
experience  capitulate,  he  had  poured  out  the  eloquence  of 
love,  hoping  to  gain  over  a  man  through  whom  mortal  words 
ran  like  water  through  a  sieve — a  judge. 

"  Speaking  in  a  business-like  way,"  he  said  to  him,  "  cus- 
tom allows  an  active  partner  to  make  over  to  his  silent 
partner  a  certain  sum  in  anticipation  of  the  profits,  and  our 
partnership  is  in  a  fair  way  to  produce  good  returns.  After  a 
thorough  examination  of  my  affairs,  I  feel  myself  strong 
enough  to  pay  forty  thousand  francs  in  three  months !  Mon- 
sieur Cesar's  uprightness  permits  us  to  believe  that  these 
forty  thousand '  francs  will  be  devoted  to  paying  his  notes. 
So  the  creditors,  should  there  be  a  failure,  will  not  be  able  to 
reproach  us !  Besides,  uncle,  I  would  rather  lose  forty  thou- 
sand francs  than  run  the  risk  of  losing  C&arine.  At  this  very 
moment  she  has  doubtless  been  told  of  my  refusal,  and  will 
soon  think  harshly  of  me.  I  promised  to  give  my  blood  for 
my  benefactor !    I  am  in  the  position  of  the  young  sailor  who 


FRENCH  WTERATURE.  1 23 

is  ready  to  sink  holding  his  captain's  hand,  of  the  soldier  who 
is  resolved  to  perish  at  his  general's  side." 

"  You  are  a  good  fellow  and  a  bad  business  man,  but  you 
will  not  lose  my  esteem,  "  said  the  judge,  as  he  warmly 
grasped  his  nephew's  hand.  "I  have  thought  much  about 
this ;  I  know  that  you  are  madly  in  love  with  C&arine ;  I 
believe  you  can  satisfy  the  laws  of  the  heart  and  also  the  laws 
of  trade." 

"Oh!  uncle,  if  you  have  found  out  how  to  do  so,  you 
save  my  honor." 

"  Advance  Birotteau  fifty  thousand  francs,  and  let  a  con- 
tract be  signed  by  which  he  may  redeem  his  interest  in  your 
oil,  which  is  now,  as  it  were,  a  property.  I  will  draw  up  the 
paper." 

Anselme  embraced  his  uncle,  returned  home,  signed  notes 
for  fifty  thousand  francs,  and  ran  from  the  Rue  des  Cinq  Dia- 
mants  to  the  Place  Venddme ;  so  that  just  as  C^sarine,  her 
mother,  and  their  uncle  Pillerault  were  gazing  at  the  per- 
fumer, surprised  at  the  sepulchral  tone  with  which  he  had 
pronounced  the  word  "Ingrate!"  in  answer  to  his  daughter's 
question,  the  parlor  door  opened  and  Popinot  appeared, 

"My  dear  and  well-beloved  master,"  said  he,  wiping 
the  perspiration  from  his  forehead,  "there  is  what  you  asked 
me  for.' '     He  held  out  the  notes. 

"Yes,  I  have  carefully  examined  my  position;  have  no 
fear,  I  shall  pay.     Save  your  honor ! " 

"I  was  quite  sure  of  him,"  cried  C^sarine,  seizing  Po- 
pinot's  hand,  and  pressing  it  with  convulsive  force. 

Madame  C^sar  embraced  Popinot;  the  perfumer  rose  like 
one  of  the  just  on  hearing  the  last  trumpet ;  he  came,  as  it 
were,  from  the  tomb  !  Suddenly  he  reached  forth  his  hand 
with  a  frenzied  gesture,  to  clutch  the  fifty  stamped  papers. 

"One  moment!"  said  the  terrible  uncle  Pillerault,  as  he 
snatched  the  notes  from  Popinot ;  "  one  moment ! " 

The  four  personages  who  composed  this  group — Cfear  and 
his  wife,  C^sarine  and  Popinot — astounded  at  their  uncle's 
action  and  by  the  tone  of  his  voice,  saw  him  with  terror  tear 
the  notes  and  throw  them  into  the  fire.  The  flames  consumed 
them  without  any  one's  trying  to  save  them. 


124  I,ITBRA.TURB  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

"Uncle!"     "Uncle!"     "Uncle!"     "Sir!" 
There  were  four  voices,  four  hearts  in  one,  a  terrible  unan- 
imity.    Uncle  Pillerault  put  his  arm  round  Popinot's  neck, 
pressed  him  to  his  heart  and  kissed  his  forehead. 

"  You  are  worthy  to  be  worshipped  by  all  those  who  have 
a  heart,"  he  said  to  him.  ' '  If  you  loved  a  daughter  of 
mine,  had  she  a  million  and  you  no  more  than  that" — he 
pointed  to  the  black  ashes  of  the  notes — "if  she  loved  you, 
you  should  be  married  in  a  fortnight.  Your  master  is  out  of 
his  senses  1  Nephew,"  Pillerault  gravely  resumed,  "no  more 
illusions !  We  must  transact  business  with  energy,  not  with 
sentiments.  This  is  sublime,  but  useless.  I  have  passed  two 
hours  at  the  Exchange ;  you  have  not  one  copper's  worth  of 
credit ;  every  one  was  talking  of  your  disaster,  of  your  appli- 
cations to  several  bankers,  of  their  refusals,  of  your  follies — 
such  as  going  up  six  pairs  of  stairs  to  see  a  landlord  who  is  as 
garrulous  as  a  magpie,  and  giving  a  ball  to  conceal  your  em- 
barrassment. They  go  so  far  as  to  say  you  had  nothing. at 
all  in  Roguin's  hands.  According  to  your  enemies,  Roguin 
is  a  mere  makeshift.  One  of  my  friends,  whom  I  had  com- 
missioned to  listen  to  everything  that  was  said,  confirms  my 
suspicions.  Everybody  predicts  the  emission  of  Popinot's 
notes,  and  the  idea  is  that  you  started  him  on  purpose  to  make 
a  paper-mill  of.  In  short,  you  are  the  subject  of  all  that 
calumnious  and  slanderous  talk  that  a  man  draws  upon  him- 
self when  he  strives  to  get  up  a  round  or  two  on  the  social 
ladder.  Take  a  week  and  offer  Popinot's  fifty  notes  at  every 
desk  in  Paris ;  'twould  be  in  vain :  you  would  meet  with 
humiliating  refusals  ;  no  one  would  take  them  :  there's  noth- 
ing to  show  what  number  of  them  you  issue,  and  everybody 
expects  you  to  sacrifice  the  poor  boy  to  save  yourself.  You 
would  destroy  the  credit  of  the  house  of  Popinot  without 
benefiting  your  own.  How  much  do  you  suppose  the  most 
daring  note-shaver  in  town  would  give  for  your  fifty  thousand 
francs  ?  Twenty  thousand  !  Do  you  hear  ?— twenty  thousand ! 
There  are  certain  times  in  the  life  of  a  tradesman  when  he 
must  stand  up  before  the  public  three  days  without  eating,  just 
as  if  he  had  a  bellyful,  and  on  the  fourth  he  will  be  admitted 
to  the  larder  of  credit.    You  cannot  get  through  these  three 


FRENCH  tlTERATURB.  125 

days,  and  that's  the  fatal  point.  Courage,  my  poor  nephew; 
you  must  make  an  assignment.  As  soon  as  your  clerks  are 
gone  to  bed,  Popinot  and  I  will  set  to  work  together,  in  order 
to  spare  you  the  affliction." 

"Uncle  ! "  said  the  perfumfer,  clasping  his  hands. 

"Cdsar,  would  you  prefer  to  wait  and  then  make  a  dis- 
graceful assignment,  with  nothing  to  assign  ?  At  present 
your  interest  in  Popinot's  house  preserves  your  honor. ' ' 

"  C&ar,  enlightened  by  this  last  fatal  flash  of  light,  at 
length  saw  the  frightful  truth  in  its  full  extent ;  he  fell  back 
in  his  chair,  then  dropped  upon  his  knees,  his  mind  wandered 
and  he  became  childish :  his  wife  thought  he  was  dying  and 
stooped  down  to  raise  him  up ;  but  she  united  with  him  when 
she  saw  him  join  his  hands,  raise  his  eyes  and  repeat,  with 
all  the  compunction  of  resignation,  in  presence  of  his  uncle, 
his  daughter  and  Popinot,  the  Lord's  sublime  prayer  : 

* '  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,  hallowed  be  thy  name  : 
thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven  :  give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread,  and  forgive  us 
our  trespasses  as  we  forgive  those  who  trespass  against  us. 
Amen." 

Tears  rose  to  the  eyes  of  the  stoical  Pillerault,  and 
C&arine,  weeping  and  overwhelmed,  leaned  her  head  upon 
the  shoulder  of  Popinot,  who  was  as  pale  and  stark  as  a 
statue. 

"  Let  us  go  down  stairs,"  said  the  ironmonger  to  the  young 
man,  as  he  took  his  arm. 

X.  B.  SAINTINE. 

PiCCiOLA  has  preserved  the  name  of  Saintine.  It  is  a 
sentimental  story  of  a  noble  Italian  prisoner  who  was  con- 
soled by  the  growth  of  a  flowering  plant  between  the  stones 
of  the  courtyard  adjoining  his  cell.  The  story  introduces 
other  characters,  and  even  Napoleon  and  Josephine,  and  ends 
happily  in  the  release  and  marriage  of  the  prisoner.  Xavier 
Boniface  Saintine  was  born  in  Paris  in  1790,  and  died  in 
1845.  He  published  dramas,  poems  and  romances,  which 
have  fallen  into  oblivion,  but  his  tale  of  prison-life,  though 


126  UTERATIJRS  OF  AXI.  NATIONS. 

somewhat  artificial  in  plot,  and  aflfected  in  style,  has  enough 
of  natural  feeling  to  deserve  remembrance. 

PlCCIOLA. 

In  the  stoiy  of  "Picciola"  Count  Chamey,  an  Italian  scientist, 
was  charged  with  plotting  against  Napoleon's  government,  and  was 
imprisoned  at  Fenestrella.  He  was  allowed  no  books,  pens  or  paper. 
But  his  solitude  was  relieved  by  the  sprouting  of  a  plant  between  the 
stones  of  the  courtyard.  He  watched  over  it  with  great  tenderness,  and 
gave  it  the  name  Picciola,  "the  little  one."  In  his  day-dreams  it 
seemed  to  assume  a  human  personality. 

One  evening,  while  the  Count  was  in  the  midst  of  a  flight 
of  fancy,  Picciola  for  the  first  time  dispelled  the  charm  of 
happiness  and  serenity  by  the  exercise  of  a  sinister  influence. 
At  a  later  moment  he  recurred  to  the  event  as  the  efiect  of  a 
fatal  presentiment ! 

It  was  just  as  the  fragrance  of  the  plant  indicated  the  sixth 
hour  of  evening,  and  Chamey  was  musing  at  his  accustomed 
post.  Never  had  that  aromatic  vapor  exercised  its  powers 
more  potently  ;  for  more  than  thirty  full-blown  flowers  were 
emitting  the  magnetic  atmosphere,  so  influential  over  the  senses 
of  the  Count.  He  fancied  himself  surrounded  once  more 
by  the  crowds  of  society  ;  having  drawn  aside  from  which, 
towards  an  esplanade  of  verdure,  his  beloved  Picciola  deigned 
to  follow  his  footsteps.  The  graceful  phantom  advanced 
smiling  towards  him,  and  Charney,  in  a  musing  attitude, 
stood  admiring  the  supple  grace  of  the  young  girl,  around 
whose  well-turned  form  the  drapery  of  her  snow-white  dress 
played  in  harmonious  folds,  and  her  raven  tresses,  amid  which 
bloomed  the  never-absent  flower !  On  a  sudden  he  saw  her 
start,  stagger,  and  extend  her  arms  towards  him.  He  tried  to 
rush  towards  her ;  but  an  insurmountable  obstacle  seemed  to 
separate  him  from  her  side.  A  cry  of  horror  instantly  escaped 
his  lips,  and  lo!  the  vision  disappears!  He  wakes,  but  it  is 
to  hear  a  second  cry,  respondent  to  his  own ;  yes,  the  cry,  the 
voice  of  a  woman ! 

Nevertheless,  the  Count  is  still  in  his  usual  place — in  the 
old  court,  and  reclining  on  the  rustic  bench  beside  his  Pic- 
ciola!    But  at  the  grating  of  the  little  window  appeared  the 


PICCIOLA 


PBENCH  UTSRATtTRE.  1 27 

momentary  glimpse  of  a  female  forml  A  soft  and  melan- 
choly countenance,  half  hid  in  shade,  seems  gazing  upon 
him ;  but  when,  rising  from  his  seat,  he  hastens  towards  it, 
the  vision  vanishes,  or  rather  the  young  girl  hastens  from  the 
window.  However  swift  her  disappearance,  Charney  was 
able  to  distinguish  her  features,  her  hair,  her  form,  the  white- 
ness of  her  robe.  He  paused.  Is  he  asleep  or  waking?  Can 
it  be  that  the  insurmountable  obstacle  which  divides  him 
from  Picciola  is  no  other  than  the  grating  of  a  prison  ? 

At  that  moment  Ludovico  hastens  towards  him  with  an 
air  of  consternation. 

"Are  you  again  indisposed.  Signer  Contef''  cried  the 
gaoler.  "  Have  you  had  another  attack  of  your  old  disorder  ? 
Trondidio!  If,  we  are  obliged,  for  form's  sake,  to  send  for 
the  prison  doctor,  I'll  take  care,  this  time,  that  no  one  but 
Madame  Picciola  and  myself  have  a  hand  in  the  cure! " 

"  I  am  perfectly  well,''  replied  Charney,  trying  to  recover 
his  composure.  "What  put  it  into  your  head  that  I  was 
indisposed?" 

"The  fly-catcher's  daughter  came  in  searcl^  of  me.  She 
saw  you  stagger,  and  hearing  you  cry  aloud,  fancied  you  were 
in  need  of  assistance." 

The  Count  relapsed  into  a  fit  of  musing.  It  seemed  to 
occur  to  him,  for  the  first  time,  that  a  young  girl  occasionally 
inhabited  that  part  of  the  prison. 

"The  resemblance  I  fancied  I  could  discover  between  the 
stranger  and  Picciola  is  doubtless  a  new  delusion ! "  said  he 
to  himself.  And  now  he  recalled  to  mind  Teresa's  interest 
in  his  favor,  mentioned  to  him  by  the  venerable  Girardi. 
The  young  Piedmontese  had  compassionated  his  condition 
during  his  illness.  To  her  he  is  indebted  for  the  possession 
of  his  microscope.  His  heart  becomes  suddenly  touched  with 
gratitude,  and,  in  the  first  efiusion,  a  sudden  remark  seems 
to  sever  the  double  image,  the  young  girl  of  his  dreams  from 
the  young  girl  of  his  waking  hours;  "Girardi's  daughter 
wore  no  flower  in  her  hair." 

That  moment,  but  not  without  hesitation,  not  without 
self-reproach,  he  plucked  with  a  trembling  hand  from  his 
plant  a  small  branch  covered  with  blossoms. 


128  tlfBRAOMJRB  OS  AI.I,  NATIONS. 

"Formerly,"  thought  Charney,  "what  sums  of  money 
did  I  lavish  to  adorn,  with  gold  and  gems,  brows  devoted  to 
peq'ury  and  shame !  upon  how  many  abandoned  -^omen  and 
heartless  men  did  I  throw  away  my  fortune,  without  caring, 
more  for  them  than  for  the  feelings  of  my  own  bosom,  which, 
at  the  same  moment,  I  placed  in  the  dust  under  their  feet. 
Oh !  if  a  gift  derives  its  value  from  the  regard  in  which  it  is 
held  by  the  donor,  never  was  a  richer  token  oflfered  by  man 
to  woman,  my  Picciola,  than  these  flowers  which  I  borrow 
from  thy  precious  branches  to  bestow  on  the  daughter  of 
Girardi!" 

Then,  placing  the  blossomed  bough  in  the  hands  of  the 
gaoler,  "  Present  these  in  my  name  to  the  daughter  of  my 
venerable  neighbor,  good  Ludovico ! "  said  he.  '■  Thank  her 
for  the  generous  interest  she  vouchsafes  me ;  and  tell  her  that 
the  Count  de  Charney-^  poor,  and  a  prisoner,  has  nothing  to 
offer  her  more  worthy  her  acceptance.' ' 

Ludovico  received  the  token  with  an  air  of  stupefaction. 
He  had  begun  to  enter  so  completely  into  the  passion  of  the 
captive  for  his  plant,  that  he  could  not  conjecture  by  what 
services  the  daughter  of  the  fly-catcher  had  merited  so  distin- 
guished a  mark  of  munificence.     . 

"No  matter!  Capo  di  Son' Pasquali P''  exclaimed  Ludo- 
vico, as  he  passed  the  postern.  "  They  have  long  admired 
my  god-daughter  at  a  distance.  Let  us  see  what  they  will 
say  to  the  brightness  of  her  complexion,  and  sweetness  of  hei 
breath,  on  a  nearer  acquaintance,  Piccioletta  mia,  andiamoP'' 

THEOPHILE  GAUTIER. 

The  arch-apostle  of  art  for  art's  sake  is  Th^ophile  Gautier 
(1808-72).  He  deserted  the  artist's  brush  and  easel  for  the 
poet's  and  romancer's  pen,  and  he  has  painted  more  superb 
pictures  and  achieved  more  splendid  artistic  effects  with  the 
pen  than  he  ever  could  have  done  with  the  brush.  His 
aesthetic  craving  was  a  life  passion :  he  thirsted  for  beauty, 
and  he  found  it  everywhere — in  the  little  as  well  as  the  grand. 
"Emaux  et  Camdes"  (Enamels  and  Cameos)  he  entitled  his 
first  book  of  poems,  and  they  are  truly  cold,  polished  gems  of 


FRENCH  tlTBRATTJRS.  129 

art  in  miniature.  But  in  his  description  of  Cleopatra's  ban- 
quet (in  "One  of  Cleopatra's  Nights")  he  bewilders  us  with 
the  grandeur  of  his  imaginative  vision,  with  the  breadth  of 
his  canvas.  Like  the  twin  spires  of  the  Cologne  Cathedral, 
his  descriptions  are  grand  in  conception,  yet  finished  in  detail. 
Indeed,  Gautier  revelled  too  much  in  details  :  it  is  his  artistic 
fault.  He  forgets  himself  in  the  presence  of  any  object  of 
artistic  delight,  and  lingers  elaborately  over  every  incidental 
feature.  His  "  Mademoiselle  du  Maupin,"  which  Swinburne 
calls  "  The  Golden  Book  of  spirit  and  sense — the  Holy  Writ 
of  Beauty,"  raight  seem  to  a  less  impassioned  critic  a  prolix 
celebration  of  the  sensual  aspect  of  love  and  female  loveli- 
ness. Still,  when  he  sets  out  to  tell  a  weird  or  a  dramatic 
tale,  his  success  is  admirable.  The  wild,  midpight  ride  on 
the  dark  steeds  to  Clarimonde's  castle  in  ' '  La  Morte  Amour- 
euse,"  is  a  striking  example  of  his  fervor;  for  cold  though 
he  is  in  his  poems,  Gaiitier  is  tropically  warm  in  many  of  his 
shorter  tales.  And  he  has  always  a  firm  touch ;  as  Sainte- 
Beuve  said,  he  "carves  in  granite," — he  might  have  said,  in 
marble  and  gold. 

Gautier  first  became  conspicuous  by  wearing  a  red  waist- 
coat on  the  first  night  of  Victor  Hugo's  "  Hemani."  A  Gascon 
bom,  he  was  nothing  if  not  flamboyant.  ,  But  a  secretaryship 
under  Balzac  tamed  a  little  the  fiery  author  of  the  ' '  History  of 
Romanticism,"  though  he  remained  to  the  last  the  prince  of 
pictorial  and  plastic  poetry  and  prose.  Sainte-Beuve  called  his 
prose  "pure  Lacrima-Christi."  "Mademoiselle  du  Maupin" 
is  a  licentious  tale  of  a  masquerading  Rosalind  without 
Rosalind's  chastity,  in  which  Gautier  openly  defied  the  con- 
veiitionalities.  His  "  Captain  Fracasse"  is  a  romantic  varia- 
tion on  the  theme  of  the  strolling  players  of  Scarron's  coarse 
"Roman  Comique;"  it  transports  us  by  vivid  art  to  the 
times  of  Louis  XIIL ,  and  cloak  and  sword  are  concerned  in 
it  as  well  as  mask  and  buskin.  The  great  description  of  the 
book  is  that  of  the  mined  Chateau  de  la  Mis^re.  Of  his  short 
tales  the  masterpiece  is,  no  doubt,  "La  Morte  Amoureuse" 
(The  Dead  Leman),  in  which  the  mediaeval  incubus  legend  is 
utilized  in  the  dream-life  of  love  which  a  young  priest  lives 
with  a  beautiful  vampire.  Phantom  love  is  the  theme  of 
X— 9 


I30  WTSRATURB  OP  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

"  Arria  Marcella,"  a  phantasmagoria  of  revived  Pompeii;  of 
"The  Mummy's  Foot,"  in  which  a  Pharaoh's  daughter  comes 
from  the  tombs  of  Egypt  to  seek  her  lost  possession ;  and 
"  Omphale,"  in  which  a  gay  lady  of  the  olden  empire  returns 
to  life  from  a  piece  of  tapestry.  "Avatar"  is  a  fantasy  on  the 
transmigration  of  souls,  by  which  a  lover  seeks  to  take  the 
place  of  a  husband.  "Jettatura"  is  a  tragedy  of  the  evil 
eye.  Gautier  also  wrote  a  delightful  series  of  books  on  his 
travels. 

Departure  op  the  Swallows. 

The  rain-drops  splash,  and  the  dead  leaves  fall, 

On  spire  apd  cornice  and  mould ; 
The  swallows  gather,  and  twitter  and  call, 
"We  must  follow  the  Summer;  come  one,  come  all, 

For  the  Winter  is  now  so  cold." 

Just  listen  awhile  to  the  wordy  war, 

As  to  whither  the  way  shall  tend. 
Says  one,  "I  know  the  skies  are  fair 
And  myriad  insects  float  in  air 

Where  the  ruins  of  Athens  stand. 

"And  every  year,  when  the  brown  leaves  fall, 

In  a  niche  of  the  Parthenon 
I  build  my  nest  on  the  corniced  wall, 
In  the  trough  of  a  devastating  ball 

From  the  Turk's  besieging  gun." 

Says  another,  "  My  cosey  home  I  fit 

On  a  Smyrna  grande  caf6. 
Where  over  the  threshold  Hadjis  sit. 
And  smoke  their  pipes  and  their  coffee  sip, 

Dreaming  the  hours  away." 

Another  says,  "I  prefer  the  nave 

Of  a  temple  in  Baalbec ; 
There  my  little  ones  lie  when  the  palm-trees  wave. 
And,  perching  near  on  the  architrave, 

I  fill  each  open  beak." 

" Ah ! "  says  the  last,  "I  build  my  nest 
Far  up  on  the  Nile's  green  shore, 


FRENCH  WTBRATURB.  131 

Where  Memnon  raises  his  stony  crest, 
And  turns  to  the  sun  as  he  leaves  his  rest, 
But  greets  him  with  song  no  more. 

"In  his  ample  neck  is  a  niche  so  wide. 

And  withal  so  deep  and  free, 
A  thousand  swallows  their  nests  can  hide, 
And  a  thousand  little  ones  rear  beside — 

Then  come  to  the  Nile  with  me." 

They  go,  they  go  to  the  river  and  plain. 

To  ruined  city  and  town. 
They  leave  me  alone  with  the  cold  again. 
Beside  the  tomb  where  my  joys  have  lain, 

With  hope  like  the  swallows  flown. 

Looking  Upward. 

From  Sixtus'  fane  when  Michael  Angelo 
His  work  completed  radiant  and  sublime. 

The  scaffold  left  and  sought  the  streets  below. 
Nor  eyes  nor  arms  would  lower  for  a  time ; 

His  feet  knew  not  to  walk  upon  the  ground. 
Unused  to  earth,  so  long  in  heavenly  clime. 

Upwards  he  gazed  while  three  long  months  went  round ; 

So  might  an  angel  look  who  should  adore 
The  dread  triangle  mystery  profound. 

My  brother  poets,  while  their  spirits  soar. 
In  the  world's  ways  at  every  moment  trip, 

Walking  in  dreams  while  they  the  heavens  explore. 


132 


LITERATURE  OF  AI.L  NATIONS. 


ALFRED  DE  MUSSET. 

Alfred  de  Musset's  first  poeti- 
cal work,  "Tales  of  Spain  and 
Italy"  (1833),  reminded  his  con- 
temporaries of  "  Don  Juan."  The 
author,  while  confessing  a  sort  of 
Byronic  discipleship,  protested, 
"  My  glass  is  not  large,  but  I  drink 
from  my  own."  Born  in  18 10  of 
a  noble  and  cultured  family,  he 
affected  the  gentleman  in  literature. 
He  hated  the  very  notion  of  hav- 
ing to  do  anything  and  even  re- 
fused an  embassy  to  Spain,  the  land  of  his  early  dreams. 
He  adopted  the  half-cynical  tone  of  Byron  in  his  "Confes- 
sions of  a  Child  of  his  Age,"  and  in  his  "Rolla,"  a  sombre 
poetic  tale.  Like  Byron  he  almost  always  painted  himself 
and  his  own  moods.  In  the  "  Confession"  he  declared  that 
' '  he  did  not  conceive  that  one  could  do  anything  but  love.' ' 
His  life  was  a  series  of  amours  and  love  adventures.  He 
drank  so  deeply  that  he.  became  a  drunkard.  His  great  gifts 
he  scarcely  honored. 

It  was  his  notorious  liaison  with  George  Sand,  with  whom! 
he  went  to  Italy  in  1833,  that  awoke  the  genuine  passion  and 
divine  despair  within  his  heart.  In  "Elle  et  Lui  "  (She  and 
He),  Mme.  Dudevant  tells  of  this  ill-fated  journey  from 
which  De  Musset  returned  broken-hearted.  She  accused 
him  of  insane  jealousy.  After  Alfred's  death  Paul  de  Musset 
retorted  with  "Lui  et  Elle"  (He  and  She),  in  which  he 
charged  George  Sand  with  flagrant  infidelity.  We  are  not 
here  concerned  with  this  notorious  scandal :  suffice  it  to  say 
that  the  excitable  poet,  after  shedding  a  flood  of  tears,  com- 
memorated his  lost  illusions  in  "LesNuits"  (The  Nights), 
entitled  respectively  May,  August,  October  and  December. 
The  "Night  of  May,"  with  his  admiring  "  Letter  to  Lamar- 
tine"  and  his  musical  "Stanzas  to  Malibran,"  represent  his 
loftiest  poetical  achievement.     Heine  said  of  him:    "The 


FRSNCH  tiTERATURE. 


133 


Muse  of  Comedy  kissed  him  on  the  lips,  but  the  Muse  of 
Tragedy  on  the  heart."  Nor  can  one  forget  the  splendor  of 
youth  that  shines  in  his  poems.  No  one  has  sung  so  truth- 
fully and  touchingly  its  aspirations  and  its  sensibilities,  its 
doubts  and  its  hopes.  Much  of  his  poetry  is  entirely  free 
from  moral  taint. 

De  Musset   wrote  a  number  of  comedies   and   so-called 
proverbs  that  have  striking  originality.     His  dramatic  mas-  • 
terpiece  is  probably  "L,ove  is  not  to  be  trifled  with,"   in 
which  a  double  love  intrigue  proves  fatal  to  the  hero  and  his 
two  loves. 

Venice. 

And  the  pale  statues  gleam 


In  Venice  not  a  barque 
Is  stirring, — all  is  dark, 
For  through  the  gloomy  night 

Breaks  ne'er  a  light. 
The  lion,  gaunt  and  grand, 
Seated  upon  the  strand. 
Scans  the  wide  waters  o'er 

Forevermore. 
While  many  a  ship  and  boat 
In  groups  around  him  float, 
lyike  herons,  lulled  to  sleep 

Upon  the  deep. 
Over  the  misty  sea, 
Fluttering  lazily. 
Streamers  and  sails  unfurled, 

Clinging  and  curled. 
Now  the  moon's  dreamy  light 
Is  flooding  all  the  night, 


In  the  pure  light,  and  seem 
lyike  visions  of  the  past 

Come  back  at  last. 
All  silent,  save  the  sound 
Of  guards  upon  their  round, 
As  on  the  battled  wall 

Their  footsteps  fall. 
More  than  one  damsel  strays 
Beneath  the  pale  moon's  rays, 
And  waits,  with  eager  ear. 

Her  cavalier ; 
More  than  one  girl  admiring 
The  charms  she  is  attiring ; 
More  than  one  mirror  shows 

Black  dominoes. 
La  Vanina  is  lying 
With  languid  raptures  dying. 


From  many  a  glimmering  cloud  Upon  her  lover's  breast 


Her  airy  shroud — 
Just  as  some  novice  would 
Draw  on  her  ample  hood, 
Yet  leaving  still,  I  ween. 

Her  beauty  seen. 
And  the  still  water  flows 
Past  mighty  porticoes, 
And  stairs  of  wealthy  knights, 

Ih  lordly  flights. 


Half  lulled  to  rest. 
Narcissa,  Folly's  daughter! 
Holds  festal  on  the  water. 
Until  the  opal  morning 

Is  softly  dawning. 
Who  then  in  such  a  clime 
But  has  a  madcap  time  ? 
Who  but  to  love  can  give 

I4fe,  while  he  live  ? 


134  LITERATURE  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

lyct  the  old  Doge-clock  strike       So  many  kisses  earned ; 

And  hammer  as  it  like,  And  then  returned ; 

And  count  with  jealous  spite        ^       ^   „  ,  j„„, . 

^,     ,  r    ■  1,4.  Count  all  your  charms,  my  dear ; 

The  hours  of  night.  ^       ^  ■, 

Count  every  happy  tear, 

But  we  will  count  instead  That  loving  hearts  must  borrow 

On  full  lips  rosy  red,  From  joy  and  sorrow. 


JUANA. 

Again  I  see  you,  ah  my  queen, 

Of  all  my  old  loves  that  have  been, 
The  first  love  and  the  tenderest ; 

Do  you  remember  or  forget — 

Ah  me,  for  I  remember  yet- 
How  the  last  summer  days  were  blest? 

Ah  lady,  when  we  think  of  this. 
The  foolish  hours  of  youth  and  bliss, 

How  fleet,  how  sweet,  how  hard  to  hold ! 
How  old  we  are,  ere  spring  be  green ! 
You  touch  the  limit  of  eighteen 

And  I  am  twenty  winters  old. 

My  rose,  that  'mid  the  red  roses, 
Was  brightest,  ah,  how  pale  she  is ! 

Yet  keeps  the  beauty  of  her  prime ; 
Child,  never  Spanish  lady's  face 
Was  lovely  with  so  wild  a  grace; 

Remember  the  dead  summer  time. 

Think  of  our  loves,  our  feuds  of  old. 
And  how  you  gave  your  chain  of  gold 

To  me  for  a  peace  offering ; 
And  how  all  night  I  lay  awake 
To  touch  and  kiss  it  for  your  sake, — 

To  touch  and  kiss  the  lifeless  thing. 

I^ady,  beware,  for  all  we  say. 
This  lyove  shall  live  another  day. 

Awakened  from  his  deathly  sleep ; 
The  heart  that  once  has  been  your  shrine 
For  other  loves  is  too  divine ; 

A  home,  my  dear,  too  wide  and  deep. 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  I35 

What  did  I  say — why  do  I  dream? 
Why  should  I  struggle  with  the  stream 

Whose  waves  return  not  any  day? 
Close  heart,  and  eyes,  and  arms  from  me; 
Farewell,  farewell !  so  must  it  be, 

So  runs,  so  runs,  the  world  away. 

The  season  bears  upon  its  wing 

The  swallows  and  the  songs  of  spring. 

And  days  that  were,  and  days  that  flit ; 
The  loved  lost  hours  are  far  away ; 
And  hope  and  fame  are  scattered  spray 
For  me,  that  gave  you  love  a  day, 

For  you  that  not  remember  it. 

To  P:6pa. 

P^PA !  when  the  night  has  come. 

And  Mamma  has  bid  good-night, 
By  the  light  half-clad  and  dumb. 

As  thou  kneelest  out  of  sight, — 

Laid  by  cap  and  sweeping  vest 

Ere  thou  sinkest  to  repose. 
At  the  hour  when  half  at  rest. 

Folds  thy  soul  as  folds  a  rose, — 

When  sweet  sleep,  the  sovereign  mild, 
Peace  to  all  the  house  has  brought, 
•     P6pita !  my  charming  child ! 

What,  O  what,  is  then  thy  thought? 

Who  knows  ?     Haply  dreamest  thou 

Of  some  lady  doom'd  to  sigh. 
All  that  hope  a  truth  deems  now, 

All  that  Truth  shall  prove  a  lie. 

Haply  of  those  mountains  grand 

That  produce — alas !  but  mice ; 
Castles  in  Spain ;  a  Prince's  hand ; 

Bon-bons,  lovers,  or  cream-ice. 

Haply  of  soft  whispers  breathed 

'Mid  the  mazes  of  a  ball ; 
Robes,  or  flowers,  or  hair  enwreathed ; 

Me ; — or  nothing.  Dear,  at  all. 


OCTAVE  FEUILLET. 


Among  the  assistants  whom  Alex- 
andre Dumas  called  to  his  aid  in 
producing  his  numerous  works  was 
Octave  Feuillet  (1812-90),  who  won  fame  on  his  own  account. 
His  father  held  a  government  office  in  the  department  of 
Manche  and  sent  his  son  to  Paris  to  be  educated.  Feuillet' s 
first  independent  work  was  for  the  stage,  and  his  earliest 
novels  were  in  his  master's  style.  He  had  better  success  with 
"lya  Petite  Comtesse  "  (1856),  in  which  he  showed  the  heroine 
as  a  temptress.-  But  his  "Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man  " 
(1858)  scored  a  grand  hit.  This  was  due  not  merely  to  the 
excellence  of  its  description  of  Norman  country  life,  but  to 
its  pure  moral  tone.  In  later  works  the  author  was  less  care- 
ful in  this  regard,  though  he  was  always  guarded  in  language. 
His  "Sibylle"  called  forth  a  reply  from  George  Sand.  In 
his  strongest  work,  ''Julia  de  Tr^coeur,"  a  morbidly  willful 
girl  commits  suicide  by  driving  her  horse  off  a  precipice 
because  her  step- father  will  not  return  her  love.  All  of 
Feuillet' s  stories  show  such  exact  acquaintance  with  the 
manners  of  polite  society  that  he  became  a  favorite  with  the 
higher  classes.  lyong  after  the  Republic  was  established  and 
the  naturalist  school  came  into  vogue,  his  careful  style  and 
his  observance  of  the  proprieties  preserved  his  favor  with  this  . 
constituency.  Among  his  later  works  were  "A  Woman's 
Journal,"  "  Story  of  a  Parisian  Girl "  and  "La  Morte,"  the 
last  of  which  had  immense  popularity.  The  story ,  tells  of 
an  atheistic  woman  who  poisons  a  wife  that  she  may  take  her 
place,  and  afterwards  tires  of  her  husband  and  proves  unfaith- 
ful to  him. 


136 


FRBNCH  LITBRATtJRB.  137 


Julia's  Marriage. 

CloTildE,  a  widow,  had  married  M.  de  lyUcan,  but  her  daughter, 
Julia  de  Tr6coeur,  refused  to  see  him  and  took  refuge  in  a  convent. 
She  is  now  sixteen  years  of  age  and  is  about  to  take  the  veil. 

Clotilde  set  out  for  the  convent,  trembling  with  anxiety. 
She  found  Julia  alone  in  her  room,  trying  on  her  novice's 
dress  before  the  glass.  The  nun's  cape  and  veil,  which  were 
to  hide  her  rich  hair,  lay  on  the  bed.  She  was  simply  dressed 
in  a  long  tunic  of  white  wool,  whose  folds  she  was  arranging. 
She  blushed  when  she  saw  her  mother  enter,  and  then  said, 
laughing, 

"  Cymodoce  in  the  circus,  am  I  nqt,  mother?" 

Clotilde  did  not  answer.  She  had  folded  her  hands  in  an 
attitude  of  supplication,  and  looked  at  her  tearfully.  Julia 
was  touched  by  this  silent  grief;  two  tears  dropped  from  her 
eyes,  and  she  threw  her  arms  round  her  mother's  neck; 
then,  forcing  her  into  a  seat,  s^id, 

"What  would  you  have?  '  I  am  also  a  little  sorry  at 
heart,  for  I  did  love  life ;  but,  besides  my  vocation,  which  is 
a  true  one,  I  am  obeying  a  real  necessity.  There  is  no  other 
existence  possible  for  me  but  this,  I  know  quite  well.  It  is 
my  fault.  I  have  been  a  little  mad.  I  ought  not  to  have  left 
you  in  the  first  instance;  or,  at  any  rate,  I  should  have 
returned  to  you  directly  after  your  marriage.  Now,  after 
months,  years,  is  it  still  possible,  I  ask  you  ?  Besides,  I 
should  die  of  shame.  Can  you  imagine  me  before  your  hus- 
band? What  expression  should  I  assume  ?  Then  he  must 
hate  me ;  he  has  got  accustomed  to  it.  For  my  part,  who 
knows  whether  seeing  him  again  in  that  house — Besides,  in 
every  way,  I  should  be  a  terrible  constraint  to  you ! " 

'JBut,  my  dear  little  daughter,"  said  Clotilde,  "nobody 
hates  you.  You  would  be  received  like  the  Prodigal  Son, 
with  transports  of  delight.  If  it  would  be  too  great  an  efibrt 
to  return  to  my  house,  if  you  fear  to  find  annoyance  yourself, 
or  to  cause  it  to  others— God  knows  how  mistaken  you  are — 
but  still,  if  you  do  fear  it,  is  that  any  reason  for  you  to  bury 


138  I,ITERATURB  OK  A.1X,  NATIONS. 

yourself  alive  and  break  my  heart  ?  Could  you  not  return  to 
the  world  without  returning  to  me,  and  without  facing  all 
these  annoyances  that  alarm  you  ?  There  would  be  a  very 
simple  means,  you  know." 

"What,"  said  Julia  calmly,  "to  marry?" 
"Certainly,"  said  Clotilda,  gently  bowing  her  head  and 
lowering  her  voice. 

' '  But,  my  dear  mother,  what  probability  is  there  of  such 
a  thing  ?  Even  if  I  wished  it — and  I  am  far  from  doing  so— 
I  know  no  one,  no  one  knows  me." 

"There  is  some  one,"  said  Clotilde,  with  increasing 
timidity, — "some  one  you  know  very  well,  and  who  adores 
you." 

Julia  opened  her  eyes  wide,  with  a  surprised  and  pensive 
expression,  and  after  a  short  pause  for  reflection,  said, 
"Pierre?" 

"  Yes,"  muttered  Clotilde,  pale  with  anxiety. 
Julia's  brows  contracted  slightly.  She  raised  her  charm- 
ing head,  and  remained  for  some  moments  with  her  eyes 
fixed  on  the  ceiling;  then,  with  a  slight  shrug  of  the 
shoulders, . ' '  Why  not  ?  "  said  she  seriously.  "  He  will  do  as 
well  as  another." 

Clotilde  gave  a  little  cry,  and,  seizing  both  her  daughter's 
hands,  exclaimed,  "  You  are  willing — you  are  really  willing ! 
It  is  true  !     You  will  allow  me  to  take  him  this  answer  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  but  change  the  wording  of  it,"  said  Julia,  laugh- 
ing. 

"O  my  dear,  dear  darling!"  exclaimed  Clotilde,  as  she 
covered  Julia's  hands  with  kisses;  "but  tell  me  once  more 
that  it  is  really  true,  that  to-morrow  you  will  not  have 
changed  your  mind." 

"No!"   said  Julia  firmly,  with  her  grave  and  musical 
voice.     She  considered  a  moment,  and  then  continued,  "  So 
he  really  loves  me,  that  great  boy?" 
"  Like  a  madman." 

' '  Poor  man !    And  he  is  awaiting  the  answer  ? ' ' 
"  In  fear  and  trembling." 

"Well,  then,  go  and  calm  him.  We  will  continue  the 
conversation  to-morrow.     I  must  arrange  my  ideas  a  little, 


FRBNCH  WTBRATURB. 


139 


after  such  an  upset;    but  rest  satisfied,  my  resolution  is 

taken." 

'     When  Madame  de  lyucan  returned  home,  Pierre  de  Moras 

was  awaiting  her  in  the  drawing-room.    He  turned  pale  when 

he  saw  her. 

*'  Pierre,"  exclaimed  she,  breathlessly,  "  kiss  me ;  you  are 
my  son  !  Respectfully,  if  you  please,  respectfully, ' '  added  she, 
laughing,  as  he  lifted  her  up  and  pressed  her  to  his  heart 

He  repeated  the  performance  afterwards  with  the  Baroness 
de  J'ers,  who  had  been  hastily  summoned. 

"My  dear  friend,"  said  she,  "I  am  delighted,— delighted ; 
but  you  are  suflFocating  me !  Yes,  yes,  it  is  all  very  well,  my 
boy;  but  you  are  literally  suflfocating  me!  Reserve  your 
forces.  That  dear  little  girl ;  it  is  charming  of  her,  quite 
charming  I  At  bottom  she  has  a  golden  heart.  And  she  has 
good  taste;  for  you  are  very  handsome,  very  handsome! 
However,  I  always  did  think  that,  when  the  time  came  for 
cutting  her  hair,  she  would  reflect.  Certainly  she  has  beau- 
tiful hair,  poor  child ! " 

And  the  baroness  burst  into  tears ;  then,  addressing  the 
count  in  a  parenthesis  between  her  sobs, 

"  You  will  not  be  unhappy  either ;  she  is  a  goddess. ' ' 

M.  de  Lucan,  although  deeply  touched  by  this  family 
scene,  and  especially  by  Clotilde's  joy,  took  this  unhoped-for 
event  with  more  calmness.  He  was  always  very  sparing  of 
public  manifestations,  and  in  his  heart  he  was  troubled  and 
sad.  The  future  prospects  of  this  marriage  seemed  to  him 
most  uncertain,  and  his  sincere  friendship  for  the  count  made 
him  anxious.  A  feeling  of  delicate  reserve  towards  Julia  had 
prevented  him  from  saying  all  that  he  thought  of  her  charac- 
ter. He  endeavored  to  reject  as  unjust  and  partial  the  opinion 
he  had  formed ;  but  when  he  remembered  the  dreadful  child 
he  used  to  know,  at  one  moment  carried  oflf  by  a  whirlwind, 
at  another  pensive  and  surrounded  by  sombre  reserve ;  when 
he  imagined  her  as  she  had  been  described  to  him  since  then 
—taller,  more  beautiful,  ascetic — and  then  saw  her  suddenly 
throw  her  veil  to  the  winds  like  one  of  the  fantastic  nuns  in 
Robert  le  Diable^  and  return  to  the  world  with  light  step : 
then,  in  spite  of  himself,  out  of  these  various  impressions  he 


I40  UTBRATURS  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

composed  a  chimera  and  sphinx  that  it  seemed  very  difficult 
to  combine  with  the  idea  of  domestic  happiness. 

During  the  whole  evening  the  family  conversation  turned 
upon  the  complications  that  might  arise  from  this  marriage, 
and  the  means  of  avoiding  them.  M.  de  Lucan  entered  into 
these  details  with  a  very  good  grace,  and  declared  that  he 
would  be  most  happy  to  agree  to  any  arrangements  that  his 
stepdaughter  might  desire.  This  precaution  was  not  entirely 
useless. 

Clotilde  went  to  the  convent  early  next  morning.  Julia, 
after  listening  with  somewhat  ironical  indiflFerence  to  her 
mother's  account  of  the  delight  and  joy  of  her  intended, 
assumed  a  more  serious  air : 

"And  your  husband,"  said  she ;  "what  does  he  think?" 

"  He  is  delighted,  as  we  all  are." 

"I  am  going  to  ask  you  a  strange  question.  Does  he 
mean  to  be  present  at  our  wedding?" 

"Just  as  you  please." 

"Listen,  my  dear  little  mother — don't  make  yourself 
miserable  beforehand.  I  feel  sure  that  some  day  or  other  this 
marriage  will  help  to  unite  us  all ;  but  leave  me  time  to  ac^ 
custom  myself  to  this  idea.  Grant  me  some  months  for  the 
old  Julia  to  be  forgotten,  and  to  forget  her  myself.  You  will 
agree  to  '^hat,  will  you  not  ? ' ' 

"Whatever  you  wish,"  said  Clotilde,  sighing. 

"  I  beg  of  you.     Tell  him  that'  I  beg  of  him  also." 

"I  will  tell  him  ;  but  do  you  know  that  Pierre  is  here?" 

"Ah,  indeed  !    But  where ?  " 

"  I  have  left  him  in  the  garden." 

"In  the  garden? — what  imprudence,  mother!  Why, 
these  ladies  will  tear  him  to  pieces  like  Orpheus ;  for  you 
may  fancy  he  is  not  in  the  odor  of  sanctity  here." 

M.  de  Moras  was  summoned.  Julia  began  to  laugh  when 
he  appeared,  and  this  facilitated  his  entrance.  During  their 
interview  she  had  several  attacks  of  that  nervous  laugh  which 
is  so  useful  to  women  in  difficult  circumstances.  Not  having 
this  resource,  M.  de  Moras  contented  himself  with  timidly 
kissing  his  cousin's  beautiful  hands ;  but  his  handsome  mas- 
culine features  were  radiant  with  delight,  and  his  large  blue 


FRENCH  WTERATURB.  14! 

eyes  were  moist  with  happy  tenderness*  It  seems  that  he 
made  a  favorable  impression. 

"I  never  before  regarded  him  from  that  point  of  view,'' 
said  Julia  to  her  mother.  "He  is  really  handsome — a  splen- 
did husband ! " 

The  wedding  took  place  three  months  after.  It  was  quite 
quiet,  without  any  show.  The  Count  de  Moras  and  his 
young  wife  departed  for  Italy  the  same  evening. 

GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT. 

Among  the  novelists  of  the  Second  Empire,  Gustave 
Flaubert  (i 821- 1880)  was  the, real  leader.  He  continued  the 
succession  of  Balzac,  and  led  to  Zola  and  De  Maupassant. 
Balzac  had  treated  French  provincial  life  with  notable  realism, 
and  bitterness ;  he  had  also,  in  Valdrie  and  Esther,  portrayed 
the  vicious  female  type.  Flaubert  followed  in  his  footsteps 
in  "  Mme.  Bovary,"  which  caused  a  notable  sensation  on  its 
appearance  in  1856.  Flaubert  was  arrested,  put  on  trial, 
pleaded  his  own  case,  and  was  acquitted.  "Mme.  Bovary" 
is  a  pitiless,  pessimistic  story  of  a  country  girl  of  beauty, 
educated  beyond  her  station,  who  aspires  to  vulgar  ideals  of 
luxury  and  life.  Flaubert  emphasizes,  with  suppressed  irony, 
the  suffocating  banality  of  her  provincial  environment,  and 
in  M.  Homais,  a  druggist,  supplies  a  marked  type  of  narrow 
provincialism.  Emma  Bovary  weds  a  common  squire,  but 
deceives  him  for  several  lovers.  Abandoned  by  them,  and  in 
terror  of  her  husband  whom,  by  forgery,  she  has  plunged  into 
debt,  she  at  last  commits  a  hideous  suicide  with  arsenic,  while 
he,  on  learning  the  truth,  dies  of  a  broken  heart.  Mme. 
Bovary's  portrait  is  a  masterpiece,  but  she  herself  typifies 
vulgarity  rather  than  voluptuousness.  The  vulgarity  of  life, 
indeed,  seems  to  have  been  Flaubert's  constant  lament  and 
theme  for  exposition.  "Strange,"  he  once  wrote,  "that  I 
was  born  with  so  little  faith  in  happiness.  Even  as  a  boy,  I 
had  a  complete  presentiment  of  life.  It  was  like  the  smell  of 
a  nauseating  kitchen  escaping  through  a  ventilating  hole. 
One  had  no  need  to  taste  to  know  that  it  was  sickening." 
The  heroine  of  his  "Salammbo,"  a  tale  of  ancient  Carthage, 


I4«  XITERATURE  OP  KIX,  NATIONS. 

is  "  a  monomaniac,  a  kind  of  St.  Theresa,  nailftd  to  a  fixed 
idea." 

Flaubert  is  now  known  to  have  been  an  epileptic,  and 
being  a  surgeon's  son,  was  brought  up  amid  the  nauseating 
scenes  of  hospital  life.  In  his  despair,  he  turned  to  art 
from  the  misery  of  life,  as  he  viewed  it ;  and  yet  he  made 
minute  studies  and  accumulated  huge  notes  for  his  ro- 
mances. After  "Mme.  Bovary,"  however,  he  made  no  more 
studies  of  the  evolution  of  a  soul.  In  his  "Salammbo" 
he  evoked  a  sombre-spirited  and  yet  gorgeously-descriptive 
fantasy  of  the  revolt  of  the  rude  barbarian  soldiers  against 
Carthage,  and  of  the  heroine's  weird  self-sacrifice  for  her  native 
city.  In  the  "Temptation  of  St.  Anthony"  in  the  desert  of 
Thebaid,  an  allegory,  the  Egyptian  hermit  sees  in  a  vision  a 
mad  procession  of  all  the  deities,  religions,  heresies,  and 
philpsophies  of  the  world.  It  is  a  terrible  picture  of  humanity 
from  the  cradle,  in  all  its  blood  and  filth,  error  and  woe. 
In  "A  Sentimental  Education" — pronounced  by  many  ad- 
mirers to  be  his  real  masterpiece — Flaubert  shows  us  again 
the  immoral,  dishonest  French  society  of  Balzac's  "Human 
Comedy,"  but  brought  his  chief  character  to  failure  and  dis- 
illusionment instead  of  worldly  success.  His  pessimism  is  a 
deadly  poison,  despite  the  formal  beauty,  the  concise  thought, 
and  the  precise  phrase  of  his  highly  imaginative  style. 

Salammb6  and  the  Serpent. 

Sai,AMmb6  was  the  sister  of  the  Carthaginian  Hannibal.  When 
the  Numidian  Matho  was  a  prisoner  at  her  father  Hamilcar's  house,  he 
stole  for  her  from  the  temple  of  Tanit  (the  Moon)  the  sacred  veil,  but 
when  freed  afterwards  he  took  it  away  with  him.  Disasters  fell  upon 
Carthage.  Her  tributaries  rebelled  and  under  Matho  threatened  the 
city.  The  priests  attributed  the  dangers  to  the  anger  of  the  goddess 
for  the  loss  of  the  sacred  veil.  Schahabarim,  who  has  been  the  tutor 
of  Salammb6,  persuades  her  that  it  is  her  duty  to  go  secretly  to  Mi- 
tho's  tent  and  by  his  favor  recover  the  veil. 

The  eunuch  priest  made  her  kneel  and  keeping  her  left 
hand  raised  and  her  right  one  extended,  he  swore  on  her  be- 
half to  bring  back  to  Carthage  the  veil  of  Tanit.  With  fear- 
ful imprecations,  she  consecrated  herself  to  the  Gods,  and 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  I43 

each  time  that  Schahabarim  pronounced  a  word  she  faint- 
ingly  repeated  it. 

He  indicated  to  her  all  the  purifications  and  fasts  she 
ought  to  perform,  and  what  paths  to  pursue,  in  order  to  reach 
Matho's  tent;  besides,  he  told  her  that  a  servitor  familiar 
with  the  roads  should  accompany  her. 

She  felt  herself  freed.  She  dreamed  of  naught  but  the 
happiness  of  seeing  the  Zaimph  [the  veil]  again ;  and  now 
she  blessed  Schahabarim  for  his  exhortations. 

It  was  the  season  when  the  doves  of  Carthage  migrated 
to  the  mountain  of  Eryx  in  Sicily,  there  nesting  about  the 
temple  of  Venus.  Previous  to  their  departure,  during  many 
days,  they  sought  each  other,  and  cooed  to  reunite  them- 
selves ;  finally  one  evening  they  flew,  driven  by  the  wind, 
and  this  large,  white  cloud  glided  in  the  heaven  very  high 
above  the  sea.  The  horizon  was  crimson.  They  seemed 
gradually  to  descend  to  the  waves,  then  disappear  as  though 
swallowed  up  and  falling,  of  their  own  accord,  into  the  jaws 
of  the  sun.  Salammbo,  who  watched  them  disappear,  lowered 
her  head.  Taanach,  believing  that  she  surmised  her  mis- 
tress's grief,  tenderly  said : 

"But,  mistress,  they  will  return." 

"Yes!  I  know  it." 

"And  you  will  see  them  again." 

"  Perhaps ! "  said  Salammbo,  as  she  sighed. 

She  had  not  confided  to  any  one  her  resolution,  and  for  its 
discreet  accomplishment  she  sent  Taanach  to  purchase,  in 
the  suburbs  of  Kinisdo,  all  the  articles  she  should  need:  ver- 
milion, aromatics,  a  linen  girdle,  and  new  garments.  The 
old  slave  was  amazed  by  these  preparations,  without  daring 
to  ask  any  questions;  and  so  the  day  arrived  fixed  by  Scha- 
habarim when  Salammbo  must  depart. 

Towards  the  twelfth  hour,  she  perceived  at  the  end  of  the 
sycamores  an  old  blind  man,  whose  hand  rested  on  the 
shoulder  of  a  child  who  walked  before  him,  and  in  the  other 
hand  he  held,  against  his  hip,  a  species  of  cithara  made  of 
black  wood.  The  eunuchs,  the  slaves,  the  women  had  been 
scrupulously  sent  away;  no  one  could  possibly  know  the 
mystery  that  was  being  prepared. 


144  UTERATURB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

Taanach  lighted  in  the  corners  of  the  room  four  tripods 
full  of  strobus  and  cardamom,  then  she  spread  out  great  Baby- 
lonian tapestries,  and  hung  them  on  cords  all  round  the 
room,— for  Salammbo  did  not  wish  to  be  seen  even  by  the 
walls.  The  player  of  the  kinnor  waited  crouching  behind 
the  door,  and  the  young  boy,  standing  up,  applied  his  lips  to 
a  reed  flute.  In  the  distance  the  street  clamor  faded>  the 
violet  shadows  lengthened  before  the  peristyles  of  the  temples, 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  gulf  the  base  of  the  mountain,  the 
olive  fields  and  the  waste  yellow  ground  indefinitely  undu- 
lated till  finally  lost  in  a  bluish  vapor ;  not  a  single  sound 
could  be  heard,  and  indescribable  oppression  pervaded  the  air. 

Salammbo  crouched  on  the  onyx  step  on  the  edge  of  the 
porphyry  basin;  she  lifted  her  wide  sleeves  and  fastened  them 
behind  her  shoulders,  and  began  her  ablutions  in  a  methodical 
manner,  according  to  the  sacred  rites. 

Next  Taanach  brought  to  her  an  alabaster  phial,  contain- 
ing something  liquid,  yet  coagulated ;  it  was  the  blood  of  a 
black  dog,  strangled  by  barren  women  on  a  winter's  night  in 
the  ruins  of  a  sepulchre.  She  rubbed  it  on  her  ears,  her 
heels,  and  the  thumb  of  her  right  hand,  and  even  the  nail  re- 
mained tinged  a  trifle  red,  as  if  she  had  crushed  a  berry.  The 
moon  rose,  then  both  at  once  the  cithara  and  the  flute  com- 
menced to  play.  Salammbo  took  off  her  ear-rings,  laid  aside 
her  necklace,  bracelets,  and  her  long  white  simarra;  un- 
knotted the  fillet  from  her  hair,  and  for  some  minutes  shook 
her  tresses  gently  over  her  shoulders  to  '  refresh  and  disen- 
tangle them.  The  music  outside  continued;  there  were  al- 
ways the  same  three  notes,  precipitous  and  furious;  the 
strings  grated,  the  flute  was  high-sounding  and  sonorous. 
Taanach  marked  the  cadence  by  striking  her  hands;  Sa- 
lammbo; swaying  her  entire  body,  chanted  her  prayers,  and 
one  by  one  her  garments  fell  around  her  on  the  floor. 

The  heavy  tapestry  trembled,  and  above  the  cord  that  sus- 
tained it  the  head  of  the  Python  appeared.  He  descended 
slowly,  like  a  drop  of  water  trickling  along  a  wall,  and  glided 
between  the  stuffs  spread  out,  then  poised  himself  on  his  tail; 
he  lifted  himself  perfectly  straight  up,  and  darted  his  eyes, 
more  brillant  than  carbuncles,  upon  Salammbo. 


Jules  Toulot,   Pinx 


SALAMMBO 


FRBNCH  UTBRATURB.  1 45 

A  shudder  of  cold,  or  her  modesty  perhaps,  at  first  made 
her  hesitate.  But  she  recalled  the  order  of  Schahabarim,  so 
,she  went  forward;  the  Python  lowered  himself,  alighting 
upon  the  nape  of  her  neck  in  the  middle  of  his  body,  allow- 
ing his  head  and  tail  to  hang  down  like  a  broken  necklace, 
and  the  two  ends  trailed  on  the  floor.  Salammbo  rolled  them  , 
around  her  sides,  under  her  arms,  between  her  knees;  then 
taking  him  by  the  jaw,  she  drew  his  little  triangular  mouth 
close  to  her  teeth;  and  with  half-closed  eyes  she  bent  back 
under  the  moon's  rays.  The  white  light  seemed  to  enshroud 
her  in  a  silvery  fog;  the  tracks  of  her  wet  feet  shone  on  the 
stones;  stars  twinkled  in  the  depths  of  the  water;  the  Python 
tightened  against  her  his  black  coils,  speckled  with  spots  of 
gold.  Salammbo  panted  under  this  too  heavy  weight;  her 
loins  gave  way,  she  felt  that  she  was  dying :  the  Python 
patted  her  thighs  softly  with  his  tail ;  then  the  music  ceased, 
and  he  fell  down. 

Taanach  drew  near  to  Salammbo,  and  after  arranging  two 
candelabra,  of  which  the  lights  burned  in  two  crystal  globes 
filled  vfith  water,  she  tinted  with  henna  the  inside  of  the 
hands  of  her  mistress,  put  vermilion  on  her  cheeks,  antimony 
on  her  eyelids,  and  lengthened  her  eyebrows  with  a  mixture 
of  gum,  musk,  ebony,  and  crushed  flies'  feet. 

Salammbo,  sitting  in  a  chair  mounted  with  ivory,  aban- 
doned herself  to  the  care  of  her  slave.  But  the  soothing 
touches,  the  odor  of  the  aromatics,  and  the  fasts  she  had  kept, 
enervated  her :  she  became  so  pale  that  Taanach  paused. 

"Continue!"  said  Salammbo;  and  as  she  dr^w  herself 
up  in  spite  of  herself,  she  felt  all  at  once  reanimated.  Then  an 
impatience  seized  her ;  she  urged  Taanach  to  hasten,  and  the 
old  slave  growled :  "Well!  well!  mistress!  .  .  .  You  have 
no  one  waiting  for  |you  elsewhere  ! ' ' 

"Yes!"  responded  Salarhmbo,  "some  one  waits  for  me." 

Taanach  started  with  surprise,  and  in  order  to  know  more^ 
she  said:  "What  do. you  order  me  to  do,  mistress,  if  you 
should  remain  away?  " 

,    But  Salammbo  sobbed,  and  the  slave  exclaimed :  ' '  You 
puffer!    What  is  the  matter  with  you?    Do  not  go!    Take 
me !    When  you  were  a  little  one  and  wept,  I  held  you  to  my 
X — 10 


146  LITERATURE  OP  AH  NATIONS. 

heart  and  suckled  you,  and  made  you  laugh  by  tickling  you 
with  my  nipples.  Mistress ! "  she  struck  her  withered  breasts, 
exclaiming  :  "You  sucked  them  dry.  Now  I  am  old !  I  can 
do  nothing  for  you  !  You  do  not  love  me  any  more  I  You 
hide  your  troubles  from  me,  you  disdain  your  nurse ! "  With 
fondness  and  vexation  the  tears  coursed  down  her  face,  in  the 
scars  of  her  tattooing. 

"No!"  said  Salammbo,  "no;  I  love  you;  be  com- 
forted ! " 

Taanach,  with  a  smile  like  the  grimace  of  an  old  mon- 
key, recommenced  her  task.  Following  the  directions  of  the 
priest,  Salammbo  ordered  her  slave  to  make  her  magnificent, 
Taanach  complied,  with  a  barbaric  taste  full  of  elaboration 
and  ingenuity. 

Over  a  first  fine  wine-colored  tunic  she  placed  a  second 
one,  embroidered  with  birds'  plumes.  Golden  scales  were 
fastened  to  her  hips,  from  her  wide  girdle  flowed  the  folds  of 
her  blue,  silver-starred  gown.  Then  Taanach  adjusted  an 
ample  robe  of  rare  stuff"  from  the  land  of  the  Seres,  white  va- 
riegated with  green  stripes.  She  attached  over  Salammbo's 
shoulders  a  square  of  purple,  made  heavy  at  the  hem  with 
beads,  and  on  the  top  of  all  these  vestments  she  arranged  a 
black  mantle  with  a  long  train.  Then  she  contemplated  her, 
and  proud  of  her  work,  she  could  not  keep  from  saying : 

"You  will  not  be  more  beautiful  the  day  of  your  nup- 
tials!" 

"  My  nuptials  ! "  repeated  Salammbo  in  a  reverie,  as  she 
leaned  her  elbow  on  the  ivory  chair. 

Taanach  held  up  before  her  mistress  a  copper  mirror,  wide 
and  long  enough  for  her  to  view  herself  completely.  She 
stood  up,  and  with  a  light  touch  of  one  finger  put  back  a 
curl  that  drooped  too  low  on  her  forehead.  Her  hair  was 
powdered  with  gold,  crimped  in  front,  hanging  down  her 
back  in  long  twists,  terminating  in  pearls.  The  light  from 
the  candelabra  heightened  the  color  on  her  cheeks,  the  gold 
throughout  her  garments,  and  the  whiteness  of  her  skin. 
She  wore  around  her  waist,  on  her  arms,  hands,  and  feet  such 
a  profusion  of  jewels  that  the  mirror,  reflecting  like  a  sun, 
flashed  back  prismatic  rays  upon  her : — and  Salammbo  stood 


FRENCH  LITBRATURS.  1-47 

beside  Taanach,  leaning  and  turning  around  on  all  sides  to 
view  herself,  smiling  at  the  dazzling  effect. 

Suddenly  the  crow  of  a  cock  was  heard.     She  quickly 
'pinned  over  her  hair  a  long  yellow  veil,  passed  a  scarf  around 
her  neck,  and  buried  her  feet  in  blue  leather  buskins,  saying 
to  Taanach : 

"Go,  see  under  the  myrtles,  if  there  is  not  a  man  with  two 
horses." 

Taanach  had  scarcely  re-entered  before  Salammbo  de- 
scended the  stairway  of  the  galleys. 

"Mistress!"  called  out  the  slave.  Salammbo  turned 
around  and  placed  one  finger  on  her  lips,  in  sign  of  discretion 
and  silence. 

Taanach  crept  quietly  the  length  of  the  prows  as  far  as  the 
base  of  the  terrace,  and  in  the  distance  by  the  moonlight  she 
distinguished  in  the  cypress  avenue  a  gigantic  shadow  moving 
obliquely  to  the  left  of  Salammbo :  this  was  a  foreboding  of 
death. 

Taanach  went  back  to  her  room,  threw  .herself  on  the . 
floor,  tore  her  face  with  her  finger-nails,  pulled  out  her  hair, 
and  uttered  shrill  yells  at  the  top  of  her  voice. 

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN. 

Under  this  joint-name  Emile  Erckmann  (bom  in  1822) 
and  Alexandre  Chatrian  (1826-90)  published  their  famous 
series  of  Alsace-Lorraine  romances.  Both  were  born  in  the 
department  of  Meurthe,  which  France  saved  from  Germany, 
and  it  was  but  natural  that  they  should  not  only  describe 
faithfully  the  middle-class  Rhenish  people,  but  also  depict 
the  saddest  and  least  glorious  of  the  Napoleonic  battles  which 
so  terribly  affected  their  native  region.  One  was  a  law- 
student,  the  other  a  school  usher ;  and  both  groped  some 
time  before  they  found  their  forte,  but  then  they  stood  on 
solid  ground.  To  them  Napoleon  represented  the  terror 
rather  than  the  glory  of  war  ;  the  drain  of  life  and  blood  to 
satisfy  the  empty  dreams  of  ambition.  In  their  eyes  Napo- 
leon had  forfeited  the  gains  won  for  the  people  by  the  Revo- 
lutionists who  preceded  the  Empire.     These  views  they  real- 


148  LITBRATURB  OF  Ahh  NATIONS. 

istically  bodied  forth  in  their  novels,  such  as  "  Mme.  TherSse ; 
or,  the  Volunteers  of  1792,"  "The  Conscript  of  1813,"  "The 
Invasion— Waterloo,"  "The  Story  of  the  Hundred  Days," 
"War,"  "The  Blockade;  or,  the  Siege  of  Phalsbourg," 
"Brigadier  Frederic,"  etc.  Not  only  did  they  write  thus  of 
the  wars  of  Napoleon,  contrasting  the  lustre  of  the  revolu- 
tionary victories  to  Bonaparte's  defeats,  but  they  spun  many 
rustic  and  sentimental  tales  of  the  Vosges  and  Black  Forest. 
"ly'Ami  Fritz  "  (Friend  Fritz)  is  an  Alsatian  idyll,  a  delicate 
little  story  of  an  old  bachelor's  love  for  a  pretty  country 
girl.  Another  story  tells  of  a  feud  between  brothers  ended 
by  the  love-making  of  their  children.  One  of  their  strongest ' 
tales,  dramatized  by  themselves,  is  "The  Polish  Jew,"  known 
to  English  play-goers  as  "The  Bells,"  Mathias,  the  Jew, 
murders  a  rich  traveler,  and  throws  the  body  in  a  lime-kiln. 
Haunted  by  the  sound  of  bells  ever  thereafter,  Mathias  finally 
dreams  that  he  is  made,  by  a  mesmerist,  to  confess  his  crime 
in  court.  He  is  found  dead  of  terror  in  bed  on  his  daughter's 
wedding  morn. 

The  Conscript's  Dtjei,. 

At  Frankfort  I  learned  to  understand  military  life.  Up 
to  that  time  I  had  been  but  a  simple  conscript;  then  I  became 
a  soldier.  I  do  not  speak  merely  of  drill, — the  way  of  turn- 
ing the  head  right  or  left,  measuring  the  steps,  lifting  the 
hand  to  the  height  of  the  first  or  second  band  to  load,  aiming, 
recovering  arms  at  the  word  of  command — that  is  only  an 
affair  of  a  month  or  two,  if  a  man  really  desires  to  learn;  but 
I  speak  of  discipline — of  remembering  that  the  corporal  is 
always  in  the  right  when  he  speaks  to  a  private  soldier,  the 
sergeant  when  he  speaks  to  the  /Corporal,  the  sergeant-major 
when  speaking  to  the  sergeant,  the  second  lieutenant  when 
he  orders  the  sergeant-major,  and  so  on  to  the  Marshal  of 
France — even  if  the  superior  asserts  that  two  and  two  make 
five,  or  that  the  moon  shines  at  midday. 

This  is  very  difficult  to  learn;  but  there  is  one  thing  that 
assists  you  immensely,  and  that  is  a  sort  of  placard  hung  up 
in  every  room  in  the  barracks,  and  which  is  from  time  to 
time  read  to  you.     This  placard  presupposes  everything  that 


FRENCH  UTBRATURE.  149 

a  soldier  miglit  wisli  to  do,  as,  for  instance,  to  return  home, 
to  refuse  to  serve,  to  resist  his  officer,  and  always  ends  by 
speaking  of  death,  or  at  least  five  years  with  a  ball  and  chain. 

But  about  this  time  an  extraordinary  event  occurred.  You 
must  know  that  my  comrade,  Zebedee,  was  the  son  of  the 
gravedigger  of  Phalsbourg,  and  sometimes  among  ourselves 
we  called  him  "Gravedigger."  This  he  took  in  good  part 
from  us;  but  one  evening  after  drill,  as  he  was  crossing  the 
yard,  a  hussar  cried  out:  "  Hallo,  Gravedigger !  help  me  to 
drag  in  these  bundles  of  straw." 

Zebedee,  turning  about,  replied :  "  My  name  is  not  Grave- 
digger,  and  you  can  drag  in  your  own  straw.  Do  you  take 
me  for  a  fool?" 

Then  the  other  cried  in  a  still  louder  tone :  "  Conscript, 
you  had  better  come,  or  beware !  " 

Zebedee,  with  his  great  hooked  nose,  his  gray  eyes  and  thin 
lips,  never  bore  too  good  a  character  for  mildness.  He  went 
up  to  the  hussar  and  asked:  "What  is  that  you  say? " 

"  I  tell  you  to  take  up  those  bundles  of  straw,  and  quickly, 
too.     Do  yoti  hear,  conscript?  " 

He  was  quite  an  old  man,  with  moustaches  and  red,  bushy 
whiskers.  Zebedee  seized  one  of  the  latter,  but  received  two 
blows  in  the  face.  Nevertheless,  a  fist-full  of  the  whisker 
remained  in  his  grasp,  and,  as  the  dispute  had  attracted  a 
crowd  to  the  spot,  the  hussar  shook  his  finger,  saying:  "You 
will  hear  from  me  to-morrow,  conscript." 

"Very  good,"  returned  Zebedee;  "we  shall  see.  You  will 
probably  hear  from  me  too,  veteran." 

He  came  immediately  after  to  tell  me  all  this,  and  I,  know- 
ing that  he  had  never  handled  a  weapon  more  warlike '  than 
a  pickaxe,  could  not  help  trembling  for  him. 

"I/isten,  Zebedee,"  I  said;  "all  that  there  now  remains 
for  you  to  do,  since  you  do  not  want  to  desert,  is  to  ask  par- 
don of  this  old  fellow;  for  those  veterans  all  know  some  fear- 
ful tricks  of  fence  which  they  have  brought  ffom  Egypt  or 
Spain,,  or  somewhere  else.  If  you  wish,  I  will  lend  you  a 
crown  to  pay  for  a  bottle  of  wine  to  make  up  the  quarrel." 

But  he,  knitting  his  brows,  would  hear  none  of  this. 
"Rather  than  beg  his  pardon,"  said  he,  "I  would  go  and 


I50  LITERATURE  OF  MX,  NATIONS. 

hang  myself.  I  laugh  him  and  his  comrades  to  scorn.  If  he 
has  tricks  of  fence,  I  have  a  long  arm,  that  will  drive  my 
sabre  through  his  bones  as  easily  as  his  will  penetrate  iny 
flesh." 

The  thought  of  the  blows  made  him  insensible  to  reason. 
Soon  Chazy,  the  maitre  d'armes,  Corporal  Fleury,  Furst,  and 
I/Cger  came  in.  They  all  said  that  Zebedee  was  in  the  right, 
and  the  maitre  d'^armes  added  that  blood  alone  could  wash 
out  the  stain  of  a  blow;  that  the  honor  of  the  recruits  required 
Zebedee  to  fight. 

Zebedee  answered  proudly  that  the  men  of  Phalsbourg  had 
never  feared  the  sight  of  a  little  blood,  and  that  he  was  ready. 
Then  the  maitre  d''armes  went  to  see  our  Captain  Florentin, 
who  was  one  of  the  most  magnificent  men  imaginable — tall, 
well-formed,  broad-shouldered,  with  regular  features,  and  the 
Cross,  which  the  Emperor  himself  had  given  him  at  Eylau. 
The  captain  even  went  further  than  the  maUre  d^armes; 
he  thought  it  would  set  the  conscripts  a  good  example,  and 
that  if  Zebedee  refused  to  fight  he  would  be  unworthy  to  re-  - 
main  in  the  Third  Battalion  of  the  Sixth  of  the  Line. 

All  that  night  I  could  not  close  my  eyes.  I  heard  the 
deep  breathing  of  my  poor  comrade  as  he  slept,  and  I  thought: 
' '  Poor  Zebedee !  another  day,  and  you  will  breathe  no  more." 
I  shuddered  to  think  holy  near  I  was  to  a  man  so  near  death. 
At  last,  as  day  broke,  I  fell  asleep,  when  suddenly  I  felt  a 
cold  blast  of  wind  strike  me.  I  opened  my  eyes,  and  there  I 
saw  the  old  hussar.  He  had  lifted  up  the  coverlet  of  our  bed, 
and  said  as  I  awoke:  "  Up,  sluggard !  I  will  show  you  what 
manner  of  man  you  struck." 

Zebedee  rose  tranquilly,  saying:,  "I  was  asleep,  veteran;  I 
was  asleep." 

The  other,  hearing  himself  thus  mockingly  called  "  vet- 
eran," would  have  fallen  upon  my  comrade  in  his  bed;  but 
two  tall  fellows  who  served  him  as  seconds  held  him  back, 
and,  besides,  the  Phalsboutg  men  were  there. 

"  Quick,  quick  !     Hurry  ! "  cried  the  old  hussar. 

But  Zebedee  dressed  himself  calmly,  without  any  haste.   , 
After  a  moment's  silence,  he  said :  "  Have  we  permission  to 
go  outside  our  quarters,  old  fellows?  " 


FRENCH  UTERATURB.  151 

"  'There  is  room  enough  for  us  in  the  yard,"  replied  one 
of  the  hussars. 

Zebedee  put  on  his  great-coat,  and,  turning  to  me,  said  : 
"Joseph  and  you,  Klipfel,  I  choose  for  my  seconds." 

But  I  shook  my  head. 

"Well,  then,  Furst,"  said  he. 

The  whole  party  descended  the  stairs  together.  I  thought 
Zebedee  was  lost,  and  thought  it  hard,  that  not  only  must  the 
Russians  seek  our  lives,  but  that  we  must  seek  each  other's. 

All  the  men  in  the  room  crowded  to  the  windows.  I  alone 
remained  behind  upon  my  bed.  At  the  end  of  five  minutes 
the  clash  of  sabres  made  my  heart  almost  cease  to  beat ;  the 
blood  seemed  no  longer  to  flow  through  my  veins. 

But  this  did  not  last  long;  for  suddenly  Klipfel  exclaimed, 
"Touched!" 

Then  I  made  my  way — I  know  not  how — to  a>  window, 
and,  looking  over  the  heads  of  the  others,  saw  the  old  hussar 
leaning  against  the  wall,  and  Zebedee  rising,  his  sabre  all 
dripping  with  blood.  He  had  fallen  upon  his  knees  during 
the  fight,  and,  while  the  old  man's  sword  pierced  the  air  just 
above  his  shoulder,  he  plunged  his  blade  into  the  hussar's 
breast.  If  he  had  not  slipped,  he  himself  would  have  been 
run  through  and  through. 

The  hussar  sank  at  the  foot  of  the  wall.  His  seconds 
lifted  him  in  their  arms,  while  Zebedee,  pale  as  a  corpse,  gazed 
at  his  bloody  sabre,  and  Klipfel  handed  him  his  cloak.  Al- 
most immediately  the  reveille  was  sounded,  and  we  went  off  to 
morning  call.  These  events  happened  on  the  eighteenth  of 
February. 

JUI.e:S  VERNE. 

Science,  so  prominent  in  the  nineteenth  century,  has  not 
been  without  its  romancers.  Of  these,  Jules  Verne  (bom  at 
Nantes  in  1828)  has  been  the  greatest  and  most  popular.  He 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  only  applying 
a  more  exact  science  than  the  great  American  inventor  of 
hoaxes  and  wonder  tales.  Verne's  ingenuity  has  made  the 
most  surprising  use  of  the  remarkable  facts  of  mechanics, 
physics  and  electricity.    In  his  "  Five  Weeks  in  a  Balloon," 


15?  LITBRATURK  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

"A  Journey  to  the  Centre  of  the  Earth,"  "Twenty  Thousand 
Leagues  Under  the  Sea,"  "From  the  Earth  to  the  Moon," 
"  The  Mysterious  Island,"  "  Hector  Servadac  ;  or,  the  Career 
of  a  Comet,"  and  "The  Purchase  of  the  North  Pole,"  he  has 
almost  exhausted  the  plausible  wonders  of  astronomy,  sub- 
marine and  subterranean  exploration,  and  scientific  invention. 
In  "The  Castle  of  the  Carpathians"  he  has  pictured  elec- 
tricity as  a  secret  agent  of  the  marvellous.  No  one  has  yet 
succeeded  in  securing  such  a  vraisemblance  as  he  in  tales  of 
this  type,  although  M.  Camilla  Flammarion,  his  compatriot 
and  a  celebrated  astronomer,  has  written  several  clever  ro- 
mances  concerning  life  in  Mars  and  other  worlds,  and  ]\Ir.  H. 
G.  Wells,  a  later  British  writer,  has  produced  some  ghastly 
stories  of  zoological  and  botanical  fiction,  a  romance  of 
vivisection  ("  Dr.  Moreau's  Island"),  and  a  Martian  romance 
("The  War  of  Worlds").  Jules  Verne,  who  was  educated 
for  the  bar  and  began  by  writing  plays,  has  shown  more  ver- 
satility, however.  In  "Michael  Strogoflf"  he  has  told  a 
thrilling  tale  of  a  blinded  courier  of  the  Czar.  In  "  Dr.  Ox's 
Experiment,"  a  chemist  vitalizes  a  whole  Flemish  village  to 
a  dangerous  state  of  feverish  excitemetn  by  impregnating  the 
atmosphere  with  excessive  oxygen.  Verne  here  describes 
sleepy  Quinquendon  with  a  master's  brush.  His  most  cele- 
brated tale,  "  Around  the  World  in  Eighty  Days,"  is  a  peer- 
less story  of  adventure.  His  hero,  PhineaS  Fogg,  a  member 
of  the  London  Travelers'  Club,  accomplishes  this  feat,  with 
his  servant,  to  win  a  wager,  and  comes  back  only  at  the  last ' 
stroke  of  the  clock.  The  feat  theii  (1874)  almost  incredible 
has  since  been  actually  surpassed. 

The  Bottom  of  the  Sea. 

And  now,  how  can  I  retrace  the  impression  left  upon 
me  by  that  walk  under  the  waters  ?  Words  are  irnpotent  to 
relate  such  wonders!  Captain  Nemo  walked  in  front,  his 
companions  followed  some  steps  behind.  Conseil  and  I 
remained  near  each  other,  as  if  an  exchange  of  words  had 
been  possible  through  our  metallic  cases.  I  no  longer  felt 
the  weight  of  my  clothi;ag,  or  my  shoes,  of  my  reservoir  of 


rRBNCH  WTERATURB.  153 

air,  or  of  my  thick  helmet,  in  the  midst  of  which  my  head 
rattled  like  an  almond  in  its  shell. 

The  light,  which  lit  the  soil  thirty  feet  below  the  surface 
of  the  ocean,  astonished  me  by  its  power.  The  solar  rays 
shone  through  the  watery  mass  easily  and  dissipated  all  color, 
and  I  clearly  distinguished  objects  at  a  distance  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  yards.  Beyond  that  the  tints  darkened  into  fine 
gradations  of  ultra-marine,  and  faded  into  vague  obscurity. 
Truly  this  water  which  surrounded  me  was  but  another  air 
denser  than  the  terrestrial  atmosphere,  but  almost  as  trans- 
parent. Above  me  was  the  calm  surface  of  the  sea.  We 
were  walking  on  fine,  even  sand,  not  wrinkled,  as  on  a  flat 
shore,  which  retains  the  impression  of  the  billows.  This 
dazzling  carpet,  really  a  reflector,  repelled  the  rays  of  the 
sun  with  wonderful  intensity,  which  accounted  for  the  vibra- 
tion which  penetrated  every  atom  of  liquid.  Shall  I  be 
believed  when  I  say  that,  at  the  depth  of  thirty  feet,  I  could 
see  as  if  I  was  in  broad  daylight  ? 

For  a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  trod  on  this  sand  sown  with 
the  impalpable  dust  of  shells.  The  hull  of  the  "  Nautilus," 
resembling  a  long  shoal,  disappeared  by  degrees  ;  but  its 
lantern,  when  darkness  should  overtake  us  in  the  waters, 
would  help  to  guide  us  on  board  by  its  distinct  rays.  Soon 
forms  of  objects  outlined  in  the  distance  were  discernible.  I 
recognized  magnificent  rocks,  hung  with  a  tapestry  of 
zoophyte^  of  the  most  beautiful  kind,  and  I  was  at  first  struck 
by  the  peculiar  effect  of  this  medium. 

It  was  then  ten  in  the  morning,  the  rays  of  the  sun  struck 
the  surface  of  the  waves  at  rather  an  oblique  angle,  and  at 
the  touch  of  their  light,  decomposed  by  refraction  as  through 
a  prism,  flowers,  rocks,  plants,  shells,  and  polypi  were  shaded 
at  the  edges  by  the  seven  solar  colors.  It  was  marvelous,  a 
feast  for  the  eyes,  this  complication  of  colored  tints,  a  per- 
fect kaleidoscope  of  green,  yellow,  orange,  violet,  indigo,  and 
blue;  in  one  word,  the  whole  palette  of  an  enthusiastic 
colorist !  Why  could  I  not  communicate  to  Conseil  the  lively 
sensations  which  were  mounting  to  my  brain,  and  rival  him 
in  expressions  of  admiration  ?  For  aught  I  knew,  Captain 
Nemo  and  his  companion  might  be  able  to  exchange  thoughts 


154  UTERATURB  OF  Ahl,  NATIONS. 

by  means  of  signs  previously  agreed  upon.  So  for  want  of 
better,  I  talked  to  myself;  I  declaimed  in  the  copper  box 
which  covered  my  head,  thereby  expending  more  air  in  vain 
words  than  was,  perhaps,  expedient. 

Various  kinds  of  isis,  clusters  of  pure  tuft-coral,  prickly 
fungi,  and  anemones,  formed  a  brilliant  garden  of  flowers, 
enameled  with  porplutae,  decked  with  their  collarettes  of  blue 
tentacles,  sea-stars  studding  the  sandy  bottom,  together  with 
asterophytons  like  fine  lace  embroidered  by  the  hands  of 
naiads ;  whose  festoons  were  waved  by  the  gentle  undula- 
tions caused  by  our  walk.  It  was  a  real  grief  to  me  to  crush 
under  my  feet  the  brilliant  specimens  of  molluscs  which 
strewed  the  ground  by  thousands,  of  hammerheads,  donaciae 
(veritable  bounding  shells),  of  staircases,  and  red  helmet- 
shells,  angel-wings,  and  many  others  produced  by  this  inex- 
haustible ocean.  But  we  were  bound  to  walk,  so  we  went  on, 
whilst  above  our  heads  waved  shoals  of  physalides,  leaving 
their  tentacles  to  float  in  their  train,  medusae  whgse  umbrellas 
of  opal  or  rose-pink,  escaloped  with  a  band  of  blue,  sheltered 
us  from  the  rays  of  the  sun  and  fiery  pelagiae  which,  in  the 
darkness,  would,  have  strewn  our  path  with  phosphorescent 
light. 

All  these  wonders  I  saw  in  the  space  of  a  quarter  of  a 
mile,  scarcely  stopping,  and  following  Captain  Nemo,  who 
beckoned  me  on  by  signs.  Soon  the  nature  of  the  soil 
changed  ;  to  the  sandy  plain  succeeded  an  extent  of  slimy 
mud,  which  the  Americans  call  "  ooze,"  composed  of  equal 
parts  of  silicious  and  calcareous  shells.  We  then  traveled 
over  a  plain  of  sea-weed  of  wild  and  luxuriant  vegetation. 
This  sward  was  of  close  texture,  and  soft  to  the  feet,  and 
rivalled  the  softest  carpet  woven  by  the  hand  of  man.  But 
whilst  verdure  was  spread  at  our  feet,  it  did  not  abandon  our 
heads.  A  light  network  of  marine  plants,  of  that  inexhaus- 
tible family  of  sea-weeds  of  which  more  than  two  thousand 
kinds  are  known,  grew  on  the  surface  of  the  water.  I  saw 
long  ribbons  of  fucus  floating,  some  globular,  others  tuberous, 
laurenciae  and  cladostephi  of  most  delicate  foliage,  and  some 
rhodomeniae  palmatae,  resembling  the  fan  of  a  cactus.  I 
noticed  that  the  green  plants  kept  nearer  the  top  of  the  sea 


FRENCH  UTERATTJRB. 


155 


whilst  the  red  were  at  a  greater  depth,  leaving  to  the  black 
or  brown  hydrophytes  the  care  of  forming  gardens  and 
parterres  in  the  remote  beds  of  the  ocean. 

We  had  quitted  the  "Nautilus"  about  an  hour  and  a  half. 
It  was  near  noon ;  I  knew  by  the  perpendicularity  of  the 
sun's  rays,  which  were  no  longer  refracted.  The  magical 
colors  disappeared  by  degrees,  and  the  shades  of  emerald  and 
sapphire  were  effaced.  We  walked  with  a  regular  step,  which 
rang  upon  the  ground  with  astonishing  intensity  ;  the  slight- 
est noise  was  transmitted  with  a  quickness  to  which  the  ear 
is  unaccustomed  on  the  earth  ;  indeed,  water  is  a  better  con- 
ductor of  sound  than  air,  in  the  ratio  of  four  to  one.  At  this 
period  the  earth  sloped  downward;  the  light  took  a  uniform 
tint.  We  were  at  a  depth  of  a  hundred  and  five  yards  and 
twenty  inches,  undergoing  a  pressure  of  six  atmospheres. 

At  this  depth  I  could  still  see  the  rays  of  the  sun,  though 
feebly ;  to  their  intense  brilliancy  had  succeeded  a  reddish 
twilight,  the  lowest  state  between  day  and  night ;  and  we 
could  still  see  well  enough. 


ALPHONSE  DAUDET. 

AtPHONSE  Datjdet  (1840-97), 
born  at  Nimes  in  the  same  year 
as  Zola  at  Aix,  early  attained 
the  honor  of  being  one  of  the  great 
masters  of  style  among  contempo- 
rary French  romancers.  Zola  once 
described  Daudet  as  having  "the 
delicate,  nervous  beauty  of  an  Arab 
horse,  with  flowing  hair,  silky, 
divided  beard,  large  eyes,  narrow 
nose,  an  amorous  mouth,  and  over 
it  all  a  sort  of  illumination,  a 
breath  of  tender  light  that  individ- 
ualized the  whole  face,  with  a  smile  full  at  once  of  intellect 
and  of  the  joy  of  life.  There  was  something  in  him  of  the 
French  street-boy  and  something  of  the  Oriental  woman." 
In  a  literary  sense  we  may  describe  Daudet  as  half  a  Proven- 


156  UTERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

gal  and  half  a  Parisian.  Dickens,  to  whom  he  has  been 
compared,  recognized  that  "nature  had  placed  Daudet  where 
poetry  ends  and  reality  begins." 

The  music,  color  and  poesy  of  Provence  are  in  those 
kindly  humorous  "  Tarasconades "  (Tartarin  of  Tarascon, 
Tartarin  in  the  Alps,  and  Port  Tarascon),  the  hero  of  which 
trilogy  typifies  the  exuberant  imagination  of  Southern  France 
that  intensifies  fancy  into  accepted  fact.  Tartarin  boasts  so 
much  that  from  shooting  holes  through  caps  tossed  in  air  he 
sets  out  to  kill  lions  in  Algeria.  Again  he  seeks  adventure 
in  the  Alps,  where  he  finds  all  modern  comforts  instead.  He 
is  a  curious  blend  of  both  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza, 
and  we  grow  fond  of  him,  as  of  old  FalstaflF.  This  persiflage 
deepens  to  serious  humor  in  "The  Nabob,"  a  Corsican  polit- 
ical romance,  and  to  stern  criticism  in  "Numa  Roumestan," 
in  which  Southern  French  statesmen  are  satirized  (perhaps 
Gambetta  among  them).  Daudet's  exotic,  Provengal  spirit  is 
revealed  in  his  most  successful  drama,  "The  Arlesienne,"  and 
in  his  delightfully  pastoral  "Letters  from  my  Mill."  Only 
a  master  of  the  short  story  could  write  such  tales  as  those  of 
M.  Seguin's  wandering  goat,  of  the  vengeful  Pope's  mule,  of 
the  witty  Cure  of  Cucugnan's  sermon,  and  of  the  magic  elixir 
of  the  self-sacrificing  tipsy  monk,  Gaucher.  In  his  Parisian 
dramas,  Daudet  like  Dickens  is  autobiographic  and  draws  on 
his  Parisian  and  Algerian  observations.  Thus  in  *'  La  Petite 
Chose"  he  describes  his  own  unhappy  youth  in  the  pion 
(usher)  at  a  French  Dotheboys  Hall.  In  '  'Jack ' '  he  describes 
the  life  romance  of  a  poor  bastard.  In  "  The  Nabob "  he 
depicts  in  Mora  the  Due  de  Morny  "as  a  Brummel-Riche- 
liea. "  He  was  secretary  to  the  Duke  during  the  Empire. 
Of  his  other  novels,  it  can  be  stated  that  "  Fromont  jeune  et 
Risler  aine"  is  a  saddening  tragedy  of  the  domestic  ruin 
wrought  by  a  scheming  Paris  shop  girl,  Sidonie  ;  "  Kings  in 
Exile,"  is  a  study  of  exiled  royalty  living  in  Paris  ;  '%'Evan- 
geliste"  treats  of  religious  fanaticism;  "La  Petite  paroisse," 
of  jealousy;"  "ly'Immortel"  is  a  slanderous  satire  on  the 
French  Academy;  and  "Sapho,"  is  a  remarkably  realistic 
study  of  a  Parisian  cocotte,  Fanny  Legrand,  who  fascinates, 
disillusionizes  and  ruins  her  lover. 


FRENCH  WTERATXJRE.  I57 


Tartarin  op  Tarascon. 

Tarascon  is  a  town  in  tlie  south  of  France,  whose  inhabitants  had 
such  a  mania  for  hunting  that  in  the  course  of  time  all  the  game,  even 
down  to  blackbirds  and  rabbits,  took  alarm  and  departed.  Deprived  of 
their  game,  the  brave  sportsmen  invented  the  ingenious  substitute  of 
flinging  their  caps  in  the  air  and  shooting  them.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  one  who  could  show  the  most  shot-holes  in  his  cap  should  be  king 
of  the  hunt.  The  great  Tartarin  held  this  honor  and  was  almost  wor- 
shipped by  the  people  for  his  splendid  physique  and  indoinitable 
bravery.  He  had  his  garden  fitted  up  with  African  trees,  thoiigh  these 
indeed  remained  provokingly  small,  and  at  the  foot  of,  the  garden  an 
apartment  was  adorned  with  all  the  weapons  of  the'world  from  rifles 
and  revolvers  to  Malay  kreeses  and  Hottentot  clubs. 

Along  the  water-side,  when  Tartarin  came  home  from 
hunting  on  Sunday  evenings,  with  his  cap  on  the  muzzle 
of  his  gun,  and  his  fustian  shooting-jacket  belted  in  tightly, 
the  sturdy  river-lightermen  would  respectfully  bob,  and, 
blinking  towards  the  huge  biceps  swelling  out  his  arms, 
would  mutter  among  themselves  in  admiration, — 

"  Now,  there'^  a  powerful  chap,  if  you  like !  he  has 
double  muscles ! " 

"  Double  muscles!  Why,  you  never  heard  of  such  a  thing 
outside  of  Tarascon ! " 

For  all  this,  with  all  his 'numberless  parts,  double  mus- 
cles, the  popular  favor,  and  the  so  precious  esteem  of  brave 
Commandant  Bravida,  ex-captaiti  (in  the  Army  Clothing 
Factory),  Tartarin  was  not  happy ;  this  life  in  a  petty  town 
weighed  upon  him  and  suffocated  him. 

The  great  man  of  Tarascon  was  bored  in  Tarascon. 

The  fact  is,  for  a  heroic  temperament  like  his,  a  wild 
adventurous  spirit,  which  dreamt  of  notljiing  but  battles, 
races  across  the  pampas,  mighty  battues,  desert  sands,  bliz- 
zards, and  typhoons,  it  was  not  enough  to  go  out  every  Sun- 
day to  pop  at  a  cap,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  to  ladle  out 
casting-votes  at  the  gunmaker's.  Poor  dear  great  man  !  If 
this  existence  were  only  prolonged,  there  would  be  suflB^cient 
tedium  in  it  to  kill  him  with  consumption. 

In  vain  did  he  surround  himself  with  baobabs  and  other 


158  LITERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

African  trees,  to  widen  his  horizon,  and  some  little  to  forget 
his  club  and  the  market-place  ;  in  vain  did  he  pile  weapon 
upon  weapon,  and  Malay  kreese  upon  Malay  kreese ;  in  vain 
did  he  cram  with  romances,  endeavoring,  like  the  immortal 
Don  Quixote,  to  wrench  himself  by  the ,  vigor  of  his  fancy 
out  of  the  talons  of  pitiless  reality.  Alas !  all  that  he  did  to 
appease  his  thirst  for  deeds  of  daring  only  helped  to  augment 
it.  The  sight  of  all  the  murderous  implements  kept  him  in 
a  perpetual  stew  of  wrath  and  exaltation.  His  revolvers, 
repeating  rifles,  and  ducking-guns  shouted  "  Battle!  battle!" 
out  of  their  mouths.  Through  the  twigs  of  his  baobab  the 
tempest  of  great  voyages  and  journeys  soughed  and  blew  bad 
advice.  To  finish  him  came  Gustave  Aimard,  Mayne  Raid, 
and  Fenimore  Cooper. 

Oh,  how  many  times  did  Tartarin  with  a  howl  spring  up 
on  the  sultry  summer  afternoons,  when  he  was  reading  alone 
amidst  his  blades,  points,  and  edges  I  how  many  times  did  he 
dash  down  his  book  and  rush  to  the  wall  to  unhook  a  deadly 
arm !  The  poor  man  forgot  he  was  at  home  in  Tarascon,  in 
his  underclothes,  and  with  a  handherchief  round  his  head. 
He  would  translate  his  readings  into  action,  and,  goading 
himself  with  his  own  voice,  shout  out,  whilst  swinging  a 
battle-axe  or  tomahawk, — 

"  Now,  only  let  'em  come !  " 

"Them?"    Who  are  they? 

Tartarin  did  not  himself  any  too  clearly  understand. 
"They"  was  all  that  should  be  attacked  and  fought  with, 
all  that  bites,  claws,  scalps,  whoops,  and  yells, — the  Sioux 
Indians  dancing  round  the  war-stake  to  which  the  unfortu- 
nate pale-face  prisoner  is  lashed ;  the  grizzly  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  who  wobbles  on  his  hind  legs  and  licks  himself 
with  a  tongue  full  of  blood ;  the  Touareg,  too,  in  the  desert, 
the  Malay  pirate,  the  brigand  of  the  Abruzzi :  in  short, 
"they"  was  warfare,  travel,  adventure,  and  glory. 

But,  alas  !  it  was  to  no  avail  that  the  fearless  Tarasconer 
called  for  and  defied  them;  never  did  they  come.  Odsboddi- 
kins !  what  would  they  have  come  to  do  in  Tarascon  ? 

Tartarin  was  constantly  preparing  himself  deadly  encounters; 
when  he  issued  from  his  den  to  go  to  his  club,  he  wore  a  knuckle- 


FRENCH,  WTBRATURE.  159 

duster  on  his  left  hand,  and  carried  a  sword-cane  in  his  right ;  in  his 
left  pocket  he  had  a  blackjack,  in  his  right  a  revolver.  Yet  though  he 
tramped  the  longest  and  darkest  way  round,  he  met  none  of  the  ugly 
customers  he  desired. 

But  at  last  when  the  brave  Tartarin  was  one  day  examining  a 
needle-g^in  at  the  gunsmith's,  an  excited  cap-popper  dashed  in  with 
the  startling  cry,  "A  lion!  A  lion!"  There  was  great  commotion, 
•which  was  hardly  calmed  when  it  was  announced  that  the  terrible 
beast  was  in  a  cage  at  the  menagerie,  which  had  just  reached  Tarascon. 
It  was  a  lion  from  the  Atlas  Mountains.  Tartarin  stood  like  one  in  a 
dream  of  gallant  exploits,  while  his  soul  rose  to  the  height  of  the 
situation. 

Suddenly  a  flush  of  blood  flew  into  his  face.  His  eyes 
flashed.  With  one  convulsive  movement  he  shouldered  the 
needle-gun, ,  and,  turning  towards  the  brave  commandant 
Bravida  (formerly  captain — in  the  Army  Clothing  Depart- 
ment, please  to  remember),  he  thundered  to  him, — "I/ct's  go 
have  a  look  at  him,  commandant." 

"Here,  here,  I  say!  that's  my  gun,  my  needle-gun,  you 
are  carrying  off,"  timidly  ventured  the  wary  Costecalde ;  but 
Tartarin  had  already  got  round  the  comer,  with  all  \the  cap- 
poppers  proudly  lock-stepping  behind  him. 

When  they  arrived  at  the  menagerie,  they  found  a  goodly 
number  of  people  there.  Tarascon,  heroic  but  too  long  de- 
prived of  sensational  shows,  had  rushed  upon  Mitaine's  port- 
able theatre  and  taken  it  by  storm.  Hence  the  voluminous 
Madame  Mitaine  was  highly  contented.  In  an  Arab  costume, 
her  arms  bare  to  the  elbow,  iron  auklets  on,  a  whip  in  one 
hand  and  a  plucked  though  live  pullet  in  the  other,  the  noted 
lady  was  doing  the  honors  of  the  booth  to  the  Tarasconians ; 
and,  as  she  also  had  "double  muscles,"  her  success  was  as 
great  as  her  animals'. 

The  entrance  of  Tartarin  with  the  gun  dn  his  shoulder 
was  a  damper.  All  our  good  Tarasconians,  who  had  been 
quite  tranquilly  strolling  before  the  cages,  unarmed  and  with 
no  distrust,  without  even  any  idea  of  danger,  felt  momentary 
apprehension,  naturally  enough,  on  beholding  their  mighty 
Tartarin  rush  into  the  enclosure  with  his  formidable  engine 
of  war.  There  must  be  something  to  fear  when  a  hero  such 
as  he  came  weaponed:  so,  in  a  twinkling,  all  the  space 


l6o  UTERATURE  OP  AI,t  NATIONS. 

along  the  cage  fronts  was  cleared.  The  youngsters  burst  out 
squalling  for  fear,  and  the  women  looked  around  for  the 
nearest  way  out.  The  chemist  Bezuquet  made  off  altogether, 
alleging  that  he  was  going  home  for  his  gun. 

Gradually,  however,  Tartarin's  bearing  restored  courage. 
With  head  erect,  the  intrepid  Tarasconian  slowly  and  calmly 
made  the  circuit  of  the  booth,  passing  the  seal's  tank  without 
stopping,  glancing  disdainfully  on  the  long  box  filled  with 
sawdust  in  which  the  boa  would  digest  his  raw  fowl,  and 
going  to  take  his  stand  before  the  lion's  cage. 

A  terrible  and  solemn  confrontation,  this !  The  lion  of 
Tarascon  and  the  lion  of  Africa  face  to  face  ! 

On  the  one  side,  Tartarin  erect,  with  his  hamstrings  in 
tension,  and  his  arms  folded  on  his  gun-barrel ;  on  the  other, 
the  lion,  a  gigantic  specimen,  humped  up  in  the  straw,  with 
blinking  orbs  and  brutish  mien,  resting  his  huge  muzzle  and 
tawny  full-bottomed  wig  on  his  forepaws.  Both  calm  in  their 
gaze.  1 

Singular  thing!  whether  the  needle-gun  had  given  him 
-'the  needle,"  if  the  popular  idiom  is  admissible,  or  that  he 
scented  an  enemy  of  his  race,  the  lion,  who  had  hitherto 
regarded  the,Tarasconians  with  sovereign  scorn  and  yawned 
in  their  faces,  was  all  at  once  affected  by  ire.  At  first  he 
sniffed ;  then  he  growled  hollowly,  stretching  out  his  claws  ; 
rising,  he  tossed  his  head,  shook  his  mane,  opened  a  capacious 
maw,  and  belched  a  deafening  roar  at  Tartarin. 

A  yell  of  fright  responded,  as  Tarascon  precipitated  itself 
madly  towards  the  exit,  women  a'nd  children,  lightermen, 
cap-poppers,  even  the  brave  commandant  Bravida  himselfi 
But  alone  Tartarin  of  Tarascon  had  not  budged.  There  he 
stood,  firm  and  resolute,  before  the  cage,  lightnings  in  his 
eyes,  and  on  his  lip  that  gruesome  grin  with  which  all  the 
town  was  familiar.  In  a  moment's  time,  when  all  the  cap- 
poppers  some  little  fortified  by  his  bearing  and  the  strength 
of  the  bars,  re-approached  their  leader,  they  heard  him  mutter, 
as  he  stared  lyeo  out  of  countenance, — "  Now,  this  is  some- 
thing like  a  hunt ! ' ' 

All  the  rest  of  that  day,  never  a  word  further  could  they 
draw  from  Tartarin  of  Tarascon. 


COPYRIGHT,     1900 


L.    A.     JAMISON,     PiNX 


TARTARIN   AND  THE   LION 


FRENCH  WTERATURK. 


I6l 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT. 

The  unchallenged  master  of  the 
short  story  in  French  is  Guy  de 
Maupassant  (1850-1893).  He  was 
a  scion  of  an  old  Norman  noble 
family  and  a  nephew  of  Flaubert, 
and  cultivated  that  literary  arti- 
ficer's conciseness  to  the  supreme 
point.  His  "  Boule  de  Soif "  was 
easily  the  best  story  in  the  collec- 
tion called  "  L,es  Souses  de  Medan," 
and  written  by  five  of  Zola's  natur- 
alistic disciples  (De  Maupassant, 
Huysmans,  Cdard,  Hennique,  and  Alexis)  in  1880.  His 
exquisite  and  elaborate  style,  free  from  every  artifice  or  man- 
nerism, produced  the  most  impressive  effects  with  phrases 
simple  and  lucid  as  Rousseau's  or  Voltaire's.  He  wrote  at 
least  one  hundred  tales,  ranging  from  the  Normandy  theme 
of  selfish  thrift  through  exhibitions  of  pessimism  and  crime, 
Parisian  foibles  and  guilty  love,  even  to  nihilism  and  insanity. 
From  being  " a  playful  satyr,"  full  of  blood  and  fire,  he  him- 
self faded  into  a  flagging,  drug-stimulated  writer  of  morbid 
dramas  of  situation,  and  during  the  last  two  years  of  his  life 
was  an  inmate  of  an  insane  asylum.  He  said  of  himself  that 
he  "  never  found  any  joy  in  working."  His  fancies  became 
weird  and  half  insane  even  as  early  as  1887  in  "  I^a  Horla," 
in  which  the  Being  Invisible  figures  who  is  to  succeed  man 
and  who  will  die  only  at  a  predestined  day,  hour,  minute, 
because  the  end  of  his  existence  is  come.  Starting  as  a  I^atin 
of  good,  clear  and  solid  head,  De  Maupassant  drifted  through 
suicidal  and  morbid  phantasms  to  shipwreck.  His  cynical 
humor  was  notable,'  however,  even  in  his  earlier^  sketches  of 
Norman  cottage  and  market  place,  of  farm-yard  and  wine-shop. 
He  enjoyed  to  depict  the  unmitigable  miseries  of  humanity. 
His  masterpiece  of  Norman  peasant  life  is  "La  Ficelle" 
("  The  Piece  of  String  ").  Other  powerful,  concise  and  direct 
tales  of  his  are  "The  Necklace,"  the  mean  romance  of  a 

X— II 


I62  LITERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

needless  sacrifice ;  "A  Coward,"  in  which  a  duel  is  averted  by- 
self-murder,  and  "  The  Wreck." 


The  Piece  of  String. 

AtL  the  roads  leading  to  Goderville  were  crowded  with 
peasants  and  their  wives  coming  into  the  town ;  for  it  was 
market  day 

Maitre  Hauchecome,  of  Brdaut^,  had  just  reached  Goder- 
ville, and  was  taking  his  way  towards  the  market-place 
when  he  noticed  a  little  piece  of  string  lying  on  the  ground. 
Maitre  Hauchecome,  with  the  economy  of  a  true  Norman, 
thought  it  right  to  pick  up  anything  that  might  be  of  use, 
and  he  bent  down  with  difficulty,  because  he  suffered  from 
rheumatism.  He  took  the  little  piece  of  fine  cord  off  the 
ground,  and  was  carefully  rolling  it  up  when  he  noticed  that 
Maitre  Malandain,  the  harness-maker,  was  standing  at  his 
door  watching  him.  They  had  formerly  done  business 
together  about  a  halter,  and  had  ever  since  hated  each  other 
cordially.  Maitre  Hauchecome  felt  a  sort  of  shame  to  be 
caught  by  his  enemy  searching  in  the  mud  for  a  bit  of  string. 
He  put  it  quickly  in  his  blouse,  then  in  his  breeches'  pocket, 
and  then  pretended  to  be  searching  on  the  ground  for  some- 
thing he  couldn't  find,  and  went  off  to  the  market,  his  head 
thrown  forward,  his  body  bent  in  two  with  pain 

All  the  aristocracy  of  the  plough  dined  at  Jourdain's,  inn- 
keeper and  horse-dealer,  a  shrewd  fellow  who  had  money. 
The  dishes  went  round  and  were  emptied,  as  well  as  the 
pewter  jugs  of  yellow  cider.  Everybody  talked  about  their 
business,  their  purchases,  and  their  sales.  They  inter- 
changed ideas  about  the  crops.  Weather  was  good  for  grass, 
but  a  little  unfavorable  for  grain. 

Suddenly  a  dmm  was  heard  in  the  courtyard  in  front  of 
the  house.  Everybody,  save  a  few  who  were  indifferent,  rose 
to  their  feet  at  once,  rushed  to  the  door,  to  the  windows, 
mouths  full  and  table-napkins  in  hand.  When  he  had  finished 
beating  his  drum,  the  public  crier,  in  a  jerky  voice,  marking 
his  sentences  at  the  wrong  time,  said — 

"Be  it  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  Goderville,  and  ia 


FRBNCH  LITERATURE.  163 

general  to  all — persons  present  at  the  market,  that  there  was 
lost  this  morning  on  the  Beuzeville  road,  between — nine  and 
ten  o'clock,  a  black  leather  pocket-book  containing  500  francs 
and  business  papers.  You  are  requested  to  take  it — to  the 
Mayor's  office  at  once,  or  to  the  house  of  Maitre  Fortune 
Houlbr^que  of  Manneville.  A  reward  of  twenty  francs  is 
oflFered." 

Then  the  man  departed.  In  the  distance  the  fainter  voice 
of  the  crier  and  the  muffled  sound  of  the  drum  could  once 
again  be  heard.  Then  they  began  to  talk  of  the  event, 
weighing  Maitre  Houlbrfeque's  chances  of  recovering  or  not 
recovering  his  pocket-book. 

They  were  finishing  their  coffee  when  a  policeman  ap- 
peared on  the  threshold.  He  asked :  "  Is  Maitre  Hauchecorne 
de  Br^autd  here  ?  "  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  seated  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  replied,  "  Here  I  am." 

And  the  policeman  continued :  "  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  will 
you  be  good  enough  to  go  with  me  to  the  Mayor's  office? 
The  Mayor  wishes  to  speak  to  you." 

The  peasant,  surprised,  uneasy,  swallowed  his  glass  of 
brandy  at  one  draught,  got  up,  and  more  bent  than  in  the 
morning,  for  walking  again  after  each  rest  was  particularly 
difficult,  he  set  out,  repeating :  "  Here  I  am,  here  I  am." 
And  he  followed  the  policeman. 

The  Mayor  was  waiting  for  him,  seated  in  an  arm-chair. 
He  was  the  lawyer  of  the  place,  a  big,  grave-looking  man  of 
pompous  speech.   ' '  M|aitre  Hauchecorne,"  he  said,  "  this  morn- 
ing you  were  seen  to  pick  up  on  the  Beuzeville  road  Maitre 
Houlbr&que  of  Manneville's  lost  pocket-book.' ' 

The  countryman,  astounded,  gazed  at  the  Mayor,  already 
terrified,  without  knowing  why,  by  the  suspicion  that  attached 
to  him.     "  I — I — I  picked  up  the  pocket-book?  " 

"Yes,  you." 

"  On  my  word  of  honor,  I  know  nothing  about  it." 

"You  were  seen." 

"  I  was  seen  ?    Who  saw  me  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  Malandain,  the  harness-maker." 

Then  the  old  man  remembered,  understood,  and  grew  red 
with  anger  :  "Ah !  he  saw  me,  that  fellow.     He  saw  me  pick 


164  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

up  this  piece  of  string;  look,  your  worship,"  And  fumbling 
in  the  depths  of  his  pocket,  he  pulled  out  the  bit  of  twine. 
But  the  Mayor,  incredulous,  shook  his  head.  "  You  can  never 
make  me  believe,  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  that  M.  Malandain, 
who  is  a  man  of  strict  truth,  took  that  cord  for  a  pocket-book." 

Then  the  peasant,  furious,  lifted  up  his  hand,  spit  aside 
to  attest  his  honor,  repeating:  "It  is  all  the  same  God's 
truth,  the  holy  truth,  your  worship.  On  my  soul  and  my 
salvation,  I  repeat  it.' ' 

The  Mayor  continued :  "  After  picking  up  the  thing,  you 
searched  for  a  long  time  in  the  mud,  as  if  a  piece  of  money 
had  fallen  out.' ' 

The  peasant  was  bursting  with  indignation  and  fear.  "  Is 
it  possible  that  any  one  can  lie  like  that  to  misrepresent  a 
poor  man  ?     Is  it  possible  ?  " 

It  was  useless  to  protest,  no  one  believed  him.  He  was 
confronted  with  M.  Malandain,  who  repeated  and  upheld  his 
assertion.  They  called  each  other  bad  names  for  about  an 
hour.  At  his  own  request  Maitre  Hauchecorne  was  searched. 
Nothing  was  found  on  him.  At  length,  the  Mayor,  greatly 
perplexed,  dismissed  him,  warning  him  that  he  should  inform 
the  court  and  ask  for  orders. 

The  news  spread.  On  coming  out  of  the  mayoralty,  the 
old  man  was  surrounded,  questioned  with  a  serious  or  scoff- 
ing curiosity,  but  without  any  indignation.  And  he  began 
to  relate  the  story  of  the  piece  of  string.  No  one  believed 
him.  Every  one  laughed.  He  went  on,  stopped  by  every- 
body, stopping  his  acquaintances,  beginning  his  tale  and  his 
protestations  over  and  over  again,  his  pockets  turned  inside 
out  to  show  that  he  had  nothing.  People  said  to  him :  "  Oh, 
you  cunning  old  fellow,  you  ! ' '  And  he  got  angry,  exasper- 
ated, fevered,  wretched  at  not  being  believed,  not  knowing 
what  to  do,  ever  relating  his  story.  ' 

Night  came.  He  had  to  depart.  He  went,  accompanied 
by  three  neighbors,  to  whom  he  pointed  out  the  place  where 
he  had  picked  up  the  bit  of  cord.  And  he  talked  of  his 
adventure  the  whole  way.  In  the  evening  he  went  all  over 
the  village  of  Br€aut6  in  order  to  tell  every  one.  All  were 
incredulous.    He  was  ill  in  consequence  all  night. 


FRENCH   LITERATURE.  1 65 

The  next  day,  about  one  in  the  afternoon,  Marius  Paumelle, 
one  of  Maitre  Breton's  farm-servants,  took  back  the  pocket- 
book  and  its  contents  to  Maitre  HoulbrSque  of  Manneville. 
The  man  maintained  that  he  had  found  it  on  the  road,  and 
being  unable  to  read,  had  taken  it  home  and  given  it  to  his 
master. 

The  news  spread  to  the  surrounding  country.  Maitre 
Hauchecome  was  informed  of  it.  He  immediately  made  the 
round  of  the  village,  and  began  to  tell  his  story,  now  made 
quite  perfect  by  the  denouement.  He  triumphed.  ' '  What 
grieves  me,"  he  said,  ' '  isn't  so  much  the  afifair  itself,  you  under- 
stand, as  the  lie.  Nothing  does  you  so  much  harm  as  to  be 
falsely  accused." 

All  day  long  he  talked  of  his  adventure.  He  related  it  on 
the  high-roads  to  the  passers-by,  at  the  taverns  to  the  persons 
who  were  drinking,  and  coming  out  of  church  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday.  He  stopped  strangers  to  tell  them.  Although 
he  was  reassured,  yet  something  troiibled  him  that  he  could 
not  exactly  explain.  People  seemed  to  mock  at  him  as  they 
listened.  They  did  not  seem  convinced.  He  thought  he 
heard  jeers  behind  his  back. 

Tuesday  in  the  next  week,  he  went  to  the  market  at 
Goderville,  urged  merely  by  the  desire  of  relating  his  case. 
Malandain,  standing  at  his  door,  began  to  laugh  when  he  saw 
him  pass.  Why  ?  He  attacked  a  farmer  of  Criquetot,  who 
did  not  let  him  finish,  and  digging  him  in  the  ribs,  exclaimed 
to  his  face,  "  Oh,  you  cunning  fellow  !  Go  along  with  you  ! " 
Then  he  turned  on  his  heels. 

Maitre  Hauchecorne  was  astounded,  and  became  more  and 
more  uneasy.  Why  did  they  call  him  a  "  cunning  fellow?" 
When  he  was  seated  at  the  table  in  Jourdain's  inn  he  began 
to  ejqjlain  the  aflfair  all  over  again. 

A  horse-dealer  of  Montivilliers  cried — "Get  along  with 
you,  you  old  hand.     I  know  your  piece  of  string ! " 

Hauchecome  muttered,  "But  they  found  the  pocket- 
book." 

The  other  replied,  "  Oh,  be  quiet,  father ;  there's  one  who 
finds,  and  another  who  makes  restitution.  Neither  seen  nor 
known,  I  promise  you." 


t66  UTERATURB  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

The  peasant  was  completely  taken  aback.  At  last  he 
understood.  He  was  accused  of  sending  the  pocket-book 
back  by  a  colleague,  an  accomplice.  He  tried  to  protest. 
The  whole  table  began  to  laugh.  He  could  not  finish  his 
dinner,  and  went  away  amid  their  jeers.  He  returned  home, 
ashamed  and  indignant,  bursting  with  anger  and  confusion, 
3o  much  cast  down  that  with  his  Norman  artfulness  he  was 
capable  of  doing  what  he  was  accused  of,  and  even  of  boast- 
ing of  it  as  a  good  trick.  His  innocence  seemed  to  him,  in 
his  confusion,  impossible  to  prove,  his  propensity  being 
known.  And  he  was  keenly  hurt  by  the  injustice  of  the  sus- 
picion. 

Then  he  began  relating  his  adventure  again,  lengthening 
his  tale  each  day,  sometimes  adding  new  reasons,  more  vigor- 
ous protestations,  more  solemn  oaths,  that  he  imagined  and 
prepared  in  his  hours  of  solitude,  his  mind  filled  with  the 
story  of  the  piece  of  string.  As  his  defence  grew  more  com- 
plicated, and  his  arguments  more  subtle,  he  was  the  less 
believed. 

"Those  are  the  arguments  of  a  liar,"  people  said  behind 
his  back.  He  felt  it,  chafed  under  it,  and  exhausted  himself 
in  useless  efforts.     He  visibly  wasted  away. 

The  wags  now  made  him  tell  "  the  piece  of  string  "  as  an 
amusement,  just  as  you  make  an  old  soldier  who  has  seen 
service  relate  his  battles.  His  mind,  mortally  wounded, 
began  to  give  way.  Towards  the  end  of  December  he  took  to 
his  bed.  He  died  early  in  January,  and  in  the  delirium  of  the 
last  agony  he  attested  his  innocence,  repeating,  ' '  A  little  bit 
of  strijig — a  little  bit  of  string — here  it  is,  your  worship." 

£MILE  ZOIvA. 

Prominent  as  Zola  has  been  for  years  in  contemporary 
French  literature,  it  is  not  yet  time  for  a  proper  estimate  of 
his  work  to  be  formed.  He  was  born  in  1840,  and  is  still  at 
work.  His  origin  was  obscure ;  his  mother  was  French,  his 
father  Italian ;  his  youth  was  embarrassed  by  poverty,  and  it 
was  not  until  after  his  thirtieth  year  that  he  conceived  the 
plan  of  the  Rougoil-Macquart  Series  of  novels,  in  which  he 


FRENCH  UTBRATXTRB.  167 

attempts  to  apply  the  theory  of  heredity  as  a  sufficient  ex- 
planation of  the  events  of  human  life.  His  ambition  was  to 
emulate,  or  supplement,  Balzd.c'^s  great  "Human  Comedy;" 
but  his  work  is  vitiated  by  the  bigotry  of  its  underlying 
theory,  and  there  results  a  monotony  which  is  not  relieved  by 
the  beauties  and  compensations  of  art.  Zola's  little  code  of 
dogmas  fails  adequately  to  measure  the  dimensions  of  man- 
kind. Nevertheless,  he  is  a  writer  of  force  and  power ;  he 
can  draw  character  and  weave  an  absorbing  web  of  circum- 
stances. 

As  Zola  was  the  first  writer  of  fiction  deliberately  to  under- 
take the  analysis  of  human  nature  on  scientific  principles,  his 
books  soon  attracted  attention,  and  presently  won  a  fame,  or 
a  notoriety,  which  is  altogether  in  excess  of  their  true  value. 
The  foul  indecency  of  many  of  them  augmented  their  com- 
mercial worth,  and  as  leader  of  a  new  Naturalistic  School, 
Zola  appeared  as  one  of  the  foremost  literary  men  of  France, 
if  not  of  his  age.  But  sober  criticism  is  compelled  to  see  in 
him  a  mind  deeply  tainted  with  unwholesome  predispositions ; 
he  takes  the  gloomy  and  repulsive  side  even  of  his  own  dis- 
mal theory;  and  he  fails,  in  the  end,  to  convince  us  that  he 
has  discovered  truth.  There  is  in  the  contents  of  his  series 
enough  good  writing  and  just  observation  to  warrant  a  sound 
literary  reputation ;  and  we  may  conjecture  that,  had  he  been 
endowed  with  a  healthier  temperament,  or  had  he  avoided  the 
pitfalls  of  a  shallow  and  inconclusive  science,  he  might  have 
been  known  as  an  honored  member  of  the  literary  guild ;  yet 
it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  his  success,  such  as  it  is,  may 
be  due  to  that  same  mental  perversity  which  renders  that 
success  transitory  and  unsound.  The  frequent  and  violent 
denunciations  of  Zola  have  not  injured  him  ;  but  he  has  been 
made  ridiculous,  and  his  vogue  shortened,  by  the  many 
absurd  eulogies  and  analyses  of  his  productions,  put  forth  by 
hysteric  critics  who  hastened  to  accept  him  at  his  own  solemn 
and  extravagant  valuation.  It  has  been  said  that  the  value 
of  each  one  of  his  novels  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  it  is  one 
of  the  series — a  part  of  an  organic  whole.  But  the  opposite 
of  this  is  more  probably  the  truth ;  we  could  accept  and  per- 
haps admire  many  single  productions  of  his  genius,  were  we 


1 68  LITERATURE  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

not  compelled  to  regard  each  but  as  a  facet  of  his  entire 
achievement.  We  could  forgive  him  for  a  dreary,  morbid 
and  repulsive  book,  but  not  for  forcing  us  to  regard  it  as  a 
step  in  the  development  of  a  materialistic  and  unconfirmed 
hypothesis  of  mortal  existence. 

The  underlying  structural  idea  of  the  series  is  that  of  two 
branches  of  a  family,  one  legitimate,  one  illegitimate,  grad- 
ually ramifying  throughout  the  various  grades  and  phases  of 
society,  and  exemplifying  the  characteristic  types  of  modern 
life.  There  is  insanity  at  the  root  of  the  genealogical  tree  of 
the  race,  and  it  flowers  in  all  manner  of  sordid,  vicious  and 
monstrous  ways.  The  author  aims,  in  imitation  of  Flaubert, 
to  be  coldly  dispassionate  in  his  treatment,  and  to  concede 
nothing  to  sentiment  and  art ;  he  professes  to  seek  the  truth 
only,  and  to  be  sublimely  indifferent  to  consequences.  But 
this  is  a  mere  pose,  which,  if  it  deceives  Zola  himself,  deceives 
no  one  else.  It  would  be  easy  to  point  to  inconsistencies  in 
his  execution,  as  well  as  to  fallacies  in  his  method ;  his  stories 
are  not  natural  in  the  sense  he  pretends  ;  they  bear  the  marks 
of  the  personal  equation  of  their  composer  as  plainly  as  do 
those  of  other  writers.  Indeed,  one  of  the  few  things  which 
his  books  go  near  to  demonstrate  is,  that  to  reproduce  nature 
in  novels  is  impossible.  We  must  select,  emphasize  and 
arrange ;  we  must  begin,  culminate  and  conclude.  Zola,  no 
more  than  another  man,  is  of  a  stature  to  see  the  bend  of  the 
infinite  arc  of  human  destiny ;  and  the  petty  arcs  he  traces  on 
his  paper  are  ridiculous,  iiot  so  much  in  themselves,  as  in 
their  pretensions. 

Zola's  most  widely-known  books  are  "  UAssommoir, " 
"  Nana,"  "  La  Terre  "  and  "  Le  Debacle."  They  are  also  in 
many  respects  his  most  revolting  productions.  In  "La  Reve" 
he  attempts  to  show  that  he  can  write  a  pure  story;  but  it  is 
one  of  his  most  labored  and  least  interesting  efforts.  It  may 
be  said,  paradoxically,  that  Zola  is  at  his  best  when  at  his 
worst.  But  he  has  been  diligent,  painstaking,  and — in  his 
own  way — conscientious ;  and  the  profession  of  literature 
may  confess  a  debt  to  him.  It  will  never  again  be  possible 
for  a  successful  writer  to  be  a  careless  one,  or  to  neglect  the 
study  of  life,  as  a  preliminary  to  depicting  it.     Zola  overdid 


FRENCH  IdTBRATURB.  I69 

the  note-book,  or  misused  it;  but  he  showed  the  value  of 
strict  observation;  and  the  literature  of  the  future,  if  it 
remain  true  to  art,  may  thank  him  for  the  hint  that  reality 
cannot  safely  be  ignored. 

It  has  been  Zola's  resolute  ambition  to  be  elected  a  mem- 
ber of  the  French  Academy ;  but  thus  far  he  has  been  unsuc- 
cessful. No  one  would  grudge  him  gratification  in  this 
respect  on  personal  grounds ;  but  he  desires  the  honor  less 
for  personal  reasons,  than  as  an  endorsement  of  his  literary 
philosophy;  and  it  is  doubtless  on  this  very  ground  that  it  is 
withheld.  Several  of  his  books  have  been  dramatized,  and 
achieved  popularity  on  the  stage. 

When  his  Rougon-Macquart  Series  was  brought  to  a  con- 
clusion, Zola  projected  another  literary  scheme,  to  illustrate 
the  religious  movement  of  the  age  in  three  works — '%ourdes," 
"  Rome  "  and  "  Paris,"  corresponding  somewhat  remotely  to 
Faith,  Hope  and  Charity.  A  priest  who  has  become  per- 
plexed with  doubts  goes  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Lourdes  to  restore 
his  faith,  but  rather  has  his  disbelief  increased  by  what  he 
sees  there ;  he  goes  to  Rome,  but  is  disappointed ;  he  returns 
to  Paris  and  there  finds  science  and  truth  in  closest  conflict 
with  ignorance  and  misery,  and  accepts  beneficence  to  one's 
neighbors  as  the  chief  duty  and  proper  aim  of  life. 

Hardly  had  Zola  finished  these  romances  of  religion 
when  he  startled  the  world  by  interfering  in  political  afiairs, 
accusing  the  heads  of  the  army  of  the  grossest  injustice  in 
the  condemnation  of  Captain  Dreyfus  and  demanding  a  new 
trial  for  the  victim.  The  result  was  his  own  trial,  condemna- 
tion, appeal  and  withdrawal  from  France.  Meantime  unex- 
pected revelations  seem  to  prove  that  he  was  in  the  right,  and 
French  public  opinion,  which  had  been  excited  against  him 
for  attacking  the  army  administration,  turned  in  his  favor. 

A  Fight  with  Flails. 

(From  "I^aTerre.") 

Whkn  the  relatives,  invited  to  a  baptism  and  supper, 

had  gone  to  look  over  the  farm,  Buteau,  dissatisfied  at  losing 

the,  afternoon,  took  off  his  jacket  and  began  to  thresh,  in  the 

paved  comer  of  the  court-yard ;  for  he  needed  a  sack  of  wheat. 


I70  WTERATURB  OF  AXI.  NATIONS. 

But  he  soon  wearied  of  threshing  alone,  he  wanted,  to  warm 
him  up,  the  double  cadence  of  the  flails,  tapping  in  measure ; 
and  he  called  Frangoise,  who  often  aided  him  in  this  work, 
her  arms  as  hard  as  those  of  a  lad : — "  Eh  1  Franjoise,  will 
you  come  ?  " 

His  wife,  who  was  preparing  a  ragout  of  veal  with  carrots, 
and  who  had  charged  her  sister  to  watch  a  roast  of  pork  on 
the  spit,  wished  to  prevent  the  latter  from  obeying.  But 
Buteau  persisted,  and  Frangoise,  who  had  already  put  on  an 
old  dress,  was  forced  to  follow  him.  She  took  a  flail,  her 
own.  With  both  hands  she  made  it  whirl  above  her  head^ 
bringing  it  down  upon  the  wheat,  which  it  struck  with  a 
sharp  blow.  Buteau,  opposite  her,  did  the  same,  and  soon 
nothing  was  seen  but  the  bits  of  flying  wood.  The  grain 
leaped,  fell  like  hail,  beneath  the  panting  toc-toc  of  the  two 
threshers. 

At  a  quarter  to  seven  o'clock,  as  the  night  was  coming 
on,  Fouan  and  the  Delhommes  presented  themselves. 

"We  must  finish,"  Buteau  cried  to  them,  without  stop- 
ping.    "  Fire  away,  Fran9oise !  " 

She  did  not  pause,  tapped  harder,  in  the  excitement  of  the 
work  and  the  noise.  And  it  was  thus  that  Jean,  who  arrived 
in  his  turn,  with  the  permission  to  dine  out,  found  them. 
Fran§oise,  on  seeing  him,  stopped  short,  troubled.  Buteau, 
having  wheeled  about,  stood  for  an  instant  motionless  with 
surprise  and  anger.     "What  are  you  doing  here?  " 

But  Lise  cried  out,  with  her  gay  air :  "  Eh !  true,  I  have 
not  told  you.  I  saw  him  this  morning,  and  asked  him  to 
come." 

The  inflamed  face  of  her  husband  became  so  terrible,  that 
she  added,  wishing  to  excuse  herself :  "  I  have  an  idea,  PSre 
Fouan,  that  he  has  a  request  to  make  of  you." 

"What  request? "  said  the  old  man. 

Jean  colored,  and  stammered,  greatly  Vexed  that  the  mat- 
ter should  be  broached  in  this  way,  so  quickly,  before  every- 
body. But  Buteau  interrupted  him  violently,  the  smiling 
glance  that  his  wife  had,  cast  upon  Fran9oise  had  suflSced  to 
enlighten  him  :  "  Are  you  making  game  of  us  ?  She  is  not 
for  you,  you  scoundrel!  " 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  I7I 

This  brutal  reception  restored  Jean  his  courage.  He 
turned  his  back,  and  addressed  the  old  man:  "This  is  the 
story,  P^re  Fouan,  it's  very  pimple.  As  you  are  Franpoise's 
gfuardian,  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  address  myself  to  you  to 
get  her,  is  it  not  ?  If  she  will  take  me,  I  will  take  her.  It 
is  marriage  that  I  ask." 

Franpoise,  who  was  still  holding  her  flail,  dropped  it, 
trembling  with  fright.  She  ought,  however,  to  have  ex- 
pected this;  but  never  could  she  have  thought  that  Jean 
would  dare  to  demand  her  thus,  immediately.  Why  had  he 
not  talked  with  her  about  it  first  ?  She  was  overwhelmed, 
she  could  not  have  said  if  she  trembled  with  hope  or  with 
fear.     And,  all  of  a  quiver,  she  stood  between  the  two  men. 

Buteau  did  not  give  Fouan  time  to  answer.  He  resumed, 
with  a  growing  fury  : — "  Eh  ?  you  have  gall !  An  old  fellow 
of  thirty-three  marry  a  girl  of  eighteen !  Only  fifteen  years 
di£Ference !     Is  it  not  laughable  ?  " 

Jean  commenced  to  get  angry.  "  What  difierence  does  it 
make  to  you,  if  I  want  her  and  she  wants  me?"  And  he 
turned  towards  Frangoise,  that  she  might  give  her  decision. 
But  she  remained  frightened,  stiffened,  and  seeming  not  to 
understand  the  case.  She  could  not  say  No;  she  did  not 
say  Yes,  however.  Buteau,  besides,  was  looking  at  her  as  if 
he  would  kill  her,  to  force  back  the  Yes  in  her  throat.  If  she 
married,  he  would  lose  her  land.  The  sudden  thought  of  this 
result  put  the  climax  to  his  rage. 

"See  here,  father,  see  here,  Delhomme,  it's  not  right  to 
give  this  girl  to  that  old  villain,  who  is  not  even  of  the  dis- 
trict, who  comes  from  nobody  knows  where,  after  having 
dragged  his  ugly  mug  in  all  directions !  A  failure  of  a  joiner 
who  has  turned  farmer,  because,  very  sure,  he  has  some  dirty 
business  to  hide ! " 

"And  afterwards?  If  I  want  her  and  she  wants  me!" 
repeated  Jean,  who  had  controlled  himself.  "Come,  Fran- 
goise, speak." 

"  But  it's  true  ! "  cried  Lise,  carried  away  by  the  desire  of 
marrying  off  her  sister,  in  order  to  disembarrass  herself  of 
her,  ' '  what  have  you  to  say,  if  they  come  to  an  understand- 
ing ?    She  has  no  need  of  your  consent ;  it's  very  considerate 


172  tiTERATURB  OP  Att,  NATIONS. 

in  her  not  to  send  you  about  your  business  with  a  flea  in  your 
ear.     You  exhaust  our  patience  ! ' ' 

Then  Buteau  saw  that  the  marriage  would  be  decided 
upon,  if  the  young  girl  spoke.  At  that  instant  La  Grande 
(the  old  aunt)  entered  the  court-yard,  followed  by  the  Char- 
leses, who  had  returned  with  ifeloide.  And  he  summoned 
them  with  a  gesture,  without  knowing  yet  what  he  would 
say.  Then  his  face  puffed  out,  he  bawled,  shaking  his  fist  at 
his  wife  and  sister-in-law : 

"  Name  of  God !  I'll  break  the  heads  of  both  of  them,  the 
jades!" 

The  Charleses  caught  his  words,  open-mouthed,  with  con- 
sternation. Madam  Charles  threw  herself  forward,  as  if  to 
cover  with  her  body  ^lloide,  who  was  listening;  then,  push- 
ing her  towards  the  kitchen  garden,  she  herself  cried  out,  very 
loudly :  "Go  look  at  the  salads ;  go  look  at  the  cabbages ! 
Oh  !  the  fine  cabbages  ! ' ' 

Buteau  continued,  violently  abusing  the  two  women,  upon 
whom  he  heaped  all  sorts  of  epithets.  I/ise,  astonished  at  this 
sudden  fit,  contented  herself  with  shrugging  her  shoulders, 
repeating:     "He  is  crazy  1  he  is  crazy!" 

"Tell  him  it's  none  of  his  business!"  cried  Jean  to  Fran- 
goise. 

"Very  sure  it's  none  of  his  business!"  said  the  young 
girl,  with  a  tranquil  air. 

"Ah!  it's  none  of  my  business,  eh?"  resumed  Buteau. 
"  Well,  I'm  going  to  make  you  both  march,  jades  that  you 
are!" 

'  This  mad  audacity  paralyzed,  bewildered  Jean.  The  others, 
the  Delhommes,  Fouan,  Xa  Grande,  held  aloof.  They  did  not 
seem  surprised;  they  thought,  evidently,  that  Buteau  had  a 
right  to  do  as  he  pleased  in  his  own  house.  Then  Buteau 
felt  himself  victorious  in  his  undisputed  strength  of  possession. 
He  turned  towards  Jean.  "And  now  for  you,  scoundrel,  who 
came  here  to  turn  my  house  upside  down !  Get  out  of  here 
on  the  instant !     Eh  !   you  refuse.     Wait,  wait ! ' ' 

He  picked  up  his  flail,  he  whirled  it  about  his  head,  and 
Jean  had  only  the  time  to  seize  the  other  flail,  Frangoise's,  to 
defend  himself.     Cries  burst  forth,  they  strove  to  throw  them- 


FRBNCH  LITERATURE.  173 

selves  between  them  ;  but  the  two  men  were  so  terrible  that 
they  drew  back.  The  long  handles  of  the  flails  carried  the 
blows  for  several  yards;  they  swept  the  court-yard.  The 
two  adversaries  stood  alone,  in  the  centre,  at  a  distance  from 
each  other,  enlarging  the  circle  of  their  flails.  They  uttered 
not  a  word,  their  teeth  set.  Only  the  sharp  blows  of  the 
pieces  of  wood  were  heard  at  each  stroke. 

Buteau  had  launched  forth  the  first  blow,  and  Jean,  yet 
stooping,  would  have  had  his  head  broken,  if  he  had  not 
leaped  backwards.  Instantly,  with  a  sudden  stiffening  of  the 
muscles,  he  arose,  he  raised,  he  brought  down  the  flail,  like  a 
thresher  beating  the  grain.  But  already  the  other  was  strik- 
ing also,  the  two  flail  ends  met,  bent  back  upon  their  leather 
straps,  in  the  mad '  flight  of  wounded  birds.  Three  times  the 
same  clash  was  reproduced.  They  saw  only  those  bits  of  wood 
whirl  and  hiss  in  the  air  at  the  extremity  of  the  handles, 
always  ready  to  fall  and  split  the  skulls  which  they  menaced. 

Delhomme  and  Fouan,  however,  had  rushed  forward,  when 
the  women  cried  out.  Jean  had  just  rolled  in  the  straw 
treacherously  stricken  by  Buteau,  who,  with  a  blow  like  a 
whip  stroke,  along  the  ground,  fortunately  deadened,  had  hit 
him  on  the  legs.  He  sprang  to  his  feet,  he  brandished  his 
flail  in  a  rage  that  the  pain  increased.  The  end  described  a 
large  circle,  fell  to  the  right,  when  the  other  expected  it  to 
the  left.  A  few  lines  nearer,  and  the  brains  would  have  been 
beaten  out.  Only  the  ear  was  grazed.  The  blow,  passing 
obliquely,  fell  with  all  its  force  upon  the  arm,  which  was 
broken  clean.  The  bone  cracked  with  the  sound  of  breaking 
glass. 

"Ah!  the  murderer!"  howled  Buteau,  "he  has  killed 
me!" 

Jean,  haggard,  l^is  eyes  red  with  blood,  dropped  his  weapon. 
Then,  for  a  moment,  he  stared  at  them  all,  as  if  stupefied  by 
what  had  happened  there,  so  rapidly ;  and  he  went  away,  limp- 
ing, with  a  gesture  of  furious  despair. 

When  he  had  turned  the  corner  of  the  house,  towards  the 
plain,  he  saw  La  Trouille,  who  had  witnessed  the  fight,  over 
the  garden  hedge.  She  was  still  laughing  at  it,  having  come 
there  to  skulk  around  the  baptismal  repast,  to  which  neither 


X74  LITERATURE  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

her  father  nor  herself  had  been  invited.  Mahomet  would  split 
his  sides  with  merriment  over  the  little  family  fete,  over  his 
brother's  broken  arm!  She  squirmed  as  if  she  had  been 
tickled,  almost  ready  to  fall  over,  so  much  was  she  amused 
at  it  all. 

"  Ah !  Caporal,  what  a  hit ! "  cried  she.  "  The  bone  went 
crack !    It  wasn't  the  least  bit  funny  !  " 

He  did  not  answer,  slackening  his  step  with  an  over- 
whelmed air.  And  she  followed  him,  whistling  to  her  geese, 
:which  she  had  brought  to  have  a  pretext  for  stationing  her- 
self and  listening  behind  the  walls.  Jean,  mechanically,  rC' 
turned  towards  the  threshing  machine,  which  was  yet  at 
work  amid  the  fading  light.  He  thought  that  it  was  all  over, 
that  he  could  never  see  the  Buteaus  again,  that  they  would 
never  give  him  Fran9oise.  How  stupid  it  was  !  Ten  minutes 
had  sufficed  ;  a  quarrel  which  he  had  not  sought,  a  blow  so 
unfortunate,  just  at  the  moment  when  matters  were  progress- 
ing favorably  !  And  now  there  was  an  end  to  it  all !  The 
roaring  of  the  machine,  in  the  depths  of  the  twilight,  pro- 
longed itself  like  a  great  cry  of  distress. 

LUDOVIC  HALfeVY. 

Apter  entertaining  lovers  of  pleasure  under  the  Second 
Empire  by  furnishing  comic  librettos  for  Offenbach's  gay 
music,  Hal^vy  twenty  years  later  wrote  a  charming  romance 
which  has  become  a  favorite  text-book  for  American  school- 
girls studying  French.  L,udovic  Hal^vy  (born  in  1834),  be- 
longs to  a  Jewish  family,  distinguished  in  music,  the  drama, 
and  Oriental  research.  He  was  employed  in  the  state  service 
until  his  dramatic  success  caused  him  to  retire.  His  "  Mon- 
sieur and  Madame  Cardinal "  consisted  of  equivocal  sketches, 
for  which  "  The  Ahh6  Constantin "  was  perhaps  a  recanta- 
tion. It  furnishes  a  French  view  of  American  life  and  man- 
ners, though  the  scene  is  entirely  in  France. 

Abb:§;  Constantin  and  his  Guests. 

Pauline  began  to  cut  the  endive,  and  Jean  bent  down  to 
receive  the  leaves  in  the  great  salad-dish.  The  Cur^  looked  on. 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  175 

At  this  moment  a  sound  of  little  bells  was  heard.  A  car- 
riage was  approaching;  the  rattling  and  creaking  of  its  wheels 
was  heard.  The  Curb's  little  garden  was  separated  from  the 
road  only  by  a  low  hedge,  in  the  middle  of  which  was  a  little 
trellised  gate. 

All  three  looked  out,  and  saw  driving  down  the  road  a 
hired  carriage  of  primitive  construction,  drawn  by  two  great 
white  horses,  and  driven  by  an  old  coachman  in  a  blouse. 
Beside  this  old  coachman  was  seated  a  tall  footman  in  livery, 
of  the  most  severe  and  correct  demeanor.  In  the  carriage 
were  two  young  women,  dressed  both  alike  in  very  elegant, 
but  very  simple  traveling  custumes. 

When  the  carriage  was  opposite  the  gate  the  coachman 
stopped  his  horses,  and  addressing  the  Abbd,  said :  "Monsieur 
le  Cur6,  these  ladies  wish  to  speak  to  you." 

Then,  turning  towards  the  ladies :  "  This  is  Monsieur  le 
Cure  of  lyongueval." 

The  Ahh6  Constantin  approached  and  opened  the  little 
gate.  The  travelers  alighted.  Their  looks  rested,  not  with- 
out astonishment,  on  the  young  officer,  who  stood  there,  a 
little  embarrassed,  with  his  straw  hat  in  one  hand,  and  his 
salad-dish,  all  overflowing  with  endive,  in  the  other. 

The  visitors  entered  the  garden,  and  the  elder — she 
seemed  about  twenty-five— addressing  the  Abb^  Constantin, 
said  to  him,  with  a  little  foreign  accent,  very  original  and 
very  peculiar — ' '  I  am  obliged  to  introduce  myself— Mrs. 
Scott;  I  am  Mrs.  Scott  1  It  was  I  who  bought  the  castle  and 
farms  and  all  the  rest  here  at  the  sale  yesterday.  I  hope  that 
I  do  not  disturb  you,  and  that  you  can  spare  me  five  minutes." 
Then,  pointing  to  her  traveling  companion,  "  Miss  Bettina 
Percival,  my  sister ;  you  guessed  it,  I  am  sure.  We  are  very 
much  alike,  are  we  not?  Ah !  Bettina,  we  have  left  our  bags 
in  the  carriage,  and  we  shall  want  them  directly." 

"  I  will  get  them." 

And  as  Miss  Percival  prepared  to  go  for  the  two  little 
bags  Jean  said  to  her.  "Pray  allow  me." 

"I  am  really  very  sorry  to  give  you  so  much  trouble. 
The  servant  will  give  them  to  you ;  they  are  on  the  front 
seat." 


176  LITERATURB  OF  AI,!.  NATIONS. 

She  had  the  same  accent  as  her  sister,  the  same  large  eyes, 
black,  laughing,  and  gay,  and  the  same  hair,  not  red,  but 
fair,  with  golden  shades,  where  daintily  danced  the  light  of 
the  sun.  She  bowed  to  Jean  with  a  pretty  little  smile,  and 
he,  having  returned  to  Pauline  the  salad-dish  full  of  endive, 
went  to  look  for  the  two  little  bags.  Meanwhile,  much  agi- 
tated, sorely  disturbed,  the  Abb^  Constantin  introduced  into 
his  vicarage  the  new  Chatelaine  of  Longueval. 

This  vicarage  of  Longueval  was  far  from  being  a  palace. 
The  same  apartment  on  the  ground  floor  served  for  dining 
and  drawing-room,  communicating  directly  with  the  kitchen 
by  a  door,  which  stood  always  wide  open  ;  this  room  was  fur- 
nished in  the  most  scanty  manner;  two  old  arm-chairs,  six 
straw  chairs,  a  sideboard,  a  round  table.  Pauline  had  already 
laid  the  cloth  for  the  dinner  of  the  Ahh6  and  Jean. 

Mrs.  Scott  and  Miss  Percival  went  and  came,  examining 
the  domestic  arrangements  of  the  Cur^  with  a  sort  of  childish 
wonder. 

"But  the  garden,  the  house,  everything  is  charming," 
said  Mrs.  Scott. 

They  both  boldly  penetrated  into  the  kitchen ;  the  Ahh6 
Constantin  followed  them,  scared,  bewildered,  stupefied  at 
the  suddenness  and  resolution  of  this  American  invasion. 

Old  Pauline,  with  an  anxious  and  gloomy  air,  studied  the 
two  foreigners. 

"Here  they  are,  then,"  she  said  to  herself,  "  these  Pro- 
testants, these  accursed  heretics !  " 

"I  must  compliment  you,"  said  Bettina ;  "your  little 
kitchen  is  so  beautifully  kept,  Look,  Suzie,  is  not  the  vic- 
arage altogether  exactly  what  you  wished  ?  " 

"  And  so  is  the  Cur^,"  rejoined  Mrs.,  Scott.  "  Yes,  Mon- 
sieur le  Curd,  if  you  will  permit  me  to  say  so,  you  do  not 
know  how  happy  it  makes  me  to  find  you  just  what  you  are. 
In  the  railway  carriage  what  did  I  say  to  you,  Bettina?  And 
again  just  now,  when  we  were  driving  here  ?  " 

"  My  sister  said  to  me,  Monsieur  le  Curd,  that  what  she 
desired  above  everything  was  a  priest,  not  young  or  melan- 
choly or  severe,  but  one  with  white  hair  and  a  kind  and  gen- 
tle manner.     And  that  is  exactly  what  you  are,  Monsieur  le 


FRENCH  WTERATURB.  177 

Cur6,  exactly.  No,  we  could  not  have  been  more  fortunate. 
Excuse  me  for  speaking  to  you  in  this  manner ;  the  Parisians 
know  how  to  make  pretty  phrases,  but  I  do  not,  and  in  speak- 
ing French  I  should  often  be  quite  at  a  loss  if  I  did  not  say 
everything  in  a  simple  and  childish  way,  as  it  comes  into  my 
head.  In  a  word,  I  am  satisfied,  quite  satisfied,  and  I  hope 
that  you  too.  Monsieur  le  Cur^i  will  be  satisfied  with  your 
new  parishioners."   ' 

"  My  parishioners  I "  exclaimed  the  Cur6,  all  at  once  re- 
covering speech,  movement,  life,  everything  which  for  some 
moments  had  completely  abandoned  him.  "  My  parishioners! 
Pardon  me,  Madame,  Mademoiselle,  I  am  so  agitated.  You 
will  be — you  are  Catholics  ?  " 

"  Certainly  we  are  Catholics." 

"Catholics  !  Catholics  !"  repeated  the  Curd. 

"  Catholics  !  Catholics  !  "  echoed  old  Pauline. 

Mrs.  Scott  looked  from  the  Curd  to  Pauline,  from  Pauline 
to  the  Curd,  much  surprised  that  a  single  word  should  pro- 
duce such  an  effect,  and,  to  complete  the  tableau,  Jean  ap- 
peared carrying  the  two  little  traveling-bags. 

The  Curd  and  Pauline  saluted  him  with  the  same  words 
— "  Catholics  !  Catholics!  " 

"Ah  '!  I  begin  to  understand,"  said  Mrs.  Scott,  laughing. 
"  It  is  our  name,  our  country  ;  you  thought  that  we  were  J'rp- 
testants.  Not  at  all.  Our  mother  was  a  Canadian,  French 
and  Catholic  by  descent ;  that  is  why  my  sister  and  I  both 
speak  French,  with  an  accent,  it  is  true,  and  with  certain 
American  idioms,  but  yet  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  able  to  ex- 
press nearly  all  we  want  to  say.  My  husband  is  a  Protestant, 
but  he  allows  me  complete  liberty,  and  my  two  children  are 
Catholics.  That  is  why.  Monsieur  I'Abbd,  we  wished  to 
come  and  see  you  the  very  first  day." 

"That  is  one  reason,"  continued  Bettina,  "but  there  is 
also  another ;  but  for  that  reason  we  shall  want  our  little 
bags." 

"  Here  they  are,"  said  Jean. 

While  the  two  little  bags  passed  from  the  hands  of  the 
officer  to  those  of  Mrs.  Scott  and  Bettina,  the  Curd  introduced 
Jean  to  the  two  American  ladies,  but  his  agitation  was  so 

X — 12 


178  WTSRATURK  OF  AI<L  NATIONS. 

great  that  the  introduction  was  not  made  strictly  according 
to  rule.  The  Cur^  forgot  only  one  thing,  it  is  true,  but  that 
was  a  thing  tolerably  essential  in  an  introduction,^the  family 
name  of  Jean. 

"This  is  Jean,"  said  he,  "my  godson,  lieutenant  of  artil- 
lery, now  quartered  at  Souvigny.     He  is  one  of  the  family." 

Jean  made  two  deep  bows,  the  ladies  two  little  ones,  after 
which  they  foraged  in  their  bags,  from  which  each  drew  a 
rouleau  of  1,000  francs,  daintily  enclosed  in  green  sheaths  of 
serpent  skin,  clasped  with  gold. 

"I  have  brought  you  this  for  your  poor,"  said  Mrs.  Scott. 

"And  I  have  brought  you  this,"  said  Bettina. 

"  And  besides  that.  Monsieur  le  Cur^,  I  am  going  to  give 
you  five  hundred  francs  a  month,"  said  Mrs.  Scott. 

"And  I  will  do  like  my  sister. " 

Delicately  they  slipped  their  ofierings  into  the  right  and 
left  hands  of  the  Cur6,  who,  looking  at  each  hand  alternately, 
said  :  ' '  What  are  these  bundles  ?  They  are  very  heavy ; 
there  must  be  money  in  them.     Yes,  but  how  much  ? ' ' 

The  Ahh6  Constantin  was  seventy-two,  and  much  money 
had  passed  through  his  hands,  but  the  money  had  come  to 
him  in  small  sums,  and  the  idea  of  such  an  oflfering  as  this 
had  never  entered  his  head.  Two  thousand  francs  !  Never 
had  he  had  two  thousand  francs  in  his  possession — no,  not 
even  one  thousand.  He  stammered  :  "  I  am  very  grateful  to 
you,  Madame  ;  you  are  very  good.  Mademoiselle — " 

But  after  all  he  could  not  thank  them  enough,  and  Jean 
thought  it  necessary  to  come  to  his  assistance. 

"  These  ladies  have  just  given  you  two  thousand  francs  ! " 

And  then,  full  of  gratitude,  the  Cm6  cried:  "Two  thou- 
sand francs  !     Two  thousand  francs  for  my  poor ! " 

Pauline  suddenly  reappeared. 

"Here,  Pauline,"  said  the  Curd,  "put  away  this  money, 
and  take  care — " 

Old  Pauline  filled  many  positions  in  this  simple  house- 
hold,— cook,  maid-of-all-work,  treasurer,  dispenser.  Her  hands 
received  with  a  respectful  tremble  these  two  little  rouleaux, 
which  represented  so  much  misery  alleviated,  so  much  suffer- 
ing relieved. 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  179 

"A  thousand  francs  a  montli !  Then  there  will  be  no  poor 
left  in  the  country." 

"  That  is  just  what  I  wish.  I  am  rich,  very  rich,  and  so 
is  my  sister ;  she  is  even  richer  than  I  am,  because  a  young 
girl  has  not  so  many  expenses,  while  I —  Ah  !  well,  I  spend 
all  that  I  can — all  that  I  can.  When  one  has  a  great  deal  of 
money,  too  much,  more  than  one  feels  to  be  just,  tell  me.  Mon- 
sieur le  Cur^,  is  there  any  other  way  of  obtaining  pardon 
than  to  keep  one's  hands  open,  and  give,  give,  give,  all  one 
can,  and  usefully  as  one  can?  Besides,  you  can  give  me 
'  something  in  return  ; ' '  and,  turning  to  Pauline,  ' '  Will  you 
be  so  kind  as  to  give  me  a  glass  of  water  ?  No,  nothing  else, 
a  glass  of  cold  water ;  I  am  dying  of  thirst." 

"And  I,"  said  Bettina,  laughing,  while  Pauline  ran  to 
fetch  the  water,  "  I  am  dying  of  something  else — of  hunger, 
to  tell  the  truth.  Monsieur  le  Cur^, — I  know  that  I  am 
going  to  be  dreadfully  intrusive  ;  I  see  your  cloth  is  laid, — 
could  you  not  invite  us  to  dinner?  " 

"  Bettina ! "  said  Mrs.  Scott. 

"Let  me  alone,  Suzie,  let  me  alone.  Won't  you.  Mon- 
sieur leCur^?    I  am  sure  you  will." 

But  he  could  find  no  reply.  The  old  Cur6  hardly  knew 
where  he  was.  They  had  taken  his  vicarage  by  storm  ;  they 
were  Catholics ;  they  had  promised  him  a  thousand  francs  a 
month,  and  now  they  wanted  to  dine  with  him.  Ah  !  that 
was  the  last  stroke.  Terror  seized  him  at  the  thought  of 
having  to  do  the  honors  of  his  leg  of  mutton  and  custard  to 
these  two  absurdly  rich  Americans.     He  murmured  : 

"  Dine  ! — you  would  like  to  dine  here?  " 

Jean  thought  he  must  interpose  again.  "  It  would  be  a 
great  pleasure  to  my  godfather,"  said  he,  "if  you  would 
kindly  stay.  But  I  know  what  disturbs  him.  We  were 
going  to  dine  together,  just  the  two  of  us,  and  you  must  not 
expect  a  feast.     You  will  be  very  indulgent  ?  ' ' 

"Yes,  yes,  very  indulgent,"  replied  Bettina;  then,  ad- 
dressing her  sister,  "Come,  Suzie,  you  must  not  be  cross, 
because  I  have  been  a  little — you  know  it  is  my  way  to  be  a 
little — let  us  stay,  will  you  ?  It  will  do  us  good  to  pass  a 
quiet  hour  here,  after  such  a  day  as  we  have  had !    On  the 


I80  LITERATURE  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

railway,  in  the  carriage,  in  the  heat,  in  the  dust;  we  had 
such  a  horrid  luncheon,  in  such  a  horrid  hotel.  We  were  to 
have  returned  to  the  same  hotel  at  seven  o'clock  to  dine,  and 
then  take  the  train  back  to  Paris,  but  dinner  here  will  be 
really  much  nicer.  You  won' t  say  no  ?  Ah  !  how  good  you 
are,  Suzie  ! ' '     She  embraced  her  sister  fondly. 

"Come,"  said  Jean,  "quick,  Pauline,  two  more  plates;  I 
will  help  you." 

"  And  so  will  I,"  said  Bettina ;  "  I  will  [help,  too.  Oh  ! 
do  let  me  ;  it  will  be  so  amusing^" 

In  a  moment  she  had  taken  off  her  mantle,  and  Jean  could 
admire,  in  all  its  exquisite  perfection,  a  figure  marvellous 
for  suppleness  and  grace.  Miss  Percival  then  removed  her 
hat,  but  with  a  little  too  much  haste,  for  this  was  the  signal 
for  a  charming  catastrophe.  A  whole  avalanche  descended 
in  torrents,  in  long  cascades,  over  Bettina's  shoulders.  She 
was  standing  before  a  window  flooded  by  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
and  this  golden  light,  falling  full  on  this  golden  hair,  formed 
a  delicious  frame  for  the  sparkling  beauty  of  the  young  girl. 
Confused  and  blushing,  Bettina  was  obliged  to  call  her  sister 
to  her  aid,  and  Mrs.  Scott  had  much  trouble  in  introducing 
order  into  this  disorder. 

When  this  disaster  was  at  length  repaired,  nothing  could 
prevent  Bettina  from  rushing  on  plates,  knives,  and  forks. 

"  Oh  !  indeed,"  said  she  to  Jean,  "  I  know  very  well  how 
to  lay  the  cloth.  Ask  my  sister.  Suzie,  when  I  was  a  little 
girl  in  New  York,  didn't  I  use  to  lay  the  cloth  very  well?" 

"Very  well,  indeed,"  said  Mrs.  Scott. 

And  then,  while  begging  the  Cm6  to  excuse  Bettina's 
want  of  thought,  she,  too,  took  off  her  hat  and  mantle,  so 
that  Jean  had  again  the  very  agreeable  spectacle  of  a  charm- 
ing figure  and  beautiful  hair  ;  but,  to  Jean's  great  regret,  the 
catastrophe  had  not  a  second  representation. 

in  a  few  minutes,  Mrs.  Scott,  Miss  Percival,  the  Cur^-, 
and  Jean  were  seated  round  the  little  vicarage  table ;  then, 
thanks  partly  to  the  impromptu  and  original  nature  of  the  en- 
tertainment, partly  to  Bettina's  good  humor  and  perhaps 
slightly  audacious  gayety,  the  conversation  took  a  turn  of  the 
frankest  and  most  cordial  familiarity. 


GERMAN  LITERATURE. 

Periqd  VI. 

The  Nineteenth  Century. 


^'  T  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  all  Ger- 
many was  roused  to  resist  the  terrific  Napoleonic 


invasion.  The  unity  of  the  German  race  was 
felt  in  the  presence  of  imminent  destruction.  A 
patriotic  fervor  pervaded  all  classes,  and  became 
binding  religion.  War-songs  were  quickly  com- 
posed and  widely  sung  by  the  people.  But  when  the  war 
ended  in  victory  for  the  old  regime,  and  the  old  rulers  were 
restored  to  their  thrones,  a  system  of  repression  was  inaugu- 
rated. Freedom  of  speech,  which  had  prevailed  among  the 
Romanticists,  was  stifled  by  the  harshest  measures.  Goethe, 
whose  genius  rose  superior  to  local  limitations,  and  whose 
acknowledged  aim  was  individual  self-culture,  was  able  to 
work  on,  and  even  to  produce  some  of  his  greatest  works. 
But  the  minor  poets,  whose  inspiration  sprung  from  love  of 
the  Fatherland,  were  reduced  to  silence  or  sought  refuge  in 
foreign  lands.  The  philosopher  Hegel  submitted  to  the  re- 
action and  worshipped  the  powers  that  be.  But  Schopen- 
hauer, despairing  of  the  world,  developed  pessimism. 

Heine,  the  greatest  writer  of  the  succeeding  period,  was,  by 
his  Jewish  birth,  placed  in  a  certain  antagonism  to  the  ideals 
of  the  German  people.  ,  He  felt  and  acknowledged  that 
Napoleon  had  been  not  only  a  liberator  of  the  Jews  from  the 
mediaeval  servitude,  but  an  inspiring  force  to  all  the  oppressed. 
Exiled  in  Paris,  and  crippled  with  physical  ills,  Heine  con- 
tinued to  write  beautiful  poetry  and  satirical  prose,    But 

i8i 


1 82  WTERATDRB  OF  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

while  the  world  admired  his  genius,  the  German  people  re- 
fused to  recognize  him  as  one  of  themselves.  They  were 
content  with  minor  poets  and  inferior  prose-writers,  or  went 
for  higher  entertainment  to  Goethe  and  Schiller. 

The  brief  and  abortive  Revolution  of  1848  showed  that 
the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  was  not  extinct.  Again 
a  swarm  of  poets  gave  vent  to  the  old  feelings,  but  were 
quickly  suppressed.  Prussia  had  seemed  to  give  promise  of 
leadership  for  the  united  race,  and  this  was  eventually  ful- 
filled in  1870.  But  the  movement  is  not  so  plainly  discerned 
in  literature  as  in  other  departments  of  human  activity. 
Freytag  has  perhaps  done  more  to  represent  the  national 
tendency  than  any  other  single  writer.  In  his  "  Pictures  of 
German  Life ' '  there  is  a  panoramic  view  of  the  progress  of 
the  race  from  century  to  century.  Auerbach  and  others  have 
given  partial  views,  as  of  the  Black  Forest ;  while  Ebers  has 
found  inspiration  for  romance  in  ancient  Egypt,  and  Dahn  in 
the  wars  of  the  Germans  with  the  Romans. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  has  been 
a  bewildering,  social,  political  and  intellectual  unrest,  and  a 
marked  progress  in  liberalism.  It  is  seen  in  criticism  and 
philosophy,  in  theology  and  Biblical  criticism  even  more 
plainly  than  in  literature  proper.  The  individualism  which 
Goethe  exemplified  has  been  opposed  by  collectivism  and 
socialism.  There  is  a  wide-spread  longing  for  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  society,  but  the  agitators  are  by  no  means  agreed  as 
to  the  new  form  to  be  desired.  Karl  Gutzkow  (1811-1878), 
in  his  great  drama  "Uriel  Acosta," , pleaded  for  freedom  of 
thought.  He  has  been  succeeded  by  the  dramatists  Ernst 
von  Wildenbuch  (born  in  1845),  Hermann  Sudermann  (1859), 
and  the  poet  Gerart  Hauptmann  (1862),  who  all  advocate  in- 
dividual freedom  from  conventional  and  social  restraints. 


LYRISTS  OF  THE  WAR 
OF.  LIBERATION. 

Of  the  notable  poets  of 
the  German  War  of  Libera- 
tion Theodor  Korner  (1791- 
181 3)  may  be  regarded  as  the  chief,  for  his  laurels  were  sanc- 
tified by  the  blood  of  martyrdom.  In  the  bright  morning  of 
love,  happiness,  and  dawning  fame  he  rode  out  with  that 
romantic  band  of  Liitzow  volunteer  students  of  the  academies 
and  universities,  and  composed  his  stormy  battle-songs  (after- 
ward published  as  "Lyre  and  Sword")  to  be  sung  by  his 
soldiers  in  camp.  On  the  morning  of  his  death — at-Gade- 
busch.  in  Mecklenburg  when  he  was  only  twenty-two  years 
old — ^he  wrote  the  rapturous  bridal  "Song  to  his  Sword." 
He  had  just  finished  reading  aloud  the  last  verse  when  the 
signal  for  action  was  given.  Other  stirring  battle  songs  of 
his  are  "Liitzow's  Wild  Chase,"  "Father,  I  Call  Thee!" 
"Heart,  let  thyself  not  break  !  "  and  his  "Farewell  to  life," 
,  written  as  he  lay  wounded  after  a  sharp  action. 

Witb  Korner  may  be  mentioned  the  kindred  spirits  Fried- 
rich  Forster,  his  army  comrade,  Ernst  Moritz  Amdt  (1769- 
i860),  Friedrich  Riickert  (i 788-1 866),  and  Max  von  Schenken- 
dorf  (1783-1817).  These  all  contributed  war  lyrics,  expressing 
the  national  enthusiasm  of  those  years  of  struggle  with  the 
overwhelming  Napoleonic  empire.  Schenkendorf  in  sweet, 
melodious  strains  foretells  a  new  realm  of  poetry  and  freedom. 
Riickert' s  bold  and  fiery  spirit  fiercely  denounces  the  oppress- 
ors of  his  country.  Professor  Francke  styles  Amdt  "the 
Bliicher  of  German  lyrics."  Amdt  hymned  "The  God  who 
let  the  iron  grow,"  and  also  sang  the  glorious  hymns  of  Ger- 
man unity.  His  most  inspiring  song  is  "  What  is  the  Ger- 
man's Fatherland  ? ' ' 

183 


1 84  UTERATURE  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

Heinrich  von  Kleist  (1777-18 ii)  was  regarded  by  Goethe 
as  "  a  human  form  beautifully  planned  by  nature,  but  infected 
with  an  incurable  disease."  His  "  Hermannsschlacht " — the 
lineal  sequel  of  Klopstock's  "Hermann  and  Thusnelda'' — ^has 
been  described  as  "the  glorification  of  the  first  great  rising  of 
Germanic  yeomen  against  foreign  tyranny."  It  is  "like  one 
long-drawn  breath  of  exultant  joy  that  the  hour  of  action 
has  come."  Kleiat's  Hermann  is  the  embodiment  of  the 
spirit  which  Fichte  in  his  "  Addresses  to  the  German  Nation" 
had  sought  to  evoke.  With  Fichtean  inspiration  Kleist  also 
penned  his  indignant  "Catechism  for  Germans,"  and  after 
the  crushing  blow  of  Wagram  his  hate  for  the  French  invaders 
burst  forth  again  in  the  bitterness  of  his  drama,  ' '  Prince 
Frederick  of  Hamburg,.' '  himself  depicted  against  the  back- 
ground of  the  Brandenburg  of  the  Great  Elector.  But  this 
son  of  a  noble  old  Prussian  ofBcer  was  not  destined  to  die  a 
martyr  on  the  battle-field.  The  neglect  of  his  genius  by  his 
contemporaries,  and  the  loss  of  even  his  sister's  friendship, 
led  Kleist  to  exclaim:  "Hell  gave  me  my  half-talents." 
Together  with  Henriette  Vogel,  he  committed  suicide.  His 
most  popular  work  in  Germany  to-day  is  "  Kitty  of'  Heil- 
bronn,"  a  love-romance  of  a  Suabian  village. 

Sword-Song. 

(By  Theodor  Komer.) 

"  SwoRD  at  my  left  side  gleaming ! 
Why  is  thy  keen  glance  beaming 
So  fondly  bent  on  mine  ? 
I  love  that  smile  of  thine !    Hurrah ! " 

"  Borne  by  a  trooper  daring, 
My  looks  his  fire-glance  wearing, 
I  arm  a  freeman's  hand : 
This  well  delights  thy  brand !     Hurrah ! " 

"  Ay,  good  sword !     Free  I  wear  thee ; 
And,  true  heart's  love,  I  bear  thee. 
Betrothed  one,  at  my  side, 
As  my  dear,  chosen  bride !    Hurrah  ! " 


GERMAN  MTERATURB.  185 

"  To  tliee  till  death  united, 
Thy  steel's  bright  life  is  pUghted; 
Ah,  were  my  love  but  tried ! 
When  wilt  thou  wed  thy  bride?    Hurrah! " 

"The  trumpet's  festal  warning 
Shall  hail  our  bridal  morning ; 
When  loud  the  cannon  chide, 
Then  clasp  I  my  loved  bride !     Hurrah  I " 

"  Oh,  joy,  when  thine  arms  hold  me  I 
I  pine  until  they  fold  me. 

Come  to  me !  bridegroom,  come ! 
Thine  is  my  maiden  bloom.     Hurrah ! " 

"Why,  in  thy  sheath  upspringing, 
Thou  wild,  dear  steel,  art  ringing? 
Why  clanging  with  delight, 
So  eager  for  the  fight  ?     Hurrah ! " 

"Well  may  thy  scabbard  rattle. 
Trooper,  I  pant  for  battle ; 
Right  eag  ;r  for  the  fight, 
I  clang  with  wild  delight.     Hurrah ! " 

"Why  thus,  my  love,  forth  creeping? 
Stay,  in  thy  chamber  sleeping ; 
Wait,  still  i'  th'  narrow  room ; 
Soon  for  my  bride  I  come.     Hurrah ! " 

"  Keep  me  not  longer  pining ! 
Oh,  for  lyove's  garden  shining 
With  roses,  bleeding  red. 
And  blooming  with  the  dead !     Hurrah! " 

"Come  from  thy  sheath,  then,  treasure! 
Thou  trooper's  true  eye-pleasure ! 
Come  forth,  my  good  sword,  come ! 
Enter  thy  father-home  I    Hurrah  1 ' ' 

"  Ha !  in  the  free  air  glancing. 
How  brave  this  bridal  dancing ! 
How,  in  the  sun's  glad  beams. 
Bride-like  thy  bright  steel  gleams  I    Hurrah ! " 


1 86  LITERATURE  OE  Ail,  NATIONS. 

Come  on,  ye  German  horsemen ! 
Come  on,  ye  valiant  Norsemen ! 

Swells  not  your  hearts'  warm  tide  ? 

Clasp  each  in  hand  his  bride !     Hurrah  1 

Once  at  your  left  side  sleeping, 
Scarce  her  veiled  glance  forth  peeping ; 

Now,  wedded  with  your  right, 

God  plights  your  bride  i'  th'  light.     Hurrah  I 

Then  press,  with  warm  caresses, 

Close  lips,  and  bridal  kisses. 
Your  steel ; — cursed  be  his  head, 
Who  fails  the  bride  he  wed !     Hurrah  1 

Now,  till  your  swords  flash,  flinging 
Clear  sparks  forth,  wave  them  singing ; 

Day  dawns  for  bridal  pride ; 

Hurrah,  thou  iron-bride  I     Hurrah! 


Song  of  the  Fatherland. 

(By  E.  M.  Arndt.) 

The  God  who  made  earth's  iron  hoard 

Scorned  to  create  a  slave. 
Hence  unto  man  the  spear  and  sword 

In  his  right  hand  he  gave. 
Hence  him  with  courage  he  imbued, 

I^nt  wrath  to  freedom's  voice, 
That  death  or  victory  in  the  feud 

Might  be  his  only  choice. 

What  God  hath  willed  will  we  uphold, 

And  with  true  faith  maintain, 
And  never  to  the  tyrant  sold 

Cleave  human  skulls  in  twain  ; 
But  him  whose  sword  wins  shame  will  we 

In  pieces  hew  and  tear, 
In  German  land  he  ne'er  shall  be 

Of  German  men  the  heir. 

O  Deutschland,  holy  Fatherland ! 
Thy  faith  and  love  how  true ! 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.  1 87 

Thou  noble  land !  thou  lovely  land ! 

We  swear  to  thee  anew. 
Our  country's  ban  for  knave  and  slave  I 

Be  they  the  raven's  food ! 
To  freedom's  battle  march  the  brave, 

'Tis  fell  revenge  we  brood. 

lyCt  all  that  glows,  let  all  ye  can, 

In  flames  surge  high  and  bright ! 
Ye  Germans  all,  come,  man  for  man. 

And  for  your  country  fight ! 
Now  raise  your  hearts  to  Heaven's  span, 

Stretch  forth  your  hands  on  high. 
And  cry  with  shouting,  man  for  man, 

"  Now  slavery  shall  die ! " 

I<et  drum  and  flute,  let  all  ye  can. 

Resound  with  thrilling  peal ! 
This  very  day,  yes,  man  for  man, 

Will  steep  in  blood  the  steel. 
In  tyrant's  blood,  in  Frenchmen's  blood — 

O  day  of  sweet  revenge ! 
That  sound,  to  German  ears  so  good. 

Will  our  great  cause  avenge. 

I/Ct  flags  and  banners,  all  ye  can. 

Wave  o'er  our  heads  on  high ! 
To-day  we  swear,  yes,  man  for  man. 

The  hero's  death  to  die. 
Wave  o'er  the  daring  phalanx,  wave, 

Thou  flag  of  victory ! 
We'll  vanquish,  or  seek  in  the  grave 

The  pillow  of  the  free. 


Barbarossa. 
(By  Friedrich  Riickert.) 

In  his  castle  underground  He  did  not  die,  he  lives 
Old  Barbarossa  dwells.  Still  in  the  castle's  keep ; 

The  Emperor  Frederic,  From  human  sight  concealed, 
Bound  fast  by  magic  spells.  He  sat  him  down  to  sleep. 


i88 


WTERATURB  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 


And  with  him  he  took  down 
The  glories  of  his  realm, 

And  when  his  time  shall  come, 
Again  he'll  seize  the  helm. 

The  throne  whereon  he  sits 

Of  ivory  is  made  ; 
Of  marble  is  the  table 

Whereon  he  rests  his  head. 

His  beard  is  not  of  flax, 
lyike  flaming  fire  it  glows, 

'Tis  through  the  table  grown. 
Where  arms  and  chin  repose. 


He  nods  as  in  a  dream, 
His  eyes  half  open  blink ; 

Anon  unto  a  page 

He  calls  with  beck  and  wink. 

In  sleep  he  speaks,  ' '  O  boy. 
Unto  the  entrance  hie. 

See  if  the  ravens  still 

Around  the  mountain  fly ! 

"And  if  the  ancient  ravens 
Are  flying  round  and  round, 

I  still  must  slumber  here, 
A  hundred  years  spell-bound." 


The  Soldier's  Morning  Song. 

Schenkendorf.) 
A  morn  will  dawn  upon  us, 


(By  Max  von 

Rise  from  your  grassy  couches, 

Ye  sleepers,  up !  'tis  day ; 
Already  do  the  chargers 

To  us  good  morning  neigh. 
In  morning's  glow,  so  brightly 

Our  faithful  weapons  gleam ; 
While  we  of  death  are  think- 
ing,- 

Of  victory  we  dream. 

Thou  God  of  endless  mercy. 

Gaze  from  Thy  azure  tent ; 
For  to  this  field  of  battle 

By  Thee  have  we  been  sent. 
Grant  we  be  found  not  wanting. 

And  victory  accord. 
The  Christian  flags  are  waving, 

Thine  is  the  war,  O  I^ord ! 


Bright,  balmy  and  serene. 
The  pious  all  await  it. 

By  angel  hosts  'tis  seen. 
Soon  will  its  rays,  unclouded. 

On  every  German  beam ; 
O  break,  thou  day  of  fulness. 

Thou  day  of  freedom,  gleam ! 

Joy  echoes  from  each  tower, 

In  every  bosom  glows, 
T6  storms  succeed  life's  pleas- 
ures, 

And  love,  and  soft  repose. 
The  victor's  songs  resounding 

Ring  gaily  through  the  air  ; 
And  we,  ye  gallant  swordsmen, 

Yes,  we  were  also  there ! 


THE  SUABIAN  POETS. 

A  GROUP  of  German  poets  of 
the  nineteenth  century  has  been 
called  the  Suabian  school.  Re- 
jecting the  affectations  of  the  Romanticists,  they  were  simple 
in  style  and  theme,  and  drew  their  inspiration  from  nature 
only.  At  their  head  stood  Ludwig  Uhland  (1787- 18162). 
His  ballads  and  songs  have  been  universally  popular.  The 
most  noted  pieces  are  "The  Minstrel's  Curse,"  "The  Luck 
of  Edenhall,"  "The  Passage." 

To  the  same  school  belongs  Gustav  Schwab  (1792-1850), 
whose  chief  ballad  is  "The  Knight  and  the  Bodensee;" 
Eduard'Morike  (1804-1875),  whose  "Song  of  the  Wind"  is 
remarkable  for  its  rhythm ;  and  Justinus  Kemer  (1786-1862), 
whose  song  is  a  voice  of  sadness.  Kemer's  "  Kaiser  Rudolph's 
Ride  to  the  Grave,"  "The  Richest  Prince,"  are  well  known, 
and  his  "  Poesy  "  deserves  to  be  better  known. 


The  Minstrel's  Curse. 

There  stood  in  olden  times  a  castle,  tall  and  grand. 
Far  shone  it  o'er  the  plain,  e'en  to  the  blue  sea's  strand. 
And  round  it  gardens  wove  a  wreath  of  fragrant  flowers. 
In  rainbow  radiance  played  cool  fountains  'mid  the  bowers. 

There  sat  a  haughty  king,  in  victories  rich  and  lands, 
He  sat  enthroned  so  pale,  and  issued  stern  commands ; 
For  what  he  broods  is  terror,  rage  his  eyeball  lights, 
And  scourge  is  what  he  speaks,  and  blood  is  what  he  writes. 

Once  to  this  castle  went  a  noble  minstrel  pair. 
The  one  with  golden  looks,  and  gray  the  other's  hair; 
The  old  man,  with  his  harp,  a  noble  charger  rode 
And  gaily  at  his  side  his  ble>oming  comrade  strode. 

189 


igo  LITERATURE  OF  AU,  NATIONS. 

The  old  man  to  the  stripling  spake :  "  Prepare,  my  son ! 
Bethink  our  deepest  songs,  awake  the  fullest  tone, 
Nerve  all  thy  strength,  and  sing  of  grief  as  well  as  love ! 
Our  task  is  the  proud  monarch's  stony  heart  to  move." 

Now  in  the  pillared  hall  the  minstrels  stand  serene. 
And  on  the  throne  there  sit  the  monarch  and  his  queen ; 
The  king,  in  awful  pomp,  like  the  red  northlight's  sheen, 
And  mild  and  gentle,  like  the  full  moon,  sat  the  queen. 

The  old  man  struck  the  chords,  he  struck  them  wondrous  well, 
Upon  the  ear  the  tones  e'er  rich  and  richer  swell. 
Then  streamed  with  heavenly  tones  the  stripling' s  voice  of  fire, 
The  old  man's  voice  replied,  like  spirits'  hollow  choir. 

They  sing  of  spring  and  love,  the  golden  time  they  bless 
Of  freedom  and  of  honor,  of  faith  and  holiness. 
They  sing  of  all  the  joys  that  in  the  bosom  thrill, 
With  heart-exalting  strains  the  gilded  halls  they  fill. 

The  crowd  of  courtiers  round  forget  their  scoffing  now, 
The  king's  bold  warriors  to  God  in  meekness  bow. 
The  queen,  dissolved  in  raptures,  and  in  sadness  sweet. 
The  rose  upon  her  breast  casts  at  the  minstrels'  feet. 

"My  people  led  astray,  and  now  ye  tempt  my  queen?" 
The-  monarch,  trembling,  cried,  and  rage  flashed  in  his  mien. 
He  hurled  his  sword,  it  pierced  the  stripling  as  it  gleamed, 
Instead  of  golden  songs  a  purple  torrent  streamed. 

Then  was  the  host  of  hearers  scattered  as  by  storm, 
The  minstrel's  outspread  arms  received  the  lifeless  form. 
He  wraps  his  mantle  round  him,  sets  him  on  his  steed. 
He  binds  him  upright  fast,  and  leaves  the  hall  with  speed. 

But  at  the  portal's  arch  the  aged  minstrel  stands. 
His  harp  of  matchless  fame  he  seized  with  both  his  hands, 
And  'gainst  a  marble  pillar  dashing  it,  he  cries. 
Resounding  through  the  hall  the  trembling  echo  flies. 

"Woe  be  to  thee,  proud  pile,  may  ne'er  sweet  music's  strain, 
Amid  thy  halls  resound,  nor  song,  nor  harp  again ! 
No !  sighs  alone  and  sobs,  and  slaves  that  bow  their  head. 
Till  thee  to  dust  and  ashes  the  God  of  vengeance  tread ! " 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.  19I 

'Ye  perfumed  gaMens,  too,  in  May-day's  golden  light, 
Gaze  here  upon  this  corpse  with  horror  and  affright, 
That  ye  may  parch  and  fade,  your  every  source  be  sealed, 
That  ye,  in  time  to  come,  may  lie  a  barren  field ! 

'  Woe,  murderer,  to  thee !  let  minstrels  curse  thy  name ! 
In  vain  shall  be  thy  wish  for  bloody  wreaths  of  fame, 
And  be  thy  name  forgot,  in  deep  oblivion  veiled. 
Be  like  a  dying  breath,  in  empty  air  exhaled !  " 

The  old  man  cried  aloud,  and  Heaven  heard  the  sound. 
The  walls  a  heap  of  stones,  the  pile  bestrews  the  ground. 
One  pillar  stands  alone,  a  wreck  of  vanished  might, 
And  that,  too,  rent  in  twain,  may  fall  ere  cometh  night. 

Around,  where  gardens  smiled,  a  barren  desert  land. 
No  tree  spreads  there  its  shade,  no  fountains  pierce  the  sand. 
Nor  of  this  monarch's  name  speaks  song  or  epic  verse ; 
Extinguished  and  forgot !  such  is  the  minstrel's  curse. 

The  Water  Sprite. 

(By  Justinus  Kerner.) 

It  was  in  the  balmy  glow  of  May, 

The  maidens  of  Tubingen  danced  so  gay. 

They  danced,  and  danced  right  merrily. 

In  the  verdant  vale,  round  the  linden  tree. 

A  youthful  stranger,  proudly  arrayed, 

Soon  bent  his  steps  to  the  fairest  maid. 

To  the  jocund  dance  the  maid  he  led, 

A  sea-green  wreath  he  placed  on  her  head : 
"Fair  youth,  O  wherefore  so  cold  thy  arm?" 

In  the  depths  of  the  Neckar  it  is  not  warm. 
"Fair  youth,  O  why  is  thy  hand  so  white?" 

The  wave  is  ne'er  pierced  by  the  sun's  bright  light. 

With  the  maiden  he  dances  far  from  the  tree. 
"O  youth,  let  me  go,  my  mother  hails  me  !  " 

He  danced  with  her  to  the  Neckar' s  shore. 

She  tremblingly  cried,  "  O  youth,  no  more ! " 

He  flung  his  arms  rotmd  the  maid,  and  cried, 
' '  Fair  maiden,  thou  art  the  water-sprite's  bride ! " 

He  danced  with  her  down  into  the  wave. 
"O  save  me,  dear  father;  O  mother,  save!" 

To  a  crystal  hall  he  conducted  the  maid, 
"Farewell,  ye  sisters,  in  the  green  glade ! " 


The  greatest  name  in  German 
^  literature  after  Goethe  is  that 
of  Heinrich  Heine.  His  was  a 
spirit  in  sharpest  contrast  to  the  Hellenic  serenity  of  the 
Olympian  of  Weimar.  Heine  was  'fire,  flame  and  smoke, — ■ 
lover,  poet  and  satirist.  With  bewildering  genius  he  turned 
from  jest  and  sarcasm  to  earnest  invocation,  from  verse  to 
prose,  from  the  depths  of  mockery  to  the  heights  of  senti- 
mental lyricism.  Even  in  his  most  vulgar  and  boisterous 
cynicism  the  greatness  of  his  spirit  and  intellectuality  is 
nevertheless  so  manifest  that  he  earned  for  himself  the  title 
of  the  German  Aristophanes.  "  God's  satire,"  he  once  ex- 
claimed, "weighs  heavily  upon  me.  The  great  Author  of 
the  Universe,  the  Aristophanes  of  Heaven,  was  bent  on  dem- 
onstrating with  crushing  force  to  me,  the  little  earthly  so- 
called  German  Aristophanes,  how  my.  weightiest  sarcasms  are 
only  pitiful  attempts  at  jesting  in  comparison  with  His,  and 
how  miserably  I  am  beneath  Him  in  humor,  in  colossal 
mockery."  In  fact,  Heine  was  an  almost  hopelessly  fated 
bundle  of  contradictions.  He  declared :  "I  am  a  Jew,  I  am 
a  Christian.  I  am  tragedy,  I  am  comedy — Heraclitus  and 
Democritus  in  one :  a  Greek,  a  Hebrew:  an  adorer  of  des- 
potism as  incarnate  in  Napoleon,  an  admirer  of  communism 
as  embodied  in  Proudhon ;  a  Latin,  a  Teuton ;  a  beast,  a 
devil,  a  god." 

This  "continuator  of  Goethe,"  as  he  has  been  styled  by 
Matthew  Arnold,  was  born  at  Dtisseldorf,  on  December  13, 
1799.    In  humorous  sport  he  afterwards  stated  the  date  to  be 
192 


GERMAN  WTSRATURE.  IQ3 

the  first  of  January  following,  in  order  that  he  might  call 
himself  "  one  of  the  first  men  of  the  century. ' '  Truly  enough 
he  was  destined  to  be  "  the  representative  of  a  skeptical  time 
of  ferment"  Bom  a  Jew  with  the  soul  of  a  Hellene,  he 
appreciated  "Goethe  with  his  clear  Greek  eye,"  but  felt 
himself  to  be  of  a  new  political  era,  and  more  modern  literary 
activity.  Goethe's  calmness  could  not  but  irritate  this  rest- 
less protestant  against  the  whims  of  life.  As  Matthew  Ar- 
nold has  written : 

"The  Spirit  of  the  World, 
Beholding  the  absurdity  of  men, 
Their  vaunts,  their  feats,  let  a  sardonic  smile 
For  one  brief  moment  wander  o'er  his  lips, 
That  smile  was  Heine." 

The  environments  of  his  childhood  and  youth  served  to 
develop  and  accentuate  Heine's  turbulently  kaleidoscopic 
character.  The  grandson  of  the  ' '  little  Jew  with  a  big  beard  " 
was  sent  to  a  Franciscan  convent  and  Jesuit  academy,  learned 
to  kiss  the  hands  of  the  monks  and  breathed  iu  that  Catholic 
atmosphere  in  which  Romanticism  was  then  thriving.  But 
his  lessons^  of  French  philosophy,  as  well  as  the  French 
Revolution,  stirred  his  young  heart  with  a  new  fire. .  When 
he  kissed  his  little  sweetheart,  Sefchen,  the  executioner's 
pretty  daughter,  he  did  it  (he  has  left  it  on  record)  "not 
merely  out  of  tender  inclination,  but  also  out  of  contempt  for 
the  old  social  order  and  all  its  dark  prejudices  ;  and  in  that 
moment  there  blazed  up  in  me  the  first  flames  of  two  passions 
to  which  the  rest  of  my  life  was  dedicated  :  love  for  fair 
women,  and  love  for  the  French  Revolution — for  that  modern 
Frankish  furor  with  which  I  was  seized  in  the  battle  with  the 
mercenaries  of  the  Middle  Ages"  (the  old  order  in  politics 
and  the  Romanticists  in  literature).  In  those,  days,  too,  the 
French  rule  in  Diisseldorf  was  a  blessing  for  the  Jews,  and  as 
Heine  puts  it,  "to  the  friends  of  freedom  Napoleon  appeared 
as  a  rescuer."  In  such,  soil  were  sown  the  germs  of  that  hero- 
worship  for  Napbleon,  which  later  found  utterance  in  his, 
"Buch  le  Grand."  At  the  age  of  eleven  he  saw  the  great 
emperor  in  the  flesh.  "The  picture,"  he  added  years  after- 
ward, "will  never  vanish  from  my  memory.  I  see  him  stilly 
X— 13 


194  UTBRAT0RE  OF  Atl,  NATIONS. 

high  on  horseback,  with  those  eternal  eyes  in  his  marble  im- 
perator  face,  quiet  as  destiny,  looking  down  on  the  guards 
marching  by;  and  the  old  grenadiers  looked  up  to  him  in 
awful  submission, — stern  accomplices,  deathly  proud :  7<?, 
CcBsar^  morituri  salutanV  (Those  who  are  about  to  die 
'salute  thee,  Caesar.") 

This  peculiar  Napoleonic  sentiment  was  perhaps  at  the 
bottom  of  Heine's  lack  of  sympathy  with  Germany's  War  of 
Liberation.  Regarding  Napoleon  as  the  incarnation  of  genius 
and  of  a  new  age,  he  thought  mere  nationalism  to  be  "a  con- 
traction of  the  heart."  Rewrote  his  "Buch  le  Grand"  to 
thunder  against  the  jailers  of  ideas  and  suppressors  of  hal- 
lowed rights.  He  claimed  "a  very  'extraordinary  professor- 
ship' in  the  University  of  high  minds,"  and  wished  that  not 
a  laurel  wreath,  but  a  sword,  be  placed  on  his  coffin,  because 
"  he  was  a  brave  soldier  in  humanity's  War  of  Libera tion." 

In  literature  he  began  as  a  Romanticist  and  ended  by 
giving  that  school  its  death-blow.  In  his  history  of  the  "  Ro- 
mantic School,"  he  proclaimed  himself  "  its  abdicated  fable- 
king.  ...  a  disfrocked  Romanticist."  And  yet,  with  that 
characteristic  self-struggle  of  his  entire  life,  he  records, 
"there  came  over  me  once  more  an  endless  longing  for  the 
Blue  Flower  in  the  Romantic  dreamland,  and  I  seized  the 
enchanted  lute  and  sang  a  song  ('  Atta  Troll ')  in  which  I 
surrendered  myself  to  all  sweet  exaggerations,  all  moonshine 
intoxication,  all  blooming  nightingale  folly.  It  was  the  last 
free  wood-song  of  Romanticism,  and  I  am  its  last  poet." 

Trained  as  a  Catholic  in  his  youth,  Heine  later  came  in 
Berlin  under  the  unsettling  influence  of  Hegel,  but  after  his 
sad  years  of  exile  in  the  Philistinic  atmosphere  of  London, 
and  after  his  long  years  of  torture  on  his  "mattress  grave" 
in  Paris,  he  awoke  at  last  to  the  truth  of  his  inner  self. 
"  Often,"  he  wrote  to  Campe,  "a  doubt  quivers  through  me 
whether  a  man  really  is  a  two-legged  god  as  Hegel  told  me 
twenty-five  years  ago.  I  am  no  more  a  divine  biped.  I  am 
no  more  the  high  priest  of  the  Germans  after  Goethe,  no 
more  the  Great  Heathen  No.  2,  a  Hellene  of  jovial  life  and 
portly  person,  laughing  cheerfully  down  on  dismal  Nazar- 
enes.     I  am  only  a  poor  death-sick  Jew," 


GERMAN  WTERATURS.  195 

Sucli  was  the  forlorn  Knight  of  the  Rueful  Counten- 
ance hidden  behind  Heine's  laughing,  sneering  mask  of 
irony,  sarcasm,  and  mockery  of  bitter  jests  and  sublime 
parody.  A  hopeless'  love  for  his  cousin  Amalie,  the  rich 
banker  Solomon's  daughter,  the  Molly  of  his  early  verses, 
clouded  his  whole  life.  "A  hopeless  youthful  love  slumbers 
still  in  the  heart  of  the  poet,"  declared  Gerard  de  Nerval,  his 
friend,  long  afterward  in  Paris.  "  When  he  thinks  of  it, 
he  may  weep  even  now,  or  else  he  presses  back  his  tears  in 
rancor.  Heine  himself  has  confessed  to  me  that,  after  he 
lost  this  living  paradise,  love  remained  only  a  trade  (metier) 
for  him."  Abandoning  himself  to  dissipation  and  ruining 
his  constitution,  he  finally  became  almost  blind  and  voice- 
less in  Paris  (his  city  of  refuge)  and  was  brought  by  a  spine 
disease  to  a  "mattress  grave"  on  the  floor  of  his  little  attic 
room.  Here,  in  the  height  of  his  fame,  he  lay,  paralyzed 
and  almost  sightless,  nursed  by  the  faithful  Matilde  whom  he  . 
rewarded  at  last  by  the  name  as  well  as  offices  of  wife.  It 
was,  as  he  described  it,  "a  grave  without  rest,  death  without 
the  privileges  of  the  departed." 

This  romance  of  unhappy  love  arid  this  tragedy  of  pain 
have  served  both  to  dignify  his  memory  and  to  furnish  a 
more  tenderly  human  interpretation  to  his  writings,  often  so 
full  of  bitterness  and  Wrath.  Even  in  the  grasp  of  Death, 
the  usually  witty  sufferer  could  not  quite  forget  the  cruelties 
of  life.  "I  have  them,"  he  exclaimed  while  inditing  his 
Memoirs.  ' '  Dead  or  alive  they  shall  not  escape  me.  I^et 
whoever  has  insulted  me  guard  himself  from  these  lines. 
Heine  dies  not  like  any  beast.  The  claws  of  the  tiger  will 
outlive  the  tiger  himself." 

It  was  this  constant  battle  of  emotions,  this  restless  ocean- 
play  of  wit,  humor,  satire,  tenderness,  indignation  and 
pathos,  that  make  his  prose  and  verse  both  aglow  with  bril- 
liant human  interest.  His  "  Reisebilder  "  (Pictures  of  Travel) 
is  a  masterpiece  of  satiric  wit.  His  "  Lyric  Intermezzo  "  is 
full  of  perfect  lyrics,  such  as  "In  the  wondrous  month  of 
May,"  "An  ashtree  stood  alone,"  etc.  His  " Heimkehr," 
and  "  Nord-See,"  cycles  of  songs,  breathe  the  mystery  and 
greatness  of   the  sea  in  the  noblest  Byronic  style.     The 


IgS  WTKRATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

"Journey  in  the  Hartz  Mountains  "  is  a  mingling  of  all  the 
chords  of  the  emotions. 

The  loves  of  Heine  may  be  treated  in  a  paragraph, 
although  they  themselves  were  innumerable.  He  was  scarcely 
eleven  years  old  when  he  fell  violently  in  love  with  "  little 
Veronica,"  whose  death  he  has  so  touchingly  related.  Then 
came  Josepha,  the  executioner's  daughter,  already  alluded  to 
as  Sefchen  the  Red.  Amalie  Heine  was  married  to  Johan 
Friedlander,  of  Konigsberg.  Heine's  love  for  her  enshrined 
itself  in  the  "  Intermezzo."  After  this  unhappy  episode 
came  "double,  triple,  multiple  love."  In  Paris  in  1823, 
however,  he  met  Matilde,  then  eighteen  years  old,  and  a  mil- 
liner's assistant  at  her  aunt's  shop.  Heine  actually  bargained 
with  the  aunt  for  her,  but  she  proved  to  be  an  angel  to  him 
in  his  latter  years  of  suflFering.  Another  woman  who  cast  a 
ray  over  his  final  years  was  Mme.  de  Krienitz,  whose  literary 
pseudonym  was  Camille  Selden. 

Gautier  described  the  Heine  of  thirty-five  as  "  a  German 
Apollo.  ...  A  slight  curve  altered,  but  did  not  destroy,  the 
outline  of  his  nose.  .  .  .  To  the  divine  smile  of  the  Musagete 
succeeded  the  sneer  of  the  satyr.' ' 

BqYHOOD  in   DxJSSEIvDORF. 

The  Prince-Elector,  Jan  Wilhelm,  must  have  been  a 
brave  gentleman,  very  fond  of  art  and  skillful  himself.  He 
founded  the  picture-gallery  in  Diisseldorf,  and  in  the  obser- 
vatory there  they  show  a  very  artistic  piece  of  woodwOTk 
which  he  himself  had  carved  in  his  leisure  hours,  of  which 
latter  he  had  every  day  four-and-twenty.  In  those  days 
princes  were  not  the  persecuted  wretches  which  they  now  are : 
the  crown  grew  firmly  on  their  heads,  and  at  night  they  drew 
their  night-caps  over  it  and  slept  peacefully,  and  their  people 
slumbered  peacefully  at  their  feet ;  and  when  they  awoke  in 
the  morning  they  said,  "Good  morning,  father!  "and  here- 
plied,  "  Good  morning,  dear  children  ! " 

But  there  came  a  sudden  change  over  all  this.  One  morn- 
ing when  we  awoke  in  Diisseldorf  and  wished  to  say,  "Good 
morning,  father,"  the  father  had  traveled  away,  and  in  the 
whole  town  there  was  nothing  but  dumb  sorrow.      Every- 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.  -  ^97 

where  there  was  a  funeral-like  expression,  and  people  slipped 
silently  to  the  market  and  read  the  long  paper  on  the  door  of 
the  Town  Hall.  It  was  bad  weather,  yet  the  lean  tailor  Kilian 
stood  in  his  nankeen  jacket,  which  he  generally  wore  only  at 
home,  and  his  blue  woolen  stockings  hung  down  so  that  his 
little  bare  legs  peeped  out  in  a  troubled  way,  and  his  thin 
lips  quivered  as  he  murmured  the  placard.  An  old  invalid 
soldier  from  the  Palatine  read  it  rather  louder,  and  at  some 
words  a  clear  tear  ran  down  his  white,  honorable  old  mous- 
tache. I  stood  near  him,  crying  too,  and  asked  why  we  were 
crying.  And  he  replied,  "  The  Prince-Elector  has  abdicated. ' ' 
And  then  he  read ' further,  and  at  the  words,  "for  the  long 
manifested  fidelity  pf  my  subjects,"  "and  hereby  release  you 
from  allegiance, ' '  he  wept  still  more.  It  is  a  strange  sight 
to  see,  when  an  old  man,  in  faded  uniform  and  scarred  vete- 
ran's face,  suddenly  bursts  into  tears.  While  we  read,  the 
Prince-Electoral  coat-of-arms  was  being  taken  down  from  the 
Town  Hall,  and  everything  began  to  appear  as  anxiously 
dreary  as  though  we  were  waiting  for  an  eclipse  of  the  sun. 
The  town  councillors  went  about  at  an  abdicating,  wearisome 
gait ;  even  the  omnipotent  beadle  looked  as  though  he  had 
no  more  commands  to  give,  and  stood  calmly  indiflferent,  al- 
though the  crazy  Aloysius  stood  upon  one  leg  and  chattered 
the  names  of  French  generals  with  foolish  grimaces,  while 
tipsy,  crooked  Gumpertz  rolled  around  in  the  gutter,  singing 
ffa  ira!  Qa  ira! 

But  I  went  home  crying  and  lamenting,  "The  Prince- 
Elector  has  abdicated."  My  mother  might  do  what  she 
would,  I  knew  what  I  knew,  and  went  crying  to  bed,  and  in 
the  night  dreamed  that  the  world  had  come  to  an  end — the 
fair  flower-gardens  and  <  green  meadows  of  the  world  were 
taken  up  and  rolled  aWay  like  carpets  from  the  floor;  the 
beadle  climbed  up  on  a  high  ladder  and  took  do-^n  the  sun, 
and  the  tailor  Kilian  stood  by  and  said  to  himself,  "  I  must 
go  home  and  dress  myself  neatly,  for  I  am  dead,  and  am  to  be 
buried  this  afternoon."  And  it  grew  darker  and  darker — a 
few  stars  glimmered  on  high,  and  even  these  fell  down  like 
yellow  leaves  in  autumn ;  men  gradually  vanished,  and  I, 
poor  child,  wandered  around  in  anguish,  until  before  the  wil- 


igS  UTERATURB  OP  AXI,  NATIONS. 

low  fence  of  a  deserted  farm-house  I  saw  a  man  digging  up 
the  earth  with  a  spade,  and  near  him  an  ugly,  spiteful-look- 
ing woman,  who  held  something  in  her  apron  like  a  human 
head,  but  it  was  the  moon,  and  she  laid  it  carefully  in  the 
open  grave ;  and  behind  me  stood  the  Palatine  soldier  sobbilig 
and  spelling,  "The  Prince-Elector  has  abdicated." 

When  I  awoke,  the  sun  shone  as  usual  through  the  win- 
dow ;  there  was  a  sound  of  drums  in  the  street ;  and  as  I  en- 
tered our  sitting-room  and  wished  my  father,  who  sat  in  his 
white  dressing-gown.  Good  morning,  I  heard  the  little  light- 
footed  barber,  as  he  made  up  his  hair,  narrate  very  minutely 
that  homage  would  that  morning  be  oflfered  at  the  Town  Hall 
to  the  Archduke  Joachim.  I  heard  too  that  the  new  ruler 
was  of  excellent  family,  that  he  had  married  the  sister  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon,  and  was  really  a  very  respectable  man ; 
that  he  wore  his  beautiful  black  hair  in  curls;  that  he  would 
shortly  enter  the  town,  and  would  certainly  please  all  the 
ladies.  Meanwhile  the  drumming ,  in  the  streets  continued, 
and  I  stood  before  the  house-door  and  looked  at  the  French 
troops  marching — those  joyous  and  famous  people  who  swept 
over  the  world — singing  and  plajdng,  the  merry,  serious  faces 
of  the  Grenadiers,  the  bear-skin  shakoes,  the  tri-colored  cock- 
ades, the  glittering  bayonets,  the  voltigeurs  full  of  vivacity 
and  point  d'honneur,  and  the  giant-like,  silver-laced  drum  ma- 
jor, who  cast  his  baton  with  the  gilded  head  as  high  as  the 
first  story,  and  his  eyes  to  the  second,  where  pretty  girls 
gazed  from  the  windows.  I  was  so  glad  that  soldiers  were  to 
be  quartered  in  our  house — my  mother  was  not  glad — and  I 
hastened  to  the  Market  Place.  There  everything  looked 
changed;  it  was  as  though  the  world  had  been  new  white- 
washed. A  new  coat-of-arms  was  placed  on  the  Town  Hall ; 
its  iron  balconies  were  hung  with  embroidered  velvet  drapery, 
French  grenadiers  stood  as  sentinels,  the  old  town  council- 
lors had  put  on  new  faces  and  Sunday  coats,  and  looked  at 
each  other  French  fashion,  and  said,  "  Bon  jour  I ' '  Ladies 
peeped  from  every  window,  inquisitive  citizens  and  soldiers 
filled  the  square,  and  I,  with  other  boys,  climbed  on  the 
shining  Prince-Elector's  great  bronze  horse,  and  looked  down 
on  the  motley  crowd. 


GERMAN  LITBRATITRE.  1 99 

Neighbor  Peter  and  Long  Conrad  nearly  broke  their 
necks  on  this  occasion,  and  that  would  have  been  well,  for 
the  one  afterwards  ran  away  from  his  parents,  enlisted  as  a 
soldier,  deserted,  and  was  finally  shot  in  Mayence;  while  the 
other,  having  made  geographical  researches  in  strange  pock- 
ets, became  a  working  member  of  a  public  tread-mill  insti- 
tute !  But  having  broken  the  iron  bands  which  bound  him 
to  his  fatherland,  he  passed  safely  beyond  sea,  and  eventually 
died  in  lyondon,  in  consequence  of  wearing  a  much  too  long 
cravat,  one  end  of  which  happened  to  be  firmly  attached  to 
something,  just  as  a  royal  official  removed  a  plank  from  be- 
neath his  feet. 

Long  Conrad  told  us  that  there  was  no  school  to-day  on 
account  of  the  homage.  We  had  to  wait  a  long  time  till  this 
was  over.  At  last  the  balcony  of  the  Council  House  was 
filled  with  gay  gentlemen,  flags  and  trumpets  ;  and  our  bur- 
gomaster, in  his  celebrated  red  coat,  delivered  an  oration, 
which  stretched'  out  like  india-rubber,  or  like  a  nightcap  into 
which  one  has  thrown  a  stone — only  that  it  was  not  the  stone 
of  wisdom — and  I  could  distinctly  understand  many  of  his 
phrases  ;  for  instance,  that  "  We  are  now  to  be  made  happy  " 
— and  at  the  last  words  the  trumpets  and  drums  sounded,  and 
the  flags  waved,  and  the  people  cried  Hurrah  ! — and  as  I,  my-  ■ 
self,  cried  Hurrah  !  I  held  fast  to  the  old  Prince-Elector.  And 
that  was  necessary,  for  I  began  to  grow  giddy ;  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  people  were  standing  on  their  heads  while  the 
world  whizzed  round,  and  the  Prince-Elector,  with  his  long 
wig,  nodded  and  whispered,  "  Hold  fast  to  me:"  and  not  till 
the  cannon  re-echoed  along  the  wall  did  I  become  sobered, 
and  climb  slowly  down  from  the  great  bronze  horse. 

As  I  went  home  I  saw  crazy  Aloysius  again  dancing  on 
one  leg  while  he  chattered  the  names  of  French  generals,  and 
crooked  Gumpertz  was  rolling  in  the  gutter  drunk  and  grow- 
ling pa  ira,  Qa  ira — and  I  said  to  my  mother  that  we  were  all 
to  be  made  happy,  and  so  there  was  no  school  to-day. 

The  next  day  the  world  was  again  all  in  order,  and  we  had 
school  as  before,  and  things  were  got  by  heart  as  before— the 
fe-oman  kings,  chronology — the  nomina  in  im^  the  verba  ir- 
re'gularia — Greek,  Hebrew,  geography,  German,  mental  arith- 


200  LITERATURE  OF  Atl,  NATIONS. 

metic — Lord!  my  head  is  still  giddy  with  it! — all  must  be 
learned  by  heart.  And  much  of  it  was  eventually  to  my  ad- 
vantage. For  had  I  not  learned  the  Roman  kings  by  heart  it 
would  subsequently  have  been  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference 
to  me  whether  Niebuhr  had  or  had  not  proved  that  they 
never  really  existed.  And  had  I  not  learned  chronology  how 
could  I  ever  in  later  years  have  found  out  any  one  in  Berlin, 
where  one  house  is  as  like  another  as  drops  of  water,  or  as 
grenadiers,  and  where  it  ,is  impossible  to  find  a  friend  unless 
you  have  the  number  of  his  house  in  your  head?  Therefore 
I  associated  with  every  friend  some  historical  event  which 
had  happened  in  a  year  corresponding  to  the  number  of  his 
house,  so  that  the  one  recalled  the  other,  and  some  curious 
point  in  history  always  occurred  to  me  whenever  I  met  an 
acquaintance.  For  instance,  when  I  met  my  tailor  I  at  once 
thought  of  the  battle  of  Marathon  ;  if  I  saw  the  well-dressed 
banker,  Christian  Gumpel.  I  thought  of  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  ;  if  a  Portuguese  friend,  deeply  in  debt,  of  the  flight 
of  Mahomet ;  if  the  University  Judge,  a  man  whose  probity 
is  well  known,  of  the  death  of  Haman ;  and  if  Wadzeck,  I 
was  at  once  reminded  of  Cleopatra.  Ach,  lieber  Himmell 
the  poor  creature  is  dead  now ;  our  tears  are  dry,  and  we  may 
say  of  her  with  Hamlet,  ' '  Take  her  for  all  in  all ;  she  was  a 
hag — we  oft  shall  look  upon  her  like  again ! "  As  I  said, 
chronology  is  necessary.  I  know  men  who  have  nothing  in 
their  heads  but  a  few  years,  yet  who  knew  exactly  where  to 
.look  for  the  right  houses,  and  are,  moreover,  regular  pro- 
fessors. But  oh !  the  trouble  I  had  at  school  with  dates! — 
and  it  went  even  worse  with  arithmetic.  I  understood  sub- 
traction best,  and  for  this  I  had  a  very  practical  rule — "  Four 
from  three  won't  go,  I  must  borrow  one ; "  but  I  advise  every 
one,  in  such  a  case,  to  borrow  a  few  extra  shillings,  for  one 
never  knows. 

The  Lorelei. 

I  KNOW  not  whence  it  rises, 

This  thought  so  full  of  woe, 
But  a,  tale  of  times  departed 

Haunts  me,  and  will  not  go. 


•  GERMAN  LITERATURB.  20I 

The  air  is  cool,  and  it  darkens, 
,     And  calmly  flows  tlie  Rhine  ; 
The  mountain-peaks  are  sparkling 
In  the  sunny  evening-shine. 

And  yonder  sits  a  maiden, 

The  fairest  of  the  fair ; 
With  gold  in  her  garment  glittering. 

And  she  combs  her  golden  heir ; 

With  a  golden  comb  she  combs  it ; 

And  a  wild  song  singeth  she, 
That  melts  the  heart  with  a  wondrous 

And  powerful  melody. 

The  boatman  feels  his  bosom 

With  a  nameless  longing  move ; 
He  sees  not  the  gulfs  before  him. 

His  gaze  is  fixed  above. 

Till  over  the  boat  and  boatman 

The  Rhine's  deep  waters  run : 
And  this,  with  her  magic  singing. 

The  Lorelei  has  done ! 


The  Sea  Hath  Its  Pearls. 

(Translated  by  Henry  W.  Longfellow.) 

The  sea  hath  its  pearls, 

The  heaven  hath  its  stars. 
But  my  heart,  my  heart. 

My  heart  hath  its  love. 

Great  are  the  sea  and  the  heaven, 

Yet  greater  is  my  heart. 
And  fairer  than  pearls  and  stars 

Flashes  and  beams  my  love. 

Thou  little,  youthful  maiden. 
Come  unto  my  great  heart. 

My  heart,  and  the  sea,  and  the  heaven, 
Are  melting  away  with  love. 


202  LITERATURE  OF  AH  NATIONS. 


The  Pilgrimage  to  Kevlaar. 

(Translated  by  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke.) 
I. 
The  mother  stood  at  the  window; 

In  the  chamber  lay  her  son : 
"Arise,  arise,  dear  William, 

And  see  the  crowd  march  on." 
"I  am  so  sick,  my  mother, 

I  cannot  hear  or  see : 
I  think  of  my  dead  Gretchen, 

And  my  heart  is  sad  in  me." 

"Then  we  will  go  to  Kevlaar, 

With  book  and  rosary. 
And  there  God's  gracious  mother 

Will  heal  thy  heart  for  thee." 

The  banners  flutter  gaily. 

The  church-bells  ring  aloud ; 
Past  proud  Cologne  it  marches, 

The  singing,  praying  crowd. 
The  son  he  leads  his  mother, 

And  all  go  marching  on : 
"All  hail  to  thee,  Maria!" 

They  sing  with  solemn  tone. 

II. 
God's  mother  sits  at  Kevlaar, 

With  jewels  in  her  hair; 
To-day  she  wears  her  diamonds, 

Por  many  guests  are  there. 
The  sick  with  votive  offerings 

Have  come  from  many  lands, 
To  hang  upon  her  altar 

Their  waxen  feet  and  hands. 
For  when  one  offers  a  waxen  hand. 

His  hand  is  cured  of  its  wound ; 
And  when  one  offers  a  waxen  foot, 

His  foot  at  once  is  sound. 
Many  who  came  on  crutches 

Go  running  and  dancing  away. 


GSRMAN  UTBRATURB.  203 

And  those  whose  fingers  were  stifi"  as  sticks 

On  the  violin  can  play. 
Out  of  a  waxen  candle. 

The  mother  formed  a  heart: 
"Give  this  to  Holy  Mary, 

And  she  will  cure  thy  smart ! " 
Sadly  he  took  the  image, 

Went  sadly  to  the  shrine, 
And  words  with  tears  commingled, 

He  cried,  "O  Maid  divine, 

0  Queen  of  heaven  and  angels, 
Receive  my  bitter  moan. 

1  dwell  with  my  poor  mother 
In  a  street  of  fair  Cologne, 

Where,  in  three  hundred  churches, 

Men. go  to  sing  and  pray  ; 
And  near  to  us  lived  Gretchen, 

And  she  is  dead  to-day ! 
I  bring  this  waxen  image, 

The  image  of  my  heart ; 
Heal  thou  my  bitter  sorrow. 

And  cure  my  deadly  smart ! 
Do  this,  and  every  morning. 

Evening,  and  all  day  long. 
Hail  to  thee,  Blessed  Mary, 

Shall  be  my  prayer  and  song ! " 

III. 
The  sick  son  and  his  mother 

Slept  in  a  little  room, 
Then  came  the  Blessed  Virgin, 

Soft-stepping  through  the  gloom. 
She  bent  above  the  sick  man. 

And  on  his  heart  she  laid 
Her  gentle  hand ;  then,  smiling. 

Passed  like  a  mist  the  maid. 
The  mother  in  her  slumber 

Had  seen  the  whole  event, 
Then  wakened,  for  the  frightened  dogs  . 

Howled,  as  the  Virgin  went. 
He  lay  stretched  out  before  her,  , 

Her  son — and  he  was  dead ; 


204  LITERATURE  OP  AI<I,  NATIONS. 

And  on  his  thin  and  pallid  cheek 
The  morning  sun  burnt  red, 

The  mother  knew  not  how  she  felt : 
But  bent  in  peace  her  head : 
"  God  bless  thee  !   Holy  Mother !  " 
Were  all  the  words  she  said. 


The  Two  Grenadiers. 

(Translated  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Furness,  D.D.) 

To  France  were  traveling  two  grenadiers, 

From  prison  in  Russia  returning, 
And  when  they  came  to  the  German  frontiers, 

They  hung  down  their  heads  in  mourning. 

There  came  the  heart-breaking  news  to  their  ears 
That  France  was  by  fortune  forsaken ; 

Scattered  and  slain  were  her  brave  grenadiers, 
And  Napoleon — Napoleon  was  taken. 

Then  wept  together  those  two  grenadiers 
O'er  their  country's  departed  glory ; 
"  Woe's  me,"  cried  one,  in  the  midst  of  his  tears, 
' '  My  old  wound, — how  it  burns  at  the  story ! " 

The  other  said:  " The  end  has  cbme. 

What  avails  any  longer  living? 
Yet  have  I  a  wife  and  child  at  home. 

For  an  absent  father  grieving." 

"Who  cares  for  wife  ?  ,  Who  cares  for  child? 
Dearer  thoughts  in  my  bosom  awaken ; 
Go  beg,  wife  and  child,  when  with  hunger  wild, 
For  Napoleon — Napoleon  is  taken ! 

'  Oh,  grant  me,  brother,  my  only  prayer,     ' 

When  death  my  eyes  is  closing : 
Take  me  to  France,  and  bury  me  there ; 
In  France  be  my  ashes  reposing. 

"This  cross  of  the  I^egion  of  Honor  bright, 
I,et  it  lie  near  my  heart,  upon  me ; 
Give  me  my  musket  in  my  hand, 
And  gird  my  sabre  on  me. 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.  205 

"So  will  I  lie,  and  arise  no  more, 
My  watch  like  a  sentinel  keeping, 
Till  I  hear  the  cannon's  thundering  roar, 
And  the  squadrons  above  me  sweeping. 

"Then  the  Emperor  comes !  and  his  banners  wave. 
With  their  eagles  o'er  him  bending ; 
And  I  will  come  forth,  all  in  alms,  from  my  grave. 
Napoleon,  Napoleon  attending ! ' ' 

Only  Kiss  and  Swear  No  Oath. 

Oh  !  only  kiss  and  swear  no  oath. 
What  women  swear  to  trust  I'm  loth ! 
Thy  words  are  sweet,  yet  sweeter  is, 
When  I  have  taken  it,  thy  kiss. 
The  one  I  have  and  know  it's  true — 
Words  are  but  breath  and  vapor  too. 

Oh !  swear,  my  loved  one,  ever  swear — 
Thy  simplest  words  oaths'  force  shall  bear. 
I  lay  me  gently  on  thy  breast. 
And  quite  believe  that  I  am  blessed. 
And  I  believe,  my  sweet,  that  me 
Thou  lov'st  beyond  eternity. 

Enfant  Perdu. 

(Translated  by  Lord  Houghton.) 

In  Freedom's  War,  of  "Thirty  Years "  and  more, 

A  lonely  outpost  have  I  held — ^in  vain ! 
With  no  triumphant  hope  or  prize  in  store. 

Without  a  thought  to  see  my  home  again. 

I  watched  both  day  and  night:  I  could  not  sleep 
Like  my  well-tented  comrades  far  behind. 

Though  near  enough  to  let  their  snoring  keep 
A  friend  awake,  if  e'er  to  doze  inclined. 

And  thus,  when  solitude  my  spirits  shook, 

Or  fear — for  all  but  fools  know  fear  sometimes, — 

To  rouse  myself  and  them,  I  piped  and  took 
A  gay  tevenge  in  all  my  wanton  rhjrmes. 


2o6  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

Yes!  there  I  stood,  my  musket  always  ready, 
And  when  some  sneaking  rascal  showed  his  head, 

My  eye  was  vigilant,  my  aim  was  steady, 
And  gave  his  brains  an  extra  dose  of  lead. 

But  war  and  justice  have  far  different  laws, 
And  worthless  acts  are  often  done  right  well; 

The  rascals'  shots  were  better  than  their  cause. 
And  I  was  hit — and  hit  again,  and  fell ! 

That  outpost  is  abandoned :  while  the  one 
Ivies  in  the  dust,  the  rest  in  troops  depart; 

Unconquered — I  have  done  what  could  be  done. 
With  sword  unbroken,  and  with  broken  heart. 

The  Devil. 

(Translated  by  Alfred  Baskerville.) 

I  CALLED  the  Devil  and  he  came. 
To  view  him  with  wonder  I  began. 

He  is  not  ugly,  and  is  not  lame, 
Far  from  it,  he  is  a  charming  man, 

A  man  in  the  vigor  still  of  his  years, 

A  man  of  the  world  and  polite  he  appears. 

His  talent  is  as  diplomatist  great. 

He  speaks  right  well  upon  Church  and  State. 

No  wonder  he's  pale,  and  wrinkled  his  brow, 

Since  Sanscrit  and  Hegel  he  studies  now ; 

His  favorite  poet  is  Fouqu6  still. 
In  criticism  he  does  no  more. 
He  hath  abandoned  for  evermore 

To  his  grandam  Hecate  the  critic's  quill. 

He  was  glad  my  studies  in  law  to  view, 

'Twas  once  his  favorite  study,  too. 

My  friendship  could  not  be,  he  said, 

Too  dear  for  him,  then  nodded  his  head. 

And  asked  if  we  had  not  once  before, 
At  the  Spanish  ambassador's,  seen  each  other; 

And  when  I  looked  at  his  face  once  more, 
I  found  we  already  knew  one  another. 


JOSEPH  V.  VON  SCHEFFEI.. 


The  old  German  spirit  of  bright  simplicity  and  childlike 
gaiety  has  again  come  to  light  in  Joseph  Victor  von  Scheffel 
(1826-86).  Bom  at  Karlsruhe,  Baden,  and  trained  for  jufis- 
prudence,  his  min^  turned,  nevertheless,  to  the  charming 
romance  of  the  past.  His  tale  of  "Ekkehard"  (1855)  is 
already  a  German  classic.  In  it  he  painted  a  genial  picture 
of  courtly  and  monastic  life  in  the  tenth  century.  The  hero 
is  a  monk  of  St.  Gall,  teacher  of  Duchess  Hedwig  of  Suabia. 
He  discovered  their  mutual  love  only  when  it  was  too  late,  and^ 
his  obtuseness  caused  his  banishment,  where  Scheffel  feigns 
that  he  wrote  "  Walter  of  Aquitaine."  (See  Vol.  I.,  p.  287.)  The 
humor  is  mild  in  this  story,  but  two  years  before  Scheffel  had 
given  all  his  exuberant,  over-bubbling  fancy  and  nerve  full 
play  in  his  song — from  the  upper  Rhine — "The  Trumpeter 
of  Sackingen,"  which  contains  all  the  sunlight  and  romance 
of  the  Black  Forest.  The  long  poem  relates  the  artless  love 
of  young  Werner,  the  trumpeter,  for  the  daughter  of  the 
Baron  von  Schonau.  The  wandering  musician  had  once  been 
a  student  of  law  at  old  Heidelberg,  where  he  fought  a  duel. 
Becoming  the  Baron's  trumpeter,  he  is  wounded  in  the 
Hauenstein  riot,  which  event  reveals  to  him  Margaretha's 
love.  The  Baron  will  not  listen  to  the  match,  however,  and 
Werner  wanders  away  to  fight  in  the  wars.  At  last  he  rises, 
by  his  art,  to  be  Pope  Innocent's  chapel-master,  and  marries 
Margaretha.  A  curious  character  in  the  poem  is  the  Baron's 
mystical  black  tom-cat,  Hiddigeigei,  a  true  philosopher. 

207 


208  LITBRATURB  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 


The  Baron's  Cat  Hiddigeigei. 

(Prom  ' '  The  Trumpeter  of  Sackingen. ' '    Canto  V. ) 

Stretched  beside  the  Baron's  footstool 

Daintily  lay  the  gallant  tom-cat 

Hiddigeigei,  with  the  sable 

Velvet  coat  and  tail  majestic. 

Heirloom  he  left  to  the  Baron 

By  his  sainted,  well-loved  lady, 

lyconor  Montfort  du  Plessys. 

Far  in  Hungary,  Hiddigeigei 

Saw  the  light,  for  he  was  bom  there 

By  a  daughter  of  Angora 

To  a  wild-cat  of  the  Puszlta. 

To  fair  Paris,  as  a  kitten, 

Was,  he  Sent  in  sign  of  homage, 

By  a  brave  Hungarian  noble, 

Who  in  Debreczin,  far  distant, 

Cherished  still,  in  recollection, 

I<eonor's  clear  eyes  of  azure 

And  the  rats  who,  like  an  army, 

Overran  her  father's  castle. 

Hiddigeigei  to  the  Rhineland 

Came  with  haughty  I^eonora, 

lyoyal  and  trusted.     Somewhat  lonely 

Ran  the  thread  of  his  existence. 

For  he  hated  all  communion 

With  the  German  vulgar  cat-folk. 

"  Certes,"  he  reflected  proudly. 

In  his  feline  self-reliance, 

"They  may  have  good  hearts,  these  creatures. 

And  a  fund  of  kindly  feeling. 

All  these  native  cats  untutored, 

Aboriginal  and  common, 

In  these  wilds  brought  up  and  nurtured. 

But  in  style,  they're  sadly  lacking. 

They  want  breeding,  manners,  finish. 

One  who  gained  his  spurs  at  Paris, 

Following  the  chase  full  boldly 


F.    Schmid-Breitenbach,    Pinx 


THE   BARON   AND   HIS   PIPE 


In  the  salons  of  Montfaucon, 
Cannot,  certes,  in  the  country 
I/}ok  to  find  congenial  spirits, 
Fit  companions  for  his  leisure." 

Dignified,  though  isolated, 

Always  dignified  and  stately. 

Dwelt  he  in  the  iJaron's  castle, 

Paced  its  halls  with  measured  footsteps. 

Deeply  tuneful  was  his  purring. 

And,  in  anger,  when  indignant 

He  would  arch  his  supple  backbone. 

When  each  hair  rose  bristling  upward, 

Gentleness  he  still  would  study 

To  unite  with  dignity. 

But  when  over  roof  and  gable 

He  would  clamber,  agile,  daring, 

Sallying  forth  upon  a  mouse-hunt, 

When  mysterious  in  the  moonlight 

Flashed  his  emerald  eyes  and  sparkled. 

Then  e'en  envy  must  acknowledge 

Hiddigeigei  was  imposing. 

The  Baron's  Tobacco  Pipe. 

(From  "The  Trumpeter  of  Sackingen."    Canto  V.)  > 
Pensive  sat  the  white-haired  Baron, 
From  his  eyes  a  light  shot  often 
Like  a  flash,  oft  like  a  kindly 
Ray  from  out  the  glowing  sunset, 
As  on  days  of  yore  he  pondered. 
'Tis,  in  truth,  the  sweetest  cordial 
Of  old  age  from  out  its  watch-tower 
To  gaze  back  on  all  that  has  been, 
And  the  old  are  never  lonely. 
Troops  of  shadows  hover  round  him, 
Whilom  friends,  long  since  departed. 
Dressed  in  faded,  yellow  doublets. 
In  old-fashioned,  stately  garments. 
But  the  memory  knows  no  mildew, 
Freshest  youth,  unfading  beauty, 
Rise  again  from  bones  and  ashes 
And  they  prate  of  days  forgotten 
X— 14 


210  tlTERATURB  OF  AIX.  NATIONS. 

Till  the  old  man's  heart  throbs  faster, 
And  his  fist  is  clinched  unwitting. 
On  the  balcony  he  sees  her, 
Smiling,  once  again,  upon  him. 
Hears  again  the  trumpets  blaring 
And  his  swarthy  charger,  neighing. 
Bears  him  where  the  battle  rages. 
Well  contented  sat  the  Baron 
While  these  mem'ries  passed  before  him. 
And  when  ofttimes  toward  the  goblet 
He  would  reach  his  hand,  and  quickly 
Quaff  a  lengthy  draught  of  Rhenish, 
Then  would  rise,  in  tend' rest  colors, 
One  fair  image,  prized  and  cherished. 

Through  the  hall,  sedately  tripping, 
Came  the  Baron's  lovely  daughter, 
Margaretha ;  and  her  father 
Smiled  approval  as  she  entered. 
Hiddigeigei's  patient  visage 
Beamed,  likewise,  with  feline  welcome. 
She  had  changed  her  snowy  raiment 
For  a  robe  of  dusky  velvet. 
On  her  curly  flaxen  tresses 
Saucy  sat  a  pointed  wimple, 
And  with  matronly  demureness 
Her  blue  eyes  surveyed  the  world. 
Ponderous  keys  and  leathern  pocket, 
German  housewife's  badge  of  honor, 
From  her  girdle  were  suspended. 
And  she  kissed  the  Baron's  forehead, 
Saying :  ' '  Pray,  my  father,  chide  not 
That  I  long  have  left  you  lonely, 
But  the  gracious  I^ady  Abbess 
Held  me  close  in  earnest  converse, 
While  she  told  me  wondrous  stories ; 
Taught  me  too,  how  age  comes  creeping 
And  how  winter  follows  summer. 
Now  unto  your  earnest  censure 
Am  I  waiting  to  submit  me, 
And  am  ready  now  to  read  you 
Out  of  Theuerdank's  mighty  volume. 


GERMAN  WTERATURE.  2" 

For  you  love  his  bluff  adventures 
And  his  hunting-tales,  I  wot  well, 
Better  than  the  sentimental 
Pastoral  poets  of  our  era. 

' '  But,  O  Father,  why  for  ever 

Must  you  smoke  that  evil-smelling 

Hurtful  poisonous  tobacco  ? 

I  am  frightened  when  you  sit  there 

Deep  in  rolling  clouds  enveloped. 

As  in  morning  mists  Mont  Eggberg. 

And  I  grieve  me  for  the  golden 

Picture-frames  that  hang  above  us. 

And  the  whiteness  of  the  curtains. 

Hear  you  not  their  low  lamenting. 

That  the  smoke  from  out  your  clay-pipe 

Makes  them  pale  and  gray  and  tarnished  ? 

Doubtless  'tis  a  wondrous  country, 

Yon  America,  discovered 

Erstwhile  by  the  gallant  Spaniard. 

And  I,  too,  rejoice  at  thought  of 

Paroquets  all  gaily  painted 

And  of  strings  of  rosy  coral. 

Through  my  dreams  come  floating,  sometimes, 

I/ofty  palmwoods,  silent  bowers, 

Cocoa-nuts  and  mighty  flowers, 

And  wild  monkeys  full  of  mischief. 

Yet  I  almost  wish  it  rested 

Undiscovered  in  the  ocean, 

All  because  of  that  tobacco. 

Which  has  come  to  us  from  thither. 

Sooth,  a  man  I  gladly  pardon 

Though  he  oft,  with  scant  occasion, 

Draw  the  red  wine  from  the  barrel ; 

Even  might,  if  need  were  pressing, 

With  a  red  nose  reconcile  me. 

Never  with  tobacco  smoking." 

Smilingly  the  Baron  heard  her. 
Smiling  blew  fresh  clouds  around  him 
From  his  clay-pipe  as  he  answered : 
"  Dear,  my  child,  you  women  daily 


212  tITERATtJRE  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 

Prate  of  many  things  full  lightly 
Which  surpass  your  understanding. 
True,  a  soldier  oft  possesses 
Many  rough,  unpolished  habits 
For  withdrawing -rooms  unfitted, 
But  my  child,  above  all  others. 
Should  not  gibe,  methinks,  at  smoking, 
Since  through  that  I  won  her  mother. 
And  because  old  battle-stories 
Through  my  head  to-night  are  buzzing. 
Sit  thee  down ;  instead  of  reading, 
I  myself  will  tell  thee  somewhat 
Of  the  weed  which  thou  misprizest. 
Somewhat  of  thy  sainted  mother." 

Wondering  Margaretha  scanned  him, 
With  her  eyes  of  deepest  azure, 
Fetched  her  tapestry  and  needle 
And  her  wools  of  motley  colors. 
By  the  armchair  of  her  father 
Placed  a  footstool,  and  right  graceful 
Set  her  by  him.     In  the  forest 
Springs  the  wild  rose,  young  and  lovely. 
Thus  beside  the  gnarled  oak-tree. 
With  a  steady  draught  the  Baron 
Drained  his  goblet,  and  continued : 

"  It  was  in  the  evil  war-time. 

Once,  with  some  few  German  troopers. 

Into  Alsace  I  made  inroad. 

Hans  von  Weerth  was  then  our  Colonel. 

Swedes  and  French  were  camped  by  Breisiach, 

And  with  many  a  deed  of  daring 

Soon  we  made  their  camp  re-echo. 

But  the  fleetest  hare  may  perish. 

One  black  day  they  loosed  upon  us 

All  their  yelping  pack, -^confound  them! 

And,  with  bleeding  gashes  covered, 

We  were  forced  to  yield  our  rapiers ; 

So,  as  prisoners,  we  were  carried 

By  the  Frenchmen  to  fair  Paris, — 

To  the  prison  of  Vincennes. 


GERMAN  WTERATURB.  213 

'Zounds ! '  so  spake  our  gallant  Colonel, 
Hans  von  Weerth,  '  sure  'twere  more  lively 
With  a  naked  sword  to  gallop 
Leading  on  a  storming  party, 
Than  in  Vincennes  here  to  moulder, 
Tilting  with  the  heavy  moments. 
'Gainst  such  foes  no  vsreapon  helps  us, 
Wine  and  dice  alike  are  powerless. 
Only  smoking, — that  I've  tested 
In  the  promised  land  of  Boredom, 
'Mong  the  mynheers.     I,et  us  try  it  ; 
Here,  too,  it  may  do  good  service.' 

"  So  the  Governor  procured  us 
From  a  Netherlandish  merchant 
Straight  a  barrel  of  tobacco, 
And  of  burnt-clay  pipes  abundance. 
Soon  from  all  the  German  captives 
There  arose  a  monstrous  smoking. 
Puffing,  fuming,  cloud-creating. 
Such  as  erst  in  polished  Paris 
Never  mortal  eye  had  witnessed. 
All  amazed  our  warders  saw  it. 
To  the  king  the  news  was  carried 
And  he  came  himself  in  splendor 
To  behold  the  cloudy  marvel. 

"Soon  the  whole  of  Paris  gossiped 

Of  the  savage  bears  of  Germans, 

And  of  their  extraordinary 

Quite  unheard-of  trick  of  smoking. 

Up  drove  coaches ;  down  sprang  pages ; 

Cavaliers  and  stately  ladies 

Crowded  to  our  narrow  guard-room. 

And  she,  too,  came ;  she  the  haughty 

Leonor  Montfort  du  Plessys. 

Still  to-day,  methinks  I  see  her 

On  the  earth  floor  coyly  stepping. 

Hear  her  train  of  satin  rustle. 

And  my  heart  beats  as  aforetime 

In  the  roaring  tide  of  battle, 

And  the  smoke  from  out  my  clay-pipe 


6*4  tlTEfiAfURfi  OP  AI,X  NATIONS. 

Rose  as  from  a  row  of  cannons. 
And  'twas  well.     Upon  the  cloudlet 
Which  I  blew  aloft  so  stoutly, 
Cupid  sat  and  shot  his  arrows, 
And  his  aim  was  sure  and  steady. 
Wonder  shortly  changed  to  interest. 
Interest  changed  to  something  dearer, 
And  she  found  the  German  bruin 
Nobler,  in  his  honest  roughness, 
Than  the  gilded  Paris  lions. 

"When  our  prison-gates  were  opened, 
And  the  joyous  news  of  freedom 
Brought  us  by  the  welcome  herald, 
Then  I  first  became  a  captive 
Bound. in  softest  silken  traces. 
Hopeless  of  release.     Our  marriage 
And  the  happy  homeward  journey 
Did  but  draw  them  closer,  closer. 
Thinking  on  it  all,  the  tear-drops 
Fall  upon  my  gray  moustachios. 
What  remains  of  all  my  glory? 
Her  sweet  memory,  ever  with  me  ; 
The  black  cat,  old  Hiddigeigei  ; 
And  my  Leonor's  sweet  image. 
Thou,-  my  child,— God  keep  thee  ever!" 

Thus  he  spake  and  knocked  the  ashes 
From  his  pipe,  and  meditative 
Stroked  the  cat,  old  Hiddigeigei. 
But,  half-laughingly,  his  daughter 
Fell  upon  her  knees  before  him, 
Saying:  "  Father,  of  your  goodness, 
Grant  me  general  absolution , 
Mortal  syllable  shall  never 
O'er  my  lips  get  leave  to  wander, 
Henceforth,  in  dispraise  of  smoking." 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


Period  VIII.    1830-1890. 


;  EWII/DERING  in  its  richness,  extent  and  variety- 
is  the  English  literature  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. It  is  impossible  for  critics  of  the  present 
day  to  decide  accurately  on  the  merit  of  the 
■work  of  each  author,  or  to  estimate  clearly  the  value 
of  the  whole.  Yet  it  may  be  said  that  the  great 
writers  of  this  age  have  reached  heights  surpassed  only  by 
Shakespeare  and  Milton,  while  hundreds  more  are  conspicu- 
ous by  achievements  worthy  at  least  of  local  and  temporary 
fame.  A  most  striki^g  characteristic  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  has  been  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge.  One 
of  the  chief  results  of  this  diffusion  has  been  to  free  the  author 
from  immediate  dependence  on  royal  or  noble  patrons  and  to 
enable  him  to  appeal  for  recognition  and  approval  directly  to 
the  people.  These  in  turn  have  been  instructed  by  the  liter- 
ary critics  whose  labor  has  been  fostered  by  the  periodical 
press.  Quarterly  reviews  began  with  the  Edinburgh  Review 
in  1802;  then  came  literary  magazines  and  journals;  and 
finally  every  newspaper  of  any  pretensions  gives  its  notices 
of  new  books.  England,  which  at  the  opening  of  the  century 
was  ruled  by  an  aristocracy,  has  become  strongly  democratic. 
The  contemporary  literature  has  strongly  reflected  these 
changes.  Some  of  the  greatest  writers,  as  Wordsworth,  Ten- 
nyson, Carlyle,  have  resisted  or  deprecated  them,  while  others 
have  encouraged,  urged  and  supported  them. 
.   Another  striking  characteristic  of  the  times  has  been  the 

215 


2l6  LITERATURB  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

vast  improvement  in  the  physical  surroundings  of  the  people 
the  facilities  for  quick  and  easy  intercourse,  and  the  marvel- 
ous progress  of  science.  I^ocal  ignorance  has  been  removed 
by  the  breaking  down  of  the  barriers  which  shut  out  knowl- 
edge of  the  outer  world.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  seclusion 
which  fostered  contemplation  has  been  lost.  In  the  swift 
movement  of  the  world,  in  which  all  are  compelled  to  take 
part,  present  temporal  advantage  becomes  man's  chief  end, 
spiritual  truth  is  overwhelmed  and  lost.  Even  in  those  who 
are  subject  to  its  sway,  the  incessant  movement  produces 
weariness  and  ennui.  There  follows  complaint  of  the  empti- 
ness of  all  things,  which  is  found  not  only  in  poets  and  phi- 
losophers, but  even  in  popular  novelists. 

Victoria's  reign  has  been  blessed  with  a  grand  chorus  of 
noble  poets.  Chief  among  them  is  Alfred  Tennyson,  who 
began  modestly  in  1830  with  "Poems,  chiefly  Lyrical,"  and 
advanced  from  these  musical  drearny  fancies  to  the  noble  per- 
formances of  his  riper  years,  "In  Memoriam "  and  "The 
Idylls  of  the  King."  In  the  same  decade  Robert  Browning, 
with  more  rugged  and  independent  genius,  addressed  the  pub- 
lic, but  by  his  obscurity  and  jerky  style,  failed  to  secure  gen- 
eral audience.  Gradually  a  select  few  gave  this  master  of 
psychological  insight  their  devotion,  and  later  societies  of 
cultivated  people  were  formed  to  study  the  profound  thought 
of  his  mysterious  works.  His  wife  had  attained  vogue  as  a 
poet  before  she  won  his  love.  She  excelled  him  in  musical 
performance,  though  taking  many  liberties  with  rhyme  and 
metre.  Matthew  Arnold,  both  poet  and  prose-writer,  repre- 
sents the  conflict  betweep  doubt  and  faith,  yet  inculcates  self' 
reliance.  His  keen  intellect  demanded  demonstration  even 
in  matters  incapable  of  it.  In  essays  and  criticism  his  man- 
ner was  always  urbane,  but  his  expression  of  opinion  was 
severe  and  crushing.  His  poetry  recalls  the  Greek  classics, 
his  prose  the  I^rench  essayists.  Swinburne  entered  the  arena 
as  a  pronounced  pagan,  rejecting  the  restraints  of  modern 
morality,  yet  displaying  matchless  powers  of  musical  render- 
ing. Though  an  aristocrat  by  birth,  he  was  a  sentimental 
radical  in  opinion.  In  his  later  works  he  became  conserva- 
tive, but  his  early  eflfusions  prevented  his  being  made  poet 


ENGLISH  LITERATURB.  217 

laureate  on  the  death  of  Tennyson.  Dante  G.  Rossetti  was 
a  lyric  poet  of  great  sweetness  and  power,  but  his  morbid 
life  prevented  him  from  accomplishing  adequate  works. 

Three  grgat  prose-writers  have  adorned  the  century.  Lord 
Macaulay  was  a  typical  man  of  letters,  devoted  to  books  and 
writing  from  childhood,  gifted  with  a  prodigious  memory  and 
wonderful  power  of  language.  His  brilliant  essays  made  his- 
tory and  literature  familiar  to  the  masses.  His  "  History  of 
England ' '  was  intended  to  be  more  fascinating  than  a  novel, 
and  for  a  time  accomplished  its  purpose.  In  marked  contrast 
with  him  is  the  rugged  Scotch  peasant,  Thomas  Carlyle,  who 
became  a  prophet  to  his  generation.  Regarding  life  as  trag- 
ically earnest,  he  was  vehement  in  his  denunciation  of  wrong, 
and  his  prediction  of  disasters.  Usually  scornful  of  his  fellow- 
men,  except  a  few  select  heroes  whom  he  worshipped,  he  re- 
vealed at  times  a  surprisingly  tender  he^rt.  The  "Sartor 
Resartus,' '  a  discourse  on  clothes,  is  an  allegory  of  hip  own 
life.  His  "French  Revolution,"  full  of  dithyrambic  elo- 
quence, is  a  vivid  presentation  of  that  great  episode  in  the 
world's  history.  John  Ruskin,  a  more  attractive  prose-poet, 
has  been  a  prophet  of  art  and  lover  of  nature.  His  "Modern 
Painters  "  is  an  eloquent  discourse  on  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  art.  In,  other  works  he  carried  on  his  teaching, 
insisting  that  true  appreciation  of  art  depends  on  purity  of 
heart  and  leads  to  the  love  of  God.  In  later  writings  he 
urged  in  more  subdued  style  social  reforms  and  new  principles 
of  political  economy. 

But  the  most  extensive  field  of  modern  literature  is  that 
of  the  novel,  which  has  advanced  from  being  a  record  of  ad- 
ventures or  exhibition  of  scenes  to  an  exposition  of  character 
developed  in  dialogue  and  action.  In  some  hands  it  has 
become  an  engine  of  social  reform.  It  has  steadily  extended 
its  domain  until  it  threatens  to  become  the  field  of  discussion 
of  questions  in  science  and  religion,  in  fact  to  include  all 
human  action  and  thought  as  its  province. 


W.  M.  THACKERAY. 

WitwAM  Makepeace  Thackeray  was 
the  type  of  the  English  nineteenth  century 
gentleman  in  literature,  as  was  Fielding  of  the  eighteenth. 
He  was  a  British  aristocrat,  tempered  by  genius.  He  was 
born  in  Calcutta,  British  India,  in  1811,  and  died  in  London 
at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  the  greatest  English  novelist,  satirist 
and  humorist  of  his  time. 

He  was  brought  up  to  the  UFe  and  expectation  of  wealth ; 
but  became  poor  during  his  twenties,  and  had  to  do  some- 
thing for  a  living.  Trade  was  not  to  his  taste ;  politics  not 
within  his  capacities ;  but  he  had  made  little  excursions  in 
amateur  art  and  letters,  and  so  drifted  into  the  use  of  pen  and 
pencil  as  means  of  support.  His  work,  at  first,  was  hardly 
serious  in  purpose;  in  art  he  never  got  beyond  a  peculiar 
kind  of  caricature,  though  he  wrote  witty  and  telling  art- 
criticism,'  and  illustrated  many  of  his  own  stories.  In  his 
early  sketches  and  tales,  he  eschewed  formality,  and  wrote  as 
the  educated  and  witty  man-of-the-world  of  his  time  and 
nation  talked.  This  style,  and  the  sociable  attitude  towards 
the  reader  which  he  adopted,  though  it  recalls  the  way  of 
Fielding,  whom  he  admired,  was  not  the  fruit  of  imitation, 
but  of  sympathy.  No  writer  ever  expressed  his  exact  self  in 
his  compositions  more  thoroughly  than  Thackeray.  He 
matured  early,  though  to  the  last  there  was  much  boyishness 
in  his  complex  nature,  and  his  literary  style  from  the  first 
had  almost  the  maturity  of  his  latest  work ;  it  was  easy,  flex- 
ible, rich,  various:  it  lent  itself  without  eflFort  to  the  precise 
shade  of  meaning  which  he  might  wish  to  convey ;  it  was 
pure  literature  and  pure  naturalness — as  natural  as  the  unre- 
218 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE.  SIQ 

strained  chat  of  men  at  a  club  ;  there  is  not  a  passage  in  his 
writings  that  he  might  not  have  uttered  normally  in  conver- 
sation ;  yet  from  beginning  to  end  there  is  no  touch  of ' 
vulgarity  or  unworthiness.  He  "was  vigorously  sane  at  all 
times  ;.  but  there  was  a  soul  as  well  as  a  body  in  his  sanity  ; 
he  laughed  at  humbug,  but  he  deeply  reverenced  what  de- 
served honor ;  his  pathos  is  always  true,  and  his  sentiment 
naive  and  winning.  Poetic  feeling  was  also  his  ;  and  although 
most  of  his  verse  is  merely  co'medy  or  satire  in  rhyme,  he 
could  upon  occasion  be  sincerely  touching,  as  his  "Mahog- 
any Tree,"  and  his  "Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse"  prove.  In 
reading  Thackeray  (except  to  some  extent  in  "Barry  Lyn- 
don," and  more  in  "Henry  Bsmond"),  the  personality  of 
the  author  is  always  present  to  us  ;  but  it  is  a  personality  of 
that  unique  kind  which  aids  instead  of  detracting  from  the 
literary  effect.  We  might  say  that  the  man  himself  was  a 
part  of,  or  an  element  in,  his  own  literature.  All  attempts 
to  imitate  his  method  have  proved  ruinous ;  but  that  is 
because  there  has  been  but  one  Thackeray.  Fielding,  Sterne, 
and  long  before  them,  the  great  Rabelais,  adopted  a  personal 
tone ;  but  they  too  were  men  of  commanding  genius,  and 
each  was  as  distinctly  himself  as  Thackeray  was. 

Some  of  Thackeray's  earlier  pieces,  such  as  "The Ravens- 
wing,"  and  "Memorials  of  Gormandizing,"  are  as  masterly 
in  form  and  treatment  as  anything  he  wrote  afterwards ; 
their  excellence,-  finish  and  apparent  facility  are  pfasitively 
amazing.  In  "Barry  Lyndon"  and  "The  Great  Hoggarty 
Diamond ' '  are  studies  of  character  which,  so  far  as  they  go, 
he  never  surpassed ;  but  his  later  books  take  a  broader  view 
of  life  than  his  earlier  ones,  and  involve  more  serious  themes. 
The  emphatic  success  of  "Vanity  Fair"  awakened  him  to 
the  responsibility  of  his  literary  position  ;  his  modesty  was 
commensurate  with  his  genius,  but  he  could  not  but  recog- 
nize the  effects  of  his  power,  and  he  never  afterwards  reverted 
to  the  vein  of  "  The  Book  of  Snobs"-  and  "The  Yellow- 
Plush  Papers,"  which  are  masterpieces  in  their  way,  but  it  is 
not  the  high  way  of  "Esmond"  and  "The  Newcomes." 
The  several  great  novels,  from  "Vanity  Fair"  onward,  are 
rich  and  multifarious  pictures  of  life,  with  little  of  what  is 


220  LITERATURE  OF  AtL  NATIONS. 

technically  called  plot,  but  redolent  of  the  humor,  the  pathos, 
the  littleness  and  the  greatness  of  human  nature.  In  con- 
struction they  are  not  seldom  loose,  and  once  in  a  while  the 
author  actually  forgets  what  he  had  written  in  a  previous 
chapter,  and  a  character  whose  death  had  been  mentioned 
comes  to  life  again,  or  some  similar  lapse  occurs.  Thackeray 
was  by  disposition  indolent,  and  averse  from  continuous  and 
methodical  work  ;  he  bent  hiniself  to  his  task  with  pain  ; 
though,  once  caught  in  the  current  of  his  narrative,  he 
entered  livitigly  and  intensely  into  the  scenes  he  was  por- 
traying. The  method  of  publication  prevailing  at  the  time, 
in  monthly  numbers,  tended  to  encourage  the  habit  of  post- 
poning the  labor  till  the  last  moment,  and  added  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  laying  out  a  detailed  plan  in  advance.  Nevertheless, 
Thackeray,  during  the  thirty  years  of  his  litetary  activity, 
accomplished  work  large  in  amount  and  of  the  finest  quality; 
and  he  died  at  last  in  the  midst  of  what  promised  to  be  one 
of  his  best  stories.  What  he  did  was  done  so  well  as  to  be  and 
to  remain  inimitable. 

Thackeray  had  thedramatic  faculty  of  throwing  himself 
imaginatively  into  other  times  and  persons,  and  of  writing  in 
character.  As  "  Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh  "  he  made  himself 
a  power  in  Eraser's  Magazine  and  elsewhere ;  he  assumed 
the  guise  of  a  Snob  in  the  "Snob  Papers,"  of  a  Cockney 
footman  in  the  "Yellow-Plush"  series,  of  an  adventurer  in 
"  Barry  Lyndon,"  of  an  eighteenth  century  gentleman  and 
officer  in  "Esmond,"  of  Pendennis  in  the  novels  following 
the  work  of  that  name.  In  "  Barry  Lyndon  "  and  in  "  Es- 
mond "  the  make-up  is  elaborate  and  wpU  sustained  ;  in  the 
Titmarsh  series  and  in  the  Pendennis  books  the  change  is  in 
the  name  only ;  in  the  others  we  have  a  capital  study  of 
character  as  revealed  in  dialect  or  in  social  foibles,  but  the 
Master  who  manages  the  puppets  is  not  hidden.  But  some 
costuming,  be  it  ever  so  slight  and  transparent,  made  com- 
position easier  for  Thackeray,  just  as  the  accessories  of  the 
stage  help  out  an  actor ;  and  it  suited  his  humor  to  refer  to 
his  characters  as  if  they  were  the  stock-in-trade  of  a  puppet- 
show,  instead  of  being,  as  they  were,  among  the  most  real 
personages  in  fiction.     It  was  a  singular  survival  in  him — 


ENGLISH  UTEEATURB. 


221 


who  was  a  master  writer, — of  an  affectation  or  shrinking 
common  to  amateurs,  who  seek  to  distinguish  between  them- 
selves in  their  private  capacity,  and  the  profession  in  which 
they  dabble.  Thackeray  would  always  be  the  London  club- 
man; he  would  be  an  author  only  in  make-believe.  The 
writer,  of  course,  immeasurably  transcended  the  clubman, 
as  Thackeray  himself  knew ;  but  habit,  and  the  artistic  tem- 
perament, made  him  cling  to  the  form  of  the  disguise  long 
after  it  had  become  as  transparent  as  that  of  "  The  Author  of 
Waverly." 

Thackeray  visited  the  East  in  his  thirty-third  year,  and 
America  eight  years  later ;  he  often  sojourned  in  Paris  and 
other  parts  of  the  Continent,  In  America  and  in  England 
he  delivered  two  series  of  lectures,  on  ' '  The  Four  Georges ' ' 
and  on  "  The  English  Humorists,"  which  were  worthy  of 
his  genius,  though  not  the  best  exposition  of  it.  He  wrote 
and  illustrated  his  travels,  and  made  America  one  of  the  scenes 
of  his  great  novel,  "  The  Virginians."  His  life,  from  his 
thirtieth  year,  was  overshadowed  by  a  great  sorrow — the 
insanity  of' his  young  wife,  whom  he  had  married  three  or 
four  years  before.  She  survived  her  husband,  but  never 
regained  her  reason.  Thackeray's  character,  apart  from  his 
genius,  was  tender,  noble  and  manly ;  but  he  was  subject  to 
moods  and  dark  hours,  and  was  abnormally  sensitive  at  times. 
In  person  he  was  very  tall  and  of  massive  build,"  with  abun- 
dant wavy  hair  which  early  turned  white;  His  fame  did  not 
reach  its  apogee  until  after  his  death  ;  but  as  he  recedes  in 
time  his  literary  stature  constantly  increases.  After  all  criti- 
cisms, he  remfins,  upon  the  whole,  the  greatest  English 
figure  in  the  prose  literature  of  his  generation. 


£J?tt 


222 


LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 


The  Mahogany  Tree. 


Christmas  is  here ; 
Winds  whistle  shrill, 
Icy  and  chill, 

Ivittle  care  we, 
Little  we  fear 
Weather  without, 
Sheltered  about 

The  Mahogany  Tree. 

Once  on  the  boughs 
Birds  of  rare  plume 
Sang,  in  its  bloom ; 

Night-birds  are  we ; 
Here  we  carouse. 
Singing,  like  them. 
Perched  round  the  stem 

Of  the  jolly  old  tree. 

Here  let  us  sport. 
Boys,  as  we  sit ; 
Laughter  and  wit 

Flashing  so  free. 
Life  is  but  short — 
When  we  are  gone, 
Let  them  sing  on 

Round  the  old  tree. 

Evenings  we  knew, 
Happy  as  this ; 
Faces  we  miss. 
Pleasant  to  see. 


Kind  hearts  and  true. 
Gentle  and  just, 
Peace  to  your  dust ! 
We  sing  round  the  tree. 

Care,  like  a  dun, 
Lurks  at  the  gate : 
Let  the  dog  wait ; 

Happy  we'll  be  1 
Drink,  every  one ; 
Pile  up  the  coals, 
Fill  the  red  bowls. 

Round  the  old  tre(e ! 

Drain  we  the  cup. — 
Friend,  art  afraid? 
Spirits  are  laid 

In  the  Red  Sea. 
Mantle  it  up ; 
Empty  it  yet ; 
Let  us  forget, 

Round  the  old  tree. 

Sorrows,  begone ! 
Life  and  its  ills, 
Duns  and  their  bills, 

Bid  we  to  flee. 
Come  with  the  dawn. 
Blue-devil  sprite, 
Leave  us  to-night, 

Round  the  old  tree. 


BNGWSH  tlTERATURB.  223 


Rawdon  Crawley  Goes  Home. 

(From  "  Vanity  Fair.") 

Colonel  Rawdon  Crawley,  who  had  married  Becky  Sharp,  was 
arrested  on  Saturday  night  and  taken  to  a  sponging  house  for  a  debt  of 
;^i50.  He  wrote  to  his  wife,  begging  her  to  get  him  released,  if  she 
had  to  pawn  her  jewelry,  and  she  wrote  a  deceitful  reply  that  she  had 
made  the  effort  without  success,  and  was  ill  in  bed.  The  prisoner  then 
applied  to  his  brother,  Sir  Pitt  Crawley,  whose  wife  came  to  the  rescue. 

Wheels  were  heard  whirling  up  to  the  gate — the  young 
Janitor  went  out  with  his  gate-keys.  It  was  a  lady  whom  he 
let  in  at  the  bailiff's  door. 

"  Colonel  Crawley,"  she  said,  trembling  very  much.  He, 
with  a  knowing  look,  locked  the  outer  door  upon  her — then 
unlocked  and  opened  the  inner  one,  and  calling  out,  ' '  Colonel, 
you're  wanted,"  led  her  into  the  back  parlor,  which  he  occupied. 

Rawdon  came  in  from  the  dining-parlor  where  all  those 
people  were  carousing,  into  his  back  room,  a  flare  of  coarse 
light  following  him  into  the  apartment  where  the  lady  stood, 
still  very  nervous. 

"It  is  I,  Rawdon,"  she  said,  in  a  timid  voice,  which  she 
strove  to  render  cheerful.  " It  is  Jane."  Rawdon  was  quite 
overcome  by  that  kind  voice  and  presence.  He  ran  up  to  her 
— caught  her  in  his  arms — gasped  out  some  inarticulate  words 
of  thanks,  and  fairly  sobbed  on  her  shoulder.  She  did  not 
know  the  cause  of  his  emotion. 

The  bills  of  Mr,  Moss  were  quickly  settled,  perhaps  to 
the  disappointment  of  that  gentleman,  who  had  counted  on 
having  the  Colonel  as  his  guest  over  Sunday  at  least ;  and 
Jane,  with  beaming  smiles  and  happiness  in  her  eyes,  carried 
away  Rawdon  from  the  bailiff's  house,  and  they  went  home- 
wards in  the  cab  in  which  she  had  hastened  to  his  release. 
"Pitt  was  gone  to  a  parliamentary  dinner,"  she  said,  "when 
Rawdon's  note  came,  and  so,  dear  Rawdon,  I — I  came  my- 
selt;"  and  she  put  her  kind  hand  in  his.  Perhaps  it  was 
well  for  Rawdon  Crawley  that  Pitt  was  away  at  that  dinner. 
Rawdon  thanked  his  sister  a  hundred  times,  and  with  an 
ardor  of  gratitude  which  touched  and  almost  alarmed  that 


224  LITERATURE  OF  Alt  NATIONS. 

soft-hearted  woman.  "  Oh,"  said  he,  in  his  rude,  artless  way, 
"you — you  don't  know  how  I'm  changed  since  I've  known 
you,  and — and  little  Rawdy.  I — I'd  like  to  change  somehow. 
You  see  I  want — I  want — to  be  — ."  He  did  not  finish  the 
sentence,  but  she  could  interpret  it.  And  that  night  after  he 
left  her,  and  as  she  sat  by  her  own  little  boy's  bed,  she  prayed 
humbly  for  that  poor  way-worn  sinner. 

Rawdon  left  her  and  walked  home  rapidly.  It  was  nine 
o'clock  at  night.  He  ran  across  the  streets,  and  the  great 
squares  of  Vanity  Fair,  and  at  length  came  up  breathless 
opposite  his  own  house.  He  started  back  and  fell  against 
the  railings,  trembling  as  he  looked  up.  The  drawing-room 
windows  were  blazing  with  light.  She  had  said  that  she  was 
in  bed  and  ill.  He  stood  there  for  some  time,  the  light  from 
the  rooms  on  his  pale  face. 

He  took  out  his  door-key  and  let  himself  into  the  house. 
He  could  hear  laughter  in  the  upper  rooms.  He  was  in  the 
ball-dress  in  which  he  had  been  captured  the  night  before. 
He  went  silently  up  the  stairs,  leaning  against  the  banisters 
at  the  stair-head. — Nobody  was  stirring  in  the  house  besides 
— all  the  servants  had  been  sent  away.  Rawdon  heard  laugh- 
ter within — laughter  and  singing.  Btcky  was  singing  a 
snatch  of  the  song  of  the  night  before  ;  a  hoarse  voice  shouted 
"Brava!  Brava  !  " — it  was  Lord  Steyne's. 

Rawdon  opened  the  door  and  went  in.  A  little  table  with 
a  dinner  was  laid  out — and  wine  and  plate.  Steyne  was  hang- 
ing over  the  sofa  on  which  Becky  sat.  The  wretched  woman 
was  in  a  brilliant  full  toilette,  her  arms  and  all  her  fingers 
sparkling  with  bracelets  and  rings  ;  and  the  brilliants  on  her 
breast  which  Steyne  had  given  her.  He  had  her  hand  in  his, 
and  was  bowing  over  it  to  kiss  it,  when  Becky  started  up 
with  a  faint  scream  as  she  caught  sight  of  Rawdon's  white 
fate.  At  the  next  instant  she  tried  a  smile,  a  horrid  smile, 
as  if  to  welcome  her  husband  :  and  Steyne  rose  up,  grinding 
his  teeth,  pale,  and  with  fury  in  his  looks. 

He,  too,  attempted  a  laugh — and  came  forward  holding 
out  his  hand.  "What,  come  back  !  How  d'ye  do,  Crawley  ?" 
he  said,  the  nerves  of  his  mouth  twitching  as  he  tried  to  grin 
at  the  intruder. 


BNGUSH  i,iteratur:b.  225 

There  was  tiat  in  Rawdon's  face  which  caused  Becky  to 
fling  herself  before  him,  "I  am  innocent,  Rawdon,"  she 
said  ;  "  before  God,  I  am  innocent."  She  clung  hold  of  his 
coat,  of  his  hands  ;  her  own  were  all  covered  with  serpents, 
and  rings,  and  baubles.  "  I  am  innocent. — Say  I  am  inno- 
cent," she  said  to  Lord  Steyne. 

He  thought  a  trap  had  been  laid  for  him,  and  was  as 
furious  with  the  wife  as  with  the  husband.  "  You  innocent  I 
Damn  you,"  he  screamed  out.  "  You  innocent !  Why  every 
trinket  you  have  on  your  body  is  paid  for  by  me.  I  have 
given  you  thousands  of  pounds  which  this  fellow  has  spent, 

and  for  which  he  has  sold  you.     Innocent,  by !     You're 

as  innocent  as  your  mother,  the  ballet-girl,  and  your  husband 
the  bully.  Don't  think  to  frighten  me  as  you  have  done 
others.  Make  way,  sir,  and  let  me  pass ;"  and  Lord  Steyne 
seized  up  his  hat,  and,  with  flame  in  his  eyes,  and  looking 
his  enemy  fiercely  in  the  face,  marched  upon  him,  never  for 
a  moment  doubting  that  the  other  would  give  way. 

But  Rawdon  Crawley,  springing  out,  seized  him  by  the 
neck-cloth,  until  Steyne,  almost  strangled,  writhed,  and  bent 
•  under  his  arm.  "  You  lie,  you  dog !"  said  Rawdon.  "You 
lie,  you  coward  and  villain  ! "  And  he  struck  the  Peer  twice 
over  the  face  with  his  open  hand,  and  flung  him  bleeding  to 
the  ground.  It  was  all  done  before  Rebecca  could  interpose. 
She  stood  there  trembling  before  him.  She  admired  her  hus- 
band, strong,  brave  and  victorious. 

"  Come  here,"  he  said. — She  came  up  at  once. 

"Take  off"  those  things." — She  began,  trembling,  pullmg 
the  jewels  from  her  arms,  and  the  rings  from  her  shaking 
fingers,  and  held  them  all  in  a  heap,  quivering  and  looking  up 
at  him.  "Throw  them  down,"  he  said,  and  she  dropped 
them.  He  tore  the  diamond  ornament  out  of  her  breast,  and 
flung  it  at  Lord  Steyne.  It  cut  him  on  his  bald  forehead. 
Steyne  wore  the  scar  to  his  dying  day. 

"  Come  up  stairs,"  Rawdon  said  to  his  wife.  "  Don't  kill 
me,  Rawdon,"  she  said.  He  laughed  savagely. — "I  want  to 
see  if  that  man  lies  about  the  money  as  he  has  about  me. 
Has  he  given  you  any  ?  " 

"  No, "  said  Rebecca,  "  that  is  — " 
X— IS 


226  WTBRATURE  OF  A.1,1,  NATIONS. 

"Give  me  your  keys,"  Rawdon  answered,  and  they  went 
out  together. 

Rebecca  gave  him  all  the  keys  but  one ;  and  she  was  in 
hopes  that  he  would  not  have  remarked  the  absence  of  that. 
It  belonged  to  the  little  desk  which  Amelia  had  given  her  in 
early  days,  and  which  she  kept  in  a  secret  place.  But  Raw- 
don flung  open  boxes  and  wardrobes,  throwing  the  multifa- 
rious trumpery  of  their  contents  here  and  there,  and  at  last 
he  found  the  desk.  The  woman  was  forced  to  open  it.  It 
contained  papers,  love-letters  many  years  old — ^all  sorts  of 
small  trinkets  and  woman's  memoranda.  And  it  contained  a 
pocket-book  with  bank-notes.  Some  of  these  were  dated  ten 
years  back,  too,  and  one  was  quite  a  fresh  one — a  note  for  a 
thousand  pounds  which  Lord  Steyne  had  given  her. 

"Did  he  give  you  this?"  Rawdon  said. 

"Yes,"  Rebecca  answered. 

"I'll  send  it  to  him  to-day,"  Rawdon  said  (for  day  had 
dawned  again,  and  many  hours  had  passed  in  this  search), 
' '  and  I  will  pay  Briggs,  who  was  kind  to  the  boy,  and  some 
of  the  debts.  You  will  let  me  know  where  I  shall  send  the 
rest  to  you.  You  might  have  spared  me  a  hundred  pounds, 
Becky,  out  of  all  this — I  have  always  shared  with  you." 

"  I  am  innocent,"  said  Becky.  And  he  left  her  without 
another  word. 

What  were  her  thoughts  when  he  left  her  ?  She  remained 
for  hours  after  he  was  gone,  the  sunshine  pouring  into  the 
room,  and  Rebecca  sitting  alone  on  the  bed's  edge.  The 
drawers  were  all  opened  and  their  contents  scattered  about — 
dresses  and  feathers,  scarfs  and  trinkets,  a  heap  of  tumbled 
vanities  lying  in  a  wreck.  Her  hair  was  falling  over  her 
shoulders ;  her  gown  was  torn  where  Rawdon  had  wrenched 
the  brilliants  out  of  it.  She  heard  him  go  down  stairs  a  few 
minutes  after  he  left  her,  and  the  door  slamming  and  closing 
on  him.  She  knew  he  would  never  come  back.  He  was 
gone  for  ever.  Would  he  kill  himself? — she  thought — not 
until  after  he  had  met  I^ord  Steyne.  She  thought  of  her  long 
past  life,  and  all  the  dismal  incidents  of  it.  Ah,  how  dreary 
it  seemed,  how  miserable,  lonely  and  profitless!  Should  she 
take  laudanum,  and  end  it,  too — have  done  with  all  hopes, 


ENGUSH  WTERATURE. 


227 


schemes,  debts  and  triumphs?  The  French  maid  found  her 
in  this  position — sitting  in  the  midst  of  her  miserable  ruins 
■with  clasped  hands  and  dry  eyes.  The  woman  was  her  ac- 
complice, and  in  Steyne's  pay.  "Mon  Dieu,  Madame,  what 
has  happened  ?  "  she  asked. 

What  had  happened  ?  Was  she  guilty  or  not  ?  She  said 
not ;  but  who  could  tell  what  was  truth  which  came  from 
those  lips ;  or  if  that  corrupt  heart  was  in  this  case  pure  ? 
All  her  lies  and  her  schemes,  all  her  selfishness  and  her  wiles, 
all  her  wit  and  genius  had  come  to  this  bankruptcy.  The 
woman  closed  the  curtains,  and  with  some  entreaty  and  show 
of  kindness,  persuaded  her  mistress  to  lie  down  on  the  bed. 
Then  she  went  below  and  gathered  up  the  trinkets  which  had 
been  lying  on  the  floor  since  Rebecca  dropped  them  there  at 
her  husband's  orders,  and  Lord  Steyne  went  away. 


THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


During  the  first  forty  years  of  his  long  life,  Carlyle  was 
practically  unknown.  He  was  born  in  a  little  Scotch  village 
in  179S,  the  son  of  poor  peasants,  with  no  visible  likelihood 
of  ever  making  himself  heard  of  ten  miles  beyond  his  native 
parish.  But  there  were,  it  appeared,  a  brain  and  a  heart  in 
the  child,  and  its  parents  were  able  to  afford  it  a  grammar- 
school  education ;  and  the  boy  afterwards  attended  Edinburgh 
University,  and  obviously  did  not  misuse  his  time  there.  At 
the  age  of  twenty  he  was  teaching  mathematics  in  Annan, 
and  two  years  later  was  schoolmaster  at  Kirkcaldy,  where 
began  his  friendship  with  young  Edward  Irving.  It  was  a 
long  journey  from  the  Scotch  pedagogue's  desk  to  the  primacy 
of  English  literature.  He  determined  to  become  a  barrister, 
and  studied  law  for  three  or  four  years,  maintaining  himself 
the  while  by  hammering  algebra  and  geometry  into  hard 
Scotch  heads,  and  contributing  articles  to  encyclopaedias.  In 
1822,  being  then  twenty-seven  years  old,  the  Bullen  boys 
hired  him  as  tutor ;  and  he  visited  the  great  world  of  London 
and  Paris  before  he  was  thirty.  At  this  time,  all  he  had 
written  was  a  Life  of  Schiller,  a  translation  of  Legendre's 
"Geometry,"  and  a  translation  of  Goethe's  "Wilhelm  Meis- 
ter."  The  latter  has  held  its  place  ever  since,  but,  by  itself 
could  not  be  considered  a  hopeful  basis  for  a  reputation.  But 
the  German  genius  had  a  strong  attraction  for  Carlyle,  and 
influenced  the  central  years  of  his  life.  Some  specimens  of 
the  work  of  other  German  writers,  and  essays  upon  German 
authors,  were  printed  by  him  about  this  time ;  as  literature 
228 


BNGWSH  UTBRATURE.  229 

and  criticism  they  are  in  some  respects  among  the  most  agree- 
ble  reading  that  has  come  from  his  pen.  He  did  not  at  that 
time  know  the  great  destiny  that  awaited  him  ;  and  he  had 
not  yet  begun  that  whimsical,  chronic  quarrel  with  the  world 
which  grew  upon  him  as  his  position  in  the  world  of  letters 
became  dominant.  He  had  faith  and  enthusiasm,  and  the 
power  of  saying  the  thing  he  meant  in  such  phrase  as  made 
his  reader  rejoice.  The  great  new  light  which  came  into 
English  literature  with  Carlyle  was  already  shining  in  these 
early  essays,  with  a  softer  and  clearer  lustre  than  in  after 
years,  when  it  was  rendered  lurid  and  portentous,  sometimes, 
by  the  clouds  and  storms  which  assailed  the  giant  mind  which 
was  its. medium. 

In  1826  Carlyle  married  Jane  Welsh.  Probably  the  inner 
life  of  a  married  couple  has,  never  been  more  widely  published 
than  was  that  of  these  two  queer  and  gifted  beings,  who  were 
greatly  averse  from  publicity  of  that  kind  during  their  life- 
time. And  it  is  precisely  because  the  annals  of  their  domestic 
affairs  is  so  full,  that  it  is  still  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  final 
conclusion  upon  it.  It  reads  like  a  rugged  and  harrowing 
journey ;  and  yet,  for  aught  we  can  say,  so  might  the  story 
of  any  two  other  nervous  and  exacting  persoris,  if  described 
with  equal  minuteness  by  either  of  them.  It  is  not  improb- 
able that  they  had  quite  as  much  average  happiness  as  do 
most  couples;  their  ideal  was  higher  and  their  irritability 
greater  than  the  ordinary,  and  their  power  of  giving  vivid 
expression  to  their  thoughts  and  •  experiences  was  certainly 
far  beyond  the  common.  But  after  all  allowances  have  been 
made,  we  cannot  affirm  that  Jane  and  Thomas  were  an  easy 
wife  and  husband  to  get  on  with.  They  kept  each  other  on 
edge.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  quite  likely  that  his  do- 
mestic jars,  added  to  his  dyspeptic  tendency,  may  have  stimu- 
lated Carlyle  to  write  more  and  more  poignantly,  than  he 
would  otherwise  have  done.  That  the  two  loved  and  admired 
each  other  in  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  is  unquestionable. 

Seven  years  after  his  marriage  Carlyle  published  "  Sartor 
Resartus,"  and  thereby  conquered  fame  among  those  who 
know  what  original  thought  and  literary  faculty  are.  It  was 
a  great  book  to  have  been  written  at  that  time,  and  it  still 


230  WTERATURS  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

remains  a  high  and  unique  example  of  genius  and  humor.  It 
breaks  the  bonds  of  Eighteenth  Century  ideas,. and  gives  us 
the  freedom  and  perception  of  the  Nineteenth.  It  is  a  veiled 
autobiography  of  a  mind,  and  shows  on  its  author's  part  a 
grasp  of  the  philosophy  of  creation,  and  of  the  meaning  of 
the  world,  which  is  attained  only  by  master  intellects.  No 
doubt  he  was  somewhat  indebted  to  Goethe;  but  Carlyle 
could  not  help  being  independent,  and  though  his  orbit 
crossed  that  of  the  great  German,  it  never  coincided  with  it. 
This  first  work  fairly  gives  the  measure  of  the  writer ;  his 
"French  Revolution,"  published  in  1837  (after  having  been 
rewritten,  owing  to  the  burning  of  the  first  MS.  while  in  the 
custody  of  John  Stuart  Mill),  confirmed  the  promise  of  "  Sar- 
tor," and  is  assuredly  a  masterpiece  of  forcible  and  picturesque 
narrative,  and  of  marvellous  scope  and  conciseness.  Its  abrupt 
and  almost  fantastic  style  repels  many;  but  it  has  many  pas- 
sages of  splendid  eloquence,  and  is  pervaded  by  the  grim 
undercurrent  of  humor  which  was  peculiar  to  Carlyle.  Since 
the  book,  was  written  further  research  and  ampler  materials 
have  somewhat  abated  its  value  as  mere  history  ;  but  its  worth 
as  literature  is  indestructible,  and  it  paints  a  [  picture  of  the 
great  Revolution,  and  announces  a  meaning  in  it,  such  as  is 
possible  only  to  a  mind  of  Carlyle's  synthetic  insight. 

But  it  also  gives  evidence  of  a  curious  contrariety  in  Car- 
lyle's view  of  the  world,  which  became  more  accentuated  as 
he  grew  older.  He  was  a  champion  of  the  rights  of  man,  and 
yet  he  was  a  hero-worshipper — a  believer  in  the  divine  right 
of  great  men  to  rule.  The  distinction  between  the  common 
and  the  superior  man  seems  to  him  to  be  one  of  kind  as  well 
as  of  degree ;  and  this  view  opposes  the  best  thought  of  the 
race.  The  essential  unity  of  the  human  race  is  a  truth  which 
did  not  appeal  to  him.  He  fell  into  contradictions  and  obscuri- 
ties, and  his  mighty  force  wasted  itself  in  them.  He  dazzles 
more  than  he  convinces,  and  always  appears  somewhat  sensa- 
tional, in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word.  He  harangues  us 
with  almost  fierce  earnestness,  and  calls  upon  the  verities 
and  eternities  ;  but  somehow  we  seem  to  feel  a  pose  and  an 
unreality  beneath  it  all.  Doubtless  Carlyle  was  sincere — he 
believed  in  himself ;  but  he  may  have  expended  an  energy  in 


Bnglish  wteeaturb.  231 

persuading  himself  so  to  believe  which  might  more  usefully 
have  been  expended  in  other  directions. 

The  remaining  forty  years  of  his  literary  activity  were 
devoted  to  biographical  writing,  and  to  essays  on  the  questions 
of  the  times,  usually  of  a  warning  or  denunciatory  character. 
His  "Oliver  Cromwell,"  "John  Sterling,"  and  "Frederick 
the  Great"  are  impressive  works;  but  in  reading  them  for 
information  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  powerful  predilections 
of  the  writer.  In  truth,  Carlyle's  works  are  more  interesting 
and  valuable  as  portrayals  of  his  own  trenchant  and  singular 
judgments  upon  men  and  life,  than  as  trustworthy  pictures 
of  life  and  men  themselves.  Even  so,  his  books  are  an 
awakening  and  an  educating  force  of  which  every  intelligent 
mind  should  avail  itself.  Carlyle's  career  ended  sadly ;  the 
message  which  he  so  strenuously  proclaimed  failed  to  win  the 
assent  of  his  generation.  Yet  he  was,  upon  the  whole,  the 
greatest  man  of  letters  of  his  time  in  England,  great  even  in 
his  errors,  and  modern  thought,  without  his  infliience,  would 
have  been  less  independent  and  honest  than  it  is  to-day. 

The  Attack 'Upon  the  Bastille. 

(From  "  The  French  Revolution.") 

All  morning,  since  nine,  there  has  been  a  cry  everywhere, 
"To  the  Bastille!"  Repeated  "deputations  of  citizens" 
have  been  here,  passionate  for  arms;  whom  De  Launay  has 
got  dismissed  by  soft  speeches  through  port-holes.  Towards 
noon  Elector  Thuriot  de  la  Rosi^re  gains  admittance  ;  finds 
De  lyaunay  indisposed  for  surrender ;  nay,  disposed  for  blow- 
ing up  the  place  rather.  Thuriot  mounts  with  him  to  the 
battlements :  heaps  of  paving-stones,  old  iron,  and  missiles 
lie  piled:  cannon  all  duly  levelled;  in  every  embrasure  a 
cannon — only  drawn  ba.ck  a  little !  But  outwards,  behold, 
O  Thuriot,  how  the  multitude  flows  on,  welling  through 
every  street ;  tocsin  furiously  pealing,  all  drums  beating  the 
generale:  the  suburb  Sainte-Antoine  rolling  hitherward 
wholly  as  one  man  !  Such  vision  (spectral,  yet  real)  thou, 
O  Thuriot!  as  from  thy  Mount  of  Vision,  beholdest  in  this 
moment :  prophetic  of  other  phantasmagories,  and  loud-gib- 


232  WTBItA-TURE  OF  AI,I.  NATIONS. 

bering  spectral  realities  which  thou  yet  beholdest  not,  but 
shalt.  "Que  voulez-vous?"  said  De  L,aunay,  turning  pale 
at  the  sight,  with  an  air  of  reproach,  almost  of  menace. 
"Monsieur,"  said  Thuriot,  rising  into  the  moral  sublime, 
' '  what  mean  you  ?  Consider  if  I  could  not  precipitate  both 
of  us  from  this  height" — say  only  a  hundred  feet,  exclusive 
of  the  walled  ditch  !     Whereupon  De  Launay  fell  silent. 

Woe  to  thee,  De  I^aunay,  in  such  an  hour,  if  thou  canst 
not,  taking  some  one  firm  decision,  rule  circumstances ! 
Soft  speeches  will  not  serve  ;  hard  grape-shot  is  questionable; 
but  hovering  between  the  two  is  as  questionable.  Ever 
wilder  swells  the  tide  of  men ;  their  infinite  hum  waxing 
ever  louder  into  imprecations,  perhaps  into  crackle  of  stray 
musketry,  which  latter,  on  walls  nine  feet  thick,  cannot  do 
execution.  The  outer  drawbridge  has  been  lowered  for 
Thuriot ;  new  deputation  of  citizens  (it  is  the  third  and 
noisiest  of  all)  penetrates  that  way  into  the  outer  court :  soft 
speeches  producing  no  clearance  of  these,  De  Launay  gives 
fire  ;  pulls  up  his  drawbridge.  A  slight  sputter ;  which  has 
kindled  the  too  combustible  chaos ;  made  it  a  roaring  fire- 
chaos  !  Bursts  forth  insurrection,  at  sight  of  its  own  blood 
(for  there  were  deaths  by  that  sputter  of  fire),  into  endless 
rolling  explosion  of  musketry,  distraction,  execration ;  and 
overhead,  from  the  fortress,  let  one  great  gun,  with  its  grape- 
shot,  go  booming,  to  show  what  we  could  do.  The  Bastille 
is  besieged  1 

On,  then,  all  Frenchmen  that  have  hearts  in  their  bodies ! 
Roar  with  all  your  throats  of  cartilage  and  metal,  ye  sons  of 
liberty  ;  stir  spasmodically  whatsoever  of  utmost  faculty  is  in 
you,  soul,  body,  or  spirit ;  for  it  is  the  hour !  Smite,  thou 
Louis  Tournay,  cai'twright  of  the  Marais,  old  soldier  of  the 
Regiment  Dauphine  ;  smite  at  that  outer  drawbridge  chain, 
though  the  fiery  hail  whistles  round  thee  !  Never  over  nave 
or  felloe  did  thy  axe  strike  such  a  stroke.  Down  with  it, 
man  ;  down  with  it  to  Orcus :  let  the  whole  accursed  edifice 
sink  thither,  and  tyranny  be  swallowed  up  for  ever !  Mounted, 
some  say,  on  the  roof  of  the  guard-room,  some  "  on  bayonets 
stuck  into  joints  of  the  wall,"  I^ouis  Tournay  smites,  brave 
Aubin  Bonnem^re  (also  an  old  soldier)  seconding  him :  the 


BNGLISH  LITERATURE.  233 

diain  yields,  breaks;  the  huge  drawbridge  slams  down,  thun- 
dering (az'^t^af  a  j).  Glorious;  and  yet,  alas!  it  is  still  but 
the  outworks.  The  eight  grim  towers  with  their  Invalides' 
musketry,  their  paving-stones  and  cannon-mouths  still  soar 
aloft  intact :  ditch  yawning  impassable,  stone-faced  ;  the  inner 
drawbridge  with  its  back  towards  us  :  the  Bastille  is  still  to 
take! 

Work. 

Blessed  is  he  who  has  found  his  work ;  let  him  ask  no 
other  blessedness.  He  has  a  work,  a  life-purpose ;  he  has 
found  it,  and  will  follow  it !  How,  as  a  free  flowing  channel, 
dug  and  torn  by  noble  force  through  the  sour  mud-swamp 
of  one's  existence,  like  an  ever-deepening  river  there,  it  runs 
and  flows ;  draining  off"  the  sour  festering  water  gradually 
from  the  root  of  the  remotest  grass  blade  ;  making,  instead 
of  pestilential  swamp,  a  green  fruitful  meadow  with  its  clear 
flowing  stream.  How  blessed  for  the  meadow  itself,  let  the 
stream  and  its  value  be  great  or  small!  Labor  is  life  ;  from 
the  inmost  heart  of  the  worker  rises  his  God-given  force,  the 
sacred  celestial  life-essence,  breathed  into  him  by  Almighty 
God;  from  his  inmost  heart  awakens  him  to  all  nobleness,  to 
all  knowledge  "self-knowledge,"  and  much  else,  so  soon  as 
work  fitly  begins.  Knowledge !  the  knowledge  that  will 
hold  good  in  working,  cleave  thou  to  that ;  for  Nature  herself 
accredits  that,  says  Yea  to  that.  Properly  thou  hast  no  other 
knowledge  but  what  thou  hast  got  by  working ;  the  rest  is 
yet  all  an  hypothesis  of  knowledge :  a  thing  to  be  argued  of 
in  schools,  a  thing  floating  in  the  clouds  in  endless  logic 
vortices,  till  we  try  it  and  fix  it.  ' '  Doubt,  of  whatever  kind, 
can  be  ended  by  action  alone."  .  .  . 

Older  than  all  preached  gospels  was  this  unpreached,  inar- 
ticulate, but  ineradicable,  for-ever-enduring* gospel :  Work, 
and  therein  have  well-being.  Man,  Son  of  Earth  and  of 
Heaven,  lies  there  not,  in  the  innermost  heart  of  thee,  a  spirit 
of  active  method,  a  force  for  work  ; — and  burns  like  a  pain- 
fully smouldering  fire,  giving  thee  no  rest  till  thou  unfold  it, 
till  thou  write  it  down  in  beneficent  facts  around  thee !  What 
is  immethodic,  waste,  thou  shalt  make  methodic,  regulated, 


234  LITERATURE  OF  AI<I,  NATIONS. 

arable ;  obedient  and  productive  to  thee.  Wheresoever  thou 
findest  disorder,  there  is  thy  eternal  enemy ;  attack  him 
swiftly,  subdue  him ;  make  order  of  him,  the  subject  not  of 
chaos,  but  of  intelligence,  divinity  and  thee!  The  thistle 
that  grows  in  thy  path,  dig  it  out  that  a  blade  of  useful 
grass,  a  drop  of  nourishing  milk,  may  grow  there  instead. 
The  waste  cotton-shrub,  gather  its  waste  white  down,  spin  it, 
weave  it ;  that,  in  place  of  idle  litter,  there  may  be  folded 
webs,  and  the  naked  skin  of  man  be  covered. 

But,  above  all,  where  thou  findest  ignorance,  stupidity, 
brute-mindedness — attack  it  I  say ;  smite  it  wisely,  unwear- 
iedly,  and  rest  not  while  thou  livest  aud  it  lives;  but  smite, 
smite  in  the  name  of  God !  The  highest  God,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  does  audibly  so  command  thee :  still  audibly,  if  thou 
have  ears  to  hear.  He,  even  He,  with  his  unspoken  voice, 
is  fuller  than  any  Sinai  thunders,  or  syllabled  speech  of 
whirlwinds ;  for  the  SILENCE  of  deep  eternities,  of  worlds 
from  beyond  the  morning-stars,  does  it  not  speak  to  thee? 
The  unborn  ages  ;  the  old  Graves,  with  their  long  moulder- 
ing dust,  the  very  tears  that  wetted  it,  now  all  dry — do  not 
these  speak  to  thee  what  ear  hath  not  heard?  The  deep 
death -kingdoms,  the  stars  in  their  never-resting  courses,  all 
space  and  all  time,  proclaim  it  to  thee  in  continual  silent  ad- 
monition. Thou,  too,  if  ever  man  should,  shalt  work  while 
it  is  called  to-day  ;•  for  the  night  cometh,  wherein  no  man 
can  work. 

All  true  work  is  sacred  ;  in  all  true  work,  were  it  but  true 
hand-labor,  there  is  something  of  divineness.  Labor,  wide  as 
the  earth,  has  its  summit  in  heaven.  Sweat  of  the  brow ; 
and  up  from  that  to  sweat  of  the  brain,  sweat ,  of  the  heart ; 
which  includes  all  Kepler  calculations,  Newton  meditations, 
all  sciences,  all  spoken  epics,  all  acted  heroism,' martyrdom — • 
up  to  that  "a^ony  of  bloody  sweat,"  which  all  men  have 
called  divine!  ,0  brother,  if  this  is  not  "worship,"  then  I 
say,  the  more  pity  for  worship ;  for  this  is  the  noblest  thing 
yet  discovered  under  God's  sky. 


ALFRED  LORD  TENNYSON 


Alfred  Tennyson,  bom  in  that  famous  birth-year '  of 
great  men,  1809,  lived  to  a  great  age,  companioned  by  noble 
thoughts  and  by  his  eminent  contemporaries,  supported  by 
the  strong  unfaltering  fire  of  his  own  genius,  honored  by  his 
queen,  held  by  millions  of  readers  as  the  foremost  poet  of  his 
time,  and  exceptionally  happy  in  the  domestic  sphere  of  wife 
and  children.  Poor  in  his  youth,  he  died  a  rich  man,  from 
the  honorable  exercise  of  his  extraordinary  gifts.  A  fuller, 
more  influential  and  successful  life  has  seldom  been  lived  by 
any  man  ;  his  rich  nature  was  characterized  by  that  trenchant 
masculinity  which  admits  the  refinement  of  the  Eternal  Fem- 
inine ;  his  sterling  sense  was  softened  and  led  by*  the  spirit, 
and  he  was  initiate  in  the  incommunicable  mysteries  of  the 
soul.  His  career  and  character,  not  less  than  his  poetry,  must 
remain  a  profitable  study  for  many  generations.  The  poetry 
of  no  other  Englishman  since  Shakespeare  has  become  so 
familiar  in  men's  mouths  as  hiSj  and  its  effect  has  been  succu- 
lent both  to  literature  and  to  life.  He  is  beyond  dispute  the 
English  poet  of  his  century  and  one  of  the  few  writers  great 
enough  to  make  a  century  memorable.  Always  (to  use  his 
own  words)  "he  gave, the  people  of  his  best:"  and  though, 
in  the  much  that  he  has  written,  there  is  not  a  little  which 
mature  criticism  rates  far  below  his  best,  and  more  that  could 
be  spared  as  being  reproductions  in  fresh  forms  of  thoughts 
treated  by  him  before ;  yet  there  stands  to  his  credit  a  body 
of  poetry  which  only  the  finest  and  noblest  genius  could  have 
cheated,  and  without  which  the  literature  of  his  time  would 

23s 


236  UTERATURB  OP  &1X,  NATIONS. 

lack  some  of  its  most  exquisite  graces  and  most  felicitous  and 
penetrating  interpretations. 

Tennyson's  outward   life  was  uneventful.      He  entered 
Cambridge  in  1828,  with  Hallara  (son  of  the  historian),  Trench 
and  Houghton  ;  was  compelled  by  his  slender  income  to  defer 
his  marriage  until  1850,  when  he  was  forty-one  ;  was  raised  to 
the  laureate-ship  of  England  in  the  same  year,  and  accepted  a 
peerage  in  1884.    He  was  no  traveler,  rarely  leaving  England, 
and  never  realizing  the  hope  of  his  youth,  "To  see,  before  I 
die,  the  palms  and  temples  of  the  south."     He  died  in  1892, 
well  past  the  age  of  fourscore,  but  with  the  fineness  of  his 
genius  unabated.  .  His  history  is  that  of  his  mind  and  heart, 
which  is  shadowed  forth  in  his  writings,  yet  ever  veiled  be- 
neath the  reticences  of  pure  art.     He  was  great  enough  to 
eschew  the  individual  and  singular  in  the  published  expres- 
sion of  his  thought,  and  to  oiFer  only  those  ideas  and  feelings 
which  are  catholic  in  the  race.     All  who  have  loved  and  lost 
have  experienced  the  emotions  of  "In  Memoriam  ; "  no  one 
who  has  meditated  deeply  on  the  problems  of  the  age  can  fail 
to  find  his  best  conclusions  in  "  Locksley  Hall ;  "  scepticism 
may  find  its  utterance  and  its  answer  in  "  The  Two  Voices ;  " 
the  refusal  of  the  soul  to  stay  in  mortal  limitations  resounds 
in  "  Ulysses  ;"  the  passion,  purity  and  exaltation  of  love  are 
portrayed  in  "CEnone,"  "Maud,"  "I^ove  and  Duty,"  "Tears, 
Idle  Tears,"   "The  Gardener's  Daughter,"  and  many  other 
lovely  poems  ;  the  mockery  of  beauty  without  God  is  shown 
in  "The  Palace  of  Art;"  the  grandeur  of  patriotism,  civil 
and  military,  is  expressed  in  the  ' '  Ode  on  the  Death  of  Wel- 
lington "  and  in  "England  ; "  and  so  we  might  continue.    In 
a  word,  the  life  of  his  age  flowed  through  Tennyson,  and 
found  in  him  its  broadest  utterance.     Philosophy,  science, 
history  and  art  were  elemental  spirits  employed  by  this  Pros- 
pero  to  give  body,  color  and  pertinence  to  his  harmonious 
creations  ;  his  brain  was  balanced  by  his  heart,  and  the  first 
was  as  lofty  as  the  last  was  deep. 

The  beginnings  of  the  poet's  career  were  not  ambitious. 
Before  he  was  twenty,  he  and  his  brother  published  a  small 
volume  of  "  Poems  by  Two  Brothers,"  which  showed  faculty, 
but  no  definite  aim.     His  "  Poems  Chiefly  Lyrical,"  appear- 


ENGUSH  LITERATURE.  237 

ing  when  he  was  twenty-one,  were  studies  in  form,  sentiment 
and  beauty,  but  only  his  more  sagacious  critics  were  able  to 
foretell  from  it  his  future  eminence.  In  1842  another  volume 
was  brought  out ;  and  in  this  we  find  the  first  specimen  of  a 
work  destined  to  be  the  most  voluminous  and  one  of  the  most 
important  of  his  life — the  fragment  called  "Morte  d' Arthur." 
The  plan  of  the  "  Epic  of  Arthur  "  had  then  been  for  some 
time  in  his  mind  ;  but  he  had  not  satisfied  himself  with  his 
treatment  of  it.  The  fragment,  however,  was  so  generally 
praised  that  he  was  encouraged  to  take  up  the  subject  with 
renewed  vigor ;  and,  at  intervals  during  the  fifty  years  that 
followed,  he  gradually  elaborated  the  whole  stately  series  of 
poems  bearing  upon  the  story  of  Uther's  mystic  Son.  The 
work  as  a  whole  is  sufficient  basis  for  a  great  reputation  ;  but 
the  merit  of  the  various  parts  is  not  equal ;  there  is  poetry  in 
all  of  them,  but  some  of  the  earlier  ones — "  Enid,"  "  Guene- 
vere,"  "  Elaine,"  and  the  "  Morte  d' Arthur  "  itself,  seem  to 
touch  a  higher  level  than  the  rest.  The  material  was  derived 
chiefly  from  the  prose  narrative  of  Malory ;  as  an  individ- 
ual effijrt  to  put  in  homogeneous  metrical  form  the  legends 
of  the  beginnings  of  a  nation,  perhaps  nothing  since  Homer's 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  has  been  done  to  compare  with  it.  But  it  is 
somewhat  too  long  for  the  taste  of  the  present  day,  and  the 
general  sameness  of  treatment  and  tone  militate  against  its 
cumulative  effect. 

The  most  important  fact  of  Tennyson's  young  manhood, 
in  its  influence  upon  his  mind,  was  the  death  of  his  friend 
Arthur  Hallam.  The  sad  event  took  place  in  1833,  when 
Tennyson  was  twenty- four  years  old  ;  "In  Memoriam, ' '  the 
poem  which  commemorates  it,  was  not  published  till  1850. 
During  these  seventeen  years  he  had  been  enabled  to  pass 
through  the  acuter  stages  of  grief  into  a  calmer  and  deeper 
state,  in  which  became  visible  to  him  the  mercy  of  the  God 
who  giveth  and  who  taketh  away.  '  The  poem,  therefore, 
shows  the  balance  and  symmetry  of  high  art ;  it  shows  pain 
compensated  by  spiritual  growth  and  the  consolations  of  re- 
ligion and  philosophy.  It  has  probably  been  more  widely 
read  than  any  other  of  Tennyson's  productions ;  and  the 
wonderful  perfection  of  its  form,  and  the  truth  and  insight 


238  UTERATURB  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

of  its  expression,  its  passion,  its  reverence  and  its  sincerity, 
make  it  worthy  of  its  reputation.  The  personal  lineaments 
of  Arthur  Hallam,  lovable  as  these  were,  disappear  in  the 
deeper  beauty  and  significance  of  that  for  which  he  stands — 
the  human  love  and  companionship  which  death  interrupts, 
but  does  not  destroy.  Tennyson,  in  this  poem,  made  his 
private  suffering  the  means  of  comfort  to  his  race ;  and  no 
poet  can  perform  a  loftier  service. 

"The  Princess,"  published  in  1847,  embodies  a  discussion 
of  various  modern  social  topics,  prominent  among  them  that 
of  woman's  position  in  the  community.  It  is  presented  in 
unique  form,  the  exponents  of  the  ideas  of  the  day  being  at- 
tired in  mediaeval  costume,  and  the  scenery  being  that  of  the 
Age  of  Chivalry.  It  would  indeed  have  been  difficult  if  not 
impossible  to  treat  the  subject  poetically  on  any  other  plan. 
The  poem  is  in  blank  verse,  every  line  packed  with  meaning, 
to  such  an  extent  as  sometimes  to  render  the  thought  obscure. 
Its  progress  is  relieved  by  the  introduction  of  several  exqui- 
site songs,  one  at  least  of  which — "Tears,  idle  Tears," — is  one 
of  the  most  delicious  lyrics  ever  written.  "The  Princess" 
holds  a  noble  argument ;  but  the  main  problem  which  it  at- 
tacks cannot  be  finally  solved  by  any  individual ;  only  in  the 
lapse  of  ages  will  the  divine  purpose  be  revealed. 

The  concluding  twenty  years  of  Tennyson's  life,  from 
1870  onwards,  were  largely  occupied  with  essays  in  dramatic 
literature.  He  produced  six  or  seven  plays,  in  the  Shake- 
spearian form,  based  on  historic  or  quasi-historic  subjects ; 
and  all  of  them  were  acted  on  the  stage  by  competent  per- 
formers,, with  measurable  success.  Worthy  and  admirable 
productions  they  certainly  are;  but  the  challenge  to  the  great 
Elizabethan  dramatists  was  too  obvious  ;  and  the  lack  of 
humor  in  the  nineteenth  century  poet,  as  well  as  the  habit  of 
fifty  years  in  other  forms  of  poetic  art,  prevents  these  plays 
from  ranking  with  his  most  satisfactory  work.  We  are  dis- 
posed to  regret  that  the  force  and  genius  which  went  to  their 
making  had  not  been  applied  in  other  directions.  They  con- 
tain many  splendid  lines  and  stirring  passages,  many  fine 
situations,  and  masterly" delineations  of  character;  but  they 
do  not  show  Tennyson  at  his  best ;  and  the  greater  a  writer 


ENGLISH  tlTERATURB.  ,  239 

is,  the  more  stringent  is  our  demand  that  he  maintain  his 
highest  level. 

To  many,  Tennyson's  shorter  pieces  will  remain  the  favor- 
ites. Some  of  them  seem  the  very  flower  of  human  speech. 
"Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights,"  " The  Lady  of  Shal- 
lott,"  "The  Lotus  Eaters,"  "  Love,  and  Death, "  "A  Dream 
of  Pair  Women,"  "The  Sleeping  Beauty,"  and  that  last 
noble  message — "Crossing  the  Bar ; "  these  and  many  another 
as  we  read  them,  seem  to  attain  the  limits  of  beauty  in 
measure,  rhyme  and  thought.  But  it  is  still  too  early  to 
decide  what  of  Tennyson  is  most  nearly  immortal.  He  lies 
in  Westminster  Abbey;  and  it  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that 
so  long  as  that  historic  church  stands,  his  fame  is  likely  to 
endure.  Or  we  might  say  that  the  English  language  which 
he  has  dignified  and  enriched  will  not  outlast  the  noble  crea- 
tions which  he  has  incarnated  in  it. 

Tears,  Idle  Tears. 

Tears,  idle  tears,  I  know  not  what  they  mean 
Teats  from  the  depth  of  some  divine  despair 
Rise  in  the  heart,  and  gather  to  the  eyes, 
In  looking  on  the  happy  Autumn-fields, 
And  thinking  of  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

Fresh  as  the  first  beam  glittering  on  a  sail. 
That  brings  our  friends  up  from  the  underworld, 
Sad  as  the  last  which  reddens  over  one 
That  sinks  with  all  we  love  below  the  verge  j 
So  sad,  so  fresh,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

Ah,  sad  and  strange  as  in  dark  summer  dawns 
The  earliest  pipe  of  half-awakened  birds 
To  dying  ears,  when  unto  dying  eyes 
The  casement  slowly  grows  a  glimmering  square ; 
So  sad,  so  strange,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

Dear  as  remembered  kisses  after  death, 
And  sweet  as  those  by  hopeless  fancy  feigned 
On  lips  that  are  lor  others ;  deep  as  love, 
Deep  as  first  love,  and  wild  with  all  regret ; 
O  Death  in  Life,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 


240  WTERATURE  OF  Atl,  NATIONS. 


Of  Old  Sat  Freedom  on  the  Heights. 

Of  old  sat  Freedom  on  the  heights, 
The  thunders  breaking  at  her  feet ; 

Above  her  shook  the  starry  lights : 
She  heard  the  torrents  meet. 

There  in  her  place  she  did  rejoice, 
Self-gathered  in  her  prophet-mind, 

But  fragments  of  her  mighty  voice 
Came  rolling  on  the  wind. 

Then  stept  she  down  thro'  town  and  field 
To  mingle  with  the  human  race, 

And  part  by  part  to  men  revealed 
The  fullness  of  her  face — 

Grave  Mother  of  majestic  works, 
From  her  isle-altar  gazing  down, 

Who,  God-like,  grasps  the  triple  forks, 
And,  King-like,  wears  the  crown : 

Her  open  eyes  desire  the  truth. 

The  -wisdom  of  a  thousand  years 
Is  in  them.     May  perpetual  youth 

Keep  dry  their  light  from  tears ; 

That  her  fair  form  may  stand  and  shine, 
Make  bright  our  days  and  light  our  dreams, 

Turning  to  scorn  with  lips  divine 
The  falsehood  of  extremes. 

Elaine's  Letter  to  Guinevere. 

Then  spake  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat; 
"Sweet  father,  all  too  faint  and  sick  am  I 
For  anger :  these  are  slanders :  never  yet 
Was  noble  man  but  made  ignoble  talk. 
He  makes  no  friend  who  never  made  a  foe. 
But  now  it  is  my  glory  to  have  loved 
One  peerless,  without  stain :  so  let  me  pass, 
My  father,  howsoe'er  I  seem  to  you. 


ENGtISH  UTERATURE.  241 

Not  all  unhappy,  having  loved  God's  best 
And  greatest,  tho'  my  love  had  no  return : 
Yet,  seeing  you  desiie  your  child  to  live, 
Thanks,  but  you  work  against  your  own  desire ; 
For  if  I  could  believe  the  things  you  say 
I  should  but  die  the  sooner ;  wherefore  cease, 
Sweet  father,  and  bid  call  the  ghostly  man 
Hither,  and  let  me  shrive  me  clean  and  die." 
So  when  the  ghostly  man  had  come  and  gone. 
She  with  a  face,  bright  as  tor  sin  forgiven, 
Besought  Lavaine  to  write  as  she  devised 
A  letter,  word  for  word ;  and  when  he  asked 

"  Is  it  for  Lancelot,  is  it  for  my  dear  lord  ? 
Then  will  I  bear  it  gladly ; "  she  replied, 

"For  Lancelot  and  the  Queen  and  all  the  world, 
But  I  myself  must  bear  it."     Then  he  wrote 
The  letter  she  devised ;  which  being  writ 
And  folded,  "  O  sweet  father,  tender  and  true, 
Deny  me  not,"  she  said — "  you  never  yet 
Denied  my  fancies — this,  however  strange. 
My  latest :  lay  the  letter  in  my  hand 
A  little  ere  I  die,  and  close  the  hand 
Upon  it;  I  shall  guard  it  even  in, death. 
And  when  the  heat  is  gone  from  out  my  heart. 
Then  take  the  little  bed  on' which  I  died 
For  Lancelot's  love,  and  deck  it  like  the  Queen's 
For  richness,  and  me  also  like  the  Queen 
In  all  I  haye  of  rich,  and  lay  me  on  it. 
And  let  there  be  prepared  a  chariot-bier 
To  take  me  to  the  river,  and  a  barge 
Be  ready  on  the  river,  clothed  in  black. 
I  go  in  state  to  court,  to  meet  the  Queen. 
There  surely  I  shall  speak  for  mine  own  self. 
And  none  of  you  can  speak  for  me  so  well. 
And  therefore  let  our  dumb  old  man  alone 
Go  with  me,  he  can  steer  and  row,  and  he 
Will  guide  me  to  that  palace,  to  the  doors." 

She  ceased:  her  father  promised;  whereupon 
She  grew  so  cheerful  that  they  deemed  her  death 
Was  rather  in  the  fantasy  than  the  blood. 
But  ten  slow  mornings  past,  and  on  the  ekventH 
X-16 


242  I,ITERATURB  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

Her  father  laid  the  letter  in  her  hand, 

And  closed  the  hand  upon  it  and  she  died.     - 

So  that  day  there  was  dole  in  Astolat. 

But  when  the  next  sun  brake  from  underground, 
Then,  those  two  brethren  slowly  with  bent  brows 
Accompanying,  the  sad  chariot-bier 
Passed  like  a  shadow  through  the  field,  that  shone 
Full- summer,  to  that  stream  whereon  the  barge, 
Pall'd  all  its  length  in  blackest  samite,  lay. 
There  sat  the  lifelong  creature  of  the  house, 
I»oyal,  the  dumb  old  servitor,  on  deck. 
Winking  his  eyes,  and  twisted  all  his  face. 
So  those  two  brethren  from  the  chariot  took 
And  on  the  black  decks  laid  her  in  her  bed. 
Set  in  her  hand  a  lily,  o'er  her  hung 
The  silken  case  with  braided  blazonings. 
And  kissed  her  quiet  brows,  and  saying  to  her, 
"Sister,  farewell  forever,"  and  again, 
"Farewell,  sweet  sister,"  parted  all  in  tears. 
Then  rose  the  dumb  old  servitor,  and  the  dead 
Steer' d  by  the  dumb  went  upward  with  the  flood — 
In  her  right  hand  the  lily,  in  her  left 
The  letter — all  her  bright  hair  streaming  down — 
And  all  the  coverlid  was  cloth  of  gold 
Drawn  to  her  waist,  and  she  herself  in  white 
All  but  her  face,  and  that  clear-featured  face 
"Was  lovely,  for  she  did  not  seem  as  dead 
But  fast  asleep,  and  lay  as  though  she  smiled. 

Then  while  Sir  Lancelot  leant,  in  half  disgust 
At  love,  life,  all  things,  on  the  window  ledge. 
Close  underneath  his  eyes,  and  right  across 
Where  these  had  fallen,  slowly  passed  the  barge 
Whereon  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat 
I<ay  smiling,  like  a  star  in  blackest  night. 

But  the  wild  Queen,  who  saw  not,  burst  away 
To  weep  and  wail  in  secret ;  and  the  barge 
On  to  the  palace-doorway  sliding,  paused. 
There  two  stood  armed,  and  kept  the  door ;  to  whom. 
All  up  the  marble  stair,  tier  over  tier. 


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ENGLISH   IvITERATURE.  243 

Were  added  mouths  that  gaped,  and  eyes  that  ask'd 
"What;  is  it? '  but  that  oarsman's  haggard  face, 

As  hard  and  still  as  is  the  face  that  men 

Shape  to  their  fancy's  eye  from  broken  rocks 

On  some  cliff-side,  appall' d  them,  and  they  said, 
"He  is  enchanted,  cannot  speak — and  she, 

I/)ok  how  she  sleeps — the  Fairy  Queen,  so  fair ! 

Yea,  but  how  pale !  what  are  they?  flesh  and  blood? 

Or  come  to  take  the  King  to  fairy  land? 

For  some  do  hold  our  Arthur  cannot  die, 

But  that  he  .passes  into  fairy  land." 

While  thus  they  babbled  of  the  King,  the  King 
Came  girt  with  knights :  then  turned  the  tongueless  man 
From  the  half-face  to  the  full  eye,  and  rose 
And  pointed  to  the  damsel  and  the  doors. 
So  Arthur  bade  the  meek  Sir  Percivale 
And  pure  Sir  Galahad  to  uplift  the  maid ; 
And  reverently  they  bore  her  into  hall. 
Then  came  the  fine  Gawain  and  wondered  at  her. 
And  Lancelot  later  came  and  mused  at  her, 
At  last  the  Queen  herself  and  pitied  her : 
But  Arthur  spied  the  letter  in  her  hand. 
Stooped,  took,  brake  seal  and  read  it ;  this  was  all : 

' '  Most  noble  lord,  Sir  Lancelot  of  the  Lake, 
I,  sometime  called  the  maid  of  Astolat, 
Come,  for  you  left  me  taking  no  farewell. 
Hither,  to  take  my  last  farewell  of  you. 
I  loved  you,  and  my  love  had  no  return, 
And  therefore  my  true  love  has  been  my  death. 
And  therefore  to  our  lady  Guinevere, 
And  to  all  other  ladies,  I  make  moan. 
Pray  for  my  soul,  and  yield  me  burial. 
Pray  for  my  soul  thou  too,  Sir  Lancelot, 
As  thou  art  a  knight  peerless." 

Thus  he  read. 
And  ever  in  the  reading,  lords  and  dames 
Wept,  looking  often  from  his  face  who  read 
To  hers  which  lay  so  silent,  and  at  times, 
So  touched  were  they,- half-thinking  that  her  lips, 
Who  had  devised  the  letter,  moved  again. 


244  WTERATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 


From  "In  Memoriam." 

The  Danube  to  the  Severn  gave 

The  darkened  heart  that  beat  no  more, 
They  laid  him  by  the  pleasant  shore, 

And  in  the  hearing  of  the  wave. 

There  twice  a  day  the  Severn  fills ; 
The  salt  sea-water  passes  by, 
And  hushes  half  the  babbling  Wye, 

And  makes  a  silence  in  the  hills. 

The  Wye  is  hushed  nor  moved  along, 
And  hushed  my  deepest  grief  of  all. 
When  filled  with  tears  that  cannot  fall, 

I  brim  with  sorrow  drowning  song. 

The  tide  flows  down,  the  wave  again 
Is  vocal  in  its  wooded  walls ; 
My  deeper  anguish  also  falls, 

And  I  can  speak  a  little  then. 


Oh,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 

Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood  ; 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete; 

That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain ; 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivell'd  in  a  fruitless  fire, 

Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. 

Behold,  we  know  not  anything; 

I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  faU    " 
At  last — far  off— at  last,  to  all. 

And  every  winter  change  to  spring. 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE.  245 

So  runs  my  dream ;  but  what  am  I  ? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night : 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light : 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 


Crossing  the  Bar. 

Sunset  and  evening  star, 

And  one  clear  call  for  me ! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 

When  I  put  out  to  sea, 

But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep. 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 

Turns  again  home. 

Twilight  and  evening  bell, 

And  after  that  the  dark ; 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell 

When  I  embark ; 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crossed  the  bar. 


ROBERT  BROWNING. 


The  beautiful  romance  of  Browning's  life  is  a  part  of  his 
own  and  his  wife's  poetry.  He  was  about  two-and- thirty 
when  they  met  and  loved  each  other,  and  they  ran  away  and 
were  married  in  1 846,  when  he  was  thirty-four.  During  the 
fifteen  years  that  followed,  their  happiness  in  each  other  was 
full  and  complete,  with  no  shadow  on  it ;  and  Browning  even 
had  the  happiness  of  knowing  that  his  love  had  prolonged 
her  life  and  freed  it  from  much  physical  pain,  as  well  as 
transfiguring  it  with  spiritual  joy.  She  died  in  1861,  and  he 
survived  her  twenty-eight  j'ears,  dying  in  Venice  in  1889. 
But  in  soul  they  were  never  apart ;  it  was  a  true  marriage ; 
and  as  they  were  both  persons  of  the  finest  genius,  their  feli- 
city was  a  final  answer  to  the  doubt  whether  high  souls  can 
be  truly  mated.  Most  of  their  married  life  was  passed  in 
Italy,  partly  on  account  of  Mrs.  Browning's  delicate  health, 
partly  because  her  father  was  never  reconciled  to  their  mar- 
riage, but  died  the  surly  and  selfish  tyrant  that  he  had 
always  lived ;  and  partly  because  the  political  hopes  and 
struggles  of  Italy  were'  ardently  espoused  by  both  the  poets, 
and  largely  tinged  much  of  their  verse.  Their  only  child,  a 
son,  was  born  in  Florence ;  and  Mrs.  Browning  lived  long 
enough  to  see  her  hopes  of  the  emancipation  of  Italy  from 
the  Austrian  yoke  accomplished. 

Browning  is  the  most  interesting  figure  among  modern 
poets  ;  he  has  been  for  years  the  subjefct  of  study  on  the  part 
of  numerous  "societies,"  and  the  final  word  on  him  has  not 
yet  been  said.  He  is  a  philosopher,  a  man  of  the  world,  a 
poet  and  a  lover  these  dissimilar  elements  are  united,  but 
246 


ENGLISH  I^ITBRATURE.  247 

not  completely  fused  in  bira.  His  music  is  broken,  but  wben 
it  does  ring  true,  there  is  no  sweeter  sound  in  literature. 
"Your  poetry  doesn't  singl"  Swinburne  once  said  to  him; 
and  no  one  who  has  read  him  can  question  the  truth  of  the 
criticism.  Browning  himself  admitted  it ;  he  recognized  his 
ruggedness  and  obscurity  as  faults ;  he  did  wha.t  he  could  to 
overcome  them  ;  but  in  spite  of  his  efforts  his  thoughts  would 
"break  thro'  language  and  escape."  We  must  accept  him 
as  he  is ;  and  there  is  no  keener,  subtler,  and  at  the  same 
time  braver  and  truer  mind  among  the  poets  of  this  century. 
His  field  of  exploration  is  human  nature  in  its  deeper  and 
more  remote  manifestations  ;  his  activity  is  thus  in  a  world 
scarcely  known  to  exist  by  the  ordinary  person ;  and  the  sur- 
prises he  announces  and  the  treasures  he  brings  to  light  are 
therefore  a  cause  of  perplexity  and  doubt  to  the  spectators, 
much  as  if  an  Oriental  magician  were  to  produce  before  them 
strange  objects  apparently  created  out  of  empty  air.  Brown- 
ing does  his  best  to  make  all  clear  to  them  ;  but  the  material 
he  Works  with  has  not  yet  been  reduced  to  recognizable 
form ;  it  is  like  ore  from  the  mine,  which  to  the  uninstructed 
looks  like  anything  but  precious  metal. 

The  difficulty  of  Browning's  verse,  the  need  of  study  to 
understand  most  of  it,  and  the  real  value  which  careful  study 
shows  it  to  possess,  have  led  many  to  assign  him  a  place  in 
literature  higher  than  he  deserves.  He  is  a  great  writer  and 
often  a  great  poet ;  but  in  no  respect  is  he  the  greatest.  His 
apprehension  of  the  relativity  of  all  things  is  imperfect ;  were 
it  otherwise  he  would  be  able  to  state  his  message  in  terms  as 
simple  as  those  of  Shakespeare,  and  so  accommodate  it  to  the 
understanding  of  the  simple.  Browning  himself  was  a  scholar 
of  high  attainments,  and  he  often  used  his  acquired  knowledge 
as  if  it  were  a  common  possession,  like  the  multiplication 
table.  Such  is  the  fault  of  "  Sordello,"  in  order  to  under- 
stand which  one  must  begin  with  a  thorough  mastery  of  the 
mediaeval  history  of  Italy.  Nor  is  familiarity  with  the  various 
dialectics  of  modern  philosophy  less  indispensable  to  an  ade- 
quate comprehension  of  much  that  he  has  written  ;  and  the 
public  naturally  and  rightly  revolts  from  such  requirements. 
The  profoundest  truths  cjm  be  stated  plainly;  they  can  be 


248  LITERATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

disentangled  from  accidental  conditions,  and  made  to  shine 
by  their  own  light.  Browning  constantly  fails  to  free  them 
from  these  trammels  of  temporary  clothing,  and  display  them 
in  the  grandeur  of  their  nakedness.  He  needs  an  expositor, 
an  annotator,  an  editor ;  and  this  necessity  disables  him  from 
conveying  to  the  world  more  than  a  small  part  of  the  good 
he  tried  to  do.  The  world  awaits  a  stronger  unifying  force, 
a  more  synthetic  genius.  Doubtless,  no  truth  that  Browning 
perceived  will  be  lost ;  but  it  will  come  to  us  by  the  medium 
of  other  minds  than  his.  In  many  of  his  poems  his  power  of 
brilliant  costuming  and  of  dramatic  statement  blinds  us  to 
the  thing  which  was  his  real  object,  and  we  praise  him  for 
achievements  which  were  merely  accessory  to  his  intent. 
But  this  is  as  much  his  fault  as  ours,  and  he  must  pay  the 
penalty  of  it. 

Browning  has  been  truly  called  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
of  poets.  Vivid  and  impressive  pictures  start  into  view  under 
his  pen  as  if  spontaneously ;  he  gives  us  the  word  which  tells 
and  omits  the  rest ;  and  often  he  hits  the  very  nerve  of 
meaning.  Color  and  sparkle  cover  his  work  with  a  splendid 
sheen  and  iridescence,  dazzling  and  enchanting  the  eye.  He 
places  the  external  of  a  man  or  woman  before  us  with  a'few 
masterly  touches,  and  then  proceeds  to  dive  into  their  inmost 
souls  and  reveal  the  hidden  springs  of  their  action  and 
thought.  He  brings  similes  and  illustrations  from  afar ;  he 
sets  his  picture  in  a  splendid  frame,  and  throws  behind  it  the 
shadows  of  a  mystic  or  mysterious  background.  At  times  he 
fills  the  listening  soul  with  music  that  seems  to  come  from 
Heaven  itself;  but  anon  a  discord  jars  upon  us,  and  we  for- 
give it.  less  easily  because  but  now  we  had  been  so  deeply 
delighted.  To  read  him  is  like  driving  with  Phaeton  in  the 
chariot  of  the  Sun  ;  we  brush  the  stars  and  then  plunge 
headlong  earthwards.  The  emotions  which  he  portrays  are 
the  most  impassioned  known  to  our  nature ;  his  landscapes 
are  fierce,  ominous,  appalling,  transcendently  lovely,  but 
seldom  soothing  and  inviting.  The  Serene  middle  path  was 
rarely  trodden  by  his  Muse.  Our  pulse  beats  faster  as  we 
follow  her,  but  we  are  not  won  by  those  gentle  and  sweet 
fascinations  which  make  us  forget  the  means  in  the  end. 


ENGLISH  UTERATURB.  249 

The  length  of  many  of  Browning's  poems  is  portentous ; 
such  3.  work  as  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  could  not  be 
adequately  perused  in  months,  having  in  view  the  compli- 
cated psychical  analysis  which  is  its  warp  and  woof.  Nor 
can  it  be  said  that,  for  any  but  students,  the  fruit  to  be  gath- 
ered repays  the  time  and  effort  of  the  gathering. '  "The  Ring 
and  the  Book  "  is  indeed  full  of  superb  poetry ;  but  this  is 
involved  with  much  that  is  of  less  value,  but  which,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  instrumental  to  the  complete  effect.  Many 
attempts  have  been  made  to  isolate  the  "  Beauties  of  Brown- 
ing," but  they  have  failed,  as  might  have  been  expected ;  no 
vital  work  can  be  thus  eviscerated  without  losing  more  than 
is  gained.  Detached  apothegms,  no  matter  how  trenchant  Or 
penetrating,  have  little  weight ;  to  detach  them  is  as  if  one 
were  to  bring  down  to  the  plain  the  rock  which  caps  the 
mountain  ;  in  its  true  place  it  was  sublime,  but  thus  displaced 
it  is  a  rock  and  no  more.  Finally,  we  must  take  Browning  as 
he  is,  or  do  without  him.     There  is  no  golden  road  to  him. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  many  of  his  poems  which  all  who 
run  may  read,  and  profit  by.  Such  are  "The  Ride  from 
Ghent  to  Aix,"  "The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,"' "  Ben  Ezra," 
"  Pippa  Passes,"  and  many  shorter  piece's  in  "  Bells  and  Pome- 
granates "  and  "Men  and  Women."  His  poem,  "  Childe 
Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came, ' '  is  one  of  his  strangest  and 
most  captivating  productions,  and  characteristic  of  his  genius, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  open  to  many  interpretations,  and  is  proba- 
bly read  by  each  student  according  to  the  fashion  of  his  own 
nature  and  knowledge;  "Waring"  is  another  of  these  ab- 
sorbing problems  which  Browning  gives  us,  possessing  a 
meaning  transcending  what  any  specific  solution  can  afford. 
We  feel  the  spirit  breathing  through  the  form,  and  bringing 
inspiration ;  but  the  form  itself  is  dim  to  our  apprehension, 
and  the  more  we  seek  to  define  it,  the  further  does  the  true , 
soul  retire  from  us. 

The  latter  years  of  Browning's  life  were  spent  in  England, 
with  annual  excursions  to  Italy.     He  was  fond  of  society,  and 
could  be  met  at  certain  London  houses  almost  daily  during 
th  e  season.     His  conversation  was  that  of  an  accomplished  ' 
man  of  the  world,  with  something  else  added ;  one  who  did 


250  WTERATURB  OF  ALt  NATIONS. 

not  know  who  he  was  might  have  wondered  what  this  some- 
thing was,  but  to  those  who  knew  it  was  the  magic  influence 
of  a  great  soul.  He  continued  to  write  up  to  nearly  the  time 
of  his  death,  and  the  force  and  edge  of  his  wonderful  intellect 
were  never  abated  or  dulled.  His  fame  will  increase  as  time 
goes  on,  though  the  actual  knowledge  of  his  writings  will 
probably  remain  the  possession  of  the  few.  But  in  indirect 
ways  he  will  lead  and  enlighten  the  race,  and  he  was  of  too 
lofty  a  mind  to  care  whether  the  good  that  came  through 
him  was  credited  to  himself  or  another. 

PippA's  Song. 

The  year's  at  the  spring, 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven ; 
The  hillside's  due-pearled; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing ; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn : 
God's  in  his  heaven — 
All's  right  with  the  world! 

The  I^ost  Leader. 

Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us, 

Just  for  a  riband  to  stick  in  his  coat — 
Found  the  one  gift  of  which  fortune  bereft  us, 

Lost  all  the  others  she  lets  us  devote ; 
They,  with  the  gold  to  give,  doled  him  out  silver, 

So  much  was  theirs  who  so  little  allowed: 
How  all  our  copper  had  gone  for  his  service ! 

Rags— were  they  purple,  his  heart  had  been  proud. 
We  that  had  loved  him  so,  followed  him,  honored  him, 

Lived  in  his  mild  and  magnificent  eye, 
Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accents, 

Made  him  our  pattern  to  live  and  to  die  ! 
Shakespeare  was  of  us,  Milton  was  for  us, 

Burns,  Shelley,  were  with  us, — they  watch  from  their 
graves ! 
He  alone  breaks  from  the  van  and  the  freemen, 

— He  alone  sinks  to  the  rear  and  the  slaves  ! 


ENGUSH  UTBRATURE.  251 

We  shall  march  prospering, — not  thro'  his  presence ; 

Songs  may  inspirit  us, — ^not  from  his  lyre ; 
Deeds  will  be  done, — while  he  boasts  his  quiescence. 

Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bade  aspire. 
Ulot  out  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more. 

One  task  more  declined,  one  more  footpath  untrod, 
One  more  devil's- triumph  and  sorrow  for  angels, 

One  wrong  more  to  man,  one  more  insult  to  God ! 
X^fe's  night  begins :  let  him  never  come  back  to  us ! 

There  will  be  doubt,  hesitation  and  pain. 
Forced  praise  on  our  part — the  glimmer  of  twilight. 

Never  glad  confident  morning  again ! 
Best  fight  on  well,  for  we  taught  him^strike  gallantly, 

Menace  our  heart  ere  we  master  his  own ; 
Then  let  him  receive  the  new  knowledge  and  wait  us, 

Pardoned  in  heaven,  the  first  by  the  throne ! 

Incident  of  the  French  Camp. 

YoiT  know  we  French  stormed  Ratisbon : 

A  mile  or  so  away, 
On  a  little  mound.  Napoleon 

Stood  on  our  storming  day; 
With  neck  out-thrust,  you  fancy  how 

Legs  wide,  arms  locked  behind, 
As  if  to  balance  the  prone  brow 

Oppressive  with  its  mind. 

Just  as  perhaps  he  mused,  "  My  plans 

That  soar,  to  earth  may  fall. 
Let  once  my  army-leader  Lannes 

Waver  at  yonder  wall, — " 
Out  'twixt  the  battery-smokes  there  flew 

A  rider,  bound  on  bound 
Full-galloping :   nor  bridle  drew 

Until  he  reached  the  mound. 

'then  off  there  flung  in  smiling  joy. 

And  held  himself  erect 
By  just  his  horse's  mane,  a  boy: 

You  hardly  could  suspect — 
(So  tight  he  kept  his  lips  compressed, 

Scarce  any  blood  came  through) 


252  UTBRATURE  OF  A1,I,  NATIONS. 

You  looked  twice  ere  you  saw  his  breast 
Was  all  but  shot  in  two. 

"Well,"  cried  he,  "Emperor,  by  God's  grace 

We've  got  you  Ratisbon ! 
The  Marshal's  in' the  market  place. 

And  you'll  be  there  anon, 
To  see  your  flag-bird  flap  his  vans 

Where  I,  to  heart's  desire, 
Perched  him ! ' '    Th6  chief's  eye  flashed ;  his  plans 

Soared  up  again  like  fire. 

The  chiefs  eye  flashed;  but  presently 

Softened  itself,  as  sheathes 
A  film  the  mother  eagle's  eye 
When  her  bruised  eaglet  breathes. 
"You're  wounded !  "    "  Nay,"  the  soldier's  pride 

Touched  to  the  quick,  he  said  : 
"I'm  killed,  Sire ! ' '     And  his  chief  beside, 
Smiling  the  boy  fell  dead. 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 
(The  first  six  and  last  two  stanzas  are  given.) 
Grow  old  along  with  me  ! 
The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made: 
Our  times  are  in  His  hand 
Who  saith,  '  'A  whole  I  planned. 
Youth  shows  but  half ;  trust  God ;  see  all  nor  be  afraid ! " 

Not  that,  amassing  flowers, 

Youth  sighed,  "Which  rose  make  ours. 
Which  lily  leave  and  then  as  best  recall?" 

Not  that,  admiring  stars, 

It  yearned,  ' '  Nor  Jove,  nor  Mars  ; 
Mine  be  some  figured  flame  which  blends,  transcends  them  all ! " 

Not  for  such  hopes  and  fears 

Annulling  youth's  brief  years, 
Do  I  remonstrate :  folly  wide  the  mark ! 

Rather  I  prize  the  doubt 

I/OW  kinds,  exist  without, 
Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  253 

Poor  vaunt  of  life  indeed, 

Were  man  but  formed  to  feed 
On  joy,  to  solely  seek  and  find  and  feast : 

Such  feasting  ended,  then 

As  sure  an  end  to  men ; 
Irks  care  the  crop-full  bird  ?   Frets  doubt  the  maw-crammed  beast  ? 

Rejoice  we  are  allied 

To  That  which  doth  provide 
And  not  partake,  effect  and  not  recdve ! 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod ; 

Neater  we  hold  of  God 
Who  gives,  than  of  his  tribes  that  take,  I  must  believe. 

Then  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough 
£ach  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand,  but  go ! 

Be  our  joys  three  parts  pain ! 

Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain ; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang ;  dare,  never  grudge  the  throe ! 


But  I  need,  now  as  then, 

Thee,  God,  who  mouldest  men ! 
And  since,  not  even  while  the  whirl  was  worst. 

Did  I, — to  the  wheel  of  life 

With  shapes  and  colors  rife. 
Bound  dizzily,— mistake  my  end,  to  slake  thy  thirst: 

So,  take  and  use  thy  work. 

Amend  what  flaws  may  lurk. 
What  strain  o'  the  stuff,  what  warpings  past  the  aim ! 

My  times  be  in  Thy  hand ! 

Perfect  the  cup  as  planned ! 
Let  age  approve  of  youth,  and  death  complete  the  same ! 


MRS.  E.  B.  BROWNING. 

The  greatest  female  poet  of  England  belongs  to  the  reign 
of  Queen  Victoria.  Elizabeth  Barrett,  born  in  1809,  began 
verse-making  at  a  very  early  age,  and  her  father  published  a 
volume  of  hers  when  she  was  but  sixteen.  The  version  of 
"Prometheus  Bound,"  published  in  1853,  she  afterwards  pro- 
nounced an  "early  failure,"  and  substituted  another.  A 
volume  issued  in  1838  contained  some  fine  short  poems. 
Though  her  health  was  delicate,  her  life  was  a  studious  and 
happy  one  up  to  this  time,  when  the  rupture  of  a  blood-vessel 
brought  her  to  the  verge  of  death.  Her  elder  brother  accom- 
panied her  to  Torquay,  and  in  a  few  days  he  was  drowned  by 
the  capsizing  of  a  sail-boat.  Miss  Barrett,  filled  with  horror  of 
the  place,  was  taken  back  to  London,  and  there,  in  a  darkened 
room,  continued  her  studies  and  composition.  Few  friends 
were  admitted,  but  Robert  Browning  called  to  thank  her  for 
a  graceful  compliment  to  him  in  "Lady  Geraldine's  Court- 
ship." The  acquaintance  ripened  into  intimacy  and  love. 
Her  health  improved,  and,  though  her  father  strongly  objected, 
she  left  home  and  was  married  to  the  poet.  He  took  her  to 
Italy,  where  they  resided  in  Florence.  The  depth  of  her  love 
is  shown  in  her  poems  called  "Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese." 
Her  interest  in  Italian  affairs  appears  in  "  Casa  Guidi  Win- 
dows." Her  longest  work  is  "Aurora  Leigh,"  a  kind  of 
versified  novel  in  nine  books,  describing  the  life  of  an  edu- 
cated English  lady  of  the  time.     She  died  in  June,  1861. 

The  seclusion  of  her  life,  and  her  fondness  for  high  study, 
especially  of  classical  poetry,  caused  her  early  utterances  to 
seem  to  come  from  a  remote  sphere.     She  was  always  too 
254 


ENGUSH  LITERATURB.  255 

fluent  and  unrestrained  in  expression.  She  was  careless  about 
rhymes,  and  capricious  in  the  use  of  words.  Yet  she  excels 
her  husband  in  the  intelligibility  and  singing  quality  of  her 
verses.  On  the  other  hand,  while  he  has  filled  his  works 
with  studies  of  numerous  characters,  her  views  of  human 
nature  are  wanting  in  exactness  and  variety.  The  great 
change  wrought  by  her  marriage  gave  her  writings  more 
strength  as  well  as  sweetness.  Her  residence  in  Italy  led  her 
to  take  a  special  interest  in  social  and  political  affairs.  But 
her  best  work  is  seen  in  poems  exhibiting  tenderness  and 
strong  feeling,  as  in  "The  Cry  of  the  Children,"  "Cowper's 
Grave,"  and  "  The  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese." 

Cowper's  Grave. 

It  is  a  place  where  poets  crown' d 

May  feel  the  heart's  decaying — 
It  is  a  place  where  happy  saints 

May  weep  amid  their  praying — 
Yet  let  the  grief  and  humbleness, 

As  low  as  silence  languish ; 
Earth  surely  now  may  give  her  calm 

To  whom  she  gave  her  anguish. 

O  poets !  from  a  maniac's  tongue 

Was  poured  the  deathless  singing ! 
O  Christians !  at  your  cross  of  hope 

A  hopeless  hand  was  clinging ! 
O  men !  this  man  in  brotherhood, 

Your  weary  paths  beguiling, 
Groaned  inly  while  he  taught  you  peace, 

And  died  while  ye  were  smiling. 

And  now,  what  time  ye  all  may  read 

Through  dimming  tears  his  story — 
How  discord  on  the  music  fell, 

And  darkness  on  the  glory—, 
And  how,  when,  one  by  one,  sweet  sounds, 

And  wandering  lights  departed, 
He  wore  no  less  a  loving  face. 

Because  so  broken-hearted. 


256  WTBRATURE  OF  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

He  shall  be  strong  to  sanctify 

The  poetis  high  vocation, 
And  bow  the  meekest  Christian  down 

In  meeker  adoration  ; 
Nor  ever  shall  he  be  in  praise 

By  wise  or  good  forsaken ; 
Named  softly  as  the  household  name 

Of  one  whom  God  hath  taken ! 

With  sadness  that  is  calm,  not  gloom, 

I  learn  to  think  upon  him ; 
With  meekness  that  is  gratefulness, 

On  God,  whose  heaven  hath  won  him. 
Who  suffered  once  the  madness-cloud 

Towards  his  love  to  blind  him ; 
But  gently  led  the  blind  along, 

Where  breath  and  bird  could  find  him ; 

And  wrought  within  his  shattered  brain 

Such  quick  poetic  senses. 
As  hills  have  language  for,  and  stars 

Harmonious  influences ! 
The  pulse  of  dew  upon  the  grass 

His  own  did  calmly  number ; 
And  silent  shadows  from  the  trees 

Fell  o'er  him  like  a  slumber. 

The  very  world,  by  God's  constraint, 

From  falsehood's  chill  removing, 
Its  women  and  its  men  became 

Beside  him  true  and  loving ! 
And  timid  hares  were  drawn  from  woods 

To  share  his  home-caresses, 
Uplooking  to  his  human  eyes. 

With  sylvan  tendernesses. 

But  while  in  darkness  he  remained, 

Unconscious  of  the  guiding. 
And  things  provided  came  without 

The  sweet  sense  of  providing, 
He  testified  this  solemn  truth, 

Though  frenzy  desolated — 
Nor  man  nor  nature  satisfy 

Whom  only  Ood  created* 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE.  257 


Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese. 

I  THOUGHT  once  how  Theocritus  had  sung 
Of  the  sweet  years,  the  dear  and  wished  for  years, 
Who  each  one  in  a  gracious  hand  appears 
To  bear  a  gift  for  mortals,  old  or  young : 
And,  as  I  mused  it  in  his  antique  tongue, 
I  saw,  in  gradual  vision  through  my  tears, 
The  sweet,  sad  years,  the  melancholy  years, — 
Those  of  my  own  life,  who  by  turns  had  flung 
A  shadow  across  me.     Straightway  I  was  'ware. 
So  weeping,  how  a  mystic  Shape  did  move 
Behind  me,  and  drew  me  backward  by  the  hair ; 
And  a  voice  said  in  mastery  while  I  strove, — 
•  Guess  now  who  holds  thee  ?  "— "  Death, ' '  I  said.   But,  there, 
The  silver  answer  rang — "  Not  Death,  but  I<ove." 


My  own  beloved,  who  hast  lifted  me 
From  this  drear  flat  of  earth  where  I  was  thrown. 
And  in  betwixt  the  languid  ringlets,  blown 
A  life-breath,  till  the  forehead  hopefully 
Shines  out  again,  as  all  the  angels  see. 
Before  thy  saving  kiss !     My  own,  my  own, 
Who  camest  to  me  when  the  world  was  gone. 
And  I  who  looked  for  only  God,  found  thee! 
I  find  thee ;  I  am  safe,  and  strong,  and  glad. 
As  one  who  stands  in  dewless  asphodel, 
I^ooks  backward  on  the  tedious  time  he  had 
In  the  upper  life — so  I,  with  bosom-swell. 
Make  witness,  here,  between  the  good  and  bad, 
That  IfOve,  as  strong  as  Death,  retrieves  as  welL 
X— 17 


George  Eliot  is  the  pseudonym 
under  which  Marion  Evans  won  unique 
fame  in  literature.  She  was  born  near  Nuneaton  in  War- 
wickshire, England,  in  1820.  She  was  well  educated,  and 
after  her  mother's  death,  when  she  was  only  sixteen,  she  kept 
house  for  her  father,  a  land  agent.  When  he  removed  to 
Coventry  she  studied  German,  Italian  and  thusic,  of  which  she 
was  passionately  fond.  Always  retiring  in  disposition,  she 
made  friends  with  difi&culty,  but  when  the  shy  girl  had  done 
so,  the  results  proved  startling  and  far-reaching.  Under  the 
influence  of  the  Brays  of  Coventry,  she  broke  away  from 
the  Evangelical  faith  in  which  she  had  been  trained,  and 
translated  from  the  German  Strauss's  "  Ivife  of  Jesus."  Hel 
father  was  greatly  offended,  and  her  brother  completely  es- 
tranged. On  her  father's  death  she  went  to  Geneva  fov 
further  study,  and  on  her  return  to  England  she  resided 
with  Mr.  Chapman,  editor  of  the  Westminster  Review.  To 
this  review  she  contributed  learned  articles,  and  also  mad^ 
more  translations.  She  was  brought  in  contact  with  some  of 
the  free-thinkers  of  the  time,  and  among  them  with  George 
Henry  Lewes,  the  biographer  of  Goethe.  This  new  influence 
changed  the  current  of  her  life.  She  went  to  live  with 
I/Cwes  as  his  wife,  though  the  law  did  not '  allow  her  that 
name,  and  ^here  was  no  formal  ceremony  of  marriage,  civil 
or  religious.  Mr.  L,ewes  had  already  been  married,  but  his 
wife,  who  had  been  forgiven  for  adultery  and  taken  back, 
had  repeated  the  offence.  Under  English  law  there  was  no 
remedy  because  the  first  offence  had  been  condoned.  This  is 
Lewes' s  story,  which  Marian  Evans  believed,  but  Mrs.  Lewes 
258 


ENGUSH  UTERATURS.  259 

gave  a  different  version  of  the  case.  In  course  of  time  the 
London  world,  which  had  severely  condemned  Lewes  and  his 
new  consort,  found  that  they  lived  in  harmony  and  mutual 
helpfulness,  and  practically  restored  them  to  its  favor.  They 
lived  together  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  till  Mr. 
Lewes's  death  in  1878.  In  May,  1880,  George  Eliot,  then 
sixty  years  of  age,  was  formally  married  to  John  W.  Cross, 
an  old  friend,  but  she  died  suddenly  before  the  close  of  that 
year.  Mr.  Cross  published  her  biography.  Many  otheis 
have  discussed  her  career  and  works. 

Lewes,  who  was  an  industrious  author,  was  the  first  to 
recognize  the  real  bent  of  his  wife's  genius,  and  under  the 
stimulus  of  his  encouragement  she  wrote  "  Scenes  of  Clerical 
Life."  They  were  published  in  Blackwood'' s  Magazine  and 
met  with  popular  approval.  Her  first  years  with  Mr.  Lewes 
were  a  period  of  struggle,  almost  to  penury,  but  her  grea 
success  came  with  the  publication  of  "Adam  Bede."  Hence- 
forth the  pecuniary  returns  from  her  work  were  enormous. 
The  later  novels  were  "The  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  "Silas 
Mamer,"  "  Romola,"  "Felix  Holt,"  "  Middlemarch,"  and 
' '  Daniel  Deronda. "  Her ' '  Spanish  Gypsy ' '  and  other  poems 
are  of  less  importance.  Her  "  Letters  "  are  stilted  in  style 
and  give  little  insight  into  her  own  personality. 

George  Eliot  was  wisely  directed  by  her  husband  to  the 
novel  as  the  most  available  form  for  conveying  her  views  on 
life.  Though  her  intellect  had  rejected  the  dogma  of  Chris- 
tianity, her  nature  had  been  so  steeped  in  its  self-sacrificing 
spirit,  that  her  stories  reveal  it.  In  her  earlier  books  her 
moral  earnestness  led  her  to  add  to  the  story  much  unneces- 
sary preaching,  and  the  influence  of  Thackeray  caused  her  to 
introduce  some  social  satire.  But  in  the  later  ones  sober 
philosophy  prevails.  Her  first  attempts  to  depict  life  were  in 
drawing  characters  that  had  been  familiar  to  her  youth.  Her 
efforts  resulted  in  a  distinct  advance  in  the  novel  of  character. 
She  exhibits  the  real  complexity  of  life,  making  no  character 
absolutely  good  or  evil,  but  showing  the  curious  mingling  of 
their  diverse  elements.  From  her  own  experience  she  had 
acquired  a  comprehension  of  weakness  and  an  understanding 
of  the  tragedies  of  common  lives. 


26o  LITERATURlf  OF  AI,L  NATIONS. 

"Adam  Bede"  was  the  first  adequate  literary  report  of 
the  spirit  of  Methodism.  The  Quaker  preacher,  Dinah 
Morris,  was  drawn  from  the  author's  aunt.  Similar  sketches 
of  provincial  life  in  the  midland  counties  are  found  in  "  Silas 
Mamer  "  and  the  more  tragic  "  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  in  which 
Maggie  TuUiver's  happiness  is  ruined  by  her  brother's  cruel 
uprightness  and  by  her  own  affectionate  trustfulness.  The 
greatest  of  her  works  is  "  Middlemarch,"  a  pathetic  story  of 
failure.  The  scholar  Casaubon  never  finishes  the  work  of  his 
life  and  disappoints  the  wife  who  had  looked  up  to  his 
superior  attainments.  "  Romola,"  her  only  historical  novel, 
treats  of  Florence  in  Savonarola's  times,  but  while  the  preach- 
ing monk  is  accurately  portrayed  the  interest  lies  with  the 
other  characters.  In  ' '  Daniel  Deronda  "  she  departs  so  far  from 
her  usual  practice  as  to  present  a  faultless  hero,  in  an  effort  to 
produce  interest  on  behalf  of  the  Jews  and  their  aspirations 
as  a  race.  But  the  work,  in  spite  of  some  excellent  charac- 
ters, has  not  retained  general  interest.  "  Felix  Holt"  is  the 
least  worthy  of  her  novels,  though  it  returns  to  English 
ground,  on  which  she  had  won  her  fame. 

Had  not  this  distinguished  woman  been  so  renowned  for 
her  fiction  she  would  have  been  remarkable  for  her  learning. 
In  appearance  she  was  slender  and  delicate,  with  a  long, 
plain,  grief-stricke^i  face,  a  look  of  restrained  power,  and  a 
personality  at  once  magnetic  and  commanding.  Her  genius 
enabled  her  not  merely  to  reflect  the  image  of  English  society 
seventy  years  ago,  but  to  indicate  the  hopes  and  desires  of 
the  best  thinkers  of  her  time. 

Romola  and  Her  Father. 

The  voice  came  from  the  farther  end  of  a  long,  spacious 
room  surrounded  with  shelves,  on  which  books  and  antiquities 
were  arranged  in  scrupulous  order.  Here  and  there,  on  sepa- 
rate stands  in  front  of  the  shelves,  were  placed  a  beautiful 
feminine  torso ;  a  headless  statue,  with  an  uplifted  muscular 
arm  wielding  a  bladeless  sword ;  rounded,  dimpled,  infantine 
limbs  severed  from  the  trunk,  inviting  the  lips  to  kiss  the 
cold  marble ;  some  well-preserved  Roman  busts,  and  two  or 


ENGLISH  WTERATURE.  261 

three  vases  of  Magna  Graecia.  A  large  table  in  the  centre 
was  covered  with  antique  bronze  lamps  and  small  vessels  in 
dark  pottery.  The  color  of  these  objects  was  chiefly  pale  or 
sombre ;  the  vellum  bindings,  with  their  deep-ridged  backs, 
gave  little  relief  to  the  marble  livid  with  long  burial;  the 
once  splendid  patch  of  carpet  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room 
had  long  been  worn  to  dimness  ;  the  dark  bronzes  wanted 
sunlight  upon  them  to  bring  out  their  tinge  of  green,  and  the 
sun  was  not  yet  high  enough  to  send  gleams  of  brightness 
through  the  narrow  windows  that  looked  on  the  Via  de'  Bardi. 

The  only  spot  of  bright  color  in  the  room  was  made  by 
the  hair  of  a  tall  maiden  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  who  was 
standing  before  a  carved  leggio^  or  reading-desk,  such  as  is 
often  seen  in  the  choirs  of  Italian  churches.  The  hair  was 
of  a  reddish  gold  color,  enriched  by  an  unbroken  small  ripple, 
such  as  may  be  seen  in  the  sunset  clouds  on  grandest  autum- 
nal evenings.  It  was  confined  by  a  black  fillet  above  her 
small  ears,  from  which  it  rippled  forward  again,  and  made  a 
natural  veil  for  her  neck  above  her  square-cut  gown  of  black 
rascia,  or  serge.  Her  eyes  were  bent  on  a  large  volume  placed 
before  her ;  one  long  white  hand  rested  on  the  reading-desk, 
and  the  other  clasped  the  back  of  her  father's  chair. 

The  blind  father  sat  with  head  uplifted  and  turned  a  little 
aside  towards  his  daughter,  as  if  he  were  looking  at  her.  His 
delicate  paleness,  set  ofi"  by  the  black  velvet  cap  which  sur- 
mounted his  drooping  white  hair,  made  all  the  more  percep- 
tible the  likeness  between  his  aged  features  and  those  of  the 
young  maiden,  whose  cheeks  were  also  without  any  tinge  of 
the  rose.  There  was  the  same  refinement  of  brow  and  nostril 
in  both,  counterbalanced  by  a  full  though  firm  mouth  and 
powerful  chin,  which  gave  an  expression  of  proud  tenacity 
and  latent  impetuousness ;  an  expression  carried  out  in  the 
backward  poise  of  the  girl's  head,  and  the  grand  line  of  her 
neck  and  shoulders.  It  was  a  type  of  face  of  which  one  could 
not  venture  to  say  whether  it  would  inspire  love  or  only  that 
unwilling  admiration  which  is  mixed  with  dread ;  the  ques- 
tion must  be  decided  by  the  eyes,  which  often  seem  charged 
with  a  more  direct  message  from  the  soul.  But  the  eyes  of 
the  father  had  long  been  silent,  and  the  eyes  of  the  daughter 


262  LITERATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

were  bent  on  the  Latin  pages  of  Politian's  Miscellanea,  from 
which  she  was  reading  aloud  at  the  eightieth  chapter,  to  the 
following  eflfect: 

"  There  was  a  certain  nymph  of  Thebes  named  Chariclo, 
especially  dear  to  Pallas  ;  and  this  nymph  was  the  mother  of 
Teiresias.  But  once  when,  in  the  heat  of  summer,  Pallas,  in 
company  with  Chariclo,  was  bathing  her  disrobed  limbs  in 
the  Heliconian  Hippocrene,  it  happened  that  Teiresias,  com- 
ing as  a  hunter  to  quench  his  thirst  at  the  same  fountain,  in- 
advertently beheld  Minerva  unveiled,  and  immediately  became 
blind.  For  it  is  declared  in  the  Saturnian  laws  that  he  who 
beholds  the  gods  against  their  will  shall  atone  for  it  by  a 
heavy  penalty.  .  .  .  When  Teiresias  had  fallen  into  this 
calamity,  Pallas,  moved  by  the  tears  of  Chariclo,  endowed 
him  with  prophecy  and  length  of  days,  and  even  caused  his 
prudence  and  wisdom  to  continue  after  he  had  entered  among 
the  shades,  so  that  an  oracle  spake  from  his  tomb ;  and  she 
gave  him  a  staff,  wherewith,  as  by  a  guide,  he  might  walk 
without  stumbling.  .  .  .  And  hence  Nonnus,  in  the  fifth  book 
of  the  Dionysiaca^  introduces  Actseon  exclaiming  that  he  calls 
Teiresias  happy,  since,  without  dying,  and  with  the  loss  of 
his  eyesight  merely,  he  had  beheld  Minerva  unveiled,  and 
thus,  though  blind,  could  for  evermore  carry  her  image  in 
his  sonl." 

At  this  point  in  the  reading  the  daughter's  hand  slipped 
from  the  back  of  the  chair  and  met  her  father's,  which  he  had 
that  moment  uplifted ;  but  she  had  not  looked  round,  and  was 
going  on,  though  with  a  voice  a  little  altered  by  some  sup- 
pressed feeling,  to  read  the  Greek  quotation  from  Nonnus, 
when  the  old  man  said  : 

"  Stay,  Romola ;  reach  me  my  own  copy  of  Nonnus.  It 
is  a  more  correct  copy  than  any  in  Poliziano's  hands,  for  .1 
^made  emendations  in  it  which  have  not  yet  been  communi- 
cated to  any  man.  I  finished  it  in  1477,  when  my  sight  was 
fast  failing  me. " 

Romola  walked  to  the  farther  end  of  the  room,  with  the 
queenly  step  which  was  the  simple  action  of  her  tall,  finely- 
wrought  frame,  without  the  slightest  conscious  adjustment 
of  herself. 


COPYRIGHT,    1900 


£.     BLAiri    LEi&hto:^,     Pinx 


ROMOLA  AND   HER   FATHER 


ENGWSH  LITERATURE.  263 

"Is  it  in  the  light  place,  Romola?"  asked  Bardo,  who 
■was  perpetually  seeking  the  assurance  that  the  outward  fact 
continued  to  correspond  with  the  image  which  lived  to  the 
minutest  detail  in  his  mind. 

"  Yes,  father ;  at  the  west  end  of  the  room,  on  the  third 
shelf  from  the  bottom,  behind  the  bust  of  Hadrian,  above 
Apollonius  Rliodius  and  Callimachus,  and  below  Lucan  and 
Silius  Italicus." 

As  Romola  said  this  a  fine  ear  would  have  detected  in  her 
clear  voice  and  distinct  utterance  a  faint  suggestion  of  weari- 
ness struggling  with  habitual  patience.  But  as  she  approached 
her  father,  and  saw  his  arms  stretched  out  a  little  with  nervous 
excitement  to  seize  the  volume,  her  hazel  eyes  filled  with 
pity ;  she  hastened  to  lay  the  book  on  his  lap,  and  kneeled 
down  by  him,  looking  up  at  him  as  if  she  believed  that  the 
love  in  her  face  must  surely  make  its  way  through  the  dark 
obstruction  that  shut  out  every  thing  else.  At  that  moment 
the  doubtful  attractiveness  of  Romola's  face,  in  which  pride 
and  passion  seemed  to  be  quivering  in  the  balance  with  native 
refinement  and  intelligence,  was  transfigured  to  the  most 
lovable  womanliness  by  mingled  pity  and  affection ;  it  was 
evident  that  the  deepest  fount  of  feeling  within  her  had  not 
yet  wrought  its  way  to  the  less  changeful  features,  and  only 
found  its  outlet  through  her  eyes. 

But  the  father,  unconscious  of  that  soft  radiance,  looked 
flushed  and  agitated  as  his  hand  explored  the  edges  and  back 
of  the  large  book. 

"  The  vellum  is  yellowed  in  these  thirteen  years,  Romola?" 

"Yes,  father,"  said  Romola,  gently  ;  "but  your  letters  at 
the  back  are  dark  and  plain  still — fine  Roman  letters ;  and 
the  Greek  character,"  she  continued,  laying  the  book  open 
on  her  father's  knee,  "is  more  beautiful  than  that  of  any  of 
your  bought  manuscripts." 

"Assuredly,  child,"  said  Bardo,  passing  his  finger  across 
the  page  as  if  he  hoped  to  discriminate  line  and  margin. 
"What  hired  amanuensis  can  be  equal  to  the  scribe  who 
loves  the  words  that  grow  under  his  hand,  and  tp  whom  an 
error  or  indistinctness  in  the  text  is  more  painful  than  a  sud- 
den darkness  or  obstacle  across  his  path  ?    And  even  these 


264  UTERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

mechanical  printers  who  threaten  to  make  learning  a  base 
and  vulgar  thing — even  they  must  depend  on  the  manuscript 
over  which  we  scholars  have  bent  with  that  insight  into  the 
poet's  meaning  which  is  closely  akin  to  the  mens  divinior  of 
the  poet  himself— unless  they  would  flood  the  world  with 
grammatical  falsities  and  inexplicable  anomalies  that  would 
turn  the  very  fountains  of  Parnassus  into  a  deluge  of  poison- 
ous mud.  But  find  the  passage  in  the  fifth  book  to  which 
Poliziano  refers.     I  know  it  very  well.' ' 

Seating  herself  on  a  low  stool  close  to  her  father's  knee, 
Romola  took  the  book  on  her  lap  and  read  the  four  verses 
containing  the  exclamation  of  Actaeon. 

"  It  is  true,  Romola,"  said  Bardo,  when  she  had  finished  ; 
"  it  is  a  true  conception  of  the  poet ;  for  what  is  that  grosser, 
narrower  light  by  which  men  behold  merely  the  petty  scene 
around  them,  compared  with  that  far-stretching,  lasting  light 
which  spreads  oyer  centuries  of  thought,  and  over  the  life  of 
nations,  and  makes  clear  to  us  the  minds  of  the  immortals 
who  have  reaped  the  great  harvest  and  left  us  to  glean  in 
their  furrows?  For  me,  Romola,  even  when  I  could  see,  it 
was  with  the  great  dead  that  I  lived;  while  the  living  often 
seemed  to  me  mere  spectres — shadows  dispossessed  of  true 
feeling  and  intelligence." 

The  Choir  Invisible. 

Oh,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence.     .     .     . 

.     .     .     .     This  is  life  to  come, 

Which  martyred  men  have  made  more  glorious 

For  us  who  strive  to  follow.     May  I  reach 

That  purest  heaven ;  be  to  other  souls 

The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony ; 

Enkindle  generous  ardor ;  feed  pure  love ; 

Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 

Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused. 

And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 

So  shall  I  join  th°  choir  invisible 

Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world. 


ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE. 


In  tlie  veins  of  this  poet  flows  the  blood  of  an  English 
admiral  and  of  a  peer  of  the  realm.  This  fact  is  significant 
in  estimating  his  literary  career.  An  aristocrat  by  birth  and 
associations,  he  turned,  by  a  sort  of  reaction,  to  a  sentimental 
radicalism,  to  which  much  of  his  poetry  gives  expression. 
His  politics  are  emotional,  but  the  emotion  is  violent,  and 
Swinburne's  unequalled  powers  of  statement  and  superb 
imagination  tempt  him  to  indulge  more  than  he  otherwise 
might  in  the  pleasure  of  wordy  warfare.  As  Disraeli  once 
said  of  Gladstone,  he  is  at  times  "intoxicated  with  the  exuber- 
ance of  his  own  verbosity."  Swinburne's  intellect  is  active 
and  subtle,  and  his  cunning  in  the  use  of  forms  of  speech  has 
never  been  surpassed;  yet  his  intellectual  weight  is  but 
moderate,  and  in  judgment  and  self-restraint  he  is  markedly 
deficient.  Neither  his  political  nor  his  literary  criticism  has 
serious  value,  except  as  specimens  of  English  composition, 
and  as  characteristic  effusions.  Even  his  poetry,  voluminous 
though  it  is,  is  narrow  in  its  scope  and  monotonous  in  its 
mastery  of  rhythm  and  melody  ;  but  it  is  real  poetry,  and  no 
English  writer  has  ever  surpassed  it  in  the  qualities  which 
give  it  distinction.  Its  sensuous  beauty  and  splendor  are 
often  amazing,  and  were  it  as  commendable  in  point  of  ethics 
and  common  sense,  Swinburne  would  be  the  poet  of  the  cen- 
tury. His  early  work  was  received  with  a  mingling  of  aston- 
ishment, rapture  and  denunciation ;  but  his  advance  since 
then  has  been  small.  "Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  published  in 
1864,  when  the  author  was  twenty-eight  years  old,  has  pas- 
sages as   delicious  as  anything  he  has  since  accomplished  ■ 

265 


266  LITEEATURE  OF  AXX,  NATIONS. 

and  in  his  "Laus  Veneris,"  which  appeared  two  years  later, 
though  written  previously,  he  gave  his  measure  and  quality, 
and  struck  a  keynote  of  feeling  and  character  which  has  not 
been  essentially  modified  since  then. 

Swinburne  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Okford,  though  he 
took  no  degree ;  he  is  a  good  classical  scholar,  and  his  love 
of  Greek  paganism  is  apparent  in  all  his  writings.  He  has 
touched  many  subjects,  but  this  classical  bent  is  traceable 
throughout.  In  English  history  he  has  made  studies  of 
Henry  II.'s  Rosamond,  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  ("  Chastelard," 
"Bothwell,"  "Mary  Stuart"),  "The  Armada"  (a  magnificent 
poem),  and  some  minor  pieces ;  in  prose  literary  criticism  he 
has  produced  "William  Blake,"  "George  Chapman,"  "A 
Note  on  Charlotte  Bronte,"  "A  Study  of  Shakespeare,"  "A 
Study  of  Victor  Hugo,"  "A  Study  of  Ben  Jonson,"  and  other 
essays  ;  he  has  tried  his  hand  in  Arthurian  legend,  in  "  Tris- 
tram of  Lyonesse, ' '  and  is  the  author  of  a  Greek  and  of  an 
Italian  tragedy — "Erechtheus"  and  "Marino  Faliero."  He 
has  even  written  a  novel  of  English  society — and  a  very  good 
one — published  serially  in  London  in  1879,  under  the  pen- 
name  of  "Mrs.  Horace  Manners."  It  was  called  "A  Year's 
Letters,"  but  has  never  been  reprinted,  or  acknowledged  by 
the  author.  Whatever  he  has  done  has  fascination  and  dis- 
tinction, and  is  irreproachable  in  form.  But  his  best  and 
rnost  lasting  work  is  to  be  sought  in  his  poems  and  ballads, 
and  in  passages  of  his  dramas.  He  sees  and  depicts  character 
vividly,  but  always  through  a  Swinburnian  atmosphere,  so 
that  he  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  dramatist  in  the  Shakespearian 
sense.  He  has  wit,  irony  and  passion,  but  not  humor.  Speak* 
ing  broadly,  he  is  a  sign  of  the  times,  but  not  a  leader  nor  a 
maker. 

Moreover,  with  all  his  beauty,  there  is  something  unwhole- 
some and  unsound  about  Swinburne.  His  passion  is  woman 
ish  rather  than  masculine,  and  yet  not  normally  womanish. 
He  is  violent  rather  than  powerful.  His  delicacies  and  refine- 
ments are  something  other  than  manly.  In  youth  he  had  a 
tendency  to  finger  forbidden  subjects ;  his  later  work  is  free 
from  such  improprieties.  Whatever  he  does  shows  good 
workmanship,   and  possesses  literarv  importance ;   but  his 


ENGLISH  WfERATURE.  267 

stature  has  not  increased  of  late  years,  and,  at  the  age  of  sixty, 
he  had  lapsed  into  the  background  of  things. 

'        The  Making  of  Man. 

(Chorus  from  "  Atalanta  in  Calydon.") 

Before  the  beginning  of  years 

There  came  to  the  making  of  man 
Time,  with  a  gift  of  tears  ; 

Grief,  with  a  glass  that  ran ; 
Pleasure,  with  pain  for  leaven ; 

Summer,  with  flowers  that  fell ; 
Remembrance,  fallen  from  heaven ; 

And  madness,  risen  from  hell ; 
Strength,  without  hands  to  smite ; 

Love  that  endures  for  a  breath ; 
Night,  the  shadow  of  light ; 

And  life,  the  shadow  of  death. 

And  the  high  gods  took  it  in  hand 

Fire,  and  the  falling  of  tears, 
And  a  measure  of  sliding  sand 

From  under  the  feet  of  years. 
And  froth  and  drift  of  the  sea, 

And  dust  of  the  laboring  earth, 
And  bodies  of  things  to  be, 

In  the  houses  of  death  and  of  birth  ; 
And  wrought  with  weeping  and  laughter. 

And  fashioned  with  loathing  and  love. 
With  life  before  and  after, 

And  death  beneath  and  above ; 
For  a  day  and  a  night  and  a  morrow. 

That  his  strength  might  endure  for  a  span 
With  travail  and  heavy  sorrow. 

The  holy  spirit  of  man. 

From  the  winds  of  the  north  and  the  south 

They  gathered  as  unto  strife  ; 
They,  breathed  upon  his  mouth, 

They  filled  his  body  with  life  ; 
Eyesight  and  speech  they  wrought 

For  the  veils  of  the  souls  therein ; 


268  UTBRATURB  OF  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

A  time  for  labor  and  thought, 

A  time  to  serve  and  to  sin. 
They  gave  him  a  light  in  his  ways, 

And  love,  and  a  space  for  delight ; 
And  beauty  and  length  of  days'. 

And  night,  and  sleep  in  the  night. 
His  speech  is  a  burning  fire. 

With  his  lips  he  travaileth ; 
In  his  heart  is  a  blind  desire. 

In  his  eyes  foreknowledge  of  death ; 
He  weaves  and  is  clothed  with  derision ; 

Sows,  and  he  shall  not  reap ; 
His  life  is  a  watch  or  a  vision 

Between  a  sleep  and  a  sleep. 

WiLWAM  Shakespeare. 

Not  if  men's  tongues  and  angels'  all  in  one 
Spake,  might  the  word  be  said  that  might  speak  Thee. 
Streams,  winds,  woods,  flowers,,  fields,  mountains,  yea, 
the  sea. 

What  power  is  in  them  all  to  praise  the  sun  ? 

His  praise  is  this, — he  can  be  praised  of  none. 
Man,  woman,  child,  praise  God  for  him ;  but  he 
Exults  not  to  be  worshiped,  but  to  be. 

He  is ;  and,  being,  beholds  his  work  well  done. 

All  joy,  all  glory,  all  sorrow,  all  strength,  all  mirth, 

Are  his :  without  him,  day  were  night  on  earth. 
Time  knows  not  his  from  time's  own  period. 

All  lutes,  all  harps,  all  viols,  all  flutes,  all  lyres, 

Fall  dumb  before  him  ere  one  string  suspires. 
All  stars  are  angels ;  but  the  sun  is  God. 

Ben  Jonson. 

Broad-based,  broad-fronted,  bounteous,  multiform. 
With  many  a  valley  impleached  with  ivy  and  vine, 
Wherein  the  springs  of  all  the  streams  run  wine, 

And  many  a  crag  full-faced  against  the  storm, 

The  mountain  where  thy  Muse's  feet  made  warm 
Those  lawns  that  revelled  with  her  dance  divine 
Shines  yet  with  fire  as  it  was  wont  to  shine 

From  tossing  torches  round  the  dance  aswarm. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  269 

Nor  less,  high-stationed  on  the  grey  grave  heights, 
High-thoughted  seers  with  heaven's  heart-kindling  lights 

Hold  converse :  and  the  herd  of  meaner  things 
Knows  or  by  fiery  scourge  or  fiery  shaft 
When  wrath  on  thy  broad  brows  has  risen,  and  laughed, 

Darkening  thy  soul  with  shadow  of  thunderous  wings. 


In  a  Garden. 

Baby,  see  the  flowers  ! 
— Baby  sees 
Fairer  things  than  these, 
Fairer  though  they  be  than  dreams  of  ours. 

Baby,  hear  the  birds ! 

— Baby  knows 
Better  songs  then  those, 
Sweeter  though  they  sound  than  sweetest  words. 

Baby,  see  the  moon  ! 
— Baby's  eyes 
Laugh  to  watch  it  rise. 
Answering  light  with  love  and  night  with  noon. 

Baby,  hear  the  sea ! 
— Baby's  face 
Takes  a  graver  grace. 
Touched  with  wonder  what  the  sound  may  be. 

Baby,  see  the  star ! 
— Baby's  hand 
Opens  warm  and  bland. 
Calm  in  claim  of  all  things  fair  that  are. 

Baby,  hear  the  bells ! 

— Baby's  head 
Bows,  as  ripe  for  bed. 
Now  the  flowers  curl  round  and  close  their  cells. 

Baby,  flower  of  light. 
Sleep  and  see 
Brighter  dreams  than  we, 
Till  good  day  shall  smile  away  good  night. 


270  LITERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

Matthew  Arnold,  the  apostle  cjf 
"sweetness  and  light,"  was  a  man  with 
a  message  to  the  cultured  only.  He  had 
little  sympathy  with  the  uncultured,  with 
the  uneducated,  who  still  form  by  far  the 
greater  portion  of  mankind.  He  was  a 
poet,  critic,  essayist  for  scholars,  for  liter- 
ary men,  for  the  refined;  a  thoroughly 
literary  writer  who  had  acquired  an  ex- 
quisite style,  but  who  was  more  sensitive 
to  influences  than  fertile  in  original  impulse.  He  has  uttered 
some  exquisite  notes  for  cultured  ears  to  catch,  but  he  will 
always  be  caviare  to  the  general  public. 

Matthew  Arnold  was  the  sou  of  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold,  the 
famous  headmaster  of  Rugby,  and  was  born  at  Laleham  in 
1822.  He  was  educated  at  Winchester,  Rugby  and  Oxford, 
and  was  elected  to  a  fellowship  in  Oriel  College  in  1845.  In 
185 1  he  was  appointed  Lay-Inspector  of  Schools,  which  posi- 
tion he  retained  until  shortly  before  his  death.  He  traveled 
frequently  in  France  and  Germany,  and  made  elaborate  re- 
ports on  foreign  systems  of  education.  In  1857  he  was  elected 
Professor  of  Poetry  at  Oxford.  In  1 849  his  first  volume  of 
verse,  "The  Strayed  Reveller,"  was  published ;  and  in  1853 
"  Empedocles  and  other  Poems "  appeared.  In  1859  he  pub- 
lished "Merope,"  a  tragedy  after  the  antique,  and  the  year 
following  a  volume  entitled  "New  Poems."  Subsequently 
he  published  but  little  poetry,  but  devoted  himself  principally 
to  critical  essays.  His  poems  are  mainly  one  long  variation 
on  a  single  theme,  the  divorce  between  the  soul  and  the  in- 
tellect, and  the  depths  of  spiritual  regret  and  yearning  which 
that  divorce  produces.  ' 

In  1865  his  "  Essays  on  Criticism"  were  published,  and 
at  once  gave  him  indisputable  rank  as  a  writer  of  English 
prose.  The  volume  had  an  almost  immediate  influence  upon 
students  of  literature  in  England.  Soon  afterwards  he  began 
a  series  of  prose  works  in  a  sort  of  middle  region  between 


ENGLISH  LITER ATURK.  27 1 

literature,  politics  and  ethics.  The  best  known  of  them  are 
"Culture  and  Anarchy,"  "St.  Paul  and  Protestantism," 
"  Literature  and  Dogma,"  and  "Last  Essays  on  Church  and 
Religion."  Not  able  to  rest  content  with  earlier  dogma  and 
inspiration,  yet  shrinking  from  an  unsympathetic  rationalism, 
he  wanders,  as  he  puts  it,  "between  two  worlds,  one  dead,  the 
other  powerless  to  be  bom.' '  Later  Arnold  returned  to  more 
purely  literary  criticism,  though  diverging  from  it  somewhat 
in  his  "Mixed  Essays"  and  "Irish  Essays,"  among  the  last 
works  that  he  published.     He  died  suddenly  in  1888. 

The  keynote  of  Matthew  Arnold's  work  is  a  yearning 
for  sweetness  and  light,  for  calm  peace  and  beauty  in  a 
restless  world  that  to  him  is  out  of  joint.  Unfortunately  he 
deemed  himself  born  with  a  mission  to  set  it  right.  His  hope 
for  the  future  is  that  sweetness  and  light  will  grow,  and  that 
the  authority  of  what  he  styled  the  remnant  or  elect,  i.  e., 
people  who  accepted  his  dicta,  would  come  to  be  finally  estab- 
lished. 

Balder  Dead. 

(For  the  death  of  Balder,  the  Norse  Apollo,  as  told  in  the  Scandinavian 
mythology,  see  Volume  II.,  p.  369.) 

So  on  the  floor  lay  Balder  dead ;  and  round 
Lay  thickly  strewn  swords,  axes,  darts  and  spears. 
Which  all  the  Gods  in  sport  had  idly  thrown 
At  Balder,  whom  no  weapon  pierced  or  clove : 
But  in  his  breast  stood  fixed  the  fatal  bough 
Of  mistletoe,  which  Lok  the  Accuser  gave 
To  Hoder,  and  unwitting  Hoder  threw : 
'Gainst  that  alone  had  Balder's  life  no  charm. 
And  all  the  Gods  and  all  the  Heroes  came 
And  stood  round  Balder  on  the  bloody  floor. 
Weeping  and  wailing. ;  and  Valhalla  rang 
Up  to  its  golden  roof  with  sobs  and  cries : 
And  on  the  tables  stood  the  untasted  meats. 
And  in  the  horns  and  gold-rimmed  skulls  the  wine : 
And  now  would  Night  have  fallen,  and  found  them  yet 
Wailing ;  but  otherwise  was  Odin's  will : 
And  thus  the  Father  of  the  Ages  spake : 

"Enough  of  tears,  ye  Gods,  enough  of  wail! 
Not  to  lament  in  was  Valhalla  made. 


272  WTERATURE  OF  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

If  any  here  might  weep  for  Balder' s  death 

I  most  might  weep,  his  Father ;  such  a  son 

I  lose  to-day,  so  bright,  so  loved  a  God. 

But  he  has  met  that  doom  which  long  ago 

The  Nornies,  when  his  mother  bare  him,  spun, 

And  Fate  set  seal,  that  so  his  end  must  be. 

Balder  has  met  his  death,  and  ye  survive : 

Weep  him  an  hour ;  but  what  can  grief -avail? 

For  you  yourselves,  ye  Gods,  shall  meet  your  doom, 

All  ye  who  hear  me,  and  inhabit  Heaven, 

And  I  too,  Odin  too,  the  l,ord  of  all ; 

But  ours  we  shall  not  meet,  when  that  day  comes. 

With  woman's  tears  and  weak,  complaining  cries — 

Why  should  we  meet  another's  portion  so? 

Rather  it  fits  you,  having  wept  your  hour. 

With  cold,  dry  eyes,  and  hearts  composed  and  stern, 

To  live,  as  erst  your  daily  life  in  Heaven : 

By  me  shall  vengeance  on  the  murderer  lyok. 

The  Foe,  the  Accuser,  whom,  though  Gods,  we  hate, 

Be  strictly  cared  for,  in  the  appointed  day. 

Meanwhile  to-morrow,  when  the  morning  dawns. 

Bring  wood  to  the  sea-shore,  to  Balder's  ship, 

And  on  the  deck  build  high  a  funeral  pile, 

And  on  the  top  lay  Balder's  corpse,  and  put 

Fire  to  the  wood,  and  send  him  out  to  sea 

To  burn;  for  that  is  what  the  dead  desire." 

So  having  spoken,  the  King  of  Gods  arose 
And  mounted  his  horse  Sleipner,  whom  he  rode. 
And  from  the  hall  of  Heaven  he  rode  away 
To  I,idskialf,  and  sate  upon  his  throne. 
The  Mount,  from  whence  his  eye  surveys  the  world. 


The  Remnant  in  America. 

(From  "Discourses  in  America.") 

In  these  United  States  you  are  fifty  millions  and  more. 
I  suppose  that,  as  in  England,  as  in  France,  as  everywhere 
else,  so  likewise  here,  the  majority  of  the  people  doubt  very 
much  whether  the  majority  is  unsound ;  or,  rather,  they  have 
no  doubt  at  all  about  the  matter — they  are  sure  that  it  is  not 
unsound.     But  let  us  consent  to-night  to  remain  to  the  end 


ENGWSH  WTERATURB.  273 

in  the  ideas  of  the  sages  and  prophets  whom  we  have  been 
following  all  along,  and  let  us  suppose  that  in  the  present 
actual  stage  of  the  world,  as  in  all  the  stages  through  which 
the  world  has  passed  hitherto,  the  majority  be,  in  general, 
unsound  everywhere.  Where  is  the  failure?  I  suppose  that 
in  a  democratic  community  like  this — with  its  newness,  its 
magnitude,  its  strength,  its  life  of  business,  its  sheer  freedom 
and  equality — the  danger  is  in  the  absence  of  the  discipline 
of  respect ;  in  hardness  and  materialism,  exaggeration  and 
boastfulness  ;  in  a  false  smartness,  a  false  audacity,  a  want 
of  soul  and  delicacy.  "Whatsoever  things  are  elevated'''' — 
Whatsoever  things  are  noble,  serious,  have  true  elevation — 
that,  perhaps,  in  our  mind  is  the  maxim  which  points  to 
where  the  failure  of  the  unsound  majority,  in  a  great  democ- 
racy like  yours,  will  probably  lie.  At  any  rate,  let  us  for  a 
moment  agree  to  suppose  so.  And  the  philosophers  and  the 
prophets — ^whom  I  at  any  rate  am  disposed  to  believe — and 
who  say  that  moral  causes  govern  the  standing  and  the  fall- 
ing of  states,  will  tell  us  that  the  failure  to  mind  whatsoever 
things  are  elevated  must  impair  with  an  inexorable  fatality 
the  life  of  a  nation,  just  as  the  failure  to  mind  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  or  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  will  impair  it; 
and  that  if  the  failure  to  mind  whatsoever  things  are  elevated 
should  be  real  in  your  American  democracy,  and  should  grow 
into  a  disease,  and  take  firm  hold  on  you,  then  the  life  of 
even  these  great  United  States  must  inevitably  be  impaired 
more  and  more  until  it  perish. 

Then  from  this  hard  doctrine  we  will  betake  ourselves  to 
the  more  comfortable  doctrine  of  the  remnant.  "  The  rem- 
nant shall  return  ;' '  shall  convert  and  be  healed  itself  first, 
and  shall  then  recover  the  unsound  majority.  And  you  are 
fifty  millions,  and  growing  apace.  What  a  remnant  yours 
may  be  surely !  A  remnant  of  how  great  numbers,  how 
mighty  strength,  how  irresistible  efficacy !  Yet  we  must 
not  go  too  fast,  either,  nor  make  too  sure  of  our  efficacious 
remnant.  Mere  multitudes  will  not  give  us  a  saving  rem- 
nant with  certainty.  The  Assyrian  empire  had  multitude, 
the  Roman  empire  had  multitude !  yet  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  could  produce  a  sufficing  remnant,  any  more  than 
X— 1» 


274  uterature;  of  ai,i,  nations. 

Athens  or  Judali  could  produce  it;  and  both  Assyria  and 
Rome  perished  like  Athens  and  Judah. 

But  you  are  something  more  than  a  people  of  fifty  millions. 
You  are  fifty  millions  mainly  sprung — as  we  in  England  are 
mainly  sprung — from  that  German  stock,  which  has  faults 
indeed— faults  which  have  diminished  the  extent  of  its  in- 
fluence, diminished  its  power  of  attraction,  and  the  interest 
of  its  history.  Yet  of  that  German  stock  it  is,  I  think  true — 
as  my  father  said  more  than  fifty  years  ago — that  it  has  been 
a  stock  "  of  the  most  moral  races  of  men  that  the  world  has 
yet  seen,  with  the  soundest  laws,  the  least  violent  passions, 
the  fairest  domestic  and  civil  virtues."  You  come,  there- 
fore, of  about  the  best  parentage  which  a  modern  nation  can 
have. 

Then  you  have  had,  as  we  in  England  have  also  had — but 
more  entirely  than  we,  and  more  exclusively — the  Puritan 
discipline.  Certainly  I  am  not  blind  to  the  faults  of  that 
discipline.  Certainly  I  do  not  wish  it  to  remain  in  possession 
of  the  field  forever,  or  too  long.  But  as  a  stage  and  a  disci- 
pline, and  as  means  for  enabling  that  poor,  inattentive  and 
immoral  creature,  man,  to  love  and  appropriate,  and  make 
part  of  his  being,  divine  ideas,  on  which  he  could  not  other- 
wise have  laid  or  kept  hold,  the  discipline  of  Puritanism  has 
been  invaluable ;  and  the  more  I  read  history,  the  more  I  see 
of  mankind,  the  more  I  recognize  its  value. 

Well,  then,  you  are  not  merely  a  multitude  of  fifty  mil- 
lions ;  you  are  fifty  millions  sprung  from  this  excellent  Ger- 
manic stock,  having  passed  through  this  excellent  Puritan 
discipline,  and  set  in  this  enviable  and  unbounded  country. 
Even  supposing,  therefore,  that  by  the  necessity  of  things 
your  majority  must  in  the  present  sj;age  of  the  world  probably 
be  unsound,  what  a  remnant,  I  say — what  an  incomparable, 
all-transforming  remnant — ^you  may  fairly  hope,  with  your 
number—  if  things  go  happily — to  have. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  275 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON. 

It  is  not  generally  safe  to  anticipate 
the  verdict  of  posterity,  but  there  are 
things  which  this  writer  has  produced 
which  may  be  trusted  to  survive  the 
tests  of  time.     Stevenson  was  literary, 
first  by  organization,  then  by  resolute 
study  and  training ;  his  heart  was  in 
his  work,  and  he  never  ceased  to  try 
to  improve  himself  yet  further,  and  to 
satisfy,  if  it  were  possible,  himself  as 
well  as  his  public.    In  this  age  of  gross 
adulation  of  success,  few  have  received 
so  much  adulation  as  he ;  but  he  would  not  let  it  spoil  him ; 
he  kept  his  ideal  ever  in  view,  and  pursued  it  as  it  fled,  hori- 
zon-like, before  him. 

He  was  born  in  1850  and  educated  in  Edinburgh,  and  was 
admitted  there  to  the  Bar,  but  never  practiced.  He  was  a  deli- 
cate boy,  and  his  health,  for  all  he  could  do,  was  never  robust ; 
and  he  died  at  last  with  half  his  work,  as  it  seemed,  unachieved, 
at  an  age  when  many  men  are  but  just  beginning  to  feel  the 
reality  of  their  powers.  But  geniuses  before  him  have  died 
younger  than  he,  and  left  imperishable  names.  He  traveled 
much,  taking  long  journeys  and  short,  partly  in  quest  of 
health,  always  with  an  eye  for  whatever  was  of  picturesque 
and  human  interest.  He  saw  this  country  as  well  as  Europe, 
and  he  ended  his  travels  in  an  island  on  the  south  Pacific, 
and  lies  buried  there  "under  the  wide  and  brilliant  sky," 
as  he  wished  to  be.  It  was  a  complete  and  honorable  life,  in 
spite  of  its  brevity  ;  and  it  was  long  enough  to  give  many 
thousand  readers  reason  to  respect  and  love  him. 

He  won  the  favor  of  critics  from  the  start.  His  "  Inland 
Voyage  "  and  "  Travels  with  a  Donkey  "  were  received  with 
cordial  encouragement;  and  his  "New  Arabian  Nights," 
first  published  serially  in  the  I/ondon  World,  showed  that  a 
new  charm  had  come  into  literature.  "Treasure  Island," 
concerning  the  composition  and  circumstances  of  which  he 


276  tlTERATURB  OF  Atl,  NATIONS. 

has  left  us  some  account,  was  his  first  story  of  adventure,  and 
was  admittedly  based  upon  the  models  in  that  branch  of  liter- 
ature ;  but  it  was  as  good  as  the  best,  and  has  ever  sfnce  re- 
mained one  of  his  most  popular  productions.  It  contains  all 
the  elements  of  a  good  story  of  action  and  suspense,  and  has 
withal  a  delightful  flavor,  a  sympathetic  quality,  that  belongs 
only  to  a  few  fortunate  creations.  The  style  is  perfectly 
suited  to  the  character  and  tone  of  the  narrative ;  it  is  Steven- 
son's style,  and  yet  it  subtly  differs  from  the  styles  of  his 
other  stories  ;  for  he  had  the  rare  faculty  of  setting  his  medium 
in  tune  with  his  theme.  This  faculty  was  again  exemplified 
in  his  most  famous  story,  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,"  which 
is  written  in  a  homely,  hushed  phraseology,  greatly  enhancing 
its  ghastly  subject  matter.  The  double  life  which  exists  in 
all  of  us  was  never  more  strikingly  portrayed  than  in  this 
realistic  allegory  or  parable.  It  is  a  work  of  concentrated 
genius ;  but  it  was  in  a  sense  a  jeu  d'' esprit,  and  Stevenson 
was  not  content  to  follow  up  the  lead  this  opened  to  him,  as 
lesser  men  would  gladly  have  done.  He  had  ambitions  to- 
wards the  historical  novel;  and  in  "Kidnapped,"  and  its 
sequel,  "David  Balfour,"  he  gave  masterly  illustrations  of 
his  power  to  make  the  past  live  again,  and  mingle  harmo- 
niously with  the  creations  of  his  own  imagination.  He  cul- 
tivated this  vein  in  other  fictions,  not  always  with  the  same 
success,  but  never  unworthily.  Another  side  of  his  versatile 
power  was  shown  in  the  volume  of  short  tales  called  "The 
Merry  Men,"  and  still  others  in  his  pictures  of  Samoan  life 
and  character,  and  in  his  delightful  verses  for  children.  His 
last  novel,  left  unfinished,  was  published  after  his  death,  with 
a  conclusion  by  the  English  writer  Quiller  Couch. 

Stevenson  married  an  American  woman,  but  left  no  chil- 
dren. In  person  he  was  slender  and  of  sallow  complexion, 
with  singular  dark  eyes ;  his  manner  had  an  irresistible  fas- 
cination, and  his  conversation  was  full  of  sparkle  and  sub- 
stance. His  death  took  place  suddenly,  in  1894,  when  he  was 
four  and  forty  years  of  age.  He  had  much  endeared  himself 
to  the  natives  of  his  island,  to  whose  welfare  he  had  devoted 
himself,  and  who  gave  him  the  title  of  Chief,  and  bore  him 
to  his  grave  on  the  mountain-top,  overlooking  the  mighty 


RNGtlSH  tlTBRATURB.  277 

ocean  which  he  had  made  the  scene  of  more  than  one  of  his 
most  effective  tales. 

The  Transformation. 

(From  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.") 

Twelve  o'clock  had  scarce  rung  out  over  London,  ere  the 
knocker  sounded  very  gently  on  the  door.  I  went  myself  at 
the  summons,  and  found  a  small  man  crouching  against  the 
pillare  of  the  portico. 

"Are  you  come  from  Dr.  Jekyll  ?  "  I  asked. 

He  told  me  "Yes  "  by'  a  constrained  gesture ;  and  when  I 
had  bidden  him  enter,  he  did  not  obey  me  without  a  search- 
ing backward  glance  into  the  darkness  of  the  square.  There 
was  a  policeman  not  far  off,  advancing  with  his  bull's  eye 
open ;  and  at  the  sight,  I  thought  my  visitor  started  and 
made  greater  haste.  . 

These  particulars  struck  me,  I  confess,  disagreeably ;  and 
as  I  followed  him  into  the  bright  light  of  the  consulting  room, 
I  kept  my  hand  ready  on  my  weapon.  Here,  at  last,  I  had  a 
chance  of  clearly  seeing  him.  I  had  never  set  my  eyes  on 
him  before,  so  much  was  certain.  He  was  small,  as  I  have 
said ;  I  was  struck  besides  with  the  shocking  expression  of 
his  face,  with  his  remarkable  combination  of  great  muscular 
activity  and  great  apparent  debility  of  constitution,  and — 
last  but  not  least — with  the  odd,  subjective  disturbance 
caused  by  his  neighborhood.  This  bore  some  resemblance  to 
incipient  rigor,  and  was  accompanied  by  a  marked  sinking  of 
the  pulse.  At  the  time,<^  set  >  it  down  to  some  idiosyncratic, 
personal  distaste,  and  merely  wondered  at  the  acuteness  of 
the  symptoms ;  but  I  have  siiice  had  reason  to  believe  the 
cause  to  lie  much  deeper  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  to  turn 
on  some  nobler  hinge  than  the  principle  of  hatred. 

This  person  (who  had  thus,  from  the  first  moment  of  his 
entrance,  struck  in  me  what  I  can  only  describe  as  a  disgust- 
ful curiosity)  was  dressed  in  a  fashion  that  would  have  made 
an  ordinary  person  laughable:  his  clothes,  that  is  to  say, 
although  they  were  of  rich  and  sober  fabric,  were  enormously 
too  large  for  him  in  every  measurement — the  trousers  hang- 
ing  on  his  legs  and  rolled  up  to  keep  them,  from  the  ground 


278  WTERATURE  OP  ALI,  NATIONS. 

the  waist  of  the  coat  below  his  haunches,  and  the  collar 
sprawling  wide  upon  his  shoulders.  Strange  to  relate,  this 
ludicrous  accoutrement  was  far  from  moving  me  to  laughter. 
Rather,  as  there  was  something  abnormal  and  misbegotten 
in  the  very  essence  of  the  creature  that  now  faced  me — 
something  seizing,  surprising  and  revolting — this  fresh  dis- 
parity seemed  but  to  fit  in  with  and  to  re-inforce  it ;  so  that  to 
my  interest  in  the  man's  nature  and  character,  there  was 
added  a  curiosity  as  to  his  origin,  his  life,  his  fortune  and 
status  in  the  world. 

These  observations,  though  they  have  taken  so  great  a 
space  to  be  set  down  in,  were  yet  the  work  of  a  few  seconds. 
My  visitor  was,  indeed,  on  fire  with  sombre  excitement. 

■  "  Have  you  got  it?"  he  cried.  "Have  you  got  it?" 
And  so  lively  was  his  impatience  that  he  even  laid  his  hand 
upon,  my  arm  and  sought  to  shake  me. 

I  put  him  back,  conscious  at  his  touch  of  a  certain  icy 
pang  along  my  blood.  "Come,  sir,"  said  I.  "You  forget 
that  I  have  not  yet  the  pleasure  of  your  acquaintance.  Be 
seated,  if  you  please."  And  I  showed  him  an  example,  and 
sat  down  myself  in  my  customary  seat  and  with  as  fair  an 
imitation  of  my  ordinary  manner  to  a  patient,  as  the  lateness 
of  the  hour,  the  nature  of  my  pre-occupations,  and  the  horror 
I  had  of  my  visitor,  would  suflFer  me  to  muster. 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  Dr.  I^anyon,"  he  replied  civilly 
enough.  "  What  you  say  is  very  well  founded ;  and  my 
impatience  has  shown  its  heels  to  my  politeness.  I  come  here 
at  the  instance  of  your  colleagiie, '  Dr.  Henry  Jekyll,  on  a 
piece  of  business  of  some  moment ;  and  I  understood  ..." 
he  paused  and  put  his  hand  to  his  throat,  and  I  could  see,  in 
spite  of  his  collected  manner,  that  he  was  wrestling  against 
the  approaches  of  the  hysteria — "  I  understood  a  drawer  .  .  ." 

But  here  I  took  pity  on  my  visitor's  suspense,  and  some 
perhaps  on  my  own  growing  curiosity. 

"  There  it  is,  sir,"  said  I,  pointing  to  the  drawer,  where  it 
lay  on  the  floor  behind  a  table  and  still  covered  with  the 
sheet. 

He  sprang  to  it,  and  then  paused,  and  laid  his  hand  upon 
his  heart ;  I  coiild  hear  his  teeth  grate  with  the,  convulsive 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  279 

action  of  his  jaws ;   and  his  face  was  so  ghastly  to  see  that  I 
grew  alarmed  both  for  his  life  and  reason. 
"  Compose  yourself,"  said  I. 

He  turned  a  dreadful  smile  to  me,  and  as  if  with  the  decision 
of  despair,  plucked  away  the  sheet.  At  sight  of  the  contents, 
he  uttered  one  loud  sob  of  such  immense  relief  that  I  sat 
petrified.  And  the  next  moment,  in  a  voice  that  was  already 
fairly  well  under  control,  "Have  you  a  graduated  glass?" 
he  asked.  I  rose  from  my  place  with  something  of  an  eflfort 
and  gave  him  what  he  asked. 

He  thanked  me  with  a  smiling  nod,  measured  out  a  few 
minims  of  the  red  tincture  and  added  one  of  the  powders. 
The  mixture,  which  was  at  first  of  a  reddish  hue,  began,  in 
proportion  as  the  crystals  melted,  to  brighten  in  color,  to 
effervesce  audibly,  and  to  throw  off"  small  fumes  of  vapor. 
Suddenly  and  at  the  same  moment,  the  ebullition  ceased  and 
the  compound  changed  to  a  dark  purple,  which  faded  again 
more  slowly  to  a  watery  green.  My  visitor,  who  had  watched 
these  metamorphoses  with  a  keen  eye,  smiled,  set  down  the 
glass  upon  the  table,  and  then  turned  and  looked  upon  me 
with  an  air  of  scrutiny. 

"And  now,"  said  he,  "to  settle  what  remains.  Will  you 
be  wise  ?  will  you  be  guided  ?  will  you  Suffer  me  to  take  this 
glass  in  my  hand  and  to  go  forth  from  your  house  without 
further  parley  ?  or  has  the  greed  of  curiosity  too  much  com- 
mand of  you  ?  Think  before  you  answer,  for  it  shall  be  done 
as  you  decide.  As  you  decide,  you  shall  be  left  as  you  were 
before,  and  neither  richer;  nor  wiser,  unless  the  sense  of  ser- 
vice rendered  to  a  man  in  mortal  distress  may  be  counted  as 
a  kind  of  riches  of  the  soul.  Or,  if  you  shall  so  prefer  to 
choose  a  new  province  of  knowledge  and  new  avenues  to 
fame  and  power  shall  be  laid  open  to  you,  here,  in  this  room, 
upon  the  instant;  and  your  sight  shall  be  blasted  by  a 
prodigy  to  stagger  the  unbelief  of  Satan." 

"  Sir,"  said  I,  affecting  a  coolness  that  I  was  far  from  truly 
possessing,  "you  speak  enigmas,  and  you  will  perhaps  not 
wonder  that  I  hear  you  with  no  very  strong  impression  of 
belief.  But  I  have  gone  too  far  in  the  way  of  inexplicable 
services  to  pause  before  I  see  the  end." 


28o  UTERATURB  OP  AH  NATIONS. 

"  It  is  well,"  replied  my  visitor.  "  I,anyon,  you  remem- 
ber your  vows ;  what  follows  is  under  the  seal  of  our  pro- 
fession. And  now,  you  who  have  so  long  been  bound  to  the 
most  narrow  and  material  views,  you  who  have  denied  the 
virtue  of  transcendental  medicine,  you  who  have  derided  your 
superiors — behold  !  " 

He  put  the  glass  to  his .  lips  and  drank  at  one  gulp.  A 
cry  followed  ;  he  reeled,  staggered,  clutched  at  the  table  and 
held  on,  staring  with  injected  eyes,  gasping  with  open  mouth ; 
and  as  I  looked  there  came,  I  thought,  a  change — he  seemed 
to  swell — his  face  became  suddenly  black  and  the  features 
seemed  to  melt  and  alter — and  the  next  moment,  I  had  sprung 
to  my  feet  and  leaped  back  against  the  wall,  my  arm  raised 
to  shield  me  from  that  prodigy,  my  mind  submerged  in  terror. 

"  O  God  ! "  I  screamed,  and  "  O  God  !  "  again  and  again  ; 
for  there  before  my  eyes — pale  and  shaken,  and  half-fainting, 
and  groping  before  him  with  his  hands,  like  a  man  restored 
from  death — there  stood  Henry  Jekyll. 

What  he  told  me  in  the  next  hour,  I  cannot  bring  my 
mind  to  set  on  paper.  I  saw  what  I  saw,  I  heard  what  I 
heard,  and  my  soul  sickened  at  it ;  and  yet  now  when  that 
sight  has  faded  from  my  eyes,  I  ask  myself  if  I  believe  it, 
and  I  cannbt  answer.  My  life  is  shaken  to  its  roots ;  sleep 
has  left  me  ;  the  deadliest  terror  sits  by  me  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  night;  I  feel  that  my  days  are  numbered,  and 
that  I  must  die  ;  and  yet  I  shall  die  incredulous.  As  for  the 
moral  turpitude  that  man  unveiled  to  me,  even  with  tears  of 
penitence,  I  cannot,  even  in  memory,  dwell  on  it  without  a 
start  of  horror.  I  will  say,  but  one  thing,  Utterson,  and  that 
(if  you  can  bring  your  mind  to  credit  it)  will  be  more  than 
enough.  The  creature  who  crept  into  my  house  that  night 
was,  on  Jekyll' s  own  confession,  known  by  the  name  of  Hyde 
and  hunted  for  in  every  corner  of  the  land  as  the  murderer 
of  Carew. 


ENGUSH  LITBRATURE.  28 1 


RUDYARD  KIPLING. 


One  of  the  youngest,  and  the  most  powerful  of  contem- 
porary poets  and  prose  writers  was  born  in  1865  in  India  of 
English  parents,  and  educated  partly  there  and  partly  in 
England;  though  he  is  not  a  graduate  of  any  university. 
Bombay  was  the  city  of  his  birth ;  his  father,  John  Lockwood 
Kipling,  was  principal  of  the  School  of  Industrial  Art  at 
Lahore.  After  some  years  of  schooling  in  Devonshire,  Rud- 
yard,  in  1880,  returned  to  India,  and  worked  as  sub-editor  of 
a  newspaper  in  Lahore.  Here  he  learned  the  art  of  writing 
the  terse  and  telling  prose  which  enables  him  at  once  to 
plunge  into  the  heart  of  his  subject,  and  to  keep  there 
throughout.  .  His  experience  in  this  respect  resembles  that  of 
Bret  Harte,  and  the  results  are  also  similar ;  though  Kipling 
is  inevitably  original — a  strong  and  new  force  in  literature. 
The  subjects  he  treats  are  of  his  own  discovering ;  and  his 
insight  into  human  nature  is  both  broad  and  deep  ;  he  is 
earnest,  straightforward  and  massive:  there  is  in  all  he  does 
a  rank,  masculine  flavor,  sometimes  amounting  to  brutality, 
but  often  admitting  the  finest  and  tenderest  touches.  Nothing 
seems  too  high  or  too  low  for  him  to  possess  a  sympathetic 
comprehension  of  it ;  he  enters  imaginatively  even  into  wild 
animals  in  the  jungle,  and  presents  us  with  what  we  feel  are 
true  pictures  of  their  thoughts  and  instincts.  His  power  of 
observation  is  as  rapid  as  that  of  Dickens,  and  never  betrays 
him  into  the  exaggerations  and  caricature  of  the  latter  ;  his 
style  and  manner  were  from  the  first  singularly  mature ;  and 
the  facility  with  which  he  familiarizes  himself  with  the 
nature  and  details  of  new  subjects  is  a  constant  source  of  sur- 
prise to  his  readers.  He  passed  through  America  in  1889, 
writing  descriptive  letters  as  he  went;  and  these  contain 
more  accurate '  observation  and  just  comment  than  any 
cognate  articles  that  have  been  published.  His  novel, 
'*  Captains  Courageous,"  deals  with  the  life  and  character  of 
the  New  England  cod-fishermen,  and  shows  a  remarkable 
command  of  their  character  and  speech,  as  well  as  of  the 
industry  in  which  they  are  engaged.     He  seems  no  less  at 


282  WTBRATURB  OF  MX,  NATIONS. 

home  with  all  forms  of  dialect,  English  and  American, 
and  with  the  brogue  of  Irishmen  and  the  broken  English 
of  Germans  and  Frenchmen ;  and  he  represents  these  in 
his  own  way,  from  the  testimony  of  his  own  senses.  But 
signal  though  are  these  external  and  obvious  merits,  they 
are  the  least  of  Kipling's  gifts  as  a  writer.  He  goes  to  the 
centre  of  things ;  he  knows  what  to  say  and  what  to  leave 
unsaid  ;  he  always  controls  his  theme ;  his  imagination  gene, 
rates  forms  which  have  the  hues  and  substance  of  truth  ;  his 
motives  are  vital  and  suggestive.  In  spite  of  the  strength  of 
his  effects,  he  always  gives  the  impression  of  keeping  in 
reserve  more  than  he  has  displayed ;  he  never  disappoints 
expectation,  but  often  surpasses  it ;  and  nowhere  in  his  work 
are  to  be  found  traces  of  carelessness  or  ignorance.  His 
poems  are  quite  as  original  and  powerful  as  his  prose.  Such^ 
ballads  as  "Danny  Deever,"  such  lyjrics  as  "The  Reces- 
sional," are  surpassed,  if  at  all,  only  by  the  best  products  of 
the  great  masters  of  English  song. 

Kipling  is  better  known  as  a  writer  of  short  tales  than  as 
a  novelist ;  the  former  have  hitherto  been  the  more  success- 
ful. It  is  too  soon  yet  to  determine  whether  he  is  capable  of 
producing  a  long  novel  commensurate  with  his  reputation  in 
,  other  directions.  His  books  of  Indian  tales  contain  many 
masterpieces;  the  series  of  "Soldiers  Three"  has  already 
etijtered  into  the  language.  The  "Incarnation  of  Krishna 
Mulvaney"  and  "The  Taking  of  Lungtukpen"  are  as  good 
as  any  of  these  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  select  any  as  definitely 
the  best.  In  spite  of  his  frankness,  there  is  a  great  deal  c/ 
reticence  in  Kipling ;  we  feel  that  what  he  withholds  is,  if 
possible,  more  significant  than  what  he  imparts  ;  but  the 
forbearing  to  impart  it  enhances  the  artistic  effect  of  what  is 
given.  From  the  promise  of  what  he  has  accomplished, 
there  is  almost  nothing  which  we  would  not  be  justified  in 
anticipating  from'  him.  Kipling  married  an  American  girl  a 
few  years  ago,  and  for  a  time  had  a  home  in  New  England ; 
but  he  is  of  a  restless  humor,  and  the  world  is  his  dwelling- 
place. 


english  literature.  283 

The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd. 

(Told  by  Private  Mulvaney.) 

"  Wanst,  bein'  a  fool,  I  went  into  the  married  lines,  more 
for  the  sake  av  spakin'  to  our  ould  color-sergint  Shadd  than 
for  any  thruck  wid  wimmen-folk.  I  was  a  corp'ril  then — 
rejuced  aftherwards  ;  but  a  corp'ril  then.  I've  got  a  photo- 
graft  av  mesilf  to  prove  ut.  '  You'll  take  a  cup  av  tay  wid 
us?'  sez  he.  'I  will  that,'  I  sez;  'tho'  tay  is  not  my  divar- 
sion.'  '  'Twud  be  better  for  you  if  ut  were,'  sez  ould  Mother 
Shadd.  An'  she  had  ought  to  know,  for  Shadd,  in  the  ind  av 
his  service,  dhrank  bung-full  each  night. 

"  Wid  that  I  tuk  off  my  gloves — ^there  was  pipe-clay  in 
thim  so  that  they  stud  alone — an'  pulled  up  my  chair,  lookin' 
round  at  the  china  ornamints  an'  bits  av  things  in  the  Shadds' 
quarters.  They  were  things  that  belonged  to  a  woman,  an' 
no  camp  kit,  here  to-day  an'  dishipated  next.  '  You're  com- 
fortable in  this  place,  sergint, '  sez  I.  '  'Tis  the  wife  that  did 
ut,  boy, '  sez  he,  pointin'  the  stem  av  his  pipe  to  ould  Mother 
Shadd,  an'  she  smacked  the  top  av  his  bald  head  apon  the 
compliment.     '  That  manes  you  want  money,'  sez  she. 

"An'  thin — an'  thin  whin  the  kettle  was  to  be  filled, 
Dinah  came  in — my  Dinah — ^her  sleeves  rowled  up  to  the 
elbow,  an'  her  hair  in  a  gowlden  glory  over  her  forehead,  the 
big  blue  eyes  beneath  twinklin'  like  stars  on  a  frosty  night, 
an'  the  tread  of  her  two  feet  lighter  than  waste  paper  from 
the  colonel's  basket  in, ord'ly  room  when  ut's  emptied.  Bein' 
but  a  shlip  av  a  girl,  she  went  pink  at  seein'  me,  an'  I  twisted 
me  moustache  an'  looked  at  a  picture  fominst  the  wall. 
Never  show  a  woman  that  ye  care  the  snap  av  a  finger  for 
her,  an'  begad  she'll  come  bleatin'  to  your  boot  heels." 

"I  suppose  that's  why  you  followed  Annie  Bragin  till 
everybody  in  the  married  quarters  laughed  at  you,"  said  I, 
remembering  that  unhallowed  wooing,  and  casting  off  the 
disguise  of  drowsiness. 

"I'm  layin'  down  the  gin'ral  theory  av  the  attack,"  said 
Mulvaney,  driving  his  foot  into  the  dying  fire.  "  If  you  read 
the  '  Soldier's  Pocket-Book,'  which  never  any  soldier  reads, 


284  UTBRATURB  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

you'll  see  that  there  are  exceptions.  When  Dinah  was  out 
av  the  door  (an'  'twas  as  tho'  the  sunlight  had  gone  too), 
'Mother  av  Hiven,  sergint !'  sez  I,  'but  is  that  your  daugh- 
ter?' '  I've -believed  that  way  these  eighteen  years,'  sez  ould 
Shadd,  his  eyes  twinklin'.  '  But  Mrs.  Shadd  has  her  own 
opinion,  like  ivry  other  woman.'  '  'Tis  wid  yours  this  time, 
for  a  mericle,'  sez  Mother  Shadd.  '  Then  why,  in  the  name 
av  fortune,  did  I  never  see  her  before  ? '  sez  I.  '  Bekaze 
you've  been  thraipsin'  round  wid  the  married  women  these 
three  years  past.  She  was  a  bit  av  a  child  till  last  year,  an' 
she  shot  up  wid  the  spring,'  sez  ould  Mother  Shadd.  '  I'll 
thraipse  no  more,'  sez  I.  'D'you  mane  that?'  sez  ould 
Mother  Shadd,  lookin'  at  me  sideways,  like  a  hen  looks  at  a 
hawk  whin  the  chickens  are  runnin'  free.  '  Try  me,  an'  tell,' 
sez  I.  Wid  that  I  pulled  on  my  gloves,  dhrank  off  the  tea, 
an'  wint  out  av  the  house  as  stiff  as  at  gen'ral  p'rade,  for  well 
I  know  that  Dinah  Shadd's  eyes  were  in  the  small  av  my 
back  out  av  the  scullery  window.  Faith,  that  was  the  only 
time  I  mourned  I  was  not  a  cav'lryman,  for  the  sake  av  the 
spurs  to  jingle. 

"  I  wint  out  to  think,  an'  I  did  a  powerful  lot  av  thinkin', 
but  ut  all  came  round  to  that  shlip  av  a  girl  in  the  dotted 
blue  dhress,  wid  the  blue  eyes  an'  the  sparkil  in  them.  Thin 
I  kept  off  canteen,  an'  I  kept  to  the  married  quarthers  or  near 
by  on  the  chanst  av  meetin'  Dinah.  Did  I  meet  her  ?  Oh, 
my  time  past,  did  I  not,  wid  a  lump  in  my  throat  as  big  as 
my  valise,  an'  my  heart  goin'  like  a  farrier's  forge  on  a  Sat- 
urday morning' !  'Twas  '  Good-day  to  ye.  Miss  Dinah,'  an' 
'  Good-day  t'you,  corp'ril,'  for  a  week  or  two,  an'  divil  a  bit 
further  could  I  get,  bekaze  av  the  respict  I  had  to  that  girl 
that  I  cud  ha'  broken  betune  finger  an'  thumb. " 

Here  I  giggled  as  I  recalled  the  gigantic  figure  of  Dinah 
Shadd  when  she  handed  me  my  shirt. 

' '  Ye  may  laugh,"  grunted  Mulvaney.  "  But  I'm  speakin' 
the  trut',  an'  'tis  you  that  are  in  fault.  Dinah  was  a  girl  that 
wud  ha'  taken  the  imperiousness  out  av  the  Duchess  av 
Clonmel  in  those  days.  Flower  hand,  foot  av  shod  air,  an' 
the  eyes  av  the  mornin'  she  had.  That  is  my  wife  to-day — 
ould  Dinah,  an'  never  aught  else  than  Dinah  Sharld  to  me. 


ENGLISH  EITERATURB.  285 

'"Twas  after  three  weeks  standin'  off  an'  on,  an'  niver 
makin'  headway  excipt  through  the  eyes,  that  a  little  drum- 
mer-boy grinned  in  me  face  whin  I  had  admonished  him  wid 
the  buckle  av  my  belt  for  riotin'  all  over  the  place.  '  An' 
I'm  not  the  only  wan  that  doesn't  kape  to  barricks,'  sez  he. 
I  tuk  him  by  the  scruff  av  his  neck — my  heart  was  hung  on 
a  hair-thrigger  those  days,  you  will  understand — an',  'Out 
wid  ut,'  sez  I,  '  or  I'll  lave  no  bone  av  you  unbruk.'  '  Speak 
to  Dempsey,'  sez  he,  howlin'.  'Dempsey  which,'  sez  I,  'ye 
unwashed  limb  av  Satan ? '  'Of  the  Bobtailed  Dhragoons,' 
sez  he.  '  He's  seen  her  home  from  her  aunt's  house  in  the 
civil  lines  four  times  this  fortnight.'  'Child,'  sez  I,  dhrop- 
pin'  him,  'your  tongue's  stronger  than  your  body.  Go  to 
your  quarters.     I'm  sorry  I  dhressed  you  down.' 

"At  that  I  went  four  ways  to  wanst  huntin'  Dempsey. 
Presintly  I  found  him — an'  a  tallowy,  top-heavy  son  av  a  she 
mule  he  was,  wid  his  big  brass  spurs  an'  his  plastrons  on  his 
epigastons  an'  all.     But  he  niver  flinched  a  hair. 

"  '  A  word  wid  you,  Dempsey,'  sez  I.     '  You've  walked  wid 
Dinah  Shadd  four  times  this  fortnight  gone.' 

"'What's  that  to  you?'  sez  he.  'I'll  walk  forty  tinjes 
more,  an'  forty  on  top  av  that,  ye  shovel-futted,  clod-breakin' 
infantry  lance-corp'ril.' 

"  Before  I  cud  gyard  he  had  his  gloved  fist  home  on  me 
cheek,  an'  down  I  went  full  sprawl.  'Will  that  content 
you  ? '  sez  he,  blowin'  on  his  knuckles  for  all  the  world  like 
a  Scots  Grays  orf'cer.  'Content?'  sez  I.  'For  your  own 
sake,  man,  take  off  your  spurs,  peel  your  jackut,  and  onglove. 
'Tis  the  beginnin'  av  the  overture.     Stand  up  !' 

"He  stud  all  he  knew,  but  he  niver  peeled  his  jackut,  an' 
his  shoulders  had  no  fair  play.  I  was  fightin'  for  Dinah 
Shadd  an'  that  cut  on  me  cheek.  What  hope  had  he  forninst 
me?  ' Stand  up !'  sez  I,  time  an'  again,  when  he  was  begin- 
nin' to  quarter  the  ground  an'  gyard  high  an'  go  large. 
'  This  isn't  ridin'-school,'  sez  I.  '  Oh,  man,  stand  up,  an'  let 
me  get  at  ye  !'  But  whin  I  saw  he  wud  be  runnin'  about,  I 
grup  his  shtock  in  me  left  an'  his  waist-belt  in  me  right  an' 
swung  him  clear  to  me  right  front,  head  undher,  he  ham- 
merin'  me  nose  till  the  wind  was  knocked  out  av  him  on  the 


286  WTERATURS  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

bare  ground.     *  Stand  up,'  sez  I,  '  or  I'll  kick  your  head  into 
your  chest.'     An'  I  -wud  ha'  done  ut,  too,  so  ragin'  mad  I  was. 
"  '  Me  collar-bone's  bruk,'  sez  he.     '  Help  me  back  to  lines. 
I'll  walk  wid  her  no  more.'     So  I  helped  him  back. 

"And  was  his  collar-bone  broken?"  I  asked,  for  I  fancied 
that  only  Learoyd  could  neatly  accomplish  that  terrible  throw. 

"  He  pitched  on  his  left  shoulder-point.  It  was.  Next 
day  the  news  was  in  both  barracks ;  an'  whin  I  met  Dinah 
Shadd  wid  a  cheek  like  all  the  reg'mintal  tailors'  samples, 
there  was  no  '  Good-mornin',  corp'ril,'  or  aught  else.  'Au' 
what  have  I  done,  Miss  Shadd,'  sez  I,  very  bould,  plantin' 
mesilf  forninst  her,  '  that  ye  should  not  pass  the  time  of  day?' 

" '  Ye've  half  killed  rough-rider  Dempsey,'  sez  she,  her 
dear  blue  eyes  filliti'  up. 

' ' '  Maybe,'  sez  I.  '  Was  he  a  friend  av  yours  that  saw  ye 
home  four  times  in  a  fortnight  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,'  sez  she,  very  bould  ;  but  her  mouth  was  down  at 
the  corners.     '  An' — an'  what's  that  to  you  ? ' 

" '  Ask  Dempsey,'  sez  I,  purtendin'  to  go  away. 

"  '  Did  you  fight  for  me  then,  ye  silly  man  ? '  she  sez,  tho' 
she  knew  ut  all  along. 

' ' '  Who  else  ? '  sez  I ;  an'  I  tuk  wan  pace  to  the  front. 

'"I  wasn't  worth  ut,' sez  she,  fingerin'  her  apron. 

"  '  That's  for  me  to  say,'  sez  I.     '  Shall  I  say  ut  ? ' 

"'Yes,'  sez  she,  in  a  saint's  whisper;  an'  at  that  I  ex- 
plained mesilf;  an'  she  tould  me  what  ivry  man  that  is  a 
man,  an'  many  that  is  a  woman,  hears,  wanst  in  his  life. 

" '  But  what  made  ye  cry  at  startin',  Dinah  darlin'  ?'  sez  I. 

" '  Your — your  bloody  cheek,'  sez  she,  duckin'  her  little 
head  down  on  my  sash  (I  was  duty  for  the  day),  an'  whim- 
perin'  like  a  sorrowful  angel. 

" '  Now  a  man  cud  take  that  two  ways.  I  tuk  ut  as 
pleased  me  best,  an'  my  first  kiss  wid  ut.  Mother  av  Inno- 
cence !  but  I  kissed  her  on  the  tip  av  the  nose  an'  undher  the 
eye,  an'  a  girl  that  lets  a  kiss  come  tumbleways  like  that  has 
never  been  kissed  before.  Take  note  av  that,  sorr.  Thin 
we  wint,  hand  in  hand,  to  ould  Mother  Shadd  like  two  little 
childher,  an'  she  said  it  was  no  bad  thing ;  an'  ould  Shadd 
nodded  behind  his  pipe,  an'  Dinah  ran  away  to  her  own  room." 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Period  IV. 
^^=^:      VIEW  OF  RECENT  LITEBATURE. 


MERICA,  even  yet  physically  undeveloped,  has 
had  few  minds  of  the  best  quality  devoted  to 
literature.  The  objective  activities  of  pioneer- 
ing, agriculture,  commerce,  business,  science, 
have  thus  far  almost  monopolized  the  genius  of  the 
nation.  Severely  winnowed  of  chaff,  the  fruit  of 
our  literary  effort  from  the  beginning  to  the  present  day,  is 
very  small ;  but  it  may  reasonably  be  pronounced  good.  The 
best  work  of  men  like  Benjamin  Franklin,  Washington  Ir- 
ving, Edgar  Allan  Poe,  Bryant,  Emerson,  lyongfellow,  Haw- 
thorne, Holmes,  l/owell  (the  list  might  be  enlarged),  has 
withstood  and  wiir  sustain  the  test  of  time.  But  nations,  like 
individuals,  must  build  their  house  before  they  adorn  it; 
and  our  adornment,  if  choice,  has  not  been  copious. 

Of  books  and  fugitive  writings  there  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  been  a  vast  supply.  It  has  seemed  as  if  almost  every- 
body wrote.  But  their  product  must  be  called  echoes  and 
expansions,  not  literature.  Often  commendable  in  respect  of 
outward  technical  form,  inwardly  they  are  empty.  The  cri- 
terion of  true  literary  development  is  poetry,  and  no  poetry  is 
being  written  in  America  to-day — only  interminable  rhymes. 
Our  last  singing  voices  are  those  of  Stedman  and  Stoddard. 

The  Civil  War  marked  the  division  between  our  contem- 
porary and  our  former  literary  epbchs.  The  best  work  of  our 
great  writers  was  then  done,  and  the  new  writers  had  not  yet 

287 


288  LITERATURE  OF  MX,  NATIONS. 

come  in  sight.  But  about  1870  Bret  Harte  struck  a  fresh 
note,  and  thenceforth  a  new  mental  attitude  began  to  be  ob- 
servable in  our  writers.  Howells  and  James  sowed  the  seeds 
of  distrust  in  that  kind  of  romance  of  which  Theodore  Win- 
throp  was  a  typical  cultivator,  which  consists  in  exaggerating, 
coloring  or  misrepresenting  facts,  in  order  to  exploit  a  senti- 
ment or  round  out  a  plot.  Fidelity  to  actual  life  was  their 
basis;  analysis  of  motive  was  refined  and  brought  down  to 
detail,  and  care  was  taken  to  avoid  sensational  episodes  and 
striking  conclusions.  The  theory  was  in  the  nature  of  a  re- 
action, and  like  all  reactions,  its  merit  was  found  to  have 
limitations;  it  approached  life  from  the  outside,  critically  in- 
stead of  creatively,  and  thus  missed  the  more  important  part 
of  it;  it  practically  substituted  the  experiences  of  the  writer 
for  the  possibilities  of  the  race.  Its  delicate  and  reserved 
pictures  had  the  charm  of  veracity  and  finish ;  but  they  were 
not  pictures  in  the  full  sense;  studies  was  their  fitter  title. 
The  reader  left  them  without  the  feeling  of  inward  repose 
which  is  the  final  efiect  of  a  true  work  of  art. 

But  the  value  of  the  new  departure  which  they  illustrated 
was  very  great.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  revert  to  the 
false  drawing  and  forced  effects  of  the  preceding  interval. 
Backgrounds  and  figures  could  no  longer  be  evolved  from 
the  flabby  world  of  fancy,  feeling  and  former  writings;  they 
must  be  investigated  after  the  scientific  manner,  and  at  first 
hand;  physiology,  biology,  sociology,  must  warrant  every 
statement,  portrait  and  episode.  The  gain  is  unquestionable. 
Haphazard  work  was  excluded  from  those  magazines  whose 
favor  was  supposed  to  confer  distinction.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  drawbacks :  imagination,  even  of  the  finer  sort, 
was  regarded  with  suspicion.  While  our  great  magazines 
chastened  style,  purified  material,  and  improved  handling, 
they  repressed  independent  imaginative  development. 

But  if  the  finer  products  of  imaginatio^  are  temporarily 
delayed,  historical  study  has  brought  forth  good  and  useful 
fruits,  and  the  literature  of  travel  and  exploration  has  been 
cultivated.  The  age  is  not  decadent:  there  is  power  in 
abundance;  all  that  is  needed  is  inspiration,  and  faith  to 
yield  to  it  when  it  comes. 


JAMES  RUSSEIvI.  LOWEIvL. 

"In  a  liberal  sense,"  wrote  Mr.  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman 
some  years  ago,  "and  somewhat  as  Emerson  stands  for 
American  thought,  the  poet  Lowell  has  become  our  repre- 
sentative man  of  letters."  Lowell  still  stands  as  America's 
representative  man  of  letters,  not  because  he  has  struck  the 
highest  note,  but  because  he  has  the  greatest  breadth  and 
versatility,  and  has  woven  into  his  prose  and  verse  more  of 
the  warp  and  woof  of  American  life  and  thought  than  any 
one  else.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  noble  and  lofty  strain  of  the 
"Commemoration  Ode  "  to  the  quaint  humor  and  shrewdness 
of  Hosea  Biglow,  and  yet  both  have  made  a  strong  appeal  in 
widely  different  ways,  not  only  to  America,  but  to  all  the 
English-speaking  world. 

James  Russell  Lowell  was  bom  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  on 
February  22,  18 19.  His  father  was  the  Rev,  Charles  Lowell, 
and  his  grandfather  was  the  Judge  John  Lowell  who  founded 
the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston.  He  graduated  at  Harvard 
College  in  1838,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Boston  in 
1840.  He  never  practiced  law,  however,  but  began  his  career 
as  an  author  shortly  after  his  admission  to  the'  bar,  by  pub- 
lishing a  volume  of  poems  under  the  title  of  "A  Year's  Life." 
His  first  book  was  never  republished,  though  a  few  of  the 
poems  in  it  were  preserved  by  the  author.  In  1844  Lowell 
married  Maria  White,  the  gifted  woman  who  had  inspired 
' '  A  Year's  Life. "  Being  an  ardent  abolitionist,  she  influenced 
Lowell  into  becoming  a  warm  advocate  of  this  cause,  which 
he  espoused  with  his  whole  heart  and  soul,  and  advocated 
with  glowing  words  and  flaming  pen. 

Indignation  at  the  Mexican  War  and  hatred  of  slavery 
X— 19  289 


290  LITERATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

were  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  humorous  but  caustic  "Big- 
low  Papers,"  which  Lowell  began  in  1846  and  continued  till 
1848.  A  second,  but  less  successful  series  appeared  during 
the  Civil  War,  in  1864.  In  both  his  mastery  of  the  Yankee 
dialect  and  insight  into  the  Yankee  mind  contributed  to  the 
effect  intended. 

Notwithstanding  his  intense  interest  in  the  issues  of  the 
day,  slavery  and  the  Civil  War,  Lowell  found  time  for  general 
literary  work.  As  early  as  1845  appeared  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  his  poems,  "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  a  poem 
on  the  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  In  another  vein  was  the 
"Fable  for  Critics,"  which  appeared  anonymously,  and 
keenly  criticised  the  writers  of  the  day,  including  himself. 

In  185 1  Lowell  and  his  second  wife  traveled  in  Europe, 
remaining  for  over  a  year,  the  fruits  of  this  residence  abroad 
being  essays  on  Italian  art  and  literature  and  studies  of  Dante. 
In  1855  Lowell  was  appointed  Professor  of  Modem  Languages 
and  Belles-Lettres  at  Harvard  University ;  he  was  the  first 
editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly ^  founded  in  1857,  and  for  ten 
years  he  was  joint  editor  of  the  North  American  Review.  His 
critical  and  miscellaneous  essays  in  these  periodicals  he  sub- 
sequently collected  and  published  under  the  titles  of  "Among 
my  Books"  and  "My  Study  Windows."  On  July  21,  1865, 
he  delivered  his  noble  "  Commemoration  Ode,"  in  honor  of 
the  graduates  of  Harvard  University  who  had  fallen  in  the 
Civil  War.  This  is  Lowell's  greatest  poetical  achievement, 
and  immeasurably  the  finest  poem  called  forth  by  the  war. 
In  1869  appeared  "  Under  the  Willows  and  other  Poems," 
and  in  1870  "The  Cathedral,"  one  of  the  highest  expres- 
sions of  the  poet's  genius.  In  1877  Lowell  was  appointed 
by  President  Hayes  American  Minister  to  Spain,  and  after- 
wards he  was  transferred  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  where 
he  remained  until  1885.  During  his  residence  in  England, 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  conferred  upon  him  the  degrees  of 
D.  C.  L.  and  LL.  D.  On  returning  to  the  United  States,  he 
took  up  his  residence  at  Cambridge,  where  he  died  August 
12,  1 89 1.  Three  years  before  his  death  he  published  "Hearts- 
ease and  Rue,"  and  "Political  Essays."  "American  Ideas 
for  English  Readers,"  ' '  Latest  Literary  Essays  and  Addresses," 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  29  X 

■  and  "  Old  Englisli  Dramatists,"  were  issued  posthumously  in 
1892. 

The  record  of  his  life,  as  well  as  his  works  themselves, 
show  that  Lowell  was  eminently  a  scholar,  yet  not  a  recluse ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  was  active  and  efficient  in  all  the  public 
affairs  of  his  time.  Yet  he  is  known  best  both  here  and  in 
England  as  a  humorist.  His  "John  P.  Robinson"  and  "The 
Courtin' "  traveled  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  are 
familiar  to-day  to  thousands  who  never  read  "The  Cathedral" 
or  the  grand  "  Harvard  Commemoration  Ode."  Noble  as  are 
Lowell's  higher  poetical  flights,  they  have  not  stamped  them- 
selves upon  the  life  and  thought  of  the  people.  As  a  poet  he 
lacks  spontaneity,  the  writing  of  what  Wordsworth  calls  "  an 
inevitable  line."  Consequently  he  has  not  enriched  our  stock 
of  familiar  quotations  as  much  as  have  some  of  our  lesser 
poets.  But  the  future  may  hold  for  him  a  wider  appreciation 
as  a  poet.  His  essays  rank  among  the  best  specimens  of  their 
class  in  America  ;  but  it  is  as  a  critic  and  humorist  that 
Lowell  stands  pre-eminent  among  American  men  of  letters. 

(The  following  examples  of  Lowell's  work  are  used  by  permission 
of,  and  by  special  arrangement  with  the  authorized  publishers,  Messrs. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 

The  Courtin'. 

God  makes  sech  nights,  all  white  an'  still 
Fur  'z  you  can  look  or  listen, 
,  Moonshine  an'  snow  on  field  an'  hill, 

All  silence  an'  all  glisten. 

Zekle  crep'  up  quite  unbeknown 

An'  peeked  in  thru'  the  winder, 
An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 

'Ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

A  fireplace  filled  the  room's  one  side 

With  half  a  cord  o'  wood  in — 
There  warn't  no  stoves  (tell  comfort  died) 

To  bake  ye  to  a  puddin'. 

The  wa'nut  logs  shot  sparkles  out. 
Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her, 


292  WTERATtTRE  OF  AI.L  NATIONS. 

An'  leetle  flames  danced  all  about 
The  chiny  on-  the  dresser. 

Agin'  the  chimbley  crook-necks  hung, 
An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 

The  ole  queen's  arm  thet  gran' ther  Young 
Fetched  back  from  Concord  busted. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  was  in, 
Seemed  warm  from  floor  to  ceilin', 


An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 
Bz  the  apples  she  was  peelin'. 


She  heered  a  foot,  an'  knowed  it  tu, 
A-raspin'  on  the  scraper, — 

All  ways  to  once  her  feelin's  flew 
I^ike  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 

He  kin'  o'  I'itered  on  the  mat 
Some  doubtfle  o'  the  sekle, 

His  heart  kep'  goin'  pity-pat, 
But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 


AMERICAN  I,ITERATUR:e.  293 

An'  yet  she  gin  her  cheer  a  jerk, 

Ez  though  she  wished  him  furder, 
An'  on  her  apples  kep'  to  work, 

Parin'  away  like  murder. 


"You  want  to  see  my  Pa,  I  s'pose?" 
"  Wall  ...  no  ...  I  come  dasignin^  " 

"To  see  my  Ma  ?    She  is  sprinklin'  clo'es 
Agin  to-morrer's  i'nin'." 

To  say  why  gals  act  so  or  so, 

Or  don't,  'ould  be  presumin' ; 
Mebby  to  mean  yes  an'  say  no, 

Comes  nateral  to  women. 

He  stood  a  spell  on  one  foot  fust, 

Then  stood  a  spell  on  t'other, 
An'  on  which  one  he  felt  the  wust 

He  couldn't  ha'  told  ye  nuther. 

Says  he,  "I'd  better  call  aginj " 
Says  she,  " Think  likely,  Mister;" 

That  last  word  pricked  him  like  a  pin, 
An'  .  .  .  Wall,  he  up  an'  kist  her. 

When  Ma  bimby  upon  'em  slips, 

Huldy  sot  pale  ez  ashes, 
All  kin'  o'  smily  roun'  the  lips 

An'  teary  roun'  the  lashes. 

For  she  was  jes'  the  quiet  kind 

Whose  naturs  never  vary, 
lyike  streams  that  keep  a  summer  mind 

Snow-hid  in  Jenooary. 

The  blood  clost  roun'  her  heart  felt  glued 

Too  tight  for  all  expressin'. 
Tell  mother  see  how  metters  stood. 

And  gin  'em  both  her  blessin'. 

Then  the  red  come  back  like  the  tide 

Down  to  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
An'  all  I  know  is  they  was  cried 

In  meetin'  come  nex'  Sunday. 


294  LITERATURE  OP  AI,I<  NATIONS. 


The  Day  op  Decision. 

(From  "The  Present  Crisis,"  1844.) 

Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to  decide, 
In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for  the  good  or  evil  side ; 
Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah,  offering  each  the  bloom 

or  blight, 
Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the  sheep  upon  the  right, 
And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that  darkness  and  that 

light. 

Hast  thou  chosen,  O  my  people,  on  whose  party  thou  shalt  stand. 
Ere  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals  shakes  the  dust  against  our 

land? 
Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet  't  is  Truth  alone  is  strong, 
And,  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now,  I  see  around  her  throng 
Troops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to  enshield  her  from  all  wrong. 

Backward  look  across  the  ages  and  the  beacon-moments  see, 
That,  like  peaks  of  some  sunk  continent,  jut  through  Oblivion's 

sea; 
Not  an  ear  in  court  or  market  for  the  low  foreboding  cry 
Of  those  Crises,  God's  stern  winnowers,  from  whose  feet  earth's 

chaff  must  fly  ; 
Never  shows  the  choice  momentous  till  the  judgment  hath  passed 

by. 

Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger ;  history's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems  and  the 

Word; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold.  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne, — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and,  behind  the  dim  unknown, 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above  His  own. 

We  see  dimly  in  the  Present  what  is  small  and  what  is  great, 
Slow  of  faith  how  weak  an  arm  may  turn  the  iron  helm  of  fate. 
But  the  soul  is  still  oracular ;  amid  the  market's  din, 
I^ist  the  ominous  stern  whisper  from  the  Delphic  cave  within, — 
"They  enslave  their  children's  children  who  make  compromise 
with  sin." 


AMBRICAN  WTBRATURE.  295 


A  Ruined  Life. 

(From  "Extreme  Unction.") 

Upon  the  hour  when  I  was  bom, 

God  said,  "Another  man  shall  be," 
And  the  great  Maker  did  not  scorn 

Out  of  Himself  to  fashion  me ; 
He  sunned  me  with  His  ripening  looks, 

And  Heaven's  rich  instincts  in  me  grew, 
As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 

Send  violets  up  and  paint  them  blue. 

Yes,  I  who  now,  with  angry  tears. 

Am  exiled  back  to  brutish  clod, 
Have  borne  unquenched  for  fourscore  years 

A  spark  of  the  eternal  God ; 
And  to  what  end?     How  yield  I  back 

The  trust  for  such  high  uses  given  ? 
Heaven's  light  hath  but  revealed  a  track 

Whereby  to  crawl  away  from  heaven. 

Men  think  it  is  an  awful  sight 

To  see  a  soul  just  set  adrift 
On  that  drear  voyage  from  whose  night 
•  The  ominous  shadows  never  lift ; 
But 't  is  more  awful  to  behold 

A  helpless  infant  newly  bom. 
Whose  little  hands  unconscious  hold 

The  keys  of  darkness  and  of  mom. 

Mine  held  them  once ;  I  flung  away 

Those  keys  that  might  have  open  set 
The  golden  sluices  of  the  day. 

But  clutch  the  keys  of  darkness  yet; 
I  hear  the  reapers  singing  go 

Into  God's  harvest ;    I,  that  might 
With  them  have  chosen,  here  below 

Grope  shuddering  at  the  gates  of  night. 

O  glorious  Youth,  that  once  wast  mine ! 
O  high  Ideal !  all  in  vain 


296  WTERATDRE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

Ye  enter  at  this  ruined  shrine 
Whence  worship  ne'er  shall  rise  again ; 

The  bat  and  owl  inhabit  here, 
The  snake  nests  in  the  altar-stone, 

The  sacred  vessels  moulder  near. 
The  image  of  the  God  is  gone. 

Abraham  Lincoln. 

(From  the  "Ode  Recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration,"  July  21, 

1865.) 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led. 

With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 
To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and  burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored  urn. 
Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  us  by  rote : 
For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw. 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new. 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed. 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead ; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be. 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 

But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity ! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust ; 

They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 

And  supple-tempered  will 
That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring  again  and  thrust. 

His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of  mind. 

Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 

A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors  blind ; 


AMERICAN  llTBRATtrRB.  297 

Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 

Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human  kind, 

Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars. 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  momward  stUl, 
Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 
Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface 
And  thwart  her  genial  will ; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 
And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to  face. 

I  praise  him  not ;  it  were  too  late ; 
And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 
In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 
Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he : 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide. 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime. 
Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums. 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour. 
But  at  last  silence  comes ; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower. 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man. 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American. 

English  View  ot  America. 

(From  essay  on  "  A  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners.") 

Till  after  our  Civil  War  it  never  seemed  to  enter  the 
head  of  any  foreigner,  especially  of  any  Englishman,  that  an 
American  had  what  could  be  called  a  country,  except  as  a 
place  to  eat,  sleep,  and  trade  in.  Then  it  seemed  to  strike 
them  suddenly.  "By  Jove,  you  know,  fellahs  don't  fight 
like  that  for  a  shop-till ! "  No,  I  rather  think  not.  To  Ameri- 
cans America  is  something  more  than  a  promise  and  an  ex- 
pectation. It  has  a  past  and  traditions  of  its  own.  A  descent 
from  men  who  sacrificed  everything  and  came  hither,  not  to 


298  WTERATURB  OF  KLX,  NATIONS. 

• 

better  their  fortunes,  but  to  plant  their  idea  in  virgin  soil, 
should  be  a  good  pedigree.  There  was  never  colony  save  this 
that  went  forth,  not  to  seek  gold,  but  God.  Is  it  not  as  well 
to  have  sprung  from  such  as  these  as  from  some  burly  beggar 
who  came  over  with  Willhemus  Conquestor,  unless,  indeed,  a 
line  grow  better  as  it  runs  farther  away  from  stalwart  ances- 
tors? And  for  history,  it  is  dry  enough,  no  doubt,  in  the 
books,  but,  for  all  that,  is  of  a  kind  that  tells  in  the  blood. 
I  have  admitted  that  Carlyle's  sneer  had  a  show  of  truth  in 
it.  But  what  does  he  himself,  like  a  true  Scot,  admire  in  the 
Hohenzollerns  ?  First  of  all,  that  they  were  canny ^  a  thrifty, 
forehanded  race.  Next,  that  they  made  a  good  fight  from 
generation  to  generation  with  the  chaos  around  them.  That 
is  precisely  the  battle  which  the  English  race  on  this  conti- 
nent has  been  carrying  doughtily  on  for  two  centuries  and  a 
half.  Doughtily  and  silently,  for  you  cannot  hear  in  Europe 
"that  crash,  the  death-song  of  the  perfect  tree,"  that  has 
been  going  on  here  from  sturdy  father  to  sturdy  son,  and 
making  this  continent  habitable  for  the  weaker  Old  World 
breed  that  has  swarmed  to  it  during  the  last  half-century. 
If  ever  men  did  a  good  stroke  of  work  on  this  planet,  it  was 
the  forefathers  of  those  whom  you  are  wondering  whether  it 
would  not  be  prudent  to  acknowledge  as  far-off  cousins.  Alas, 
man  of  genius,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much,  could  you  see 
nothing  more  than  the  burning  of  a  foul  chimney  in  that 
clash  of  Michael  and  Satan  which  flamed  up  under  your  very 
eyes? 

Before  our  war  we  were  to  Europe  but  a  huge  mob  of  ad- 
venturers and  shop-keepers.  Leigh  Hunt  expressed  it  well 
enough  when  he  said  that  he  could  never  think  of  America 
without  seeing  a  gigantic  counter  stretched  all  along  the  sea- 
board. Feudalism  had  by  degrees  made  commerce,  the  great 
civilizer,  contemptible.  But  a  tradesman  with  sword  on 
thigh,  and  very  prompt  of  stroke,  was  not  only  redoubtable, 
he  had  become  respectable,  also.  Few  people,  I  suspect,  al- 
luded twice  to  a  needle  in  Sir  John  Hawkwood's  presence, 
after  that  doughty  fighter  had  exchanged  it  for  a  more  dan- 
gerous tool  of  the  same  metal.  Democracy  had  been  hitherto 
only  a  ludicroi;ts  effort  to  reverse  the  laws  of  nature  by  thrust- 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE.  299 

ing  Cleou  into  the  place  of  Pericles.  But  a  democracy  that 
could  fight  for  an  abstraction,  whose  members  held  life  and 
goods  cheap  compared  with  that  larger  life  which  we  call 
country,  was  not  merely  unheard-of,  but  portentous.  It  was 
the  nightmare  of  the  Old  World  taking  upon  itself  flesh  and 
blood,  turning  out  to  be  substance  and  not  dream.  Since 
the  Norman  crusader  clanged  down  upon  the  throne  of  the 
porphyro-geniti^  carefully  draped  appearances  had  never  re- 
ceived such  a  shock,  had  never  been  so  rudely  called  on  to 
produce  their  titles  to  the  empire  of  the  world.  Authority 
has  had  its  periods  not  unlike  those  of  geolo^,  and  at  last 
comes  Man  claiming  kingship  in  right  of  his  mere  man- 
hood. The  world  of  the  Saurians  might  be  in  some  respects 
more  picturesque,  but  the  march  of  events  is  inexorable,  and 
it  is  by-gone. 

The  young  giant  had  certainly  got  out  of  long-clothes. 
He  had  become  the  enfant  terrible  of  the  human  household. 
It  was  not  and  will  not  be  easy  for  the  world  (especially  for 
our  British  cousins)  to  look  upon  us  as  grown  up.  The 
youngest  of  nations,  its  people  must  also  be  young  and  to  be 
treated  accordingly,  was  the  syllogism, — as  if  libraries  did 
not  make  all  nations  equally  old  in  all  those  respects,  at  least, 
where  age  is  an  advantage  and  not  a  defect.  Youth,  no 
doubt,  has  its  good  qualities,  as  people  feel  who  are  losing  it, 
but  boyishness  is  another  thing.  We  had  been  somewhat 
boyish  as  a  nation,  a  little  loud,  a  little  pushing,  a  little 
braggart.  But  might  it  not  partly  have  been  because  we  felt 
that  we  had  certain  claims  to  respect  that  were  not  admitted  ? 
The  war  which  established  our  position  as  a  vigorous  nation- 
ality has  also  sobered  us.  A  nation,  like  a  man,  cannot  look 
death  in  the  eye  for  four  years,  without  some  strange  reflections, 
without  arriving  at  some  clearer  consciousness  of  the  stuff"  it 
is  made  of,  without  some  great  moral  change.  Such  a  change, 
or  the  beginning  of  it,  no  observant  person  can  fail  to  see 
here.  Our  thought  and  our  politics,  our  bearing  as  a  people, 
are  assuming  a  manlier  tone.  We  have  been  compelled  to 
see  what  was  weak  in  democracy  as  well  as  what  was  strong. 
We  have  begun  obscurely  to  recognize  that  things  do  not  go 
of  themselves,  and  that  popular  government  is  not  in  itself  a 


300 


LITERATtJRB  OF  AI<I<  NATIONS. 


panacea,  is  no  better  than  any  other  form  except  as  the  virtue 
and  wisdom  of  the  people  make  it  so,  and  that  when  men  under- 
take to  do  their  own  kingship,  they  enter  upon  the  dangers 
and  responsibili',  ies  as  well  as  the  privileges  of  the  function. 
Above  all,  it  looks  as  if  we  were  on  the  way  to  be  persuaded 
that  no  government  can  be  carried  on  by  declamation.  It  is 
noticeable  also  that  facility  of  communication  has  made  the 
best  English  and  French  thought  far  more  directly  operative 
here  than  ever  before.  Without  being  Europeanized,  our 
discussion  of  important  questions  in  statesmanship,  in  political 
economy,  in  aesthetics,  is  taking  a  broader  scope  and  a  higher 
tone.  It  had  certainly  been  provincial,  one  might  also  say 
local,  to  a  very  unpleasant  extent.  Perhaps  our  experience 
in  soldiership  has  taught  us  to  value  training  more  than  we 
have  been  popularly  wont.  We  may  possibly  come  to  the 
conclusion,  one  of  these  days,  that  self-made  men  may  not  be 
always  equally  skillful  in  the  manufacture  of  wisdom,  may 
not  be  divinely  commissioned  to  fabricate  the  higher  qualities 
of  opinion  on  all  possible  topics  of  human  interest. 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


Holmes,  born  in  1809,  and  dying  in  1894,  was  the 
descendiant  of  a  scholarly  New  England  ancestry.  After 
graduating  at  Harvard,  he  began  life  as  a  professor  and  prac- 
titioner in  medicine;  he  was  married  in  1840,  and  lived  all 
his  life  in  Boston.  He  twice  visited  Europe,  first  as  a  young 
fellow  of  one-and-twenty,  and  again,  after  more  than  half  a 
century,  as  a  veteran  of  letters,  known  and  loved  in  both 
hemispheres.  Of  all  our  writers,  he  is  the  sunniest,  the  wit- 
tiest, the  most  discursive,  and  one  of  the  least  uneven. 

Until  1857,  Holmes  had  written  nothing  beyond  occa- 
sional poems,  excellent  of  their  kind,  but  not  of  themselves 
suflScient  to  make  a  reputation.  But  in  that  year,  the  Atlan- 
tic Monthly  was  started,  and  Holmes  contributed  to  it  a  series 
of  unique  essays  entitled,  "The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 
Table."  They  had  the  form  of  familiar  dialogues  between  a 
group  of  diverse  but  common  types  in  a  boarding-house,  upon 
all  manner  of  topics.  They  immediately  caught  the  fancy  of 
all  readers,  and  lifted  Holmes  to  a  literary  altitude  where  he 
ever  after  remained.  Two  years  later  "  Elsie  Venner,"  his 
first  novel,  a  study  in  heredity  and  in  American  village  char- 
acter, was  published ;  it  is  good,  but  not  in  the  same  class 
•writh  the  best  imaginative  work.  The  same  criticism  must 
be  passed  on  "  The  Guardian  Angel,"  his  second  effort  in  fic- 
tion, which  appeared  in  1867.  Both  have  so  much  merit 
that  one  wonders  not  to  find  them  better.  But  they  make  it 
plain  that  Holmes's  proper  field  was  the  discursive  essay 
and  the  occasional  poem;  and  here  his  fame  is  solid  and 
secure. 

301 


302  WTBRATURS  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

Wit  rather  than  humor  characterizes  Holmes ;  yet  he  has 
the  tenderness  which  usually  accompanies  only  the  latter. 
His  mind  is  swift  in  movement,  and  catches  remote  analogies ; 
he  brings  together  the  near  and  the  far,  with  the  eiFect  of  a 
pleasing  surprise.  His  thought  tends  to  shape  itself  in  epi- 
gram ;  hesays  more  "  good  things  " — which  are  not  merely  good, 
but  often  wise — than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  The  habit 
of  his  mind  was  discursive  and  independent,  rather  than 
deeply  original ;  he  had  opinions  on  all  subjects ;  he  stated 
them  so  brightly  and  aptly  that  they  often  seemed  new;  but 
in  truth  Holmes  is  orthodox.  His  quick  sympathies  and  ex- 
cellent taste,  combined  with  the  harmony  of  nature  which 
creates  the  synthetic  attitude,  make  him  a  poet  whose  pro- 
ductions not  seldom  reach  a  high  plane,  as  for  example  in 
"The  Chambered  Nautilus."  He  is  an  optimist,  and  a 
moralizer,  and  turns  both  characteristics  to  sound  literary 
advantage.  The  comic  bias  of  his  general  outlook  upon  life 
leads  him  to  be  so  constantly  funny  and  acute,  that  the 
reader  is  in  some  danger  of  losing  the  fine  edge  of  apprecia- 
tion ;  the  writer  becomes  his  own  rival.  Once  in  a  while, 
however,  as  in  "Old  Ironsides,"  the  fervor  of  his  patriotism, 
or  of  some  other  high  emotion,  thrills  him  into  seriousness, 
and  then  he  strikes  a  pure  and  lofty  note.  There  is  some- 
thing lovable  in  all  that  he  has  done ;  and  no  man  of  letters 
among  us  has  been  the  object  of  more  widespread  personal 
affection  than  has  Holmes. 

We  return  from  other  appreciations  to  the  Autocrat  series 
— for  he  wrote  a  number  of  books  of  a  character  similar  to 
these  first  essays.  The  untrammeled  plan  of  them  suits  his 
genius ;  he  can  spring  here  and  there  as  chance  or  humor 
suggests,  and  entertain  us  in  a  hundred  different  ways  one 
after  another.  He  preaches  charming  lay  sermons,  on  a  score 
of  texts  at  once,  and  unless  unintermittent  entertainment  can 
be  tedious,  tediousness  is  impossible  to  Holmes.  He  opens 
no  unknown  worlds,  but  he  makes  us  see  the  world  we  know 
better.  He  penetrates  beneath  the  surface  of  human  nature, 
though  he  falls  short  of  creative  insight.  After  reading  him, 
we  rise  with  a  kindlier  feeling  towards  men  and  things,  and 
a  wiser  understanding  of  them. 


AMERICAN  WTBRATURB. 


303 


The;  Chambered  Nautilus. 

This  is  the  ship  of  pearl,  which,  poets  feign, 

Sails  the  unshadow'd  main — 

The  venturous  bark  that  flings 
On  the  sweet  summer  wind  its  pttrpled  wings, 
In  gulfs  enchanted,  where  the  siren  sings. 

And  coral  reefs  lie  bare. 
Where  the  cold  sea-maids  rise  to  sun  their  streaming  hair. 


Its  webs  of  living  gauze  no  more  unfurl ; 

Wreck'd  is  the  ship  of  pearl ! 

And  every  chamber' d  cell. 
Where  its  dim  dreaming  life  was  wont  to  dwell. 
As  the  frail  tenant  shaped  his  growing  shell. 

Before  thee  lies  reveal'd, — 
Its  iris'd  ceiling  rent,  its  sunless  crypt  unseal' d! 

Year  after  year  beheld  the  silent  toil 

That  spread  his  lustrous  coil  ; 

Still,  as  the  spiral  grew, 
He  left  the  past  year's  dwelling  for  the  new. 
Stole  with  soft  step  its  shining  archway  through, 

Built  up  its  idle  door, 
Stretch'd  in  his  last-found  home,  and  knew  the  old  no  more. 


304  UTERATURB  OF  ALI.  NATIONS. 

Thanks  for  the  heavenly  message  brought  by  thee, 

Child  of  the  wandering  sea, 

Cast  from  her  lap,  forlorn ! 
From  thy  dead  lips  a  clearer  note  is  born 
Than  ever  Triton  blew  from  wreathed  horn! 

While  on  mine  ear  it  rings, 
Through  the  deep  caves  of  thought  I  hear  a  voice  that  sings  : — 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll  I 

I<eave  thy  low- vaulted  past ! 
I^et  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast. 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
I^eaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea  I 

The  Thrbe  Johns. 

(From  "The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table.") 
When  John  and  Thomas  are  talking  together,  it  is  natural 
enough  that  among  the  six  there  should  be  more  or  less  con- 
fusion and  misapprehension. 

[Our  landlady  turned  pale ; — no  doubt  she  thought  there 
was  a  screw  loose  in  my  intellects, — and  that  involved  the 
probable  loss  of  a  boarder.  A  severe-looking  person,  who 
wears  a  Spanish  cloak  and  a  sad  cheek,  fluted  by  the  passions 
of  the  melodrama,  whom  I  understand  to  be  the  professional 
ruffian  of  the  neighboring  theatre,  alluded,  with  a  certain 
lifting  of  the  brow,  drawing  down  of  the  corners  of  the  mouth, 
and  somewhat  rasping  voce  di  petto^  to  FalstaflF's  nine  men  in 
buckram.  Everybody  looked  up.  I  believe  the  old  gentle- 
man opposite  was  afraid  I  should  seize  the  carving-knife ;  at 
any  rate,  he  slid  it  to  one  side,  as  it  were  carelessly.] 

I  think,  I  said,  I  can  make  it  plain  to  Benjamin  Franklin 
here,  that  there  are  at  least  six  personalities  distinctly  to  be 
recognized  as  taking  part  in  that  dialogue  between  John  and 

Thomas. 

1.  The  real  John  ;  known  only  to  his  Maker. 

2.  John's  ideal  John  ;  never  the  real  one,  and 
Three  Johns.     ■!  often  very  unlike  him. 

3.  Thomas's  ideal  John  ;  never  the  real  John, 
nor  John's  John,  but  often  very  unlike 
either. 


AMERICAN  tlTERATURH.  3O5 

{I.  The  real  Thomas. 
2.  Thomas's  ideal  Thomas. 
3.  John's  ideal  Thomas. 

Only  one  of  the  three  Johns  is  taxed ;  only  one  can  be 
weighed  on  a  platform-balance ;  but  the  other  two  are  just  as 
important  in  the  conversation.  I^et  us  suppose  the  real  John 
to  be  old,  dull,  and  ill-looking.  But  as  the  higher  powers 
have  not  conferred  on  men  the  gift  of  seeing  themselves  in 
the  true  light,  John  very  possibly  conceives  himself  to  be 
youthful,  witty,  and  fascinating,  and  talks  from  the  point  of 
view  of  this  ideal.  Thomas,  again,  believes  him  to  be  an 
artful  rogue,  we  will  say ;  therefore  he  m,  so  far  as  Thoinas's 
attitude  in  the  conversation  is  concerned,  an  artful  rogue, 
though  really  simple  and  stupid.  The  same  conditions  apply 
to  the  three  Thomases.  It  follows,  that,  until  a  man  can  be 
found  who  knows  himself  as  his  Maker  knows  him,  or  who 
sees  himself  as  others  see  him,  there  must  be  at  least  six  per- 
sons engaged  in  every  dialogue  between  two.  Of  these,  the 
least  important,  philosophically  speaking,  is  the  one  that  we 
have  called  the  real  person.  No  wonder  two  disputants  often 
get  angry,  when  there  are  six  of  them  talking  and  listening 
all  at  the  same  time. 

[A  very  unphilosophical  application  of  the  above  remarks 
was  made  by  a  young  fellow,  answering  to  the  name  of  John, 
who  sits  near  me  at  table.  A  certain  basket  of  peaches,  a  rare 
vegetable,  little  known  to  boarding-houses,  was  on  its  way  to 
me  via  this  unlettered  Johannes.  He  appropriated  the  three 
that  remained  in  the  basket,  remarking  that  there  was  just . 
one  apiece  for  him.  I  convinced  him  that  his  practical  infer- 
ence was  hasty  and  illogical,  but  in  the  meantime  he  had 
eaten  the  peaches.] 

(The  extracts  from  Dr.  Holmes's  works  are  used  by  special  per- 
mission of,  and  special  arrangement  with  the  authorized  publishers, 
Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 
X — 20 


.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  poet,  though 
born  and  not  made,  must  be  strongly  influ- 
enced  by  his  early  surroundings.  John  Green- 
leaf  .Whittier  was  but  little  indebted  to  scholarly  culture  or  to 
art  or  to  literary  companionship ;  he  was  self-made  and  largely 
self-taught.  Born  near  Haverhill,  Mass.,  on  December  17th, 
1807,  he  worked  on  his  father's  farm  and  received  the  rudi- 
ments of  education  at  home.  After  he  was  seventeen  years 
old,  he  attended  the  Haverhill  Academy  for  two  terms,  and 
at  nineteen  he  began  to  contribute  anonymous  poems  to  the 
Free  Press,  edited  by  Wm.  Lloyd  Garrison.  Then  began  a 
friendship  between  the  editor  and  the  young  poet  which  was 
cemented  by  their  joint  activity  in  the  great  Abolition  Con- 
test. Whittier  wrote  fervid  anti-slavery  lyrics,  edited  news- 
papers in  Boston,  Haverhill  and  Hartford,  and  was  for  a  year 
a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature.  In  183 1,  he  pub- 
lished his  first  collection  of  poems,  "  Legends  of  New  Eng- 
land," a  number  of  Indian  traditions,  and  shortly  afterwards 
a  poetical  tale,  "  Mogg  Megone."  In  1836  he  was  appointed 
secretary  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  later 
became  editor  of  the  Pennsylvania  Freeman,  in  Philadelphia. 
But  the  abolition  cause  was  intensely  unpopular ;  the  printing 
office  was  at  one  time  sacked  and  burned,  and  the  editor  was 
forced  many  times  to  face  enraged  mobs.  In  the  Freeman 
appeared  some  of  Whittier's  best  anti-slavery  lyrics.  There 
was  crude  force  in  these  scornfully  indignant  lyrics,  for  though 
Whittier  inherited  Quaker  blood,  and  adhered  to  the  Quaker 
practice,  he  was  a  fiery  apostle  of  .human  brotherhood.  His 
health  was  always  delicate,  which  he  attributed  to  the 
"toughening"  process,  common  when  he  was  a  boy.  la 
306 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  1307 

1840,  he  settled  down  at  Amesbury,  Mass.,  where  his  sister 
and  afterwards  his  niece  abode  with  him.  But  for  the  last 
twenty  years  of  his  life  he  was  deprived  of  the  companion- 
ship of  relatives. 

Poems  inspired  by  the  passion  of  political  events  as  a  rule 
are  not  of  a  lasting  quality, — they  pass  away  when  the  politi- 
cal questions  that  evoked  them  have  been  settled.  Few  readers 
to-day  dip  into  the  anti-slavery  lyrics.  But  in  writing  them 
Whittier  thought  of  other  things  than  literary  fame.  He 
himself  said  that  though  he  was  not  insensible  to  literary 
reputation,  he  set  a  higher  value  on  his  "  name  as  appended 
to  the  anti-slavery  declaration  of  1833  than  on  the  title  page 
of  any  book." 

Whittier  wrote  with  ease  and  freedom  and  was  a  volumin- 
ous author.  Among  his  best  known  books  are,  "  Voices  of 
Freedom,"  "  Songs  of  Labor, "  "National  Lyrics,"  "Snow- 
Bound,"  "Ballads  of  New  England,"  "The  Pennsylvania 
Pilgrim,"  "  The  King's  Missive  "  and  "At  Sundown."  A 
complete  collection  of  the  poet's  writings  in  prose  and  verse 
revised  by  himself  appeared  a  few  years  previous  to  his  death, 
which  took  place  on  September  7th,  1892. 

Whittier  will  always  be  best  remembered  for  his  charming 
New  England  idyll  "  Snow-Bound,"  into  which  his  own 
early  life  and  experiences  on  the  farm  were  woven,  and  for 
such  poems  as  "Maud  MuUer,"  "Barbara  Frietchie,"  "In 
School  Days,"  "Skipper  Ireson's  Ride"  and  "  Telling  the 
Bees. ' '  He  is  at  his  best  in  depicting  peaceful  and  simple 
country  scenes  and  characters.  He  lived  close  to  the  homely 
heart  and  life  of  the  New  England  country  people,  and  was 
to  them  a  kind  of  lesser  Robert  Burns,  not  a  writer  of  songs, 
yet  a  laureate  of  the  woodlands,  and  of  farm  life,  and  of  in- 
land lakes  and  streams.  His  life  was  as  simple  and  sweet  as 
is  most  of  his  poetry.  There  was  a  harmony  rarely  found 
that  intimately  blended  the  poet's  life  with  his  poems. 

(The  following  examples  of  Whittier's  poems  are  used  by  special 
permission  of,  and  special  arrangement  witli  the  authorized  publishers^ 
Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 


308  WTERATURE  OK  AI<I<  NATIONS. 


The  Pipes  at  Lucknow. 

Day  by  day  the  Indian  tiger 

I<ouder  yelled,  and  nearer  crept ; 
Round  and  round  the  jungle-serpent 
Near  and  nearer  circles  swept. 
"Pray  for  rescue,  wives  and  mothers, — 

Pray  to-day !  "  the  soldier  said; 
"To-morrow,  death's  between  us 

And  the  wrong  and  shame  we  dread." 

O,  they  listened,  looked,  and  waited, 

Till  their  hope  became  despair  ; 
And  the  sobs  of  low  bewailing 

Filled  the  pauses  of  their  prayer. 
Then  up  spake  a  Scottish  maiden, 

With  her  ear  unto  the  ground : 
' '  Dinna  ye  hear  it  ? — dinna  ye  hear  it  ? 

The  pipes  o'  Havelock  sound !  " 

I/ike  the  march  of  soundless  music 

Through  the  vision  of  the  seer. 
More  of  feeling  than  of  hearing. 

Of  the  heart  than  of  the  ear. 
She  knew  the  droning  pibroch. 

She  knew  the  Campbell's  call ; 
"Hark!  hear  ye  no'  MacGregor's, — 

The  grandest  o'  them  all ! " 

O,  they  listened,  dumb  and  breathless. 

And  they  caught  the  sound  at  last ; 
Faint  and  far  beyond  the  Goomtee 

Rose  and  fell  the  piper's  blast ! 
Then  a  burst  of  wild  thanksgiving 

Mingled  woman's  voice  and  man's ; 
"God  be  praised ! — the  march  of  Havelock ! 

The  piping  of  the  clans ! " 

Round  the  silver  domes  of  Lucknow, 
Moslem  mosque  and  Pagan  shrine, 

Breathed  the  air  to  Britons  dearest, 
The  air  of  Auld  Lang  Syne. 


AMERICAN  tlTERATURS.  309 

O'er  the  cruel  roll  of  war-drums 
Rose  that  sweet  and  homelike  strain ; 

And  the  tartan  clove  the  turban, 
As  the  Goomtee  cleaves  the  plain. 

Dear  to  the  corn-land  reaper 

And  plaided  mountaineer, — 
To  the  cottage  and  the  castle 

The  piper's  song  is  dear. 
Sweet  sounds  the  Gaelic  pibroch 

O'er  mountain,  glen,  and  glade ; 
But  the  sweetest  of  all  music 

The  Pipes  at  I^ucknow  played ! 

The  Mother. 

(From  "  Snow  Bound.") 
Our  mother,  while  she  turned  her  wheel 

Or  run  the  new-knit  stocking-heel, 

Told  how  the  Indian  hordes  came  down 

At  midnight  on  Cochecho  town. 

And  how  her  own  great-uncle  bore 

His  cruel  scalp-mark  to  fourscore. 

Recalling,  in  her  fitting  phrase. 
So  rich  and  picturesque  and  free, 
(The  common  unrhymed  poetry 

Of  simple  life  and  country  ways,) 

The  story  of  her  early  days, — 

She  made  us  welcome  to  her  home  ; 

Old  hearths  grew  wide  to  give  us  room ; 

We  stole  with  her  a  frightened  look 

At  the  gray  wizard's  conjuring-book. 

The  fame  whereof  went  far  and  wide 

Through  all  the  simple  country  side ; 

We  heard  the  hawks  at  t^yilight  play, 

The  boat-horn  on  Piscataqua, 

The  loon's  weird  laughter  far  away  ; 

We  fished  her  little  trout-brook,  knew 

What  flowers  in  wood  and  meadow  grew, 

What  sunny  hillsides  autumn-brown 

She  climbed  to  shake  the  ripe  nuts  down, 

Saw  where  in  sheltered  cove  and  bay 

The  ducks's  black  squadron  anchored  lay, 


3IO  tITBRATtJRB  OF  Ail,  NATIONS 

And  heard  the  wild-geese  calling  loud 
Beneath  the  gray  November  cloud. 

Then,  haply,  with  a  look  more  grave, 
And  soberer  tone,  some  tale  she  gave 
From  painful  Sewell's  ancient  tome. 
Beloved  in  every  Quaker  home. 
Of  faith  fire-winged  by  martyrdom. 
Or  Chalkley's  Journal,  old  and  quaint, — 
Gentlest  of  skippers,  rare  sea-saint ! — 
Who,  when  the  dreary  calms  prevailed, 
And  water-butt  and  bread-cask  failed, 
And  cruel,  hungry  eyes  pursued 
His  portly  presence  mad  for  food, 
With  dark  hints  muttered  under  breath 
Of  casting  lots  for  life  or  death, 
Ofiered,  if  Heaven  withheld  supplies. 
To  be  himself  the  sacrifice. 
Then,  suddenly,  as  if  to  save 
The  good  man  from  his  living  grave, 
A  ripple  on  the  water  grew, 
A  school  of  porpoise  flashed  in  view. 
"Take,  eat,"  he  said,  "  and  be  content; 
These  fishes  in  my  stead  are  sent 
By  Him  who  gave  the  tangled  ram 
To  spare  the  child  of  Abraham." 

Skipper  Ireson's  Ride. 

Of  all  the  rides  since  the  birth  of  time, 
Told  in  story  or  sung  in  rhyme, — 
On  Apuleius's  Golden  Ass, 
Or  one-eyed  Calender's  horse  of  brass. 
Witch  astride  of  a  human  back, 
Islam's  prophet  on  Al-Borak, — 
The  strangest  ride  that  ever  was  sped 
Was  Ireson's,  out  from  Marblehead ! 
Old  Floyd  Ireson,  for  his  hard  heart. 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart 
By  the  women  of  Marblehead ! 

Body  of  turkey,  head  of  owl, 
Wings  a-droop  like  a  rained-on  fowl. 


AMERICAN  UTERATURE.  3)1 

Feathered  and  ruffled  in  every  part, 

Skipper  Ireson  stood  in  the  cart. 

Scores  of  women,  old  and  young, 

Strong  o£.  muscle,  and  glib  of  tongue. 

Pushed  and  pulled  up  the  rocky  lane, 

Shouting  and  singing  the  shrill  refrain: 
"  Here's  Flud  Oirson,  fur  his  horrd  horrt, 
Torr'd  an'  futherr'd  an'  corr'd  in  a  corrt 
By  the  women  o'  Morble'ead ! " 

"Wrinkled  scolds  with  hands  on  hips, 

Girls  in  bloom  of  cheek  and  lips. 

Wild-eyed,  free-limbed,  such  as  chase 

Bacchus  round  some  antique  vase, 

Brief  of  skirt,  with  ankles  bare, 

lyoose  of  kerchief  and  loose  of  hair,  ' 

With  conch-shells  blowing  and  fish-horns'  twang, 
,  Over  and  over  the  Maenads  sang: 

"  Here's  Flud  Oirson,  fur  his  horrd  horrt, 
Torr'd  an'  futherr'd  an'  corr'd  in  a  corrt 
By  the  women  o'  Morble'ead ! " 

Small  pity  for  him  ! — He  sailed  away 
From  a  leaking  ship,  in  Chaleur  Bay, — 
Sailed  away  from  a  sinking  wreck, 
With  his  own  town's-people  on  her  deck ! 
"lyay  by !  lay  by !  "  they  called  to  him. 
Back  he  answered,  ' '  Sink  or  swim ! 
Brag  of  your  catch  of  fish  again !  " 
And  off  he  sailed  through  the  fog  and  rain ! 
Old  Floyd  Ireson,  for  his  hard  heart, 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart 
By  the  women  of  Marblehead ! 

Fathoms  deep  in  dark  Chaleur 
That  wreck  shall  lie  forevermore. 
Mother  and  sister,  wife  and  maid, 
I<ooked  from  the  rocks  of  Marblehead 
Over  the  moaning  and  rainy  sea, — 
I/Doked  for  the  coming  that  might  not  be ! 
What  did  the  winds  and  the  sea-birds  say 
Of  the  cruel  captain  who  sailed  away? — 


312  LITBRATURE  OP  AXX,  NATIONS. 

Old  Floyd  Ireson,  for  his  hard  heart, 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart 
By  the  women  of  Marblehead ! 

Through  the  street,  on  either  side, 
Up  flew  windows,  doors  swung  wide ; 
Sharp-tongued  spinsters,  old  wives  gray, 
Treble  lent  the  fish-horn's  bray. 
Sea-worn  grandsires,  cripple-bound, 
Hulks  of  old  sailors  run  aground, 


Shook  head,  and  fist,  and  hat,  and  cane, 
And  cracked  with  curses  the  hoarse  refrain : 
"  Here's  Flud  Oirson,  fur  his  horrd  horrt, 
Torr'd  an'  furtherr'd  an'  corr'd  in  a  corrt 
By  the  women  o'  Morble'ead !  " 

'Hear  me,  neighbors ! "  at  last  he  cried, — 

'  What  to  me  is  this  noisy  ride? 
What  is  the  shame  that  clothes  the  skin 
To  the  nameless  horror  that  lives  within  ? 


AMERICAN  LITER ATURB. 

Waking  or  sleeping,  I  see  a  wreck, 

And  hear  a  cry  from  a  reeling  deck ! 

Hate  me  and  curse  me, — I  only  dread 

The  hand  of  God  and  the  face  of  the  dead ! " 
Said  old  Floyd  Ireson,  for  his  hard  heart, 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart 
By  the  women  of  Marblehead ! 

Then  the  wife  of  the  skipper  lost  at  sea 
Said,  "God  has  touched  him !— why  should  we?" 
Said  an  old  wife  mourning  her  only  son, 
'  Cut  the  rogue's  tether  and  let  him  run ! " 
So  with  soft  relentings  and  rude  excuse. 
Half  scorn,  half  pity,  they  cut  him  loose. 
And  gave  him  a  cloak  to  hide  him  in. 
And  left  him  alone  with  his  shame  and  sin. 
Poor  Floyd  Ireson,  for  his  hard  heart, 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart 
By  the  women  of  Marblehead ! 


313 


BAYARD  TAYLOR. 

Bayard  Taylor  was  born  in 
Chester  County,  Pennsylvania,  on 
January  nth,  1825.  His  father 
was  a  farmer,  belonging  to  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  Bayard 
was  apprenticed  to  a  printing 
office.  He  soon  began  to  con- 
tribute verses  to  the  papers,  and  a 
collection  of  these  early  poems 
entitled  "  Ximena  "  was  published 
in  1844.  Then  he  made  a  pedes- 
trian tour  through  Europe,  and  his  vivacious  account  of  his 
travels  and  experiences,  entitled  ' '  Views  Afoot ;  or  Europe 
seen  with  Knapsack  and  Staff"  (1846),  gained  him  a  position 
on  the  staff  of  the  New  York  Tribune  in  whose  columns 
many  of  his  sketches  of  travel  first  appeared. 

The  titles  of  his  books  of  travel  indicate  the  many  coun- 
tries he  visited.     "  El  Dorado  "  describes  a  visit  to  California 


314  UTERATTJRK  OF  AI,Iv  NATIONS. 

and  Mexico  in  1848.  Then  followed  "Journey  to  Central 
Africa,"  "Land  of  the  Saracens,"  "Visit  to  India,  China, 
and  Japan"  (1853);  "  Northern  Travel  "  (1857),  an  account  of 
a  tour  through  Sweden,  Denmark  and  Lapland  ;  ' '  Travels  in 
Greece  and  Russia"  (1859).  But  besides  these  books  of 
travel,  Taylor  had  put  forth  seven  volumes  of  poetry.  ' '  Poems 
of  Home  and  Travel"  (1855)  contain  such  collected  poems 
as  the  author  wished  then  to  acknowledge.  His  first  novel, 
"Hannah  Thurston  "was  published  in  1863.  Three  others 
followed:  "John  Godfrey's  Fortunes,"  "The  Story  of  Ken- 
nett,"  and  "Joseph  and  His  Friend."  None  of  these,  how- 
ever, won  much  approval,  and  it  is  as  a  lyric  poet  that  Bayard 
Taylor  shows  his  best  qualities.  Some  of  his  songs,  his  Orien- 
tal idyls,  and  his  Pennsylvania  ballads  are  sure  of  an  abiding 
place  in  American  literature.  His  more  elaborate  poetical 
works  are  "The  Poet's  Journal"  (1862),  "The  Picture  of 
St.  John"  (1866),  "The  Masque  of  the  Gods"  (1872),  "Lars" 
(1873),  and  "The  Prophet"  (1874),  "Home  Pastorals," 
(187s),  and  " Prince  Deukalion,"  (1878).  "The  Echo  Club" 
is  a  series  of  clever  parodies  of  the  poets  of  the  century.  In 
1876  Taylor  composed  the  "National  Ode,"  which  was  read 
at  the  Centennial  Festival.  His  most  famous  work,  how- 
ever, is  his  translatioja  of  "  Faust "  in  the  original  metres.  He 
is  undoubtedly  the  greatest  of  Goethe's  English  interpreters. 

Taylor  had  been  brought  up  among  the  Pennsylvania 
Quakers,  but  he  found  in  later  life,  that  in  spite  of  his  affec- 
tionate regard  for  them,  he  could  not  dwell  happily  among 
them.  He  had  become  a  cosmopolitan  and  preferred  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  Germans.  In  1 878  he  was  grati- 
fied at  being  appointed  American  minister  to  Berlin.  There 
"he  died  a  year  later. 

Taylor's  travels  are  written  in  unaffected  and  often  vivid 
prose.  His  literary  criticisms  have  the  quality  of  plain, 
good  sense.  His  longer  poems  are  more  ambitious  than  suc- 
cessful. His  minor  lyrics  and  his  masterly  rendition  of 
Faust  are  his  chief  claims  to  immortality. 

(The  following  extracts  from  Bayard  Taylor's  poems  are  used  by 
special  permission  of,  and  special  arrangement  with  the  authorized 
publishers,  Houghton,  Mififlin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 


AMERICAN  WtERATURE.  315 


Bedouin  Song. 

From  the  Desert  I  come  to  tliee 

On  a  stallion  shod  with  fire ; 
And  the  winds  are  left  behind 

In  the  speed  of  my  desire. 
Under  thy  window  I  stand, 

And  the  midnight  hears  my  cry : 
I  love  thee, — I  love  but  thee, 
With  a  love  that  shall  not  die 
Till  the  sun  grows  cold, 
And  the  stars  are  old. 
And  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment 
Book  unfold ! 

Ivook  from  thy  window  and  see 

My  passion  and  my  pain ; 
I  lie  on  the  sands  below. 

And  I  faint  in  thy  disdain. 
I<et  the  night-winds  touch  thy  brow 
With  the  heat  of  my  burning  sigh. 
And  melt  thee  to  h§ar  the  vow 
Of  a  love  that  shall  not  die 
Till  the  sun  grows  cold. 
And  the  stars  are  old. 
And  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment 
Book  unfold ! 

My  steps  are  nightly  driven, 
By  the  fever  in  my  breast, 
To  hear  from  thy  lattice  breathed 

The  word  that  shall  give  me  rest. 
Open  the  door  of  thy  heart. 

And  open  thy  chamber  door^ 
And  my  kisses  shall  teach  thy  lips 
The  love  that  shall  fade  no  more 
Till  the  sun  grows  cold. 
And  the  stars  are  old, 
And  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment 
Book  unfold !- 


3l6  WTBRATURE  OP  ALL  NATIONS. 


The  Song  of  the  Camp. 

"Give  us  a  song ! "  the  soldiers  cried, 
The  outer  trenches  guarding, 
When  the  heated  guns  of  the  camps  allied 
Grew  weary  of  bombarding. 

The  dark  Redan,  in  silent  scoff, 
I<ay,  grim  and  threatening,  under ; 

And  the  tawny  mound  of  the  Malakoff 
No  longer  belched  its  thunder. 

There  was  a  pause.     A  guardsman  said : 
"  We  storm  the  forts  to-morrow; 

:  Sing  while  we  may,  another  day 
Will  bring  enough  of  sorrow." 

They  lay  along  the  battery's  side, 

Below  the  smoking  cannon ; 
Brave  hearts  from  Severn  and  from  Clyde, 

And  from  the  banks  of  Shannon. 

They  sang  of  love,  and  not  of  fame ; 

Forgot  was  Britain's  glory; 
Each  heart  recalled  a  different  name, 

But  all  sang  "Annie  I/awrie." 

Voice  after  voice  caught  up  the  song. 

Until  its  tender  passion 
Rose  like  an  anthem,  rich  and  strong, — 

Their  battle-eve  confession. 

Dear  girl,  her  name  he  dared  not  speak, 

But,  as  the  song  grew  louder, 
Something  upon  the  soldier's  cheek 

Washed  off  the  stains  of  powder. 

Beyond  the  darkening  ocean  burned 

The  bloody  sunset's  embers, 
While  the  Crimean  valleys  learned 

How  English  love  remembers. 

And  once  again  a  fire  of  hell 
Rained  on  the  Russian  quarters, 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  3^7 

With  scream  of  shot,  and  burst  of  shell, 
And  bellowing  of  the  mortars ! 

And  Irish  Nora's  eyes  are  dim 

For  a  singer,  dumb  and  gory  ; 
And  English  Mary  mourns  for  him 

Who  sang  of  "Annie  Lawrie." 

Sleep,  soldiers !  still  in  honored  rest 

Your  truth  and  valor  wearing : 
The  bravest  are  the  tenderest, — 

The  loving  are  the  daring. 

HELEN   HUNT  JACKSON. 

Mrs.  Jackson,  known  in  liter- 
ature as  "H.  H."  and  "Helen 
Hunt,"  was  born  at  Amherst, 
Massachusetts,  in  1831,  and  died 
at  San  Francisco,  California,  in 
1885.  She  was  married  to  Cap- 
tain Hunt,  an  engineer  officer, 
who  was  killed  by  an  explosion. 
The  widow  on  recovering  from 
profound  grief  for  her  loss,  solaced 
herself  with  poetry.  She  did  not 
begin  her  literary  career  until  her 
thirty-fifth  year.  When  her  verses 
appeared  in  print,  they  immedi- 
ately compelled  attention.  Her  poetry  was  earnest  as  well  as 
graceful,  her  themes- generally  being  high  spiritual  hopes 
and  wonderings.  Afterwards  she  was  persuaded  to  write 
prose  of  light  vein,  and  in  this  she  displayed  a  fine  sense  of 
humor  and  of  knowledge  of  the  seamy  side  of  domestic 
afiairs.  She  published  two  novels — "Mercy  Philbrick's 
Choice  "  and  "Hetty's  Strange  History,"  and  she  is  believed 
to  have  written  the  clever  magazine  stories  that  appeared 
over  the  pseudonym  "  Saxe  Holm." 

The  books  to  which  she  herself  attached  most  importance, 
however,  were  "A  Century  of  Dishonor,"  which  was  an 
arraignment  of  the  nation  for  wrongs  done  the  Indians,  and 


3l8  tlTBRATURE  OK  AH  NATIONS. 

"  Ramona,"  a  novel  written  with  similar  purpose.  These 
books  were  not  based  on  hearsay  and  sentimental  theory  ;  for 
during  the  lifetime  of  her  first  husband,  the  author  had  resided 
at  military  posts  on  the  frontier  and  had  noted  the  unjust  treat- 
ment of  Indians  by  all  whites  with  whom  they  came  in  con- 
tact. Through  the  remainder  of  her  life  her  most  earnest 
purpose  was  to  influence  the  American  people  to  compel  the 
undoing  of  wrongs  done  in  their  name  to  the  helpless 
' '  wards  of  the  nation.' ' 

Only  an  Indian  Baby. 

(This  extract  from  "Ramona"  is  used  by  special  permission ol  the 
authorized  publishers,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

In  a  week,  Alessandro  appeared  again  at  the  Agency  doc- 
tor's door.  This  time  he  had  come  with  a  request  which  to 
his  mind  seemed  not  unreasonable.  He  had  brought  Baba 
for  the  doctor  to  ride.  Could  the  doctor  then  refuse  to  go  to 
Saboba  ?  Baba  would  carry  him  there  in  three  hours,  and  it 
would  be  like  a  cradle  all  the  way.  Alessandro's  name  was 
in  the  Agency  books.  It  was  for  this  he  had  written  it, — for 
this  and  nothing  else, — to  save  the  baby's  life.  Having  thus 
enrolled  himself  as  one  of  the  Agency  Indians,  he  had  a 
claim  on  this  the  Agency  doctor.  And  that  his  application 
might  be  all  in  due  form,  he  took  with  him  the  Agency  in- 
terpreter. He  had  had  a  misgiving  before,  that  Aunt  Ri's 
kindly  volubility  had  not  been  well  timed.  Not  one  unne- 
cessary word,  was  Alessandro's,  motto. 

To  say  that  the  Agency  doctor  was  astonished  at  being 
requested  to  ride  thirty  miles  to  prescribe  for  an  ailing  Indian 
baby,  would  be  a  mild  statement  of  the  doctor' s  emotion.  He 
could  hardly  keep  from  laughing,  when  it  was  made  clear  to 
him  that  this  was  what  the  Indian  father  expected. 

"Good  Lord  !"  he  said,  turning  to  a  crony  who  chanced 
to  be  lounging  in  the  office.  "Listen  to  that  beggar,  will 
you  ?  I  wonder  what  he  thinks  the  Government  pays  me  a 
year  for  doctoring  Indians  ! ' ' 

Alessandro  listened  so  closely  it  attracted  the  doctor's  at- 
tention.     "  Do  you  understand  English  ?  "  he  asked  sharply. 

"  A  very  little,  Seiior,"  replied  Alessandro. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  319 

The  doctor  would  be  more  careful  in  his  speech,  then. 
But  he  made  it  most  emphatically  clear  that  the  thing  Ales- 
sandro  had  asked  was  not  only  out  of  the  question,  but  pre- 
posterous. Alessandro  pleaded.  For  the  child's  sake  he 
could  do  it.  The  horse  was  at  the  door ;  there  was  no  such 
horse  in  San  Bernardino  County;  he  went  like  the  wind,  and 
one  would  not  know  he  was  in  motion,  it  was  so  easy.  Would 
not  the  doctor  come  down  and  look  at  the  horse  ?  Then  he 
would  see  what  it  would  be  like  to  ride  him, 

"Oh,  I've  seen  plenty  of  your  Indian  ponies,"  said  the 
doctor.     ' '  I  know  they  can  run." 

Alessandro  lingered.  He  could  not  give  up  this  last  hope. 
The  tears  came  into  his  eyes.  "  It  is  our  only  child,  Seiior,"  he 
said.  "It  will  take  you  but  six  hours  in  all.  My  wife  counts 
the  moments  till  you  come  !  If  the  child  dies,  she  will  die." 
"  No  !  no  ! "  The  doctor  was  weary  of  being  importuned. 
"Tell  the  man  it  is  impossible!  I'd  soon  have  my  hands 
full,  if  I  began  to  go  about  the  country  this  way.  They'd  be 
sending  for  me  down  to  Agua  Caliente  next,  and  bringing  up 
their  ponies  to  carry  me.' ' 

"  He  will  not  go?  "  asked  Alessandro. 

The  interpreter  shook  his  head.     "  He  cannot,"  he  said. 

Without  a  word  Alessandro  left  the  room.  Presently  he 
returned.  "  Ask  him  if  he  will  come  for  money  ?  "  he  said. 
"  I  have  gold  at  home.  I  will  pay  him  what  the  white  men 
pay  him." 

"  Tell  him  no  man  of  any  color  could  pay  me  for  going 
sixty  miles  ! ' '  said  the  doctor. 

And  Alessandro  departed  again,  walking  so  slowly,  how- 
ever, that  he  heard  the  coarse  laugh,  and  the  words,  "Gold! 
Looked  like  it,  didn't  he?"  which  followed  his  departure 
from  the  room. 

When  Ramona  saw  him  returning  alone,  she  wrung  her 
hands.  Her  heart  seemed  breaking.  The  baby  had  lain  in 
a  sort  of  stupor  since  noon;  she  was  plainly  worse,  and  Ra- 
mona had  been  going  from  the  door  to  the  cradle,  from  the 
cradle  to  the  door,  for  an  hour,  looking,  each  moment  for  the 
hoped-for  aid.  It  had  not  once  crossed  her  mind  that  the 
doctor  would  not  come.     She  had  accepted  in  much  fuller 


320  LITERATURB  OP  AI,L  NATIONS. 

faith  than  Alessandro  the  account  of  the  appointment  by  the 
Government  of  these  two  men  to  look  after  the  Indians'  in- 
terests. What  else  could  their  coming  mean,  except  that,  at 
last,  the  Indians  were  to  have  justice !  She  thought,  in  her 
simplicity,  that  the  doctor  must  have  died,  since  Alessandro 
was  riding  home  alone. 

"  He  would  not  come ! ' '  said  Alessandro,  as  he  threw 
himself  ofiF  his  horse,  wearily. 

"  Would  not ! "  cried  Ramona.  "  Would  not !  Did  you 
not  say  the  Government  had  sent  him  to  be  the  doctor  for 
Indians  ?  " 

"  That  was  what  they  said,"  he  replied.  "  You  see  it  is  a 
lie,  like  the  rest !  But  I  ofifered  him  gold,  and  he  would  not 
come  then.    The  child  must  die,  Majella! " 

"She  shall  not  die !"  cried  Ramona.  "We  will  carry 
her  to  him  !  "  The  thought  struck  them  both  as  an  inspira- 
tion. Why  had  they  not  thought  of  it  before?  "You  can 
fasten  the  cradle  on  Baba's  back,  and  he  will  go  so  gently, 
she  will  think  it  is  but  play;  and  I  will  walk  by  her  side,  or 
you,  all  the  way  ! "  she  continued.  "  And  we  can  sleep  at 
Aunt  Ri's  house.  Oh,  why,  why  did  we  not  do  it  before? 
Early  in  the  morning  we  will  start. " 

All  through  the  night  they  sat  watching  the  little  creature. 
If  they  had  ever  seen  death,  they  would  have  known  that 
there  was  no  hope  for  the  child.  But  how  should  Ramona 
and  Alessandro  know  ? 

The  sun  rose  bright  and  warm.  Before  it  was  up,  the 
cradle  was  ready,  ingeniously  strapped  on  Baba's  back.  When 
the  baby  was  placed  in  it,  she  smiled.  ' '  The  first  smile  she 
has  given  for  days,"  cried  Ramona.  "Oh,  the  air  itself  will 
do  good  to  her  !  I,et  me  walk  by  her  first !  Come,  Baba  ! 
Dear  Baba  ! "  and  Ramona  stepped  almost  joyfully  by  the 
horse's  side,  Alessandro  riding  Benito.  As  they  paced  along, 
their  eyes  never  leaving  the  baby's  face,  Ramona  said,  in  a 
low  tone,  ' '  Alessandro,  I  am  almost  afraid  to  tell  you  what  I 
have  done.  I  took  the  little  Jesus  out  of  the  Madonna's  arms 
and  hid  it!  Did  you  never  hear,  that  if  you  do  that,  the 
Madonna  will  grant  you  anything,  to  get  him  back  again 
in  her  arms?    Did  you  ever  hear  of  it?" 


AMERICAN  LITKRATURE.  32 1 

"  Never ! "  exclaimed  Alessandro,  -with  horror  in  his  tone. 
"  Never,  Majella !     How  dared  you  ? ' ' 

"I  dare  anything  now!"  said  Ramona.  "I  have  been 
thinking  to  do  it  for  some  days,  and  to  tell  her  she  could  not 
have  him  any  more  till  she  gave  me  back  the  baby  well  and 
strong;  but  I  knew  I  could  not  have  courage  to  sit  and  look 
at  her  all  lonely  without  him  in  her  arms,  so  I  did  not  do  it. 
But  now  we  are  to  be  away,  I  thought,  that  is  the  time;  and 
I  told ,  her,  '  When  we  come  back  with  our  baby  well,  you 
shall  have  your  little  Jesus  again,  too ;  now.  Holy  Mother, 
you  go  with  us,  and  make  the  doctor  cure  our  baby  ! '  Oh,  I 
have  heard,  many  times,  women  tell  the  Seiiora  they  had 
done  this,  and  always  they  got  what  they  wanted.  Never 
will  she  let  the  Jesus  be  out  of  her  arms  more  than  three 
weeks  before  she  will  grant  any  prayer  one  can  make.  It 
was  that  way  she  brought  you  to  me,  Alessandro.  I  never 
before  told  you.  I  was  afraid.  I  think  she  had  brought  you 
sooner,  but  I  could  keep  the  little  Jesus  hid  from  her  only  at 
night.  In  the  day  I  could  not,  because  the  Senora  would 
see.  So  she  did  not  miss  him  so  much ;  else  she  had  brought 
you  quicker." 

"  But,  Majella,"  said  the  logical  Alessandro,  "it  was  be- 
cause I  could  not  leave  my  father  that  I  did  not  come.  As 
soon  as  he  was  buried,  I  came." 

"  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  Virgin,  you  would  never  have 
come  at  all,"  said  Ramona,  confidently. 

For  the  first  hour  of  this  sad  journey  it  seemed  as  if  the 
child  were  really  rallying ;  the  air,  the  sunlight,  the  novel 
motion,  the  smiling  mother  by  her  side,  the  big  black  horses 
she  had  already  learned  to  love,  all  roused  her  to  an  anima- 
tion she  had  not  shown  for  days.  But  it  was  only  the  last 
flicker  of  the  expiring  flame.  The  eyes  drooped,  closed;  a 
strange  pallor  came  over  the  face.  Alessandro  saw  it  first. 
He  was  now  walking,  Ramona  riding  Benito.  "Majella!" 
he  cried,  in  a  tone  which  told  her  all. 

In  a  second  she  was  at  the  baby's  side,  with  a  cry  which 
smote  the  dying  child's  consciousness.     Once  more  the  eye- 
lids lifted;  she  knew  her  mother;  a  swift  spasm  shook  the 
little  frame;  a  convulsion  as  of  agony  swept  over  the  face, 
X— 21 


322  UTBRATURK  OF  AI,I.  NATIONS. 

then  it  was  at  peace.  Majella's  shrieks  were  heart-rending. 
Fiercely  she  put  Alessandro  away  from  her,  as  he  strove  to 
caress  her.  She  stretched  her  arms  up  towards  the  sky.  "I 
have  killed  her!  I  have  killed  her!"  she  cried.  "Oh,  let 
me  die ! " 

Slowly  Alessandro  turned  Baba's  head  homeward  again. 

"  Oh,  give  her  to  me  !  Let  her  lie  on  my  breast !  I  will 
hold  her  warm  ! "  gasped  Ramona. 

Silently  Alessandro  laid  the  body  in  her  arms.  He  had  not 
spoken  since  his  first  cry  of  alarm.  If  Ramo^na  had  looked  at 
him,  she  would  have  forgotten  her  grief  for  her  dead  child. 
Alessandro' s  face  seemed  turned  to  stone. 

When  they  reached  the  house,  Ramona,  laying  the  child 
on  the  bed,  ran  hastily  to  a  corner  of  the  room,  and  lifting 
the  deerskin,  drew  from  its  hiding-place  the  little  wooden 
Jesus.  With  tears  streaming,  she  laid  it  again  in  the  Ma- 
donna's arms,  and  flinging  herself  on  her  knees,  sobbed  out 
prayers  for  forgiveness.  Alessandro  stood  at  the  foot  of  the 
bed,  his  arms  folded,  his  eyes  riveted  on  the  child. 

EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE. 

Edward  Everett  Hale  was  born  at  Boston,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1822.  Although  for  fifty  years  a  hard-working 
and  popular  pastor,  he  has  found  time  to  write  dozens  of 
books  and  hundreds  of  essays  and  stories,  besides  some  poems. 
He  was  also  the  originator  and  editor  of  Old  and  New,  a 
monthly  magazine.  His  work  has  been  more  varied  than 
that  of  almost  any  other  Anierican  writer,  for  among  his 
books  are  histories,  biographies,  political  treatises,  humani- 
tarian efibrts  and  fiction.  His  fiction  is  almost  alone  in  its 
class,  since  it  treats  that  which  is  impossible  and  even  fantas- 
tic, with  a  gravity,  directness  and  skill  that  makes  the  result 
appear  entirely  reasonable.  Hale's  "purpose"  stories  "Ten 
Times  One  Are  Ten"  and  "In  His  Name"  caused  the 
organization  of  thousands  of  societies  for  self-improvement 
and  forphilanthropic  purposes.  In  any  department  of  litera- 
ture to  which  he  has  contributed  he  might  have  taken  lead- 
ership had  he  confined  himself  to  it.     His  mental  nature  is 


AMERICAN  UTERATUSE.  323 

as  Strong  as  it  is  broad,  and  the  quality  of  his  work  has  been 
•well  sustained.  His  most  impossible  yet  most  popular  story 
is  "  The  Man  Without  a  Country  "—a  tale  of  a  young  officer 
who  for  speaking  disrespectfully  of  the  United  States  was 
sentenced  by  court-martial  to  be  kept  at  sea  on  war  vessels 
and  never  allowed  to  hear  the  name  of  his  country. 

Death  of  Philip  Nolan. 

(From  "The  Man  Without  a  Country,"  published  by  J.  Stillman 
Smith,  Boston.  Copyright  by  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale,  D.D.  Used  here  by 
special  permission  of  the  author.) 

"'Mr.  Nolan,'  said  I,  'I  will  tell  you  everything  you 
ask  about.     Only,  where  shall  I  begin?' 

' '  O  the  blessed  smile  that  crept  over  his  white  face !  and 
he  pressed  my  hand  and  said,  '  God  bless  you  ! '  '  Tell  me 
their  names,'  he  said,  and  he  pointed  to  the  stars  on  the  flag. 
'The  last  I  know  is  Ohio.  My  father  lived  in  Kentucky. 
But  I  have  guessed  Michigan  and  Indiana  and  Mississippi, — 
that  was  where  Fort  Adams  is, — they  make  twenty.  But 
where  are  your  other  fourteen  ?  You  have  not  cut  up  any 
of  the  old  ones,  I  hope  ?' 

"Well,  that  was  not  a  bad  text,  and  I  told  him  the  names 
in  as  good  order  as  I  could,  and  he  bade  me  take  down  his 
beautiful  map  and  draw  them  in  as  I  best  could  with  my 
pencil.  He  was  wild  with  delight  about  Texas,  told  me  how 
his  brother  died  there ;  he  had  marked  a  gold  cross  where  he 
supposed  his  brother's  grave  was ;  and  he  had  guessed  at 
Texas.  Then  he  was  delighted  as  he  saw  California  and 
Oregon, — that  he  said,  he  had  suspected  partly,  because  he 
bad  never  been  permitted  to  land  on  that  shore,  though  the 
ships  were  there  so  much.  '  And  the  men, '  said  he,  laughing, 
'brought  oflFa  good  deal  besides  furs.'  Then  he  went  back — 
heavens,  how  far! — to  ask  about  the  Chesapeake,  arid  what 
was  done  to  Barron  for  surrendering  her  to  the  'Leopard,' 
and  whether  Burr  was  tried  again, — and  he  ground  his  teeth 
with  the  only  passion  he  showed.  But  in  a  moment  that  was 
over,  and  he  said,  'God  forgive  me,  for  I  am  sure  I  forgive 
him.'    Then  he  asked  about  the  old  war, — told  me  the  true 


324  UTERATURB  OF  AI<I,  NATIONS. 

story  of  his  serving  the  gun  the  day  we  took  the  'Java,' — 
asked  about  dear  old  David  Porter,  as  he  called  him.  Then 
he  settled  down  more  quietly,  and  very  happily,  to  hear  me 
tell  in  an  hour  the  history  of  fifty  years. 

"  How  I  wished  it  had  been  somebody  who  knew  some- 
thing! But  I  did  as  well  as  I  could.  I  told  him  of  the 
English  war.  I  told  him  about  Fulton  and  the  steamboat 
beginning.  I  told  him  about  old  Scott,  and  Jackson  ;  I  told 
him  all  I  could  think  of  about  the  Mississippi,  and  New 
Orleans,  and  Texas,  and  his  own  old  Kentucky.  .  .  . 

"  I  tell  you,  Ingham,  it  was  a  hard  thing  to  condense  the 
history  of  half  a  century  into  that  talk  with  a  sick  man.  And 
I  do  not  now  know  what  I  told  him, — of  emigration,  and  the 
means  of  it, — of  steamboats,  and  railroads,  and  telegraphs, — of 
inventions,  and  books,  and  literature, — of  the  colleges,  and 
West  Point,  and  the  Naval  School, — but  with  the  queerest 
interruptions  that  ever  you  heard.  You  see  it  was  Robinson 
Crusoe  asking  all  the  accumulated  questions  of  fifty-six  years ! 

"I  remember  he  asked,  all  of  a  sudden,  who  was  President 
now ;  and  when  I  told  him,  he  asked  if  Old  Abe  was  General 
Benjamin  Lincoln's  son.  He  said  he  met  old  General  Lin- 
coln, when  he  was  quite  a  boy  himself,  at  some  Indian  treaty. 
I  said  no,  that  Old  Abe  was  a  Kentuckian  like  himself,  but  I 
could  not  tell  him  of  what  family ;  he  had  worked  up  from 
the  ranks.  'Good  for  him  !'  cried  Nolan  ;  '  I  am  glad  of  that. 
As  I  have  brooded  and  wondered,  I  have  thought  our  danger 
was  in  keeping  up  those  regular  successions  in  the  first 
families.'  Then  I  got  talking  about  my  visit  to  Washington. 
I  told  him  of  meeting  the  Oregon  Congressman,  Harding ;  I 
told  him  about  the  Smithsonian,  and  the  Exploring  Expedi- 
tion ;  I  told  him  about  the  Capitol,  and  the  statues  for  the 
pediment,  and  Crawford's  Liberty,  and  Greenough's  Wash- 
ington ;  Ingham,  I  told  him  everything  I  could  think  of  that 
would  show  the  grandeur  of  his  country  and  its  prosperity ; 
but  I  could  not  make  up  my  mouth  to  tell  him  a  word  about 
this  infernal  Rebellion. 

"And  he  drank  it  in,  and  enjoyed  it  as  I  cannot  tell  you. 
He  grew  more  and  more  silent,  yet  I  never  thought  he  was 
tired  or  faint.     I  gave  him  a  glass  of  water,  but  he  just  wet 


AMERICAN  UTERATURB.  325 

his  lips,  and  told  me  not  to  go  away  .  Then  he  asked  me  to 
bring  the  Presbyterian  'Book  of  Public  Prayer,'  which  lay 
there,  and  said,  with  a  smile,  that  it  would  open  at  the  right 
place, — and  so  it  did.  There  was  his  double  red  mark  down 
the  page  ;  and  I  knelt  down  and  read,  and  he  repeated  with 
me,  'For  ourselves  and  our  country,  O  gracious  God,  we 
thank  Thee,  that,  notwithstanding  our  manifold  transgres- 
sions of  Thy  holy  laws,  Thou  hast  continued  to  us  Thy  mar- 
vellous kindness,' — and  so  to  the  end  of  that  thanksgiving. 
Then  he  turned  to  the  end  of  the  same  book,  and  I  read  the 
words  more  familiar  to  me :  '  Most  heartily  we  beseech  Thee 
with  Thy  favor  to  behold  and  bless  Thy  servant,  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  all  others  in  authority,' — and  the 
rest  of  the  Episcopal  collect.  'Danforth,'  said  he,  'I  have 
repeated  those  prayers  night  and  morning,  it  is  now  fifty-five 
years. '  And  then  he  said  he  would  go  to  sleep.  He  bent 
me  down  over  him,  and  kissed  me ;  and  he  said,  '  Look  in  my 
Bible,  Danforth,  when  I  am  gone.'     And  I  went  away. 

"  But  I  had  no  thought  it  was  the  end.  I  thought  he  was 
tired  and  would  sleep.  I  knew  he  was  happy,  and  I  wanted 
him  to  be  alone. 

"But  in  an  hour,  when  the  doctor  went  in  gently,  he 
found  Nolan  had  breathed  his  life  away  with  a  smile.  He 
had  something  pressed  close  to  his  lips.  It  was  his  Father's 
badge  of  the  Order  of  the  Cincinnati. 

"We  looked  in  his  Bible,  and  there  was  a  slip  of  paper  at 
the  place  where  he  had  marked  the  text : — 

"  'They  desire  a  country,  even  a  heavenly ;  wherefore  God 
is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God  :  for  He  hath  prepared 
for  them  a  city.'     On  this  slip  of  paper  he  had  written : 

"'Bury  me  in  the  sea;  it  has  beeuv  my  home,  and  I  love 
it.  But  will  not  some  one  set  up  a  stone  for  my  memory  at 
Fort  Adams  or  at  Orleans,  that  my  disgrace  may  not  be  more 
than  I  ought  to  bear?     Say  on  it : — 

"'in  memory  op 

'"PHILIP    NOLAN, 

"  'Lieutenant  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States. 

" '  He  loved  his  country  as  no  other  man  has  loved  her ;  but  no 
man  deserved  less  at  her  hands.' " 


"MARK  TWAIN.' 


"Mare  Twain"  is  still  the  popular  desigaation  of  Samuel 
I^anghorne  Clemens,  accepted  throughout  the  world  as  a  typical 
American  humorist.  He  was  born  at  Florida,  Missouri,  in  1835, 
and  from  a  village  school  passed  to  a  village  printing-oflSce,  and 
thence  to  a  Mississippi  steamboat,  to  become  a  river  pilot.  This 
occupation  afterwards  supplied  the  pseudonym  "Mark  Twain," 
that  being  a  frequent  cry  in  sounding  to  signify  that  the  water 
is  two  fathoms  deep.  But  the  civil  war  broke  the  business  up, 
and  in  1862  Clemens  went  to  Nevada  to  assist  his  brother,  then 
secretary  of  the  Territory.  After  some  mining  in  a  desultory 
way,  Clemens  wrote  sketches  for  the  newspapers,  and  was  soon 
regularly  employed  on  the  San  Francisco  press.  His  visit  to 
Hawaii  in  1866  was  the  subject  of  later  lectures.  A  collection  of 
his  sketches,  under  the  title  "The  Jumping  Frog"  was  pub- 
lished in  New  York  in  1867  and  gained  for  him  recognition  as  a 
humorist  of  a  new  style.  Greater  success  came  from  his  taking 
part  in  a  tourists'  excursion  to  Europe  and  the  Holy  I^and.  In 
"The  Innocents  Abroad"  he  chronicled  the  adventures  of  those 
pilgrims  in  such  a  mirth-provoking  way  as  to  put  an  end  to  the 
solemn  stereotyped  reports  which  American  travelers  had  previ- 
ously imposed  on  their  friends  who  had  not  been  abroad. 

Mark  Twain's  popularity  was  now  established,  and  he  was 
called  to  rehearse  his  experience  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  This  was 
done  in  "Roughing  It,"  and  in  "The  Gilded  Age,"  he  joined 
with  C.  D.  Warner  in  satirizing  the  Yankee  race  for  riches.  He 
had  now  Settled  in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  where  he  enjoyed 
highly  intellectual  society.  He  continued  his  droll  sketches  of 
Western  life,  and  occasionally  put  forth  moral  and  social  essays 
replete  with  common  sense,  expressed  in  an  uncommon  way.  In 
some  books,  as  "The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer,"  "Huckle- 
326 


AMERICAN  UTBRATURE.  327 

berry  Finn,"  he  assumed  the  character  of  a  growing  Western  boy 
and  presented  vivid  pictures  of  life  on  and  near  the  Mississippi 
river  in  the  days  of  slavery.  These  books  brought  ample  pecu- 
niary returns,  and  Clemens  ventured  into  book-publishing.  For 
a  while  his  firm  was  highly  successful,  but  eventually  it  became 
bankrupt.  With  indomitable  energy  Clemens  undertook  to 
restore  his  fortunes  by  writing  and  lecturing,  and  with  this  object 
made  a  tour  to  Australia  and  India. 

Besides  the  sketches  of  life  on  the  Pacific  Coast  and  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  by  which  Mark  Twain  is  universally  recog- 
nized, he  has  attempted  some  peculiar  historical  romances.  In 
"The  Prince  and  the  Pauper,"  which  deals  with  the  time  of 
Edward  VI.  he  went  counter  to  the  verdict  of  the.  historians. 
Still  more  boldly  in  "A  Yankee  at  Zing  Arthur's  Court"  he 
jumbled  the  present  with  the  past  in  humorous  incongruity. 
Perhaps  to  make  amends  for  this  escapade  he  next  published 
anonymously  what  professed  to  be  an  account  of  Joan  of  Arc  by 
a  faithful  attendant.  The  story  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans  has  never 
been  more  ingeniously  and  sympathetically  related.  In  these 
and  other  writings  Clemens  has  revealed  a  serious,  inquiring, 
contemplative  spirit,  but  the  public  whom  he  has  entertained  for 
many  years  insist  on  his  retaining  and  exhibiting  his  earlier 
characteristics  as  a  droll  humorist  of  national  and  local  pecu- 
liarities. 

Scotty's  Interview  with  the  Minister. 

(From  "Roughing  It."    Copjrright,  1872,  by  the  American  Pub- 
lishing Company.    Used  here  by  permission  of  the  publishers.) 

ScoTTY  was  on  a  sorrowful  mission,  now,  and  his  face  was  the 
picture  of  woe.  Being  admitted  to  the  presence  he  sat  down 
before  the  clergyman,  placed  his  fire-hat  on  an  unfinished  manu- 
script sermon  under  the  minister's  nose,  took  from  it  a  red  silk 
handkerchief,  wiped  his  brow  and  heaved  a  sigh  of  dismal  impres- 
siveness,  explanatory  of  his  business.  He  choked,  and  even 
shed  tears ;  but  with  an  effort  he  mastered  his  voice  and  said  in 
lugubrious  tones : 

"Are  you  the  duck  that  runs  the  gospel-mill  next  door ?  " 
"Am  I  the — ^pardon  me,  I  believe  I  do  not  understand ?  " 
With  another  sigh  and  a  half-sob,  Scotty  rejoined : 
"Why  you  see  we  are  in  a  bit  of  trouble,  and  the  boys  thought 
maybe  you  would  give  us  a  lift,  if  we'd  tackle  you — that  is,  if 


328  UTBRATXJRB  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

I've  got  the  rights  of  it  and  you  are  the  head  clerk  of  the  dox- 
ology- works  next  door." 

"  I  am  the  shepherd  in  charge  of  the  flock  whose  fold  is  next 
door." 

"The  which?" 

' '  The  spiritual  adviser  of  the  little  company  of  believers  whose 
sanctuary  adjoins  these  premises." 

Scotty  scratched  his  head,  reflected  a  moment,  and  then  said : 
"You  rather  hold  over  me,  pard.  I  reckon  I  can't  call  that  hand. 
Ante  and  pass  the  buck." 

* '  How  ?    I  beg  pardon.    What  did  I  understand  you  to  say  ? ' ' 

"Well,  you've  ruther  got  the  bulge  on  me.  Or  maybe  we've 
both  got  the  bulge  somehow.  You  don't  smoke  me  and  I  don't 
smoke  you.  You  see,  one  of  the  boys  has  passed  in  his  checks 
and  we  want  to  give  him  a  good  send-off,  and  so  the  thing  I'm 
on  now  is  to  roust  out  somebody  to  jerk  a  little  chin-music  for  us 
and  waltz  him  through  handsome." 

' '  My  friend,  I  seem  to  grow  more  and  more  bewildered.  Your 
observations  are  wholly  incomprehensible  to  me.  Cannot  you 
simplify  them  in  some  way?  At  first  I  thought  perhaps  I  under- 
stood you,  but  I  grope  now.  Would  it  not  expedite  matters  if 
you  restricted  yourself  to  categorical  statements  of  fact  unencum- 
bered  with  obstructing  accumulations  of  metaphor  and  alle- 
gory?" 

Another  pause,  and  more  reflection.     Then,  said  Scotty : 

"  I'll  have  to  pass,  I  judge." 

"How?" 

"  You've  raised  me  out,  pard." 

"  I  still  fail  to  catch  your  meaning." 

"  Why,  that  last  lead  of  yourn  is  too  many  for  me — that's  th^ 
idea.     I  can't  neither  trump  nor  follow  suit." 

The  clergyman  sank  back  in  his  chair  perplexed.  Scott]' 
leaned  his  head  on  his  hand  and  gave  himself  up  to  thought- 
Presently  his  face  came  up,  sorrowful  but  confident. 

"  I've  got  it  now,  so's  you  can  savvy,"  he  said.  "What  wf 
want  is  a  gospel-sharp.     See  ? ' ' 

"A  what?" 

"Gospel-sharp.     Parson." 

"  Oh  !  Why  did  you  not  say  so  before  !  I  am  a  clergyman — 
a  parson." 

"Now  you  talk!  You  see  my  blind  and  straddle  it  like  a 
man.     Put  it  there !  "—extending  a  brawny  paw,  which  closed 


AMKRICAN  UTBRATURB.  329 

over  the  minister's  small  hand  and  gave  it  a  shake  indicative  of 
fraternal  sympathy  and  fervent  gratification. 

"Now  we're  all  right,  pard.  I,et's  start  fresh.  Don't  you 
mind  my  snuffling  a  little— becuz  we're  in  a  power  of  trouble. 
You  see,  one  of  the  boys  has  gone  up  the  flump —  " 

"Gone  where?" 

"  Up  the  flume— throwed  up  the  sponge,  you  understand." 
"  Thrown  up  the  sponge?" 
"  Yes— kicked  the  bucket—  " 

"Ah — ^has  departed  to  that  mysterious  country  from  whose 
bourne  no  traveler  returns." 

"Return !     I  reckon  not.     Why  pard,  he's  dead!  " 

"Yes,  I  understand." 

"  Oh,  you  do  ?    Well  I  thought  maybe  you  might  be  getting 
tangled  some  more.     Yes,  you  see  he's  dead  again —  " 

' '  Again  ?    Why,  has  he  ever  been  dead  before  ?  " 

"Dead  before?  No!  Do  you  reckon  a  man  has  got  as 
many  lives  as  a  cat?  But  you  bet  you  he's  awful  dead  now,  poor 
old  boy,  and  I  wish  I'd  never  seen  this  day.  I  don't  want  no 
better  friend  than  Buck  Fanshaw.  I  knowed  him  by  the  back ; 
and  when  I  know  a  man  and  like  him,  I  freeze  to  him — you  hear 
me.  Take  him  all  round,  pard,  there  was  never  a  buUier  man  in 
•  the  mines.  No  man  ever  knowed  Buck  Fanshaw  to  go  back  on 
a  friend.  But  it's  all  up,  you  know,  it's  all  up.  It  ain't  no  use. 
They've  scooped  him." 

"Scooped  him?" 

"Yes — death  has.  Well,  well,  well,  we've  got  to  give  him 
up.  Yes  indeed.  It's  kind  of  a  hard  world,  after  all,  ain'tiff 
But  pard,  he  was  a  rustler !  You  ought  to  seen  him  get  started 
once.  He  was  a  bully  boy  with  a  glass  eye !  Just  spit  in  his 
face  and  give  him  room  according  to  his  strength,  and  it  was  just 
beautiftil  ;to  see  him  peel  and  go  in.  He  was  the  worst  son  of 
a  thief  that  ever  drawed  breath.  Pard,  he  was  on  it !  He  was 
on  it  bigger  than  an  Injiin?" 

"On  it?    On  what?" 

"  On  the  shoot.  On  the  shoulder.  On  the  fight,  you  under- 
stand. He  didn't  give  a  continental  for  anybody.  Beg  your  par- 
don, friend,  for  coming  so  near  saying  a  cuss-word — but  you  see 
I'm  on  an  awful  strain,  in  this  palaver,  on  account  of  having  to 
cramp  down  and  draw  everything  so  mild.  But  we've  got  to  give 
him  up.  There  ain't  any  getting  around  that,  I  don't  reckon. 
Now  if  we  can  get  you  to  help  plant  him —  " 


330  LITERATURE  OF  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

"  Preacli  the  funeral  discourse?    Assist  at  the  obsequies?" 

"  Obs'quies  is  good.  Yes.  That's  it— that's  our  little  game. 
We  are  going  to  get  the  thing  up  regardless,  you  know.  He  was 
always  nifty  himself,  and  so  you  bet  you  his  funeral  ain't  going 
to  be  no  slouch — solid  silver  door-plate  on  his  coffin,  six  plumes 
on  the  hearse,  and  a  nigger  on  the  box  in  a  biled  shirt  and  a  plug 
hat — how's  that  for  high?  And  we'll  take  care  oi you,  pard. 
We'll  fix  you  all  right.  There'll  be  a  kerridge  for  you;  and 
whatever  you  want,  you  just  'scape  out  and  we'll  'tend  to  it. 
We've  got  a  shebang  fixed  up  for  you  to  stand  behind,  in  No.  I's 
house,  and  don't  you  be  afraid.  Just  go  in  and  toot  your  horn, 
if  you  don't  sell  a  clam.  Put  Buck  through  as  bully  as  you  can, 
pard,  for  anybody  that  knowed  him.will  tell  you  that  he  was  one 
of  the  whitest  men  that  was  ever  in  the  mines.  You  can't  draw 
it  too  strong.  He  never  could  stand  it  to  see  things  going  wrong. 
He's  done  more  to  make  this  town  quiet  and  peaceable  than  any 
man  in  it.  I've  seen  him  lick  four  Greasers  in  eleven  minutes, 
myself.  If  a  thing  wanted  regulating,  he  wam't  a  man  to  go 
browsing  around  after  somebody  to  do  it,  but  he  would  prance  in 
and  regulate  it  himself."    .     .     . 

' '  That  was  very  well  indeed — at  least  the  impulse  was — 
whether  the  act  was  strictly  defensible  or  not.  Had  deceased  any 
religious  convictions?  That  is  to  say,  did  he  feel  a  dependence 
hpon,  or  acknowledge  allegiance  to  a  higher  power?  " 

More  reflection. 

"I  reckon  you've  stumped  me  again,  pard.  Could  you  say 
it  over  once  more,  and  say  it  slow?  " 

' '  Very  well.     Was  he  a  good  man,  and —  ' ' 

"There — I  see  that;  don't  put  up  another  chip  till  I  look  at 
my  hand.  A  good  man,  says  you?  Pard,  it  ain't  no  name  for  it. 
He  was  the  best  man  that  ever — pard,  you  would  have  doted  on  that 
man.  He  could  lam  any  galoot  of  his  inches  in  America.  It 
was  him  that  put  down  the  riot  last  election  before  it  got  a  start ; 
and  everybody  said  he  was  the  only  man  that  could  have  done  it. 
He  waltzed  in  with  a  spanner  in  one  hand  and  a  trumpet  in  the 
other,  and  sent  fourteen  men  home  on  a  shutter  in  less  than  three 
minutes.  He  had  that  riot  all  broke  up  and  prevented  nice  before 
anybody  ever  got  a  chance  to  strike  a  blow.  He  was  always  for 
peace,  and  he  would  have  peace — he  could  not  stand  disturbances. 
Pard,  he  was  a  great  loss  to  this  town.  It  would  please  the  boys 
if  you  could  chip  in  something  like  that  and  do  him  justice. 
Here  once  when  the  Micks  got  to  throwing  stones  through  the 


AMERICAN  I.I'rERATUR:^.  331 

Methodis'  Sunday-school  windows,  Buck  Fanshaw,  all  of  his  own 
notion,  shut  up  his  saloon  and  took  a  couple  of  six-shooters  and 
mounted  guard  over  the  Sunday-school.  Says  he,  '  No  Irish  need 
apply!  •  And  they  didn't.  He  was  the  bulliest  man  in  the 
mountains,  pard !  He  could  run  faster,  jump  higher,  hit  harder, 
and  hold  more  tangle-foot  whisky  without  spilling  it,  than  any 
man  in  seventeen  counties.  Put  that  in,  pard !— it'll  please  the 
boys  more  than  anything  you  could  say.  And  you  can  say,  pard, 
that  he  never  shook  his  mother." 

"Never  shook  his  mother? " 

"That's  it— any  of  the  boys  will  tell  you  so." 

"Well,  but  why  should  he  shake  her?  " 

"  That's  what  /say — but  some  people  does." 

' '  Not  people  of  any  repute  ?  " 

"Well,  some  that  averages  pretty  so  so." 

"  In  my  opinion  the  man  that  would  offer  personal  violence  to 
his  own  mother,  ought  to —  " 

"Cheese  it,  pard !  you've  banked  your  ball  clean  outside  the 
string.  What  I  was  a  drivin'  at,  was,  that  he  never  throwed  off 
on  his  mother— don't  you  see?  No  indeedy.  He  gave  her  a  house 
to  live  in,  and  town  lots,  and  plenty  of  money ;  and  he  looked 
after  her  and  took  care  of  her  all  the  time ;  and  when  she  was 
down  with  the  small-pox  I'm  d — — d  if  he  didn't  set  up  nights  and 
nuss  her  himself!  Beg  your  pardon  for  saying  it,  but  it  hopped 
out  too  quick  for  yours  truly.  You'vp  treated  me  like  a  gentle- 
man, pard,  and  I  ain't  the  man  to  hurt  your  feelings  intentional. 
I  think  you're  white.  I  think  you're  a  square  man,  pard.  I  like 
you,  and  I'll  lick  any  man  that  don't.  I'll  lick  him  till  he  can't 
tell  himself  from  a  last  year's  corpse !  Put  it  there  !  "  [Another 
fraternal  handshake — and  exit.] 

The  obsequies  were  all  that  "  the  boys  "  could  desire.  Such 
a  marvel  of  funeral  pomp  had  never  been  seen  in  Virginia.  The 
plumed  hearse,  the  dirge-breathing  brass  bands,  the  closed  marts 
of  business,  the  flags  drooping  at  half  mast,  the  long,  plodding 
procession  of  uniformed  secret  societies,  military  battalions  and 
fire  companies,  draped  engines,  carriages  of  oiEcials,  and  citizens 
in  vehicles  and  on  foot,  attracted  multitudes  of  spectators  to  the 
sidewalks,  roofs  -  and  windows ;  and  for  years  afterward,  the 
degree  of  grandeur  attained  by  any  civic  display  in  Virginia  was 
determined  by  comparison  with  Buck  Fanshaw's  funeral. 


332  I,ITERATURE  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 


JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS. 

The  most  attractive  vein  of  folk-lore  ever  worked  in  the 
United  States  was  that  which  Joel  Chandler  Harris  disclosed 
by  the  publication  of  his  ' '  Uncle  Remus  ' '  sketches.  These 
tales,  all  brought  from  Africa  by  the  progenitors  of  our  colored 
population,  had  passed  down  through  generations  by  word-of- 
mouth  only ;  scarcely  one  of  them  had  appeared  in  print  until 
the  appearance  of  "Uncle  Remus."  They  might  have  been 
printed  in  such  manner  as  to  be  as  uninteresting  as  some 
volumes  of  folk-lore  that  have  been  issued  by  learned  societies, 
only  to  gather  dust  on  book-shelves ;  but  who  ever  saw,  out- 
side of  a  bookstore,  a  volume  of  "Uncle  Remus  "  that  did  not 
show  sign  of  many  readings?  The  diflference  is  due  less  to 
the  matter  than  to  the  manner  of  telling;  the  old  negro 
who  relates  the  tales  is,  despite  his  rags,  his  rheumatism, 
and  his  fondness  for  stimulants,  an  engaging  personality. 
The  author  was  born  at  Eatonton,  Georgia,  in  1848,  and  has 
been  chiefly  engaged  in  journalism.  It  is  not  alone  through 
Uncle  Remus,  however,  that  the  author  has  interested  the 
reading  world  ;  he  has  written  some  realistic  sketches  of  life 
in  modern  Georgia, — sketches  full  of  unusual  incidents  and 
characters,  all  of  which  he  handles  with  genuine  dramatic 
sense.  All  his  literary  work  has  been  done  in  moments  stolen 
from  exacting  jourualistic  duties. 

Why  the  Moon's  Face  is  Smutty. 

(This  chapter  from  "Uncle  Remus"  is  used  by  special  permission 
of,  and  special  arrangement  with  the  authorized  publishers,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 

"  Hit's  money,  honey,  de  worl'  over,"  replied  Uncle 
Remus,  after  a  somewhat  prolonged  silence.  ' '  Go  whar  you 
will,  en  go  when  you  may,  en  stay  ez  l6ng  ez  mought  be,  en 
you  '11  fin'  folks  huntin'  atter  money — mornin'  en  evenin', 
day  en  night. 

"  Look  at  um !  Why,  dars  de  Moon," — something  in  the 
attitude  or  the  countenance  of  the  child  caused  Uncle  Remus 
to  stop  suddenly  and  laugh. 


AMERICAN  LITBRATURS.  '333 

"The  Moon,  Uncle  Remus ? "  exclaimed  the  youngster. 
"  What  about  the  Moon  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  know  how  folks  talk  'bout  de  Moon.  You  '11 
hear  um  say  she's  on  her  fus'  quarter,  den  on  'er  las'  quarter ; 
en  dat  des  'zackly  de  way  dey  talk  'bout  money.  I  hear  tell 
dat  one  time  dey  wuz  a  man  gwine  'long  en  de  woods,  en  he 
hear  a  mighty  jinglin'  en  rattlin'.  He  look  'roun',  en  see  it 
wuz  de  Moon  er  changi^'.  Seem  like  she  lacked  a  quarter, 
en  de  man  pulled  out  his  money-purse  en  flung  de  quarter  in, 
en  den  she  change  all  right. 

"  But  dat  ain't  no  tale ;  hit  des  a  rig,"  Uncle  Remus  con- 
tinued, not  waiting  to  see  the  efiect  of  this  venerable  joke. 
"De  tale  dat  I  been  hearin'  'bout  de  moon  ain't  got  no 
money  in  it,  en  dat  mighty  funny,  too,  kaze  it  look  like 
money  is  mix  up  wid  mos'  eve'ything. 

"  In  dem  days,  way  back  yander,  de  Moon  use  ter  come 
down  en  get  behime  a  big  poplar  log,  when  she  wanter  make 
a  change.  She  ain't  want  nobody  to  see  'er.  She'd  rise 
later  en  later  eve'y  night,  des  like  she  do  now,  en  den  to'rds 
de  las'  she'd  drap  down  on  de  fur  een  er  de  Ian',  over  dat  away, 
en  slip  behime  de  poplar  log  en  change  all  she  want  er. 

"But  one  time  dey  wuz  a  man  gwine  'long  thoo  de  woods 
to  tin'  a  bag  er  charcoal,  what  he  been  burnin'.  He  been 
watchin'  de  coal  kil'  since  midnight  de  night  befo',  en  he  uz 
so  tired  out  en  broke  down,  dat  stidder  singin'  er  whistlin', 
like  folks  does  when  dey  go  thoo  de  woods,  he  uz  des  gwine 
'bout  his  business  widout  making  any  fuss.  He  was  axin 
hisse'f  if  dey'd  be  any  hot  ashcake  waitin'  for  'im,  en  whedder 
de  ole  'Oman  'd  save  'im  any  pot  liquor  fum  dinner. 

"He  was  gwine  'long  dis  way  when  de  fus'  news  he  know, 
he  come  right  'pon  de  Moon  whiles  she  was  changin. '  Man, 
suh  !  Dey  wuz  de  bigges'  flutterment  den  en  dar  dat  dey  's 
ever  been  befo'  er  since.  Folks  'way  off  thought  dey  could 
hear  thunder,  dough  dey  wan' t  nothin'  in  de  roun'  worl'  but 
de  Moon  tryin'  fer  ter  git  out  de  way  er  de  man. 

"De  man,  he  drapt  de  bag  er  charcoal  en  run  like  ole 

Scratch  wuz  atter  'im.     He  des  tored  thoo  de  woods  like  a 

^hariycane  was  blowin'  'im  'long.     He  'uz  gwine  one  way  en 

de  Moon  anudder,  but  de  Moon  she  tripped  en  fell  right 


334 


UTERATURB  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 


topper  de  bag  er  charcoal,  en  you  kin  see  de  signs  un  it  down 
ter  dis  day.  Look  at  'er  when  you  will,  en  you  '11  see  dat 
she  look  like  she  been  hit  'cross  de  face  wid  a  sut-bag.  Don't 
take  my  word  fer  it.  Des  look  fer  yo'se'f !  Der'tis!  Ever 
sence  dat  day  de  Moon  done  got  so  she  do  'er  changin'  up  in 
de  elements." 

After  a  while  the  little  boy  asked  what  became  of  the 
man  that  had  the  bag  of  charcoal. 

"What  dat  got  ter  do  wid  de  tale?"  said  Uncle  Remus, 
sharply.  "Long  ez  de  Moon  is  up  dar  all  safe  en  soun', 
'ceppin'  de  smut,  it  don't  make  no  diffunce  'bout  no  man." 


WALT  WHITMAN. 

Walt  Whitman  was  born  at  West 
Hills,  Long  Island,  on  May  31,  1819. 
He  was  first  a  printer,  then  a  teacher 
in  country  schools,  and  subsequently 
learned  the  carpenter's  trade.  He  also 
contributed  to  newspapers  and  mag- 
azines and  was  at  intervals  connected 
with  various  papers  in  an  editorial 
capacity.  In  1 849  he  traveled  through 
the  western  States,  and  afterwards  took 
up  his  residence  in  New  York  City, 
where  he  frequented  the  society  of  newspaper  men  and  littera- 
teurs. In  185s  he  published  his  notable  work  "Leaves  of 
Grass,"  in  which  he  preaches  the  gospel  of  democracy  and 
the  natural  man.  It  is  a  series  of  poems  without  rhyme  or 
metrical  form,  dealing  with  moral,  social  and  political  prob- 
lems. It  was  a  new  departure  in  literature,  an  unwonted 
method  of  conveying  frank  and  untrammeled  utterances. 
The  book  at  first  attracted  but  little  attention,  though  it  at 
once  found  some  staunch  admirers.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
said  of  it :  "  I  find  it  the  most  extraordinary  piece  of  wit  and 
wisdom  that  America  has  yet  contributed."  This  book  Walt 
Whitman  elaborated  and  added  to  for  thirty  years,  and 
several  editions  have  been  published.  It  has  excited  bitter 
denunciation  and  warm  approval.      Original  and  forceful, 


AMERICAN  WTERATURB.  335 

Whitman  cannot  be  judged  by  ordinary  literary  standards. 
His  scornful  trampling  upon  all  metrical  rules,  and  his  free- 
dom in  treating  of  matters  usually  passed  in  silence,  have  so 
far  been  a  decided  barrier  to  the  approval  of  his  work. 

During  the  war,  Whitman  became  an  hospital  nurse  at 
Washington.  His  experiences  were  wrought  into  a  volume 
called  "Drum  Taps,"  since  embodied  with  "lycaves  of 
Grass."  After  the  war  he  was  for  some  years  in  the  Govern- 
ment employ  at  Washington.  He  moved  to  Camden,  New 
Jersey,  in  1873.  Besides  adding  to  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  he 
published  "Specimen  Days  and  Collects"  in  1883,  "No- 
vember Boughs"  1885,  "Sands  at  Seventy"  1888,  "Good- 
bye, my  Fancy! "  1890. 

Whitman  died  on  March  26,  1892.  His  ambition  was  to 
be  something  more  than  a  mere  singer ;  a  prophet  and  seer 
to  his  country  and  time.  He  has  not  yet  been  accepted  by 
the  people  at  large.  He  has  won  the  approbation  of  some 
gyeat  minds,  but  so  far  he  has  not  won  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
to  whom  he  dedicated  his  labors. 


In  Ali,,  Myself. 

I  AM  the  poet  of  the  Body  and  I  am  tlie  poet  of  the  Soul, 
The  pleasures  of  heaven  are  with  me,  and  the  pains  of  hell  are 

with  me ; 
The  first  I  graft  upon  myself,  the  latter  I  translate  into  a  new 

tongue. 

I  am  the  poet  of  the  woman  the  same  as  the  man, 
And  I  say  it  is  as  great  to  be  a  woman  as  to  be  a  man, 
And  I  say  there  is  nothing  greater  than  the  mother  of  men. 

I  chant  the  chant  of  dilation  or  pride, 

We  have  had  ducking  and  deprecation  about  enough, 

I  show  that  size  is  only  development. 

Have  you  outstript  the  rest  ?  are  you  the  President  ? 

It  is  a  trifle,  they  will  more  than  arrive  there  everyone,  and  still 

pass  on. 
I  am  he  that  walks  with  the  tender  and  growing  night, 
I  call  to  the  earth  and  sea,  half-held  by  the  night. 


336  LITBRATURE  OF  ALI,  KATIONS. 

Press  close  bare-bosom' d  night — press  close  magnetic  nourishing 

night ! 
Night  of  South  winds — ^night  of  the  large  few  stars ! 
Still  nodding  night — mad  naked  summer  night. 

Smile,  O  voluptuous  cool-breatheH  earth ! 

Earth  of  the  slumbering  and  liquid  trees ! 

Earth  of  departed  sunset — earth  of  the  mountains  misty-topt ! 

Earth  of  the  vitreous  pour  of  the  full  moon  just  tinged  with  blue ! 

Earth  of  shine  and  dark  mottling  the  tide  of  the  river ! 

Earth  of  the  limpid  gray  of  clouds  brighter  and  clearer  for  my 

sake! 
Far-swooping  elbow' d  earth — rich  apple-blossom' d  earth ! 
Smile,  for  your  lover  comes. 

Prodigal,  you  have  given  me  love — therefore  to  you  I  give  love ! 
O  unspeakable  passionate  love. 

The  P^an  op  Joy. 

Now,  trumpeter !  for  thy  close, 
Vouchsafe  a  higher  strain  than  any  yet  ; 
Sing  to  my  soul ! — renew  its  languishing  faith  and  hope ; 
Rouse  up  my  slow  belief— give  me  some  vision  of  the  future  ; 
Give  me,  for  once,  its  prophecy  and  joy. 
O  glad,  exulting,  culminating  song ! 
A  vigor  more  than  earth's  is  in  thy  notes ! 
Marches  of  victory — man  disenthralled — the  conqueror  at  last ! 
Hymns  to  the  universal  God  from  universal  Man — all  joy  ! 
A  re-born  race  appears — a  perfect  world — all  joy ! 
Women  and  men  in  wisdom,  innocence,  and  health — all  joy ! 
Riotous  laughing  bacchanals,  filled  with  joy  ! 
"War,  sorrowing,  suffering  gone — the  rank  earth  purged — nothing 

but  joy  left ! 
The  ocean  filled  with  joy — the  atmosphere  all  joy  ! 
Joy !  joy  !  in  freedom,  worship,  love !  Joy  in  the  ecstasy  of  life ! 
Enough  to  merely  be !    Enough  to  breathe ! 
Joy !  joy !  all  over  joy  ! 

(The  above  extracts  are  from  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  copyrighted  by 
David  McKay,  Philadelphia.) 


AMERICAN  UTERATURE.  337 


FRANCIS  BRET  HARTE. 

Bret  Harte  was  born  in  1839  in 
Albany,  New  York,  the  son  of  a  school- 
master of  fine  education  and  small  means. 
From  him  Bret  probably  inherited  his  fine 
sense  of  language.  At  the  age  of  seven- 
teen, about  seven  years  after  the  discovery 
of  gold  in  California,  he  journeyed  to  the 
J^  Pacific  coast,  and  dwelt  there  fourteen 
years.  After  a  few  years  in  the  Eastern 
States  he  was  sent  to  Europe  as  Consul, 
and  he  has  ever  since  resided  there,  chiefly 
in  I/)ndon,  where  he  is  a  social  favorite. 

The  sudden  change  from  the  narrow  strictness  of  his  Eastern 
home  to  the  lawless  unconventionality  of  Western  mining  life 
profoundly  affected  Harte,  and  awakened  his  artistic  instincts. 
He  had  done  a  little  mining  himself;  he  had  set  type  in  a  news- 
paper ofiSce,  acted  as  editor,  and  finally  taken  to  writing  little 
.sketches.  They  show  the  influence  of  Dickens  in  certain  points 
of  style,  and  in  the  point  of  view ;  but  Harte  writes  better  English 
than  his  model,  and  is  more  direct  and  simple  in  his  treatment. 
His  mind,  indeed,  was  independent,  as  is  shown  by  his  "Con- 
densed Novels,"  published  in  1867,  when  he  was  twenty-eight; 
they  catch  the  essence  of  diverse  styles  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion in  a  way  which  could  be  possible  only  to  a  strong  individu- 
ality. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  not  be  unjust  to  say  that  his  sub- 
ject made  him.  He  saw  the  romantic  novelty  of  the  Argonaut 
episode,  and  portrayed  it  with  a  vigor,  vividness,  and  literary 
mastery  which  left  nothing  for  imitators.  In  half  a  dozen  short 
tales,  filling  about  fifty  pages,  and  produced  during  and  a  short 
time  after  his  connection  with  The  Overland  Monthly,  he  told 
the  famous  epic  with  a  pathos,  a  humor,  an  insight  into  char- 
acter, a  terseness,  a  dramatic  perception,  a  brilliance  of  color, 
unsurpassed  in  modern  imaginative  writing.  In  our  own  litera- 
ture, Harte  was  an  epoch-maker.  The  high  title  of  genius  can- 
not be  refused  to  the  man  who  could  achieve  this  feat. 

Yet  he  has  been  in  some  degree  a  disappointment.  Because 
"The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat"  and  "The  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp"  were  two  of  the  finest  sketches  ever  written  in  this  coun- 

X— 23 


338  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

try,  it  was  thought  that  Harte  would  write  a  long  novel  of  not  less 
merit.  But  ' '  Gabriel  Conroy ' '  proved  he  could  not  do  this.  It 
was  thought,  again,  that  after  exhausting  the  topic  of  the  Argo- 
nauts, he  would  take  up  others  with  the  same  success.  But  it 
turned  out  that  Harte's  genius  was  as  limited  in  its  range  as  it 
was  inimitable ;  when  his  scene  was  changed,  he  changed  entirely. 
After  several  efforts  he  perceived  this  himself,  and  has  ever  since 
remained  the  portrayer  of  the  California  of  the  fifties.  But  he 
has  never  quite  equalled  his  first  masterpieces ;  nothing  that  he 
has  since  produced  has  created  the  immense  sensation  which 
those  marvellous  little  gems  of  observation  and  imagination 
made.  We  may  read  in  an  hour  the  sum  and  substance  of  his 
contribution  to  literature  ;  but  we  can  never  forget  it.  A  small 
volume  will  hold  it,  but  it  will  stand  side  by  side  with  the  best 
America  has  to  show. 

The  IvUck  of, Roaring  Camp., 

(From  "  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  and  Other  Sketches."  Copy- 
right, 1870.  Used  here  by  special  permission  of  the  author  and  the 
publishers,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

Cherokee  Sal  had  such  rude  sepulture  as  Roaring  Camp 
afforded.  After  her  body  had  been  committed  to  the  hillside, 
tjiere  was  a  formal  meeting  of.  the  camp  to  discuss  what  should 
be  done  with  her  infant.  A  resolution  to  adopt  it  was  unanimous 
and  enthusiastic.  But  an  animated  discussion  in  regard  to  the 
manner  and  feasibility  of  providing  for  its  wants  at  once  sprung 
up.  It  was  remarkable  that  the  argument  partook  of  none  of  those 
fierce  personalities  with  which  discussions  were  usually  conducted 
at  Roaring  Camp.  Tipton  proposed  that  they  should  send  the 
child  to  Red  Dog, — a  distance  of  forty  miles, — where  female  atten- 
tion could  be  procured.  But  the  unlucky  suggestion  met  with 
fierce  and  unanimous  opposition.'  It  was  evident  that  no  plan 
which  entailed  parting  from  their  new  acquisition  would  for  a 
moment  be  entertained.  "Besides,"  said  Tom  Ryder,  "them 
fellows  at  Red  Dog  would  swap  it,  and  ring  in  somebody  else  on 
us."  A  disbelief  in  the  honesty  of  other  camps  prevailed  at 
Roaring  Camp  as  in  other  places. 

The  introduction  of  a  female  nurse  in  the  catop  also  met  with 
objection.  It  was  argued  that  no  decent  woman  could  be  pre- 
vailed to  accept  Roaring  Camp  as  her  home,  and  the  speaker 
urged  that  "  they  did  n't  want  any  more  of  the  other  kind."  This 


AMBRICAN  WTBRATURB.  339 

unkind  allusion  to  the  defunct  mother,  harsh  as  it  may  seem,  was 
the  first  spasm  of  propriety, — the  first  symptom  of  the  camp's 
regeneration.  Stumpy  advanced  nothing.  Perhaps  he  felt  a  cer- 
tain delicacy  in  interfering  with  the  selection  of  a  possible  suc- 
cessor in  office.  But  when  questioned,  he  averred  stoutly  that 
he  and  "Jinny" — (an  ass) — could  manage  to  rear  the  child. 
There  was  something  original,  independent,  and  heroic  about  the 
plan  that  pleased  the  camp.  Stumpy  was  retained.  Certain 
articles  were  sent  for  to  Sacramento.  ' '  Mind, ' '  said  the  treasurer, 
as  he  pressed  a  bag  of  gold-dust  into  the  expressman's  hand, 
"  the  best  that  can  be  got, — lace,  you  know,  and  filigree- work  and 
frills,— d—m  the  cost !  " 

Strange  to  say,  the  child  thrived.  Perhaps  the  invigorating 
climate  of  the  mountain  camp  was  compensation  for  material  defi- 
ciencies. Nature  took  the  fondling  to  her  broader  breast.  In 
that  rare  atmosphere  of  the  Sierra  foot- hills, — that  air  pungent 
with  balsamic  odor,  that  ethereal  cordial  at  once  bracing  and  exhil- 
arating,— he  may  have  found  food  and  nourishment;  or  a  subtle 
chemistry  that  transmuted  asses'  milk  to  lime  and  phosphorus. 
Stumpy  inclined  to  the  belief  that  it  was  the  latter  and  good 
nursing.  "Me  and  that  ass,"  he  would  say,  "has  been  father 
and  mother  to  him !  Don't  you,"  he  would  add,  apostrophizing 
the  helpless  bundle  before  him,  "never  go  back  on  us." 

By  the  time  he  was  a  month  old,  the  necessity  of  giving  him 
a  name  became  apparent.  He  had  generally  been  known  as  ' '  the 
Kid,"  "  Stumpy's  boy, "  "the  Cayote"  (an  allusion  to  his  vocal 
powers),  and  even  by  Kentuck's  endearing  diminutive  of  "the 
d; — d  little  cuss."  But  these  were  felt  to  be  vague  and  unsatis- 
factory, and  were  at  last  dismissed  under  another  influence.  Gam- 
blers and  adventurers  are  generally  superstitious,  and  Oakhurst 
one  day  declared  that  the  baby  had  brought  "the  luck "  to  Roar- 
ing Camp.  It  was  certain  that  of  late  they  had  been  successful. 
"  I/Uck  "  was  the  name  agreed  upon,  with  the  prefix  of  Tommy 
for  greater  convenience.  No  allusion  was  made  to  the  mother, 
and  the  father  was  unknown.  "It's  better,"  said  the  philoso- 
phical Oakhurst,  "  to  take  a  fresh  deal  all  round.  Call  him  I,uck, 
and  start  him  fair."  A  day  was  accordingly  set  apart  for  the 
christening.  What  was  meant  by  this  ceremony  the  reader  may 
imagine,  who  has  already  gathered  some  idea  of  the  reckless 
irreverence  of  Roaring  Camp.  The  master  of  ceremonies  was 
one  "  Boston,"  a  noted  wag,  and  the  occasion  seemed  to  promise 
the  greatest  facetiousness.    The  ingenious  satirist  had  spent  two 


340  WTERATURE  OF  ALI.  NATIONS. 

days  in  preparing  a  burlesque  of  the  church  service,  with  pointed 
local  allusions.  The  choir  was  properly  trained,  and  Sandy  Tip- 
ton was  to  stand  godfather.  But  after  the  procession  had  marched 
to  the  grove  with  music  and  banners,  and  the  child  had  been 
deposited  before  a  mock  altar.  Stumpy  stepped  before  the  expect- 
ant crowd.  "It  ain't  my  style  to  spoil  fun,  boys,"  said  the  little 
man,  stoutly,  eyeing  the  faces  around  him,  "but  it  strikes  me 
that  this  thing  ain't  exactly  on  the  squar.  It's  playing  it  pretty 
low  down  on  this  yer  baby  to  ring  in  fun  on  him  that  he  ain't 
going  to  understand.  And  ef  there's  going  to  be  any  godfathers 
round,  I'd  like  to  see  who's  got  any  better  rights  than  me."  A 
silence  followed  Stumpy's  speech.  To  the  credit  of  all  humorists 
be  it  said,  that  the  first  man  to  acknowledge  its  justice  was  the 
satirist,  thus  stopped  of  his  fun.  "But,"  said  Stumpy,  quickly, 
following  up  his  advantage,  "we're  here  for  a  , christening,  and 
we'll  have  it.  I  pi;oclaim  you  Thomas  Luck,  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  and  the  State  of  California,  so  help  me 
God. ' '  It  was  the  first  time  that  the  name  of  the  Deity  had  been 
uttered  otherwise  than  profanely'  in  the  camp.  The  form  of 
christening  was  perhaps  even  more  ludicrous  than  the  satirist  had 
conceived,  but,  strangely  enough,  nobody  saw  it  and  nobody 
laughed.  "Tommy"  was  christened  as  seriously  as  he  would 
have  been  under  a  Christian  roof,  and  cried  and  was  comforted  in 
as  orthodox  fashion. 

And  so  the  work  of  regeneration  began  in  Roaring  Camp. 
Almost  imperceptibly  a  change  came  over  the  settlement.  The 
cabin  assigiied  to  "Tommy  Luck" — or  "The  Luck,"  as  he  was 
more  frequently  called — first  showed  signs  of  improvement.  It 
was  kept  scrupulously  clean  and  whitewashed.  Then  it  was 
boarded,  clothed,  and  papered.  The  rosewood  cradle — packed 
eighty  miles  by  mule — had,  in  Stumpy's  way  of  putting  it, 
"sorter  killed  the  rest  of  the  fiimiture."  So  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  cabin  became  a  necessity.  The  men  who  were  in  the  habit 
of  lounging  in  at  Stumpy's  to  see  "how  the  Luck  got  on  "  seemed 
to  appreciate  the  change,  and,  in  self-defence,  the  rival  establish- 
ment of  "Tuttle's  grocery"  bestirred  itself,  and  imported  a  carpet 
and  mirrors.  The  reflections  of  the  latter  on  the  appearance  of 
Roaring  Camp  tended  to  produce  stricter  habits  of  personal  clean- 
liness. Again,  Stumpy  imposed  a  kind  of  quarantine  upon  those 
who  aspired. to  the  honor, and  privilege  of  holding  "The  Luck." 
It  was  a  cruel  mortification  to  Kentuck — who,  in  the  carelessness 
of  a  large  nature  and  the  habits  of  frontier  life,  had  begun  to 


AMBRICJ^  WTRRATURE.  341 

regard  all  garments  as  a  second  cuticle,  -which,  like  a  snake's, 
only  sloughed  off  through  decay— to  be  debarred  this  privilege 
from  certain  prudential  reasons.  Yet  such  was  the  subtle  influ- 
ence of  innovation  that  he  thereafter  appeared  regularly  every 
afternoon  in  a  clean  shirt  and  face  still  shining  from  his  ablu- 
tions. Nor  were  moral  and  social  sanitary  laws  neglected. 
'"Tommy,"  who  was  supposed  to  spend  his  whole  existence  in 
a  persistent  attempt  to  repose,  must  not  be  disturbed  by  noise. 
The  shouting  and  yelling  which  had  gained  the  camp  its  infelici- 
tous title  were  not  permitted  within  hearing  distance  of  Stumpy's. 
The  men  conversed  in  whispers,  or  smoked  with  Indian  gravity. 
Profanity  was  tacitly  given  Up  in  these  sacred  precincts,  and 
throughout  the  camp  a  popular  form  of  expletive,  known  as 
"D — n  the  luck!"  and  "Curse  the  luck!"  was  abandoned,  as 
having  a  new  personal  bearing.  Vocal  music  was  not  interdicted, 
being  supposed  to  have  a  soothing,  tranquillizing  quality,  and  one 
song,  sung  by -"Man-o'-War  Jack,"  an  English  sailor,  from  her 
Majesty's  Australian  colonies,  was  quite  popular  as  a  lullaby.  It 
was  a  lugubrious  recital  of  the  exploits  of  ' '  the  Arethusa, 
Seventy -four,"  in  a  muffled  minor,  ending  with  a  prolonged 
dying  fall  at  the  burden  of -each  verse,  "On  j3-o-o-o-ard  of  the 
Arethusa. ' '  It  was  a  fine  sight  to  see  Jack  holding  The  I^uck, 
rocking  from  side  to  side  as  if  with  the  motion  of  a  ship,  and 
crooning  forth  this  naval  ditty.  Either  through  the  peculiar 
rocking  of  Jack  or  the  length  of  his  song, — it  contained  ninety 
stanzas,  and  was  continued  with  conscientious  deliberation  to  the 
bitter  end, — the  lullaby  generally  had  the  desired  effect.  .  .  . 

On  the  long  summer  days  The  I,uck  was  usually  carried  to 
the  gulch,  from  whence  the  golden  store  of  Roaring  Camp  was 
taken.  There,  on  a  blanket  spread  over  pine-boughs,  he  would 
lie  while  the  men  were  working  in  the  ditches  below.  Latterly, 
there  was  a  rude  attempt  to  decorate  this  bower  with  flowers 
and  sweet-smelling  shrubs,  and  generally  some  one  would  bring 
him  a  cluster  of  wild  honeysuckles,  azaleas,  or  the  painted 
blossoms  of  Las  Mariposas.  The  men  had  suddenly  awakened 
to  the  fact  that  there  were  beauty  and  significance  in  these  trifles, 
which  they  had  so  long  trodden  carelessly  beneath  their  feet.  A 
flake  of  glittering  mica,  a  fragment  of  variegated  quartz,  a  bright 
pebble  from '  the  bed  of  the  creek,  became  beautiful  to  eyes  thus 
cleared  and  strengthened,  and  were  invariably  put  aside  for  "  The 
Luck."  It  was  wonderful  how  many  treasures  the  woods  and 
hillsides  yielded  that  "would  do  for  Tommy."     Surrounded  |3y 


342  I^ITSRATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

playthings  such  as  never  child  out  of  fairy-land  had  before,  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  Tommy  was  content.  He  appeared  to  be  securely 
happy,  albeit  there  was  an  infantine  gravity  about  him,  a  contem- 
plative light  in  his  round  gray  eyes,  that  sometimes  worried 
Stumpy.  He  was  alwaj^s  tractable  and  quiet,  and  it  is  recorded 
that  once,  having  crept  beyond  his  "corral," —  a  hedge  of  tassel- 
lated  pine-boughs,  which  surrounded  his  bed, — he  dropped  over 
the  bank  on  his  head  in  the  soft  earth,  and  remained  with  his 
mottled  legs  in  the  air  in  that  position  for  at  least  five  minutes 
with  unflinching  gravity.  He  was  extricated  without  a  murmur. 
I  hesitate  to  record  the  many  other  instances  of  his  sagacity, 
which  rest,  unfortunately,  upon  the  statements  of  prejudiced 
friends.  Some  of  them  were  not  without  a  tinge  of  superstition. 
"  I  crep'  up  the  bank  just  now,"  said  Kentuck  one  day,  in  a 
breathless  state  of  excitement,  "and  dern  my  skin  if  he  wasn't 
a  talking  to  a  jay-bird  as  was  a  sittin'  on  his  lap.  There  they 
was,  just  as  free  and  sociable  as  anything  you  please,  a  jawin'  at 
each  other  just  like  two  cherry-bums."  Howbeit,  whether  creep- 
ing over  the  pine-boughs  or  lying  lazily  on  his  back  blinking  at 
the  leaves  above  him,  to  him  the  birds  sang,  the  squirrels  chat- 
tered, and  the  flowers  bloomed.  Nature  was  his  nurse  and  play- 
fellow. For  him  she  would  let  slip  between  the  leaves  golden 
shafts  of  sunlight  that  fell  just  within  his  grasp ;  she  would  send 
wandering  breezes  to  visit  him  with  the  balm  of  bay  and  resinous 
gums ;  to  him  the  tall  red-woods  nodded  familiarly  and  sleepily, 
the  bumble-bees  buzzed,  and  the  rocks  cawed  a  slumbrous  accom- 
paniment. 

Such  was  the  golden  summer  of  Roaring  Camp.  They  were 
"flush  times," — and  the  Luck  was  with  them.  The  claims  had 
yielded  enormously.  The  camp  was  jealous  of  its  privileges  and 
looked  suspiciously  on  strangers.  No  encouragement  was  given  to 
immigration,  and,  to  make  their  seclusion  more  perfect,  the  land 
on  either  side  of  the  mountain  wall  that  surrounded  the  camp 
they  duly  pre-empted.  This,  and  a  reputation  for  singular  pro- 
ficiency with  the  revolver,  kept  the  reserve  of  Roaring  Camp 
inviolate.  The  expressman — their  only  connecting  link  with  the 
surrounding  world— sometimes  told  wonderful  stories  of  the  camp. 
He  would  say,  "They  've  a  street  up  there  in  'Roaring,'  that 
would  lay  over  any  street  in  Red  Dog.  They've  got  vines  and 
flowers  round  their  houses,  and  they  wash  themselves  twice  a  day. 
But  they're  mighty  rough  on  strangers,  and  they  worship  an 
Ingin  baby." 


AMBRICAN  LITERATURE.  343 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH. 

Ai,DRiCH  has  been  an  editor,  novelist,  and  writer  of  travels, 
but  is  properly  classed  as  a  poet.  In  spite  of  his  dainty  verse  and 
mildly  humorous  prose,  he  has  not  attained  popularity,  though 
his  tender  ' '  Ballad  of  Babie  Bell ' '  and  his  short  story  of  ' '  Marjorie 
Daw,"  have  been  widelj'^  circulated. 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  was  born  at  Portsmouth,  New  Hamp- 
shire, in  1837.  He  removed  to  New  York  at  the  age  of  seventeen, 
and  while  employed  in  a  publishing  house  began  to  write  for 
newspapers  and  magazines.  In  1866  he  was  called  to  Boston  to 
become  editor  of  Every  Saturday,  which  position  he  held  for  eight 
years.  After  a  year  of  travel  in  Europe  he  returned  to  Boston, 
but  later  fixed  his  residence  at  Ponkapog  in  the  vicinity.  From 
1881  to  1890  he  was  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

Aldrich's  poems  are  usually  short  and  carefully  wrought, 
subdued  in  tone  and  suggestive,  rather  than  strongly  picturesque. 
They  exhibit  a  single  phase  or  contrast  of  life,  yet  sometimes  they 
run  on  in  longer  varied  course,  as  in  "Babie  Bell,''  which  relates 
sympathetically  the  advent  and  death  of  a  child.  In. some  of  his 
pieces  he  describes  aspects  of  his  native  New  England,  while 
others  seem  to  belong  to  the  rerdote  East  or  realms  of  pure  fancy. 
He  has  occasionally  used  blank  verse,  as  in  "Judith,"  and  has 
even  written  a  drama  in  prose.  His  short  stories  have  been  more 
successful  than  his  novels,  and  his  "Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  to 
some  extent  autobiographical,  has  been  widely  accepted  as  a  fair 
picture  of  an  average  American  boy. 


Unguarded  Gates. 

(Prom  "Unguarded  Gates  and  Other  Poems,"  Copyright,  1894, 
by  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  Used  here  by  special  permission  of  the 
Publishers,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

Wide  open  and  unguarded  stand  our  gates, 

Named  of  the  four  winds.  North,  South,  East,  and  West  ; 

Portals  that  lead  to  an  enchanted  land 

Of  cities,  forests,  fields  of  living  gold. 

Vast  prairies,  lordly  summits  touched  with  snow. 

Majestic  rivers  sweeping  proudly  past 

The  Arab's  date-palm  and  the  Norseman's  pine — 


344  MTERATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

A  realm  wherein  are  fruits  of  every  zone, 
Airs  of  all  climes,  for  lo !  throughout  the  year 
The  red  rose  blossoms  somewhere — a  rich  land, 
A  later  Eden  planted  in  the  wilds, 
With  not  an  inch  of  earth  within  its  bound 
But  if  a  slave's  foot  press  it  sets  him  free. 
Here,  it  is  written.  Toil  shall  have  its  wage, 
And  Honor  honor,  and  the  humblest  man 
Stand  level  with  the  highest  in  the  law. 
Of  such  a  land  have  men  in  dungeons  dreamed, 
And  with  the  vision  brightening  in  their  eyes 
Gone  smiling  to  the  fagot  and  the  sword. 

Wide  open  and  unguarded  stand  our  gates. 
And  through  them  presses  a  wild  motley  throng — 
Men  from  the  Volga  and  the  Tartar  steppes. 
Featureless  figures  of  the  Hoang-Ho, 
Malayan,  Scythian,  Teuton,  Kelt,  and  Slav, 
Flying  the  Old  World's  poverty  and  scorn  ; 
These  bringing  with  them  unknown  gods  and  rites, 
Those,  tiger  passions,  here  to  stretch  their  claws. 
In  street  and  alley  what  strange  tongues  are  loud. 
Accents  of  menace  alien  to  our  air, 
Voices  that  once  the  Tower  of  Babel  knew ! 
O  l,iberty,  white  Goddess  !  is  it  well 
To  leave  the  gates  unguarded  ?    On  thy  breast 
Fold  Sorrow's  children,  soothe  the  hurts  of  fate, 
I/ift  the  down-trodden,  but  with  hand  of  steel 
Stay  those  who  to  thy  sacred  portals  come 
To  waste  the  gifts  of  freedom.     Have  a  care 
Lest  from  thy  brow  the  clustered  stars  be  torn 
And  trampled  in  the  dust.     For  so  of  9ld 
The  thronging  Goth  and  Vandal  trampled  Rome, 
And  where  the  temples  of  the  Caesars  stood 
The  lean  wolf  unmolested  made  her  lair. 


WILUAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


No  one  can  deny  to  Mr.  Howells  some  of  the  most  attractive 
literary  graces.  Long  since  the  critic,  E.  P.  Whipple,  declared : 
' '  He  has  no  rival  in  half-tints,  in  modulations,  in  subtle  phrases 
that  touch  the  edge  of  an  assertion  and  yet  stop  short  of  it.  He 
is  like  a  skater  who  executes  a  hundred  graceful  curves  within 
the  limits  of  a  pool  a  few  yards  square."  Mr.  Howells  himseli 
has  stated  that  his  principle  is  to  look  away  from  the  great  pas- 
sions and  to  study  and  report  the  commonplace.  "As  in  litera- 
tiire,"  he  says,  "the  true  artist  will  shun  the  use  even  of  real 
events  if  they  are  of  an  improbable  character,  so  the  sincere 
observer  of  man  will  not  desire  to  look  upon  his  heroic  or  occa- 
sional phases,  but  will  seek  him  in  his  habitual  moods  of' v&caqcy 
and  tiresomeness."  It  must  be  admitted  that  he  has  made  the 
commonplace  entertaining  by  his  great  charm  of  style,  and  that 
occasionally  in  some  of  his  best  work  he  has  transgressed  his  own 
canon. 

William  Dean  Howells  was  born  at  Martin's  Ferry,  Ohio,  on 
March  i,  1837.  He  learned  to  set  type  when  a  boy,  and  helped 
his  father  in  issuing  a  country  paper.  The  contributions  of  the 
younger  Howells  attracted  some  attention,  and  he  was  made 
news  editor  of  the  State  Journal,  at  Columbus,  Ohio.  Upon  the 
nomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Howells  wrote  a  campaign 
biography,  and  later  received  the  appointment  of  Consul  at 
Venice,  where  he  resided  from  1861  to  1865.  "Venetian  Life" 
and  "Italian  Journeys"  are  fruits  of  this  residence  abroad. 
After  his  return  he  was  connected  with  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  being  editor  of  the  latter  from  1872  to 
1881.  He  has  since  resided  in  New  York,  where,  aside  from  other 
literary  work,  he  has  conducted  a  critical  department  in  Harper's 
Magazine. 

345 


346  WTERATURB  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

Mr.  Howells'  first  novel,  "A  Chance  Acquaintance,"  was  pub. 
lished  in  1873.  Besides  this,  his  most  noted  novels  are,  "The 
I^ady  of  the  Aroostook,"  "The  Undiscovered  Country,"  "A 
Modem  Instance,"  "The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,"  "Indian 
Summer,"  "The  World  of  Chance,"  "A  Hazard  of  New  For- 
tunes," and  "The  I^andlord  of  the  Lion  Head."  He  has  also 
written  some  clever  parlor  farces,  among  which  are  "  The  Parlor 
Car,"  "The  Sleeping  Car,"  and  "The  Register."  In  his 
younger  days  he  published  a  volume  of  poems  together  with  J.  J. 
Piatt,  entitled  "  Poems  of  Two  Friends."  More  recently  he  has 
published  a  volume  of  ' '  Poems, ' '  and  ' '  Stops  from  Various 
Quills,"  and  has  edited  "Modern  Italian. Poets." 

Howells  has  a  keen  eye  for  the  social  distinctions  in  American 
life.  His  special  province  is  manners  rather  than  character,  or 
character  as  depicted  through  manners.  He  is  a  miniature  portrait 
painter,  but  a  master  in  an  art  which  requires  the  greatest  delicacy 
of  finish.  He  holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  but  his  mirror  is 
a  small  one,  and  only  a  small  part  of  nature  is  reflected. 

Basil  and  Isabel  on  Goat  Island. 

(From  ' '  Their  Wedding  Journey.' '  Used  here  by  permission  of  the 
author  and  special  arrangement  with  the  publishers,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.) 

Basil  and  Isabel  were  both  poets  in  their  quality  of  bridal 
couple,  and  so  long  as  their  own  nerves  were  unshaken  they  could 
transmute  all  facts  to  entertaining  fables.  They  pleasantly  exer- 
cised their  sympathies  upon  those  who  every  year  perish  at  Niagara 
in  the  tradition  of  its  awful  power ;  only  they  refused  their  cheap 
and  selfish  compassion  to  the  Hermit  of  Goat  Island,  who  dwelt 
so  many  years  in  its  conspicuous  seclusion,  and  was  finally  carried 
over  the  cataract.  This  public  character  they  suspected  of  design , 
in  his  death  as  in  his  life,  and  they  would  not  be  moved  by  his 
memory ;  though  they  gave  a  sigh  to  that  dream,  half  pathetic, 
half  ludicrous,  yet  not  ignoble,  of  Mordecai  Noah,  who  thought 
to  assemble  all  the  Jews  of  the  world,  and  all  the  Indians,  as  rem- 
nants of  the  Lost  Tribes,,  upon  Grand  Island,  there  to  rebuild 
Jerusalem,  and  who  actually  laid  the  comer-stone  of  the  new 
temple  there. 

Goat  Island  is  marvelously  wild  for  a  place  visited  by  so  many 
thousands  every  year.  The  shrubbery  and  undergrowth  remain 
unravaged,  and  form  a  deceitful  privacy,  in  which,  even  at  that 


AMERICAN  UTBRATURB.  347 

early  hour  of  the  day,  they  met  many  other  pairs.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  the  village  and  the  hotels  should  be  so  full,  and 
that  the  wilderness  should  also  abound  in  them;  yet  on  every 
embowered  seat,  and  going  to  and  from  all  points  of  interest  and 
danger,  were  these  new- wedded  lovers  with  their  interlacing  arms 
and  their  fond  attitudes,  in  which  each  seemed  to  support  and 
lean  upon  the  other.  Such  a  pair  stood  prominent  before  them 
when  Basil  and  Isabel  emerged  at  last  from  the  cover  of  the  woods 
at  the  head  of  the  island,  and  glanced  up  the  broad  swift  stream 
to  the  point  where  it  ran  smooth  before  breaking  into  the  rapids ; 
and  as  a  soft  pastoral  feature  in  the  foreground  of  that  magnificent 
landscape,  they  found  them  far  from  unpleasing.  Some  such  pair 
is  in  the  foreground  of  every  famous  American  landscape ;  and 
when  I  think  of  the  amount  of  public  love-making  in  the  season 
of  pleasure-travel,  from  Mount  Desert  to  the  Yosemite,  and  from 
the  parks  of  Colorado  to  the  Keys  of  Florida,  I  feel  that  our  conti- 
nent is  but  a  larger  Arcady,  thiat  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  the  golden  age,  and  that  we  want  very  little  of  being  a 
nation  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses. 

Our  friends  returned  by  the  shore  of  the  Canadian  rapids, 
having  traversed  the  island  by  a  path  through  the  heart  of  the 
woods,  and  now  drew  slowly  near  the  Falls  again.  All  parts  of 
the  prodigious  pageant  have  an  eternal  novelty,  and  they  beheld 
the  ever-varying  effect  of  that  constant  sublimity  with  the  sense 
of  discoverers,  or  rather  of  people  whose  great  fortune  it  is  to  see 
the  marvel  in  its  beginning,  and  new  from  the  creating  hand. 
The  morning  hour  lent  its  sunny  charm  to  this  illusion,  while  in 
the  cavernous  precipices  of  the  shores,  dark  with  evergreens,  a 
mystery  as  of  primeval  night  seemed  to  linger.  There  was  a  wild 
fluttering  of  their  nerves,  a  rapture  with  an  under- consciousness 
of  pain,  the  exaltation  of  peril  and  escape,  when  they  came  to  the 
three  httle  isles  that  extend  from  Goat  Island,  one  beyond  another 
far  out  into  the  furious  channel.  Three  pretty  suspension-bridges 
connect  them  now  with  the  larger  island,  and  under  each  of  these 
flounders  a  huge  rapid,  and  hurls  itself  away  to  mingle  with  the 
ruin  of  the  fall.  The  Three  Sisters  are  mere  fragments  of  wilder- 
ness, clumps  of  vine-tangled  woods,  planted  upon  masses  of  rock ; 
but  they  are  part  of  the  fascination  of  Niagara  which  no  one 
resists;  nor  could  Isabel  have  been  persuaded  from  exploring 
them.  It  wants  no  courage  to  do  this,  but  merely  submission  to 
the  local  sorcery,  and  the  adventurer  has  no  other  reward  than  the 
consciousness  of  having  been  where  but  a  few  years  before  no 


348  LITERATURE  OP  KIX,  NATIONS. 

human  being  had  perhaps  set  foot.  She  crossed  from  bridge  to 
bridge  with  a  quaking  heart,  and  at  last  stood  upon  the  outermost 
isle,  whence,  through  the  screen  of  vines  and  boughs,  she  gave 
fearful  glances  at  the  heaving  and  tossing  flood  beyond,  from 
every  wave  of  which  at  every  instant  she  rescued  herself  with  a 
desperate  struggle.  The  exertion  told  heavily  upon  her  strength 
unawares,  and  she  suddenly  made  Basil  another  revelation  of 
character.  Without  the  slightest  warning  she  sank  down  at  the 
root  of  a  tree,  and  said,  with  serious  composure,  that  she  could 
never  go  back  on  those  bridges ;  they  were  not  safe.  He  stated 
at  her  cowering  form  in  blank  amaze,  and  put  his  hands  in  his 
pockets.  Then  it  occurred  to  his  dull  masculine  sense  that  it 
must  be  a  joke ;  and  he  said,  "Well,  I'll  have  you  taken  off  in  a 
boat !" 

"O  do,  Basil,  do  have  me  taken  off  in  a  boat!"  implored 
Isabel.  ' '  You  see  yourself  the  bridges  are  not  safe.  Do  get  a 
boat!" 

"Or  a  balloon,"  he  suggested,  humoring  the  pleasantry. 

Isabel  burst  into  tears ;  and  now  he  went  on  his  knees  at  her 
side,  and  took  her  hands  in  his.  ' '  Isabel !  Isabel !  Are  3'ou 
crazy?"  he  cried,  as  if  he  meant  to  go  mad  himself.  She  moaned 
and  shuddered  in  reply ;  he  said,  to  mend  matters,  that  it  was  a 
jest,  about  the  boat ;  and  he  was  driven  to  despai:r  when  Isabel 
repeated,  "  I  never  can  go  back  by  the  bridges,  never." 

' '  But  what  do  you  propose  to  do  ? " 

"I  don't  know,  I  don't  know ! " 

He  would  try  sarcasm.  "Do  you  intend  to  set  up  a  hermitage 
here,  and  have  your  nieals  sent  out  from  the  hotel?  It's  a  charm- 
ing spot,  and  visited  pretty  constantly ;  but  it's  small,  even  for 
a  hermitage." 

Isabel  moaned  again  with  her  hands  still  on  her  eyes,  and 
wondered  that  he  was  not  ashamed  to  make  fun  of  her. 

He  would  try  kindness.  "Perhaps,  darling,  you'll  let  me 
carry  you  iishore."  , 

"No,  that  will  bring  double  the  weight  on  the  bridge  at  once." 

"Couldn't  you  shut  your  eyes,  and  let  me  lead  you?" 

"Why,  it  isn't  the  sight  of  the  rapids,"  she  said,  looking  up 
fiercely.  "  The  bridges  are  not  safe.  I'm  not  a  child,  Basil.  O, 
what  shall  we  do?  " 

" I  don't  know,"  said  Basil,  gloomily.  "It's  an  exigency  for 
which  I  wasn't  prepared."  Then  he  silently  gave  himself  to  the 
Evil  One,  for  having  probably  overwrought  Isabel's  nerves  by 


AMERICAN  WTSRATURE.  349 

repeating  that  poem  about  Avery,  and  by  the  ensuing  talk  about 
Niagara,  which  she  had  seemed  to  enjoy  so  much.  He  asked  her 
if  that  was  it;  and  she  answered,  "O  no,  it's  nothing  but  the 
bridges."  He  proved  to  her  that  the  bridges,  upon  all  known 
principles,  were  perfectly  safe,  and  that  they  could  not  give  way. 
She  shook  her  head,  but  made  no  answer,  and  he  lost  his  patience. 

' ' Isabel, ' '  he  cried,  "I'm  ashamed  of  you ! " 

"Don't  say  anything  you'll  be  sorry. for  afterwards,  Basil," 
she  replied,  with  the  forbearance  of  those  who  have  reason  and 
justice  on  their  side. 

The  rapids  beat  and  shouted  round  their  little  prison-isle,  each 
billow  leaping  as  if  possessed  by  a  separate  demon.  The  absurd 
horror  of  the  situation  overwhelmed  him.  He  dared  not  attempt 
to  carry  her  ashore,  for  she  might  spring  from  his  grasp  into  the 
flood.  He  could  not  leave  her  to  call  for  help;  and  what  if 
nobody  came  till  she  lost  her  mind  from  terror?  Or,  what  if  some- 
body should  come  and  find  them  in  that  ridiculous  affliction? 

Somebody  was  coming !  ' 

"Isabel !  "  he  shouted  in  her  ear,  "here  come  those  people  we 
saw  in  the  parlor  last  night." 

Isabel  dashed  her  veil  over  her  face,  clutched  Basil's  with  her 
icy  hand,  rose,  drew  her  arm  convulsively  through  his,  and  walked 
ashore  without  a  word. 

In  a  sheltered  nook  they  sat  down,  and  she  quickly  "repaired 
her  drooping  head  and  tricked  her  beams"  again.  He  could  see 
her  tearfully  smiling  through  her  veil.  "My  dear,"  he  said,  "I 
don't  ask  any  explanation  of  your  flight,  for  I  don't  suppose  you 
could  give  it.  But  should  you  mind  telling  me  why  those  people 
were  so  sovereign  against  it?" 

"Why,  dearest !  Don't  you  understand?  That  Mrs.  Richard 
— ^whoever  she  is— is  so  much  like  me." 

She  looked  at  him  as  if  she  had  made  the  most  satisfying  state- 
ment, and  he  thought  he  had  better  not  ask  further  then,  but  wait 
in  hope  that  the  meaning  would  come  to  him.  They  walked  on 
in  silence  till  they  came  to  the  Biddle  Stairs,  at  the  head  of  which 
is  a  notice  that  persons  have  been  killed  by  pieces  of  rock  from 
the  precipice  overhanging  the  shore  below,  and  warning  people 
that  they  descend  at  their  peril.  Isabel  declined  to  visit  the  Cave 
of  the  Winds,  to  which  these  stairs  lead,  but  was  willing  to  risk 
the  ascent  of  Terrapin  Tower.  ' '  Thanks ;  no, "  said  her  husband. 
' '  You  might  find  it  unsafe  to  come  back  the  way  you  went  up. 
We  can't  count  certainly  upon  the  appearance  of  the  lady  who  is 


35°  WTBRATURB  OP  A.1X,  NATIONS. 

SO  much  like  you;  and  I!ve  no  fancy  for  spending  my  life  on 
Terrapin  Tower."  So  he  found  her  a  seat,  and  went  alone  to  the 
top  of  the  audacious  little  structure  standing  on  the  verge  of  the 
cataract,  between  the  smooth  curve  of  the  Horse-Shoe  and  the 
sculptured  front  of  the  Central  Fall,  with  the  stormy  sea  of  the 
Rapids  behind,  and  the  river,  dim  seen  through  the  mists,  crawl- 
ing away  between  its  lofty  bluffs  before.  He  knew  again  the 
awful  delight  with  which  so  long  ago  he  had  watched  the  changes 
in  the  beauty  of  the  Canadian  Fall  as  it  hung  a  mass  of  translu- 
cent green  from  the  brink,  and  a  pearly  white  seemed  to  crawl 
up  from  the  abyss,  and  penetrate  all  its  substance  to  the  very 
crest,  arid  then  suddenly  vanished  from  it,  and  perpetually 
renewed  the  same  effect.  The  mystery  of  the  rising  vapors 
veiled  the  gulf  into  which  the  cataract  swooped ;  the  sun  shone, 
and  a  rainbow  dreamed  upon  them. 

Near  the  foot  of  the  tower,  some  loose  rocks  extend  quite  to 
the  verge,  and  here  Basil  saw  an  elderly  gentleman  skipping  from 
one  slippery  stone  to  another,  and  looking  down  from  time  to 
time  into  the  abyss,  who,  when  he  had  amused  himself  long 
enough  in  this  way,  clambered  up  on  the  plank  bridge.  Basil, 
who  had  descended  by  this  time,  made  bold  to  say  that  he  thought 
the  diversion  an  odd  one  and  rather  dangerous.  The  gentleman 
took  this  in  good  part,  and  owned  it  might  seem  so,  but  added 
that  a  distinguished  phrenologist  had  examined  his  head,  and 
told  him  he  had  equilibrium  so  large  that  he  could  go  anywhere. 

"On  your  bridal  tour,  I  presume,"  he  continued,  as  they  ap- 
proached the  bench  where  Basil  had  left  Isabel.  She  had  now 
the  company  of  a  plain,  middle-aged  woman,  whose  attire  hesi- 
tatingly expressed  some  inward  festivity,  and  had  a  certain  reluct- 
ant fashionableness.  "Well,  this  is  my  third  bridal  tour  to 
Niagara,  and  wife's  been  here  once  before  on  the  same  business. 
We  see  a  good  many  changes.  I  used  to  stand  on  Table  Rock 
with  the  others.  Now  that's  all  gone.  Well,  old  lady,  shall  we 
move  on?"  he  asked;  and  this  bridal  pair  passed  up  the  path, 
attended,  haply,  by  the  guardian  spirits  of  those  who  gave  the 
place  so  many  sad  yet  pleasing  associations. 


Henry  James  has  created  a  field  for 
himself  as  the  pioneer  of  the  international 
novel,  or,  more  particularly,   the   novel 

dealing  with  Americans  in  Europe.  The  humor  and  pathos  of 
situations  brought  about  by  the  clash  of  different  social  systems 
are  his  peculiar  province.  The  incongruities,  perplexities  and 
misunderstandings  which  result  from  different  standards  of  con- 
ventional manners  and  morals  are  his  main  themes  Like  Howells, 
he  steers  away  from  the  great  passions  and  devotes  himself  to 
phases  of  life  as  they  appear  upon  the  surface. 

Henry  James  was  born  in  New  York  City  on  April  15th,  1843. 
His  father,  bearing  the  same  name,  was  a  Swedenborgian  minis- 
ter of  some  renown.  The  younger  James  was  educated  under 
his  father's  supervision  in  New  York,  Geneva,  Paris,  Bonn  and 
Boulogne-sur-Mer.  He  entered  tue  Harvard  I^aw  School  in  1862, 
but  soon  commenced  to  contribute  sketches  to  the  magazines, 
especially  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  Some  of  these  were  collected 
in  a  volume  entitled  "A  Passionate  Pilgrim  and  Othpr  Stories." 
His  first  novel,  "Roderick  Hudson,"  published  in  1876,  is  less 
analytical,  but  has  a  firmer  grasp  of  elementary  passion  than  any 
subsequent  work.  "The  American  "  (1878)  is  generally  regarded 
as  his  best  work,  but  "Daisy  Miller,"  which  soon  followed,  won 
for  him  his  widest  popularity,  though  it  was  adversely  criticised 
as  being  un-American  in  tone.  Others  of  Mr.  James's  best  known 
works  are  "  An  International  Episode,"  "A  Bundle  of  Letters," 
"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  "The  Bostonians,"  "The  Princess 
Cassamassima."  His  "Portraits  of  Places,"  published  in  1884, 
is  a  delightful  contribution  to  the  literature  of  travel  over  beaten 
paths. 

Mr.  James  has  spent  most  of  his  life  abroad.  He  has  been 
described  by. a  critic  as  looking  at  America  with  the  eyes  of  a 

351 


352  UTBRATURE  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

foreigner,  and  at  Europe  with  the  eyes  of  an  American.  The 
American  abroad  has  been  his  chief  study,  but  he  has  almost 
invariably  chosen  the  crude  American,  an  "innocent  abroad," 
who  provokes  the  laughter  of  nations.  The  educated  American 
seems  to  be  rare  in  Mr.  James's  collection  of  characters.  The 
author  is  at  his  best  in  the  short  story ;  he  is  a  master  in  this 
art,  though  his  art  is  sometimes  too  apparent ;  he  has  done  nothing 
better  than  "The  Madonna  gf  the  Future,"  "The  Passionate 
Pilgrim,"  and  "The  Liar." 

Madame  Merle. 

(From  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady."  Copyright,  i88r,  by  Henry 
James,  Jr.  Used  here  by  permission  of  the  author  and  publishers, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

When  Madame  Merle  was  neither  writing,  nor  painting,  nor 
touching  the  piano,  she  was  usually  employed  upon  wonderful 
morsels  of  picturesque  embroidery,  cushions,  curtains,  decorations 
for  the  chimney-piece ;  a  sort  of  work  in  which  her  bold,  free 
invention  was  as  remarkable  as  the  agility  of  her,  needle.  She 
was  never  idle,  for  when  she  was  engaged  in  none  of  the  ways  I 
have  mentioned,  she  was  either  reading  (she  appeared  to  Isabel  to 
read  everything  important),  or  walking  out,  or  playing  patience 
with  the  cards,  or  talking  with  her  fellow  inmates.  And  with  all 
this,  she  always  had  the  social  quality ;  she  never  was  preoccu- 
pied, she  never  pressed  too  hard.  She  laid  down  her  pastimes  as 
easily  as  she  took  them  up ;  she  worked  and  talked  at  the  same 
time,  and  she  appeared  to  attach  no  importance  to  anything  she 
did.  She  gave  away  her  sketches  and  tapestries ;  she  rose  from 
the  piano,  or  remained  there,  according  to  the  convenience  of  her 
auditors,  which  she  always  unerringly  divined.  She  was,  in  short, 
a  most  comfortable,  profitable,  agreeable  person  to  live  with.  If 
for  Isabel  she  had  a  fault,  it  was  that  she  was  not  natural ;  by 
which  the  girl  meant,  not  that  she  was  affected  or  pretentious ;  for 
from  these  vulgar  vices  no  woman  could  have  been  more  exempt ; 
but  that  her  nature  had  been  too  much  overlaid  by  custom  and 
her  angles  too  much  smoothed.  She  had  become  too  flexible,  too 
supple  ;  she  was  too  finished,  too  civilized.  She  was,  in  a  word, 
too  perfectly  the  social  animal  that  man  and  woman  are  supposed 
to  have  been  intended  to  be ;  and  she  had  rid  herself  of  every 
remnant  of  that  tonic  wildness  which  we  may  assume  to  have 
belonged  even  to  the  most  amiable  persons  in  the  ages  before 


AMERICAN  WTERATURB.  353 

country-house  life  was  the  fashion.  Isabel  found  it  difficult  to 
think  of  Madame  Merle  as  an  isolated  figure ;  she  existed  only 
in  her  relations  with  her  fellow-mortals.  Isabel  often  wondered 
what  her  relations  might  be  with  her  own  soul.  She  always  ended, 
however,  by  feeling  that  having  a  charming  surface  does  not 
necessarily  prove  that  one  is  superficial ;  this  was  an  illusion  in 
which,  in  her  youth,  she  had  only  just  sufficiently  escaped  being 
nourished.  Madame  Merle  was  not  superficial — not  she.  She  was 
deep  ;  and  her  nature  spoke  none  the  less  in  her  behaviour  because 
it  spoke  a  conventional  language.  "What  is  language  at  all  but  a 
convention  ?  "  said  Isabel.  "She  has  the  good  taste  not  to  pre- 
tend, like  some  people  I  have  met,  to  express  herself  by  original 
signs." 

"I  am  afraid  you  have  suffered  much,"  Isabel  once  found 
occasion  to  say  to  her,  in  response  to  some  allusion  that  she  had 
dropped. 

"What  makes  you  think  that?"  Madame  Merle  asked,  with 
a  picturesque  smile.     "I  hope  I  have  not  the  pose  of  a  martyr." 

"No ;  but  you  sometimes  say  things  that  I  think  people  who 
have  always  been  happy  would  not  have  found  out." 

' '  I  have  not  always  been  happy, ' '  said  Madame  Merle,  smiling 
still,  but  with  a  mock  gravity,  as  if  she  were  telling  a  child  a 
secret.     "  What  a  wonderful  thing  ! " 

' '  A  great  many  people  give  me  the  impression  of  never  having 
felt  anything  very  much,"  Isabel  answered. 

"It's  very  true;  there  are  more  iron  pots,  I  think,  than  porce- 
lain ones.  But  you  depend  upon  it  that  every  one  has  something ; 
even  the  hardest  iron  pots  have  a  little  bruise,  a  little  hole,  some- 
where. I  flatter  myself  that  I  am  rather  stout  porcelain ;  but  if 
I  must  tell  you  the  truth  I  have  been  chipped  and  cracked !  I  do 
very  well  for  service  yet,  because  I  have  been  cleverly  mended ; 
and  I  try  to  remain  in  the  cupboard— the  quiet,  dusky  cupboard, 
where  there  is  an  odor  of  stale  spices — as  much  as  I  can.  But 
when  I  have  to  come  out,  and  into  a  strong  light,  then,  my  dear, 
I  am  a  horror!  " 

I  know  not  whether  it  was  on  this  occasion  or  some  other,  that 
when  the  conversation  had  taken  the  turn  I  have  just  indicated,  she 
said  to  Isabel  that  some  day  she  would  relate  her  history.  Isabel 
assured  her  that  she  should  delight  to  listen  to  it,  and  reminded 
her  more  than  once  of  this  engagement.  Madame  Merle,  how- 
ever, appeared  to  desire  a  postponement,  and  at  last  frankly  told 
the  young  girl  that  she  must  wait  till  they  knew  each  other  better. 
X— 23 


354  tlTteRATURS  OP  AtL  STATIONS. 

This  would  certainly  happen ;  a  long  friendship  lay  before  them. 
Isabel  assented,  but  at  the  same  time  asked  Madame  Merle  if  she 
could  not  trust  her — if  she  feared  a  betrayal  of  confidence. 

"  It  is  not  that  I  am  afraid  of  your  repeating  what  I  say,"  the 
elder  lady  answered;  "I  am  afraid,  on  the  contrary,  of  your 
taking  it  too  much  to  yourself,  You  would  judge  me  too  harshly; 
you  are  of  the  cruel  age."  She  preferred  for  the  present  to  talk 
to  Isabel  about  Isabel,  and  exhibited  the  greatest  interest 
in  our  heroine's  history,  her  sentiments,  opinions,  prospects.  She 
made  her  chatter,  and  listened  to  her  chatter  with  inexhaustible 
sympathy  and  good  nature.  In  all  this  there  was  something 
flattering  to  the  girl,  who  knew  that  Madame  Merle  knew  a  great 
many  distinguished  people,  and  had  lived,  as  Mrs.  Touchett  said, 
in  the  best  company  in  Europe 

"You  must  not  think  it  strange,  her  staying  in  the  house  at 
such  a  time  as  this,  when  Mr.  Touchett  is  passing  away,"  Mrs. 
Touchett  remarked  to  Isabel.  ' '  She  is  incapable  of  doing  any- 
thing indiscreet ;  she  is  the  best-bred  woman  I  know.  It's  a  favor 
to  me  that  she  stays ;  she  is  putting  off  a  lot  of  visits  at  great 
houses,"  said  Mrs.  Touchett,  who  never  forgot  that  when  she 
herself  was  in  England  her  social  value  sank  two  or  three  degrees 
in  the  scale.  ,  ' '  She  has  her  pick  of  places ;  she  is  not  in  want  of 
a  shelter.  But  I  have  asked  her  to  stay  because  I  wish  you  to 
know  her.  I  think  it  will  be  a  good  thing  for  you.  Serena  Merle 
has  no  faults." 

"  If  I  didn'  t  already  like  her  very  much,  that  description  might 
alarm  me,"  Isabel  said. 

' '  She  never  does  anything  wrong.     I  have  brought  you  out 

'  here,  and  I  wish  to  do  the  best  for  you.     Your  sister  I^ily  told 

me  that  she  hoped  I  would  give  you  plenty  of  opportunities.     I 

give  you  one  in  securing  Madame  Merle.     She  is  one  of  the  most 

brilliant  women  in  Europe." 

"I  like  her  better  than  I  like  your  description  of  her,"  Isabel 
persisted  in  saying. 

"  Do  you  flatter  yourself  that  you  will  find  a  fault  in  her?  I 
hope  you  will  let  me  know  when  you  do." 

"  That  w^n  be  cruel — to  you,"  said  Isabel. 

"  You  needn't  mind  me.     You  never  will  find  one." 

"  Perhaps  not;  but  I  think  I  shall  not  miss  it." 

"  She  is  always  up  to  the  mark !  "   said  Mrs.  Touchett. 

Isabel  after  this  said  to  Madame  Merle  that  she  hoped  she 
knew  Mrs.  Touchett  believed  she  had  not  a  fault. 


AMERICAK  UTERATtTRB.  355 

"  I  am  obliged  to  you,  but  I  am  afraid  your  aunt  has  no  per- 
ception of  spiritual  things,"  Madame  Merle  answered. 

"Do  you  mean  by  that  that  you  have  spiritual  faults?  " 

"Ah  no;  I  mean  nothing  so  flat.  I  mean  that  having  no 
faults,  for  your  aunt,  means  that  one  is  never  late  for  dinner — that 
is,  for  her  dinner.  I  was  not  late,  by  the  way,  the  other  day, 
when  you  came  back  from  I,ondon ;  the  clock  was  just  at  eight 
when  I  came  into  the  drawing-room ;  it  was  the  rest  of  you  that 
were  before  the  time.  It  means  that  one  answers  a  letter  the  day 
one  gets  it,  and  that  when  one  comes  to  stay  with  her  one  doesn't 
bring  too  much  luggage,  and  is  careful  not  to  be  taken  ill.  For 
Mrs.  Touchett  those  things  constitute  virtue ;  it's  a  blessing  to  be 
able  to  reduce  it  to  its  elements." 

But  Madame  Merle  sometimes  said  things  that  startled  her, 
made  her  raise  her  clear  eyebrows  at  the  time,  and  think  of  the 
words  afterwards. 

"  I  would  give  a  great  deal  to  be  your  age  again,"  she  broke 
out  once,  with  a  bitterness  which,  though  diluted  in  her  custom- 
ary smile,  was  by  no  means  disguised  by  it.  "If  I  could  only 
begin  again — if  I  could  have  my  life  before  me !  " 

"Your  life  is  before  you  yet,"  Isabel  answered  gently,  for  she 
was  vaguely  awe-struck. 

"  No ;  the  best  part  is  gone,  and  gone  for  nothing." 

"Surely,  not  for  nothing,"  said  Isabel. 

"Why  not — ^what  have  I  got?  Neither  husband,  nor  child, 
nor  fortune,  nor  position,  nor  the  traces  of  a  beauty  which  I 
never  had." 

"  You  have  friends,  dear  lady." 

"  I  am  not  so  sure !  "  cried  Madame  Merle. 

"Ah,  you  are  wrong.     You  have  memories,  talents " 

Madame  Merle  interrupted  her. 

"  What  have  my  talents  brought  me?  Nothing  but  the  need 
of  using  them  still,  to  get  through  the  hours,  the  years,  to  cheat 
myself  with  some  pretence  of  action.  As  for  my  memories,  the 
less  said  about  them  the  better.  You  will  be  my  friend  till  you 
find  a  better  use  for  your  friendship." 

"  It  will  be  for  you  to  see  that  I  don't  then,"  said  Isabel. 

"Yes;  I  would  make  an  effort  to  keep  you,"  Madame  Merle 
rejoined,  looking  at  her  gravely.  "When  I  say  I  should  like 
to  be  your  age,"  she  went  on,  "I  mean  with  your  qualities — 
frank,  generous,  sincere,  like  you.  In  that  case  I  should  have 
made  something  better  of  my  life." 


356  UTERATtTRS  OP  Att  NATIONS. 

"What  should  you  have  liked  to  do  that  you  have  not  done?  " 

Madame  Merle  took  a  sheet  of  music—  she  was  seated  at  the 
piano,  and  had  abruptly  wheeled  about  on  the  stool  when  she 
first  spoke — and  mechanically  turned  the  leaves.  At  last  she 
said  — 

"  I  am  very  ambitious ! " 

"And  your  ambitions  have  not  been  satisfied?  They  must 
have  been  great." 

"  They  were  great.  I  should  make  myself  ridiculous  by  talk- 
ing of  them." 

Isabel  wondered  what  they  could  have  been — whether  Madame 
Merle  had  aspired  to  wear  a  crown.  "  I  don't  know  what  your 
idea  of  success  may  be,  but  you  seem  to  me  to  have  been  success- 
ful.    To  me,  indeed,  you  are  an  image  of  success." 

Madame  Merle  tossed  away  the  music  with  a  smile. 

' '  What  is  your  idea  of  success  ?  " 

"You  evidently  think  it  must  be  very  tame,"  said  Isabel. 
"  It  is  to  see  some  dream  of  one's  youth  come  true." 

"Ah,"  Madame  Merle  exclaimed,  "that  I  have  never  seen! 
But  my  dreams  were  so  great — so  preposterous.  Heaven  forgive 
me,  I  am  dreaming  now."  And  she  turned  back  to  the  piano 
and  began  to  play  with  energy. 

EUGENE  FIELD. 

Of  'New  England  descent,  but  born  in  St.  I/Ouis  in  1850, 
Eugene  Field  was  a  curious  mixture  of  classical  culture,  roving 
fancy  and  wild  West  humor.  He  studied  at  more  than  one  college, 
and  after  graduating  from  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1871, 
traveled  in  Europe.  On  his  return  he  became  a  journalist,  and 
was  thus  employed  in  several  places  before  he  settled  in  Chicago. 
Here  for  years  Field  filled  a  column  daily  with  such  whims  and 
fancies,  prose  and  verse,  as  entertained  a  host  of  readers.  But 
this  journalistic  joker  was  an  indefatigable  collector  of  works 
and  curios,  and  his  last  volume  was  "The  Love  Affairs  of  a 
Bibliomaniac."  His  fondness  for  children  was  shown  not  only  in 
writing  numerous  lullabies  and  little  folk's  stories,  but  in  his  col- 
lection of  their  toys  and  trinkets.  Field  wrote  some  notable 
poems  in  Western  dialect,  and  then  varied  his  work  by  exquisite 
translations  from  Horace.  During  his  life  he  issued  a  dozen  vol- 
umes, and  after  his  death,  in  1895,  his  works  were  collected  (10 
vols.,  New  York,  1896)  with  affectionate  tributes  from  his  friends 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  357 


Charlotte  Rooze. 

(From  "The  Conversazzhyony  "  in  "A  Little  Book  of  Western 
Verse."  Copyright,  1889,  by  Eugene  Field.  Used  here  by  permission 
of  the  publishers,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.) 

The  mayuoo  that  wuz  spread  that  night  wuz  mighty  hard  to 

beat, — 
Though  somewhat  awkward  to  pernounce,  it  wuz  not  so  to  eat : 
There  wuz  puddins,  pies,  an'  sandwidges,  an'  forty  kinds  uv  sass, 
An'  floatin'  Irelands,  custards,  tarts,  an'  patty  dee  foy  grass  ; 
An'  millions  uv  cove  oysters  wuz  a-settin'  round  in  pans, 
'Nd  other  native  fruits  an'  things  that  grow  out  West  in  cans. 
But  I  wuz  all  kufflummuxed  when  Hoover  said  he'd  choose 
"  Oon  peety  morso,  see  voo  play,  de  la  cette  Charlotte  Rooze; " 
I'd  knowed  Three-fingered  Hoover  for  fifteen  years  or  more, 
'Nd  I'd  never  heem  him  speak  so  light  uv  wimmin  folks  before ! 

Bill  Goslin  heem  him  say  it,  'nd  uv  course  he  spread  the  news 

Uv  how  Three-fingered  Hoover  had  insulted  Charlotte  RoOze 

At  the  conversazzhyony  down  at  Sorry  Tom's  that  night, 

An'  when  they  asked  me,  I  allowed  that  Bill  for  once  wuz  right ; 

Although  it  broke  my  heart  to  see  my  friend  go  up  the  fluke, 

We  all  opined  his  treatment  uv  the  girl  deserved  rebuke. 

It  warnt  no  use  for  Sorry  Tom  to  nail  it  for  a  lie, — 

When  it  come  to  sassin'  wimmin,  there  wuz  blood  in  every  eye ; 

The  boom  for  Charlotte  Rooze  swep'  on  an'  took  the  polls  by 

storm, 
An'  so  Three-fingered  Hoover  fell  a  martyr  to  reform  ! 

Three-fingered  Hoover  said  it  wuz  a  terrible  mistake, 
An'  when  the  votes  wuz  in,  he  cried  ez  if  his  heart  would  break. 
We  never  knew  who  Charlotte  wuz,  but  Goslin's  brother  Dick 
Allowed  she  wuz  the  teacher  from  the  camp  on  Roarin'  Crick, 
That  had  come  to  pass  some  foreign  tongue  with  them  uv  our 

alite 
Ez  wuz  at  the  high-toned  party  down  at  Sorry  Tom's  that  night. 
We  let  it  drop — this  matter  uv  the  lady — there  an'  then. 
An'  we  never  heerd,  nor  wanted  to,  of  Charlotte  Rooze  agajiu. 
An'  the  Colorado  wimmin  folks,  ez  like  ez  not,  don't  know 
How  we  vindicated  all  their  sex  a  twenty  year  ago. 


358  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 


JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY. 

James  Whitcomb  Riley  is  the  American  poet  of  the  masses. 
He  reaches  the  widest  audience,  and  his  homely  verses  go  straight 
to  the  hearts  of  the  people.  He  was  born  in  Greenfield,  Indiana, 
in  1852.  With  but  little  education  in  the  ordinary  sense,  he  early 
gained  experience  of  men  by  becoming  an  itinerant  sign-writer 
and  painter.  I^ater  he  joined  a  strolling  company  and  recast 
many  plays,  and  improvised  songs.  His  wandering  life  enriched 
his  dialect  vocabulary  and  aided  his  studies  in  human  nature. 
He  utilized  these  acquirements  by  writing  verses  for  the  local 
papers,  some  of  which  attracted  attention,  and  gained  him  a  place 
in  the  office  of  the  Indianapolis  Journal.  He  has  been  a  popular 
lecturer  as  well  as  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  magazines.  His 
volumes  of  poems  comprise  "The  Ole  Swimmin'-Hole  and  'Leven 
More  Poems,"  "The  Boss  Girl,  and  other  Sketches,"  "Pipes 
o'  Pan  at  Zekesbury,"  "Rhymes  of  Childhood,"  "Afterwhiles," 
"Green  Fields  and  Running  Brooks,"  and  "Poems  Here  at 
Home." 

A'  Old  Played-O^t  Song. 

(The  following  poems  are  from  "Pipes  o'  Pan  at  Zekesbury," 
copyright,  1888,  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  and  are  used  here  by 
permission  of  the  publishers,  Bowen-Merrill  Co.,  Indianapolis.) 

It's  the  curiousest  thing  in  creation. 

Whenever  I  hear  that  old  song, 
"  Do  They  Miss  Me  at  Home?  "  I'm  so  bothered, 

My  life  seems  as  short  as  it  is  long  ! — 
For  ever' thing  'pears  like  adzackly 

It  'peared  in  the  years  past  and  gone, — 
When  I  started  out  sparkin',  at  twenty', 

And  had  my  first  neckercher  on ! 

Though  I'm  wrinkelder,  older  and  grayer 

Right  now  than  my  parents  was  then, 
You  strike  up  that  song,  "Do  They  Miss  Me?" 

And  I  'm  jest  a  youngster  again ! — 
I  'm  a-standin'  back  there  in  the  furries 

A-wishin  for  evening  to  come. 
And  a-whisperin'  over  an'  over 

Them  words,  "Do  They  Miss  Me  at  Home?" 


AMBRICAN  IvITBRATURB.  359 

You  see,  Martha  Ellen  slie  sung  it 

The  first  time  I  heard  it ;  and  so, 
As  she  was  my  very  first  sweetheart. 

It  reminds  of  her,  don't  you  know, — 
How  her  face  ust  to  look,  in  the  twilight, 

As  I  tuck  her  to  spellin' ;  and  she 
Kep'  a-hummin'  that  song  'tel  I  ast  her. 

Pint-blank,  ef  she  ever  missed  me  ! 

I  can  shet  my  eyes  now,  as  you  sing  it, 

And  hear  her  low  answerin'  words. 
And  then  the  glad  chirp  of  the  crickets 

As  clear  as  the  twitter  of  birds ; 
And  the  dust  in  the  road  is  like  velvet. 

And  the  ragweed,  and  fennel,  and  grass 
Is  as  sweet  as  the  scent  of  the  lilies 

Of  Eden  of  old,  as  we  pass. 

"Do  They  Miss  Me  at  Home?"  Sing  it  lower — 

And  softer — and  sweet  as  the  breeze 
That  powdered  our  path  with  the  snowy 

White  bloom  of  the  old  locus'-trees ! 
I>t  the  whippoorwills  he'p  you  to  sing  it. 

And  the  echoes  'way  over  the  hill, 
'Tel  the  moon  boolges  out,  in  a  chorus 

Of  stars,  and  our  voices  is  still. 

But,  oh !  "They's  a  chord  in  the  music 

That's  missed  when  her  voice  is  away !" 
Though  I  listen  from  midnight  'tel  morning, 

And  dawn,  'tel  the  dusk  of  the  day ; 
And  I  grope  through  the  dark,  lookin'  up'ards 

And  on  through  the  heavenly  dome, 
With  my  longin'  soul  singin'  and  sobbin' 

The  word,  "Do  They  Miss  Me  at  Home?" 

Beautiful  Hands. 

O  YOUR  hands — they  are  strangely  fair ! 
Fair — for  the  jewels  that  sparkle  there, — 
Fair— for  the  witchery  of  the  spell 
That  ivory  keys  alone  can  tell ; 
But  when  their  delicate  touches  rest 
Jlere  in  xa^  pwu  do  I  love  them  best? 


360  LITERATURE  OF  AIX,  NATIONS. 

As  I  clasp  with  eager  acquisitive  spans 
My  glorious  treasure  of  beautiful  hands! 

Marvelous — wonderful — beautiful  hands ! 
They  can  coax  roses  to  bloom  in  the  strands 
Of  your  brown  tresses ;  and  ribbons  will  twine, 
Under  mysterious  touches  of  thine, 
Into  such  knots  as  entangle  the  soul, 
And  fetter  the  heart  under  such  a  control 
As  only  the  strength  of  my  love  understands — 
My  passionate  love  for  your  beautiful  hands. 

As  I  remember  the  first  fair  touch 
Of  those  beautiful  hands  that  I  love  so  much, 
I  seem  to  thrill  as  I  then  was  thrilled, 
Kissing  the  glove  that  I  found  unfilled — 
When  I  met  your  gaze  and  the  queenly  bow, 
As  you  said  to  me,  laughingly,  "Keep  it  now !" 
And  dazed  and  alone  in  a  dream  I  stand 
Kissing  this  ghost  of  your  beautiful  hand. 

When  first  I  loved,  in  the  long  ago, 
And  held  your  hand  as  I  told  you  so — 
Pressed  and  caressed  it  and  gave  it  a  kiss, 
And  said  "I  could  die  for  a  hand  like  this !" 
Little  I  dreamed  love's  fulness  yet 
Had  to  ripen  when  eyes  were  wet. 
And  prayers  were  vain  in  their  wild  demands 
For  one  warm  touch  of  your  beautiful  hands. 

Beautiful  Hands !    O  Beautiful  Hands ! 

Could  you  reach  out  of  the  alien  lands 

Where  you  are  lingering,  and  give  me,  to-night. 

Only  a  touch — were  it  ever  so  light — 

My  heart  were  soothed,  and  my  weary  brain 

Would  lull  itself  into  rest  again ; 

For  there  is  no  solace  the  world  commands 

I^ike  the  caress  of  your  beautiful  hands. 


POLISH  LITERATURE. 


OI/AND  holds  a  unique  place  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  country  long  formed  the  border- 
land of  Christendom,  and  the  brave  people  from 
the  time  of  their  conversion  to  Catholicism  were 
engaged  in  constant  wars  with  the  Pagan  Lithu- 
anians, the  Mongols  and  the  Russians.  The  nobles 
filled  with  military  enthusiasm  showed  a  proud  independ- 
ence. They  rejected  hereditary  monarchy  and  insisted  on 
electing  their  sovereign.  Early  in  the  sixteenth  century 
they  established  the  "liberum  veto,"  by  which  a  single  noble 
could  nullify  the  choice  of  the  diet.  This  absurd  custom 
sapped  the  strength  of  the  nation  and  at  times  led  to  practical 
anarchy.  The  neighboring  nations,  pretending  to  fear  for  the 
safety  of  their  own  institutions,  invaded  the  ill-fated  land 
and  twice  divided  its  territory  among  them. 

Yet  not  until  that  lamented  overthrow  did  Polish  litera- 
ture become  known  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  Down  to  the  six- 
teenth century  Latin  was  the  only  medium  used  by  the  Poles 
for  literary  purposes.  When  the  Reformation  movement 
reached  the  land,  there  were  some  signs  of  the  rise  of  a  native 
literature.  But  the  Jesuits  secured  control  of  the  schools  and 
enabled  Latin  to  preserve  its  supremacy.  France  and  Poland, 
animated  with  a  common  jealousy  of  Germany,  had  much 
friendly  intercourse,  and  before  the  eighteenth  century  the 
Polish  nobility,  apt  in  imitating  foreign  fashions,  had  made 
French  their  favorite  speech.  Some  books  were  written  in 
Polish,  but  the  style  of  the  more  pretentious  was  interlarded 

361 


362  WTERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

with  Latin  and  French  phrases.  After  the  partition  of  Poland 
the  wave  of  Romanticism  swept  over  Europe.  History  had 
been  the  chief  form  of  literature,  and  now  Polish  writers  were 
roused  to  tell  again  in  verse  and  romance  the  exploits  of  their 
ancestors.  The  intense  national  feeling  found  vent  in  unaf- 
fected language.  The  hope  that  Napoleon  would  prove  the 
saviour  of  their  down-trodden  country  inspired  poets,  such  as 
Julian  Ursin  Niemcewicz  (1757-1841),  whose  earliest  work 
was  "Historical  Lyrics,"  celebrating  the  national  heroes.  He 
died  an  exile  in  Paris.  The  chief  representative  of  Roman- 
ticism was  Adam  Mickiewicz  (1798-1855),  who  lived  for  a 
time  in  St.  Petersburg,  afterwards  visited  Italy,  and  in  1832 
settled  in  Paris,  where  he  taught  Slavonic  in  the  College  of 
France.  He  never  ceased  his  poetic  battle  for  his  native  land. 
He  was  a  disciple  of  Byron,  but  his  poems  resounded  with 
Polish  lore  and  legends.  His  "Pan  Tadeusz  "  is  a  stirring 
picture  of  Lithuania  on  the  eve  of  Napoleon's  invasion  of 
Russia. 

Julius  Slowacki  (1809-49)  belonged  to  the  Romantic  school 
and  for  a  time  followed  Byron  and  Victor  Hugo,  taking  cor- 
sairs and  adventurers  for  his  heroes.  But  the  revolution  of 
1830  stirred  his  national  feeling,  as  was  seen  in  his  noble  "Ode 
to  Freedom  "  and  the  martial  ' '  Song  of  the  Lithuanian  Le- 
gion." The  poet  was  exiled,  and  while  in  Geneva  composed 
dramas  vividly  illustrating  Polish  history  and  character.  His 
lyrical  masterpiece  is  "  In  Switzerland,"  a  lamentation  for 
his  country  and  his  lost  love.  Later  he  became  a  mystic, 
sometimes  depicting  in  weird  allegories  the  woes  of  his  nation 
and  sometimes  dreaming  of  her  impossible  resurrection. 

Still  greater  as  a  poet  and  more  in  harmony  with  the  Pol- 
ish spirit  was  Count  Sigismund  Krasinski  (1812-59),  who  was 
born  and  died  in  Paris.  On  account  of  his  father's  unpopu- 
larity, he  wrote  anonymously  and  was  called  "  The  Unknown 
Poet."  In  the  drama  "Iridion"  he  presented  the  struggle 
between  Christianity  and  Paganism  in  Rome  under  the  Cae- 
sars. In  ' '  The  Undivine  Comedy ' '  he  represented  the  suffer-  ■ 
ings  of  Poland  allegorically.  His  lyric  poems  treat  the  same 
theme  with  powerful  ijnagi»ation,  but  are  melancholy  and 
dirge-like. 


POWSH   LITBRATTJRB.  363 

Prose  fiction  has  flourished  in  Poland  in  the  nineteenth 
century  as  throughout  Europe.  The  most  prolific  author  in 
this  department  was  Josef  Ignacy  Kraszewski  (1812-87),  who 
wrote  about  250  novels,  and  altogether  more  than  500  works. 
Though  this  rapidity  of  production  may  have  lessened  their 
merit,  they  are  still  widely  read  by  his  countrymen.  He 
treated  the  whole  history  of  Poland  in  a  series  of  novels,  after 
the  style  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Other  novelists  have  acquired 
local  and  temporary  fame,  but  no  Polish  writer  obtained  rec- 
ognition in  English  until  the  works  of  Henryk  Sienkiewicz 
began  to  be  translated  by  Jeremiah  Curtin.  His  novels  of 
Polish  history  were  welcomed  by  discerning  critics,  but  later 
his  great  romance,  "Quo  Vadis,"  treating  of  the  introduction 
of  Christianity  into  Imperial  Rome,  captivated  readers  of  all 
classes.  Sienkiewicz  practically  represents  Polish  literature 
to  readers  of  English. 

HENRY  SIENKIEWICZ. 

The  civilized  world  has  never  been 
more  suddenly  captivated  by  literary 
genius  than  in  the  case  of  Sienkiewicz. 
In  spite  of  native  critics  who  sought  to 
smother  his  attempts,  he  won  the  affec- 
tionate regard  of  his  countrymen  and 
almost  at  the  same  time  the  admiration 
of  all  nations.  This  brilliant  novelist 
p'  was  born  at  Wola  Okrejska,  in  Lithuania, 
in  1846",  of  an  old  noble  family.  He  was 
thirty -five  years  of  age  before  he  entered 
upon  the  work  that  has  made  him  famous. 
After  a  student's  career  at  the  University  of  Warsaw,  he  edited  a 
journal  there,  and  in  1872  published  his  first  work,  a  humorous 
tale.  Then  he  set  out  on  almost  aimless  wanderings,  and  for 
some  years  led  a  kind  of  gipsy  life.  He  was  a  Bohemian  in  Paris ; 
and  in  1876  he  joined  the  Polish  fraternity  of  expatriated  artists 
and  musicians,  gathered  around  Madame  Modjeska  to  form  at 
Los  Angeles,  in  California,  a  Polish  commonwealth  of  denational- 
ized genius.  Sienkiewicz  wrote  letters  of  travel  and  story-sketches 
some  of  which  treated  American  scenes.  Before  returning  to 
Warsaw,  h&  visited  Africa.   In  1880  he  issued  bis  first  large  work, 


3^4  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

"Tartar  Slavery,"  but  he  soon  applied  himself  to  his  great  prose- 
epic  of  Poland  in  the  seventeenth  century.  To  this  period  he  was 
obliged  to  revert  in  order  to  exhibit  the  true  greatness  of  his 
country  and  race.  In  that  age  Poland  was  still  a  powerful  nation. 
Sienkiewicz  in  his  wanderings  had  explored  nearly  every  corner 
of  his  country.  He  now  produced  a  trilogy,  thoroughly  Polish 
in  sentiment  and  patriotism.  In  the  background  there  is  a  deep 
feeling  for  nature,  and  a  sadness  which  seems  inseparable  from 
the  lyithuanian  temperament.  "With  Fire  and  Sword,"  the 
first  novel  of  the  series  (published  in  1884)  describes  the  Cossack 
invasion  of  Poland  in  1647-51,  and  ends  with  the  siege  of  Zharaj. 
"The  Deluge"  (1886.)  opens  in  the  year  1655,  deals  mainly  with 
the  Swedish  invasion,  and  ends  with  the  expulsion  of  the  Swedes 
in  1657.  "  Pan  Michael"  (1887)  the  last  of  the  series,  treats  of 
the  Turkish  invasion,  while  the  epilogue  narrates  subsequent 
events  down  to  the  final  triumph  of  Poland  under  John  Sobieski. 
In  all  of  these  novels  figures  a  unique  personage,  Zagloba,  who 
has  been  said  to  combine  "a  great  deal  of  Falstaff,  a  touch  of 
Thersites,  arid  a  gleam  of  Ulysses."  Sienkiewicz  is  said  to  have 
found  the  original  model  in  the  Polish  settlement  in  California. 
Taken  as  a  whole,  these  novels  rank  among  the  foremost  histori- 
cal romances  of  the  world. 

To  an  entirely  different  class  belongs  Sienkiewicz's  next  work, 
"Without  Dogma"  (1890).  This  is  a  psychological  novel,  and 
therefore  appeals  to  a  limited  class.  But  his  wider  fame  was  not 
long  to  be  deferred.  "Quo  Vadis"  appeared  in  1895,  and  gave 
a  brilliant  view  of  Nero's  reign  and  the  first  struggle  of  Christi- 
anity in  Rome.  It  is  founded  on  Tacitus  and  other  Roman  his- 
torians, on  the  "Satiricon"  of  Petronius  Arbiter,  and  the  early 
Christian  traditions.  The  hero,  a  nephew  of  Petronius,  is  con- 
verted from  Paganism  through  his  love  for  the  pure  Christiaii 
maiden  lyygia,  and  finally  suffers  martyrdom  in  the  arena  with 
her.  On  the  other  hand  the  courtly  Petronius,  who  sought,  after 
Nero's  burning  of  Rome,  to  prevent  the  persecution  of  the  inno- 
cent Christians,  loses  favor  with  his  imperial  master  and  is  driven 
to  suicide.  Readers  of  English  are  indebted  to  the  learned  lin- 
guist, Jeremiah  Curtin,  for  admirable  translations  of  the  works  of 
Sienkiewicz. 


POLISH  UTERATURE.  365 


VlNICIUS  AND  lyYGIA. 

(From  "  Quo  Vadis,"  translated  by  Jeremiah  Curtin.  Copsrright, 
1896,  by  Jeremiah  Curtin.  Used  here  by  permission  of  the  publishers, 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.) 

Urstjs  was  taking  water  from  the  cistern  by  drawing  up  a 
double  amphora.  He  was  singing  a  wonderful  I^ygian  song  in 
an  undertone,  and  looking  meanwhile  with  delighted  eyes  at 
I/ygia  and  Vinicius,  who  were  as  white  as  two  statues  among  the 
cypresses  in  the  garden  of  I<inus.  Their  clothing  was  not  moved 
by  the  least  breeze.  A  golden  and  lily-colored  twilight  was  sink- 
ing on  the  world  while  they  were  conversing  in  the  calm  of 
evening,  each  holding  the  other  by  the  hand. 

"May  not  some  evil  meet  thee,  Marcus,  because  thou  hagt 
left  Antium  without  Caesar's  knowledge?"  asked  Lygia. 

"No,  my  dear,"  answered  Vinicius.  "Caesar  announced 
that  he  would  shut  himself  in  for  two  days  with  Terpnos,  and 
compose  new  songs.  He  acts  thus  frequently,  and  at  such  times 
neither  knows  nor  remembers  aught  else.  Moreover,  what  is 
Caesar  to  me  since  I  am  near  thee  and  am  looking  at  thee  ?  I 
have  yearned  too  much  already,  and  these  last  nights  sleep  has^ 
left  me.  More  than  once,  when  I  dozed  from  weariness,  I  awoke 
on  a  sudden,  with  a  feeling  that  danger  was  hanging  over  thee ; 
at  times  I  dreamed  that  the  relays  of  horses  which  were  to  bear 
me  from  Antium  to  Rome  were  stolen, — horses  with  which  I 
passed  that  road  more  swiftly  than  any  of  Caesar's  couriers. 
Besides,  I  could  not  endure  longer  without  thee ;  I  love  thee  too 
much  for  that,  my  dearest." 

"  I  knew  that  thou  wert  coming.  Twice  Ursus  ran  out,  at  my 
request,  to  the  Carinae,  and  inquired  for  thee  at  thy  house. 
I,inus  laughed  at  me,  and  Ursus  also." 

It  was,  indeed,  evident  that  she  had  expected  him ;  for  instead 
af  her  usual  dark  dress,  she  wore  a  soft  white  stola,  out  of  whose 
beautiful  folds  her  arms  and  head  emerged  like  primroses  out  of 
snow.     A  few  ruddy  anemones  ornamented  her  hair. 

Vinicius  pressed  his  lips  to  her  hand;  then  they  sat  on  the 
stone  bench  amidst  wild  grape-vines,  and,  inclining  toward  each 
other,  were  silent,  looking  at  the  twilight  whose  last  gleams  were 
reflected  in  their  eyes. 

The  cbarm  of  the  quiet  evening  mastered  them  completely. 


366  WTERATURB  OP  AI,I,  NATIONS. 

"'How  calm  it  is  here,  and  how  beautiful  the  world  is," 
said  Vinicius,  in  a  lowered  voice.  ' '  The  night  is  wonderfully- 
still.  I  feel  happier  than  ever  in  life  before.  Tell  me,  I/ygia, 
what  is  this  ?  Never  have  I  thought  that  there  could  be  such 
love.  I  thought  that  love  was  merely  fire  in  the  blood  and  desire ; 
but  now  for  the  first  time  I  see  that  it  is  possible  to  love  with 
every  drop  of  one's  blood  and  every  breath,  and  feel  therewith 
such  sweet  and  immeasurable  calm  as  if  Sleep  and  Death  had  put 
the  soul  to  rest.  For  me  this  is  something  new  I  look  on  this 
calmness  of  the  trees,  and  it  seems  to  be  within  me.  Now  I 
understand  for  the  first  time  that  there  may  be  happiness  of 
which  people  have  not  known  thus  far.  Now  I  begin  to  under- 
stand why  thou  and  Pomponia  Grsecina  have  such  peace.  Yes  ! 
Christ  gives  it." 

At  that  moment  I^ygia  placed  her  beautiful  face  on  his  shoulder 
and  said, — 

"  My  dear  Marcus — "  But  she  was  unable  to  continue.  Joy, 
gratitude,  and  the  feeling  that  at  last  she  was  free  to  love  deprived 
her  of  voice,  and  her  eyes  were  filled  with  tears  of  emotion. 

Vinicius,  embracing  her  slender  form  with  his  arm,  drew  her 
toward  him  and  said, — 

"  Lygia  !  May  the  moment  be  blessed  in  which  I  heard  His 
name  for  the  first  time." 

"I  love  thee,  Marcus,"  said  she  then  in  a  low  voice. 

Both  were  silent  again,  unable  to  bring  words  from  their  over- 
charged breasts.  The  last  lily  reflections  had  died  on  the  cypresses, 
and  the  garden  began  to  be  silver-like  from  the  crescent  of  the 
moon.     After  a  while  Vinicius  said, — 

' '  I  know.  Barely  had  I  entered  here,  barely  had  I  kissed  thy 
dear  hands,  when  I  read  in  thine  eyes  the  question  whether  I  had 
received  the  divine  doctrine  to  which  thou  art  attached,  and 
whether  1  was  baptized.  No,  I  am  not  baptized  yet ;  but  knowest 
thou,  my  flower,  why?  Paul  said  to  me :  '  I  have  convinced  thee 
that  God  came  into  the  world  and  gave  Himself  to  be  crucified 
for  its  salvation :  but  let  Peter  wash  thee  in  the  fountain  of  grace, 
he  who  first  stretched  his  hands  over  thee  and  blessed  thee.' 
And  I,  my  dearest,  wish  thee  to  witness  my  baptism,  and  I  wish 
Pomponia  to  be  my  godmother.  This  is  why  I  am  not  baptized 
yet,  though  I  believe  in  the  Saviour  and  in  His  teaching.  Paul 
has  convinced  me,  has  converted  me ;  and  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
How  was  I  not  to  believe  that  Christ  came  into  the  world,  since 
he,  who  was  his  disciple,  says  so,  and  Paul,  to  whom  he  appeared? 


tOtlSH   I.I'TBRATURB.  367 

How  was  I  not  to  believe  that  He  was  God,  since  He  rose  from 
the  dea'd  ?  Others  saw  Him  in  the  city  and  on  the  lake  and  on 
the  mountain ;  people  saw  Him  whose  lips  have  not  known  a  lie.  I 
began  to  believe  this  the  first  time  I  heard  Peter  in  Ostranium, 
for  I  said  to  myself  even  then:  In  the  whole  world  any  other  man 
might  lie  rather  than  this  one  who  says,  '  I  saw.'  But  I  feared 
thy  religion.  It  seemed  to  me  that  thy  religion  would  take  thee 
from  me.  I  thought  that  there  was  neither  wisdom  nor  beauty 
nor  happiness  in  it.  But  to-day,  when  I  know  it,  what  kind  of 
man  should  I  be  were  I  not  to  wish  truth  to  rule  the  world  instead 
of  falsehood,  love  instead  of  hatred,  virtue  instead  of  crime,  faith- 
fulness instead  of  unfaithfulness,  mercy  instead  of  vengeance .' 
What  sort  of  man  would  he  be  who  would  not  choose  and  wish 
the  same  ?  But  your  religion  teaches  this.  Others  desire  justice 
alsoj  but  thy  religion  is  the  only  one  which  makes  man's  heart 
just,  and  besides  makes  it  pure,  like  thine  and  Pomponia's, 
makes  it  faithful,  like  thine  and  Pomponia's.  I  should  be  blind, 
were  I  not  to  see  this.  But  if  in  addition  Christ  God  has  promised 
eternal  life,  and  has  promised  happiness  as  immeasurable  as  the 
all-might  of  God  can  give,  what  more  can  one  wish  ?  Were  I  to 
ask  Seneca  why  he  enjoins  virtue,  if  wickedness  brings  more 
happiness,  he  would  not  be  able  to  say  anything  sensible.  But  I 
know  now  that  I  ought  to  be  virtuous,  because  virtue  and  love 
flow  from  Christ,  and  because,  when  death  closes  my  eyes,  I  shall 
find  life  and  happiness,  I  shall  find  myself  and  thee.  .Why  not 
love  and  accept  a  religion  which  both  speaks  the  truth  and 
destroys  death  ?  Who  would  not  prefer  good  to  evil  ?  I  thought 
thy  religion  opposed  to  happiness;  meanwhile  Paul  has  con- 
vinced me  that  it  not  only  takes  nothing  from  us,  but  that  it 
gives.  All  this  hardly  finds  a  place  in  my  head  ;  but  I  feel  that 
it  is  so,  for  I  have  never  been  so  happy,  neither  could  I  be  had  I 
taken  thee  by  force  and  possessed  thee  in  my  house.  Just  see, 
thou  hast  said  a  moment  since,  'I  love  thee,'  and  I  could  not  have 
won  these  words  from  thy  lips  with  all  the  might  of  Rome.  O 
I,ygia !  Reason  declares  this  religion  divine,  and  the  best ,  the 
heart  feels  it,  and  who  can  resist  two  such  forces?  " 

Lygia  listened,  fixing  on  him  her  blue  eyes,  which  in  the  light 
of  the  moon  were  like  mystic  flowers,  and  bedewed  like  flowers. 

"Yes,  Marcus,  that  is  true!"  said  she,  nestling  her  head 
more  closely  to  his  shoulder. 

And  at  that  moment  they  feit  immensely  happy,  for  they 
understood  that  besides  love  they  were  united  by  another  power. 


368 


tlTERATURE  OP  ALt  NATIONS. 


at  once  sweet  and  irresistible,  by  which  love  itself  became  end. 
less,  not  subject  to  change,  deceit,  treason,  or  even  death.  Their 
heaits  were  filled  completely  with  the  certainty  that,  no  matter 
what  might  happen,  they  would  not  cease  to  love  and  belong  to 
each  other.  For  that  reason  an  unspeakable  repose  flowed  in  on 
their  souls.  Vinicius  felt,  besides,  that  that  love  was  not  merely 
profound  and  pure,  but  altogether  new, — such  as  the  world  had 
not  known  and  could  not  give.  In  his  head  all  was  combined  in 
this  love, — Lygia,  the  teaching  of  Christ,  the  light  of  the  moon 
resting  calmly  on  the  cypresses,  and  the  still  night,— so  that  to 
him  the'^vhole  universe  seemed  filled  with  it. 

After  a  while  he  said  with  a  lowered  and  quivering  voice  : 
"Thou  wilt  be  the  soul  of  my  soul,  and  the  dearest  in  the  world 
to  me.  Our  hearts  will  beat  together,  we  shall  have  one  prayer 
and  one  gratitude  to  Christ.  O  my  dear !  To  live  together,  to 
honor  together  the  sweet  God,  and  to  know  that  when  death 
comes  our  eyes  will  open  again,  as  after  a  pleasant  sleep,  to  a 
new  light,  — what  better  could  be  imagined  ?  '^  only  marvel  that 
I  did  not  understand  this  at  first.  And  knowest  thou  what  occurs 
to  me  now?  That  no  one  can  resist  this  religion.  In  two  hun- 
dred or  three  hundred  years  the  whole  world  will  accept  it.  People 
will  forget  Jupiter,  and  there  will  be  no  god  except  Christ,  and  no 
other  temples  but  Christian." 


J.    L.    G.     Ferris,    P\h\ 


ART,  SONG,  AND   LITERATURE 


BRITISH   COLONIAL  LITERATURE 

CONTINUED 


INDIA 


fiTH  its  noble  ancient  literature  overshadowing  modern  am- 
bitions there  is  no  appreciable  body  of  writings.with  which 
English  readers  are  familiar  that  can  be  quoted  from  as 
examples  of  modem  native,  or  colonial  literature.  Books  of  travel, 
works  of  scholarly  research,  and  records  of  the  country  contain 
much  brilliant  pen-work,  but  for  modern  romance  and  poetry  we 
have  to  rely  on  British-bom  writers  who  have  li-<red  long  in  that 
land  of  strange  fascinations.  No  one  has  given  so  graphic'  a  pic- 
ture of  the  terrible  mutiny  of  the  native  troops  in  1857  ^s  has  Mrs. 
Steel  in  her  powerful  novel  On  the  Face  of  the  Waters.  To  Rud- 
yard  Kipling  English  and  American  readei;s  are  indebted  for  vivid 
realizations  of  Anglo-Indian  life  in  all  its  grades,  particularly 
that  of  the  common  soldier.  One  native  poet  has  left  a  remem- 
brance of  her  short  career  of  promise  as  an  interpreter  of  her  race, 
Toru  Dutt,  who  died  in  1877.  Sir  Alfred  Comyns  Lyall,  of  the 
India  Civil  Service,  has  written  some  striking  ballads  on  local 
•  life  and  scenes.     Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  Light  of  Asia  is  familiar  to 

American  readers.  ^„ 

TORU  DUTT, 

daughter  of  a  high-caste  Hindu,  born  in  Calcutta,    1856,  was 
educated  in  England  and  afterward  traveled  through  Europe. 
She  wrote  a  volume  of  poems.  Ancient  Ballads  and  Legends  of 
Hindustan,  and  another  work,  but  died  at  twenty-one. 
Our  Casuarina  Treb. 

I,iK«  a  huge-  Python,  winding  round  and  round 
The  rugged  trunk,  indented  deep  with  scars. 
Up  to  its  very  summit  near  the  stars, 

A  creeper  climbs,  in  whose  embraces  bound 
No  other  tree  could  live.     But  gallantly 
x-24  (369c) 


370C  I,ITERATURB  OF   ALL  NATIONS. 

The  giant  wears  the  scarf,  and  flowers  are  hung 
In  crimson  clusters  all  the  boughs  among, 

Whereon  all  day  are  gathered  bird  and  bee  ; 
And  oft  at  nights  the  garden  overflows 
With  one  sweet  song  that  seems  to  have  no  close, 
Sung  darkling  from  our  tree,  while  men  repose. 

When  first  my  casement  is  wide  open  thrown 

At  dawn,  my  eyes  delighted  on  it  rest ; 

Sometimes,  and  most  in  winter, —  on  its  crest 
A  gray  baboon  sits  statute -like  alone 

Watching  the  sunrise  ;  while  on  lower  boughs 
His  puny  offspring  leap  about  and  play ; 
And  far  and  near  kokilas  hail  the  day ; 

And  to  their  pastures  wend  our  sleepy  cows ; 
And  in  the  shadow,  on  the  broad  tank  cast 
By  that  hoar  tree,  so  beautiful  and  vast, 
The  water-lilies  spring,  like  snow  enmassed. 

But  not  because  of  its  magnificence 
Dear  is  the  Casuarina  to  my  soul : 
Beneath  it  we  have  played  ;  though  years  may  roll, 

0  sweet  companions,  loved  with  love  intense. 
For  your  sakes,  shall  the  tree  be  ever  dear, 

Blent  with  your  images,  it  shall  arise 
In  memory,  till  the  hot  tears  blind  mine  eyes  ! 
What  is  that  dirge-like  murmur  that  I  hear 
I/ike  the  sea  breaking  on  a  shingle-beach? 
It  is  the  tree's  lament,  an  eerie  speech, 
That  haply  to  the  unknown  land  may  reach. 

Unknown,  yet  well  known  to  the  eye  of  faith ! 

Ah,  I  have  heard  that  wail  far,  far  away 

In  distant  lands,  by  many  a  sheltered  bay, 
When  slumbered  in  his  cave  the  water-wraith 

And  the  wa\'es  gently  kissed  the  classic  shore 
Of  France  or  Italy,  beneath  the  moon. 
When  earth  lay  tranced  in  a  dreamless  swoon  : 

And  every  time  the  music  rose,  — before 
Mine  inner  vision  rose  a  form  sublime. 
Thy  form,  O  Tree,  as  in  my  happy  prime 

1  saw  thee,  in  my  own  loved  native  clime. 


INDIA. 


37IC 


Therefore  I  fain  would  consecrate  a  lay 
Unto  thy  honor,  Tree,  beloved  of  those 
Who  now  in  blessed  sleep  for  aye  repose, — 
Dearer  than  life  to  me,  alas,  were  they  I 

Mayst  thou  be  numbered  when  my  days  are  done 
With  deathless  trees  —  like  those  in  Borrowdale, 
Under  whose  awful  branches  lingered  pale 

' '  Fear,  trembling  Hope,  and  Death,  the  skeleton, 
And  Time,  the  shadow;  "  and  though  weak  the  verse 
That  would  thy  beauty  fain,  oh,  fain  rehearse. 
May  I<ove  defend  thee  from  Oblivion's  curse. 


MRS.  FLORA  ANNIE  STEEI,. 

Born  in  England  in  1847  Mrs.  Steel  lived  in  India  from  1867 
until  1889.  Her  knowledge  of  its  people  and  the  undercurrents 
of  its  history  gives  exceptional  value  to  her  stories,  of  which 
Tales  from  the  Punjab,  Wide  Awake  Stories,  and  Red  Rowans 
are  the  best  known,  after  the  masterly  work  from  which  the 
selection  is  taken.  On  the  Face  of  tki  Waters.  It  is  a  powerful 
study  of  the  Indian  Mutiny  of  1857. 

Through  the  Wai<i<s. 
(From  "  On  the  Face  of  the  Waters,"  published  by  the  MacmiUan  Co.,  N.Y.) 

It  was  a  full  hour  past  dawn  on  the  14th  of  September  ere 
that  sudden  silence  fell  once  more  upon  the  echoing  rocks  of  the 
Ridge  and  the  scented  gardens.  So,  for  a  second,  the  twittering 
birds  in  the  thickets  behind  them  might  have  been  heard  by  the 
men  who,  with  fixed  bayonets,  were  jostling  the  roses  and  the 
jasmines.  But  they  were  holding  their  breath  —  waiting,  listen- 
ing, for  something  very  different;  while  in  the  ears  of  many, 
excluding  all  other  sounds,  lingered  the  cadence  of  the  text  read 
by  the  chaplain  before  dawn  in  the  church  lesson  for  the  day. 
"Woe  to  the  bloody  city — the  sword  shall  cut  thee  off." 
For  to  many  the  coming  struggle  meant  neither  justice  nor 
revenge,  but  religion.  It  was  Christ  against  Anti-Christ.  So, 
whether  for  revenge  or  faith  they  waited.  A  thousand  down  by 
the  river  opposite  the  Water  Bastion.    A  thousand  in  the  Koodsia 


372C  LITERATURE   OF   AI<I<  NATIONS. 

facing  the  main  breach,  with  John  Nicholson,  first  as  evef,  to 
lead  it.  A  thousand  more  on  the  broad  white  road  fronting  the 
Cashmere  Bastion,  with  an  explosion  party  ahead  to  blow  in  the 
gate,  and  a  reserve  of  fifteen  hundred  to  the  rear  waiting  for 
success.  Briefly,  four  thousand  five  hundred  men  —  more  than 
half  natives —  for  the  assault,  facing  that  half  mile  or  so  of  north- 
em  wall;  thus  within  touch  of  each  other.  Beyond,  on  the 
western  trend,  tiivo  thousand  more  —  mostly  untried  troops  from 
Jumoo  and  a  general  muster  of  casuals  —  to  sweep  through  the 
suburbs  and  to  be  ready  to  enter  by  the  Cabul  gate  when  it  was 
opened  to  them. 

Above,  on  the  Ridge,  six  hundred  sabers  awaiting  orders. 
Behind  it  three  thousand  sick  in  hospital,  a  weak  defense,  and 
that  rear-guard  of  graves. 

And  in  front  of  all  stood  that  tall  figure  with  the  keen  eyes. 
' '  Are  you  ready,  Jones  ? ' '  asked  Nicholson,  laying  his  hand  on  the 
last  leader's  shoulder.    His  voice  and  face  were  calm,  almost  cold. 

"Ready,  sir!" 

Then,  startling  that  momentary  silence,  came  the  bugle. 

' '  Advance  ! ' ' 

With  a  cheer  the  rifles  skirmished  ahead  joyfully.  The 
engineers  posted  in  the  furthest  cover  long  before  dawn  — who 
had  waited  for  hours,  knowing  that  each  minute  made  their  task 
harder  —  rose,  waving  their  swords  to  guide  the  stormers  toward 
the  breach !  Then,  calmly,  as  if  it  had  been  dark,  not  daylight, 
crested  the  glacis  at  a  swift  walk,  followed  by  the  laddermen  in 
line.  Behind,  with  a  steady  trampi,  the  two  columns  bound  for 
the  breaches.  But  the  third,  upon  the  road,  had  to  wait  a  while, 
as,  like  greyhounds  from  a  leash,  a  little  company  slipped  for- 
ward at  the  double. 

Home  of  the  Engineers  first  with  two  sergeants,  a  native 
havildar,  and  ten  Punjab  sappers,  running  lightly,  despite  the 
twenty-five  pound  powder  bags  they  carried.  Behind  them,  led 
by  Salkeld,  the  firing  party  and  a  bugler.  Running  under  the 
hail  of  bullets,  faster  as  they  fell  faster,  as  men  run  to  escape  a 
storm;  but  these  courted  it,  though  the  task  had  been  set  for 
night,  and  it  was  now  broad  daylight. 

What  then?  They  could  see  better.  See  the  outer  gateway 
open,  the  footway  of  the  drawbridge  destroyed,  the  inner  door 
closed  save  for  the  wicket. 


INDIA. 


373c 


"Come  on,"  shouted  Home,  and  was  across  the  bare  beams 
like  a  boy,  followed  by  the  others. 

Incredible  daring  !  What  did  it  mean?  The  doubt  made  the 
scared  enemy  close  the  wicket  hastily.  So  against  it,  at  the 
rebels'  very  feet,  the  powder  bags  were  laid.  True,  one  sergeant 
fell  dead  with  his;  but  as  it  fell  against  the  gates  his  task  was 
done. 

"Ready,  Salkeld  !  — your  turn,"  sang  out  young'  Home  from 
the  ditch,  into  which,  the  bags  laid,  the  fuse  set,  he  dropped 
unhurt.  So  across  the  scant  foothold  came  the  firing  party,  its 
leader  holding  the  portfire.  But  the  paralysis  of  amazement  had 
passed;  the  enemy,  realizing  what  the  audacity  meant,  had  set 
the  wicket  wide.  It  bristled  now  with  muskets;  so  did  the 
parapet. 

"  Burgess  !  — your  turn,"  called  Salkeld  as  he  fell,  and  passed 
the  portfire  to  the  corporal  behind  him.  Burgess,  alias  Grierson, 
—  someone  perchance  retrieving  a  past  under  a  new  name, — 
took  it,  stooped,  then  with  a  half  articulate  cry  either  that  it  was 
"right"  or  "out,"  fell  back  into  the  ditch  dead.  Smith,  of  the 
powder  party,  lingering  to  see  the  deed  done,  thought  the  latter, 
and,  matchbox  in  hand,  sprang  forward,  cuddling  the  gate  for 
safety  as  he  struck  a  light.  But  it  was  not  needed.  As  he 
stooped  to  use  it,  the  portfire  of  the  fuse  exploded  in  his  face,  and, 
half  blinded,  he  turned  to  plunge  headlong  for  escape  into  the 
ditch.     A  second  after  the  gate  was  in  fragments. 

"Your  turn,  Hawthorne!"  came  that  voice  from  the  ditch. 
So  the  bugler,  who  had  braved  death  to  sound  it,  gave  the 
advance.  Once,  twice,  thrice,  carefully  lest  the  din  from  the 
breaches  should  drown  it.  Vain  precaution,  not  needed  either; 
for  the  sound  of  the  explosion  was  enough.  That  thousand  on 
the  road  was  hungering  to  be  no  whit  behind  the  others,  and 
with  a  wild  cheer  the  stormers  made  for  the  gate. 

But  Nicholson  was  already  in  Delhi,  though  ten  minutes  had 
gone  in  a  fierce  struggle  to  place  a  single  ladder  against  an 
avalanche  of  shot  and  stone.  But  that  one  had  been  the  signal 
for  him  to  slip  into  the  ditch,  and,  calling  on  the  ist  Bengal 
Fusiliers  to  follow,  escalade  the  bastion,  first  as  ever. 

Even  so,  others  were  before  him.  Down  at  the  Water  Bas- 
tion, though  three-quarters  of  the  ladSermen  had  fallen  and  but 
a  third  of  the  storming  party  remained,  those  twenty-five  men  of 


374C  LITERATURE   OF  AI<I<  NATIONS. 

the  8th  had  gained  the  breach,  and,  followed  by  the  whole 
column,  were  clearing  the  ramparts  toward  the  Cashmere  gate. 
Hence,  again,  without  a  check,  joined  by  the  left  half  of  Nichol- 
son's column,  they  swept  the  enemy  before  them  like  frightened 
sheep  to  the  Moree  gate ;  though  in  the  bastion  itself  the  gunners 
stood  to  their  guns  and  were  bayoneted  beside  them.  There, 
with  a  whoop,  some  of  the  wilder  ones  leaped  to  the  parapet  to 
wave  their  caps  in  exultation  to  the  cavalry  below,  which,  in 
obedience  to  orders,  was  now  drawn  up,  ready  to  receive,  guard- 
ing the  flank  of  the  assault,  despite  the  murderous  fire  from  the 
Cabul  gate,  and  the  Burn  Bastion  beyond  it.  Sitting  in  their 
saddles,  motionless,  doing  nothing,  a  mark  for  the  enemy,  yet 
still  a  wall  of  defense.  So,  leaving  them  to  that  hardest  task  of 
all — the  courage  of  inaction  —  the  victorious  rush  swept  on  to 
take  the  Cabul  gate,  to  sweep  past  it  up  to  the  Burn  Bastion 
itself  —  the  last  bastion  which  commanded  the  position. 

And  then  ?  Then  the  order  came  to  retire  and  await  orders 
at  the  Cabul  gate.  The  fourth  column,  after  clearing  the 
suburbs,  was  to  have  been  there  ready  for  admittance,  ready  to 
support.  It  was  not.  And  Nicholson  was  not  there  also,  to 
dare  and  do  all.  He  had  had  to  pause  at  the  Cashmere  gate  to 
arrange  that  the  column  which  had  entered  through  it  should 
push  on  into  the  city,  leaving  the  reserve  to  hold  the  points 
already  won.  And  now,  with  the  ist  Fusiliers  behind  him,  he 
was  fighting  his  way  through  the  streets  to  the  Cabul  gate.  So, 
fearing  to  lose  touch  with  those  behind,  overrating  the  danger, 
underestimating  the  incalculable  gain  of  unchecked  advance 
with  an  eastern  foe,  the  leader  of  that  victorious  sweeping  of  the 
ramparts  was  content  to  set  the  Knglish  flag  flying  on  the  Cabul 
gate  and  await  orders.  But  the  men  had  to  do  something.  So 
they  filled  up  the  time  plundering.  And  there  were  liquor  shops 
about.     Europe  shops,  full  of  wine  and  brandy. 

The  flag  had  been  flying  over  an  hour  when  Nicholson  came 
up.  But  by  that  time  the  enemy  —  who  had  been  flying  too  —  fly- 
ing as  far  as  the  boat  bridge  in  sheer  conviction  that  the  day  was 
lost  —  had  recovered  some  courage  and  were  back,  crowding  the 
bastion  and  some  tall  houses  beside  it.  And  in  the  lane,  three 
hundred  yards  long,  not  ten  feet  wide,  leading  to  it,  two  brass 
guns  had  been  posted  before  bullet-proof  screens  ready  to  mow 
down  the  intruders. 


INDIA.  375c 

Yet  once  more  John  Nicholson  saw  but  one  thing  —  the  Burn 
Bastion.  Built  by  Englishmen,  it  was  one  of  the  strongest  — 
the  only  remaining  one,  in  fact,  likely  to  give  trouble.  "With  it 
untaken  a  thorough  hold  on  the  city  was  impossible.  Besides, 
with  his  vast  knowledge  of  native  character,  he  knew  that  the 
enemy  had  expected  us  to  take  it,  and  would  construe  caution 
into  cowardice.  Then  he  had  the  ist  Bengal  Fusiliers  behind 
him.  He  had  led  them  in  Delhi,  they  had  fallen  in  his  track  in 
tens  and  fifties,  and  still  they  had  come  on  —  they  would  do  this 
thing  for  him  now.  ' 

"We  will  do  what  we  can,  sir,"  said  their  commandant, 
Major  Jacob  —  but  his  face  was  grave. 

"  We  will  do  what  men  can  do,  sir,"  said  the  commandant  of 
that  left  half  of  the  column;  "but  honestly,  I  don't  think  it  can 
be  done.     We  have  tried  it  once."     His  face  was  graver  still. 

"  Nor  I,"  said  Nicholson's  Brigade-major. 

Nicholson,  as  he  stood  by  the  houses  around  the  Cabul  gate, 
which  had  been  occupied  and  plundered  by  the  troops,  looked 
down  the  straight  lane  again.  It  hugged  the  city  wall  on  its  right, 
its  scanty  width  narrowed  here  and' there  by  buttresses  to  some 
three  feet.  About  a  third  of  the  way  down  was  the  first  gun, 
placed  beside  a  feathery  kikar  tree  which  sent  a  lace-like  tracery 
of  shadow  upon  the  screen.  As  far  behind  was  the  second. 
Beyond,  again,  was  the  bastion  jutting  out,  and  so  forcing  the 
lane  to  bend  between  it  and  some  tall  houses.  Both  were  crowded 
with  the  enemy — the  screens  held  bayonets  and  marksmen. 
There  was  a  gun  close  to  the  bastion  in  the  wall,  but  to  the  left, 
cityward,  in  the  low,  flat-roofed  mud  houses  there  seemed  no 
trace  of  flanking  foes. 

"I  think  it  can  be  done,"  he  said.  He  knew  it  must  be 
done  ere  the  Palace  could  be  taken.  So  he  gave,  the  orders. 
Fusiliers  forward;  officers  to  the  front! 

And  to  the  front  they  went,  with  a  cheer  and  a  rush,  over- 
whelming the  first  gun,  within  ten  yards  of  the  other.  And  one 
man  \vjas  closer  still,  for  I^ieutenant  Butler,  pinned  against  that 
second  bullet-proof  screen  by  two  bayonets  thrust  through  the 
loopholes  at  him,  had  to  fire  his  revolver  through  them  also,  ere 
he  could  escape  this  two-pronged  fork. 

But  the  fire  of  every  musket  on  the  bastion  and  the  tall  houses 
was  centered  on  that  second  gun.     Grape,  canister,  raked  the 


376c  I<ITERATURB   OF   AH   NATIONS. 

narrow  lane  —  made  narrower  by  fallen  Fusiliers — and  forced 
those  who  remained  to  fall  back  upon  the  first  gun  —  beyond 
that  even.  Yet  only  for  a  moment.  Reformed  afresh,  they 
carried  it  a  second  time,  spiked  it  and  pressed  on.  Officers  still 
to  the  front! 

Just  beyond  the  gun  the  commandant  fell  wounded  to  death. 
"Go  on,  men,  go  on!"  he  shouted  to  those  who  would  have 
paused  to  help  him.     "  Forward,  Fusiliers!  " 

And  they  went  forward;  though  at  dawn  two  hundred  and 
fifty  men  had  dashed  for  the  breach,  and  now  there  were  not  a 
hundred  and  fifty  men  left  to  obey  orders.  Less!  For  fifty  men 
and  seven  officers  lay  in  that  lane  itself.  Surely  it  was  time  now 
for  others  to  step  in  —  and  there  were  others! 

Nicholson  saw  the  waver,  knew  what  it  meant,  and  sprang 
forward  sword  in  hand,  calling  on  those  others  to  follow.  But 
he  asked  too  much.  Where  the  ist  Fusiliers  had  failed,  none 
cared  to  try.  That  is  the  simple  truth.  The  limit  had  been 
reached. 

So  for  a  minute  or  two  he  stood,  a  figure  instinct  with  pas- 
sion, energy,  vitality,  before  men  who,  God  knows  with  reason, 
had  lost  all  three  for  the  moment.  A  colossal  figure  beyond 
them,  ahead  of  them,  asking  more  than  mere  ordinary  men  could 
do.     So  a  pitiful  figure  —  a  failure  at  the  last! 

"  Come  on,  men!     Come  on,  you  fools  —  come  on,  you  — you 


What  the  word  was,  which  that  bullet  full  in  the  chest 
arrested  between  heart  and  lips,  those  who  knew  John  Nichol- 
son's wild  temper,  his  indomitable  will,  his  fierce  resentment  at 
everything  which  fell  short  of  his  ideals,  can  easily  guess. 

"Lay  me  under  that  tree,"  he  gasped,  as  they  raised  him. 
"  I  will  not  leave  till  the  lane  is  carried.  My  God!  Don't  mind 
me!     Forward,  men,  forward!     It  can  be  done." 

An  hour  or  two  afterward  a  subaltern  coming  out  of  the  Cash- 
mere gate  saw  a  dhooli,  deserted  by  its  bearers.  In  it  lay  John 
Nicholson  in  dire  agony;  but  he  asked  nothing  of  his  fellows 
then  save  to  be  taken  to  hospital.  He  had  learned  his  lesson. 
He  had  done  what  others  had  set  him  to  do.  He  had  entered 
Delhi.  He  had  pricked  the  bubble,  and  the  gas  was  leaking 
out.     But  he  had  failed  in  the  task  he  had  set  himself.     The 


INDIA.  377  c 

Burn  Bastion  was  still  unwon,  and  the  English  force  in  Delhi, 
instead  of  holding  its  northern  half  up  to  the  very  walls  of  the 
Palace,  secure  from  flanking  foes,  had  to  retire  on  the  strip  of 
open  ground  behind  the  assaulted  wall — if,  indeed,  it  had  not 
to  retire  further  still.  Had  one  man  had  his  way  it  would' have 
retired  to  the  Ridge.  l,ate  in  the  afternoon,  when  fighting  was 
over  for  the  day,  General  Wilson  rode  round  the  new-won  posi- 
tion, and,  map  in  hand,  looked  despairingly  toward  the  network 
of  narrow  lanes  and  alleys  beyond.  And  he  looked  at  soinething 
close  at  hand  with  even  greater  forebodings;  for  he  stood  in  the 
European  quarter  of  the  town  among  shops  still  holding  vast 
stores  of  wine  and  spirits  which  had  been  left  untouched  by  that 
other  army  of  occupation. 

But  what  of  this  one?  This  product  of  civilization,  and  cul- 
ture, and  Christianity;  these  men  who  could  give  points  to  those 
others  in  so  many  ways,  but  might  barter  their  very  birthright 
for  a  bottle  of  rum.  Yet  even  so,  the  position  must  be  held.  So 
said  Baird  Smith  at  the  chief's  elbow,  so  wrote  Neville  Chamber- 
lain, unable  to  leave  his  post  on  the  Ridge.  And  another  man 
in  hospital,  thinking  of  the  Bum  Bastion,  thinking  with  a  strange 
wonder  of  men  who  could  refuse  to  follow,  muttered  under  his 
breath,  "Thank  God!  I  have  still  strength  left  to  shoot  a 
coward." 

And  yet  General  Wilson  in  a  way  was  right.  Five  days 
afterward  Major  Hodson  wrote  in  his  diary:  "The  troops  are 
utterly  demoralized  by  hard  work  and  hard  drink.  For  the  first 
time  in  my  life  I  have  had  to  see  English  soldiers  refuse  repeat- 
edly to  follow  their  officers.  Jacob,  Nicholson,  GreVille,  Speke 
were  all  sacrificed  to  this." 

A  terrible  indictment  indeed,  against  brave  men. 
Yet  not  worse  than  that  underlying  the  chief's  order  of  the 
15th,  directing  the  Provost-marshal  to  search  for  and  smash 
every  bottle  and  barrel  to  be  found,  and  let  the  beer  and  wine, 
so  urgently  needed  by  the  sick,  run  into  the  gutters;  or  his  ad- 
mission three  days  later  that  another  attempt  to  take  the  I^ahore 
gate  had  failed  from  "the  refusal  of  the  European  soldiers  to 
follow  their  officers.  One  rush,  and  it  could  have  been  done 
easily  —  we  are  still,  therefore,  in  the  same  position  to-day  as  we 
were  yesterday." 


378c  WTERATURE  OF  ALX,  NATIONS. 

So  much  for  drink. 

But  the  enemy  luckily  was  demoralized  also.  It  was  still 
full  of  defense,  empty  of  attack. 

For  one  thing,  attack  would  have  admitted  a  reverse;,  and 
over  on  that  eastern  wall  of  the  Palace,  in  the  fretted  marble 
balcony  overlooking  the  river,  there  was  no  mention,  even  now, 
of  such  a  word.  Reverse!  Had  not  the  fourth  column  been 
killed  to  a  man  ?  Had  not  Nikalseyn  himself  fallen  a  victim  to 
valor?  But  Soma,  and  many  a  man  of  his  sort,  gave  up  the  pre- 
tense with  bitter  curses  at  themselves.  They  had  seen  from  their 
own  posts  that  victorious  escalade,  that  swift,  unchecked  herding 
of  the  frightened  sheep.  And  they — intolerable  thought!  — 
were  sheep  also.  They  saw  men  with  dark  faces,  no  whit  better 
than  they  —  better! — the  Rajpoot  had  at  least  a  longer  record 
than  the  Sikh!  —  led  to  victory  while  they  were  not  led  at  all. 
So  brought  face  to  face  once  more  with  the  old  familiar  glory  and 
honor,  the  old  familiar  sight  of  the  master  first  —  uncompromis- 
ingly, indubitably  first  to  snatch  success  from  the  grasp  of  Fate, 
and  hand  it  back  to  them  —  they  thought  of  the  past  three 
months  with  loathing. 

Yet  but  little  headway  had  been  made  in  securing  a  firmer 
hold  within  the  city  itself. 

"You  can't,  till  the  Burn  Bastion  is  taken  and  the  I/abore 
gate  secured,"  said  Nicholson  from  his  dying  bed,  whence,  grow- 
ing perceptibly  weaker  day  by  day,  yet  with  mind  clear  and  un- 
clouded, he  watched  and  warned.  Thp  single  eye  was  not 
closed  yet,  was  not  even  made  dim  by  death.  It  saw  still,  what 
it  had  seen  on  the  day  of  the  assalt;  what  it  had  coveted  then 
and  failed  to  reach. 

But  it  was  not  for  five  days  after  this  failure  that  even  Baird 
Smith  recognized  the  absolute  accuracy  of  this  judgment,  and 
against  the  Chief's  will,  obtained  permission  to  sap  through  the 
shelter  of  the  intervening  houses  till  they  could  tackle  the  bastion 
at  close  and  commanding  quarters  without  asking  the  troops  to 
face  another  lane.  So  on  the  morning  of  the  19th,  after  a  night 
of  storm  and  rain  cooling  the  air  incredibly,  the  pick-ax  began 
what  rifles  and  swords  had  failed  to  do.  By  nightfall  a  tall 
house  was  reached,  whence  the  bastion  could  be  raked  fore  and 
aft.      Its  occupants,  recognizing    this,   took  advantage  of  the 


INDIA.  379c 

growing  darkness  to  evacuate  it.  Half  an  hour  afterward  the 
master-key  of  the  position  was  in  English  hands. 

Rather  unsteady  ones,  for  here  again  the  troops  —  once  more 
the.  8th,  the  75th,  the  Sikh  Infantry,  and  that  balance  of  the 
Fusiliers  —  had  found  more  brandy. 

But  this  time  England  could  afford  a  few  drunk  men.  The 
bastion  was  gone,  and  by  the  Turkoman  and  Delhi  gates  half  the 
town  was  going.  And  not  only  the  town.  Down  in  the  Palace 
men  and  women,  with  fumbling  hands  and  dazed  eyes,  like  those 
new  roused  from  dreams,  were  snatching  at  something  to  carry 
with  them  in  their  flight.  Bukht  Kh^n  stood  facing  the  Queen 
in  her  favorite  summer-house,  alone  save  for  Hdfzan,  the  scribe, 
who  lingered,  watching  them  with  a  certain  malice  in  her  eyes. 
She  had  been  right.  Vengeance  had  been  coming.  Now  it  had 
come. 

*********** 

The  dawn  of  the  20th  of  September  had  broken  ere,  with  the 
key  of  the  outer  door  in  her  bosom,  H^fzan  retired  into  an  inner 
room,  leaving  the  Moulvie  saying  his  prayers  in  the  other.  Al- 
ready the  troops,  recovered  from  their  unsteadiness,  had  carried 
the  lyahore  gate  and  were  bearing  dovm  on  the  mosque.  They 
found  it  almost  undefended.  The  circling  flight  of  purple 
pigeons,  which  at  the  first  volley  flew  westward,  the  sun  glisten- 
ing on  their  iridescent  plumage,  was  scarcely  more  swift  than  the 
flight  of  those  who  attempted  a  feeble  resistance.  And  now  the 
Palace  lay  dose  by.  With  it  captured,  Delhi  was  taken.  Its 
walls,  it  is  true,  rose  unharmed,  secure  as  ever,  hemming  in 
those  few  acres  of  God's  earth  from  the  march  of  time;  but  they 
were  strangely  silent.  Only  now  and  again  a  puff  of  white 
smoke  and  an  unavailing  roar  told  that  someone,  who  cared  not 
even  for  success,  remained  within. 

So  powder-bags  were  brought.  Home  of  the  Engineers  sent 
for,  that  he  might  light  the  fuse  which  gave  entry  to  the  last 
stronghold;  for  there  was  no  hurry  now.  N9  racing  now  under 
hailstorms,  and  over  tightropes.  Calmly,  quietly,  the  fuse  was 
lit,  the  gate  shivered  to  atoms,  and  the  long  red  tunnel  with  the 
gleam  of  sunlight  at  its  end  lay  before  the  men,  who  entered  it 
with  a  cheer.  Then,  here  and  there  rose  guttural  Arabic  texts, 
ending  in  a  groan.  Here  and  there  the  clash  of  arms.  But  not 
enough  to  rouse  HSfzan,  who,  long  ere  this,  had  fallen  asleep 


38oC  LITERATURE  OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

after  her  wakeful  night.  It  needed  a  touch  on  her  shoulder  for 
that,  and  the  Moulvie's  eager  voice  in  her  ear. 

' '  The  key,  woman  !     The  key  —  give  it !     I  need  the  key. ' ' 

Half-dazed  by  sleep,  deceived  by  the  silence,  she  put  her 
hand  mechanically  to  her  bosom.  His  followed  hers;  he  had  what 
he  sought,  and  was  off.  She  sprang  to  her  feet,  recognizing 
some  danger,  and  followed  him. 

"He  is  mad  !  He  is  mad  !  "  she  cried,  as  her  halting  steps 
lingered  behind  the  tall  white  figure  which  made  straight  for  a 
crowd  of  soldiers  gathered  round  the  little  tank.  There  were 
other  soldiers  here,  there,  everywhere  in  the  rose-red  arcades 
around  the  sun-lit  court.  Soldiers  with  dark  faces  and  white 
ones  seeking  victims,  seeking  plunder.  But  these  in  the  center 
were  all  white  men,  and  they  were  standing,  as  men  stand  to 
look  at  a  holy  shrine,  upon  the  place,  where,  as  the  spies  had 
told  them,  English  women  and  children  had  been  murdered. 

So  toward  them,  while  curses  were  in  all  hearts  and  on  some 
lips,  came  the  tall  white  figure  with  its  arms  outspread,  its  wild 
eyes  aflame. 

"O  God  of  Might  and  Right!  Give  judgment  now,  give 
judgment  now." 

The  cry  rolled  and  echoed  through  the  arcades  to  alien  ears 
even  as  other  cries. 

"He  is  mad  —  he  saved  them — he  is  mad  !"  gasped  the 
maimed  woman  behind;  but  her  cry  seemed  no  different  to  those 
unheeding  ears. 

The  tall  white  figure  lay  on  its  face,  half  a  dozen  bayonets  in 
its  back,  and  half  a  dozen  more  were  after  Hdfzan. 

"  Stick  him  !  Stick  him  !  A  man  in  disguise.  Remember 
the  women  and  children.     Stick  the  coward  ! ' ' 

She  fied  shrieking  —  shrill,  feminine  shrieks;  but  the  men's 
blood  was  up.  They  could  not  hear,  they  would  not  hear;  and 
yet  the  awkwardness  of  that  flying  figure  made  them  laugh  hor- 
ribly. 

"Don't  'ustle  'im  !  Give  'im  time  !  There's  plenty  o'  run 
in  'im  yet,  mates.  I<ord  !  'e'd  get  first  prize  at  I/illie  Bridge  'e 
would. " 

Someone  else,  however,  had  got  it  at  Harrow  not  a  year  be- 
fore, and  was  after  the  reckless  crew.  Almost  too  late — not 
quite.     H^fzan,  run  to  earth  against  a  red  wall,  felt  something 


INDIA.  38 1  C 

on  her  back,  and  gave  a  wild  yell.  But  it  was  only  a  boy's 
hand. 

"  My  God  !  sir,  I've  stuck  you  !  "  falted  a  voice  behind,  as  a 
man  stood  rigid,  arrested  in  mid-thrust. 

"Youd d  fool!"  said  the  boy.     Couldn't  you  h^ar  it 

was  a  woman?  I'll — I'll  have  you  shot.  Oh,  hang  it  all !  Drag 
the  creature  away,  someone.     Get  out  do  ! " 

For  H4fzan,  as  he  stood  stanching  the  blood  from  the  slight 
wound,  had  fallen  at  his  feet  and  was  kissing  them  frantically. 

But  even  that  indignity  was  forgotten  as  the  stained  handker- 
chief answered  the  flutter  of  something  which  at  that  moment 
caught  the  breeze  above  him. 

It  was  the  English  flag. 

The  men  forgetting  everything  else,  cheered  themselves 
hoarse  —  cheered  again  when  an  orderly  rode  past  waving  a  slip 
of  paper  sent  back  to  the  General  with  the  laconic  report: 

"  Blown  open  the  gates  !     Got  the  Palace  ! " 

But  HMzan,  her  veil  up  to  prevent  mistakes,  limped  over  to 
where  the  Moulvie  lay,  turned  him  gently  on  his  back,  straight- 
ened his  limbs  and  closed  his  eyes.  She  would  have  liked  to  tell 
the  truth  to  someone,  but  there  was  no  one  to  listen.  So  she 
left  him  there  before  the  tribunal  to  which  he  had  appealed. 


RUDYARD  KIPLING. 

Thb  famous  ballad-maker  and  short-story  writer  was  born  in 
Bombay  in  1865,  his  father  an  English  artist  and  author.  After 
an  English  education  he  practiced  all-round  journalism  in  India. 
Some  of  his  ballads  and  stories  were  collected  and  instantly  made 
a  world-wide  success.  He  married  the  sister  of  the  late  Wolcot 
Balestier,  an  American  writer,  and  settled  for  a  time  in  Ver- 
mont, but  afterwards  returned  to  England.  His  works  are  gen- 
erally popular,  but  are  of  uneven  merit.  The  most  admired  are 
the  Jungle  Book,  Tales  from  the  Hills,  Departmental  Ditties,  and 
other  ballad-books. 


382C  UTERATURB  OF  ALI,  NATIONS. 

' '  Fuzzy- WuzzY. " 

(SOUDAN  EXPEDITIONARY  PORCB.) 

WB'vB  fought  with  many  men  acrost  the  seas, 

An'  some  of  'eni  was  brave  an'  some  was  not, 
The  Paythan  an'  the  Zulu  an'  Burmese; 

But  the  Fuzzy  was  the  finest  o'  the  lot. 
We  never  got  a  ha'porth's  change  of  'im: 

'E  squatted  in  the  scrub  an'  'ocked  our  'orses, 
'E  cut  our  sentries  up  at  Snakim, 
An'  'e  played  the  cat  an'  banjo  with  our  forces. 

So  'ere's  io  you.  Fuzzy- Wuzzy,  at  your  'ome  in  the  Soudan; 
You're  a  pore  benighted  'eathen,  but  a  first-class  fightin'  man; 
We  gives  you  your  certificate,  an'  if  you  want  it  signed 
We'll  come  an'  'ave  a  romp  with  you  whenever  you're  in- 
clined. 

We  took  our  chanst  among  the  Kyber  'ills, 

The  Boers  knocked  us  silly  at  a  mile, 
The  Burman  give  us  Irriwaddy  chills,        , 

An'  a  Zulu  tmpi  dished  us  up  in  style: 
But  all  we  ever  got  from  such  as  they 

Was  pop  to  what  the  Fuzzy  made  us  swaller; 
We  'eld  our  bloomin'  own,  the  papers  say. 
But  man  for  man  the  Fuzzy  knocked  us  'oiler. 

Then  'ere 's  io  you,  Fuzzy-Wuzzy,  an'  the  missis  an'  the  kid; 
Our  orders  was  to  break  you,  an'  of  course  we  went  an'  did. 
We  sloshed  you  with  Martinis,  an'  it  was  n't  'ardly  fair; 
But  for  all  the  odds  agin'  you.  Fuzzy- Wuz,  you  broke  the 
square. 

'E  'as  n't  got  no  papers  of  'is  own, 

'E  'as  n't  got  no  medals  nor  rewards, 
So  we  must  certify  the  skill  'e  's  shown 

In  usin'  of  'is  long  two-'anded  swords: 
When  'e  's  'oppin'  in  an'  out  among  the  bush 

With  'is  coffin-'eaded  shield  an'  shovel-spear, 
An  'appy  day  with  Fuzzy  on  the  rush 

Will  last  an  'ealthy  Tommy  for  a  year. 


INDIA.  383c 

So  'ere's  to  you,  Fuzzy- Wuzzy,  an'  your  friends  which  are 

no  more, 
If  we  'ad  n't  lost   some  messmates  we  would  'elp  you  to 

deplore; 
^     But  give  an'  take's  the  gospel,  an'  we'll  call  the  bargain 

fair, 
For  if  you  'avelost  more  than   us,  you  crumpled  up  the 

square! 

'E  rushes  at  the  smoke  when  we  let  drive. 

An,'  before  we  know,  'e's  'ackin'  at  our  'ead; 
'E's  all  'ot  sand  an'  ginger  when  alive. 

An'  'e's  generally  shammin'  when  'e's  dead. 
'E  's  a  daisy,  'e  's  a  ducky,  'e  's  a  lamb! 
'E  's  a  Injia-rubber  idiot  on  the  spree, 
'E  's  the  on'y  thing  that  does  n't  give  a  damn 
For  a  Regimemt  o'  British  Infantree! 

So  'ere's  to  you,  Fuzzy- Wuzzy,  at  your  'ome  in  the  Soudan; 
You're  a  pore  benighted  'eathen  but  a  first-class  fightin'  man; 
An'  'ere's  to  you,  Fuzzy- Wuzzy,  with  your  'ayrick  'ead  of 

'air — 
You  big  black  boundin'  beggar  —  for  you  broke  a  British 
square! 


•any  books  of  travel  have  been  written  since  Livingstone's 
lifework  opened  up  this  new  world  to  civilization,  and 
some  of  them  are  fully  entitled  to  rank  as  literature.  As 
examples  may  be  mentioned  the  Impressions  of  South  Africa  re- 
corded by  the  Right  Hon.  James  Bryce,  sometime  member  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  ministry  and  author  of  the  profound  treatise  on  the 
American  Commonwealth.  Also  the  war-letters  written  by  the  late 
George  Steevens  from  Cape  Town  to  Lady  smith,  a  graphic  delinea- 
tion of  the  conflict  in  which  he  perished.  Works  of  this  class  are 
strictly  outside  the  scope  of  this  review,  but  choice  is  limited  by 
the  lack  of  native- written  literature.  A  compilation  of  the  Poetry 
of  South  Africa  was  published  there  in  1888.  The  only  available 
writings  of  local  color  are  those  by  settlers  whose  stay  in  the 
cdlony  was  limited  to  a  few  years,  with  the  exception  of  Olive 
Schreiner,  whose  name  has  deservedly  won  considerable  renown, 
for  bold  original  thought  and  a  charming  style.  The  Boer  war 
of  1 899-1 901  and  its  consequences  will  sustain  interest  in  books 
such  as  those  from  which  we  quote,  which  illustrate  the  peculiar 
life  and  conditions  of  the  troubled  country. 


OWVE  SCHREINKR. 


As  ' '  Rai<ph  Iron  ' '  this  clever  lady  won  her  place  in  literature 
with  the  Story  of  an  African  Farm,  which  appeared  in  1883.  She 
was  born  in  South  Africa  in  1863,  her  father  being  a  I/Utheran 
clergyman  in  Cape  Town,  and  her  brother  recently  premier  of 
the  local  parliament.  Her  later  books  display  strong  sympathy 
with  the  Boers  in  their  struggle  to  keep  the  independence  they  so 
hardly  earned  and  have  so  heroically  striven  to  defend. 
(384c) 


SOUTH   AFRICA.  385c 

A  Boer  Wedding. 

(From  "  The  Story  of  an  African  Farm. ) 

"I  didn't  know  before  you  were  so  fond  of  riding  hard," 
said  Gregory  to  his  little  betrothed. 

They  were  cantering  slowly  on  the  road  to  Oom  MuUer's  on 
the  morning  of  the  wedding. 

"  Do  you  call  this  riding  hard?"  asked  Em  in  some  astonish- 
ment. 

"Of  course  I  do!  It's  enough  to  break  the  horses'  necks, 
and  knock  one  up  for  the  whole  day  besides,"  he  added  testily  ; 
then  twisted  his  head  to  look  at  the  buggy  that  came  on  behind. 
' '  I  thought  Waldo  was  such  a  mad  driver ;  they  are  taking  it 
easily  enough  to-day,"  said  Gregory.  "One  would  think  the 
black  stallions  were  lame." 

"I  suppose  they  want  to  keep  out  of  our  dust,"  said  Em. 
"See,  they  stand  still  as  soon  as  we  do." 

Perceiving  this  to  be  the  case,  Gregory  rode  on. 

"It's  all  that  horse  of  yours  ;  she  kicks  up  such  a  confounded 
dust,  I  can't  stand  it  myself,"  he  said. 

Meanwhile  the  cart  came  on  slowly  enough. 

"Take  the  reins,"  said  t/yndall,  "and  make  them  walk.  I 
want  to  rest  and  watch  their  hoofs  to-day  —  not  to  be  exhilarated ; 
I  am  so  tired." 

She  leaned  back  in  her  corner,  and  Waldo  drove  on  slowly  in 
the  gray  dawn  light  along  the  level  road.  They  passed  the  very 
milk-bush  behind  which  so  many  years  before  the  old  German 
had  found  the  Kaffir  woman.  But  their  thoughts  were  not  with 
him  that  morning ;  they  were  the  thoughts  of  the  young,  that  run 
out  to  meet  the  future,  and  labor  in  the  present.  At  last  he 
touched  her  arm. 

"What  is  it?" 

"  I  feared  you  had  gone  to  sleep,  and  might  be  jolted  out," 
he  said ;  "you  sat  so  quietly." 

"  No  ;  do  not  talk  to  me ;  I  am  not  asleep ; ' '  but  after  a  time 
she  said  suddenly,  "  It  must  be  a  terrible  thing  to  bring  a  human 
being  into  the  world. ' ' 

if;******** 

X— 25 


386c  WTBRATURE  OF  AH  NATIONS. 

Waldo  wondered  at  her.  He  had  not  the  key  to  her  thoughts, 
and  did  not  see  the  string  on  which  they  were  strung.  She  drew 
her  cloud  tightly  about  her. 

"  It  must  be  very  nice  to  believe  in  the  Devil,"  she  said  ;  "I 
wish  I  did.  If  it  would  be  of  any  use  I  would  pray  three  hours 
night  and  morning  on  my  bare  knees,  '  God,  let  me  believe  in 
Satan.'  He  is  so  useful  to  those  people  who  do.  They  may  be 
as  selfish  and  as  sensual  as  t)iey  please,  and,  between  God's  will 
and  the  Devil's  actions,  always  have  some  one  to  throw  their  sin 
on.  But  we,  wretched  unbelievers,  we  bear  our  own  burdens; 
we  must  say,  '  I  myself  did  it,  /.  Not  God,  nor  Satan  ;  I  myself ! ' 
That  is  the  sting  that  strikes  deep.  Waldo, ' '  she  said  gently, 
with  a  sudden  and  complete  change  of  manner,  ' '  I  like  you  so 
much,  I  love  you."  She  rested  her  cheek  softly  against  his 
shoulder.  ' '  When  I  am  with  you  I  never  know  that  I  am  a 
woman  and  you  are  a  man  ;  I  only  know  that  we  are  both  things 
that  think.  Other  men  when  I  am  with  them,  whether  I  love 
them  or  not,  they  are  mere  bodies  to  me ;  but  you  are  a  spirit ;  I 
like  you.  I<ook,"  she  said  quickly,  sinking  back  into  her  corner, 
"  what  a  pretty  pinkness  there  is  on  all  the  hill- tops !  The  sun 
will  rise  in  a  moment." 

Waldo  lifted  his  eyes  to  look  round  over  the  circle  of  golden 
hills ;  and  the  horses,  as  the  first  sunbeams  touched  them,  shook 
their  heads  and  champed  their  bright  bits,  till  the  brass  settings 
in  their  harness  glittered  again. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  when  they  neared  the  farmhouse :  a  red- 
brick building,  with  kraals  to  the  right  and  a  small  orchard  to 
the  left.  Already  there  were  signs  of  unusual  life  and  bustle : 
one  cart,  a  wagon,  and  a  couple  of  saddles  against  the  wall  be- 
tokened the  arrival  of  a  few  early  guests,  whose  numbers  would 
soon  be  largely  increased.  To  a  Dutch  country  wedding  guests 
start  up  in  numbers  astonishing  to  one  who  has  merely  ridden 
through  the  plains  of  sparsely  inhabited  karroo. 

As  the  morning  advances,  riders  on  many  shades  of  steeds 
appear  from  all  directions,  and  add  their  saddles  to  the  long  rows 
against  the  walls,  shake  hands,  drink  coffee,  and  stand  about  out- 
side in  groups  to  watch  the  arriving  carts  and  ox-wagons,  as  they 
are  unburdened  of  their  heavy  freight  of  massive  tantes  and 
comely  daughters,  followed  by  swarms  of  children  of  all  sizes, 
dressed  in  all  manner  of  print  and  moleskin,  who  are  taken  care 


SOUTH   AFRICA.  387c: 

of  by  Hottentot,  Kaffir,  and  half-caste  nurses,  whose  many- 
shaded  complexions,  ranging  from  light  yellow  up  to  ebony 
black,  add  variety  to  the  animated  scene.  Everywhere  is  excite- 
ment and  bustle,  which  gradually  increases  as  the  time  for  the 
return  of  the  wedding  party  approaches.  Preparations  for  the 
feast  are  actively  advancing  in  the  kitchen ;  cofEee  is  liberally 
handed  round,  and  amid  a  profound  sensation,  and  the  firing  of 
guns,  the  horse-wagon  draws  up,  and  the  wedding  party  alight. 
Bride  and  bridegroom,  with  their  attendants  march  solemnly  to 
the  marriage-chamber,  where  bed  and  box  are  decked  out  in 
white,  with  ends  of  ribbon  and  artificial  flowers,  and  where  on  a 
row  of  chairs  the  party  solemnly  seat  themselves.  After  a  time 
bridemaid  and  best  man  rise,  and  conduct  in  with  ceremony  each 
individual  guest,  to  wish  success  and  to  kiss  bride  and  bridegroom. 
Then  the  feast  is  set  on  the  table,  and  it  is  almost  sunset  before 
the  dishes  are  cleared  away,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  day  begins. 
Everything  is  removed  from  the  great  front  room,  and  the  mud 
floor,  well  rubbed  with  bullock's  blood,  glistens  like  polished 
mahogany.  The  female  portion  of  the  assembly  flock  into  the 
side-rooms  to  attire  themselves  for  the  evening ;  and  re-issue  clad 
in  white  muslin,  and  gay  with  bright  ribbons  and  brass  jewelry. 
The  dancing  begins  as  the  first  tallow  candles  are  stuck  up  about 
the  walls,  the  music  coming  from  a  couple  of  fiddlers  in  a  corner 
of  the  room.  Bride  and  bridegroom  open  the  ball,  and  the  floor 
is  soon  covered  with  whirling  couples,  and  every  one's  spirits 
rise.  The  bridal  pair  mingle  freely  in  the  throng,  and  here  and 
there  a  musical  man  sings  vigorously  as  he  drags  his  partner 
through  the  Blue  Water  or  John  Speriwig ;  boys  shout  and  ap- 
plaud, and  the  enjoyment  and  confusion  are  intense,  till  eleven 
o'clock  comes.  By  this  time  the  children  who  swarm  in  the  side- 
rooms  are  not  to  be  kept  quiet  longer,  even  by  hunches  of  bread 
and  cake ;  there  is  a  general  howl  and  wail,  that  rises  yet  higher 
than  the  scraping  of  fiddles,  and  mothers  rush  from  their  partners 
to  knock  small  hieads  together,  and  cuff  little  nursemaids,  and 
force  the  wallers  down  into  unoccupied  corners  of  beds,  under 
tables,  and  behind  boxes.  In  half  an  hour  every  variety  of 
childish  snore  is  heard  on  all  sides,  and  it  has  become  perilous  to 
raise  or  set  down  a  foot  in  any  of  the  side-rooms  lest  a  small  head 
or  hand  should  be  crushed.  Now,  too,  the  busy  feet  have  broken 
the  solid  coating  of  the  floor,  and  a  cloud  of  fine  dust  arises,  that 


388c  LITERATURE   OF  ALL  NATIONS. 

makes  a  yellow  halo  round  the  candles,  and  sets  asthmatic  people 
coughing,  and  grows  denser,  till  to  recognize  any  one  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  room  becomes  impossible,  and  a  partner's  face 
is  seen  through  a  yellow  mist. 

At  twelve  o'clock  the  bride  is  led  to  the  marriage-chamber 
and  undressed  ;  the  lights  are  blown  out,  and  the  bridegroom  is 
brought  to  the  door  by  the  best  man,  who  gives  him  the  key ; 
then  the  door  is  shut  and  locked,  and  the  revels  rise  higher  than 
ever.  There  is  no  thought  of  sleep  till  morning,  and  no  unoc- 
cupied spot  where  sleep  may  be  found. 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  on  the  night  of  Tant' 
Sannie's  wedding  that  Lyndall  sat  near  the  doorway  in  one  of 
the  side-rooms,  to  watch  the  dancers  as  they  appeared  and  dis- 
appeared in  the  yellow  cloud  of  dust.  Gregory  sat  moodily  in  a 
corner  of  the  large  dancing-room.  His  little  betrothed  touched 
his  arm. 

"I  wish  you  would  go  and  ask  I^yndall  to  dance  with  you," 
she  said ;  ' '  she  must  be  so  tired ;  she  has  sat  still  the  whole 
evening." 

"I  have  asked  her  three  times,"  replied  her  lover  shortly. 
"  I'm  not  going  to  be  her  dog,  and  creep  to  her  feet,  just  to  give 
her  the  pleasure  of  kicking  me  —  not  for  you,  Em,  nor  for  any- 
body else." 

"Oh,  I  didn't  know  you  had  asked  her,  Greg,"  said  his 
little  betrothed  humbly  ;  and  she  went  away  to  psur  out  coffee. 

Nevertheless,  some  time  after  Gregory  found  he  had  shifted 
so  far  round  the  room  as  to  be  close  to  the  door  where  lyyndall 
sat.  After  standing  for  some  time  he  inquired  whether  he 
might  not  bring  her  a  cup  of  coffee.  She  declined  :  but  still  he 
stood  on  (why  should  he  not  stand  there  as  well  as  anywhere 
else?)  and  then  he  stepped  into  the  bedroom. 

"  May  I  not  bring  you  a  stove,  Miss  I^yndall,  to  put  your 
feet  on?" 

"Thank  you." 

He  sought  for  one,  and  put  it  under  her  feet. 

"  There  is  a  draught  from  that  broken  window  :  shall  I  stuff 
something  in  the  pane  ? ' ' 

"  No  ;  we  want  air." 

Gregory  looked  round,  but,  nothing  else  suggesting  itself,  he 
sat  down  on  a  box  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  door.     I^yndall  sat 


SOUTH   AFRICA.  389C 

before  him,  her  chin  resting  in  her  hand  ;  her  eyes  steel-gray  by 
day  but  black  by  night,  looked  through  the  doorway  into  the 
next  room.  After  a  time  he  thought  she  had  entirely  forgotten  his 
proximity,  and  he  dared  to  inspect  the  little  hands  and  neck  as 
he  never  dared  when  he  was  in  momentary  dread  of  the  eyes 
being  turned  upon  him.  She  was  dressed  in  black,  which  seemed 
to  take  her  yet  further  from  the  white-clad  gewgawed  women 
about  her ;  and  the  little  hands  were  white,  and  the  diamond 
ring  ghttered.  Where  had  she  got  that  ring  ?  He  bent  forward 
a  little  and  tried  to  decipher  the  letters,  but  the  candle-light  was 
too  faint.  When  he  looked  up  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  him. 
She  was  looking  at  him  —  not,  Gregory  felt,  as  she  had  ever 
looked  at  him  before  ;  not  as  though  he  were  a  stump  or  a  stone 
that  chance  had  thrown  in  her  way.  To-night  whether  it  were 
critically,  or  kindly,  or  unkindly,  he  could  not  tell,  but  she 
looked  at  him,  at  the  man,  Gregory  Rose,  with  attention.  A 
vague  elation  filled  him.  He  clenched  his  fist  tight  to  think  of 
some  good  idea  he  might  express  to  her ;  but  of  all  those  pro- 
found things  he  had  pictured  himself  as  saying  to  her,  when  he 
sat  alone  in  the  daub-and-wattle  house,  not  one  came.  He  said 
at  last : 

"These  Boer  dances  are  very  low  things;"  and  then,  as 
soon  as  it  had  gone  from  him,  he  thought  it  was  not  a  clever 
remark,  and  wished  it  back. 

HENRY  RIDER  HAGGARD. 

Mr.  Haggard,  born  in  England,  1856,  went  to  Natal  in  1875 
as  secretary  to  Sir  H.  Bulwer,  and  was  afterward  Master  of  the 
High  Court  of  the  Transvaal.  His  first  book  was  an  account  of 
Cetewayo's  people,  who  gave  the  English  much  trouble  before 
they  were  subdued.  He  then  wrote  the  series  of  imaginative 
novels  with  which  his  name  is  chiefly  identified.  The  Witch's 
Head,  She,  etc.  The  fighting  qualities  of  native  chiefs  are  fairly 
illustrated  in  the  spirited  passage  which  follows  : 

(The  British  have  found  the'  native  races  of  South  Africa 
foes  worthy  of  their  steel.  They  sustained  defeats  at  the  hands 
of  Cetewayo  and  the  military  leaders  of  various  tribes.  The 
novelist  describes  one  such,  Twala  by  name,  after  being  van- 
quished in  a  fierce  fight  by  the  English  forces  under  Sir  Henry 
Curtis,  who  had  been  wounded  in  a  hand  to  hand  fight  with  Twala. ) 


390c  literature  of  axl  nations. 

The  Fight  Between  Twala  and  Sir  Henry. 

(From  "  King  Solomon's  Mines.") 

Taking  due  precautions  against  treachery,  we  marched  on 
into  the  town.  All  along  the  road-ways  stood  dejected  warriors, 
their  heads  drooping,  and  their  shields  and  spears  at  their  feet, 
who,  as  Ignosi  passed,  saluted  him  as  a  king.  On  we  marched, 
straight  to  Twala's  kraal.  When  we  reached  the  great  space 
where  a  day  or  two  previously  we  had  se^  the  review  and  the 
witch-hunt  we  found  it  deserted.  No,  not  quite  deserted,  for 
there,  on  the  further  side,  in  front  of  his  hut,  sat  Twala  him- 
self, with  but  one  attendant  —  Gagool. 

It  was  a  melancholy  sight  to  see  him  seated  there,  his  battle- 
ax  and  shield  by  his  side,  his  chin  upon  his  mailed  breast,  with 
but  one  old  crone  for  companion,  and,  notwithstanding  his 
cruelties  and  misdeeds,  a  pang  of  compassion  shot  through  me  as 
I  saw  him  thus  "  fallen  from  his  high  estate."  Not  a  soldier  of 
all  his  armies,  not  a  courtier  out  of  the  hundreds  who  had 
cringed  round  him,  not  even  a  solitary  wife,  remained  to  share 
his  fate  or  halve  the  bitterness  of  his  fall.  Poor  savage  !  he  was 
learning  the  lesson  that  fate  teaches  to  most  who  live  long 
enough,  that  the  eyes  of  mankind  are  blind  to  the  discredited, 
and  that  he  who  is  defenseless  aind  fallen  finds  few  friends  and 
little  mercy.     Nor,  indeed,  in  this  case  did  he  deserve  any. 

Filing  through  the  kraal  gate  we  marched  straight  across  the 
open  space  to  where  the  ex-king  sat.  When  within  about  fifty 
yards  the  regiment  was  halted,  and,  accompanied  only  by  a  small 
guard,  we  advanced  toward  him,  Gagool  reviling  us  bitterly  as 
we  came.  As  we  drew  near,  Twala,  for  the  first  time,  lifted  up 
his  plumed  head,  and  fixed  his  one  eye,  which  seemed  to  flash 
with  suppressed  fury  almost  as  brightly  as  the  great  diadem 
bound  round  his  forehead,  upon  his  successful  riyal  —  Ignosi. 

"Hail,  oh,  king!"  he  said,  with  bitter  mockery;  "thou 
who  hast  eaten  of  my  bread,  and  now  by  the  aid  of  the  white 
man's  magic  has  seduced  my  regiments  and  defeated  mine  army, 
hail  !     What  fate  hast  thou  for  me,  oh,  king?  " 

"  The  fate  thou  gavest  to  my  father,  whose  throne  thou  hast 
sat  on  these  many  years  ! ' '  was  the  stern  answer. 


SOUTH  AFRICA.  ^^^^ 

"  It  is  well.     I  will  Show  thee  how  to  die,  that  thou  mayest 

blood,  andhepomtedwithhis  red  battle-ax  toward  the  fiery 
orb  now  going  down  ;  '<  it  is  well  that  my  sun  should  sink  with 

of"  .1.^  T""'  •  '°^  '  ^  ^"^  '^^^^  *°  ^'^'  b«t  I  <=^ave  the  boon 
of  the  Kukuana  royal  house,*  to  die  fighting.  Thou  canst  not 
refuse  It  or  even  those  cowards  who  fled  to-day  will  hold  thee 
snamed. 

"  It  is  granted.  Choose  with  whom  thou  wilt  fight.  Myself 
I  can  not  fight  with  thee,  for  the  king  fights  not  except  in  war." 
Twala's  somber  eye  ran  up  and  down  our  ranks,  and  I  felt 
as  for  a  moment  it  rested  on  myself,  that  the  position  had 
developed  a  new  horror.  What  if  he  chose  to  begin  by  fighting 
me?  What  chance  should  I  have  against  a  desperate  savage  six 
feet  high  and  broad  in  proportion?  I  might  as  well  commit 
suicide  at  once.  Hastily  I  made  up  my  mind  to  decline  the  com- 
bat, even  if  I  were  hooted  out  of  Kukuanaland  as  a  consequence. 
It  is,  I  think,  better  to  be  hooted  than  to  be  quartered  with  a 
battle-ax. 

Presently  he  spoke. 

"Incubu,  what  sayest   thou,  shall  we  end  what  we  began 
to-day,  or  shall  I  call  thee  coward,  white  —  even  to  the  liver?" 
' '  Nay, ' '  interposed  Ignosi,  hastily;  ' '  thou  shalt  not  fight  with 
Incubu." 

"Not  if  he  is  afraid,"  said  Twala. 

Unfortunately  Sir  Henry  understood  this  remark,  and  the 
blood  flamed  up  into  his  cheeks. 

"I  will  fight  him,"  he  said;  " he  shall  see  if  I'm  afraid." 
"  For  God's  sake,"  I  entreated,  "  don't  risk  your  life  against 
that  of  a  desperate  man.    Anybody  who  saw  you  to-day  will  know 
that  you  are  not  a  coward." 

"I  will  fight  him,"  was  the  sullen  answer.  "  No  living  man 
shall  call  me  a  coward.  I  am  ready  now!"  and  he  stepped  for- 
ward and  lifted  his  ax. 

I  wrung  my  hands  over  this  absurd  piece  of  quixotism;  but  if 
he  was  determined  on  fighting,  of  course  I  could  not  stop  him. 

*  It  is  a  law  among  the  Kukuanas  that  no  man  of  the  royal  blood  can 
be  put  to  death  unless  by  his  own  consent,  which  is,  however,  never  refused. 
He  is  allowed  to  choose  a  succession  of  antagonists  to  be  approved  by  the 
king,  with  whom  he  fights,  till  one  of  them  kills  him. 


392C  I,ITSRATURB  OF  AI,I<  NATIONS. 

"  Fight  not,  my  white  brother,"  said  Ignosi,  laying  his  hand 
affectionately  on  Sir  Henry's  arm;  "  thou  hast  fought  enough,  and 
if  aught  befell  thee  at  his  hands  it  would  cut  my  heart  in  twain." 

"I  will  fight,  Ignosi,"  was  Sir  Henry's  answer. 

"  It  is  well,  Incubu;  thou  art  a  brave  man.  It  will  be  a  good 
fight.     Behold,  Twala,  the  Elephant  is  ready  for  thee." 

The  ex-king  laughed  savagely,  and  stepped  forward  and  faced 
Curtis.  For  a  moment  they  stood  thus,  and  the  setting  sun 
caught  their  stalwart  frames  and  clothed  them  both  in  fire.  They 
were  a  well-matched  pair. 

Then  they  began  to  circle  round  each  other,  their  battle-axes 
raised.  Suddenly  Sir  Henry  sprung  forward  and  struck  a  fearful 
blow  at  Twala,  who  stepped  to  one  side.  So  heavy  was  the 
stroke  that  the  striker  half  overbalanced  himself,  a  circumstance 
of  which  his  antagonist  took  a  prompt  advantage.  Circling  his 
heavy  battle- ax  round  his  head,  he  brought  it  down  with  tremen- 
dous force.  My  heart  jumped  into  my  mouth;  I  thought  the  affair 
was  already  finished.  But  no;  with  a  quick  upward  movement 
of  the  left  arm  Sir  Henry  interposed  his  shield  between  himself 
and  the  ax,  with  the  result  that  its  outer  edge  was  shtJrn  clean 
off,  the  ax  falling  on  his  left  shoulder,  but  not  heavily  enough  to 
do  any  serious  damage.  In  another  second  Sir  Henry  got  in 
another  blow,  which  was  also  received  by  Twala  upon  his  shield. 
Then  followed  blow  upon  blow  which  was,  in  turn,  either  received 
upon  the  shield  or  avoided.  The  excitement  grew  intense;  the 
regiment  which  was  watching  the  encounter  forgot  its  discipline, 
and,  drawing  near,  shouted  and  groaned  at  every  stroke.  Just 
at  this  time,  too.  Good,  who  had  been  laid  upon  the  ground  by 
me,  recovered  from  his  faint,  and  sitting  up,  perceived  what  was 
going  on.  In  an  instant  he  was  up,  and,  catching  hold  of  my 
arm,  hopped  about  from  place  to  place  on  one  leg,  dragging  me 
after  him,  yelling  out  encouragements  to  Sir  Henry. 

"Go  it,  old  fellow!"  he  hallooed.  "That  was  a  good  one! 
Give  it  him  amidships!"  and  so  on. 

Presently  Sir  Henry,  having  caught  a  fresh  stroke  upon  his 
shield  hit  out  with  all  his  force.  The  stroke  cut  through  Twala's 
shield  and  through  the  tough  chain  armor  behind  it,  gashing  him 
in  the  shoulder.  With  a  yell  of  pain  and  fury  Twala  returned 
the  stroke   with   interest,  and,  such   was   his   strength,  shore 


SOUTH  AFRICA.  393C 

right  through  the  rhinoceros-horn  handle  of  his  antagonist's 
battle-ax,  strengthened  as  it  was  with  bands  of  steel,  wounding 
Curtis  in  the  face. 

A  cry  of  dismay  rose  from  the  Buffaloes  as  our  hero's  broad 
ax-head  fell  to  the  ground;  and  Twala,  again  raising  his  weapon, 
flew  at  him  with  a  shout.  I  shut  my  eyes.  When  I  opened 
them  again,  it  was  to  see  Sir  Henry's  shield  lying  on  the  ground, 
and  Sir  Henry  himself  with  his  great  arms  twined  around  Twala' s 
middle.  To  and  fro  they  swung,  hugging  each  other  like  bears, 
straining  with  all  their  mighty  muscles  for  dear  life,  and  dearer 
honor.  With  a  supreme  effort  Twala  swung  the  Englishman 
clean  off  his  feet,  and  down  they  came  together,  rolling  over  and 
over  on  the  lime  paving,  Twala  striking  out  at  Curtis' s  head  with 
the  battle-ax,  and  Sir  Henry  trying  to  drive  the  toUa  he  had 
drawn  from  his  belt  through  Twala' s  armor. 

It  was  a  mighty  struggle,  and  an  awful  thing  to  see. 
"  Get  his  ax!  "  yelled  Good;  and  perhaps  our  champion  heard 
him. 

At  any  rate,  dropping  the  toUa,  he  made  a  grab  at  the  ax, 
which  was  fastened  to  Twala' s  wrist  by  a  strip  of  buffalo-hide, 
and  still  rolling  over  and  over,  they  fought  for  it  like  wild  cats, 
drawing  their  breath  in  heavy  gasps.  Suddenly  the  hide-string 
burst,  and  then,  with  a  great  effort.  Sir  Henry  freed  himself,  the 
weapon  remaining  in  his  grasp.  Another  second,  and  he  was 
upon  his  feet,  the  red  blood  streaming  from  the  wound  in  his 
face,  and  so  was  Twala.  Drawing  the  heavy  tolla  from  his  belti 
he  staggered  straight  at  Curtis  and  struck  him  upon  the  breast. 
The  blow  came  home  true  and  strong,  but  whoever  it  was  made 
that  chain  armor  understood  his  art,  for  it  withstood  the  steel. 
Again  Twala  struck  out  with  a  savage  yell,  and  again  the  heavy 
knife  rebounded,  and  Sir  Henry  went  staggering  back.  Once 
more  Twala  came  on,  and  as  he  came  our  great  Englishman 
gathered  himself  together,  and,  swinging  the  heavy  ax  round  his 
head  hit  at  him  with  all  his  force.  There  was  a  shriek  of  excite- 
ment from  a  thousand  throats,  and,  behold!  Twala's  head  seemed 
to  spring  from  his  shoulders,  and  then  fell  and  came  rollmg  and 
bounding  along  the  ground  toward  Ignosi,  stopping  just  at  his 
feet  For  a  second  the  corpse  stood  upright,  the  blood  spouting 
in  fountains  from  the  severed  arteries;   then  with  a  dull  crash  jt 


394C  UTBRATURS  OP  AXX,  NATIONS. 

fell  to  the  earth,  and  the  gold  torque  from  the  neck  went  rolling 
away  across  the  pavement.  As  it  did  so,  Sir  Henry,  overpowered 
by  faintness  and  loss  of  blood,  fell  heavily  across  it. 

In  a  second  he  was  lifted  up,  and  eager  hands  were  pouring 
water  on  his  face.  Another  minute,  and  the  great  gray  eyes 
opened  wide. 

He  was  not  dead. 

Then  I,  just  as  the  sun  sank,  stepping  to  where  Twala's  head 
lay  in  the  dust,  unloosened  the  diamond  from  the  dead  browS, 
and  handed  it  to  Ignosi. 

"Take  it,"  I  said,  "lawful  King  of  the  Kukuanas." 

Ignosi  bound  the  diadem  upon  his  brow,  and  then  advanc- 
ing placed  his  foot  upon  the  broad  chest  of  his  headless  foe  and 
broke  out  into  a  chant,  or  rather  a  paean  of  victory,  so  beauti- 
ful yet  so  utterly  savage,  that  I  despair  of  being  able  to  give 
an  adequate  idea  of  it.  I  once  heard  a  scholar  with  a  fine  voice 
read  aloud  from  a  Greek  poet  called  Homer,  and  I  remember 
that  the  sound  of  the  rolling  lines  seemed  to  make  my  blood 
stand  still.  Ignosi' s  chant,  uttered  as  it  was  in  a  language  as 
beautiful  and  sonorous  as  the  old  Greek,  produced  exactly  the 
same  effect  on  me,,  although  I  ■  was  exhausted  with  toil  and 
various  emotions. 

"Now,"  he  began,  "now  is  our  rebellion  swallowed  up  in 
victory,  and  our  evil-doing  justified  by  strength. 

"  In  the  morning  the  oppressors  rose  up  and  shook  themselves; 
they  bound  on  their  plumes  and  made  them  ready  for  war. 

' '  They  rose  up  and  grasped  their  spears;  the  soldiers  called 
to  their  captains:  '  Come,  lead  us!.' — and  the  captains  cried  to  the 
king,  '  Direct  thou  the  battle. ' 

"They  rose  up  in  their  pride,  twenty  thousand  men,  and  yet 
a  twenty  thousand. 

"  Their  plumes  covered  the  earth  as  the  plumes  of  a  bird  cover 
her  nest;  they  shook  their  spears  and  shouted  yea;  they  hurled 
their  spears  into  the  sunlight;  they  lusted  for  the  battle  and  were 
glad. 

' '  They  came  up  against  me;  their  strong  ones  came  running 
swiftly  to  crush  me;  they  cried,  'Ha!  ha!  he  is  as  one  already 
dead.' 

' '  Then  breathed  I  on  them,  and  my  breath  was  as  the  breath 
of  a  storm,  and  lo!  they  were  not. 


SOUTH  AFRICA.  395C 

' '  My  lightnings  pierced  them ;  I  licked  up  their  strength  with 
the  lightning  of  my  spears;  I  shook  them  to  the  earth  with  the 
thunder  of  my  shouting. 

"They  broke  —  they  scattered — they  were  gone  as  the  mists 
of  the  morning. 

"They  are  food  for  the  crows  and  the  foxes,  and  the  place  of 
battle  is  fat  with  their  blood. 

' '  Where  are  the  mighty  ones  who  rose  up  in  the  morning  ? 
where  are  the  proud  ones  who  tossed  their  plumes  and  cried, 
'  He  is  as  one  already  dead!' 

"They  bow  their  heads, but  not  in  sleep;  they  are  stretched 
out,  but  not  in  sleep. 

"They  are  forgotten;  they  have  gone  into  the  blackness,  and 
shall  not  return;  yea,  others  shall  lead  away  their  wives,  and 
their  children  shall  remember  them  no  more. 

"And  I — I,   the   king — like   an   eagle,   have  I  found  my 

eyrie. 

"  Behold!  far  have  I  wandered  in  the  night-time,  yet  have  I 
returned  to  my  little  ones  at  the  day-break. 

' '  Creep  ye  under  the  shadow  of  my  wings,  oh,  people;  and 
I  will  comfort  ye,  and  ye  shall  not  be  dismayed. 

"  Now  is  the  good  time,  the  time  for  spoil. 

"Mine  are  the  cattle  in  the  valleys,  the  virgins  in  the  kraals 

are  mine  also. 

"  The  winter  is  overpast,  the  summer  is  at  hand. 

"Now  shall  eviljcover  up  her  face,  and  prosperity  shall 
bloom  in  the  land  like  a  lily. 

' '  Rejoice,  rejoice,  my  people !  Let  all  the  land  rejoice  m  that 
the  tyranny  is  trodden  down,  in  that  I  am  the  king! " 

He  paused,  and  out  of  the  gathering  gloom  there  came  back 

the  deep  reply: 

"Thou  art  the  king!  " 

Thus  it  was  that  my  prophecy  to  the  herald  came  true,  and 
within  the  forty-eight  hours  Twala's  headless  corpse  was  stiffen- 
ing at  Twala's  gate. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 


The  following  Table  shows  at  a  glance  the  principal  facts  of  the  lives  and  works 
of  the  authors  who  have  been  discussed  and  illustrated  in  the  "  Literature  of  All 
Nations  and  All  Ages."  It  includes  also  many  other  authors,  especially  those  oi 
recent  times.  It  gives  the  dates  of  their  birth  and  death,  or,  where  these  are  not 
known,  shows  the  time  at  which  they  flourished.  Authors  who  are  best  known  by 
their  pseudonyms,  as  '  George  Eliot,'  are  entered  under  these  names  in  quotation 
marks.  In  many  cases  the  names  of  the  author's  principal  works  are  added,  distin- 
guished by  heavier  type. 

AaSEN,  IvAR  Andreas  (1813-     )  Norwegian  philologist  and  poet. 
Abelard,  Pierre  (1079-1142)  French  philosopher.     Hi^toria  Calamitatum. 
About,  Edmond  (1828-85)  French  novelist.     Tolla  ;  Man  with  Broken  Ear. 
Abraham  a  Sancta  Clara  (1642-1700)  German  monk  preacher.     VIII.  9. 
Abu  TemAN  (806-45)  Arabian  lyric  poet.     II.  154. 

Achilles  Tatius  {5th  century)  Greek  romance  writer.  Clitophon  and  Leucippe.  vil.  66. 
AcoSTA,  Jose  d'  (1540-1600)  Spanish  Jesuit  historian.     History  of  the  Indies. 
Adams,  Charles  Kendall  (1835-    )  American  historian  and  educator. 
Adams,  Henry  (1838-    )  Amer.  historian.     Life  of  Gallatin.     Hist,  of  U.  S.  1801-17, 
Adams,  John  (1735-1826)  American  statesman.      State  Papers ;    Diary. 
Adams,  John  Quincy  (1767-1848)  American  statesman.     State  Papers  ;   Diary. 
Addison,  Joseph  (1672-1719)  English  essayist  and  poet.  Spectator;  Cato,  tragedy.    VI.  374. 
Aelfric,  Abbot  (nth  century)  Anglo-Saxon.     Homilies. 
jEsCHINES  (389-314  B.C.)  Greek  orator,  rival  of  Demosthenes.    VI.  16. 
.(Eschylus  (525-455  B.C.)  Greek  tragic  poet.   Agamemnon  ;  Prometheus  Bound,  iii.  46. 
jEsop  fjl.  570  B.C.)  Greek  fabuUst.     v.  67. 

Afzelius,  Arvid  August  (1785-1871)  Swedish  poet  and  collector  of  folk-songs. 
Agathias  (c.  536-581)  Greek  poet  and  historian.     Cycle  of  Epigrams,     vil.  10. 
Agrippa,  Heinrich  Cornelius  (1486-1535)  German  philosopher. 
Aguilar,  Grace  (1816-47)  English  Jewish  novelist.     Home  Influence. 
Aguilera,  Ventura  Ruiz  (820-81)  Spanish  poet.     National  Echoes ;  Elegies. 
AimARD,  GuSTAVE  (1818-83)  French  novelist.     American  Indian  Stories. 
Ainslie,  Hew  (1792-1878)  Scotch  poet. 

Ainsworth,  W.  Harrison  (1805-82)  English  historical  novelist. 
Akenside,  Mark  (1721-70)  English  poet.     Pleasures  of  Imagination,     vil.  281. 
Alamanni,  Luigi  (1495-1556)  Italian  poet.     Avarchide.    v.  200. 
AlCjEUS  (600  B.C.)  Greek  lyric  poet.     11.  92. 
Alcman  (7th  Cent,  b.c)  Greek  lyric  poet. 

Alcott,  Louisa  May  (1832-88)  American  novelist.     Little  Women. 
Alcuin  (735-804)  English  scholar,  adviser  of  Charles  the  Great. 

Aldrich,  Thos.  Bailey  (1836-    )  American  poet,  novelist.    Story  of  a  Bad  Boy.   x.  343. 
Aleman,  Matteo  (c.  1550-1609)  Spanish  novelist.    Guzman  de  Alfarache.   vi.  162. 
Alfieri,  Vittorio(  1749-1803)  Italian  tragic  poet.     Brutus;  Saul;  Philip  II.   vil.  178 
Alger,  William  Rounseville  (1822-     )  American  author.     Genius  of  Solitude. 
Alfonso  X.  the  Wise  (1226-84)  Spanish  historian  and  poet.    1.376. 
Alfred  the  Great  (849-901)  English  King  and  translator.    I.  25S. 
Alison,  Archibald  (1792-1867)  Scotch  historian.     History  of  Modern  Europe. 
I:— 24  369 


370  BIOGRAPHICAI,  Utox    ur    auijcujita. 

Allen,  Elizabeth  Akers,  'Florence  Percy'  (1832-    )  American  poet. 

Allen,  Grant  (1848-     )  English  nature  essayist  and  novelist.     Babylon. ' 

Allen,  James  Lane  (1850-    )  American  novelist.     The  Choir  Invisible. 

Allingham,  William  (1828-89)  Irish  poet.    Bloomfield  in  Ireland. 

AllstON,  Washington  (1779-1843)  American  painter  and  romancist.     Monaldi. 

Almquist,  Karl  Jonas  Ludvig  (1793-1866)  Swedish  poet  and  novelist. 

Ambrose,  Saint  (340-397)  Latin  Church  Father,    vii.  121. 

AmbrosiUS,  Johanna  (1854-     )  German  poet  and  story- writer. 

AmiciS,  EdmONDO  de  ( 1846-     )  Italian  descriptive  writer. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus  (4th  century)  Roman  historian.     viL  105. 

Amiel,  Henri  Frederic  (1821-81)  French-Swiss  essayist,  critic  and  poet. 

Amriolkais  (6th  century)  Arabian  poet.    i.  185. 

Amyot,  Jacques  (1513-93)  French  author  and  translator. 

Anacrkon  (550-465  ?  B.  c.)  Greek  poet.     Odes.    iv.  84. 

Andersen,  Hans  Christian  (1805-75)  Danish  poet  and  story  writer. 

Andrade,  Jacinto  de,  Portuguese.    Life  of  Juan  de  Castro,    iii.  256. 

Andrieux,  Francois  Jean  Stanislas  (1759-1833)  French  poet  and  dramatist. 

AndrONICUS,  LiviuS  (284-204  b.  c.)  Roman  dramatic  poet  and  actor.     11.  113. 

Aneurin  (6th  century)  Welsh  bard.     l.  318. 

'  Angelus  Silesius,'  Johannes  Scheffler  (1624-77)  German  mystic  and  sacred  poet. 

Angiolieri,  Cecco  (fl.  1300)  Italian  poet.     11.  258. 

'  Anstey,  F.,'  Thomas  Anstey  Guthrie  (1856-    )  English  humorist. 

Antiphon  (480-411  B.  c.)  Greek  orator,     vi.  10. 

Antara  {c.  550-615)  Arabian  poet.    i.  188  and  VII.  155. 

Apollonius  the  Rhodian  (280-235  B.C.)  Greek  epic  poet.     Argonautica.     vi.  51. 

Apuleius,  Lucius  (125  A.D.)  Latin  satirist.     The  Golden  Ass.     vi.  81. 

ArchilOCHUS  (720-676  B.C.)  Greek  satirical  poet,  inventor  of  iambics.     11.  87. 

Aretino,  PieTRO  (1492-1557)  Italian  satirical  poet.     iv.  189. 

Ariosto,  Ludovico  (1474-1533)  Italian  romantic  poet.     Orlando  Furioso.     v.  202. 

Aristophanes  (444-380  B.C.)  Greek  comic  dramatist.     Clouds;  Frogs;  Birds,     v.  43. 

Aristotle  (384-322  b.c.)  Greek  philosopher.     Politics  ;  Poetics  ;  Rhetoric,     v.  97. 

Arago,  Dominique  Francois  (1786-1853)  French  astronomer  and  physicist. 

Arany,  Janos  (1817-82)  Hungarian  poet. 

Aratus  (c.  290-260  B.C.)  Greek  poet  and  astronomer. 

Arbuthnot,  John  (1665-1735)  Scotch- English  humorist.   History  of  John  Bull.  vil.  282. 

ArgVLE,  G.  D.  Campbell,  Duke  of  (1823-     )  Scotch-English  philosophical  writer. 

Armstrong,  John,  Dr.  (1709-79)  English  poet.     Art  of  Preserving  Health,    vil.  281. 

Arnason,  Jon.  (1819-1888)  Icelandic  writer. 

Arndt,  Ernst  MoritZ  (1769-1860)  German  poet  and  miscellaneous  writer,     x.  183. 

Arnobius  (fl.  330)  North-African  Latin  Christian.     Against  the  Gentiles,     vil.  105. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  Sir  (1832-    )  English  poet.     Light  of  Asia ;  Light  of  the  World. 

Arnold,  Matthew  ( 1822-88)  English  poet  and  essayist.   Thyrsis;  Empedocles.  x.  27a 

Arnold,  Thomas,  Dr.  (1795-1842)  English  teacher  and  historian.     History  of  Rome. 

Arrebo,  Anders  Christensen  (1587-1637)  Danish  poet.    viii.  147. 

Arrianus,  Flavius  (95-180)  Greek  philosopher  and  historian,     vil.  54. 

Asadi  or  Essedi  (9th  century)  Persian  poet.    11.  173. 

Asbjornsen,  Peter  Kristen  (1812-85)  Norwegian  folklorist. 

Ascham,  Roger  (1515-68)  English  scholar.     The  Schoolmaster,     iv.  305. 

ATHEN.a;US  (3d  century)  Greek  writer.     Deipnosophists. 

Athanasius,  Saint  (291-373)  Greek  Church  Father,     vii.  81. 

Attar,  Ferid  EDDIN  (1119-1229?).     Persian  poet.     v.  194. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  3/1 

Atterbom,  Per  Daniel  Amadeus  (1790-1855).    Swedish  poet, 

Atterbury,  Francis  (1662-1732).     English  bishop. 

Attius,  Lucius  (170-86  b.c.)  Latia  tragic  poet.    Brutus.    11.  151. 

AuBANEL,  Theodore  (1829-86)  Provencal  poet  and  dramatist. 

Audubon,  John  James  (1780-1837)  American  ornithologist.    Birds  of  North  America. 

Auerbach,  Berthold  (1812-82)  German  novelist.     On  the  Heights. 

AUGIER,  Emile  (1820-89)  French  dramatist. 

Augustine  of  Hippo,  Saint  (354-430)  Latin  Qmrch  Father,    vii.  121. 

AuRELius  Antoninus,  Marcus  (121-180)  Roman  emperor,  Stoic  philosopher,    vn.  56. 

Austen,  Jane  (1775-1817)  English  novelist.     Pride  and  Prejudice. 

Austin,  Alfred  (1835-     )  English  poet-laureate. 

AusoNius,  Decimus  Magnus  (310-394)  Latin  poet.    vil.  106. 

AvELLANEDA,  Gertrudis  Gomez  de  (1814-73)  Spanish  poet,  dramatist  and  novelist. 

AvERROES,  Ibn  Rusha  (1126-98)  Spanish-Arabian  philosopher. 

'  AviCEBRON ' — Salomon  ben  Gebirol  (<■.  1028-58)  Spanish-Hebrew  poet  and  pUlosopher. 

Aytoun,  William  E.  (1812-65)  Scotch  poet  and  hmnorist.     Lays  of  the  Cavaliers. 

Babrius  (250  B.  c.)  Greek  versifier  of  ^sop's  Fables,     v.  69. 

Backstrom,  Per  Johan  Edvard  (1841-86)  Swedish  dramatist  and  lyric  poet 

Bacon,  Francis,  Sir  (1561-1626)  English  philosopher  and  essayist.     Novum  Organon. 

V.  366. 
Baggesen,  J.  E.  (1764-1826)  Danish  poet.     VIIL  166. 
Bailey,  Philip  James  (i8i6-    )  English  poet.    Festus. 
Baillie,  Joanna  (1762-1851)  Scotch  tragic  poet. 
Baker,  William  Mumford  (1825-83)  American  novelist. 

Balzac,  Honore  de  (1799-1850)  French  novelist.     Comedie  Humaine.    x.  109. 
Bancroft,  George  (1800-91)  American  historian.    History  of  the  United  States. 
Bancroft,  Hubert  Howe  ( 1832-     )  American  historian.     History  of  Pacific  States. 
Bandello,  Matteo  (1480-1562)  Italian  novelist.    VL  104. 
Banim,  Michael  (1796-1874)  and  John  (1798-1874)  Irish  novelists. 
Banville,  Theodore  Faullain  de  (1823-91)  French  poet  and  novelist. 
Barbour,  John  (1316-95)  Scotch  poet.     The  Brus.     (Robert  Brace.)     in.  377. 
Barclay,  Alexander  (1475-1552)  Scotch  poet.    vi.  233. 
Barclay,  John  (1582-1621)  Scotch  poet. 

Baring-Gould,  Sabine  (1834-    )  English  antiquary  and  novelist. 

Barham,  Richard  Harhison  (1788-1845)  English  humorous  poet.  Ingoldsby  Legends. 
Barlow,  Jane  (c.  1857-    )  Irish  poet  and  story-teller. 
Barlow,  Joel  (1755-1812)  American  poet  and  statesman.     IX.  59. 
Barnes,  William  (1800-86)  English  poet  and  philologist. 
Barr,  Amelia  Edith  (1831-     )  Scotch- American  novelist. 
Barrie,  James  Matthew  (i860-    )  Scotch  novelist.    The  Little  Minister. 
Barros,  Joao  de  (1496-1571)  Portuguese  historian,     ili.  256. 
Barton,  Bernard  (1784-1849)  English  Quaker  poet. 
Bashkirtseff,  Mai  ie  (1860-84)  Russian  artist,     x.  61. 
Basil  the  Great  (3J>-379)  Greek  Father  of  Churph.     vil.  84. 
Basselin,  Oliver  (i35o?-i4i9)  French  poet. 
Bayle,  Pierre  (1647-1706)  French  philosopher  and  critic. 
Bayly,  Thomas  Haynes  (1797-1839)  English  poet  and  novelist. 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  Benjamin  Disraeli,  (1804-81)  English  statesman  and  novelist. 
Beattie,  James  (1735-1803)  Scotch  poet.     The  Minstrel. 
Beaumarchais,  Pierre  Augustin  CarQN  PP  (1732-99)  French  dramatist,    vn.  273. 


372  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Beaumont,  Francis  (1584-1616)  English  dramatist,  partner  of  J.  Fletcher,     v.  349. 

BecKFORD,  William  (1759-1844)  English  romancist.     Vathek. 

Bede,  Venerable  (673-735)  English  Latin  historian.     Ecclesiastical  History,     i.  249, 

Bede,  Cuthbert  (1827-89)  English  author.     Verdant  Green. 

BeeCHER,  Henry  Ward  (1813-87)  American  preacher. 

Beets,  NicolAAS  (1814-     )  Dutch  poet,  novelist  and  critic. 

Behn,  Aphra  (1640-89)  English  novelist. 

Bellamy,  Edward  (1850-98).  American  writer.     Looking  Backward. 

BeLLAY,  Joachim  DU  (1524-60)  French  poet.     IV.  250. 

BelleAU,  R£my  (1528-77)  French  poet.     iv.  250. 

Bellman,  Carl  M.  (1740-95)  Swedish  poet.    viii.  190. 

BelOT,  AdOLPHE  (1829-90)  French  novelist. 

Bembo,  Pietro,  Cardinal  (1470-1547)  Italian  humanist. 

Benedict,  Frank  Lee  (1834-    )  American  novelist  and  poet 

Benoit  de  Sainte-Maure  (l2th  century)  French  trouvfire  and  chronicler. 

Beranger,  Pierre  Jean  de  (1780-1857)  French  song-writer,    ix.  386. 

Bergsoe,  JorGEN  Vilhelm  (1835-     )  Danish  novelist,  poet  and  naturalist. 

Berkeley,  Bishop  George  (1685-1753)  Irish  clergyman  and  author,     ix.  22. 

Bernard,  Charles  de  (1804-50)  French  novelist. 

Bernard,  Saint,  Abbot  of  Clairvaux  (1091-1153)  French  theologian. 

Berni,  Francesco  (1490-1536)  Italian  burlesque  poet.     V.  200. 

Besant,  Walter,  Sir  (1838-    )  English  novelist. 

Beyle,  Marie-Henri  (1783-1842)  French  novelist,  art  critic.     Le  Rouge  et  lo  Nofr. 

Biarke,  Bodvar  (6th  centiuy)  Scandinavian  poet.     11.  345. 

BlDPAI,  or  PiLPAY,  (date  unknown.)     Indian  fabulist,     v.  31.  1 

Bilderdijk,  Willem  (1756-1831)  Dutch  poet.    Destruction  of  First  World. 

BlON  (3rd  century  B.  c.)  Greek  bucolic  poet.     vi.  42. 

BjornsON,  Bjornstjerne  (1832-  ,  )  Norwegian  novelist,  poet  and  dramatist. 

Black,  William  (1841-    )  Scotch  novelist.    A  Daughter  of  Heth;  Princess  of  Thule. 

BlACKIE,  John  Stuart  (1809-95)  Scotch  author,  Professor  of  Greek. 

Blackmore,  Richard  Doddridge  (1825-    )  English  novelist.     Loma  Doone. 

Blake, William  (1757-1827)  English  poet,  painter,  mystic. 

Blaze  de  Bury,  Ange  Henri  (1818-    )  French  critic. 

Blanc,  J.  J.  Louis  (1811-82)  French  socialist,  historian.     French  Revolution. 

Blessington,  Marguerite,  Countess  of  (1789-1849)  Irish  novelist. 

Blind  Harry  (15th  century)  Scotch  minstrel. 

Blind,  Mathilde  (1847-96)     German-English  poet. 

Bloompield,  Robert  (1766-1823)  English  poet.     Farmer's  Boy. 

BoAGERS,  Adriaan  (1795-1870)  Dutch  poet. 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni  (1313-1375)  Italian  poet  and  novelist.    Decameron,    ni.  129. 

BOENDALE,  Jan  van  (1280-1365)  Dutch  rhyming  chronicler.     VI.  258. 

BoETius,  or  Boethius,  Anicius  M.  F.  Severinus  (47o?-525?)  Roman  statesman,  phi 

losopher.     Consolation  of  Philosophy,     vil.  113. 
Bodmer,  J.  Jacob  (1689-1783)  German-Swiss  poet,  critic,     vi.  285 
BoGH,  Erik  (1822-     )  Danish  dramatist. 

Bohme  (Behmen),  Jakob  (1575-1624)  German  mystic  theologian.     Aurora. 
Boiardo,  Matteo  Maria  (1434-94)  ItaUan  poet.     Orlando  Innamorato.    rv.  206. 
Boileau-Despreaux,  Nicolas  (1636-1711)   French  poet,   critic. 
Boker,  George  Henry  (1823-90)  American  poet.    War  Lyrics."" 
'  Boldrewood,  Rolf,'  Thomas  A.  Browra  (1827-    )  Australian  author. 
Bolingbroke,  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount  (1678-1751)  English  statesman,  author. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  ATITHORS.  373 

Born,  Bertrand  DE  (1140-1215)  Provenijal  troubadour,     i.  341. 

BORNEIL,  GiRAUT  DE  {l2th  century)  Provenpal  troubadour. 

Borrow,  George  (1803-81)  Eaglish  writer,  Gipsy  scliolar.     Lavengro  ;  Wild  Wales. 

BOSCAN  AlmogaveR,  Juan  (1493-1540)  Spanish  poet.     Epistle  to  Mendoza.     11.  303. 

BOSIO,  FerdiNANDO  (1829-81)  Italian  writer. 

BOSSUET,  Jacques  B^nigne  (1627-1704)  French  bishop.     Universal  History,     vi.  216. 

Boswell,  James  (1740-95)  Scotch  biographer.     Life  of  Dr.  Johnsson.     vil.  384. 

BoTERO,  Giuseppe  ((1815-85)  Italian  romancist. 

Bottger,  Adolf  ((1815-70)  German  poet. 

BoTTiGER,  Carl  Vilhelm  (1807-78)  Swedish  poet. 

BODRGET,  Paul  (1852-     )  French  novelist  and  critic. 

Bowles,  William  Lisle  (1762-1850)  English  poet. 

BOWRING,  Sir  John  (1792-1872)  English  linguist.    Translations  from  Russian,  Dutch,  etc. 

BOYKSEN,  Hjalmar  Hjorth  (184S-95)  Norwegian-American  novelist.     Gunnar. 

Brachvogel,  Albert  Emil  (1824-78)  German  dramatist  and  novelist.     Narcissus. 

BraCKENRIDGE,  Hugh  Henry  (1748-1816)  American  lawyer,  humorist. 

Braddon,  Mary  Elizabeth  (1837-    )  English  novelist.    Lady  Audley's  Secret. 

Bradstreet,  Mrs.  Anne  (1612-1672)  American  colonial  poet.     ix.  l6. 

Brainard,  John  Gardiner  Calkins  (1796-1828)  American  poet 

Brandes,  George  M.  Cohen  (1842-     )  Danish  critic  and  essayist. 

Brant  (or  Brandt),  Sebastian  (1458-1521)  German  satirist.    Narrenschiff.    vi.  232. 

Brant6me,  p.  DE  BOURDEILLE,  Seigneur  DE  (1537-1614)  French  chronicler.      IV.  260. 

BrASSEY,  Anne,  Lady  (1840-87)  English  descriptive  writer. 

Braun,  Wilhelm  VON  (1813-60)  Swedish  poet. 

Brkderode,  Gerbrant  Adrianszoon  (1585-1618)  Dutch  poet.    vi.  284. 

Bremer,  Fredrika  (1801-65)  Swedish  novelist.     The  Neighbors,     viil.  188. 

Brentano,  Elizabeth  (1788-1859)  German  writer. 

Breton,  Nicholas  (1545-1626)  English  poet. 

BrOME,  Richard  (</.  1652)  English  dramatist. 

Bronte,  Anne— 'Acton  Bell  '  (1820-49)  English  novelist.    Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall. 

Bronte,  Charlotte—'  Currer  Bell'  (1816-55)  English  novelist.    Jane  Eyre. 

Bronte,  Emily—'  Ellis  Bell  '  (1818-48)  English  novelist.     Wuthering  Heights. 

Brooke,  Henry  (1703  83)  Irish-English  novelist  and  dramatist.     Fool  of  Quality. 

Brooks,  Charles  Timothy  ( 1813-83)  American  translator  from  German  authors. 

Brooks,  C.  W.  Shirley  (1816-74)  English  humorist. 

Brooks,  Maria  Gowan  (1795-1845)  American  poet.    Zophiel. 

Broughton,  Rhoda  (1840-    )  English  novelist.     Cometh  Up  as  a  Flower. 

Brown,  Charles  Brockden  (1771-1810)  American  novelist.     Wieland.     ix.  50. 

Brown,  John  (1810-82)  Scotch  essayist.     Rab  and  His  Friends  ;  Spare  Hours. 

Brown',  Oliver  Madox  (1855-74)  English  poet,  novelist  and  artist.     Black  Swan. 

Browne,  Thomas,  Sir  (1605-82)  English  physician.    Religio  Medici,    vi.  293. 

Browne,  William  (1591-1643)  English  poet.     Britannia's  Pastorals. 

Brownell,  Henry  Howard  (1820-72)  American  poet. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett  (1809-61)  English  poet.  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship; 
Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  ;  Casa  Guidi  Windows  ;  Aurora  Leigh,     x.  254. 

Browning,  Robert  (1812-89)  English  poet.  Paracelsus;  Sordello;  Aristophanes- 
Apology ;  The  Ring  and  the  Book ;  Asolando.     X.  246. 

Buchanan,  Robert  W.  (1840-     )  English  poet  and  novelist.     London  Poems. 

Bryant  William  Cullen  (1794-1878)  American  journalist,  poet.  Thanatopsis.  ix.  100. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  George  Villiers  (1627-88)  English  courtier.  The  Rehearsal 
VI.  228. 


374  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

BULOW,  Karl  EduARD  von  (1803-53)  German  story-teller. 

BuD^US  (Bud6),  Guillaume  (1467-1540)  French  classical  scholar,     iii.  171. 

Bulwer-Lytton,  Edward,  Lord  Lytton  (1803-73)  English  novelist  and  politician. 

Pelham ;  Paul  Clifford ;  Last  Days  of  Pompeii ;  Harold  ;  The  Caxtons  ;  Kenelm 

Chillingly ;  The  Parisians,     ix.  281. 
BuNNER,  Henry  Cuyler  (1855-96)  American  poet  and  story-teller. 
BUNYAN,  John  (1628-88)  English  religious  writer.     Pilgrim's  Progress,     vi.  305. 
Bruger,  Gottfried  August  (1747-94)  German  lyric  poet.    Lenore.     viii.  60. 
Burke,  Edmund  (1729-97)  Irish-English  orator  and  statesman. 
Burnett,  Frances  Hodgson  (1849-)  English-American  novelist.    That  Lass  o'  Low- 

rie's ;  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy. 
BuRNEY,  Frances,  afterwards  Madame  D'Arblay  (1755-1840)  English  novelist. 
Burns,  Robert  (1759-96)  Scotch  national   poet.     The  Twa   Brigs;  Tam  O'Shanter, 

Cotter's  Saturday  Night,    viil.  308. 
Burroughs,  John  (1837-    )  American  nature-essayist.     Locusts  and  Wild  Honey. 
Burton,  Robert  (1577-1640)  English  humorist.     Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 
Butler,  Samuel  (1612-80)  English  satirist.     Hudibras.    vi.  314. 
Byns,  Anna  (16th  century)  Dutch  poet,  Sappho  of  Brabant,     vi.  259. 
Byrom,  John  (1692-1763)  English  poet.     Three  Black  Crows. 
Byron,  George  Noel  Gordon,  Lord  (1788-1824)  English  poet.     Lara ;  The  Corsair ; 

The  Bride  of  Abydos ;  The  Giaour  ;  Childe  Harold ;  Don  Juan;  Manfred. 

'Caballero,  Fernan,'  Cecilia  Bohl  de  Faber  (1796-1877)  Spanish  novelist. 

Cable,  George  Washington  (1844-     )  American  novelist.     Old  Creole  Days. 

Caedmon  {fl.  680)  Anglo-Saxon  monk  poet.     Genesis,     i.  248. 

CjESAR,  CaiuS  Julius  (100-44  B.  C.)  Roman  general,  statesman.     Gallic  War.     iv.  lOI. 

Caine,  T.  H.  Hall  (1853-    )  English  novelist.     The  Manxman;  The  Christian. 

CaLDERON  de  la  BarcA,  Pedro  (i6oo-8i)  Spanish  dramatist.     VIII.  205. 

CallimACHUS  {fl.  260  B.  C.)     Greek  poet ;  librarian  at  Alexandria,     vi.  48. 

Calverlky,  Charles  Stuart  (1831-84)  English  poet  and  parodist.     Fly  Leaves. 

Calvert,  George  Henry  (1803-89)  American  poet,  prose  writer.     The  Gentleman. 

Camoens,  LuIZ  de  (2525-79) ,  Portuguese  national  poet.     Lusiad.     iii.  260. 

Campbell,  Thomas  (1777-1844)  Scotch-English  poet.     Pleasures  of  Hope.    ix.  271. 

Campion,  Thomas  (f.1575-1619)  English  poet.,    Book  of  Airs. 

Canning,  George  (1770-1827)  English  statesman  and  orator.     Anti -Jacobin. 

CaRDUCCI,  Giosue  (1836-     )  Italian  lyric  poet. 

Carew,  Thomas  {c.  159S-1639)  English  poet. 

Carey,  Henry  (<r.  1690-1743)  English  poet  and  music-composer.     God  Save  the  Ki.ig. 

Carlen,  Emilia  Flvgare  (1807-92)  Swedish  novelist.     Valdemar  Klein. 

Carleton,Will  (1845-    )  American  poet.     Farm  Ballads. 

Carleton,  William  (1794-1869)  Irish  novelist.     Traits  and  Stories  of  Irish  Peasantry. 

Carlyle,  Thomas  (1795-1881)  Scotch  miscellanist,  biographer,  historian.     Sartor  Resar. 

tus ;  French  Revolution ;  Frederick  the  Great,     x.  228. 
Carman,  Bliss  (1861-    )  Canadian  poet. 

'  Carroll,  Lewis,'  L.  H.  Dodgson  (1833-98)  English  humorist.  Alice  in  Wonderland. 
Cary,  Alice  (1820-71)  and  Phoebe  (1824-71)  American  poets,  prose  writers.    Clovernook. 
Cary,  Henry  Francis  (1772-1844)  English  poet.     Translated  Dante. 
CastELAR,  Emilio  (1832-     )  Spanish  orator  and  statesman. 
Casti,  Giambattista  (1721-1803)  Italian  poet.     Talking  Animals. 
Castiglione,  BaldASSARE  (1478-1529)  Italian  author.     Book  of  the  Courtier.     Tv.  iv 
Castro,  Guillem  de  (1569-1631)  Spanish  dramatist.    Vlll.  199. 


BIOGRAPHICAI.  IvIST  OF  AUTHORS.  375 

Cato,  Marcus  Porcius  (234-149  b.  c.)  Roman  statesman.    On  Agriculture,   in.  93. 

Cats,  Jacob  (1577-1660)  Dutch  poet,  '  Father  Cats.'     vi.  276. 

Catullus,  Valerius  (84-54  ^-c.)  Roman  lyric  poet.    Atys.   in.  112. 

Cavalcanti,  Guido  (1250-1301)  Italian  poet.     11.  256. 

Caxton,  William  1,1422-91)  First  English  printer,    in.  309. 

Cellini,  Benvenuto  (1500-71)  Italian  artist.     Autobiography,     iv.  231. 

Centlivre,  Susannah  (1667  ?-l723)  English  dramatist.     Bold  Stroke  for  a  Wife. 

Cervantes-Saavedra,  Miguel  de(i547-i6i6)  Spanish  romancist.  Don  Quixote.  111.221. 

Chambers,  Robert  (1802-71)  Scotch  prose-writer  and  publisher. 

ChamissO,  Adelbert  von  (1781-1838)  German  lyrist,  romancist.     Peter  Schlemihl, 

'  Champfleury,' Jules  Fleury  (1821-89)  French  novelist.     Confessions  de  Sylviuai 

Channing,  William  Ellery  (1780-1842)  American  Unitarian  theologian. 

Channing,  William  Ellery  (i8i8-    )  American  poet.     The  Wanderer. 

Chapman,  George  (1559-1634)  English  dramatist.     Translated  Homer,    iv.    344. 

Charles  of  Orleans  (1391-1465)  French  poet.    11.  334. 

.Chateaubriand,  Francois  Ren6,  Vicomte  de  (1768-1848)  French  novelist  and  his- 
torical writer.     Atala ;  Genius  of  Christianity,     vill.  258. 

Chatterton,  Thomas  (1752-70)  English  poet,  literary  forger,    vil.  398. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey  (1340-1400)  English  poet.     Canterbury  Tales,    iii.  327. 

Chemnitzer,  Ivan  Ivanovich  (1745-84)  Russian  fab.ulist. 

Chenier,  Andre  Marie  de  (1762-94)  French  poet.    viii.  243. 

Chenier,  Marie  Joseph  de  (1764-1811)  French  poet  and  dramatist. 

CherbulIEZ,  Victor  (1829-     .)  French  romancist. 

Chesebro,  Caroline  (1828-73)  American  novelist.     The  Foe  in  the  Household. 

Chesterfield,  Philip  Dormer  Stanhope,  Earl  of  (1694-1773)  English  courtier, 
wit.     Letters  to  his  Son. 

Chettle,  Henry  (i565?-i6o7?)  English  dramatist. 

Chiabrera,  Gabriello  (1552-1637)  Italian  lyric  poet.     vi.  122. 

Child,  Francis  James  (1825-1896)  American  poet  and  editor  of  ballads. 

Chketien  de  Troyes  (c.  1140-91)  French  romancer,     i.  281. 

Chrysostom,  John  (3477-407)  Saint,  Greek  Church  father,    vil.  90. 

Chuang  Tzu  (4th  century  B.C.)  Chinese  philosopher.    11.  43. 

Churchill,  Charles  (1731-64)  English  satirist.    The  Ghost ;  Rosciad. 

Cibber,  Colley  (1671-1757)  English  dramatist,  poet-laureate,     vi.  192. 

Cickro,  Marcus  Tullius  (106-43  B-C.)  Roman  orator  and  philosopher.  Orations;  Nature 
of  the  Gods ;  Tusculan  Disputations ;  Old  Age ;  Friendship ;  Republic,     iii.  99. 

CiNO  DA  PiSTOIA  (1270-1337)  Italian  poet.      II.  257. 

CiNTHio,  Giovanni  B.  (i6th  century)  Italian  novelist.    HundredFables.    v.  219. 

Clare,  John  (1793-1864)  English  poet. 

Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  (1608-74)  English  statesman,  historian,    vi.  355. 

Clar^TIE,  Jules  (1840-     )  French  novelist  and  dramatist. 

Claudian  [Claudianus],  (365  ?-4o8  ?)  Latin  poet.     Rape  of  Proserpine.     VII.  108. 

Claudius,  Matthias  (1840-1815)  German  poet.    Rhine- Wine  Song. 

Cleanthes  (300  ?-220  ?  B.  c.)  Greek  philosopher.     Hymn  to  Zeus.     vi.  60. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  (150-220)  Greek  Father  of  Chmrch.    vn.  73. 

Clement  of  Rome  (ist  century)  Greek  Father  of  Church.     VII.  80. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh  (1819-61)  English  poet. 

Cobbe,  Frances  Power  (1822-    )  Irish-English  writer  on  religion  and  morals 

Cqlba'n,  AdolpHINE  Marie  (1814-84)  Norwegian  novelist. 

Coleridge,  Hartley  ( 1796-1849)  English  poet  and  critic. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor  (1772-18^4)  English  poet  and  philosopher,    ix.  25. 


376  BIOGRAPHICAIv   LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Collet,  Jakobine  Camilla  (1813-    )  Norwegian  novelist. 

Collins,  Mortimer  (1827-76)  English  novelist  and  poet. 

Collins,  William  (1720-1759)  English  poet.    vii.  375. 

Collins,  William  Wilkie  (1824-89)  English  novelist. 

Colman,  George  (1732-94)  English  dramatist. 

Colman,  George  (1762-1836)  English  dramatist  and  humorous  poet. 

Colonna,  Vittoria  (1490-1547)  Italian  poet.     iv.  222. 

Columella,  Lucius  Junius  Moderatus  (ist  century)  Latin  author. 

CoMiNES,  Philippe  de  {c  1445-1510)  French  chronicler. 

Comnena,  Anna  {1083-1148)  Byzantine  princess,     vil.  64. 

Comte,  Auguste  (1798-1857)  French  philosopher,  founder  of  Positivism. 

Confucius  (551-478  b.c.)  Chinese  teacher  and  visiter,     i.  146. 

Congreve,  William  (1669-1729)  English  dramatist,    vi.  331. 

Conrad,  Robert  Taylor  (1810-58)  American  lawyer  and  dramatist. 

Conscience,  Hendrik  (1812-83)  Flemish  novelist. 

Constantine,  Cephalas  (loth  century)  Editor  of  Greek  Anthology,     vil.  10. 

Conway,  Moncure  Daniel  (1832-    )  American  litterateur. 

Cook,  Eliza  (1817-89)  English  poet. 

Cooke,  John  Esten  (1830-86)  American  novelist. 

Cooke,  Philip  Pendleton  (1816-50)  American  poet  and  prose  writer. 

Cooke,  Rose  Terry,  Mrs.  (1827-92)  American  poet  and  story  writer. 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore  (1789-1851)  American  novelist.     Leather-Stocking  Tales 

IX.  83. 
CooRNHERT,  DiRCK  VoLCKERTSEN  (1522-go)  Dutch  poet  and  scholar. 
Copp:6e,  Francois  (1842-     )  French  poet,  romancer  and  dramatist. 
CORNEILLE,  Pierre  ( 1606-84)  French  dramatist.     The  Cid.     v.  259. 
CORT,  Frans  de  (1834-78)  Flemish  poet. 
Costa,  Isaak  da  (1798-1860)  Dutch  poet. 

COTTIN,  Marie  (1770-1807)  French  novelist.     Elizabeth,  or  the  Exiles  of  Siberia. 
Cowley,  Abraham  (1618-67)  English  poet  and  essayist,     vi.  299. 
CowPER,  William  (1731-1800)  English  poet.     The  Task.     vm.  346. 
Cox,  Samuel  Sullivan  (1824-89)  American  congressman  and  author. 
CoxE,  Arthur  Cleveland  (1818-96)  American  bishop.     Christian  Ballads. 
CozzENS,  Frederick  Swartwout  (1818-96)  American  humorist.  Sparrowgrass  Papers. 
Crabbe,  George  (1754-1832)  English  poet.     ix.  198. 

'Craddock,  Chas.  Egbert,'  Mary  N.  Murfree  (1850-    )  American  novelist,   x.  326. 
Craik,  Dinah  Maria  Mulock  (1826-87)  English  novelist.    John  Halifax,  Gentleman. 
Cranch,  Christopher  Pearse  (1813-92)  American  poet  and  artist. 
Crane,  Stephen  (1870-    )  American  story-writer.     Red  Badge  of  Courage. 
Crashaw,  Richard  (i6i3?-49)  English  R.  C.  poet. 

Crawford,  Francis  Marion  (1854-    )  American  novehst.     Mr.  Isaacs. 
Cr6bILLON,  Prosper  Jolyot  de  (1674-1762)  French  dramatist. 
Crockett,  Samuel  Rutherford  (1862-    )  Scotch  novelist. 
CroLY,  George  (1780-1860)  Irish  poet,  dramatist  and  novelist.     Salathiel. 
Cumberland,  Richard  (1732-1811)  English  dramatist,  novelist,  poet.  The  West  Indian, 
Cunningham,  Allan  (1784-1842)  Scotch  poet. 

Curtis,  George  William  (1824-92)  American  author.     Potiphar  Papers. 
Curtius  Rufus,  Quintus   (1st  century)  Latin  historian,     v.  104. 
Cynewulf  (8th  century?)  Anglo-Saxon  poet.     I.  257. 

Cyprian — Thascius  C^cilius  Cyprianus  {d.  258)  Latin  Church  Father,    vil.  105. 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  Savjnien  (1619-55)  French  writer. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS.  377 

Dach,  Simon  (1605-59)  German  lyrist,     vi.  248. 

DaCosta,  Izaak  (1798-1860)  Dutch  poet  and  theologian. 

Dahlgren,  Fredrik  August  (1816)  Swedish  poet. 

Dahn,  Felix  (1834-    )  German  poet,  novelist  and  historian. 

D'Alcamo,  Ciullo  (l2th  century.)  Italian  poet.     11.  222. 

Dall,  Caroline  Wells  (1822-    )  American  prose-writer. 

Dall'Ongaro,  Francesco  (1808-73)  kalian  poet,  dramatist,  satirist. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry  (1787-1879)  Amsrican  poet  and  essayist. 

Daniel,  Samuel  (1562-1619)  English  poet,  historian  and  rhyming  chronicler,     v.  330. 

D'Annunzio,  Gabriele  (1864—     )  Italian  novelist  and  poet. 

Dante,  Alighieri  (1265-1321)  Italian  poet.     Divine  Comedy,     n.  230. 

Darwin,  Charles  Robert  (1809-82)  English  naturalist  and  philosopher. 

Darwin,  Erasmus  (1731-1802)  English  naturalist  and  poet. 

Dasent,  Sir  George  W.  (1818-    )  English  philologist.     Tales  from  the  Norsp. 

D'Aubigne,  Theodore  Agrippa  (1550-1630)  French  soldier,  poet,  historian,     iv.  242. 

D'AUBIGNE,  Jean  Henri  Merle  (1794-1872)  Swiss  Protestant  church  historian. 

Daudet,  Alphonse  ( 1840-97)  French  novelist.     Tartarin  of  Tarascon.     x.  155. 

Daurat,  Jean  (1507-88)  French  poet.     rv.  250. 

Davenant,  William,  Sir  (i6o5-68)  English  poet  and  playwright,     vi.  325. 

Davidson,  Lucretia  Maria  (1808-25)  American  poet. 

DAvrs,  Rebecca  Harding  (1831-    )  American  novelist. 

Davis,  Richard  Harding  (1864-     )  American  novelist  and  story-teller. 

Defoe,  Daniel  (1660-1731)  English  novelist.     Robinson  Crusoe,    vil.  301. 

De  Forest,  John  William  (1826-    )  American  story-teller. 

De  Kay,  Charles  (1848-    )  American  poet. 

Dekker,  Thomas  (1570-1637)  English  dramatist,     v.  336. 

Deland,  Margaret  Wade,  Mrs.  (1857-    )  American  poet  and  novelist.    John  Ward. 

Delavigne,  Jean  Francois  Casimir  (1793-1843)  French  lyric  poet. 

De  Mille,  James  (1837-80)  Canadian  novelist. 

Demosthenes  (383-322  b.  c.)  Athenian  orator.     Philippics,    vi.  23. 

Denham,  Sir  John  (1615-69)  English  poet. 

Dennie,  Joseph  (1768-1812)  American  journalist. 

Dennis,  John  (1657-1734)  English  dramatist  and  critic. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas  (1785-1859)  English  essayist.    English  Opium  Eater. 

Derzhavin,  Gabriel  Romanovich  (1743-1816)  Russian  poet.     Felicia,    m.  395. 

Desaugiers,  Marc  Antoine  Madelaine  (1772-1827)  French  dramatist. 

Descartes,  Ren6  (1596-1650)  French  philosopher.    V.  255. 

DpscHAMPS,  Eustache  {c  1330-1415)  French  poet. 
*De  Vere,  Sir  Aubrey  (1788-1846)  Irish  R.  C.  poet. 

DiBDIN,  Charles  (1745-1814)  English  lyric  and  dramatic  poet. 

Dickens,  Charles  (1812-70)  English  novelist.  Pickwick  Papers;  Nicholas  Nickleby; 
Dombey  and  Son ;  Oliver  Twist ;  David  Copperfield;  Martin  Chuzzlewit ;  Bam- 
aby  Rudge;  Little  Dorrit;  Tale  of  Two  Cities;  Great  Expectations.  Bleak 
House.     IX  301.  „ 

Diderot,  Denis  (1713-84)  French  philosopher,    vii.  248. 

DiNGELSTEDT,  Franz  von,  Baron  (1814-81)  German  poet  and  dramatist. 

D'Israeli,  Benjamin.    See  Beaconsfield. 

D'Israeli,  Isaac  (1766-1848)  English  essayist,  compiler  and  historian. 

DoBELL,  Sydney  Thompson  (1824-74)  English  poet. 

DOBSON,  Austin  (1840-     )  English  poet  and  man  of  letters. 

Dodge,  Mary  Elizabeth  Mapes  (1840  ?-   )  American  editor  and  poet. 


378  >  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Domett,  Alfred  (1811-87)  English-Australian  poet. 

DoNi,  Antonio  Francesco  (1513-74)  Italian  novelist,    vi.  115. 

Donne,  John,  Dr.  (1573-1631)  English  '  metaphysical '  poet. 

Dora  d'Istria  (1828-88)  Roumanian  writer  of  travels. 

Dorr,  Mrs.  Julia  Caroline  Ripley  (1825-    )  American  poet  and  novelist, 

Dorset,  Charles  Sackville,  Earl  of  (1637-1706)  English  poet.    vi.  288. 

Dostoievsky,  Feodor  Michailovitch  (1821-81)  Russian  novelist     x.  37. 

Douglas,  Gawn  (i474?-i522)  Scotch  poet. 

Doyle,  A.  Conan  (1859-    )  Scotch-English  story  and  romance  writer. 

Drachmann,  Holger  (1846-    )  Danish  poet  and  novelist. 

Drake,  Joseph  Rodman  (1795-1820)  American  poet. 

Drayton,  Michael  (1563-1631)  English  poet.    v.  332. 

Droz,  Gustave  (1832-95)  French  story-teller. 

Drummond,  William,  of  Hawthornden  (1585-1649)  Scotch  poet.    vill.  299. 

Dryden,  John  (1631-1700)  English  poet,  dramatist,  critic.  Absalom  and  Achitophel; 
Mac  Flecknoe ;  The  Hind  and  Panther.  Modernized  Chaucer.  Translated  Vir- 
gil.   VI.  341. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  PSre  (1803  ?-7o)  French  romancist  and  dramatist,     x.  97. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  Fils  (1824-95)  French  dramatist  and  romancist. 

Du  Maurier,  George  (1834-96)  English  delineator  of  society  in  Punch.     Trilby. 

Dunbar,  Paul  Laurence  (1872-    )  American  negro  poet. 

Dunbar,  William  (i465?-i53o?)  Scotch  poet.    iii.  384. 

D'Urf6,  HoNORi;  (1568-1625)  French  romancist,     L'Astree.     v.  255. 

D'Urfey,  Thomas  (1643-1723)  English  dramatist  and  poet. 

DUTT,  TORU  (1856-77)  Hindu  English  poet.    VIII.  275. 

DwiGHT,  Timothy  (1752-1817)  American  divine,  president  of  Yale.     ix.  48. 

Dyer,  John  (1700-58)  English  didactic  and  descriptive  poet. 

Ebers,  George  Moritz  (1837-98)  German  Egyptologist  and  novelist.     Cleopatra. 
EcHARD  or  Eachard,  Lawrenck  (1670  ?-i73o)  English  historian. 
EchegARAY,  Jose  (1832-     )  Spanish  dramatist.  ^ 

Eckermann,  Johann  Peter  (1792-1854)  German  poet. 
Edgeworth,  Maria  (1767-1849)  English  Irish  novelist.     The  Absentee. 
Edgren,  Anne  Charlotte  Seffler  (1849-93)  Swedish  novelist. 
Edwards,  Amelia  Blandford  (1831-92)  English  Egyptologist  and  novelist. 
Edwards,  Mathilda  Barbara  Betham  (1836-    )  English  novelist. 
Eggleston,  Edward  ( 1837-    )  American  historian,  novelist.     Hoosier  Schoolmaster. 
Eggleston,  George  Cary  (1839-     )  American  journalist  and  miscpUaneous  writer. 
Eginhard  or  EinhARD  (c.  770-840)  German  Latin  historian. 
El-AsmAI  (9th  century)  Arabian  poet.     11.  155. 

'  Eliot,  George,'  Marian  Evans,— Mrs.  G.  H.  Lewes  ;  Mrs.  J.  W.  Cross  (1819-80) 
English  novelist.   Adam  Bede;  Mill  on  the  Floss;   Middlemarch;   Romola.    X.  25& 
Elliott,  Ebeisiezer  (1781-1849)  English  poet ;  Com- Law  Rhymer. 
JIlliott,  Maud  Howe  (1855-    )  American  novelist. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo  (1803-82)  American  philosopher,  poet  and  essayist,    ix.  10& 
Encina,  Juan  del  (1469-1534)  Spanish  dramatist. 
Ennius,  Quintus  (239  b.  C.-169  B.  c.)  Roman  poet.     11.  115. 
Enzo,  King  of  Sardinia  (1224  ?-72)  Italian  poet.     11.  228. 
EphrAEM  Syrus  {d.  378)  Syrian  Greek  teacher  and  hymnologist.     vil.  92. 
Epictetus  (56-100?)  Greek  Stoic  philosopher,     vil,  54. 
Erasmus,  Desiderius  (1465  or  1467-1536)  Dutch  Latin  humanist,     Adagia.    vi.  261. 


BIOGRAPHICAI.  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  379 

Erceldounk,  Thomas  of  (1220  P-gy)  Scotch  poet  and  seer. 
ErCILLA  y  Zuniga,  Alonso  de  (1533-95)  Spanish  poet     VIII.  201. 
Erckmann-Chatrian.     Erckmann,   Emile    (1822-    ).    Chatrian,   Alexandre 
(1826-90)  French  novelists.    Madame  Therese  ;  L'Ami  Fritz ;  The  Conscript,   x.  147. 
EtherEGE,  Sir  George  (1635  F-gi)  English  comedy  writer  and  poet. 
Euripides  (480-406  b.  c.)  Greek  tragic  poet.  Alcestis,  Iphigenia,  Medea,  Orestes,  lu.  79. 
EUSDEN,  Laurence  (1688-1730)  English  poet  laureate. 
E^rALD,  Johannes  (1743-81)  Danish  dramatist  and  lyric  poet.    VIII.  152. 
Evans,  Augusta  Jane  [Wilson]  (1835-    )  American  novehst.    Beulah,  St.  Elmo. 
Evelyn,  John  (1620-1706)  English  diarist.     Diary;  Sylva.    vi.  289. 
EwALD,  Herman  Frederick  (1821-    )  Danish  novelist. 
EwiNG,  Juliana  Horatia  (1841-85)  English  story  writer  and  poet. 

Faber,  Frederick  William  (1814-63)  English  R.  C.  hymn  writer.     , 

Fabre,  Ferdinand  (1830-    )  French  novelist.    Abbe  Tigrane ;  Lucifer. 

Fahlcrantz,  Christian  Erik  (1790-1861)  Swedish  poet    Ansgarius. 

Faidit,  GauCELM  (1180-1216)  Provencal  troubadour. 

Falconer,  William  (1732  ?-69)  Scotch  marine  poet.     The  Shipwreck. 

Falk,  Johannes  Daniel  (1768-1826)  German  humorist.    Men  and  Heroes. 

Farjeon,  Benjamin  Leopold  (1833-    )  English- American  novelist     Grif. 

Farquhar,  George  (1678-1707)  Irish-English  playwright.    The  Beaux's  Stratagem. 

Farrar,  Frederick  William  (1831-    )  English  dean.     Eric ;  Eternal  Hope ;  Life  of 

Christ ;  Seekers  after  God. 
FaWCETT,  Edgar  (1847-     )  American  novelist  and  poet 

FiNELON,  Francis  de  Salignac  de  la  Mothe  (1651-1715)  French  archbishop,  vi.  219. 
Ferguson,  Sir  Samuel  (1810-86)  Irish  poet.     Forging  of  the  Anchor. 
Ferrier,  Susan  :Edmonstone  U782-1854)  Scotch  novelist.     Marriage. 
Ferriera,  Antonio  (1528-69)  Portuguese  poet     Ignez  de  Castro,     in.  256. 
Feuillet,  Octave  (1821-90)  French  novelist.  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man.  x.  136. 
Feydeau,  Ernest  (1821-73)  French  noveUst.     Fanny. 

Field,  Eugene  (1850-95)  Am.  poet  and  humorist.    Little  Book  of  Western  Verse,   x.  356. 
Fielding,  Henry  (1707-54)  English  novelist,    Joseph  Andrevirs ;  Tom  Jones,     vil.  324- 
Fields,  James  Thomas  (1817-81)  American  publisher.     Yesterdays  with  Authors. 
FiLICAJA  VINCENZO  DA  (1642-1707)  Italian  lyric  poet  Deliverance  of  Vienna.  VII.  153- 
Firdausi  (<-.  939-1020)  Persian  poet.     Shah-Namah,  Jussuf  and  Zulikha.     11.  175- 
FIRENZUOLA,  AgnOLO  (i493-l545)  I^lian  poet  and  novelist. 
FiSCHART,  JOHANN  {c  1545-91 )  German  satirist     vi.  232. 
Fischer,  JOHANN  GeORG  (1816-    )  German  lyric  poet  and  dramatist 
FiSKE  John  (1842-     )  American  fevolutionist  and  historian. 

Fitzgerald,  EDWARD  (1809-83)  English  poet     Translated  Omar  Khayyam.     II.  203. 
FlagG  Wilson  (1805-84)  American  nature-essayist.     Halcyon  Days. 
FlAMm'aRION,  CamILLE  (1842-     )  French  astronomer  and  romancer. 
Fla™t,  Gustave  (1821-80)  French  novelist.     Madame  Bovary;  Salammbo. 
Fittming   Paul  (1609-40)  German  religious  poet 

S™Jk:  JOHN  ( lS?i625)  English  dramatist,  associated  with  F.  Beaumont     V^  349- 
FLoIirN  JEAN  PIERRE  CLARIS  DE  (1755^4)  French  poet  and  romancer.     Fables. 
?00TrMARVHALL0CK(l847-     )  American  novelist     The  Led  Horse  Claim. 
Ford  TohN  (1586-1640)  English  dramatist. 

Ford   Paul  LeiCESTEF.  (1865-    )  American  bibliographer  and  novelist. 
^nRTUNATUS,VENANTIUsH0N0RIUS  (530-609)  Latin  Christian  poet 
FOSCOLO  UGO  (1778-1827)  Italian  poet  and  novelist  Last  Letters  of  Jacopo  Ortis.  x.  65. 


X.  141. 


380  BIOGRAPHICAI,  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

FoUQufe,  Baron  F.  de  la  Motte  (1777-1843)  Gennan  romancist.     Undine,     ix.  35s. 
France,  Anatole  (1844-     )  French  novelist  and  poet.     Crime  of  Sylvester  Bonnard. 
Francis  I.,  King  (1494-1547)  PVench  lyric  poet.    iv.  243. 
Franklin,  Benjamin  (1706-90)  American  philosopher  and  statesman,     ix.  26. 
FrauenlOB  (1250-1318)  German  mastersinger. 

Frederic,  Harold  (1856-98)  American  novelist.     The  Damnation  of  Theron  Ware. 
Frederick  IL,  Emperor  (1194-1250)  Italian  poet.    11.  224. 

Freeman,  Edward  Augustus  (1823-92)  English  historian.   Norman  Conquest  of  Eng- 
land ;  Reign  of  William  Rufus ;  History  of  Sicily. 
Freiligrath,  Ferdinand  (1810-76)  German  poet.     x.  189. 
Freneau,  Philip  (1752-1832)  American  poet.     ix.  45. 
Frknzel,  Karl  Wilhelm  (1827-    )  German  novelist  and  essayist. 
Frere,  John  Hookham  (1769-1846)  English  poet.     Translated  Aristophanes. 
FreytAG,  Gustav  (1816-95)  German  poet  and  novelist.     Debit  and  Credit. 
FroisSART,  Jean'(i337-I4Io)  French  chronicler  and  poet.     11.  322. 
Froude,  James  Anthony  (1818-94)  English  historian.    History  of  England. 
Frugoni,  Carlo  Innocenzio  (1692-1768)  Italian  poet. 
FryxeLL,  Anders  (1795-1881)  Swedish  historian  and  critic. 
Fuller,  Henry  B.  (1859-    )  American  novelist.     The  Cliff  Dv^ellers. 
Fuller,  Margaret,  Countess  D'Ossoli  (1810-50)  American  critic  and  essayist. 
Fuller,  Thomas  (1608-61)  English  historian.     Worthies  of  England,    vi.  289. 
FuRNESS,  William  Henry  (1802-96)  American  Unitarian  preacher  and  translator. 

Gaboriau,  !6mile  ( 1835-73)  French  writer  of  detftctive  stories. 

Galdos,  Benito  Perez  (1845-    )  Spanish  novelist. 

Galt,  John  (1779-1839)  Scotch  novelist.     Annals  of  the  Parish. 

Garland,  Hamlin  (i860-        )  American  story  writer. 

Garnett,  Richard  (1835-        )  English  librarian  and  poet. 

Garth,  Samuel,  Sir  (i66o?-i7i9)  English  physician  and  poet.     Dispensary. 

Gaskell,    Elizabeth   Cleghorn    (1810-65)    English    novelist.      Sylvia's    Lovers; 

Cranford. 
Gautier,  Th6ophile  (1811-72)  French  poet,  novelist.     La  Morte  Amoureuse.     x.  128. 
Gay,  John  (1685-1732)  English  poet.     Fables  ;  Beggar's  Opera,     vil.  286. 
Geibel,  Emanuel  (1815-84)  German  poet. 

Gellert)  Christian  Furchtegott  ( 1715-69)  German  poet.    viii.  16. 
Gellius,  Aulus  (ii7?-i8o?)  Roman  compiler.     Attic  Nights,     vi.  99. 
Gknlis,  Stephanie  Felicity,  Comtesse  de  (1746-1830)  French  miscellanist. 
'  Gentil-Bernard,'  Pierre  Joseph  Bernard  (1708-75)  French  poet  and  dramatist. 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  (1100-54)  British  Latin  chronicler,     iii.  308. 
George,  Henry  (1839-97)  American  political  economist.     Progress  and  Poverty. 
'  Gerard  de  Nerval,'  Gerard  Labruinie  (1808-55)  French  novelist  and  dramatist. 
GeRSTACKER,  FrIEDRICH  (1816-72)  German  writer  on  America. 
Gessner,  Salomon  (1738-88)  Swiss  poet  and  painter.     Death  of  Abel. 
Gibbon,  Edward  (1737-94)  English  historian.     Decline  and  Fall  of  Roman  Empire. 

VII.  281. 
Gibson,  William  Hamilton  (1850-96)  American  artist^  nature-essayist. 
Gifford,  William  (1756-1826)  English  satirist.     Editor  of  Quarterly  Review. 
Gil  Vicente    (1475-1536  ?)  Portuguese  dramatist. 

Gilbert,  William  Schwenck  (1836-        )  English  librettist.    Bab  Ballads. 
Gilder,  Richard  Watson  (1844-    )  American  lyric  poet.    The  Celestial  Passion, 
Giovanni  Florentino  (7?.  1380)  Italian  story-writer,    m.  160. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS.  38 1 

GlSSlNG,  George  (1857-    )  English  novelist.     The  Nether  World. 

GlusTI,  Giuseppe  (1809-50)  Italian  poet  and  satirist,    x.  92. 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart  (1809-98)  English  statesman,  orator,  essayist,  translator. 
Gleanings  of  Past  Years ;  Juventus  Mundi;  Studies  in  Homer  and  Homeric  Age. 

Gleim,  J.  W.  LuDwiG,  Father  (1719-1803)  German  poet.    vm.  19. 

Glover,  Richard  (1712-85)  English  epic  poet  and  dramatist.     Leonidas. 

Gobineau,  Joseph  Arthur,  Comte  de  (1816-82)  French  ethnologist. 

Godfrey,  Thomas  (1736-63)  First  American  dramatist.     Prince  of  Parthia. 

Godwin,  William  (1756-1836)  English  political  philosopher.     Caleb  Williams  (novel). 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  (1749-1832)  German  poet,  dramatist,  prose-writer.  Sor- 
rows of  Young  \Werther;  Ipbigenia ;  Wilhelm  Meister's  Apprenticeship  ;  Hermann 
and  Dorothea ;  Wilhelm  Meister's  Year  of  Travel ;  Faust.    VIII.  70. 

Gogol,  Nikolai  V.  (1809-52)  Russian  novelist.     Taras  Bulba  ;  Dead  Souls,     x.  18. 

GOLDONI,  Carlo  (1707-93)  ItaUan  comedy-writer.     Beneficent  Bear.     vil.  167. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver  (1728-74)  Irish-EngUsh  poet,  novelist,  dramatist.  Citizen  of  the 
World  ;  Traveller ;  Deserted  Village  ;  Vicar  of  Wakefield ;  Retaliation,     vil.  386. 

GONCOURT,  Edmund  de  (1822-96)  and  Jules  de  (1830-70)  French  novelists. 

GONGORA,  Luis  de  (1561-1627)  Spanish  lyric  poet.     Polyphemus  and  Galatea,    vi.  148. 

GoWER,  John  (i325?-i4o8)  English  poet.     Confessio  Amantis.     iii.  356. 

GOZZI,  Carlo,  Count  (1720-1806)  Italian  comedy  writer. 

Grand,  Sarah  (i860?)  English  novelist.     The  Heavenly  Twins. 

Grant,  Ulysses  Simpson  (1822-85)  American  general.     Personal  Memoirs. 

Grattan,  Thomas  Colley  (1792-1864)  Irish  novelist. 

Gray,  Thomas  (1716-71)  English  poet.  Elegy  in  >x  Country  Churchyard;  Ode  to 
Adversity;   Progress  of  Poetry;  The  Bard. 

Grazzini,  Antonio  Francesco  (1503-84)  Italian  humorist  and  poet. 

Gore,  Catherine  Grace  (1799-1861)  English  novelist.     Mothers  and  Daughters. 

Gosse,  Edmund  William  (1849-    )  English  poet,  critic. 

Gottfried  of  StrasbuRG  {fl.  1200)  German  poet.     Tristan  and  Isolde. 

•  Gotthelf,  Jeremias,'  Albert  Bitzius  (1797-1854)  ?'"iss  novelist  and  poet. 

Green,  Anna  Katharine,  Mrs.  Rohlfs  (1846-    )  American  novelist. 

Green,  John  Richard  (1837-83)  English  historian. 

Green,  Matthew  (1696-1737)  English  poet.    The  Spleen. 

Greene,  Robert  (1560-92)  English  dramatist.     Groat's  Worth  of  Wit. 

Gresset,  J.  B.  Louis  de  (1709-77)  French  comic  poet.     Vert-Vert. 

'Greville,  Henry,' Mme.  Alice  Durand  (1842-    )  French  novelist.    Dosia. 

Griffin,  Gerald  (1803-40)  Irish  novelist  and  poet.     The  Collegians. 

GrillparZER,  Franz  (1791-1872)  Austrian  poet.     Sappho. 

Grimm,  Jacob  (1785-1863)  German  philologist,  and  Grimm,  Wilhelm  (1786-1859)  Ger- 
man folk-lorist.    Old  Danish  Hero  Songs ;  Household  Fairy  Tales,     ix.  348. 

Grimmelshausen,  H.  J.  Christoffel  von  (1625-76)  German  romancist.  Adventures 
of  Simplicius  Simplicissimus.    VL  249. 

Gringoire,  Pierre  (i475-i539)  F'^^^^''  P°«'-     f^^""  °^  ^^^^  P""'^^  °^  ^°°'^- 

GrOSSI,  Tomasso  (1791-1853)  Mian  poet.     Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan. 

Grote,  George  (1794-1871)  English  historian.     History  of  Greece. 

'  Grun,  Anastasius,'  Count  of  Auersperg  (1806-76)  Austrian  poet. 

Grundtvig,  Nikolai  Frederik  Severin  (1783-1872)  Danish  poet  and  historian. 

Gryphius,  Andreas  (1616-64)  German  dramatist.     Leo  Armenius. 

Guarini,  Giovanni  Battista  (1538-1612)  Italian  lyric  poet.    vii.  147- 

GuERiN,  Eugenie  de  (1805-48)  and  Maurice  de  (1810-39)  French  diansts.  - 

GUERRAZZI,  Francesco  Domenico  (1804-73)  Italian  romance  wnter.    X.  84. 


382  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Guevara,  Antonio  de  (1490-1545)  Spanish  essayist.     Marcus  Aurelius. 

Guevara,  Luis  Velez  de  (1570-1646)  Spanish  dramatist.     The  Lame  Devil,    vill.  200. 

GuiCCIARDINI,  Francesco  (1483-1540)  Italian  historian.     History  of  Italy. 

GuiNICELLI,  GuiDO  (1240-76),  Italian  poet.     II.  229. 

GuizOT,  Francois  Pierre  Guillaume  (1787-1874)  French  historian  and  statesman. 

GuTZKOW,  Karl  Ferdinand  (1811-78)  German  poet  and  dramatist. 

'  Gyp,'  Martel  de  Janville,  Comtessk  (1850  ?-    )  French  novelist. 

Habberton,  John  (1842-    )  American  novelist.     Helen's  Babies;  Brueton's  Bayou, 

Hacklander,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  von  (1816-77)  German  military  romancist. 

Hafiz,  Shams-AD-din  Muhammad  (1300-89)  Persian  lyric  poet.     The  Divan,     v.  l8i. 

Hagedorn,  Friedrich  von  (1708-54)  German  poet.    viii.  13. 

Haggard,  Henry  Rider  (1856-    )  English  novelist.     King  Solomon's  Mines;  Shes 

Hahn-Hahn,  Ida  von,  Countess  (1805-80)  Gei-man  novelist.     Ulrich;  Two  Women 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  Rev.  (1822- i   )  American  stoiy-writer.     The  Man  Without  a 
Country ;  Ten  Times  One  Is  Ten  ;  In  His  Name.     x.  322. 

Hale,  Lucretia  Peabody  (1820-  ,  )  American  story-writer.     The  Peterkin  Papers. 

HALiVY,  LUDOVIC  (i8j4-    )  French  librettist   and  novelist.     La  Belle   Helene ;   The 
Grand  Duchess  of  Gerolstein  ;   L'Abbe  Constantin.     x.  178. 

Haliburton,  Thomas  Chandler  (1797-1865)  Canadian  author.    Sam  Slick. 

Hall,  Ann  Maria  Fielding,  Mrs.  (1800-81)  Irish-English  writer. 

Hall,  Samuel  Carter  (1801-S9)  English  editor.     Ireland,  its  Scenery  and  Character. 

Hallam,  Henry  (1777-1859)  English  historian.      Europe  during  the   Middle  Ages; 

Literature  of  Europe. 
Halleck;,Fitz-Greene(i790-i867)  American  poet.    Marco  Bozzaris ;  Fanny,   ix.  150. 
HalleVI,  Jehudah  (1080-1I50)  Spanish- Jewish  poet. 

Halpine,  Charles  Graham,  '  Miles  O'Reilly  '  (1829-68)  American  soldier-poet. 
Hamerling,  Robert  (1830-89)  Austrian  poet.     Ahasuerus  in  Rome;  Aspasia. 
Hamerton.  Philip  Gilbert  ( 1834-94)  English  artist  and  essayist.    The  Intellectual  Life 
Hamilton,.  Alexander  (1757-1804)  American  statesman.     The  Federalist. 
Hamilton,  Anthony  (1646-1720)  English, author.     Memoirs  of  Count  de  Grammont. 
Hamilton,  Elizabeth  (1758-1816)  Irish  novelist.     The  Cottagers  of  Glenburnie, 
Hamilton,  Thomas  (1789-1842)  Scotch  novelist.     Cyril  Thornton. 
Hannay,  James  (1827-73)  English  novelist.     Singleton  Fontenoy. 
Hansen,  Mauris  Christopher  (1794-1842)  Norwegian  poet.    Norse  Idylls. 
Hapgood,  Isabella  Florence  (1850-    )  American  translator.     Epic  Songs  of  Russia. 
Hardy,  Alexandre  (1570-1631)  French  dramatist.     Mariamne. 
Hardy,  Arthur  Sherburne  (.1847-    )  American  novelist. 
Hardy,  Thomas  (1840-     )  English  novelist.     A  Pair  of  Blue   Eyes;   Far  from  the 

Madding  Crowrd;  The  Hand  of  Ethelberta ;  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles. 
Hare,  Augustus  William  (1792-1834)  English  qlergyman.     Guesses  at  Truth. 
Harington,  Sir  John  (1561-1612)  English  poet.     Translated  Orlando  Furioos. 
'  Harland,  Marion,'  Mrs.  Mary  Virginia  Terhune  (1830-    )  American  novelist. 
Harraden,  Beatrice  (1864-    )  English  novelist.     Ships  that  Pass  in  the  Night. 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler  (1848-     )  American  writer.     Uncle  Remus,     x.  332. 
Harris,  Mrs.  Miriam  Coles  (1834-    )  American  novelist.     Rutledge. 
Harrison,  Mrs.  Burton  (1835-     )  American  novelist.     The  Anglo-maniacs. 
Harrison,  Frederic  (1831-    )  English  essayist.     Choice  of  Books. 
Harsdorfer,  George  Philip  (1607-58)  German  poet.     The  Poetical  Funnel. 
Harte,  Francis  Bret  (1839-     )  American  short  story-writer  and  poet,     x.  337. 
Hartmann,  MoRtTZ  (1821-72)  Austrian  poet.     Chalice  and  Svyord. 


BIOGRAPHICAI,  LIST  OF  AUTHORS  383 

Hartmann  von  Aue  (1170-1220)  German  poet.    Poor  Heinrich;  Etek ;  Iwein.    i.  305. 

Hatifi,  Maulana  Abdallah  (Jl.  1500)  Persian  poet.     Laila  and  Mejnun. 

Hatton,  Joseph  (1837-    )  English  novelist.     By  Order  of  the  Czar. 

Hauptmann,  Gerhart  (1862-     )  German  dramatist  and  poet.     A  Family  Catastrophe. 

Havergal,  Frances  Ridley  (1836-79)  English  religious  writer. 

Hawthorne,  Julian  (1846-     )  American  novelist.     Idolatry;  Fortune's  Fool;  Garth. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel  (1804-64)  American  novelist.  Twice-Told  Tales;  Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse ;  The  Scarlet  Letter ;  The  Wonder  Book ;  The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables  ;  The  Blithedale  Romance;  The  Marble  Faun.     ix.  155. 

Hay,  John  (1838-     )  American  author.     Pike  County  Ballads ;  Castilian  Days. 

Hayley,  Willlam  (1745-1820)  English  poet.     The  Triumphs  of  Temper. 

Hayne,  Paul  Hamilton  (1830-86)  American  Southern  poet.     Legends  and  Lyrics. 

Hazlitt,  William  (1778-1830)  English  critic  and  essayist.     English  Poets. 

Hearn,  Lafcadio  (1850-    )  American  traveler,  Buddhist.     Some  Chinese  Ghosts. 

Hebbel,  Friedrich  (1813-63)  German  dramatist.    Judith. 

Hegel,  Georg  Wilhelm  Friedrich  (1770-1831)  German  philosopher. 

Hexberg,  Hermann  (1840-    )  German  novelist.     BlihdLove;  The  Golden  Serpent. 

Heiberg,  Johann  Ludvig  (1791-1860)  Danish  poet. 

Heine,  Heinrich  (1797-1856)  German  poet.  Pictures  of  Travel;  Book  of  Songs;  The 
North  Sea;  The  Romancero.     x.  192. 

HeliodoruS  (346-420  ?)  Greek  romance  writer,     vil.  66. 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur  (1813-75)  English  essayist  and  historian.     Friends  in  Council. 

Hemans,  Felicia  Dorothea  (1793-1835)  Irish- English  poet.     Lays  of  Many  Lands. 

Henley,  William  Ernest  (1849-    )  English  poet.     The  Song  of  the  Svvrord. 

Henningsen,  Charles  Frederick  (1815-77)  Swedish-American  poet  and  novelist. 

Henryson,  Robert  {c.  1425-1500)  Scotch  poet.     iii.  383. 

Henty,  George  Alfred  (1832-    )  English  novelist  of  adventures. 

Herbert,  George  (1593-1633)  English  religious  poet.    v.  374. 

HerMESIANAX  {^fl.  330  B.C.)  Greek  elegiac  poet.     v.  60. 

Herodotus  [c.  490-428  b.c.)  Greek  historian,    iv.  12. 

HeroNDAS  (3rd  century  B.C.)  Greek  writer  of  mimes,     v.  62. 

Herrick,  Robert  (1591-1674)  English  lyric  poet.    v.  388. 

Hertz,  Henrik  (1798-1870)  Danish  poet.     King  Ren€'s  Daughter. 

Hesiod  (8th  century  B.C.)  Greek  didactic  poet.     Theogony;  'Works  and  Days.     11.  77. 

Heyse,  J.  L.  Paul  (1830-     )  German  poet  and  novelist. 

HeyWOOD,  John  {c  1497-1587)  English  dramatist. 

Heywood,  Thomas  (1570-1650)  Enghsh  dramatic  poet.     V.  328. 

Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth  (1823-    )  American  poet,  essayist.     Malbone. 

Hildreth,  Richard  (1807-65)  American  historian.    History  of  United  States,  1789-1850. 

HiLLHOUSE,  Jambs  Abraham  (1789-1841)  American  dramatic  poet.     Hadad. 

HiTA  GiNES  Perez  DE  (16th  cent.)  Spanish  romantic  historian.    Civil  Wars  of  Granada. 

'HoBBES,  John  Oliver,'  Pearl  R.  Craigie;  English  novelist. 

Hobbes,  Thomas  (1588-1679)  English  philosopher.     Leviathan. 

HoccLEVE,  Thomas  (1368-1450?)  English  poet.    in.  364. 

Hoefer,  Edmund  (1818-82)  German  novelist. 

HOEY,  Frances  Sarah  (1830-     )  Irish  novelist  and  translator. 

Hoffman,  Charles  Fenno  (1806-84)  American  song-writer. 

Hoffmann,  August  Heinrich  (1798-1874)  German  philologist  aiid  poet. 

Hoffm'vnn,  Ernest  Theodor  Amadeus  (1776-1822)  German  story-teller. 

Hoffmanswaldau,  Christian  von  (1618-79)  German  Silesian  poet.    VIII.  10. 

Hogg,  James  (i77c^i835)  Scotch  pastoral  poet.     The  Queen's  Waka 


384  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  Oif  AUTJauKa. 

HOLBERG,  LUDWIG  (1684-1754)  Danish  poet.     VIII.  I54. 

HoLlNSHED,  Raphael  (I520?-8o?)  English  chronicler. 

Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert  (1819-81)  American  poet  and  novelist.     Bitter-Sweet. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell  (1809-94)  American  physician  and  author.     Songs  in  Many 

Keys ;  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table ;  Elsie  Venner ;  Over  the  Tea-cups.   x.  301. 
Holty,  Ludwig  Heinrich  Christoph  (1748-76)  German  elegiac  poet. 
Home,  John  (1722-1808)  Scotch  dramatist.     Douglas,    viii.  325. 
Homer  (before  900  B.C.  ?)  Greek  epic  poet.     Iliad;  Odyssey.     1.153. 
Hood,  Thomas  (1789-1845)  EngUsh  poet,  punster,    ix-  275. 
HooFT,  Pieter  Corneliszoon  (1581-1647)  Dutch  poet  and  historian,     vi.  277. 
Hook,  Theodore  (1788-1841)  English  humorist  and  dramatist. 
Hooker,  Richard  {c  1553-1600)  English  bishop.     Ecclesiastical  Polity,     v.  328. 
'  Hope,  Anthony,'  A.  Hope  Hawkins  (1863-    )  English  novelist.     Prisoner  of  Zenda. 
Hope,  Thomas  (1770-1831)  English  archaeologist.     Anastasius. 

HopkinsON,  Francis  (1737-91)  American  satirist.     The  Battle  of  the  Kegs.     ix.  42. 
Horace, — Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  (65-8  b.c.)  Latin  lyric  poet.    iv.  131. 
HoRNE,  Richard  Henry  Hengist  (1803-84)  English  poet,  prose  writer.     Orion. 
HORVATH,  Andreas  (1778-1839)  Hungarian  poet.     Arpad. 

Houghton,  Richard  Monckton  Milnes,  Lord  (1809-85)  English  poet  and  critic. 
HousSAYE,  ARsiNE  (1815-     )  French  novelist  and  dramatist. 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  Mrs.  (1819-    )  American  writer.     Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic. 
HowELLS,  William  Dean  (1837-    )  American  novelist.     The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook ; 

Dr.  Breen's  Practice ;  A  Modern  Instance  ;  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham. 
Howitt,  Mary  (1799-1888)  English  poet  and  story-writer.     Rural  Life  in  England. 
Howitt,  William  (1792-1879)  English  historian  and  essayist.    Student  Life  in  Germany. 
Hughes,  Thomas  (1823-96)  English  novelist  and  essayist.     Tom  Brown's  Schooldays. 
Hugo  of  TrIMBERG  (13th  century)  German  poet.     iii.  280. 
Hugo,  Victor  Marie  (1802-85)   French  poet,  novelist  and  publicist.     The  Orientals; 

Autumn  Leaves;    Cromwell;   Amy  Robsart;    Marion  Delorme  ;   Hemani ;  Han 

d'Islande  ;  Bug  Jargal ;  Notre  Dame  de  Paris;  Les  Miserables;  Toilers  of  the 

Sea  ;  The  Man  Who  Laughs ;  Ninety-Three,     ix.  369. 
Hume,  David  (1711-76)  Scotch-English  historian  and  philosopher,     vil.  281. 
HUNGERFORD,  MARGARET,  Mrs-,  '  The  Duchess'  (i840?-97)  Irish  novelist. 
Hunt,  Leigh  (1784-1859)  English  poet,  critic  and  essayist.     IX.  228. 
HuTTEN,  Ulrich  VON  (1488-1523)  German  satirist  (Latin),     vi.  235. 
Huxley,  Thomas  Henry  (1825-95)  English  scientist. 
Huygens,  Constantijn  (1596-1687)  Dutch  poet.    vi.  260. 
Huysmans,  JORRIS  Karl  (1848-     )  French  novelist,  '  Satanist.' 

Ibsen,  Henrik  (1828-  )  Norwegian  dramatist.  A  Doll's  House ;  Peer  Gynt ;  The 
Pillars  of  Society ;  Hedda  Gabler. 

Ignatius  {d.  116)  Greek  Church  Father,     vil.  80. 

Imbert  de  Saint-Amand,  Arthur  (1834-    )  French  biographer. 

Immkrmann,  Karl  Leberecht  (1796-1840)  German  poet  and  dramatist.     Epigonl. 

Inchbald,  Elizabeth  Simpson  (1753-1821)  English  novehst.    A  Simple  Story. 

Ingelow,  Jean  (1830-79)  Ertglish  poet  and  novelist.     Round  of  Days;  A  Story  of  Doom. 

Ingermann,  Bernard  Severin  (1789-1862)  Danish  poet  and  novelist. 

Ingraham,  Joseph  Holt  (1809-66)  American  novelist.     Prince  of  the  House  of  David. 

Irving,  Washington  (1783-1859)  American  essayist,  historian,  biographer.  Salma- 
gundi; Sketch  Book  ;  Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York  ;  Bracebridge  Hall ; 
Christopher  Columbus ;  The  Alhambra ;  Astoria  ;  Life  of  Washingtpn.    ix.  67, 


BIOGRAPHICAI,  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  385 

Is^US  {fl.  380  B.C.)  Greek  orator,     vi.  10. 

ISLA,  Jose  Francisco  DE  (1703-81)  Spanish  satirist.     Friar  Gerundio.     vill.   225. 

ISOCRATES  (436-338  B.C.)  Greek  orator.     Areopagiticus ;  Panegyricus.     vi.  II. 

JaCOPONE  da  Todi  (c.  1230-1306)  Italian  poet  and  satirist.     Latin  hymn,  Stabat  Mater. 

James  L  of  Aragon  (1200  ?-76)  Spanish  writer,    i.  368. 

James  L  of  Scotland  (1394-1437)  poet.     King's  Quhair.    m.  379. 

James,  George  Payne  Rainsford  (1801-60)  English  novelist.    Richelieu ;  Attila. 

James,  Henry  (1843-  )  American  novelist.  The  American ;  Daisy  Miller ;  The  Euro- 
peans ;  Washington  Square  ;  The  Princess  of  Casamassima.     x.  351. 

Jameson,  Anna  Brownell  (1794-1860)  Irish  miscellanist.  Loves  of  the  Poets ;  Early 
Italian  Painters ;  Sacred  and  Legendary  Art. 

Jami,  Abdurrahman  (1414-92)  Persian  poet.    Joseph  and  Zuleika.     v.  186. 

Janson,  Kristofer  Nagel  (1841-     )  Norwegian  poet. 

Janvier,  Francis  de  Haes  (1817-85')  American  poet.     The  Sleeping  Sen«inel. 

Janvier,  Thomas  Allibone  (1849-    )  American  novelist. 

Jasmin,  Jacques  (1798-1864)  Provencal  poet.     Curl  Papers. 

Jayadeva  {fl.  1200)  Sanskrit  poet.     Gita-Govinda.     iii.  35. 

Jefferies,  Richard  (1848-87)  English  nature-essayist.  The  World's  End;  Amateur 
Poacher  ;   Hodge  and  His  Masters ;  Story  of  My  Heart. 

Jeffrey,  Francis  (1773-1850)  Scotch  critic,  editor  of  Edinburgh  Review. 

Jenkin,  Henrietta  Camilla  (1807-85)  English  novelist.     Cousin  Stella. 

Jerome,  Jerome  Klapka  (1861-    )  English  humorist.     Three  Men  in  a  Boat. 

Jerrold,  Douglas  (1803-57)  English  humorist.     Mrs.  Caudle's  Curtain  Lectures. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne  (1849-     )  American  story-writer.     Country  Doctor. 

JODELLE,  Etienne  {c.  1532-73)  French  dramatic  poet.     v.  255. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel  (1709-84)  English  essayist,  poet,  lexicographer.  Vanity  of  Human 
Wishes;  Irene;  The  Rambler;  The  Idler;  Rasselas;  Western  Isles  of  Scot- 
land ;  Lives  of  English  Poets.     Vll.  379. 

Johnston,  Richard  Malcolm  (1822-98)  American  story- writer.    Dukesborough  Tales. 

Jokai,  Maurus  (1825-     )  Hungarian  novelist. 

JONSON,  Ben  (1572-1637)  English  dramatist,  poet  laureate.  Alchemist ;  Catiline  ;  Fall  of 
Sejanus;  Every  Man  in  His  Humor,     iv.  393. 

Josephus,  Flavius  (37-100  A.d.)  Jewish  historian,     vil.  25. 

JOVELLANOS,  Gaspar  Melchor  DE  (i774-i8ii)  Spanish  dramatist  and  prose-writer. 

Joyce,  Robert  Dwyer  (1836-83)  Irish  poet.     Deirdre. 

Juan  IL,  King  (1404-54)  Spanish  poet,    il  290. 

JUDD,  Sylvester  (1813-53)  American  novelist.     Margaret. 

Jung-Stilling  (1740-1817)  German  novelist  and  autobiographer. 

'  Junius  '  [political  letters  published  1769-72.]  The  author  was  probably  SiR  Phiup  FRAN- 
CIS (1740-1818)  Irish-English  writer.     VII.  282. 

'  JUNOT,  Madame,'  Duchess  of  Abrantes  (1784-1838)  French  memoir  writer, 

Justin  Martyr  (100-163)  Greek  Church  Father,    vii.  80. 

Juvenal,— DecimusJuvenalis  (60-140)  Roman  poet.    Satires.    VI.  36. 

KalidasA  (/.  c.  525)  Hindu  dramatist  and  poet.     Sakuntala.     III.  \o. 
Karamsin,  Nikolai  Mikhailovitch  (1765-1826)  Russian  historian,    x.  11. 
Karr,  Alphonse  (1808-90)  French  writer. 
Kaufmann,  Alexander  (1817-93)  German  poet. 
Kavanagh,  Julia  (1824-77)  English  novelist. 
X— 25 


386  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS. 

KeARY,  Annie  (1825-79)  English-Irish  novelist. 

Keats,  John  (1795-1821)  English  poet.     Endymion;  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,    ix.  225. 

Keble,  John,  Rev.  (1792-1866)  English  church  poet.     The  Christian  Year. 

Keller,  Gottfried  (1819-90)  German  poet  and  novelist. 

Kellgren,  John  HenrIK  (1751-95)  Swedish  poet. 

Kempis,  Thomas  a  (1380-1471)  German  mystic  (Latin).     Imitation  of  Christ. 

Kendall,  Henry  Clarence  (1841-82)  Australian  poet. 

Kennedy,  Grace  (1782-1825)  EngUsh  novelist.     Father  Clement. 

Kennedy,  John  Pendleton  (1795-1870)  American  politician  and  writer,     ix.  174. 

KeRNER,  Justinus  (1786-1862)  German  Suabian  poet  and  novelist,     x.  191. 

Key,  Francis  Scott  (1780-1843)  American  lawyer  and  poet.     Star-Spangled  Banner. 

Khakani  {d.  1186)  Persian  lyric  poet.    iv.  161. 

Kielland,  Alexander  Lange  (1849-    )  Norwegian  novelist  and  dramatist.     Else. 

King,  Charles,  Captain  {1844-    )  American  soldier-novelist. 

King,  Grace  Elizabeth  (1858-    )  American  novelist.     Monsieur  Motte. 

Kinglake,  Alexander  William  (1809-91)  English  historian.   Invasion  of  the  Crimea. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  Rev.  (1819-75)  English  novelist  and  poet.   Alton  Locke ;  Hypatia. 

Kingsley,  Henry  (1830-76)  English  novelist.     Geoffrey  Hamlyn. 

Kingston,  William  Henry  Giles  (1814-80)  English  novelist. 

Kipling,  Rudyard  (1865-  )  English  novelist  and  poet.  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills ; 
Soldiers  Three ;  The  Phantom  Rickshavir;  The  Light  that  Failed;  Captains 
Courageous ;  Barrack  Room  Ballads ;  The  Seven  Seas.     x.  281. 

Kirchberg,  Conrad  von  (12th  century)  Minnesinger,     i.  295. 

Kirk,  Ellen   Olney,  Mrs.  (1842-    )  American  novelist.  '  Margaret  Kent. 

KiSFALUDY,  KarOLY  (1788-1830)  Hungarian  poet  and  novelist. 

KiSFALUDY,  Sandor  (1772-1844)  Hungarian  poet. 

Kleist,  Ewald  Christian  von  (1715-S9)  German  poet. 

Kleist,  Heinrich  von  (1777-1811)  German  lyrist  and  dramatist,     x.  183. 

Klinger,  Maximilian  (1752-1831)  .German  dramatist,    viil.  57. 

Klopstock,  Friedrich  Gottleib  (1724-1803)  German  poet.     Messiah.    vi;i.  22. 

Knowlks,  James  Sheridan  (1784-1862)  Irish  actor  and  dramatist.   .  Virginius. 

KOLLAR,  Jan  (1793-1852)  Bohemian  poet.     Daughter  of  Glory. 

Korner,  Theodor  (1791-1813)  German  lyric  poet.     Svirord-Song.     x.  183. 

Kotzebue,  August  Friedrich  Ferdinand  von  (1761-1819)  German  dramatist. 

Krasinski,  Sigismund,  Count  (1812-59)  Polish  poet.  The  Undivine  Comedy,  x.  362. 

KrilOFF,  Ivan  A.  (1768-1844)  Russian  fabulist,     xl  12. 

Krummacher,  Friedrich  Adolf,  Rev.  (1767-1845)  German  religious  writer.    Parables. 

LaberIUS,  Decimus  (105-43  B.C.)  Roman  knight  and  writer,     m.  122. 

Laboulaye,  Edouard  RENfi  Lefebvre  de  (1811-83)  French  jurist  and  historian. 

La  BruyIire,  Jean  de  (1645-96)  French  novelist  and  satirist,     vi.  179. 

La  CALPRENfeDE,  Gauthier  DE  CosTE,  Seigneur  DE  (1610-63)  French  romancer. 

Lactantius  Firmianus,  L.  C^lius  (4th  century)  Latin  Church  Father,    vil.  105. 

La  Fayette,  Marie  Madeleine  (1634-93)  French  novelist.     Princess  of  Cleves 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de  (1621-95)  French  poet.    Fables,    v.  287. 

La  Harpe,  Jean  Francois  de  (1739-1803)  French  critic  and  poet.    viii.  241. 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  M.  L.  de  (1790-1869)  French  poet  and  prose-writer,     vill.  271. 

Lamb,  Charles  (1775-1834)  English  essayist.     Essays  of  Elia.     ix.  243. 

Lamennais,  Hugues  FelicitiS;  Robert  de  (1782-1854)  French  ecclesiastic  and  publicist. 

Words  of  a  Believer,     vill.  266. 
Lamprecht  (12th  century)  German  poet.    Alexander,    i.  293. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  387 

Landon,  Letitia  Elizabeth  (1802-38)  English  poet  and  novelist. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage  (1775-1864)  English  poet  and  prose  writer.  Imaginary  Con- 
versations ;  Count  Julian. 

Lane,  Edward  William  (1801-73)  English  Orientalist.     Trans.  Arabian  Nights. 

Lang,  Andrew  (1844-  )  English  poet,  story-teller  and  critic^.  Ballads  and  Lyrics  of 
Old  France  ;  Helen  of  Troy;  Letters  to  Dead  Authors;  Custom  and  Myth. 

Langland,  William  (1332-1400?)  English  poet.     Piers  Plowman,     m.  347. 

Lanier,  Sidney  (1842-81)  American  poet,  critic. 

Lao-tsze  (6th  century  B.C.)  Chinese  philosopher,     i.  133. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  Francois,  Due  de  (1613-80)  French  moralist,    vi.  183. 

LarcOM,  Lucy  (1826-93)  American  poet. 

Lathrop,  George  Parsons  (1851-98)  American  poet. 

Latini,  Brunetto  {d.  1294)  Italian  poet,  friend  of  Dante.     11.  219. 

Layamon  (12th  century)  Anglo-Saxon  poet.     Brut.     i.  270. 

Lear,  Edward  (1812-88)  English  writer.     Book  of  Nonsense. 

Lecky,  William  Edward  Hartpole  (1838^    )  English  historian.     Rationalism. 

Lee,  Nathaniel  (i650?-92)  English  dramatist;  insane.     Rival  Queens. 

Lee,  Sophia  (1750-1824)  and  Harriet  (1757-1851)  English  novelists.     Canterbury  Tales. 

Legouve,  Ernest  Wilfrid  (1807-    )  French  dramatist.     Adrienne  Lecouvreur. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  W.  (1646-1716)  German  philosopher,    viii.  ii. 

Leland,  Charles  Godfrey  (1824-    )  Aiherican  miscellanist.    Hans  Breitmann's  Party. 

•LeNAU,  NiKOLAUS,'  N.  von  StrEHLENAU  (1802-50)  German  lyric  poet. 

Lenz,  Jacob  Reinhold  (1751-92)  German  poet.    viii.  58. 

LeOPARDI,  GiACOMO,  CxDUNT  (1798-1837)  Italian  poet.      X.  87. 

Lermontoff,  Michail  Yuryevitch  (1814-41)  Russian  poet.     x.  10. 

Le  Sage,  Alain  RenI:  (1668-1747)  French  novelist  and  dramatist.     Gil  bias.    VH.  199. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim  (1729-81)  German  poet,  dramatist,  critic.  Miss  Sarah 
Sampson;  Minna  von  Barnhelm ;  Nathan  the  Wise  ;  Laocoon.    vil^.  26. 

Lever,  Charles  (1806-72)  Irish  soldier-novelist.     Charles  O'Malley ;  Jack  Hinton. 

Lewes,  George  Henry  (1817-78)  English  philoso{)her,  biographer,  etc. 

Lewis,  Matthew  Gregory  '  Monk  '  ( 1775-1818)  EngUsh  poet.  Ambrosio,  or  the  Monk. 

LiBANlus  (3i4?-395  ?)  Greek  sophist,     vii.  75. 

Lie,  Jonas  Laurits  Idemil  (1833-    )  Norwegian  poet. 

LiLIENCRON,  RoCHUS,  BarON  VON  (1820-     )  Austrian  poet. 

Linton,  Eliza  Lynn  (1822-98)  English  novelist.    Joshua  Davidson,  Communist. 

LrvY — Titus  Livius  (59  B.C.-17  ^■^■)  Roman  historian.    V.  106. 

LOBO,  Rodriguez  (i550?-l630?)  Portuguese  pastoral  poet.     iii.  256. 

Locke,  John  (1632-1704)  English  philosopher.     VII.  282. 

Lockhart,  John  Gibson  (1794-1854)  Scotch  biographer  and  poet.     Peter's  Letters  to 

His  Kinsfolk  ;  Ancient  Spanish  Ballads ;  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
Lodge,  Henry  Cabot  (1850-     )  American  historian  and  biographer. 
Lodge,  Thomas  (15587-1625)  Enghsh  poet  and  dramatist.     Rosalynde. 
Lohenstein,  Daniel  Casper  von  (1635-83)  Silesian  poet.    viii.  10. 
Lomonosoff,  Michael  (1711-65)  Russian  poet  and  tragedian.     III.  393. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth  (1807-82)  American  poet.    Hyperion;  Evangeline; 
Song  of  Hiawatha ;  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish  ;  Hanging  of  the  Crane ;  Tales 
of  a  Wayside  Inn;  Ultima  Thule;  The  Building  of  a  Ship;  Keramos.     ix.  120. 
Longinus,  Cassius  (210-273  A.D.)  Greek  philosopher  and  rhetorician. 
Longstreet,  Augustus  Baldwin  (1790-1870)  American  author.    Georgia  Scenes. 
LONGUS  f5th  century)  Greek  romancer.     Daphnis  and  Chloe.     vil.  71. 
LoNNROT,  EliAS  (1802-84)  Finnish  philologist.     Collected  the  Kalevala. 


388  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Lope  DE  Vega  CarpiO  (1562-1635)  Spanish  dramatist.     VI.  138. 

Lorenzo  de'  Medici  (1448-92)  Italian  statesman,  poet.     iil.  167. 

LORRIS,  Guillaume  de  (13th  Cent.)  French  poet.     Romance  of  the  Rose.     i.  197. 

'  LOTi,  Pierre,'  L.  M.  J.  Viaud  (1850-    )  French  poet  and  novehst.     Marriage  of  Loti. 

Lov:?LACE,  Richard  (1618-58)  English  Cavalier  dramatist  and  poet.     Lucasta.     v.  386. 

Lowell,  James  Russell  (1819-91)  American  poet  and  critic.     The  Biglow  Papers  ;  Sir 

Launfal;  Fable  for  Critics ;  Under  the  Willows  ;  Harvard  Commemoration  Ode; 

Among  my  Books ;  My  Study  Windows  ;  Heartsease  and  Rue. 
Lowell,  Robert  Traill  Spence  (1816-91)  American  educator,  novelist. 
LucAN— Marcus  Ann^eus  Lucanus  (39-65  a.  d.  )  Latin  poet.     Pharsalia.     v.  147. 
LuciAN  [c.  120-200)  Greek  satirist.     Dialogues  of  the  Gods;  Dialogues  of  the  Dead. 
LUCILIUS  (97-53?  B.  C.)  Latin  satirist.     III.  93. 

Lucretius  Carus,  Titus  (98?-55  b.  c.)  Roman  philosophic  poet.     On  Nature,     in.  94. 
LuNT,  George  (1803-85)  American  poet  and  prose-writer. 
Luther,  Martin  (1483-1546)  German  Reformer.    Translated  the  Bible  into  German.   The 

Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  Church ;  Table  Talk.     vi.  238. 
Lydgate,  John  (i375?-i46o?)  English  monk,  poet.     The  London  Lackpenny. '  m.  361^ 
Lyly,  John  (1554-1606)  English  dramatist,  romancist.     Euphues.     iv.  294. 
Lyndsay,  Sir  David  {c.  1490-1550  ?)  Scotch  poet.    in.  337. 
Lysias  (450-380  B.C.)  Attic  orator,     vi.  lo. 
Lytle,  William  Haines  (1826-63)  American  general  and  poet.     Antony  to  Cleopatra. 

Maartens,  Maarten  (1858-    )  Dutch-English  novelist. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  Lord  (1800-59)  English  historian,  essayist  and  poet. 

History  of  England  ;  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  ;  Essays. 
MacCarthy,  Denis  Florence  (1817-1882)  Irish  poet.    Translated  Calderon. 
McCarthy,  Justin  (1830-     )  Irish  journalist,  novelist.     History  of  Our  Own  Tinjes; 
McCarthy,  Justin  Huntley  (i860-    )  Irish  journalist  and  poet. 
Macdonald,  George  (1824-    )  Scotch  novelist  and  poet.     David  Elginbrod. 
Machiavelli,  Niccolo  (1469-1527)  Italian  political  writer.     The  Prince,     iv.  198. 
Macias  the  Enamored  (15th  century)  Spanish  poet.     iii.  255. 
Mackay,  Charles  (1814-89)  Scotch  poet  and  journalist. 
Mackenzie,  Henry  (1745-1831)  Scotch  essayist.     The  Man  of  Feeling. 
Mackenzie,  Robert  Shelton  (1809-80)  Irish-American  journalist,  miscellanist. . 
'Maclaren,  Ian,'  Rev.  John  Watson  (1850-    )  Scotch  preacher,  novelist. 
McLellan,  Isaac  (1806-96)  American  poet.     The  Death  of  Napoleon. 
MACLEOD,  Norman,  Rev.  (1812-72)  Scotch  divine  and  miscellanist. 
McMaster,  Guy  Humphrey  (1829-87)  American  poet.     Carmen  Bellicosum. 
McMaster,  John  Bach  (1852-     )  American  historian. 
Macpherson,  James  (1736-96)  Scotch  editor  of  Ossian.     v.  315. 
Macquoid,  Katharine  S.,  Mrs.,  English  novelist. 
Maerlant,  Jakob  van  (c.  1225-91)  Dutch  poet.    vi.  258. 
Maffei,  Francesco  (1675-1755)  Italian  dramatist,    vii.  158. 
Maistre,  Joseph  Comte  de  (1754-1821)  French-Italian  statesman,     vill.  254. 
Malet,  Lucas  (1852-    )  English  novelist. 

Malherbe,  Francois  (1555-0628)  French  poet  and  critic,     vi.  266. 
Mallett,  David  (1700-65)  Scotch  poet  and  dramatist. 

Mallock,  William  Hurrel  (1849-    )  English  essayist.     The  New  Republic. 
Malory,  Thomas,  Sir  (1430-70)  British  author.     Morte  D'Arthur.     iii.  373. 
Malot,  Hector  (1830-     )  French  novelist. 
Mandeville,  Bernard  (1670-1733)  Dutch- English  miscellanist.     Fable  of  the  Bee&. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  UST  OF  AUTHORS.  389 

Mandeville,  John,  Sir  (1300-72)  English  traveler.     II.  309. 

Mangan,  James  Clarence  (1803-49)  ^^'^^  P°et- 

Manley,  Mary  de  la  Riviere,  Mrs.  (1672-1724)  English  novelist. 

Manrique,  Jorge  DE  (1420-85?)  Spanish  poet.     Coplas  de  Manrique.    n.  294. 

Manuel,  Juan,  Don  (1282-1347)  Spanish  story-writer.     El  Conde  Lucanor.     i.  382. 

Manzoni,  Alessandro  (1783-1873)  Italian  novelist,  poet.     I  Promessi  Sposi.     x.  72. 

Map  (or  Mapes),  Walter  (1140-1210)  English  Latin  writer,     m.  308. 

Margaret  of  Navarre,  Marguerite  d'Angoul^me  (1492-1549)  French  queen  and 
novelist.     Heptameron.     iv.  244. 

Marie  de  France  (13th  century)  French  poetess.     Lais.     i.  212. 

Marini,  Giovanni  Battista  (1569-1625)  Italian  lyric  poet.    vi.  127. 

Marivaux,  Pierre  de  (1688-1763)  French  dramatist  and  novelist.     Marianne. 

Marlit,  E.  (1825-87)  German  novelist.     Gold  Else ;  The  Old  Mamselle's  Secret. 

Marlowe,  Christopher  (1564  ?-93)  English  poet  and  dramatist.   Tamburlaine.   iv.  335. 

Marmontel,  Jean  Francois  (1723-99)  French  miscellanist. 

Marot,  Clement  (1497-1544)  French  lyric  poet.    iii.  262. 

Marryat,  Florence  (1837-     )  English  novelist.     Woman  Against  Woman. 

Marryat,  Frederick  (1792-1848)  English  sea-novelbt.     The  King's  Own;  Peter  Sim- 
ple ;  Japhet  in  Search  of  a  Father. 

MaRSTON,  John  (1575-1634)  English  dramatist  and  poet. 

Marston,  Philip  Bourke  (1850-87)  English  poet. 

Martial^Marcus  Valerius  Martialis  [c.  50-102)  Latin  poet.    v.  171. 

Martin,  Bon  Louis  Henri  (1810-83)  French  historian.     History  of  France. 

Martin,  Theodore,  Sir  (1816-    )  English  poet  and  translator. 

Marvell,  Andrew  (1621-78)  English  poet  and  satirist.     Vl.  296. 

Mary  (Stuart)  Queen  of  Scots  (1542-87)  wrote  French  poems,    iv.  264. 

Massey,  Gerald  (1828-     )  English  poet. 

Massinger,  Philip  (i  583-1640)  English  dramatist,     v.  360. 

Mather,  Cotton,  Rev.  (1663-1728)  American  author..    Magnalia.     ix.  19. 

Mathews,  William  (1818-    )  American  essayist. 

Matthew  Paris  (1200-59)  English  Latin  chronicler. 

Matthews,  Brander  (1852-     )  American  critic  and  essayist. 

Maturin,  Charles  Robert  (1782-1824)  Irish  novelist. 

Maupassant,  Guy  de  (1850-93)  French  novelist,    x.  161. 

Medici,  Lorenzo  de  (1449-92)  Florentine  statesman. 

Meleager  (ist  century  b.c)  Greek  epigrammatist.     Garland,     vil.  36. 

Melville,  George  John  Whyte  (1821-78)  English  novelist. 

Melville,  Herman  (1819-91)  American  sailor  and  novelist.     Typee ;  Omoo.     ix.  172. 

Mena,  Juan  de  (1400-50)  Spanish  poet.     11.  290. 

Menander  (342-291  B.C.)  Greek  comic  poet.    v.  57. 

Mencius  (372-289  B.C.)  Chinese  philosopher.     11.  45. 

Mendelssohn,  Moses  (1729-86)  German-Jewish  philosopher,    viii.  44- 

Mendes,  Catulle  (1843-    )  French  poet  and  novelist. 

Mendoza,  Diego  de  (1503-75)  Spanish  poet  and  historian,     ill.  210. 

Meredith,  George  (1828-    )  English  novelist  and  poet.    The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Fev- 
erel  •   Rhoda  Fleming;  Diana  of  the  Crossways  ;  The  Egoist. 

-Meredith,  Owen,'   Edward  Robert  Bulwer,  Earl  Lytton  (1831-91)  English 
poet.     Lucile  ;  The  Ring  of  Amasis;  The  Wanderer;  Tannhauser.     iii.  276. 

MERIMiE,  Prosper  (1803-70)  French  litterateur.     Colomba;  Carmen. 

Merivale,  Charles,  Rev.  (1808-93)  English  historian.     Romans  under  the  Empire. 

Metastasio,  Pietro  (1698-1782)  Italian  poet.    The  Clemency  of  Titus,    vil.  l6a 


390  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Meung,  Jean  DE  (I26o?-I32o)  French  satirist.     Romance  of  the  Rose.     ii.  309. 

Meyr,  Melchoir  (1810-71)  German  novelist  and  poet. 

MiCHAUD,  Joseph  Francois  (1767-1839)  French  historian.     History  of  Crusades. 

Michel  Angelo  Buonarotti  (1475-1564)  Italian  sculptor,  painter  and  poet.     iv.  224. 

Michelet,  Jules  (1798-1874)  French  historian,  prose-poet. 

MiCKiEWicz,  Adam  (1798-1855)  Polish  poet,  novelist.     Pan  Tadeusz.     x.  362. 

MiGNET,  Francois  Auguste  Marie  {1796-1884)  French  historian. 

Mill,  James  (1773-1836)  English  historian.     History  of  India. 

Mill,  John  Stuart  (1806-73)  English  utihtarian  philosopher.     Liberty. 

Miller,  Joaquin  (1841-    )  American  poet.     Songs  of  the  Sierras. 

Milman,  Henry  Hart,  Rev.  (1791-1868)  English  historian  and  poet.     Fazio ;  Samor. 

Milton,  John  (1608-74)  English  poet.  Comus ;  Lycidas ;  Areopagitica  ;  H  Penseroso; 
L' Allegro;  Paradise  Lost;  Paradise  Regained;  Samson  Agonistes.     v.  391. 

MiMNERMUS  (634-600  B.C.)  Greek  elegiac  poet.     11.  86. 

MlRAB^AU,  HoNORfi  GABRIEL  DE  RlQUETTI,  CoUNT  (1749-91).     French  statesman. 

Mistral,  Frederic  (1830-    )  Provencal  poet. 

Mitchell,  Donald  Grant,  '  Ik  Marvel'  (1822-    )  American  essayist  and  novelist. 

Mitchell,  Silas  Weir  (18^9-    )  American  physician,  novelist  and  poet.     Hugh  Wynne. 

Mitford,  Mary  Russell  (1787-1855)  English  miscellanist.     Our  Village;  Rienzi. 

Mitford,  William  (1744-1827)  English  historian.     History  of  Greece. 

MOE,  JORGEN  Ingebrektsen  (1813-82)  Norwegian  folk-lorist.     Popular  Tales. 

Mohammed  (570-632)  Arabian  prophet.    Koran,     i.  189. 

MOLESWORTH,  Mary  LouISA,  Mrs.  (1842-     )  English  novelist  and  writer  for  children; 

MoliI:re,  Jean  Baptiste  POQUKLIN  (1622-73)  French  dramatist.  L'Etourdi;  Les  Pre- 
cieuses  Ridicules;  L'Ecole  des  Femmes;  Tartuffe;  Misanthrope;  L'Avare ; 
Bourgeois  Gentilhomme ;  Le  Malade  Imaginaire. 

Mommsen,  Thkodor  (1817-     )  German  historian.     History  of  Rome.     vi.  187. 

MoNiER  Williams,  Sir  Monier  (1819-    )  English  Orientalist.     Indian  Wisdom; 

Montagu,  Mary  Wortley,  Lady  (1688-1762)  English  letter-writer,    vii.  292. 

Montaigne,  Michel  Eyquem,  Sieur  de  (1533-92)  French  moral  philosopher,    iii.  193. 

Montalembert,  Charles  Forbes  de  Tryon,  Comte  de  (1810-70)  French  statesman 
and  historian.     The  Monks  of  the  West. 

MONTALVAN,  Juan  Perez  de  (1602-38)  Spanish  dramatist.     Teruel's  Lovers. 

Montemayor,  Jorge  de  (1520  ?-6i)  Spanish  romancist.     Diana  Enamorada. 

MoNTESQiEU,  Charles  de  Secondat,  Baron  de  (1689-1755)  French  philosophic  his- 
torian.    L'Esprit  des  Lois.     vil.  247. 

Montgomery,  James  (1771-1854)  English  religious  poet. 

Monti,  Luigi  (1830-     )  Italian-American  miscellanist. 

Monti,  Vincenzo  (1754-1828)  Italian  poet.     X.  79. 

MOODIE,  Susanna  (1803-85)  Scotch-Canadian  poet  and  prose-writer.  ^ 

Moore,  George  (1859-    )  English  novelist  and  poet.     Confessions  of  a  Young  Man. 

Moore,  Thomas  (1779-1852)  Irish  poet.     Irish  Melodies  ;  Lalla  Rookh.     ix.  326. 

More,  Hannah  (1779-1833)  English  religious  writer.     Coelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife. 

More,  Thomas,  Sir  (1478-1535)  English  statesman.     (Latin)  Utopia.     IV.  295. 

Morgan,  Lady,  Sydney  Owens  (1783-1859)  Irish  novelist.     The  Wild  Irish  Girl. 

Morier,  James  Justinian  (1780-1849)  English  novelist.     Adventures  of  Hajji  Baba 

Morley,  Henry  (1822-94)  English  scholar,  editor.     English  Writers. 

Morley,  John  (1838-    )  English  statesman,  critic.     Voltaire ;  Rousseau ;  Burke. 

Morris,  George  Pope  (1802-64)  American  journalist  and  song-writer. 

Morris,  William  (1834-96)  English  socialist,  poet.     The  Earthly  Paradise. 

Morton,  Thomas  (1764-1838)  English  dramatist.     Speed  the  Plough. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS.  39  J 

MOSCHUS  {fl-  2CX)  B.C.)  Greek  Sicilian  bucolic  poet.     vi.  45. 
Motherwell,  William  (1797-1835)  Scotch  poet  and  antiquary. 
Motley,  John  Lothrop  (1814-77)  American  historian  of  the  Netherlands. 
.'  MUHLBACH,  LuiSE,'  Clara  Mundt  (1814-73)  German  historical  novelist. 
MULLER,  Friedrich  Max  (1823-    )  German-English  Sanskrit  scholar. 
Muller,  Karl  (1819-89)  German  romance  writer. 
MuLLER,  WiLHELM  (1794-1827)  German  lyric  poet. 
MuLOCK,  Dinah  Maria.    See  Craik. 
Munch,  Andreas  (1811-84)  Norwegian  poet  and  dramatist. 
MuRGER,  Henri  (1822-61)  French  litterateur.    Scenes  of  Bohemian  Life. 
Murner,  Thomas  (1475-1536)  German  R.  C.  satirist. 

Murray,  Grenville  (1824-81)  English  miscellanist.    Tlje  Member  for  Paris. 
Murray,  William  Henry  Harrison  (1840-    )  American  preacher  and  writer. 
MUSAUS,  JOHANN  Karl  August  (1735-87)  German  satirist. 
MussET,  Alfred  de  (1810-57)  French  lyric  poet.     Nighis.    x.  132. 

Nairne,  Caroline  Oliphant,  Lady  (1766-1854)  Scotch  poet.    The  Land  of  the  Leal. 

'Nasby,  Petroleum  V.,'  David  R.  Locke  (1833-88)  American  satirist. 

Neal,  John  (1793-1876)  American  poet. 

Neal,  Joseph  Clay  (1807-47)  American  joiu'nalist  and  humorist. 

Neale,  John  Mason  (1818-66)  English  historian  of  Greek  Church.     Translated  Hymns. 

'Negri,  Ada,'  Mme.  Garlanda  (1870-    )  Italian  poet.     Fatality. 

Nepos,  Cornelius  (99-24  B.C.)  Roman  biographer.    V.  104. 

Nestor  (i'.  1056-1 114)  Russian  monk  and  chronicler,     iii.  388.         ' 

Newman,  John  Henry,  Cardinal  (1801-90)  English  theologian.    Lyra  Apostolica. 

Niccolini,  Giovanni  Battista  (1782-1861)  Italian  dramatist,     x.  81. 

NiEBUHR,  Barthold  Georg  (1776-1831)  German  historian  of  ancient  Rome. 

NiEMCEwicz,  Julian  Ursin  (1757-1841)  Polish  lyric  poet.    X.  362. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  (1844-    )  German  writer.     Thus  Spake  Zarathustra. 

NiZAMi  (1113-1203)  Persian  romantic  poet.     Khosru  and  Shireen.     iv.  162. 

Nodier,  Charles  ( 1780-1844)  French  romance  writer.     The  Exiles. 

Nordau,  Max  Simon  (1849-    )  German  critic.     Degeneration. 

Nordhoff,  Charles  (1736-    )  American  journalist  and  author.     Man.of- War  Life. 

NoRRis,  William  E.  (1847-    )  English  novelist. 

'North,  Christopher,'  John  Wilson  (1785-1854)  Scotch  essayist;  poet  and  editor  of 

Blackwood's  Magazine.     Noctes  Ambrosianae. 
Norton,  Caroline  Elizabeth  (1808-77)  English  poet. 

'NovALis,'  Friedrich  von  Hardenberg  (1772-1801)  German  mystic,     ix.  336. 
'Nye,  Bill,'  EdGj^R  Wilson  Nye  (1850-96)  American  journalist  and  humorist. 

OcANA,  Francisco  (16th  century)  Spanish  poet.'   vi.  152. 

Oehlenschlager,  Adam  GottlOB  (1779-1850)  Danish  poet.     Aladdin.     VIII.  174. 

Oliphant,  Margaret  O.  W.  (1828-97)  Scotch  novelist.     Chronicles  of  Carlingford. 

Omar  Khayyam  (10517-1123?)  Persian  poet  and  astronomer.     Rubaiyat.     II.  203. 

Opitz,  Martin  (1597-1639)  German  poet  of  the  Silesian  School,     vill.  10. 

Oppian  (fl.  200)  Greek  poet.     Fishing. 

O'Reilly,  John  Boyle  (1844-90)  Irish- American  poet  and  prose-writer. 

Origen  (185  ?-254?)  Alexandrian  Christian  theologian,  mystical  interpreter  of  Scripture. 

Osgood,  Frances  Sargent,  Mrs.  (1811-50)  American  poet. 

Otway,  Thomas  (1651-85)  English  dramatist.     Venice  Preserved,     vi.  334.' 

'  Ouida,'  Louisa  de  la  Rame  (1840-    )  English  novelist,  residing  in  Italy. 

Ovid  (48  B.C.-17  a.d.)  Latin  poet.     Metamorphoses;  Art  of  Love.     rv.  140. 


392  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Pacuvius,  Marcus  (220-132  b.c.)  Latin  tragedian,     m.  93. 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson  (1853-    )  American  story-writer. 

Paine,  Thomas  (1737-1809)  American  novelist.     Common  Sense. 

Paley,  William  (1743-1805)  English  theologian.     Natural  Theology. 

Palfrey,  John  G.  (1796-1881)  American  historian.     History  of  New  England. 

Palgrave,  Francis  Turner  (1824-    )  English  poet.    Edited  Golden  Treasury. 

Paludan-Muller,  Frederick  (1809-76)  Danish  poet. 

Parini,  Giuseppe  (1729-99)  Italian  satiric  poet.     II  Giorno.    vii.  175. 

Parker,  Gilbert  ( 1861-    )  Canadian  novelist. 

Parker,  Theodore  (1810-60)  American  preacher  and  reformer. 

Parkman,  Francis  (1823-93)  American  historian  of  French  in  Canada. 

Parnell,  Thomas  (1679-1718)  Irish-English  poet.     The  Hermit,    vi.  95. 

Parson,  Thomas  William  (1819-92)  American  poet. 

Pascal,  Blaise  (1623-62)  French  philosopher.     Provincial  Letters,     v.  270. 

Pater,  Walter  (1839-94)  English  litterateur.     Marius  the  Epicurean. 

Paulding,  James  Kirke  ( 1779-1860)  American  novelist. 

Payn,  James  (1830-98)  English  novelist.     Lost  Sir  Massingberd. 

Payne,  John  Howard  (1792-1852)  American  dramatist.     Home,  Svreet  Home. 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love  (1785-1866)  English  poet  and  novelist.     Headlong  Hall. 

Peele,  George  (1558-97)  English  dramatist.     David  and  Bethsabe. 

Pellico,  Silvio  (1788-1854)  Italian  poet.     My  Prisons,     x.  68. 

Penn,  William  (1644-1718)  Founder  of  Pennsylvania.     No  Cross,  No  Crown. 

Pentaur  (yf.  1350  B.C.)  Egyptian  poet.     The  Battle  of  Kadesh.     i.  51. 

Pepys,  Samuel  (1633-1703)  English  diarist.    ■ 

Percival,  James  Gates  (1795-1856)  American  poet. 

Percy,  Thomas,  Bishop  (1729-1811)  English  antiquary  and  poet.     Reliques  of  Ancient 

English  Poetry,    vill.  323. 
Perrault,  Charles  (1628-1703)  French  poet.     Fairy  Tales. 
Persius  Flaccus,  Aulus  (34-62)  Latin  satiric  poet.     v.  133. 
Petofi,  Alexander  (1823-49)  Hungarian  poet. 
Petrarch,  Francesco  (1304-74)  Italian  lyric  poet.    11.  259. 
Petronius  Arbiter  (_/?.  65)  Roman  courtier  of  Nero.     Satiricon.    v.  155. 
Ph^edrus  (y?.  40  B.C.)  Latin  fabuhst.     v.  132. 
Philemon,  (36o?-263?  b.c.)  Greek  comic  dramatist,     v.  58. 
Philips,  John  (1676-1709)  English  dramatist. 

Philips,  Ambrose  (1671-1749)  English  poet,  "  Namby  Pamby."    vil.  289. 
Philo  Jud^EUS  (20  B.C.-50  A.d.)  Alexandrine  Jewish  philosopher. 
Piatt,  John  James  (1835-    )  American  journalist,  poet. 
Piatt,  Sarah  Morgan  Bryan,  Mrs.  (1836-    )  American  poet. 
Pierpont,  John  ( 1785-1866)  American  Unitarian  minister  and  poet. 
Pike,  Albert  (1809-91)  American  journalist  and  poet. 

PlLPAY  or  BidpAI Supposed  author  of  fables  in  India,     v.  19. 

Pindar  (522-443  b.c.)  Greek  lyric  poet.     Olympian  Odes.    11.  loi 

Pindemonte,  IppolITO  (1753-1828)  Italian  poet. 

Pisan,  Christine  de  (1364-1431)  French  lyric  poet.    11.  332. 

PlSTOAI,  CiNO  DA  (^1270-1336)  Italian  poet.     II.  257. 

Platen,  August,  Count  von  (1796-1835)  German  poet. 

Plato  (427-347  b.c.)  Greek  philosopher.     Phaedo ;  The  Republic ;  The   Symposium. 

V.  74. 
Plautus,  Titus  Maccius  (254?-i84  B.C.)  Roman  comic  poet.     The  Captives,     iil  117. 
Pliny  the  Elder  (23-79)  Roman  compiler.    Natural  History,     v.  16^ 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  393 

Pliny  the  Younger  (61-113)  Roman  letter-writer.     V.  175. 

Plutarch  (45?-!  20?)  Greek  biographer.    Parallel  Lives  of  Greeks  and  Romans,  vn.  43. 

POE,  Edgar  Allan  (1809-49)  American  poet  and  story-writer,     ix.  143. 

POLITIAN,  or  POLIZIANO,  Angelo  (14^4-94)  Italian  humanist,     in.  167. 

POLLOK,  Robert  (i  768-1827)  Scotch  religious  poet.     The  Course  of  Time. 

POLYBIUS  (204-122  B.C.)  Greek  historian,     vn.  lo. 

POLYCARP  (69-155)  Greek  Father  of  Church,     vil.  80. 

Ponce  de  Leon,  Luis  (1528-91)  Spanish  lyric  poet.    m.  208. 

Pope,  Alexander  (1788-1744)  English  poet.  Essay  on  Criticism;  Essay  on  Man; 
Rape  of  the  Lock;  The  Dunciad;    Eloisa  to  Abelard;    Satires;   Homer. 

Porter,  Jane  (1776-1850)  English  novelist.    Thaddeus  of  Warsaw;  The  Scottish  Chiefs. 

Porto,  Luigi  da  (I485?-I529)  Italian  poet  and  novelist,     iv.  218. 

Praed,  Winthrop  Mackworth  (1802-39)  English  poet. 

Prentiss,  Elizabeth  Payson,  Mrs.  (1818-78)  American  author.  Stepping  Heaven- 
ward. 

Preston,  Harriet  Waters  (c.  1843-    )  American  translator. 

Preston,  Margaret  Junkin,  Mrs.  (1825-97)  American  poet  and  miscellanist. 

Prevost  d'Exilles,  Abb6  (1697-1763)  French  novehst.     Manon  Lescaut.     vil.  208. 

Prior,  Matthew  (1664-1721)  English  poet.    Alma.  ' 

Proctor,  Adelaide  Anne  (1825-64)  English  poet. 

Propertius,  Sextus  Aurelius  {c.  50  B.C.-15  ?)  Roman  elegiac  poet.     iv.  158. 

'  Prout,  Father  '  Francis  O'Mahony  (1804-66)  Irish  journalist,  poet. 

Protagoras  (480-410  b.c.)  Greek  sophist,    v.  71.  ' 

Prudentius,  Aurelius  Publius  Clemens  (350-410)  Latin  Christian  poet.    vii.  119. 

Ptah-Hotep  (3580  or  2266  B.C.)  Egyptian  sage.     i.  22. 

PuLCl,  Luigi  (1431-84)  Italian  romantic  poet.     Morgante  Maggiore.     iv.  190. 

Pushkin,  Alexander  Sergeevich  (1799-1837)  Russian  poet.    x.  14. 

Pythagoras  {c.  482  b.c.-c.  507)  Greek  philosopher.     Golden  Sentences,     iv.  80. 

Quarles,  Francis  (1592-1644)  English  sacred  poet.     Emblems  Divine  and  Moral. 
QuEVEDO,  Francisco  de  (1580-1645)  Spanish  satirist,    vi.  153. 
QuiNTlLIAN,  Marcus  Fabius  [c.  35  A.D.-95)  Roman  rhetorician,     vi.  75. 

Rabelais,  Francois  (1490-1553)  French  satirist.     Gargantua.     iii.  176. 

Racine,  Jean  Baptiste  (1639-99)  French  dramatist.     Iphigenie  ;  Athalie.     v.  294. 

Radcliffe,  Ann  (1764-1823)  English  novelist.     Mysteries  of  Udolpho. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter  (1552-1618)  English  adventurer,     iv.  325. 

Ramsay,  Allen  (1686-1758)  Scotch  poet.    viii.  301. 

Ranke,  Leopold  (1795-1886)  German  historian.     History  of  the  Popes. 

Read,  Thomas  Buchanan  (1822-72)  American  poet. 

Reade,  Charles  (1814-84)  English  novelist.    Hard  Cash ;  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth. 

Redi,  Francesco  (1626-95)  Italian  poet.     Bacchus  in  Tuscany,    vi.  130. 

Reeve,  Clara  (1729-1807)  English  novelist.     The  Old  English  Baron. 

Reid,  Mayne,  Captain  (1818-83)  Irish-American  novelist.     Osceola. 

Renan,  Ernest  (1823-92)  French  Semitic-Orientalist.    The  Life  of  Jesus  ;  The  Apostles. 

Repplier,  Agnes  (1855-    )  American  essayist. 

Ribeyro,  Bernard™  (1486?-;:.  1550)  Portuguese  poet.    in.  257. 

Richardson,  Samuel  (1689-1761)  English  novelist.    Pamela,    vn.  312. 

Richter,  Jean  Paul  F.  (1763-1825)  German  humorist.     Titan  ;    Hesperus,     ix.  328. 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb  (1853-    )  American  Poet  of  common  life.    x.  358. 

Robertson,  William  (1721-93)  Scotch  historian,    vjl  281. 


394  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Robinson,  Therese  Albertine  Luise  von  Jakob  (1797-1869)  Gennan  miscellanist. 

Roe,  Edward  PaysON  (1838-88)  American  novelist.     Barriers  Burned  Away. 

Rogers,  Samuel  (1763-1855)  English  poet.    Italy. 

ROLLIN,  Charles  (1661-1741)  French  historian.     Ancient  History. 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de  (1524-85)  French  lyric  poet.     iv.  250. 

ROSCOE,  Thomas  (1791-1871)  English  translator  and  author. 

RoscoE,  William  (1753-1831)  English  historian. 

RossETTi,  Christina  Georgina  (1830-94)  Italian-English  poet. 

RossETTi,  Dante  Gabriel  (1828-82)  Italian-English  poet. 

RouGET  DE  Lisle,  Claude  Joseph  (1760-1836)  French  song-writer,    viii.  247. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Baptiste  (1670-1741)  French  poet. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques  (1712-78)  French  writer.     Emile;    Social  Compact;    New 

Heloise;  Confessions,     vil.  256. 
Rowe,  Nicholas  (1674-1718)  English  dramatist  and  poet  laureate. 
RUCKERT,  Friedrich  (1788  or  9-1866)  German  poet.     x.  187. 
RUDAGi,  Farid-Addin  Muhammad  (   /.  950)  Persian  poet.    11.  172. 
RUDBECK,  Olof  ( 1630-1702)  Swedish  author.     Atlantica.   vill.  187. 
Ruiz,  Juan  (1300-f.  1351)  Spanish  poet.     i.  384. 
RUMI,  Jelaleddin  (1207-73)  Persian-Sufic  poet.     iv.  167. 
RUNEBERG,  Johann  Ludwig  (1804-77)  Swedish  poet. 
RUSKIN,  John  (1819-     )  English  art  critic  and  essayist.     Modern  Painters. 
Russell,  W.  Clark  (1844-    )  English  sea-novelist. 
RUTBCEUF  {Jl.  1260)  French  songster,     i.  231. 
Ryan,  Abram  Joseph  (1839-66)  American  R.  C.  priest  and  poet.     The  Conquered  Banner. 

Saa  de  Miranda  (1495-1558)  Portuguese  poet.     II.  258. 

Sacchetti,  Franco  {c.  1330-1400)  Italian  poet.    in.  154. 

Sachs,  Hans  (1494-1576)  German  mastersinger.     HI.  305. 

Sackville,  Thomas  (1536-1608)  English  poet.    iv.  293. 

Sa  de  Miranda,  Francisco  de  (1495-1558)  Portuguese  poet. 

Sadi  (1184-1291)  Persian  poet.     Divan  ;  Bustan  ;  Gulistan.     IV.  173. 

Saint  Amant,  M.  A.  Gerard,  Siei!ir  de  (1594-1661)  French  songster,    v.  268. 

Sainte  Beuve,  Charles  Augustin  (1804-69)  French  critic. 

Saintine,  Joseph  Xavier  Boniface  (1798-1865)  French  dramatist.    Picciola.    x.  125. 

St.  Pierre,  Bernardin  de  (1737-1834)  French  novelist.    Paul  and  Virginia.  viIl.  232. 

Saintsbury,  George  (1845-     )  English  critic  and  essayist. 

Saint  Simon,  Louis  de  Rouvroy,  Due  de  (1675-1755)  French  memoir-writer. 

Sala,  George  Augustus  (1828-96)  English  journalist. 

Sale,  George  {c  1697-1736)  English  orientalist.    Translated  Koran. 

Sallust— Gaius  Sallustius  Crispus  {c.  86  b.c.-*'.  34)  Ro™an  historian,     iv.  95. 

'  Sand,  George,'  Baronne  Dudkvant  (1804-76)  French  novelist.    Consuelo.    ix.  393. 

Sandeau,  Jules  (1811-83)  French  novelist. 

Sangster,  Margaret  Elizabeth,  Mrs.  (1838-    )  American  poet  and  prose  writer. 

SanNAZARO,  GiACOMO  (1458-1530)  Italian  novelist.     IV.  239. 

Santillana,  Inigo  L.  de  Mendoza,  Marques  de  (1398-1458)  Spanish  poet.    11.  289. 

Sappho  {fl.  600  B.C.)  Greek  lyric  poet.     II.  88. 

Sardou,  Victorien  (1831-    )  French  dramatist. 

Saxe,  John  Godfrey  (1816-87)  American  humorist. 

Saxo  GrammATICUS  ^fl.  1200)  Danish-Laiin  historian. 

SCARRON,  Paul  (1610-60)  French  dramatist  and  novelist.     Roman  Comique.     VI.  174- 

Schefer,  Leopold  (1784-1862)  German  poet.    The  Layman's  Breviary. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS.  39$ 

SCHEFFEL,  Joseph  Viktor  von  (1826-86)  German  poet  and  novelist.     Ekkehard ;  The 

Trumpeter  of  Sackingen.     x.  207. 
SCHENKENDORF,  Max  VON  (1783-1817)  German  poet.     x.  188. 
SCHERER,  Edmond  (1815-89)  French  essayist  and  critic. 
Schiller,  Friedrich  von  (1759-1805)  German  dramatist.     The  Robber ;    Love  and 

Intrigue  ;  Maria  Stuart;  Wallenstein's  Death;  William  Tell.     vill.  119. 
SCHLEGEL,  August  Wilhelm  von  (1767-1845)  German  critic  and  poet. 
Schneckenburger,  Max  (1819-49)  German  poet.     The  Watch  on  the  Rhine. 

Schoolcraft,  Henry  Rowe  (1793-1864)  American,  ethnologist  and  miscellaaist. 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur  (1788-1860)  German  pessimistic  philosopher. 

ScHUBART,  Christian  Daniel  (1739-91)  German  poet.    viii.  57. 

Scott,  Walter,  Sir  (1771-1832)  Scotch  novelist  and  poet,  Marmion;  Rokeby;  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel ;  Lady  of  the  Lake  ;  Waverley ;  Guy  Mannering ;  The  Anti- 
quary; Rob  Roy;  Ivanhoe;  The  Abbot;  Ke,Jlworth;  The  Pirate;  Quentin  Dur- 
ward ;  Chronicles  of  the  Canongate.     viII.  355. 

SCUDERY,  Madeleine  (1607-1701)  French  novelist.     The  Grand  Cj^us.     v.  255. 

'  SeALSFIELD,  Charles,'  Karl  Anton  Postl  (1793-1864,  Austrian-American  novelist. 

Secundus,  Johannes  (1511-36)  Dutch  Latin  amatory  poet.     Basia  (Kisses),     vi.  269. 

Sedgwick,  Catherine  Maria  (1789-1876)  American  novelist.     Hope  Leslie. 

Seeley,  John  Robert,  Sir  (1834-87)  English  historical  scholar.    Ecce  Homo. 

Seneca,  Lucius  Ann^us  {c.  4  B.C.-65  a.d.)  Roman  philosopher,    v.  138. 

SfeviGN&,  Marie  DE  Rabutin-Chantal,  Mme.  (1626-96)  French  letter-writer,    vi.  212. 

ShadwelL,  Thomas  ( 1640-92)  English  dramatist. 

Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Earl  of  (1621-83)  EngUsh  statesman. 

Shakespeare,  William  (1564-1616)  greatest  English  dramatist,  poet.    iv.  3481 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe  (1792-1822)  English  poet.  Queen  Mab;  Alastor;  Adonais ; 
The  Revolt  of  Islam  ;  Prometheus  Unbound,     ix.  223. 

Shenstone,  William  (1714-63)  English  poet.     The  Schoolmistress,    vii.  372. 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley  (1751-1816)  British  dramatist.  The  Rivals;  The 
Duenna  ;  The  School  for  Scandal ;  The  Critic,     vill.  330. 

Shevchenko,  Taras  Grigorovich  (1814-61)  Russian  poet.    X.  10. 

Shorthouse,  John  Henry  (1834-     )  English  novelist.    John  Inglesant. 

Sidney,  or  Sydney,  Algernon  (1617-83)  English  RepubUcan. 

Sidney,  Philip,  Sir  (i554-86't  English  man  of  letters.     Arcadia,     iv.  307. 

SlENKlEWICZ,  Henryk  (1846-     )  Polish  novelist.     Quo  Vadis.     x.  363. 

SiGOURNEY,  Lydia  Huntley  (1791-1865)  American  poet  and  prose,-writer. 

SIMMS,  William  Gilmore  (1806-70)  American,    ix.  180. 

SiMONIDES  (c.  556  B.C.-c.  468)  Greek  lyric  poet.     11.  99. 

Simonides  of  AmorgOS  (660  B.C.)  Greel;  satiric  poet.     11.  95. 

SisMONDi,  Jean  Charles  Leonard  Simon  de  (1773-1842)  French  Swiss  historian. 

Skeat,  Walter  William  (1835-    )  English  Anglo-Saxon  philologist. 

SkeltoN,  John  (1460-1529)  English  satirical  poet. 

Slowacki,  Julius  (1809-49)  ^°^^^  P°«'>  dramatist,    x.  362. 

Smart,  Christopher  (1722-71)  English  poet. 

Smiles,  Samuel  (1816-    )  British  miscellanist.    Self  Help. 

Smith,  Alexander  (1830-67)  Scotch  poet.    A  Life  Drama. 

Smith,  Francis  Hopkinson  (1838-    )  American  author. 

Smith,  GOLDWIN  (1823-     )  English  essayist.  ,  ^    ,.  ^  ^         ., 

Smith,  James  (1775-1839)  and  Horace  (1779-1849)  Engl.sh  humonsts. 

qMTTH  Captain  John  (1579-1631)  English  colonist,    ix.  12. 

Smollett,  Tobias  George  (1721-71)  British  novelist.    Humphrey  Chnker.    vii.  334. 


39^  BIOGRAPHICAL  LlSrOP^ AUTHORS. 

Snorri  SturLASON  (1179-1241)  Icelandic  historian.     Heimskringla.     11.  343. 
Socra'tes  (469-400  B.cJ  Greek  philosopher,     v.  72. 

SoMERVlLLE,  WiLLlAM  (1677-1742).     English  poet.     The  Chase,     vil.  281. 
Sophocles  (495  B.C.-405)  Greek  tragic  poet.     11,  66. 
SORDELLO  {c.  1180-C.  125s)  Italian  troubadour,     n.  226. 
SouTHEY,  Caroline  Anne  [Bowles]  (1787-1854)  English  poet,     ix.  271. 
SOUTHEY,  Robert  (,1774-1843)  English  poet  and  prose-writer.    The  Doctor,    ix.  267. 
Southwell,  Robert  {c.  1562-1595)  English  R.  C.  poet. 
Sparks,  Jared  (17S9-1866)  American  historian  and  editor. 
.  Spenser,  Edmund  (c.  1552-1599)  English  poet.     Faerie  Queene.    iv.  312. 
Spielhagen,  Friedrich  (1829-    )  German  novelist. 

Spofford,  AinswoRTH  Rand  (1825-     )  American  bibliographer  and  historian. 
Spofford,  Harriet  Elizabeth  Prescott  (1835-    )  American  novelist  and  poet. 
Sprague,  Charles  (1791-1875)  American  poet. 

Stael-Holstein,  Mme.  de  (l766'-i8l7)  French  writer.     Corinne,     vill.  249. 
Statius,  Publius  Papinius  {c.  45  A.D.-c,  96)  Roman  poet.     V.  104. 
Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence  (1833-     )  American  man  of  letters. 
Steele,  Sir  Richard  (1671-1729)  British  dramatist,    vi.  362. 
Stephen  the  Sabaite  (8th  century)  Greek  monk,  poet.     vil.  93, 
Stephens,  Ann  Sophia  (1813-86)  American  novelist.     Fashion  and  Famine. 
Sterne,  Laurence  (1713-68)  English  novelist.     Tristram  Shandy,    vil.  342. 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis  (1850-94)  Scotch  novelist,  poet,  essayist.     Travels  With  a 

Donkey ;  Treasure  Island ;  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  ;  Kidnapped,     x.  275, 
Stimson,  Frederick  Jessup  (1855-     )  American  novelist.     King  Noanett. 
Stjernhjelm,  Georg  (1598-1672)  Swedish  poet.     VIII.  187. 
Stockton,   Frank   Richard   (1834-    )  American  humorist.     Rudder  Grange;    The 

Lady  or  the  Tiger  ? 
Stoddard,  Richard  Henry  (1825-    )  American  lyric  poet. 
Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher  (1811-96)  American  novelist.     Uncle  Tom's  Cabin;  Dred; 

The  Minister's  Wooing  ;  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island ;  Agnes  of  Sorrento,     ix.  185 
Straparola,  G.  Francesco  (i6th  century)  Italian  story- writer,    v.  227. 
Suckling,  Sir  John  (1608-42)  English  poet.    v.  382. 
Sudermann,  Hermann  (1857-    )  German  dramatist. 
Sue,  EugI;ne  (1804-59)  French  romancer.     The  Wandering  Jew. 
SuHM,  -Peder  Frederick  (1728-98)  Danish  historian,    viii.  147. 
Suetonius — Caius  Suetonius  Tranquillus  (75-160)  Latin  biographer,     vi.  70. 
Surrey,  Earl  of  (1516-47)  English  poet.    iv.  301. 
Swift,  Jonathan   (1667-1745)   English  prose  satirist.     Tale  of  a  Tub ;  Battle  of  the 

Books ;  Drapier's  Letters  ;  Gulliver's  Travels,     vi.  384. 
Swinburne,    Algernon   Charles   (1837-    )   English  poet.      Atalanta  in  Calydof., 

Bothwell.     X.  265. 
'  Sylva,  Carmen,'  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Roumania  (1843-    )  German  poet. 
SymoNDS,  John  Addington  (1840-93)  English  critic  and  historian  of  literature. 

Tacitus,  Publius  Cornelius  {c.  54-120?)  Roman  historian    v.  123. 

Taine,  Hippolyte  Adolphe  (1828-93)  French  historian  of  literature. 

Tannahill,  Robert  (1774-1810)  Scotch  poet. 

Tannhauser  (13th  century)  German  lyric  poet.     iii.  273. 

Tasso,  Bernardo  (1493-1569)  Venetian  poet. 

TassO,  Torquato  (1544-95)  Italian  epic  poet.    Jerusalem  Deliveied.     v.  234. 

TassoNIj  Alessandro  (1565-1635)  Italian  burlesque  poet.     vj.  125. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OP  AUTHORS.  397 

Tautphceus,  Baroness  von  (1807-93)  Irish  novelist.    The  Initials. 

Taylor,  Bayard  (1825-78)  American  poet,  novelist  and  traveler,    x.  313. 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry  (1800-S6)  English  poet. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  Bishop  (1613-67)  English  religious  writer,    v.  328,  vi.  288. 

Taylor,  John  (1560-1654)  English  poet,  "  the  water-poet." 

Tegner,  Esaias,  Bishop  (1782-1846)  Swedish  poet.    viii.  193. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Baron  Tennyson  (1809-92)  English  poet.  In  Memoriam ;  The 
Princss ;  Idylls  of  the  King.     x.  235. 

Terence— PuBLius  Terentius  Afer  (185  b.  0.-159)  Latin  comic  dramatist,    u.  145. 

Tertullian,  Q.  Septimius  (160-240)  African-Latin  ecclesiastical  writer,    vil.  105. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace  (1811-63)  English  novelist.  The  Newcomes ;  Vanity 
Fair;  Pendennia  ;  The  Virginians  ;  Henry  Esmond,     x.  218. 

Thaxter,  Ceha,  Mrs.  (1836-94)  American  poet. 

Theocritus  {Jl.  270  b.c.)  Greek  bucolic  poet.    vi.  34. 

Theognis  (550-467  B.C.)  Greek  gnomic  poet.     11.  93. 

Thiers,  Louis  Adolphe  (1797-1877)  French  statesman  and  historian.   French  Revolution. 

Thibaud,  King  of  Navarre  (1201-52)  French  lyric  poet.    i.  209. 

Thompson,  Maurice  (1844-    )  American  novelist  and  essayist. 

Thomson,  James  (1700-48)  Scotch-English  poet.     The  Seasons,     vn.  356. 

Thomson,  James  (1834-82)  Scotch  poet.     The  City  of  Dreadful  Night. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David  (1817-62)  American  nature-essayist. 

ThuCYDIDES  (471  B.C.-400?)  Greek  historian.     Peloponnesian  War.     iv.  25. 

TiBULLUS,  Albius  {c.  54  B.C.-*'.  19)  Roman  amatory  poet.     iv.  155. 

TicKELL,  Thomas  (1686-1740)  English  poet. 

Tieck,  Johann  Ludwig  (1773-1853)  German  romanticist,     ix.  341. 

TiEDGE,  Christoph  August  (l752?-l84l)  German  poet. 

TiNCKER,  Mary  Agnes  (1833-     )  American  novelist.     The  Jewel  in  the  Lotus. 

Tiraboschi,  Girolami  (1731-94)  Itahau  historian  of  literature. 

Tolstoi,  Count  Lyof  N.  (1828-  )  Russian  novelist.  Cossacks ;  War  and  Peace ; 
Anna  Karenins.     x.  46. 

TOURGEE,  Albion  Winegar  (1838-     )  American  novelist.     A  Fool's  Errand. 

Tourneur,  Cyril  (Jl.  1600)  English  dramatist,    v.  344. 

Trissino,  Gian  Giorgio  (1478-1550)  Italian  poet.    v.  200. 

Trollope,  Anthony  (1815-82)  English  novelist.  Doctor  Thome  ;  Framley  Parson- 
age ;  Can  You  Forgive  Her?  Phineas  Finn,  the  Irish  Member;  Phineas  Redux. 

Trollope,  Thomas  Adolphus  (1810-92)  English  novelist  of  Italian  life. 

Trowbridge,  John  Townsend  (1827-    )  American  poet  and  novelist. 

Trumbull,  John  (1750-1831)  American  satirical  poet.     ix.  36. 

Tuckerman,  Henry  Theodore  (1813-71)  American  critic  and  author. 

TuPPER,  Martin  Farquhar  (1810-89)  English  poet.     Proverbial  Philosophy. 

Turgenieff,  Ivan  (1818-83)  Russian  novelist.     Fathers  and  Sons  ;  Virgin  Soil.    x.  24. 

'Twain,  Mark,'  Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens  (1837-  )  American  humorist.  The 
Innocents  Abroad ;  Roughing  It ;  Tom  Sawyer ;  Huckleberry  Finn ;  The  Prince 
and  the  Pauper ;  Joan  of  Arc. 

Tyler,  Moses  Coit  (1835-     )  American  literary  historian. 

Tyndale,  William  (1484-1536)  English  translator  of  New  Testament,     iv.  29I. 

TYRT.EUS  (7th  Cent,  b.c.)  Greek  war-poet.    11.  83. 

Udall,  Nicholas  (1506-56)  English  dramatist.     Ralph  Roister  Doister. 
Uhland,  Ludwig  (1787-1862)  German  lyric  poet.     x.  189. 
Ulfilas,  Bishop  (4th  century)  Gothic  translator  of  Bible,     i.  279. 


398  BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS. 

Valdes,  Armando  Palacio  (fl.  1870)  Spanish  novelist. 

Valera,  Juan  (1824-     )  Spanish  poet  and  novelist. 

Valerius  Maximus  (ist  century)  Roman  historian,    v.  104- 

Vanbrugh,  Sir  John  (1666-1726)  English  dramatist. 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  Cavaliere  (1512-74)  Italian  writer.     Lives  of  the  Painters,  iv.  228. 

Vaughan,  Henry  (1621-95)  English  mystic  poet. 

Vega,  Garcilaso  de  la  (1500-35)  Spanish  poet.    11.  305. 

Verlaine,  Paul  (1844-96)  French  rascal  poet  and  story-writer. 

Verne,  Joles  (1828-    )  French  romancist.     x.  151. 

Vicente,  Gil  (1490-1556)  Portuguese  dramatist,     iii.  256, 

ViDA,  Marco  Girolamo  (1489-1566)  Italian-Latin  poet.     The  Game  of  Chess. 

Vidal,  Pierre  (d.  1229)  Provencal  troubadour.     I.  344. 

ViGNY,  Alfred  Victor,  Comte  de  (1793-1863)  French  novelist.    Cinq-Mars. 

Villehardouin,  Geoffrey  de  (1165-1213)  French  historian.    11.  308. 

'Villon,  Francis,'  Francois  Montcorbier  (i43i-i-.  89)  French  rascal  poet.    11.  336. 

Virgil — Publius  Vergilius  Maro  (70-19  b.c.)  Roman  poet.     ^neid.    iv.  112. 

VoiTURE,  Vincent  (1598-1648)  French  poet.    v.  254. 

VoLNEY,  CoNSTANtiN  DE,  CoUNT  (1757-1820)  French  philosopher  and  author.     Ruins. 

Voltaire,  Francois  Marie  Arouet  de  (1694-1778)  French  writer.     La  Henriade; 

Charles  XII.;  Philosophical  Letters  ;  Zaire  ;  Merope ;  Zadig.     vil.  220. 
VONDEL,  Joost  van  DEN  (1587-1679)  Dutch  poet  and  dramatist.     Lucifer,     vi.  278. 
VoN-VlsiN,  Denis  Ivanovich  (1744-92)  Russian  poet.    Mother's  Darling  Son. 
Voss,  JoHANN  Heinrich  (1751-1826)  German  poet  and  translator.     Luise.     vill.  53. 

Wace,  Robert  (1120-80?)  Norman-French  trouvfere.     Roman  de  Brut.     i.  205. 

Wagner,  Heinrich  Leopold  (1747-79)  German  poet.    viii.  57. 

Wallace,  Lewis  (1827-    )  American  general,  lawyer  and  novelist.     Ben  Hur. 

Waller,  Edmund  (1605-87)  English  poet.    vi.  311. 

Walpole,  Horace  (Earl  of  Orford)  English  author.     The  Castle  of  Otranto, 

Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  ( 13th  Cent.)  German  poet,  minnesinger,     i.  297. 

Walton,  Izaak  (1593-1683)  English  author.     The  Compleat  Angler,     v.  377. 

Ward,  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  (1844-    )  American  novelist.     The  Gates  Ajar. 

Ward,  Humphry,  Mrs.  (1851-    )  English  novelist.     Robert  Elsmere. 

Ware,  William  (1797-1852)  American  historical  novelist.     Zenobia. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley  (1829-    )  American  litterateur  and  novelist. 

Warner,  Susan  (1819-85)  American  novelist.     Wide,  Wide  World  ;  Queechy. 

Warren,  Samuel  (1807-77)  English  novelist.    Ten  Thousand  a  Year. 

Warton,  Joseph  (1722-1800)  English  critic  and  editor. 

Warton,  Thomas  (1728-90)  English  poet  laureate  (1785). 

Watson,  William  {fl.  1880)  English  lyric  poet. 

Watts,  Alaric  Alexander  (1799-1864)  English  poet  and  journalist. 

Watts,  Isaac,  Rev.  (1674-1748)  English  hymn-writer.     Psalms  and  Hymns. 

Webster,  John  [Jl.  1620)  English  dramatist.     Duchess  of  Malfy.    v.  339. 

Werner,  Friedrich  Ludwig  Zacharias  (1768-1823)  German  dramatist. 

Wessel  (1742-85)  Danish  comic  dramatist,     vill.  165. 

Weyman,  Stanley  John  (1855-    )  English  novelist. 

Whipple,  Edwin  Percy  (1819-86)  American  literary  critic. 

White,  Gilbert  (1720-93)  English  naturalist. 

White,  Henry  Kirke,  Rev.  (1785-1806)  English  poet. 

White,  Richard  Grant  (1822-85)  American  journalist  and  critic. 

Whitman,  Walt  (1819-92)  American  poet.     Leaves  of  Grass,    x.  334. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  AUTHORS.  399 

Whitney,  Adelaide  Button  Train  (1824-    )  American  poet  and  novelist. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf  (1807-92)  American  poet.    x.  306. 

Whyte-Melville,  George  John  (1821-78)  English  novelist. 

WiCLIF.  John  (1325  ?-84)  English  Reformer.     Translated  the  Bible,     m.  309. 

WiELAND,  Christopher  Martin  (1733-1813)  German  poet  and  prose-wrHer.    vill.  46. 

WiFFEN,  Jeremiah  Holmes  (1792-1836)  English  poet  and  translator. 

Wigglesworth,  Michael  (1631-1705)  American  Calvinistic  poet.     ix.  18. 

Wilcox,  Ella  Wheeler  (1845-    )  American  poet. 

WiLKiNS,  Mary  Eleanor  (1858)  American  novelist.     A  New  England  Nun. 

William  of  Malmesbury  {c  1095-f.  1142)  English  Latin  historian. 

William  of  Poitiers  (1071-1127)  Provencal  poet.    i.  339. 

Willis,  Nathaniel  Parker  (1806-67)  American  poet  and  journalist, 

Wilson,  John  (1785-1854)  Scotch  poet,  novelist  and  essayist.     Noctes  Ambrosianse ; 

Lights  and  Shadowrs  of  Scottish  Life. 
WiNCKELMANN,  JOHANN  JOACHIM  (1617-68)  German  critic.     VIII.  II. 
'  Winter,  John  Strange,'  Mrs.  Stannard  (1856-    )  English  novelist. 
Winter,  William  (1836-     )  American  journalist  and  dramatic  critic. 
WiNTHROP,  Theodore  (1828-61)  American  poet,  novelist. 
Wister,  Annis  Lee  [Furness]  ( 1830-     )  American  translator  from  German. 
Wolfe,  Charles  (1791-1823)  Irish  poet.     Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore. 
Wolfram  von  Eschknbach  (7?.  1250)  German  epic  poet.     Parzival';  Titurel.    1.  299. 
Wood,  George  (1799-1870)  American  writer. 

WooDWORTH,  Samuel  (1785-1843)  American  journalist,  poet.     The  Old  Oaken  Bucket. 
WOOLMAN,  John  (1720-72)  American  Quaker.     Journal. 
WOOLSON,  Constance  Fenimore  ( 1848-94)  American  novelist  and  poet. 
WpRDSWORTH,  William  (1770-1850)  English  poet.    Lyrical  Ballads  ;  The  Excursion* 

The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone ;  The  Prelude,    ix.  258. 
WOTTON,  Henry,  Sir  (1568-1639)  English  poet,  miscellanist. 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas  (1503-42)  English  lyric  poet.    iv.  301. 
Wycherley,  WilliajJ  (1640-1715)  English  dramatist,     vi.  325. 

Xenophon  {c.  430  B.C.-C.  355)  Greek  historian.    Hellenics ;  Anabasis ;  Cyropaedia.  rv.  4& 
Xenophon  of  Ephesus  (2nd  century).     Greek  romancist.^ 

Yates,  Edmund  Hodgson  (1831-94),  English  journalist,  novelist. 
Yonge,  Charlotte  Mary  (1823-    )  English  novelist,  miscellanist.    Heir  of  Redclyffe. 
Young,  Edward  (1674-1765)  English  poet.     Night  Thoughts,    vii.  363. 
Yriarte,  Tomas  de  (1750-91)  Spanish  dramatist.     Literary  Fables,    vill.  222. 

Zacharia,  Just  FriedriCH  Wilhelm  (1726-77)  German  satirical  poet. 

Zangwill,  Israel  (1864-     )  English-Jewish  novelist.     Children  of  the  Ghetto. 

Zedlitz,  Joseph  Christian  von,  Baron  (1790-1862)  Austrian  lyric  poet. 

Zeise,  Heinrich  (1822-     )  German  poet,  translator. 

Zeno  (350-260  B.C.)  Greek  stoic  philosopher,     v.  73. 

Zeno,  ApOSTOLO  (1668-1750)  Italian  dramatist,  historian,  "  The  Father  of  Italian  Opera." 

Zhukovski,  Vasilu  Andreevich  (1783-1852)  Russian  poet. 

Zimmerman,  Johann  Georg  (1728-95)  German  miscellanist.     On  Solitude. 

Zohair  (before  600)  Arabian  poet.     I.  186. 

Zola,  Emile  (1840-    )  French  novelist.    The  Fortunes  of  the  Rougons;  L'Assommoir; 

Nana;  The  Soil;  The  Dream;  Lourdes;  Rome;  Paris,     x.  166. 
Zschokke,  Johann  Heinrich  Daniel  (1771-1848)  German  novelist,    ix.  344. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  VIEW 

OF 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  AI.L  NATIONS. 


EGYPTIAN  LITERATURE. 

Year.  Vol.  Pap 

B.C.  4266  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  oldest  Chapter  130 I.    2; 

3580  Precepts  of  Ptah-Hotep  (Prisse  Papyrus,  Sibliotkique  NationaU,  Paris)  I.    21 

2800  Tales  of  the  Magicians  (Westcar  Papyrus.     Berlin  Museum) •'•3; 

2500  Festival  Dirge  of  King  Antef.      [British  Museum) I.    38 

2400  Adventures  of  Sanehat I.    39 

1326  Pentaur,  royal  poet  of  Rameses  II I.    5i 

1300  Tale  of  the  Two  Brothers  (D'Orbiney  Papyrus.     British  Museum)     .    .  I.    Si 

195  Rosetta  Stone  erected  in  reign  of  Ptolemy  V I.    it 

A.D.  1822  J.  F.  ChampoUion  deciphered  the  hieroglyphic  alphabet 

ASSYRIAN   LITERATURE. 

B.C.  3800  King  Sargon  I.,  who  reigned  in  Akkad,  founded  a  library I.    6? 

5500?  '  Adventures  of  Izdubar  (Nimrod?)'    ' I.    71 

2245  Nineveh  founded  by  Assnur I.    6S 

2000?  'Descentoflshtar  (Venus)  to  Hades' I.    73 

650  Assurbanipal  (Sardanapalus)  founds  the  library  in  Nineveh I.    69 

CHINESE  LITERATURE. 

The  Five  Classics !•  '35 

B.c  3320  Emperor  Fu-hsi  invented  table  of  trigrams I.  I35 

1140  '  Yi-King,' the  Classic  of  Changes !• '35 

'  Li-Ki,'  the  Book  of  Ceremonies I-  I35 

720  '  Shu-King,'  the  Classic  of  History,  gives  records  from  2450  B.C.  to  721  .  I.  135 

'  Shi-King,'  the  Classic  of  National  Songs I.  136 

550  Confucius  (Kung-fu-tse),  philosopher I.  146 

520  '  Chun-Tsu,' "  Annals  of  Lu,"  by  Confucius 1. 136 

500  Lao  Tze  (565-500)  founder  of  Taoism II.    39 

300  Mencius  (Meng  Tzu),  chief  philosopher  after  Confucius H-    45 

INDIAN  (SANSKRIT)  LITERATURE. 

B.C.  1500?  The  Veda.     Hymns  to  Varuna,  Indra,  Agni,  and  other  gods I.    80 

1000?  The 'Brahmanas.'     Commentary  on  the  Veda  .  .   • h    '^\ 

800?  The 'Puranas.'     Traditional  explanation  of  the  Veda J"    ^ 

600?  The'Upanishads.'     Philosophic  dissertations ^-,37 

500?  The  Sanskrit  Epics ; J-    94 

'  Ramayana.'  ■   Epic  by  Valmiki tt     ^^ 

400  ?  '  Mahabharata.'     Epic  by  Vyasa JI-      9 

A.D.  500?  'The  Toy-Cart.'     Earliest  Hindu  drama  .     By  King  Sudraka 111.    " 

550  'Sakuntala.'     Pastoral  drama  by  Kalidasa Ill-    '5 

'The  Cloud-Messenger."     Descriptive  poem,  by  Kalidasa HI-    3' 

1200  'Gita-govinda.'     Lyrical  drama  by  Jayadeva               III.    35 

1500  '  The  Laws  of  Manu  (Menu).'     Modernized  version  of  the  Brahman  Code  V.    36 
400 


CHRONOLOGICAL  YABLE.  401 

'''"•  Vol.  Page 

The  Buddhist  Ijterature.    Pali  dialect.    300  B.C.— 900  a.d.    ...  V.     9 

B,c.     600  Siddhartha  Gautama,  the  Buddha,  prophet v!      9 

500-300  Life,  sermons  and  miracles  of  Buddha,  written 0    .   .   .   .  v!     11 

250  Council  of  Asoka  frames  the  Buddhist  canon vi    1 1 

'  Buddhist  Birth-Stories,'  or'Jatakas' V.    18 

A.D.     200  'Hitopadesa.'     Book  of  Good  Counsel  (Sanskrit) vi    27 

PERSIAN   LITERATURE. 

B.C.     SSo  TheAvESTA.   Zarathustra  (Zoroaster)  compiled  the  Gathas  (hymns)  .  I.  108 

A.D.    250  Sassanian  Kings  edited  fragments  of  the  Avesta I.  109 

655  The  Moslem  religion  established  in  Persia Il]  169 

900  Rudagi,  father  of  modem  Persian  poetry ll*  172 

950  Asadi  (Essedi),  lyric  poet II.  173 

1000  FiRDAUsi,  epic  poet.     '  Shahnameh '  (Book  of  Kings) II.  1 75  ■ 

1 100  Omar  Khayyam,  astronomer-poet.     'Rubaiyat' II.  203 

1 150  Anwari,  eulogistic  poet      iv!  160 

1170  Khakani,  lyric  poet IV.  161 

1 190  Nizami,  romantic  poet.      '  Laili  and  Majnun  ' IV.  162 

1250  Jelaleddin  Rumi,  Sufic  poet.     '  Mesnavi ' IV.  167 

1275  Sadi,  poet.     'Gulistan'  ( Rose -Garden )  ;  '  Bustan  '  (Fruit  Garden)  .   .   .  IV.  173 

1350  Hafiz  of  Shiraz,  lyric  poet,  Persian  Anacreon V.  181 

1450  Jami,  last  great  poet.     '  Yusuf  and  Zulaikha ' V.  186 

1500  Hatifi,  poet.     '  Laili  and  Majnun ' V.  180 

HEBREW  LITERATURE. 

(The  dates  are  according  to  Archbishop  Usher's  chronology.     Recent  critics  consider  the 

historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  to  date  frotn  about  800  B.C.,  and  the  Psalms  from  621 
down  to  100  B.C.) 

B.C.   1490  Moses.     The  Ten  Commandments.     Song  of  Moses I.  118 

1040  David.     Psalms.     Lament  for  Saul I.  122 

1000  Solomon.     Song  of  Songs I.  125 

710  Isaiah.     Prophecy .,  I.  128 

570  Daniel 11-53 

165  The  Maccabees II.    60 

100  The  Great  Synagogue  preserved  and  expounded  the  Law VII.    95 

50  Hillel  and  Shammai,  rabbis VII.  lol 

A.D.    400  The  Jerusalem  Tahnud VII.    96 

600?  Completion  of  Babylonian  Talmud VII.    96 

ARABIAN   LITERATURE. 

A.D.    600  "The  Mo' allakat,"  seven  select  poems  of  the  Arabian  Pleiades   ....  I.  185 

622  The  Hejra,  or  Flight  of  Mohammed ;  the  Mohammedan  era 

620-30  The  Koran  published  in  114  Suras  or  chapters I.  189 

660  Maisuna's  Song — the  Arabic  '  Home,  Sweet  Home ' II.  165 

750  Kalilah  and  Dimnah  ;  Arabic  version  of  Bidpai's  Indian  fables V.    31 

800  El  Asmai  composed  '  The  Romance  of  Antar ' II-  '55 

850  Ibn  Alrumi,  lyric  poet II-  '66 

940  Persian  stories  translated  into  Arabic yH-  127 

1450  Common  version  of  "  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights  " VII.  127 

1708  "Arabian  Nights,"  translated  into  French  by  Galland VII.  128 

GREEK  LITERATURE. 

B.C.     900  Homer,  epic  poet.     '  Iliad  ;'•  Odyssey ' tt" '5'' 

T\ie^  Psmdo-Homeric  Hymns ^J_-    72 

800  Hesiod,  didactic  poet.     '  Works  and  Days '      \{    V 

700  Archilochus,  satirist,  inventor  of  iambics tt     s 

680  Tyrtseus,  composer  of  war-songs tt       I 

660  Simonides  of  Amorgos,  satirist  of  women  .  - tv'    21 

Eariy  Greek  Philosophers jV    «« 

600  Mimnermus,  Ionic  elegiac  poet 11.    8P 

X — 2* 


402  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 

Yi-r.  Vol.    Page 

B.C.    600  Sappho  and  Alcseus,  ^Eolic  lyric  poets  of  Lesbos II.    88 

580  The  Seven  Wise  Men < IV*    -jq 

570  ^sop  the  fabulist.     The  extant  fables  are  later V.    67 

530  Pythagoras  taught  at  Crotona  in  Italy ivi    78 

505  Parmenides  of  Elea,  philosophic  poet     .   .    .  '^ IV.    77 

500  Simonides  of  Ceos,  lyric  poet IL    99 

SCO  Anacreon  of  Teos,  poet  of  love  and  wine IV.    84 

480  Pindar  of  Tbebes,  greatest  lyric  poet II.  loi 

470  ^SCHYLUS,  tragic  poet.     7  tragedies  extant III.    46 

450  Empedocles  of  Agrigentum,  philosophic  poet IV,    78 

450  Sophocles,  tragic  poet.     7  tragedies  extant Ill,    66 

420  Euripides,  tragic  poet.     18  tragedies  extant III.    79 

420  Herodotus,  traveler.     'Father  of  History'  , IV.    12 

410  Thucydides,  general.     '  Peloponnesian  War' IV.    2c 

410  Socrates,  moral  philosopher  and  reformer V.    72 

410  Aristophanes,  writer  of  comedies  (public  life),  II  extant V-    4? 

380  Plato,  philosopher,  founder  of  the  Academy V.    7. 

370  Xenophon,  general,  historian IV.    43 

350  Isocrates,  Athenian  orator VI.    ij 

345  Aristotle  the  Stagirite,  founder  of  the  Peripatetics V.   9^ 

340  /Eschines,  rival  of  Demosthenes VI.    15 

330  Demosthenes,  greatest  Athenian  orator.     'On  the  Crown' VI.    2o 

300  Menander  and  Philemon,  writers  of  New  Comedy  (private  life)     ....  V.    5y 

300  The  Alexandrian  Library  founded  by  Ptolemy  Soter VI.    3, 

280  Theocritus,  Sicilian  pastoral  poet VI.    3^ 

27s  The  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures VII.      « 

250  Herondas,  writer  of  mimes  recently  discovered V.    62 

250  Bion  and  Moschus,  Sicilian  pastoral  poets      VI.    42 

250  Cleanthes,  Stoic  philosopher  and  poet VI.    60 

240  Babrius,  versifier  of  ^sop's  Fables V.    6q 

240  Callimachus,  Alexandrian  librarian,  poet VII.    43 

235  ApoUonius  the  Rhodian,  epic  poet, 'Argonautica' VI.    51 

150  Polybius,  historian.     '  Universal  History' VII.    Iq 

50  Mele^er  compiled  the  '  Garland  '  or  first  '  Anthology ' Vll.    35 

t.D. 50-100  The  New  Testament VII.    i, 

80  Epictetus,  Stoic  philosopher VII.    5^ 

90  Flavins  Jbsephus,  Jewish  historian \ VH.    2c 

loo  Plutarch,  '  Parallel  Lives  of  Greeks  and  Romans ' VII.    4^ 

120?  '  The  Sayings  of  Jesus,' discovered  in  Egypt  in  1897 VII.    22 

150?  '  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles ' VII.    23 

161  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  Emperor  and  Stoic  philosopher VII,    56 

180  LuciAN  of  Samosata,  satirist ■    • VII.    48 

180  Clement  of  Alexandria  wrote  earliest  Christian  hymns VII.    82 

350  Heliodorus,  afterwards  bishop,  wrote  '^ihiopica' VII.    65 

350  Ephraem  the  Syrian,  hymn  writer   . VII.    92 

360  Basil  the  Great,  Church  Father VII.    8^ 

364  Libanius,  rhetorician.     '  Eulogy  of  Julian ' , VII.    75 

380  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Church  Father,  theologian     .....' VII.    8y 

400  John  Chrysostom,  Church  Father,  orator VII.    90 

400?  Achilles  Tatius,  romancer.     '  Leucippe  and  Clitophen ' VII.    65 

450  Longus,  romancer.     '  Daphnis  and  Chloe ' VII.    7i 

LATIN  LITERATURE. 

B.C.     190  Quintus  Ennius,  Father  of  Latin  poetry.    'Annals' II.  Il5 

180  Plautus,  dramatist.      20  Comedies  extant II.  Il7 

165  Terence  translated  Menander's  Comedies II.  145 

70  Lucretius,  philosophic  poet.     '  De  Rerum  Natura ' Ill,    94 

70  M.  TuLHUS  Cicero,  statesman,  orator,  philosopher Ill,    99 

60  Catullus,  lyric  poet III.  I12 

50  C.  Julius  Caesar,  general  and  dictator.     'Gallic  War' IV.  lol 

45  Sallust,  historian.     'Jugurthine  War';  '  Conspiracy  of  Catiline '   ....  IV.    95 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE.  403 

Year.  Vol.  Page 

B.C.       30  VlRGIL,  epic  poet     '  Eclogues ';' Georgics ' ;  '  iEneid' IV.  113 

30  Horace,  lyric  poet.    Odes,  Satires,  Epistles IV.  131 

30  TibuUus  and  Propertius,  amatory  poets IV.  155 

25  Ovid,  poet.     'Heroides';  'Art  of  Love';  'Metamorphoses' IV.  140 

10  LiVY,  historian  of  Rome V.  io5 

10  Fhsedrus  translated  jEsop's  fables V.  132 

V.D.      50  Lucan,  epic  poet.     '  Pharsalia '  on  war  of  Csesar  and  Pompey V.  147 

SO  Petronius  Arbiter,  courtier  of  Nero.     'Satiricon'- V.  155 

60  Seneca,  philosopher,  dramatist V.  138 

60  Persius,  satirist V.  134 

70  Pliny  the  Elder,  encyclopaedist.     '  Natural  History ' V.  1)64 

80  Juvenal,  satirist VI.    61 

90  Martial,  satirist  and  epigrammatist V.  171 

100  Pliny  the  Younger,  lawyer  and  letter- writer   .    .    • V.  175 

110  Quintilian,  rhetorician.     'Oratory' VI.    75 

125  Suetonius,  biographer.     '  Twelve  Csesars ' ^   .  VI.    70 

150  Lucius  Apuleius,  sophist.     '  The  Golden  Ass ' VI.    81 

140  Aulus  Gellius,  compiler.     •  Attic  Nights ' VI.    99 

350  Ausonius,  poet,  lived  in  Gaul ' VII.  106 

380  St.  Jerome,  monk,  translated  the  Bible  into  Latin  (Vulgate) VII.  121 

400  Claudian,  poet.     '  Rape  of  Proserpine ' VII.  108 

400  Prudentius,  first  Christian  poet VII.  119 

410  St.  Augustine,  bishop  of  Hippo.     'Confessions' VII.  121 

CELTIC  LITERATURE. 

B.C.      So  Amergin,  bSrd^bf  the  Milesians V.  307 

A.D.    200  Songs  of  Finn,  or  Fionn I.  320 

250  OlsiN,  or  OssiAN,  Irish  bard L  320;  V.  315 

450  St.  Patrick's  Breastplate,  earliest  Christian  ode VIII.  283 

550  Weigh  bards,  Aneurin,  Taliessin,  Llywarch  Hen I.  321 

1170  Welsh  bard,  Gwalchmai.     '  Triumphs  of  Owen ' L  327 

1230  Irish  bard,  Gillabride  Mac  Conmide VIII.  289- 

127s  The  Mabinogion,  Welsh  prose  romance L  328 

1800  B.  M.  Meidre,  Irish  bard .  VIII.  292 

DUTCH   LITERATURE. 

1250  Willem  the  Minstrel  sang 'Reynard  the  Fox' in  Flemish VI,  258 

1270  Maerlant,  first  Dutch  writer.     '  Mirror  of  History' VI.  258 

1350  Jan  van  Boendale  versified  history VI.  258 

1520  Desiderius  Erasmus,  humanist,  wrote  in  Latin VI.  261 

1540  Anna  Byns,  the 'Sappho  of  Brabant' • VI.  259 

1 610  Gerbrand  A.  Brederode,  comic  dramatist VI.  284 

162S  Hugo  Grotius,  jurist.     Latin  '  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis ' VI.  271 

I  1630  Peter  C.  Hooft,  poet,  introduced  tragedy VL  277 

1640  Jacob  Cats,  fabulist  and  allegorist VI.  278 

1650  JOOST  VAN  DEN  VoNDEL,  dramatic  poet,  wrote  '  Lucifer's  Tragedy "...  VI.  278 

FRENCH  LITERATURE. 

842  The  Strasburg  Oaths.     Earliest  written  French 

1 100  ' Chanson  de  Roland'  1^  Thdroulde  (Turoldus) I.  199 

I IOO-I2SO  Provencal  Literature.    The  Troubadours 1-337 

IIS5  Master  Wace.     '  Roman  de  Brut ';' Roman  de  Rou *  •    • I.  205 

1190  ChrestiendeTroyes,poet.    . I.  281 

1210  Thibaud  of  Champagne,  Kmg  of  Navarre i-  209 

1240  Marie  de  France.     'Lais' L  2" 

1250?  '  Aucassin  and  Nicolete,' chant-fable 1.  210 

1260  Rutbceuf,  vagabond  poet ,;•  *^' 

12S0  '  Romance  of  the  Rose,'  by  Guillaume,  de  Lorris  and  Jean  de  Meung  .    .  II.  309 

13S0  '  Amis  and  Amile,'  prose  romance H.  31a 


404  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 

:     Year  Vol.   P«ge 

A.D.  1390  Jean  Froissart,  chronicler II.  322 

1410  Christine  de  Pisan,  lyric  poet II.  332 

1440  Charles  of  Orleans,  captive  poet II.  334 

1460  Francis  Villon,  rascal  poet II.  336 

1530  King  Francis  I.,  poet  and  patron IV.  243 

Queen  Margaret  of  Navarre  (Marguerite  d'Angbulfime),  poet,  Vfrote  the 

•  Heptameron ' IV.  244 

Clement  Marot,  court  po6t III.  202 

1540  Francois  Rabelais,  satirist.     '  Gargantua  ' III.  ijrg 

1550  The  PlSiade,  seven  poets,  the  chief  being  Ronsardj'du  Bellay  and  Belleau  IV.  250 

1552  Etienne  JodeHe's  '  Cleopatra,'  first  French  tragedy V.  255 

1570  Michael  de  Montaigne,  essayist III.  193 

1590  Seigneur  de  BrantSme,  memoir  writer IV.  260 

1593  Satire  Menipp^e III.  205 

1600  Franfois  de  Malherbe,  poet  and  critic,  inaugurated  classicism IV.  266 

J  625  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  the  first  literary  salon V.  272 

1635  French  Academy  foiinded V.  254 

1636  Pierre  Coeneille's  tragedy,  '  The  Cid ' V.  259 

1637  Ren6  Descartes,  philosopher.     '  Discourse  on  the  Method  of  Reasoning.'.  V.  255 

1640  Blaise  Pascal,  philosopher.     '  Provincial  Letters ' V.  270 

1650  Paul  Scarron  travestied  Virgil VI.  174 

1660  Honors  D'Urf6's  court  pastoral,  '  L'AstrSe  ' V.  255 

1661-171S  Reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  AugustanAge VII.  195 

1665  Jean  de  La  Fontaine's  '  Fables ' V.  287 

1667  Mme.  de  Lafayette,  novelist,  '  The  Princess  of  Cleves ' — '- 

1669  J.  P.  B.  MOLIERE,  comic  dramatist;    '  Tartuffe '  . VI.  187 

1670  Due  de  La  Rochefoucauld's  '  Maxims ' VI.  173 

1675  Madame  de  SSvignS,  letter-writer VI.  212 

1680  Bishop  J.  B.  Bossuet,  orator  and  controversialist VI.  216 

1687  Jean  de  La Bruydre's  'Characters' VI.  179 

1691  Jean  B.  Racine's  tragedy  '  Athalie ' V.  301 

1700  Archbishop  FSnelon's  'Telemachus' VI.  219 

1705  Alain  Rea&  Le  Sage,  novelist.     '  Gil  Bias ' , VII.  199 

1708  Antoine  Galland,  Orientalist.     Translated  the  '  Arabian  Nights '    ....  VII.  128 

1 72 1  President  Montesquieu, philosopher.     '  Persian  Letters' VII.  248 

1740  Abbfe  Provost  d' Exiles,  novelist.     '  Manon  Lescaut ' VII.  208 

1750  F.  M.  A.  Voltaire,  poet,  critic,  dramatist,  skeptic.     'Candide'   ....  VII.  220 

1759  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  prose- writer.     '  Nouvelle  HSloise '     ....  VII.  256 

1770  The  Encyclopaedists,  Diderot,  D'AIembert,  etc VII.  248 

1775  Caron  de  Beaumarchais,  comic  dramatist.     '  The  Barber  of  Seville  "...  VII.  273 

1787  Bemardin  de  Saint  Pierre,  novelist.     'Paul  and  Virginia' VIII.  232 

1791  Count  Volney's  '  Ruins,  or  Revolutions  of  Empires ' VIII.  229 

179Z  Rouget  de  Lisle,  poet.     '  The  Marseillaise ' VIII.  246 

1793  AndrS  Chenier,  lyric  poet.     '  The  Young  Captive'  . VIII.  243 

1800  Jean  F.  de  la  Harpe,  literary  historian    .' , VIII.  241 

1801  VicoMTE  DE  Chateaubriand,  romanticist.     '  Atala,'  '  Genius  of  Chris- 

tianity'   vin.  258 

1807  Madame  de  Stael-Holstein,  descriptive  writer.     'Corinne' VIII.  249 

1810  Count  Joseph  de  Maistre,  reactionary.     '  Evenings  at  St,  Petersburg'    .    .  VIIL  254 

1820  Alphonse  de  Lamartine,  poet  and  prose-writer.     '  Meditations '      ....  VIIL  271 

1820  P.  J.  BSranger,  song  writer  for  the  people IX.  384 

1825  X.  B.  Saintine,  novelist.     'Picciola'    .' j X.  125 

1830  Alexandre  Dumas,  pire,  novelist,     '  The  Three  Musketeers  ' X.    97 

1835  Alfred  Victor,  Comte  deVigny,  historical  novelist.     'Cinq  Mars'.    ...  X.    9S 

1836  Alfred  de  Musset,  lyric  poet.     '  Nights  ' X.  132 

1842  Honore  de  Balzac,  novelist.     '  Comgdie  Humaine ' X.  109 

1844  'George  Sand,' Mme.  Dudevant,  novelist.     'Consuelo" IX.  393 

1845  Eugene  Sue,  novelist.     '  The  Wandering  Jew '  ■  . X.    9S 

1855  Thiophile  Gautier,  novelist.     '  La  Morte  Amoureuse ' X.  IZ9 

1858  Octave  Feuillet,  novelist.     '  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man ' X.  136 

1862  Victor  Hugo,  poet,  dramotist,  novelist,     '  Les  Misfirables ' IX.  369 

1865  Giistave  Flaubert,  novelist.     '  Salammbo ' X.  14I 

1866  Erckmann-Chatrian,  Alsatian  novelists.     'The  Conscript'      X.  147 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLS.  4OS 

'4'eaT.                                                                                            .  Vol.  Page 

A.D.  1870  Jules  Veme,  scientific  romancist.     '  From  the  Earth  to  the  Moon '  .    .    .   .  X.  151 

1880  Guy  de  Maupassant,  short  story  writer.     '  The  Piece  of  String ' X.  161 

1882  Ludovic  HalSvy,  librettist,  novelist.     '  L'Abbfe  Constantin ' X.  174 

1894  Emile  Zola,  realistic  novelist.    '  Le  Debacle ;'' Lourdes ' X.  168 

GERMAN  LITERATURE. 

380  Bishop  Ulfilas  translated  the  Bible  into  Gothic  . , I.  277 

750  The  Weissenbruner  Prayer,  oldest  German  writing I.  287 

800  The  song  of  Hildebrand I.  285 

800  Charles  the  Great  (Charlemagne) I.  280 

950  Roswitha,  abbess  of  Gandersheim,  wrote  Latin  plays VI.  254 

looo  The  monk  Ekkehard  wrote  in  Latin  "  Walter  Stronghand  " I.  287 

1150-1250  The  Minnesingers  :  Walthervonder  Vogelweide;  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 

bach  ;   Hartmann  von  Aue I.  294 

1200  Reynard  the  Fox,  Reineke  Fuchs,  appeared  first  in  Latin III.  283 

1230  Strieker,  Austrian  satirist.     'Parson  Amis' III.  300 

1250?  The  NiBELUNGENLiED  (Song.of  the  Nibelungs) II.  380 

1260  The  minstrel  Tannhauser III.  273 

1290  Hugo  of  Trimberg,  didactic  poet III.  280 

1300  Gudrun,  folk-epic II.  394 

1350  Tyll  EvUenspiegel  (Owlglass),  satire III.  301 

1450  The  rise  of  the  Mastersingers,  poetic  guild III.  272 

1494  Sebastian  Brant's  ■  Ship  of  Fools '    .    , VI.  232 

1517  Martn  Luther  begins  the  Reformation VI.  238 

1520  Ulrichl  von  Hutten,  poet  laureate  and  satirist VI.  235 

1530  Thomas  Murner,  Roman  Catholic  satirist VI.  231 

1550  Hans  Sachs  of  Nuremberg,  shoemaker  poet III.  305 

1570  Johann  Fischart,  burlesque  writer VI.  232 

1587  '  Histojy  of  Dr.  Faustus,'  chap-book VI.  232 

1640  Simon  (jach,  poet  in  Ix)W  German VI.  248 

1660  Andreas  Gryphius,  dramatist VI.  255 

1668  C.  von  Grimmelshausen,  novelist.     '  Simplicissimus ' VI.  249 

1700  Gottfried  W.  Leibnitz,  philosopher,  wrote  Latin  and  French VIII.     10 

1720  Christian  Wolf,  philosopher VIIL     11 

1730  Joseph  C.  Gottsched,  critic.     Translated  Addison's  '  Cato ' VIIl.    11 

1740  Frederic  von  Hagedorn,  Anacreontic  poet VIII.    13 

1748  F.  G.  Klopstock,  epic  poet.     'The  Messiah' VIIL     22 

1750  C.  F.  Gellert,  poet.     'Fables' ' VIIL     16 

171:0  Johann  J.  Bodmer  of  Zurich,  critic.     Edited  '  Nibelungenhed ' VIII.    n 

1758  W.  L.  Gleim,  poet,  called  '  Father  Gleim.'    'War-Songs' VIIL    19 

1767  Moses  Mendelssohn,  Jewish  philosopher.     'Phsedon' VIII.    44 

1770  J.  G.  Herder,  translator.     '  Voices  of  the  Peoples ' VIII.    07 

1770-QO  '  Storm  and  Stress '  period VIII.    57 

1772  G.  A.  Barger,  ballad  poet.     'Lenore' VIIL    60 

1774  J.  W.  Goethe,  greatest  German  writer  .  / vlll.    73 

1779  G.  E.  Lessing,  dramatist,  critic.     '  Nathan  the  Wise ' VIJT.    2& 

•  -Q„  r  M  -WiMdn^.  noet  and  romancist.     'Oberon' VJ.il.     4b 


1780  C.  M.  Wieland,  poet  and  romancist.     'Oberon' VIII.     4& 

I7QO  Jean  Paul  Richter,  unique  humorist.     '  Qumtus  Fixlem ' irTTr' -^ 

I7Q<  T   H.  Voss,  pastoral  poet,  translator  of  Homer VUi.    53 

ITOS  '  Novalis  '  (Count  von  Hardenberg),  mystic.     •  Heinrich  von  Ofterdmgen"     JX. ,336 

1700  Friedrich  VON  Schiller,  poet,  dramatist,  historian \lll.  119 

1810  J.  H.  D.  Zschokke,  idyllic  novelist  ..    . y   ^tt 

1813  Theodor  Korner,  lyric  poet.     'Sword  Song'. a.  183 

1814  Baron  de  la  Motte  Fouqui,  reviver  of  mediaeval  romance:     'Undine     .    .     IX.  352, 

t8iS  Ludwig  Tieck.  romantic  satiric  novelist.     '  Phantasus ^v"  ^"^^ 

1820  A  W.  von  Schlegel  and  Tieck  translate  Shakespeare v'  ^r'* 

l8w  Lidwig  Uhland,  Suabiah  poet     . X.  189 

1830  Heinrich  Heine,  lyric  poet,  satirist.     '  Pictures  of  Travel '  .   ....       X.  192 

1840  Jacob  and  William  Grimm,  compilers  of  Household  Fairy  Tales   ....     IX.  348 
i8co  Gustav  Freytag,  novelist.     '  Our  Ancestprs '  .    ............. 

i860  Joseph  Victor  von  Scheffel,  poet,  nov.Ust.     'The  Trumpeter  of  Sackingen'       X.  207 


406  CHRONOLOGICAI,   iabi<is. 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE. 

Vear,  Vol.  Page 

A,D,  1 1 75  CiuUo  D'Alcamo,  Sicilian  lyric  poet II.  222 

1220  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  patron  of  poetry II.  224 

1240  Sordello,  troubadour  of  Mantua II.  226 

1260  Guido  Guinicelli,  philosophical  poet IIi  229 

1300  'The  Hundred  Ancient  Tales,'  earliest  prose III.  125 

1300  Dante  Alighieri,  poet,  '  Vita  Nuova ' II,  230 

1321  The  '  Divine  Comedy,'  published  after  Dante's  death •.    .  II,  239 

1325  The  friends  of  Dante  :  Cavalcanti,  Pistoia,  Angioleri,  Brunetto  Latini  .    .  II.  256 

1350  Francesco  Petrarch,  lyric  poet.     '  Sonnets  to  Laura ' 11.259 

1350  Giovanni  Boccaccio,  novelist,     '  The  Decameron ' III.  129 

1375  Francho  Sacchetti,  novelist,  poet III.  154 

1378  Giovanni  Fiorentino,  novelist.    '  II  Pecorone  ' III.  160 

1450  Luigi  Pulci,  romantic  poet.     '  Morgante  Maggiore  '      IV.  190 

1470  Matteo  M.  Boiardo,  poet.     '  Orlando  Innamorato ' IV.  206 

1480  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  the  Magnificent III.  165 

1483  Angelo  Poliziano  (Politian),  humanist  and  poet III.  167 

1500  Giacomo  Sannazaro,  pastoral  poet.     'Arcacfia' IV.  239 

1514  NiccoLO  Machiavelli,  prose-writer.     'The  Prince' IV.  198 

I j20  Francesco  Bemi,  burlesque  poet,  recast 'Orlando  Innamorato' V.  200 

1520  Baldassare  Castiglione's  '  Courtier ' IV.  217 

1525  Luigi  da  Porto,  novelist.     '  La  Giulietta ' IV.  218 

1530  Vittoria  Colonna,  lyric  poeti ' IV.  222 

1530  LuDOVico  Ariosto,  romantic  poet.    '  Orlando  Furioso ' V.  202 

1540  Bernardo  Tasso,  poet,  versified 'Amadis  di  Gaula' V.  200 

1550  Michel  Angelo  Buonarroti,  sculptor,  painter,  poet     , IV.  225 

1550  Matteo  Bandello,  novelist VI.  104 

1555  Giorgio  Vasari,  art-historian IV.  228 

1560  Benvenuto  Cellini,  goldsmith,  autobiographer IV.  231 

1560  G.  F.  Straparola,  novelist.    'Thirteen  Happy  Nights' V.  227 

1565  G.  G.  Cinthio  novelist.     '  The  Hundred  Fables ' V.  219 

1570  ToRQUATO  Tasso,  epic  poet.    '  Jerusalem  Delivered,'  relating  to  the  First 

Crusade, V.  234 

1590  Giainbattista  Gnarini,  lyric  dramatist.     '  Pastor  Fido' VII.  147 

1600  Giambattista  Marini,  lyric  poet VI.  127 

The  Rise  of  the  Opera VI.  121 

1610  Gabriello  Chiabrera,  lyric  poet VI.  122 

1630  Alessandro  Tassoni,  burlesque  poet.     '  The  Captured  Bucket ' VI.  125 

1683  Vincenzo  da  Filicaja,  lyric  poet.     '  Deliverance  of  Vienna '    .    ,   .        .    .  VII.  153 

1685  Francesco  Redi,  humorous  poet.     '  Bacchus  in  Tuscany ' VI.  130 

17 13  Francesco  Maffei,  dramatist.     'Merope' VII.  158 

1750  C.  I.  Frugoni,  pastoral  poet VII.  145 

1750  Metastasio,  court  dramatic  poet  at  Vienna VII.  i6i 

1760  Carlo  Goldoni,  Venetian  comic  dramatist VII.  167 

1770  Giuseppe  Parini,  satirist VII.  175 

1775  VittoRio  Alfieri,  tragic  dramatist.     '  Cleopatra ' VII.  178 

1791  Vincenzo  Monti,  poet.    'Bassevilliana' X.    79 

1800  Ugo  Foscolo,  patriot,  poet.     '  Last  Letters  of  Jacopo  Ortis  ' X.    65 

1825  Alessandro  Manzoni,  poet,  novelist.     '  I  Promessi  Sposi ' X.    72 

1827  Francesco  D.  Guerrazzi,  novelist.     '  The  Battle  of  Benevento ' X.    84 

1830  Tommaso  Grossi,  poet,  satirist X.    64 

1832  Silvio  Pellico,  prisoner,  poet.     '  My  Prisons ' X.    68 

1833  Giambattista  Niccolini,  dramatist.     '  Giovanni  da  Procida ' X.    81 

1834  Giacomo  Leopardi,  pessimistic  poet.     '  Bruto  Minore ' X.    87 

1841  Giuseppe  Giusti,  poet,  satirist.     'St.  Ambrose' X.    92 

1870  Edmondo  D'Amicis,  traveler X.    65 

1880  Crabrielle  D'Annunzio,  poet,  realistic  novelist X.    65 

RUSSIAN  LITERATURE. 

A.D.  1000  Folk-songs  and  legends III.  386 

liio  Nestor.(f.  1056-IH4),  monk  of  Kiev,  chronicler III.  388 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE.  407 

^•"-  Vol.   Page 

A.D.  1682  Peter  the  Great  succeeded  to  the  throne , 

1750  Michael  Lomonosoff(  17 1 1-65),  lyric  poet III.  393 

1800  Gabriel  Derzhavin  (1743-1816),  poet III.  395 

1805  Nikolai  M.  Karamsin,  historian.     '  History  of  Russia ' X.    11 

1809  Ivao,  A.  Kriloff,  fabulist X.    12 

1837  Alexander  Pushkin,  poet,  dramatist.     '  Eugene  Oneguin ' X.    14 

1840  Taras  Shevchenko,  poet  of  Little  Russia   .    .    .   .' X.    10 

184S  Nikolai  Gogol,  novelist  of  the  Cossacks  and  serfs.     'Dead  Souls'     ...  X.     18 

1850  Mikhail  Y.  Lermontoff, 'poet  of  the  Caucasus' X.    10 

1862  Ivan  S.  TuRGENiEFF,  novelist  of  Nihilism.     '  Fathers  and  Sons '     ...  X.    24 

1865  Feodor  M.  Dostoievsky,  novelist.     '  Crime  and  Punishment ' X.    37 

1876  Count  Lyof  N.  Tolstoi,  novelist.     '  Anna  Karenina ' X.    46 

x88o  Marie  Bashkirtseff,  artist.     'Journal' X.    61 

SCANDINAVIAN   LITERATURE. 

1000  The  Elder  Edda  (Scandinavian  Mythology),  poems  recovered  in  1643   .  II.  352 

1200  The  Younger  Edda,  prose  legends,  collected  by  Snorri  Sturlason  ....  II.  362 

1200  The  Heimskringla,  Saga  of  the  Kings  of  Norway IV.  270 

1300  The  Saga  of  Frithiof  (Fridthjof) II.  374 

DANISH  LITERATURE.  ' 

15th Century  Ballads .••••. ^^^^-  ^^^ 

1550  Christian  Pedersen  translated  New  Testament  into  Danish VIII.  14S 

1641  Anders  Arrebo,  bishop,  poet.     '  Hexameron ' VIII.  147 

1720  Ludvig  Holberg,  historian,  comic  dramatist VIII.  154 

1790  -J.  E.  Baggeseit,  poet  and  prose-writer "VIU.  l65 

1810  Adam  G.  Oehlenschlager,  dramatist,  romantic  poet   ,    ! VIH.  174 

1837  Hans  Christian  Andersen  (1805-75)  story  writer 

1870  George  Brandes  (1842  '    )  critic 

SWEDISH   LITERATURE. 

15th  Century  Ballads ■   •  VIH.  189 

1650  Georg  Stjernhjelm  (l598-l672)vpoet Vill.  i»7 

1675  OlofRudbeck  (1 630-1 702)  historian.     'Atlantica' Vlll.  187 

1749  Emmanuel  Swedenborg  (1688-1772)  mystic.     '  Arcana  Coelestia '.  .   .    .  VIIL  188 

1780  Cari  M.  Bellman,  Anacreontic  poet VIII.  190 

1825  ESAIAS  Tegner,  bishop,  poet;  modernized  ' Fnthiofs  Saga Vlll.  193 

1842  Fredrika  Bremer,  novelist.     '  The  Neighbors ' 

SPANISH  LITERATURE. 

1200  Autos  Sacramentales,  or  Miracle  plays' ^r"  '''c 

1200  '  Poem  of  the  Cid,'  originally  in  "Latin T   ^fif 

1250  '  Cid  Ballads,'  composed  at  various  dates    ••••■•-.,•; y  ill 

1270  Tames  L  of  Aragon  (Don  Jayme,  the  Conqueror), 'Chronicle      ^-305 

1280  Alfonso  X.  the  Wise.     '  Seven  Parts  ' ; J-  37° 

1300  Chronicle  of  the  Cid,  prose I   380 

Historical  Ballads t'  ^o- 

1 540  Don  Juan  Manuel.     Humorous  stones  and  poems -J 

1350  JuanRiaz,  Archpriest  of  Hita,  songs  and  pastorals   ... J- 304 

1360  Rabbi  Santo  (Santob)de  Carrion.     'The  Dance  of  Death      II.  278 

1410  Marqa6s  de  Santillana,  lync  poet .  •.•    •    v',"   /    ', '   '  n"  202 

430  Juan  de  Mena,  poet,  imitated  Dante  in  '  El  Laberinto       II.  292 

1460  Jorge  de  Manrique,  poet   .   .    ...    ■   _■    ■•■•, "  n,  zli 

ll8o  Ordonez  deMontalvo  translated 'AmadisdiGaula ^^-3 

l9oCdestina,tragi-comedy,  earl  est  Spanish  secular  play 11-300 

\%o  Italian  influence  on  Spanish  literature  began ^^-  ^° 

,„o  Tuan  Boscan  Almogaver,  epistola^  poet ^  -iS 

\l\l  ijarcilasodelaVega,  '  Prince  of  Ca,Ulian  poets ' ".  3°S 


1530 


408  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 

Year.  Vol.  Page 

A.D.  1550  •  Lazarillo  de  Tonnes  ' — the  first  picaresque  story III.  210 

1570  Alonso  de  Ercilla,  epic  poet.     'LaAraucana' VIIL  20I 

•599  Mateo  Aleman,  novelist.     'Guzman  de  Alfaraclie' VI.  162 

1600  Lope  de  Vega  Carpio,  dramatist.     '  Cloak-and-Sword  play ' VI.  138 

1600  Luis  de  Gongora,  poet,  introduced  the  affected  fine  style ■     VI.  148 

1605  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra,  novelist.     '  Don  Quixote '  .       ...  III.  221 

1610  Guillen  de  Castro,  dramatist VIII.  199 

1620  Francisco  de  Quevedo,  satirist VI.  1S3 

1650  Pedro  Caledron  de  la  Barca,  dramatist.    'The  Wonder- Working 

Magician' VIII.  205 

1750  J.  F.  de  Isla,  satirist.     '  Friar  Gerundio ' VIII.  225 

1782  Tomas  de  Yriarte,  poet.     '  Literary  Fables ' VIII.  222 

PORTUGUESE   LITERATURE. 

1300  Dom  Diniz  collected  popular  songs III.  154 

1380  Vasco  de  Lobeyra  composed  '  Amadis  di  Gaula.' II.  283 

1420  Macias  the  Enamored,  lyric  poet III.  255 

1545  Bemardim  Ribeyro,  poet,  vprote  '  Diana  Enamorada,'  first  pastoral  n6vel  .  III.  256 

1550  Saa  de  Miranda,  lyric  poet III.  258 

1570  Luis  de  Camoens,  epic  poet.     '  The  Lusiad.' III.  260 

ENGLISH    LITERATURE. 

Soo  'Widsith.'     The  Traveler's  Song I.  242 

600  ?  '  Beowulf,'  epic  poem I.  254 

670  Csedmon  versifies  '  Genesis.' I.  249 

700  Cynewulf,  poet I.  257 

870  Alfred  THE  Great,  King  and  promoter  of  learning I.  258 

850-1000  '  Saxon  Chronicle,' begun  by  Alfred's  order I.  264 

1066  William  the  Conqueror  invade^  England 

1200  Layamon,  priest,  versifies  the  story  of  Brutus I.  270 

1 140-1275  Latin  Chroniclers III.  308 

1 146  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  chronicler,  tells  the  Story  of  King  Arthur  .    .    .    .  III.  313 

13th  Cent.  Arthurian  Legend,  expanded  by  Walter  Map III.  310 

13th  Cent.  Cycles  of  Romance  brought  from  France ,    .    .    .  III.  330 

13H  Miracle-plays  or  pageants,  first  introduced IV.  330 

1370  John  Wiclif  (1324-84),  Reformer,  translated  the  Bible  from  the  Vulgate    III.  309 

1370  William  Langland's  '  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman "" III.  347 

1380  Geoffrey  ChAuper,  poet.     '  Canterbury  Tales  ' III.  323 

1430  John  Lydgate,  allegorical  poet    .    .        , III.  361 

1400  John  Gower, '  moral '  poet.     '  Confessio  Amantis ' III.  356 

1440  '  Chevy  Chase,'  and  other  Ballads III.  367 

1450  Miracle-plays  and  Moralities , IV.  332 

1469  Sir  T.  Malory  translated  '  Morte  D' Arthur '  from  the  French III.  373 

1474  William  Caxton  introduced  printing  into  England IV.  291 

1509  Alexander  Barclay  translated 'The  Ship  of  Fools' VI.  233 

1526  William  Tyndale  translated  the  New  Testament  from  the  Greek    ....  IV.  291 

1530  Sir  Thomas  More,  Lord  Chancellor,  wrote  '  Utopia,'  Latin IV.  295 

1540  Sir  T.  Wyatt  and  Earl  of  Surrey,  poets,  introduced  Italian  styles  ....  IV   301 

1550  Roger  Ascham.   '  Toxophilus  '  and  '  The  Scholemasler' IV.  305 

1 55 1  Udal's  '  Ralph  Roister  Doister,' earliest  comedy IV,  293 

1561  Sackville's  '  Ferrex  and  Porrex,'  earliest  tragedy .    ,    .  IV.  293 

1579  Sir  Thomas  North  translated  '  Plutarch's  Lives ' IV.  292 

1580  John  Lyly's 'Euphues' introduced  an  affected  style IV.  294 

1580  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  '  Arcadia,'  pastoral  romance IV.  307 

1584  Robert  Greene,  dramatist IV.  294 

1590  Christopher  Marlowe,  father  of  English  tragedy IV.  335 

1596  Edmund  Spenser's  '  Faerie  Queene,"  allegorical  poem IV.  312 

1598  Ben  JoNSON,  dramatist.     'Every  Man  in  his  Humor' IV.  393 

1598  Sir    Francis    Bacon,    Baron    Venilam,   Lord    Chancellor,    philosopher. 

'  Es.5ays ' ,   .   .  V.  366 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE.  40f 

"''*"•  Vol.   Page 

A.u.   1600  George  Chapman,  poet,  translated  Homer IV  344 

1602  William  Shakespeare,  greatest  dramatist.    'Hamlet' IV.  348 

1605  Thomas  Dekker,  dramatist v'  3^6 

1605  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  dramatists .'!.".'.*.".".'!!  v!  349 

1609  Samuel  Daniel,  historical  poet '..'.'.'.'.  V.  330 

i6lo  Cyril  Tourneur,  tragic  dramatist      ..'....'.    '.  V  344 

1611  Authorized  Translation  of  the  Bible,  dedicated  to  James  I '.  V.  327 

1620  Michael  Drayton's  '  Poly-Olbion,'  describing  England V  332 

1623  John  Webster,  dramatist.     '  Duchess  of  Malfy ' V.  339 

1626  George  Herbert,  religious  poet V.  374 

1630  Philip  Massinger's 'New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts'    ..........  v!  360 

1632  William  Prynne  attacks  the  stage  in  '  Histrio-Mastix  ' VL  322 

1640  Robert  Herrick,  lyric  poet V.  388 

f  1640  Sir  John  Suckling,  cavalier  song-writer V.  382   ( 

,^->J  1643  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  '  Religio  Medici ' VL  2^3/ 

Z1645  Richard  Lovelace,  cavalier  poet  .   .   ., v!  .386/ 

Edmund  Waller,  lyric  poet Vl!  311 

1645  Rev.  T.  Fuller's  "  Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times  " VI.  289 

1648  Parliament  prohibited  stage-plays VI.  322 

1651  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor's  "  Holy  Living  and  Dying  " VI.  288 

1653  Izaak  Walton's  "  Compleat  Angler  "      V.  377 

1656  Sir  William  Davenant  restores  Stage-plays VI.  325 

>l66o  Restoration  of  Charles  II.  to  the  throne ,    .  VI.  323 

Andrew  Marvell,  poet,  satirist VI.  296  * 

The  diarists,  Samuel  Pepys  and  John  Evelyn VI.,  289' 

1656  Abraham' Cowley's  "Pindaric  Odes'" VI.  299 

1665  London  Gazette,  official  newspaper,  first  published VI.  360 

\  1667  John  Milton's  epic, '  Paradise  Lost ' V.  392 » 

1660-85  The  Restoration  Dramatists VI.  323 

1670  Samuel  Butler's  '  Hudibras,'  ridiculing  Presbyterians VI.  314 

1670  Lord  Clarendon's  '  History  of  the  Great  Rebellion  '  (published  in  1702)    .  VI.  354 

1671  Duke  of  Buckingham's 'Rehearsal' ridiculed  Dryden's  plays VI.  288 

167s  William  Wycherley's  'Plain-Dealer' VI.  325 

1678  John  Bunyan's  allegory.     '  Pilgrim's  Progress ' VI.  305 

1680  John  Dryden,  poet,  dramatist,  translator,  satirist VI.  341 

1682  Thomas  Otway,  dramatist.     '  Venice  Preserved ' VI.  33S 

1702-J4  Reign  of  Queen  Anne.     Augustan  Age VI.  359 

1703  William  Congreve,  dramatist.     '  The  Way  of  the  World-' VI.  331 

1709  Sir  Richard  Steele  begins  '  The  Tatler,'  April  12 VI.  362 

1711  Joseph  Addison,  essayist.     '  The  Spectator '  begins  March  l VI.  374 

17 1 2  Alexander  Pope,  poet.     '  The  Rape  of  the  Lock ' VI.  392 

1713  Dr.  John-Arbuthnot,  satirist.     '  History  of  John  Bull ' VIL  283 

1717  CoUey  Gibber's  play, '  The  Nonjuror ' VL  192 

1719  Daniel  Defoe,  novelist.     '  Robinson  Crusoe ' VII.  301 

1726  Jonathan  Swift,  dean,  satirist.     'Gulliver's  Travels' ^^' ^|i 

1727  John  Gay,  poet  and  fabulist.     '  Beggar's  Opera ' VIL  286 

1730  James  Thomson,  poet.     '  The  Seasons  ' VII.  356 

Minor  poets  of  this  period :    Ambrose  Philips,  William  Somerville,  Mark 

Akenside,  Dr.  John  Armstrong,  William  Blair VII.  iSl 

1735  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  letter-writer VII.  292 

1741  Samuel  Richardson's  'Pamela'    . VIL  312 

1742  Henry  Fielding's  '  Joseph  Andrews ' VII.  324 

1744  Edward  Young's 'Night  Thoughts' Vtx' ^^ 

1742  William  Shenstdne,  poet.    '  The  School- Mistress  '      Vll-  372 

1747  William  Collins,  lyric  poet.     'Odes' ^tt     <5 

1750  Thomas  Gray,  poet.     '  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard    .    •••••••  ^"-31/ 

1754  David  Hume,  historian,  philosopher.     History  of  England  (i754-di)     •  Vll.  2»I 

1755  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  critic,  essayist,  lexicographer VII.  379 

1760  Laurence  Sterne,  humorist.     '  Tristram  Shandy ' V 11.  342     ^ 

1762  Tames  Macpherson  published  '  Ossian's  Fingal '    .    .    •••■■•    ■    •    '  ,„jj- SH 

176.;   Bishop  Thomas  Percy  published  '  Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry '     .  VIII.  323 

1766  Oliver  Goldsmith's 'Vicar  of  Wakefield' XiHI! 

1769  'Lettersof  Junius' (1769-72),  political  diatnbes V 11,  283 


410  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 

Year.  Vol.  Page 

A. 0.1769  William  Robertson,  historian.     '  Charles  V.' VII.  281 

1769  Thomas  Chatterton  published  pretended  poems  of  Ro'wiey VII.  398 

1770  Tobias  Smollett's  'Humphrey  Clinker' VII.  334 

1771  Henry  Mackenzie's  '  Man  of  Feeling '    . VII.  299 

1775  R.  B.  Sheridan,  orator,  dramatist.     'The  Rivals' VIIl!  330 

1776  Edward  Gibbon,  historian.     'Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire'     VII.  281 

1783  George  Crabb^,  realistic  poet  of  humble  hfe.     'The  Village'     IX.  198 

1785  William  CowPER,  poet.    'The  Task' VIII.  346 

1791  James  Boswell,  biographer.     '  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson ' VII.  384 

1790  Edmund  Burke,  statesman,  orator.  '  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution'  VIII.  341 
1794  William  Godwin,  novelist.    '  Caleb  Williams ' VII.  300 

1798  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  publish  '  Lyrical  Ballads '      IX.  260 

1799  Thomas  Campbell,  lyric  poet.     '  Pleasures  of  Hope' IX.  271 

1801  Robert  Southey,  poet,  essayist.     'Thalaba';  'The  Doctor'  (1834)  .    .    .     IX.  267 

1802  The  '  Edinburgh   Review '  founded IX.  298 

1805  Sir  Walter  Scott's  '  Lay  of  the  Last  M(nstrel ' VIII.  355 

1810  S.  T.  Coleridge,  poet,  philosopher.     'The  Friend' IX.  249 

1811  Jane  Austen,  novelist.     '  Sense  and  Sensibility ' 

1812  Lord  Byron,  narrative  and  passionate  poet.     'Childe  Harold'    ....     IX.  202 

1814  Sir  W.  Scott  issues  '  Waverley  '  anonymously VIII.  356 

1 815  William  Wordsworth,  meditative  poet.     'The  Excursion' IX.  260 

1817  Thomas  Moore,  lyric  poet.     'LallaRookh' IX.  232 

i8i8  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley,  lyric  poet.     '  Revolt  of  Islam '  - IX.  319 

1820  John  Keats,  lyric  and  narrative  poet.     '  Eve  of  St.  Agnes ' IX.  225 

1820  Sydney  Smith,  witty  contributor  to  JEdinburgk  Review IX.  297 

1823  Charles  Lamb,  essayist.     '  Essays  of  Elia  ' IX.  239 

1827  Thomas  Hood,  poet,  punster.     '  Bridge  of  Sighs ' IX.  275 

1834  Thomas  Carlyle,  biographer,  seer.     '  Sartor  Resartus ' X.  228 

1843  John  Rustin,  art-critic,  prose-poet.      '  Modern  Painters  (1843-60)    .    .    . 

1847  Charlotte  Bronte,  novelist.     '  Jane  Eyre  ' 

1848  Lord  Macaulay,  essayist,  historian.     '  History  of  England ' 

1848  W.  M.  Thackeray,  novelist.     '  Vanity  Fair ' X.  218 

1849  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton,  novelist,  dramatist.    .'The  Caxtons'    ....      IX.  281 

1849  Kev.  Charles  Kingsley,  novelist.     'Alton  Locke' 

1850  Charles  Dickens,  novelist  of  humble  life.     '  David  Copperfield  '  .   .   .  IX.  301 

1850  Alfred  Tennyson,  lyric  poet.     'InMemoriam'    .   .    .    .' X.  245 

1856  Mrs.  E.  B.  Browning,  lyric  poet.     '  Aurora  Leigh  ' X.  254 

1864  Algernon  C.  Swinburne,  poet.     '  Atalanta  in  Calydon ' X.  265 

1865  Matthew  Arnold,  poet,  critic.     '  Essays  on  Criticism  * X.  276 

1868  Robert  Browning,  psychological  poet.     '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  .    .       X.  240 

1868  William  Morris,  socialist,  poet.     'Earthly  Paradise' 

1869  '  George  Eliot,'  novelist.      '  Adam  Bede ' X.  258 

1870  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  statesman,  novelist.     'Lothair' 
1882  Sir  Walter  Besant,  novelist.     '  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men  '     .    .    . 

1886  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  lyric  poet,  completed 'Idylls  of  the  King' (185S-86)       X.  235 
1886  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  novelist.     '  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde '     ....        X.  375 

1889  James  Bryce,  publicist.      '  American  Commonwealth ' 

1895  Alfred  Austin,  appointed  poet  laureate.     '  England's  Darling' 

SCOTCH    LITERATURE. 

1378  John  Barbour,  archdeacon,  poet,  wrote  epic  '  The  Bruce  ' III.  376 

1430  King  James  I.  (1394-1437),  poet.     '  King's  Quhair  (Book)  " HI.  379 

1490  Robert  Henryson,  schoolmaster,  poet.  . III.  383 

1500  William  Dunbar  (1460  ?-i520?)  poet HI.  384 

1560  John  Knox,  Chureh  Reformer      VIII.  294 

1570  George  Buchanan,  Latin  poet VIII.  294 

1630  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  poet        VIII.  299 

1706  Watson's  '  Collection  of  Scots  Songs  ' VIII.  295 

1725  Allan  Ramsay,  pastoral  poet.     '  The  Gentle  Shepherd '        VIII.  301 

1756  John  Home,  dramatist.    'Douglas' VIII.  325 

1787  Robert  Burns,  poet.     '  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,'  'Tam  O'Shanter'  .  VIII.  308 
1§I3  James  Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  poet.     '  The  Queen's  Wake  '  .   .    ,   , 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLB.  4II 
AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

^*"-  Vol.   Page 

A.D.  1500  Aboriginal.    Poems  of  the  Aztecs,  etc I   586 

1624  Captain  John  Smith's 'General  History  of  Vireinia'   .' TX      13 

1639  'The  Bay  Psalm  book' ..'.'.'.  IX     10 

167s  Michael  Wigglesworth's 'Day  of  Doom' !'.!!!!'.  ix'    18 

1702  Cotton  Mather's.' Magnalia  Christi  Americana'     !.'."!!!!!!!!  IX     20 

1732  Benjamin  Franklin  issues  '  Poor  Richard's  Almanac '  .   ........  IX'.    28 

1776  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  written  by  Thomas  Jefferson     .   .    . 

JohnTrumbuU,  satirist.     'McFingal* '.    .  IX.    36 

1788  '  The  Federalist '  by  Hamilton,  Madison  and  Jay .       .  IX.    25 

1790  Philip  Freneau,  poet,  journalist,  satirist ix!    45 

793  Joel  Barlow,  man  of  affairs.     '  Hasty  Pudding ' IX."    59 

795  Charles  Brockden  Brown,  first  American  novelist ix!    50 

817  W.  Cullen  Bryant,  poet  of  nature.     '  Thanatopsis ' ix]  100 

819  Washington  Irving,  essayist.     '  The  Sketch  Book ' ix!    67 

823  J.  Fenimore  Cooper,  novelist  of  Indians  and  Sea.     '  The  Pilot '     .    .    .    .  1X1    83 

834  Gporge  Bancroft,  historian.     '  History  of  United  States '  completed  in  1875  IX.    66 

83s  W.  Gihnore  Simms,  novelist  of  the  South.     '  The  Yemassee ' IX.  180 

836  R.  W.  Emerson,  poet,  seer.    '  Nature ' IX.  io8 

843  W.  H.  Prescott,  historian.     '  Conquest  of  Mexico ' ix!    66 

845  Edgar  A.  PoE,  poet;  sketch  writer.     'The  Raven' IX.  139 

846  J.  R.  Lowell,  poet,  essayist     '  Biglow  Papers ' X.  289 

847  H.  W.  Longfellow,  lyric  and  narrative  poet.     'Evangeline' IX.  120 

850  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  novelist.     '  The  Scarlet  Letter ' IX.  155 

851  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  novelist.,    '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  ' IX.  185 

854  H.  D.  Thoreau,  Concord  recluse.     '  Walden,  or  Life  in  the  Woods '  .   . 

855  Walt  Whitman,  naturalistic  poet.     '  Leaves  of  Grass ' X.  334 

l«56  John  Lothrop  Motley,  historian.    •  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Dutch  Republic '  .  IX.    66 

858  O.  W.  Holmes,  poet,  essayist.     'Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table '  .   .    .    .  X.  301  . 

863  Edward  Everett  Hale,  miscellanist.     '  Philip  Nolan ' X.  32:5 

865  J.  G.  Whittier,  Quaker  poet.     '  Snow-bound ' X.  306 

865  Francis  Parkman,  historian  of  the  French  in  the  New  World  (1865-85)    . 

868  F.  Bret  Harte,  poet,  story  writer.     '  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp '  .    .   .    .  X.  337 

870  '  Mark  Twain,'  Samuel  L.  Clemens'  '  Innocents  Abroad ' X.  326 

876  Bayard  Taylor,  traveler,  poet.     '  National  Ode' X.  313 

879  Henry  James,  novelist.     '  Daisy  Miller ' X.  351 

880  Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  poet,  novelist.     'Ramona' X.  317 

885  '  Charles  Egbert  Craddock,'  Miss  Mary  N.  Murfree,  Tennessee  novelist    .  X.  326 

885  William  D,  Howells,  novelist.     '  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham ' X.  345 

888  Edward  Bellamy,  novelist.     '  Looking  Backward ' 

889  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  relater  of  negro  folk-lore.     'Uncle  Remus'     .    :    .  X.  332 
894  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  poet  of  common  life X.  358 


POETS  LAUREATE  OF  ENGLAND. 

Geoffrey  Chaucer,  John  Skelton  and  Edmund  Spenser,  as  recipients  of  royal  favors 
from  Edward  III.  Henry  VIII.  and  Queen  Elizabeth  respectively,  have  sometimes  been  called 
Poets  Laureate  but  they  had  no  legal  appointment  as  such.  The  position  was  established  iii 
1630,  when  Ben  Jonson  was  appointed  by  King  Charles  I. 

Ben  JoNSON  (1573-1637),  appointed  1630. 
Sir  William  Davenant  (1605-68). 
John  Dryden  (1631-1700). 
Thomas  Shadwell  (1640-92),  appointed 

by  William  IIL,  ^689. 
Nahum  Tate  (i652-i73:5)- 
Nicholas  Rowe  (1674- i7i»)- 

l^WRENCE  EUSDEN  (rf.  I730> 


CoLLEY  Gibber  (1671-1757).     ' 
William  Whitehead  (1715-85). 
Thomas  Warton  (1728-90). 
Henry  James  Pye  (1745-1813). 
Robert  Southky  (1774-1843). 
William  Wordsworth  ( 1770-1850). 
Alfred  Tennyson  (1809-52).  y 

Alfred  Austin  {d.  1835),  appointed  1895. 


THE  FRENCH  ACADEMY. 


The  French  Academy  was  formed  at  the  suggestion  of  Cardinal  Richelieu,  and  received 
letters  patent  from  Louis  XIII.  in  1635.  Its  object  was  to  regulate  the  usage  of  the  language, 
and  this  was  done  by  making  a  Dictionary,  the  first  edition  of  which  appeared  in  1694,  and  the 
seventh  in  1878.  There  are  forty  members,  and,  on  the  death  of  any  one,  the  survivors  choose 
his  successor.  Hence  they  are  popularly  called  the  Forty  Immortals.  There  are  five  sections — 
(i)  The  Sciences,  (2)  French  Language  and  Literature,  (3)  History  and  Ancient  Literature, 
(4)  Fine  Arts,  (5)  Moral  and  Political  Science.  Each  Academician  receives  annually  1500 
francs,  and  wears  a  special  dress  on  ceremonial  occasions.  The  following  are  the  members  in 
1898,  arranged  in  the  order  of  their  election : 

Ernest  Wilfrid  Legouv6  (bom  1807)  dramatist. 

Due  DE  Brogue  (1821)  historian. 
EmILE  OllIVIER  (1825)  orator. 

Alfred  Mezi^RES  (1826)  critic,  professor  at  the  Sorbonne. 
Gaston  Boissier  (1823)  classical  scholar. 
Victorien  Sardou  (1831)  dramatist. 
Edmond  Rousse  (1816)  jurist. 
Ren6  Sully-Prudhommk  (1839)  P°^t- 
Victor  Cherbuliez  (1829)  novelist. 

Adolphe  Perraud  (1828)  cardinal,  ecclesiastical  biographer. 
Edouard  PaillERON  (1834)  dramatist. 
Francois  Copp^e  (1842)  poet. 
Joseph  BeRTRAND  (1822)  mathematician. 
LuDOVIC  Hal6vy  (1834)  librettist,  dramatist,  novelist^ 
Edouard  Herv6  (1832)  journalist. 
VallERY  GrearD  (1828)  University  leader. 
COMTE  d'HaussONVILLE  (1843)  Sociologist. 
Jules  Claretib  (1840)  dramatist,  novelist. 
VicoMTE  Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue  (1848)  critic,  essayist. 
Charles  de  Freycinet  (1828)  statesman,  engineer,  author. 
Louis  M.  Julien  Viaud,  '  Pierre  Loti'  (1850)  naval  officer,  romancist. 
Ernest  Lavisse  (1S42)  historian  of  Germany. 
VicoMTE  Henri  de  Bornier  (1825)  novelist. 
Paul  Thureau  Dangin  (1837)  historian. 
Ferdinand  BrunetiI:re  (1849)  literary  critic. 
Jos6  Maria  Her^DIA  (1842)  Creole  sonneteer. 
Albert  Sorel  (1842)  historian. 
Paul  Bourget  (1852)  naturalistic  novelist. 

Henri  Houssaye  (1848)  critic,  historian,  son  of  ArsJne  Houssaye. 
Due  d'AuDRIFFET  PaSQUIER  (1823)  historian. 
Gabriel  Hanotaux  (1840)  historian,  statesman,  foreign  minister. 
Jules  Lemaitre  (1843)  «="''<=■ 
CoMTE  Albert  de  Mun  (1840)  clerical  deputy. 
Gaston  Paris  (1839)  literary  historian,  philologist. 
Anatole  France  (1844)  <:"tic- 
Costa  de  Beauregard  {1835)  historian. 
CoMTE  Albert  de  Vandal  (1850)  historian,  novelist. 
Andr6  Theuriet  (1833)  novelist. 
412 


GENERAL   INDEX 


SUBJECTS,  AUTHORS  and  EXTRACTS  FROM  THEIR  WORKS. 


Vol.  Page 

Aaron,  Herbert v.  375 

Abbadona  and  Abdiel,  Klof  stock  .  .  viii.  23 
Abbadona  Beholds  Christ   in  Geth- 

semane,  Klopstock VIII.    24 

Abbs    Constantin    and    his   Guests, 

Halevy x.  174 

Abbey  of  Theleme,  Rabelais  .  .  .  iii.  186 
Abla,  Loss  and  Recovery  of,  Arabian.     II.  157 

Abou  Ben  Adhem,  Hunt ix.  231 

Absalom,  Dryden VI.  344 

Accomplishments  of  Hudibras,^»^/*>-,  vi.  315 
Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  Homer  .       1.  155 

Achitophel,  Dryden VI.  344 

Acme  an4  Septimius,  Catullus  .    .    .    III.  115 

Addison,  Joseph,  English VI.  374 

Address  to  His  Lute,  Wyait ....  IV.  303 
Admission  to  Heaven,  Goethe    .    .    .  VIII.  115 

Adonis,  Lament  for,  £ion VI.    43 

Adventures    of   the  Exile   Sanehat, 

Egyptian I.    39 

Adversity,  Arabian 11.  167 

^Emilia,  Corneille v.  265 

^schines,  Greek VI.     i5 

.^schines.  Reply  to,  Demosthenes  .  .     VI.    28 

^schylus,  Greek III.    46 

.iEsop,  Greek v.    67 

JEsop's  Fables,  Preface  to,  Luther  .  vi.  243 
After  the  Death  of  Vittoria  Colonna, 

Michel  Angela iv.  227 

Agamemnon,  ^schylus III.    48 

Agamemnon,  Murder, of,  jEschylus  .  ill.  53 
Agamemnon's  Return,  JSschylus  .  .  III.  49 
Agincourt,  Ballad  of,  Drayton  ...  v.  333 
Agni,  God  of  Fire,  Hymns  of  the  Veda  i.  87 
Aladdin — Dedication  to  Goethe,  Oeh- 

lenschlager vm.  185 

Maddin's     Prison-Hymn,      Oehlen- 

schlager VIII.  185 

Albizzi,  Niccolo,  Italian II.  259 

Aleman,  Maleo,  Spanish vi.  162 

Alcseus,  Greek 11.    92 

Alceste's  Love  for  Celim6ne,jWc/2>i?.  vi.  195 
Alcibiades  Vindicates  Himself,  Thu- 

cydides IV.    43 

Alcyon's  Lament  for  Daphne,  .5>««^«r.    IV.  314 


VcJ.  Page 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  American,  x.  343 

Alexander,  Lamprecht i.  293 

Alexander  and  the  Robber,  Gomer  .  iii.  357 

Alexander,  Orieptal,  Nizami    ...  IV.  165 

Alexander's  Feast,  Dryden   ....  vi.  347 

Alexandria,  Greek vi.    33 

Alfieri,  Vittorio,  Italian VII.  178 

Alfonso  X.,  the  Wise,  Spanish  ...  i.  376 

Alfred  the  Great I.  261 

Amadis  di  Gaula,  Spanish     ....  II.  283 

Amenities  of  Authors,  Moliire  ...  VI.  198 

Amergin's  Incantation,  Irish     ...  v.  307 

Amexica,  Berkeley ix;.    23 

America's  Future,  McFingal's  Vision 

of,  Trumbull IX.    41 

America,  Prophecy  of,  Seneca  ...  v.  146 

American  Literature,  Aboriginal  .    .  i.  386 

"               "          Colonial  .    .    .  ix.      9 

"                "          Revolutionary,  ix.    24 

"                "          National  .    .    .  ix.    63 

"                "          Recent    ...  x.  287 

Amis  and  Amile,  French H.  312 

Amriolkais,  Poem  of,  Arabian  ...  i.  185 

Anacreon,  Greek IV.    84 

Anacreon's  Dove,  Anacreon  ....  IV.    89 

Anactoria,  Ode  to,  Sappho  ....  11.  91 
Ancient  Imitation  of  the  Beautiful, 

Lessing VIII.    39 

Ancient  Mariner,  Coleridge   .    .    .    .  IX.  249 

Andrian,  The,  Terence II.  146 

Andromache's  Lament,  £»«««    .    .  II.  1 16 

Anger  and  its  Remedies,  Seneca  .    .  v.  140 

Angler's  Song,  Walton v.  379 

Anglo-Saxon  Literature I.  236 

Anna's  Visit  to  Her  Son,  Tolstoi  .    .  x.    57 

Annie  of  Tharaw,  Dach VI.  248 

Antef,  Festal  Dirge  of,  Egyptian  .    .  I.    38 

Antihia.f'Epita.ph  on,  Grk.  Anthology,  vii.    40 

Antigone,  Sophocles m.    68 

Antigone  and  Ismene,  Sophocles  .    .  Iii.    71 

Antigone  before  Creon,  Sophocles  .    .  III.    68 

Antioch,  Repentance  of,  Chrysostom  vii.  91 
Ape  and  the  Fox,  Lessing  ....  VIII.  42 
Apelles,  The  Painter,  Pliny  the  Elder    v.  i6g 

Aphrodite,  Hymn  to,  Sappho     ...  II.    89 

413 


414 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Vol.  Page 
Aphrodite,  Picture  of,  Grk.  Anthology,  vii.    41 

Apocrypha,  The II.    52 

Apollo  and  Hephsestus,  Lucian    .    ,  vil.    49 

Apollonius  the  Rhodian,  Greei    .   .  vi.    51 

Apostrophe  to  Italy,  Guerrazzi     .   .  x.    86 

Apostrophe  to  Russia,  Gogol    ...  X.    23 

Appius  Claudius,  the  Blind, /"/a/a^-^A.  vii.    44 

Approach  of  Old  Age,  Crabhe  ,   .    ,  ix.  201 

April,  Belleau IV.  256 

Apuleius,  Lucius,  Latin vi.    81 

Arabian  Literature,  Period  I.    .   .    .  i.  180 

"     IL  .  .  .  n.  153 

"     in.    .  .  VII.  127 

Arabian  Nights' Entertainment  .    .    .  vil.  127 

Araspes  and  Fanthea,  Xenophon  .    .  IV.    62 

Araucanian  Chief,  The,  Ercilla    .    .  vm.  201 

Arbuthnot,  John,  English,    ....  vil.  282 

Arcadian  Love-Letter,  Sidney  ...  iv.  310 

Archer  and  the  Lion,  Babrius  ...  V.    69 

Archilochus,  Greek II.    87 

Arcite,  Death  of,  Chaucer III.  344 

Arcite  Finds  Palamon  in  the  Wood, 

Chaucer 111.  338 

Arcite's  Victory,  Chaucer 111.  342 

Ariosto,  Ludovico,  Italian     ....  v.  202 

Ariel  on  the  Shoals,  Cooper   ....  IX.    Sg 

Aristophanes,  Greek 'V-    43 

Aristotle,  Greek '^•97 

Armida  Visits  Godfrey,  Tasso   ...  v.  242 

Arnold,  Matthew,  English    ....  x.  270 

Arria  and  Psetus,  Martial v.  172 

Art  of  Writing,  Charles  of  Orleans  .  11.  334 

Arthur,  Coronation  of  King,  £«^/irA.  111.  320 

Arthurian  Legend,  English  ....  III.  310 

Arval  Brothers,  Chant  of,  Latin  ,    .  11.  115 

Asadi,  Persian II.  173 

Ascham,  Roger,  English IV.  305 

Asklepios,  Temple  of,  Herondas  .   .  v.    65 
Assembling   of  the   Fallen  Angels, 

Milton V.  396 

Ass  and  the  Flute,  Yriarte    ....  Vlll.  222 

Ass  in  the  Lion's  Skin,  jEsop   ...  v.    69 

Assyrian  Literature I.    67 

Atala,  Chactas  Relates  the  Death  of, 

Chateaubriatid    .......  VIII.  259 

Atalanta,  or  Gain,  Bacon v.  372 

Athaliah  and  Joash,  Racine  ....  v.  301 

Attack  upon  the  Bastille,  Carlyle  .    .  x.  231 

Atticus  (Addison),  Pope VI.  400 

Atys,  Catullus 111.  119 

Aubade,  Provencal I.  341 

Aucassin  and  Nicolete,  i^^^KfA  .    ■    .  I.  216 

Augustine  of  Hippo,  Latin   ....  Vll.  121 

Ausonius,  Latin vii.  106 

Author's  Recompense,  Martial    .    .  v.  174 

Author  to  the  Reader,  Montaigne     .  III.  197 

Avemus,  Descent  of,  Virgil ....  iv.  130 

Aztec  Drinking-Song,  American  .    .  i.  391 

Babrius,  Greek v.    69 

Baby  Hermes,  Greek H-    73 

Babylon,  Doom  of,  Isaiah I.  128 

Eaqchus  on  Wine,  ifeift' vi.  130 


Vol.  Pag« 
Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  English  ....  v.  366 
Bad  Boy  Taken  to  School,  Herondas.      v.    62 

Baggesen,  J.  E.,  Danish viii   166 

Bag  of  the  Bee,  Berrick v.  389 

Balder  Dead,  M.  Arnold x.  271 

Balder,  Death  of,  Younger  Edda  .  .  11.  369 
Ballad  of  Agincourt,  Drayton  ...  v.  333 
Ballad  of  Old-Time  Ladies,  Villon  .  11.  337 
Ballad  of  Old-Time  Lords,  Villon  .     11.  338 

Ballads,  Dutch vi.  274 

Ballad  upon  a  Wedding,  Suckling  .  v.  383 
Balzac,  Honorfe  de,  French  ....  x.  109 
Bandello,  Matteo,  Italian  .....  vi.  104 
Banished  to  America,  Privost  .  ,  .  vil.  214 
Banquet  of  Trimalchio,  Petronius     .      v.  158 

Barbarossa,  Rilckert .     x.  184 

Barber  of  Seville,  Beaumarchais  .    .   vil.  277 

Barbour,  John,  Scotch III.  377 

Barlow,  Joel,  American ix.     59 

Baron's  Cat  Hiddigeigei,  Scheffel  ,  x.  208 
Baron's  Tobacco  Pipe,  Scheffel .  ,  .  x.  209 
Bashkirtseff,  Marie,  Pussian ....      X.    61 

Extract  from  Her  Journal     .    .      X.    62 

Basil  and  Isabel,  Hoiaells    ....      x.  346 

Basil  the  Great,  Greek vil.    84 

Bastile,  Prisoner  in,  Voltaire     .    .    .   vil.  227 

Battlefield,  The,  Bryant IX.  106 

Battle  of  Bannockbum,  Barbour  .  .  III.  377 
Battle  of  Brunanburh,  Saxon  ....       I.  264 

Battle  of  Catraeth,  Celtic I.  323 

Battle  of  Chang-Cho,  Chinese  ...  II.  41 
Battle  of  Zeus  and  the  Titans,  Hesiod.  II.  80 
Battle  of  Marathon,  Herodotus  ...     iv.    20 

Battle  of  Pharsalia,  Casar Iv.  109 

Battle  of  the  Baltic,  The,  Campbell .  IX.  273 
Battle  of  the  Kegs,  Hopkinson  ...  IX.  43 
Baucis  and  Philemon,  Ovid  ....  IV,  150 
Bear,    the    Monkey    and    the    Pig, 

Yriarte vill.  222 

Beatrice,  First  .Sight  of,  Dante  .  .  11.  233 
Beatrice  Leaves  Dante,  Dante  ...     II.  255 

Beatrice's  Death,  Dante II.  236 

Beaumarchais,  Caron  de,  French  .  .  VII.  273 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  English  .  V.  343 
Beau  Tibbs  at  Vauxhall,  Goldsmith.    Vll.  379 

Beautiful  Hands,  Riley x.  359 

Beauty  and  Love,  Jami v.  186 

Bedouin  Song,  Taylor x.  315 

Bee  and  the  Maiden,  Gleim  .    .  vm.     21 

Beggar's  Opera,  Songs  from.  Gay  .  VII.  288 
Beggars'  Suit,  Aristophanes     ...       V.    53 

Belinda,  Pope VI.  395 

Bellman,  Carl  M.,  Swedish  ....    vm.  190 

Bells,  The,  Poe ix.  141 

Beloved  Lady,  Wolfram  von  Esch- 

enbach ,  .    .       I.  299 

Belshaziar's  Feast,  Daniel .  .    :    .    .      II.    53 
Bembo  Rescued  from  the  Crew,  Mel- 
ville  IX.  172 

Beneficent  Bear,  Goldoni VII.  170 

Beowulf  s  Fight  with  the  Fiend  .    .       1.  245 

Stranger,  P.  J.,  French IX.  384 

Berkeley,  Bishop  George IX.    22 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


"  Vol.  Page 

Bernardo  del  Carpio,  Spanish  ...  i.  381 

Bertrand  de  Bom,  Provenfal    ...  1.'  ■y/n. 

Betrothal  of  Lucy  Ashton,  Scott .    .  viii'  ^574 
Biarke's  Battle-Song,  Scandinavian.     i\   X^=. 

Bion,  Greek VI.    42 

Bion,  Lament  for,  Mosckus   ....  vi.    46 

Birth  and  Death,  Arabian  ....  h.  jgg 
Birth  of  Olaf  Tryggvesson,  ffeims-    • 

kringla IV.  272 

Bishop  Myriel  and  the  Conventionist, 

Ht^o IX.  ^7-1 

Black-Eyed  Susan,  Gay    .....  vil.  289 

Blessing  of  Contentment,  Walton    .  v.  381 

Blessings  of  Rheumatism,  Sivigni  .  vil.  215 

Blindness,  On  his,  Milton v.'  400 

Bob  Acres'  Duel,  Sheridan  ....  vin.  332 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  Italian    .   .   .  m.  129 

.  Boetius,  Latin Vll.  113 

Boiardo,  Matteo  Maria,  Italian   .   .  iv.  206 

Boileau-Desprdaux,  Nicolas,  French  v.  279 

Bokhara,  Rudagi II.  x'12 

Book  of  Good  Counsel,  India  ...  v.    27 
Book  of  the  Dead,  Egyptian    ...  I.    27 
Book  Stamp  of  Sardanapalus,  Assy- 
ruin      ...........  I,    71 

Boscan,  Juan,  Spanish II.  323 

Bossuet,  Bishop,  French vi.  216 

Boswell's  "Life  of  Dr.  Johnson."  .  vil.  384 

Bottom  of  the  Sea,  Verne x.  152 

Boyhood  at  DiisseldoriSi  Heine  ...  x.  196 

Boy  Soldier,  A,  Kennedy ix.  174 

Bradstreet,  Mrs.  Anne,  American  .    .  ix.    i5 

Braggart  Captain,  PI  utus     ....  11.  141 

Brahman  Philoscphy,  India      ...  V.     36 

Brahman's  Curse,  Sakuntala    .    .    .  iii.    22 

Branch  of  the  Vine,  Colonna    .    .    .  iv.    223 

Bran's  Voyage,  Irish vili.  285 

Brantdme,  Seigneur,  de,  i^«»c^  .    .  iv.  260 

Brant,  Sebastian,  German VI.  232 

Brederode,  Gerbrand,  Dutch  ...  vi.  284 
Brightness  of  His  Lady,  Francis  I.  iv.  243 
Brihtnoth,  Death  of,  Saxon  ....  j.  269 
Bridge  of  Sighs,  The,  Hood ....  ix.  276 
Broken  Heart,  The,  Irving'.  ...  IX.  80 
Brown,  C.  Brockden,  American  .  .  ix.  50 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  English  .  .  vi.  293 
Browning,  Elizabeih  Barrett,  Eng- 
lish    X.  254 

Browning,  Robert,  English   ....  x.  246 
Bruin  the  Bear  Summons  Reynard, 

Reynard  the  Fox III.  285 

Brunanburh,  Battle  of,  Saxon  ...  i.  264 

Brunetto  Latini,  Sonnet  to,  Dante  .  11.  238 

Brutus  and  Csesar,  Alfieri     ....  vil.  190 

Brutus  and  His  Sons,  Livy  ....  v.  107 

Brutus,  Story  of,  Layamon  ....  I.  270 

Bryant.  William  CuUen,  American  .  ix.  100 

Buddha,  Judgment  of,  Itidia     ...  V.    20 

Buddha's  Peace,  India V.    16 

Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  India  ...  V.    18 

Buddhist  Literature,   India    ....  V.      9 
Bufialmalco  the  Jesting  Pamter,  Va- 

sari IV.  228 


4IS 


Vol.  Page 


Building    of     the     Lotig    Serpent, 

Heimskringla iv.  276 

Bulwer,  Edward,  Lord  Lytton  ...    ix.  281 

Bunyan,  John,  English vi.  305 

Euonconte  da  Montefeltro,  Dante   .      \\.  249 
Burger,  Gottfried  A.,  German     .    .  viII.    60 
Burgomaster's  Wife,  Holberg   .   .    .  vill.  156 
Burke,  Edmund,  English     ....  vill.  341 

Burke  and  Reynolds,  Goldsmith   .    .  vll.  398 
Burke's  Tribute  to  his  Son    ....  vill.  344 

Bums,  Robert,  Scotch    ......  vill.  308 

Bustos  Tabera  and    Sancho  Ortiz, 

lope  de   Vega vi.  143 

Butler,  Samuel,  English VI.  314 

Byron,  George  Noel  Gordon,  Lord, 

English IX.  302 

Byron's  Last  Lines ix.  217 


Csesar,  Caius  Julius,  Latin  ....  iv.  101 
Csesar  Dines  with  Cicero,  Cicero  .  .  ni.  106 
Caesar  in  the  Storm  at  Sea,  Lucan  .  w.  152 
Csesar's  First   Invasion   of    Britain, 

Oesar iv.  102 

Caius  Marius  Seeks  the  Consulship, 

Sallust IV.    99 

Calderon  de  la  Barca,  Spanish     .    .  vill.  205 

Caledonia,  Scott VIII.  361 

Caligula,  Emperor,  Suetonius   .    .    .    vi.     73 

Callimachus,  Greek vi.    48 

Camoens,  Luis  de,  Portuguese  .  .  iii.  260 
Campbell,  Thomas,  English  ....  IX.  271 
Candide .  Married,  Voltaire  ....  vil.  241 
Canterbury  Tales,  Chaucer  ....    iii.  327 

Captain  Bobadil,  yo»jo» iv.  398 

Captive  Lady,  Frederick  II.     ...     11.  224 

Captives,  The,  Plautus II.  118 

Captured  Bucket,  Tassoni  .  .  .  .  vi.  T25 
Capture  of  Valencia,  Don  Jayme  .  i.  370 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  Johnson     ....  vil.  381 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  English X.  228 

Castaway,  The,  Canvper VIII.  353 

Castiglione,  Baldassare,  Italian  .  .  IV.  217 
Castle  of  Indolence,  Thomson  .  .  .  VII.  359 
Catarina  de  Attayda,  Camoens  .  .  .  III.  270 
Catharme  of  Aragon,  Song  of,  Gon- 

gora      VI.  149 

Cato   Re-weds   the  Widow   Martia, 

Lucan V.  150 

Cato's      Waming      against      Greek 

Learning,  Plutarch VII.    46 

Catraeth,  Battle  of,  Celtic I-  323 

Cats,  Jacob,  Dutch VI.  276 

Catullus,  Latin III.  112 

Cavalcanti,  Guido,  Italian  ....  n.  256 
Caveat  for  the  Fair  Sex,  Montagu  .  VII.  295 
Cecco,  Angiolieri,  Italian  ....  11.  258 
Cedars  of  Lebanon,  Lamartine  .    .  VIII.  275 

Celestina^  Spanish      II.  300 

Celin,  Lamentation  for,  Spanish  .  .  II.  273 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  Italian    ....     IV.  231 

Celtic  Literature,  Section  I i.  316 

"         „«  "        n.     .    .    .      V.  305 


4l6 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Vol.  Page 
Celtic  Literature,  Section  III.  .  .  .  vili.  282 
Cenci,  Beatrice,  Guerrazzi  ....  x.  84 
Ceni,  Epitaph  on,  Chiabrera  .  .  .  vi.  124 
Cerinthus  to  Sulpicia,  Tibullus  .  .  iv.  157 
Cervantes     Saavedra,     Miguel    de, 

Spanish ill.  221 

C6sar  Birotteau's  Failure,  Balzac  .  .  x.  121 
Chactas  Relates  the  Death  of  Atala, 

Chateaubriand VIII.  259 

Chaldean  Account  of  the  Deluge,  .  1.  71 
Chambered  Nautilus,  The,  Holmes  .  x.  203 
Chapter  of  the  Cave,  Koran  ...  i.  igo 
Character  of  Charles  I.,  Clarendon,  vi.  356 
Character  of  Pericles,  Thucyaides  .  iv.  35 
Change  of  Seasons,  Camoens  ,  .  .  III.  266 
Chanson  de  Roland,  French  ...  I.  199 
Chant  of  the  Arval  Brothers,  Latin  II.  115 
Chapman,  George,  English  ....  iv.  344 
Chapman's  Homer,  On  First  Looking 

into,  Keats ix.  228 

Charitable  Cardinal,  Alaman  .  .  .  vi.  162 
Charles  of  Orleans,  French  ....      II.  334 

Charlotte  Rooze,  Field X.  357 

Charms  that  Charm  Not,  Hafiz  ...   v.  182 
Charon's  Boat,  Lucian  ......    VII.    51 

Charudatta  Led  to  Execution,  India,  in.    12 
Chateaubriand,  Vicomte  de,  French.'vvn..  258 
Chatterton,  Thomas,  English    .    .    .  vil.  398 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  English       .    .    .    in.  323 
Chaucer,  Good  Counsel  of  ...    .      in.  346 

Chaucer  to  His  Empty  Purse  .   .    .    in.  345 

Chenier,  Andr6,  French Vlll.  243 

Chess,  Game  of,  Montaigne  ....  in.  200 
Chesterfield,  Letter  Vo,  Johnson   .    .    vil.  382 

Chevy  Chase,  English 111.  367 

Chevalier      Desgrieux     First      Sees 

Manon  Lescaut,  Privost  ,  .  .  Vll.  210 
Chiabrera,  Gabriello,  Italian  ...  VI.  122 
Child  Emile,  The,  Rousseau"^    .    .    .    Vli.  262 

Childe  Harold,  Byron ix.  206 

Childhood,  Baggesm viii.  166 

Childhood's  Home,  My,  Lamartine  .viii.  272 
Children  in  Paradise,  Ephraem  Syrus.  VII.  93 
Children  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  Teg- 

nir VIII.  194 

Chillon,  Byron IX.  206 

Chinese  Literature,  Five  Classics  .    .       I.    32 
"  "  Period  IL   .    .    .     II.    39 

Chloe,  Martial   . V.  173 

Chloe's  Kisses,  Martial v.  174 

Choice  of  Draupadi,  Mahabharata  .  n.  12 
, Choice  of  Hercules,  Xenophon  ...  IV.  71 
Choir  Invisible,  The,  George  Eliot  .  X.  264 
Chorus  of  Birds,  Aristophanes  ...  v.  52 
Christ,  Mention  of,  Tacitus  ....  v.  126 
Christian,  King,  .^'z/a/i/  .  .  .  ..  viil.  152 
Christians,  Pliny's  Letter  Concerning  v.  176 
Chronicle  of  Don  Jayme  of  Aragon, 

Spanish i.  368 

Chronicleof  Juan  II.,iS^a«M/4  .  .  .  11.290 
Chronicle  of  the  Cid,  Spanish   ...       1.  365 

Chrysostom,  John,  Grek vii.  90 

Churning  of  the  Ocean,  India  .   ,   .  <    V.    38 


Vol.  Page 

Cicero,  M.  TuUius,  Latin In.    99 

Cid,  Poem  of  the,  Spanish  ....  i.  355 
Cid  and  Chimdne,  Corneille  ....  v.  264 
Cid  and  the  Counts  of  Carrion,  Poem 

of  the  Cid 1.  355 

Cid  Ballads,  Spanish 1.  362 

Cid  Pawns  His  Coffers,  Poem  of  the 

Cid .       I.  35g 

Cid's  Last  Commands,  Cid  Ballads  .  l.  363 
Cimon's  Victory,  Simonides  ....      11.  100 

Cino  da  Pistoia,  Italian 11.  257 

Cinthio,  Giovambattista  G.,  Italian  .      v.  219 
CiuUo  D'Alcamo,  Italian  .....     11.  222 
Clarissa  Harlowe,  Death  of,  Richard- 
son     VII.  314 

Clarendon,  Lord,  English     ....     vi.  355 

Claudian,  Latin viI.  108 

Cleanthes,  Greek ,    .     VI,    60 

Clearista,  Meleager    < vll.    37 

Clement  of  Alexandria;  Greek  .  .  .  VII.  82 
Cleon's  Victory  at  Sphacteria,  Thucy- 

dides IV.    36 

Clerk  (Scholar),  C>5aaci?>-, III.  329 

Clever  Schemer,  Terence II.  150 

Clorinda,  Tancred  and,  Tasso  ...  V.  239 
Cloud-Messenger,  India  .....  in.  31 
Cock  and  the  Fox,  La  Fontaine  .  .  V.  291 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  English  .    ix.  247 

Collins,  William,  English VII.  375. 

Colonna,  Vittoria,  Italian IV.  222 

Columbia,  Dwight ix. .  49 

Complamt  Addressed  to  German  Veo- 

^e.,Hutten VI.' 236 

Complaint   by  Night  of  the  Lover, 

Surrey IV.  304 

Complaint  of  his  Imprisonment,  Tasso.     v.  251 

Concord  Vi^^.,  Emerson IX.  115 

Confession,  Hugo  of  Trimberg  .    .    .    in.  280 

Confucius,  Chinese I.  146 

Confucius,  Sayings  of,  Chinese  ...  I.  148 
Confucius,  Successors  of,  Chinese  .  .  '  11.  39 
Congreve,  William,  English  ....  VI.  331 
Conrad  von  Kirchberg,  German  .  .  I.  295 
Conscript's   Duel,  The,  Erckmann- 

Chatrian x.  148 

Considerations  on  the  State,  Aristotle,  V.  99 
Consolation  for  a  Daughter's'Death, 

Malherbe iv.  1268 

Consuelo's  Triumph,  Sand  ....  ix,  394 
Contentment,  Epictetus  .....  Vll.  55 
Convalescent  Knight,  Cervantes  .  .  111.  237  . 
Conversion,  His,  Augustine  .  .  .■  .  vii.  125 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  American,  ix.  83 
Corday,  Charlotte,  Chenier  ....  vill.  245 

,  Trial  and  Vit&ikioi,  Lamartine  VVLI.  277 

Coronation  of  King  Arthur,  Gei^rey 

of  Monmouth in.  320 

Corneille,  Pierre,  French v.  259 

Cossack  Father,  The,  Gogol  ....  x.  20 
Cossack  Mother,  The,  Gogol ....  x.  22 
Cotter's  Family  Worship,  Burns  .  .  Vlll.  312 
Counsels  of  the  Great  Yu,  Chinese  .  I.  136 
Ceunt  Alarcos,  ^anish     .....      Ii.  279 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


417 


Vol.  Page 
Count    Gaston     Phoebus    de    Foix, 

Froissart II.  ■i2S 

Country  Squire's  Library,  The,  YHarte  vni!  223 

Countiy  Sunday,  Addison     .   . 

Count  Ugolino,  Dante   .... 

Courage  and  Patriotism,  Tyrtaus 

Courtier's  Addresses,  Castiglione 

Courtin',  The,  Lowell    .    .    .    .    . 

Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  Kipling 

Court  ofLilliput,  STuift  .    . 

Courts  of  Love,  Provencal    .    . 

Cowley,  Abraham,  English  .    . 

Cowper's  Grave,  Mrs.  Browning 

Cowper,  William,  English    .   . 

Crabbe,  George,  English  .    . 

Crafty  Hunchback,  Voni  .   .    " 

Crane  and  the  Crab,  India    .    . 

Cradft,  Fair  Fort  of,  Irish  .    .    . 

Credulous  Fool,  Machiavelli     . 

Croma,  Ossian 

Cromwell,  Panegyric  on,  Waller 
Cromwell,  Vision  of,  Cowley 
Crossing  the  Bar,  Tennyson  .   , 
Crossing  the  Bridge,  Cellini  .    . 
Crossing  the  Ohio  on  Ice,  Siowe 
Crow  and  the  Fox,  Z.a  Fontaine  . 
Crucifixion  of  Ibn  Bakiah,  Arabian  . 
Crusader's  Farewell,  French 
Crusade,  Summons  to,  French 
Crusoe  and  Friday,  Defoe 


Cuchulainn,  Fand's  Welcome  to,  Irish    v.  307 


Cuckoo,  Gellert 

Cuckoo,  Song  of,  Llywarch  Hen 
Cumberland,  The,  Longfellow  . 
Cupid  and  Neara,  Secundus  .    . 
Cupid  and  Psyche,  Apuleius  .    . 
Cupid  and  the  Bee,  Anacreon   . 
Cupid  as  a  Guest,  Anacreon  .    . 
Custom,  Force  of,  Montaigne  .    . 
Cuthullin's  Council  of  War,  Ossian 
Cymon  and  Iphigenia,  Dryden 
Cynewulf,  Anglo-Saxon     .   . 


VI.  376 
11.  246 
n.    83 

IV.  218 

X.  291 

X.  283 

VI.  387 

I-  343 
VI.  299 

X.  255 

VIII.  346 
IX.  198 
VI.  115 

V.     25 

V.  309 

IV.  205 

V.  319 

VI.  313 

VI.  300 

X.  245 

IV.  238 
IX.  190 

V.  293 
II.  167 
I.  210 

I.  211 
VII.  305 


,  VIII 

I 


Dach,  Simon,  German 

Dame  Philosophy  Enters,  Boetitis     . 

Danae,  Simonides  of  Ceos 

Dance  of  Death,  Spanish 

Daniel,  Samuel,  English 

.  Dante,  Italian 

Dante,  Answer  to,  Cavalcanti  .    .    . 

Dante,  On,  Michel  Angelo 

Daphnis  and  Chloe,  Greek  Romances. 
Daudet,  Alphonse,  French  .... 
David's  Address  to  his  Lyre,  Cowley  . 
David's  Lament  for  Saul  and  Jona- 
than, Fiile 

David  Soothes   Saul's  Madness,  Al- 
bert    

Day  of  Decision,  The,  Lowell .    .    . 

Days,  Emerson 

Day's  Ration,  The,  Emerson .... 
"5ead  Cid's  Victory,  Cid  Ballads  .   . 

Z—<iS 


17 
325 
IX.  124 
VI.  270 
VI.  87 
IV.     91 

IV.  86 
III.  197 

V.  323 
VI.  351 

1-257 


VI.  248 
VII.  114 
II.  100 
II.  278 
V.  330 
II.  230 

II.  257 

IV.  225 

VII,    71 

X.  155 

VI.  304 

I.  122 

VII.  182 
X.  294 

IX.  115 
IX.  119 

1.364 


VoL  Page 

Death,  Bossuet yj.  217 

Death,  Bunt ix  2TO 

Death-Bed,  A,  Hood ix".  277 

Death,  Verses  on  his  own,  5™ j/?  .   .    vi.  389 
Death  of  Archbishop  Turpin,  Chan- 
son de  Roland  ,    .......       I,  202 

Death  of  Arcite,  Chaucer m.  344 

Death  of  Balder,  Younger  Edda  .  .  n.  369 
Death  of  Catarina  de  Attayda,  Cam- 

"^"•f III.  270 

Death  of  Clarissa   Hariowe,  Rich- 

.  ^     ^'''^^o" '.  .  vn.  314 

Death  of  Duchess  of  Malfy,  Webster      v.  341 

Death  of  Haide?,  Byron ix.  212 

Death  of  1  her  Father,  Christine  de 

Fisan   .   \ .     u^  xxi. 

Death  of  her  Husband,  Mary  Stuart  iv!  265 
Death  of  His  Son,  Mather  ....  ix.  21 
Death  of  Jos.  R.  Drake,  Halleck  .  .  ix.  151 
Death  of  Lancelot,  Malory  ....  m.  373 
Death  of  Lesbia's  Sparrow,  Catullus,  in.  113 
Death  of  Napoleon,  Manzoni  ...     X.    75 

Death  of  Oleg,  Russian m.  3go 

Death  of  Peter  Stuyvesant,  Irving  .  ix.  69 
Death  of  Philip  Nolan,  Ei  E.  Hale.     x.  323 

Death  of  Priam,  Virgil iv.  123 

Death  of  Prince  Meschersky,  Der^- 

havin   . m.  3^0 

Death  of  Ravana,  India i.  103 

X)e&\h  oi'^^AaxA,  Chanson  de  Roland,     i.  204 

Death  of  Saul,  Alfieri vn.  189 

Death  of  Sohrab,  Firdausi    ....      n.  197 
Death  of  the  Flowers,  .SrysK^  .   .   .    IX.  104 
Death  of  Tiberius,  Tacitus  .  .        .    .      v.  125 
Death  Song  of  Lodbrok,  Scandina- 
vian   II.  346 

Death   Song    of   Uther  Pendragon, 

Celtic I.  321 

Death  the  Giver  of  Life,  Young  .  .  vn.  366 
Deerslayer  Becomes  Hawkeye,  Cooper  ix.  91 
Defence  of  the  Bastion  St.  Gervais, 

Dumas X.    99 

Defoe,  Daniel,  English  ......  vn.  301 

Degenerate  Romans,  Juvenal  ...    vi.    67 
Dekker,  Thomas,  English  .....     v.  336 

Deliverance  of  Vienna,  Filicaja   .    .  VII.  154 
Delphi,  Sacrifice  at,  Greek  Romances  VII.    66 
Deluge,  Chaldean  Account  of .   .   .      i.    71 
Deluge,  Indian  Story  of .   .....       I.    92 

Democritus    and    Heraclitus,  Mon^ 

taigne III.  201 

Demosthenes,  Greek vi.    23 

Demosthenes,  Attack  on,  JEschines  VI.  17 
Departure  of  the  Swallows,  Gautier  x.  130 
Derzhavin,  Gabriel,  Russian  ....  in.  395 
Descent  of  Avernus,  Virgil.  ....  IV.  130 
Descent  of  Ishtar  to  Hades,  Assy- 
rian        I.    73 

De  Stael,  Madame,  French   ....  vin.  249 

Destiny  of  Man,  Rumi iv.  170 

Devil,  The,  Heine x.  206 

Devil's  Chapel,  The,  Defoe  ....  Vll.  311 
Dickens,  Charles,  English    ....    ix.  3*1 


4i8 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Vol.  Page 

Dido  on  the  Funeral  Pile,   Virgil .  iv.  125 

Discarded  Wife,  Ski-King   ....  i.  140 
Dispute  of  Day  and  Night,  Asadi  .■ .     II.  173 

Dissevered  Curl,  The,  I'ojie  ....  vi.  396 

Distracted  Lover,  The,  lerence  ...  11.  148 

Distressed  Damsel,  The,  Cervantes  .  III.  232 

Divine  Comedy,  The,  Dante  ....  11.  239 
Divine   Government  of  the  World, 

Pofe VI.  399 

Division  of  the  World,  Schiller    .   .  vm.  130 

Djinns,  The,  I/ugo IX.  372 

Domitian  and  the  Tiurbot,  Juvenal .  VI.  64 
Donatello  and    the    Marble    Faun, 

Hawthorne IX.  162 

Don  Diego  and  the  Cid,  Corneille .  .  v.  262 

Doni,  Antonio   trancesco,  Italian  .  VI.  115 

Don  Quixote,  Song  from,  Cervantes  .  III.  250 

Don  Roderick,  Lament  of,  Spanish  I.  380 

Doom  of  Babylon,  £iile I.  128 

Dostoievsky,  Feodor,  Russian  ...  X.    37 
Downfall  of  Quetzalcoatl,  American  .      1.  391 

Drake,  Joseph  R.,  Death  of,  Halleck  ix.  151 

Drama,  German VI.  254 

Drama,  Spanish VI.  133 

Dramatic  and  Lyric  Poetry,  India  .  ill.      9 
Dramatists  of  the  Restoration,  Eng- 
lish      VI.  321 

Drayton,  Michael,  English   ....  v.  332 

Dreaded  Voyage,  Tasso V.  253 

Dream  and  Reality,  Chinese  ....  11.    42 

Drinking  Song,  Alcicus II.    93 

Drink  Out  Thy  Glass,  Bellman .  .    .  VIII.  192 

Drowned  Lover,  The,  Chapman  .    .  iv.  345 

Dr.  Parr's  Sermon,  Sydney  Smith  .    .  IX.  300 
Drummond,  William,  Scotch  ....  VIII.  299 

Drunkard's  Excuse,  Ha^z     ....  V.  184 

Dry  Bough  Blossoms,  Tannhauser  .  III.  278 

Dryden,  John,  English VI.  341 

Duel    of   Rogero    and  Bradamant, 

Ariosto V.  211 

Duke  William  at  Rouen,  Romance 

of  Hollo I.  205 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  French   ....  X.    97 

Dumb  Youth,  The,  Celtic I.  332 

Dunbar,  William,  Scottish III.  384 

Dutch  Literature VI.  258 

Duties  of  the  Public  Orator,  Demos- 
thenes     VI.    30 

Dwarf  King's  Court,  German  ...  i.  314 

Dwight,  Timothy,  American.  .    .    .  IX.    48 

Dying  Gladiator,  Byron IX.  208 

Eagle  and  the  Fox,  Lesstng  ....  VIII.    42 

Early  New  Englanders,|^>-«K^iJ!»  .    .  IX.    47 

Echo,  Song  of,  Irish VIII.  292 

Eddar,  Elder,  Scandinavian  ....  II.  352 

Edda,  Younger,  Scandinavian  ...  II.  362 

Education  of  Women,  Montagu    .    .  VII.  294 

Egyptian  King's  Treasure,  Herodotus  IV.    14 

Egyptian   Literature    .......  I-     17 

'  Eljune's  Letter  to  Guinevere,  Tenny- 
son      X.  240 


Vol.  Page 

Elected  Knight,  Danish viil.  151 

Elegiac  and  Lyric  Poetry,  Greek  .  .  11.  82 
Elegy  from  "Arcadia,"  Sannazaro  .  iv.  239 
Elegy    in    a   Country   Churchyard, 

Gray vil.  368 

Elegy  on  his  Father,  Manrique  .  .  11.  294 
Elegy  on  Young  King  Henry,  Ber- 

trand  de  Born '.    .    .       I.  342 

Elegy  to  Delia,  libullus IV.  155 

Eliot,  George,  English x.  258 

Eloisa  to  Abelard,  Pope vi.  394 

Elysium,  Pindar II.  110 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  American  .  ix.  108 
Emigrants  in  Bermudas,  Marvell  .  VI.  297 
Emile,  The  Child,  Kousseau  ....  vii.  262 
Emily  and  the  Prisoners,  Chaucer  .  III.  335 
Emma  and  Eginhard,  Zo«£/9//ozei.  .  IX.  135 
Emperor's  Bride,  Metastasio  ....  Vil.  161 
Enchanted  Horse,  Arabian  Nights.  VII.  129 
Encyclopaedists,  The,  French    ,    .    .    VII.  247 

Enfant  Perdu,  Heine x.  205 

England,   Cowper VIII.  352 

English  Literature      VII.  279 

English  Literature,  Period  I i.  236 

"  "  "      II.  ...    .    III.  307 

"  "  "      III.    ...    IV.  291 

''  ••  "      IV.    ...     V.  327 

"  "  "      v..  Part  I     VI.  286 

"  "  "      v.,    Part  2     VI.  359 

"  «'  "      VI.     .    .    .  VII.  279 

"  "  "      VII.,  Part  I  VIII.  320 

«  "  "      VII,,Part2    IX.  195 

"  "  "      VIII.    .    .      X.  215 

English  Novel,  Rise  of Vll.' 297 

English  Poeis  Laureate X.  411 

English  Race,  The,  Emerson  ...     IX.  113 

English  Valor,  Raleigh iv.  328 

English  View  of  America,  Lowell .  .      x.  297 

Ennius,  Quintus,  Latin II.  115 

Enzo,  King,  Italian 11.  225 

Ephraem  Syrus,  Greek VII.     92 

Epictetus,  Greek VII.     54 

Epicurus,  Lucretius III.    97 

Epistle  to  King  John,  Miranda .  .    .   iii.  259 

Epitaph,  Francis  Villon II.  338 

Epitaph  on  Antibia,  Greek VII.    40 

Epitaph  on  Ceni,  Chiabrera  ....     VI.  124 
Epitaph   on  Prince   Henry,    Drum- 
mond   VIII.  300 

Epitaph  on  Theonoe,  Greek  ....  VII.    40 
Epitaph  of  CEngus,  Irish  Lit.  .    .    .  VIII.  287 

Epithalamium,  Shi-King i.  140 

Epithalamion,  Spenser vi.  317 

Erasmus,  Desiderius,  Dutch  ....    VI.  261 

Ercilla,  Spanish Vlll.  201 

Erckmann-Chatrian,  French  ....      X.  147 
Estrella    and   Theodora,    Lope    de 

Vega VI.  146 

Eternal  Summer,  Shakespeare.  ...    IV.  392 
Etzel  Marries  Kriemhilde,  Nibelun- 

genlied II.  392 

Eugenie  Grandet,  Balzac X.  112 

Eulensfiegel,  Tyll,  German  ....    III.  301 


GENERAL   lEBEX. 


419 


Vol.  Page 
Eulogy  on  Emperor  Julian,  Libanius  vil.    76 

Euripides,  Greek III.    79 

Eva  and  Topsy,  Stowe    ......    ix.  191 

Evald,  Johannes,  Danish vill.  152 

Evangeline  and  the  Indian  Woman, 

Lon^ellow IX.  129 

Evangeline  Finds  her  Lover,  JLong- 

fellow IX.  131 

Eve,  Ccedmon I.  249 

Evening  Hymn,  Gregory  Naziataen  vll.    89 
Eve's  Account  of  her  First  Day,  Mil- 
ton   V.  398 

Evil  Eye,  Pliny  the  Elder v.  167 

Executioner,  The,  Maistre vill.  256 

Execution  of  Don  Alvaro  de  Luna, 

Spanish II.  290 

Execution  of  the  Rebel  Prince,  Rus- 
sian   III.  391 

Exile,  Lamennais VIII.  270 

Eye  of  Charity,  Nizami IV.  165 

Fables  of  Bidpai,  India V.    31 

Fading  Beauty,  Marini VI.  128 

Faerie  Queene,  Spenser IV.  322 

Fairest  Land,  Sumi IV.  171 

Fair  Fort  of  Cr6d6,  Irish V.  309 

Fair  Shooting,  Ascham IV.  306 

Faithful  Domestics,  Holberg  ....  Vlll.  158 

Faithful  Wife,  Cinthio V.  220 

Faithful  Wife,  Mahabharata     ...  II.    29 

Fall  of  Sejanus,  Juvenal VI.    69 

Falstaff  and  the  Merry  Wives,  5Aa^;- 

speare        IV.  385 

Family  Name,  The,  Lamb        ...  IX.  246 
'  Fand's    Welcome     to     Cuchulainn, 

Irish V.  307 

Farevyell  Counsels  of  Minerva,  Fine- 
Ion    VI.  226 

Farewell  of  Socrates,  Plato  ....  V.    94 
Farewell  to  Church  at  Constantino- 
ple, Gregory  Naziamen     .    .    .  VII.    87 
Farewell  to  France,  Moiry  Queen  of 

Scots IV.  266 

Farewell  to  Lesbia,  Catullus     .   .    .  III.  117 

Fatal  Look,  Apuleitts VI.    90 

Faust,   Goethe Vlll.   96 

Faust,  Goethe VIII.  Ill 

Faustus,  Dr.,  Doom  of,  Marlowe  .    .  IV.  338 
"         "     Frightful  End  of,  Ger- 
man   VIII.  102 

Feast  of  Spring,  Hafiz    ......  V.  183 

Federigo  and  the  Falcon,  Boccacno  .  III.  145 

Fenelon,  Archbishop,  French    ...  VI.  219 

Ferhad  the  Sculptor,  Nizami    ...  IV.  163 

Festal  Dirge  of  Antef,  Egyptian  .    .  I.    3» 

Fettered  Nightingale,  Dutch  ....  VI.  275 

Feuillet,  Octave,  French ^'  ^f. 

Field,  Eugene,  American X.  356 

Fielding,  Henry,  English  .....  VII.  324 
Fight  of  Hagen  and  Waltan,   Ger- 

man '■  f  ,^ 

Fight  with  Flails,  Zola  .....   .  »•  ^^ 


Vol.  Page 
Filicaja,  Vincenzo,  Italian  ....  vil.  153 
Finding  of  Gudrun,  G«i«'?^«  .  .  .  II.  397 
Finn,  Household  of,  Irish  ....  v.  311 
Fiorentino,  Giovanni,  Italian   .   .   .    iii.  160 

Firdausi,  Persian 11.  175 

Fire,  Arabian 11.  166 

First  Eclogue,  The,  Garcilaso  ...  11.  305 
First  Kiss,  The,  Rousseau  ....  Vil.  271 
First  Lesson  in  Philosophy,  Moliire.  vi.  193 
First  Sight  of  Beatrice,  Dante  ...     11.  233 

Fisher,  The,  Goethe vill.    94 

Fish  that  can  Stop  a  Ship,  Pliny  .  .  v.  167 
Fitness  of  Seasons,  I^ing  Enzo  .  .  11.  228 
Fitz- James  and  Roderick  Dhu,  Scott,  vill.  364 
Five  Classics,  The,  Chinese  ....       i.  135 

Flaubert,  Gustave,  French x.  141 

Fleas  Outwitted,  Greek  Anthology  .  vil.    41 
Fletcher,  Beaumont  and,  English    .      v.  349 
Flamenca,  Provenfal .    ......       I.  346 

Flower-Maidens,  Lamprecht  ...  i.  293 
Flying  Throne,  The,  Firdausi  ...  11.  187 
Foot-Print  in  the  Sand,  Defoe  .  .  .  vil.  303 
Force  of  Custom,  Montaigne  .  .  .  iii.  197 
For  the  Tomb  of  Myrtis,  Greek  .  .  vil.  39 
Fortunatus  Reviews  the  World,  Dek- 

ker V.  337 

Fortune-Tellers,  Ennius 11.  117 

Foscarini,  The,  Niccolini x.    82 

Foscolo,  Ugo,  Italian X.    65 

Foundation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Truth, 

Btiddha V.     13 

Fouque,  Baron  Friedrich  de  la  Motte  ix.  352 
Fourteen  Hard  Things,  Hebrew   .    .   VII.    99 

Fragments,  Novalis ix.  340 

Francesca  da  Rimini,  Dante     ...     II.  243 

Francis  I.,  French IV.  243 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  American  ...  IX.  26 
Frederick  II.,  Emperor,  Italian    .    .     11.  224 

French  Academy X.  412 

French  Inn,  A,  Erasmus VI.  266 

French  Literature,  Period  I I.  194 

"  "  "     II II.  308 

"  "  "      III.   .   .   .    III.  171 

"  "  "      III.,  Part  2    IV.  241 

"  «  «'     IV.    .    .    .     V.  254 

"  "  «      V VI.  172 

"  "  "     VI.    .    .    •  VII.  195 

"  "  "      VII.  .    .    .  VIII.  229 

"  "  "     VIII.    .   .    IX.  366 

"  "  "      IX.   ...     X.    94 

French  Novel,  The x.    94 

Friar  John  Feasted  by  Gargantua, 

Rabelais HI-  184 

Friar  Lubin,  Marot III.  203 

Fridolin:    or,  the   Message   to  the 

Forge,  Schiller Vlll.  124 

Frithiof  and  Angantyr,  Scandinavian  ir.  374 
Frithiof    and    Ingebore,     Saga    of- 

Frithiof IV.  280 

Frithiof  Plays  Chess,  Saga  of  Frith- 
iof     IV.  282 

Frithiof  the  Bold,  Saga  of,  Scandina- 
vian   IV.  279 


420 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


(  Vol.  Page 

Frithiof  Visits  King  Ring,  Saga  ef 

Frithiof IV.  285 

Frogs  and  the  Sun,  Phcedrus  ...  v.  132 
Frogs  Ask  for  a  King,  JEsop ....      v.    68 

Froissart,  Jean,  French n.  322 

Frolic  on  tlie  Shore,  Mahabharata  .  11.  16 
Front-de-Boeuf 's  Castle,  Storming  of, 

Sc»it VIII.  366 

Fuller,  Thomas,  English vi.  289 

Funeral  of  the  Lovers,  Hunt  ...  ix.  229 
Future  Glory  of  Jerusalem,  Isaiah   ,      i.  130 


Garcilaso  de  La  Vega,  Spanish     .   .     11.  305 

Garden  of  Roses,  German i.  310 

Gargantua,  Prologue  to,  Rabelais  .  .    iii.  180 

Gauls  Enter  Rome,  Livy v.  Ill 

Gautier,  Thiophile,  French  ....     x.  128 

Gay,  John,  English vil.  286 

Gellert,  C.  F.,    German VIII.     16 

Gellius,  Aulus,  Latin vi.    99 

Generous  Hatim,  Arabian 11.  163 

Generous  Slave,  Plautus II.  119 

Genevieve,  Coleridge ix.  254 

German  Drama VI.  254 

German  Literature,  Period  I I.  276 

"  "      I.,    Part  2     II.  378 

"  "  "      II III.  271 

"  "  "      IIL  ...    VI.  230 

"  "  "      IV.   .    .    .VIII.      9 

"  "  "V.,  Part  I  VIII.    67 

"      v.,   Part  2    IX.  324 

"  "  "     VL   ;   .    .     X.  181 

Gerundio's  Sermon,  Friar,  Isla     .    .  VIII.  226 

Getting  Rid  of  Cant,  Johnson    .    .    .  vil.  384 

Gift  of  Sir  Cleges,  English  ....    m.  359 

Gil  Bias  and  Archbishop  of  Grenada, 

Le  Sage VII.  203 

Gil  Bias  to  the  Reader,  Le  Sage  .    .  VII.  202 

Gipsies,  The,  Cowper VIII.  347 

Girl  of  my  Choice,  Martial  ....  V.  175 
Girls  on  a  Fine  Day,  Sacchetti  .  .  .  ill.  155 
Girls  on  a  Wet  Day,  Sacchetti  .    .    .    III.  156 

Giusti,  Giuseppe,  Italian X.    92 

Give  all  to  Love,  Emerson  ....  IX.  117 
Glaucus  sends  Nydia  to  lone   ...    IX.  283 

G\dm,'^. 'L.,  German VIII.    19 

Gobryas  the  Assyrian,  Xenophon  .  .  IV.  57 
God,  Knowledge  of,  Greek  ....  iv.  80 
God  is  our  Refuge,  Psalms  .  .  .  .  I.  123 
Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang,  Gertnan  VIII.  70 
Gogol,  Nikolai  V.,  Russian  ....  X.  18 
Going  to  the  Wars,  Lovelace  ....     v.  386 

Gold  in  Utopia,  More IV.  297 

Golden  Age,  Greek IV.    80 

Golden  Age,  Tasso V.  249 

Golden  Rule,  Confucius I.  149 

Golden  Verses  of  Pythagoras,  Greek    iv.    81 

Goldoni,  Carlo,  Italian VII.  167 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  English  ....  VII.  386 

Go,  Lovely  Rose,  Waller VI.  312 

Gongora,  I.uis  de,  Spanish  ....  VI.  148 
Good  King  Meliadus,  Italian  .   .    .   III.  127 


VoL  Page 
Good  Schoolmasfer,  The,  Fuller  .  .  vi.  290 
Good  Shepherd,  The,  Lope  de  Vega   ,vi.  148 

Gower,  John,  English m.  356 

Grammar  and  Medicine,  Greek    ,    .  vil.    42 
Grandison  and  Clementina,  Richard- 
son    VII.  317 

Grasshopper,  The,  Anacreon    ...     iv.    90 

Gray,  Thomas,  English vil.  367 

Great  Court  Marriage,  Mme.  Stvigni  vi.  213 
Great  Men's  Monuments,  Foscolo  .  .  x.  65 
Grecian  Urn,  Ode  on  a,  UTeats  ...  ix.  226 
Greece  in  Her  Decay,  Byron    ...     ix,  205 

Greek  Anthology vil.    38 

Greek  Comedy    .    .    , v.    41 

Greek  Fathers  of  the  Church  .  .  .  vil.  79 
Gyeek  Literature,  Period  I.,  Homer  .       i.  150 

II.,    ...      n.    72 

"  "  "       III III.     43 

"  "  "        IV.,  ...     IV.      9 

"  •'  "       V V.    41 

"  "  "       VI VI.      9 

"  "  "       VII.,      .   .  VII.      9 

"        VIII.,     .    .   VII.     62 

Greek  Philosophy  .....      iv.  77,     v.    71 

Greek  Romances vil.     65 

Greek  Tragedy m.     43 

Gregory  Nazianzen,  Greek  ....  vil.  87 
Gregory's  Dialogues,  Alfred  ....  i.  261 
Grimm,  Jacob  and  Wilhelm,  German  ix.  348 
Grimmelshausen,  Christoph  von,  "  vi.  249 
Griselda,  Patient,  Boccaccio  ....     III.  150 

Grotius,  Hugo,  Dutch vi.  271 

Guarini,  Giovanni   Battista,  Italifm    vil.  147 

Gudrun,  German II.  394 

Guerrazzi,  F.  D.,  Italian X.    84 

Guinicelli,  Guido,  Italian  ....  11.  229 
Gyda,      Eric's     Daughter,     Heims- 

kringla IV.  271 

Gyges  and  Assurbanipal,  Assyrian  .       i.     77 

Hafiz,  Persian V.  1 81 

Hagedom,  Friedrich,  German  .  .  .  VIII.  13 
Hagen  and  Waltari,  Fight  of,  Ekkehard  i.  288 
Hagen  Kills  Siegfried,  Nibelungenlied  11.  391 
Haidee  Visits  Don  Juan,  Byron  .    .     IX.  211 

Haidee,  Death  of,  Byron IX.  212 

Hakon  Jarl  &  Thora,  Oehlenschlager  VIII.  176 
Hale,  Edward  Everett,  American .  .      x.  322 

HaUvy,  Ludovic,  French x.  174 

Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  American  .  .  ix.  150 
Hamlet  and  Ophelia,  Shakespeare  .  IV.  371 
Hamlet,  Shakespeare's,  Goethe  .  .  ,  VUI.  91 
Happiness  of  True  Love,  Shakespeare  iv.  392 
Hare  and  Many  Friends,  Gay  .  .  .  vil.  290 
Hannodius  and  Arlstogiton,  Thucydidesw.  27 
Harp  that  Ransomed,  Irish  ....  VIII.  289 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  American  .  .  x  332 
Harte,  F.  Bret,  American,  ....  x.  337 
Hartmann  von  Aue,  German    ...       i.  305 

Hasty  Pudding,  Barlo7v IX.    60 

Hawk  and  the  Jay,  Fiorentino  ...  Ill  160 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  American.   ,    ix.  155 


GEINERAL  INDEX. 


421 


Vol.  Page 

Hawthorne,  Longfellow ix.  128 

Heavenly  and  Earthly  Love,  Michel 

Angela IV.  226 

Heavenly  Union,  Colonna  .  .  .  .  iv.  223 
Heaven,  Vision  of,  St.  John  ....  vil.  21 
Hebrew  Literature,  Period  I I    114, 

n.,  .  .    II.  52 

"  HL,  .  .  VII.  95 
Hector  and  Andromache,  Homer  .  .  i.  162 
Heimskringla,  Scandinavian     .    .    .    iv.  270 

Heine,  Heinrich,  German x.  192 

Helen  at  the  Scsean  Gate,  Homer  .  .  i.  160 
Heliodora's  Garland,  Meleager  .  .  .  vil.  36 
Heliodore,  Lament  for,  Meleager  .  .  vil.  36 
Heliodorus  Driven  from  the  Temple, 

Hebrew     .    , II.    65 

Helvetius,  Letter  to  Madame,  Frank- 
lin     •    IX.    34 

Hen  and  the  Diamond,  Hagedorn  .  VIII.  15 
Henry,  Epitaph  on  Prince,  Drum- 

mond VIII.  300 

Heniyson,  Robert,  Scottish  ....  iii.  383 
Herbert,  George,  English  ....  v.  374 
Hercules,  Choice  of,  Xenophon  .  .  iv.  71 
Hermann  and  Dorothea,  Goethe  .  .  vill.  80 
Heimann  and  Thusnelda,  Klopsiock  .vill.    25 

Hermes,  Baby,  Greek II.     73 

Hermesianax,  Greek V.    5o 

Hero  and  Leander,  Marlowe     .    .    .    iv.  340 

Herodotus,  Greek IV.     12 

Herod  the  Great's  Last  Illness,  fose- 

phus       VII.     27 

Herondas,  Greek V.    62 

Herrick,  Robert,   English V.  388 

Hesiod,  Greek      II.    77 

Hester  Prynne  and  the  Pastor,  Haw- 
thorne       IX.  158 

Hester,  Lamb      ix.  244 

Hiawatha,  Song  of,  Longfellow  .  .  IX.  133 
Hildebrand,  Song  of,   German  ...       i.  285 

Highest  Good,  Philemon V.     59 

Hillel  and  Shamai,  Hebrew  ....  VII.  loi 
Hindu  "  Song  of  Songs,"  India  .  .  ill.  35 
His  Lady's  Death,  Hansard  .  .  .  .  iv.  260 
Hoccleve,  Thomas,  English  .    .    .    .    iii.  364 

Holberg,  Ludvig,  Danish Vlll.  154 

Holland,  Grotius VI.  274 

Holland,  Marvell VI.  298 

Holly  Tree,  The,  Southey IX.  269 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  American,     x.  301 

Home,  John,  English Vlll.  325 

Home-made  Duke,  The,  Beaumont 

and  Fletcher V.  354 

Home  of  Venus,  Poliziano    ....    III.  168 

Homer,  Greek      i.  150 

Honest  Man,  Philemon V.     59 

Hood,  Thomas,  English IX.  275 

Hooft,  Pieter  C,  Dutch VI.  277 

Hopkinson,  Francis,  American ...    IX.    42 

Horace,  Latin IV.  131 

Horace's  Monument,  Horace  .  .  .  IV.  138 
Horace's  Daily  Life  ....•••  IV.  134 
Horant,  The  Singing  of,  Gudrun    .     II.  397 


Vol.  Page 

Horn  of  Roland,  Chanson  de  Roland,     i.  201 

Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  French  ...     v.  272 

Household  of  Yvcm.,  .Irish v.  311 

House  of  Socrates,  La  Fontaine   .    .      v.  292 

How  Ciacco  Paid  for  his  Dinner,  Boc- 
caccio  III.  142 

Howells,  William  Dean,  American  .      x.  345 

How  Gargantua  Rode  to  Paris,  Rabe- 
lais     III.  182 

How  Howleglass  Cured  the  Sick  in 

the  Hospital,   Tyll  Eulenspiegel .  m.  303 

How  Howleglass  was  Thrice  Bap- 
tized, Tyll' Eulenspiegel     .    .    .    ill.  303 

Hbw   Panfirge    Escaped    from    the 

Turks,  Rabelais •    • ,  HI.  189 

How  Siegfried  was  Betrayed;  Nibe- 
lungenlied 

How  Sleep  the  Brave,  Collins  . 

How  the  Athenians  Could  Over- 
come Philip,  Demosthenes  .    .    . 

How  the  Cid  Made  the  Coward  a 
Hero,  Chronicle  of  the  Cid    ,    . 

How  Thor  Recovered  His  Hammer, 
Elder  Edda 

How  to  Promote  Public  Prosperity, 

Mencius II. 

How  Xenophon  Became  a  General, 

Xenophon IV. 

Hudibras,  Butler vi. 

Hudibras  Put  in  the  Stocks,  Butler  .    vi. 

Hue  and  Cry  After  Cupid,  Meleager.  VII. 

Hugo,  Victor,  French     .... 

Hugo  of  Trimberg,  German  .    .    . 

Humor  in  Oratory,  Quintilian  .    . 

Hundred  Ancient  Tales,  Italian  . 

Hunt,  Leigh,  English IX.  228 

Hunter  from  Greece,  Dutch  Ballads.^  VI.  274 

Huon   Enters    the    Sultan's    Palace, 


II.  388 
VII.  375 

VI.  26 

1-365 

II-  358 

45 

50 
315 
31B 
37 
IX.  369 
m.  280 
VI.  77 

111.   125 


Wieland  .  .  . 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  German 
Hymn  of  Dawn,  Prudentius 
Hymn  to  Aphrodite,  Sappho 
Hymn  to  Saviour  Christ,  Clement 
Hymn  to  the  Sun-God,  Veda  . 
Hymn  to  Varuna,  Veda  .  .  . 
Hymn  to  Zeus,  Cleanthes  .  .  . 
Hymns  of  the  Veda,  Indian  . 
Hypocrite' makes  Love,  Moliire 
Hypocrite  unmasked,  Moliire  . 


.  VIII.    48 

VI.  235 

.  vii.  120 

.     II. 

.    VII. 

I. 
I. 

.      VI. 

I. 

.    VI.  200 
.    VI.  205 


89 
83 
91 

8s 
66 

85 


"  I  am  a  Roman  Citizen,"  Cicero  .  .  III.  102 
Ichabod    Crane    and   Katrina  Van 

Tassel,  Irving ix.    76 

Ideal  Portrait.  Anacreon    ....  IV.    87 

Ignez  de  Castro,  Camoens Ill   262 

Image  of  Love,  Propertius    ....  IV.  158 

Immortality,  Browne VI.  294 

Impostor  Exposed,  Plautus  ....  II.  125 

In  a  Garden,  Swinburne X.  269 

In  All  Myself,  Whilmtm x.  335 

Incident    of     the     French     Camp, 

Srowning X.  251 


422 


GENERAI.   INDEX. 


Vol.  Page 
II.  I68 


I. 
I. 

II. 

UI. 
V. 


86 
103 


Inconsistent  Lady,  Arabian  .... 
Indisin  Literature,  Period  I.,     ... 

"  "  "     11'.',  Part  2 

"  "  "     III 

"  "  "     IV 

Indian  Story  of  the  Deluge,  Veda  . 

Indra   Invited  to   Drink  the  Soma, 

Hymns  of  the  Veda i. 

Indra,  Lord  of  Heaven,  Veda  ...       i. 

Infant  Hercules,  Pindar 11. 

Inflexible    Prince,    Calderon    de  la 

Barca VIII.  220 

Ingebore's  Lament,  Saga  of  Frithiof.    iv.  283 

Inkle  and  Yarico,  Steele vi.  371 

In  Memoriam,  Tennyson x.  244 

Inoculation,  Montagu VII.  295 

In  Praise  of  Wine,  Anacreon    ...    IV.    88 

Inscription  on  the  Gate  of  Theleme, 

Rabelais III.  188 

Interrupted  Wedding,  The,  Manzoni     x.    76 

Intimations  of  Immortality  from  Re- 
collections of  Early  Childhood, 
Wordsworth 

Invective  on  Mahmud,  Firdausi 

Invitation  to  Phyllis,  Horace  .    . 

Invocation  to  Venus,  Lucretius 

Iphigenia,  Euripides 

Iphigenia,  Sacrifice  of,  Lucretius 

Irish  Literature,  Early  .    . 

Irish  Literature,  Later   .... 

Irving,  Washington,  American , 

Isla,  J.  F.  de,  Spanish    .... 

Is  Life  Worth  Living?  Menander 

Isocrates,  Greek 

Italian  Literature,  Period  I., 
"  "  "         I.,   Part 


IL,  . 

III., 

IV.,. 

v.,  . 

VL,, 


IX.  263 

II.  179 
IV.  135 
in-    95 

III.  86 
III.    96 

V.  305 

VIII.  282 

IX.     67 

VIII.  225 
V.    58 

VI.      II 

II.  216 

III.  213 

IV.  187 
V.  200 

VI.  201 
VII.  145 

X.  36 


Jackson,  Helen  Hunt,  American  .    .  X.  317 

Jaffier  and  Belvidera,   Otway  ...  VI.  336 

Jaida  and  Khalid,  Arabian  ....  11.  162 

Jailor's  Daughter,  The,  Pellico  ...  X.    68 

James  I.  of  Scotland III.  379 

James,  Henry,  American X.  351 

Jami,  Persian V.  186 

Jason,  Pindar II.  105 

Jason  and  Medea,  Seneca V.  142 

Jayme  of  Aragon,  Chronicle  of,  .5*''''*" 

ish I.  368 

Jeannot  and  Colin,  Voltaire  ....  VII.  228 

Jemshid  the  Wanderer,  ./iiVifaajj .   .  II.  180 

Jerusalem,  Future  Glory  of,  Isaiah  .  I.  130 
Jesus   Consoles   His    Disciples,   St. 

John    .....       VII.     17 

iesus,  Sayings  of,  Greek VII.    22 

ewish  Martyrs,  Maccabees II.    60 

Job's  Outcry  Against  His  Friends     .  1.  123 


Vot  Page 
Johannes  Secundus,  Dutch  ....  VI.  269 
John  Bull  and  Nic  Frog,  Arbuthnot  vil.  283 
John  Bull's  Sister  Peg,  Arbuthnot  .  vil.  284 
John  Gilpin's  Ride,  Cowper  ....  vill.  350 

Johnson,  Samuel,  English vil.  379 

Jonson,  Ben,  English iv.  393 

Jonson,  Ben,  Swinburne    .....     x.  268 

Josephus,  Flavins,  Greek VII.    25 

Joy  of  Night,  Camo'ens iii.  267 

Juana,  A.  de  Musset x.  134 

Juan  II.,  Spanish 11.  290 

Judas  Maccabseus,  Hebrew  ....      12.    68 
Judge's  Transgression,  The,  Sadi  .    iv.  180 

Judith,  Anglo-Saxon i.  254 

Jugurtha  at  Rome,  Sallust;  ....     IV.    95 

Julia's  Marriage,  Feuillet x.  137 

Julian,  Eulogy  on  Emperor,  Libanius  VII.    76 

Justice  in  War,  Grotius vi.  272 

Juvenal,  Latin VI.    63 


Karamsin,  M.  M.,  Russian  ....  x.  11 
Kenelm's  Fight  vpitn  Tom  Bovirles  .  ix.  290 
Kennedy,  John  Pendleton,  American    ix.  174 

Khakani,  Persian iv.  161 

King  Alphonso  of  Naples,  Sanna- 

zaro > IV.  240 

King  and  His  Two  Sons,  Bidpai .  v.  31 
King  Arthur's  Dream,  Layamon  .    .       i.  275 

King  CEdipus,  Sophocles III.    72 

King  of  Yvetot,  The,  Biranger  .  .  IX.  386 
King  Charles's  Guard,  legnir  .  .    .  vill.  197 

King  Christian,  Evald VIII.  152 

King  Discovers  Sakuntala,  The,  Sak- 

untala III.     16 

Kingdoms  of  Nature,  Three,  Lessing  VIII.  42 
King  m  Love,  The,  Sr/SaMto/a .  ,  .  III.  21 
King  in  Thule,  The,  Goethe ....  VIII.  95 
King  Oluf  the  Saint,  Danish  Lit.  .  VIII  148 
King's  Complaint  of  Drought,  Shi- 

King 1.  144 

King's  Gifts  to  the  Dervish,  Sadi .  .  iv.  178 
King's  Journey    to    the    Heavenly 

Mount,  Mahabharata II.    20 

King  Solomon's  Betrothal,  Bible .    .       I.  125 
King  Toghrul  and  the  Sentinel,  Sadi    iv.  186 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  English    ....      x.  281 
Klopstock,  Friedrich  Gottlieb,  Ger- 
man   VIII.    22 

Knowledge  of  God,  Greek    ....     iv.    80 

Knight,  The,  Chaucer m.  328 

Knight  and  the  Lady,  The,   Ciullo 

D'Alcamo 11.  222 

Knight   of  La   Mancha,   The,   Cer- 
vantes   III.  223 

Knight's  Tale,  Chaucer iii.  334 

Koran,  The,  Arabian I.  187 

Kriemhilde,  Nibelungenlied ....  II.  389 
Kriloff,  Ivan  A.,  Russian  .....  X.  12 
Krishna,  Rebuking  of,  Jayadeva  .  .  III.  38 
Krishna,  Reconciliation  of,  Jayadeua  iii.  40 
Krishna,  Sports  of,  Jayadeva   .   .       lii.    36 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


423 


Vol.  Page 

Laberius,  Latin Hi.  122 

La  Bruy&re,  Jean  de,  French  .  .  .  vi.  I7g> 
Ladies  of  Germany,  Walther  von  der 

Vogekueide I.  298 

Lady    Blarney    and    Miss    Skeggs, 

Goldsmith VII.  %ax 

Lady  Madeline  of  Usher,  Poe  ...  ix.  148 
Lady  Randolph  Discovers  IJer  Son  " 

Home VIII.  325 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de,  French  ...  v.  287 
La  Harpe,  J.  F.  de,  /•renck  ....  vill.  241 
Lais'  Mirror,  Greek  Anthology  .    .    .  vil.    39 

L' Allegro,  Milton V.  394 

Lamb,  Charles,  English ix.  239 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  French  .  .  vill.271 
Lamennais,  Robert  de,  French  .  .  .  vill.  266 
Lament,   Walther  von  der  Vogehveide     i.  297 

Lament  for  Adonis,  Bion vi.     43 

Lament  for  Bion,  Moschtts  ....  VI.  46 
Lament  for   Eoghan   Rua   O'Neill, 

I'^h VIII;  291 

Lament  for  Heliodore,  Meleager  -  .  vil.  36 
Lament  for  His  Son,  Quintilian  .  .  VI.  76 
Lament    for    Life    Wasted,    Michel' 

Angela IV.  227 

Lament  for  Lost  Love,  Brederode  .  vx.  284 
Lament  of  Andromache,  Ennius  .  .  II.  Ii5 
Lament  of  Cunedda,  Celtic  ....  i.  322 
Lament  of  Dead  Wife,  Egyptian  .  i.  65 
Lament  of  Don  Roderick,  Spanish  .  i.  380 
Lament  of  Inca  Princess,  Ollanta    .       i.  397 

Lament  of  Sloth,  Boileau v.  285 

Lamentation  for  Celin,  Spanish  .  .  11.  273 
Lamprecht's  Alexander,  German  .  i.  293 
Lancelot,  Death  of,  Malory  ....  iii.  373 
Langland,  William,  English  .  .  .  HI. 347 
Langland's  First  Vision,  Langland .  iii.  348 
Laocoon  and  His  Sons,  Virgil .  .  .  iv.  121 
Laodamia,  Wordsworth  ....  IX.  261 
La  Rochefoucauld,  Due  de,  French  vi.  183 
Last  Song  of  Sappho,  Leopardi. 
Latin  Fathers  of  the  Church     , 

Latin  Literature,  Period  1 11. 

.    .    III. 
.    .    IV. 


X. 
VII. 


Part  I 
Part  2 


II. 
"  "  "       III'. 

"  "  "      IV. 

"  "  "      IV. 

Laura,  Sonnets  to,  Petrarch  .    .    . 
Laurin,  the  Dwarf-King,  German    . 
Lawyer  and  the  Philosopher,  Plato  . 
Layamon's  Brut,  Anglo-Saxon      .    . 
Lay   of    the    Eglantine,    Marie    de 

France 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  Mendoza 
Lear  and  Cordelia,  Shakespeare 
Learned  Greek,  The,  Italian    . 
Lebanon,  Cedars  of,  Lamartine 
Lenore,  Burger  ...... 

Leopardi,  Giacomo,  Italian  . 
Le  Sage,  Alain  Rgn^,  French 
Lesbia,  Farewell  to,  Catullus 
Lesbia,  To,  Catullus  .... 


89 

121 

III 

92 

92 

V.  103 

VI.     62 

VII.  104 
II.  263 
I.  312 

V.    90 
I.  ,270 

I.  212 

III.  211 

IV.  379 

III.  125 

VIII.  275 

VIII.    60 

X.    87 

VII.  199 

III.  117 

III.  113 


Vol.  Page 

Lesbia's  Lover,  Catullus m.  114 

Lessiiig,  G.  E.,  German vill.    26 

Lesson  of  Roses,  Ausonius  ....  vil.  io5 
Lesson  of  the  Tops,  Grk.  Anthology  vil.  41 
Letter  to  Madame  Helvetius,  Irank- 

lin IX.    34 

Let  the  World  Laugh,  Gongora  .  .  vi.  150 
Levin  with  the  Mowers,  Tolstoi   .    .     X.    52 

Libanius,  Greek vil.    75 

Liberty,  Ode  to,  Collins vil.  376 

Lieutenant   Le    Fevre   at  the   Inn, 

Sterne vil.  343 

Lieutenant  Lismahago,  Smollett .    .   vil.  335 

Life  at  an  Inn,  Johnson vil.  385 

Life  of  the  Blessed,  Ponce  de  Leon  .  lii.  209 
Life  ol  Ralph  Partridge,  Mather  .  .  ix.  20 
Life's  Enigma,  Camoens    .....    m.  266 

Life's  Woes,  Camoens m.  269 

Lilliput,  Court  of.  Swift vi.  387 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  Lowell  ....  x.  296 
Lion  and  the  Mouse,  Phadrus     .    .      V.  132 

Lion's  Share,  ^sqp V.    68 

Litany,  Herrick v.  389 

Literary  Bore,  A,  Horace IV.  136 

Little   Nell   and    Her   Grandfather, 

Dickens ix.  319 

Livy  (Titus  Livius),  Latin  ....      v.  106 
Lochaber  No  More,  Ramsay    .    .    .  VIII.  303 
jLodbrok,  Death-Song  of,  Scandina- 
vian   .'   .      II.  346 

Loki,  Punishment  of.  Younger  Edda  11.  373 
Lomonosoff,  Michael,  Russian  .  .  iii.  393 
London  Lackpenny,  Lydgate    ...     11.  361 

London,  Wordsworth IX.  266 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  American  .  IX.  120 
Looking  Upward,  Gautier.  ....  x.  I31 
Lope  de  Vega  Carpio,  Spanish     .    .     VI.  138 

Lord  of  Lu,  Shi-King I.  142 

Lord  of  Milan  and  the  Miller,  Sac- 

chetti III.  157 

Lord's  Supper,  Children  of,  Tegnir .  viii.  194 

Lorelei,  The,  Heine x.  200 

Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  Italian  .  .  HI.  167 
Loss  and  Recovery  of  Abla,  Arabian  II.  157 
Loss  of  the  Royal  George,  Cowper   .  VIII.  352 

Lost  Child,  Roswitha VI.  256 

Lost  Jewel,  The,  Egyptian  ....  I.  35 
Lost  Leader,  The,  Browning  ...      X.  250 

Lost  Ring,  Sakuntala III.    25 

Lot  of  Man,  The,  Pushkin    ....      X.     17 

Love,  Juan  II. II.  290 

Love  (Charity),  St.  Paul VII.    20 

Love  at  Church,  Camoens  ....  III.  269 
Love  at  First  Sight,  Marlowe  ...  IV.  340 
Love,  Friendship  and  War,  Cif?Ta«to.  III.  250 
Love,  Heavenly  and  Earthly,  Michel 

Angelo IV.  226 

Love  in  the  Tomb,  Porto iv.  219 

Lovelace,  Richard,  English  ....      V.  386 
Love-letter  to  Her  Husband,  Brad- 
street    IX.    17 

Love,  Panegyric  of,  Plato v.     82 

Lover's  Chronicle,  Cowley     ,    ...    VI.  301 


424 


CSNERAL   INDE£. 


Vol.  Page 

Lover's  Death,  Rumi iv.  171 

Ix>ver's  Farewell,  American     .    .  i.  399 

Lovers'  Last  Interview,  Lamartine  ,  VIII.  273 
IjOvers'  Prayer  to  Venus,  Pleiade .  .  iv.  255 
Lover's  Stratagem,  Guarini  ....  vil.  149 

Love's  Awakening,  Hooft vi.  277 

Love's  Dream  Realized,  Profertitts.  iv.  159 
Love's  YouDg  Dream,  Moore  ...  ix.  233 
lx)ves   of    loets    and    Sages,   Her- 

mesianax V.    60 

Love's  Vassal,  Petrarch  and  Surrey  iv.  304 
Love  the  Light-giver,  iJf8V^^/.<4»^f/«.    iv.  226 

Low-Born,  Biranger IX.  390 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  American.   .     x.  289 

Lucan,  Latin V.  147 

Lucian,  Greek ,   .    .  VII.    48 

Lucifer's  Revenge,  Vondel  ....  VI.  282 
Lucifer's  Soliloquy,  Vondel    ....    vi.  280 

Lucretius,  Latin iii.    94 

Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  Harie,  .  .  x.  338 
Lucy  Ashton,  Betrothal  of,  Scott .  .  vill.  374 
Luise's  Eighteenth  Birthday,  Fass  .  VIII.  54 
Lute  and  the  Beaker,  Iiajiz  ....      v.  184 

Luther,  Martin,  German vi.  238 

Luther's  Last  Letter  to  His  Wife,  .  vi.  247 
Luther's  Letter  to  his  Little  Son  John  vi.  246 

Luther's  Psalm VI.  240 

Lydgate,  John,  English iii   361 

Lyre,  On  His,  Anacreon IV.    85 

Lyrists  of  the  War  of   Liberation, 

German X.  184 

Machiavelli,  Niccolo,  Italian  ...  iv.  198 
Macias  the  Lover,  Juan  de  Mena  .   .      11.  293 

Madame  Merle,  _/a»z^j, x.  352 

Madness  of  Orlando,  Ariosto  ...  v.  205 
Maecenas,  Patron  and  Friend,  Horace    iv.  134 

Maffei,  Francesco,  Italian vil.  158 

Magical  Crocodile,  Egyptian  ...  I.  33 
Magicians,  Tales  of  the,  Egyptian  .       1.    33 

Mahabharata,  India II.       9 

Mahmud,  Invective  on,  Eirdaiai  .  .  11.  179 
Mahmud,  Praise  of,  Firdatisi  ...  n.  179 
Mahogany  Tree,  The,  Thackeray.  .  x.  222 
Maiden  and  the  Rattlesnake,  Simms  IX.  180 
Maiden's  Lament,  Schiller  ....  vill.  137 
Maidens'  Song  to  the  Tuya,  Ollanta  i.  399 
Maids'  Dialogue,  Ramsay  ....  vill.  304 
Maistre,  Joseph  de,  French  ....  viil.  254 
Making  of  Man,  The,  Swinburne .  .  x.  267 
Malherbe,  Francois  de,  French  .  .  iv.  266 
Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  English  .  .  .  in.  373 
Mambrino's  Helmet,  Cervantes    .    .   m.  228 

Mamurra,  On,  Catullus \\\.  114 

Man,  Young    .    .    .    .    r vil.  365 

Man  and  the  Universe,  Pascal ...  v.  271 
Manfred,  Byron  .........     ix.  214 

Manon  Lescaut,  Privost vil.  210 

in  New  Orleans,  •/'r^wojiT .    .    .   vil.  215 

Man's  Life,  Menander       V.     i^v 

Manrique,  Jorge  de,  Spanish  ....  n.  294 
Manuel,  Don  Juan,  Spanish  ....      i.  382 


Vol.  Page 
Manzoni,  Alessandro,  French  ...  x.  72 
Marathon,  Battle  of,  Herodotus  ...    iv.    20 

Marcellus,  Young,    Virgil IV.  129 

March  of  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  Span- 
ish ..    . I.  381 

Marco  Bozzaris,  Halleck IX.  152 

Marcus  Aurelius,  Greek VII.     56 

Marguerite  of  Navarre,  French  ,  .    .     iv.  244 

Maiie  Antoinette,  Burke VIII.  343 

Marie  de  France,  French i.  212 

Marini,  Giambattista,  Italian  .  .  .  vi.  127 
Mark  Tapley's  Venture,  Dickens  .  .  ix.  313 
Marlborough  at  Blenheim,  Addison  vi.  383 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  English  .  .  iv.  335 
Marmion  and   Douglas,  Parting  of, 

Scott -  VIII.  361 

Marot,  Clement,  French m.  202 

Marriage  and  Single  Life,  Bacon  .  v.  369 
Marriage  of  Sister  Jenny,  Steele  .  .  vi.  368 
Marseillaise,  Rouget  de  Lisle     .    .    .  vill.  248 

Martial,  Latin v.  171 

Marvell,  Andrew,  English vi.  296 

Mary  in  Heaven,  To,  Burns  ....  VIII.  314 

Mary  Morrison,  Burns VIII.  311 

Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  French  .  .  .  iv.  264 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots  Leaving  France, 

Brantdme iv.  261 

Massinger,  Philip,  English   ....      v.  360 

Mather,  Cotton,  American ix.    ig 

Matilda  Gathering  Flowers,  Dante  .     11.  252 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  French  ....      x.  161 
Maxiths,  La  Rochefoucauld  ....    VI.  185 
McFingal's  Vision  of  America's  Fu- 
ture, Trumbull IX.    41 

Medea,  Euripides m.    go 

Medea's  Flight,  Apollonius  .  .  .  .  vi  57 
Medea's  Last  Words  to  her  Children 

Euripides m.     gj 

Medea's  Love,  Apolldnius VI.    52 

Medea's  Wrongs,  jSw^ri^iiaVj  .  .  .  .  m.  gj 
Meeting  of  Parliament,  Za«f/aK</  .  III.  353 
Meher  and  Mushteri,  Assar  ....  V.  1 95 
Melchizedek  the  Jew,  Boccaccio    .    .    m.  135 

Meleager.  Greek yil.    36 

Meleager  on  Himself vil.    38 

Melville,  Herman,  American  .  .  .  ix.  172 
Memnon,  Statue  of,  Cats  .....  vi.  276 
Mena,  Juan  de,  Spanish ......      II.  392 

Menalque,  Bruyere vi.  l8l 

Menander,  Greek    . v     57 

Mencius,  Chinese 11.    45 

Mencms,  Sayings  of,  Chinese .  ...  u.  47 
Mendelssohn,  Moses,  German  .  .  .  vill.  44 
Mendoza,  Diego  de,  Spanish  .  .  .  m.  210 
Merchant  and  the  Parrot,  Rumi  .  .  iv.  i6g 
Merle  and  the  Nightingale,  Dunbar  in.  384 
Merry  Soap-boiler,  Hagedorn  .    .      vill.    13 

Metastasio,  Italian yil.  160 

Michel  Angelo  Buonarroti,  Italian  .  iv.  224 
Midnight  Scene,  Massinger  ....      v.  362 

Mignon,  Goethe yill.    84 

Mignon's  Song,  Goethe vill.   86 

Milk-Maid  of  Finojosa,  Santillana  ._  n.  289 


GENERAI,  INDEX. 


425 


Vol.  Page 

Milton,  Dryden VI.  347 

Milton,  John,  English v.  391 

Mimnermus,  Greek II.    86 

Minnesingers,  The,  German  ...  i.  294 
Minstrel's  Ciirse,  The,  Vhland .  .  .  x.  189 
Minstrel's  Roundelay,  Ckatlerton  .  vil.  399 
Miranda,  Francisco  de  Saa  de,  J^or- 

ti^uese III.  258 

Miriam  and  HUda,  Hawthonu  .  .  rx.  167 
Miser  and  the  Mouse^  Gri.  AtUhology  vii.  42 
Mismle  in  Youth,  Hoccleve  ....  m.  364 
Model  and  the  Statue,  Michel  Atigelo  iv.  226 

Molidre,  J.  B.  V.,  French vi.  187 

Monarch  Cahib,  The,  Kriloff   ...     X.    13 
Monastic  Life,  Basil  the  Great    .   .  vii.    85 
Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  Eng- 
lish   VII.  292 

Montaigne,  Michael  de,  French    .   .   iii.  193 

Monti,  Vincenzo,  Italian x.    79 

Moore,  Thomas,  English vs..  232 

Moorish  Ballads,  Spanish II.  273 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  English  ....     iv.  295 

Morning  Call,  Catullus  ......    iii.  116 

Morning  Hymn,  Lomonosoff ....    m.  393 

Moschus,  Greek ''^l-    45 

Moses,  Song  of,  .Sji/if i.  118 

Moslem's  Prayer,  Koran i.  igo 

Moth  and  the  Flame,  Sadi    ....    iv.  185 

Mother,  The,  Whittier x.  309 

Mother  and  Daughter,  Lamennais  .  viil.  268 
Mother's  Lament  for  her  Lost  Son, 

Maffei VII.  159 

Mourning,  Chinese II.    44 

Mis.   Battle's    Opinions    on  Whist, 

Lamb IX.  243 

Much  Ado  about  a  Kiss,  Bandello  .     VI.  104 
Murder  of  Agamemnon,  jSschylus  .    III.    53 
Murderer's  Confession  to  Sonia,  Dos- 
toievsky      X.     38 

Muspilli,   German I.  284 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  French    ....     x.  132 

My  Bird,  Hafiz v.  184 

My  Books,  Southey DC.  268 

My  Fortune,  Quevedo vi.  155 

My  Little  Comer,  Beranger  ....    ix.  391 

My  Monument,  Pttshkin X.    18 

My  Native  Province,  Pierre  Vidal  .  i.  345 
Myrtis,  For  the  Tomb  of,  Greek  .  .  vil.  39 
Mysterious  Harper,  The,  Goethe  .  .  vill.  88 
Mystery  of  Existence,  India     ...      v.    39 

Naive,  The,  Mendelssohn viil.   44 

Nameless  Charm,  Miranda  ....    HI.  258 

Napoleon,  Emerson rx.  112 

Napoleon   and   the  Wounded  Rus- 
sians, Tolstoi X.    48 

Nathan  and  the  Templar,  Lessing  .  Vin.  27 
Nathan    the   Wise   before    Saladin, 

Lessing Vlll.    31 

Nature,  Emerson ix.  no 

Nature  Three  Kingdoms  of,  Z«««^.  vill.  42 
Nausicaa    and    Odysseus,     Homer. 

Odyssey '•  ^72 


ToL  Page 
Neaera's  Kisses, _/i>^aMncr  Secundus .  vi.  271 
Nero  Slays  His  Mother,  Tacitus  .    .     v.  127 

New  England,  American ix.     15 

New  Testament,  Greek vil.    13 

New  Year's  Gift,  The,  Zschokke.  .  .  ix.  344 
Nibelungenlied,  The,  German  ...  11.  380 
Niccolini,  Giambattista,  Italian    .   .     x.    81 

Nihilist,  The,  Turgenieff x.    27 

Niobe,  Ovid iv.  141 

Nizami,  Persian iv.  162 

Noah's  Flood,  English iv.  332 

Noble  Lord's  Morning,  Parini ,  .  vil.  176 
North  Wind  and  the  Sun,  Babrius   .     v.    70 

Not  at  Home,  Martial v.  172 

Nothing  Better  than  Angling,  Walton,  v.  380 
Noureddin  in   Quest  of  the   Magic 

Lamp,  Oehlenschlager  ....  VIII.  183 
'Novalis,'  Count  von   Haidenbeig, 

German IX.  336 

Nun   and   the  Lettuce,  Alfred  the 

Great I.  261 

Nymph's    Reply  to  the   Passionate 

Shepherd,  Raleigh IV.  329 

Ocana,  Francisco  de,  Spanish  .    .    .     vi.  152 

Ocean,  The,  Byron IX.  207 

Ode  to  Anactoria,  Sappho II.    91 

Ode  to  Evening,  Collins vil.  377 

Ode  to  God,  Derzhauin III.  396 

Ode  to  Himself,  jff«»yo»j«»     .    .   .     IV.  399 

Ode  to  Liberty,  Collins VII.  376 

Ode  to  Rienzi,  Petrarch II.  266 

(Edipus,  King,  Sophocles iii.    72 

Oehlenschlager,  A.  G.,  Danish .  .  .  VIII.  174 
CEngus,  Epitaph  of,  Irish  Lit.  .  .  .  VIII.  287 
Of  his  Lady's  Old  Age,  Ronsard  .  .  rv.  260 
Of  Old  Sat  Freedom  on  the  Heights, 

Tennyson X.  240 

Olai's  Hog  Vigi,  Heimskringla  .  .  IV.  277 
Olaf  Tryggvesson,  Birth  of,  Heims- 

kringla rv.  272 

Olaf    Tryggvesson,    Wedding    of, 

Heimskringla IV.  275 

Old  Age  and  Death,  Waller  ....  VI.  312 
Oldest  Book  in  the  World,  Egyptian.  i.  22 
Old  Familiar  Faceis,  The,  Lamb  .  .  IX.  245 
Old  Indian  Burying  Ground,  Freneau  IX.  46 
Old  Jackal  and  the  Elephant,  India,  v.  3Gr 
Old  Man  of  Verona,  Claudian  .   .    .  VII.  108 

Old  Man's  Staff,  Celtic I.  326 

Old  Played-out  Song,  Riley  ....     x.  358 

Old  Testament,  Hebrew I.  114 

Old-Time  Ladies,  Ballad  of,  Villon  .  11.  337 
Old-Time  Lords,  Ballad  of,  Villon  .  11.  338 
Old  Woman's  Story,  French  ....     11.  311 

Oleg,  Death  of,  Russian '  iii.  390 

Ollanta,  Aboriginal  American  ...  I.  394 
Ollanta  Threatens  the  City  of  Cuzco, 

Ollanta I.  398 

Oluf  the  Saint,  King,  Danish  Lit,   .  viil.  148 

Olympia,  Pindar II.  109 

Omar  Khayyam,  Persian II.  203 


426 


GENERAI,   INDEX. 


O  Nanny,  Wilt  Thou  Go  With  Me? 

Percy 

One  Liitle  Kiss,  Johannes  Secundus. 
Onion  Stew,  1  he,  Cir//!»8  .        .    .    . 
Only  an  Indian  Baby,  H.  H.  Jackson 
Only  Kiss  an  J  Swear  No  Oath,  Heine 
Only  Sure  Weatth,  Martial 
Open  the  Door,  Ocana  .    . 
Open  Window,  Ti  e,  Longfellow 
Orators  of  Athens,  The  .    . 
Orestes  and  Hermione,  Racine 
Orestes  Discove.s  Iphigeuia  in 

ris,  Kuripides  ,    .        .    . 
Oriental  Alexander,  Nizami  . 
Orlando  and  the  Giants,  i  uici 
Orlando,  Madness  of,  Anosto 
Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  Virgil 
Orsini,  Isabella,  Cuerrazzi    . 
Ossian,  frisk   ....... 

Ossian's  Lament  in  Old  Age,  Celtic  . 
Othello  and  Desdemona,  Shakespeare 

Otway,  Thomas,  English 

Ovid,  Latin 


Tau- 


Vol.  Page 

VIII.  324 
VI.  270 
IV.  232 
X.  318 
X.  205 
V.  173 
VI.  152 

IX.  122 

VI.     9 
V.  297 

III.  87 

IV.  165 
IV.  191 

V.  205 
IV. 119 
X.  85 
V.  313 
I.  320 
IV.  374 
VI.  334 
IV.  139 


Paean  of  Joy,  Whitman X.  336 

Pagan  Literature.  Basil  the  Great  .  vil.  84 
Painter  and  tie  Critics,  Ci//«r/ .    .    .VIII.    18 

Pandora,  Hesiod  II.     78 

Panegyric  of  Love,  Plato V.    82 

Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  St.  Luke.  vil.  16 
Parasite  Brings  Good  News,  Plautus.  11.  128 
Parcival,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  .       i.  302 

Parini,  Giuseppe,  Italian vil.  175 

IJaris  (City),  Scarron  .■  .    .    .    .    .    .'  vi.  177 

Parisian  Education,  A,  Diderot    .    .  vil.  332 

Parson,  The,  Chnucer III.  251 

Parting   of   Marmion   and   Douglas, 

Scott VIII.  361 

Partington,  Mrs.,  Sydney  Smith  .  .  IX.  300 
Partnership,  Greek  Anthology    ,    .    .  VII.    40 

Pascal,  Blaise,  French V.  270 

Passionate   Shepherd    to  his   Love, 

Marlowe IV.  337 

Passion  Week  in  Rome,  De  Stael     .  VIII.  251 

Passport,  The,  Baggesen VIII.  167 

Patient  Griselda,  Boccaccio  ....  III.  150 
Paul  Revere's  Ride,  Longfellow  .  .  IX.  126 
Pausanias  the  Spartan,  Ihucydides  .  IV.  30 
Peace  of  Wedmore,  Alfred  the  Great,  i.  260 
Peacocks  and  the  Crow,  Lessing  .    .  Vlll.    43 


Peacemakers,  The,  Arabian  . 
Pegasus  in  Pound,  Longfellow  , 
Pellico,  Silvio,  Italian  .... 
Peninsula  of  Sirmio,  Catullus  . 
Pentaur,  Poem  of,  Egyptian  .  . 
Percy,  Bishop  Thomas,  English 

Peredur,  Celtic 

Pericles,  Character  of,  Thucydides 
Periwinkle,  The,  Rousseau   .    . 
Persian  Literature,  Period  I.  .   . 

"  "  "      IL     . 

"  <•  "      III.  . 


I.  186 
.  IX.  123 
.  X.  68 
.   III.  118 

■  I.  51 
VIII.  323 
.  1. 328 
•  IV.  35 
.  VII.  269 
I.  107 
.  II.  169 
.    IV,  j6o 


Vol.  Page 

Persian  Literature,  Period  IV.     .    .  v.  179 

Persian  Stories V.  194 

Persius,  Aulus,  Latin V.  133 

Peter   Pounce   and    Parson   Adams, 

Melding VII.  325 

Petrarch,  Francesco,  Italian     ...  II.  259 

Petronius  Arbiter,  Latin V.  155 

Phaedrus,   Latin V.  132 

Pharaohs,  Greatest  of  the I.    49 

Pharsalia,  Battle  of,  Casar    ....  IV.  109 
Philaster's  Jealousy,  Beaumont  and 

Fletcher V.  351 

Philemon,  Greek V.     58' 

Philip  of  Macedon,  Demosthenes  .    .  VI.     25 

Philosopher  in  a  Storm,  Gellius     .    .  VI.  100 

Philosopher's    Stone,   1  he,    Alfonso  i.  377 

Philosophy  as  a  Physician,  Boetius  .  VII.  I16 

Phoebe  Dawson,  Lrabbe IX.  192 

Phyllis  and  Glycera,  jWi?M«-i}^  .    .    .  iv.  267 

Phyllis,  Invitation  to,  Horace    ...  IV.  135 

Physioan,  The,  Chaucer III.  330 

Picciola,  Saintine X.  126 

Pickwick  Returns  Thanks,  Dickens  .  IX.  305 
Picture  of  A  phrcdite,  Greek  Anthology  vil.    41 

Piece  of  String,  The,  Maupassant   .  x.  162 

Piers  Ploughman,  Langland     .    .    .  in.  350 

Pilgrimage  to  Kevlaar,  Heine   „    .    .  x.  202 

Pilgriifls  at  Vanity  Fair,  Bunyan  ,    .  Vi.  306 

Pindar,  Greek 11.  lol 

F'me  Tree,  The,  Emerson IX.  118 

Pipes  at  Lucknow,  1  he,   Hhittier    .  X.  308 

Hppa's  Song,  Browning X.  250 

Pisan,  Christine  de,  Irench  ....  II.  332 

Pitcher  of  Mater,  A, /'/azz/Mi     .    .    .  II.  138 

Plagre  of  Florence,  Ihe,  Boccaccio  .  111.  132 

Plato,  Greek V.    74 

Plautus,  T.  Maccius,  Latin    ....  II.  117 

Playing  with  bis  Cat,  Montaigne  .    .  III.  201 

Plea  for  Drinking,  Anacreon    ...  IV.    88 

Pleiade,  The,  Irench IV.  250 

Pliny  the  Elder,  Latin V.  164 

Pliny  the  'Vounger,  Latin v.  175 

Pliny's  Letter  on  the  Christians    .    .  v.  176 

Ploughman  and  His  Child,  Sand     .  IX.  397 

Plowman,  The,  Chaucer III.  333 

Plowman's  Creed,  The,  English  .    .  III.  355 

Plutarch,   Greek '. VII.    43 

Pluto  and  Hermes  (Mercury), ZM(rz'a«  VII.    50 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  American     .    '.    .  IX.  139 
Poet  Confers  Immortality,  The,  Shake- 
speare      ■  IV.  391 

Poet's  Daughter,  The,  Novalis     .    .  ix.  336 

Poet's  Gift  of  Fame,  Theognis  ...  II.    94 
Poets  Laureate  of  England     ....      X.  411 

Poet's  Nature  and  Wants,  Juvenal .  vi.    66 

Poet's  Retrospect,  Camoens  ....  in,  268 

Polish  Literature X.  361 

Poliziano,  Angelo,  Italian     ....  lii.  167 

PoUio,  Virgil IV.  117 

Poly{)hemus  in  Love,  Theocritus  -    .  VI.    35 

Pompey  and  Caesar,  Rivals,  Lucan  .  V.  148 

Ponce  de  Leon,  Luis,  Spanish  ,    .    .  III.  208 

Poor  Richard's  Alnjanac,  Franklin .  IX.    28 


GENERAL,   INDEX. 


427 


Vol,  Page 

Pope,  Alexander,  English vi.  392 

Porto,  Luigi  da,  7ifa/«o» iv.  218 

Portrait,  The^  Marol iii.  204 

Portrait,    Wordsworth IX.  260 

Portuguese  Literature      ......  m.  254 

Pound  of  Flesh,  The,  Shakespeare    .  iv.  364 

Poverty,  Italian II.  229 

Poverty  the  Handmaid  of  Philosophy, 

Apuleitis VI.    93 

Praise  of  Famous  Men,  Ecclesiasticiis  ii.    59 

Praise  of  Little  Women,  Jifan  Riaz  I.  384 

Prasildo  and  Tisbina,  Boiardo  ...  iv.  207 

Prayer  to  Cupid,  Boccaccio    ....  iii.  154 

Pretty  Genius,  Martial v.  17  ^ 

PrSvost  d'  Exiles,  Abb6,  French  .  .  VII.  208 
Priam   Begs  the    Body  of  His  Son 

Hector,  Homer I.  166 

Priam,  Death  of,   Virgil IV.  123 

Princes    Faithful   to   Engagements? 

Machiavelli IV.  200 

Prioress,  The,  Chaucer iii.  329 

Prisoner  in  the  Bastile,  Voltaire    .    .  vii.  227 

Procrastination,  Young vii.  364 

Proem  to  the  Gulistan,  Sadi  ....  iv.  174 

Prologue  in  Heaven,  Goethe  ....  viil.  108 

Prometheus  Bound,  jEschylus .    .    .  iil.    58 

Prometheus  Defies  Zeus,  ^schylus  .  III.    62 

Propertius,  Latin IV.  158 

Proper  Use  of  Wealth,  Menander  .  V.  58 
Proserpine  Captured  by  Pluto,  Clau- 

dian  .            VII.  109 

Provencal  Literature I.  337 

Prowess  of  Indra,  .^»2Kj^^y4^?^rffl  i.    88 

Prudentius,  Zatin VII.  119 

Ptah-Hotep,  Precepts  of,  Egyptian  .  I.    22 

Pulci,  Luigi,   Italian IV.  190 

Punishment  of  Loki ,  Younger  Edda  .  11-373 

Purity,  Zend-Avesta I.  Ill 

Pursuit  of  Truth.  Lessing viil.    43 

Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  Ovid   ....  iv.  147 

Pyrrhus  to  Fabricius,  Ennius   ...  11.  116 

Pyth^oras,  Golden  Verses  of,  Greek  iv.    8l 

I^thagoras,  Symbols  of,  Greek  ...  iv.    80 

Pythius  the  Lydian,  Herodottts  ...  iv.    17 


Quack  Doctor,  Rutboeuf  .....  I.  231 
Quarrel  of  Achilles  and  Agamemnon, 

Homer I-  I55 

Queen  Elizabeth  and  Amy  Robsart, 

Scott VIII.  380 

Queen  Sigrid   the  Haughty,  Heims- 

kringla _•    •    •  IV.  278 

Quevedo,  Francisco-  de,  Spanish  .    .  VI.  153 

Quintilian,  Latin VI.    75 

Quintus  Fixlein's  Wedding,  Richter.  IX.  331 

Quip,  Herbert v.  376 


Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  Browning ....  X.  252 
Rabelais,  Fran?ois,  French  ....  HI.  176 
Racine,  Jean  Baptiste,  French  ...     V.  294 


Vol.  Page 
Raid  on  the  Parson's  Kitchen,  Grim- 

melshausen vi.  250 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  English   .    .    .  iv.  325 

Rameses  IL,  Egyptian 1-49 

Ramsay,  Allan,  Scotch vill.  301 

Rape  of  Sita,  India 1-99 

Ravana,  Death  of,  India I.  103 

Raven,  The,  Poe ix.  144 

Rawdon  Crawley  Goes  Home,  Thack- 
eray      ...  X.  223 

Recital  of  the  Priest  Pech,  American  .  i.  394 

Recognition,  Sakuntala III.    28 

Reconciliation,  Saga  of  Frithiof  .    .  iv.  2S8 

Red  Cross  Knight  and  Una,  Spenser  IV.  323 

Redi,  Francesco,  Italian vi.  130 

Reflections    on    Landing    at    lona, 

Johnson VII.  383 

Regard  for  Others,  Mencius  ....  11.    49 
Rejected     Bridegroom,    Marguerite 

of  Navarre iv.  246 

Religion  of  the  Heart,  Rumi    .    .    .  iv.  172 
Remembrances  of  the  People,  Bir- 

anger   .    .    . '   .    .  Ix.  388 

Remnant  in  America,  M.  Arnold  .  x.  272 

Renaissance  in  France III.  171 

Renaissance  in  Italy iii.  164 

Repentance  of  Antioch,  Chrysostom  .  VII.  91 
Rescue  of  Oriana,  Amadis  di  Gaula .  11.  284 
Retired  Courtier,  Mendoza  ....  iii.  220 
Return.of  the  Troops,  Miccolo  Albizzi  11.  259 
Returning  the  Jewels,  Talmud.  .  .  VII.  100 
Revenger's  Tragedy,  Tourneur  .  .  v.  345 
Revolution,  Vision  of  the.  La  Harpe  VIII.  241 
Reward  of  Valor,  Froissart ....  11.  323 
Reynard  Condemned  to  Death,  Rey- 
nard the  Fox III.  292 

Reynard  the  Fox,  German    ....  III.  282 

Riaz,  Juan,  Spanish I    384 

Ribeyro,  Bemardim,  Portuguese  .    .  III.  257 

Richardson,  Samuei,  English  .    .    .  VII.  312 

Richard  the  Redeless,  Langland .    .  III.  353 

Richard  II's  Soliloquy,  Daniel     .    .  v.  330 

Richter,  Jean  Paul,  German     .    .    .  ix.  32S 

Rienzi,  Ode  to,  Petrarch II.  266 

Riley,  J.  Whitcomb,  American     ...  X.  358 

Rinaldo  Punished  by  Cupid,  Boiardo  IV.  215 
Rinaldo's   Interview  with    Armida, 

Tasso    '. V.  245 

Ring  Recovered,  The,  Sakuntala    .  III.     27 

Rip  Van  Winkle's  Return,  Irving   .  IX.    71 

Rising  of  the  Dead,  Mahabharata    .  II.     27 

Robin  and  Makyne,  Henryson  .    .    .  III.  391 
Rob  Roy  in  the  Tolbooth  at  Glasgow, 

Scott VIII.391 

Roger  Holiday,  Bit-anger     ...  IX.  389 
Rogero    and    Bradamant,  Duel    of, 

Ariosto V.  211 

Roland,  Chanson  de,  French    ...  I.  199 

Roland's  Pride,  Chanson  de  Rolnnd.  I.  200 
Roman  Debate  on  Women's  Rights, 

Livy V.  115 

Romance  of  Antar,  Arabian  ....  II.  155 

Romance  of  RoUo,  French    ....  1.  205 


428 


GENERAL   INDEX. 


Vol.  Page 
Romance  oi  the  Rose,  French  ...     ii.  309 

Rome,  Quevedo VI.  154 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  Shakespeare  .  .  .  iv.  356 
Rome,  Passion  Week  in,  De  Stael  .  vni.  251 
Romola   and    Her    Fadier;    George 

Eliot X.  260 

Rondeau,  Leigh  Hunt IX.  235 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  French  ....    iv.  282 

Rosalind,  Shakespeare IV.  382 

Rose,  The,  Ronsard IV.  258 

Rouget  de  Lisle,  French vill.  247 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  French  .  .  vil.  256 
Rousseau  at  Madame  Basile's  .  .  .  vii.  265 
Royal  Prisoner  Sees  His  Lady-Love, 

James  I.  of  Scotland lii.  380 

Rubaiyat,  Omar  Khayyam    ....     n.  203 

Rudagi,  Persian 11.  172 

Ruffin,  Druyire VI.  180 

Ruined  Life,  A,  Lowell x.  295 

Ruins  of  Rome,  y.  du  Bellay  .  .  .  iv.  253 
Rulers  Appointed  by  Heaven,  Men- 

cius II.    48 

Rumi,  Jelaleddin,  Persian    ....    rv.  167 

Russian  Literature,  Period  I.    .    .    .    iii.  386 

"  "  "      11.  .   .   .      X.      9 

Rustem  and  Sohrab,  Firdausi  ...      11.  189 

Rustic  Courtship,  Ramsay VIII.  303 

Rustic  Outwits  the  Devil,  Machiavelli  iv.  202 
Rutbceuf,  French I.  231 

Sacchetti,  Franco,  Italian iii.  154 

Sacrifice  at  Delphi,  Heliodorus  .  ,  .  vil.  66 
Sacrifice  of  Iphigenia,  Lturetitis    ,    .    iii.     96 

Sachs,  Hans,  German III.  305 

Sadi,  Persian IV.  173 

Saga  of  Frithiof  the  Bold,  Scanda- 

navian .    iv.  279 

Saintine,  Xavier  Boniface,  French  .  x.  125 
Saint-Amant,  Sieur  de,  French  .  .  v.  268 
St.    Benedict's   Vision,    Alfred   the 

Great I.  262 

St.  Patrick,  Calderon  de  la  Barca  .  vill.  213 
St.  Patrick's  Breastplate,  Irish  .  .  VIII.  283 
St.  Paul  at  Athens,  Iilew  Testament .  vil.  19 
St.  Peter  and  the  Goat,  Hans  Sachs  .  in.  306 
St.  Pierre,  Bemardin,  French  .  .  .  VIII.  232 
Sakka's  Presents,  India      ......      v.    '22 

Sakuntala,  India III.     15 

Salammbo  and  the  Serpent,  Flaubert     x.  142 

Sallust,  Latin lY.     95 

Sam  Weller's  Valentine,. /?2V/^;»J  .    .    IX.  308 

Samson's  Betrayal,  Bible I.  120 

Sancho  Ortiz,  Lope  de  Vega  .  .  .  VI.  141 
Sancho  Ortiz  and  the  King,  Lope  de 

Vega VI.  141 

Sancho  Panza  and  the  Duchess,  Cer- 
vantes   III.  245 

'  Sand,  George,'  French IX.  393 

Sanehat,  Adventures   of  the  Exile, 

Egyptian 1-39 

Sannazaro,  Giacomo,  Italian  .  .  .  iv.  239 
Sanskrit  Epics,  India 1-94 


Vol.  Page 
Sanskrit  Literature,  See  Indian  Literature 
Santillana,  Marques  de,  Spanish  .    .     n.  289 

Sappho,  Greei  II.    88 

Sardanapalus,    Book-Stamp   of,    As- 
syrian         I.     71 

Satan,    the   Angel   of   Presumption, 

Caedmon i.  251 

Satire  Menippee,  French in.  205 

Satirist's  Self-Examination,  Boileau  .  v.  281 
baul    aiid     Jonathan,    Lament    for, 

David .        ., I.  122 

Saul,  Death  of,  Aifieri vil.  189 

Saul's  Madness,  Aifieri vil.  182 

Saxon  Chronicle,  Anglo-Saxon     .    .       I.  263 

Sayings  of  Jesus VII.    22 

Scandal  and  Literature  in  High  Life, 

Congrtve VI.  332 

Scandinavian     Heroes     and    Bards, 

Oehlenschlager VIII.  175 

Scandinavian  Literature,  Period  I.    .     ii.  340 
"  "  "      H.  .    XV.  270 

Scarron,  Paul,  French vi.  174 

ScheiiFel,  Joseph  Victor  von,  German     x.  207 
Schiller,  Friedrich  von,  German  .    .  VIII.  119 
Scholar's   Temptation,   The,,  Calde- 
ron de  la  Barca VIII.  207 

School-Mistress,  The,  Shenstone  .  .  vii.  372 
Scipio  and  Allucius,  Livy      ....      v.  114 

Scipio's  Dream,  Cicero in.  108 

Scornful  Lady,  Boccaccio  .....    in.  138 

Scotch  Literature,  Period  I ni.  376 

"     II VIII.  294 

Scotchmen,  Lamb ix.  244 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  English  ....  VIII.  355 
Scotty's  Intervievi'  vs'ith  the  Minister, 

Mark  Twain x.  327 

Seafarer,  The,  Anglo-Saxon      ...        i.  247  • 
Sea  Hath  Its  Pearls,  Heine  ....      x.  201 
Sea-Maiden's  Vengeance,  Irish    .    .  vill.  287 
Seeking  the  Ford,  Confucius     ...       I.  149 

Sejanus,  Fall  of,  Juvenal vi.    69 

Seneca,  L.  Ann^us,  Latin  ....  v.  138 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  Christ    .    .    .  vil.     15 

Seven  Wise  Men,  Greek iv.     79 

S^vigni,  Mme.  de.,  French  ....  vi.  212 
Shakespeare,  William,  English  .  .  iv.  348 
Shakespeare,  William,  Swinburne    .      x.  2^8 

Shakespeare,  Milton v.  394 

Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  Goethe  .    .    .  vill.    91 

Shakespeare's  Sonnets iv.  391 

Sham  Knight,  Erasmus vi.  264 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  English  .  .  ix.  223 
Shenstone,  William,'  English  .  .  .  vii.  372 
Sheridan,  R.  Brinsley,  English     .    .  vni.  330 

Ship  of  Fools,  Brant vi.  233 

Ship  of  State,  Theognis 11.    g^ 

Shipwreck,  The,  Byron ix.  214 

Shipwreck  of  Virginia,  St,  Pierre  .  VIII.  233 
Shoemaker's  Daughter,  Cecco  A'ngi- 

olieri 11.  258 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  English  .  .  .  .  iv.  307 
Siegfried  at  King   Gunther's  Court, 

Nibelungenlied 11. 385 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


429 


Simms,  William  Gilmore, 


Vol.  Page 
American  ix.  184 


Ad^ 


Simonides  of  Amorgos,  Greek 
Simonides  of  Ceos,  Greek  . 
Sienkiewicz,  Henry,  Polish 
Singing  of  Horant,  Gudrun 
Sinner  and  the  Monk,  Sadi      ... 
Sir  Carl,  the  Cloister  Robber,  Swedish 
Sir    Colgriand's    Adventure,    Hart- 

niann  von  Aue 

Sir  Giles  Overreach,  Massinger 
Sirens,  Song  of.  Homer,  Odyssey 
Sir  Epicure  Mammon,  Jonson 
Sirmio,  Peninsula  of,  Catullus 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  in  Love, 

dison    .... 
Sita,  Rape  of,  India 
Skipper  Ireson's  Ride,  Whiitier 
Skull  Speaks,  The,  Chinese  . 
Skylark,  To  a,  Shelley    .    .    . 

Sleep,  Daniel 

Slothful  Pupil,  Persius  .    .    . 
Smith,  Captain  John  .... 
Smith,  Sydney,  English  .    .   . 
Smith's  Captivity,  Capt.  John 
Smollett,  Tobias,  English 
Snow-Storm,  The,  Thomson  . 
Socrates,  Farewell  of,  Plato  . 
Socrates,  House  of,  La  Fontaine 
Socrates  Visits  Theodota,  Xenophon 
Sohrab,  Death  of,  Firdansi 
Soldier's    Morning-Song,   Schenken- 

dorf 

Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba 

Koran      

Solomon's  House,  Bacon  .... 

Song  from  Don  Quixote,  Cervantes 

Song  of  Catharine  of  Aragon,  Gongora  vi.  149 


IX. 
IX. 

I. 
II. 

I. 

ni. 
I. 

X. 

I. 


Song  of  Contraries,  Spanish 

Song  of  Echo,  Meidre 

Song  of  Emptiness,  Wigglesworth 

Song  of  Hiawatha,  Longfellow 

Song  of  Hildebrand,  Gertnan 

Song  of  Maisuna,  Arabian    . 

Song  of  Moses,  Bible  .... 

Song  of  Songs,  India    .    .   , 

Song  of  the  Cuckoo,  Celtic   . 

Song  of  the  Fatherland,  Arndt 

Song  of  the  Harper,  Egyptian 

Song  of  the  Mouse,  Charles  of  Or- 
leans      

Song  of  the  Shirt,  Hood    . 

Song  of  the  Sirens,  Homer 

Songs  from  the  Beggar's- Opera,  Gay.  vil 

Song-Writer    and    the   Shoemaker, 

Don  Juan  Manuel I 

Sonnet,  The,  Italian II 

Sonnet,  The,  Wordsworth     .... 

Sonnet  on  Being  Arrived  at  Twenty- 
three,  Milton   •    •    • 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  Mrs. 
Browning        

Sonnets  to  Laura,  Petrarch    .... 

Sonnet  to  Brunetto  Latini,  Dante  .    . 


"■    95 
11.    99 

X.363 

II-  397 

IV.  1^/^ 

VIII.  189 

1.306 

V.  363 

I.  171 

IV.  395 

III.  118 

VI.  378 
I.  99 
X.  310 

II-   43 

IX.  225 

V.  332 

V.  136 

IX.  12 

IX.  297 

IX.    13 

VII-  334 

VII.  357 

V.    94 

V. 
IV. 

II. 


292 

69 

197 


X.  188 

I.  192 

V.  370 
III.  250 


1-375 

VIII.  292 

18 

133 
28s 

16S 
118 

35 
325 
186 

47 


n.  335 

IX.  282 

I.  171 

288 


IX. 


382 
262 
265 


V.  400 

X.  257 
II.  263 
II.  238 


Vol.  Page 

Sophocles,  Greek in.    65 

Bordello,  Italian n.  226 

Sorrows  of  Werther,  The,  Goethe    .  yiii.   76 

Soul's  Ascension,  The,  Monti  .  .  .  x.  "So 
Soul's   Declaration    of    Innocence, 

Book  of  the  Dead i.    31 

Soul,  Voyage  of  the,  Book  of  the 

Dead I.    29 

Southey,  Robert,  English ix.  271 

Spanish  Actors vi.  137 

Spanish  Boarding  School,  Quevedo  .  vi.  156 

Spanish  Drama VI.  133 

Spanish  Literature,  Period  I  .    ,    .    .  i.  350 

"      n.    .   .    .  11.269 

"     m..  .  .  III.  207 

■     "  "  "      IV.  .  .   .    VI.  133 

Sparta  and  Athens,  Isocrates  .  .  .  vi.  12 
Spartan  Veterans,  Tyrtaus    ....     II.    85 

Spartan  Youths,  Tyrtaus II.    85 

Spectator's  Club,  Steele vi.  363 

Spans,  Sir  Patrick,  Scotch  .....  vill.  296 
Spenser,  Edmund,  English  ....    IV.  312 

Spoils  of  War,  Alcaus II.     92 

Squire  Western  and  Sophia's  Lovers, 

'      Fielding vil.  328 

Stage-Plays,  Augustine  of  Hippo  .    .  vil.  123 

Stag  Hunt,  Sidney  '. iv.  309 

Statue  of  Memnon,  Cats vi.  276 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  English     .    ,    .    vi.  362 

Stella,  Sidney iv.  311 

Stephen  the  Sabaite,  Greek    ....  vil.    93 

Sterne,  Laurence,  English    ....  vil.  342 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  English     .      x.  275 
Stoic  Instructor^  The,  Persius  ...      v.  134 
Stolen  Kiss,  Sidney   ........     iv.  311 

Storming  of  Front-de-Boeuf  s  Castle, 

.  Scott vilI.  366 

Stormsters,  The,  German vill.    57 

Stormy  Life,  Camoens in.  269 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  American  ,  ix.  185 
Straparola,  Giovanni  F.,  Italian  .    .      v.  227 

Stricken  Deer,  Cowper Viii.  348 

Student  Days,  Giusti X.    92 

Stuyvesant,  Peter  Death  of,  Irvijtg  .     IX.    69 

Suabian  Poets,  German X.  189 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  English  ....      v.  382 

Suetonius,  Roman vi.    70 

Suit  Rejected,  Montagu vil.  293 

Sulpicia,  Cerinthus  to,  Tibullus  .  .  iv.  157 
Sulpicia  on  Cerinthus  Going  to  the 

Chase IV.  156 

Sultan  Osman  and  Zara,  Voltaire  .  .  vil.  236 
Summons  to  the  Bard,  Celtic  ...  i.  320 
Summons  to  the  Crusade,  i^r<;«f.4  .    .       I.  211 

Sunset,  Miranda III.  258 

Sunshine,  Epictetus Vll.    55 

Superfine  Ladies,  Moliire V.  275 

Surrey,  Eari  of,  English IV.  301 

Swallow,  The,  Lessing VIII.   43 

Sweet  Rose,  Drummond Vlil.  301 

Swift,  Jonathan,  English VI.  384 

Swinburne,  lAlgernon  Charles,  En- 
glish   .   . X.  265 


450 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Vol.  Fage 

Sword  Song,  Horner x.  184 

Sjracusan   Women    at    Festival    of 

Adonis,  Theocritus VI.    37 


Tacitus,  C.  Cornelius,  Latin  ...  v.  123 
Taillefer  and  Odo  at  Senlac,  Romanct 

of  Rollo I.  207 

Tale  of  Two  Brothers,  Egyptian  ,  .  I.  55 
Tales  of  the  Magicians,  Egyptian  .  i.  33 
Taliessin's  Prophecy,  Celtic  ....  i.  336 
Talmud,  Sayings  from,  Hebrew .   .    .  vil.    98 

Tam  O'Shanter,  Bums vill.  315 

Tancred  and  Clorinda,  Tasso    ...      v.  239 

Tannhauser,  German in.  273 

TannhSuser's  Evil  Choice,  German,    in.  276 

Tarquin's  Dream,  Latin n.  151 

Tasso,  Torquato,  Italian v.  234 

Tasso's  Invocation v.  238 

Tassoni,  Alessandro,  Italian  ....  vi.  125 
Tartarin  of  1  arascon,  Daudet ...  x.  155 
Tatiana's  Retrospect,  Pushkin  .  .  x.  16 
Taylor,  Bayard,  American  ....  x.  313 
Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  .  .  vil.  23 
Tears,  Idle  Tears,  7'ennyson     ...      x.  229 

TegnSr,  Esaias,  Swedish vill.  193 

Telemachus  Welcomed  by  Calypso, . 

Pinelon VI.  220 

Tell,  William,  Leaving  Hovie,SchillerviU.  137 
Tell,  William,  and  the  Tyrant,  Schilleryin.  141 
Temple  of  Asklepios,  IJerondas   .    .      V.    65 

Temple  of  Isis,  J/oo>-« ix.  239 

Ten  Classes  of  Women,  Simondes  .  II.  95 
Ten  Thousand  Reach  the  Sea,  The, 

Xenophon IV.     53 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  English  .  X.  235 
Terence,  P.  Terentius  Afer,  Latin  .  11.  145 
Thackeray,  William  M.,  English  .    .      x.  218 

Thanatopsis,  Bryant IX.  102 

Theocritus,  Greek VI.    34 

Theognis,  Greek II.    93 

Theonoe    and    Child,    Epitaph    on, 

Greek  Anthology VII.     40 

thermopylx,  Sim^onides  0/ Ceos .  .    .     11.  100 
Theseus  Interrupts  the  Fight,  Chau- 
cer  III.  340 

Thia's  Incantation.  Straparola  ...  v.  229 
Thibaud,  King  of  Navarre,  French  .       I.  209 

Thirsters,  The,  Italian VI.  121 

Thomson,  James,  English vil.  356 

Thor  and  the  Giant,  Younger  Edda  .  II.  363 
Three  Kingdoms  of  Nature.  Lessing  vill.   42 

Three  Ladies,  Tasso V.  253 

Three  Johns,  Holmes X.  304 

Thucydides,  Greek IV.    25 

Thunder,  Toumeur V.  345 

Tiberius,  Death  of,  Tacitus  ....      V.  125 

Tibullus,  Latin IV.  155 

Tieck,  Ludwig,  German IX.  342 

Timaret6  Puts  Away  Childish  Things, 

Greek  Anthology VII.    39 

Time  and  Eternity,  Young  ....  VII.  365 
Tiresias,  Story  of,  Callimachus  ,   .   .    vi.    48 


vol.  Page 

Titus,  Emperor,  Suetonius vi.     71 

Tityrus  and  Mehbceus,  Virgil  .  .  .  iv.  114 
Tobacco-Smoker's  Dreams,  Amant .  v.  269 
To  a  L^dy  Weeping,  Arabian  ...     ir.  166 

To  AlcKus,  Sappho II.    91 

To  his  Mistress's  Lips,  Chiabrera  .  vi.  123 
To  Althea  from  Prison,  Lovelace  .  .  v.  387 
To  a  Nightingale,  Drummond  .    .    .  vill.  301 

To  a  Skylark,  Shelley iv.  221 

To  Celia,  Jonson iv.  400 

To  Diane,  Marot m.  204 

To  His  Lute,  Drummond VIII.  300 

To  His  Mistress,  Wyatt iv.  302 

To  His  Young  Mistress,  Ronsard     .    iv.  259 

To  Italy,  Filicaja vil.  158 

To  Lesbia,  Catullus in.  113 

To  Mary,  Cowper VIII,  349 

To  Mary  in  Heaven,  Burns     .    .    .  VIII.  314 

To  P^pa,  A.  de  Musset x.  135 

To  the  Roman  People,  Horace  ,    .    .    iv.  132 

To  the  Virgins,  Berrick v.  388 

To  Virtue,  Aristotle v.  102 

Tokens  for  Sale,  Christine  de  Pisan  11.  332 
Tolstoi,  Count  Lyof  N. ,  Russian  .  .  X.  45 
Tomb  of  the  Capulets,  Shakespeare  .  iv.  361 
Tourneur,  Cyril,  English  .....  v.  344 
Town-Meeting,  P.  M.,  Trumbull    .     IX.    38 

Toy  Cart,  India in.     n 

Tricks  of  the  Wonderful  Ass,  Apul- 

eius VI.    82 

Trimalchio,  Banquet  of,  Petronius  .      v.  158 

Triumph  of  Truth, /"fljira/ v.  270 

Triumphs  of  Owen,  Celtic  ....  1.  327 
Traitor  Lovers,  The,  Corneille  ...  v.  266 
Trajan's  Reply  to  Pliny's  Letter  .  .  y.  178 
Transformation,  The,  Stevenson  .  .  X.  277 
Traveler's  Song  or  Widsith,  Anglo-i 

■^Saxon I.  242 

Trial  and  Death  of  Charlotte  Corday, 

Lamartine vitl.  277 

Trial  of  Parson  Amis,  German .    .    .     in.  300 

Trooper's  Song,  Schiller vill.  144 

Troubadour's  Inspiration, /Vi?r?-#  f7(/a/  I.  346 
Troubadour's  Lay,  William  of  Poitiers  I.  340 
True  Wisdom,  Greek  Anthology  -  .  VII.  40 
Trumbull,  John,  American    ....    ix.    38 

Truth,  Pursuit  of,  Lessing vill.    43 

Turgenieflf,  Ivan  S.,  Russian  ...  X.  24 
Turning  the  Grindstone,  B.  Franklin  ix.  33 
'  Twain,  Mark,'  American  ....  x.  326 
Two  Captains,  Archilochus  ....  II.  87 
Two  Grenadiers,  The,  Heine    ...      x.  204 

Two  Heirs,  Gellert vilI.    17 

Two  Travelers,  Fables  ofBidpai  .  .  V.  33 
Two  Wings  Better  than  One,  Ascham     iv.  307 

Tyrant,  The,  Aristotle v.  101 

Tyrant,  The,  Epictet-us Vil.    55 

Tyrtseus,  Greek 11.    83 

Ulysses  and  Penelope,/?o»«^>-,  Oi^wg/  I.  176 

Unguarded  Gates,  Aldrich    ....  x.  343 

Unpopularity,  Chinese H.    45 

Unknown  Beauty,  The,  Khakani    .  iv.  161 


ge;ne;rai.  index. 


431 


Vol.  Page 
Uncas  before  Tamenund.y.  i^C(»o^«r  ix.  95 
Uacle   Toby  and  Widow  Wadman, 

Sterne VII.  352 

Undine  and  Huldbrand,  Fouqui   .   .    ix.  ,^53 

Up,  Amaryllis,  Bellman vill,  iqi 

Ushas,  Goddess  of  the  Dawn,  Hymns 

of  the  Veda I.    90 

Valencia,  Capture  of,  Don  Jayme  of 

Aragon I.  370 

Vale  of  Cashmere,  Moore ix.  234 

Valley  of  Lost  Lumber,  Ariosto  .  .  v.  217 
Vanitas !  Vanitatum  Vanitas !  Goethe,  vill.  93 
Vanity  of  Man's  Life,  Marcus  Aure- 

lits VII.    58 

Vanity  of  Life,  Pushkin x.    17 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  Italian iv.  228 

Veda,  The,  Indian      I.    79 

Venice,  A.  de  Musset X.  133 

Venus,  Home  of,  Poliziano    .    .    ,    .    in.  168 

Verne,  Jules,  French X-  151 

Veteran,  Tignir      vili.  196 

Vidal,  Pierre,  Provenfal i.  324 

Vienna,  Deliverance  of,  Filicaja  .    .  vii.  154 

Vigil  of  Venus,  Latin Vl.    95 

Village  Inn,  Goldsmith vil.  392 

Village  School-Master,  Goldsmith  .  vil.  392 
Villagers'  Saturday  Night,  Leopardi.    x.    91 

Villain  Margutte,  Pulci iv.  196 

Villain  that  Grained    Paradise,  Rut- 

iaiuf     .    .' I.  232 

Villon,  Francis,  French 11.  336 

Vinicius  and  Lygia,  Sienkiewiez  .    .      X.  365 

Virelay,  Froissart II.  330 

Virgil,  P.  Vergilius  Maro,  La/in  .  .  TV.  112 
Virgil,  the  Poet's  Guide,  Dante  .  .  11.  241 
Virgil  .Travestied,  Scarron  ....  vi.  178 
Virginia,-Shipwreck  of,  St.  Pierre'  .  vili.  233 

Vision  of  Er,  Plato V.    76 

Vision  of  Heaven,  New  Testament .  VII.  21 
Vision  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  Cowley  .  VI.  300 
Vision  of  the  Future,  Lamennais  VIII.  267 
Vision  of  the  Revolution,  La  Harpe.  VIII.  241 
Vittoria  Colonna,  After  the  Death  of, 

Michel  Angelo IV.  227 

Voltaire,  French VII.  220 

Voluspa,  Elder  Fdda 11-355 

Vondel,  Joost  van  den,  Dutch  ...    VI.  278 

Voss,  J.  H.,   German VIII.    53 

Voyage  of  Life,  Epictetus VII.    54 

Voyage  of  the  Soul ,  Book  of  the  Dead.  I.  29 
Vulture  and  the  Cat,  India   ....      v.    28 


Waiting  by  the  Gate,  Bryant  ...  IX.  105 
Wallenstein's  Treason,  Schiller  .  .  VIII.  132 
Walthervon  derVogelweide,C(rr»zow  I.  297 
Waltar  Strong-hand,  German  ...  I.  287 
Wallenstein's  Daiiehter,  Schiller  .  .  VIII-  131 
Waller,  Edmund,  English  ....  VI.  311 
Wallet  Fished  Up,  Plautus  ....     n.  132 


Vol,  Page 

Walton,  Izaalc,  English  '.....  v.  377 

Wanderer,  The,  Gleim vili.   20 

Warrior's  Vindication,  Arabian   .   .  i.  188 

War-Song,  Gleim vill.  20 

War-Song  of  the  Otomis,  Aboriginal 

American i.  390 

Watchman  and  the  Lovers,  Wolfram 

von  Eschenbach i.  301 

Water-Carrier,  Lope  de  Vega     .   .   .  vi.  140 

1 1  Water  Sprite,  The,  Kerner  ....  x.  191 

Wat  Tyler's  Insurrection,  Gower  .    .  ni.  358' 

Way  to  Wealth,  B.  Iranklin    ...  ix.    28 

Wealth,  Only  Sure,  Martial     ...  v.  173 

Wealth,  Proper  Use  of,  Menander   .  v.    58 

Weapon  of  Beauty,  Anacreon   .    .    .  iv.    85 

Webster,  John,  English v.  339 

Wedding     of     Olaf    Tryggvesson, 

Heimskringia rv.  275 

Wedmore,  Peace  of,  Alfred  the  Great     i.  260 

Weissenbrunner  Prayer,  German     .  I.  287 

Wfelbeck  and  Merryn,  C.  B.  Brown,  ix.    53 

Well-Preserved  Old  Man,  Erasmus.  VI.  267 

What  I  would  do,  Cecc'o  Angiolieri  .  11.  258 

What  to  Pray  for,  Johnson    ....  vil.  381 

Where  is  the  Sweetest  Music?  Irish  v.  310 
Which  is  the  Strongest  Thing  ?  Es- 

dras II.    56 

White  Cockade,  The,  Biranger    .    .  ix.  387 

Whitman,  Walt,  American    ....  x.  334 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  American .     x.  306 
Why  the    Moon's   Face   is   Smutty, 

Harris     ...........  X.  332 

Widow  Blackacre  and  Her  Suitors, 

Wycherley VI,  327 

Widow's  Lament,  Jami V,  193 

Widsith,   or    the    Traveler's    Song, 

Anglo-Saxon I.  242 

Wieland,  C,  M.,  German VlII,    46 

Wife  of  Bath,  Chaucer III.  331 

Wife's  Devotion,  India  ......  I.    96 

Wigglesworth,  Michael,  American  .  ix.    18 
William  of  Poitiers, /Vow^wfo/     .    .  1,339 
Wilt  Thou  be  Mine  ?   Charles  of  Or- 
leans   II,  336 

Wine  Clip,  Greek  Anthology  ....  VII,    41 

Wine,  Praise  of,  Anacreon     ....  IV.    88 

Winnowers'  Hymn,  PlHade  ....  IV,  255 

Wives,  Sayings  About,  Talmud    .    .  vil,    99 

Woe  is  Me,  Alhama,  Spanish  ...  ir.  274 

Woes  of  a  Lover,  Ribeyro III.  257 

Wolf  and  the  Dog,  La  Fontaine .    .  v.  290 

Wolf  and  the  Lamb,  Babrius    ...  V.    70 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  German .  I.  299 

Woman's,  Beauty,   Vondel VI.  283 

Women's  Rights,  Roman  Debate  on, 

Livv ■    ■    •  V.  115 

Wonderful  Ass  Tricks  of,  Apuleius.  VI.    82 

Wordsworth,  William,  English     .    .  IX.  258 

Work,  Carlyle .'  X.  233 

World  Beyond,  The,  Nimmi    .        .  IV.  166 
World  is  Too  Much  with  Us,  The, 

Wordsworth IX.  270 

Worshiperoflhe  Clouds,  .4rw/o//4a««  v.    45 


432 


GENEIIAL  INDEX. 


Vol. 

Page 

.  .  IV 

258 

.  .   IV 

179 
241 

.  .   VI. 

.  .   IV. 

301 

.  .   VI. 

325 

Wreath  of  Roses,  Ronsard  .   , 

Wrestlers,  Sadi 

Writers  and  Teachers,  Luther  . 
Wyatt  and  Surrey,  English  .  . 
Wycherley,  William,  English   . 


Xenophon,  Creei IV.    48 

Yellow    Fever    in    Philadelphia   in 

1793,  C.  B.  Brown IX.    51 

Ye  Mariners  of  England,  Campbell .  ix.  271 

Young,  Edward,  English Vll.  363 

Young  Marcellus,   Virgil iv.  129 

Youth  and  Age,  Cff/iWi^* ix.  260 


Vol.  Page 
Youth  and  Age,  Mimnermus  ...  11.  86 
Yriarte,  Tomas  de,  Spanish  ....  VIII.  222 
Yudishthira's    Entry   into    Heaven, 

Mahabharata II.    24 

Yusuf's  Flight,  _/3m« v.  190 

Yusuf  Sold  by  His  Brethren,  Jami  .      v.  189 

Zadig's  Nose,  Voltaire Vll.  234 

Zend-Avesta,  Persian    ......  I.  107 

Zeus  and  the  Tiiaxis,  Hesiod .    ...  II.    80 

Zeus,  Hymn  to,  Cleanthes vi.    60 

Zimri,  Dryden Vl.  346 

Zoroaster's  Prayer,  Zend-Avesta    .    .  I.  112 

Zschokke,  J.  H.  D.,  German   .   ,    .  ix.  344 

Zulaikha, /a»jj v.  187