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MASTER-SPIRITS 


]<ERT  BUCHAN 


3.  <L  Saul  Collection 

of 

TOtneteentb  Century 
literature 


Ipuvcbaset)  in  part 

a  contribution  to  tbc 
Xibrarp  jfun&s  mabe  b^  tbe 
department   of  Bnglisb  in 
TDinirersitp  College, 


BY     THE     SAME     AUTHOR. 

(Preparing)  3  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

THE    POETICAL    WORKS    OF    ROBERT    BUCHANAN, 

CONTENTS. 


Vol.  I.— BALLADS  AND  ROMANCES. 

BALLADS  AND  POEMS  OF  LIFE. 
PORTRAIT  OF  AUTHOR. 


Vol.    II.— TALES. 


LYRICAL  POEMS. 


[  POEMS. 


Vol.  III.— MEDITATIVE  AND  RELIGIOUS 


Also  2  vols.  uniform  with  the  above. 

THE  MISCELLANEOUS  PROSE  WORKS  OF  ROBERT  BUCHANAN, 

HENRY  S.  KING  &  Co.  65  CORNHILL,  AND  12  PATERNOSTER  Row,  LONDON. 


MASTER-SPIRITS 


(All    rights     reserved) 


MASTER-SPIRITS 


BY 


ROBERT    BUCHANAN 


'  Good  BOOKS  are  like  the  precious  life-blood  of  MASTER-SPIRITS  ' 

MILTON 


HENRY   S.    KING   &   Co. 

65    CORNHILL  &    12   PATERNOSTER   Row,  LONDON 

18/3 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


THE  contents  of  the  following  volume  are  reprinted 
from  the  '  Contemporary  Review,'  the  '  Fortnightly 
Review/  the  'St.  Pauls  Magazine/  'Good  Words/ 
and  the  '  Athenaeum/  They  comprise  the  lighter  and 
more  generally  interesting  of  the  writer's  contributions 
to  periodical  literature ;  and  they  will  be  followed, 
after  an  interval,  by  a  collection  of  his  more  strictly 
critical  and  philosophic  papers.  They  may  be  accepted 
as  mere  desultory  notes  on  literary  subjects  of  per- 
manent interest,  by  one  whose  real  work  lies  in  another 
field. 

The  writer  has  to  entreat  the  reader's  indulgence  for 
verbal  blunders,  if  such  exist,  as  the  state  of  his  health 
at  the  present  date  does  not  admit  of  laborious  verifica- 
tion of  quotations. 

R.  B. 
GREAT  MALVERN  :  July  I,  1873. 


CONTENTS. 


FAGK 

INTRODUCTION:  CRITICISM  AS  ONE  OF  THE  FINE  ARTS.  i 

THE  'Goon  GENIE'  OF  FICTION  (CHARLES  DICKENS)    .  .      ,3 

TENNYSON,  HEINE,  AND  DE  MUSSET 

54 

BROWNING'S  MASTERPIECE.            ...  gg 

A  YOUNG  ENGLISH  POSITIVIST     ...  1IO 

HUGO  IN  1872        .....  ,  3 

PROSE  AND  VERSE  (A  STRAY  NOTE)  .  .  ,6g 
BIRDS  OF  THE  HEBRIDES  (WRITTEN  ON  BOARD  THE  •  ARIEL  ')  .  187 
SCANDINAVIAN  STUDIES  : 

I.   A  MORNING  IN  COPENHAGEN    .  2II 

II.   THE  OLD  BALLADS  OP  DENMARK         .  225 

III.  BJORNSON'S  MASTERPIECE           .            .            .  .247 

IV.  DANISH  ROMANCES          ....  277 

r<>i  is  IN  OBSCURITY  : 

I.   GEORGE  HEATH,  THE  MOORLAND  POET  .  .    303 

II.    THE  LAUREATE  OF  THE  NURSERY        .  327 


NOTE  : 

Hl'XTKR'S    RKTROSI'H    1 


341 


MASTER-SPIRITS 


INTROD  UCTION. 
CRITICISM   AS  ONE   OF  TflE   FINE  ARTS. 

AMONG  the  many  vague  forms  which  modern  ingenuity 
has  tried  to  manipulate  into  a  Science  must  be  classed 
what  is  usually  called  Criticism  ;  but,  for  my  own  part, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Criticism  means  to  belong  to 
the  Fine  Arts,  and  to  elude  the  scientific  arrangement 
altogether. 

There  was  a  time,  of  course,  when  books,  pictures, 
and  music  were  judged  by  a  certain  set  of  fixed  rules, 
each  incontestable  as  the  law  of  gravitation ;  when 
contemporary  persons  could  appraise  the  value  of  an 
aesthetic  article  as  easily  as  a  grocer  finds  out  the  weight 
of  a  pound  of  sugar ;  when,  in  fact,  critics  knew  their 
business  thoroughly,  being  in  the  secret  of  the  manu- 
facture. Sometimes  the  critical  scales  were  entrusted  to 
one  man,  say  to  Voltaire,  or  John  Dryden,  or  Addison. 

I 


2  Master-Spirits. 

Again,  public  opinion  was  guided  by  a  kind  of  joint- 
stock  company,  like  Pope,  Swift,  and  Co.,  or  Gifford  and 
Co.,  or  Jeffrey,  Brougham,  and  Co.  In  all  cases  alike 
judgment  was  infallible ;  there  was  no  appeal.  And 
the  laws  on  which  sentence  was  founded  were,  curiously 
enough,  considered  so  unimpeachable,  that  one  no  more 
thought  of  questioning  them  than  believers  think  of 
questioning  the  divine  laws  of  Confucius,  or  the  miracles 
of  Mahomet,  or  the  revelations  of  the  Apocalypse. 
Moreover,  these  laws  had  all  the  weight  of  mystery.  No 
one  had  ever  read  the  golden  book  wherein  they  were 
enshrined.  They  were  written  in  an  unknown  tongue  ; 
the  High-Priest  of  Criticism  sat  on  the  tripod,  and 
interpreted.  In  this  way,  things  amazing  and  awful 
came  to  pass.  At  one  time  it  was  decreed  here  in 
England  that  Abraham  Cowley  was  a  mighty  poetical 
genius;  and  at  another  it  was  settled,  there  in  France,  that 
Shakspeare  was  a  rude  unsavoury  monster.  The  Oracle 
spake,  and  Klopstock  was  crowned.  The  Public  listened 
and  approved.  No  unordained  person  dared  to  interfere 
in  so  profound  a  matter.  The  little  murmur  of  protest 
that  rose  when  impostors  like  Keats  were  punished,  soon 
died  away  in  the  loud  roar  greeting  the  coronation  of 
divinities  like  Mr.  Sotheby.  Criticism,  in  fact,  was  a 
semi-religious  rite  performed  by  a  Priesthood,  guided 
partly  by  a  set  of  divine  rules,  partly  by  a  kind  of 
corybantic  inspiration. 

Recent  scepticism  has  tried  to  demolish  much the 

Pentateuch  and  some  of  the  miracles,  for  example ;  but 
it  has  never  yet  demolished  the  brazen  Idols  of  Criticism. 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  3 

The  public  press  has  advanced  a  great  deal,  freeing 
men's  minds  and  widening  their  knowledge  ;  but,  strange 
to  say,  it  has  not  yet  advanced  to  the  point  of  refusing 
to  shelter  that  worst  class  of  priestcraft,  which  pro- 
nounces anonymous  judgm  nts.  It  is  quite  true,  how- 
ever, that  now-a-days  it  does  not  much  matter,  since 
critics  are  thoroughly  disorganised,  and  each  wiseacre, 
on  a  tripod  of  his  own,  delivers  judgment  to  a  special 
circle  ;  so  that  publishing  a  book  or  showing  a  picture  is 
simply  another  sort  of  '  running  the  gauntlet.'  But  it  is 
surely  high  time,  in  this  questioning  age,  to  ask  on  what 
grounds  this  critical  priesthood  still  exists  at  all  ?  why 
it  presumes  to  give  judgment,  often  with  such  reckless 
disregard  of  consequences  ?  what  use  it  is  to  any  soul 
under  the  sun  ?  and  how,  having  once  proved  it  as 
thorough  a  humbug  as  the  Delphic  oracle  itself,  we 
are  to  get  rid  of  it  in  the  speediest  possible  manner  ? 

To  begin  with,  what  is  Criticism  ? 

Strictly  speaking,  of  course,  it  is  the  application  of 
certain  tests,  by  which  we  may  ascertain  the  value  of 
specific  articles,  just  as  we  find  out  the  quality  of  gold. 
These  tests,  applied  to  literature  and  art,  have  produced 
most  astounding  results,  without  really  enlightening 
mankind  at  all.  It  was  all  very  well  when  the  work  was 
cut  and  dried.  At  one  time,  for  example,  Criticism  did 
almost  all  her  work  by  a  cabalistic  yard-measure  called 
the  '  Unities.'  Nothing  could  be  easier.  Whenever  an 
epic  poem  or  a  tragedy  was  brought  up  for  judgment, 
out  came  the  yard-measure,  and  the  matter  was  decided 
in  a  moment.  The  thing  either  did  or  did  not  conform 

B  2 


4  Master-Spirits. 

to  the  Unities,  and  was  praised  or  damned  accordingly ; 
and  in  those  days,  we  may  remark,  en  passant,  Shakspeare 
was  nowhere.  Latterly,  however,  such  tests  as  this 
have  been  abandoned  in  despair.  It  is  recognised  as  a 
privilege  of  genius  to  break  all  set  rules,  and  so  ride 
triumphant  over  them.  There  is  no  absolute  axiom  of 
criticism  which  some  great  man  may  not  falsify  in 
practice  to-morrow.  Here  again,  therefore,  we  ask  with 
some  asperity,  what  is  Criticism  ? 

No  science  certainly.  No  list  of  set  rules  to  be 
applied  by  a  priesthood.  No  sum  as  easy  to  manage 
as  the  multiplication  table  What  then  ? 

Criticism,  now-a-days,  simply  means  (it  is  doubtful 
whether  at  any  time  it  has  meant  much  more)  the 
impression  produced  on  certain  minds  by  certain  pro- 
ducts. If  Jones  paints  a  picture,  and  it  is  noticed  un- 
favourably in  the  '  Peckham  Review/  the  criticism  does 
not  come  right  up  out  from  Delphi,  but  consists  simply 
of  so  much  ( copy '  in  the  handwriting  of  Robinson.  If 
Brown  composes  a  poem,  and  it  is  wildly  eulogised  in 
the  '  Stokeinpogis  Chronicle/  let  him  first  bethink  him- 
self, before  he  become  too  bumptious,  that  the  eulogy  in 
question  is  simply  the  result  of  an  individual  impression, 
say  on  the  mind  of  Smith.  In  any  of  these  cases  it  is 
quite  clear  that  the  value  of  the  criticism  depends  on 
the  amount  of  honesty  and  intelligence  possessed  by 
Robinson  and  Smith  respectively.  To  get  anything 
like  a  fair  insight  into  the  truth,  we  must  take  care  to 
ascertain  at  least  a  few  preliminaries : 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  5 

1.  How  old  the  critic  is,  and  what  is  the  bent  of  his 
intellect 

2.  What  are  his  favourite  authors  ?     What  is  his  chief 

study  ? 

3.  Has  he  ever  written  or  painted  himself,  and  if  so,  is 

he  at  all  soured  ? 

4.  Is  he  personally  acquainted  with   the   author  or 
painter  criticised  ?  and  if  so,  are  his  relations  with  him 
friendly,  or  the  reverse  ? 

5.  Is   he   usually   honest    in   the   expression    of    his 
opinions  ?  &c.  &c. 

These  seem  unlimited  questions,  but,  in  point  of  fact, 
they  are  virtually  answered  in  all  criticism  that  has  any 
weight.  They  are  least  answered,  of  course,  in  anony- 
mous criticism  ;  but,  even  then,  they  are  partially  settled 
to  the  public  satisfaction.  One  may  calculate  to  a 
nicety,  for  example,  what  effect  such  and  such  a  new 
work  will  produce  on  the  editor  of  the  '  Times,'  or  of  the 
'  Spectator,'  or  of  the  '  Saturday  Review.'  A  work  of 
high  and  daring  originality,  unpopular  in  form,  will  be 
utterly  ignored  by  the  leading  Journal,  patronised  (if  it 
contain  no  offence  to  the  Broad  Church)  in  the  '  Spec- 
tator,' and  gibed  and  grinned  at  in  the  'Saturday 
Review.'  Behind  and  beyond  the  natural  style  and 
temper  of  these  professional  critics,  there  lie  of  course 
the  mysterious  workings  of  private  liking  and  prejudice. 
Now  and  then,  when  we  see  the  unpopular  tone  taken 
in  the  '  Times,'  we  know  what  enormous  secret  influence 
must  have  been  used  to  get  that  tone  taken.  There  is 
no  one  of  these  journals,  there  is  no  one  of  the  men  who 


6  Master-Spirits. 

write  these  journals,  quite  free  of  undue  influence  in 
some  direction  or  other ;  conscious  or  unconscious- 
it  is  there.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  end  to  the  questions  we 
must  definitely  answer  before  we  ascertain  the  value  of 
any  published  opinion.  It  is  in  all  cases  the  record  of 
an  impression  only ;  but  how  has  that  impression  been 
taken  ?  How  rare  it  is  to  find  a  man  in  whose  capa- 
bility of  receiving  an  honest  influence  we  can  place  full 
reliance !  It  is  not  dishonesty  we  have  to  fear,  but 
certain  unconscious  weaknesses.  Even  in  the  cases  of 
such  men  as  Mr.  Mill,  or  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  or 
Sainte-Beuve,  or  M.  Taine,  we  must  have  our  doubts. 
We  almost  trust  them,  but  now  and  then  we  pause. 
And  then,  when  the  critical  moment  comes,  what  is  their 
'  impression '  worth  ?  Personally,  much  ;  scientifically, 
not  a  rap ! 

It  is  great  fun — fun  given  to  poor  mortality,  alas  !  too 
seldom — to  see  the  advent  of  some  outrageous  Genius, 

some 

Monstr'-mform'-ingens-horrendus 
'  Demoniaco-seraphic 

prodigy  of  the  Euphorion  order,  starting  up,  to  the 
horror  of  criticism,  and  carrying  all  the  masses  before 
him  by  simple  charm.  Wonderful  is  that  gift  of  pro- 
ducing on  thousands  of  people  precisely  the  same  set  of 
favourable  impressions ;  wonderful  is  that  gift,  whether 
possessed  by  a  Dickens,  a  Tennyson,  or  a  Tupper. 
Fortunately  the  great  mass  of  people  are  their  own 
'  tasters/  judging  for  themselves  at  first  hand,  and  they 
will  not  be  guided  by  the  literary  Priests,  however  wise  ; 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  7 

and  it  is  simply  delicious  to  observe  how  reputations  grow, 
in  spite  of  all  the  Priesthood  do  to  trample  them  down. 
Let  no  man  despair  merely  because  the  few  who  write 
abuse  him.  The  abuse  simply  means  that  he  is  not 
wanted  by  Smith,  Brown,  and  Jones ;  while  all  the 
-  time  he  is  being  eagerly  waited  for  by  all  the  legions 
of  the  Robinsons,  to  whom  every  word  he  drops  is  a 
revelation.  Dickens  was  abused  by  genteel  journals,  but 
what  cared  he  ? 

Every  author  or  artist,  in  fact,  is  a  gauge  to  tell  how 
many  people  there  are  in  the  world  of  about  his  own 
ratio  of  intelligence — minus  the  creative  faculty.  There 
are  one  hundred  thousand  Tuppers.  There  are  (it  is 
seriously  calculated)  one  hundred  Stuart  Mills  and  fifty 
Herbert  Spencers.  In  art,  the  Faeds  and  Friths  are 
innumerable  ;  the  Leightons  numerous ;  and  the  Poynters 
infinitesimal.  For  many  years,  Browning  paid  the  public 
large  sums,  as  it  were,  for  the  privilege  of  publishing 
poems  ;  only  there  was  no  article  in  the  agreement 
that  the  poems  in  question  were  to  be  read',  and  now, 
the  public  has  turned  the  tables,  and  is  paying  all  the 
money  back  for  the  privilege  of  reading  those  very 
poems.  Luckily,  we  say,  Criticism  can  only  do  mischief 
up  to  a  certain  point,  and  cannot  do  that  mischief  long. 
It  may  delay  a  reputation,  but  it  cannot  kill  it.  The 
public,  in  the  long  run,  will  have  its  own  way,  and  choose 
its  own  favourite,  and  will  choose  according  to  the  direct 
impression  made  by  the  favourite  in  question. 

But  what  a  boon  it  would  be  to  the  public  if  the 
gentlemen  who  'do'  criticism,  instead  of  assuming 


8  Master-Spirits. 

the  priestly  robe  and  sitting  veiled  on  a  tripod,  were 
simply  and  fearlessly  to  tell  us  how  certain  works  have 
affected  them,  what  they  like  and  dislike  in  them, 
how  they  seem  to  stand  in  relation  to  other  literature  ! 
What  time  this  would  save!  What  lying  it  would 
avoid  !  To  speak  with  authority  is  '  parlous  '  indeed. 
Who  gains  anything  when  Anonymous  writes  that 
Browning's  last  poem  is  sheer  balderdash,  or  that  Simeon 
Solomon's  last  picture  is  divinely  original  ?  Who  says 
so  ?  That  is  what  we  want  to  get  at.  If  it  be  Smith, 
let  Smith  come  forward  and  sign  his  name.  Of  course, 
much  in  criticism  is  self-convincing,  quite  apart  from 
the  writer's  identity ;  and  the  best  and  most  con- 
vincing criticism  of  all,  in  the  case  of  a  book,  is  free 
and  ungarbled  extract  from  the  work  under  notice  : 
extract  can  seldom  be  unfair.  But  in  how  many  cases 
should  we  be  on  our  guard  if  we  knew  what  critic  was 
administering  judgment !  Take  an  instance.  Mr.  Grote 
devotes  a  lifetime  to  the  study  of  Plato,  and  at  last 
produces  a  great  work  on  the  subject.  This  work, 
being  sent  to  the  '  Megatherium  '  for  review,  is  handed 
over  to  Tomkins,  who  is  fresh  from  the  university, 
where,  so  far  from  making  any  mark,  he  was  considered 
a  dull  fellow,  and  has  drifted  into  the  most  irresponsible 
of  all  business,  that  of  anonymous  reviewing. 

TOMKINS'S  QUALIFICATIONS. 

I.  He  is  28  years  of  age,  and  with  little  experience 
either  of  men  or  books. 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  9 

2.  He  was  crammed  for  his  degree,  and  knows  little 
of  Greek  beyond  the  alphabet. 

3.  He  has  quick  intelligence,  great  power  of  hiding 
his  ignorance,  and  little  honesty. 

4.  He  is  mentally  incapable  of  conceiving  a  Platonic 
proposition,  &c. 

Here,  it  will  be  admitted,  we  should  know  what  to 
think  of  Tomkins's  criticism  on  Grote,  if  he  candidly 
prefixed  to  it  the  above  list  of  qualifications  ;  yet,  ten  to 
one,  Tomkins,  under  his  anonymous  guise,  manages  so 
cleverly  to  conceal  his  ignorance  that  we  feel  per- 
fectly satisfied  when  he  concludes :  '  Passing  over 
certain  errors  and  repetitions  pardonable  in  a  work  of 
such  magnitude,  as  well  as  the  pedantic  mode  of  spell- 
ing some  words  more  familiar  to  us  in  their  Latinized 
shape,  we  may  record  our  opinion  that  this  work  has 
given  us  real  pleasure, — an  opinion  in  which,  we  are 
sure,  every  scholar  will  join.  We  have  already  ex- 
pressed our  disapproval  of  certain  passages,  and  have 
indicated  where  they  need  revision ;  these  revisions 
made,  the  work  will  stand  as  a  monument  of  English 
scholarship  and  a  complete  manual  of  the  subject.' 

Take  another  instance.  A  man  of  genius,  to  whom 
this  generation  does  scant  justice,  Mr.  William  Gilbert, 
publishes  a  story,  in  which  the  real  life  of  the  lower 
classes  in  our  country  is  pictured  for  us  with  a  fidelity 
which  would  be  terrible,  if  it  were  not  illuminated  by 
the  most  subtle  and  delicate  humour.  This  story  goes 
to  the  'Dilettante  Gazette,'  and  in  course  of  time  is  handed 
over  to  Chesterfield  Junior,  Esq.,  of  the  Inner  Temple. 


io  Master-Spirits. 

CHESTERFIELD  JUNIOR'S  QUALIFICATIONS  FOR 
'  CRITICISING  '  CDE  PROFUNDIS.'1 

1.  He  is    30   years    of  age,    a   literary  man    about 
town,  and  his  tastes  are  elegant. 

2.  His   notion   of  the  working  man  is  that  he  is  a 
'  rough  ; '  and  his  notion  of  life  generally  is  that  it  is  a 
series  of  dinings-out,  unpleasantly  varied  by  sullen  re- 
quisitions on  the  part  of  the  lower  classes  for  '  goods  re- 
ceived.' 

3.  He  is  utterly  destitute  of  beneficence ;  he  has  not 
even  a  dramatic  perception  of  what  beneficence  is. 

4.  His  favourite  author  is  Thackeray  ;  but  he  enjoys 
the  'fun'  of  Dickens,  &c. 

5.  He  is   utterly  and   hopelessly  unconscious  of  the 
limited  nature  of  his  own  literary  vision. 

Chesterfield  Junior's  criticism  on  the  marvellous  tale  of 
common  life  would  probably  amount  to  this  : — '  We  have 
here  a  study,  in  the  manner  of  Defoe,  of  one  of  the  least 
interesting  forms  of  life  generated  by  our  overcrowded 
cities.  No  one  can  doubt  the  cleverness  of  the  hard 
literal  drawing  ;  but  to  us  it  is  simply  unpleasant.  It  is 
a  photograph,  not  a  picture.  It  altogether  lacks  beauty, 
and  has  not  one  flash  of  the  illuminating  humour  which 
distinguishes  Dickens's  work  in  the  same  direction/  In 
this  case,  be  it  noted,  every  word  is  the  record  of  a 
genuine  impression  on  a  mind  to  whose  sympathies  the 
object  does  not  appeal.  Just  suppose  that,  in  addition  to 
the  natural  antipathy,  Chesterfield  Junior  had  the  least 
bit  of  personal  animosity  to  his  author,  and  he  would 

1  'De  Profundis  :  a  Tale  of  the  Social  Deposits.'     By  William  Gilbert. 
(Strahan  and  Co.) 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  1 1 

hardly  plead  guilty  to  conscious  injustice  if  he  wrote  in 
terms  of  entire  condemnation  :  '  Mr.  Gilbert  is  a  realist  of 
the  penny-a-liner  type,  without  one  gleam  of  genius,  and 
his  book  is  the  most  vulgar  and  unpleasant  production  we 
have  read  for  a  long  time.  Led  by  the  natural  gravitation 
of  his  mind  to  the  study  of  what  is  low  and  common,  and 
incapable  of  anything  but  a  vulgarising  treatment,  he 
solicits  our  interests  in  the  futures  of  a  virtuous  washer- 
woman; a  drummer,  and  an  irreclaimable  thief.  Trash 
like  this  is  simply  intolerable  to  any  person  of  refined 
tastes.'  Poor  Chesterfield  Junior  !  He  means  no  harm. 
He  is  only  a  sheep  with  a  silk  ribbon  on  his  neck,  bleating 
his  mutton-like  defiance.  A  few  people  are  deceived,  and 
say  to  themselves,  '  This  Mr.  Gilbert  must  be  a  very  un- 
pleasant writer ! '  We,  who  know  better,  only  smile, 
saying,  '  Chesterfield  Junior  has  put  his  poor  little  foot 
into  it  again,  as  is  again  and  again  the  custom  of  crea- 
tures without  eyes.' 

On  the  other  hand,  let  the  same  work  fall  into  the 
hands  of  Addison  Redivivus,  whose  qualifications  are 
great  beneficence,  vast  experience  of  the  lower  classes,  a 
natural  repugnance  to  all  false  sentiment  and  fine  writing, 
and  that  sort  of  intelligence  which  gives  as  well  as  takes 
illumination ;  and  we  shall  speedily  hear,  perhaps,  that 
'  De  Profundis  '  is,  for  sheer  perfection  in  the  rarest  of  all 
styles,  a  work  with  scarcely  a  peer,  possessing  both  truth 
and  beauty,  bearing  on  every  page  the  sign  of  a  masterly 
understanding  and  of  the  finest  intellectual  humour,  and 
leaving  on  the  competent  reader's  mind  an  impression  in 
the  highest  sense  imaginative  and  poetical.  Who  would 
be  right — Chesterfield  Junior  or  Addison  Redivivus  ? 


1 2  Master -Spirits. 

Criticism,  we  repeat,  is  no  science.  Neither  Chester- 
field nor  Addison  can  settle  the  matter  by  any  fixed  rule. 
They  merely  chronicle  their  impression/w  or  contra,  and 
the  value  of  the  impression  depends  on  our  knowledge  of 
the  person  impressed.  Well,  if  Criticism  is  no  Science, 
what  is  it  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  Criticism,  as  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  effect  particular  works  have  on  particular 
individuals,  is  rapidly  securing  its  place  as  one  of  the  Fine 
Arts,  and  that  its  value  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
amount  of  artistic  self-portraiture  attained  by  the  critic. 

We  have  half-a-dozen  tolerable  critics  in  England,  but 
we  have  perhaps  only  one  equal  as  an  artist 'to  the  person 
whom  I  shall  use  to  illustrate  my  proposition.  Now  that 
Sainte-Beuve  is  gone,  the  finest  living  specimen  is  M. 
Taine,  whose  works  are  winning  appreciation  here  as  well 
as  in  France.  M.  Taine  has  great  intelligence,  culture, 
literary  experience.  His  faculty  of  composition  may  be 
'described  as  almost  creative.  Wherein,  then,  does  this 
faculty  consist  ?  It  consists,  I  am  sure,  in  the  man's  un- 
equalled power  of  representing  his  own  qualifications  ;  of 
illustrating  to  us,  by  a  thousand  delicate  lights  and 
shades,  the  quality  of  his  own  mind  and  its  limitations  ; 
and  of  revealing  to  us,  as  frequently  as  possible,  the 
nature  of  his  education  and  its  effect  on  his  tastes. 
Sooner  or  later,  he  enables  us  to  become  on  intimate  terms 
with  him.  He  conceals  little  or  nothing.  He  lays  bare 
the  most  secret  sources  of  his  sympathies  and  his  anti- 
pathies. He  invariably  discards  the  '  editorial '  tone. 
And  when  once  we  know  him  thoroughly,  nothing  can  be 
more  delightful  than  his  way  of  playing  with  his  theme. 


Criticism  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  13 

We  know  almost  by  instinct  where  he  will  be  right  and 
where  he  may  be  wrong.  His  work  belongs  to  the  Fine 
Arts,  and  at  times  approaches  masterly  portrayal. 

'  The  following,'  M.  Taine  says  in  effect, '  are  my  quali- 
fications : — 

'  i.  I  am  not  too  young  for  self-restraint,  nor  too  old 
for  sympathy,  and  I  have  had  an  excellent  education. 

'  2.  I  am  a  Frenchman,  educated  under  the  Empire,  and 
(more  or  less  unconsciously)  "  aestheticised." 

'  3.  I  have  the  French  hatred  of  "  institutions,"  and  the 
French  deficiency  in  the  religious  faculty. 

'  4.  My  passion  for  symmetry  may  lead  you  to  believe 
me  a  formal  person  ;  but  I  am  in  reality  a  loose  thinker, 
dexterously  manoeuvring  impressions  under  the  guise  of 
a  finished  style. 

'  5.  Form,  as  form,  almost  always  fascinates  me,  but  I 
try  most  to  sympathise  where  the  subject  is  most  shape- 
less. 

'  6.  I  am  thoroughly  conscious  of  my  limitations,  and 
seldom  try  to  conceal  them. 

'  7.  In  spite  of  my  seeming  power  of  surveying  large 
surfaces  (the  result  of  my  instinct  of  symmetrical  arrange- 
ment), my  faculty  is  microscopic,  and  examines  every 
work  of  art  inch  by  inch,  phrase  by  phrase,  afterwards 
piecing  the  criticism  together  into  the  form  of  a  verdict 
on  the  whole  work.' 

Much  more  might  be  added  ;  but  the  point  is,  that  M. 
Taine,  being  a  thorough  artist,  tells  us  all  the  above, 
directly  or  indirectly,  and  makes  us  alive  to  it  at  every 
step.  He  never  allows  us  for  a  moment  to  lose  sight  of 


I4  Master-Spirits. 

himself;  and  he  is  at  his  best  when  he  is  least  impersonal, 
and  most  candid  in  portraying  his  emotions. 

How  delicious  it  is,  for  example,  to  find  a  critic  showing 
his  own  intellectual  physiognomy  in  this  way,  when  be- 
ginning to  criticise  a  great  English  philosopher  :— 

When  at  Oxford  some  years  ago,  during  the  meeting  of  the 
British  Association,  I  met,  amongst  the  few  students  still  in 
residence,  a  young  Englishman,  a  man  of  intelligence,  with 
whom  I  became  intimate.  He  took  me  in  the  evening  to  the 
New  Museum,  well  filled  with  specimens.  Here  short  lectures 
were  delivered,  new  models  of  machinery  were  set  to  work  ; 
ladies  were  present  and  took  an  interest  in  the  experiments  ; 
on  the  last  day,  full  of  enthusiasm,  '  God  save  the  Queen  '  was 
sung.  I  admired  this  zeal,  this  solidity  of  mind,  this  organisa- 
tion of  science,  these  voluntary  subscriptions,  this  aptitude  for 
association  and  for  labour,  this  great  machine  pushed  on  by  so 
many  arms,  and  so  well  fitted  to  accumulate,  criticise,  and 
classify  facts.  But  yet,  in  this  abundance,  there  was  a  void  ; 
when  I  read  the  Transactions,  I  thought  I  was  present  at  a 
congress  of  heads  of  manufactories.  All  these  learned  men 
verified  details  and  exchanged  recipes.  It  was  as  though  I 
listened  to  foremen,  busy  in  communicating  their  processes  for 
tanning  leather  or  dyeing  cotton  :  general  ideas  were  wanting. 
I  used  to  regret  this  to  my  friend  ;  and  in  the  evening,  by  his 
lamp,  amidst  that  great  silence  in  which  the  university  town  lay 
wrapped,  we  both  tried  to  discover  its  reasons. 

One  day  I  said  to  him  :  You  lack  philosophy — I  mean,  what 
the  Germans  call  metaphysics.  You  have  learned  men,  but  you 
have  no  thinkers.  Your  God  impedes  you.  He  is  the  Supreme 
Cause,  and  you  dare  not  reason  on  causes,  out  of  respect  for 
Him.  He  is  the  most  important  personage  in  England,  and  I 
see  clearly  that  He  merits  his  position  ;  for  He  forms  part  of 
your  Constitution,  He  is  the  guardian  of  your  morality,  He  judges 
in  final  appeal  on  all  questions  whatsoever,  He  replaces  with 


Criticism  as  one  of  tJie  Fine  Arts.  1 5 

advantage  the  prefects  and  gendarmes  with  whom  the  nations 
on  the  Continent  are  still  encumbered.  Yet  this  high  rank 
has  the  inconvenience  of  all  official  positions  ;  it  produces  a 
cant,  prejudices,  intolerance,  and  courtiers.  Here,  close  by  us, 
is  poor  Mr.  Max  Miiller,  who,  in  order  to  acclimatise  the  study 
of  Sanscrit,  was  compelled  to  discover  in  the  Vedas  the  worship 
of  a  moral  God,  that  is  to  say,  the  religion  of  Paley  and  Addison. 
Some  time  ago,  in  London,  I  read  a  proclamation  of  the  Queen, 
forbidding  people  to  play  cards,  even  in  their  own  houses,  on 
Sundays.  It  seems  that,  if  I  were  robbed,  I  could  not  bring 
my  thief  to  justice  without  taking  a  preliminary  religious  oath  ;. 
for  the  judge  has  been  known  to  send  a  complainant  away  who 
refused  to  take  the  oath,  deny  him  justice,  and  insult  him  into 
the  bargain.  Every  year,  when  we  read  the  Queen's  speech  in 
your  papers,  we  find  there  the  compulsory  mention  of  Divine 
Providence,  which  comes  in  mechanically,  like  the  apostrophe 
to  the  immortal  gods  on  the  fourth  page  of  a  rhetorical  decla- 
mation ;  and  you  remember  that  once,  the  pious  phrase  having 
been  omitted,  a  second  communication  was  made  to  Parliament 
for  the  express  purpose  of  supplying  it.  All  these  cavillings 
and  pedantry  indicate  to  my  mind  a  celestial  monarchy  ; 
naturally,  it  resembles  all  others — I  mean  that  it  relies  more 
willingly  on  tradition  and  custom  than  on  examination  and 
reason.  A  monarchy  never  invited  men  to  verify  its  creden- 
tials.— Taine's  History  of  English  Literature,  trans,  by  Henry 
Van  Laun,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  478-479  (Essay  on  John  Stuart  Mill). 

Even  if  the  above  did  not  occur  at  the  end  of  two 
large  volumes,  full  of  self-portraiture  more  or  less  indi- 
rect, it  would  reveal  to  us,  as  by  a  sun-picture,  the  man 
with  whom  we  have  to  deal.  Herein  lies  the  delightful 
art  of  it.  We  certainly  do  get  some  formal  ideas  in  the 
end  about  Mr.  Mill,  but  our  real  interest  for  the  time 
being  is  in  M.  Taine.  How  subtle  he  is  !  how  thoroughly 
French !  How  just  and  kind  he  is  in  other  places  to 


1 6  Master-Spirits. 

Tennyson  and  Thackeray  :  but  how  much  more  he  loves 
De  Musset  and  Balzac !  He  becomes  our  personal 
friend,  and  every  word  he  utters  has  weight.  His 
egotism  is  charming ;  we  could  hear  him  talk  for  hours. 
In  England  here,  critics  for  the  most  part  assume  the 
editorial  tone,  and  are  proportionally  uninteresting.  To 
the  long  list  of  critics  who  write  without  edification, 
either  because  they  decline  self-revelation  or  are  unin- 
teresting when  revealed,  may  be  added,  in  modern  times, 
the  names  of  Mr.  Lewes,  late  editor  of  the  *  Fortnightly 
Review/  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll.  These  gentlemen 
sign  their  articles,  but  utterly  fail  to  attract  us  :  they  are 
so  thoroughly,  so  transparently,  'editorial.'  Critics  of 
the  higher  class,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  found  in  Sir 
Arthur  Helps,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  and  (with  a  slight 
editorial  leaven)  in  Mr.  R.  H.  Hutton,  who  has  recently 
published  two  volumes  of  essays.  Mr.  Arnold  may  or 
may  not  be  an  interesting  being,  but  he  never  for  a 
moment  represents  himself  as  what  he  is  not.  We 
know  him  as  thoroughly  as  if  we  had  been  to  school 
with  him.  We  do  not  get  angry  with  what  he  says,  so 
much  as  with  his  insufferable  manner  of  saying  it.1  Sir 
Arthur  Helps  is,  once  and  for  ever,  the  optimist  man  of  the 
world.  Mr.  R.  H.  Hutton,  a  writer  of  powerful,  original 
genius  and  wonderful  subtlety  of  insight,  shows  us,  as  in  a 
mirror,  his  religion,  his  deep-seated  prejudice,  his  quick 
sympathy  with  ideas  as  distinguished  from  literary 
clothing,  and  his  genial  love  of  microscopic  dtficatesse. 

1  I  am  speaking  of  Arnold's  prose.     His  poetry  is  beautiful  beyond 


measure. 


Criticism  as  otic  of  the  Fine  Arts.  1 7 

In  many  cases,  the  Anonymous  is  a  mere  cloak,  and 
everybody  knows  whom  it  conceals.  The  public  bowed 
before  the  judgment  of  Jeffrey  and  Brougham,  not  that 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review ;  before  the  judgment  of 
Gifford  and  Southey,  not  that  of  the  Quarterly  Review. 
Nowadays,  nevertheless,  the  anonymous  pen  has 
multiplied  itself  so  prodigiously,  that  the  air  rings  with 
fiats  and  acclaims,  and  Heaven  knows  who  is  uttering 
them !  It  is  wonderful  how  Genius  gets  along,  and 
escapes  being  put  down  ;  wonderful  how  fairly  the  oracles 
speak,  in  spite  of  their  irresponsibility.  Still,  the  only 
Criticism  worth  a  rap  belongs  to  the  Fine  Artist,  and 
the  only  Critic  who  really  carries  us  away  is  he  whose 
personality  we  entirely  respect. 

There  seems  no  end  to  the  extension  of  so-called 
criticism  as  a  creative  form  of  composition  (as  valuable 
in  its  way  as  lyrical  poetry  or  autobiography),  wherein 
we  have  the  representation  of  certain  known  products  on 
certain  competent  or  incompetent  natures.  The  man 
who  criticises  may  attract  us  by  the  tints  of  his  own 
individuality,  and  the  play  of  his  own  soul,  as  successfully 
as  the  man  who  sings  or  the  man  who  paints.  His  work 
is  merely  the  final  record  of  an  impression  which,  before 
reaching  him,  has  passed  through  the  colouring  matter 
of  the  poet's  or  painter's  mind.  To  conclude,  then, 
Scientific  Criticism  is  fudge,  as  sheer  fudge  as  scientific 
poetry,  as  scientific  painting  ;  but  Criticism  does  belong 
to  the  Fine  Arts,  and  for  that  reason  its  future  prospects 
are  positively  unlimited. 


ig  Master-Spirits. 


THE  'GOOD   GENIE'   OF  FICTION. 

CHARLES   DICKENS. 

THERE  was  once  a  good  Genie,  with  a  bright  eye  and 
a  magic  hand,  who,  being  born  out  of  his  due  time  and 
place,  and  falling  not  upon  fairy  ways,  but  into  the  very 
heart  of  this  great  city  of  London  wherein  we  write, 
walked  on  the  solid  earth  in  the  nineteenth  century  in 
a  most  spirit-like  and  delightful  dream.  He  was 
such  a  quaint  fellow,  with  so  delicious  a  twist  in  his 
vision,  that  where  you  and  I  (and  the  wise  critics)  see 
straight  as  an  arrow,  he  saw  everything  queer  and 
crooked ;  but  this,  you  must  know,  was  a  terrible 
defect  in  the  good  Genie,  a  tremendous  weakness,  for 
how  can  you  expect  a  person  to  behold  things  as  they 
are  whose  eyes  are  so  wrong  in  his  head  that  they 
won't  even  make  out  a  straight  mathematical  line  ? 

To  the  good  Genie's  gaze  everything  in  this  rush  of 
life  grew  queer  and  confused.  The  streets  were  droll, 
and  the  twisted  windows  winked  at  each  other.  The 
Water  had  a  voice,  crying,  '  Come  down  !  come  down  ! f 
and  the  Wind  and  Rain  became  absolute  human  entities, 
with  ways  of  conducting  themselves  strange  beyond 
expression.  Where  you  see  a  clock,  /is  saw  a  face  and 


The  l  Good  Genie '  of  Fiction.  1 9 

heard  the  beating  of  a  heart.  The  very  pump  at 
Aldgate  became  humanized,  and  held  out  its  handle 
like  a  hand  for  the  good  Genie  to  shake.  Amphion 
was  nothing  to  him.  To  make  the  gouty  oaks  dance 
hornpipes,  and  the  whole  forest  go  country-dancing,  was 
indeed  something,  but  how  much  greater  was  the  feat 
of  animating  stone  houses,  great  dirty  rivers,  toppling 
chimneys,  staring  shop  windows,  and  the  laundress's 
wheezy  mangle  !  Pronounce  as  we  may  on  the  wisdom 
of  the  Genie's  conduct,  no  one  doubts  that  the  world  was 
different  before  he  came  ;  the  same  world,  doubtless, 
but  a  duller,  more  expressionless  world  ;  and  perhaps, 
on  the  whole,  the  people  in  it — especially  the  poor, 
struggling  people — wanted  one  great  happiness  which  a 
wise  and  tender  Providence  meant  to  send. 

The  Genie  came  and  looked,  and  after  looking  for  a 
long  time,  began  to  speak  and  print ;  and  so  magical 
was  his  voice,  that  a  crowd  gathered  round  him,  and 
listened  breathlessly  to  every  word ;  and  so  potent  was 
the  charm,  that  gradually  all  the  crowd  began  to  see 
everything  as  the  charmer  did  (in  other  words,  as  the 
wise  critics  say,  to  squint  in  the  same  manner),  and  to 
smile  in  the  same  odd,  delighted,  bewildered  fashion. 
Never  did  pale  faces  brighten  more  wonderfully  !  never 
did  eyes  that  had  seen  straight  so  very  long,  and  so  very, 
very  sadly,  brighten  up  so  amazingly  at  discovering  that, 
absolutely,  everything  was  crooked  !  It  was  a  quaint 
world,  after  all,  quaint  in  both  laughter  and  tears,  odd 
over  the  cradle,  comic  over  the  grave,  rainbowed  by 
laughter  and  sorrow  in  one  glorious  Iris,  melting  into  a 

C  2 


•' 


- 


beautiful  hues,    'My  name,*  said  the  good 
Charles  Dickens,  and  I  have  come  to  make 
especially  the  poor  and  lowly — brighter 
Then,  smfling  merrily,  he  waved  his  hands, 
by  one,  along  the  twisted  streets,  among  the 
•iailiMi    and  the  human  pumps,  quaint  figures 
to  walk,  while  a  low  voice  told  stories  of  Human 
its  ghosts,  its  ogres,  its  elves,  its  good 
its  ft™  and  frolic;  oft  fulminating  in  verit- 
its  Hinij  dew-like  glimmerings  of 
was  no  need  any  longer  for  grown-up 


to  sigh  and  wish  for  the  dear  old  stories  of  the 
What  was  Puss  in  Boots  to  Mr.  Pickwick  in  his 
?  \Vhat  was  Tom  Thumb,  with  aU  its  oddities, 
to  poor  Tom  Pinch  playing  on  his  organ  all  alone  up  in 
uBe  Joit.  .^V.  DCW  a^Mr  sm!ff^^^  •_rjfnp^*  iy  I  la  arose  tn  X-«rttle 
Keffl;  abnghter  and  dearer  little  Jack  Homer  eating 
fcis  Chi  is!  mas  pie  was  foond  when  Oliver  Twist  appeared 

wfaea  all  Hie  hrrame  thus  marvellously  transformed. 
I*  the  first  place,  die  world  was  divided,  just  as  old 
divided,  into  good  and  bad  fairies, 


Elves  and  awful  Ogres,  and  everybody 
eitiber  rcy  loving  or  very  spiteful  Therewereno 
res,  auu*  as  many  of  our  human  tale- 
tdas  Hke  to  describe.  Then  there  was  generally  a  sort 
of  Good  little  Boy  who  played  the  part  of  hero,  and 
got  married  to  a  Good  Little  Girl,  who 


TJie  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  21 

In  the  course  of  their  wanderings  through  human 
fairyland,  the  hero  and  heroine  met  all  sorts  of  strange 
characters  —  queer-looking  Fairies,  like  the  Brothers 
Cheery ble,  or  Mr.  Toots,  or  David  Copperfield's  aunt,  or 
Mr.  Dick,  or  the  convict  Magwitch  ;  out-and-out  Ogres, 
ready  to  devour  the  innocent,  and  without  a  grain  of  good- 
ness in  them,  like  Mr.  Quilp,  Jonas  Chuzzlewit,  Fagin 
the  Jew,  Carker  with  his  white  teeth,  Rogue  Riderhood, 
and  Lawyer  Tulkinghorn  ;  comical  Will-o'-the-wisps,  or 
moral  Impostors,  flabby  of  limb  and  sleek  of  visage, 
called  by  such  names  as  Stiggins,  Chadband,  Snawley, 
Pecksniff,  Bounderby,  and  Uriah  Heep.  Strange  people, 
forsooth,  in  a  strange  country.  Wise  critics  said  that 
the  country  was  not  the  world  at  all,  but  simply  Topsy- 
turvyland ;  and  indeed  there  might  have  seemed  some 
little  doubt  about  the  matter,  if  every  now  and  again,  in 
the  world  we  are  speaking  of,  there  had  not  appeared  a 
group  of  poor  people  with  such  real  laughter  and  tears 
that  their  humanity  was  indisputable.  Scarcely  had  we 
lost  sight  for  a  moment  of  the  Demon  Quilp,  when 
whom  should  we  meet  but  Codlin  and  Short  sitting 
mending  their  wooden  figures  in  the  churchyard  ?  and 
not  many  miles  off  was  Mrs.  Jarley,  every  scrap  on 
whose  bones  was  real  human  flesh  ;  the  Peggotty  group 
living  in  their  upturned  boat  on  the  sea-shore,  while 
little  EnVly  watches  the  incoming  tide  erasing  her  tiny 
footprint  on  the  sand  ;  the  Dorrit  family,  surrounding 
the  sadly  comic  figure  of  the  Father  of  the  Marshalsea ; 
good  Mrs,  Richards  and  her  husband  the  Stoker, 
struggling  through  thorny  paths  of  adversity  with 


22  Master-Spirits. 

a  grumble  ;  Trotty  Veck  sniffing  the  delicious  fumes  of 
the  tripe  a  good  fairy  is  bringing  to  him  ;  and  Tiny  Tim 
waving  his  spoon,  and  crying,  '  God  bless  us  all ! '  in, 
the  midst  of  the  smiling  Cratchit  family  on  Christmas 
Day. 

This  was  more  puzzling  still — to  find  '  real  life '  and 
'  fairy  life '  blended  together  most  fantastically.  It  was 
like  that  delightful  tale  of  George  MacDonald's,  where 
you  never  can  tell  truth  from  fancy,  and  where  you  see 
the  country  in  fairyland  is  just  like  the  real  country,  with 
cottages  [and  cooking  going  on  inside],  and  roads,  and 
flower-gardens,  and  finger,  posts,  yet  everything  haunted 
most  mysteriously  by  supernatural  creatures.  But  let 
the  country  described  by  the  good  Genie  be  ever  so 
like  the  earth,  and  the  poor  folk  moving  in  it  ever  so 
like  life,  there  was  never  any  end  to  the  enchantment. 
On  the  slightest  provocation  trees  and  shrubs  would  talk 
and  dance,  intoxicated  public-houses  hiccup,  clocks  talk 
in  measured  tones,  tombstones  chatter  their  teeth,  lamp- 
posts reel  idiotically,  all  inanimate  nature  assume  animate 
qualities.  The  better  the  real  people  were,  and  the 
poorer,  the  more  they  were  haunted  by  delightful  Fays. 
The  Cricket  talked  on  the  hearth,  and  the  Kettle  sang 
in  human  words.  The  plates  on  the  dresser  grinned 
and  gleamed,  when  the  Pudding  rolled  out  of  its 
smoking  cloth,  saying  perspiringly,  '  Here  we  are  again  !' 
Talk  about  Furniture  and  Food  being  soulless  things  ! 
The  good  Genie  knew  better.  Whenever  he  went  into  a 
mean  and  niggardly  house,  he  saw  the  poor  devils  of 
chairs  and  tables  attenuated  and  wretched,  the  lean  time. 


The  '  Good  Genie1  of  Fiction.  23 

piece  with  its  heart  thumping  through  its  wretched 
ribs,  the  fireplace  shivering  with  a  red  nose,  and  the 
chimney-glass  grim  and  gaunt.  Whenever  he  entered 
the  house  of  a  good  person,  with  a  loving,  generous 
heart,  he  saw  the  difference — jolly  fat  chairs,  if  only  of 
common  wood,  tables  as  warm  as  a  toast,  and  mirrors 
that  gave  him  a  wink  of  good-humoured  greeting.  It 
was  all  enchantment,  due  perhaps  in  a  great  measure  to 
the  strange  twist  in  the  vision  with  which  the  good  Genie 
was  born. 

Thus  far,  perhaps,  in  a  sort  of  semi-transparent 
allegory,  have  we  indicated  the  truth  as  regards  the 
wonderful  genius  who  has  so  lately  left  us.  Mighty  as 
was  the  charm  of  Dickens,  there  have  been  from  the 
beginning  a  certain  select  few  who  have  never  felt  it. 
Again  and  again  has  the  great  Genie  been  approached 
by  some  dapper  dilettante  of  the  superfine  sort,  and  been 
informed  that  his  manner  was  wrong  altogether,  not 
being  by  any  means  the  manner  of  Aristophanes,  or 
Swift,  or  Sterne,  or  Fielding,  or  Smollett,  or  Scott. 
This  man  has  called  him,  with  some  contempt,  a 
'  caricaturist.'  That  man  has  described  his  method  of 
portrayal  as  'sentimental.'  MacStingo  prefers  the 
humour  of  Gait.  The  gelid,  heart-searching  critic  prefers 
Miss  Austen.  Even  young  ladies  have  been  known  to 
take  refuge  in  Thackeray.  All  this  time,  perhaps,  the 
real  truth  as  regards  Charles  Dickens  has  been  missed 
or  perverted.  He  was  not  a  satirist,  in  the  sense  that 
Aristophanes  was  a  satirist.  He  was  not  a  comic 
analyst,  like  Sterne;  nor  an  intellectual  force,  like 


2  4  Master-  Spirits. 

Swift ;  nor  a  sharp,  police-magistrate  sort  of  humourist, 
like  Fielding  ;  nor  a  practical-joke-playing  tomboy,  like 
Smollett  He  was  none  of  these  things.  Quite  as  little 
was  he  a  dashing  romancist  or  fanciful  historian,  like 
Walter  Scott.  Scott  found  the  Past  ready  made  to  his 
hand,  fascinating  and  fair.  Dickens  simply  enchanted 
the  Present.  He  was  the  creator  of  Human  Fairyland. 
He  was  a  magician,  to  be  bound  by  none  of  your 
commonplace  laws  and  regular  notions  :  as  well  try  to 
put  Incubus  in  a  glass  case,  and  make  Robin  Goodfellow 
the  monkey  of  a  street  hurdy-gurdy.  He  came  to  put 
Jane  Austen  and  M.  Balzac  to  rout,  and  to  turn  London 
into  Queer  Country. 

Yes,  he  was  hotheaded  as  an  Elf,  untrustworthy 
as  a  Pixy,  maudlin  at  times  as  a  lovesick  Giant, 
and  he  squinted  like  Puck  himself.  He  was,  in  fact, 
anything  but  the  sort  of  story-teller  the  dull  old  world 
had  been  accustomed  to.  He  was  most  unpractical. 
His  pictures  distorted  life  and  libelled  society.  He 
grimaced  and  he  gambolled.  He  bewitched  the  solid 
pudding  of  practicality,  and  made  it  dance  to  aerial 
music,  just  as  if  Tom  Thumb  were  inside  of  it.  It  is, 
therefore,  as  you  say,  highly  inexpedient  that  his  works 
should  be  much  studied  by  young  people,  who  must  be 
duly  crammed  with  tremendous  first  principles  ;  and  for 
a  literary  Rhadamanthus  of  two-hundred-horse  power, 
he  is  absurd  reading.  Nor  should  we  care  to  recommend 
his  narratives  to  the  Gradgrinds  or  the  Dombeys  of  this 
generation.  His  stories  are  so  child-like,  so  absurd,  so 
unwise,  so  mad.  But  such  stories !  When  shall  we 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  25 

hear  the  like  again  ?  Wiser  and  greater  tale-tellers 
may  come,  if  to  be  hard  and  cold  is  to  be  wise  and 
great ;  but  who  will  lull  us  once  more  into  such  infancy 
of  delight,  and  make  us  glorious  children  once  again  ? 
The  good  Genie  has  gone,  and  already  the  wise  critics — 
who  speak  with  such  authority,  and  are  so  tremendously 
above  being  pleasing  themselves — are  shaking  their 
heads  over  his  grave. 

But  the  amount  of  the  world's  interest  in  Charles 
Dickens  is  not  to  be  measured  by  any  quantity  of  head- 
shakings  on  the  part  of  the  unsympathetic  ;  and  now 
that  the  magic  has  departed,  every  English  home  misses 
the  magician.  In  spite  of  the  small  scandal  which  is 
spilt  over  every  tea-table,  in  spite  of  the  shrill  yelps  of 
those  canine  persons  who  (rinding  the  literary  monuments 
too  much  like  marble  to  suit  their  teeth)  snap  savagely 
at  the  great  writer's  personality,  there  wells  from  English 
life,  at  the  present  moment,  a  light  spring  of  ever- 
increasing  gratitude,  having  its  source  very  deep  indeed. 
The  small  critic  may  still  hold  that  Dickens  was  a  sort 
of  Bavius  or  Maevius  of  his  day,  to  be  forgotten  with 
the  ephemera  of  his  generation  ;  but,  then,  is  it  not  noto- 
rious that  the  person  in  question  thought  Thackeray  '  no 
gentleman,'  and  finds  in  the  greatest  genius  of  America 
only  the  ravings  of  a  madman  ?  With  the  wrong  and 
right  about  a  great  author  petulant  scribbling  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do.  The  world  decides  for  itself. 
And  the  world  decided  long  ago  that  Dickens  was 
beyond  all  parallel  the  greatest  imaginative  creator  of 
this  generation,  and  that  his  poetry,  the  best  of  it, 


26  Master-Spirits. 

although  written  in  unrhymed  speech,  is  worth  more, 
and  will  possibly  last  longer,  than  all  the  Verse-poetry 
of  this  age,  splendid  as  some  of  that  poetry  has  been. 
None  but  a  spooney  or  a  pedant  doubts  the  power. 

One  question  remains,  how  did  that  power  arise  ?  by 
what  means  did  it  grow?  Just  as  all  England  had 
decided  that  the  question  was  unanswerable  up  rises 
Mr.  John  Forster  with  his  most  charming  of  books,  and 
solves  in  a  series  of  absorbing  chapters  -the  great  part 
of  the  mystery.  It  is  not  without  a  shock  that  we  are 
admitted  behind  the  curtain  of  the  good  Genie's  private 
life.  All  is  so  different  from  what  we  had  anticipated. 
The  tree  which  bore  fruit  as  golden  as  that  of  the 
Hesperides  was  rooted  in  a  wretched  soil,  and  watered 
with  the  bitterest  possible  tears  of  self-compassion. 

We  see  it  all  now  in  one  illuminating  flash.  We  see 
the  mightiness  of  the  genius  and  its  limitations.  We 
see  why,  less  than  almost  any  great  author,  Dickens 
changed  with  advancing  culture  ;  how,  more  than 
ninety-Wne  out  of  a  hundred  men,  he  acquired  the  habit 
of  instant  observation,  false  or  true ;  why  he  imparted 
to  things\animate  and  inanimate  the  qualities  of  each 
other  ;  whWefore  all  life  seemed  so  odd  to  him  ;  why, 
in  a  word,  iVistead  of  soaring  at  once  into  the  empyrean 
of  the  sweet  English  '  classics '  (so  faultless  that  you 
can't  pick  a  speck  in  them),  he  remained  on  the  solid 
pavement,  and  told  elfin  and  goblin  stories  of  common 
life.  It  may  seem  putting  the  case  too  strongly,  but 
Charles  Dickers,  having  crushed  into  his  childish 
experience  a  whole  world  of  sorrow  and  humorous 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  27 

insight,  so  loaded  his  soul  that  he  never  grew  any  older. 
He  was  a  great,  grown-up,  dreamy,  impulsive  child,  just 
as  much  a  child  as  little  Paul  Dombey  or  little  David 
Copperfield.  He  saw  all  from  a  child's  point  of  view — 
strange,  odd,  queer,  puzzling.  He  confused  men  and 
things,  animated  scenery  and  furniture  with  human 
souls,  wondered  at  the  stars  and  the  sea,  hated  facts, 
loved  good  eating  and  sweetmeats,  fun,  and  frolic, — all 
in  the  childish  fashion.  Child-like  he  commiserated 
himself,  with  sharp,  agonising  introspection.  Child-like 
he  rushed  out  into  the  world  with  his  griefs  and 
grievances,  concealing  nothing,  wildly  craving  for 
sympathy.  Child-like  he  had  fits  of  cold  reserve, 
stubborner  and  crueller  than  the  reserve  of  any  perfectly 
cultured  man.  And  just  as  much  as  little  Paul  Dombey 
was  out  of  place  at  Dr.  Blimber's,  where  they  tried  to 
cram  him  with  knowledge,  and  ever  pronounced  him 
old-fashioned,  was  Charles  Dickens  out  of  place  in  the 
cold,  worldly  circle  of  literature,  in  the  bald  bare 
academy  of  English  culture,  where  his  queer  stories  and 
quaint  ways  were  simply  astonishing,  until  even  that 
hard  circle  began  to  love  the  quaint,  questioning, 
querulous,  mysterious  guest,  who  would  not  become  a 
pupil.  Like  little  Paul,  he  was  '  old-fashioned.'  *  What/ 
he  might  have  asked  himself  with  little  Paul,  'what 
could  that  "  old-fashion  "  be,  that  seemed  to  make  the 
people  sorry  ?  What  could  it  be  ? ' 

Never,  perhaps,  has  a  fragment  of  biography  wakened 
more  .interest  and  amazement  than  the  first  chapters 
of  Mr.  Forster's  biography.  Who  that  had  read  the 


2  8  Master-Spirits. 

marvellous  pictures  of  child-life  in  'David  Copperfield,' 
and  had  been  startled  by  their  vital  intensity,  were  pre- 
pared to  hear  that  they  were  merely  the  transcript  of 
real  thoughts,  feelings,  and  sufferings  ;  were  the  literal 
transcript  of  the  writer's  own  actual  experience— nay, 
were  even  a  portion  of  an  autobiography  written  by  the 
author  himself  in  the  first  flush  of  his  manhood  ?  The 
pinching  want,  the  sense  of  desolation,  the  sharp, 
agonising  pride,  were  all  real,  just  as  real  as  the  sharp, 
child-like  insight  into  life  and  character,  and  the  wonder- 
ful knowledge  of  the  byways  of  life. 

His  first  experience  was  at  Chatham,  where  his  father 
held  a  small  appointment  under  Government,  and  here 
he  not  only  contracted  that  love  for  the  neighbourhood 
which  abided  with  him  through  life,  but  amassed  the 
material  for  many  of  his  finest  sketches  of  persons  and 
localities — notably  for  that  extraordinary  account  of  a 
journey  down  the  river  given  in  '  Great  Expectations.' 
His  o,vn  account  of  his  life  at  Chatham,  embodied  in 
the  fragment  of  biography  before  alluded  to,  is  very 
interesting ;  and  in  his  autobiographical  novel  we  have 
a  list  of  the  very  books  he  loved — '  Tom  Jones,'  '  Tales 
of  the  Genii '  (but  the  tale  of  the  most  wonderful  Genie 
of  all  remained  to  be  told!), ' Arabian  Nights,'  'Roderick 
Random,'  'Humphrey  Clinker,'  'Don  Quixote/  'Robin- 
son Crusoe,'  and  '  Gil  Bias.' 

Before  he  was  nine  years  old,  however,  Dickens  was 
removed  to  that  mighty  City  over  which  he  was  after- 
wards to  shed  the  glamour  of  veritable  enchantment, 
and  which,  from  having  been  the  wonder  and  delight  of 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  29 

his  early  boyhood,  was  to  arise  into  the  huge  temple  of 
his  art.  The  elder  Dickens,  having  procured  a  situation 
in  Somerset-house,  took  his  family  to  Bayham  Street, 
Camden  Town,  and  shortly  afterwards  little  Charles  was 
forwarded  inside  the  stage-coach,  '  like  game,  carriage 
paid.'  His  recollection  of  the  journey  was  very  vivid. 
'  There  was  no  other  inside  passenger,'  he  relates,  '  and 
I  consumed  my  sandwiches  in  solitude  and  dreariness, 
and  it  rained  hard  all  the  way,  and  I  thought  life 
sloppier  than  I  had  expected.'  The  following  passage 
from  Mr.  Forster's  biography  is  pregnant  with  interest,, 
and  tells  a  whole  tale  of  sorrowful  change  : — 

The  earliest  impressions  received  and  retained  by  him  in 
London,  were  of  his  father's  money  involvements  ;  and  now 
first  he  heard  mentioned  '  the  deed/  representing  that  crisis  of 
his  father's  affairs  in  fact  which  is  ascribed  in  fiction  to 
Mr.  Micawber's.  He  knew  it  in  later  days  to  have  been  a 
composition  with  creditors,  though  at  this  earlier  date  he  was 
conscious  of  having  confounded  it  with  parchments  of  a  much 
more  demoniacal  description.  One  result  from  the  awful 
document  soon  showed  itself  in  enforced  retrenchment.  The 
family  had  to  take  up  its  abode  in  a  house  in  Bayham  Street, 
Camden  Town. 

Bayham  Street  was  about  the  poorest  part  of  the  London 
suburbs  then,  and  the  house  was  a  mean  small  tenement,  with 
a  wretched  little  back-garden  abutting  on  a  squalid  court. 
Here  was  no  place  for  new  acquaintances  to  him  :  no  boys  were 
near  with  whom  he  might  hope  to  become  in  any  way  familiar. 
A  washerwoman  lived  next  door,  and  a  Bow  Street  officer  lived 
over  the  way.  Many  many  times  has  he  spoken  to  me  of  this, 
and  how  he  seemed  at  once  to  fail  into  a  solitary  condition 
apart  from  all  other  boys  of  his  own  age,  and  to  sink  into  a 


30  Master-Spirits. 

neglected  state  at  home  which  had  always  been  quite  unac- 
countable to  him.  'As  I  thought,' he  said  on  one  occasion 
very  bitterly,  '  in  the  little  back  garret  in  Bayham  Street,  of  all 
J  had  lost  in  losing  Chatham,  what  would  I  have  given,  if  I 
had  had  anything  to  give,  to  have  been  sent  back  to  any  other 
school,  to  have  been  taught  something  anywhere  ! '  He  was  at 
another  school  already,  not  knowing  it.  The  self- education 
forced  upon  him  was  teaching  him,  all  unconsciously  as  yet, 
what,  for  the  future  that  awaited  him,  it  most  behoved  him  to 
know. 

That  he  took,  from  the  very  beginning  of  this  Bayham  Street 
life,  his  first  impression  of  that  struggling  poverty  which  is 
nowhere  more  vividly  shown  than  in  commoner  streets  of  the 
ordinary  London  suburb,  and  which  enriched  his  earliest 
writings  with  a  freshness  of  original  humour  and  quite  unstudied 
pathos  that  gave  them  much  of  their  sudden  popularity,  there 
cannot  be  a  doubt.  '  I  certainly  understood  it/  he  has  often 
said  to  me,  '  quite  as  well  then  as  I  do  now.'  But  he  was  not 
conscious  yet  that  he  did  so  understand  it,  or  of  the  influence 
it  was  exerting  on  his  life  even  then.  It  seems  almost  too 
much  to  assert  of  a  child,  say  at  nine  or  ten  years  old,  that  his 
observation  of  everything  was  as  close  and  good,  or  that  he  had 
as  much  intuitive  understanding  of  the  character  and  weaknesses 
of  the  grown-up  people  around  him,  as  when  the  same  keen 
and  wonderful  faculty  had  made  him  famous  among  men.  But 
my  experience  of  him  led  me  to  put  implicit  faith  in  the  asser- 
tion he  unvaryingly  himself  made,  that  he  had  never  seen  any 
cause  to  correct  or  change  what  in  his  boyhood  was  his  own 
secret  impression  of  anybody  whom  he  had  had,  as  a  grown 
man,  the  opportunity  of  testing  in  later  years. 

How  it  came  that,  being  what  he  was,  he  should  now  have 
fallen  into  the  misery  and  neglect  of  the  time  about  to  be 
described,  was  a  subject  on  which  thoughts  were  frequently 
interchanged  between  us  •  and  on  one  occasion  he  gave  me  a 
sketch  of  the  character  of  his  father  which,  as  I  can  here  repeat 


The  l  Good  Genie '  of  Fiction.  3 1 

it  in  the  exact  words  employed  by  him,  will  be  the  best  preface 

I  can  make  to  what  I  feel  that  I  have  no  alternative  but  to  tell. 

I 1  know  my  father  to  be  as  kind-hearted  and  generous  a  man 
as  ever  lived  in  the  world.     Everything  that  I  can  remember  of 
his  conduct  to  his  wife,  or  children,  or  friends,  in  sickness  or 
affliction,  is  beyond  all  praise.     By  me,  as  a  sick  child,  he  has 
watched  night  and  day,  unweariedly  and  patiently,  many  nights 
and  days.     He  never  undertook  any  business  charge,  or  trust, 
that  he  did  not  zealously,  conscientiously,  punctually,  honourably 
discharge.     His  industry  has  always  been  untiring.     He  was 
proud  of  me,  in  his  way,  and  had  a  great  admiration  of  the 
comic  singing.     But,  in  the  ease  of  his  temper  and  the  strait- 
ness  of  his  means,  he  appeared  to  have  utterly  lost  at  this  time 
the  idea  of  educating  me  at  all,  and  to  have  utterly  put  from 
him  the  notion  that  I  had  any  claim  upon  him  in  that  regard, 
whatever.     So   I   degenerated   into   cleaning  his   boots  of  a 
morning,  and  my  own  ;  and  making  myself  useful  in  the  work 
of  the  little  house  ;  and  looking  after  my  younger  brothers  and 
sisters  (we  were  now  six  in  all);  and  going  on  such  poor  errands 
as  arose  out  of  our  poor  way  of  living.' 

In  this  and  other  portions  of  the  biography,  we  are 
thus  directly  informed  that  Mr.  Dickens,  senior,  with 
his  constant  pecuniary  embarrassments,  his  easy  good 
nature,  his  utter  unpractically,  sat  full  length  for  the 
immortal  portrait  of  Mr.  Micawber  ;  and  this  fact  has 
already  been  the  signal  for  much  after-dinner  comment 
and  for  numberless  bitter  remarks  on  the  part  of  the 
unsympathetic.  It  so  happens  that  Dickens,  in  his 
biographical  fragment  as  in  his  great  novel,  dwells  with 
all  the  intensity  of  an  incurably  wounded  nature  on  the 
early  privations  and  trials  which  (as  has  been  truly 
observed)  made  him  the  great  power  he  was.  This,  it  is 


32  Master- Spirits. 

suggested,  was,  if  not  positive  folly,  rank  ingratitude  ; 
his  self-commiseration  was  contemptible,  his  after-re- 
crimination atrocious ;  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he 
was  not  at  once  more  manly  and  more  gentle.  Thus  far 
a  small  section  of  the  public.  Read,  now,  Dickens's 
account  of  his  life  at  the  blacking  warehouse,  where  he 
was  sent  at  the  request  of  a  relation  : — 

It  is  wonderful  to  me  how  I  could  have  been  so  easily  cast 
away  at  such  an  age.  It  is  wonderful  to  me  that,  even  after 
my  descent  into  the  poor  little  drudge  I  had  been  since  we 
came  to  London,  no  one  had  compassion  enough  on  me — a 
child  of  singular  abilities,  quick,  eager,  delicate,  and  soon  hurt, 
bodily  or  mentally — to  suggest  that  something  might  have  been 
spared,  as  certainly  it  might  have  been,  to  place  me  at  any 
common  school.  Our  friends,  I  take  it,  were  tired  out.  No 
one  made  any  sign.  My  father  and  mother  were  quite  satisfied. 
They  could  hardly  have  been  more  so  if  I  had  been  twenty 
years  of  age,  distinguished  at  a  grammar  school,  and  going  to 
Cambridge. 

The  blacking  warehouse  was  the  last  house  on  the  left  hand 
side  of  the  way,  at  old  Hungerford  stairs.  It  was  a  crazy, 
tumble-down  old  house,  abutting,  of  course,  on  the  river,  and 
literally  overrun  with  rats.  Its  wainscoted  rooms  and  its  rotten 
floors  and  staircases,  and  the  old  grey  rats  swarming  down  in 
the  cellars,  and  the  sound  of  their  squeaking  and  scuffling 
coming  up  the  stairs  at  all  times,  and  the  dirt  and  decay  of  the 
place,  rise  up  visibly  before  me,  as  if  I  were  there  again.  The 
counting-house  was  on  the  first  floor,  looking  over  the  coal 
barges  and  the  river.  There  was  a  recess  in  it,  in  which  I  was 
to  sit  and  work.  My  work  was  to  cover  the  pots  of  paste- 
blacking,  first  with  a  piece  of  oil-paper,  and  then  with  a  piece 
of  blue  paper  ;  to  tie  them  round  with  a  string  ;  and  then  to 
clip  the  paper  close  and  neat,  all  round,  until  it  looked  as  smart 


The  '  Good  Genie '  of  Fiction.  33 

as  a  pot  of  ointment  from  an  apothecary's  shop.  When  a 
certain  number  of  grosses  of  pots  had  attained  this  pitch  of 
perfection,  I  was  to  paste  on  each  a  printed  label;  and  then  go 
on  again  with  more  pots.  Two  or  three  other  boys  were  kept 
at  similar  duty  downstairs  on  similar  wages.  One  of  them 
came  up,  in  a  ragged  apron  and  a  paper  cap,  on  the  first 
Monday  morning,  to  show  me  the  trick  of  using  the  string  and 
tying  the  knot.  His  name  was  Bob  Fagin  ;  and  I  took  the 
liberty  of  using  his  name,  long  afterwards,  in  Oliver  Twist.  .  . 
I  know  I  do  not  exaggerate,  unconsciously  and  unintentionally, 
the  scantiness  of  my  resources  and  the  difficulties  of  my  life. 
I  know  that  if  a  shilling  or  so  were  given  me  by  anyone,  I 
spent  it  in  a  dinner  or  a  tea.  I  know  that  I  worked  from 
morning  to  night,  with  common  men  and  boys,  a  shabby  child. 
I  know  that  I  tried,  but  ineffectually,  not  to  anticipate  my 
money,  and  to  make  it  last  the  week  through;  by  putting  it 
away  in  a  drawer  I  had  in  the  counting-house,  wrapped  into 
six  little  parcels,  each  parcel  containing  the  same  amount,  and 
labelled  with  a  different  day.  I  know  that  I  have  lounged 
about  the  streets,  insufficiently  and  unsatisfactorily  fed.  I 
know,  but  for  the  mercy  of  God,  I  might  easily  have  been,  for 
any  care  that  was  taken  of  me,  a  little  robber  or  a  little 
vagabond.' 

At  last,  this  hard  life  came  to  an  end  ;  how,  is  explained 
in  this  bitter  sequel : — 

*  At  last,  one  day,  my  father,  and  the  relative  so  often  men- 
tioned, quarrelled  ;  quarrelled  by  letter,  for  I  took  the  letter 
from  my  father  to  him  which  caused  the  explosion,  but  quarrelled 
very  fiercely.  It  was  about  me.  It  may  have  had  some  back- 
ward reference,  in  part,  for  anything  I  know,  to  my  employment 
at  the  window.  All  I  am  certain  of  is,  that,  soon  after  I  had 
given  him  the  letter,  my  cousin  (he  was  a  sort  of  cousin,  by 
marriage)  told  me  he  was  very  much  insulted  about  me ;  and 
that  it  was  impossible  to  keep  me  after  that.  I  cried  very  much, 

D 


34  Master-Spirits. 

partly  because  it  was  so  sudden,  and  partly  because,  in  his 
anger,  he  was  violent  about  my  father,  though  gentle  to  me. 
Thomas,  the  old  soldier,  comforted  me,  and  said  he  was  sure  it 
was  for  the  best.  With  a  relief  so  strange  that  it  was  like 
oppression,  I  went  home. 

'  My  mother  set  herself  to  accommodate  the  quarrel,  and  did 
so  next  day.  She  brought  home  a  request  for  me  to  return 
next  morning,  and  a  high  character  of  me  which  I  am  very  sure 
I  deserved.  My  father  said  I  should  go  back  no  more,  and 
should  go  to  school.  /  do  not  write  resentfully  or  angrily :  for 
I  know  how  all  these  things  have  worked  together  to  make  me 
what  I  am ;  but  I  never  afterwards  forgot,  I  never  shall  forget, 
I  never  can  forget,  that  my  mother  was  warm  for  my  being  sent 
back. 

'  From  that  hour  until  this  at  which  I  write,  no  word  of  that 
part  of  my  childhood  which  I  have  now  gladly  brought  to  a 
close,  has  passed  my  lips  to  any  human  being.  I  have  no  idea 
how  long  it  lasted ;  whether  for  a  year,  or  much  more,  or  less. 
From  that  hour,  until  this,  my  father  and  my  mother  have  been 
stricken  dumb  upon  it.  I  have  never  heard  the  least  allusion 
to  it,  however  far  off  and  remote,  from  either  of  them.  I  have 
never,  until  I  now  impart  it  to  this  paper,  in  any  burst  of  con- 
fidence with  any  one,  my  own  wife  not  excepted,  raised  the 
curtain  I  then  dropped,  thank  God  ! ' 

The  reader  has  now  before  him  the  whole  story,  the 
whole  explanation  of  why,  over  Charles  Dickens,  '  ere  he 
is  scarce  cold/ 

Begins  the  scandal  and  the  cry  ! 

The  case  is  very  simple.  Charles  Dickens,  having 
been  greatly  unfortunate  in  his  youth,  dwelt  on  the 
circumstances  with  an  intensity  *  almost  vindictive' — in 
other  words,  with  the  frightfully  realistic  power  which 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  35 

especially   distinguished   the   man.      Weighing   all  the 
circumstances,  probing  the  very  core  of  the  truth,  -we  see 
nothing  in  this  to  account  for  the  prevalent  misconcep- 
tion.    Let  us  bear  in  mind,  in  the  first  place,  the  keen- 
ness of  the  author's  memory,  and  the  stiletto-like  touches 
of  the  author's  style,  both  liable  to  be  misunderstood  by 
men  with  dimmer  memories  and  flabbier  styles.     Let  us 
remember,  next,  that  Dickens  was  concocting  no  mere 
fiction,  but  attempting  to  tell  things  exactly  as  they  had 
happened, — to  narrate    (in  his  own  words)  '  the  whole 
truth,  so  help  me  God  ! '     Lastly,  let  us  not  forget,  that 
the  words  we  have  read  were  no  formal  public  charge, 
but  the  rapid  instantaneous  flashes  of  a  private  self- 
examination,  never  published  until  totally  disguised  and 
modified.     We  have  more  faith  in  the  English  public, 
which  has  persistently  adhered  to  the  great  master  in 
spite    of    the   carpings   and    doubtings    of    Blimberish 
persons,  than  to  imagine  it  will  be  misled  in  reading 
this  matter,  any  more  than  Mr.  Forster  has  been  misled 
in  printing  it ;  and  we  unhesitatingly  assert  that,  in  the 
autobiographical   fragment,  there   is   not   one  sentence 
inconsistent  with  a  noble  soul,  a  beneficent  mind,  and  a 
loving  heart.     The  worst  passage  is  that  referring  to  his 
mother's  desire  to  send  him  back  to  the  blacking  ware- 
house.    We  agree  with  Dickens  that  such  a  desire  was 
cruel  almost  to  brutality  (Dickens  never  says  so,  though 
he  seems  to  have  felt  as  much),  but  we  affirm,  neverthe- 
less, that  the  language  he  uses  is  perfectly  tender  and 
lawful.     '  I  never  shall  forget,  I  never  can  forget! — that 
is  all.     The  impression  survived,  but  had  he  not  tried  to 

D  2 


36  Master-Spirits . 

obliterate  it  a  million  times  ?  and  why  ? — because,  with 
that  reverent  yearning  nature,  he  would  fain  have  made 
himself  believe  his  mother  had  been  completely  noble 
and  true  to  him,  because  he  was  too  sensitive  to  do  with- 
out motherly  love  and  tenderness,  because  he  could  not 
bear  to  think  the  one  great  consecration  of  childhood 
had  been  missing.  Such  a  feeling,  we  believe,  so  far 
from  being  inconsistent  with  love,  is  part  of  love's  very 
nature.  Had  he  not  been  filial  to  the  intensest  possible 
degree,  he  would  never  have  felt  an  unmotherly  touch 
so  sorely.  He  sits  in  no  judgment,  he  utters  no  blame, 
but  to  himself,  in  the  recesses  of  his  soul,  he  cries  that 
he  would  part  with  half  his  fame  to  feel  that  that  one 
unkindness  had  been  wanting.  '  The  pity  of  it,  the  pity 
of  it,  lago  ! ' 

And  we,  who  owe  him  a  new  world  of  love  and 
beauty,  we  who  are  to  him  as  blades  of  common  grass 
to  the  rose,  are  we  to  sit  in  judgment  on  our  good 
Genie,  because  he  has  bared  his  heart  to  us,  a  little  too 
much,  perhaps,  in  the  all-telling  candour  of  a  child  ? 
God  forbid !  Shall  we  cast  a  stone,  too,  because  (as 
we  are  told)  he,  in  one  of  his  leading  characters,  '  cari- 
catured his  own  father  ? '  O  dutiful  sons  that  we  are, 
shall  we  spit  upon  the  monster's  grave  ?  No.  Rather 
let  us,  like  wise  men,  read  the  words  already  quoted, 
wherein  the  great  author  pictures  his  father's  character 
in  all  the  hues  of  perfect  tenderness  and  truth.  Rather 
let  us  open  '  David  Copperfield,'  and  study  the  character 
of  Micawber  again,— to  find  the  queer  sad  human  truth 
embodied  in  such  a  picture  as  only  love  could  draw,  as 


TJie  '  Good  Genie  '  of  Fiction.  37 

only  a  heart  overflowing  with  tenderness  could  conceive 
and  feel.  MlCAWBER  !  There  is  light  in  every  linea- 
ment, sweetness  in  every  tone,  of  the  delicious  creature. 

'  The  very  incarnation  of  selfishness,'  it  is  retorted  ; 
'  dishonourable,  mean,  absurd,  gross,  contemptible.' 
But  to  this  there  is  no  reply ;  for  Micawber,  with  all 
his  faults,  which  are  of  the  very  nature  of  the  man,  is 
to  us,  as  to  him  who  limned  him  for  our  affection, 
almost  as  dear  a  figure  as  Don  Quixote,  or  Parson 
Adams,  or  Strap,  or  Uncle  Toby. 

But  this  appealing  against  harsh  judgment  is  thankless 
work.  Far  better  pass  on  to  those  portions  of  the  book 
which  show  how  Dickens,  when  a  neglected  boy,  began 
accumulating  the  materials  for  his  great  works — wander- 
ing about  Seven  Dials,  aghast  at  that  theatre  of  human 
tragedy  of  which  every  threshold  was  the  proscenium  ; 
haunting  the  wharfs  and  bridges,  till  the  river  became 
a  dark  and  awful  friend  ;  visiting  the  gaffs  and  shows 
in  the  Blackfriars  Road,  till  every  feature  of  low  mum- 
ming life  grew  familiar  to  him  ;  visiting  his  father  in 
that  Marshalsea  of  which  he  was  to  leave  so  vivid  a 
memorial ;  watching  the  cupola  of  St.  Paul's  looming 
through  the  smoke  of  Camden  Town  ;  dreaming,  plan- 
ning, picturing,  until  this  vast  web  of  London  grew,  as  we 
have  said,  enchanted,  and  life  became  a  magic  tale.  So 
intense  were  the  sensations  of  those  days,  so  vivid 
were  the  impressions,  that  they  remained  with  the 
author  for  ever  fascinating  him,  as  it  were,  into  one 
child-like  way  of  looking  at  the  world.  Indeed,  the 
sense  of  oddity  deepened  as  he  grew  older  in  years — till 


3&  Master-Spirits. 

it  became  almost  ghastly,  brooding  specially  on  ghastly 
things,  in  his  last  unfinished  fragment.1 

One  never  forgets  how  Aladdin,  when  he  got  posses- 
sion of  the  ring,  and,  rubbing  the  tears  out  of  his  eyes, 
accidentally  rubbed  the  ring  too,  discovered    all  in    a 
moment  his  power  over  spirits  and  things  unseen.     Much 
in  the  same  way  did  Dickens  discover  his  gift.     It  was 
an  accidental  rub,  as  it  were,  when  he  was  crying  sadly, 
that  brought  the  brilliant  help.     But  in  his  case,  unlike 
that  of  Aladdin,  the  power  grew  with  using.     The  first 
few  figures  summoned  up  in  the  '  Sketches '  were  clever 
enough,  but  vague  and  absurdly  thin,  mere  shadows  of 
what  was  coming.    But  suddenly,  one  morning,  descended 
like  Mercury  the  angel  Pickwick  beaming  through  his 
spectacles ;    and    the    man-child    revelled    in    laughter, 
utterly  abandoning  himself  to  the  maddest  mood.     He 
was  not  as  yet  quite  spell-bound  by  his  own  magic,  and 
was  merely  full  of  the  fun.  The  tricksy  Spirit  of  Metaphor, 
which  he  compelled  to  such  untiring  service  afterwards, 
scarcely  got  beyond  such  an  image  as  this,  in  the  vulgar- 
ising style  of  'Tom  Jones': — 'That  punctual  servant- 
of-all-work,  the  sun,  had  just  risen  and  begun  to  strike 
a  light.'     But  the  book  was  full  of  quiddity,  rich  in  secret 
unction.     It  was  in  a  sadder  mood,  with  the  recollections 
of  his  hard  boyish  sufferings  still  too  fresh  upon  him, 
that  he  wrote  '  Oliver  Twist.'     This  book,  with  all  its 
faults,  shows  what  its  writer  might  have  been,  if  he  had 
not  chosen  rather  to  be  a  great  magician.     Putting  aside 

1  See  <  The  Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood.' 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  39 

altogether  the  artificial  love  story  with  which  it  is  in- 
terblended,  and  which  is  the  merest  padding,  there  is 
scarcely  a  character  in  this  fiction  which  is  not  rigidly 
drawn  from  the  life,  and  that  without  the  faintest 
attempt  to  secure  quiddity  at  the  expense  of  verisimi- 
litude. The  character  of  Nancy,  the  figures  of  Fagin 
and  his  pupils,  the  conduct  of  Sykes  after  the  murder, 
are  all  studies  in  the  hardest  realistic  manner,  with 
not  one  flash  of  glamour.  Even  the  Dodger  is  more 
life-like  than  delightful.  There  are  touches  in  it  of 
marvellous  cunning,  strokes  of  superb  insight,  bits  of 
description  unmatched  out  of  the  writer's  own  works  ; 
but  the  lyric  identity  (if  we  may  apply  the  phrase  to 
one  who,  although  he  wrote  in  prose,  was  specifically  a 
poet)  had  yet  to  be  achieved.  The  charm  was  not  all 
spoken.  The  child-like  mood  was  not  yet  quite  fixed. 

Not  at  the  '  Oliver  Twist '  stage  of  genius  could  he 
have  written  thus  of  a  foggy  November  day :  '  Smoke 
lowering  down  from  chimney-pots,  making  a  soft  black 
drizzle,  with  flakes  of  soot  in  it  as  big  as  full-grown 
snow-flakes — gone  into  mourning,  one  might  imagine, 
for  the  death  of  the  sun  ; '  or  thus  about  shop-windows 
on  the  same  occasion  :  '  Shops  lighted  two  hours  before 
their  time — as  the  gas  seems  to  know,  for  it  has  a  hag- 
gard and  unwilling  look  ; '  or  thus  of  a  sleeping  country 
town,  where  '  nothing  seemed  to  be  going  on  but  the 
clocks,  and  they  had  such  drowsy  faces,  such  heavy 
lazy  hands,  and  such  cracked  voices,  and  they  surely 
must  have  been  too  slow.'  Still  less  could  he  have 
pictured  the  wonderful  figure  of  little  Nell  surrounded 


4<D  Master-  Spirits. 

by  oddities  animate  and  inanimate,  and  moving  through 
them  to  a  sweet  sleep  and  an  early  grave.  Still  less 
could  he  have  written  such  an  entire  description  as  that 
of  the  Court  of  Chancery  in  '  Bleak  House/  where  the 
fog  of  the  weather  penetrates  the  whole  intellectual 
and  moral  atmosphere,  and  renders  all  phantasmic  and 
ludicrously  strange.  Yet  all  these  things  are  seen  and 
felt  as  a  child  might  have  seen  and  felt  them — are  just 
like  the  world  little  Dombey  or  little  Nell  might  have 
described,  if  they  had  wandered  as  far,  and  been  able 
to  put  their  impressions  upon  paper. 

It  is  not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  as  being  a  "most  significant 
and  striking  fact,  that  Dickens  is  greatest  when  most 
personal  and  lyrical,  and  that  he  is  most  lyrical  when  he 
puts  himself  in  a  child's  place,  and  sees  with  a  child's 
eyes.  In  the  centre  of  his  best  stories  sits  a  little 
human  figure,  dreaming,  watching  life  as  it  might  watch 
the  faces  in  the  fire.  Little  Oliver  Twist,  little  David 
Copperfield,  little  Dombey,  little  Pip  (in  '  Great  Expecta- 
tions '),  wander  in  their  turn  through  Queer  Land, 
wander  and  wonder  ;  and  life  to  them  is  quaint  as  a 
toy-shop  and  as  endless  as  a  show.  And  where  Dickens 
does  not  place  a  veritable  child  as  the  centre  of  his  story, 
as  in  '  Little  Dorrit '  or  '  Bleak  House,'  he  employs 
instead  a  soft,  wax-like,  feminine,  child-like  nature,  like 
Amy  Dorrit  or  Esther  Summerson,  which  may  be 
supposed  to  bear  the  same  sort  of  relation  to  the  world 
as  children  of  smaller  growth,  and  to  feel  the  world  with 
the  same  intensity.  In  any  case,  in  any  of  his  best 
passages,  whether  humorous  or  pathetic,  emotion  pre- 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  41 

cedes  reflection,  as  it  does  in  the  case  of  a  child  or  of  a 
great  lyric  poet.  The  first  flash  is  seized  ;  the  picture, 
whether  human  or  inanimate,  is  taken  instantaneously 
and  steeped  in  the  feeling  of  the  instant.  Thus,  when 
Carker  first  appears  upon  the  scene  in  '  Dombey  and 
Son,'  the  author,  with  a  quick  infantine  perception,  first 
notices  '  two  unbroken  lines  of  glistening  teeth,  whose 
regularity  and  whiteness  were  quite  distressing,'  and  in 
another  moment  perceives  that  in  the  same  person's 
smile  there  is  'something  like  the  snarl  of  the  cat.' 
\Yith  any  other  author  but  the  present  this  first  im- 
pression would  possibly  fade  :  but  with  him,  as  with  a 
child,  it  grows  and  enlarges,  till  the  white  teeth  of 
Carker  absolutely  haunt  the  reader,  and  in  Carker's 
very  look  and  gesture  is  seen  a  feline  resemblance.  The 
feeling  never  disappears  for  a  moment.  '  Mr.  Carker 
reclined  against  the  mantelpiece.  In  whose  sly  look  and 
watchful  manner ;  in  whose  false  mouth,  stretched  but 
not  laughing ;  in  whose  spotless  cravat  and  very 
whiskers  ;  even  in  whose  silent  passing  of  his  left  hand 
over  his  white  linen  and  his  smooth  face:  there  was 
something  desperately  cat-like.' 

And  the  further  the  book  proceeds  the  more  is  the 
feline  metaphor  pursued,  so  that  when  Carker  is  planning 
the  downfall  of  Edith  Dombey  we  all  feel  to  be  watching, 
with  intense  interest,  a  cat  in  the  act  to  spring.  '  He 
seemed  to  purr,  he  was  so  glad.  And  in  some  sort  Mr. 
Carker,  in  his  fancy,  basked  upon  a  hearth  too.  Coiled 
up  snugly  at  certain  feet,  he  was  ready  for  a  spring,  or 
for  a  tear,  or  for  a  scratch,  or  for  a  velvet  touch,  as  the 


42  Master-Spirits. 

humour  seized  him.  Was  there  any  bird  in  a  cage  that 
came  in  for  a  share  of  his  regards?'  Nay,  so  un- 
mistakable is  his  nature  that  it  even  provokes  Diogenes 
the  dog ;  for  '  as  he  picks  his  way  so  softly  past  the 
house,  glancing  up  at  the  windows,  and  trying  to  make 
out  the  pensive  face  behind  the  curtain  looking  at  the 
children  opposite,  the  rough  head  of  Diogenes  came 
clambering  up  close  by  it,  and  the  dog,  regardless  of  all 
soothing,  barks  and  howls,  as  if  he  would  tear  him  limb 
from  limb.  Well  spoken,  Di ! '  adds  the  author ;  '  so 
near  your  mistress  !  Another  and  another,  with  your 
head  up,  your  eyes  flashing,  and  your  vexed  mouth 
wringing,  for  want  of  him.  Another,  as  he  picks  his 
way  along.  You  have  a  good  scent,  Di, — cats,  boys,  cats  ! ' 
Note,  here,  the  positive  enchantment  which  this 
lyrical  feeling  casts  over  every  subject  with  which  it 
deals.  There  can  be  no  mistake  about  it — we  are  in 
Fairyland ;  and  every  object  we  perceive,  animate  or 
inanimate,  is  quickened  into  strange  life.  Wherever  the 
good  person  goes  all  good  things  are  in  league  with  him, 
help  him,  and  struggle  for  him  ;  trees,  flowers,  houses, 
bottles  of  wine,  dishes  of  meat,  rejoice  with  him,  and 
enter  into  him,  and  mingle  identities  with  him.  He, 
literally  '  brightening  the  sunshine,'  fills  the  place  where 
he  moves  with  Fairies  and  attendant  spirits.  Read,  as 
an  illustration  of  this,  the  account  of  Tom  Pinch's  drive 
in  (  Martin  Chuzzlewit.'  But  wherever  the  bad  person 
goes,  on  the  other  hand,  only  ugly  things  sympathise. 
He  darkens  the  day ;  his  baleful  look  transforms  every 
fair  thing  into  an  ogre.  The  door-knockers  grin  grimly, 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  43- 

the  door-hinges  creak  with  diabolical  laughter.  There 
is  not  a  grain  of  good  in  him,  not  a  gleam  of  hope  for 
him.  He  is,  in  fact,  scarcely  a  human  being,  but  an 
abstraction,  representing  Selfishness,  Malice,  Envy,  Sham- 
piety,  Hate  ;  moral  ugliness  of  some  sort  represented 
invariably  by  physical  ugliness  of  another  sort.  He,  of 
course,  invariably  gets  beaten  in  the  long  run.  This  is 
all  as  it  ought  to  be — in  a  fairy-tale. 

The  pleasantest  creatures  in  this  pleasant  dream  of 
life,  seen  by  our  good  Genie  with  the  heart  of  a  child, 
are  (undoubtedly)  the  Fools.  Dickens  loved  these  forms 
of  helplessness,  and  he  has  created  the  brightest  that 
ever  were  imagined — Micawber,  Toots,  Twemlow,  Mrs. 
Nickleby,  Traddles,  Kit  Nubbles,  Dora  Spenlow,  the 
gushing  Flora,1  and  many  others  whose  names  will  occur 
to  every  reader.  They  are  perhaps  truer  to  nature  than 
is  generally  conceded.  The  critical  criterion  finds  them 
silly,  and  the  pathos  wasted  over  them  somewhat 
maudlin.  The  public  loves  them,  and  feels  the  better 
for  them  ;  for,  however  wrong  in  the  head,  they  are  all 
right  at  heart — indeed,  with  our  good  Genie,  a  strong 
head  and  a  tender  heart  seldom  go  together,  which  is  a 
pity.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  creator  of  these 
creatures  was  violently  irrational,  had  an  intense  distaste 
for  hard  facts,  and  an  equally  intense  love  for  sentimental 
chuckle-heads. 

1  Not  the  least  interesting  portion  of  Mr.  Forster's  life  is  the  part  showing 
us  that  Dora  and  Flora  are  photographs  from  the  life,  taken  at  different 
periods  from  the  same  person,  and  that  this  person  was  regarded  by  Dickens 
himself  at  one  time  just  as  Copperfield  regarded  Dora,  and  at  a  later  period 
just  as  Clennam  regarded  Mrs.  F.  ! 


44  Master-Spirits. 

The  heart,  the  heart,  if  that  beats  right, 
Be  sure  the  brain  thinks  true  ! 

It  may  be  observed,  in  deprecation,  that  Dickens'  good 
people,  and  especially  his  Fools,  too  often  wear  their 
hearts  '  upon  their  sleeves/  and  give  vent  to  the-  dis- 
agreeable '  gush '  so  characteristic  of  his  falsetto  pathetic 
passages,  such  as  the  well-known  scene  between  Doctor 
and  Mrs.  Strong  in  '  David  Copperfield'  : — 

1  Annie,  my  pure  heart ! '  said  the  doctor,  *  my  dear  girl ! ' 

( A  little  more  !  a  very  few  words  more  !  I  used  to  think 
there  were  so  many  whom  you  might  have  married,  who  would 
not  have  brought  such  charge  and  trouble  on  you,  and  who 
would  have  made  your  home  a  worthier  home.  I  used  to  be 
afraid  that  I  had  better  have  remained  your  pupil,  and  almost 
your  child.  I  used  to  fear  that  I  was  so  unsuited  to  your 
learning  and  wisdom.  If  all  this  made  me  shrink  within 
myself  (as  indeed  it  did),  when  I  had  that  to  tell,  it  was  still 
because  I  honoured  you  so  much,  and  hoped  that  you  might 
one  day  honour  me.' 

'  That  day  has  shone  this  long  time,  Annie,'  said  the  doctor, 
'  and  can  have  but  one  long  night,  my  dear.' 

'  Another  word  !  I  afterwards  meant — steadfastly  meant,  and 
purposed  to  myself — to  bear  the  whole  weight  of  knowing  the 
unworthiness  of  one  to  whom  you  had  been  so  good.  And 
now  a  last  word,  dearest  and  best  of  friends  !  The  cause  of  the 
late  change  in  you,  which  I  have  seen  with  so  much  pain  and 
sorrow,  and  have  sometimes  referred  to  my  old  apprehension — 
at  other  times  to  lingering  suppositions  nearer  to  the  truth — has 
been  made  clear  to-night ;  and  by  an  accident.  I  have  also 
come  to  know,  to-night,  the  full  measure  of  your  noble  trust  in 
me,  even  under  that  mistake.  I  do  not  hope  that  any  love  and 
duty  I  may  render  in  return  will  ever  make  me  worthy  of  your 
priceless  confidence  ;  but  with  all  this  knowledge  fresh  upon 


The  (  Good  Genie '  of  Fiction.  45 

me,  I  can  lift  my  eyes  to  this  dear  face,  revered  as  a  father's, 
loved  as  a  husband's,  sacred  to  me  in  my  childhood  as  a  friend's, 
and  solemnly  declare  that  in  my  lightest  thought  I  had  never 
\vronged  you ;  never  wavered  in  the  love  and  the  fidelity  I  owe 
you  !' 

She  had  her  arms  round  the  doctor's  neck,  and  he  leant  his 
head  down  over  her,  mingling  his  grey  hair  with  her  dark  brown 
tresses. 

*  Oh,  hold  me  to  your  heart,  my  husband  !  Never  cast  me 
out !  Do  not  think  or  speak  of  disparity  between  us,  for  there 
is  none,  except  in  all  my  many  imperfections.  Every  succeeding 
year  I  have  known  this  better,  as  I  have  esteemed  you  more 
and  more.  Oh,  take  me  to  your  heart,  my  husband,  for  my 
love  was  founded  on  a  rock,  and  it  endures  ! ' — (David  Copper- 
field,  chap.  xlv.  pp.  402,  403.  Charles  Dickens'  Edition.)1 

There  is,  of  course,  far  too  much  of  this  sort  of  thing  in 
Dickens'  pictures,  but  it  does  not  go  beyond  bad  drawing. 
His  conception  of  the  pathetic  circumstances  is  always 
psychologically  right,  only  he  has  too  little  experience 
not  to  make  it  theatrical.  A  child  might  think  such  a 
scene,  on  or  off  the  stage,  very  affecting.  And  why  does 
it  only  repel  grown-up  people  ?  For  the  very  reason 
that  it  is  childishly  and  absurdly  candid,  that  the 
speakers  in  it  lack  the  loving  reticence  of  full-grown 
natures,  that  it  is  full  of  'words,  words,  words/  from 
which  proud  and  affectionate  men  and  women  shrink. 


1  Our  references  throughout  the  article  are  to  this  edition.  To  those 
who  find  the  library  edition  too  expensive,  or  too  cumbrous  for  common 
use,  we  can  recommend  the  'Charles  Dickens.'  It  has,  however,  one 
great  blemish,  which  had  better  be  rectified  at  once,  if  it  is  to  be  really 
valuable.  There  is  no  index  of  chapters  or  contents  to  any  of  the  volumes, 
so  that  for  all  purposes  of  reference  it  is  almost  useless. 


46  Master-Spirits. 

Our  good  Genie's  pets  were  far  too  fond,  children-like, 
of  pouring  out  their  own  emotions  ;  they  lacked  the 
adult  reserve.  This  is  a  fault  they  share  with  many 
contemporary  creations,  such  as  Browning's  '  Balaustion/ 
whose 

O  so  glad 
To  tell  you  the  adventure  ! 

and  general  guttural  liquidity  of  expression,  is  quite  as 
bad  in  itself  (and  far  worse  in  its  place)  as  anything  in 
Dickens. 

Even  more  precious  than  the  Fools  are,  in  our  eyes, 
the  Impostors.  What  a  gallery  ;  alike,  yet  how  different ! 
Pecksniff,  Pumblechook,  Turveydrop,  Casby,  Bounderby, 
Stiggins,  Chadband,  Snawley,  the  Father  of  the  Marshal- 
sea  !  Although  a  brief  inspection  of  these  gentlemen 
shows  them  all  to  belong  to  the  same  family,  each  in 
turn  comes  upon  us  with  pristine  freshness.  They  are 
infinitely  ridiculous  and  quite  Elf-like  in  their  moral 
flabbiness. 

And  this  brings  us  to  one  point  upon  which  we  would 
willingly  dwell  for  some  time,  did  space  permit  us.  A 
great  humorist  like  our  good  Genie,  is  the  very  sweetener 
and  preserver  of  the  earth,  is  the  most  beneficent  Angel 
that  walks  abroad  ;  for  it  is  a  most  cunning  and  delight- 
ful law  of  mental  perception,  that  as  soon  as  any  figure 
presents  itself  to  us  in  a  funny  light,  hate  for  that  figure 
is  impossible.  If  you  have  any  enemy,  and  if  any  pecu- 
liarity of  his  makes  you  smile  or  laugh,  be  sure  that  you 
and  he  are  closelier  united  than  you  know.  Humour  and 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  47 

love  are  twin  brothers,  one  beautiful  as  Eros,  the  other 
queer  as  Incubus,  but  both  made  of  the  very  same 
materials  ;  and  therefore,  to  call  a  man  a  great  humorist 
is  simply  to  call  him  the  most  loving  and  lovable  type 
of  humanity  that  we  are  permitted  to  study  and  enjoy. 
And  this,  all  the  world  feels,  was  Charles  Dickens.  It 
would  be  hard  indeed  to  over-estimate  what  this  good 
Genie  has  done  for  human  nature,  simply  by  pointing  out 
what  is  odd  in  it.  Here  come  Hypocrisy,  Guile,  Envy, 
Self-conceit ;  you  are  ready  to  spring  upon  and  rend 
them  ;  yet  when  the  charm  is  spoken,  you  burst  out 
laughing.  What  comical  figures  !  You  couldn't  think  of 
hurting  them  !  Your  heart  begins  to  swell  with  sneaking 
kindness.  Poor  devils,  they  were  made  thus  ;  and  they 
are  so  absurd  !  Fortunately  for  humanity,  this  comical 
perception  has  grown  with  the  growth  of  the  world. 
Mystic  touches  of  it  in  Aristophanes  sweetened  the 
Athenian  mind  when  philosophy  and  the  dramatic  muse 
were  souring  and  curdling,  and  at  the  mad  laughter  of 
Rabelais  the  cloud-pavilion  of  monasticism  parted  to  let 
the  merry  sky  peep  through.  But  the  deep  human  mirth 
of  the  popular  heart  was  as  yet  scarcely  heard.  Shaks- 
peare's  humour,  even  more  than  Chaucer's,  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  divine  quiddity. 

Between  Shakspeare  and  Dickens,  only  one  humorist 
of  the  truly  divine  sort  rose,  fluted  magically  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  passed  away,  leaving  the  Primrose  family  as 
his  legacy  to  posterity.  Swift's  humour  was  of  the  earth, 
earthy  ;  Gay's  was  shrill  and  wicked ;  Fielding's  was 
judicial,  with  flashes  of  heavenlike  promise  ;  Smollett's 


48  Master-Spirits. 

was  cumbrous  and  not  spiritualising;  Sterne's  was  a 
mockery  and  a  lie  (shades  of  Uncle  Toby  and  Widow 
Wadman,  forgive  us,  but  it  is  true  !)  ;  and— not  to  cata- 
logue till  the  reader  is  breathless— Scott's  was  feudal, 
with  all  the  feudal  limitations,  in  spite  of  his  magnificent 
scope  and  depth.  Entirely  without  hesitation  we  affirm 
that  there  is  more  true  humour,  and  consequently  more 
helpful  love,  in  the  pages  of  Dickens  than  in  all  the 
writers  we  have  mentioned  put  together  ;  and  that,  in 
quality,  the  humour  of  Dickens  is  richer,  if  less  har- 
monious, than  that  of  Aristophanes  ;  truer  and  more 
human  than  that  of  Rabelais,  Swift,  or  Sterne  ;  more  dis- 
tinctively unctuous  than  even  that  of  Chaucer,  in  some 
respects  the  finest  humorist  of  all ;  a  head  and  shoulders 
over  Thackeray's,  because  Thackeray's  satire  was  radi- 
cally unpoetic ;  certainly  inferior  to  that  of  Shakspere 
only,  and  inferior  to  his  in  only  one  respect — that  of 
humorous  pathos.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  in  the  last- 
named  quality  Shakspere  towers  supreme,  almost  solitary. 
Falstaff's  death-bed  scene1  is,  taken  relatively  to  the  pre- 
ceding life,  and  history,  and  rich  unction  of  Sir  John,  the 
most  wonderful  blending  of  comic  humour  and  divine 
tenderness  to  be  found  in  any  book — infinite  in  its  sugges- 
tion, tremendous  in  its  quaint  truth,  penetrating  to  the 
very  depths  of  life,  while  never  disturbing  the  first  strange 
smile  on  the  spectator's  face.  Yes  ;  and  therefore  over- 
flowing with  unutterable  love. 

The  humour  of  our  good  Genie  seems,  when  we  begin 
to  analyse  it,  a  very  simple  matter— merely  the  knack, 

1  See  King  Henry  V.,  act  ii.  scene  3. 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fief  ion.  49 

as  we  have  before  said,  of  seeing  crooked — of  posing' 
every  figure  into  oddity.  A  tone,  a  gesture,  a  look,  the 
merest  trait,  is  sufficient ;  nay,  so  all-sufficient  does  the 
trait  become  that  it  absorbs  the  entire  individuality  ;  so 
that  Mr.  Toots  becomes  a  Chuckle,  Mr.  Turveydrop  in- 
carnate Deportment,  Uriah  Heep  a  Cringe  ;  so  that 
Newman  Noggs  cracks  his  finger-knuckles,  and  Carker 
shows  his  teeth,  whenever  they  appear  ;  so  that  Traddles 
is  to  our  memory  a  Forelock  for  ever  sticking  bolt  up-' 
right,  and  Rigaud  (in  '  Little  Dorrit ')  an  incarnate  Hook- 
Nose  and  Moustache  eternally  meeting  each  other. 
Enter  Dr.  Blumber :  '  The  Doctor's  walk  was  stately,  and 
calculated  to  impress  the  juvenile  mind  with  solemn  feel- 
ings. It  was  a  sort  of  march  ;  but  when  the  Doctor  put 
out  his  right  foot,  he  gravely  turned  upon  his  axis,  with 
a  semicircular  sweep  towards  the  left ;  and  when  he  put 
out  his  left  foot,  he  turned  in  the  same  manner  towards 
the  right.  So  that  he  seemed,  at  every  stride  he  took, 
to  look  about  him  as  though  he  were  saying,  "  Can  any- 
body have  the  goodness  to  indicate  any  subject,  in  any 
direction,  on  which  I  am  uninformed  ? "  Enter  Mr. 
Flintwinch  :  *  His  neck  was  so  twisted,  that  the  knotted 
ends  of  his  white  cravat  actually  dangled  under  one  ear ; 
his  natural  acerbity  and  energy  always  contending  with 
a  second  nature  of  habitual  repression,  gave  his  features 
a  swollen  and  suffused  look  ;  and  altogether  he  had  a 
weird  appearance  of  having  hanged  himself  at  one  time 
or  other,  and  of  having  gone  about  ever  since,  halter  and 
all,  exactly  as  some  timely  hand  had  cut  him  down/ 

E 


50  Master-Spirits. 

This  first  impression  never  fades  or  changes  as  long  as 
we  see  the  figure  in  question. 

Akin  to  this  perception  of  Oddity,  and  allied  with  it, 
is  the  perception  of  the  Incongruous.  Never  did  the 
brain  of  human  creature  see  stranger  resemblances,  fun- 
nier coincidences,  more  side-splitting  discrepancies.  This 
man  was  for  all  the  world  like  (what  should  he  say  ?)  a 
Pump,  the  more  so  as  his  feelings  generally  ran  to  water  ! 
That  man  was  a  Spider,  such  a  comical  Spider— '  horny- 
skinned,  two-legged,  money-getting,  who  spun  webs  to 
catch  unwary  flies,  and  retired  into  holes  until  they  were 
entrapped/  Yonder  trips  the  immaculate  Pecksniff, 
'  carolling  as  he  goes,  so  sweetly  and  with  so  much  inno- 
cence, that  he  only  wanted  feathers  and  wings  to  be  a 
Bird.' 

The  summer  weather  in  his  bosom  was  reflected  in  the  breast 
of  nature.  Through  deep  green  vistas,  where  the  boughs  arched 
overhead,  and  showed  the  sunlight  flashing  in  the  beautiful 
perspective  ;  through  dewy  fern,  from  which  the  startled  hares 
leaped  up,  and  fled  at  his  approach ;  by  mantled  pools,  and 
fallen  trees,  and  down  in  hollow  places,  rustling  among  last 
year's  leaves,  whose  scent  woke  memory  of  the  past,  the  placid 
Pecksniff  strolled.  By  meadow  gates  and  hedges  fragrant  with 
wild  roses  ;  and  by  thatch-roofed  cottages,  whose  inmates 
humbly  bowed  before  him  as  a  man  both  good  and  wise ;  the 
worthy  Pecksniff  walked  in  tranquil  meditation.  The  bee 
passed  onward,  humming  of  the  work  he  had  to  do  ;  the  idle 
gnats,  for  ever  going  round  and  round  in  one  contracting  and 
expanding  ring,  yet  always  going  on  as  fast  as  he,  danced 
merrily  before  him  ;  the  colour  of  the  long  grass  came  and 
went,  as  if  the  light  clouds  made  it  timid  as  they  floated  through 
the  distant  air.  The  birds,  so  many  Pecksniff  consciences, 


The  '  Good  Genie'  of  Fiction.  51 

sang  gaily  upon  every  branch ;  and  Mr.  Pecksniff  paid  his 
homage  to  the  day  by  enumerating  all  his  projects  as  he  walked 
along. — Martin  Chuzzlewit,  p.  302. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  whole  power  lies  in  the  incon- 
gruity of  the  whole  comparison,  in  the  reader's  perfect 
knowledge  that  Pecksniffis  a  Humbug  and  an  Impostor, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  bird-like  or  innocent  in  his 
nature.  The  vein  once  struck,  there  was  nothing  to  hinder 
our  good  Genie  from  working  it  for  ever.  His  path 
swarmed  with  oddities  and  incongruities  ;  Wagner-like  he 
mixed  these  elements  together, and  produced  the  Homun- 
culus,  Laughter.  And  just  as  the  perception  of  oddity 
and  incongruity  varies  in  men,  varies  the  enjoyment  of 
Dickens.  Quiddity  for  quiddity — the  reader  must  give 
as  well  as  receive  ;  and  if  the  faculty  is  not  in  him,  he 
will  turn  away  contemptuously.  A  weasel  looking  out  of 
a  hole  is  enough  to  convulse  some  people  with  laughter  ; 
they  see  a  dozen  odd  resemblances.  Other  people,  again, 
walk  through  all  this  Topsyturvyland  with  scarcely  a 
smile.  Life  in  all  its  phases,  great  and  small,  seems 
perfectly  congruous  and  ship-shape  ;  much  too  serious  a 
matter  for  any  levity. 

But  it  is  time  we  were  drawing  these  stray  remarks  to 
a  close,  or  we  may  be  betrayed  into  actual  criticism — a 
barbarity  we  should  wish  to  avoid.  Truly  has  it  been 
said,  that  the  only  true  critic  of  a  work  is  he  who  enjoys 
it ;  and  for  our  part,  our  enjoyment  shall  suffice  for  criti- 
cism. The  Fairy  Tale  of  Human  Life,  as  seen  first  and 
last  by  the  good  Genie  of  Fiction,  seems  to  us  far  too 
delightful  to  find  fault  with — just  yet.  A  hundred  years 

E2 


52  Master-Spirits. 

hence,  perhaps,  we  shall  have  it  assorted  on  its  proper 
shelf  in  the  temple  of  Fame.  We  know  well  enough  (as, 
indeed,  who  does  not  know  ?)  that  it  contains  much  sham 
pathos,  atrocious  bits  of  psychological  bungling,  a  little 
fine  writing,  and  a  thimbleful  of  twaddle  ;  we  know  (quite 
as  well  as  the  critical  know)  that  it  is  peopled,  not  quite 
by  human  beings,  but  by  Ogres,  Monsters,  Giants,  Elves,. 
Phantoms,  Fairies,  Demons,  and  Will-o'-the-Wisps  ;  we 
know,  in  a  word,  that  it  has  all  the  attractions  as  well  as 
all  the  limitations  of  a  Story  told  by  a  Child.  For  that, 
diviner  oddity,  which  revels  in  the  Incongruity  of  the  very 
Universe  itself,  which  penetrates  to  the  spheres  and, 
makes  the  very  Angel  of  Death  share  in  the  wonderful 
laughter,  we  must  go  elsewhere — say  to  Jean  Paul.  Of 
the  Satire,  which  illuminates  the  inside  of  Life  and  re-, 
veals  the  secret  beating  of  the  heart,  which  unmasks  ther 
Beautiful  and  anatomises  the  Ugly,  Thackeray  is  a 
greater  master ;  and  his  tears,  when  they  do  flow,  are 
truer  tears.  But  for  mere  magic,  for  simple  delightful^ 
ness,  commend  us  to  our  good  Genie.  He  came,  when: 
most  needed,  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  life  anew,  and 
more  funnily  than  ever  ;  and  it  seems  to  us  that  his  child- 
like method  has  brightened  all  life,  and  transformed  this 
awful  London  of  ours — with  its  startling  facts  and  awful 
daily  phenomena — into  a  gigantic  Castle  of  Dream.  And 
now,  alas  !  the  magician's  hand  is  cold  in  death.  What: 
a  liberal  hand  that  was,  what  a  great  heart  guided  it,  few 
knew  better  than  the  writer  of  this  paper. 

But  he  is  fled 
Like  some  frail  exhalation,  which  the  dawn 


The  '  Good  Genie '  of  Fiction.  53 

Robes  in  its  golden  beams, — ah  !  he  is  fled  ! 
The  brave,  the  gentle,  and  the  beautiful, 
The  child  of  grace  and  genius.     Heartless  things 
Are  done  and  said  in  the  world,  and  many  worms 
And  beasts  and  men  live  on,  and  mighty  earth, 
From  sea  and  mountain,  city  and  wilderness, 
In  vesper  low  or  joyous  orison, 
Lifts  still  its  solemn  voice ;  but  he  is  fled — 
He  can  no  longer  know  or  love  the  shapes 
Of  this  phantasmal  scene,  who  have  to  him 
Been  purest  ministers,  who  are,  alas  ! 
Now  he  is  not ! l 

,  Now,  all  in  good  time,  we  get  the  story  of  his  life ;  and 
let  us  hesitate  a  little,  and  know  the  truth  better,  ere  we 
sit  in  judgment.  Against  all  that  can  be  said  in  slander, 
let  our  gratitude  be  the  shield.  Against  all  that  may 
have  been  erring  in  the  Man  (few,  nevertheless,  to  our 
thinking,  have  erred  so  little),  let  us  set  the  mighty  ser- 
vices of  the  Writer.  He  was  the  greatest  work-a-day 
Humorist  that  ever  lived.  He  was  the  most  beneficent 
Good  Genie  that  ever  wielded  a  pen. 

1  Shelley's  '  Alastor.' 


54  Master-Spirits. 


TENNYSON,  HEINE,  AND  DE  MUSSET. 

'THE  proof  of  a  poet/  writes  the  bard  of  American 
democracy,  '  must  be  sternly  delayed  until  his  country 
absorbs  him  as  affectionately,  as  he,  in  the  first  instance, 
has  absorbed  it.'1  The  last  final  consecration,  after  all, 
is  the  approval  of  the  people,  or  of  that  section  of  the 
people  to  which  the  poet  specially  appeals  ;  and  not 
until  that  consecration  is  given  can  a  poet  justly  be 
deemed  prosperous,  or  adequate,  or  puissant  as  a  vital 
force. 

Sometimes,  as  in  the  cases  of  Burns  and  Byron, 
and  Alfred  Tennyson,  the  poet,  '  absorbed '  instan- 
taneously, lives  to  see  the  seeds  of  his  own  intelli- 
gence springing  up  around  him  in  a  hundred  startling 
and  wonderful  forms  ;  and  to  feel  that,  whether  or  not 
the  honour  accorded  to  him  be  adequate  to  the  influence 
he  is  exerting,  he  has  at  least  moved  the  heart  and 
illuminated  the  mind  of  his  generation.  At  other  times, 
as  in  the  cases  of  Shelley,  Whitman,  and  Browning,  the 

1  I  am  quite  aware  that  I  am  only  interpreting  this  passage  in  its  smaller 
and  more  simple  sense.  Whitman  means  that  every  true  poet  assimilates 
the  forces  around  him  and  fabricates  them  into  form,  and  that  the  poet's 
work,  in  its  turn,  is  « absorbed '  back  into  the  original  forces,  plus  the 
colouring  force  of  the  poet's  imagination. 


Tennyson,  Pleine,  and  DC  Musset.  55 

absorption,  although  it  is  no  less  complete,  takes  place  in 
so  circuitous  a  fashion,  by  means  of  so  many  intellectual 
ducts  and  go-betweens,  and  is,  moreover,  often  delayed 
so  late,  that  the  public  may  well  be  ignorant  of  the 
debt  it  owes  to  the  poets  in  question  ;  and  the  poets,  in 
their  turn,  may  well  doubt  the  extent  and  value  of  their 
own  influence. 

Almost  from  the   commencement,  Alfred  Tennyson 
has  been  recognised  as  a  leading  English  poet ;  and  his 
name  has  been  ripening,  as  all  good  things  ripen,  from 
day  to  day.     On  the  other  hand,  the  Laureate's  only 
formidable  English  rival,  the  thinker  who  is    now  re- 
cognised as  the  mighty  Lancelot  to  our  poetic  Arthur, — 
we  mean,  of  course,  Robert  Browning, — was  publishing 
poetry  for  thirty  years,  without  half  the  fame,    or  one 
quarter  the  success,  enjoyed  in  turn  by  each  new  ephe- 
meron  of  the  season ;  and  when,  a  few  years  ago,  he 
published  his  collected  works,  a  new  generation  plunged 
with  wonder  into  a  poetic  gold-mine,  of  which  the  pre- 
ceding generation  had  scarcely  told  them  one  syllable. 
Shelley  is  to  this  day  a  secret  rather  than  a  mighty  force. 
To  praise  Whitman  to  the  British  critic  is  like  preaching 
a  new  religion  to  Bishop  Colenso's    savage.      Yet   he 
would    be    rash,   indeed,   who  said    that   Shelley    and 
Browning  have  wasted  their  time  and  missed  the  final 
consecration,  or  that  Whitman  should  be  silent  because 
he  has  to  be  explained  like  a  novel  religious  system. 
It   is  curious,  doubtless,  to  see  the  public  heaping  all 
their  gratitude  in  one  vast  shower  of  roses  and  yellow 
gold  at  one  man's  feet,  while  good  men  and  true,  to 


56  Master-Spirits. 

whom  so  much  is  owing,  stand  aside  comparatively 
unrecognised  and  unappreciated.  Still,  even  fame  and 
recognition  do  not  necessarily  imply  prosperity  per- 
sonally.  Heine  lies  dying  for  years  in  his  Parisian  garret, 
while  all  Germany  recognises  him  as  her  greatest  poet 
since  Goethe.  After  all,  there  are  compensations;  and 
he  who  is  not  content  to  give  his  best  to  the  world, 
without  too  eager  a  clamour  for  recompense,  has 
possibly  no  gift  to  offer  which  posterity  will  consider 
worth  the  having. 

And,  meanwhile,  we  in  England  here  may  well 
rejoice  that  the  British  public  is  right  for  once,  and 
that,  instead  of  consecrating  some  later  Blackmore  or 
Shadwell,  instead  of  using  the  laurel  to  bind  over 
flattery  or  to  glorify  mediocrity,  it  has  at  last, — nay  for 
the  second  time  ;  for  did  not  Wordsworth  immediately 
precede  ? — done  eager  honour  to  a  great  English  poet- 
one  whose  works  are  above  all  impeachment  from  any 
platform,  and  whose  genius  is  at  least  as  certain  of  im- 
mortality in  .England  as  that  of  Heine  in  Germany,  or 
that  of  Alfrjed  de  Musset  in  France. 

What  ist  this  charm  to  which  wise  and  foolish  yield 
alike,  which\  warms  the  hearts  of  bishops  and  portly 
deans,  which\  persuades  the  smug  man  of  science  into 
approval,  which  delights  youths  and  maidens,  which 
excites  the  enVy  of  poets  and  the  despair  of  scholars  ? 
What  is  the  quality  of  this  nectarine  drink,  that  it 
quickens  pulses  in  those  who  deem  Shelley  hysterical 
and  Wordsworth  wearisome  in  the  extreme?  Why 
have  critics  loved  \Tennyson  from  the  first,  and  why  is 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  5  7 

the  entire  British  public  learning  to  love  him  too? 
Questions  readily  put,  but  exceedingly  difficult  to 
answer.  Much,  perhaps,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  Tenny- 
son came  just  in  time  to  reap  the  harvest  sown  by  those 
poets  of  whom  he  is,  in  a  sense,  the  direct  product,— 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats, — poets  whose  literary  charms 
society  was  slow  to  feel  till  it  flowered  forth  into  the 
perfect  speech  of  the  present  Laureate.  A  great  deal, 
doubtless,  is  due  to  the  thoroughly  unimpeachable  and 
middle-class  tone  of  the  scenery,  the  sentiments,  and 
(for  the  most  part)  of  the  subjects.  A  little,  also,  has 
been  due  to  the  limpid  delicacy  of  the  style,  which, 
though  ornate  in  a  certain  sense,  owes  nothing  to  mere- 
tricious ornament  and  little  to  fanciful  affectation. 

On  all  literary  points,  and  particularly  on  all  points 
affecting  poetry,  the  British  public  is  particularly  stub- 
born. No  amount  of  critical  remonstrances,  for  example, 
has  ever  been  able  to  convince  it  that  poetry  is  a  serious 
business,  absorbing  all  the  forces  of  life,  and  apt,  at 
times,  to  be  terrible  and  startling  as  well  as  bewitching 
and  pleasing.  Poetry,  to  please  it,  must  be,  above  all 
things,  'beautiful,' — a  love-plant  twining  round  the 
abode  of  Virtue  and  festooning  with  its  pleasant  flowers 
the  garden  of  the  domestic  idea.  Anything  shocking, 
anything  broad,  and  coarse,  anything  dull  and  tedious, 
is  by  it  forbidden.  It  has  never  really  liked  Words- 
worth. It  believes  to  this  day  that  Shelley  was  a  wicked 
person,  and  it  derives  no  real  satisfaction  from  his  poems 
generally,  notwithstanding  its  admiration  for  the  '  Ode 
to  a  Skylark/  'The  Cloud,'  and  a  few  other  lyrical 


58  M aster-Spirits. 

pieces.  It  still  likes  the  '  Rape  of  the  Lock  '  and  other 
poetry  of  the  classical  English  period.  Nothing  to  this 
hour  has  shaken  its  faith  in  Byron,  in  spite  of  all  his 
follies  and  vices,  because,  in  the  first  place,  he  was  a 
lord,  and  because,  in  the  second  place,  his  sort  of 
writing,  with  its  rapid  free-hand-drawing,  really  pleased. 
Is  this  sarcasm  ?  asks  the  suspicious  reader.  By  no 
means.  We  are  simply  repeating,  word  for  word,  the 
charge  of  the  small  critic  against  Tennyson, — the  charge, 
in  one  word,  that  his  poetry  is  perfectly  innocent  and 
refined,  such  as  any  English  gentleman  might  write  if 
he  had  the  brains  ;  and  I  am  repeating  it  for  one  single 
purpose,  that  of  showing  its  shallowness  and  its 
absurdity.  In  poetiy  as  in  real  life  it  is  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  to  be  original  and  outrageous.  Any 
one  can  create  a  sensation  in  life  by  simply  dressing  in 
a  sack  and  walking  down  the  public  streets,  or  in 
literature  by  choosing  a  horrid  subject  and  treating  it  in 
a  horrid  manner.  Attention  is  at  once  drawn  to  a  person 
who  gibbers  like  an  ape,  or  to  a  poet  who  clothes  his 
ideas  in  the  most  fantastic  and  unnatural  form  human 
ingenuity  can  devise.  But  the  peculiarity  of  the  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  of  the  truest  and  best  type  of  the  class, 
is  that  he  is  above  all  meretricious  peculiarity.  Quiet, 
unassuming,  reticent,  full  of  culture,  armed  at  all  points 
with  the  weapons  of  manhood,  graceful,  strong,  winning 
his  way  by  courteous  self-abnegation,  gaining  his  right 
when  necessary  by  inexorable  will,  the  English  gentle- 
man moves  among  his  fellows  and  takes  his  place  in  the 
world  by  simple  natural  law. 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Miissct.  59 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  an  English  gentleman.  The 
Earl  of  Surrey  was  another.  Sir  Thomas  More, 
John  Milton,  George  Herbert,  were  English  gentlemen  : 
all  men  with  refined  and  quiet  manners  covering 
a  more  or  less  tremendous  stock  of  reserve  strength. 
What  these  men  were,  and  what  the  true  English 
gentleman  ever  has  been,  is  Tennyson  as  a  poet. 
He  is  above  all  devices  and  tricks,  just  as  he  is 
above  all  indecencies.  He  despises  nothing  that  is 
noble  in  culture,  not  even  that  red  rag  of  young  John 
Bull's — the  domestic  idea.  He  loves  beauty,  both  of 
form  and  colour.  He  has  the  national  instinct  highly 
developed  ;  witness  his  war  songs  and  calls  to  arms. 
His  curiously  calm  manner  looks  like  affectation  to 
some,  who  think  that  a  swagger  would  be  more  natural. 
His  is  a  gloved  hand  ;  but  put  your  hand  in  it,  and  you 
are  imprisoned  as  in  a  vice.  His  is  a  refined  face,  not 
twitching  in  a  chronic  fury  of  trouble  and  denunciation ; 
but  watch  it  when  the  time  comes,  and  you  will  see 
what  power  it  hides.  He  has  the  rarest  of  all  courage 
— the  courage  to  be  reverent.  For  all  these  qualities, 
and  for  the  mighty  quality  of  genius  superadded,  the 
British  nation  loves  him ;  and  the  British  nation  is 
right. 

From  the  first  hour  to  the  last  of  his  literary  life,  the 
Poet  Laureate  has  condescended  to  no  tricks. 

I  do  but  sing  because  I  must, 
And  pipe  but  as  the  linnets  sing ! 

he  wrote  in  '  In  Memoriam  ; '  and  to  him  verse  has  been 


60  Master-Spirits. 

all-sufficient  to  express  the  utmost  culture  of  the  time. 
Wonderful  as  his  productions  have  been,  they  have  never 
failed  to  leave  the  impression  of  reserved  strength,  of 
forces  severely  restrained  in  spite  of  the  greatest 
possible  temptation  to  exert  them.  His  calm  is  the 
calm  of  self-command.  With  the  fine  English  horror  of 
spasmodic  and  transient  ebullitions,  he  has  always 
avoided  hasty  speech.  Underneath  all  this,  behind  a 
style  perhaps  the  most  graceful  achieved  by  any  English 
poet,  lies  the  greatest  capacity  for  passion  and  the  finest 
sensibility  to  pain.  But  to  wail,  as  certain  continental 
poets  have  wailed,  to  swell  the  lyrical  scream  which  has 
been  going  on  in  Europe  for  a  century,  that  would  be 
too  contemptible.  We  can  readily  imagine  that  the 
intensest  feelings  of  this  poet's  life,  the  most  heart-rend- 
ing sorrows  of  his  career,  have  never  found  the  faintest 
public  voice  in  his  poetry.  That  he  has  suffered  greatly, 
that  his  measure  of  trial  has  been  full  again  and  again, 
there  are  a  thousand  signs  in  his  writings  ;  but  never 
once  has  he  rushed  into  print  with  his  grief,  and  lashed 
his  breast  in  the  feeble  craving  for  public  sympathy.  It 
has  been  objected  to  '  In  Memoriam '  that  it  lacks  the 
touch  of  deep  human  agony, — is,  in  fact,  far  too  philo- 
sophic to  be  the  natural  voice  of  strong  regret.  To  us 
as  to  many  others,  this  absence  of  storm  is  the  poem's 
noblest  artistic  charm. 

ft;  would  have  been  easy  indeed  for  the  author  of 
<Lod(tsley  Hall' or  'Love  and  Duty' to  have  written 
such  va  monody  as  would  have  wrung  the  heart  and 
startled  the  soul ;  but  he  chose  the  nobler  task, — and  far 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  6  r 

too  proud  and  sensitive  to  rush  into  the  market-place 
with  his  hot  grief,  he  waited  until  the  first  sharp  agony 
was  over,  and  the  subtle  euphrasy  of  grief  had  tranquil- 
lised  the  vision  for  nobler  and  more  delicate  perception 
of  all  mundane  concerns.  Grief  has  had  a  million 
tongues,  from  the  cry  of  David  downwards ;  but  never 
before  had  any  poet  found  the  strength  to  hush  himself 
in  the  dark  hour,  waiting  and  watching  till  unbroken 
utterance  was  possible,  and  all  the  clear  divine  issues  of 
sorrow  were  discovered. 

I  woo  your  love  :  I  count  it  crime 

To  mourn  for  any  overmuch  ; 

I,  the  divided  half  of  such 
A  friendship  as  had  master'd  Time  ; 

Which  masters  Time  indeed,  and  is 

Eternal,  separate  from  fears  ; 

The  all-assuming  months  and  years 
Can  take  no  part  away  from  this. 

*  In  Memoriam '  is  something  better  than  a  shower  of 
tears  ;  it  is  a  rainbow  on  a  grave  ;  a  thing  that,  in  its 
divine  mission,  has  lightened  a  thousand  tombs,  and 
brought  the  true  philosophic  calm  to  a  thousand 
mourners.  In  one  lyric  on  the  same  subject  there  is  a 
touch  of  awful  reticence,  finer  than  any  cry,  a  silent  beat 
of  the  strong  heart  in  a  grief  too  deep  for  tears : — 

Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  Sea  ! 

Wintry   desolation  and   silent   anguish  speak  in  every 


62  Master-Spirits. 

line,  but  there  is  no  wailing, — only  the  sad  wash  of  the 
inevitable  grief  which  is  now  and  has  been  from  the 
beginning.1 

It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  the  loss  of  Arthur 
Hallam  has  been  the  greatest  sorrow  of  Mr.  Tennyson's 
life  ;  no  loss  of  a  mere  friend,  however  dear  and  precious, 
can  match  some  other  losses  that  are  felt  by  most  of  us 
who  attain  manhood  ;  but  for  open  indications  of  that 
acuter  suffering  which  makes  a  great  soul,  we  shall 
^ook  in  vain,  unless  we  look  very  deep  indeed.  One 
thing  is  certain,  this  fine  poetic  strength,  this  white 
marble  of  literature,  has  not  been  deposited  without 
great  volcanic  troubles.  Tennyson,  like  Goethe,  has  had 
liis  Sturm-und-Drang  period ;  but  about  that,  very 
wisely,  he  has  been  silent.  Meanwhile,  it  is  ludicrously 
amusing  to  see  certain  critics  confounding  the  noble 
self-command  of  a  strong  poet  with  the  cold-blooded 
indifference  of  a  small  lyrist.  To  some  people,  howling 
is  agony,  and  roaring  a  sigh  of  power.  Here,  you  see, 
the  British  public  is  right  again.  Howling  and  roaring 
are  intolerable  to  it,  either  on  the  part  of  gentleman  or 
poet,  and  it  will  not  have  this  pleasant  island  turned 
into  a  lazaretto. 

For,  after  all,  does  much  good  come  of  apotheosizing 

1  Taine's  criticism  on  *  In  Memoriam '  is  extremely  flippant,  quite  missing 
the  real  significance  of  the  poem.  c  It  is  written,'  says  the  French  historian 
of  English  literature,  '  in  praise  and  memory  of  a  friend  who  died  young,  is 
cold,  monotonous,  and  often  too  prettily  arranged.  He  goes  into  mourning  ; 
but  like  a  correct  gentleman,  with  bran  new  gloves,  wipes  away  his  tears 
with  a  cambric  handkerchief,  and  displays  throughout  the  religious  service, 
which  ends  the  ceremony,  all  the  compunction  of  a  respectful  and  well- 
trained  layman.' 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  63 

sorrow,  and  representing  life  as  a  short  night  illumi- 
nated by  dimly  glimmering  stars,  such  as  memory  and 
religion  ?  Is  not  the  physical  world  very  lovely,  and 
has  not  the  moral  world  many  a  sunbeam  ?  English 
sentiment  says  so  ;  and  English  sentiment  is  right  again. 
So,  when  the  Poet  Laureate  speaks  another  portion  of 
his  charm,  and  describes  the  leafy  lanes,  the  breezy 
downs,  the  copsy  villages,  and  the  pleasant  pastoral  life 
of  England,  everybody  is  delighted  to  listen. 

Not  even  Milton,  the  best  of  our  landscape  poets, 
caught  the  delicate  tints  and  subtle  nuances  of  English 
scenery  more  truly  than  does  our  Laureate.  In  those 
supremely  beautiful  productions,  '  L' Allegro/  and  '  II 
Penseroso/  and  in  some  lines  of  '  Lycidas,'  there  is  the 
finest  Turneresque  picturing  to  be  found  in  our  poetry. 
A  subtle  phrase,  a  word,  an  adjective,  is  used  to  summon 
up  the  scene.  Look  close  into  the  line,  and  the  effect 
seems  perhaps  vague  and  smudgy ;  but  draw  back  the 
required  distance,  and  how  lovely  all  appears. 

Together  both,  ere  the  high  lawns  appeared 
Under  the  opening  eyelids  *  of  the  morn, 
We  drove  afield,  and  both  together  heard 
What  time  the  gray  fly  winds  her  sultry  horn. 

Every  word  breathes  the  sentiment  of  landscape.  In 
the  same  delicious  spirit  do  we  see  the  *  dappled  dawn 
arise/  while  '  the  cock  scatters  the  rear  of  darkness  thin/ 

And  the  ploughman  near  at  hand 
Whistles  o'er  the  furrowed  land  ; 

1  In  Milton's  original  MS.,  'glimmering  eyelids.' 


64  Master-Spirits. 

And  the  milkmaid  singeth  blithe, 
And  the  mower  whets  his  scythe. 

All  our  senses  are  satisfied — sight,  sound,  smell — as  the 
dewy  morning  grows.  Equally  cunning  and  sweet  is  the 
wonderful  night-picture,  conjured  up  with  such  tones  as 
these  : — 

Oft,  on  a  plot  of  rising  ground, 

I  hear  the  far-off  Curfew  sound, 

Over  some  wide-water1  d  shore. 

Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar. 

Akin  to  tones  like  these,  with  their  exquisite  sensibility 
to  natural  effects,  are  a  thousand  passages  in  the  writings 
of  Tennyson.  From  the  time  when,  in  his  first  little 
volume,  he  sang  how 

cold  winds  woke  the  gray-eyed  morn 
About  the  lonely  moated  grange, 
and  how 

the  thick-  moted  sunbeam  lay 
Athwart  the  chambers, 

till  the  time  when,  late  in  life,  he  described 

The  chill 

November  dawns,  and  dewy-glooming  downs, 
The  gentle  shower,  the  smell  of  dying  leaves, 
And  the  low  moan  of  leaden-colour" d  seas, 

from  first  to  last  Mr.  Tennyson  has  excelled  in  a  sort 
of  word-painting  which  brings  to  simple  perfection  the 
Miltonic  manner.  Who  does  not  recognise  the  Tenny- 
sonian  touch  in  little  glimpses  such  as  this  of  autumn  ? 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  65 

Autumn,  with  a  noise  of  rooks. 
That  gather  in  the  waning  woods  ;  l 

or  this  of  the  deepening  twilight : 

Couch'd  at  ease, 

The  white  kine  glimmer'd,  and  the  trees 
Laid  their  dark  arms  about  the  field  ; 

or  this  of  an  English  brook  : 

Uncared  for,  gird  the  windy  grove, 

And  flood  the  haunts  of  hern  and  crake  ; 
Or  into  silver  arrows  break 

The  sailing  moon  in  creek  and  cove; 

or  this  of  the  moon  shining  : 

O'er  the  friths  that  branch  and  spread 
Their  sleeping  silver  thrtf  the  hills. 

In  such  work  there  is  a  cunning  which  Milton  invariably 
seizes,  and  Wordsworth  generally  misses.  And  Tennyson 
is  akin  to  the  first  great  Puritan  in  more  than  this.  He 
has  the  same  fine  self-control,  the  same  austere  purity,  the 
same  faith  in  the  power  of  artistic  elements  to  command 
success  for  their  own  sake,  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of  the 
thoughts  they  embody.  The  Poet  Laureate  is,  in  fact, 

1  A  fine  speciman  of  this  sort  of  imagery  is  the  vignette  of  Spring,  by 
Alex.  Smith  : 

pensive  Spring,  a  primrose  in  her  hand, 
A  solitary  lark  above  her  head  1 

But  finest  of  all,  perhaps,  is  Milton's  description  of  how 

the  gray-hooded  Even, 
Like  a  sad  votaress  in  palmer's  weed, 
Rose  from  the  hindmost  wheels  of  Phoebus'  wain. 

Comus,  v.  188—190. 
F 


66  Master-Spirits. 

just  as  Wordsworth  was,  a  lineal  poetic  descendant  of  the 
poet  of  the  Commonwealth.  Although  there  is  in  his 
style  at  times  something  of  the  sumptuous  feudal  wealth 
of  Shakspeare,  and  although  there  is  in  his  thought  a 
constant  sympathy  with  exact  science  and  philosophic 
materialism,  there  is  nowhere,  either  in  thought  or  style, 
a  trace  of  the  Shakspearian  paganism. 

Indeed,  we  can  quite  conceive  that  John  Milton,  had  he 
lived  in  the  nineteenth  century,  would  have  written  his 
epic  in  the  Arthurian  form  of  moral  allegory,  rather  than 
in  the  familiar  form  of  traditional  theology.  Although 
Tennyson  is  far  too  good  a  poet  ever  to  be  avowedly  di- 
dactic, his  highly  tempered  and  powerful  Miltonic  mind 
never  for  a  moment  ceases  to  feel  the  weight  of  the  moral 
law.  For  this  and  for  other  reasons,  a  young  writer  of 
the  present  day,  in  his  recently  published  Essays,1  talks 
(we  quote  from  memory)  of  Tennyson's  '  narrowness  of 
ethical  range  ; '  but  as  the  same  writer  is  in  the  same 
breath  echoing  the  modern  delusion  that  Byron  was  a 
great  disintegrating  force,  sent  to  shake  the  piggish 
domesticity  of  England  under  the  Georges,  we  do  not  think 
he  has  quite  weighed  the  responsibility  attached  to  such 
a  criticism  of  Tennyson.  No  great  purifying  force  comes 
in  the  guise  of  a  sham  ;  and  Byron  was  the  greatest  sham 
English  literature  has  seen.  His  attacks  on  society  and 
on  individuals  were  always  insincere ;  his  productions 
were  not  merely  immoral  in  the  vulgar  sense,  but  theat- 
rical and  false  in  the  literary  sense  ;  and  as  for  his 
'  ethical  range,'  it  was  that  of  an  actor  in  a  penny  show. 

1  Mr.  John  Morley. 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Mussel.  67 

True,  he  was  a  great  poet,  good  for  rapid  reading,  fine, 
dashing,  stormy,  altogether  delightful,  but  in  the  matter 
of  '  ethical  range,'  and  in  many  of  the  loftier  and 
severer  issues  of  poetry,  immeasurably  Tennyson's  in- 
ferior. 

Some  portions  of  Tennyson's  charm  for  modern  readers 
have  been  glanced  at.  It  has  been  seen  that  his  verse  is 
the  literary  correlative  of  the  polished  courtesy  and  vast 
reserve  strength  of  an  English  gentleman  ;  that  he  is  too 
cultured  for  wild  lyrical  outbursts  of  mere  personal  emo- 
tion and  passion  ;  that  he  has  an  unequalled  sense  of  the 
power  of  a  phrase  (as  Turner  had  an  unequalled  sense  of 
the  power  of  the  stroke  of  a  brush,)  to  conjure  up  land- 
scape ;  that  this  last  power  has  been  used  for  the  purpose 
of  making  delicious  word-pictures  of  national,  or  English, 
scenery  ;  and  that,  finally,  he  belongs  to  the  noblest  class 
of  men  England  has  yet  succeeded  in  producing — the 
English  Puritans — the  men  who,  while  sacrificing  life's 
blood  for  freedom  of  conscience,  while  keeping  ever 
abreast  of  thought  and  progress  in  every  generation,  from 
that  of  Milton  and  Marvell  to  this  of  Tennyson  and  Mill, 
have  never  lost  sight  of  the  higher  law  which  shapes  all 
human  ends,  have  never  consented  to  regard  life  as 
merely  a  frivolous  business,  have  never  lacked  the  impulse 
to  revere,  or  the  will  to  resist  and  doubt. 

Under  the  Commonwealth,  Tennyson  would  doubtless 
have  been  a  religious  zealot,  a  fiery  political  partisan,  and 
the  poet  of  old  theology.  Under  Queen  Victoria,  he  is  a 
keen  man  of  science,  a  reserved  and  retiring  private  gen- 
tleman, and  the  poet  of  the  higher  Pantheism.  But  in 

F  2 


68  Master-Spirits. 

either  case,  he  would  rank  as  an  English  Puritan,  into- 
lerant of  vice,  full  of  the  sense  of  beauty,  and  bound  by 
the  innate  sense  of  reverence  and  responsibility  to  wor- 
ship in  some  way  some  higher  intelligence  than  himself, 
whether  the  might  of  the  God  of  Judah,  or  the  mysterious 
<  Immanence  '  of  the  Spinozan  conception  of  God. 

Thus  much  having  been  said,  is  all  said  ?  Though 
quite  enough  has  been  written  to  explain  why  this  poet 
should  be  the  peculiar  pride  and  delight  of  his  generation, 
much  more  of  his  peculiar  charm  remains  to  be  told. 

In  the  last  chapter  of  his  radically  unsound  and  super- 
ficial work  on  English  literature,  M.  Taine  strains  all  his 
specious  descriptive  faculty  to  show  that  Tennyson  is 
simply  a  dilettante  artist,  whose  true  mission  it  is  to  re- 
produce in  exquisite  vignettes  the  finer  and  more  beauti- 
ful forms  of  fairy  mythology  and  elegant  domestic  life. 
Taine  misses  altogether,  we  think,  the  true  genealogy  of 
this  poet,  and  traces  his  consanguinity  with  neither 
Wordsworth  nor  Milton.  Tennyson  is,  as  we  have  said,  1 
Puritan  of  proud  and  meditative  nature,  but  he  superadds 
the  fine  Miltonic  sense  of  female  beauty  to  the  deep 
Wordsworthian  perception  of  human  worth.  Amidst  the 
landscape  first  outlined  by  Milton  he  has  placed  a  bevy 
of  female  figures  in  the  fresh  and  stainless  manner  of  the 
Miltonic  Eve : — 

She,  like  a  wood-nymph  light, 
Oread  or  Dryad,  or  of  Delia's  train, 
Betook  her  to  the  groves  ;  but  Delia's  self 
In  gait  surpassed,  and  goddess-like  deport, 
Though  not  as  she  with  bow  and  quiver  arm'd, 
But  with  such  gardening  tools  as  art  yet  rude, 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  69 

Guiltless  of  fire,  had  form'd,  or  angels  brought. 
To  Pales,  or  Pomona,  thus  adorned, 
Likest  she  seemed  :  Pomona  when  she  fled 
Vertumnus,  or  to  Ceres  in  her  prime, 
Yet  virgin  of  Proserpina  from  Jove. 

In  a  series  of  exquisite  cabinet-pictures,  all  fresh  and 
original,  yet  all  possessing  something  of  the  '  virgin 
majesty  of  Eve/  he  has  painted  Lilian,  Isabel,  Madeline, 
the  Lady  of  Shalott,  Eleanore,  the  Miller's  Daughter, 
Lady  Clara,  '  sweet  pale '  Margaret,  the  Gardener's 
Daughter,  Dora,  Godiva,  St.  Agnes,  Maud,  Enid,  Elaine, 
and  many  other  beautiful  women  of  an  unmistakably 
English  type.  Even  Guinevere,  in  her  stately  beauty  and 
supreme  repentance,  is  Eve  after  the  Fall,  when  she  be- 
held the  beautiful  world  first  yielding  to  the  bloody  con- 
sequences of  her  sin  : 

Nigh  in  her  sight 

The  bird  of  Jove,  stoop'd  from  his  aery  tour, 
Two  birds  of  gayest  plume  before  him  drove  ; 
Down  from  a  hill  the  beast  that  reigns  in  wood, 
First  hunter  then,  pursued  a  gentle  brace, 
Goodliest  of  all  the  forest,  hart  and  hind. 

In  the  pages  of  this  third  great  Puritan  poet,  we  have 
scarcely  a  glimpse  of  any  utterly  degraded  woman.  The 
type  is  perfect ;  chastity  and  beauty  reign  in  each  linea- 
ment. 

Those  graceful  acts, 

Those  thousand  decencies,  that  daily  flow 
From  all  her  words  and  actions,  mixed  with  love 
And  sweet  compliance. 


70  Master-Spirits. 

But  what  in-finite  variety  !  what  ever-changing  loveliness 
of  form  and  spirit !  The  glorious  creature  illumes  the 
world,  and  creates  a  new  Paradise.  Such  as  we  find  her 
here,  she  is  in  life,  in  a  thousand  delightful  forms  of 
English  maid  and  mother,  moving  against  a  green  and 
gentle  landscape,  sprinkled  with  stately  halls  and  pleasant 
homesteads,  and  kept  ever  fresh  by  the  breath  of  the 
encircling  sea. 

Tennyson's  originality  is  most  conspicuous  in  this,  that 
he  has  taken  this  type  of  the  Miltonic  woman,  the  first 
condition  of  whose  being  is  to  be  beautiful,  the  second  to 
be  pure  and  chaste  ;  and  he  has  developed  out  of  it  a 
higher  and  grander  reality  by  colouring  it  with  all  the 
passion  Milton  lacked,  and  all  the  daintiness  Wordsworth 
despised.  In  Tennyson's  women,  whatever  their  situation 
and  degree,  there  is  a  sort  of  immortal  maidenhood,  a 
bloom  of  imperishable  virginity,  coupled  with  a  rich  sen- 
suousness  which  never  verges  on  sensuality,  but  is  mellow 
as  the  flavour  of  a  ripe  peach.  Milton  did  not  miss  the 
sensuousness  (witness  the  wonderful  rush  of  colour 
through  the  ninth  book  of  his  '  Paradise  Lost '),  but  he 
almost  resented  it  in  himself,  and  trembled  at  its  eternal 
dangers.  Wordsworth,  on  the  other  hand,  never  lost  sight 
of  the  Puritan  truth  that  maternity  was  the  woman's  con- 
secration ;  every  maid  he  saw  was  a  prospective  mother, 
burthened  with  a  certain  heavy  halo  of  responsibility. 
Tennyson  is  fully  as  chaste  as  either  of  his  great  pre- 
decessors ;  but  his  women  are  infinitely  more  virgin- 
like.  Taken  alone,  as  a  set  of  portraits  by  a  great 
artist,  they  would  entitle  him  to  a  place  by  the  side  of  Sir 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  71 

Joshua  Reynolds,  as  a  master  of  colour  without  one  pru- 
rient tint  or  touch. 

But  just  as  he  had  followed  Milton  in  one  way, 
Tennyson  has  followed  Wordsworth  in  another.  Not 
content  with  filling  his  English  landscapes  with  beau- 
tiful maidenly  figures,  he  has  painted  for  us,  still  within 
the  circle  of  beauty  to  which  he  has  sternly  relegated 
himself,  a  number  of  humble  figures,  with  such  tales  to 
tell  as  gently  move  the  heart.  His  treatment  of  these 
figures  is  not,  like  that  of  Wordsworth,  a  treatment  of 
moral  philosophy,  nor  is  it,  like  that  of  Dickens,  a  treat- 
ment of  beneficence.  He  has  no  tenderness  in  this 
direction,  and  little  or  no  humour.  He  selects  no  human 
figure  for  its  own  sake  ;  he  is  incapable,  perhaps,  of  the 
almost  animal  sympathy  shown  in  Wordsworth's  '  Two 
Thieves  '  and  '  Street  Musicians,'  or  of  the  grim-knitted 
agony  of  Coleridge's  '  Two  Graves '  fragment ;  but  he 
has  succeeded  to  a  wonderful  extent  in  representing,  by 
the  figures  of  which  I  speak,  the  relation  of  simple 
circumstances  to  the  gigantic  issues  of  Death  and 
Immortality. 

With  what  singular  felicity,  in  the  idyl  of  'The  Brook' 
does  he  reveal  to  us  the  ebb  and  flow  of  human  lives, 
and  the  fixedness  of  natural  conditions.  A  landscape  is 
painted  for  us,  and  in  it  a  brook  singing  ;  and  across 
that  landscape,  one  by  one,  to  the  brook's  monotonous 
chant,  the  generations  rise,  speak  a  little  word,  and  go. 
We  see  them  come,  we  feel  them  fade.  We  know  no  art 
greater  than  that  shown  in  the  close  of  this  poem ;  and 
we  do  not  think  the  poem,  as  a  whole,  can  be  equalled,  in 


7  2  Master-  Spirits. 

our  language,  for  simplicity  of  form  and  sublimity  of 
issue.  Similar  in  its  blending  of  transient  and  eternal 
things  is  the  extraordinary  little  monologue  entitled 
4  The  Grandmother,'  where  the  wavering  memories  of 
an  aged  woman,  the  bright  illuminating  flashes  on  the 
dark  background  of  decay,  the  confounding  of  one 
generation  with  another,  the  drowsy  worn-out  wish  for 
rest,  broken  again  and  again  by  the  sharp  feminine 
echoes  of  a  busy  over-crowded  life,  are  conveyed  in  a 
wonderful  manner  to  the  reader's  mind,  all  with  the 
clearest  sense  of  the  actually  picturesque.  Less  fine  in 
degree,  but  welcome  for  their  touches  of  grim  satire, 
are  the  *  Northern  Farmer '  poems.  These  are  studies 
in  George  Eliot's  manner,  with  the  'gleam'  that  the 
prose-writer's  manner  always  wants. 

*  Enoch  Arden,'  too,  has  considerable  merits ;  but  it 
is  too  long  for  the  kind  of  power  of  which  Tennyson  is 
a  master,  and  it  does  not,  as  a  whole,  leave  a  lofty 
impression.  But  all  these  studies,  in  what  may  be  called 
the  Wordsworthian  manner,  are  certain  of  remembrance. 
Taken  one  with  another,  they  are  amazing  products  as 
coming  from  the  same  hand  which  drew  the  Tennysonian 
'  beauties/  and  wrote  '  In  Memoriam.'  They  are  highly 
individual,  in  so  far  as  they  never  lose  sight  of  the  point 
of  beauty,  to  which  Wordsworth,  as  a  great  philosophical 
poet,  is  frequently  indifferent ;  but  they  do  not  escape 
from  classification  under  the  Wordsworthian  group  of 
'English  idyl,'  because  their  subjects  seem  invariably 
chosen  from  conventional  country  districts,  where  every- 
thing is  peculiarly  neat  and  clean,  and  where  there  is 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  73 

carried  into  all  concerns  of  life  a  certain  primness  and 
preciseness  of  the  moral  sense.1 

In  that  series  of  passionate  cadences,  the  poem  of 
'  Maud,'  Mr.  Tennyson  shook  off,  for  a  moment  as  it 
were,  the  burthen  of  his  Puritan  descent,  and  indulged 
in  more  invective  than  is  usually  approved  of  here  in 
England.  M.  Taine  calls  the  vein  a  *  Byronic '  one,  and 
thus  accounts  for  its  unpopularity ;  but  this  is  a  double 
blunder,  for  in  the  first  place  *  Maud '  is  not  in  the  least 
Byronic,  and  in  the  second  place,  if  it  had  been  Byronic, 
it  would  certainly  have  been  popular.  The  studied 
attitudinising,  the  strong  declaiming,  and  altogether 
what  we  may  entitle  the  '  grand  manner '  is  altogether 
wanting  in  this  poem  ;  equally  wanting  is  the  ingenious 
diablerie  and  devil-may-care  defiance  ;  and  the  whole 
tone  rather  resembles  the  more  hectic  poetry  of  Shelley 
than  anything  else  in  our  language. 

'  Maud '  is  full  of  beauties  ;  it  positively  blossoms 
with  exquisite  expressions  ;  and  it  is,  at  times,  highly 
lyrical  without  being  over-shrill.  Nothing,  perhaps, 
proves  the  dulness  of  the  British  public  in  some  direc- 
tions more  than  the  comparatively  unsuccessful  fate  of 
this  poem.  We  are  far  from  holding,  with  some  critics, 
that  it  is  the  poet's  masterpiece :  it  is  far  too  disjointed 
for  that ;  and  it  lacks,  moreover,  the  nobility  of  theme 

1  Mr.  Morley  somewhere  styles  this  sort  of  poetry  '  The  Clerical  Idyl ; ' 
but  the  title,  although  a  clever  one,  is  liable  to  mislead.  In  this  and  other 
attempts  to  compose  literary  'labels,'  Mr.  Morley  follows  the  modern 
French  school  of  criticism,  which  sacrifices  everything  to  the  instinct  of 
symmetrical  classification,  and  when  a  subject  does  not  fall  under  the  pre- 
arranged heads,  is  utterly  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with  it. 


74  Master-Spirits. 

essential  to  a  really  good  work, — the  hero  being  far  too 
hysterical  a  personage  to  satisfy  common  sense,  and  the 
story  being  merely,  in  spite  of  its  various  ramifications 
of  political  and  social  meaning,  a  dull  enough  love-tale 
of  that  now  conventional  type  which  the  same  writer 
created  in  '  Locksley  Hall.'  Still  it  is  invaluable  as 
revealing  to  us  for  a  moment  the  sources  of  reserve 
strength  in  Tennyson,  and  as  containing  signs  of  passion 
and  self-revelation  altogether  unusual.  In  a  hundred 
passages,  we  have  glimpses  that  startle  and  amaze  us. 
We  perceive  what  stern  self-suppression  has  been 
exerted  to  keep  the  Laureate  what  he  is.  We  see  what 
a  disturbing  force  he  might  have  been,  if  he  had  not 
chosen  rather  to  be  the  consecrating  musician  of  his 
generation. 

But  a  nobler  and  a  finer  theme  was  awaiting  treat- 
ment. From  the  beginning,  Tennyson  had  studied  with 
a  loving  eye  the  old  group  of  legends  clustered  round 
the  name  of  King  Arthur,  and  for  many  a  year  he  had 
been  working  in  secret  on  the  book  which  turns  these 
legends  into  a  colossal  allegory.  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  Milton  always  contemplated  a  poem  on 
the  same  theme.  In  the  book  which  first  established 
his  reputation,  Mr.  Tennyson  published  that  noble  torso, 
'  The  Morte  d'Arthur,'  a  poem  in  which  the  Miltonic 
verse  is  disencumbered  of  all  its  unwieldly  and  super- 
fluous trappings,  and  brought  to  the  very  perfection  of 
lightness  and  ease,  combined  with  weight  and  strength. 
Since  then  he  has  published  in  succession  the  other 
portions  of  his  epic.  Taken  individually,  no  portion 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  75 

equals  that  first  published  ;  but  the  epic  as  a  finished 
whole,  has  a  finer  effect  on  the  imagination  than  have 
any  of  its  detached  fragments. 

It  is  one  of  the  favourite  dicta  of  the  typical  critic  of 
the  French  Empire,  that  the  greatest  art  is  above  all 
directly  moral  purposes,  and  that  all  work  which  is 
intended  to  serve  a  didactic  end,  or  does  unconsciously 
obtrude  that  end,  is  necessarily  inferior.  This  dictum, 
essentially  true  in  itself,  involves  issues  transcending  the 
intelligence  of  the  man  who  utters  it  most  frequently  ; 
for  we  find  M.  Taine,  like  dozens  of  smaller  men,  losing 
sight  of  the  fact  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  didactic 
writing, — the  sort  leaning  to  the  side  of  virtue,  and  the 
sort  leaning  to  the  side  of  vice.  It  is  very  low  art  to 
obtrude  virtue  ;  it  is  equally  low  art  to  obtrude  vice  ; 
but  the  first  low  art  has  the  merit  of  at  least  being 
exerted  for  good.  When  we  find  M.  Taine  coupling 
together  in  the  same  breath  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  as 
artists  of  the  highest  kind,  we  see  where  his  argument  is 
going  to  lead  him  ;  and  we  do  really  believe  that  he 
would  like  to  add  to  those  surnames  the  name  of  De 
Musset. 

We  hold,  however,  that  George  Sand,1  Gautier,  Baude- 
laire, and  all  the  latest  French  school  of  poets  and 
novelists,  are  didactic  writers  of  an  unmistakable 
description,  just  as  didactic,  in  their  own  way,  as 
Richardson  and  Cowper  in  England,  or  Augier  himself 

1  It  must  be  understood  here  that  I  do  not  allude  to  George  Sand's 
earlier  works,  but  to  those  works  composed  during  the  second,  and 
demoralised,  stage  of  her  intellectual  development. 


76  Master-Spirits. 

in  France,  the  only  difference  being  that  they  are  didactic 
in  the  service  of  Passion  and  Vice.  Over  the  heads  of 
both  groups  alike  a  great  artist  is  bound  to  soar  ;  and  it 
is  clear  on  the  very  face  of  it  that  Goethe  did  not,  if  we 
judge  him  by  the  total  amount  and  quality  of  his  artistic 
influence.  Homer,  Shakspeare,  Moliere,  Chaucer,  may 
justly  be  ranked  in  the  higher  category,  as  artists  totally 
unbiassed  and  altogether  above  any  undue  influence 
either  from  the  morality  or  from  the  revolt  of  their 
country  and  their  generation. 

Now,  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  Arthurian  epic, 
which  Mr.  Tennyson  justly  puts  forth  as  his  greatest 
poetical  work,  is,  by  its  very  nature,  relegated  to  the 
ranks  of  those  books  which  are  written  in  the  service  of 
Virtue.  It  is,  moreover,  an  Allegory  ;  and  that  fact 
would  reduce  k  to  very  low  rank  indeed,  if  it  were  an 
Allegory  only ;  but  Mr.  Tennyson  may  well  retort  that 
it  can  be  read  without  any  allegorical  reading  between 
the  lines  whatever,  as  a  marvellous  '  chanson  de  geste/ 
or  delightful  traditional  tale  ;  that  it  contains  hardly  a 
line  or  expression  avowedly  '  moral,'  or  out  of  keeping 
with  mediaeval  ethics  ;  and  that  it  is,  in  the  highest 
sense,  a  record  of  the  simplest  human  tragedy  with 
elements  as  universal  and  as  deep  as  life  itself. 

Unlike  the  *  Faery  Queen '  in  one  direction,  and 
utterly  unlike  the  '  Divine  Comedy '  in  another,  the  epic 
of  Arthur  is  simple  in  structure  as  a  crystal,  and  bright 
in  colour  as  a  sun-illuminated  prism.  There  is  no 
guising  of  Courtesy,  Purity,  Passion,  Lust,  and  other 
vague  abstractions,  under  divers  quaint  and  amusing 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  77 

dresses ;  no  mummery  of  the  moral  Sentiments  in  the 
guise  of  Knights  or  Naiads,  or  of  the  Senses  and  Vices 
in  the  guise  of  Dwarfs  and  Satyrs  ;  no  riddling,  no  com- 
posing ;  no  representation  of  reality  under  the  dainty 
device  of  a  Masque.  How  beautiful  even  such  a  device 
may  be  made  we  all  know,  who  have  read  of 

Heavenly  Una  and  her  milk-white  lamb  ! 

Nor  is  there,  in  the  Arthurian  epic,  any  dogmatic  ethics 
or  religion,  any  arbitrary  connection  with  Judaism  or 
technical  Christianity  ;  it  is  not  a  tale  of  antique  theology 
or  mediaeval  mystery  ;  it  contains  no  representation  of 
Divine  Law  under  the  symbols  of  a  Church.  How 
mighty  such  symbols  may  become,  as  poetic  agents,  we 
all  know  who  have  read  the  wonderful  story 

Of  man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree,  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  world  and  all  our  woe ; 

or  that  other  dreadful  legend  beginning — 

Nel  mezzo  del  cammin  di  nostra  vita 
Mi  ritrovai  per  una  selva  oscura  ! 

Both  Dante  and  Milton  were  Puritan  poets ;  but  Tenny- 
son is  a  Puritan  with  the  advantages  of  modern  culture. 
His  great  work  has  escaped  the  old  limitations.  It 
is  really  a  tale  of  human  life  ;  it  is  supremely  affect- 
ing as  a  simple  narrative,  as  an  exquisite  setting  of 
the  old  legend  ;  and  yet,  read  between  the  lines,  it 
exhales  a  fragrance  unmistakably  didactic.  No  one 
closes  it  without  being  conscious  of  the  Puritan  touch. 


78  Master- Spirits. 

The  heart  is  not  wrung,  but  the  moral  sense  is  percep- 
tibly heightened. 

We  confess  that  this  fine  poem  puzzles  us.  We  cannot 
conscientiously  say  that  it  is  an  allegory,  and  yet  it  has 
an  allegorical  complexion.  We  cannot  describe  it  as 
didactic,  and  yet  it  is  full  of  the  strongest  teaching.  We 
feel  its  tenderness  and  sublimity,  and  yet  we  know  it  is 
tender  and  sublime  strictly  within  the  circle  of  English 
middle-class  morality.  The  question  is,  must  a  great 
poem,  in  which  the  artistic  sense  is  never  for  one 
moment  sacrificed,  in  which  there  is  the  truest  and  most 
untrammelled  human  passion  and  emotion,  and  which 
deals  with  some  of  the  most  disturbing  elements  of  life, 
be  classed  as  second-rate  because  the  perfume  it  gives 
forth  is  unmistakably  '  moral  ? '  We  think  not ;  but  we  are 
not  quite  sure.  Of  one  point  we  are  quite  certain  ;  and 
it  is  this — that  M.  Taine,  and  many  critics  in  England, 
who  would  condemn  this  moral  exhalation,  would  hesi- 
tate much  less  in  putting  the  poem  in  the  front  rank  if 
the  poem  was  just  the  same  and  gave  forth  a  perfume 
justly  described  as  immoral.  There  is  so  much  con- 
founding of  Didactics  and  Virtue  ;  as  if  the  affected  old 
thing  Didactics  were  not  quite  as  often  to  be  found  in 
the  company  of  Vice. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  Tennyson  need  not  tremble. 
Relegated  even  to  the  awful  company  of  '  good  '  books, 
the  epic  of  Arthur  will  at  least  be  side  by  side  with  the 
'  Divine  Comedy/  '  The  Faery  Queen,'  the  '  Paradise 
Lost,'  and  a  few  other  works  which  human  ingenuity, 
however  perfectly  tempered  by  that  Art  we  hear  so  much 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  79 

about,  will  find  it  difficult  to  parallel.  We  do  not  say, 
nor  do  we  dream,  that  it  is  certain  of  equal  rank  with  any 
of  these  poems.  It  is  yet  too  near  to  our  eyes  to  be 
thoroughly  understood.  It  requires  the  mellowing  of 
years ;  and  a  century  hence,  it  may  either  have  pined 
away  into  a  sour  thin  liquor,  or  have  gained  the  pure 
and  perfect  flavour  of  old  wine. 

On  one  point,  however,  we  are  quite  clear :  that  in 
mere  matter  of  style  the  Idyls  stand  higher  than  any 
contemporary  or  recent  poetry,  higher  even  than  the 
same  writer's  earlier  efforts,  clear  and  limpid  as  they 
were.  Every  stage  in  the  Laureate's  growth  has  been 
an  advance  in  simplicity  of  speech,  and  his  later  Idyls, 
in  spite  of  some  clumsy  archaisms,  such  as  '  enow '  for 
'  enough/  are  almost  perfect  in  their  limpid  Saxon. 
While  his  imitators  are  eagerly  gathering  up  and 
wearing  the  meretricious  finery  he  threw  away  long  ago, 
the  Poet  Laureate  has  attained  to  the  dignity  of  such 
verse  as  the  following  : — 


THE  PARTING  OF  ARTHUR  AND  GUINEVERE. 

He  paused,  and  in  the  pause  she  crept  an  inch 
Nearer,  and  laid  her  hands  about  his  feet. 
Far  off  a  solitary  trumpet  blew. 
Then  waiting  by  the  doors  the  warhorse  neigh'd 
As  at  a  friend's  voice,  and  he  spake  again. 

'  Yet  think  not  that  I  come  to  urge  thy  crimes, 
I  did  not  come  to  curse  thee,  Guinevere, 
I,  whose  vast  pity  almost  makes  me  die 


80  Master-Spirits. 

To  see  thee,  laying  there  thy  golden  head, 

My  pride  in  happier  summers,  at  my  feet. 

The  wrath  which  forced  my  thoughts  on  that  fierce  law, 

The  doom  of  treason  and  the  flaming  death, 

(When  first  I  learnt  thee  hidden  here)  is  past. 

The  pang— which  while  I  weigh'd  thy  heart  with  one 

Too  wholly  true  to  dream  untruth  in  thee, 

Made  my  tears  burn — is  also  past,  in  part. 

And  all  is  past,  the  sin  is  sinn'd,  and  I, 

Lo  !  I  forgive  thee,  as  Eternal  God 

Forgives  :  do  thou  for  thirie  own  soul  the  rest 

But  how  to  take  last  leave  of  all  I  loved  ? 

0  golden  hair,  with  which  I  used  to  play 
Not  knowing  !     O  imperial-moulded  form, 
And  beauty  such  as  never  woman  wore, 
Until  it  came  a  kingdom's  curse  with  thee — 

1  cannot  touch  thy  lips,  they  are  not  mine, 

But  Lancelot's  :  nay,  they  never  were  the  King's. 

I  cannot  take  ihy  hand  ;  that  too  is  flesh, 

And  in  the  flesh  thou  hast  sinn'd  ;  and  mine  own  flesh, 

Here  looking  down  on  thine  polluted,  cries 

"  I  loathe  thee  :  "  yet  not  less,  O  Guinevere, 

For  I  was  ever  virgin  save  for  thee, 

My  love  thro'  flesh  hath  wrought  into  my  life 

So  far,  that  my  doom  is,  I  love  thee  still. 

Let  no  man  dream  but  that  I  love  thee  still. 

Perchance,  and  so  thou  purify  thy  soul, 

And  so  thou  lean  on  our  fair  father  Christ, 

Hereafter  in  that  world  where  all  are  pure 

We  two  may  meet  before  high  God,  and  thou 

Wilt  spring  to  me,  and  claim  me  thine,  and  know 

I  am  thine  husband — not  a  smaller  soul, 

Nor  Lancelot,  nor  another.     Leave  me  that, 

I  charge  thee,  my  last  hope.     Now  must  I  hence. 

Thro'  the  thick  night  I  hear  the  trumpet  blow  : 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  8  r 

They  summon  me  their  King  to  lead  mine  hosts 

Far  down  to  that  great  battle  in  the  west, 

Where  I  must  strike  against  my  sister's  son, 

Leagued  with  the  lords  of  the  White  Horse  and  knights 

Once  mine,  and  strike  him  dead,  and  meet  myself 

Death,  or  I  know  not  what  mysterious  doom. 

And  thou  remaining  here  wilt  learn  the  event ; 

But  hither  shall  I  never  come  again, 

Never  lie  by  thy  side,  see  thee  no  more, 

Farewell ! ' 

And  while  she  grovell'd  at  his  feet, 
She  felt  the  King's  breath  wander  o'er  her  neck, 
And,  in  the  darkness  o'er  her  fallen  head, 
Perceived  the  waving  of  his  hands  that  blest. 

Note  here,  that  there  is  not  one  expression  a  vulgar 
reader  would  style  '  poetical/  not  one  bit  of  prettiness 
or  ornament ;  that  the  sentences  are  as  simply  strung 
together  as  ordinary  speech  :  and  that  nearly  every 
word,  with  the  exception  of  the  -one  epithet  '  imperial- 
moulded'  (a  Latinism  which  strikes  us  as  admirable 
In  its  sudden  burst  of  contrast),  is  the  purest  Saxon. 
In  other  passages,  Mr.  Tennyson  has  resuscitated  old 
Saxon  words  of  inestimable  beauty  and  force,  as  well 
as  a  few  words  which  were  better  left  alone.  Alto- 
gether, his  great  poem  is  of  thoroughly  pure  form  and 
crystalline  transparence.  If  it  were  weeded  of  some 
scattered  archaic  expressions  and  Latinisms,  and  alto- 
gether toned  up  to  the  level  strength  of  its  finest 
passages,  it  would  stand  as  a  model  of  poetic  English. 

Its  charm  for  the  public  is  the  clearness  of  its  narrative 
and  the  perfume  of  its  moral.     It  has  completed   the 

G 


82  Master-Spirits. 

fascination  first  felt  in  the  English  Idyls,  strengthened 
in  'In  Memoriam,'  and  perceptibly  weakened  on  the 
publication  of  '  Maud.'  The  English  gentleman  again 
finds  voice  ;  the  style  is  full  of  reticence  and  dignity, 
the  circumstances  pregnant  with  beauty,  the  purity  and 
nobility  indisputable.  The  poem  is  entirely  satisfactory, 
from  all  points  of  view,  to  the  being  who  pronounces 
public  judgments  and  regulates  public  successes. 

The  charm  is  complete,  the  poet  has  triumphed  to  the 
extent  of  human  possibility.  He  is  accepted,  still  living, 
as  the  gracefullest  modern  English  poet — as  occupying 
the  place  in  relation  to  England  which  in  Germany  is 
assigned  to  Heine  and  in  France  is  generally  conceded 
to  Alfred  de  Musset.  Before  quitting  the  subject,  let  us 
look  on  three  pictures,  each  more  or  less  illuminating  the 
other. 

In  a  quiet  set  of  chambers  in  the  Avenue  Matignon, 
No.  3,  Paris,  there  lingered  for  eight  long  years  a  quaint 
figure,  paralysed  to  his  chair  and  watching,  with  an  eye 
where  love  and  jealousy  blended,  the  figure  of  his  wife 
sewing  at  his  side,  while  an  old  negress  moved  about  in 
household  duties.  This  man  spent  most  of  his  time  in 
composition,  using  alternatively  the  French  and  the 
German  tongues.  He  had  few  friends  and  not  many 
visitors.  His  life  was  lonely,  his  heart  was  sad,  and  he 
uttered  shrill  laughter.  Though  tender  and  affectionate 
beyond  measure  (witness  his  treatment  of  his  mother, 
'  the  old  woman  at  the  Damenthor ')  he  loved  to  gibe  at 
all  subjects,  from  the  majesty  of  God  to  the  littleness  of 
man.  His  name  was  known  through  all  the  length  of 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  83 

Germany  as  the  greatest  poet  after  Goethe.  His  wild, 
sweet  poems  were  household  words.  He  had  sung  the 
wonderful  song  of  the  '  Lorelei/  and  the  delightful  ballad 
of  the  daughters  of  King  Duncan  : 

Mein  Knecht !  steh'  auf  und  sattle  schnell, 

Und  wirf  dich  auf  dein  Ross, 
Und  jage  rasch,  durch  Wald  und  Feld, 

Nach  Konig  Duncan's  Schloss  ! 

He  was  the  author  of  the  most  dreadfully  realistic  poem 
of  modern  times,  the  fragment  entitled  '  Ratcliffe,'  where 
we  have  the  terrible  meeting  of  two  who  *  loved  once  : ' 

1  Man  sagte  mir,  Sie  haben  sich  vermahlt  ? ' 
*Ach  ja  ! '  sprach  sie  gleichgiiltig  laut  und  lachend, 
'  Hab'  einen  Stock  von  Holz,  der  iiberzogen 
Mit  Leder  ist,  Gemahl  sich  nennt ;  doch  Holz 
1st  Holz  ! ' — Und  klanglos  widrig  lachte  sie,  (S^.1 

He  had  (not  to  speak  of  his  other  achievements)  been 
the  German  lyrical  poet  of  his  generation.  On  February 
17,  1856,  he  died,  and  the  only  persons  of  note  who 
attended  his  funeral  were  Mignet,  Gautier,  and  Alexander 
Dumas.  This  man  was  Heinrich  Heine,  author  of  the 
*  Buch'der  Lieder '  and  the  *  Romanzero.' 

At  the  same  period  there  was  moving  in  the  heart  of 
Paris  another  poet,  who  was  to  France  what  Heine  was 

1  '  They  tell  me  thou  art  married  ? ' 
'  Ah,  yes  ! '  she  said,  indifferently,  and  laughing, 
*  A  wooden  stick  I  have,  with  leather  cover'd, 
And  called  a  Husband  !     Still,  wood  is  but  wood  ! ' 
And  here  she  broke  to  hollow,  empty  laughter,  &c. 

We  know  few  poems  more  powerfully  affecting  the  imagination,  by  more 
terribly  simple  means,  than  this  piece  of  bitter  psychology. 

G  2 


84  Master-Spirits. 

to  Germany,  and  perhaps  something  more.  In  verses  of 
the  most  delicate  fragrance  he  had  chronicled  the  lives 
and  aspirations,  the  ennui  and  despair,  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  most  cultured  and  debased  city  under  the  sun. 
He  had  exhausted  life  too  early,  like  most  Frenchmen. 
His  fellow-beings  had  listened  with  him,  in  the  theatre, 
to  Malibran,  and  sighingly  exclaimed  in  his  words  that, 
in  this  world, 

Rien  n'est  bon  que  d'aimer,  n'est  vrai  que  de  souffrir  ! 

They  had  listened  delightedly  to  the  talk  of  his  two 
seedy  dilettantes,  who  exchange  notes  together  inside 
the  cabaret,  and  finally  disappear  in  a  fashion  worthy  of 
Montague  Tigg  in  his  adversity : 

DUPONT. 

Les  liqueurs  me  font  mal.    Je  n'aime  que  la  biere. 
Qu'as-tu  sur  toi  ? 

DURAND. 

Trois  sous. 

DUPONT. 

Entrons  au  cabaret. 

DURAND. 
Apres  vous ! 

DUPONT. 
Apres  vous ! 

DURAND. 

Apres  vous,  s'il  vous  plait ! l 

They  had  beaten  time  to  his  delicious  song  of  '  Mimi 
Pinson : ' 

1  Poesies  nouvelles,  p.  116. 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  85 

Mimi  Pinson  est  une  blonde, 
Une  blonde  que  Ton  connait; 
Elle  n'a  qu'une  robe  au  monde, 

Landerirette ! 

Et  qu'un  bonnet ! 

They  had  seen  him,  as  his  own  Rolla,  enter  the  Rue  des 
Moulins,  where  his  little  mistress  will  greet  him  with  a 
kiss.  Poor  little  thing  !  her  body  is  bought  and  sold  ; 
and  yet,  see !  she  is  lying  in  sweet  and  innocent 
sleep  : 

Est-ce  sur  de  la  neige,  ou  sur  une  statue, 

Que  cette  lampe  d'or,  dans  1'ombre  suspendue, 

Fait  onduler  1'azur  de  ce  rideau  tremblant  ? 

Non,  la  neige  est  plus  pale,  et  le  marbre  est  moins  blanc, 

C'est  un  enfant  qui  dort. — Sur  ses  levres  ouvertes 

Voltige  par  instants  un  faible  et  doux  soupir, 

Un  soupir  plus  le'ger  que  ceux  des  algues  vertes 

Quand,  le  soir,  sur  les  mers  voltige  le  ze'phyr, 

Et  que,  sentant  flechir  ses  ailes  embaume'es 

Sous  les  baisers  ardents  de  ses  fleurs  bien-aime'es, 

II  boit  sur  ses  bras  nus  les  perles  des  roseaux. 

C'est  un  enfant  qui  dort  sous  ces  epais  rideaux, 

Un  enfant  de  quinze  ans, — presque  une  jeune  femme. 

Rien  n'est  encor  forme'  dans  cet  etre  charmant. 

Le  petit  cheYubin  qui  veille  sur  ton  lime 

Doute  s'il  est  son  frere  ou  s'il  est  son  amant. 

Ses  longs  cheveux  £pars  la  couvrent  tout  entiere. 

La  croix  de  son  collier  repose  dans  sa  main, 

Comme  pour  temoigner  qu'elle  a  fait  sa  priere, 

Et  qu'elle  va  la  faire  en  s'eVeillant  demain. 

Elle  dort,  regardez : — quel  front  noble  et  candide  ! 

Partout,  comme  un  lait  pur  sur  une  onde  limpide, 

Le  ciel  sur  la  beaute  re'pandit  la  pudeur. 


86  Master-Spirits. 

Elle  dort  toute  nue  et  la  main  sur  son  cceur. 
N'est-ce  pas  que  la  nuit  la  rende  encor  plus  belle  ? 
Que  ces  molles  clartes  palpitent  autour  d'elle, 
Comme  si,  malgre  lui,  le  sombre  Esprit  du  soir 
Sentait  sur  ce  beau  corps  fremir  son  manteau  noir  ? 

This  poet  was  Alfred  de  Musset,  and  those  who  loved 
his  strange  voice,  issuing  from  the  lupanar,  soon  found  it 
fade  away.  He  died  in  the  height  of  life  and  power. 
Whenever  we  think  of  him,  we  think  of  his  own  story 
imitated  from  Boccaccio.1  Like  Pascal  in  that  story, 
he  was  revelling  in  all  the  delights  of  sensual  love  when, 
from  the  flowery  couch  where  he  sat  with  his  mistress, 
he  unaware  plucked  a  flower,  and  held  it  between  his 
lips  as  he  talked ;  and  alas  ;  the  poisonous  belladonna 
crept  into  his  veins,  and  he  fell  a  corpse,  with  the  words 
of  love  on  his  poor  trembling  lips. 

Turn  to  the  third  picture.  The  scene  is  England,  and 
the  poet,  a  man  of  nobje  private  life  and  simple  manners, 
stands  on  the  cliffs  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  close  to  the 
threshold  of  a  happy  English  home.  He  is  well-to-do, 
honoured,  beloved.  He  has  risen  by  sheer  force  of  genius, 
by  sheer  delightfulness  of  lyrical  charm,  to  be  the  most 
prosperous  singer  of  his  nation.  He,  too,  like  Heine  and 
De  Musset  has  painted  women  ;  but  in  his  pages,  instead 
of  the  slender  Seraphina,  the  colossal  Diana,  the  fickle 
Hortense,  and  the  matronly  Yolane  (see  Heine's  group 
of  beauties),  and  instead  of  the  courtezan  Marian,  the 
grisette  Mimi  Pinson,  the  Andalusian  marquesa,  and  the 
Italian  Simone  (as  painted  by  De  Musset),  we  find  such 

1  Simone. 


Tennyson,  Heine,  and  De  Musset.  8  7 

stainless  creatures  as  Elaine,  Isabel,  and  the  Miller's 
Daughter.  He,  too,  has  sung  of  love,  no  less  passionately, 
but  far  more  purely.  He  resembles  the  two  others 
in  one  point  only — the  wonderful  unaffectedness  of  his 
language  and  the  beauty  of  his  versification.  It  is 
indeed  noticeable  that  three  lyric  poets  so  great  should 
be  equally  noteworthy  for  simplicity  of  poetic  form.  The 
literary  motto  of  De  Musset  may  be  found  in  '  Rolla :' 

L'Esperance  humaine  est  lasse  d'etre  mere, 
Et,  le  sein  tout  meurtri  d'avoir  tant  allaite, 
Elle  fait  son  repos  de  sa  sterilitd 

That  of  Heine  appears  in  the  fresco-sonnets  to  Christian 

S : 

Und  wenn  das  Herz  im  Leibe  ist  zerrissen, 
Zerrissen,  und  zerschnitten,  und  zerstochen, 
Dann  bleibt  uns  dock  das  schb'ne  gelle  Lachen  ! * 

But  the  motto  of  Tennyson  is  highest  and  noblest  of  all 
— no  mere  despair,  no  mere  mockery  ;  and  it  may  be 
taken  in  these  words  from  '  In  Memoriam  : ' 

Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 

The  highest,  holiest  manhood,  Thou  : 
Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how; 

Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine. 

One  may  well  rejoice  that  the  highest  flower  of  intel- 
lectual life  in  this  country,  unlike  the  products  in  those 
other  countries,  owes  its  charm  to  feelings  at  once  so 
reverent  and  so  pure. 

1  And  when  the  very  heart  is  torn  asunder, 
Torn  up,  and  stabb'd,  and  hack'd  in  pieces  after, 
\Ve  still  have  power  to  keep  a  fine  shrill  Laughter ! 


88  Master-Spirits, 

One  word  in  conclusion.  As  Alfred  de  Musset  and 
Heinrich  Heine  showed  their  originality  chiefly  by 
bringing  to  perfection  the  thoughts  of  many  generations 
of  lyrical  poets,  so  Alfred  Tennyson  is  chiefly  noticeable 
as  the  last  and  most  perfect  product  of  the  ideal  poets  of 
England.  Deficient  in  creative  power,  he  is  the  lyric 
embodiment  of  our  highest  and  purest  culture.  No 
English  singer  can  work  in  the  same  direction,  certainly 
not  by  inverting  the  Tennysonian  method,  and  being  as 
impure  as  he  is  pure.  If  English  poetry  is  to  exist,  to 
be  perpetuated,  it  must  absorb  materials  as  yet  scarcely 
dreamed  of ;  it  must  penetrate  deeper  into  not  merely 
national  life,  but  into  cosmopolitan  being;  it  must  cast 
over  some  amount  of  formal  culture  and  accept  whatever 
help  the  shapeless  spirit  of  the  Age  can  bring  it. 

The  finest  lyrical  cry  has  been  heard  ;  the  clearest 
cultured  utterance  has  been  attained.  Of  Tennyson  it 
may  surely  be  said,  in  the  words  of  Carlyle  :  '  Nay,  the 
finished  Poet  is,  I  remark,  sometimes,  a  symptom  that 
his  Epoch  itself  has  reached  perfection  and  is  finished  ; 
that  before  long  there  will  be  a  new  Epoch,  new  Re- 
formers needed.'  Let  that  Epoch  advance  ;  but  mean- 
while let  us  bow  in  homage,  again  and  again,  before  the 
completed  product  of  the  Epoch  just  past.  The  Poet  to 
come  may  be  and  must  be  different ;  he  certainly  cannot 
be  more  beautiful  and  simple  ;  and  let  us  pray,  with  all 
our  hearts,  that  he  may  sing  in  as  noble  a  spirit  as  he  who 
(like  that  other  who  just  preceded  him)  has  'uttered 
nothing  base.' 


89 


BROWNING'S  MASTERPIECE. 

*  THE  Ring  and  the  Book'  is  certainly  an  extraordinary 
achievement — a  poem  of  some  20,000  lines  on  a  great 
human  subject,  darkened  too  often  by  subtleties  and  wil- 
ful obscurities,  but  filled  with  the  flashes  of  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's genius.  We  know  nothing  in  the  writer's  former 
poems  which  so  completely  represents  his  peculiarities 
as  this  enormous  work,  which  is  so  marked  by  picture 
and  characterisation,  so  rich  in  pleading  and  debating, 
so  full  of  those  verbal  touches  in  which  Browning  has 
no  equal,  and  of  those  verbal  involutions  in  which  he 
has  fortunately  no  rival.  Everything  Browningish  is 
found  here — the  legal  jauntiness,  the  knitted  argumenta- 
tion, the  cunning  prying  into  detail,  the  suppressed  ten- 
derness, the  humanity — the  salt  intellectual  humour — a 
humour  not  open  and  social,  like  that  of  Dickens,  but 
with  a  similar  tendency  to  caricature,  differing  from  the 
Dickens  tendency  just  in  so  far  as  the  intellectual  differs 
from  the  emotional,  with  the  additional  distinction  of  the 
secretive  habit  of  all  purely  intellectual  faculties. 

Secretiveness,  indeed,  must  be  at  once  admitted  as  a 
prominent  quality  of  Mr.  Browning's  power.     Indeed  it 


go  Master-Spirits. 

is  this  quality  which  so  fascinates  the  few  and  so  repels 
the  many.  It  tempts  the  possessor,  magpie-like,  to  play 
a  constant  game  at  hiding  away  precious  and  glittering 
things  in  obscure  and  mysterious  corners,  and — still  mag- 
pie-like—to search  for  bright  and  glittering  things  in  all 
sorts  of  unpleasant  and  unlikely  places.  It  involves  the 
secretive  chuckle  and  the  secretive  leer.  Mr.  Browning's 
manner  reminds  us  of  the  magpie's  manner,  when,  having 
secretly .  stolen  a  spoon  or  swallowed  a  jewel,  the  bird 
swaggers  jauntily  up  and  down,  peering  rakishly  up,  and 
chuckling  to  itself  over  its  last  successful  feat  of  knowing- 
ness  and  diablerie.  However,  let  us  not  mislead  our 
readers.  We  are  not  speaking  now  of  Mr.  Browning's 
style,  but  of  his  intellectual  habit.  The  mere  style  is 
singularly  free  from  the  well-known  faults — obscurity,  in- 
volution, faulty  construction  ;  with  certain  exceptions,  it 
flows  on  with  perfect  clearness  and  ease  ;  and  any  occa- 
sional darkness  is  traceable  less  to  faulty  diction  than  to 
mental  super-refining  or  reticent  humour.  The  work  as 
a  whole  is  not  obscure. 

We  are  not  called  upon — it  is  scarcely  our  duty — to 
determine  in  what  degree  the  inspiration  and  workman- 
ship of '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  are  poetic  as  distin- 
guished from  intellectual :  far  less  to  guess  what  place  the 
work  promises  to  hold  in  relation  to  the  poetry  of  our 
time.  We  scarcely  dare  hope  that  it  will  ever  be  es- 
teemed a  great  poem  in  the  sense  that  *  Paradise  Lost ' 
is  a  great  poem,  or  even  in  the  sense  that  '  Lear '  is  a 
great  tragedy.  The  subject  is  tragic,  but  the  treatment 
is  not  dramatic :  the  '  monologue,'  even  when  perfectly 


Browning  s  Masterpiece.  91 

done,  can  never  rival  the  '  scene ; '  and  Mr.  Browning's 
monologues  are  not  perfectly  done,  having  so  far,  in  spite 
of  the  subtle  distinction  in  the  writer's  mind,  a  very 
marked  similarity  in  the  manner  of  thought,  even  where 
the  thought  itself  is  most  distinct. 

Having  said  so  much,  we  may  fairly  pause.  The 
rest  must  be  only  wonder  and  notes  of  admiration.  In 
exchange  for  the  drama,  we  get  the  monologue — in 
exchange  for  a  Shakspearean  exhibition,  we  get  Mr. 
Browning  masquing  under  so  many  disguises,  never  quite 
hiding  his  identity,  and  generally  most  delicious,  indeed, 
when  the  disguise  is  most  transparent.  The  drama  is 
glorious,  we  all  know,  but  we  want  this  thing  as  well  ;— 
we  must  have  Browning  as  well  as  Shakspeare.  What- 
ever else  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Browning  and  his  work,  by 
way  of  minor  criticism,  it  will  be  admitted  on  all  hands 
that  nowhere  in  any  literature  can  be  found  a  man  and  a 
work  more  fascinating  in  their  way.  As  for  the  man — 
he  was  crowned  long  ago,  and  we  are  not  of  those  who 
grumble  because  one  king  has  a  better  seat  than  another 
— an  easier  cushion,  a  finer  light — in  the  great  Temple. 
A  king  is  a  king,  and  each  will  choose  his  place. 

The  first  speaker  is  Mr.  Browning  himself,  who  de- 
scribes how  on  a  certain  memorable  day  in  the  month  of 
June,  he  fished  out  at  an  old  stall  in  Florence— from 
amidst  rough  odds  and  ends,  mirror-sconces,  chalk  draw- 
ings, studies  from  rude  samples  of  precious  stones,  &c,  a 
certain  square  old  yellow  book,  entitled, '  Romana  Homi- 
cidiorum/  or,  as  he  translates  it — 


92  Master-Spirits. 

A  Roman  murder-case  : 

Position  of  the  entire  criminal  cause 

Of  Guido  Franceschini,  nobleman, 

With  certain  Four  the  cut-throats  in  his  pay, 

Tried,  all  five,  and  found  guilty  and  put  to  death, 

By  heading  or  hanging  as  befitted  ranks, 

At  Rome  on  February  Twenty  Two, 

Since  our  salvation  Sixteen  Ninety  Eight : 

Wherein  it  is  disputed  if,  and  when, 

Husbands  may  kill  adulterous  wives,  yet  'scape 

The  customary  forfeit. 

The  bare  facts  of  the  case  were  very  simple.  Count 
Guido  Franceschini,  a  poor  nobleman  fifty  years  of  age, 
married  Pompilia  Comparini,  a  maiden  of  fourteen — led 
a  miserable  life  with  her  in  his  country  house  at  Arezzo 
— until  at  last  she  fled  to  Rome  in  the  company  of 
Giuseppe  Caponsacchi,  a  priest  of  noble  birth ;  and  on 
Christmas  Eve,  1698,  Guido,  aided  by  four  accomplices, 
tracked  his  wife  to  a  Roman  villa,  the  home  of  her  puta- 
tive parents,  and  there  mercilessly  slew  all  three — Pom- 
pilia and  her  aged  father  and  mother.  Taken  almost 
redhanded,  Guido  pleaded  justification — that  his  wife  had 
dishonoured  him,  and  been  abetted  in  so  doing  by  her 
relatives.  A  lengthy  law  case  ensued — conducted,  not 
in  open  court,  but  by  private  and  written  pleading.  The 
prosecutor  insisted  on  the  purity  of  Pompilia,  on  the 
goodness  of  old  Pietro  and  Violante,  her  parents — the 
defending  counsel  retaliated — proof  rebutted  proof — 
Pompilia  lived  to  give  her  deposition,  Guido,  put  to  the 
torture,  lied  and  prevaricated — the  priest  defended  his 
own  conduct — for  a  month  ;  at  the  end  of  which  time  the 


Brownings  Masterpiece.  93 

old  Pope,  Innocent  XIL,  gave  final  judgment  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  ordered  Guide's  execution. 

Such  is  the  merest  outline  of  the  story,  given  in  the 
introduction.  But  Mr.  Browning  has  conceived  the 
gigantic  idea  of  showing,  by  a  masterpiece,  the  essentially 
relative  nature  of  all  human  truth — the  impossibility  of 
perfect  human  judgment,  even  where  the  facts  of  the  case 
are  as  simple  as  the  above.  After  the  prologue,  comes 
the  book  called  *  Half  Rome.'  A  contemporary  citizen, 
in  his  monologue,  comprehends  all  the  arguments  of  Half 
Rome — the  half  which  believed  thoroughly  in  Guide's 
justification.  Then  another  contemporary,  a  somewhat 
superior  person,  gives  us  the  view  of  '  The  Other  Half 
Rome,' — the  half  which  believes  in  Pompilia's  martyrdom, 
and  clamours  for  Guide's  doom.  This  ends  the  first 
volume.  We  get,  in  the  other  volumes,  all  the  other 
points  of  view  of  the  great  case.  First,  in  'Tertium 
Quid/  the  elaborated  or  super-critical  view,  the  *  finer 
sense  o'  the  city ; '  next,  Guide's  own  voice  is  heard, 
pleading  in  a  small  chamber  that  adjoins  the  court ;  then 
Caponsacchi  speaks,  the  priest — a  '  courtly  spiritual 
Cupid ' — in  explanation  of  his  own  part  in  the  affair. 
Afterwards  break  in  the  low  dying  tones  of  Pompilia,  tell- 
ing the  story  of  her  life  ;  then  the  trial,  with  the  legal 
pleadings  and  counter-pleadings  ;  following  that  again, 
the  Pope's  private  judgment,  the  workings  of  his  mind  on 
the  day  of  deliverance  ;  after  the  Pope,  Guido's  second 
speech,  a  despairing  cry,  a  new  statement  of  the  truth, 
wrung  forth  in  the  hope  of  mercy  ;  and  last  of  all,  Mr. 
Browning's  own  epilogue,  or  final  summary  of  the  case 


94  Master-Spirits. 

and  its  bearing  on  the  relative  nature  of  human  truth. 
Here,  surely,  is  matter  for  a  poem — perhaps  too  much 
matter.  The  chief  difficulty  of  course  is — to  avoid 
wearying  the  intellect  by  the  constant  reiteration  of  the 
same  circumstances — so  to  preserve  the  dramatic  disguise 
as  to  lend  a  totally  distinct  colouring  to  each  circum- 
stance at  each  time  of  narration. 

The  attempt  is  perfectly  successful,  within  the  limita- 
tions of  Mr.  Browning's  genius.  Though  Mr.  Browning's 
prologue,  and  'Half  Rome's'  monologue,  and  'Other  Half 
Rome's '  monologue,  are  somewhat  similar  in  style — in 
the  sharp  logic,  in  the  keen  ratiocination,  in  the  strangely 
involved  diction — yet  they  are  radically  different.  The 
distinction  is  subtle  rather  than  broad.  Yet  nothing 
could  well  be  finer  than  the  graduation  between  the 
sharp,  personally  anxious,  suspicious  manner  of  the  first 
Roman  speaker,  who  is  a  married  man,  and  the  bright, 
disinterested  emotion,  excited  mainly  by  the  personal 
beauty  of  Pompilia,  of  the  second  speaker,  who  is  a 
bachelor.  With  a  fussy  preamble,  the  first  seizes  the  but- 
ton hole  of  a  friend — whose  cousin,  he  knows,  has  designs 
upon  his  (the  speaker's)  wife.  How  he  rolls  his  eyes 
about,  pushing  through  the  crowd  !  How  he  revels  in  the 
spectacle  of  the  corpses  laid  out  in  the  church  for  public 
view,  delighting  in  the  long  rows  of  wax  candles,  and  the 
great  taper  at  the  head  of  each  corpse  !  You  recognise 
the  fear  of  '  horns '  in  every  line  of  his  talk.  Vulgar,  con- 
ceited, suspicious,  voluble,  he  tells  his  tale,  gloating  over 
every  detail  that  relates  in  any  degree  to  his  own  fear  of 
cuckoldage.  He  is  every  inch  for  Guido  ; — father  and 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  95 

mother  deserved  their  fate — having  lured  the  Count  into 
a  vile  match,  and  afterwards  plotted  for  his  dishonour  ; 
and  as  for  Pompilia— what  was  she  but  the  daughter  of  a 
common  prostitute,  palmed  off  on  old  Pietro  as  her  own 
by  a  vile  and  aged  wife  ?  Exquisite  is  the  gossip's  de- 
scription of  the  Count's  domestic  menage — his  strife  with 
father-in-law  and  mother-in-law — his  treatment  of  the 
childish  bride.  Some  of  the  most  delicious  touches  occur 
after  the  description  of  how  the  old  couple,  wild  and 
wrathful,  fly  from  their  son-in-law's  house,  and  leave  their 
miserable  daughter  behind.  Take  the  following  : — 

Pompilia,  left  alone  now,  found  herself; 
Found  herself  young  too,  sprightly,  fair  enough, 
Matched  with  a  husband  old  beyond  his  age 
(Though  that  was  something  like  four  times  her  own) 
'~       Because  of  cares  past,  present,  and  to  come  : 
Found  too  the  house  dull  and  its  inmates  dead, 
So,  looked  outside  for  light  and  life. 

And  lo 

There  in  a  trice  did  turn  up  life  and  light, 
The  man  with  the  aureole,  sympathy  made  flesh, 
The  all-consoling  Caponsacchi,  Sir  ! 
A  priest — what  else  should  the  consoler  be  ? 
With  goodly  shoulder-blade  and  proper  leg, 
A  portly  make  and  a  symmetric  shape, 
And  curls  that  clustered  to  the  tonsure  quite. 
This  was  a  bishop  in  the  bud,  and  now 
A  canon  full-blown  so  far  :  priest,  and  priest 
Nowise  exorbitantly  overworked, 
The  courtly  Christian,  not  so  much  Saint  Paul 
As  a  saint  of  Caesar's  household  :  there  posed  he 
Sending  his  god-glance  after  his  shot  shaft, 


96  Master-Spirits. 

Apollos  turned  Apollo,  while  the  snake 

Pompilia  writhed  transfixed  through  all  her  spires. 

He,  not  a  visitor  at  Guido's  house, 

Scarce  an  acquaintance,  but  in  prime  request 

With  the  magnates  of  Arezzo,  was  seen  here, 

Heard  there,  felt  everywhere  in  Guido's  path 

If  Guido's  wife's  path  be  her  husband's  too. 

Now  he  threw  comfits  at  the  theatre 

Into  her  lap, — what  harm  in  Carnival  ? 

Now  he  pressed  close  till  his  foot  touched  her  gown, 

His  hand  brushed  hers, — how  help  on  promenade  ? 

And.  ever  on  weighty  business,  found  his  steps 

Incline  to  a  certain  haunt  of  doubtful  fame^ 

Which  fronted  Guide's  palace  by  mere  chance  ; 

While — how  do  accidents  sometimes  combine  ! 

Pompilia  chose  to  cloister  up  her  charms 

Just  in  a  chamber  that  o'erlooked  the  street, 

Sat  there  to  pray,  or  peep  thence  at  mankind. 

All  the  rest  is  as  good.  The  speaker,  with  the  savage 
-sense  of  his  own  danger,  and  a  subtle  enjoyment  of  the 
poison  he  fears,  dilates  on  every  circumstance  of  the  se- 
duction. He  has  no  sympathy  for  the  wife,  still  less  for 
the  priest — how  should  he  have  ?  He  does  not  disguise 
his  contempt  even  for  the  husband — up  to  the  point  of 
the  murder,  as  it  is  finely  put — much  too  finely  for  the 
speaker. 

The  last  passage  is  perfect : — 

Sir,  what 's  the  good  of  law 

In  a  case  o'  the  kind  ?     None,  as  she  all  but  says. 
Call  in  law  when  a  neighbour  breaks  your  fence, 
Cribs  from  your  field,  tampers  with  rent  or  lease, 
Touches  the  purse  or  pocket,— but  wooes  your  wife  ? 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  97 

No  :  take  the  old  way  trod  when  men  were  men  ! 
Guido  preferred  the  new  path, — for  his  pains, 
Stuck  in  a  quagmire,  floundered  worse  and  worse 
Until  he  managed  somehow  scramble  back 
Into  the  safe  sure  rutted  road  once  more, 
Revenged  his  own  wrong  like  a  gentleman. 
Once  back  'mid  the  familiar  prints,  no  doubt 
He  made  too  rash  amends  for  his  first  fault, 
Vaulted  too  loftily  over  what  barred  him  late, 
And  lit  i'  the  mire  again, — the  common  chance, 
The  natural  over-energy  :  the  deed 
Maladroit  yields  three  deaths  instead  of  one, 
And  one  life^left  :  for  where's  the  Canon's  corpse  ? 
All  which  is  the  worse  for  Guido,  but,  be  frank — 
The  better  for  you  and  me  and  all  the  world, 
Husbands  of  wives,  especially  in  Rome. 
The  thing  is  put  right,  in  the  old  place, — ay, 
The  rod  hangs  on  its  nail  behind  the  door, 
Fresh  from  the  brine  :  a  matter  I  commend 
To  the  notice,  during  Carnival  that  's  near, 
Of  a  certain  what's-his-name  and  jackanapes 
Somewhat  too  civil  of  eves  with  lute  and  song 
About  a  house  here,  where  I  keep  a  wife. 
(You,  being  his  cousin,  may  go  tell  him  so.) 

The  line  in  italics  is  a  whole  revelation — both  as  regards 
the  point  of  view  and  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
speaker. 

The  next  monologue,  though  scarcely  so  fine  as  a  dra- 
matic study,  is  fuller  of  flashes  of  poetic  beauty.  In  it, 
there  is  clear  scope  for  emotion — the  wild,  nervous  pity 
of  a  feeling  man  strongly  nerved  on  a  public  subject. 
The  intellectual  subtlety,  the  special  pleading,  the  savage 
irony,  are  here  too,  in  far  too  strong  infusion,  but  they 

H 


98  Master -Spirits. 

are  more  spiritualised.  This  speaker  is  full  of  Pompilia, 
her  flower-like  body,  her  beautiful  childish  face,  and  he 
sees  the  whole  story,  as  it  were,  in  the  light  of  her  beau- 
tiful eyes. 

Truth  lies  between  :  there  's  anyhow  a  child 
Of  seventeen  years,  whether  a  flower  or  weed, 
Ruined  :  who  did  it  shall  account  to  Christ — 
Having  no  pity  on  the  harmless  life 
And  gentle  face  and  girlish  form  he  found, 
And  thus  flings  back  :  go  practise  if  you  please 
With  men  and  women  :  leave  a  child  alone, 
For  Christ's  particular  love's  sake  ! — so  I  say. 

He  goes  on  to  narrate,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  the 
whole  train  of  circumstances  which  led  to  the  murder. 
Guido  was  a  devil — Pompilia  an  angel — Caponsacchi  a 
human  being,  sent  in  the  nick  of  time  to  snatch  Pompilia 
from  perdition.  He  rather  dislikes  the  priest,  having  a 
popular  distrust  of  priests,  especially  the  full-fed,  nobly 
born  ones.  Blows  of  terrible  invective  relieve  his  elabo- 
rate account  of  Guido's  cruelties  and  Pompilia's  sorrows 
— his  emphatic  argument  that,  from  first  to  last,  Pompilia 
was  a  simple  child,  surrounded  by  plotting  parents,  brutal 
men,  an  abominable  world. 

Our  description  and  extracts  can  give  no  idea  of  the 
value  of  the  book  as  a  whole.  It  is  sown  throughout  with 
beauties — particularly  with  exquisite  portraits,  clear  and 
sharp-cut,  like  those  on  antique  gems  ;  such  as  the  two 
exquisite  tittle  pictures,  of  poor  battered  old  Celestine 
the  Confesso^  and  aged  Luca  Cini,  the  morbid  haunter 
of  hideous  public  spectacles.  Everywhere  there  is  life, 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  99 

sense,  motion — the  flash  of  real  faces,  the  warmth  of  real 
breath.  We  have  glimpses  of  all  the  strange  elements 
which  went  to  make  up  Roman  society  in  those  times. 
We  see  the  citizens  and  hear  their  voices — we  catch  the 
courtly  periods  of  the  rich  gentlemen,  the  wily  whispers 
of  the  priests — we  see  the  dull  brainless  clods  at  Arezzo, 
looking  up  to  their  impoverished  master  as  life  and  light 
— and  we  hear  the  pleading  of  lawyers  deep  in  the  learn- 
ing of  Cicero  and  Ovid.  So  far,  only  a  few  figures  have 
stood  out  from  the  fine  groups  in  the  background.  In  the 
other  volumes,  one  after  another  figure  takes  up  the  tale  ; 
and  now  the  work  is  finished,  we  have,  in  addition  to  the 
numberless  group-studies,  such  a  collection  of  finished 
single  portraits  as  it  will  not  be  easy  to  match  in  any 
language  for  breadth  of  tone  and  vigour  of  characterisa- 
tion. 

The  face  which  follows  us  through  every  path  of  the 
story  is  that  of  Pompilia,  with  its  changeful  and  moon- 
like  beauty,  its  intensely  human  pain,  its  heavenly 
purity  and  glamour.  We  have  seen  no  such  face  else- 
where. It  has  something  of  Imogen,  of  Cordelia,  of 
Juliet;  it  has  something  of  Dante's  Beatrice;  but  it  is 
unlike  all  of  those— not  dearer,  but  more  startling,  from 
the  newness  of  its  beauty.  From  the  first  moment  when 
the  spokesman  for  the  '  Other  Half  -Rome '  introduces 
her- 

Little  Pompilia,  with  the  patient  brow 
And  lamentable  smile  on  those  poor  lips, 
And  under  the  white  hospital  array 
A  flower- like  body — 
H  2 


TOO  Master-Spirits. 

to  the  moment  when  the  good  old  Pope,  revolving  the 
whole  history  in  his  mind,  calls  her  tenderly 

My  rose,  I  gather  for  the  gaze  of  God  ! 

— from  the  first  to  the  last,  Pompilia  haunts  the  poem 
with  a  look  of  ever-deepening  light.  Her  wretched 
birth,  her  miserable  life,  her  cruel  murder,  gather  around 
her  like  clouds,  only  to  disperse  vapour-like,  and  reveal 
again  the  heavenly  whiteness.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  attempt  to  picture  her  as  saintly  ;  she  is  a  poor 
child,  whose  saintliness  comes  of  her  suffering.  So 
subtle  is  the  spell  she  has  upon  us,  that  we  quite  forget 
the  horrible  pain  of  her  story.  Instead  of  suffering,  we 
are  full  of  exquisite  pleasure — boundless  in  its  amount, 
ineffable  in  its  quality.  When,  on  her  sorry  death-bed, 
she  is  prattling  about  her  child,  we  weep  indeed  ;  not 
for  sorrow — how  should  sorrow  demand  such  tears  ! — but 
for  *  the  pity  of  it,  the  pity  of  it,  I  ago  ! ' — 

Oh  how  good  God  is  that  my  babe  was  born, 
— Better  than  born,  baptized  and  hid  away 
Before  this  happened,  sale  from  being  hurt  ! 
That  had  been  sin  God  could  not  well  forgive  : 
He  was  too  young  to  smile  and  save  himself. 
When  they  took,  two  days  after  he  was  born, 
My  babe  away  from  me  to  be  baptized 
And  hidden  awhile,  for  fear  his  foe  should  find. — 
The  country-woman,  used  to  nursing  babes, 
Said,  '  Why  take  on  so  ?  where  is  the  great  loss  ? 
These  next  three  weeks  he  will  but  sleep  and  feed, 
Only  begin  to  smile  at  the  month's  end  ; 
He  would  not  know  you,  if  you  kept  him  here, 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  101 

Sooner  than  that ;  so,  spend  three  merry  weeks 
Snug  in  the  Villa,  getting  strong  and  stout, 
And  then  I  bring  him  back  to  be  your  own, 
And  both  of  you  may  steal  to — we  know  where  ! ' 
The  month — there  wants  of  it  two  weeks  this  day  ! 
Still,  I  half  fancied  when  I  heard  the  knock 
At  the  Villa  in  the  dusk,  it  might  prove  she — 
Come  to  say  '  Since  he  smiles  before  the  time, 
Why  should  I  cheat  you  out  of  one  good  hour  ? 
Back  I  have  brought  him ;  speak  to  him  and  judge  ! ' 
Now  I  shall  never  see  him  ;  what  is  worse, 
When  he  grows  up  and  gets  to  be  my  age, 
He  will  seem  hardly  more  than  a  great  boy  ; 
And  if  he  asks  '  What  was  my  mother  like  ? ' 
People  may  answer  *  Like  girls  of  seventeen  ' — 
And  how  can  he  but  think  of  this  and  that, 
Lucias,  Marias,  Sofias,  who  titter  or  blush 
When  he  regards  them  as  such  boys  may  do  ? 
Therefore  I  wish  some  one  will  please  to  say 
I  looked  already  old  though  I  was  young  ; 
Do  I  not  .  .  say,  if  you  are  by  to  speak  .  . 
Look  nearer  twenty  ?     No  more  like,  at  least, 
Girls  who  look  arch  or  redden  when  boys  laugh, 
Than  the  poor  Virgin  that  I  used  to  know 
At  our  street-corner  in  a  lonely  niche, — 
The  babe,  that  sat  upon  her  knees,  broke  off, — 
Thin  white  glazed  clay,  you  pitied  her  the  more  : 
She,  not  the  gay  ones,  always  got  my  rose. 

How  happy  those  are  who  know  how  to  write  ! 
Such  could  write  what  their  son  should  read  in  time, 
Had  they  a  whole  day  to  live  out  like  me. 
Also  my  name  is  not  a  common  name, 
4  Pompilia,'  and  may  help  to  keep  apart 
A  little  the  thing  I  am  from  what  girls  are. 


i  o  2  Master-Spirits. 

But  then  how  far  away,  how  hard  to  find 
Will  anything  about  me  have  become, 
Even  if  the  boy  bethink  himself  and  ask  ! 

Extracts  can  do  little  for  Pompilia  :  as  well  chip  a 
hand  or  foot  off  a  Greek  statue.  Very  noticeable,  in  her 
monologue,  is  the  way  she  touches  on  the  most  delicate 
subjects,  fearlessly  laying  bare  the  strangest  secrecies  of 
matrimonial  life,  and  with  so  perfect  an  unconsciousness, 
so  delicate  a  purity,  that  these  passages  are  among  the 
sweetest  in  the  poem.  But  we  must  leave  her  to  her 
immortality.  She  is  perfect  every  way  :  not  a  tint  of 
the  flesh,  not  a  tone  of  the  soul,  escapes  us  as  we  read 
and  see. 

Only  less  fine — less  fine  because  he  is  a  man,  less  fine 
because  his  soul's  probation  is  perhaps  less  perfect — is 
the  priest,  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi.  '  Ever  with  Capon- 
sacchi ! '  cries  Pompilia  on  her  death-bed, 

O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier-saint  ! 

And  our  hearts  are  with  him  too.  He  lives  before  us, 
with  that  strong  face  of  his,  noticeable  for  the  proud 
upper  lip  and  brilliant  eyes,  softened  into  grave  melan- 
choly and  listening  awe.  What  a  man  had  he  been, 
shining  at  ladies'  feasts,  and  composing  sonnets  and 
'  pieces  for  music,'  all  in  the  pale  of  the  Church !  In 
him,  as  we  see  him,  the  animal  is  somewhat  strong,  and, 
prisoned  in,  pricks  the  intellect  with  gall.  Little  recks 
he  of  Madonna  until  that  night  at  the  theatre, 

When  I  saw  enter,  stand,  and  seat  herself, 
A  lady,  young,  tall,  beautiful,  and  sad. 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  103 

Slowly  and  strangely  the  sad  face  grows  upon  his  heart 
until  that  moment  when  it  turns  to  him  appealingly  for 
succour,  and  when,  fearless  of  any  criticism  save  that  of 
God,  he  devotes  his  soul  to  its  service. 

There  at  the  window  stood, 

Framed  in  its  black  square  length,  with  lamp  in  hand, 
Pompilia  ;  the  same  great,  grave,  grieffull  air 
As  stands  i'  the  dusk,  on  altar  that  I  know, 
Left  alone  with  one  moonbeam  in  her  cell, 
Our  Lady  of  all  Sorrows. 

The  whole  monologue  of  Caponsacchi  is  a  piece  of 
supreme  poetry,  steeped  in  lyrical  light.  The  writer's 
emotion  quite  overpowers  him,  and  here,  as  elsewhere, 
he  must  sing.  In  all  literature,  perhaps,  there  is  nothing 
finer  than  the  priest's  description  of  his  journey  towards 
Rome  with  Pompilia,  that  night  she  flies  from  the  horror 
of  Guide's  house.  Every  incident  lives  before  us  :  the 
first  part  of  the  journey,  when  Pompilia  sits  spell-bound, 
and  the  priest's  eyes  are  fascinated  upon  her, — 

At  times  she  drew  a  soft  sigh — music  seemed 
Always  to  hover  just  above  her  lips, 
Not  settle, — break  a  silence  music  too  ! — 

the  breaking  dawn, — her  first  words, — then  her  sudden 
query— 

1  Have  you  a  mother? '     '  She  died,  I  was  born.' 
'  A  sister  then ?  '    'No  sister.'     '  Who  was  it — 
What  woman  were  you  used  to  serve  this  way, 
Be  kind  to,  till  I  called  you  and  you  came? ' 

— every  look,  thought,  is  conjured  up  out  of  the  great 


IO4  Master-Spirits. 

heart  of  the  lover,  until  that  dark  moment  when  the  cat- 
eyed  Guido  overtakes  them.  What  we  miss  in  the 
psychology  Pompilia  herself  supplies.  It  is  saying  little 
to  say  that  we  have  read  nothing  finer.  We  know 
nothing  whatever  of  like  quality. 

Of  the  twelve  books  into  which  it  is  divided,  ten 
are  dramatic  monologues,  spoken  by  various  persons 
concerned  in  or  criticizing  the  Italian  tragedy ;  and  the 
remaining  two  a  prologue  and  epilogue,  spoken  in  the 
person  of  the  poet  himself.  The  complete  work,  there- 
fore, is  noticeable  for  variety  of  power  and  extraordinary 
boldness  of  design.  All  the  monologues  are  good  in 
their  way,  the  only  ones  we  could  well  spare  being  those 
of  the  two  counsel,  for  and  against  Guido.  These,  of 
course,  are  extraordinarily  clever ;  but  cleverness  is  a 
poor  quality  for  a  man  like  Robert  Browning  to  parade. 

The  noblest  portions  of  the  book  are  '  Giuseppe 
Caponsacchi,'  '  Pompilia,'  and  *  The  Pope/  The  last- 
named  monologue  is  wonderfully  grand — a  fitting  organ- 
peal  to  close  such  a  book  of  mighty  music ;  and  it 
ither  jars  upon  us,  therefore,  that  we  afterwards  hear 
tin  the  guilty  scream  of  Guido.  It  seems  to  us, 
inMeed,  if  we  are  bound  to  find  fault  at  all,  that  we  could 
havte  well  dispensed  with  about  a  fourth  of  the  whole 
work — the  two  legal  speeches  and  Guido's  last  speech. 
To  tie  two  former  we  object  on  artistic  grounds  ;  to  the 
latterl  we  object  merely  on  account  of  its  extreme  and 
discoifiant  pain.  Yet  in  Guido's  speech  occurs  one  of 
the  ndblest  touches  in  the  whole  work — where  Guido, 


Broivning's  Masterpiece.  105 

on  the  point  of  leaving  his  cell  for  the  place  of  execution, 
exclaims — 

Abate, — Cardinal, — Christ, — Maria, — God.  .  . 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me  ? — 

thus  investing  her  at  the  last  moment  with  almost  ma- 
donna-like power  and  pity,  in  spite  of  the  hatred  which 
overcomes  him, — hatred  similar  in  kind,  but  different  in 
degree,  to  that  which  Iscariot  may  be  supposed  to  have 
felt  for  the  Master.  Nor  let  us  forget  to  record  that  the 
poet,  in  his  bright  beneficence,  has  the  lyric  note  even 
for  Guido.  We  are  made  to  feel  that  the  '  damnable 
blot '  on  his  soul  is  only  temporary,  that  the  sharp  axe 
will  be  a  rod  of  mercy,  and  that  the  poor,  petulant, 
vicious  little  Count  will  brighten  betimes,  and  be  saved 
through  the  purification  of  the  very  passions  which  have 
doomed  him  on  earth.  No  writer  that  we  know,  except 
Shakspeare,  could,  without  clumsy  art  and  sentimental 
psychology,  have  made  us  feel  so  subtly  the  divine  light 
issuing  at  last  out  of  the  selfish  and  utterly  ignoble 
nature  of  Guido  Franceschini. 

Fault-finders  will  discover  plenty  to  carp  at  in  a  work 
so  colossal.  For  ourselves,  we  are  too  much  moved  to 
think  of  trifles,  and  are  content  to  bow  in  homage,  again 
and  again,  to  what  seems  to  us  one  of  the  highest  existing 
products  of  modern  thought  and  culture.  Before  con- 
cluding, we  should  notice  one  point  in  which  this  book 
differs  from  the  plays  of  Shakspeare — i.e.  it  contains, 
even  in  some  of  its  superbest  passages,  a  certain  infusion 
of  what  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  once  called  'criticism/ 


io6  Master-Spirits. 

So  far  from  this  '  criticism '  being  a  blot  upon  the  book, 
it  is  one  of  its  finest  qualities  as  a  modern  product.  We 
cannot  enlarge  upon  this  point  here ;  but  we  should  not 
conclude  without  explaining  that  the  work  is  the  more 
truly  worthy  to  take  Shakspearean  rank  because  it  con- 
tains certain  qualities  which  are  quite  un-Shakspearean 
— which,  in  fact,  reflect  beautifully  the  latest  reflections 
of  a  critical  mind  on  mysterious  modern  phenomena. 

Its  intellectual  greatness  is  as  nothing  compared  with 
its  transcendent  spiritual  teaching.  Day  after  day  it 
grows  into  the  soul  of  the  reader,  until  all  the  outlines 
of  thought  are  brightened,  and  every  mystery  of  the 
world  becomes  more  and  more  softened  into  human 
emotion.  Once  and  for  ever  must  critics  dismiss  the 
old  stale  charge  that  Browning  is  a  mere  intellectual 
giant,  difficult  of  comprehension,  hard  of  assimilation. 
This  great  book  is  difficult  of  comprehension,  is  hard 
of  assimilation :  not  because  it  is  obscure  ;  every  fibre 
of  the  thought  is  clear  as  day :  not  because  it  is  intel- 
lectual in  the  highest  sense,  but  because  the  capacity  to 
comprehend  such  a  book  must  be  spiritual ;  because, 
although  a  child's  brain  might  grasp  the  general  features 
of  the  picture,  only  a  purified  nature  could  absorb  and 
feel  its  profoundest  meanings.  The  man  who  tosses  it 
aside  because  it  is  '  difficult '  is  simply  adopting  a  sub- 
terfuge to  hide  his  moral  littleness,  not  his  mental 
incapacity. 

It  would  be  unsafe  to  predict  anything  concerning  a 
production  so  many-sided  ;  but  we  quite  believe  that  its 
true  public  lies  outside  the  literary  circle,  that  men  of 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  107 

inferior  capacity  will  grow  by  the  aid  of  it,  and  that 
women,  once  fairly  initiated  into  the  mystery,  will 
cling  to  it  as  a  succour,  passing  all  succour  save  that 
which  is  purely  religious.  Is  it  not  here  that  we 
find  the  supremacy  of  Shakspeare's  greatness  ?  Shak- 
speare,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  observe,  places 
the  basis  of  his  strange  power  on  his  appeal  to  the  draff 
of  humanity.  He  is  the  delight  of  men  and  women 
by  no  means  brilliant,  by  no  means  subtle ;  while  he 
holds  with  equal  sway  the  sympathies  of  the  most 
endowed.  A  small  intellect  may  reach  to  the  heart  of 
Shakspearean  power ;  not  so  a  small  nature.  The  key 
to  the  mystery  is  spiritual. 

Since  Shakspeare  we  have  had  many  poets — poets, 
we  mean,  offering  a  distinct  addition  to  the  fabric  of 
human  thought  and  language.  We  have  had  Milton, 
with  his  stately  and  crystal  speech,  his  special  disposition 
to  spiritualise  polemics,  his  profound  and  silent  con- 
templation of  heavenly  processions.  We  have  had 
Dryden,  with  his  nervous  filterings  of  English  diction. 
We  have  had  the  so-called  Puritan  singers,  with  their 
sweetly  English  fancies  touched  with  formal  charity, 
like  wild  flowers  sprinkled  with  holy  water.  In  latter 
days,  we  have  been  wealthy  indeed.  Wordsworth  has 
consecrated  Nature,  given  the  hills  a  new  silence,  shown 
in  simple  lines  the  solemnity  of  deep  woods  and  the 
sweetness  of  running  brooks.  Keats  and  Shelley  caught 
up  the  solemn  consecration,  and  uttered  it  with  a  human 
passion  and  an  ecstatic  emotion  that  were  themselves  a 
revelation.  Byron  has  made  his  Epimethean  an 


io8  Master-Spirits. 

somewhat  discordant  moan.  Numberless  minor  men, 
moreover,  have  brightened  old  outlines  of  thought  and 
made  clear  what  before  was  dim  with  the  mystery  of  the 
original  prophet.  In  our  own  time,  Carlyle — a  poet  in 
his  savage  way — has  driven  some  new  and  splendid 
truths  (and  as  many  errors)  into  the  heart  of  the  people. 

But  it  is  doubtful,  very  doubtful,  if  any  of  the  writers 
we  have  named — still  less  any  of  the  writers  we  have  not 
named — stands  on  so  distinct  and  perfect  a  ground  of 
vantage  as  to  be  altogether  safe  as  a  human  guide  and 
helper.  The  student  of  Wordsworth,  for  example,  is  in- 
danger  of  being  hopelessly  narrowed  and  dwarfed,  unless 
he  turns  elsewhere  for  qualities  quite  un-Wordsworthian, 
and  the  same  is  still  truer  of  the  students  of  Milton  and 
Shelley.  Of  Shakspeare  alone  (but  perhaps,  to  a 
certain  extent,  of  Burns)  would  it  be  safe  to  say  '  Com- 
munication with  his  soul -is  ample  in  itself;  his  thought 
must  freshen,  can  never  cramp,  is  ever  many-sided  and 
full  of  the  free  air  of  the  world.'  This  then,  is  supremely 
significant,  that  Shakspeare,  unlike  the  Greek  dramatists, 
unlike  the  Biblical  poets,  unlike  all  English  singers  save 
Chaucer  only,  had  no  special  teaching  whatever.  He 
was  too  universal  for  special  teaching.  He  touched  all 
the  chords  of  human  life ;  and  life,  so  far  from  contain- 
ing any  human  lesson,  is  only  a  special  teaching  for 
each  individual, — a  sibylline  riddle,  by  which  each  man 
may  educate  himself  after  his  own  fashion. 

We  should  be  madly  exaggerating  if  we  were  to  aver 
that  Mr.  Browning  is  likely  to  take  rank  with  the 
supreme  genius  of  the  world  ;  only  a  gallery  of  pictures 


Browning's  Masterpiece.  109 

like  the  Shakspearean  group  could  enable  him  to  do 
that ;  and,  moreover,  his  very  position  as  an  educated 
modern  must  necessarily  limit  his  field  of  workmanship. 
What  we  wish  to  convey  is,  that  Mr.  Browning  exhibits, 
— to  a  great  extent  in  all  his  writings,  but  particularly 
in  this  work — a  wealth  of  intellect  and  a  perfection  of 
spiritual  insight  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  find 
in  the  pages  of  Shakspeare,  and  in  those  pages  only. 
His  fantastic  intellectual  feats,  his  verbosity,  his  power 
of  quaint  versification,  are  quite  other  matters.  The 
one  great  and  patent  fact  is,  that,  with  a  faculty  in 
our  own  time  at  least  unparalleled,  he  manages  to  create 
beings  of  thoroughly  human  fibre  ;  he  is  just  without 
judgment,  without  pre-occupation,  to  every  being  so 
created  ;  and  he  succeeds,  without  a  single  didactic  note, 
in  stirring  the  soul  of  the  spectator  with  the  concentrated 
emotion  and  spiritual  exaltation  which  heighten  the  soul's 
stature  in  the  finest  moments  of  life  itself. 


no  Master-Spirits. 


A    YOUNG  ENGLISH  POSIT1VIST. 

THE  world  is  wrong  on  most  subjects,  and  Mr.  John 
Morley,1  with  the  encyclopaedic  pretensions  of  his  school, 
is  going  to  set  it  as  right  as  may  be ;  but  it  is  chiefly 
wrong  in  the  department  of  Sociology,  and  to  that,  in 
the  meantime,  Mr.  Morley  endeavours  to  confine  his 
attention.  In  a  series  of  finely  wrought  and  thoroughly 
stimulating  essays — which  we  have  heard  called  '  hard  ' 
in  style,  possibly  just  because  they  exhibit  no  love  of 
mere  rhetorical  ornament,  and  are,  indeed,  only  rhe- 
torical here  and  there  because  they  become  the  necessary 
vehicle  of  intense  and  passionate  denunciation — the  last 
disciple  of  Auguste  Comte  takes  occasion  to  classify  the 
failures  of  the  old  theology  and  its  advocates,  to  estimate 
anew  the  intellectual  and  moral  significance  of  the  great 
Revolutions,  to  demolish  the  intuitionalism  of  Carlyle, 
to  apotheosise  Byron  from  the  point  of  view  of  revolt, 
to  examine  and  criticise  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian 
ideas  of  Sociology,  and  to  strengthen  many  delicate 
lines  of  reflection  awakened  by  the  greater  or  less 

1  Critical  Miscellanies.      By  John    Morley.      London  :    Chapman  and 
Hall. 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  1 1  r 

progress  of  morals.  In  all  this  work,  undertaken  as  a 
veritable  labour  of  love,  he  exhibits  diligence,  patience, 
and  temperance  towards  opponents,  coupled  with  a 
literary  finesse  almost  bordering  on  self-consciousness, 
and  broken  only  here  and  there  by  outbursts  of  honest 
hatred  against  social  organisation  as  at  present  under- 
stood. With  theology,  of  course,  he  has  no  patience, 
though  he  can  be  generous  (as  in  the  case  of  De  Maistre) 
to  theologians.  He  is  scarcely  less  tolerant  to  meta- 
physics, having,  so  far  at  least  as  we  can  perceive,  little 
faculty  for  metaphysical  distinctions,  and  actually  seem- 
ing to  imagine  that  such  men  as  De  Maistre  represent 
the  highest  forms  of  metaphysical  inquiry.  Like  every 
leading  thinker  of  the  school  to  which  he  belongs,  like 
Mr.  Mill,  like  Mr.  Buckle,  he  is  very  painstaking,  very 
veritable,  very  honest,  very  explicit ;  like  every  one  of 
that  school,  he  astonishes  us  by  his  fertility  of  illus- 
tration and  general  power  of  classifying  arguments  ;  and 
like  the  very  best  of  them,  starting  with  the  great 
Positivist  distinction  between  absolute  and  relative  truth, 
he  ends  by  leaving  the  impression  on  the  reader's  mind 
that  the  relativity  of  the  truth  under  examination  has 
been  forgotten  in  the  mere  triumph  of  verification. 

But  Mr.  Morley  must  not  be  blamed  because,  like 
most  really  powerful  writers,  he  is  a  bigot — like  many 
Positivists,  over-positive  —  like  all  very  earnest  men, 
armed  '  only  against  one  kind  of  intellectual  attack. 
With  any  thinker  of  his  own  school  he  is  certainly  able 
to  hold  his  own  ;  for,  having  the  choice  of  weapons,  he 
chooses  the  rapier  and  affects  the  straight  assertive 


H2  Master-Spirits. 

thrust  at  the  heart  of  his  opponent ;  but  his  rapier  would 
be  nowhere  before  the  flail  of  a  Scotch  Calvinistic 
parson,  and  would  be  equally  unavailing  against  the 
swift  sweep  of  Mr.  Martineau's  logic.  In  all  this 
thoughtful  volume,  where  he  seldom  loses  an  opportunity 
of  assailing  popular  forms  of  Christian  belief,  he  never 
once  condescends  to  absolute  verification  of  his  formula 
that  Christianity  is  a  creed  intellectually  effete  and 
fundamentally  fallacious.  No  one  of  the  Scottish 
worthies  could  handle  '  grace '  and  '  damnation  '  with  a 
stronger  sense  of  absolute  truth  than  Mr.  Morley  has 
of  this  formula ;  and  thus  it  happens  that  the  pupil  of 
a  philosophy  which  specially  insists  on  clear  intellectual 
atmosphere  and  perfectly  verifiable  results,  starts  his 
science  of  Sociology  on  the  loose  assumption  that 
Positivism  has  successfully  demolished  the  whole  frame- 
work of  theosophy  and  metaphysics,  that  '  the  doctrine  of 
personal  salvation  is  founded  on  fundamental  selfishness/ 
and  that  the  whole  spiritual  investigation  has  a  merely 
emotional  sweep  which,  while  it  agitates  and  stimulates 
the  brain  like  all  other  emotional  currents,  neither  ex- 
plains phenomena  nor  tends  to  make  thought  veracious. 
Of  course,  Mr.  Morley  altogether  rejects  as  impossible 
any  science  of  the  Absolute,  and  holds  with  Comte  that 
the  proper  study  of  man  is  phenomena,  and  social  phe- 
nomena properest  of  all.  A  scientific  reorganisation  of 
society,  in  which  the  wisest  would  reign  supreme,  the 
wicked  be  punished  and  the  vicious  exterminated, 
women  get  their  proper  place  in  the  human  scheme — a 
sort  of  social  Academy,  composed  of  Mr.  Morley  and 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  113 

the  rest  of  the  prophets,  and  '  constituting  a  real  Pro- 
vidence in  all  departments  ' * — this,  and  this  alone,  is 
perhaps  what  is  wanted.  So  Mr.  Morley,  after  a  com- 
prehensive survey  of  what  other  systems  have  done  for 
humanity,  decides,  or  seems  to  decide,  on  a  system  which 
he  has  not  definitely  explained,  but  which  we  take  to 
be  the  Comtist  method,  shorn  of  many  of  those  later 
eccentricities  [such  as  the  great  social  and  political 
scheme],  which  are  very  generally  understood  to  verge 
upon  hypothesis. 

Much  injustice  is  done  to  authors  by  criticising  their 
works  as  if  they  were  actually  something  else  than  they 
really  profess  to  be  ;  and  it  would  be  very  unfair  to  con- 
demn a  volume  avowedly  '  critical '  because  it  is  in  no 
sense  of  the  word  creative,2  and  while  applying  to  exist- 

1  '  In  the  name  of  the  past  and  the  future,  the  servants  of  humanity, 
both  its  philosophical  and  practical  servants,  came  forward  to  claim  as 
their  due,  the  general  direction  of  this  world.     Their  object  is  to  constitute 
at  length,  a  real  Providence  in  all  departments — moral,  intellectual,  and 
material ;  consequently  they  exclude  once  and  for  all  from  political  supre- 
macy all  "the  different"  servants  of  God — Catholic,  Protestant,  or  Deist — 
as  being  at  once  behindhand  and  a  cause  of  disturbance  ! ' — See  Comte's 
'  Preface  to  the  Catechism.'     We  have  always  held  that  Comte  wanted  to 
be  a  Pope. 

2  Some  years  ago,  the  present  writer,  on  publishing  a  slight  volume  of 
Essays,  avowedly  crude  concentrated  'ideas,'  not  worked  out  into  any  formal 
shape  creative  or  critical,   expressly  printed  in  black  and  white  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book  these  words  :    '  The  following   Essays  are   prose 
additions  and  notes  to  my  publications  in  verse,  rather  than  mere  attempts 
at  general  criticism,  for  which,  indeed  I  have  little  aptitude.'     This  was 
quite  enough  for  the  journalist  instinct,  which,  like  the  pig  in  the  picture, 
can  only  be  driven  in  one  direction  by  being  urged  in  the  other  ;  and  by 
every  journal  that  condescended  to  review  them,  these  Essays  were  discussed 
as  Criticism^  criticism  pure  and  simple,  nothing  less  and  nothing  more. 
Such  is  the  cheering  reward  given  in  England  to  any  man  who  condescends 
to  be  explicit. 

I 


1 1 4  Master-Spirits. 

ing  systems  the  Positive  criterion,  offers  nothing  definite 
and  formal  in  its  place.  The  true  position  of  Comte 
himself  is  not  among  the  Critics,  but  the  Creators ;  for 
although  much  criticism  was  incidental  to  his  scheme, 
and  it  was  necessary  first  to  demolish  old  faiths  before 
substituting  a  new  method,  by  far  the  finest  part  of 
Comte's  work  was  constructive  and  imaginative — in  the 
highest  sense  of  that  last  much-misused  word.  As  a 
historical  critic  and  a  practical  politician,  the  place  of 
the  author  of  the  Catechism  is  not  high.  As  an  imagi- 
native philosopher,  elucidating  four  points  of  principle, 
applying  them  to  five  sciences,  and  illustrating  them  by 
innumerable  points  of  wonderful  detail,  he  surely  stood 
in  the  very  front  rank  of  philosophic  creators,  and  has 
left  behind  him  a  mass  of  magnificent  speculation  only 
to  be  forgotten  when  the  world  forgets  Aristotle  and 
Bacon.  In  the  department  where  his  master,  perhaps, 
conceived  most  startlingly — that  of  Social  Physics 
— Mr.  Morley  applies  the  Positive  criterion  with  no 
ordinary  success.  If  it  is  distinctly  understood,  then, 
that  Mr.  Morley  in  the  present  volume  is  avowedly  and 
always  a  critic,  never  willingly  a  theorist,  and  if  it  be 
conceded,  as  all  must  concede,  that  he  criticises  with 
singular  judgment  and  strange  fairness,  readers  have 
no  right  to  find  fault  because  in  demolishing  their 
Temples  he  does  not  come  forward  actually  prepared 
with  a  substitute.  Probably  enough  he  would  refer  all 
grumblers  to  the  Positive  system  itself  as  supplying 
some  sort  of  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Christian  and 
metaphysical  ethics.  But  that  is  neither  here  nor  there. 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  115 

If  truth  is  what  we  seek,  truth  absolute,  and  verifiable 
any  moment  by  human  experience,  we  must  begin  by 
throwing  all  ideas  of  compensation  aside.  Doubtless  it 
is  a  comfortable  thing  to  believe  in  salvation  and  the 
eternal  life,  a  blissful  thing  to  muse  on  and  cling  to  the 
notion  of  a  beneficent  and  omnipresent  Deity  working 
everywhere  for  good  ;  and  it  is  therefore  no  uncommon 
circumstance  for  the  theologic  mind,  when  threatened, 
to  retort  with  a  savage  '  Very  good1 ;  but  if  you  prove 
your  case  and  demolish  my  belief,  what  have  you  to 
give  me  in  exchange  ? ' — surely  a  form  of  retort  only 
worthy  in  dealing  with  the  heathen  and  the  savage. 

Yet  it  is  here  precisely  that  Comtism  fails  as  a  political 
construction  ;  for  Comte  himself,  as  much  as  the  most 
orthodox  of  divines,  places  perpetual  stress  on  the 
human  necessity  for  a  faith,  though  what  he  at  last 
supplied  in  the  place  of  God  is  universally  felt  to  be  the 
very  washiest  of  sentiments,  only  worthy  of  the  meta- 
physical school  he  hated  most  thoroughly.  The  dynamic 
ball  rolled  along  all  very  well  up  to  this  generation.  If 
Protestantism  overthrew  the  Pope  and  the  Saints,  it  left 
Heaven  and  Hell  open  to  all  the  world  and  the  Georges. 
If  Calvin  triumphantly  demonstrated  '  predestination,' 
he  substituted  '  grace '  as  a  comforting  possibility. 
Unitarianism  lets  God  be,  beneficent,  all-wise,  all-giving. 
The  higher  Pantheism  admits  at  the  very  least  that  the 
period  of  mortal  dissolution  is  only  the  moment  of  tran- 
sition— in  many  cases  from  a  lower  state  to  a  higher. 
In  exchange  for  any  of  these,  creeds,  what  has  that 
religion  to  give  which  tells  man  that  he  must  cease  to 

I  2 


i  r  6  Master- Spirits. 

believe  himself  the  last  of  the  angels,  and  be  contented 
to  recognise  himself  as  the  first  of  the  animals  ?  Ex- 
pressly declaring,  as  Mr.  Morley  declares  after  Comte,1 
that  the  longing  for  individual  salvation  is  basely  selfish 
(this,  by  the  way,  is  a  fallacy  of  the  most  superficial 
kind),  the  new  faith  offers  us  absorption  and  identifica- 
tion2 with  the  '  mighty  and  eternal  Being,  Humanity,'  a 
secondary  or  subjective  existence  in  the  heart  and 
intellect  of  others,  unconscious  of  course,  but  for  that 
very  reason  the  more  blissful  and  supreme. 

Without  pausing  to  smile  at  the  metaphysical  difficulty 
at  once  obtruded  by  the  apostle  of  identification,3  it  may 
well  be  asked  how  a  creed  is  to  thrive  which  offers  such 
a  very  slender  inducement  to  the  neophyte.  It  doubtless 
sounds  very  grand  at  once  and  for  ever  to  dispense  with 
these  inducements  and  to  appeal  to  the  grandest  ideal  of 
human  unselfishness,  but  nevertheless  the  bonus  has  been 
the  secret  of  all  religious  successes  from  the  beginning, 
and  the  system  which  leaves  that  out  will  never  hold  the 
world  very  long  together.  That,  however,  is  not  the 
question.  The  test  of  a  creed  is  not  '  Will  it  prosper  ? ' 
but,  '  Is  it  true  ? '  It  would  be  far  beyond  the  limits  of 
an  article  to  apply  that  test  here,  even  if  we  felt  compe- 
tent to  apply  it  at  all.  The  present  question  is  a  less 


1  Thus  Comte :  '  The  old  objective  immortality,  which  could  never  clear 
itself  of  the  egotistic  or  selfish  character.'     And  Morley.  '  The  fundamental 
egotism  of  the  doctrine  of  personal  salvation.' 

2  What  is  Christian  beatification  but  '  absorption '  and  '  identification ' 
of  this  very  sort  ? 

3  The  condition  of  goodness  or  badness  is  consciousness.     There  can  be 
no  moral  existence  without  identification. 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  1 1 7 

difficult  one.  Does  Mr.  Morley,  while  applying  the  Posi- 
tive criterion  in  certain  cases  to  other  faiths,  conclusively 
establish  his  hypothesis  that  these  faiths  are  effete  or 
false  ?  They  have  prospered,  they  have  been  comfort- 
able ;  but — '  are  they  true  ? '  They  are  true  only  his- 
torically, is  the  reply  of  Mr.  Morley  ;  they  are  now  inert 
and  dead  ;  and  because  nothing  better  has  yet  been  got 
to  take  their  place,  the  world,  socially  speaking,  is  in  a 
very  bad  way.  A  new  system  must  be  inaugurated  at 
once.  Mr.  Morley  will  perhaps  tell  us  by-and-by  what 
that  system  is  to  be.  Meantime  he  is  content  to  hint  that 
the  first  step  toward  improvement  will  be  the  resolution 
to  suppress  mere  vagrant  emotions,  and  to  use  the  intel- 
ligence with  more  scientific  precision  in  the  act  of  exa- 
mining even  the  most  sacred  beliefs  of  every-day 
existence. 

Mr.  Morley  almost  inclines  us  to  believe  that  the 
nearest  approach  to  his  ideal  type  of  manhood  is  Vauven- 
argues,  a  short  essay  on  whom  he  places,  as  a  sort  of 
vignette,  at  the  beginning  of  his  volume.  His  brief  treat- 
ment of  the  French  moralist  seems  to  us  nothing  less 
than  masterly,  both  as  thoughtful  criticism  and  literary 
workmanship  ;  and  the  impression  left  upon  the  mind  is 
quite  as  vivid  as  that  of  the  best  biography  we  ever  read. 
Not  a  word  is  wasted,  but  Vauvenargues'  perfect  sweet- 
ness of  heart  and  strange  sanity  of  intelligence  are  pre- 
sented to  us  in  a  series  of  commanding  touches.  The 
essay  is,  in  fact,  an  apotheosis — fit  pendant  to  Comte's 
own  verdict  when  he  placed  Vauvenargues  in  the  Positi- 
vist Calendar  :  '  for  his  direct  effort,  in  spite  of  the 


1 1 8  Master-Spirits. 

desuetude  into  which  it  had  fallen,  to  reorganise  the  cul- 
ture of  the  heart  according  to  a  better  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  of  whom  this  noble  thinker  discerned  the 
centre  to  be  affective.'  It  is  an  open  question,  indeed, 
whether  both  Comte  and  Mr.  Morley,  while  discerning  in 
Vauvenargues  the  eighteenth-century  prophet  of  a  certain 
cardinal  doctrine— if  not  the  cardinal  doctrine — of  Posi- 
tivism, are  not  led  to  overrate  his  literary  services  to  the 
cause  ;  for  the  passages  Mr.  Morley  quotes  in  indirectly 
vindicating  his  subject's  right  to  a  place  in  the  Calendar, 
while  certainly  capable  of  the  highly  prophetic  construc- 
tion he  seems  to  put  upon  them,  again  and  again  point 
far  away  into  Theism  and  chime  in  ill  with  that  creed 
which  regards  man  as  the  first  of  animals. 

Vauvenargues  would  certainly  have  admitted  man's 
position  as  the  highest  of  Animals,  but  he  would  posi- 
tively have  rejected  man's  pretensions  to  be  the  highest 
of  Beings,  capable,  without  Divine  aid,  of  regulating  the 
tumultuous  forces  of  the  world  by  the  co-ordination  of  the 
intellect  and  the  heart.  His  virtual  identification  of  the 
passions  and  the  will,  however,  in  answer  to  the  theology 
which  makes  man  the  mere  theatre  of  a  fight  between 
will  and  passion,  seems  to  us  unanswerable  as  a  scientific 
proposition,  altogether  apart  from  its  grandeur  as  a  moral 
aphorism.  This,  however,  does  not  destroy  the  theolo- 
gical statement,  but  merely  clears  away  a  misinterpreta- 
tion. Whether  we  distinguish  between  will  and  passion, 
and  view  one  as  the  mere  index  of  the  other,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  of  the  power  of  the  intelligence  in  regulating, 
determining,  and  guiding  them — there  can  be  no  doubt 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  119 

that  man  has  the  power,  within  certain  conditions,  of 
acting  as  his  will,  or  passion,  impels  him.  True.theology 
never  meant  to  distinguish  will  and  passion  so  absolutely 
as  thinkers  of  Mr.  Morley's  school  seem  to  imply.  What 
it  did  mean  to  convey  was,  that  the  power  of  certain  wild 
original  instincts  in  human  nature  is  limited  by  the  power 
of  intellectual  restraint.  This  restraint  over,  or  co-ordi- 
nation of,  the  passions,  is  what  Mr.  Morley  would  call  the 
culture  of  the  passions  themselves,  so  that  the  entire  in- 
tellectual proclivity  is  towards  good,  and  bad  passion 
becomes  impossible. 

Mr.  Morley  would  be  the  last  man  to  deny  the  natural 
imperfection  of  men,  call  it  by  whatever  name  he  will  ; 
or  to  limit  the  office  of  the  intelligence  in  regulating  such 
passions  as  that,  for  instance,  of  desire.  This  is  precisely 
what  theology  means.  If  a  man,  by  culture  or  will,  or 
restraint  of  any  kind,  or  educated  virtuous  instinct,  can 
prevent  himself  from  lusting  after  his  neighbour's  wife, 
or  coveting  his  neighbour's  wealth,  or  envying  his  neigh- 
bour's success,  it  matters  little  whether  the  happy  state 
of  mind  is  effected  by  perfect  tone  of  the  passions  them- 
selves, their  invariable  harmony  with  the  dictates  of 
reason,  or  their  hound-like  obedience  to  the  uplifted 
finger  of  a  Will.  In  any  case,  the  intelligence  is  supreme 
in  the  matter,  and  decides  pro  or  contra,  for  or  against 
any  given  line  of  conduct.  The  other  difference  is  only 
a  difference  of  procedure  immediately  preliminary  to 
action. 

Turning  from  Vauvenargues,  Mr.    Morley   attempts 
another  apotheosis — that  of  Condorcet;  and  his  treat- 


1 20  Master -Spirits. 

ment,  on  the  whole,  perhaps  because  it  is  more  elaborate, 
and  bears  more  the  form  of  the  ordinary  review-essay,  is 
not  so  perfectly  satisfactory.  Yet  this  essay,  taken  with 
certain  modifications,  is  a  clear  gain  to  the  loftier  bio- 
graphy, and  leaves  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  a  vivid 
— and  what  is  better,  a  vivifying — effect.  It  may  at  once 
be  admitted  that  the  apotheosis  is  successful,  and  would 
vindicate  Condorcet's  place  in  any  Calendar  of  Saintly 
Souls,  benefactors  to  the  species,  if  the  list  is  not  to  be 
limited  to  commanding  intellects.  It  will  be  doubted, 
however,  whether  Mr.  Morley,  in  his  avidity  to  detect 
another  prophet  of  the  Gospel  according  to  Comte,  does 
not  highly  exaggerate  the  position  of  Condorcet  as  a  con- 
tributor to  the  literature  of  reason. 

Insane  and  inane  raving  against  all  religious  creeds, 
with  a  grim  reserve  in  favour  of  Mohammedanism,  pos- 
sibly on  account  of  its  scope  in  the  sensual  direction  ;  the 
blind  exaggeration  of  the  importance  of  the  scientific 
method,  coupled  with  a  lurking  love  of  hypothesis  quite 
akin  to  that  of  Comte  in  his  later  musings  ;  a  rabid 
hatred  of  all  opponents  ;  a  virtual  damnation  of  all  dis- 
believers in  Propagandism,  the  very  kernel  theory  of 
which  was  the  infinite  perfectibility  of  every  human 
being — all  this  illustrated  in  a  temperament  which  Mr. 
Morley,  with  justice  indeed,  calls  '  non-conducting/  and 
lying  inert  in  literature  destitute  of  the  pulse  of  life.  If 
the  man  who  represented  these  things,  and  who  for  these 
and  other  failings  has  been  justly  forgotten  by  history,  is 
to  be  picked  out  for  an  apotheosis  on  no  stronger  showing 
than  the  resemblance  of  his  avowed  process  to  that  of  con- 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  1 2 1 

temporary  types,  then  surely  the  catalogue  of  Positive 
saints  will  be  great  indeed,  and  Roman  Catholicism  will 
be  beaten  altogether.  Indeed,  it  may  be  doubted  if  the 
Church  in  its  worst  days  ever  exhibited  so  extraordinary 
a  tendency  to  proselytise  the  living  and  apotheosise  the 
dead  as  the  present  school  of  Positivists.  Adherence  to 
their  cardinal  principle  of  scientific  procedure  is  quite 
enough  to  make  them  countenance  encyclopaedic  preten- 
sions in  anybody  ;  and  it  is'with  no  regret  that  they  per- 
ceive the  infallible  airs  of  men  who,  except  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  true  faith,  have  no  claim  whatever  to  the 
title  of  first-class  intellects. 

Condorcet  was  no  more  a  first-class  intellect  than  is 
Professor  Huxley.  Mr.  Morley's  picture  of  him  is  grand 
and  vivifying,  and  sufficiently  proves  him  to  have  been  a 
social  benefactor,  a  servant  of  the  race,  a  thinker  touching 
truth  in  a  false  time  ;  but  then  the  world  was  and  is  full 
of  benefactors,  of  servants,  of  thinkers  most  apprehensive 
in  the  direction  of  light.  In  our  opinion,  the  only  cir- 
cumstance which  could  have  warranted  the  claim  put 
forward  by  Condorcet,  on  the  score  that  his  '  central  idea 
was  to  procure  the  emancipation  of  reason,  free  and 
ample  room  for  its  exercise,  and  improved  competence 
among  men  in  the  use  of  it,'  would  have  been  the  verifi- 
cation of  Condorcet's  own  rationality  as  a  historical  critic. 
As  for  his  exalted  hopes  regarding  the  future  of  humanity, 
which  are  put  forward  as  another  merit,  they  were  the 
hopes  of  thousands — part  of  the  great  tidal  wave  which 
had  arisen  after  long  weary  years  nourished  on  Pascal's 
bitter  apple  of  human  degeneracy.  If  Condorcet  is  to 


122  Master-Spirits. 

be  calendared  for  merely  sharing  the  great  reaction  which 
he  by  no  means  caused,  and  never  guided,  how  many 
other  contemporaries  must  be  calendared  also  ?  Alto- 
gether, Mr.  Morley's  apotheosis  of  Condorcet  must  be 
pronounced  less  satisfactory  than  that  of  Vauvenargues. 

Something,  too,  of  Condorcet's  own  savagery — that 
worst  savagery  of  all,  characteristic  of  '  reasonable '  men 
— seizes  Mr.  Morley  once  or  twice  during  his  second 
essay.  Even  in  the  very  act  of  rebuking  the  Encyclo- 
paedist for  his  intolerance  towards  religious  forms,  Mr. 
Morley  ceases  to  be  cool  and  generous,  and  condescends 
to  the  *  set-teeth'  sort  of  enunciation,  observing  that 
Condorcet  might  have  '  depicted  religion  as  a  natural  in- 
firmity of  the  human  mind  in  its  immature  stages,  just  as 
there  are  specific  disorders  incident  in  childhood  to  the 
human  body.  Even  on  this  theory,  he  was  bound  to 
handle  it  with  the  same  calmness  which  he  would  have 
expected  to  find  in  a  pathological  treatise  by  a  physician. 
Who  would  write  of  the  sweating  sickness  with  indigna- 
tion, or  describe  zymotic  diseases  with  resentment  ? 
Condorcet's  pertinacious  anger  against  theology  is  just  as 
irrational  as  this  would  be  from  the  scientific  point  of  view 
which  he  pretends  to  have  assumed.'  Now,  it  is  too  bad 
to  talk  about  the  <  scientific  point  of  view '  in  the  same 
breath  with  such  writing  as  this.  It  is  sheer  rampant 
dogmatism,  not  to  be  excelled  by  any  polemical  dispu- 
tant. V 

Even  on  Mr.  Morley's  own  showing,  even  accepting 
Comte's  classification,  which  regarded  even  Fetichism  as 
having  exercised  a  distinctly  valuable  influence  on  man- 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  123 

kind,  the  theological  period  was  a  necessary  step  in  human 
progress,  and  we  have  yet  to  learn  that  a  man  or  a  society 
can  finally  attain  health  by  undergoing  a  course  of  dis- 
eases. If  religion  is  fairly  comparable  to  the  '  sweating 
sickness '  or  to  '  zymotic  diseases/  l  how  is  it  that  it  has 
served  its  turn  in  the  historical  sense  ?  Mr.  Morley  might 
as  well  have  compared  it  to  the  cholera  or  the  small-pox 
at  once  ;  and  then,  if  possible,  explained  to  us  from  what 
point  of  view  these  complaints  help  the  sufferer  to  an  ul- 
timate condition  of  robust  manhood.  Or  does  Mr.  Morley 
mean  to  demolish  religion  even  historically,  and  aver 
that,  if  not  a  disease  itself,  it  is  only  possible  in  a  diseased 
state  of  society  ?  Even  then  his  description  is  scientifi- 
cally inaccurate  ;  unless  the  process  of  evolution  is  simply 
the  casting  off  of  unhealthy  matter  from  a  body  virtually 
whole,  instead  of  the  healthy  development  of  simple  forms 
of  life  into  complex  forms. 

Zymotic  diseases  sometimes  kill,  and  always  injure  more 
or  less  ;  and  the  history  of  thought,  as  a  series  of  such 
diseases,  would  naturally  leave  us,  where  the  ingenious 
American  Professor  Draper  found  us,  at  the  stage  of 
moral  decrepitude,  instead  of  where  (we  rejoice  to  say) 
Mr.  Morley  finds  us,  at  some  stage  preliminary  to  health 
and  robust  manhood.  Elsewhere  in  his  book  Mr.  Morley 
has  this  unguarded  exclamation  :  'As  if/  he  cries,  '  the 
highest  moods  of  every  age  necessarily  clothed  them- 
selves in  religious  forms ! '  Does  the  writer  mean  to 
assert,  again  in  the  face  of  the  historical  classification  as 

1  Zymotic  diseases,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  due  to  some  supposed 
poison  introduced  into  the  system. 


1 24  Master-Spirits. 

laid  down  by  Comte,  that  they  do  not  ?  or  has  he  merely 
made  the  mistake  of  writing  the  word  '  religious '  in 
place  of  the  word  '  theologic  '  ?  Really,  Mr.  Morley 
seems  to  have  imbibed  so  much  of  Condorcet's  hatred 
for  priests  and  for  the  priesthood,  that  the  very  words 
'  Christian,'  '  religious,'  '  theologic,'  put  him  quite  out  of 
his  boasted  science.  So  far  as  it  is  positively  excited, 
his  destructive  criticisms  on  religions  destroy  nothing, 
except  a  little  of  the  confidence  we  usually  feel  in  the 
writer.  That  confidence  never  flags  long.  We  could 
forgive  Mr.  Morley  for  being  infinitely  more  unjust  to 
what  he  hates,  when  we  remember  his  tender  justice  to 
what  he  honours.  Nothing  to  our  thinking  is  more 
beautiful  in  this  volume  than  the  recurring  anxiety  to 
vindicate  the  memory  of  Voltaire.  Here  is  one  terse 
passage  on  the  tender-hearted  Iconoclast ;  it  forms  part 
of  the  paper  on  Condorcet : — 

Voltaire,  during  his  life,  enjoyed  to  the  full  not  only  the 
admiration  that  belongs  to  the  poet,  but  something  of  the 
veneration  that  is  paid  to  the  thinker,  and  even  something  of 
the  glory  usually  reserved  for  captains  and  conquerors  of 
renown.  No  other  man  before  or  since  ever  hit  so  exactly  the 
mark  of  his  time  on  every  side,  so  precisely  met  the  conditions 
of  fame  for  the  moment,  nor  so  thoroughly  dazzled  and  reigned 
over  the  foremost  men  and  women  who  were  his  contempo- 
raries. Wherever  else  intellectual  fame  has  approached  the 
fame  of  Voltaire,  it  has  been  posthumous.  With  him  it  was 
immediate  and  splendid.  Into  the  secret  of  this  extraordinary 
circumstance  we  need  not  here  particularly  inquire.  He  was 
an  unsurpassed  master  of  the  art  of  literary  expression  in  a 
country  where  that  art  is  more  highly  prized  than  anywhere 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  125 

else  ;  he  was  the  most  -brilliant  of  wits  among  a  people  whose 
relish  for  wit  is  a  supreme  passion  ;  he  won  the  admiration  of 
the  lighter  souls  by  his  plays,  of  the  learned  by  his  interest  in 
science,  of  the  men  of  letters  by  his  never-ceasing  flow  of  essays, 
criticisms,  and  articles,  not  one  of  which  lacks  vigour,  and 
freshness,  and  sparkle  ;  he  was  the  most  active,  bitter,  and 
telling  foe  of  what  was  then  the  most  justly  abhorred  of  all 
institutions — the  Church.  Add  to  these  remarkable  titles  to 
honour  and  popularity  that  he  was  no  mere  declaimer  against 
oppression  and  injustice  in  the  abstract,  but  the  strenuous, 
persevering,  and  absolutely  indefatigable  champion  of  every 
victim  of  oppression  or  injustice  whose  case  was  once  brought 
under  his  eye  (p.  44). 

We  owe  Mr.  Morley  thanks  for  his  vindication  of  the 
eighteenth  century  as  a  great  Spiritual  Revolution — in 
excess  of  course,  like  all  such  revolutions,  but  in- 
calculably beneficial  to  the  cause  of  humanity.  The 
movement  which  began  with  the  Encyclopaedia  and 
culminated  in  Robespierre,  has  been  only  half  described 
by  Carlyle's  phrase,  that  it  was  an  universal  destructive 
movement  against  Shams ; — it  was  an  eminently  con- 
structive movement  as  well,  and  though  it  failed  histo- 
rically it  did  not  fail  ultimately,  for  the  wave  of  thought 
and  action  to  which  it  gave  birth  has  not  yet  subsided, 
and  is  not  likely  to  subside  till  the  world  gets  some  sort 
of  a  glimpse  of  a  true  social  polity.  A  leading  cause 
of  the  public  misconception  as  regards  the  eighteenth 
century  has  been  Mr.  Carlyle.  It  is  chiefly  for  this 
reason,  we  fancy,  that  Mr.  Morley  devotes  to  Carlyle 
one  of  the  longest,  and  in  some  respects  the  very  best, 
paper  in  the  series. 


1 2  6  Master-Spirits. 

We  think,  indeed,  that  his  anxiety  to  find  here 
another  Prophet,  however  cloaked  and  veiled,  of  the  new 
gospel,  leads  him  to  be  far  too  lenient  to  Carlyle's  short- 
comings— we  had  almost  said  his  crimes.  From  the 
first  hour  of  his  career  to  the  last,  Carlyle  has  been 
perniciously  preaching  the  Scotch  identity — a  type  of 
moral  force  familiar  to  every  Scotchman,  a  type  which  is 
separatist  without  being  spiritual,  and  spacious  without 
being  benevolent — to  a  generation  sadly  in  need  of 
quite  another  sort  of  preacher.  With  a  Phrase  per- 
petually in  his  mouth,  which  might  just  as  well  have 
been  the  Verbosities  as  the  Eternities  or  the  Verities, 
with  a  mind  so  self-conscious  as  to  grant  apotheosis  to 
other  minds  only  on  the  score  of  their  affinity  with  itself, 
and  with  a  heart  so  obtuse  as  never,  in  the  long  course 
of  sixty  years,  to  have  felt  one  single  pang  for  the 
distresses  of  man  as  a  family  and  social  being,  with 
every  vice  of  the  typical  Scotch  character  exaggerated 
into  monstrosity  by  diligent  culture  and  literary  success, 
Mr.  Carlyle  can  claim  regard  from  this  generation  only 
on  one  score,  that  of  his  services  as  a  "duct  to  convey 
into  our  national  life  the  best  fruits  of  Teutonic  genius 
and  wisdom.  His  criticisms  are  as  vicious  and  false  as 
they  are  headstrong.  Had  he  been  writing  fora  cultured 
people,  who  knew  anything  at  all  of  the  subjects  under 
discussion,  they  would  never  have  been  listened  to  for  a 
moment. 

He  has,  for  example,  mercilessly  brutalised  Burns 
in  a  pitiable  attempt  to  apotheosise  him  from  the  sepa- 
ratist point  of  view  ;  and  he  has  popularised  pictures  of 
Richter  and  Novalis  which  fail  to  represent  the  subtle 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  127 

psychological  truths  these  men  lived  to  illustrate.  His 
estimates  of  Goethe  verge  upon  insanity  ;  his  abuse 
of  Grillparzer  is  an  outrage  on  literary  justice.  For 
Voltaire  as  the  master  of  persiflage  he  has  perfect  per- 
ception and  savage  condemnation,  but  of  Voltaire  as  the 
Apostle  of  Humanity  he  has  no  knowledge  whatever, 
simply  because  he  has  no  heart  whatever  for  Humanity 
itself.  He  has  written  his  own  calendar  of  heroes,  and 
has  set  therein  the  names  of  the  Monsters  of  the  earth, 
from  Fritz  downwards,  —  always,  be  it  remembered, 
aggrandising  these  men  on  the  monstrous  side,  and 
generally  wronging  them  as  successfully  by  this  process 
as  if  his  method  were  wilfully  destructive.  Blind  to  the 
past,  deaf  to  the  present,  dead  to  the  future,  he  has 
cried  aloud  to  a  perverse  generation  till  his  very  name 
has  become  the  synonym  for  moral  heartlessness  and 
political  obtusity.  He  has  glorified  the  gallows  and 
he  has  garlanded  the  rack.  Heedless  of  the  poor,  un- 
conscious of  the  suffering,  diabolic  to  the  erring,  he  has 
taught  to  functionaries  the  righteousness  of  a  legal 
thirst  for  revenge,1  and  has  suggested  to  the  fashioners  of 
a  new  criminal  code  the  eligibility  of  the  old  German 
system  of  destroying  criminals  by  torture.  He  has 
never  been  on  the  side  of  the  truth.  He  was  for  the  lie 
in  Jamaica,  the  lie  in  the  South,  the  lie  in  Alsace  and 
Lorraine.  He  could  neither  as  a  moralist  see  the  sin  of 
slavery,  nor  predict  as  a  prophet  the  triumph  of  the 
abolitionists.  He  has  been  all  heat  and  no  light,  a 

1  Compare  Mr.  Fitzjames  Stephen  and  other  writers  who  confound  legal 
punishment  with  moral  retaliation. 


128  Master-Spirits. 

portentous  and  amazing  futility.  If  he  has  done  any 
good  to  any  soul  on  the  earth  it  has  been  by  hardening 
that  soul,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  Englishmen  wanted  any 
more  hardening — by  separating  that  soul's  destiny  from 
that  of  the  race,  as  if  the  English  character  were 
not  almost  fatally  separated  already.  He  is  not  only, 
as  Mr.  Morley  expresses  it,  '  ostentatiously  illogical  and 
defiantly  inconsistent ; '  —  he  pushes  bad  logic  to  the 
verge  of  conscious  untruth,  and  in  his  inconsistency  is 
wilfully  criminal.  He  begins  '  with  introspections  and 
Eternities,  and  ends  with  blood  and  iron.'  He  has  im- 
pulses of  generosity,  but  no  abiding  tenderness.  He  has 
a  certain  reverence  of  individual  worth,  especially  if  it  be 
strong  and  assertive,  but  he  has  no  pity  for  aggregate 
suffering,  as  if  pain  became  any  less  when  multiplied  by 
twenty  thousand  !  He  is,  in  a  word,  the  living  illus- 
tration of  the  doom  pronounced  on  him  who,  holding  to 
God  the  mirror  of  a  powerful  nature,  blasphemously 
bids  all  men  be  guided  by  the  reflection  dimly  shadowed 
therein. 

Why  should  this  man,  alike  a  sort  of  Counsel  for  the 
Prosecution,  represent  Providence  ?  God  versus  Man, 
Mr.  Carlyle  prosecuting,  and,  alas  !  not  one  living  Soul 
competent  or  willing  to  say  a  word  for  the  defence  !  It 
is  '  you  ought  to  do  this/  and  '  you  must,  by  the  Verities  ! ' 
So  the  savage  Pessimist  inveighs  ;  but  the  world  gets 
weary  in  time  of  the  eternal  *  ought/  and  turns  round  on 
the  teacher  with  a  quiet  '  very  good ;  but  why  ?>l  If 

1  A  Scotchman  of  much  the  same  type  of  mind,  though  of  course  infi- 
nitely weaker  in  degree,  once  reminded  me,  in  answer  to  such  charges,  that 


A  Young  English  Positivist,  1 29 

Positivism  only  teaches  the  world  to  distrust  men  who 
come  forward  to  try  the  great  cause  of  humanity  by  the 
wretched  test  of  the  individual  consciousness,  and  who, 
because  they  can  control  their  own  heart-beats,  fancy 
they  have  discovered  the  secret  of  the  universe,  it  will 
have  done  enough  to  secure  from  posterity  fervent  and 
lasting  gratitude. 

But  Positivism — or  at  least  its  last  exponent — has 
something  to  learn  in  its  own  department  of  Sociology. 
On  one  vital  question — to  the  present  writer  the  most 
vital  of  all  questions — Mr.  Morley  writes  as  follows  :— 

There  are  two  sets  of  relations  which  have  still  to  be  regu- 
lated in  some  degree  by  the  primitive  and  pathological  principle 
of  repression  and  main  force.  The  first  of  these  concern  that 
unfortunate  body  of  criminal  and  vicious  persons  whose  unsocial 
propensities  are  constantly  straining  and  endangering  the  bonds 
of  the  social  union.  They  exist  in  the  midst  of  the  most  highly 
civilised  communities,  with  all  the  predatory  or  violent  habits 
of  barbarous  tribes.  They  are  the  active  and  unconquered 
remnant  of  the  natural  state,  and  it  is  as  unscientific  as  the 
experience  of  some  unwise  philanthropy  has  shown  it  to  be  ineffec- 
tive^ to  deal  with  them  exactly  as  if  they  occupied  the  same  moral 
and  social  level  as  the  best  of  their  generation.  We  are  amply 
justified  in  employing  towards  them,  wherever  their  offences 
endanger  order,  the  same  methods  of  coercion  which  originally 

they  were  made  by  people  who  were  blind  to  the  prophet's  '  exquisite ' 
sense  of  humour. '  Of  course  humour  is  at  the  heart  of  it — but  humour  is 
character,  and  nothing  so  indicates  a  man's  quality  as  what  he  considers 
laughable.  Carlylean  humour,  often  exquisite  in  quality,  may  be  found  in 
a  book  called  '  Life  Studies,'  by  J.  K.  Hunter,  recently  published  at  Glasgow. 
Note  especially  the  chapter  called  '  Combe  on  the  Constitution  of  Woman. ' 
Mr.  Hunter  is  a  parochial  Carlyle,  with  some  of  the  genius  and  none  of  the 
culture. 

K 


1 30  Master-Spirits. 

made  society  possible.  No  tenable  theory  about  free  will  or 
necessity,  no  theory  of  praise  and  blame  that  will  bear  positive 
tests,  lay  us  under  any  obligation  to  spare  either  the  comfort  or  the 
life  of  a  man  who  indulges  in  certain  anti-social  kinds  of  conduct. 
Mr.  Carlyle  has  done  much  to  wear  this  just  and  austere  view 
into  the  minds  of  his  generation,  and  in  so  far  he  has  performed 
an  excellent  service  (p.  225). 

Here  Mr.  Morley  is  at  one  with  the  '  hard  school  *  of 
political  economists ;  but  what  is  defensible  from  their 
point  of  view  becomes  unpardonable  from  his.  Is  the 
'hard  and  austere'  view  of  crime,  then,  the  scientific 
view  ?  Is  it  scientific  to  deal  with  the  criminal  as  if 
he  stood  (by  nature)  on  a  lower  moral  level  than  the 
rest  of  mankind  ?  and  is  it  effective  ?  To  all  these 
questions  we  venture  to  interpose  an  emphatic  negative. 
If  there  is  any  truth  which  this  generation  does  not 
recognise,  it  is  the  divine  law  of  human  relationship  : 
the  fact — which  we  should  fancy  it  the  glory  of  Positivism 
to  disseminate — that  crime  and  sin  are  abnormal  and 
accidental  conditions,  to  an  enormous  extent  remediable, 
and  never — even  in  the  most  awful  instances — quite 
eclipsing  the  divine  possibilities  of  the  spiritual  nature. 

To  treat  criminals  as  mere  nomads,  to  pursue  them 
as  Tristran  1'Hermite  pursued  the  '  Egyptians/  to  offer 
them  no  alternative  but  instant  conformity  or  the  gibbet, 
is  merely  to  give  us  another  version  of  Mr.  Carlyle's 
eternal  *  Ought/  There  are  points  of  view,  indeed — 
strictly  scientific  points  of  view — from  which  the  exist- 
ence of  these  very  classes  in  the  heart  of  the  community 
may  be  regarded  as  a  distinct  social  blessing ;  and  it  is 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  131 

doubtful  if,  with  all  their  errors  and  with  all  their  sins, 
they  contaminate  society  to  any  fatal  degree.  But 
whatever  may  be  the  nature  of  their  influence,  it  is 
certain  that  no  good  has  ever  come  from  dealing  with 
them  on  the  principle  of  extermination.  More  has  been 
wrought  among  them  by  reverence  than  by  hate  or 
oppression  —  by  approaching  them,  we  mean,  in  a 
reverent  spirit,  conscious  of  the  sacredness  of  life,  how- 
ever deeply  in  revolt  against  organisation.  It  is  one  of 
the  dangers  of  Positivism  that  it  may  lead  its  disciples  to 
set  too  light  a  value  on  mere  life,  as  distinguished  from 
life  intellectual ;  and  we  therefore  find  many  leading 
Positivists  writing  as  if  the  life  intellectual,  being  the  life 
spiritual,  was  necessarily  the  only  life  sacred. 

We  do  not,  however,  accuse  Mr.  Morley  of  being 
unconditionally  in  favour  of  the  gallows.  Further  on, 
indeed,  he  protests  against  the  kind  of  thinking  which 
'stops  short'  at  the  gibbet  and  the  soldier  as  against 
a  very  bad  form  of  hopelessness.  He  would  probably 
agree  with  us  that  Punishment  and  War  are  entirely 
defensible  up  to  the  point  where  they  are  confounded 
with  righteous  vengeance  and  human  retribution.  If 
they  are  necessary,  no  more  is  to  be  said ;  the  defence 
is  perfect  when  their  necessity  is  shown.  But  vengeance 
and  retribution  are  terms  unworthy  of  science,  and  so  is 
the  point  of  view  which  views  the  criminal  classes  as 
mere  nomads * — a  superficial  classification  not  more 

In  point  of  fact,  the  most  hopeless  forms  of  crime  in  this  country  occur 
strictly  within  the  body  of  society  as  a  consequence  of  its  present  organisa- 
tion. Conformity  to  the  social  law,  not  revolt  outside  its  circle,  created 
the  crimes  of  Tawell  and  numberless  others.  Was  Madeline  Smith  a  nomad ? 

K  2 


132  Master-Spirits. 

characteristic  of  the  Positivist  love  for  symmetrical 
arrangement  than  the  haunting  determination  to  regard 
every  fact  and  event  as  links  in  a  long  chain  of  evolution, 
or  the  constant  willingness  to  admit  hypotheses  in  any 
number  so  long  as  they  develope  naturally  from  the  great 
cardinal  hypothesis,  never  yet  verified,  that  the  basis  of 
life  is  physiological. 

Elsewhere,  with  delicious  ingenuity,  Mr.  Morley  takes 
many  articles  of  Mr.  Carlyle's  creed,  inverts  them,  and 
shows  their  value  as  dim  foreshadowings  of  the  religion 
of  common  sense.  He  certainly  does  Carlylism  fair 
justice;  and  we  wish  him  joy  of  the  contributions  he 
finds  in  it  to  the  new  gospel — such  as  that  portion  of  it 
which  insists  on  the  primitive  treatment  of  criminals,  and 
points  logically  (let  us  add)  to  a  similar  treatment 
towards  all  who  are  guilty  of  moral  or  intellectual  revolt 
of  any  sort. 

These  Essays  are  so  pregnant  with  references  to  the 
great  subjects  which  now  interest  men  of  culture,  that 
we  might  prolong  again  and  again  the  reflections 
awakened  by  them  at  every  page.  Our  purpose, 
however,  is  rather  to  call  attention  to  their  intellectual 
interest  than  to  discuss  them  in  detail ;  for,  indeed,  each 
question  involved  could  only  be  treated  adequately  at 
great  length.  The  essays  on  '  Joseph  de  Maistre '  and 
on  '  Byron '  are  quite  as  good  in  their  way  as  the  rest. 
The  great  Ultramontanist  is  chiefly  interesting  to  Mr. 
Morley — and  to  us — because  his  scheme  for  the  reorgan- 
isation of  European  society  was  the  skeleton  of  Comte's 
own  social  scheme.  After  a  brilliant  survey  of  De 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  133 

Maistre's   life   and   works,   Mr.  Morley  utters   his  own 
1  epode '  on  Catholicism  : — 

De  Maistre  has  been  surpassed  by  no  thinker  that  we  know 
of  as  a  defender  of  the  old  order.  If  anybody  could  ration- 
alise the  idea  of  supernatural  intervention  in  human  affairs,  the 
idea  of  a  Papal  supremacy,  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  unity,  De 
Maistre's  acuteness  and  intellectual  vigour,  and,  above  all,  his 
keen  sense  of  the  urgent  social  need  of  such  a  thing  being  done, 
would  assuredly  have  enabled  him  to  do  it.  In  1817,  when  he 
wrote  the  work  in  which  this  task  is  attempted,  the  hopeless- 
ness of  such  an  achievement  was  less  obvious  than  it  is  now. 
The  Bourbons  had  been  restored.  The  Revolution  lay  in  a 
deep  slumber  that  many  persons  excusably  took  for  the  quies- 
cence of  extinction.  Legitimacy  and  the  spiritual  system  that 
was  its  ally  in  the  face  of  the  Revolution,  though  mostly  its 
rival  or  foe  when  they  were  left  alone  together  seemed  to  be 
restored  to  the  fulness  of  their  power.  Fifty  years  have  elapsed 
since  then,  and  each  year  has  seen  a  progressive  decay  in  the 
principles  which  then  were  triumphant.  It  was  not,  therefore, 
without  reason  that  De  Maistre  warned  people  against  believing 
'  que  la  colonne  est  replace'e,  parcequ'elle  est  releve'e.'  The 
solution  which  he  so  elaborately  recommended  to  Europe  has 
shown  itself  desperate  and  impossible.  Catholicism  may  long 
remain  a  vital  creed  to  millions  of  men,  a  deep  source  of 
spiritual  consolation  and  refreshment,  and  a  bright  lamp  in 
perplexities  of  conduct  and  morals  ;  but  resting  on  dogmas 
which  cannot  by  any  amount  of  compromise  be  incorporated 
with  the  daily  increasing  mass  of  knowledge,  assuming,  as  the 
condition  of  its  existence,  forms  of  the  theological  hypothesis 
which  all  the  preponderating  influences  of  contemporary  thought 
concur  directly  or  indirectly  in  discrediting,  upheld  by  an 
organisation  which  its  history  for  the  last  five  centuries  has 
exposed  to  the  distrust  and  hatred  of  men  as  the  sworn  enemy 
of  mental  freedom  and  growth,  the  pretensions  of  Catholicism 
to  renovate  society  are  among  the  most  pitiable  and  impotent 


134  Master-Spirits. 

that  ever  devout,  high-minded,  and  benevolent  persons  deluded 
themselves  into  maintaining  or  accepting.  Over  the  modern 
invader  it  is  as  powerless  as  paganism  was  over  the  invaders 
of  old.  The  barbarians  of  industrialism,  grasping  chiefs  and 
mutinous  men,  give  no  ear  to  priest  or  pontiff,  who  speak  only 
dead  words,  who  confront  modern  issues  with  blind  eyes,  and 
who  stretch  out  but  a  palsied  hand  to  help.  '  Christianity,' 
according  to  a  well-known  saying,  has  been  tried  and  failed ; 
the  religion  of  Christ  remains  to  be  tried.  One  would  prefer  to 
qualify  the  first  clause,  by  admitting  how  much  Christianity  has 
done  for  Europe  even  with  its  old  organisation,  and  to  restrict 
the  charge  of  failure  within  the  limits  of  the  modern  time. 
To-day  its  failure  is  too  patent.  Whether,  in  changed  forms 
and  with  new  supplements,  the  teaching  of  its  founder  is  des- 
tined to  be  the  chief  inspirer  of  that  social  and  human  sentiment 
which  seems  to  be  the  only  spiritual  bond  capable  of  uniting 
men  together  again  in  a  common  and  effective  faith,  is  a  question 
which  it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  here.  '  They  talk  about  the 
first  centuries  of  Christianity]  said  De  Maistre  j  *  I  would  not  be 
sure  that  they  are  over  yet.'  Perhaps  not ;  only  if  the  first 
centuries  are  not  yet  over,  it  is  certain  that  the  Christianity  of 
the  future  will  have  to  be  so  different  from  the  Christianity  of 
the  past,  as  almost  to  demand  or  deserve  another  name 
(pp.  189-191). 

This  is,  however,  strongly  felt,  and  put  as  strongly. 
Mr.  Morley  is  hardly  prepared  for  a  scientific  judgment 
on  Protestantism.  He  approaches  it  too  much  in  the 
spirit  of  the  doctor  of  lunacy,  who  believes  all  the  world 
to  be  mad  but  himself.  One  turns  with  relief  to  the 
article  on  Byron,  perhaps  the  best  that  was  ever  written 
on  the  subject,  but  unfortunately  flawed,  because  the 
writer,  who  has  just  recommended  a  severe  handling  of 
the  criminal  classes,  seems  unconscious  that  he  is  deal- 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  135 

ing  with  a  great  criminal's  life  and  character.  Scientific 
criticism,  so  sharp  to  the  anti-social  Outcasts,  might  be 
less  merciful  to  the  Outcast  whose  hand  was  lifted  against 
every  man's  life  and  reputation,  and  who  was  consciously 
unjust,  tyrannous,  selfish,  false,  and  anti-social.  We  do 
not  agree  with  Mr.  Morley  that  the  public  has  nothing 
to  do  with  Byron's  private  life.  The  man  invited  con- 
fidence for  the  sake  of  blasting  the  fair  fame  of  others  ; 
and  the  lie  of  his  teaching  is  only  to  be  counteracted  by 
the  living  lie  of  his  identity.  If  revolters  and  criminals 
are  to  be  gibbeted,  then  we  claim  in  the  name  of  Justice 
the  highest  gibbet  for  Byron.  The  following  passage 
is  too  important  not  to  be  quoted  entire : — 

More  attention  is  now  paid  to  the  mysteries  of  Byron's  life 
than  to  the  merits  of  his  work,  and  criticism  and  morality  are 
equally  injured  by  the  confusion  between  the  worth  of  the  verse 
he  wrote  and  the  virtue  or  wickedness  of  the  life  he  lived. 
The  admirers  of  his  poetry  appear  sensible  of  some  obligation 
to  be  the  champions  of  his  conduct,  while  those  who  have  dili- 
gently gathered  together  the  details  of  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  unseemliness  of  his  conduct,  cannot  bear  to  think  that 
from  this  bramble  men  have  been  able  to  gather  figs.  The 
result  of  the  confusion  has  been  that  grave  men  and  women 
have  applied  themselves  to  investigate  and  judge  Byron's  private 
life,  as  if  the  exact  manner  of  it,  the  more  or  less  of  his  outrages 
upon  decorum,  the  degree  of  the  deadness  of  his  sense  of  moral 
responsibility,  were  matter  of  minute  and  profound  interest  to 
all  ages.  As  if  all  this  had  anything  to  do  with  criticism  proper. 
It  is  right  that  we  should  know  the  life  and  manners  of  one 
whom  we  choose  for  a  friend,  or  of  one  who  asks  us  to  entrust 
him  with  the  control  of  public  interests.  In  either  of  these  two 
cases  we  need  a  guarantee  for  present  and  future.  Art  knows 


136  Master -Spirits. 

nothing  of  guarantees.  The  work  is  before  us,  its  own  warranty. 
What  is  it  to  us  whether  Turner  had  coarse  orgies  with  the 
trulls  of  Wapping  ?  We  can  judge  his  art  without  knowing  or 
thinking  of  the  artist.  And  in  the  same  way,  what  are  the 
stories  of  Byron's  libertinism  to  us?  They  may  have  bio- 
graphical interest,  but  of  critical  interest  hardly  the  least.  If 
the  name  of  the  author  of  *  Manfred/  '  Cain,'  *  Childe  Harold/ 
were  already  lost,  as  it  may  be  in  remote  times,  the  work  abides, 
and  its  mark  on  European  opinion  (p.  254). 

Coming  from  a  man  of  Mr.  Morley's  calibre,  these 
words  are  at  the  very  least  remarkable.  They  are 
worthy  of  the  critic  of  the  Second  Empire,  M.  Taine, 
in  his  most  anti-didactic  mood.  Byron  is,  according  to 
Mr.  Morley,  the  poet  of  the  Revolution,  the  English  ex- 
pression of  vast  social  revolt  all  over  Europe.  In  cases 
of  such  revolt,  involving  ethical  distinctions,  is  it  not  of 
the  very  highest  consequence,  from  a  scientific  point  of 
view,  to  examine  the  personal  reasons  of  the  revolter  ? 
An  enquiry  into  Byron's  life  verifies  the  hypothesis 
awakened  at  every  page  of  his  works,  that  this  man  was 
in  arms,  not  against  society,  but  against  his  own  vile 
passions  ;  that  he  was  a  worldly  man  full  of  the  affec- 
tation of  unworldliness,  and  a  selfish  man  only  capable 
of  the  lowest  sort  of  sacrifice — that  for  an  egoistic  idea  ; 
and  that  at  least  half  of  what  he  wrote  was  written  with 
supreme  and  triumphant  insincerity. 

Mr.  Morley  is  very  wroth  at  the  piggish  virtues 
fostered  by  the  Georges,  and  with  reason ;  but  he  some- 
times forgets  that  Byron  did  not  rebel  so  much  against 
these  as  against  the  domestic  instinct  itself.  His  fight 
being  throughout  with  his  own  conscience,  it  is  of  supreme 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  137 

importance  to  learn  what  he  had  done  and  what  he  had 
been.  Pure  practical  art,  like  that  of  Turner,  offers  no 
analogy  in  this  case  ;  it  would  not  even  do  so  in  the 
case  of  Shelley ;  for  even  Shelley  has  hopelessly  inter- 
woven his  literature  with  his  own  life  and  the  life  of 
men.  The  confusion  in  Mr.  Morley's  mind  is  M.  Taine's 
confusion,  and  gives  birth  to  half  the  meretricious  and 
silly  literature  of  the  day.  Byron  was  a  poet,  an  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  force,  finding  expression  in 
written  words.  He  was  not  distinctly  a  singer,  nor  a 
musician,  nor  a  painter,  nor  a  philosopher,  nor  a  poli- 
tician ;  but  he  was  something  of  all  these,  as  every  great 
poet  must  be.  Music  and  art  do  not  arbitrarily  imply 
ethics,  but  ethics  is  included  in  literature,  and  is  within 
the  distinct  scope  of  the  poetic  intellect.1  Byron  was 
not  merely  an  artist — in  point  of  fact,  he  was  very  little 
an  artist ;  and  he  never  did  write  a  line,  or  paint  a 
picture,  which  tells  its  own  tale  apart  from  himself. 
He  rose  in  revolt  to  try  the  question  of  himself  against 
society,  and  his  life  is  therefore  the  property  of  society's 
cross-examiners.  The  question  remaining  is — can  they 
show  that  he  had  no  fair  cause  for  revolt  at  all  ? 

With  almost  every  word  of  what  Mr.  Morley  says 
about  Byron's  poetry  we  cordially  agree.  The  glorious 
animal  swing  of  much  of  the  verse,  the  faultless  self- 
characterisation,  the  shaping  and  conceiving  power,  the 
wit  and  humour  abundant  on  every  page,  are  amply 
and  cordially  appreciated.  Byron's  variety  of  mind  was 

1  Observe,  says  the  aesthetic  critic,  that  the  end  of  all  art  is  to  give 
pleasure.  Yes ;  and  so  is  the  ultimate  end  of  all  virtue. 


138  Master-Spirits. 

miraculous.  As  an  inventive  poet,  he  was  immeasurably 
the  master  and  superior  of  Shelley,  however  wondrous 
we  may  consider  Shelley's  spiritual  quality.  It  seems 
to  us,  moreover,  that  Shelley's  spirituality  is  deeply 
mixed  with  intellectual  impurities,  fatally  tinged  with 
the  morbid  hues  of  a  hysteric  and  somewhat  peevish 
mind.  It  is  the  fashion  now  to  call  him  '  divine,'  nor  do 
we  for  a  moment  dispute  the  apotheosis  ;  but  we  doubt 
exceedingly  if  '  The  Cenci '  (for  example)  could  bear  the 
truly  critical  test  and  retain  its  limpid  and  divine  trans- 
parency, or  if  the  choice  of  so  essentially  shallow  and 
false  a  myth  as  that  of  Prometheus,  coupled  with  num- 
berless similar  predilections,  was  not  the  sign  of  a  third- 
class  intellect. 

One  way  of  noting  the  radical  difference  between 
Byron  and  Shelley  is  very  simple.  Let  the  reader 
carefully  peruse,  first,  *  Prometheus,'  and  then  look  at 
the  reflection  in  his  own  mind  twenty-four  hours  after- 
wards. Let  him  next  read,  say  even  '  Manfred ' — bad 
though  that  is  as  a  piece  of  writing — and  go  through 
the  same  process.  He  will  find  that  he  experienced, 
during  the  actual  perusal  of  the  first  poem,  a  sense  of 
exquisite  fascination  at  every  line  ;  that,  twenty-four 
hours  afterwards  the  impression  was  dim  and  doubtful ; 
and  that,  sooner  or  later,  it  is  expedient  to  go  again 
through  the  process  of  perusal.  In  the  other  instance 
the  result  will  be  inverse.  The  reader's  feeling  during 
perusal  will  be  one  almost  of  impatience  ;  but  twenty- 
four  hours  afterwards  the  impression  will  be  very  vivid, 
not  as  to  particular  passages,  but  as  to  the  drama  as  a 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  139 

whole.  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  more  real  creative 
force  and  shaping  power,  infinitely  less  of  the  aroma 
and  essence  of  beauty,  in  '  Manfred '  even,  than  in  the 
'  Prometheus.'  Pursuing  this  analogy  further,  let  the 
reader  who  has  carefully  studied  and  enjoyed  both 
Byron  and  Shelley  look  at  the  reflections  in  his  own 
mind  at  the  present  moment.  A  wild  and  beautiful 
rainbow-coloured  mist,  peopled  by  indefinite  shapes 
innumerable,  and  by  two  or  three  shapes  definite  only 
as  they  are  morbid  and  terrible  :  such,  perhaps,  is  the 
reflection  of  the  poetry  of  Shelley. 

A  clear  mountain  atmosphere,  with  a  breezy  sense  of 
the  sea,  a  succession  of  romantic  faces  singularly  human 
and  vivid  in  spite  of  their  strange  resemblance  to  each 
other,  a  ripple  of  healthy  female  laughter,  a  life,  a  light, 
an  animal  sense  of  exhilaration — surely  all  these  things, 
and  many  other  things  as  human,  take  possession  of  us 
at  once  when  we  think  of  the  poetry  of  Byron.  Shelley 
possessed  supremely  and  separately  a  small  portion  of 
those  qualities  which  Byron  possessed  collectively. 
Shelley  had  some  gifts  in  excess,  and  he  lacked  all  the 
others.  It  may  be  suggested,  in  answer  to  this,  that 
one  supreme  gift  is  better  than  all  the  gifts  in  dilution. 
Undoubtedly.  But  Byron,  at  his  very  best,  exhibits  all 
the  gifts  supremely,  and  even  in  the  direction  of  spiri- 
tuality penetrates  very  high  indeed  in  his  noblest  flights. 

He  wrote  too  often  for  scribbling's  sake  ;  but  when  he 
wrote  from  true  impulse  he  often  produced  the  highest 
sort  of  poetry — perfect  vision  in  perfect  language.  Let 
it  be  remembered  also,  to  his  glory,  that  he  shared  with 


140  Master-Spirits. 

the  greatest  creators  of  the  world — with  Shakspeare, 
with  Boccaccio,  with  Cervantes,  with  Chaucer,  with 
Goethe,  with  Walter  Scott — something  of  that  rare 
faculty  of  humour  which  is  as  necessary  a  qualification 
for  testing  most  forms  of  life  as  certain  acids  are  neces- 
sary for  testing  metals,  and  without  which  a  first-class 
intellect  generally  yields  over-much  to  the  other  rare  and 
besetting  faculty  of  introspection  to  produce  literature  of 
the  highest  rank.  All  human  truth  is  misapprehended 
till  it  is  conceived  as  relative,  and  there  is  nothing  like 
humour  for  betraying,  as  by  magic,  Truth's  relativity. 

We  should  have  liked  to  say  something  of  the  last 
two  papers  in  Mr.  Morley's  volume,  that  '  On  some 
Greek  Conceptions  of  Social  Growth/  and  that  *  On  the 
Development  of  Morals ; '  but  the  subjects  are  too 
tempting  and  spacious ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  their 
treatment,  although  very  slight,  is  as  satisfactory  as 
possible  from  Mr.  Morley's  point  of  view.  That  point 
of  view,  we  may  remark  in  concluding,  fluctuates  a  little 
in  these  pages;  and  we  find  the  writer  contradicting 
himself  on  the  nature  of  justice,  on  the  right  of  punish- 
ment, and  on  the  greater  or  less  perfectibility  of  the 
race.  Altogether,  however,  these  Essays  are  as  much 
distinguished  by  logical  consistency  as  by  wealth  of 
study  and  literary  skill.  Mr.  Morley  is  one  more  illus- 
tration of  the  old  saying,  that  the  soldiers  of  Truth  fight 
under  many  different  banners.  His  conviction  that 
speculation  in  the  theological  direction  is  a  sheer  waste 
of  time  and  a  sign  ot  weak  intellect  would  be  more 
startling  if  he  himselfA  with  a  secret  consciousness  of 


A  Young  English  Positivist.  141 

being  far  adrift,  showed  less  anxiety  to  cast  anchor 
somewhere.  This  anchoring,  the  Positivists  call  getting 
hold  of  a  '  method.' 

That  there  are  many  men  in  the  world  who  do  not 
think  it  proves  better  seamanship  to  get  into  harbour 
and  lie  there  through  all  weathers  than  to  venture  out 
boldly  and  to  explore  the  great  waters,  is  a  fact  which 
Mr.  Morley  does  not  seem  to  understand  at  its  value. 

To  him,  the  wild  speculative  instinct — the  fierce 
human  thirst  to  face  the  mysterious  darkness,  and 
battle  through  all  the  wild  winds  of  the  unknown  deep — 
is  merely  lunatic  and  miserable ;  more  than  that,  it  is 
despicable  and  selfish.  Examined  at  its  true  worth,  this 
feeling  of  his  is  merely  a  consequence  of  intellectual 
temperament.  All  these  attempts  to  criticise  Systems 
from  the  outside  are  abortive.  The  Positivists  talk 
nonsense  about  Metaphysics  ;  the  metaphysicians  talk 
nonsense  about  Positivism — almost  invariably,  for  ex- 
ample, confusing  it  with  Comtism.  But,  forgetting  all 
such  questions  for  the  moment,  let  us  congratulate  our- 
selves that  a  man  like  Mr.  Morley  is  seriously  working 
at  the  great  problem  of  Sociology  in  a  constructive  as 
well  as  a  critical  spirit.  He  fights  for  the  Truth,  and 
his  motto  is  of  no  more  consequence  than  mottos 
generally.  Hating  shams,  loving  truth  and  beauty, 
reverencing  almost  to  idolatry  the  great  and  deathless 
figures  of  literature  and  history,  compassionating  the 
sorrows  of  mankind  and  hating  the  laws  which  compli- 
cate them,  looking  forward  to  a  mundane  future  closely 
approaching  perfection,  and  feeling  that  it  is  only  to  be 


142  M aster-Spirits. 

reached  by  virtuous  living  and  high  thinking,  he  is  to  be 
welcomed  as  another  adherent  to  the  blessed  cause  of 
Humanity — which  was  that  of  Plato  as  well  as  John 
the  Baptist,  and  was  paramount  in  the  troubled  heart  of 
Mahomet  as  well  as  in  the  divine  soul  of  Christ.  He 
serves  God  best  who  loves  truth  most ;  and  we,  at  least, 
do  not  conceive  how  Truth,  which  is  the  very  essence 
and  quality  of  many  things  and  many  men,  can  be  arbi- 
trarily confined  to  any  one  set  of  those  mental  pheno- 
mena which  we  call  Religion. 


143 


HUGO  IN  1872. 

MANY  a  long  year  has  now  elapsed  since  the  advent  of 
the  Romantic  School  filled  the  aged  Goethe  with  horror, 
causing  him  to  predict  for  modern  Art  a  chaotic  career 
and  a  miserable  termination  ;  and  gray  now  are  the 
beards  of  the  students  who  flocked  in  cloaks  and  slouch 
hats  to  applaud  the  first  performance  of  '  Hernani '  at 
the  national  theatre.  Since  those  merry  days  a  new 
generation  has  arisen,  and  more  than  one  mighty  land- 
mark has  been  swept  away.  Goethe  is  dead  ;  so  are 
dozens  of  minor  Kings — not  to  speak  of  Louis  Philippe. 
The  sin  of  December  has  been  committed  and  ex- 
piated ;  the  man  of  Sedan  has  been  arraigned  before  the 
bar  of  the  world,  and  received  as  sentence  the  contempt 
and  execration  of  all  humanity  ;  and  meantime,  the 
exile  of  Guernsey,  after  a  period  of  fretful  probation, 
has  gone  back  to  the  bosom  of  his  beloved  France. 
Political  changes  have  been  fast  and  furious.  Not  less 
fast  and  furious  have  been  the  literary  revolutions.  The 
poor  bewildered  spectator,  be  his  proclivities  political  or 
literary,  has  been  hurried  along  so  rapidly  that  he  has 
scarcely  had  time  to  get  breath.  There  lies  France,  a 
mighty  Ruin.  Beyond  rises  Deutschthumm,  a  portentous 


144  Master-Spirits. 

Shadow,  at  which  the  veteran  of  Weimar  would  have 
shivered.  Here  comes  Victor  Hugo,  with  his  new  poem.1 
And  Chaos,  such  as  Goethe  predicted,  is  every  way 
fulfilled  ! 

How  great  we  hold  Victor  Hugo  to  be  in  reference  to 
his  own  time  we  need  not  say  ;  veritably,  perhaps,  there 
is  no  nobler  name  on  the  whole  roll  of  contemporary 
creators  ;  but  we  surely  express  a  very  natural  and  a  very 
common  sentiment  when  we  say  that  every  fresh  approach 
of  this  prodigy  is  bewildering  to  the  intellect.  We  have 
had  so  frequently  during  the  last  generation  the  spec- 
tacle of  reckless  trading  in  high  departments — in  politics 
more  particularly  ;  we  have  beheld  so  constantly  the 
collapse  of  governmental  windbags  and  social  balloons 
of  the  Hausmann  sort ;  we  have  stood  by  helpless  so 
often  while  the  mad  Masters  of  the  world  played  their 
wild  and  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven,  and  moved 
sardonically  from  one  bloody  baptism  to  another  ;  we 
have  seen  so  much  evil  come  of  empty  words  and  vain 
professions,  and  moral  bunkum  generally — that  we  may 
be  pardoned,  perhaps,  for  regarding  with  a  certain  alarm 
that  sort  of  literature  which,  with  all  its  wonderful 
genius,  may  fairly  be  described  as  reckless  also — reckless 
and  blind  to  all  artistic  consequences. 

'  Worts  !  worts !  worts  ! '  said  Sir  Hugh  Evans  ;  and 
here,  in  all  the  latest  efflorescence  of  what  was  once  the 
Romantic,  and  may  now  fairly  be  called  the  Chaotic, 
School,  we  have  Words  innumerable — brilliant  and 

1  'L'Annee  Terrible.' 


Hugo  in  1872.  145 

musical,  doubtless,  but  wild  and  aimless ;  every  sentence 
with  a  cracker  in  its  tail,  till  we  get  utterly  indifferent 
to  crackers ;  image  piled  on  image,  epithet  on  epithet, 
phrase  choking  phrase  ;  here  a  catherine-wheel  of 
ecstasy,  there  a  rocket  of  fierce  appeal ;  a  blaze  of 
colour  everywhere,  all  the  hues  of  the  prism  (except  the 
perfect  product  of  all,  which  is  pure  white  light) ;  the 
whole  forming  a  dazzling,  hissing,  spluttering  Firework 
of  human  speech.  '  How  very  fine ! '  we  exclaim ; 
*  there's  a  rocket  for  you  !  look  at  these  raining  silver 
lights  !  Ah,  this  is  something  like  an  exhibition  ! '  But 
after  it  is  all  over,  and  the  sceptical  ones  point  out  to  us 
the  wretched  darkened  canvas  framework  where  the  last 
sparks  are  lingering  and  the  last  smuts  falling,  we  are 
angry  at  our  own  enthusiasm,  and  feel  like  men  who 
have  been  befooled.  After  all,  we  reflect,  the  place  is 
only  Cremorne  ;  the  object  merely  the  amusement  of  a 
crowd  of  gaping  pleasure-seekers  who  pay  so  much  a 
head.  It  has  been  a  vulgar  entertainment  at  the  best ; 
and  we  try  to  forget  it,  looking  up,  as  the  smoke  clears, 
at  the  silent  stars.  This  mood,  however,  is  still  more 
unfair  than  the  other.  Truly  enough,  we  have  been 
present  at  fireworks,  but  on  a  scale  of  tremendous 
genius.  A  great  master  has  been  condescending  for 
our  amusement,  and  has  actually  worked  wonders  with 
his  materials. 

Nor  is  this  all.  When  a  poet  like  Victor  Hugo, 
yielding  to  the  daimonic  influence  of  his  own  spirit, 
produces  for  us  in  public  all  the  wild  resources  of  his 
fearless  art,  he  cannot  fail  to  awaken  in  us  forces  which 

L 


146  Master-Spirits. 

slumber  at  the  touch  of  any  other  living  man.  We  may 
resent  the  emotion  as  a  weakness,  but  the  emotion 
exists  :  we  are  lifted  by  it  as  on  the  wings  of  the  wind, 
and  driven  '  darkly  fearfully  afar.'  The  scenery  of  the 
spectacle  may  be  tawdry,  but  it  is  outlined  with  a 
mighty  hand  ;  the  lights  may  be  only  wretched  rush- 
lights, but  what  a  strange  lurid  gleam  they  shed  over 
the  rude  and  gigantic  towers  and  battlements  of  the 
scene !  It  is  magnificent,  although  it  is  not  nature ;  it 
is  full  of  infinite  suggestion,  though  it  is  not  art.  The 
power  is  unbounded  ;  the  only  question  that  remains 
being,  Is  the  power  squandered  ?  Much,  doubtless,  is 
squandered  ;  and  it  is  this  persistent  waste  which,  corre- 
sponding as  it  does  to  French  waste  generally,  fills  one 
with  suspicion  and  alarm.  Reckless  writing  has  its 
delights,  like  reckless  trading,  like  reckless  fighting  and 
swaggering  ;  but  will  it  not  lead  to  the  same  end  as 
these  others?  Concentrated  and  reserved  for  specific 
efforts,  instead  of  being  frivolously  spent  in  every  direc- 
tion, the  same  genius  who  limned  Jean  Valjean  and 
Fantine  might  yet  rise  to  his  due  place  and  glory  as  the 
^Eschylus  of  his  generation. 

After  all,  it  is  doubtful  if  ALschylus,  doomed  to  live 
in  these  latter  days,  would  have  kept  his  head.  Even  as 
it  was,  he  '  let  go '  tremendously,  and  was  far,  very  far, 
from  being  a  steady-brained  bard  ;  his  vision  repeatedly 
overmastering  him,  and  his  utterance  becoming  thick 
and  confused  with  portentous  weight  of  matter.  His  lot 
was  easy,  however,  compared  with  that  of  the  modern 
who  has  aspired  to  perform  ^Eschylean  functions  in  the 


Hugo  in  1872.  147 

nineteenth  century,  by  chronicling  in  tremendous  poetic 
cipher  the  ravings  and  sufferings  of  our  Titan  ;  and  it  is, 
therefore,  an  open  question  whether  Victor  Hugo  is  not  a 
greater  than  even  ^Eschylus,  in  so  far  as  he  has  grappled 
with,  and  to  some  extent  triumphed  over,  difficulties  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  insuperable. 

We,  for  our  part,  find  more  to  move  our  homage  in  Jean 
Valjean  than  in  the  Prometheus.  We  hold  that  one  figure, 
rudely  as  it  is  drawn,  to  be  in  some  respects  the  very 
noblest  conception  of  this  generation  ;  and  we  would 
look  on  at  fireworks  for  ever,  if  once  or  twice  such  a 
face  as  Jean's  shone  out  with  its  heaven-like  promise. 
Gilliatt,  too,  is  noble  in  the  Promethean  direction ; — and 
so  is  Quasimodo.  Indeed,  we  know  not  where  to  look, 
out  of  ^schylus,  for  figures  conceived  on  the  same  scale, 
so  typical,  so  colossal ;  looming  upon  us  from  a  stage  of 
mighty  amplitude,  with  a  grand  Greek  background  of 
mountain  and  sky.  They  have  the  Greek  freedom  and 
the  Greek  limitations.  Jean  Valjean,  just  as  surely  as 
Prometheus,  wears  the  mask,  and  is  elevated  on  the 
cothurnus  ;  whence  at  once  his  extraordinary  stature  and 
his  one  fixed  expression  of  changeless  and  monotonous 
pain. 

Would  one  choose  rather  the  mobile  human  face  and 
the  free  motion  of  men  on  a  small  stage,  he  must  enter 
the  Globe  Theatre  and  hear  the  wonderful  acting  of  the 
English  players ;  but  with  Victor  Hugo,  as  with  the 
father  of  Athenian  drama,  we  are  limited  to  one  mood 
and  wearied  by  one  high-pitched  chant.  Even  if  this 
were  perfectly  done,  it  would  grow  wearisome ;  but 

L  2 


148  Master-Spirits. 

being  far  from  perfectly  done,  being  at  once  wearisome 
and  chaotic,  it  depresses  as  often  as  it  elevates,  and 
makes  us  long  for  a  breezier  music  and  a  fresher, 
kindlier  movement  of  face  and  limb.  Nor  can  Victor 
Hugo's  greatest  admirers  deny  the  fact  that  he  deli- 
berately overclouds  his  conceptions  with  verbiage,  and 
blurs  what  was  originally  a  noble  outline  by  subsequent 
attempts  at  elaboration.  Our  first  glimpse  of  his  figures 
moves  us  most ;  our  further  examination  of  them  is 
fraught  with  pain  ;  and  not  till  we  have  closed  our  eyes 
to  contemplate  the  impression  left  upon  the  mind,  do  we 
again  feel  how  greatly  the  figures  were  originally  con- 
ceived. This  writer  triumphs  invariably  by  sheer  force 
of  primary  pictorial  vision  ;  triumphs  generally  in  de- 
fiance of  his  own  incapacity  to  paint  exquisitely.  Reek- 
ess  (as  we  have  expressed  it)  of  all  literary  consequences, 
he  produces  works  which  are  at  once  miracles  of  imagi- 
nation and  marvels  of  bad  taste.  Directly  we  have  got 
the  outline  of  his  picture,  all  further  study  of  it  is  un- 
satisfactory :  we  must  fill  in  the  tints  for  ourselves. 
Compare  the  '  Prometheus '  of  ^Eschylus  with  '  Les 
Miserables '  of  Victor  Hugo,  and  perceive  the  difference 
between  power  concentrated  and  power  recklessly 
drivelled  away.  The  whole  episode  of  Jean  Valjean 
could  have  been  compressed  into  a  tragedy,  and,  given 
in  such  quintessence,  would  have  been  an  unmixed 
pleasure  to  all  time.  As  it  is,  we  doubt  whether  pos- 
terity will  do  justice  to  a  production  so  shapeless,  so 
interminable ;  and  this  is  the  more  irritating,  as  it  con- 


Hugo  in  1872.  149 

tains  in  dilution  more  colossal  imagery  than  anything 
we  have  had  in  Europe  since  the  '  Divine  Comedy.' 

Viewed  simply  for  what  he  is,  Hugo  is  very  great ; 
but  viewed  for  what  he  might  have  been,  he  is  per- 
sistently disappointing.  With  every  fresh  year  of  his 
life  he  has  grown  two-fold — in  power  of  conception  and 
power  of  windiness  ;  until  we  now  recognise  in  him  a 
god  of  the  elements  indeed,  but  one  with  more  affinity 
to  Boreas  than  to  Apollo.  It  was  doubtless  in  an 
unlucky  moment  that  he  first  freed  himself  from 
rhythmic  fetters.  His  was  just  the  sort  of  genius  that 
needed  to  be  bound  and  drilled.  Let  loose  on  the 
mighty  fields  of  prose,  he  knows  no  limit  to  his 
wanderings,  and  he  follows  his  jerky  fancies  from  one 
sentence  to  another,  like  a  snipe-shooter  floundering, 
popping,  and  perspiring  in  an  Irish  marsh.  He  will  go 
epigram-hunting  through  a  whole  series  of  chapters,  at 
the  most  critical  point  of  his  narrative.  A  single  word 
(take  '  Waterloo '  in  a  certain  part  of  '  Les  Miserables ') 
is  Will-o'-the-wisp  enough  to  keep  him  rushing  through 
the  dark  till  the  reader  faints  for  very  weariness.  If 
Goethe  was,  as  Novalis  described  him  to  be,  the  Evangelist 
of  Economy,  Victor  Hugo  is  assuredly  the  Evangelist  of 
Waste.  A  prodigy  of  less  supreme  energy  would  have 
collapsed  long  ago  under  such  tremendous  exertions  ; 
but  he,  just  when  we  expect  to  see  him  sink  altogether, 
springs  from  the  solid  earth  with  fresh  vigour.  Genius, 
he  has  told  us  in  *  William  Shakspeare,'  is  not  circum- 
scribed. Exaggeration,  moreover,  is  the  glory  of  genius. 
'  Cela,  c'est  1'Inconnu !  Cela,  c'est  1'Infini !  Si  Corneille 


1 5  o  Master-Spirits. 

avait  cela,  il  serait  1'dgal  d'Eschyle.  Si  Milton  avait 
cela,  il  serait  1'^gal  d'Homere.  Si  Moliere  avait  cela,  il 
serait  1'egal  de  Shakspeare.' 

We  have  here,  in  a  nutshell,  the  Apotheosis  of 
literary  Waste  ;  but  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  show 
that  none  of  Hugo's  typical  sublimities — Homer,  Job, 
Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  Juvenal,  Percival,  St.  John,  St.  Paul, 
Tacitus,  Dante,  Rabelais,  Cervantes,  Shakspeare — 
exhausted  their  energies  in  the  fashion  peculiar  to.  the 
author  of  '  L'Homme  qui  Rit.'  The  truth  is,  Hugo 
attempts  to  elevate  into  a  system  the  recklessness 
which,  in  his  own  case,  is  sheer  matter  of  temperament. 
His  mind  is  for  ever  pitched  in  too  high  a  tone  of 
excitement :  febrile  symptoms,  with  him,  characterise  the 
normal  intellectual  condition.  He  is  always  high-strung, 
with  or  without  provocation,  evincing  that  excited  French 
power  of  superficial  passion,  whether  his  themes  be  the 
wrongs  of  poor  humanity  or  the  loss  of  a  hat-box  at 
a  railway  station.  A  cynical  foreigner  would  accuse 
him  of  attitudinising.  He  spouts  and  strides.  Not 
content  with  being  recognised  as  ^schylus,  he  at  times 
affects  the  graces  of  La  Fontaine.  His  humour,  never- 
theless, is  very  grim.  Nor  is  his  satire  much  better. 
His  true  mood  is  Ercles'  mood — your  true  nineteenth 
century  heroic. 

And  now,  surely,  if  ever,  might  such  a  poet  find  truly 
heroic  matter  made  to  his  hand  ;  now  might  he  compose 
for  us  the  latter  Iliad  and  the  greater  ;  choosing  for  his 
theme  a  stranger  siege  than  that  of  Troy,  and  a  national 
sentiment  nobler  and  more  stirring  than  ever  moved  the 


Hugo  in  1872.  151 

heart  of  Agamemnon  or  any  Greek.  If  great  events 
can  manufacture  great  song,  surely  such  song  shall  rise 
soon,  whether  as  a  paean  or  a  dirge ;  but,  meantime,  the 
one  man  who  was  capable  of  expressing  in  colossal 
cipher  the  supreme  issues  of  this  Franco-Teutonic 
struggle,  and  of  aggrandising,  through  sheer  chaotic 
imagination,  figures  which  are  yet  too  near  to  us  for 
realistic  poetic  treatment,  has  contented  himself  with 
keeping  a  sort  of  diary  in  verse  of  the  principal  events  of 
the  great  war,  beginning  at  the  Plebiscite,  and  ending 
(for  the  time  being,  at  least)  with  Henri  Cinq's  refusal 
to  abandon  the  White  Flag.  Of  course,  such  a  Diary, 
even  if  kept  by  a  much  smaller  man,  could  not  fail  to  be 
interesting.  Kept  by  Hugo,  it  necessarily  lacks  the 
true  piquancy  of  the  best  Diaries,  that  of  brevity ; 
but  it  abounds  in  fine  little  touches  of  self-revelation  ; 
and  if,  on  the  whole,  it  fails  to  fill  us  with  a  due  sense  of 
the  magnitude  of  the  events  it  describes,  that  also  was 
inevitable,  because  it  again  and  again  occupies  the 
ground  already  covered  by  the  public  journals. 

Politically  speaking,  we  believe  it  to  be  written,  every 
line,  on  the  side  of  the  Truth  ;  nor  do  we  know  how  to 
conceal  our  admiration  and  wonder  at  the  unerring 
fidelity  with  which  the  writer,  amid  all  his  self-con- 
sciousness and  attitudinising,  reaches  straight  at  the 
throat  of  every  public  fallacy  which  bars  his  path.  Let 
this  praise,  now  as  ever,  be  conceded  to  Victor  Hugo: 
his  imagination  never  leads  him  into  the  region  of  Lies. 
He  strikes  on  the  side  of  Humanity.  His  vision  is  far- 
reaching,  puissant,  perhaps  solitary,  just  now  in  France. 


152  Master -Spirits. 

He  sees  with  those  who  prophesy  human  regeneration. 
One  of  the  most  earnest  poems  in  his  book  has  for  its 
theme  the  barbaric  stupidity  of  War.  All  are  instinct 
with  the  truest  Republican  sentiment  and  the  strongest 
natural  piety.  The  last  chronicles  the  doom  of  the  Old 
World,  and  after  that,  the  Deluge !  Thank  heaven,  how- 
ever, Hugo  does  not  recognise  the  Noah  of  the  period  in 
M.  Thiers. 

The   Diary   opens   with   a   prologue,   entitled,    'Les 
7,500,000  Oui,'  which  first  saw  the  light  in  the  Rappel: — 

Quant  a  flatter  la  foule,  6  mon  esprit,  non  pas  ! 
Ah  !  le  peuple  est  en  haut,  mais  la  foule  est  en  bas. 

This  is  the  key-note  of  the  poem,  and  it  is  a  vehement 
protest  against  the  fallacy  that  the  blind  and  confused 
element  of  number  in  itself  constitutes  the  People.  No  ; 
the  people  works,  not  in  dark,  crude  masses,  but  through 
tremendous  individuals,  who  do  right  in  its  name. 
Gracchus,  Leonidas,  Schwitz,  Winkelried,  Washington, 
Bolivar,  Manin,  Garibaldi ; — these  are  the  People  ;  and 
they  have  nothing  in  common  with  that  vile,  blind, 
confused  Mob — sombre  weakness  and  sombre  force — 
which  ever  and  anon,  outraging  the  '  august  conscience ' 
of  the  world,  orders  Man  to  receive  some  wretched 
Master — the  creature  of  blind  and  multitudinous  '  choice.' 
'  O  multitude ! '  exclaims  the  poet,  '  we  will  resist 
thee.'— 

Nous  ne  voulons,  nous  autres, 
Ayant  Danton  pour  pere  et  Hampden  pour  ai'eul, 
Pas  plus  du  tyran  Tous  que  du  despote  Un  Seul. 


Hugo  in  1872.  153 

The  People  is  married  to  the  Idea :  the  Populace  leagues 
itself  to  the  Guillotine.  The  People  constitutes  itself 
into  the  Republic ;  the  Populace  accepts  Tiberius. 
Then  comes  the  following  burst  of  strong  eloquence, 
forensic  rather  than  poetic,  as  indeed  may  be  said,  with 
certain  reservations,  of  the  whole  poem  : — 

Le  droit  est  au-dessus  de  Tous  ;  nul  vent  contraire 

Ne  le  renverse  ;  et  Tous  ne  peuvent  rien  distraire 

Ni  rien  alidner  de  1'avenir  commun. 

Le  peuple  souverain  de  lui-meme,  et  chacun 

Son  propre  roi ;  c'est  la  le  droit.     Rien  ne  Tentame. 

Quoi !  Phomme  que  voila  qui  passe,  aurait  mon  ame  I 

Honte  !  il  pourrait  demain,  par  un  vote  he'be'te', 

Prendre,  prostituer,  vendre  ma  libertd  ! 

Jamais.     La  foule  un  jour  peut  couvrir  le  principe  j 

Mais  le  flot  redescend,  Te'cume  se  dissipe, 

La  vague  en  s'en  allant  laisse  le  droit  a  nu. 

Qui  done  s'est  figurd  que  le  premier  venu 

Avait  droit  sur  mon  droit !  qu'il  fallait  que  je  prisse 

Sa  bassesse  pour  joug,  pour  regie  son  caprice  ! 

Que  j'entrasse  au  cachot  s'il  entre  au  cabanon  ! 

Que  je  fusse  forcd  de  me  faire  chainon 

Parce  qu'il  plait  a  tous  de  se  changer  en  chaine  ! 

Que  le  pli  du  roseau  devint  la  loi  du  chene  ! 

In  the  same  strain  of  mingled  mockery  and  defiance,  the 
prologue  continues ;  but  the  peroration  rises  into  a  far 
higher  mood  of  truly  characteristic  imagery : — 

Oh  !  qu'est-ce  done  qui  tombe  autour  de  nous  dans  Pombre  ? 
Que  de  flocons  de  neige  !     En  savez-vous  le  nombre  ? 
Comptez  les  millions  et  puis  les  millions  ! 
Nuit  noire  !  on  voit  rentrer  au  gite  les  lions  ; 


154  Master -Spirits. 

On  dirait  que  la  vie  eternelle  recule  ; 
La  neige  fait,  niveau  hideux  du  crepuscule, 
On  ne  sait  quel  sinistre  abaissement  des  monts  ; 
Nous  nous  sentons  mourir  si  nous  nous  endormons  ; 
Cela  couvre  les  champs,  cela  couvre  les  villes  ; 
Cela  blanchit  Te'gout  masquant  ses  bouches  viles  ; 
La  lugubre  avalanche  emplit  le  ciel  terni ; 
Sombre  e'paisseur  de  glace  !     Est-ce  que  c'est  fini  ? 
On  ne  distingue  plus  son  chemin  ;  tout  est  piege. 
Soit. 

Que  restera-t-il  de  toute  cette  neige, 
Voile  froid  de  la  terre  au  suaire  pareil, 
Demain,  une  heure  apres  le  lever  du  soleil  ? 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  poetic  merit  of  this  passage, 
it  will  be  admitted  that  it  could  only  have  been  written 
by  Victor  Hugo. 

After  this,  the  diary  begins  in  earnest  '  August, 
1870,'  and  of  course — 'Sedan.'  Forthwith  is  conjured 
up  before  our  vision  the  wretched  Napoleonic  phantom, 
who  is  gloomily  and  fatuously  soliloquising.  '  I  reign  ; 
yes  !  But  I  am  despised  ;  and  I  must  be  feared.  I 
mean  in  my  turn  to  become  master  of  the  world.  I  have 
not  yet  taken  Madrid,  Lisbon,  Vienna,  Naples,  Dantzic, 
Munich,  Dresden  ;  that  is  all  to  come.  I  will  subdue 
that  perfidious  old  Albion.  I  will  be  great.  I  will  have 
Pope,  Sultan,  and  Czar  for  my  valets.  I  can  demolish 
Prussia.'  And  so  on,  in  the  well-known  strain  of  '  Napo- 
leon le  Petit.'  After  further  determining  to  set  all 
Europe  by  the  ears,  and  to  be  puissant  Arbiter  of  the 
quarrel,  he  arranges  to  begin  proceedings  at  once,  under 
cover  of  '  the  night.'  But  he  has  been  reckoning  without 


Hugo  in  1872.  155 

his  host.  '  It  was  broad  day !  Day  at  London,  at 
Rome,  at  Vienna  ;  and  all  people  had  their  eyes  open, 
except  this  man.  He  believed  that  it  was  night,  because 
he  was  blind  !  All  saw  the  light,  and  he  alone  saw  the 
shade.' 

Tous  voyaient  la  lumiere  et  seul  il  voyait  Tombre. 

Helas  !  sans  calculer  le  temps,  le  lieu,  le  nombre, 

A  tatons,  se  fiant  au  vide,  sans  appui, 

Ayant  pour  suretd  ses  tenebres  a  lui, 

Ce  suicide  prit  nos  fiers  soldats,  Parme'e 

De  France  devant  qui  marchait  la  renomme'e, 

Et  sans  canons,  sans  pain,  sans  chefs,  sans  generaux, 

II  conduisit  au  fond  du  gouffre  les  heros. 

Tranquille,  il  les  mena  lui-meme  dans  le  piege. 

— Ou  vas-tu?  dit  la  tombe.     II  repondit :  Que  sais-je? 

The  terrible  result  is  pictured  with  quaint  power.  '  Two 
vast  forests  made  of  the  heads,  arms,  feet,  voices  of  men, 
and  of  swords  and  terror,  march  upon  each  other  and 
mingle.  Horror  ! '  In  the  midst  of  a  carnage  too  dread- 
ful for  pen  to  picture,  amid  the  roar  of  cannon  and 
the  shriek  of  the  dying,  when  all  things  bled,  fought, 
struggled,  and  died,  one  voice,  one  '  monstrous  cry,'  was 
heard :  '  LET  ME  LIVE  ! '  (Je  veux  vivre  !)  '  The  stupi- 
fied  cannon  was  silent,  the  drunken  mette  paused  ; '  and 
then,  to  the  amaze  and  horror  of  united  Europe — 

Alors  la  Gaule,  alors  la  France,  alors  la  gloire, 
Alors  Brennus,  1'audace,  et  Clovis,  la  victoire, 
Alors  le  vieux  titan  celtique  aux  cheveux  longs, 
Alors  le  groupe  altier  des  batailles,  Chalons, 


156  Master-Spirits. 

Tolbiac  la  farouche,  Arezzo  la  cruelle, 
Bo  vines,  Marignan,  Beauge,  Mons-en-Puelle, 
Tours,  Ravenne,  Agnadel  sur  son  haut  palefroi, 
Fornoue,  Ivry,  Coutras,  Cerisolles,  Rocroy, 
Denain  et  Fontenoy,  toutes  ces  immortelles 
Melant  Feclair  du  front  au  flamboiement  des  ailes, 
Jemmape,  Hohenlinden,  Lodi,  Wagram,  Eylau, 
Les  hommes  du  dernier  carre'  de  Waterloo, 
Et  tous  ces  chefs  de  guerre,  Heristal,  Charlemagne, 
Charles-Martel,  Turenne,  effroi  de  1'Allemagne, 
Conde,  Villars,  fameux  par  un  si  fier  succes, 
Get  Achille,  Kldber,  ce  Scipion,  Desaix, 
Napoldon,  plus  grand  que  Ce'sar  et  Pompe'e, 
Par  la  main  (fun  bandit  rendirent  leur  ty'ee. 

This  finishes  the  record  for  August ;   and  leaves  the 
reader  plenty  to  reflect  over,  in  all  conscience  ! 

If  we  detach  this  characteristic  writing  from  its  political 
associations,  and  set  aside  for  a  moment  our  natural  sym- 
pathy with  the  sentiments  its  wild  imagery  expresses,  we 
shall  possibly  conclude  that  it  is  neither  very  trenchant 
nor  very  admirable.  As  a  literary  effort,  it  is  not  much 
beyond  Vermesch  ;  and  as  political  philosophy,  it  is  of 
about  Rochefort's  calibre.  Now  that  the  first  fever  of  ex- 
citement is  over,  let  us  admit  that,  after  all,  the  man  of 
Sedan  was  a  Scape-goat  as  well  as  '  a  Bandit.'  For  our 
own  part,  we  believe  the  man  to  have  been  what  France 
made  him,  less  disposed  to  military  glory  than  to  social 
pleasure,  and  quite  content  to  slumber  on  his  laurels  if 
the  world  would  have  permitted  him.  He  had  created 
his  Monster  just  as  Frankenstein  did  before  him  ;  and 
the  gigantic  creature— the  portentous  and  shadowy  Out 


Hugo  in  1872.  157 

of  the  Plebiscite — drove  him  on  and  up  in  his  very  soul's 
despite.  His  ambitious  days  were  over.  He  ever  hated 
the  sword-flash.  He  had  never  recovered  the  shock  of 
Mexico.  His  best  friends  had  died  away  and  left  him. 
Feebly,  clumsily,  protestingly,  he  drifted  the  way  his 
Monster  drove  him — through  the  Baptism  of  Fire  to  the 
feet  of  the  Teuton  bigot  at  Sedan  ;  and  then,  even  then, 
in  spite  of  his  utter  collapse  and  shame,  he  did  not '  want 
to  die.' 

This  dislike  to  die  a  Roman  death  has  been  hurled 
at  him  with  most  inconsequent  scorn  by  others  besides 
Victor  Hugo ;  but  why  on  earth  should  they  have  ex- 
pected anything  so  heroic,  when  on  their  own  showing 
the  old  gentleman  was  so  contemptible  a  speculator  ? 
He  die  ?  he  play  the  hero  ?  Wherefore  ?  And  again,  on 
what  showing  would  self-immolation  have  been  noble  ? 
We  do  not  particularly  admire  the  gambler  who,  after 
having  lost  his  all,  blows  out  his  brains  or  hangs  himself 
to  a  tree.  We  merely  call  him  a  fool  for  his  pains  ;  a 
fool,  not  a  hero.  It  is  therefore  highly  illogical  to  taunt 
the  man  of  Sedan  with  having  completely  realised  our 
own  conception  of  his  character.  He  calmly  accepted 
his  loss,  and  saved  his  skin  :  a  very  contemptible  course, 
but  still  very  natural,  since  the  man  was  never  anything 
but  a  gambler.  It  is,  moreover,  useless  now  for  France 
to  gird  and  gibe  afresh  at  the  Scapegoat.  He  lives  ; 
and  that  is  all.1  Success  or  failure  cannot  alter  such  a 
nature  ;  and  the  man  of  December  was  the  man  of 
Sedan.  For  all  that,  France  failed  when  he  failed, 
1  Since  the  above  was  written,  he  has  passed  away. 


1 5  8  Master-Spirits. 

bringing  to  a  crisis  that  insatiable  avarice  of  power 
which  has  been  her  curse  since  Buonaparte  syruped  and 
drugged  the  Revolution.  No  sane  man  denies  that  the 
war,  had  it  culminated  with  Sedan,  would  have  been  an 
unmixed  blessing  to  the  human  race. 

'  September ; '  and  the  plot  thickens.  First  comes  a 
poem  entitled  '  Choice  between  the  Two  Nations/  in 
which  there  is  a  long  complimentary  address  to  Germany, 
followed  by  three  pregnant  words  addressed  to  France — 
'  O  ma  mere  ! '  After  that  we  have  some  smart  satire 
addressed  to  '  Prince  Prince  et  Demi,'  ending  with  the 
memorable  avowal  that  the  war  between  the  ex-Emperor 
of  France  and  the  King  of  Prussia  was  simply  a  mis- 
understanding between  two  robbers — Cartouche  and 
Schinderhannes !  This  is  merely  the  prelude  to  still 
stronger  abuse  of  the  Teuton  leader — '  madly  served  by 
all  those  whom  he  oppresses,  the  Ogre  of  Right  Divine, 
devout,  correct,  moral,  born  to  become  Emperor,  and  to 
remain  Corporal.' 

Ici  c'est  le  Boheme  et  Ik  c'est  le  Sicambre. 
Le  coupe-gorge  lutte  avec  le  deux-de'cembre.  .  .  . 
Oui,  Bonaparte  est  vil,  mais  Guillaume  est  atroce, 
Et  rien  n'est  imbecile,  he'las,  comme  le  gant 
Que  ce  filou  naif  jette  a  ce  noir  brigand. 

The  denouement  comes  very  speedily.  '  O  France,  a 
puff  of  wind  scatters  in  one  moment  that  shade  of  Caesar 
and  that  shade  of  a  Host.'  Ere  September  is  over,  the 
iron  rings  are  closing  around  Paris.  On  the  last  day  of 
the  eventful  month,  Hugo  addresses  a  lively  poem  to  his 


Hugo  in  1872.  159 

little  grandchild.  *  You  were  a  year  old  yesterday,  my 
darling  !  O  Jeanne,  and  your  sweet  prattle  mingles  with 
the  sound  of  the  mighty  Paris  under  its  armour.'  The 
verses  are  in  the  poet's  best  and  simplest  style — far 
superior  to  his  ordinary  invective. 

As  the  month  of  the  chill  wind  and  the  yellow  leaf 
breaks  upon  us,  we  find  the  poet  yielding  to  its  solemn- 
ising influence,  and  glancing  sadly  back  over  his  past 
years  of  exile.  The  mood  swiftly  changes  ;  for  Hugo 
is  in  Paris,  and  he  can  see  the  glittering  legions  at  the 
gates.  '  They  are  there,  threatening  Paris.  They  punish 
it.  Why?  For  being  France,  and  for  being  the 
Universe  !  .  .  .  .  They  punish  France  for  being  Liberty. 
They  punish  Paris  for  being  that  city  where  Danton 
thunders,  where  Moliere  shines,  where  Voltaire  laughs. 
They  punish  Paris  for  being  the  Soul  of  the  World.' 
On  the  face  of  it,  this  reads  like  nonsense  ;  but,  beneath 
the  surface,  it  is  superbly  true,  as  any  man  may  con- 
vince himself  who  dispassionately  reviews  the  history  of 
Europe,  from  the  Coalition  downwards.  However,  the 
Seven  Chiefs  are  '  not  to  blame.'  They  are  *  black  forces 
fighting  against  right,  light,  and  love,'  by  the  sheer  laws 
of  their  diabolic  natures.  Seven  princes — the  cipher  of 
evil — Wurtemburg,  Nassau,  Saxony,  Baden,  Mecklen- 
burg, Bavaria,  Prussia ;  in  other  words,  '  Hate,  Winter, 
War,  Mourning,  Pestilence,  Famine,  Ennui.' 

Paris  devant  son  mur  a  sept  chefs  comme  Thebe  ! 

'  Unheard-of  spectacle  !     Erebus  besieging  the  Star.' 
Mists  rise,  darkness  gathers  ;  it  is '  November.'     Victor 


160  Master- Spirits. 

Hugo  addresses  the  coming  night  from  the  battlements  ; 
and,  lifting  his  eyes  to  the  horizon,  sees  the  sunset  like 
the  blood-red  blade  of  a  sword.  He  thinks  of  some 
great  duel  '  of  a  monster  against  a  god,'  and  seems  to 
behold  '  the  terrible  sword  of  heaven,  red  and  fallen  to 
earth,  after  a  battle.'  In  the  next  piece,  he  eagerly  de- 
fends Paris  against  the  scandals  spoken  concerning  her 
at  Berlin ;  and,  turning  from  the  praise  of  his  beloved 
city,  he  addresses  the  Teuton  princes  in  a  number  of 
verses  which  are  meant  to  be  sarcastic,  but  are  really 
without  point  or  sting.  Here,  however,  we  get  a  coarse, 
but  magnificent  image. 

Soit,  princes.     Vautrez-vous  sur  la  France  conquise. 
De  1' Alsace  aux  abois,  de  la  Lorraine  en  sang, 
De  Metz  qu'on  vous  vendit,  de  Strasbourg  fre'missant 
Dont  vous  n'eteindrez  pas  la  tragique  aure'ole, 
Vous  aurez  ce  qrfon  a  des  femmes  qu'on  viole, 
La  nudite,  le  lit,  et  la  haine  djamais. 

Oui,  le  corps  souille,  froid,  sinistre  desormais, 
Quand  on  les  prend  de  force  en  des  e'treintes  viles, 
C'est  tout  ce  qu'on  obtient  des  vierges  et  des  villes. 

In  small  things,  as  in  great,  waste  is  fatal ;  and  the 
above  passage  is  spoiled  by  the  last  three  lines,  thrust  in 
on  account  of  the  irresistible  alliteration  of  '  vierges '  and 
'  villes.'  Following  in  due  sequence,  we  have  a  number 
of  short  pieces  of  no  great  importance,  except  perhaps 
the  spirited  address  to  a  certain  Bishop  who  called  the 
poet  an  '  Atheist.'  Some  tender  lines  '  to  a  child  ill 
during  the  siege '  conclude  the  diary  for  November. 


Hugo  z  ;z  1 8  7  2 .  1 6 1 

'  December '  opens  wildly,  with  a  bleak  wind  of  pro- 
testation against  the  dismemberment  of  France.  Then 
come  some  lines  on  Grant's  message  ;  bitter  lines  enough, 
and,  God  knows,  bitter  with  reason ;  after  that,  an  ad- 
dress to  a  certain  cannon  named  after  the  poet,  and  a 
description  of  the  forts,  'the  enormous  watch-dogs  of 
Paris  ; '  and  then  some  sad  words  '  to  France/  in  which 
we  come  in  for  our  turn  of  blame. 

Personnepour  toi.     Tous  sont  d'accord.     Celui-ci, 
Nomme  Gladstone,  dit  a  tes  bourreaux  :  merci ! 
Get  autre,  nomme  Grant,  te  conspue,  et  cet  autre, 
Nomme  Bancroft,  t'outrage  ;  ici  c'est  un  apotre, 
La  c'est  un  soldat,  la  c'est  un  juge,  un  tribun, 
Un  pretre,  Tun  du  Nord,  1'autre  du  Sud  ;  pas  un 
Que  ton  sang,  a  grands  flots  verse,  ne  satisfasse  ; 
Pas  un  qui  sur  ta  croix  ne  te  crache  a  la  face. 
Helas  !  qu'as-tu  donc/#/V  aux  nations  ? 

The  outrage  was  completed,  and  there  was  '  no  one 
for  her.'  Dogberry  looked  on  as  usual,  with  his  arms 
folded — self-constituted  policeman  of  the  world,  but  more 
like  one  of  those  rheumatic  old  watchmen  who  walked 
about  all  night  announcing  the  weather,  but  fled  into 
their  boxes  at  the  slightest  whisper  of  danger.  '  No  one 
for  her  ? '  Yes,  the  Dead  ! 

O  morts  pour  mon  pays,  je  suis  votre  envieux  ! 

It  is  the  end  of  the  year,  and  France  lies  bleeding  at 
the  feet  of  the  robber.  Germany  has  triumphed  indeed ; 
but  whose  will  be  the  final  victory,  asks  the  poet,  as  the 
year  dies  out  ?  Low  as  France  lies,  her  spirit  already 

M 


1 6  2  Master-Spirits. 

penetrates  afar,  and  strikes  at  the  very  heart  of  the  con- 
stitutional fallacies  which  form  the  present  strength  of 
the  German  Confederation.  The  Earthquake  began  in 
Paris ;  hushed  for  a  space,  it  will  reappear  again  at 
Berlin.  The  whole  of  the  final  address  to  Germany 
must  be  read  and  studied,  to  realise  its  grand  revolu- 
tionary flavour.  It  is  one  of  the  finest  things  in  the 
book ;  perhaps  the  one  poem  which  reads  like  an  inspira- 
tion. We  detach  the  concluding  lines  from  the  context, 
for  the  sake  of  their  wonderful  music  and  sublime 
prophecy : 

Non,  vous  ne  prendrez  pas  la  Lorraine  et  1'Alsace, 
Et  je  vous  le  redis,  Allemands,  quoi  qu'on  fasse, 
Cest  vous  qui  screz  pris  par  la  France.     Comment  ? 
Comme  le  fer  est  pris  dans  Tombre  par  1'aimant ; 
Comme  la  vaste  nuit  est  prise  par  1'aurore  ; 
Comme  avec  ses  rochers,  oil  dort  1'e'cho  sonore, 
Ses  cavernes,  ses  trous  de  betes,  ses  halliers, 
Et  son  horreur  sacree  et  ses  loups  familiers, 
Et  toute  sa  feuille'e  informe  qui  chancelle, 
Le  bois  lugubre  est  pris  par  la  claire  e'tincelle. 
Quand  nos  eclairs  auront  traversd  vos  massifs  ; 
Quand  vous  aurez  subi,  puis  savoure,  pensifs, 
Get  air  de  France  oil  Tame  est  d'autant  plus  a  Faise 
Qu'elle  y  sent  vaguement  flotter  la  Marseillaise  ; 
Quand  vous  aurez  assez  donnd  vos  biens,  vos  droits, 
Votre  honneur,  vos  enfants,  a  devorer  aux  rois  ; 
Quand  vous  verrez  Cesar  envahir  vos  provinces  ; 
Quand  vous  aurez  pese  de  deux  fagons  vos  princes, 
Quand  vous  vous  serez  dit  :  ces  maitres  des  humains 
Sont  lourds  a  notre  dpaule  et  legers  dans  nos  mains  ; 
Quand,  tout  ceci  passe,  vous  verrez  les  entailles 
Qu'auront  fakes  sur  nous  et  sur  vous  les  batailles  ; 


Hugo  in  1872. 

Quand  ces  charbons  ardents  dont  en  France  les  plis 
Des  drapeaux,  des  linceuls,  des  ames,  sont  remplis, 
Atiront  ensemence'  vos  profondeurs  funebres, 
Quand  ils  auront  creuse  lentement  vos  tenebres, 
Quand  ils  auront  en  vous  couve'  le  temps  voulu, 
Unjour,  soudain,  devant  Faffreux  sceptre  absolu, 
Devant  les  rois,  devant  les  antiques  Sodomes, 
Devant  le  mal,  devant  lejoug,  vous,foret  a"  homines , 
Vous  aurez  la  colere,  enorme  qui  preiid feu ; 
'Vous  vous  ouvrirez,  gouffre,  a  Fouragan  de  Dieii; 
Gloire  au  Nord  !  ce  sera  Taurore  bore'ale 
Des  peuples,  eclairant  une  Europe  iddale  ! 

Vous  crierez: — Quoi!  des  rois!  quoidonc!  un  empereur! 

Quel  e'blouissement,  PAllemagne  en  fureur ! 
Va,  peuple  !     O  vision  !  combustion  sinistre 
De  tout  le  noir  passe,  pretre,  autel,  roi,  ministre, 
Dans  un  brasier  de  foi,  de  vie  et  de  raison, 
Faisant  une  lueur  immense  a  Fhorizon  ! 
Freres,  vous  nous  rendrez  notre  flamme  agrandie. 
Nous  sommes  le  flambeau,  vouyserez  rincendie. 

After  that,  January  1871  may  open  a  little  more  gaily. 
In  a  charming  letter  sent  by  balloon-post,  we  get 
a  picture  of  the  internal  life  of  Paris  during  the  siege. 
1 1  have  given  1 5  francs  for  four  fresh  eggs,  not  for  my- 
self, but  for  my  little  George  and  my  little  Jeanne.  We 
eat  horse,  rat,  bear,  and  donkey  flesh  ; '  and  so  on  in  a 
very  graphic  description.  A  little  further  on,  we  find  a 
poem  entitled  <  The  Pigeon/  in  which  the  city  is  com- 
pared, not  very  felicitously,  to  a  dark  lake,  and  the  bird 
to  a  black  speck  in  heaven.  'The  Atom  comes  in  the 
shade  to  succour  the  Colossus.'  Rather  more  felicitous 
is  the  '  Sortie.'  '  And  the  women  with  calm  faces  and 


M  2 


164  Master -Spirits. 

broken  hearts  hand  them  their  guns,  first  kissing  them/ 
After  this,  we  get  nothing  very  striking,  until  (pa^'ng 
over  certain  savage  addresses  to  the  Germans  in  referent 
to  the  capitulation)  we  come  to  the  end  of  the  month  of 
February,  at  which  point  of  the  diary  we  find  a  striking 
poem  on  '  Progress.'  It  is  very  long,  but  very  powerful ; 
eloquent  rather  than  poetic.  The  canto  which  follows, 
under  the  head  of  '  March,'  may  be  passed  over  without 
comment,  as  it  is  chiefly  devoted  to  personal  misfortune. 
In  '  March '  the  poet  lost  his  beloved  son  Charles,  who 
died  very  suddenly.  The  misfortune  is  chronicled  in 
some  affecting,  but  rather  theatrical,  verses. 

From  this  point  the  diary  may  be  said  to  fuse  itself 
into  one  long  passionate  political  chant.  April,  May,  and 
June  1871  ; — who  does  not  recollect  the  terrors  and  the 
agonies  of  those  months  ?  As  they  advance,  the  poet's 
fury  increases.  '  Paris  incendie '  is  a  terrific  piece  of 
fiery  declamation.  '  The  two  Trophies  '  fiercely  pleads 
for  the  Vendome  Column  and  the  Arc  de  Triomphe. 
All  the  world  knows  in  which  direction  flows  the  sym- 
pathies of  Victor  Hugo;  all  the  world  knows  also  how 
the  poet  was  driven  out  of  Brussels,  because,  as  a  high- 
souled  patriot,  he  dared  to  utter  the  bitter  and  unpalatable 
truth.  There  are  many  poems  expressive  of  personal 
feeling  at  this  part  of  the  diary — many  strong  and  in- 
cisive words  of  protest  and  recrimination — but,  to  our 
mind,  the  simplest  and  best  is,  *  A  Qui  la  Faute  ? '  It 
speaks  for  itself,  in  its  terrible,  subdued  irony,  and  we 
transcribe  it  entire : — 


Hugo  in  1872.  165 

A  QUI  LA  FAUTE? 

Tu  viens  d'incendier  la  Bibliotheque  ? 

— Oui. 
J'ai  mis  le  feu  la. 

— Mais  c'est  un  crime  inoui ! 
Crime  commis  par  toi  centre  toi-meme,  infame  ! 
Mais  tu  viens  de  tuer  le  rayon  de  ton  ame  ! 
C'est  ton  propre  flambeau  que  tu  viens  de  souffler  ! 
Ce  que  ta  rage  impie  et  folle  ose  bruler, 
C'est  ton  bien,  ton  tresor,  ta  dot,  ton  heritage  ! 
Le  livre,  hostile  au  maitre,  est  a  ton  avantage. 
Le  livre  a  toujours  pris  fait  et  cause  pour  toi. 
Une  bibliotheque  est  un  acte  de  foi 
Des  generations  tene'breuses  encore 
Qui  rendent  dans  la  nuit  temoignage  a  Faurore. 
Quoi !  dans  ce  venerable  amas  des  verites, 
Dans  ses  chefs-d'oeuvre  pleins  de  foudre  et  de  clartes, 
Dans  ce  tombeau  des  temps  devenu  repertoire, 
Dans  les  siecles,  dans  rhomme  antique,  dans  1'histoire, 
Dans  le  passe,  legon  qu'epelle  1'avenir, 
Dans  ce  qui  commenga  pour  ne  jamais  finir, 
Dans  les  poe'tes  !  quoi,  dans  ce  gouffre  des  bibles, 
Dans  le  divin  monceau  des  Eschyles  terribles, 
Des  Homeres,  des  Jobs,  debout  sur  1'horizon, 
Dans  Moliere,  Voltaire  et  Kant,  dans  la  raison, 
Tu  jettes,  miserable,  une  torche  enflammee  ! 
De  tout  Tesprit  humain  tu  fais  de  la  fumee ! 
As-tu  done  oublie'  que  ton  liberateur, 
C'est  le  livre  ?  le  livre  est  la  sur  la  hauteur; 
II  luit ;  parce  qu'il  brille  et  qu'il  les  illumine, 
II  detruit  1'echafaud,  la  guerre,  la  famine  ; 
II  parle  ;  plus  d'esclave  et  plus  de  paria. 
Ouvre  un  livre.     Platon,  Milton,  Beccaria. 
Lis  ces  prophetes,  Dante,  ou  Shakspeare,  ou  Corneille  ; 
L'ame  immense  qu'ils  ont  en  eux,  en  toi  s'eveille ; 


1 66  Master-Spirits. 

Ebloui,  tu  te  sens  le  meme  homme  qu'eux  tous  ; 

Tu  deviens  en  lisant  grave,  pensif  et  doux  j 

Tu  sens  dans  ton  esprit  tous  ces  grands  hommes  croitre  ; 

Us  t'enseignent  ainsi  que  1'aube  e'claire  un  cloitre  ; 

A  mesure  qu'il  plonge  en  ton  coeur  plus  avant, 

Leur  chaud  rayon  t'apaise  et  te  fait  plus  vivant ; 

Ton  ame  interrogee  est  prete  a  leur  repondre  ; 

Tu  te  reconnais  bon,  puis  meilleur  ;  tu  sens  fondre 

Comme  la  neige  au  feu,  ton  orgueil,  tes  fureurs, 

Le  mal,  les  prejuges,  les  rois,  les  empereurs  ! 

Car  la  science  en  1'homme  arrive  la  premiere. 

Puis  vient  la  libertd     Toute  cette  lumiere, 

C'est  a  toi,  comprends  done,  et  c'est  toi  qui  1'eteins  ! 

Les  buts  reves  par  toi  sont  par  le  livre  atteints. 

Le  livre  en  ta  pense'e  entre,  il  defait  en  elle 

Les  liens  que  Terreur  a  la  verite  mele, 

Car  toute  conscience  est  un  nceud  gordien. 

II  est  ton  medecin,  ton  guide,  ton  gardien. 

Ta  haine,  il  la  guerit ;  ta  demence,  il  te  Tote. 

Voila  ce  que  tu  perds,  helas,  et  par  ta  faute  ! 

Le  livre  est  ta  richesse  a  toi  I  c'est  le  savoir. 

Le  droit,  la  verite,  la  vertu,  le  devoir, 

Le  progres,  la  raison  dissipant  tout  delire. 

Et  tu  detruis  cela,  toi ! 

— Je  ne  sais  pas  lire. 

After   that,   one   turns   with    trembling   hands   to   the 
epilogue,  '  The  Old  World  and  the  Deluge.' 

LE  FLOT. 

Tu  me  crois  la  maree  et  je  suis  le  deluge. 

Verily  ;  and  as  yet  no  Dove  appears   to  betoken  the 
subsidence  of  the  waters  ! 

Here  must  cease  our  sketch  of  this  unique  poem.     We 


Hiigo  in  1872.  167 

have  left  little  space  for  comment  It  has  all  the 
merits,  as  well  as  all  the  faults,  of  the  writer's  style. 
Poor  and  unvaried  in  metaphor  (observe,  for  example, 
the  reiterated  use  of  Night  and  Morning,  Light  and 
Darkness,  the  Abyss,  the  Stars,  and  the  Tide) ;  sicklied 
o'er  with  pet  names,  such  as  ^Eschylus,  Cain,  Cyrus, 
Gengis,  Timour ;  tautological  in  ideas  and  theatrical  in 
manner  ;  thin  to  attenuation  in  much  of  its  philosophical 
matter,  it  is  still  in  no  sense  disappointing,  though  in 
every  sense  below  the  high  level  of  the  writer  at  his  best. 
It  is  first-class  political  verse,  that  is  all.  With  all  this, 
its  passion,  its  music,  its  veracity,  its  continued  heat  of 
personal  emotion,  keep  us  ever  reminded  of  the  fact  that 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  man  who  in  nobility  of  nature 
has  no  superior,  in  gloomy  magnificence  of  imagery  no 
rival,  and  in  sheer  spontaneous  poetic  eloquence  certainly 
no  equal. 


1 68  Master-Spirits. 


PROSE  AND    VERSE. 

(A  STRAY  NOTE.) 

THE  '  music  of  the  future  *  is  at  last  slowly  approaching 
its  apotheosis  ;  since  '  Lohengrin '  has  signally  triumphed 
in  Italy,  and  the  South  is  opening  its  ears  to  the  subtle 
secrets  of  the  Teutonic  Muse.  The  outcome  of  Wagner's 
consummate  art  is  a  war  against  mere  melody  and  tintina- 
bulation,  such  as  have  for  many  long  years  delighted  the 
ears  of  both  gods  and  groundlings.  Is  it  too  bold,  then, 
to  anticipate  for  future  '  Poetry '  some  such  similar 
triumph  ?  Freed  from  the  fetters  of  pedantry  on  the 
one  hand,  and  escaping  the  contagion  of  mere  jingle  on 
the  other,  may  not  Poetry  yet  arise  to  an  intellectual 
dignity  parallel  to  the  dignity  of  the  highest  music  and 
philosophy  ?  It  may  seem  at  a  first  glance  over-sanguine 
to  hope  so  much,  at  the  very  period  when  countless 
Peter  Pipers  of  Verse  have  overrun  literature  so 
thoroughly,  robbing  poetry  of  all  its  cunning,  and 
*  picking  their  pecks  of  pepper '  to  the  delight  of  a 
literary  Music  Hall ;  but,  in  good  truth,  when  disease 
has  come  to  a  crisis  so  enormous,  we  have  good  reason 
to  hope  for  amendment. 

A  surfeit  of  breakdowns  and  nigger-melodies,  or  of 


Prose  and  Verse.  169 

Offenbach  and  Herve,  or  of  '  Lays '  and  '  Rondels/ 
is  certain  to  lead  to  a  reaction  all  in  good  time.  A 
vulgar  taste,  of  course,  will  always  cling  to  vulgarity, 
preferring  in  all  honesty  the  melody  of  Gounod  to 
the  symphony  of  Beethoven,  and  the  tricksy,  shallow 
verse  of  a  piece  like  Poe's  '  Bells '  to  the  subtly  inter- 
woven harmony  of  a  poem  like  Matthew  Arnold's 
'Strayed  Reveller.'  True  art,  however,  must  triumph 
in  the  end.  Sooner  or  later,  when  the  Wagner  of  poetry 
arises,  he  will  find  the  world  ready  to  understand  him  ; 
and  we  shall  witness  some  such  effect  as  Coleridge  pre- 
dicted— a  crowd,  previously  familiar  with  Verse  only, 
vibrating  in  wonder  and  delight  to  the  charm  of  oratio 
soluta,  or  loosened  speech. 

Already,  in  a  few  words,  we  have  sketched  out  a 
subject  for  some  future  aesthetic  philosopher  or  philo- 
sophic historian.  A  sketch  of  the  past  history  of 
poetry,  in  England  alone,  would  be  sufficiently  startling ; 
and  surely  a  most  tremendous  indictment  might  be  drawn 
thence  against  Rhyme.  Glance  back  over  the  works  of 
British  bards,  from  Chaucer  downwards ;  study  the 
deliticz  Poetarum  Anglicorum.  What  delightful  scraps 
of  melody !  what  glorious  bursts  of  song  !  Here  is 
Chaucer,  wearing  indeed  with  perfect  grace  his  metrical 
dress ;  for  it  sits  well  upon  him,  and  becomes  his  hoar 
antiquity,  and  we  would  not  for  the  world  see  him  clad 
in  the  freedom  of  prose.  Here  is  Spenser  ;  and  Verse 
becomes  him  well,  fitly  modulating  the  faery  tale  he  has 
to  tell.  Here  are  Gower,  Lydgate,  Dunbar,  Surrey, 
Gascoigne,  Daniel,  Drayton,  and  many  others  ;  each  full 


170  Master-Spirits. 

of  dainty  devices  ;  none  strong  enough  to  stand  without 
a  rhyme-prop  on  each  side  of  him.  Of  all  sorts  of 
poetry,  except  the  very  best,  these  gentlemen  give  us 
samples ;  and  their  works  are  delightful  reading.  As 
mere  metrists,  cunning  masters  of  the  trick  of  verse, 
Gascoigne  and  Dunbar  are  acknowledged  masters. 
Take  the  following  verses  from  the  '  Dance  of  the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins '  : 

Then  Ire  came  in  with  sturt  and  strife, 
His  hand  was  aye  upon  his  knife, 

He  brandeist  like  a  beir  ; 
Boasters,  braggarts,  and  bargainers, 
After  him  passit  in  pairs, 

All  boden  in  feir  of  weir  .  .  . 
Next  in  the  dance  followed  Envy, 
Fill'd  full  of  feid  and  felony, 

Hid  malice  and  despite. 
For  privy  hatred  that  traitor  trembled, 
Him  follow'd  many  freik  dissembled, 

With  fenyit  wordis  white  ; 
And  flatterers  unto  men's  faces, 
And  back-biters  in  secret  places, 

To  lie  that  had  delight, 
With  rowmaris  of  false  leasings  ; 
Alas  that  courts  of  noble  kings 

Of  them  can  ne'er  be  quite  ! 

This,  allowing  for  the  lapse  of  years,  still  reads  like 
'  Peter  Piper '  at  his  best ;  easy,  alliterative,  pleasant,  if 
neither  deep  nor  cunning.  For  this  sort  of  thing,  and 
for  many  higher  sorts  of  things,  Rhyme  was  admirably 
adapted,  and  is  still  admirably  adapted.  When,  how- 


Prose  and  Verse.  171 

ever,  a  larger  music  and  a  more  loosened  speech  was 
wanted,  Rhyme  went  overboard  directly. 

On  the  stage  even,  Rhyme  did  very  well,  as  long  as 
the  matter  was  in  the  Ralph  Royster  D oyster  vein  ;  but 
a  larger  soul  begot  a  larger  form,  and  the  blank  verse 
of  Gorboduc  was  an  experiment  in  the  direction  of 
loosened  speech.  How  free  this  speech  became,  how 
by  turns  loose  and  noble,  how  subtle  and  flexible  it 
grew,  in  the  hands  of  Shakspeare  and  the  Elizabethans, 
all  men  know  ;  and  rare  must  have  been  the  delight  of 
listeners  whose  ears  had  been  satiated  so  long  with  mere 
alliteration  and  jingle.  The  language  of  Shakspeare, 
indeed,  must  be  accepted  as  the  nearest  existing  approach 
to  the  highest  and  freest  poetical  language.  Here  and 
there  rhymed  dialogue  was  used,  when  the  theme  was 
rhythmic  and  not  too  profound  ;  as  in  the  pretty  love- 
scenes  of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and  the  banter- 
ing, punning  chat  of  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  True  song 
sparkled  up  in  its  place  like  a  fountain.  But  the  level 
dialogue  for  the  most  part  was  loosened  speech.  Observe 
the  following  speech  of  Prospero,  usually  printed  in  lines 
each  beginning  with  a  capital : — 

This  King  of  Naples,  being  an  enemy  to  me  inveterate, 
hearkens  my  brother's  suit ;  which  was, — that  he,  in  lieu  of  the 
premises,  of  homage  and  I  know  not  how  much  tribute,  should 
presently  extirpate  me  and  mine  out  of  the  dukedom,  and 
confer  fair  Milan,  with  all  the  honours,  on  my  brother.  Where- 
on, a  treacherous  army  levied,  one  midnight  fated  to  the  purpose 
did  Antonio  open  the  gates  of  Milan ;  and,  in  the  dead  of 
darkness,  the  ministers  for  the  purpose  hurried  thence  me  and 
thy  crying  self ! 

Tempest^  act  i.,  scene  2. 


M aster-Spirits. 

Any  poet  since  Shakspeare  would  doubtless  have  modu- 
lated this  speech  more  exquisitely >  laying  special  stress 
on  the  five  accented  syllables  of  each  line.  Shakspeare, 
however,  was  too  true  a  musician.  He  knew  when  to 
use  careless  dialogue  like  the  above,  and  when  to  break 
in  with  subtle  modulation  ;  and  he  knew,  moreover,  how 
the  loose  prose  of  the  one  threw  out  the  music  of  the 
other.  He  knew  well  how  to  inflate  his  lines  with  the 
measured  oratory  of  an  offended  king  : 

The  hope  and  expectation  of  thy  time 
Is  ruin'd  ;  and  the  soul  of  every  man 
Prophetically  doth  forethink  thy  fall. 
Had  /  so  lavish  of  my  presence  been, 
So  common-hackney'd  in  the  eyes  of  men, 
So  stale  and  cheap  to  vulgar  company  ; 
Opinion,  that  did  help  me  to  the  crown, 
Had  still  kept  loyal  to  possession  ; 
And  left  me  in  reputeless  banishment, 
A  fellow  of  no  mark,  nor  likelihood. 
By  being  seldom  seen,  I  could  not  stir, 
But,  like  a  comet,  I  was  wonder'd  at ; 
That  men  would  tell  their  children,  This  is  he  ! 
Others  would  say,  Where  ?  which  is  Bolingbroke  ?  &c. 
Henry  /K,  Part  I.,  act  in.,  scene  2. 

In  the  hands  of  our  great  Master,  indeed,  blank  verse 
becomes  almost  exhaustless  in  its  powers  of  expression  ; 
but  nevertheless,  prose  is  held  in  reserve,  not  merely  as 
the  fitting  colloquial  form  of  the  '  humorous '  scenes,  but 
as  the  appropriate  loosened  utterance  of  strong  emotion. 
The  very  highest  matter  of  all,  indeed,  is  sometimes  de- 
livered in  prose,  as  its  most  appropriate  medium.  Take 


Prose  and  Verse.  1 73 

the  wonderful  set  of  prose  dialogues  in  the  second  act  of 
*  Hamlet,'  and  notably  that  exquisitely  musical  speech 
of  the  Prince,  beginning,  '  I  have  of  late,  but  wherefore  I 
know  not,  lost  all  my  mirth/  Turn,  also,  to  Act  V.  of 
the  same  play,  where  the  '  mad  matter '  between  Hamlet 
and  the  Gravediggers,  so  full  of  solemn  significance  and 
sound,  is  prose  once  more.  The  noble  tragedy  of  '  Lear/ 
again,  owes  much  of  its  weird  power  to  the  frequent  use 
of  broken  speech.  And  is  the  following  any  the  less 
powerful  or  passionate  because  it  goes  to  its  own  music, 
instead  of  following  any  prescribed  form  ? — 

I  am  a  Jew.  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  hath  not  a  Jew  hands, 
organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections,  passions  ?  fed  with  the 
same  food,  hurt  with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same 
diseases,  healed  by  the  same  means,  warmed  and  cooled  by 
the  same  winter  and  summer,  as  a  Christian  is  ?  If  you  prick 
us,  do  we  not  bleed  ?  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh  ?  If 
you  poison  us,  do  we  not  die  ?  and  if  you  wrong  us,  shall  we 
not  revenge  ? 

Merchant  of  Venice,  act  iii.,  scene  i. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  prolong  illustrations  from  an 
author  with  whom  everybody  is  supposed  to  be  familiar. 
Enough  to  say  that  the  careful  student  of  Shakspeare 
will  find  his  most  common  magic  to  lie  in  the  frequent 
use,  secret  or  open,  of  the  oratio  soluta.  And  what  holds 
of  him,  holds  in  more  or  less  measure  of  his  contempora- 
ries— of  Jonson,  Marston,  Webster,  Massinger,  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  Greene,  Peele,  and  the  rest ;  just  as  it  holds 
of  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Shakspeare,  whose 
'  mighty  line '  led  the  way  for  the  full  Elizabethan  choir 


1 74  Master-Spirits. 

of  voices.  Then,  as  now,  society  had  been  surfeited  with 
tedious  jingle  ;  and  only  waited  for  genius  to  set  it  free. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  in  what  respect  the  following  scene 
differs  from  first-class  prose  ;  although  we  have  occa- 
sionally an  orthodox  blank  verse  line,  the  bulk  of  the 
passage  is  free  and  unencumbered  ;  yet  its  weird  imagi- 
native melody  could  scarcely  be  surpassed. 

Ditch.  Is  he  mad,  too  ? 

Servant.  Pray  question  him  ;  I'll  leave  you. 

Bos.  I  am  come  to  make  thy  tomb. 

Ditch.  Ha  !  my  tomb  ? 
Thou  speak'st  as  if  I  lay  upon  my  death-bed 
Gasping  for  breath.     Dost  thou  perceive  me  such  ? 

Bos.  Yes. 

Duch.  Who  am  I  ?  am  not  I  thy  duchess  ? 

Bos.  That  makes  thy  sleep  so  broken  : 
Glories,  like  glow-worms,  afar  off  shine  bright, 
But  looked  to  near  have  neither  heat  nor  light. 

Duch.  Thou  art  very  plain. 

Bos.  My  trade  is  to  flatter  the  dead,  not  the  living  ; 
I  am  a  tomb-maker. 

Duch.  And  thou  hast  come  to  make  my  tomb  ? 

Bos.  Yes! 

Duch.  Let  me  be  a  little  merry : 
Of  what  stuff  wilt  thou  make  it  ? 

Bos.  Nay,  resolve  me  first :  of  what  fashion  ? 

Duch.  Why  do  we  grow  phantastical  on  our  death-bed  ? 
Do  we  affect  fashion  in  the  grave  ? 

Bos.  Most  ambitiously.     Princes'  images  on  the  tombs 
Do  not  lie  as  they  were  wont,  seeming  to  pray 
Up  to  heaven  ;  but  with  their  hands  under  their  cheeks, 
As  if  they  died  of  the  toothache  !    They  are  not  carved 
With  their  eyes  fixed  upon  the  stars ;  but  as 


Prose  and  Verse.  175 

Their  minds  were  wholly  bent  upon  the  world, 
The  self-same  way  they  seem  to  turn  their  faces. 

Duch.  Let  me  know  fully,  therefore,  the  effect 
Of  this  thy  dismal  preparation  ! — 
This  talk  fit  for  a  charnel. 

Bos.  Now  I  shall  (a  coffin^  cords,  and  a  bell). 
Here  is  a  present  from  your  princely  brothers  ; 
And  may  it  arrive  welcome,  for  it  brings 
Last  benefit,  last  sorrow. * 

He  who  will  carefully  examine  the  works  of  our  great 
dramatists,  will  find  everywhere  an  equal  freedom ; 
rhythm  depending  on  the  emotion  of  the  situation  and 
the  quality  of  the  speakers,  rather  than  on  any  fixed  laws 
of  verse. 

If  we  turn,  on  the  other  hand,  to  dramatists  and  poets 
of  less  genius — if  we  open  the  works  of  Waller,  Cowley, 
Marvell,  Dryden>  and  even  of  Milton,  we  shall  find  much 
exquisite  music,  but  little  perhaps  of  that  wondrous  cun- 
ning familiar  to  us  in  Shakspeare  and  the  greatest  of  his 
contemporaries.  Shallow  matter,  as  in  Waller  ;  ingenious 
learned  matter,  as  in  Cowley ;  dainty  matter,  as  in 
Andrew  Marvell ;  artificial  matter,  as  in  Dryden ;  and 
puritan  matter,  as  in  Milton,  were  all  admirably  fitted 
for  rhymed  or  some  other  formal  sort  of  Verse.  Rhyme, 
indeed,  may  be  said,  while  hampering  the  strong,  to 
strengthen  and  fortify  the  weak.  But,  of  the  men  we 
have  just  named,  the  only  genius  approaching  the  first 

1  'The  Duchess  of  Malfy,'  act  iv.  sc.  2.  The  above  extract  is  much 
condensed.  The  reader  who  would  fully  feel  the  force  of  our  allusion, 
cannot  do  better  than  study  Webster's  great  tragedy  as  a  whole.  It  utterly 
discards  all  metrical  rules,  and  abounds  in  wonderful  music. 


176  Master- Spirits. 

class  was  Milton  ;  and  so  no  language  can  be  too  great 
to  celebrate  the  praises  of  his  singing. 

Passage  after  passage,  however,  might  be  cited  from 
his  great  work,  where,  like  Moliere's  '  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
homme,'  he  talks  prose  without  knowing  it ;  and,  to  our 
thinking,  his  sublimest  feats  of  pure  music  are  to  be 
found  in  that  drama  l  where  he  permits  himself,  in  the 
ancient  manner,  the  free  use  of  loosened  cadence. 
Milton,  however,  great  as  he  is,  is  a  great  formalist,  sit- 
ting '  stately  at  the  harpsichord.'  A  genius  of  equal 
earnestness,  and  of  almost  equal  strength — we  mean 
Jeremy  Taylor — wrote  entirely  in  prose  ;  and  it  has  been 
well  observed  by  a  good  critic  that  '  in  any  one  of  his 
prose  folios  there  is  more  fine  fancy  and  original  imagery 
—more  brilliant  conceptions  and  glowing  expressions — 
more  new  figures  and  new  applications  of  old  figures — 
more,  in  short,  of  the  body  and  soul  of  poetry,  than  in 
all  the  odes  and  epics  that  have  since  been  produced  in 
Europe/  Nor  should  we  have  omitted  to  mention,  in 
glancing  at  the  Elizabethan  drama,  that  the  prose  of 
Bacon  is  as  poetical,  as  lofty,  and  in  a  certain  sense  as 
musical,  as  the  more  formal  '  poetry '  of  the  best  of  his 
contemporaries. 

Very  true,  exclaims  the  .reader,  but  what  are  we  driving 
at  ?  Would  we  condemn  verse  altogether  as  a  form  of 
speech,  and  abolish  rhyme  from  literature  for  ever  ? 
Certainly  not !  We  would  merely  suggest  the  dangers 
of  Verse,  and  the  limitations  of  Rhyme,  and  briefly  show 
how  the  highest  Poetry  of  all  answers  to  no  fixed  scho- 

'  Samson  Agonistes.' 


Prose  and  Verse.  177 

lastic  rules,  but  embraces,  or  ought  to  embrace,  all  the 
resources  both  of  Verse  generally  and  of  what  is  usually, 
for  want  of  a  better  name,  entitled  Prose.  On  this,  as  on 
many  points,  tradition  confuses  us.  The  word  '  Poet ' 
means  something  more  than  a  singer  of  songs  or  weaver 
of  rhymes.  What  are  we  to  say  to  a  literary  classifica- 
tion which  calls  '  Absalom  and  Achitophel '  a  poem,  and 
denies  the  title  to  'The  Pilgrim's  Progress;'  which  in- 
cludes '  Cato  '  and  the  '  Rape  of  the  Lock  '  under  the 
poetical  head,  and  excludes  Sidney's  'Arcadia'  and  the 
'  Vicar  of  Wakefield  ; '  which  extends  to  Cowper,  Chat- 
terton,  Gray,  Keats,  and  Campbell  the  laurel  it  indig- 
nantly denies  to  Swedenborg,  Addison  (who  created  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley  !),  Burke,  Dickens,  and  Carlyle  ;  and 
which  has  for  so  long  delayed  the  placing  of  Walter 
Scott's  novels  in  their  due  niche  just  below  the  plays  of 
Shakspeare  ? 

Instead  of  being  the  spontaneous  speech  of  inspired 
men  in  musical  moods,  Verse  has  become  a  '  form  of 
literature/  binding  so-called  '  poets '  as  strictly  as  bonds 
of  brass  and  iron  ;  and  the  effort  of  most  of  our  strong 
men  has  been  to  free  their  limbs  as  much  as  possible,  by 
working  in  the  most  flexible  chain  of  all,,  that  of  blank 
verse.  If  the  reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the 
early  verse  of  Tennyson  with  his  later  works,  wherein  he 
has  found  it  necessary  to  shake  his  soul  free  of  its  over- 
modulated  formalism,  he  will  understand  what  we  mean. 
If,  just  after  a  perusal  of  even  '  Guinevere'  and  'Lucre- 
tius,' he  will  read  Whitman's  '  Centenarian's  Story '  or 
Coleridge's  '  Wanderings  of  Cain/  his  feeling  of  the 

N 


1 78  Master-Spirits. 

'  wonderfulness  of  prose '  will  be  much  strengthened. 
That  feeling  may  thereupon  be  deepened  to  conviction 
by  taking  up  and  reading  any  modern  poet  immediately 
before  a  perusal  of  the  authorised  English  version  of  the 
'  Book  of  Job/  '  Ecclesiastes/  or  the  wonderful  '  Psalms 
of  David.' 

It  is  really  strange  that  Wordsworth  just  hit  the  truth, 
in  the  masterly  preface  to  his  '  Lyrical  Ballads.'  '  It 
may  be  safely  affirmed/  he  says,  '  that  there  neither  is, 
nor  can  be,  any  essential  difference  between  the  language 
of  prose  and  metrical  composition.  .  .  .  Much  confusion 
has  been  introduced  into  criticism  by  this  contradistinc- 
tion of  Poetry  and  Prose,  instead  of  the  more  philoso- 
phical one  of  Poetry  and  Matter  of  Fact,  or  Science. 
The  only  strict  antithesis  to  Prose  is  Metre  ;  nor  is  this 
in  truth  a  strict  antithesis,  because  lines  and  passages  of 
metre  so  naturally  occur  in  writing  prose  that  it  would 
be  scarcely  possible  to  avoid  them,  even  were  it  desir- 
able/ Theoretically  in  the  right,  this  great  poet  was 
often  practically  in  the  wrong  ;  using  rhythmic  speech 
habitually  for  non-rhythmic  moods,  and  leaving  us  no 
example  of  glorious  loosened  speech,  combining  all  the 
effects  of  pure  diction  and  of  metre.  After  generations 
of  '  Pope  '-ridden  poets,  the  Wordsworthian  language 
was  '  loosened '  indeed  ;  but  it  sounds  now  sufficiently 
formal  and  pedantic.  His  only  contemporaries  of  equal 
greatness — we  mean  of  course  Scott  and  Byron — were 
sufficiently  encumbered  by  verse.  Scott  soon  threw  off 
his  fetters,  and  rose  to  the  feet  of  Shakspeare.  Byron 
never  had  the  courage  to  abandon  them  altogether  ;  but 


Prose  and  Verse.  179 

he  played  fine  pranks  with  them  in  '  Don  Juan,'  and,  had 
he  lived,  would  have  pitched  them  over  entirely.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  fine  genius  of  Shelley  and  the  wan  genius 
of  Keats  worked  with  perfect  freedom  in  the  form  of 
verse :  first,  because  they  neither  of  them  possessed 
much  humour  or  human  unction  ;  second,  because  their 
subjects  were  vague,  unsubstantial,  and  often  (as  in  the 
'  Cenci ')  grossly  morbid  ;  and  third,  because  they  were 
both  of  them  overshadowed  by  false  models,  involving  a 
very  retrograde  criterion  of  poetic  beauty.  Writers  of 
the  third  or  perhaps  of  the  fourth  rank,  they  occupy  their 
places,  masters  of  metric  beauty,  often  deep  and  subtle, 
never  very  light  or  strong.  Once  more,  what  shall  we 
say  to  a  literary  classification  which  grants  Shelley  the 
name  of  '  poet '  and  denies  it  to  Jean  Paul  ?  and  which 
(since  poetry  is  admittedly  the  highest  literary  form  of 
all,  and  worthy  of  the  highest  honour)  sets  a  spare  fal- 
setto singer  like  John  Keats  high  over  the  head  of  a  con- 
summate artist  like  George  Sand  ? 

We  have  had  it  retorted,  by  those  who  disagreed  with 
Wordsworth's  theory,  that  its  reductio  ad  absurdum  was 
to  be  found  in  Wordsworth's  own  '  Excursion ; '  that 
'  poem '  being  full  of  the  most  veritable  prose  that  was 
€ver  penned  by  man.  Very  good.  Take  a  passage  : — 

Ah,  gentle  sir !  slight,  if  you  will,  the  means,  but  spare  to 
slight  the  end,  of  those  who  did,  by  system,  rank  as  the  prime 
object  of  a  wise  man's  aim — security  from  shock  of  accident, 
release  from  fear ;  and  cherished  peaceful  days  for  their  own 
sakes,  as  mutual  life's  chief  good  and  only  reasonable  felicity. 
What  motive  drew,  what  impulse,  I  would  ask,  through  a  long 

N  2 


1 80  Master-Spirits . 

course  of  later  ages,  drove  the  hermit  to  his  cell  in  forest  wide  ; 
or  what  detained  him,  till  his  closing  eyes  took  their  last 
farewell  of  the  sun  and  stars,  fast  anchored  in  the  desert  ? — > 
Excursion,  Book  III. 

This  is  not  only  prose,  but  indifferent  prose  ;  poor,  collo- 
quial, ununctional ;  and  no  amount  of  modulation  could 
make  it  poetry.  Contrast  with  it  another  passage,  of 
great  and  familiar  beauty  : — 

I  have  seen  a  curious  child,  who  dwelt  upon  a  tract  of  inland 
ground,  applying  to  his  ear  the  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped 
shell,  to  which,  in  silence  hushed,  his  very  soul  listened 
intently.  His  countenance  soon  brightened  with  joy ;  for  from 
within  were  heard  murmurings,  whereby  the  monitor  expressed 
mysterious  union  with  its  native  sea.  Even  such  a  shell  the 
universe  itself  is  to  the  ear  of  Faith.  And  there  are  times,  I 
doubt  not,  when  to  you  it  doth  impart  authentic  tidings  of 
invisible  things,  of  ebb  and  flow,  and  ever-during  power,  and 
central  peace  subsisting  at  the  heart  of  endless  agitation. — 
Excursion,  Book  IV. 

Prose  again,  but  how  magnificent !  poetical  imagery 
worthy  of  Jeremy  Taylor  ;  but  losing  nothing  by  being 
printed  naturally.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter, 
so  far  as  it  affects  the  '  Excursion/  is  that  the  work, 
while  essentially  fine  in  substance,  suffers  from  an 
unnatural  form.  Read  as  it  stands,  it  is  rather  prosy 
poetry.  Written  properly,  it  would  have  been  admitted 
universally  as  a  surpassing  poem  in  prose ;  although  it 
contains  a  great  deal  which,  whether  printed  as  prose  or 
verse,  would  be  unanimously  accepted  as  commonplace 
and  unpoetic. 


Prose  and  Verse.  1 8 1 

'  Our  store  of  acknowledged  poetry  is  very  precious ; 
but  it  might  be  easily  doubled,  were  we  suffered  to 
select  from  our  prose  writers — from  Plato,  from 
Boccaccio,  from  Pascal,  from  Rousseau,  from  Jean  Paul, 
from  Novalis,  from  George  Sand,  from  Charles  Dickens, 
from  Nathaniel  Hawthorne — the  magnificent  nuggets 
of  pure  poetic  ore  in  which  these  writers  abound.  Read 
Boccaccio's  story  of  Isabella  and  the  Pot  of  Basil,  or 
Dickens'  description  of  a  sea-storm  in  '  David  Copper- 
field,'  or  Hawthorne's  picture  of  Phcebe  Pyncheon's  bed- 
chamber, and  confess  that,  if  these  things  be  not  poetry, 
poetry  was  never  written.  If  you  still  doubt  that  the 
rhythmic  form  is  essential  to  the  highest  poetic  matter, 
read  that  wondrous  dream  of  the  World  without  a  Father 
at  the  end  of  Jean  Paul's  '  Siebenkas,'  and  then  peruse 
Heine's  description  of  the  fading  away  of  the  Hellenic 
gods  before  the  thorn-crowned  coming  of  Christ.  What 
these  prose  fragments  lose  in  neatness  of  form,  they  gain 
in  mystery  and  glamour.  After  reading  them,  and 
many  another  similar  effort,  one  almost  feels  that 
rhymed  poetry  is  a  poor,  petty,  and  inferior  form  of 
language  after  all. 

Just  at  this  present  moment  we  want  a  great  Poet,  if 
we  want  anything  ;  and  we  particularly  want  a  great 
Poet  with  the  courage  to  '  loosen '  the  conventional 
poetic  speech.  '  Off,  off,  ye  lendings!'  Away  with 
lutes  and  fiddles ;  shut  up  Pope,  Dryden,  Gray,  Keats, 
Shelley,  and  the  other  professors  of  music,  and  try 
something  free  and  original — say,  even  a  course  of 
Whitman.  Among  living  men,  one  poet  at  least  is  to 


1 8  2  Master-Spirits. 

be  applauded  for  having,  inspired  by  Goethe,  '  kicked ' 
at  the  traces  of  rhyme,  and  written  such  poems  as,  '  The 
Strayed  Reveller,' '  Rugby  Chapel,'  and  '  Heine's  Grave.' 
We  select  a  passage  from  the  first-named  of  these  fine 
poems  : — 

THE  YOUTH  (loquitur}. 

The  gods  are  happy  ; 
They  turn  on  all  sides 
Their  shining  eyes, 
And  see  below  them, 
The  earth  and  men. 
They  see  Teresias 
Sitting,  staff  in  hand, 
On  the  warm  grassy 
Asopus'  bank, 
His  robe,  drawn  over 
His  old  sightless  head, 
Revolving  only 
The  doom  of  Thebes. 

They  see  the  centaurs 
In  the  upper  glens 
Of  Pelion,  in  the  streams 
Where  red-berried  ashes  fringe 
The  clear  brown  shallow  pools 
With  streaming  flanks  and  heads 
Rear'd  proudly,  snuffing 
The  mountain  wind. 

They  see  the  Indian 
Drifting,  knife  in  hand, 
His  frail  boat  moor'd  to 
A  floating  isle,  thick  matted 


Prose  and  Verse.  183 

With  large-leaved,  low-creeping  melon  plants 

And  the  dark  cucumber. 

He  reaps  and  stows  them, 

Drifting — drifting — round  him, 

Round  his  green  harvest-plot, 

Flow  the  cool  lake-waves  : 

The  mountains  ring  them. 

They  see  the  Scythian 

On  the  wide  step,  unharnessing 

His  wheel'd  house  at  noon, 

He  tethers  his  beast  down,  and  makes  his  meal, 

Mares'  milk  and  bread 

Baked  on  the  embers  ;  all  around 

The  boundless  waving  grass-plains  stretch,  thick  starred 

With  saffron  and  the  yellow  hollyhock 

And  flag-leaved  iris  flowers. 

Sitting  in  his  cart 

He  makes  his  meal ;  before  him,  for  long  miles, 

Alive  with  bright  green  lizards 

And  springing  bustard-fowl, 

The  track,  a  straight  black  line, 

Furrows  the  rich  soil ;  here  and  there 

Clusters  of  lonely  mounds, 

Topp'd  with  rough-hewn, 

Grey,  rain-bleared  statues,  overspread 

The  sunny  waste. 

They  see  the  ferry 

On  the  broad  clay-laden 

Lone  Charasmian  stream  ;  thereupon 

With  snort  and  steam, 

Two  horses,  strongly  swimming,  tow 

The  ferry-boat,  with  woven  ropes 

To  either  bow 

Firm-harness'd  by  the  wain  ;  a  chief, 


1 84  Master-Spirits. 

With  shout  and  shaken  spear, 

Stands  at  the  prow,  and  guides  them  ;  but  astern 

The  cowering  merchants,  in  long  robes, 

Sit  pale  beside  their  wealth 

Of  silk  bales  and  of  balsam-drops, 

Of  gold  and  ivory, 

Of  turquoise,  earth,  and  amethyst, 

Jasper  and  chalcedony, 

And  milk-barr'd  onyx  stones. 

The  loaded  boat  swings  groaning 

In  the  yellow  eddies. 

The  gods  behold  them. 

Matthew  Arnold's  Poetical  Works,  vol.  ii. 

Equally  fine  are  some  of  the  choric  passages  in  the 
'  Philoctetes '  of  the  Hon.  J.  Leicester  Warren,  one  of 
the  first  of  our  young  poets.  Passages  such  as  we  .have 
quoted  differ  little  from  prose,  and  would  seem  equally 
beautiful  if  printed  as  prose.  They  move  to  their  own 
music,  and  need  no  adventitious  aid  of  the  printer.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  Goethe's  '  Prometheus  ' : — 

Bedecke  deinen  Himmel,  Zeus, 
Mit  Wolkendunst, 
Und  iibe,  dem  Knaben  gleich 
Der  Disteln  kopft, 
Any  Eichen  dich  an  Bergeshohn ; 
•  Musst  mir  meine  Erde 
Docnlassen  stehn, 

Und  meine  Hiitte,  die  du  nicht  gebaut, 
Und  meinen  Herd, 
Um  dessen  Gluth 
Du  mich\beneidest,  &c. 


Prose  and  Verse.  185 

'The  strain  rolls  on  in  simple  grandeur,  too  massive  for 
rhyme  or  formal  verse.  It  bears  to  the  '  Poe '  species  of 
.poetry  about  the  same  relation  that  the  Venus  of  Milo 
does  to  Gibson's  tinted  Venus. 

Illustrations  so  crowd  upon  us  as  we  write,  that  they 
threaten  to  swell  this  little  paper  out  of  all  moderate 
limits.  We  must  conclude  ;  and  what  shall  be  our  con- 
clusion ?  This.  A  truly  good  Poet  is  not  he  who 
wearies  us  with  eternally  jingling  numbers  ;  is  not  Pope, 
is  not  Poe,  is  not  even  Keats.  It  is  he  who  is  master  of 
all  speech,  and  uses  all  speech  fitly ;  able,  like  Shak- 
speare,  to  chop  the  prosiest  of  prose  with  Polonius  and 
the  Clowns,  as  well  as  to  sing  the  sweetest  of  songs  with 
Ariel  and  the  outlaws  '  under  the  greenwood  tree.'  It 
is  not  Hawthorne,  because  his  exquisite  speech  never 
once  rose  to  pure  song  ;  it  is  Dickens,  because  (as  could 
be  easily  shown,  had  we  space)  he  was  a  great  master  of 
melody  as  well  as  a  great  workaday  humorist.  It  is 
not  Thackeray,  because  he  never  reached  that  subtle 
modulation  which  comes  of  imaginative  creation  ;  and  it 
is  not  Shelley,  because  he  was  essentially  a  singer,  and 
many  of  the  profoundest  and  delightfullest  things  abso- 
lutely refuse  to  be  sung.  It  is  Shakspeare  par  excellence, 
and  it  is  Goethe  par  hazard.  Historically  speaking, 
however,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  greatest  Poets 
have  not  been  those  men  who  have  used  Verse  habitually 
and  necessarily  ;  and  if  we  glance  over  the  names  of 
living  men  of  genius,  we  shall  perhaps  not  count  those 
most  poetic  who  call  their  productions  openly  '  poems.' 


1 8  6  Master-Spirits. 

Meanwhile,  we  wait  on  for  the  Miracle-worker  who 
never  comes — the  Poet.  We  fail  as  yet  to  catch  the 
tones  of  his  voice  ;  but  we  have  no  hesitation  in  deciding 
that  his  first  proof  of  ministry  will  be  dissatisfaction 
with  the  limitations  of  Verse  as  at  present  written. 


i87 


BIRDS  OF  THE  HEBRIDES. 

(WRITTEN   ON   BOARD  THE    'ARIEL.') 

IT  is  mid- June,  but  the  air  bites  sharply,  and  it  is  blow- 
ing half  a  gale  from  the  south-west.  Squadron  by 
squadron,  vast  clouds,  white  as  the  smoke  from  a 
housewife's  boiling  kettle,  sail  up  from  the  Atlantic,  and 
pause  yonder  on  Mount  Hecla,  till  they  are  shredded 
by  a  mountain  whirlwind  into  fragments  small  and  white 
as  the  breast  of  the  wild  swan.  The  '  Ariel '  rolls  at 
her  anchorage,  with  a  strain  on  forty  fathoms  of  chain, 
and  a  kedge  out  to  steady  her  to  the  wind,  which 
whistles  through  the  rigging  like  a  Cyclops  at  his  anvil. 
At  intervals,  down  comes  the  rain,  with  a  roar  and  a 
pour ;  washing  the  very  wind  still,  till  it  springs  up, 
renewed  by  the  bath,  with  stronger  and  more  persistent 
fury.  All  round  rise  the  desolate  hills,  blotted  and 
smeared,  with  their  patches  of  fuel  bog  and  moorland, 
and  their  dark  stains  of  stunted  heather.  A  dreary  day ! 
a  dreary  scene  !  There  is  nothing  for  it  in  such  weather 
but  to  sit  in  one's  cabin  and  smoke,  dividing  one's 
attention  between  gazing  occasionally  out  at  the  prospect 
and  reading  a  good  book. 

Which  of  one's  favourite  authors  befits  such  a  place 
and  such  a  season  ?     Bjornson  might  do,  if  he  were  less 


1 88  Master-Spirits. 

exclusively  Scandinavian  ;  as  for  Oehlenschlager,  he  is 
far  too  aestheticised  by  air  from  Weimar.  Catullus  and 
Alfred  de  Musset,  these  charming  twin  brothers  of  song, 
would  sound  insufferable  here  ;  and  so,  for  that  matter, 
would  Thoreau,  full  of  sea-salt  as  is  that  Concord 
worthy.  Whom  shall  we  choose?  There  they  wait 
to  our  hand :  Goethe,  Fichte,  Whitman,  Swedenborg, 
Lucretius,  Shakspeare,  or  Victor  Hugo  ?  One  by  one, 
as  the  long  day  passes,  the  well-thumbed  tomes  are  lifted 
and  dropped  ;  and  now,  at  a  critical  moment  of  sheer 
ennui,  we,  thrusting  our  head  out  into  the  air,  behold  a 
Black  Eagle,  hovering  against  the  lower  shoulder  of 
Hecla,  and  attended  (at  a  distance)  by  innumerable 
Ravens  and  Hooded  Crows,  which  have  gathered  from 
every  fissure  in  the  crags  to  croak  their  cowardly  de- 
fiance. A  minute  he  hovers ;  then,  with  one  proud  waft 
of  the  wing,  he  swims  from  sight  into  the  white  and 
silent  mist.  As  at  a  given  signal,  there  arises  up  before 
us  the  whole  Bird-prospect  by  which  we  are  surrounded  : 
the  two  pairing  Terns  sitting  on  the  stone  of  'the 
point/  as  still  as  stone  themselves ;  the  Merganser 
shooting  f}y,  with  the  white  gleam  in  the  patch  of  his 
powerful  ying ;  the  Black  Guillemot  fishing  tranquilly 
amid  the  siarf,  a  stone's  throw  from  the  vessel ;  the  Rock 
Doves  wavering  swiftly  by  against  the  hill-side;  the 
Gulls  innumerable  hovering  afar  off  at  the  mouth  of  the 
loch,  while  Puffins  and  Guillemots  make  a  black  patch 
in  the  water  beneath  them ;  and  yonder,  inland,  the 
string  of  wild  ($eese  beating  in  a  wedge  windward,  to 
the  green  island  \promontories  where  they  love  to  feed 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  189 

and  rear  their  young.  The  picture  thus  perceived 
awakens  its  kindred  mood,  and  (stranger  still)  produces 
its  kindred  book ;  for  has  not  Mr.  Robert  Gray,  a 
naturalist  well-known  in  our  north,  produced  this  very 
year  the  biography  of  these  very  birds  and  all  others 
which  frequent  the  storm-beaten  and  dreary  Hebridean 
shores  ? l  A  portly  volume  it  is,  and  a  precious  :  full  of 
matter  of  intense  interest  to  the  sportsman,  the  naturalist, 
and  the  student  of  nature  ;  and  being  to  a  great  extent 
the  record  of  a  long  personal  experience,  it  has  all  the 
lyric  charm  of  a  salient  individual  flavour.  Its  niche  in 
the  library  is  sure,  for  we  know  no  work  which  supplies  its 
place;  and  on  this  dreary  day,  amid  the  very  scenes 
where  Mr.  Gray  gathered  many  of  his  materials,  it  may 
be  interesting  to  compare  notes  a  little  with  a  man  so 
intelligent  and  so  enthusiastic  as  the  author. 

The  woods,  the  streams  themselves, 
The  sweetly  rural,  and  the  savage  scene, — 
Haunts  of  the  plumy  tribes, — be  these  my  theme  ! 

sang  Grahame  ;  and  let  these  be  ours  :  a  theme  veritably 
uplifting  the  spirit  as  on  wings,  bearing  it  over  wild 
crag  and  heath,  past  the  lone  ribbed  sand,  and  the  rock- 
bound  sound,  past  the  breeding-places  of  the  Gray-lag 
and  the  Shell-drake,  to  the  eyrie  where  the  Eagle  rears 
its  solitary  young. 

And  first  as  to  the  King  of  Birds  itself :  the  Golden 
Eagle,  or  Aquila  Chrysaetos  of  southern  naturalists,  but 

1  'The  Birds  of  the  West  of  Scotland,  including  the  Outer  Hebrides.* 
By  Robert  Gray,  late  Secretary  to  the  Natural  History  Society  of  Glasgow,. 
&c.,  &c.  Glasgow  :  Murray  and  Son. 


i  go  Master -Spirits. 

known  in  these  Hebridean  Isles  by  the  better  and  fitter 
title  of  Black  Eagle,  or  (in  Gaelic)  lolair  dJmbh.  Look 
at  him,  poised  against  the  lone  hill-side,  or  stretched 
dead  at  the  keeper's  feet,  and  confess  that  he  is  indeed  a 
black  fellow,  worthy  of  his  Celtic  name.  Much  has  been 
said,  and  sung,  of  his  nobility  of  nature : — 

The  last  I  saw 

Was  on  the  wing  ;  stooping,  he  struck  with  awe 
Man,  bird,  and  beast  ;  then,  with  a  consort  paired, 
From  a  bold  headland,  their  loved  aery's  guard, 
Flew  high  above  Atlantic  waves,  to  draw 
Light  from  the  fountain  of  the  setting  sun. 

That  is  the  poetical  point  of  view  :  instinct  with  vital 
imaginative  truth,  as  any  man  can  aver  who  has  seen 
Eagles  hovering  around  and  above  the  storm-vexed 
heads  of  Skye  ;  but  there  lingers  behind  it  the  ugly 
prosaic  truth,  that  the  bird  of  Jove,  like  many  other 
kings,  is  in  reality  lacking  in  true  nobility  of  nature. 
The  Golden  Eagle  breeds  in  all  these  Outer  Hebrides, 
from  the  Butt  of  Lewis  to  Barra  Head.  There  is  one 
eyrie  regularly  every  year  yonder  among  the  stony  crags 
of  Mount  Hecla,  and  the  old  birds,  instead  of  molesting 
the  mutton  of  the  surrounding  district,  fly  regularly  every 
day  to  Skye — twenty-five  miles  across  the  Minch — and 
return  with  a  young  lamb  each  to  their  eaglets.  The 
following  interesting  particulars  of  aquilar  habits  are 
from  the  pen  of  a  good  authority,  Captain  H.  J.  Elwes, 
late  of  the  Scots  Fusilier  Guards  : — 

The  Golden  Eagle  usually  commences  to  prepare  its  nest  for 
eggs  about  the  beginning  of  April,  and  selects  for  that  purpose 


Birds  of  tJie  Hebrides.  191 

a  rock,  which,  though  nearly  always  in  a  commanding  situation, 
is  nearer  the  bottom  than  the  top  of  a  mountain.  I  have  been 
in  or  near  at  least  a  dozen  eyries,  and  not  one  of  them,  to  the 
best  of  my  judgment,  is  more  than  1,000  feet  above  the  sea, 
though  a  beautiful  and  extended  view  is  obtained  from  all  of 
them.  The  rock  is  generally  a  good  deal  broken  and  clothed 
with  grass,  ferns,  bushes,  and  tufts  of  a  plant  which  I  believe  is 
Luzula  sylvatica,)  and  which  is  always  found  in  the  lining  of  the 
nest.  The  ledge  on  which  the  nest  is  placed  is  generally 
sheltered  from  above  by  the  overhanging  rock,  the  structure 
being  sometimes  composed  of  a  large  quantity  of  sticks,  heather, 
&c.,  and  in  other  cases  very  slight  indeed.  The  eggs  are  laid 
about  the  loth  of  April,  being  a  little  later  in  the  Outer 
Hebrides  than  on  the  mainland.  Their  number  is  usually  two, 
very  often  three,  especially  with  old  birds,  and  sometimes  only 
one.  When  there  are  three,  one  is  generally  addled,  and  not 
so  well  coloured  as  the  other  two,  and  they  vary  extremely  both 
in  size  and  colour. 

Golden  Eagles  generally  breed  year  after  year  in  the  same 
place,  though  they  often  have  two  or  three  eyries  near  together, 
especially  when  the  nests  are  harried  frequently.  They  sit  for 
about  twenty-one  days,  and  are  very  reluctant  to  leave  the  nest 
when  it  is  first  discovered,  though  afterwards  they  do  not  sit  so 
hard.  I  have  seen  an  eagle  sit  on  its  nest  for  some  minutes 
after  a  double  shot  was  fired  within  one  hundred  yards  in  full 
view  of  the  bird ;  but  when  once  they  know  that  the  nest  is 
discovered,  they  are  much  wilder.  As  for  the  stories  about 
people  being  attacked  by  Eagles  when  taking  their  nests,  I  do 
not  believe  them,  as  I  have  never  seen  one  come  within  gun- 
shot of  a  person  at  the  nest,  and  I  never  saw  anyone  who  could 
vouch  for  a  story  of  this  sort  on  his  own  knowledge.  In  a 
deer-forest  Eagles  are  of  the  greatest  advantage,  and  it  is  a 
pity  that  foresters  should  be  allowed  to  destroy  them,  as  though 
they  occasionally  take  a  red  deer  calf,  yet,  in  most  cases,  the 
forest  is  all  the  better  for  the  loss  of  the  weakest  ones,  and  they 


192  Master-Spirits. 

confer  a  great  benefit  on  the  deer-stalker  by  the  destruction  of 
the  blue  hares,  which  form  their  favourite  food.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  sights  to  a  lover  of  nature  is  to  see  an  Eagle 
soon  after  its  young  ones  have  left  the  nest,  teaching  them  to 
kill  their  own  prey  by  dashing  amongst  a  covey  of  ptarmigan 
poults,  which  gives  the  awkward  young  Eagle  a  good  oppor- 
tunity of  catching  one  when  separated  from  the  old  birds.  On 
a  sheep  farm,  where  game  is  scarce,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
Eagles  do  a  great  deal  of  harm  in  the  lambing  season  ;  but  in 
such  cases  it  is  best  to  take  the  eggs  as  soon  as  laid,  which 
does  not  cause  them  to  leave  the  district,  though  it  relieves 
them  of  the  necessity  of  providing  food  for  the  young  ones.. 
I  do  not  think  that  the  Golden  Eagle  often  lays  a  second  time 
after  its  nest  has  been  robbed,  and  although  an  instance  may 
happen  occasionally,  it  is  certainly  not  the  rule. 

On  a  bright  hot  day,  without  much  wind,  Eagles  are  fond  of 
soaring  round  and  round  at  a  great  height  above  the  top  of  a 
mountain ;  more,  I  think,  for  exercise  than  in  search  of  prey, 
as  the  hill-top  itself  is  sufficiently  elevated  to  command  a  great 
extent  of  country.  In  this  manner  they  can  fly  for  some  time 
without  any  perceptible  motion  of  the  wings,  though  the  tail  is 
often  turned  from  side  to  side  to  guide  the  flight.  The  points 
of  the  primary  quills  are  always  rather  turned  up  and  separated, 
as  is  shown  in  one  of  Landseer's  beautiful  pictures  in  which  an 
Eagle  is  flying  across  a  loch  to  a  dead  stag  which  has  already 
been  discovered  by  a  fox. 

The  last  few  words  are  worth  noting,  as  one  of  the  many 
testimonies  borne  by  observers  of  nature  to  the  fidelity 
of  a  great  painter's  brush.  Landseer's  close  observation 
of  the  peculiar  action  of  the  primary  quills  in  flying',  may 
be  classed,  for  its  fine  imaginative  realism,  with  Turner's 
subtle  perception  of  the  secret  of  nether-vapouf  effects  in 
Loch  Coruisk — i.e.,  the  steaming  of  the  rain-soaked  rocks 
and  crags  under  the  heat  of  the  sun. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  193 

Next  in  rank  to  the  Golden  Eagle  stands  the  Erne, — 
a  pluckier  and  altogether  a  fiercer  bird,  resembling  in 
character  one  of  those  fierce  Highland  caterans,  who 
were  wont  to  flock  in  the  neighbourhood  of  its  haunts. 
In  spite  of  the  brutal  butchery  of  keepers  and  collectors, 
this  noble  bird,  unlike  the  other,  still  abounds,  breeding 
in  all  the  headlands  of  Skye,  on  the  breast  of  one  of 
Macleod's  Maidens,  in  the  wild  Scuir  of  Eigg,  in 
Scalpa,  North  Uist,  Shiant  Isles,  Benbecula,  and  in 
Lewis  and  Harris.  He  is  an  unclean  feeder,  seldom 
slaughtering  his  own  food,  but  seeking  everywhere  for 
garbage— dead  sheep,  stranded  fish,  or  a  salmon  out  of 
the  neck  of  which  the  otter  has  taken  its  own  tasty  bite. 
His  eyrie  is  generally  among  the  most  inaccessible  crags, 
but  he  has  been  known  to  rear  the  mighty  fabric  in  a 
tree,  in  the  midst  of  some  lonely  island.  Macgillivray 
found  a  Sea  Eagle's  nest  in  an  island  in  a  Hebridean 
lake,  in  a  mound  of  rock  'not  higher  than  could  have 
been  reached  with  a  fishing-rod.'  He  varies  greatly  in 
size,  '  some  specimens  measuring  only  six  feet  from  tip 
to  tip  of  the  wings,  while  others  are  at  least  one  half 
more.'  He  is  pugnacious  as  a  Cock-robin,  and  as 
vulgar  as  a  Vulture,  but  he  can  be  tamed,  and  in  his 
tame  state  becomes  an  interesting  pet.  The  finest 
extant  specimen  is  in  the  Stornoway  collection  of  Sir 
James  Matheson ;  it  was  killed  in  the  island  of  Lewis, 
and  is  of  gigantic  size,  and  very  light  in  colour. 

Many  other  rapacious  birds  frequent  the  Hebrides, 
from  the  Osprey  down  to  the  Kestrel,  or  Wind-hover ; 
but  the  most  interesting  of  all,  perhaps,  is  the  Peregrine 

O 


194  Master-Spirits. 

Falcon,  so  lovely  in  form  and  plumage,  and  so  elegant 
of  flight  The  Peregrine  breeds  in  all  the  outer  islands, 
on  the  outlying  rocks  cf  Haskair,  and  even  in  St.  Kilda. 
He  is  a  murderous  fellow,  killing  far  more  than  he  can 
eat,  for  the  sheer  sake  of  killing,  twisting  off  the  head  of 
a  snipe  or  a  ptarmigan  as  unconcernedly  as  a  waiter 
draws  a  bottle  of  beer  !  When  he  resides  near  the  sea, 
he  makes  sad  havoc  among  the  Puffins  and  Guillemots. 
Next  to  him,  in  point  of  beauty,  is  his  swift  little 
kinsman,  the  Merlin,  pluckiest  of  all  the  hawks,  and 
deftest  in  the  hunt.  Game  to  the  bone  is  the  Soog,  as 
he  is  called  by  the  Celts,  and  will  tackle  a  quarry  out  of 
all  proportion  to  his  strength.  Snipes  and  Golden 
Plovers  are  his  favourite  feeding,  and  he  will  beat  the 
marshes  and  sea-sands  as  carefully  as  an  old  pointer 
beats  the  "turnips  in  September. 

While  the  Eagle  and  Hawks  hunt  by  day,  the  Owls 
prowl  by  night.  These  latter  birds  are  not  numerous 
in  the  Hebrides,  the  short-eared  Owl  being  the  most 
common  ;  but  we  have  here  and  there  seen  the  tawny  Owl 
hovering  on  the  skirts  of  the  plantations,  oftentimes 
enough  put  up  awkwardly  by  the  dogs  when  beating 
cover,  and  likely  to  share  a  sudden  fate  at  the  hands  of 
some  bungler,  unless  protected  by  the  sympathetic  '  It's 
only  an  Old  Wife — poor  thing  ! '  of  some  friendly  keeper. 
The  fast  Owl  we  saw  was  last  night,  beating  the  margin 
of  Loch\Bee  for  mice,  with  that  curious  limp  flap  of  its 
downy  wmg,  and  occasionally  resting  as  still  as  stone  on 
the  overhanging  cone  of  a  damp  boulder,  in  just  the 
same  attitude  in  which  we  had  not  long  before  seen  one  of 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  195 

his  kinsmen  resting  on  Robert  Browning's  shoulder,  in  the 
very  heart  of  London.  As  to  the  White  Owl,  the  true 
Cailleach,  or  Old  Woman,  she  seems  to  have  taken  some 
deathly  offence  at  our  islands,  for  though  there  is  a 
ruin  on  every  headland,  sorry  a  one  of  them  all  will  she 
inhabit.  Her  ghastly  presence  would  indeed  become 
the  gloaming  hour,  when  the  moon  is  shining  on  the 
ruined  belfry  of  Icolmkill ;  but  not  even  there,  where  the 
Spirit  of  the  sea- loving  Saint  still  walks  o'  nights,  is  her 
weird  cry  heard,  or  her  ghostly  flight  beheld. 

Not  a  whit  of  her  tuwhoo  ! 
Her  to  woo  to  her  tuwhit ! 

We  have  sought  her  in  vain  in  lona,  in  Dunstaffnage,  in 
Rodel,  and  in  many  kindred  places,  chiefly  desolate 
graveyards  ;  finding  in  her  stead,  among  the  tombs,  only 
the  little  Clacharan,1  in  his  white  necktie,  cluck-clucking 
as  monotonously  as  a  death-watch,  and  conducting 
eternally,  on  his  own  account,  a  kind  of  lonely  spirit- 
rapping,  in  the  most  appropriate  place.  Among  the 
same  desolate  homes  of  the  dead,  we  have  also  found  (as 
Dr.  Gray  seems  to  have  found)  the  Sea-gulls  coming  to 
rest  for  the  night,  stealing  through  the  twilight  with  a 
slow  flight,  which  might  be  mistaken,  at  the  first  glance, 
for  that  of  the  Cailleach  herself.  What  the  Stone-chat 
is  to  graveyards,  the  Dipper  is  to  lonely  burns.  He  has 
many  names  in  the  Isles, — Lon  uisge,  Gobha  dubh  nan 
A  lit,  &c. — but  none  so  sweet  as  the  name  familiar  to 
every  Saxon  ear,  that  of  Water-Ouzel  Who  has  not 

1  Celtic  name  of  the  Stone -chat  (Saxicola  Rubicola). 

O  2 


196  Master-Spirits. 

encountered  the  little  fellow,  with  his  light  eye  and  white 
breast,  dipping  backwards  and  forwards  as  he  sits  on  a 
stone  amid  the  tiny  pools  and  freshets,  and  rising  swiftly 
to  follow  with  swift  but  exact  flight  the  windings  and 
twistings  of  the  stream  ?  and  who  that  has  ever  so  met 
him,  has  failed  to  see  in  his  company  his  faithful  and 
inseparable  little  mate  ?  He  likes  the  waterfall  and  the 
brawling  linn,  as  well  as  the  dark 'pools  amid  the  green 
and  mossy  heath  ;  and  he  is  to  be  found  building  from 
head  to  foot  of  every  mountain  that  can  boast  a  burn, 
however  tiny  and  unpretending.  The  young  are  born 
with  the  cry  of  water  in  their  ears ;  often  the  nest  where 
they  lie  and  cheep  is  within  a  few  feet  of  a  torrent,  the 
voice  of  which  is  a  roaring  thunder;  and  close  at  hand, 
amid  the  spray,  the  little  father-ouzels  sit  on  a  mossy 
stone,  and  sing  aloud. 

What  pleasures  have  great  princes  ?  &c., 

they  seem  to  be  crying,  in  the  very  words  of  the  old 
song.  To  search  for  water-shells  and  eat  the  toothsome 
larvae  of  the  water-beetle,  and  to  have  the  whole  of  a 
mountain  brook  for  kingdom, — what  royal  lot  can  com- 
pare with  this  ? 

Whiles  thro'  a  linn  the  burnie  plays, 

Whiles  thro'  a  glen  it  wimples, 
Whiles  bickering  thro'  the  golden  haze 

With  flickering  dauncing  dazzle, 
Whiles  cookin'  underneath  the  braes 

Beneath  the  flowing  hazel ! l 

1  The  lover  of  Burns  must  forgive  blunders,  as  I  quote  from  memory. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  197 

To  the  eye  of  the  little  feathered  king  and  queen,  the 
bubbling  waters  are  a  world  miraculously  tinted  and 
sweet  with  summer  sound.  The  life  of  the  twain  is  full 
of  calm  joy.  So  at  least  thinks  the  angler,  as  he  crouches 
under  the  bank  from  the  shower,  and  sees  the  cool  drops 
splashing  like  countless  pearls  round  the  Ouzel's  mossy 
throne  in  the  midst  of  the  pool.  We  hear  for  the  first 
time,  on  the  authority  of  Doctor  Gray,  that  the  Ouzel 
has  been  proscribed  and  decimated  in  many  Highland 
parishes,  because,  forsooth,  he  is  supposed  to  interfere 
with  the  rights  of  human  fishermen  !  In  former  times, 
whoever  slew  one  of  these  lovely  birds  received  as  his 
reward  the  privilege  of  fishing  in  the  close  season  ;  and 
a  reward  of  sixpence  a  head  is  this  day  given  for  the 
'Water  Craw'  in  some  parts  of  Sutherlandshire.  To 
such  a  pass  come  mortal  ignorance  and  greed ! — igno- 
rance, here  quite  unaware  that  the  Ouzel  never  touches 
the  spawn  of  fish  at  all ;  and  greed,  unwilling  to  grant 
to  a  bird  so  gentle  and  so  beautiful  even  a  share  of  the 
prodigal  gifts  of  nature. 

Far  more  persecuted  than  the  Bird  of  the  Burn  is  that 
other  frequenter  of  inland  waters,  the  Kingfisher  :  so 
lovely,  that  every  cruel  hand  is  raised  against  his  life  ; 
so  rare  through  such  slaughter,  that  one  may  now  search 
long  and  far  without  ever  perceiving  the  azure  gleam  of 
its  wing.  Its  head  is  not  unlike  that  of  a  Heron,  on  a 
diminutive  scale  ;  and  its  attitude,  as  it  sits  motionless 
for  hours  together,  on  some  bough  overhanging  the 
stream,  is  heron-like  in  its  steadfastness  and  patience. 
Unsocial  and  solitary,  it  deposits  its  pink-white  eggs  and 


198  Master-Spirits. 

rears  its  young  in  a  hole  in  the  green  bank.  Flashing 
past,  it  seems  like  a  winged  emerald  ;  in  repose,  its 
colour  is  ruddy  brown.  Seen  in  any  light,  it  is  a  thing 
of  perfect  beauty,  not  to  be  spared  from  the  precious 
things  of  the  student  of  nature.  To  these  Outer  Heb- 
rides, it  never  comes  ;  but  it  has  been  found  in  the  island 
of  Skye.  The  dark,  shrubless  banks  of  these  streams  do 
not  attract  it ;  and,  moreover,  for  so  sportsmanlike  and 
indefatigable  a  bird,  the  fishing  is  bad.  It  loves  a  stream 
shaded  with  alders  and  dwarf  willows,  and  affects,  too, 
spots  well-warmed  by  the  sun.  When  the  buds  of  the 
water-lilies  blow,  and  the  well-oiled  leaves  float  around 
them,  when  the  dragon-fly  poises  in  the  leaves  and 
gleams  brilliantly,  when  the  sun  shines  golden  overhead 
and,  below  in  the  pool,  you  see  the  shadows  of  the 
motionless  trout  on  the  bright  stones — then,  creeping 
near,  warily,  look  for  the  Kingfisher.  There  he  sits,  on 
a  green  branch  near  the  mouth  of  his  dwelling,  arrayed 
as  Solomon  never  was  in  all  his  glory,  and  shadowed  by 
the  willow  tree, 

That  grows  aslant  the  brook, 
And  shows  his  hoar  leaves  in  the  glassy  stream. 

The  sun  creeps  behind  a  cloud  for  a  moment ;  a  tiny 
trout  splashes,  leaving  a  circle  that  widens  and  fades. 
What  was  that,  the  flash  of  an  emerald  or  the  gleam  of 
some  passing  insect  ?  'Twas  the  King  of  Fishers  darting 
down  to  seize  his  tiny  prey  ;  but  so  swiftly  is  he  back 
again  to  his  point  of  vantage,  that  he  scarcely  seems  to 
have  stirred  at  all. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  199 

We  sit  dreaming,  while  a  panorama  of  past  scenes  floats 
by,  each  scene  surrounded  by  its  presiding  Spirit  of  a 
Bird.  In  the  dizzy  air,  on  the  'ribbed  sea  sands/ 
through  dark  pine  woods  paved  with  azure  flowers,  amid 
lone  isles  blackening  in  the  sea,  over  swamp,  bog,  and 
rainbow-kindled  marsh,  we  seem  to  be  winding  our  ever- 
changing  way.  The  Curlew  calls,  the  Snipe  drums,  the 
Blackbird  whistles,  the  Kestrel  hovers,  the  Tern  wavers, 
and  the  Grey-lag  twangs.  A  little  while  ago  we  were 
in  the  woods  near  Bonaw,  hearkening  by  nightfall  to 
the  monotonous  calls  of  the  grasshopper  warblers ;  a 
moment  since,  amid  the  fir  plantations  on  the  banks 
of  Loch  Feochan,  we  were  hearkening  to  the  deep-toned 
plaint  of  the  Cushat,  and  the  whistling  of  the  Mavis, 
just  as  Tannahill  heard  them  of  old  in  the  'bonnie 
woods  of  Craigielea ' — 

Far  ben  thy  dark  green  planting's  shade 

The  cushat  croodles  amorouslie  ; 
The  mavis,  down  thy  bughted  glade, 

Gars  echo  ring  frae  tree  to  tree  ! 

and  now,  we  are  floating  on  the  storm-vexed  waters  of 
the  Minch,  out  of  sight  of  land,  with  a  hurricane  of  rain 
around  us  (though  the  month  is  July),  while  a  number 
of  tiny  Storm-petrels,  tempted  out  doubtless  by  the  in- 
fernal weather,  are  hovering  up  and  down,  swift  as  in- 
sects, close  to  the  yacht's  stern.  The  tiny  Petrel  (Tha- 
lassidroma  Pelagica,  the  bungling  pedants  have  christened 
him  ;  and,  good  heavens  !  what  a  mountain  of  a  name 
for  such  a  mite  of  a  bird  !)  breeds  everywhere  in  the 
Hebrides,  affecting  chiefly  the  most  exposed  quarters, 


2OO  Master-Spirits. 

such  as  Canna,  Rum,  Eigg,  and  the  heads  of  Skye. 
They  fly  chiefly  by  night,  but  a  good  stiff  breeze,  espe- 
cially if  it  promises  to  rise,  often  brings  them  out  by  day- 
light :  whence  their  appearance  is  by  many  fishermen 
considered  ominous  of  bad  weather. 

Dr.  Gray's  description  of  their  flight  is  perfect.  '  There 
they  were,  pattering  the  top  of  each  wave,  the  broken 
crest  of  each  they  barely  touched  as  it  rose  and  threatened 
our  bulwarks.  Several  times  they  seemed  as  if  they 
might  have  been  touched  by  the  hand.  .  .  .  They  did 
not  appear  to  pick  up  anything,  but  untiringly  followed 
the  rising  and  falling  of  the  water — now  going  down  into 
a  hollow,  and  now  rising  with  the  wave  until  the  edge 
broke  and  curled  over,  when  the  little  feet  were  let  down 
with  a  gentle  tripping  movement  as  if  trying  to  get  a 
footing  on  the  treacherous  deep.  .  .  .  Sometimes,  as 
one  of  them  remained  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  until -the 
wave  seemed  ready  to  engulf  the  little  creature,  it 
mounted  sideways  to  let  it  pass,  and  down  it  went  on 
the  other  side  with  '  contemptuous  celerity.'  The  tiny 
black  moth  of  a  bird,  measuring  not  six  inches  in  length, 
burrows  in  the  earth  like  a  Puffin,  and  lays  one  small 
white  egg  ;  and  after  incubation,  it  feeds  its  small  fluff 
of  white  down  with  oil  secreted  in  its  crop.  So  greasy 
is  its  body,  that  one  has  only  to  run  a  wick  through  it 
to  have  a  capital  lamp  ready  made.  Its  appearance 
at  sea  is  deemed  ominous  enough  by  sailors  (whence 
its  familiar  name  of  '  Mother  Carey's  Chicken  '),  and  in 
good  truth  with  some  reason,  for  it  seldom  ventures  far 
abroad  in  respectable  weather.  Nothing  can  be  more 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  201 

delicious,  to  our  taste,  than  the  following  little  sketch  of 
the  Storm-petrel's  habits,  and  the  sympathetic  reader 
will  thank  us  for  transcribing  it  entire  : — 

Twenty  years  ago  my  valued  correspondent,  Mr.  Graham,  of 
whom  I  now  take  leave  in  these  pages,  communicated  some 
very  interesting  notes  on  the  Stormy  Petrel,  the  insertion  of  the 
substance  of  which  may  not  inappropriately  bring  my  labours 
to  a  close.  Mr.  Graham  became  acquainted  with  the  bird 
through  a  mere  accident.  He  had,  while  residing  at  lona, 
made  frequent  excursions  to  the  famous  isle  of  Staffa  in  a  small 
boat  of  his  own  named  '  The  Ornithologist/  and  on  one  of  these 
occasions  had  been  compelled,  through  a  sudden  storm,  to 
remain  alone  all  night  on  this  isolated  roosting-place  under 
shelter  of  his  boat,  which  he  drew  up  on  the  landing  and  turned 
bottom  upwards  for  the  purpose.  Of  course,  in  the  circum- 
stances, sleep  was  impossible  ;  and  during  the  night  he  heard 
the  most  curious  buzzing  sounds  emanating  from  the  rough  stony 
ground  he  was  lying  upon.  They  were  not  continuous,  but 
broken  every  ten  seconds  or  so  by  a  sharp  click.  Waiting  until 
daylight,  he  found  the  strange  music  issuing  from  beneath  his 
feet  j  guided  by  the  sound  he  commenced  removing  the  heavy 
stones,  and  being  encouraged  in  his  labours  by  hearing  the 
sounds  nearer  and  more  distinct — sometimes  ceasing,  then  re- 
commencing— he  worked  away  till  the  noise  and  rolling  of  the 
rocks  seemed  to  provoke  the  subterranean  musician  to  renewed 
efforts,  until  with  a  vigorous  exertion  the  last  great  stone  was 
rooted  out  and  the  mystery  laid  bare.  He  saw  a  little  black 
object  shuffling  off,  leaving  its  small  white  egg  lying  on  a  blade 
of  dry  grass  which  protected  it  from  the  hard  rock.  It  made 
no  attempt  to  escape,  as  if  dazzled  by  the  glare  of  daylight,  or 
stunned  by  the  depth  of  its  misfortune,  but  lay  passively  in  his 
hand  when  he  took  it  up,  uttering  only  a  faint  squeak  of  surprise 
at  the  outrage.  From  this  romantic  island  Mr.  Graham  after- 
wards procured  several  young  birds,  which  he  kept  in  confine- 


2  o  2  Master-Spirits. 

ment  until  they  became  fledged.  He  reared  them  solely  upon 
cod-liver  oil,  which  they  sucked  from  a  feather  dipped  into  it, 
clattering  their  beaks  and  shaking  their  heads  with  evident 
satisfaction.  Towards  nightfall  they  became  exceedingly 
restless  and  active  ;  and  on  being  taken  out  of  their  box  they 
sat  on  the  table  and  set  their  wings  in  motion  so  rapidly  that 
they  ceased  to  be  discernible.  Their  eyes  being  closed  during 
this  exercise,  the  whirring  of  their  wings  apparently  fanned  the 
little  fellows  into  the  notion  that  they  were  far  out  at  sea, 
travelling  at  the  rate  of  forty  miles  an  hour ;  and  as  their  bodies 
became  buoyant  by  the  action  of  the  wings,  their  little  feet 
could  retain  no  hold  of  the  slippery  mahogany  ;  so  the  exhibition 
generally  ended  by  the  poor  Petrels  falling  backwards  and 
disappearing  over  the  edge  of  the  table.  Two  of  these  pets 
died  and  were  sent  to  me  through  the  post  accompanied  by  a 
note  from  my  friend,  informing  me  that  they  had  both  departed 
this  life  during  the  roaring  of  an  equinoctial  storm. 

Requiescant  in  pace  !  Who  shall  say  that  stone  walls  do 
make  a  prison,  or  iron  bars  a  cage,  when  even  a  captive 
Mother  Carey's  Chicken,  by  '  whirring  its  wings  rapidly/ 
can  '  fan  itself  into  the  notion  that  it  is  far  away  at  sea  ? ' 
Think  of  that,  ye  chamber-followers  of  the  Byronic ! 
Even  in  your  false  romantic  flights,  when,  molly-coddling 
in  a  study  (or  a  stew),  you  make  believe  to  be  leading 
corsairs  to  death,  and  offering  proud  love  to  dark-eyed 
Eastern  maids,  ye  are  still  far  behind  the  little  Petrel  in 
his  prison.  He  has  seen  veritable  storm,  and  his  mind 
travels  back  to  delights  well-known  and  well-loved  ;  ye, 
on  the  other  hand,  shut  your  eyes  like  him,  merely  con- 
jure up  the  vapours  of  an  idle  fancy,  have  no  experience 
to  record,  no. delight  to  remember  that  is  not  a  delusion 
and  a  closet-sham. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  203 

So  much  for  the  Petrel,  whose  very  name  is  breezy 
and  smelling  of  sea-salt.  What  bird  comes  next? 
What  picture  next  appears  ?  In  a  lonely  lochan,  glossy 
black,  and  with  never  reed  or  flower  to  relieve  its  sad- 
ness, under  a  dark  sky  seamed  with  silvern  streaks,  there 
rises  a  rocky  isle,  and  close  to  the  isle  swims  the  Learga, 
or  Black-throated  Diver,  troubling  the  brooding  silence 
with  his  weird  cry — Deoch !  deoch !  tfia'n  lock  a 
traogbadh  !  *  Sunset  on  Loch  Scavaig,  the  ocean  glassy- 
still,  and  the  Coolins  rising  lurid  in  the  red  light  stream- 
ing over  the  western  ocean,  while  the  Solan  drops  like  a 
bullet  to  his  prey,  and 

The  cormorant  flaps  o'er  a  sleek  ocean-floor 
Of  tremulous  mother-of-pearl. 

Twilight  on  the  slopes  of  the  mountains  of  Mull,  and  the 
evening  star  glimmering  over  the  dark  edge  of  the  fir- 
wood,  while  the  ghost-moths  begin  to  issue  from  their 
green  hiding-places,  and  the  Night  gar,  looming  on  the 
summit  of  a  tree,  utters  his  monotonous  call.  A  spring 
morning,  with  broken  clouds  and  a  rainbow,  gleaming  on 
the  isles  of  Loch  Awe,  and  cuckoos  multitudinous  as 
leaves  in  Vallambrosa  telling  their  name  to  all  the  hills. 
The  prospects  are  endless,  the  cries  confusing  as  the 
chorus  of  birds  in  Aristophanes  : 

Toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  toro, 

Kickabau,  kickabau, 
Toro,  toro,  toro,  toro,  tobrix  ! 

1  *  Drink  !  drink  !  the  lake  is  nearly  dried  up.* 


2O4  Master-Spirits. 

With  these  for  guides,   one  may  wander   further  and 
see  stranger  scenes  than  ever  came  under  the  eyes  of 
the  Nephelococcygians ;    but,   indeed,  modern   culture 
scarcely  knows  even  their  names,  and  the  spots  where 
they   dwell    scarcely   attract  even  the  passing  tourist. 
Wonderful   indeed   is   modern    ignorance,    only   to   be 
paralleled    by   modern   fatuity.      Few   men   know   the 
difference  between  the  Birch  and  the  Hornbeam,  the 
Curlew  and  the  Whimbrel.     Modern  authors,  poets  par- 
ticularly, write  as  if  they  had  been  brought  up  in  a  dun- 
geon  or   a  hothouse,  never  breathing  the  fresh  air  or 
beholding  plants  and  birds  in  a  state  of  nature.    '  It  is  a 
fool's  life,  as  they  will  find  when  they  get  to  the  end  of 
it,  if  not  before.'     The  pursuit  of  false  comforts,  the  de- 
sire of  vain  accomplishments,  the  sucking  of  social  lolli- 
pops, these  are  modern  vanities.     We  were  speaking  the 
other  day  with  one  of  the  best  educated  men  in  England, 
a  party  finished  to  the  finger-tips,  great  in  philosophy, 
and  '  in  Pindar  and  poets  unrivalled.'     He  had  never 
seen  an  eagle  or  a  red  deer  ;  he  could  neither  shoot,  fish, 
nor  swim  ;  he  was  sea-sick  whenever  he  left  dry  land ; 
he  believed  the  '  sheets '  of  a  boat  to  be  her  '  sails  ; '  he 
knew  (as  Browning  expresses  it)  'the  Latin  word  for 
Parsley,'  but  he  had  never  even  heard  of  '  white '  heather. 
For  this  being,  his  University  had  done  all  it  could,  and 
had  turned  him  out  in  the  world  about  as  ignorant  as  a 
parrot,  and  as  helpless,  for  all  manly  intents  and  pur- 
poses, as  a  new-born  baby. 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us.     Late  or  soon, 
Getting  or  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers. 
Little  we  see  in  Nature  that  is  ours. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  205 

So  far,  at  least,  as  the  knowledge  of  birds  is  concerned, 
the  ordinary  extent  of  knowledge  may  be  safely  summed 
up  in  the  memorable  conversation  attached  to  the  cut  in 
'  Punch  '— <  What's  that,  Bill  ?  An  'Awk  ? '— '  No,  stoo- 
pid  ;  it's  a  Howl ! '  when  in  point  of  fact,  if  we  remember 
rightly,  the  subject  of  conversation  was  an  Erne  ! 

That  '  'Awk  '  brings  us,  by  a  natural  transition,  to  the 
Great  Auk,  or  Garefowl,  the  very  name  of  which  alone 
makes  ornithologists  prick  up.  their  ears,  and  in  which 
even  vulgarity  is  now  interested,  because  the  species  is 
supposed  to  be  extinct.  This  extraordinary  bird  has 
from  time  immemorial  been  a  theme  for  wonder-stricken 
travellers.  Martin,  in  his  '  Voyage  to  St.  Kilda/  pub- 
lished in  1698,  describes  the  Garefowl  as  *  above  the  size 
of  a  Solan  Goose,  of  a  black  colour,  red  about  the  eyes, 
a  large  white  spot  under  each  eye,  a  long  broad  bill, 
stands  stately,  his  whole  body  erected,  his  wings  short, 
he  flyeth  not  at  all,  layes  his  egg  upon  the  bare  rock, 
which,  if  taken  away,  he  layes  no  more  for  that  year  ; 
his  egg  is  twice  as  big  as  that  of  a  Solan  Goose,  and  is 
variously  spotted  black,  green,  and  dark.' 

Sixty  years  later,  the  Rev.  Kenneth  Macaulay  landed  in 
St.  Kilda,  remained  there  a  month,  and  afterwards  wrote 
a  history  of  the  island.  He  writes  thus  of  the  Great 
Auk  :  '  I  had  not  an  opportunity  of  knowing  a  very 
curious  fowl,  sometimes  seen  upon  this  coast,  and  an  ab- 
solute stranger,  I  am  apt  to  believe,  in  every  other  part 
of  Scotland.  The  men  of  Herta  call  it  the  Garefowl, 
corruptly,  perhaps,  instead  of  Rarefowl,  a  name  probably 
given  it  by  some  one  of  those  foreigners,  whom  either 


206  Master-Spirits. 

choice  or  necessity  drew  into  this  secure  region.  This 
bird  is  above  four  feet  in  length,  from  the  bill  to  the  ex- 
tremities of  its  feet ;  its  wings  are,  in  proportion  to  its 
size,  very  short,  so  that  they  can  hardly  poise  or  support 
the  weight  of  its  very  large  body.  Its  legs,  neck,  and 
bill  are  extremely  long.  It  lays  the  egg,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  account  given  me,  exceeds  that  of  a  goose  no 
less  than  the  latter  exceeds  the  egg  of  a  hen,  close  by 
the  sea  mark,  being  incapable,  on  account  of  its  bulk,  to 
soar  up  to  the  cliffs.  It  makes  its  appearance  in  the 
month  of  July.  The  St.  Kildians  do  not  receive  an  an- 
nual visit  from  this  strange  bird  as  from  all  the  rest  in 
the  list,  and  from  many  more.  It  keeps  at  a  distance 
from  them,  they  know  not  where,  for  a  course  of  years. 
From  what  land  or  ocean  it  makes  its  uncertain  voyages 
to  their  isle  "is  perhaps  a  mystery.  A  gentleman  who 
had  been  in  the  West  Indies  informed  me  that,  according 
to  the  description  given  of  him,  he  must  be  the  Penguin 
of  that  clime,  a  fowl  that  points  out  the  proper  soundings 
of  seafaring  people.' 

Again,  1793,  that  delightful  romancist,  the  Rev.  John 
Lane  Buchanan,  wrote  an  account  of  St.  Kilda  and  its 
birds,  and  averred  that  the  Garefowl's  egg  '  exceeds  that 
of  a  goose  as  much  as  that  of  the  latter  exceeds  that  of 
a  hen.'  Lastly,  let  us  quote  Dr.  Gray's  summary  of 
the  most  recent  appearances  of  the  now  missing  bird  : — 

No  recent  visitor  to  the  island  of  St.  Kilda  appears  to  have 
received  any  satisfactory  information  regarding  the  existence  of 
the  Great  Auk  there.  There  is  not  even  the  bare  mention  of  it 
in  the  '  Journal  of  an  Excursion  to  St.  Kilda/  published  in. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  207 

Glasgow  in  1838  by  P.  Maclean,  a  writer  who  furnishes  an 
interesting  account  of  the  birds  on  the  authority  of  the  then 
resident  clergyman,  the  Rev.  Neil  Mackenzie,  who  had  been 
there  eight  years  ;  and  Mr.  John  Macgillivray,  who  visited  the 
island  in  1840,  was  informed  that  though  the  bird  was  by  no 
means  of  uncommon  occurrence  about  St.  Kilda,  none  had 
been  known  to  breed  there  for  many  years  past,  and  that  the 
'  oldest  inhabitant '  only  recollected  the  procuring  of  three  or 
four  examples.  Mr.  Elwes,  who  visited  the  island  in  H.  M.  S. 
'Harpy'  on  May  22,  1868,  has  the  following  remarks  in  a 
valuable  paper  on  the  '  Bird  Stations  of  the  Outer  Hebrides/ 
contributed  to  the  '  Ibis  'for  1869  : — '  On  landing  we  were  met 
by  the  minister,  Mr.  Mackay,  who  appeared  very  glad  to  see 
anyone,  as  may  well  be  imagined.  Strange  to  say,  he  did  not 
seem  to  take  any  interest  in  or  to  know  much  about  the  birds, 
though  he  has  been  two  years  among  the  people  whose  thoughts 
are  more  occupied  by  birds  than  anything  else,  and  who  depend 
principally  upon  them  for  their  living.  I  showed  a  picture  of 
the  Great  Auk,  which  Mr.  J.  H.  Gurney,  Junr.,  had  kindly  sent 
me,  to  the  people,  some  of  whom  appeared  to  recognise  it,  and 
said  that  it  had  not  been  seen  for  many  years  ;  but  they  were 
so  excited  by  the  arrival  of  strangers,  that  it  was  impossible  to 
get  them  to  say  more  about  it,  and  though  Mr.  Mackay  promised 
to  take  down  any  stories  or  information  about  the  bird  that  he 
could  collect,  when  they  had  leisure  to  think  about  it,  he  has 
not  as  yet  sent  me  any.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  more 
than  two  or  three  examples  are  at  all  likely  to  have  been  seen 
in  the  last  forty  years,  as  Mr.  Atkinson  of  Newcastle,  who  went 
there  in  1831,  does  not  say  a  word  about  it  in  his  paper l  beyond 
mentioning  the  name,  and  neither  John  Macgillivray,  who 
visited  the  place  in  1840,  nor  Sir  W.  Milner,  says  that  any 
specimen  had  been  recently  procured.  I  believe  that  Bullock 
was  also  there  about  1818  ;  and  as  he  had  not  long  before  met 
with  the  species  in  Orkney,  there  is  little  doubt  he  would  have 

1  'Trans.  Nat.  Hist.  Soc.,'  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  1832. 


2o8  Master- Spirits. 

mentioned  it  to  somebody  if  he  had  heard  of  any  having  been 
recently  procured  at  St.  Kilda.  I  made  every  inquiry  about 
this  bird  on  the  north  and  west  coast  of  Lewis,  and  showed 
pictures  of  it  to  the  fishermen  ;  but  all  agreed  that  nothing  of 
the  sort  had  been  seen  since  they  could  remember.'  Writing 
in  1 86 1,  Professor  Newton,  in  a  paper  contributed  by  him  to 
the  '  Ibis '  for  that  year,  on  Mr.  Wolley's  researches  in  Iceland 
respecting  the  Garefowl,  states  that  Sir  William  Milner  had 
informed  him  that  within  the  last  few  years  he  had  become 
possessed  of  a  fine  Great  Auk,  which  he  had  reason  to  believe 
had  been  killed  in  the  Hebrides.  This  specimen  was  found  to 
have  been  stuffed  with  turf.  The  Great  Auk  is  not  mentioned 
by  Dr.  Patrick  Neill  in  his  *  Tour  through  the  Orkney  and 
Shetland  Islands/  printed  in  1806,  a  work  which  contains  a  full 
list  of  the  birds  known  to  inhabit  that  district ;  nor  is  it  alluded 
to  by  Dr.  John  Barry  in  his  *  History  of  the  Orkney  Islands/ 
which  appeared  in  the  following  year.  Negative  evidence  like 
this,  however,  may  not  carry  much  weight.  Low,  who  died  in 
1795,  but  whose  natural  history  manuscript  was  not  published 
till  1813,  remarks  as  follows: — 'I  have  often  inquired  about 
the  Great  Auk  especially,  but  cannot  find  it  is  ever  seen  here ; ' l 
yet  nearly  twenty  years  later  it  was  found  by  Mr.  Bullock,  who 
was  but  a  casual  visitor.  The  following  remarks  from  an 
interesting  little  work  entitled,  *  The  Ornithologist's  Guide  to 
the  Islands  of  Orkney  and  Shetland/  published  in  1837,  by 
Robert  Dunn,  now  of  Stromness,  may  not  be  out  of  place  : — 
'  I  have  never  seen  a  living  specimen  of  this  bird,  nor  do  I 
believe  it  ever  visits  Shetland.  I  made  inquiries  at  every 
place  I  visited,  but  no  one  knew  it :  had  such  a  remarkable 
bird  been  seen  there,  I  must  have  heard  of  it.  During  my  stay 
at  Orkney,  and  while  on  a  visit  at  Papa  Westra,  I  was  informed 
by  Mr.  Trail,  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  two  or  three 
times,  that  a  pair  of  these  birds  were  constantly  seen  there  for 
several  years,  and  were  christened  by  the  people  the  King  and 

1  '  Fauna  Orcadiensis/  p.  107. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides.  209 

Queen  of  the  Auks.  Mr.  Bullock,  on  his  tour  through  these 
islands,  made  several  attempts  to  obtain  one,  but  was  unsuc- 
cessful. About  a  fortnight  after  his  departure  one  was  shot 
and  sent  to  him,  and  the  other  then  forsook  the  place.  Mr. 
Trail  supposed  they  had  a  nest  on  the  island,  but  on  account 
of  its  exposed  situation  the  surf  must  have  washed  the  eggs 
from  the  rocks,  and  thus  prevented  any  further  increase.'  Ten 
years  later  another  little  work  on  the  '  Natural  History  of 
Orkney'  was  issued  by  Dr.  W.  B.  Baikie  and  Mr.  Robert 
Heddle,  who  thus  speak  of  the  Great  Auk : — '  This  bird  has 
not  visited  Orkney  for  many  years.  One  was  seen  off  Fair  Isle 
in  June  1798.  A  pair  appeared  in  Papa  Westra  for  several 
years.' 

The  ornithologists  still  hope  ;  the  prospect  every  day 
grows  more  depressing.  The  cruel  hand  of  man  has 
done  its  work,  and  the  probability  is  that  the  Garefowl 
is  extinct,  dead  as  the  Dodos,  to  which,  in  its  inability 
to  fly  and  its  voracious  tastes,  it  bore  a  strong  resem- 
blance. This  vanishing  away  lends  to  the  species  a 
strange  interest.  Were  Garefowls  numerous  as  Puffins, 
we  should  esteem  them  little,  wonder  at  them  still  less ; 
but  the  charm  of  mystery  has  been  given,  and  even  our 
well-crammed  man  who  could  not  tell  a  Birch  from  a 
Hornbeam,  would  be  interested  here.  O  Garefowl ! — 

.  .  .  Thee  the  shores  and  sounding  seas 
Wash  far  away,  where'er  thy  bones  are  hurled, 
Whether  beyond  the  stormy  Hebrides, 
Where  thou,  perhaps,  under  the  whelming  tide, 
Visit'st  the  bottom  of  the  wondrous  world, — 

if  (as  may  well  happen)  there  still  exists  some  scattered 
survivor  of  thy  race,  woe  to  him,  let  him  keep  to  his 

P 


2 1  o  Master-  Spirits. 

Icelandic  solitude  ;  for  a  price  is  set  upon  his  head,  and 
even  the  half  savage  Lapp  and  Finn  know  his  value  in 
the  white  man's  market.  For  our  own  part,  our  course 
even  now  lies  St.  Kilda-ward  ;  and  if,  in  some  of  these 
isolated  waters,  we  should  see  the  lost  bird  lingering,  we 
shall  be  as  wonder-stricken  as  one  who  should  suddenly 
stumble  upon  the  Dodo  ;  but  as  to  shooting  or  other- 
wise injuring  a  feather  of  the  poor  persecuted  fellow, 
why,  to  parody  the  words  of  Canning's  knife-grinder, 

'  We  kill  the  Garefowl  ?    We  will  see  thee  d — d  first ! ' 

We  should  rather  endeavour  to  drive  him  out  of  danger, — 
to  take  him  on  board,  for  example,  and  run  with  him 
northward,  to  some  solitary  ocean  isle ;  and  afterwards 
to  keep  our  secret ;  for  were  Professor  Newton,  or  any 
other  pundit,  to  hear  of  our  offence,  why,  as  Bottom 
has  it,  '  'twere  pity  of  our  life  ! '  Still,  were  our  search 
crowned  -with  success,  to  secure  the  bird,  even  for  so 
friendly  a  purpose,  would  not  be  so  easy.  '  First  catch 
your  Garefowl ! '  It  has  been  said  that  the  bird  was 
swift  enough  to  elude  even  a  six-oared  boat,  and  if  a 
survivor  still  swims,  we  pray  with  all  our  heart  that 
Neptune  or  some  other  ocean-god  may  quadruple  his 
speed  ! 

We  have  had  enough  of  this  day-dream.  Closing  the 
book  that  has  conjured  up  so  many  pleasant  pictures, 
and  looking  forth  for  a  moment,  we  see  that  the  gale  is 
abating,  for  the  '  carry '  above  in  the  clouds  is  running 
as  fast  as  the  wind  below  on  the  water  ;  and  we  must  fly 
across  the  Minch  to  get  last-month's  letters. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  211 


SCANDINAVIAN    STUDIES. 

I. 
A  MORNING  IN  COPENHAGEN. 

' TheJ  manage  these  things  better  in  Denmark.' 

THE  air  was  full  of  a  wet  mist,  familiar  to  the  otherwise 
self-congratulatory  people  who  dwell  in  the  capital  of 
Scotland.  In  the  centre  of  the  great  square,  surrounded 
by  an  admiring  audience  of  street  boys  and  street  dogs, 
were  certain  military  musicians,  discoursing  the  martial 
strains  of  '  King  Christian  stod  ved  hojen  Mast ; '  and 
in  the  far  distance,  innumerable  dogs  were  answering 
in  dismal  discord.  With  no  very  lively  feelings  we  hoisted 
our  umbrella,  sallied  forth  from  our  hotel,  and  made 
the  best  of  our  way  through  the  narrow  streets  to  the 
house  of  our  friend  the  Professor.  We  found  the  old 
gentleman  seated  at  his  study  window,  with  a  coloured 
nightcap  stuck  on  his  white  head,  and  the  great  black 
pipe  between  his  teeth.  For,  like  the  old  clergyman 
described  by  Andersen  in  his  dismallest  novel,  '  he  had 
but  one  fault— he  smoked  much  tobacco,  and  very 
bad  tobacco,  and  every  portion  of  his  attire  was  so  im- 
pregnated with  the  smoky  odour,  that  if  it  were  sent 


2  T  2  Master-Spirits. 

over  all  the  seas  in  Europe,  'twould  still  preserve  the 
flavour  of  the  tight,  strong-smelling,  beloved  canister.' 
We  had  arranged,  the  previous  evening,  to  spend  the 
morning  together,  in  a  stroll  through  the  capital. 

4  Good  morning  ! '  said  the  Professor,  with  his  feminine 
smile.     '  Take  a   cup  of  coffee  ?     The   sun  is  already 
elbowing  the  clouds  towards  England,  and  by  the  time 
that  you  have  drunk  your  coffee  and  I  have  finished  my 
pipe,  the  rain  will  have  ceased.    Hearken  ! '  he  continued, 
as  we  sipped  the  black  nectar.     '  The  dogs  down  yonder 
made  the  whole  night  hideous,  and  even  now  they  are 
not  all  silent.  This  canine  pest  you  must  have  remarked 
is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  our  capital.  Copenhagen  is 
-  as  overrun  with  dogs  as  Constantinople.    Here,  however, 
they  are  not  houseless,  not  vagabond  hordes  ;  no,  they 
are  at  home  ;  for  every  gentleman,  every  lady,  every 
boy,  has  his  or  her  dog  ;  every  house  its  Cerberus,  in 
the  shape  of  one  or  more  dogs.     But  this,  being  so  close 
to  the  harbour,  is  the  worst  part  of  the  whole  city.     On 
board  the  merchant  and  fishing  boats,  they  howl  all  night 
long,  and  Heaven  help  him  who  lies  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, and  does  not  sleep  heavily  !    In  the  daytime,  there 
are  puppies  barking  from  windows,  curs  from  doorsteps ; 
tradesmen's  dogs,  chained  dogs,  and  loose  dogs ;  dogs 
indoors,  dogs  in  bed,  dogs  at  table  even — dogs  of  all 
kinds,  of  all  sizes,  and  all  degrees,  yelping  everywhere  ! 
They  throng  the  street,  they  congregate   in  villainous 
groups  in  the  squares,  they  howl  from  carriages,  they  sit 
moaning  in  the  fish-market,  wistfully   eyeing  the  fish, 
they  creep  even  into  the  churches,  and  mingle  their 


Scandinavian  St^{,dies.  213 

whining  with  the  drone  of  the  preacher !  In  fact,  here 
they  swarm,  to  paraphrase  the  words  of  your  great  modern 
poet: 

1  Great  dogs,  small  dogs,  lean  dogs,  brawny  dogs, 
Brown  dogs,  black  dogs,  grey  dogs,  tawny  dogs, 
Grave  old  plodders,  gay  young  friskers, 

Fathers,  mothers,  uncles,  cousins, 
Cocking  tails,  and  pricking  whiskers, 

Families  by  tens  and  dozens  ! ' 

'  What !  you  read  Browning  ! '  we  exclaimed,  with  some 
astonishment 

'  I  do  indeed,'  replied  the  Professor,  '  and  so  do  many 
of  my  friends.  Let  me  tell  you,  sir,  that  we  in  Denmark 
do  know  something  of  English  literature,  while  you  in 
England  know  next  to  nothing  of  the  literature  of  the 
North.  The  only  man  of  whom  you  really  do  know 
anything  is  Hans  Christian  Andersen ;  he  represents 
northern  poesy  in  your  eyes,  while  many  of  us  will 
not  allow  that  he  is  a  poet  at  all.  Holberg,  Evald, 
Baggesen,  Oehlenschlager,  Grundtvig,  Rahbek,  Inge- 
mann,  Holberg,  Molbech !  what  do  you  know  of  these ; 
to  say  nothing  of  a  host  of  smaller  names,  to  say 
nothing  of  any  of  the  great  names  of  Sweden  ?  But 
come  !  it  rains  no  longer.  We  will  promenade  ! ' 

Forth  we  fared.  The  Professor  had  exchanged  his 
nightcap  for  an  old  wideawake,  but  the  inevitable  black 
pipe  was  still  fixed  between  his  teeth.  As  we  jogged 
along  the  unclean  and  narrow  streets,  he  discoursed 
eloquently  on  the  beauties  of  his  native  city ;  but  as  a 
stranger  could  not  quite  see  the  force  of  his  expressions, 


2  T  4  Master-Spirits. 

it  is  useless  to  quote  them.  We  soon  reached  the  fish- 
market,  a  large  square  bounded  at  one  end  by  a  canal 
communicating  with  the  sea.  Close  to  the  canal,  with  a 
background  of  black  masts  and  sails,  sat  the  fisher-women, 
presiding  over  tanks  of  water  wherein  the  fish  they  were 
offering  for  sale  swam  living.  Whenever  a  customer  came, 
the  great  strong  arms  were  plunged  into  the  water,  and 
a  struggling  fish  was  selected  for  inspection.  Leaning 
over  the  sides  of  the  barges  behind,  smoking  their  black 
cutty  pipes,  and  watching  their  brawny  better  halves 
humbly,  were  the  fishermen.  But  heedless  of  the  cries 
of  the  women  inviting  us  to  purchase,  we  passed  the 
canal  by  a  drawbridge. 

'That  is  the  King's  Palace/  said  the  Professor,  point- 
ing to  a  large  building  which  stood  straight  before  us. 
'  It  contains  much  to  interest  the  antiquary,  besides  a 
very  fair  picture  gallery,  and  is  open  to  the  public  two 
or  three  days  a  week.  But  we  will  not  go  there  this 
morning.  Hard  by  is  something  which  will  interest  you 
more.  You  observe  that  square  building,  with  the 
queer  paintings  on  its  walls.  Well,  that  is  Thorwaldsen's 
Museum.  It  was  erected,  as  you  have  perhaps  heard, 
by  public  subscription,  to  contain  the  works  of  art  which 
our  great  sculptor  bequeathed  to  his  country.  It  is  his 
Museum,  and  it  is  his  Mausoleum  also— for  it  contains 
his  grave.' 

We  approached  the  Museum,  on  the  exterior  of  which, 
in  vari-coloured  cement,  is  represented  the  sculptor's 
return  to  Fatherland,  after  an  absence  of  eighteen  years, 
in  1838.  On  one  side  he  is  pictured  landing  before  the 


Scandinavian  Studies.  2 1 5 

enthusiastic  crowd  ;  on  the  other,  are  paintings  represent- 
ing the  transport  of  the  works  to  the  Museum.  The 
fagade  of  the  building  represents  Victory  in  her  fiery 
car.  Passing  in  by  a  side  door,  the  Professor  led  the 
way  to  the  centre  of  the  Museum,— a  wide  open  space 
roofed  only  by  the  heavens,  and  paven  with  stone. 
'This  is  the  grave/  said  the  Professor,  standing  with 
uncovered  head  before  a  tomb-a  simple  square,  with 
the  name  and  death-day  of  Thorwaldsen  graven  on  the 
side,  roses  growing  above,  and  a  bouquet  of  field-flowers 
laid  reverently  by  some  gentle  hand  in  the  midst  of  all 

'In   Denmark,'    observed    the   old    gentleman,   <we 
honour  our  great  men  thus;  but  we  do  more-we  help 
them  to  that  eminence  which  is  to  be  our  glory, 
a  poor  lad  of  Copenhagen  show  a  genius  for  painting, 
we  educate  him  with  public  money ;  and  when  he  has 
learned  the  rudiments  of  his  art,  we  give  him,  still  with 
public  money,  a  stipend  which  enables  him  to   travel 
abroad  for  years.     Poets,  painters,  scholars,  historians,- 
all  have  the  same  chance;  all  get  help  at  the  outset, 
and  the  glorious  education   of  travel.     I  have  heard/ 
he  added,  with  emphasis,  'that  in  England  you  manage 
such  things  rather  differently.      I  am  not  aware   that 
your  Court  encourages  genius,  though  your  Prince,  i 
the  newspapers  speak  truly,  deigns  to  patronise  it  oc- 
casionally—when it  burns  in  the  bosom  of  a  fireman  or  a 

comic  actor ! ' 

<  In  England/  we  replied,  <  it  is  believed  every  man,  b 
he  genius  or  fool,  should  fight  his  own  way  upward  by 
the  might  of  his  own  brain  and  hands.1 


2 1 6  Master-Spirits. 

1  Very  pretty.  You  starve  a  man  of  genius,  or  suffer 
him  to  waste  his  best  years  in  menial  labour,  or  brutalise 
his  brain  by  the  work  of  a  flippant  and  worthless  press  ; 
and  then,  if  he  does  happen  to  sing  you  an  immortal 
song  or  write  you  an  immortal  chronicle,  you  take  all 
the  credit  to  yourselves,  just  as  if  you  had  not  been 
putting  obstacle  on  obstacle,  year  after  year,  in  the  way 
of  God  Almighty's  purpose !  A  genius,  say  I,  is  not 
a  beast  of  burden  !  Nine  true  poets  out  of  ten,  I 
aver,  are  like  immortelles — they  require  the  most  deli- 
cate attention  to  bring  out  their  beauties  !  Suffering 
should  purify  ;  but  such  suffering  as  ye  entail  brutalizes. 
Hunger  will  turn  a  lyric  poet  into  a  wild  animal !  Debt 
will  convert  the  cry  which  should  be  music  for  ages  into 
an  oath  which  dies  in  the  undermost  caverns  of  Hell ! ' 

*  Paupertas  impulet  audax  / '  we  said,  smiling  at  the 
Professor's  warmth. 

*  Stuff !     Poverty,  in  such  a  society  as  yours,  does  no 
genius  good.     The  beasts  of  Germans  are  nearly  as  bad. 
Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  these  would  not  have  got 
still  grander  things  out  of  Schiller  if  they  had  treated 
him  more  liberally  ?     Because  he  was  fond  of  luxury 
and  good  living,  should  he  have  been  compelled  to  work 
like  a  jacketless  slave,  turning  off  to  order  the  '  History 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War/  when  he  might  have  soared 
still  higher  in  the  region  of  eternal  song.     You  quite 
ignore   the    infinite  possibilities  of    genius.     You    are 
satisfied  if  a  poet  gives  you  a  diamond,  when  he  might 
be  rearing  ye  a  palace  of  diamonds.     We  in  Denmark 
act  differently,  and  never  lose  sight  of  what  a  man  may 


Scandinavian  Studies.  217 

do.  We  make  a  grand  speculation  of  a  promising  life, 
and  are  not  at  all  angry  at  losing  a  few  miserable 
pounds  if  the  speculation  fails.' 

So  saying,  he  led  the  way  into  the  building,  where, 
for  upwards  of  two  hours,  we  regaled  our  eyes  and  minds 
with  the  contemplation  of  Thorwaldsen's  works.  It  is 
not  our  intention  to  describe  these  works  here ;  to 
attempt  to  do  so  at  all  would  be  far  to  transcend  the 
limits  of  a  short  paper.  Enough  to  say,  that  the  Museum 
contains  much  splendid  workmanship,  interspersed  with 
a  great  deal  of  trash.  The  'Jason,'  for  example,  is 
striking,  while  some  of  the  bas-reliefs  are  beneath  con- 
tempt. What  struck  us  most  of  all,  on  cool  reflection, 
was  the  enormous  amount  of  work  Thorwaldsen  had 
been  able  to  get  through — almost  single-handed,  so  to 
speak.  We  expressed  as  much  to  the  Professor,  as  we 
walked  away. 

'  Why,  yes  ! '  he  said,  '  Thorwaldsen  did  manage  to 
leave  a  good  many  monuments  behind  him.  We  Danes, 
I  will  confess,  are  a  queer  compound  of  laziness  and 
energy.  Thorwaldsen  was  by  nature  inclined  to  be  lazy  ; 
so  are  we  all — 'tis  the  national  characteristic.  But 
when  we  do  work,  my  friend,  we  work  like  those  Trolls 
in  the  story,  who  were  able  to  build  a  city  in  a  single 
night.  All  our  great  writers  have  been  very  prolific, 
yet  most  of  them  have  taken  plenty  of  pleasuring. 
Oehlenschlager  enjoyed  life  hugely,  yet  what  heaps  of 
printed  matter  has  he  left  behind  him  !  I  think  myself 
we  should  write  better  if  we  did  not  write  quite  so 
much.  The  bulk  of  our  literature  lacks  that  artistic 


2 1 8  Master -Spirits. 

finish  which  slow  and  conscientious  workmanship  alone 
can  give.  We  lounge  as  long  as  we  can  with  our  hands 
in  our  pockets  and  our  pipes  in  our  mouths ;  and  the 
cacoethes  scribendi  seizes  on  us  so  suddenly  and  violently, 
that  what  we  gain  oftentimes  in  heat  we  lose  in  har- 
mony. Thorwaldsen  has  left  no  statue,  Oehlenschlager 
has  left  no  tragedy,  Holberg  has  left  no  comedy,  which 
can  be  denominated  absolutely  complete  of  its  kind — 
excellent  and  perfect  as  a  work  of  art.' 

Here  a  handsome  elderly  gentleman,  dressed  in  simple 
black,  passed  by,  taking  off  his  hat  to  the  Professor, 
with  a  polite  smile.  The  Professor  responded,  somewhat 
deferentially. 

'  Rather  a  distinguished-looking  person  ? '  said  the 
Professor,  quietly. 

'  Undoubtedly.     A  brother  author  ? ' 

1  Not  exactly.  That  gentleman  is  the  King  of  Den- 
mark! And  noticing  our  look  of  surprise,  the  Professor 
continued,  '  These  things  also  we  manage  better  in  the 
North.  His  Majesty  moves  among  us  where  he  pleases 
like  a  simple  gentleman,  and  he  has  never  any  reason  to 
regret  admitting  his  people  to  a  certain  amount  of  fami- 
liarity. Let  the  veriest  tradesman  recognise  him  in  the 
street,  and  salute  him,  he  will  gracefully  respond.  He 
is  not  Christian  the  First,  but  he  is  the  first  of  Christians, 
this  King  of  ours.  You  noticed  how  he  saluted  me  ? 
All,  I  assure  you,  on  account  of  that  little  work  of  mine 
on  the  Gnostic  Philosophy.  More  than  once,  when  I 
have  been  wandering  in  the  park,  we  have  encountered  ; 
he  has  addressed  me,  and  we  have  fired  away  on  the 


Scandinavian  St^ldies.  219 

subjects  dearest  to  my  heart.  Our  King,  in  brief,  is 
what  he  ought  to  be — a  father  among  his  children.  We 
do  not,  like  some  other  countries,  illustrate  the  fable  of 
the  Donkey  reigning  as  king  over  the  other  animals — 
among  whom,  if  I  recollect  rightly,  the  LlON  himself 
was  included.' 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  the  more  populous  part 
of  the  city.  As  we  passed  through  a  narrow  street,  the 
Professor  pointed  to  a  window  on  the  second  floor. 

'  In  that  room,'  he  said,  '  Jens  Baggesen  passed  a  cer- 
tain portion  of  his  youth.' 

'  Baggesen  ? '  we  repeated.  '  I  have  heard  the  name, 
but  really  know  nothing  of  the  owner.' 

'  Baggesen,'  said  the  Professor, '  was  the  greatest  humo- 
rist, the  brightest  satirist,  that  Denmark  ever  produced. 
I  will  tell  you  about  him  as  we  walk  along.  His  father 
was  a  clerk — a  poor  simple  fellow,  and  his  early  days 
were  passed  in  the  country  town  of  Korsoer,  where  he 
was  born  in  1764.  After  a  series  of  misfortunes,  he  was 
sent  to  the  University,  where  he  supported  himself  by 
occupying  his  spare  hours  in  private  teaching.  Despite 
privations  of  the  most  intense  description,  he  made  great 
progress  in  classical  and  philosophical  studies,  and 
passed  his  examination  with  honour.  In  his  spare  time 
he  amused  himself  by  writing  comic  verses  ;  these  verses 
were  speedily  popular  among  his  classmates,  and  were 
circulated  by  them  among  the  outside  public.  Finally, 
when  only  twenty  years  of  age,  he  was  induced  to  pub- 
lish his  "  Comic  Stories  in  Verse."  In  an  instant,  as  it 
were,  he  found  himself  famous.  The  success  of  his  book 


22O  Master -Spirits. 

was  enormous,  and  the  boy  of  twenty  was  at  once  recog- 
nised by  one  and  all  as  the  greatest  comic  poet  of  Den- 
mark. He  went  to  bed  a  poor  student,  and  awoke 
famous — with  a  rich  market  for  every  line  he  chose  to 
write.  Honours  showered  fast  upon  him.  He  was 
patronised  and  petted  by  the  noblest  in  the  land  ;  and 
soon,  in  their  society,  he  derived  the  one  completion  his 
genius  needed — elegance  of  polish  and  refinement  of 
taste.  He  now  lounged  about  in  Danish  style  for  a  con- 
siderable period,  passing  the  most  of  his  time  in  the 
country  houses  of  the  nobility.  In  a  fit  of  activity  he 
translated  "  Niel  Klim's  Underground  Journey,"  which 
Holberg  had  written  in  Latin.  This  story,  which  bears 
a  strong  resemblance  to  "  Gulliver's  Travels,"  became 
highly  popular.  Not  so  "  Holger  Danske,"  a  comedy 
founded  on  Wieland's  "  Oberon."  This  last  was  dread- 
fully abused  and  satirised,  and  poor  Jens  Baggesen 
showed  all  the  biliousness  of  his  brethren.  For  Jens, 
you  must  know,  was  an  irritable  fellow — savage  in  at- 
tack, jealous  of  rivalry,  feverishly  ambitious,  and  im- 
patient of  censure.  He  speedily  succeeded  in  making  a 
great  number  of  enemies  ;  and  there  is  no  saying  what 
might  have  happened  to  him,  had  not  Government 
granted  him  a  liberal  stipend  to  travel  whithersoever  he 
pleased  for  three  years. 

*  He  describes  his  travels  in  one  of  his  pleasantest  books 
— the  "  Labyrinth  " — a  kind  of  autobiographical  gossip  on 
Baggesen  and  men  and  things.  A  romantic  meeting  in 
Switzerland  with  a  beautiful  and  accomplished  girl, 
.Sophia  Haller,  decided  his  fate  matrimonially.  He 


Scandinavian  Studies.  221 

married,  and  after  travelling  through  Germany  returned 
to  Copenhagen.  He  did  not  linger  long.  Domestic 
troubles  came  upon  him  ;  his  wife  fell  sick,  and  was 
ordered  to  a  warmer  climate.  He  hastened  her  re- 
moval ;  but  they  had  only  reached  Kiel  when  she  died 
in  childbed,  bearing  him  twin  sons.  He  was  inconsol- 
able, of  course  ;  but  in  about  a  year  after  his  wife's  death 
he  returned  to  Denmark  with  another  wife.  Again  he 
rambled  forth,  dwelling  in  Germany  and  France,  and 
acquiring  a  good  deal  of  vicious  taste  in  both.  He  re- 
turned again,  solicited  and  received  a  fresh  stipend,  and 
again  departed.  Thus,  for  many  a  year,  did  Baggesen 
range  Europe  at  his  country's  expense,  writing  by  fits 
and  starts,  still  petted  by  the  Danish  public,  still  indulged 
in  a  thousand  eccentricities  by  the  liberal  Government. 
Better  had  he  stayed  at  home.  Not  content  with  wast- 
ing much  valuable  time  in  idleness,  he  conceived  the 
idea  of  becoming  a  German  instead  of  a  Danish  writer, 
and  thence  we  may  date  .his  fall.  His  wild  satiric  mood 
at  last  pushed  him  to  such  an  extreme  that  he  forgot  his 
country,  ignored  the  innumerable  benefits  that  father- 
land had  heaped  upon  him,  and  mocked  Denmark  in  her 
bitterest  hour  of  sorrow — the  time  of  Nelson's  bombard- 
ment of  Copenhagen.  This  was  a  wrong  never  to  be 
forgiven  ;  but  meantime,  while  he  had  neglected  his  op- 
portunities, the  crown  of  song  was  snatched  from  his 
brow  by  a  new  aspirant,  the  man  you  see  here  repre- 
sented in  stone/ 

We  had  come  into  a  wide  street,  and  were  standing 
before  the  large  statue  of  a  sitting  figure — a  strong,  bold, 


222  M aster-Spirits. 

Danish  face,  darkened  by  the  mist  and  smoke  of  the 
capital. 

'  This  is  our  high  priest  of  song,'  said  the  Professor, 
'Adam  Oehlenschlager.' 

1 1  know  a  little  of  him.' 

'  Poor  Baggesen,  on  his  last  return  to  Denmark,  found 
that  the  tide  had  turned  against. him  in  favour  of  the 
young  tragedian.  Picture  his  mortification  and  rage! 
No  writer  can  equal  your  comic  one  for  savage  irritabi- 
lity. He  abused  the  plays  of  Oehlenschlager  both  in 
print  and  by  word  of  mouth,  ridiculed  them  in  a  style 
which  would  have  been  vastly  ludicrous  had  it  not  been 
so  strongly  coloured  with  jealousy  and  spleen.  But  the 
new  star  stood  firm.  Thenceforward  the  career  of  Bag- 
gesen was  a  sad  journey  downward.  He  hied  to  Paris 
with  his  wife.  There,  in  1821,  he  fell  terribly  ill,  and 
was  only  saved  by  the  tender  attention  of  Prince  Chris- 
tian of  Denmark,  who  had  him  nursed  in  his  own  house. 
Shortly  afterwards  his  wife  died,  and  was  followed 
speedily  by  his  dearest  child.  Under  these  sorrows  he 
gradually  sank.  As  his  end  drew  nigh,  a  mad  yearning 
came  upon  him  to  die  in  his  native  land,  which  had  used 
him  so  gently  and  been  repaid  so  ungenerously.  He 
died  on  the  way  home,  at  Hamburg  ;  and  the  poet  whom 
he  had  abused  revenged  himself  by  writing  a  glowingly 
eulogistic  poem  on  his  death.' 

'  Your  system  of  stipends  rather  failed  with  Baggesen,' 
we  cried  ;  '  the  gentleman  was  too  flighty.  If  he  had  been 
an  English  author,  hard  knocks  at  the  outset  would  have 


Scandinavian  Studies.  223 

taught   him  better  manners.     Was  Oehlenschlager  as 
lucky — pecuniarily,  I  mean  ? ' 

'  Denmark  has  nothing  to  reproach  herself  with  in 
either  case.  The  men  had  equal  advantages,  but 
Oehlenschlager  was  a  finer,  sterner  genius  than  Baggesen, 
though  even  he  had  the  national  characteristics  I  have 
hinted  at.  He  was  the  contemporary  of  Wieland,  of 
Goethe,  of  Herder,  and  Jean  Paul,  and  all  that  wondrous 
generation  of  intelligences  who  have  founded  German 
literature.  He,  too,  belonged  to  the  lower  classes,  though 
he  never  had  to  encounter  the  harsh  lot  that  befell 
Baggesen  in  youth.  He  began  to  write  little  comedies 
and  poems  when  very  young,  and  his  mind  was  soon 
attracted  by  the  drama.  He  neglected  his  studies,  and 
haunted  the  theatre.  At  last,  having  determined  to 
become  an  actor,  he  solicited  and  obtained  an  engage- 
ment at  the  Grand  Theatre.  The  result,  as  you  may 
imagine,  was  unfavourable  in  the  extreme.  But  I  am 
not  going  to  linger  over  the  life  of  Oehlenschlager. 
Read  his  "  Autobiography."  What  I  want  to  point  out  in 
his  life  is  the  matter  which  reflects  on  our  treatment  of 
our  great  authors.  Oehlenschlager  was  still  but  a  boy, 
and  had  but  recently  failed  as  an  actor,  when  he  received 
his  travelling  stipend,  and  was  free  to  make  or  mar  him- 
self. Here  our  liberality  was  amply  repaid  by  a  suc- 
cession of  works  which  will  live  as  long  as  our  country 
endures, — and  it,  I  assure  you,  in  spite  of  the  attitude  of 
England  in  the  Schleswig-Holstein  business,  is  in  no 
immediate  danger  of  extinction.  But  here  we  are  at  the 


224  Master-Spirits. 

harbour,  with  the  sea  air  in  our  nostrils.  Ah  ! '  cried  the 
old  gentleman,  pointing  out  seaward,  'so  long  as  we 
Danes  have  the  water  round  us,  and  the  sea  spray 
dashing  in  on  our  faces  in  this  fashion,  we  may,  like 
our  authors,  be  a  little  lazy  at  times,  but  our  blood  will 
have  the  ocean  tumult  in  it,  and  we  shall  be  too  seaman- 
like  to  regard  ungenerously  those  beacon-lights  of  genius 
who  point  out  our  path,  and  shine  over  us  on  the  way.' 


Scandinavian  Studies.  225 


ii. 

THE  OLD  BALLADS  OF  DENMARK. 

THE  old  ballads  of  Denmark,  regarded  from  a  merely 
antiquarian  point  of  view,  strike  one  as  being  somewhat 
fantastical  mosaic.  The  region  to  which  they  introduce 
us  is  that  of  Tradition,  not  of  History — albeit  historical 
personages  occasionally  appear  in  mythical  garb,  passing 
along,  like  the  shadowy  generations  of  Banquo,  to  weird 
and  monotonous  music.  Not  until  we  have  made  up 
our  minds  to  discard  history  altogether,  not  until  we 
have  assumed  something  of  the  credulous  spirit  of  the 
men  who  made  the  melodies  long  ago,  shall  we  be  able 
to  pass  through  the  process  of  true  enjoyment,  and 
reach  the  point  of  criticism  pure  and  proper.  We  shall 
get  no  good  by  being  sceptical.  We  must  believe  in 
heroes  of  gigantic  build,  in  dragons,  in  serpents,  in  weird 
spirits  of  the  water  and  the  air.  We  must  not  fall  to 
picking  and  grumbling  because  the  music  to  which  we 
listen  is  imperfect:  here  a  modern  touch,  closely  fol- 
lowing a  tone  of  undoubted  antiquity;  there  a  style 
undoubtedly  bred  far  north ;  and,  close  by,  another 
clearly  germane  to  the  lands  of  the  orange  and  cicala. 
We  are  in  an  enchanted  region,  listening  to  extraordinary 


226  Master-Spirits. 

sounds.  Heroes  and  spirits  of  all  places  and  countries 
meet  together  in  alternate  discord  and  harmony. 
Directly  we  grow  too  curious,  we  are  pelted  with  such 
a  confusion  of  dates,  contradictions,  and  flotsam  and 
jetsam,  that  we  begin  to  think  ballad-reading  a  labour. 

But  when  we  proceed  in  the  right  way,  when  we  are 
in  the  humour  to  enjoy  fine  human  truths  without  caring 
much  about  specially  authenticated  illustrations  of  such 
truths,  we  speedily  find  ourselves  transported  to  an 
atmosphere  swarming  with  creatures  of  delight  and 
wonder.  Everything  we  see  is  colossal,  things  as  well 
as  men  being  fashioned  on  a  mighty  scale  ;  the  adven- 
turous nature  burns  fiercely  as  fire,  lives  fall  thickly 
as  the  autumn  leaves,  and  nearly  every  man  is  a  big 
warrior.  Werner  the  Raven  sweeps  across  the  seas, 
watched  by  Rosmer  the  Merman  on  his  solitary  rocks, 
and  sending  down  a  storm  to  catch  the  ship  of  a  Danish 
king  and  queen.  The  mermaid  combs  her  silken  locks 
upon  the  shore.  The  Trold,  or  Goblin,  holds  his  wild 
revels  in  the  mountain.  Two  powers  exist — physical 
strength  and  the  command  of  the  supernatural.  We 
are  by  no  means  confined  to  Denmark,  but  flit  all  over 
Europe  ; — fighting  with  King  Diderik  of  Berne,  dream- 
ing in  a  non-real  Constantinople,  as  well  as  standing 
among  giants  on  the  Dovre  Fjeld.  But  in  our  wander- 
ings we  again  and  again  leave  the  battle-field,  and  come 
upon  'places  of  nestling  green/  where  abide  love,  and 
sorrow,  and  pity,  and  those  gentler  emotions  which  move 
the  souls  of  all  men  in  all  times.  We  have  love-making, 
ploughing  and  tilling,  drinking  and  song-singing.  At 


Scandinavian  Shtdies.  227 

every  step  we  meet  a  beautiful  maiden,  frequently 
unfortunate,  generally  in  love,  and  invariably  with 
golden  hair. 

This  treasury  of  poetic  lore  might  have  been  quite 
lost   to  us  but  for  a  timely  accident.     It  was  in   the 
year    1586   that   Queen    Sophia    of   Denmark,   being 
storm-bound  for  some  days  at  Knutstrup,  passed  the 
time  very  pleasantly  in  discussing  literary  subjects  with 
the  learned   and  able    pastor,   Andrew  Soffrenson   (to 
whom,  by  the  way,  she  had  been  introduced  by  Tycho 
Brahe),  and  touched  among  other  topics  upon  the  un- 
published ballad-literature  of  the  country.     The  result 
was  that  the  pastor,  about  five  years  afterwards,  pub- 
lished and  edited  the  first  hundred  of  Danish  '  Kjcempe 
Viser.'     A  hundred  years  afterwards,  Peter  Say,  another 
ecclesiastic,   and   a  gossip   after   Isaak   Walton's    own 
heart,   republished   the   work  of  Soffrenson,    with    the 
addition  of  one  hundred  pieces  of  his  own  collecting, 
and   dedicated   the  whole — ballads,  fantastical  preface, 
and   industrious  notes — to  Queen  Amelia.     From  that 
time  forth  the  stock  has  gone  on  increasing,  and  much 
useful  information  concerning  its  growth  has  been  added 
from   time   to   time   by   various   editors.     The  ballads 
themselves    may    be    divided    into    four    classes :  the 
'  Kjcempe  Viser,'  or  battle  pieces  ;  the  historical  pieces  ; 
the  poems  founded  on  popular   superstition  ;    and  the 
poems  dealing  with  the  domestic  affections.     Much  as 
these  effusions  have  been  altered,  mutilated,  or  improved 
upon,  in  the  course  of  transmission  from  generation  to 
generation,  they  contain  many  a   soft   strain,  many  a 

Q2 


228  Master -Spirits. 

rough  tone,  many  an  antique  meaning,  which  long  ago 
mingled  with  the  harps  of  the  wandering  minstrels — 
nay,  which  may  have  been  familiar,  for  anything  we 
know  to  the  contrary,  to  the  very  Scalds  themselves. 

At  the  time  when  Andrew  Soffrenson  published  his 
centenary,  the  ballads  had  been  floating  about  the  land 
for  centuries,  and  the  rude  melodies  to  which  some  of 
them  may  still  be  sung  stirred  the  blood  and  moistened 
the  eyes  in  many  a  peasant  household.  Transmitted  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  Scottish  and  Breton  ballads,  as  a 
precious  heritage  from  father  to  son,  they  were  preserved 
by  popular  recitation.  With  all  their  contradictions  and 
inconsistencies,  they  are  national — distinguishable  from 
the  Scottish  writings  of  the  same  class,  although  pos- 
sessing many  delicate  points  of  similarity.  As  for  the 
themes,  some  are  of  German  and  others  of  southern  origin, 
while  many  are  clearly  Scandinavian.  The  adventurers 
who  swept  southward,  to  range  themselves  under  the 
banners  of  strange  chiefs,  not  seldom  returned  home 
brimful  of  wild  exaggerated  stories,  to  beguile  many  a 
winter  night ;  and  these  stories  in  process  of  time  be- 
came so  imbedded  in  popular  tradition,  that  it  was 
difficult  to  guess  whence  they  primarily  came,  and 
gathered  so  much  moss  of  the  soil  in  the  process  of 
rolling  down  the  years,  that  their  foreign  colour  soon 
faded  into  the  sombre  greys  of  northern  poesy.  Travel- 
lers, flocking  northward  in  the  middle  ages,  added  to 
the  stock,  bringing  subtle  delicacies  from  Germany,  and 
fervid  tenderness  from  Italy.  But  much  emanated  from 
the  north  itself— from  the  storm-tost  shores  of  Denmark, 


Scandinavian  Shidies.  229 

and  from  the  wild  realm  of  the  eternal  snow  and  mid- 
night sun.  There  were  heroes  and  giants  breasting  the 
Dovre  Fjord,  as  well  as  striding  over  the  Adriatic. 
Certain  shapes  there  were  which  loved  the  sea-surrounded 
little  nation  only.  The  Lindorm,  hugest  of  serpents, 
crawled  near  Verona ;  but  the  Valrafn,  or  Raven  of 
Battle,  loved  the  swell  and  roar  of  the  fierce  north  sea. 
The  Dragon  ranged  as  far  south  as  Syria :  but  the  Ocean- 
sprite  liked  cold  waters,  and  flashed,  icy-bearded,  through 
the  rack  and  cloud  of  storm.  In  the  Scottish  ballad 
we  find  the  kelpie,  but  search  in  vain  for  the  mermaid. 
In  the  Breton  ballad  we  see  the  *  Korrigaun,'  seated  with 
wild  eyes  by  the  side  of  the  wayside  well ;  but  hear 
little  of  the  mountain-loving  Trolds  and  Elves.  It  is  in 
supernatural  conceptions,  indeed,  in  the  creation  of  typical 
spirits  to  represent  certain  ever-present  operations  of 
nature,  that  the  Danish  ballads  excel — being  equalled 
in  that  respect  only  by  the  German  Lieder,  with  which, 
they  have  so  very  much  in  common.  They  seldom  or 
never  quite  reach  the  rugged  force  of  language, — shown 
in  such  Breton  pieces  as  '  Jannedik  Flamm  '  and  the 
wild  early  battle-song.  They  are  never  so  refinedly 
tender  as  the  best  Scottish  pieces.  We  have  to  search 
in  them  in  vain  for  the  exquisite  melody  of  the  last 
portion  of  '  Fair  Annie  of  Lochryan,'  or  for  the  pathetic 
and  picturesque  loveliness  of  '  Clerk  Saunders,'  in  those 
exquisite  lines  after  the  murder : — 

Clerk  Saunders  he  started,  and  Margaret  she  turn'd 

Into  his  arms,  as  asleep  she  lay  j 
And  sad  and  silent  was  the  night 

That  was  between  thir  twae. 


230  Master-Spirits. 

And  they  lay  still,  and  sleeped  sound, 

Until  the  day  began  to  daw, 
As  kindly  to  him  she  did  say, 

'  It's  time,  true  love,  ye  were  awa' ! ; 

But  he  lay  still  and  sleeped  sound, 

Albeit  the  sun  began  to  sheen  ; 
She  looked  atween  her  and  the  wa', 

And  dull  and  drowsy  were  his  een. 

But  they  have  a  truth  and  force  of  their  own  which 
stamp  them  as  genuine  poetry.  In  the  mass,  they  might 
be  described  as  a  rough  compromise  of  language  with 
painfully  vivid  imagination.  Nothing  can  be  finer  than 
the  stories  they  contain,  or  more  dramatic  than  the 
situations  these  stories  entail ;  but  no  attempt  is  made 
to  polish  the  expression  or  refine  the  imageiy.  They 
give  one  an  impression  of  intense  earnestness,  of  a  habit 
of  mind  at  once  reticent  and  shadowed  with  the  strangest 
mysteries.  That  the  teller  believes  heart  and  soul  in  the 
story  he  is  going  to  relate,  is  again  and  again  proved 
by  his  dashing,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  narrative, 
into  the  catastrophe  : — 

It  was  the  young  Herr  Haagen, 
He  lost  his  sweet  young  life  ! 

And  all  because  he  would  not  listen  to  the  warnings  of 
a-  mermaid,  but  deliberately  cut  her  head  off.  There  is 
no  pausing,  no  description,  such  as  would  infer  a  doubt 
of  the  reality  of  any  person  in  the  story.  The  point  is, 
not  to  convey  the  fact  that  sea-maidens  exist — a  truth 
of  which  every  listener  is  aware — but  to  prove  the  folly 


Scandinavian  Studies.  231 

of  disregarding  their  advice,  when  they  warn  us  not  to 
go  to  sea  in  bad  weather. 

The  '  Kjcempe  Viser,'  '  Stridssanger,'  or  Ballads  of 
Battle,  are  a  series  of  pieces  describing  the  exploits  of 
kings,  heroes,  and  giants.  It  is  impossible  to  fix  the 
time  at  which  the  events  are  supposed  to  occur ;  but  it 
seems  to  have  been  a  period  when  the  new  faith  was 
gathering  strength  in  the  north,  but  when  Thor,  the 
mighty  of  muscle,  was  still  a  power  divinely  noisy,  and 
when  echoes  from  the  battle-grounds  of  Valhalla  still 
reverberated  through  the  lands  of  mountain,  snow,  and 
cloud.  Whom  the  heroes  represented,  or  whether  they 
represented  any  real  personages  at  all,  is  of  less  con- 
sequence than  the  assurance,  which  may  be  boldly  given, 
that  the  traditions  concerning  them  are  as  antique  as  the 
fragments  preserved  by  Scemund,  or  to  be  found  in  the 
Sagas.  They  may  be  divided  into  two  groups,  both 
mightier,  stronger,  wilder,  than  the  men  now  living— 
the  genuine  giants  and  the  mere  warriors,  men  of  ordi- 
nary dimensions.  It  may  be  noted  that  the  warriors, 
when  they  come  to  blows  with  the  giants,  nearly  always 
have  the  best  of  it ;  and  the  ballad  of  '  Berner  Rise  og 
Orm  Ungersvend,'  is  both  a  case  in  point  and  an  excel- 
lent sample  of  the  style  of  the  '  Kjcempe  Viser '  gene- 
rally. As  this  ballad  is  very  long,  we  shall  not  quote 
it,  but  briefly  tell  its  story. 

The  giant  Berner  was  so  big  that  he  could  with  ease 
look  over  the  battlements  of  any  castle ;  but  he  was 
little-witted,  irritable,  never  to  be  relied  upon.  '  It  would 
have  been  unfortunate  had  he  been  suffered  to  remain 


232  Master-Spirits. 

long  in  Denmark.'  One  day  he  buckled  his  sword  to 
his  side,  and  strode  to  the  palace  of  the  king.  '  Hail, 
King  of  Denmark  !  '  he  cried.  '  Either  you  shall  give 
me  your  daughter,  and  share  your  land  with  me  thereto, 
or  we  shall  see  which  of  your  champions  can  meet  me 
in  the  prize  ring — i  Kredsen?  The  king  refused  point- 
blank  the  first  propositions,  and  swore  that  one  of  his 
warriors  should  encounter  the  giant.  '  Which  of  you 
brave  Danish  warriors/  exclaimed  the  king,  passing  into 
the  hall  where  they  were  assembled,  '  will  fight  this 
Berner,  and  receive  my  fair  daughter  and  a  share  of  my 
land  as  the  reward  of  his  bravery  ? '  The  knights  sat 
still,  and  did  not  answer  a  word  ; — all  but  one.  For 
Orm,  called  Ungersvend,  who  sat  '  at  the  bottom  of  the 
board/  sprang  over  the  table  and  manfully  accepted  the 
offer.  Berner,  peeping  over  the  castle,  heard  Orm's 
mighty  words.  *  What  little  mouse  is  this  that  squeaks 
so  boldly  ? '  '  I  am  no  mouse/  retaliated  Orm  ;  '  I  am 
King  Sigfrid's  son — he  who  sleeps  in  the  mountain.' 
Whereupon  the  giant  observed,  doubtingly,  that  if  King 
Sigfrid  was  his  father,  Orm  could  be  only  fifteen  years 
old  ;  a  fine  fellow  to  fight  with  so  doughty  a  giant, 
surely.  But  the  brave  youth  was  undaunted.  '  Late  in 
the  evening,  when  the  sun  goes  to  rest/  he  mounted 
horse  to  ride  to  his  father's  grave,  his  object  being  to 
procure  the  sword  Birting,  which  lay  by  his  father's 
side.  He  knocked  on  the  mountain  '  so  hard,  that  it 
was  a  great  wonder  it  did  not  fall  with  the  blow.'  The 
stones  and  earth  rattled,  and  there  was  much  noise. 
Sigfrid  stirred  and  heard.  '  May  I  not  sleep  in  peace  ? ' 


Scandinavian  Studies.  233, 

he  cried.  '  Who  wakes  me  so  early  ?  Let  him  beware  lest 
he  die  by  Birting  ! '  '  I  am  Orm,  thy  youngest  son,  come  to 
crave  a  boon/  '  Did  I  not  give  thee  as  much  gold  and 
silver  as  thou  didst  wish  ? '  '  Yea  ! '  replied  Orm  ;  '  but 
I  value  them  not  a  penny.  I  want  Birting ;  it  is  such  a 
good  sword.'  '  Thou  shalt  not  have  Birting  before  thou 
hast  been  to  Ireland,  and  avenged  thy  father's  death.' 
'  Hand  up  Birting ! '  cried  Orm,  very  angry !  *  or  I 
will  knock  the  mountain  into  a  thousand  pieces  ! '  This 
prevailed.  '  Reach  down  thy  hand,  and  take  Birting 
from  my  side  ;  but  break  not  my  grave,  or  woe  will  be 
thy  portion.'  That  done,  off  went  Orm,  with  'Bitting  on 
his  back.'  On  seeing  him  again,  Berner  began  to  hesi- 
tate, saying,  '  It  does  not  become  a  warrior  to  fight  with 
a  child.'  But  Orm  attacked  him,  and  they  fought  for 
three  days,  at  the  end  of  which  Orm  sliced  off  his 
opponent's  lower  limbs  at  the  knees.  '  Ugh ! '  cried 
Berner,  yielding  ;  '  it  was  unchampion-like  to  strike  so 
low  ! '  'I  was  little  and  thou  wert  big,'  returned  Orm  ; 
*  I  could  not  reach  higher  up  ! '  Leaving  Berner  to  his 
reflections,  the  victor  took  Birting  on  his  back  and  walked 
to  the  sea-shore,  and  there  beheld  one  Tord  of  Valland, 
also  a  giant,  coming  on  land.  '  Who  is  this  little  man  ? ' 
demanded  Tord.  '  I  am  Orm  Ungersvend,  a  champion 
bold  and  fine,  and  I  have  slain  Berner,  thine  uncle.'  '  If 
thou  hast  slain  my  dearest  uncle,  I  slew  the  King  of 
Ireland,  thy  father ;  and  for  that  deed  thou  shalt  not 
have  a  penny,  or  a  penny's  worth.'  Then  Orm  raised 
Birting  and  struck-  off  the  head  of  Tord.  First  he  slew 
Tord,  and  then  all  Tord's  men.  Lastly,  hastening  back 


234  Master-Spirits. 

to  the  palace,  he  took  the  king's  daughter  by  the  hand. 
'  Beautiful  maiden  ! '  he  exclaimed  ;  '  thou  art  now  mine, 
and  I  have  gone  through  all  the  danger  for  thy  sake.' 

The  above  is  not  unlike  our  nursery  legend  of  '  Jack 
the  Giant  Killer ; '  but  it  is  told  in  good  terse  language, 
and  the  part  where  Orm  visits  his  father's  grave  is  really 
powerful.  It  is  noticeable  that  what  was  once  serious 
literal  description,  the  expression  of  sincere  belief,  sounds 
to  a  modern  ear  very  like  dry  humour — the  portion, 
for  example,  where  Orm  lops  off  the  champion  by  the 
knees.  The  name  '  Mysseling '  (little  mouse),  and  the 
adjective '  bose '  (angry),  from  their  resemblance  to  the 
German  words  f  Mauslein '  and  '  bose,'  would  seem  to 
suggest  a  German  original.  But  '  bos '  is  said  still  to  be 
in  use  in  Norway. 

Perhaps  the  oldest  of  the  battle  ballads  is  the  '  Tourna- 
ment,' beginning 

It  was  a  troop  of  gallant  knights, 

They  would  a  roving  go, 
They  have  halted  under  Brattinborg, 

And  pitched  their  tents  below. 
'Tis  clatter,  clatter,  under  hoof,  when  forth  the  heroes  ride  ; 

the  last  line  being  a  kind  of  refrain  to  each  stanza,  to  be 
found  in  all  the  Danish  ballads,  and  generally  having 
little  or  no  connection  with  the  theme.1  This  ballad 

1  These  refrains  doubtless  belonged  originally  to  pieces  which  they  suited 
in  significance  and  consistency,  but  in  the  course  of  transmission  they  have 
changed  places.  The  refrain  to  '  Berner  Rise  '  is 

'  But  the  groves  stand  all  in  blossom  ! ' 
— appropriate  for  some  prean  or  love  poem. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  235 

has  been  known  time  out  of  mind  in  Denmark,  and  is 
interesting  ,as  giving  a  description  of  the  shields  and 
devices,  as  well  as  of  the  peculiar  idiosyncrasies,  of  a 
long  list  of  fighters.  It  ends  with  a  single  combat 
between  Herr  Humble  and  Sivard  Snarensvend,  which 
latter  performs  great  feats  with  an  oak  tree,  torn  out  of 
the  ground  to  serve  as  a  cudgel.  There  is  a  considerable 
resemblance  between  the  '  Tournament '  and  some  por- 
tions of  the  '  Vilkinasaga.' 

'Berner  Rise'  and  the  'Tournament'  introduce  us  to 
many  northern  heroes.  But  the  personages  in  many  of 
the  '  Kjcempe  Viser '  are  exclusively  foreigners,  belong- 
ing to  the  court  of  the  Gothic  King  Diderik,  or  in  some 
respect  bound  to  him.  King  Diderik  and  his  knights 
appear  faintly  and  mistily  in  tradition ;  but  surrounded 
by  the  silver  haze  of  poetry,  their  figures  stand  out 
colossal,  clear,  and  defined.  '  How  the  Warriors  of  King 
Diderik  fought  in  the  Land  of  Birting '  is  a  good  ballad  ; 
but  the  best  of  all  is  the  poem  describing  how  Diderik 
and  the  Lion  fought  with  the  Serpent  (Lindorm). 
Riding  forth  from  Berne,  one  fine  day,  the  king  saw  a 
lion  and  a  serpent  fighting,  and  after  a  battle  of  three 
days  (the  usual  limit  for  combats  in  the  '  Kjcempe 
Viser '),  the  former  was  getting  the  worst  of  it.  'Help 
me,  Herr  King  Diderik,'  cried  the  quadruped.  '  Help 
me,  even  for  the  sake  of  the  golden  lion  which  thou 
bearest  on  thy  shield.'  '  Long  stood  King  Diderik,  and 
thought  thereupon ' —  though  every  minute  was  of 
consequence ;  but  at  last  he  drew  his  sword  and 
attacked  the  serpent.  He  would  have  been  victorious, 


236  Master-Spirits. 

but  unfortunately  his  sword  broke  off  at  the  hilt.  So 
the  serpent  'took  him  upon  her  back  and  his  horse 
under  her  tongue/  and  crawled  into  her  den  in  the 
mountain,  where  eleven  young  serpents  were  hungrily 
awaiting.  She  threw  the  horse  to  the  babies,  and 
tossed  the  man  into  a  corner.  *  Keep  an  eye  on  this  little 
mouthful,  this  toothsome  bit ;  I  am  going  to  sleep,  and 
shall  eat  him  when  I  awake.'  So  the  wily  lady  went  to 
sleep.  Groping  about  the  cave,  Diderik  found  a  sword, 
which  he  immediately  recognised  as  Adelring,  the 
property  of  King  Sigfrid.  '  God  help  thy  soul,  Sigfrid ! 
I  never  guessed  that  thou  hadst  died  thus.'  Brandishing 
Adelring,  he  smote  at  the  rocks,  so  that  the  mountain 
stood  in  flame.  '  If  thou  wakest  our  mother,'  screamed 
the  little  serpents,  '  it  will  go  ill  with  thee.'  '  I  will 
awaken  your  mother,'  was  the  retort,  '  and  with  a  very 
cold  dream ;  for  Sigfrid's  death  shall  be  avenged  upon 
you  all.'  The  serpent  awakened  in  alarm.  '  What 
means  all  this  noise  ? '  she  cried ;  whereupon  Diderik 
explained  his  intent.  In  spite  of  her  cowardice  and 
imploring,  she  and  all  her  young  were  slain.  But 
serpent  stings  and  tongues,  scattered  everywhere,  pre- 
vented the  hero  from  passing  out.  '  Curst  be  the  lion  ! ' 
he  cried  in  his  agony.  *  The  sneaking  lion  !  had  he  not 
been  graven  on  my  shield,  my  horse  would  have  borne 
me  home.'  The  lion  heard  from  without.  '  Softly,'  he 
cried  ;  '  I  am  digging  with  my  strong  claw.'  And  he 
did  so,  while  Diderik  used  his  sword ;  till  at  last  they 
made  a  clear  channel  out  of  the  mountain.  On  passing 
forth,  Diderik  began  to  bemoan  the  loss  of  his  horse ; 


Scandinavian  Stzidies.  237 

but  the  lion  interrupted  him,  crying,  '  Mount  my  back, 
Master  King  Diderik,  and  I  will  bear  thee  home.'  The 
ballad  fitly  ends  : — 

O'er  the  deep  dale  King  Diderik  rode, 

And  thro'  green  field  and  wood ; 
And  lightly,  merrily  along 

Went  leaping  the  lion  good. 

King  Diderik  and  the  lion  dwelt 

Together  evermoe, 
Right  well  had  one  the  other  freed 

From  danger  and  much  woe. 

When  Diderik  in  the  greenwood  rode, 

By  his  side  the  lion  sped, 
And  in  his  lap  when  still  he  sat, 

The  lion  laid  its  head. 

Wherefore   was   Diderik    ever    afterwards    called    the 

*  Knight  of  the  Lion  ' — a  title  he  had  won  with  exceed- 
ing honour. 

Thus  are  depicted,  in  somewhat  startling  colours,  the 
manners  and  customs  of  a  mythical  period,  familiar  to 
us  through  the  Sagas.  The  heroes  sweep  about,  strong 
as  the  sword-blow,  bright  as  the  sword-flash.  Echo 
babbles  of  wondrous  things  ;  every  hill  is  haunted.  But 
the  tale-tellers  talk  like  men  dealing  with  facts,  and  are 
full  of  charming  credulity.  Not  very  different  are  the 

*  Historical   Ballads,'   so   called,  not   because  they   are 
authentically   historical,    but   because  their   heroes   are 
historical  personages.     Beyond  that,  and  the  occasional 
mention  of  '  fatherland,'  they  have  little  to  distinguish 
them   from   the   other   sets  of  '  Viser.'      The  northern 


238  Master- Spirits. 

kings,  from  Oluf  the  Holy  to  Christian  II.,  are  the  chief 
figures.  We  still  find  the  supernatural  element,  besides 
plenty  of  fighting.  King  Waldemar  flourishes  a  great 
sword,  and  a  mermaid  prophesies,  soothsayer-like,  to 
Queen  Dagmar. 

Among  the  pieces  founded  on  popular  superstition, 
appear  many  of  the  gems  of  Danish  ballad  literature. 
In  nearly  every  one  of  them  we  hear  of  enchantment,  of 
men  and  maidens  transformed  into  strange  shapes  ;  and 
it  is  remarkable  that  the  worker  of  the  foul  witchcraft 
is  invariably  a  cruel  stepmother.  The  best  of  them  are 
terse  and  strong,  and  impress  us  more  solemnly  than  do 
the  '  Battle  Ballads/  We  are  in  a  strange  region,  as  we 
read  ; — and  everywhere  around  us  rises  the  wail  of  people 
who  are  doomed  to  visit  the  scenes  of  their  humanity  in 
unnatural  forms. 

In  novafert  Animus  mutatas  dicer e  formas 
Corpora, 

might  be  the  motto  of  any  future  translator  of  these 
pieces.  How  the  Bear  of  Dalby  turned  out  to  be  a 
king's  son ;  how  Werner  the  Raven,  through  drinking 
the  blood  of  a  little  child,  changed  into  the  fairest  knight 
eye  of  man  could  see  ;  how  an  ugly  serpent  changed 
in  the  same  way,  and  all  by  means  of  a  pretty  kiss  from 
fair  little  Signe.  But  there  are  other  kinds  of  super- 
natural manifestation,  The  Elves  flit  on  '  Elfer-hill/ 
and  slay  the  young  men ;  they  dance  in  the  grove  by 
moonlight,  and  the  daughter  of  the  Elf-king  sends  Herr 
Oluf  home,  a  dying  man,  to  his  bride.  The  ballad  in 


Scandinavian  Studies.  239 

which  the  latter  event  occurs,  bears,  by  the  way,  a 
striking  resemblance  to  the  Breton  ballad  of  the 
'  Korrigaun.'  The  dead  rise.  A  corpse  accosts  a  horse- 
man who  is  resting  by  a  well,  and  makes  him  swear  to 
avenge  his  death ;  and  late  at  night,  tormented  by  the 
sin  of  having  robbed  two  fatherless  bairns,  rides  a  weary 
ghost,  the  refrain  concerning  whom  has  been  adopted 
verbatim  by  Longfellow  in  his  *  Saga  of  King  Oluf '  : — 

Dead  rides  Sir  Morten  of  Foglesang  ! 

The  Trolds  of  the  mountain  besiege  a  peasant's  house, 
and  the  least  of  them  all  insists  on  having  the  peasant's 
wife  ;  but  the  catastrophe  is  a  transformation — a  prince's 
son.  '  The  Deceitful  Merman '  beguiles  Marstig's 
daughter  to  her  death,  and  the  piece  in  which  he  does  so 
is  interesting  as  being  the  original  of  Goethe's  '  Fisher.' 
Goethe  found  the  poem  translated  in  Herder's  'Volks- 
lieder.'  Another  ballad,  'Agnete  and  the  Merman/ 
begins — 

On  the  high  tower  Agnete  is  pacing  slow, 
Sudden  a  Merman  upsprings  from  below, 

Ho  !  ho  !  ho  ! 
A  Merman  upsprings  from  the  water  below. 

'  Agnete  !  Agnete  ! '  he  cries,  '  wilt  thou  be  my  true-love 
— my  all-dearest  ? '  '  Yea,  if  thou  takest  me  with  thee 
to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.'  They  dwell  together  eight 
years,  and  have  seven  sons.  One  day,  Agnete,  as  she 
sits  singing  under  the  blue  water,  '  hears  the  clocks  of 
England  clang,'  and  straightway  asks  and  receives  per- 
mission to  go  on  shore  to  church.  She  meets  her  mother 


240  Master -Spirits. 

at  the  church-door.  'Where  hast  thou  been  these 
eight  years,  my  daughter ? '  'I  have  been  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea/  replies  Agnete,  *  and  have  seven  sons 
by  the  Merman.'  The  Merman  follows  her  into  the 
church,  and  all  the  small  images  turn  away  their  eyes 
from  him.  '  Hearken,  Agnete  !  thy  small  bairns  are 
crying  for  thee.'  '  Let  them  cry  as  long  as  they  will ; 
I  shall  not  return  to  them.'  And  the  cruel  one  cannot 
be  persuaded  to  go  back.  This  pathetic  outline,  so 
capable  of  poetic  treatment,  forms  the  groundwork  of 
one  of  the  most  musical  and  tender  pieces  in  our  lan- 
guage— Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  '  Forsaken  Merman/ 
Indeed,  the  Danish  mermen  seem,  with  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptions, to  have  been  good  fellows,  and  badly  used. 
One  Rosmer  Harmand  does  many  kindly  acts,  but  is 
rewarded  with  base  ingratitude  by  everybody.  The  tale 
of  Rosmer  bears  a  close  resemblance  to  the  romance  of 
Childe  Rowland,  quoted  by  Edgar  in  '  Lear.' 

One  of  the  best  of  the  supernatural  ballads  is  *  Aage 
and  Elsie,'  paraphrased  by  Oehlenschlager  in  *  Axel  and 
Valborg,'  and  similar  in  subject  to  Burger's  '  Leonora.' 
We  shall  translate  it  entire,  as  an  excellent  specimen  of 
its  class : — 

It  was  the  young  Herr  Aage 
He  rode  in  summer  shade, 

To  pay  his  troth  to  Elsie  lyle, 
The  rosy  little  maid. 

He  paid  his  troth  to  Elsie, 

And  sealed  it  with  red,  red  gold, 
But  ere  a  month  had  come  and  gone 

He  lay  in  kirkyard  mould. 


Scandinavian  Stiidies.  241 

It  was  the  little  Elsie, 

Her  heart  was  clayey  cold, 
And  young  Herr  Aage  heard  her  moan 

Where  he  lay  in  kirkyard  mould. 

Uprose  the  young  Herr  Aage, 

Took  coffin  on  his  back, 
And  walked  by  night  to  Elsie's  bower, 

All  thro'  the  forest  black. 

Then  knock'd  he  with  his  coffin, 

He  knock'd  and  tirled  the  pin — 
*  Rise  up,  my  bonnie  Elsie  lyle, 

And  let  thy  lover  in  ! ' 

Then  answered  little  Elsie, 

'  I  open  not  the  door, 
Unless  thou  namest  Mary's  Son, 

As  thou  could'st  do  before  ! ' 

'  Stand  up,  my  little  Elsie, 

And  open  thy  chamber  door, 
For  I  have  named  sweet  Mary's  Son, 

As  I  could  do  before  ! ' 

It  is  the  little  Elsie, 

So  worn,  and  pale,  and  thin, 
She  openeth  the  chamber-door 

And  lets  the  dead  man  in. 

His  dew-damp  dripping  ringlets 

She  kaims  with  kaim  of  gold, 
And  aye  for  every  lock  she  curls 

Lets  fall  a  tear-drop  cold. 

'  O  listen,  dear  young  Aage  ! 

Listen,  all-dearest  mine  ! 
How  fares  it  with  thee  underground 

In  that  dark  grave  of  thine  ? ' 
R 


242  Master-Spirits. 

1  Whenever  thou  art  smiling, 

When  thy  bosom  gladly  glows , 
My  grave  in  yonder  dark  kirkyard 
Is  hung  with  leaves  of  rose. 

'  Whenever  thou  art  weeping, 
And  thy  bosom  aches  full  sore, 

My  grave  in  yonder  dark  kirkyard 
Is  filled  with  living  gore. 

1  Hark,  the  red  cock  is  crowing, 
And  the  dawn  gleams  chill  and  grey, 

The  dead  are  summoned  back  to  the  grave, 
And  I  must  haste  away. 

'  Hark,  the  black  cock  is  crowing, 
Twill  soon  be  break  of  day — 

The  gate  of  heaven  is  opening, 
And  I  must  haste  away  !  ' 

Upstood  the  pale  Herr  Aage, 

His  coffin  on  his  back, 
Wearily  to  the  cold  kirkyard 

He  walked  thro'  the  forest  black. 

It  was  the  little  Elsie, 

Her  beads  she  sadly  told — 
She  followed  him  thro'  the  forest  black 

Unto  the  kirkyard  cold. 

When  they  had  passed  the  forest, 
And  gained  the  kirkyard  cold, 

The  dead  Herr  Aage's  golden  locks 
Were  grey  and  damp  with  mould. 

When  they  had  passed  the  kirkyard, 
And  the  kirk  had  enter'd  in, 

The  young  Herr  Aage's  rosy  cheeks 
Were  ghastly  pale  and  thin. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  243 

<  O  listen,  little  Elsie, 

All-dearest,  list  to  me  ! 
O  weep  not  for  me  any  more, 

For  I  slumber  tranquillie. 

*  Look  up,  my  little  Elsie, 

Unto  the  lift  so  grey — 
Look  up  unto  the  little  stars, 

The  night  is  winging  away.1 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven 

And  the  stars  that glimmer Jd  der, — 

Down  sank  the  dead  man  to  his  grave — 
She  saw  him  nevermore. 

Home  went  little  Elsie, 

Her  heart  was  chilly  cold, 
And  ere  a  month  had  come  and  gone 

She  lay  in  kirkyard  mould.1 

The  lines  we  have  italicised  seem  to  us  at  once  tender 
and  powerful,  and  the  whole  ballad  is  beautiful. 

The  resemblance  of  '  Aage  and  Elsie '  to  the  Scottish 
ballad  of  'Sweet  William's  Ghost*  is  apparent  at  a 
glance ;  and  it  also  possesses  some  points  in  common 
with  the  old  English  ballad  of  the  'Suffolk  Miracle/ 
One  portion  contains  a  form  of  expression  common  in 
the  old  Scottish  ballads,  as  in  '  Clerk  Saunders/ — 

Then  up  and  crew  the  red,  red  cock, 
And  up  and  crew  the  grey. 

Indeed,  only  a  few  illustrations  out  of  hundreds,  showing 
the    resemblance  between    the   Danish  and   our   own 

1  See  the  author's  '  Ballads  of  the  Affections '  (from  the  Scandinavian). 
Sampson,  Low,  and  Co. 

R  2 


244  Master -Spirits. 

ballads,  need  be  given  here — since  our  purpose  is  not  to 
build  up  any  antiquarian  theory,  but  to  give  a  general 
and  true  impression  of  a  somewhat  neglected  field  of 
literature.  'Skjon  Anna'  (Beautiful  Anna)  is  nearly 
the  same  as  '  Lord  Thomas  and  Fair  Annie '  in  the 
'Border  Minstrelsy;'  'Stolt  Ingeborg'  as  the  'Lady 
turned  Sewing  Man,'  in  Percy's  '  Reliques  ; '  and  so  on. 
The  resemblance  extends  to  the  nicest  points  of  language. 

King  Frederick  sidder  paa  Koldinghus, 

Med  Ridder'  og  Svende  drikker  han  godt  Rus, 

is  nearly  word  for  word  with  the  opening  of  '  Sir 
Patrick  Spens ; ' 

Han  satte  Hjaltet  mod  en  Sten, 
Og  Odden  gjorde  hans  Hjerte  Men, 

is  nothing  more  than  the 

He  set  the  sword's  poynt  to  his  brest, 
The  pummill  until  a  stone, 

of  Percy's '  Reliques.'  Compare  also  with  the  conclusion 
of  '  William  and  Margaret,'  in  the  '  Reliques,'  this  conclu- 
sion of  '  Herr  Sallemand  : ' 

In  the  southern  chancel  they  laid  him  down, 

In  the  northern  laid  his  love, 
And  out  of  each  breast  grew  roses  two, 

Their  constancy  to  prove. 

Out  of  each  breast,  grew  roses  two, 
And  the  blossoms  they  were  red,  &c. 

But  comparisons  may  stop  here. 

We  have  left  ourselves  little  room  to  write  of  the 


Scandinavian  Studies.  245 

large  mass  of  romances  and  ballads,  dealing  with 
ordinary  joys  and  sorrows  consequent  on  the  domestic 
affections.  But  to  describe  them  in  detail  would  far 
transcend  our  limits.  Is  it  not  enough  that  many  of 
them  are  exquisite,  and  few  of  them  disagreeable? — 
unless,  indeed,  the  reader  be  a  too  fastidious  person. 
In  perusing  tJiem,  indeed,  we  find  ourselves  again  and 
again  surprised  at  the  recurrence  of  themes  turning  on 
seduction  and  illegitimacy — misfortunes  and  vices  into 
which  even  kings  and  queens  fall  with  dreadful  frequency. 
It  is  not  a  nice  subject  to  dwell  upon,  but  he  who  is 
afraid  of  it  must  shut  up  old  ballads  for  ever.  We 
cannot  get  anything  worse  than  the  genuine  version  of 
the  old  Scottish  ballad  of  '  Lamkin.'  It  must  be  con- 
fessed, moreover,  that  the  themes  are  treated  without 
pruriency,  and  that  the  frail  ones  are  more  unfortunate 
than  sinful ;  for  the  seductions  are  nearly  always  caused 
by  a  lying  troth  on  the  part  of  the  man,  and  the 
bastards  grow  up,  and,  sword  in  fist,  compel  their  parents 
to  make  them  honest  children — as  it  seems  they  were 
able  to  do  in  those  days  and  in  those  parts.  The  point 
of  what  might  be  styled  immorality,  we  have  said,  is  the 
one  which  first  impresses  us  in  reading  the  domestic 
pieces.  But  when  we  think  of  the  changes  which  have 
taken  place  in  manners  and  customs,  and  above  all,  when 
we  contemplate  the  tender  scenes  of  love,  and  joy,  and 
sorrow  which  flower  everywhere  on  our  poetic  vision — 
why,  the  immoral  point  seems  so  fine  as  to  be  hardly 
perceptible  without  green  spectacles. 

We  think  we  have  written  enough  to  send  the  reader 


246  Master-Spirits. 

to  the  old  Danish  ballads.  Many  of  them  have  been 
rendered  into  German  by  Grimm,  in  his  'Altdanische 
Heldenlieder  und  Balladen  ; '  and  Jamieson  has  trans- 
lated five  in  his  '  National  Ballads/  But  we  need  a 
good  collection  of  them  in  English,  and  get  it  we  must 
sooner  or  later.  The  sooner  the  better. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  247 


in. 

BJORNSON'S  MASTERPIECE. 

WHILE  German  literature  darkens  under  the  malignant 
star  of  Teutonism,  while  French  Art,  sickening  of  its 
long  disease,  crawls  like  a  Leper  through  the  light  and 
wholesome  world,  while  all  over  the  European  continent 
one  wan  influence  or  another  asserts,  its  despair- 
engendering  sway  over  books  and  men,  whither  shall  a 
bewildered  student  fly  for  one  deep  breath  of  pure  air 
and  wholesome  ozone  ?  Goethe  and  Heine  have  sung 
their  best — and  worst.  Alfred  de  Musset  is  dead,  and 
Victor  Hugo  is  turned  politician.  Grillparzer  is  still  a 
mystery,  thanks  partly  to  the  darkening  medium  of 
Carlyle's  hostile  criticism.  From  the  ashes  of  Teutonic 
transcendentalism  rises  Wagner  like  a  phoenix, — a  bird 
too  uncommon  for  ordinary  comprehension,  but  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  an  anomaly  at  best.  One  tires  of 
anomalies,  one  sickens  of  politics,  one  shudders  at  the 
petticoat  literature  first  created  at  Weimar  ;  and  looking 
east  and  west,  ranging  with  a  true  invalid's  hunger 
the  literary  horizon,  one  searches  for  something  more 
natural,  for  some  form  of  indigenous  and  unadorned 
loveliness,  wherewith  'to  fleet  the  time  pleasantly,  as 


248  Master -Spirits. 

they  did  in  the  golden  world.'  That  something  may  be 
found,  without  travelling  very  far.  Turn  northward,  in 
the  footsteps  of  Teufelsdrochk,  traversing  the  great 
valleys  of  Scandinavia,  and  not  halting  until,  like  the 
philosopher,  you  look  upon  *  that  slowly  heaving  Polar 
Ocean,  over  which  in  the  utmost  north  the  great  Sun 
hangs  low.'  Quiet  and  peaceful  lies  Norway  yet,  as  in 
the  world's  morning.  The  flocks  of  summer  tourists 
alight  upon  her  shores,  and  scatter  themselves  to  their 
numberless  stations,  without  disturbing  the  peaceful 
serenity  of  her  social  life.  Towns  are  few  and  far 
between  ;  railways  scarcely  exist.  The  government  is  a 
virtual  democracy,  such  as  would  gladden  the  heart  of 
Gambetta ;  the  Swedish  monarch's  rule  over  Norway 
being  merely  titular.  There  are  no  hereditary  nobles. 
There  is  no  *  gag '  on  the  press.  Science  and  poetry 
alike  flourish  on  this  free  soil.  The  science  is  grand  as 
Nature  herself,  cosmic  as  well  as  microscopic.  The 
poetry  is  fresh,  light,  and  pellucid,  worthy  of  the  race, 
and  altogether  free  from  Parisian  taint. 

It  is  quite  beyond  our  present  purpose  to  attempt  a 
sketch  of  modern  Scandinavian  poetry,  interesting  and 
useful  as  such  a  sketch  would  be.  Our  object  is  much 
simpler, — to  treat  of  a  single  work  by  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  living  Norwegian  authors.  A  number  of 
years  ago,  when  we  first  began  to  interest  ourselves  in 
Scandinavian  literature,  we  had  the  pleasure  of  introducing 
to  public  notice  the  works  of  a  poet  whose  name  has 
since  then  become  tolerably  familiar  in  this  country  as  a 
writer  of  charming  pastoral  tales.  The  lovely  idyls  of 


Scandinavian  Stiidies.  249 

'  Arne  '  and  '  Ovind  '  have  of  late  years  been  rendered 
by  more  than  one  hand  into  English  ;  and  who  that  has 
read  them  can  forget  the  wild  little  songs  with  which 
they  are  broken  here  and  there — songs  such  as  '  Ingerid 
Sletten  of  Willow  Pool,'  light  as  the  gleam  of  sunrise  on 
the  mountains,  and  pure  as  the  morning  dew  ?  But 
Bjornson  is  something  more  than  even  the  finest  pastoral 
taleteller  of  this  generation.  He  is  a  dramatist  of 
extraordinary  power.  He  does  not  possess  the  power 
of  imaginative  fancy  shown  by  Wergeland  (in  such 
pieces  as  'Jan  van  Huysums  Blomsterstykke '),  nor 
Welhaven's  refinement  of  phrase,  nor  the  wild  melodious 
abandon  of  his  greatest  rival,  the  author  of  '  Peer  Gynt ; ' 
but,  to  our  thinking  at  least,  he  stands  as  a  poet  in  a  far 
higher  rank  than  any  of  these  writers.  Many  of  his 
countrymen,  however,  prefer  Ibsen. 

Of  the  dramatic  works  from  Bjornson's  pen  with 
which  we  are  familiar — 'Mellem  Slagene,'  '  Halte  Hulde,' 
'  Kong  Sverre,'  and  '  Marie  Stuart  i  Skotland' — one  is 
of  such  extreme  superiority  that  we  propose  to  confine 
our  attention,  during  the  present  article,  to  it  alone.  It 
has  seemed  to  us  that  to  give  as  briefly  and  as  vividly  as 
we  can  a  sketch  of  the  subject,  with  here  and  there  a 
glimpse  of  the  characters  and  the  dialogue,  will  better 
than  any  amount  of  mere  criticism  enable  the  uninformed 
reader  to  gain  a  proper  conception  of  Bjornson's  dra- 
matic quality.  A  complete  translation  would  doubtless 
be  best,  but  that  being  neither  expedient  nor  profitable 
to  the  translator,  must  be  resigned  to  some  more 
favoured  mortal.  The  play  in  question  is  entitled  '  Sigurd 


250  Master -Spirits. 

Slembe  ; '  it  was  published  at  Copenhagen  in  i863;1 
and  it  is,  besides  being  the  masterpiece  of  its  author,  a 
drama  of  which  any  living  European  author  might  be 
justly  proud. 

'Sigurd  Slembe/  or  *  Sigurd  the  Bastard,'  lived  in 
Norway  (according  to  the  dramatist)  in  the  stormy 
days  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  the  kingdom  was 
troubled  with  numberless  petty  dissensions,  when  every 
chieftain  fought  for  his  own  hand,  and  every  youth  of 
spirit  had  the  chance  of  ending  his  days  as  a  petty  king. 
The  first  part  of  the  play — entitled  '  Sigurd's  First 
Flight ' — opens  in  Stavanger  Church,  and  as  the  scene 
begins,  Sigurd  enters,  casts  down  his  cap,  and  kneels 
at  the  altar,  before  the  image  of  St.  Olaf.  '  Now  shalt 
thou  hearken,  O  holy  Olaf ! '  he  exclaims  triumphantly. 
'  I  have  this  day  overthrown  Bejntejn !  Bejntejn  was 
the  strongest  man  in  the  country  ;  and  now — 'tis  I ! ' 
Then,  after  enumerating  the  advantages  of  such  a 
championship,  he  adds,  with  delightful  naivete  :— 

And  for  all  this,  I  have  myself  to  thank  ! 
Thou,  Olaf,  hast  not  helped  me  in  the  least. 
I  bade  thee  tell  me  who  my  father  was, 
But  thou  wert  silent. 

Therein  lies,  the  bitter  wound  of  Sigurd's  life.  He  is 
of  mysterious  birth,  and  the  people  style  him  base-born. 
When  he  would  contest  with  young  men  of  his  age  at 
leaping  or  wrestling,  they  .call  him  opprobrious  names, 
and  bid  him  depart.  He  is  shame-stricken  at  every 

1   'Sigurd  Slembe.'     Af  Bjornsterne  Bjornson  (Copenhagen,  1863). 


Scandinavian  Studies.  251 

step.  And  for  all  this,  he  thinks,  Saint  Olaf  is  to  blame. 
All  have  kinsmen,  save  only  he  ;  yet  he  is  the  equal  of 
any  man.  Only  give  him  lineage  and — ships,  and  he 
will  force  himself  a  kingdom  somewhere  or  other,  as  the 
Knight  Baldwin  and  many  other  similar  adventurers 
had  done  before  him !  We  have  here,  at  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  play,  a  perfect  glimpse  of  the  fierce, 
proud,  untried  temper,  the  simple  manliness,  and  the 
wonderful  physical  strength  of  Sigurd.  As  the  play 
advances,  the  leading  figure  grows  imperceptibly  upon 
our  attention,  until  it  seems  to  assume  colossal  propor- 
tions and  to  exercise  an  almost  supernatural  fascination. 
Thora,  the  mother  of  Sigurd,  enters  the  church, 
accompanied  by  a  chieftain,  Koll  Scebjornson.  These 
two  chide  him  for  facing  the  best  champion  in  the 
land,  aver  that  his  pre-eminence  will  be  attended  with 
danger,  and  that,  moreover,  all  he  gets  for  his  pains  is, 
not  the  usual  song  of  praise,  but  a  nickname.  *  Then 
name  my  father/  he  cries,  '  and  the  song  will  come  ! ' 

Thora.  Thy  sire  is  Adelbrekt  I 

Sigurd.  I  believe  it  not. 

He  said  in  anger,  that  I  was  another's. 

Thora.  In  anger,  yes  ! 

Sigurd.  'Tis  then  men  speak  the  truth  !  .  .  . 
It  matters  not,  since  'tis  not  infamy  ! 

Thora.  But  it  is  infamy. 

Sigurd.  I  am  no  Thrall ; 

That  I  can  feel ;  and  thou  art  Saxd's  daughter. 

Thora.  Ah,  there  is  other  shame  than  slavish  birth  ! 

A  stormy  scene  ensues.     Thora  pleads  and  pleads  for 


252  Master-Spirits. 

concealment.  Sigurd  still  insists  on  knowing  her  secret, 
and  at  last,  with  fiery  determination,  threatens  to  quit 
home  for  the  sea,  and  to  bury  his  shame  afar.  This 
threat  rends  the  mother's  heart,  and  she  confesses,  with 
many  tears  and  protestations,  the  terrible  secret. 

My  father  from  his  threshold  drave  me  forth 

With  thee,  who  just  wert  born.     My  sister  stood 

At  the  high  casement,  casting  clothes  to  us, 

With  shrieks  and  curses — and  she  died  of  sorrow. 

So  now,  thou  know'st  it ;  thou  art  basely  born 

In  blood-shame ! 

Thy  father,  Sigurd,  was  my  sister's  husband  ! 

Was  Norway's  king, — he  was  King  Magnus  Barefoot  ! 

Koll  (rising).  King  Magnus  ! 

Thora.  Yea ! 

Sigurd  (before  Saint  Olafs  image — with  emphasis) : 
Then  are  we  two  aken  ! 

Sigurd  receives  the  intelligence  with  little  or  no  surprise ; 
albeit,  as  he  expresses  it,  it  '  opens  the  whole  world  to 
him.'  A  moment  afterwards  he  is  striding  away,  when 
Thora  calls  him  back. 

Whither  goest  thou  ? 

Sigurd.  To  the  King,  my  brother  ! 
For  he  shall  straightway  give  me  half  the  realm. 
Thora.  O  what  a  thought ! 
Koll.  Art  thou  in  thy  right  reason  ? 
Sigurd.  The  King  is  basely  born.     His  brother  also, 
With  whom  he  shared  the  realm,  was  basely  born. 
And  many  Kings  ;  for  mark,  St.  Olafs  law 
Makes  no  distinctions.     /  too  have  the  right 
To  be  a  King. 

Koll.  O  softly,  softly,  friend  ! 


Scandinavian  Studies.  253 

Sigurd.  Our  patrimony  shall  be  shared  between  us. 
Roll.  He  who  is  powerful  shares  not  willingly  ! 
Sigurd.  With  Ejntejn  shared  he,  and  with  Olaf  also. 
Koll.  But  he  is  aged  now,  and  hath  a  son  ! 

The  scene,  a  very  long  one,  proceeds  with  stormy 
power,  Sigurd  still  insisting  on  seeing  the  King  and  in 
urging  his  birthright  by  fair  means  or  by  force ;  but  at 
last  the  protestations  of  Koll  and  his  mother  deter  him 
from  plunging  the  country  into  civil  war.  'My  son/ 
exclaims  Thora,  '  remain  here  in  peace  ; '  but  'Sigurd 
cries  wildly,  *  Never !  never  ! ' 

What,  shall  I  begging  stand  at  mine  own  board  ! 
What,  shall  I  waiting  stand  in  mine  own  court ! 
Shall  I  the  stirrup  for  my  brother  hold, 
And  stand  aside,  while  he  rides  proudly  forth 
I'  the  hunt,  and  for  dismissal  his  swift  steed 
Besprinkles  me  with  mire  ?  .  .  .  O  cursed  thoughts  ! 
Still  whirling,  like  the  dust-cloud  round  his  helm — 
They  choke,  they  smother  me, — I  see  them  rise  !  .  .  . 
O  mother,  mother,  wherefore  did'st  thou  speak? 

He  hides  his  face  and  casts  himself  on  the  floor.  At 
that  moment  the  voices  of  Pilgrims  are  heard,  singing 
within  the  Church : — 

The  earth  is  beauteous, 

Beauteous  is  God's  heaven, 
Beauteous  the  Soul  as  it  fares  along  ; 

Through  the  blessed 

Earthly  kingdoms, 
Go  we  to  Paradise  with  song.1 

1  The  original  song  is  by  Ingemann,  and  is  rhymed  or  unrhymed  as  in 
the  translation.  It  is  impossible  to  reproduce  in  English  its  peculiar  lyric 
charm. 


254  Master-Spirits . 

The  song  comes  to  Sigurd  like  a  voice  from  Heaven. 
Ever  impulsive  and  ready  to  act  on  the  inspiration  of 
the  moment,  he  springs  up,  crying,  '  To  Jerusalem ! ' 
He,  too,  taking  the  path  whereby  Tancred,  Baldwin,  and 
Robert  came  to  glory,  will  go  crusading  to  Palestine. 
Very  striking  here  is  Sigurd's  mood,  as  an  illustration  of 
the  purely  business-like  spirit  which  sent  so  many  forth 
on  pilgrimage.  The  Cross  is  a  shelter  for  his  indo- 
mitable pride,  that  is  all ;  he  has  no  delicate  religious 
feeling. 

Hark,  the  Mass  washes  o'er  the  church's  walls, 

The  Bishop  at  the  altar  lifts  the  Host, 

The  Priests  hold  forth  the  consecrated  Cross  ! 

Sigurd  rushes  forth  to  join  them,  leaving  Thora  in 
piteous  lamentation, — for  her  child,  she  dreams,  is  lost 
to  her  for  ever.  A  short  scene  ensues ;  and  then  we 
again  catch  sight  of  Sigurd,  standing  on  a  height  near 
the  sea,  while  the  Pilgrim-ships  lie  in  a  bight  below, 
ready  to  hoist  sail.  The  man's  heart  is  full  of  wild 
exultation.  He  has  the  command  of  a  ship,  he  is  about 
to  sail  away,  and  now  for  the  first  time  he  lives  indeed. 
Sadly  the  mother  enters.  He  runs  to  her,  garrulously 
expressing  his  delight. 

Look  at  the  dawn  which  shines  around  us — see  ! 
With  colours  clear  it  paints  my  leave-taking, 
And  giveth  promise  of  a  glorious  day. 
What  fragrance  sheddeth  here  the  morning  weather, 
How  fresh  the  lift l  is  and  how  high  the  heaven, 

1  Luft  in  the  original ;  whence,  indeed,  the  exquisite  word  so  common  in 
our  own  ballads. 


Scandinavian  Sadies.  255 

And  never  do  I  mind  me  of  a  day 

When  I  could  see  so  far  out  on  the  Deep  ! 

The  breeze  which  blows  thro'  all  and  strikes  my  cheek 

So  softly,  saith  it  not  into  mine  ear, 

From  air,  from  sea,  from  dawn,  from  the  sweet  weather  : 

Luck  to  thy  journey,  Sigurd  Magnusson  ! 

It  is  clear  enough  that  no  mere  domestic  affection  could 
fetter  a  soul  like  this.  Sigurd  has  a  boy's  heart,  is  full 
of  headstrong  and  sanguine  spirit.  He  kisses  her  and 
departs,  leaving  her  seated  on  the  rock,  weeping.  Here 
the  curtain  falls  on  Sigurd's  First  Flight. 

There  is  a  lapse  of  five  years.  The  curtain  rises  on 
another  scene:  Katanoes  (or  Caithness)  in  Scotland. 
A  change  takes  place  in  the  form  of  the  dialogue.  The 
opening  act  is  written  in  blank  verse,  not  much  more 
polished  than  that  of  our  translation  ;  but  all  the  follow- 
ing scenes  are  in  prose — that  strong  simple  Prose,  full 
of  short  natural  sentences,  which  Bjornson  wields  with 
such  effect  in  his  tales,  and  which  here,  as  elsewhere,  is 
much  more  effective  than  Verse  of  any  kind. 

Two  women  are  seated  in  a  lofty  hall,  sewing,  and 
hearkening  to  the  roar  of  a  storm.  One  is  Helga, 
mother  to  Harald,  Earl  of  Caithness,  '  also  (as  the  list 
of  characters  explains)  Earl  of  a  portion  of  the  Orkneys, 
but  driven  out  from  the  latter  possessions  by  his  Co- 
regent  and  brother.'  The  other  is  Frakark,  aunt  of 
Harald  and  sister  of  Helga :  an  evil  woman,  as  will  be 
seen  in  the  sequel.  Frakark  is  at  work  on  a  red  shirt 
or  jerkin,  embroidered  with  gold  and  gems.  '  To-day/ 
says  Helga,  in  the  pause  of  the  wind  ;  '  to-day,  Svenn 


256  Master -Spirits. 

Viking  comes  from  Orkney.'  'What  tidings/  asks 
Frakark,  '  dost  thou  think  he  will  bring  ? '  '  No  good/ 
answers  Helga.  The  scene  continues  : — 

Helga.  It  is  this  day  nigh  three  years  since  we  were  forth- 
driven  .  .  .  We  have  no  one  to  help  us  ! 

Frakark.  Daily  the  Vikings  are  coming  home  from  their 
summer  cruise.  With  so  many  brave  men  something  could  be 
carried  out. 

Helga.  But  they  have  no  leader  ! 

Frakark.  A  word  in  thine  ear :  during  the  last  few  days  I 
have  bethought  me  of  one.  (The  sisters  look  at  each  other."} 
What  cravest  thou  in  a  leader  ? 

Helga.  High  birth. 

Frakark.  That  I  think  he  hath. 

Helga.  He  must  be  a  stranger. 

Frakark.  Wherefore? 

Helga.  A  leader  with  full  power  might  be  dangerous;  he 
must  therefore  stand  free,  without  kinsmen,  without  friends. 

Frakark.  So  stands  he,  and  so  did  I  think. 

Helga.  Hast  thou  moreover  the  means  whereby  we  can  win 
him  to  us  ? 

Frakark.  There  is  only  one  bond  which  holds  fast — gain  ! 

Helga.  He  could  gain  more  by  treachery  ;  for  Earl  Paul 
hath  more  treasure  than  Harald. 

Frakark.  Knowest  thou  any  other  means  ? 

Helga.  That  do  I.— But  knowest  thou  the  Man  ? 

Frakark.  What  thinkest  thou  of  the  Man  who  came  here 
fourteen  days  ago  ? 

Helga.  From  Scotland  ? 

Frakark.  Yes. 

Helga.  Good. 

Frakark.  Him  mean  I ! 

Helga.  I  have  thought  the  same  since  the  first  day  I  saw 
him  ;  but  I  would  not  be  the  first  to  say  so.  (Rises.) 


Scandinavian  Studies.  257 

Frdkark  (also  rising).  What  sign  did'st  thou  take,  Helga  ? 
Helga.  I  have  never  before  been  so  afraid  of  any  man  ! 


We  know  by  instinct  that  they  are  speaking  of  Sigurd. 
After  proceeding  to  describe  his  proud  bearing  and 
solitary  ways,  they  determine  that  he  is  a  man  of  high 
birth,  worth  winning,  and  Frakark  proposes  to  sound 
him  forthwith.  Here  Helga  interferes  with  an  objection 
—that  they  must  first  consult  her  son  the  Earl.  At 
this  moment  an  old  retainer  enters  with  startling  intelli- 
gence. *  Your  niece  Audhild  is  still  abroad.  .  .  .  She 
went  out  yesterday  ;  a  day  has  now  passed.  Despite 
the  storm  hath  she  not  come  home  ;  her  maidens 
dared  say  nought,  but  waited ;  old  Kaare  has  since 
gone  forth  with  many  men,  but  she  is  not  found.'  In 
the  midst  of  the  piteous  exclamations  to  which  the  news 
gives  rise,  Audhild  herself  appears.  Her  entrance  is 
characteristic.  She  walks  in  silently,  and  to  all  the 
questions  of  her  mother  and  aunt,  answers  in  mono- 
syllables. '  Where  hast  thou  been  ? '  '  Out'  <  Where 
didst  thou  sleep  last  night  ? '  'I  did  not  sleep.'  They 
warn  her  eagerly  against  the  danger  of  so  exposing 
herself  to  the  attacks  of  the  wild  Vikings  who  overrun 
the  country.  But  she  smiles,  and  holds  up  a  little  knife 
with  a  picture  of  the  Holy  Virgin  on  the  blade.  *  She 
can  win  the  stranger,'  cries  Helga  to  Frakark,  and  the 
two  women  proceed  forthwith  to  sound  the  girl's  feelings. 
We  are  not  long  left  in  doubt  that  Audhild  has  already 
admired  the  stranger  from  a  distance. 

After  a  short  scene  between  Helga  and  Frakark,  in 

s 


258  Master-Spirits. 

which  we  have  still  darker  glimpses  of  the  character  of 
the  latter,  Earl  Harald  enters,  accompanied  by  a  boy, 
Svenn  Aslejvsson,  who  is  his  invariable  companion. 
The  character  of  Harald  is  singularly  original,  though 
in  one  or  two  of  its  touches  it  reminds  us  of  Hamlet, 
A  big,  simple-hearted,  peace-loving  man,  sick  of  the 
machinations  for  ever  weaving  around  him,  preferring 
the  light  prattle  of  Svenn  and  the  barking  of  his  hounds 
to  the  company  of  men  ;  such  is  Harald  the  Earl.  He 
appears  characteristically ;  sending  first  Svenn  to  peep 
and  ascertain  if  the  two  women  are  gone,  and  then  en- 
tering with  one  loathing  look  at  the  retreating  figure  of 
Frakark.  He  compares  his  aunt  to  a  captive  wolf,  and 
Svenn  vows  the  resemblance  would  be  perfect  if  the 
wolf  '  had  a  head-dress  on.'  From  childhood  upwards, 
he  has  ever  found  the  counsels  of  that  woman  to  be 
fraught  with  evil.  They  have  corrupted  the  heart  of 
his  mother,  alienated  him  from  his  brother,  plunged  his 
people  again  and  again  into  wretched  intestine  broils. 
He  would  kill  her,  if  he  could,  he  thinks ;  and  he 
listens  darkly  while  Svenn  details  the  various  means  of 
killing  and  torturing  *  the  wolf  they  have  captured, 
for  the  beast  is  to  him  an  image  of  the  evil  woman. 
The  scene  proceeds  : — 

Harald.  What  is  that  ?     Is  it  the  storm  ? 

Svetin.  No,  it  is  shouting.  (Climbs  up  to  the  window?)  It  is 
Svenn  Viking  with  all  his  men  !  Now  he  is  come  ! 

Harald.  That's  it !  The  stranger  has  his  place  at  bed  and 
board — there  will  be  blows  at  the  court,  Svenn. 

Svenn.  Who'll  win,  think  you  ? 


Scandinavian  Studies.  259 

Harald.  Svenn  Viking  will  win.  I  cannot  bear  the  stranger; 
— and  thou  ? 

Svenn.  I  hate  all  here. 

Harald.  Well,  let  them  both  be  slain,  and  we  shall  be  quit  of 
both  .  .  .  Lovest  thou  Svenn  Viking  ? 

Svenn.  Nay,  nay  ! 

Harald.  Nor  I  either  .  .  .  O  Svenn,  if  I  dared  ! 

Svenn.  What  would'st  thou  do  ? 

Harald.  Never  mind.  But  one  thing  methinks  I  shall  dare 
to  do,  if  this  lasts  long. 

Svenn.  What  is  that  ? 

Harald.  Die! 

Svenn.  But, — dear  Jarl  ! 

Harald  (seated].  Tell  me  of  Sigurd  Jorsalfarer  ! 

Svenn.  For  ever  harping  on  him  ! 

Harald.  He  is  a  great  leader,  Svenn. 

Svenn.  He  was ;  but  now  he  is  mad. 

Harald.  By  what  means,  thinkest  thou,  grew  he  mad  ? 

Svenn.  There  came  a  Fish  to  him  in  the  bathing  tub. 

Harald.  Hm,  hm  ! — Know'st  thou  what  Fish  it  was  ? 

Svenn.  Fish  ? 

Harald.  'Tis  an  evil  thought,  through  which  one  cannot 
sleep. 

Svenn.  Think  no  more  of  that,  Jarl.  Let  us  do  something 
else — let  us  sing. 

Harald.  Yes,  little  Svenn,  let  us  sing. 

Svmn.  Of  the  king  without  land  and  queen,  &c.  .  .  .  Jarl, 
there  comes  thy  mother. 

Harald.  So  ! — I  shall  find  peace  no  longer  ! 


Helga  enters,  and  is  received  by  her  son  much  in  the 
mood  of  Hamlet  the  Dane.  She  shows  him  a  fair  cap 
she  has  been  embroidering  for  him,  and  while  taking  it, 
he  remarks  that  it  would  look  well  on  a  dead  head. 

S  2 


260  Master-Spirit s. 

Their  interview  is  very  long  and  very  sad.  Harald 
finally  demands  to  know  why  his  mother  has  sought 
him,  for  he  has  come  to  associate  her  presence  with  some 
secret  influence  of  his  aunt.  '  He  asks  only  one  little 
thing — to  be  left  in  peace ! '  She  informs  him  that 
Svenn  Viking  has  arrived  with  a  message  from  his 
brother  the  Earl,  and  that  he  must  hear  and  answer  it. 
He  is  at  first  angry.  '  I  sent  no  message  to  my  brother  ; 
I  have  done  nothing,  I  will  hear  nothing.'  But  he 
yields  as  usual,  and  forthwith  Svenn  Viking  appears, 
accompanied  by  Frakark.  'Too  many  wolves  to  one 
hound  ! '  mutters  the  Jarl,  seated  ;  while  the  boy  Svenn 
nestles  on  a  footstool  at  his  feet. 

Svenn  Viking  delivers  his  message  with  little  cere- 
mony. It  proposes  a  meeting  between  the  two  brothers, 
for  the  adjustment  of  all  quarrels  ;  and  it  adds  one 
strong  condition,  —  that  Harald  must  come  to  the 
meeting  alone,  without  his  mother  or  his  aunt.  Frakark 
storms  and  Helga  pleads,  to  Harald's  pain  and  astonish- 
ment. 'Was  Thorkel  Fostre  at  hand,'  asks  Frakark, 
sneeringly,  '  when  Paul  gave  this  answer  ? '  '  From 
Thorkel  it  came,'  replies  Svenn  ;  adding,  '  He  said  that 
Frakark  and  Helga  had  for  twenty  years  kept  the 
Orkneys  in  broil ;  that  through  them  the  Earl's  father 
had  striven  after  the  single  dominion,  and  slain  Magnus, 
Thorkel  Fostre's  kinsman  ;  that  they,  and  only  they, 
now  kept  the  brothers  asunder,  for  their  only  thought 
was  to  place  the  whole  sway  in  the  hands  of  the  one.' 
Frakark's  comment  is  ominous — 'So  long  as  Thorkel 
Fostre  lives,  there  will  be  no  peace.' 


Scandinavian  Studies.  261 

Svenn  Viking,  having  delivered  his  message,  now 
touches  on  his  own  private  concerns,  and  protests  that, 
during  his  absence  as  ambassador,  the  head  place  at 
court,  usually  occupied  by  him,  has  been  given  to  a 
stranger ;  and  he  strides  forth  to  adjust  the  matter  in 
the  way  best  known  to  men  in  that  stormy  period.  His 
meeting  with  Sigurd  takes  place  without,  but  is  witnessed 
from  the  stage.  '  The  stranger  springs  in  on  him  like 
a  cat,  throws  himself  down  with  him,  himself  under,  and 
with  legs  and  hands  against  his  breast,  whips  him 
over  his  head,  many  yards  away, — then  springs  up 
himself,  draws  his  sword,  and  holds  it  at  his  throat.' 
The  enthusiasm  is  great.  '  Audhild,'  says  Frakark,  to 
her  niece,  '  go  forth  and  call  him  in  ; '  adding  to  Helga, 

*  This  man  was  born  for  a  leader ;  now  shall  Earl  Paul 
get  his  answer.'      Meantime,  some  striking  by-play  is 
going  on  between  Earl  Harald  and  the  boy.     '  Svenn, 
fetch  the  chess-board.     Let  us  play  the  game  where  the 
kings  stand  still,  and  the  women  take  the  lead.' 

Sigurd  enters.  Frakark  and  Helga  question  him  of 
his  birth  and  antecedents,  and  offer  him  the  leadership. 
He  is  reticent,  but  his  very  reticence  strengthens  the 
impression.  This  scene  is  in  the  highest  degree  dra- 
matic ;  the  '  asides '  of  Harald  and  Svenn,  as  they  play 
at  chess,  forming  a  strange  comment  on  the  main 
dialogue.  '  Now  am  I  sold,  little  Svenn  ! '  The  Earl 
rises  to  go,  when  they  are  about  to  call  in  the  people. 

*  Say  I  am  sick  ;  thou  wilt  not  be  so  far  from  the  truth  1 ' 
and  accompanied  by  his  little  companion,  he  gloomily 
retires.     It  is  to  be  remarked  that   Helga  throughout  is 


262  Master-Spirits. 

anxious  not  to  ignore  the  wishes  of  her  son,  but  is  con- 
stantly over-ruled  by  the  headstrong  spirit  of  Frakark. 
Before  the  scene  ends,  Sigurd  shows  a  letter  from  David 
King  of  Scotland,  recommending  him  to  the  leadership. 
'  Why  hast  thou  not  given  us  this  before  ? '  asks  Frakark  ; 
and  Sigurd's  reply  is  characteristic  :  '  I  wished  first  to 
know  all  here — that  was  not  done  in  a  day.' 

The  first  Act  of  '  Sigurd's  Second  Flight '  ends  with 
a  striking  tableau.  Frakark,  in  a  brief  speech,  recom- 
mends Sigurd  to  the  rude  mob  of  warriors,  and  they 
receive  him  enthusiastically, — even  the  discomfited 
Svenn  Viking  casting  in  his  vote  with  the  rest.  '  Many 
here,'  cries  an  old  warrior,  *  have  in  former  days  followed 
the  noble  chief  Magnus  Barefoot.  Him  thou  resemblest, 
as  one  drop  of  water  resembles  another,  and  therefore 
do  we  long  to  follow  thee.'  Another  old  man  exclaims, 
'  Aye  !  he  resembles  him  who  bore  the  wolf  on  his  red 
jerkin  ; '  and  the  men  assembled  add  in  chorus,  *  He  is  a 
son  of  Magnus  ! ' 

The  second  Act  opens  in  Orkney,  and  finds  Sigurd 
Slembe  and  Svenn  Viking  on  excellent  terms  together. 
Thqrkel  Fostre  has  been  murdered  by  the  instrumentality 
of  Frakark,  and  the  great  heart  of  Sigurd  sickens  at 
such  treachery.  '  I  will  straightway  depart ! '  cries  the 
Norseman.  c  Remain,  rather,  and  take  thy  land,'  returns 
Svenn;  adding,  that  the  Orkneys  properly  belong  to 
Norway,  and  are  the  fitting  home  of  Magnus  Barefoot's 
son.  Sigurd  indignantly  refuses.  We  have  speedily  a 
fine  scene  between  Sigurd  and  Audhild.  The  leader 
has  a  slight  flesh-wound,  and  the  maiden  binds  and 


Scandinavian  Studies.  263 

dresses  it.  Sigurd  apprises  her  of  the  murder  of  Thorkel, 
and  expresses  his  intention  of  deserting  a  cause  stained 
by  so  foul  a  crime.  Audhild  pleads  for  her  kindred, — 
for  Helga  and  for  Harald,  who  is  very  sick.  Sigurd 
hesitates,  and  strides  forth  to  commune  with  his  men, 
Next,  in  a  wild  dialogue,  Frakark  avows  to  Helga  her 
responsibility  for  Thorkel's  assassination ;  but  is  inter- 
rupted by  Audhild,  who  enters  wildly,  crying :  '  Helga, 
Helga,  take  Harald  and  fly — the  men  will  not  long  serve 
thee — some  will  to  Earl  Paul,  others  will  follow  Sigurd. 
.  .  .  .  When  Sigurd  entered,  they  received  him  as  a 
king.  .  .  .  the  monks  shrieked  of  fratricide  and  Hell, — 
and  many  cried,  Svenn  Viking  loudest  of  all,  that  Sigurd 
must  take  the  lead ! '  '  My  son  !  my  son  ! '  shrieks  Helga, 
affrighted.  Immediately  thereupon,  Sigurd's  voice  is 
heard  without.  *  Ye  who  watch  by  the  fjord,  mark  each 
sail  that  comes  ;  ye  who  stand  by  the  door,  let  none 
through,  out  or  in,  without  my  bidding.'  He  enters 
fiercely,  facing  the  women.  Sigurd  insists  on  an  im- 
mediate treaty  of  peace  being  concluded  with  Earl  Paul, 
whose  ships  are  at  hand.  *  Hast  thou  the  heart  to 
forget  him  who  sitteth  sick  in  his  chamber  ? '  asks  the 
mother ;  but  Sigurd  retorts  briefly,  '  Ye  have  done  evil 
enough  ! '  He  goes  to  the  table  to  write  out  the  treaty, 
but  suddenly  remembering  his  wounded  hand,  cries  to 
Audhild,  '  You  must  help  me  ! '  '  I  ? '  exclaims  the 
maiden ;  '  I  have  only  been  used  to  write  for  myself.' 
'  Her  handwriting  is  not  good  enough  to  be  used,'  says 
Frakark  ;  but  Sigurd,  aware  of  Frakark's  own  deficiency 
in  that  respect,  retorts  :  *  Of  that  one  is  no  fit  judge  who 


264  Master-Spirits. 

is  herself  unable  to  read  ! '  He  orders  the  elder  women 
to  withdraw,  and  is  left  alone  with  Audhild.  Audhild 
sits  down  to  write. 


Sigurd.  l  In  the  holy  Trinity's  name  we  make  the  following 
pact,  which  we  desire  to  have  ratified  by  the  Norse  King.' 

Audhild.  The  Norse  King? 

Sigurd.  The  feudal  pact  must  be  sworn  again ;  therein  lies 
the  only  safety.  \Audhild  writes. 

Sigurd  (aside).  But  do  not  these  two  brethren  love  each 
other  ?  I  must  prove,  what  the  women  have  ne'er  proved  ; 
and  they  have  hardly  proved  that! 

Audhild.  '  The  Norse  King  ?  ' 

Sigurd.  '  We  will  rule  the  Isles  together,  and  dwell  together 
in  our  freehold — with  one  power.' 

Audhild  (half  rising).  Together,  and  with  one  power? 

Sigurd.  Apart,  they  have  ever  been  unlucky.  (Audhild  looks 
at  him,  writes ;  he  continues  aside:)  But  they  who  only  prompt 
evil  must  begone, — yea  she  must  begone. 

Audhild.  '  With  one  power.' 

Sigurd.  '  All  who  had  share  in  Thorkel  Fostre's  death  are 
banished  the  Isles  for  ever.' 

Audhild.  And  Frakark  ? 

Sigurd.  Aye ;  ;tis  she  I  mean  (Audhild  writes].  But  the 
mother  may  remain.  She  must  be  wiser  now.  (Pause.) 

Audhild. — '  for  ever.7     No,  no,  you  must  not  see  ! 

Sigurd.  Indeed,  I  must  see  ! 

Audhild.  But  remember,  I  have  hitherto  only  written  for 
myself. 

Sigurd.  Clear  and  free.  Add  now :  '  Sigurd  of  Norway, 
surnamed  the  Bastard,  is  banished  the  Isles  for  ever.' 

Audhild.  Jesus  !  but  wherefore? 

Sigurd.  Both  Earls  wish  it.  Without  this  condition  they 
have  no  faith  in  the  pact. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  265 

Sigurd  is  struggling  between  two  feelings — love  and 
duty.  Aware  that  the  supreme  power  is  his  if  he  likes 
to  take  it,  he  has  nevertheless  determined  to  depart — as 
before,  with  the  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem.  After  Audhild 
has  written  so  far,  he  falls  into  a  brown  study,  listening 
to  a  still  small  voice  which  bids  him  seize  the  earldom. 

Audhild.  I  am  ready. 

\Sigurd  looks  at  the  paper  and  puts  his  finger  011  it. 
Audhild.  Have  I  forgot  anything  ? 

Sigurd.  Yea — *  surnamed  the  Bastard  ; '  but  since  you  have 
forgotten  it,  it  shall  not  be  written  down. 

Sigurd  still  reiterating  his  determination  to  leave  the 
Orkneys,  Audhild  offers  him  as  a  souvenir  the  little 
dagger  her  father  brought  from  Jerusalem.  'And  so 
may  God  go  with  thee,'  she  says,  moving  away. 

Sigurd.  Are  you  going  ? 

Audhild.  Yes  ... 

Sigurd.  But  not  directly  ? 

Audhild.  There  is  no  more  to  say. 

Sigurd.  But  after  all  we  have  scarce  spoken  to  each  other  ? 

Audhild.  Tis  best,  I  think,  we  should  not  speak  together 
any  more. 

Sigurd.  What  did  you  say  ? 

Audhild.     Nothing.     (Going.) 

Sigurd.  Audhild! 

AudJiild.  Farewell  ! 

Sigurd.  Audhild! 

Audhild.  Sigurd  !  (She  leaps  two  steps  towards  him,  and  flings 
her  arms  around  his  neck;  then,  as  if  recovering  from  stupor) 
What  have  I  done  ? 

Sigurd.  I  know  not ;  but  I  have  become  in  one  moment 
blesseder  than  I  thought  possible  in  life. 


266  Master-Spirits. 

Audhild.  You  must  depart. 

Sigurd.  Not  now  ! 

Audhild.  Your  brother  pilgrims  ? 

Sigurd.  I  know  them  not. 

Audhild.  Your  plans  ? 

Sigurd.  I  remember  them  not. 

Audhild.  God  in  heaven,  then  I  am  happy  !     {Embrace.) 

Sigurd.  Audhild  ! 

Audhild.  Sigurd  ! 

Sigurd.  Once  more,  Audhild. 

Audhild.  Sigurd  ! — Heavenly  powers,  thou  lovest  me  ! 

Sigurd.  Look  at  me  ! 

Audhild.  I  do  naught  else. 

Sigurd.  Thou  art  weeping. 

Audhild.  I  cannot  help  it. 

Sigurd.  Let  me  kiss  thee  ! 

Audhild.  Yea!  (He  kisses  her.} 

Sigurd.  Can  this  end  ? 

Audhild.  Nay ;  while  I  clasp  thee. 

Sigurd.  Then  loosen  thy  hair,  and  bind  me. 

Audhild.  Is  it,  then,  thee  I  clasp  ? 

Sigurd.  O  yea ! 

Audhild.  And  is  it  true,  thou  lovest  me  ? 

Sigurd.  As  that  I  think  ! 

Audhild.  JTis  almost  too  much  to  believe.     (They  embrace.) 

Helga  enters,  and  demands  the  document.  Casting 
her  eye  over  it,  she  perceives  the  stipulation  for  Frakark's 
banishment,  but  Sigurd  insists  that  it  shall  be  signed  as 
it  stands.  At  this  moment  the  dark  side  of  his  nature 
appears,  and  his  face  is  stormy  enough  to  startle  his 
beloved.  *  Who  art  thou,  Sigurd  ? '  asks  Audhild,  when 
Helga  has  withdrawn  to  get  her  son's  signature.  '  One 
who  forgets  who  he  is.'  '  Hast  thou  committed  any 


Scandinavian  Studies.  267 

crime  ? '  *  Nay  ;  but  ask  not.'  '  Hast  thou  ever  loved 
any  one  before  ? '  *  Never.'  '  How  didst  thou  come, 
then,  to  love  vie  ?'  '  In  one  moment,  I  think — yea,  I 
know  not ;  but  thou  me  ? '  '  From  the  moment  I  saw 
thee ;  and  now  I  can  say  to  thee  thus  much — hadst 
thou  departed,  I  should  have  died.'  She  adds,  after 
a  moment :  '  Thou  must  be  the  son  of  some  mighty 
man !' 

Sigurd.  Audhild  ! 

Audhild.  What  is  it  ? 

Sigurd.  For  our  future  peace  :  speak  so  no  more  ! 

Audhild.  God  ! 

Sigurd.  Not  that  look,  Audhild  !  ...  It  asks  ever :  Who 
art  thou,  Sigurd  ? 

Audhild.  Then  do  not  look  at  me.  (She  hides  her  face  in 
his  breast.} 

Helga  (entering from  her  son's  chamber].  Thou  must  be  a 
wizard,  stranger  !  "What  hath  never  gladden'd  me  for  three 
long  years,  thou  hast  achieved  ;  he  rose  up  and  sang  !  When 
he  came  to  the  part  about  Frakark,  he  laughed,  and  called  to 
his  boy.  Here  is  his  signature — see,  what  great  letters  ! 

The  evil  Frakark  now  enters,  and,  apprised  of  the 
arrangement,  laughs  mockingly.  But  now  arises  a  new 
complication.  Bound  thus  by  a  new  tie  to  the  soil, 
Sigurd  hesitates  to  carry  out  his  plans  for  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  brothers,  and  again  longs  to  seize  the 
earldom.  He  offers  to  tear  the  treaty  in  twain.  A 
stormy  scene  ensues;  but  Audhild  herself, intervenes, 
and  Sigurd  hands  her  the  paper.  The  act  concludes : — 

Helga.  All  angels  be  praised  !  It  must  be  straightway  sent. 
It  is  the  only  way. 


268  Master-Spirits. 

Frakark.  There  is  one  way  more. 

Helga.  Tempt  me  not.     Earl  Paul  shall  come. 

Frakark  (whispering).  But  when  he  comes  .  .  .  then  shall 
we  give  to  him  the  garment  at  which  I  have  been  sewing  these 
three  years. 

Helga.  Peace!  (She goes.) 

Audhild.  Sigurd,  whither  shall  we  depart  ? 

Sigtird.  Meet  me  here  each  morning,  ere  the  others  are  arisen. 

Audhild.  Shall  we  not  depart,  then  ? 

Sigurd.  I  will  tell  thee,  when  Earl  Paul  comes. 

The  third  and  concluding  act  of  '  Sigurd's  Second 
Flight '  opens  with  a  fine  ballad,  descriptive  of  an 
incident  in  the  early  life  of  Helga,  sung  by  an  old 
warrior  and  a  chorus  of  men,  who  are  on  the  look-out 
for  Earl  Paul's  ships.  Then  enter  Harald  the  Earl  and 
his  boy  Svenn.  The  scene  which  follows  is  touching  in 
the  extreme,  but  too  long  to  quote.  The  poor,  sickly, 
weary  Earl,  foreseeing  still  further  peril  and  horror  in 
the  secret  counsels  of  his  mother  and  aunt,  has  made  up 
his  mind  to  die,  and  he  communicates  his  intention  to 
Svenn  figuratively,  merely  saying  that  he  is  going  on  a 
long  journey.  '  Then  I  will  go  with  thee/  exclaims  the 
boy.  *  Whither  I  go  no  one  can  follow/  He  is  going, 
he  says,  over  the  great  water  ;  the  sea-mist  will  swallow 
him  up.  *  Will  thy  dogs  follow  thee  ? '  asks  Svenn. 
'  Nay  ;  thou  shalt  take  care  of  them  ;  they  howled  last 
night ; — O  thou  must  be  kind  to  them  ! '  He  bids  the 
boy  not  to  weep,  for  he  will  visit  him  '  in  the  night  in 
his  dreams.'  The  interview  between  these  two  simple 
creatures  is  full  of  the  finest  pathos  ;  nothing  can  be 
tenderer  or  more  true  to  human  nature. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  269 

Following  the  above  is  an  exquisite  scene  between 
the  lovers,  Sigurd  and  Audhild.  Sigurd  is  troubled  and 
distraught,  still  with  his  eye  on  the  Earldom.  To  them 
comes  Svenn  Viking.  It  is  understood  that  at  a  given 
sign  the  brothers  are  to  be  taken  prisoners. 

Svenn.  Frakark  tried  again  last  night  to  send  a  message  to 
Caithness.  ( Smiles. ) 

Sigurd  (smiling).  So  ! 

Svenn.  But  he  to  whom  she  gave  the  money,  drank  it  up  ! 
(Laughs.) 

Sigurd  (laughing  also).  So  ! 

Svenn.  The  Pilgrims  weigh  anchor  this  day  .  .  .  they 
believe  thou  wilt  sail  with  them.  (Laughs.) 

Sigurd  (laughing  also).  So  ! 

The  significance  of  this  is  unmistakable.  Sigurd  has 
listened  to  the  solicitations  of  Svenn  Viking  and  the 
others,  and  means,  as  the  son  of  Magnus  Barefoot,  to 
take  possession  of  the  Orkneys,  in  defiance  of  the  rights 
of  Harald  and  Paul.  But  he  is  not  altogether  decided. 
'  I  will  down  to  the  Pilgrim-ships,'  he  says  to  himself, 
'  for  it  is  still  possible  that  I  may  depart.'  The  stage  is 
clear,  and  the  sisters  enter,  Frakark  bearing  the  shirt,  or 
tunic,  on  which  she  has  been  so  long  at  work  ;  Helga  a 
diabolic  salve  with  which  the  interior  of  the  garment 
is  to  be  smeared.  '  The  shirt  is  tempting  to  see,  bright 
with  gold  and  gems  ;  he  will  instantly  put  it  on  ; '  and 
the  significant  stage  direction  follows — '  They  rub  on  the 
unguent  with  a  cloth,  and  they  hold  it  with  a  cloth.' 
The  poisoned  garment  is  to  be  offered  to  Earl  Paul,  and 
if  worn  must  instantly  prove  fatal.  Already  trembling 


2  70  M aster-Spirits. 

at  the  prospect  of  punishment,  Helga  vows  to  build  a 
new  Chapel  instead  of  the  old  one,  which  is  damaged, 
and  Frakark  suggests  that,  when  all  is  done,  Harald 
shall  go  on  pilgrimage,  to  expiate  his  own  sins  and 
theirs ! 

While  they  are  thus  engaged,  Harald,  '  in  light  morn- 
ing attire,'  enters  from  his  chamber.  His  eye  falls  upon 
the  shirt ;  and  he  is  already  forewarned  of  the  hideous 
purpose  for  which  it  is  destined.  '  It  has  taken  three 
years  in  the  making,'  observes  Frakark.  '  Three  years,' 
replies  the  Earl ;  '  much  good  may  be  done  in  three 
years.  How  long  walked  Jesus  the  Christ  about  with 
his  disciples  ?  Charles  the  Great  did  much  in  three 
years.  Olaf  the  Holy  baptized  all  southern  Norway. 
....  And  in  three  years  /  have  done  nothing  ;  and 
you  have  made  this  shirt.'  He  offers  to  take  it,  but  the 
women  resist.  'Hark  to  my  hounds,  how  they  are 
howling,  poor  beasts ! '  he  cries  ;  '  give  me  the  shirt/ 
They  warn  him,  but  in  vain. 

Helga.  It  will  cost  thee  thy  life. 

Harald.  Life,  mother,  life  !  Three  years'  work  invite  to  one 
hour's  dance ; — Paul  shall  look  on  from  his  ship. 

Both.  What  saith  he  ? 

Harald.  Never,  that  I  remember,  have  I  asked  thee  for 
aught ;  but  noW  I  ask  thee  for  this  shirt.  I  have  conceived  a 
liking  to  it,  as\  smoke  to  the  breast  of  the  blue,  the  autumn 
leaves  to  the  earai,  the  gloaming  dew  to  the  sea,  or  a  wounded 
hart  to  a  hiding-place. 

Frakark.  Is  thist  madness  ? 

Harald.  I  hunge^  for  this  shirt.  'Tis  not  its  colour,  for  that 
reminds  me  of  blood ;  nor  its  pearls,  for  they  speak  to  me  of 


Scandinavian  Studies.  271 

the  treacherous  sea  ;  nor  its  gold, — that  reminds  me  of  Hell- 
fire. 

He  snatches  the  shirt  despite  their  entreaties,  springs 
with  it  into  his  chamber,  and  bolts  the  door.  In  vain 
the  distracted  women  shriek  to  him  that  the  garment  is 
poisoned.  In  vain  Helga  invokes  curses  on  the  head  of 
Frakark,  who  has  urged  her  to  the  diabolical  plan  of 
murder.  It  is  too  late.  Harald  enters  again,  clad  in 
the  poisoned  dress,  and,  shrieking  with  pain,  he  falls. 
'  Call  Svenn  ! '  he  shrieks  ;  *  it  burns,  it  blisters,  it  rends. 
O !  O  !  give  me  water !  *  The  boy  Svenn  enters,  and, 
with  a  cry  of  pain,  rushes  to  his  lord's  assistance. 

Harald.  Svenn,  mind  my  hounds. 
Svenn.  Yes. 

Harald.  And  bid  my  brother  to  have  mass  read  for  me. 
Svenn.  Yes. 

Harald.  Now  all  changes  ...  Is  it  thou,  standing  there  ? 
Helga.  No,  it  is  /. 
Harald.  Is  it  thou? 
Helga.  O  look  this  way  ! 
Harald.  I  see  thee  not. 

Helga.  Here  am  I — here.     Can'st  thou  forgive  me  ? 
Harald.  Who  holds  my  head? 
Svenn.  It  is  I — Svenn. 

Harald.  Is  it  Svenn  ?  .  .  .  Where  art  thou,  moth  er  ? 
Helga.  I  am  holding  thy  hand. 
Harald.  Beware  of  the  shirt,  mother  ! 
Helga.  No,  Harald,  I  will  die  with  thee. 
Harald.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  thou  hast  understood  me, 
mother.     Where  are  thou  ? 

Helga.  It  is  I  who  am  kissing  thee. 


272  M aster-Spirits. 

Harald.  But  how  light  it  grows  ...  Is  it  thou  who  art 
white  ? 

Helga.  Naught  here  is  white. 

Harald.  Aye,  here  is  something  .  .  .  Lay  me  down.  (//  is 
done.)  Mother,  where  art  thou  ?  (She  flings  herself  upon  him.) 

Svenn  (rising).  Now  he  is  dead. 

Sigurd  and  others  enter.  Svenn  Viking  whispers 
with  a  grim  smile,  '  One  brother  is  out  of  the  way  ; '  but 
the  Norseman,  shocked  beyond  measure,  vows  that  the 
survivor  shall  be  left  in  peace.  They  bear  the  dead 
body  from  the  stage,  followed  by  Helga.  *  Frakark  ! ' 
moans  the  mother,  as  she  passes,  'the  house  thou 
would'st  have  built  for  us  hath  sunken  into  ruin  over  our 

heads Thou  shalt   survive   thy   schemes.      God 

have  mercy  on  thine  old  age  ! ' 

Sigurd  (to  the  boy  Svenn).  And  thou,  little  friend,  where 
wilt  thou  go  ? 

Svenn.  I,  too,  will  follow,  till  he  is  buried. 

Sigurd.  And  then  ? 

Svenn.  I  will  take  his  hounds,  and  hie  home. 

Sigurd.  Thou  hast  been  a  faithful  servant  ...  Is  not  that 
thy  knife  ? 

Svenn.  Yes.  (He  takes  it,  glances  at  it,  looks  significantly  at 
Frakark,  and  goes.) 

Sigurd  (to  her).  There  grows  thy  Doomsman  ! 

Frakark.  Hast  thou  aught  more  to  say  to  me  ? 

Sigurd.  Nay. 

Frakark.  Then  remain  alone.     (He  goes) 

Sigurd.  So  I  am  alone  ...  in  this  house  .  .  .  among  curses 
and  the  moans  of  broken  plans  .  .  .  face  to  face  with  mine 
own  .  .  .  The  Stillness  behind  me,  glaring  upon  me  like  an 
evil  eye  ...  All  I  look  on  sinks  down  in  it ;  here  is  only 


Scandinavian  Studies.  273 

eternity,  eternity  !  .  .  .  O,  there  is  a  roar  over  me  as  of  the 
clashing  of  the  wings  of  a  great  host ;  for  He  is  here,  the  great, 
the  wrathful  God. 

His  mind  is  made  up.  He  will  never  again  lust  for 
power ;  and  if  he  cannot  serve  others,  he  will  at  least 
serve  God  the  Lord.  To  that  end  he  will  quit  these 
evil  shores,  sailing  with  the  Pilgrims  in  their  holy  quest 
southward.  But  the  voice  of  Audhild  breaks  in  upon 
his  ear.  '  O,  what  a  woeful  house !  Where  art  thou, 
Sigurd  ? — Sigurd,  where  art  thou  ? '  And  she  springs  in 
to  his  side. 

Audhild.  What  hath  happened?  Helga  lies  dead  on  her 
son's  corse ;  all  doors  are  open,  strangers  burst  in,  Earl  Paul 
comes,  Frakark  flies  forth, — where  have  I  peace  but  with  thee, 
thou  eternally  beloved  one  ! 

Sigurd.  Then  thou  seekest  it  with  a  fugitive  ! 

Audhild.  Take  me  with  thee  ! 

Sigurd.  A  huswife  is  for  peace  and  home.  I  have  no 
remaining  place. 

Audhild.  Thou  forsakest  me  ? 

Sigurd.  Mourning  hath  broken  in  upon  our  feast  day ;  the 
house  must  be  cleansed  ;  now  flies  each  to  his  own. 

Audhild.  Then  what  I  feared  hath  come  ! — What  shall  become 
of  me  ?  (Sinks  on  her  knees  and  covers  her  face.) 

Sigurd  (approaching  her).  Ask,  rather,  what  thou  hast  found 
in  me? 

Audhild  (giving  him  both  hands).  Good  fortune,  the  only 
good  fortune  I  have  ever  known  ! 

Sigurd.  Trouble  and  fear,  one  hour's  happiness,  another's 
tears. 

Audhild.  Who  art  thou,  Sigurd,  that  I  have  never  felt  myself 
sure  of  thee  ? 


274  Master-Spirits. 

Sigurd.  Magnus  Barefoot's  son,  heir  to  Norway. 

A udhild  (moving  away  in  subdued  paiii) .  Then  should'st  thou 
never  have  spoken  to  me  ! 

Sigurd.  I  had  found  no  peace  in  all  the  world  ;  wherefore, 
when  thou  did'st  offer  it  me,  it  was  sweet  to  find. 

Audhild.  You  took  mine,  and  thyself  found  none. 

Sigurd.  Child,  what  evil  have  I  done  thee  ? 

The  scene  continues  very  touchingly.  Sigurd  tells  of 
his  intention  to  depart,  and  she  sadly  acquiesces.  As  he 
gives  to  her  a  ring  Magnus  Barefoot  gave  to  his  mother, 
she  flings  her  arms  round  his  neck,  crying,  '  Say  to  me 
that  I  am  the  only  one  thou  hast  ever  loved.' 

Sigurd.  I  will  tell  thee  more  .  .  .  thro'  my  life  I  can  never 
love  another. 

Audhild.  Then  I  will  think  of  thee  as  of  my  dear  husband, 
who  is  away  upon  a  journey. 

Sigurd.  But  thou  must  not  hide  from  thyself  that  he  can 
never  return. 

Audhild.  No ;  for  he  follows  the  great  band,  which  I,  too, 
will  try  to  join. 

VOICES  FROM  THE  SEA. 

The  earth  is  happy, 

Happy  is  God's  heaven, 
Happy  the  Soul  as  it  fares  along  ; 

Thro'  the  blessed 

Earthly  kingdoms, 
March  we  to  Paradise  with  song. 

Sigurd.  Hearest  thou  the  Pilgrims'  Song  ?  A  second  time 
it  lifts  me  above  dream  and  doubt,  but  higher  than  before. 
These  sounds,  streaming  thro'  the  lift  as  angels  with  white 
robes,  O  let  them  be  our  highest  Bridal-Song !  Audhild,  fare- 


Scandinavian  Studies.  275 

well !     (They  embrace,  she  hears  him  once.)      Yes,  I  come — I 
come.  [Exit. 

Audhild.  Lord,  follow  him.  (Kneeling.}  But  stay  also 
with  me ! 

Thus  ends  this  remarkable  drama,  the  second  of  the 
series  of  which  Sigurd  is  the  hero.  Difficult  as  it  is  to  do 
justice  to  art  so  delicate,  especially  when  the  artist  works 
with  such  fragile  tools  as  the  strange  monosyllabic  un- 
rhythmic  dialogue  of  Bjornson  ;  and  hastily  as  we  have 
been  compelled  to  render  passages  which  absolutely 
swarm  with  colloquial  idioms  very  difficult  to  translate 
into  our  more  formal  speech,  still  the  great  merits  of  the 
play  will  be  apparent.  The  dialogue  is  often  tedious, 
and  at  times  almost  irrelevant ;  there  is  no  attempt  at 
fine  writing  or  forced  antithesis  ;  there  are  few  images 
and  no  fancies  ;  but  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  of  vivid 
and  striking  reality.  The  verisimilitude  is  perfect.  In 
more  than  one  respect,  particularly  in  the  loose,  disjointed 
structure  of  the  piece,  '  Sigurd  Slembe '  reminds  one  of 
Goethe's  '  Gotz,'  but  it  deals  with  materials  far  harder 
to  assimilate,  and  is  on  the  whole  the  finer  picture  of 
romantic  manners.  Audhild,  indeed,  is  a  creation 
worthy  of  Goethe  at  his  best ;  worthy,  in  our  opinion, 
to  rank  with  Clarchen,  Marguerite,  and  Mignon,  as  a 
masterpiece  of  delicate  characterisation.  And  here  we 
may  observe,  incidentally,  that  Bjornson  excels  in  his 
pictures  of  delicate  feminine  types, — a  proof,  if  proof 
were  wanting,  that  he  is  worthy  to  take  rank  with  the 
highest  class  of  poetic  creators.  No  other  Norseman, 
certainly  not  Oehlenschlager,  has  produced  one  such 

T2 


276  Master-Spirits. 

character  as  Audhild  in  '  Sigurd  Slembe,'  Eli  in  '  Arne,' 
and  little  Inga,  in  '  King  Sverre.' 

Time  and  space  forbid  us  to  describe  the  concluding 
play  of  the  trilogy, — 'Sigurd's  Home-coming.'  In 
some  respects  it  is  the  finest  of  the  three.  The  picture 
of  a  rude  Norwegian  court  in  the  twelfth  century,  pre- 
sided over  by  a  drunken  and  weakminded  king,  sur- 
rounded by  savage  councillors,  is  drawn  to  the  life. 
Sigurd  once  more  seeks  to  grasp  his  own,  and  sorrow  is 
again  his  portion.  Lastly,  worn  out,  deserted,  miserable, 
we  find  him  pillowing  his  head  on  the  breast  of  his 
mother,  who  is  now  clad  in  the  dark  weeds  of  a  nun. 
There  is  one  exquisite  scene  between  Sigurd  and  a  Finn- 
maiden,  which  we  should  gladly  have  translated  had  it 
been  possible.  But  we  abandon  the  task  now,  in  the  hope 
that  what  we  have  said  may  induce  some  abler  hand  than 
ours  to  translate  *  Sigurd  Slembe '  in  its  entirety.  It 
will  have  to  be  done  as  a  labour  of  love,  for  the  intelli- 
gent public  of  England  will  neither  learn  foreign  lan- 
guages nor  read  '  translations.'  If,  however,  either  Mr. 
Morris  or  Mr.  Magnusson,  or  both  together,  were  to  do 
this  labour  (an  easy  task  after  their  excellent  rendering 
of  Grettir's  huge  Saga),  many  true  students  would,  we  are 
sure,  be  grateful.  For  our  own  part,  we  seem  to  see  in 
Bjornsterne  Bjornson  a  writer  whose  reputation  in  this 
country  will  yet  rise  very  high  indeed,  as  one  of  the 
noble  company  of  modern  '  masters.' 


Scandinavian  Studies.  277 


IV. 

DANISH   ROMANCES.1 

MODERN  Danish  literature  is  as  pure  and  simple  as 
Danish  character  and  manners.  With  a  few,  a  very  few 
disagreeable  exceptions,  it  contains  nothing  very  excit- 
ing— nothing  which  in  England  is  denominated  sensa- 
tion. The  Danes  do  not  care  for  startling  incidents  ; 
they  like  domestic  details  and  pretty  genre  grouping. 
Their  novels,  for  the  most  part,  are  very  much  of  the 
same  tone  as  the  well-known  pictures  of  Swedish 
manners,  drawn  by  Frederika  Bremer  ;  but  in  Ander- 
sen and  others  there  is  a  freshness  and  a  delicacy 
unattainable  by  the  Swedish  lady.  Their  stories  are 
pleasant  compact  little  bits  of  writing,  covered  with  a 
soft  silken  prettiness,  which,  like  the  down  on  the  wings 
of  a  butterfly,  comes  off  if  pressed  too  rudely.  So  in 
their  poetry.  Milder  national  songs  were  never  written  ; 
less  eventful  ballad  verse  is  scarcely  possible.  If  two 
lovers  join  hands  and  walk  up  a  hill,  and  then  walk 
down  again,  it  is  quite  enough  for  the  Danish  minstrel  to 

1  '  Danske  Romanzer,  hundrede  og  ti.'  Samlede  og  udgivne  af  Christian 
Winther.  Tredie  forogede  Udgave.  Kjobenhavn :  Forlagt  af  Universitets 
boghandler,  C.  A.  ReizeL 


278  Master-  Spirits. 

sing  about.  Yet  this  poetry  possesses  a  sweet  tender- 
ness, and  not  unfrequently  a  savoury  humour,  very 
delightful  to  the  organs  of  intellectual  taste,  and  very 
apt  to  evaporate,  like  some  chemicals,  in  the  crucible  of 
the  translator. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  in  the  present  paper,  to  attempt 
an  elaborate  account  of  Danish  romances.  We  wish 
merely  to  touch  lightly  on  such  points  of  peculiarity 
as  the  subject  presents,  and  to  illustrate  our  remarks 
by  some  few  specimens,  rendered  by  us  into  English,  as 
literally  as  possible,  and  with  an  attempt  to  conserve 
the  movement  and  spirit  of  the  originals.  The  volume 
of  romances  selected  and  edited  by  Herr  Winther,  who 
is  favourably  known  in  Denmark  both  as  poet  and 
novelist,  may  be  accepted  as  a  fair  collection  of  ballad 
poems  by  the  best  Danish  authors,  from  Oehlenschlager, 
the  tragedian,  down  to  Herr  Winther  himself.'  It  con- 
tains nothing  at  all  startling, — the  incidents  of  many  of 
the  poems  are  about  as  fraught  with  interest  as  the  old 
English  rhyme  about  Jack  and  Jill ;  but  a  great  portion 
of  it  possesses  an  inexpressible  charm  for  one  who  has 
gone  at  all  deeply  into  the  peculiarities  of  the  language. 
Some  of  the  pieces  are  quaintly  pathetic,  like  the  fol- 
lowing by  Hans  Andersen  : — 

THE  SNOW-QUEEN  (SNEE-DRONNINGEN). 

Deep  on  the  field  lies  the  snowdrift  white, 
But  in  yonder  cottage  there  shines  a  light : 
There  for  her  well-beloved  waits  the  maid, 
In  the  lamp's  dim  shade. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  279 

The  mill  is  still ;  see,  the  mill-wheel  stands  ; 
Smoothing  his  golden  hair  with  his  hands, 
The  miller's  man  starts,  with  a  glad  ho  !  ho  ! 
Over  ice  and  snow. 

He  sings  as  he  fights  with  the  wind  that  blows 
His  fresh  young  cheeks  to  the  bloom  of  the  rose  ; 
Past  cot  and  field,  in  the  black  dark  sky, 
Rides  the  Snow-Queen  by. 

'  Fresh  in  the  snowlight's  gleam  thou  art — 
I  choose  thee  to  be  my  own  sweetheart ! 
To  my  floating  island  come  follow  me, 
Over  mountain  and  sea.' 

Fast  and  thick  fell  the  snow-flock  yet — 
'  I  capture  thee  now  in  my  flowery  net  ! 
Where  the  snow-mass  over  the  wold  is  spread 
Stands  our  nuptial  bed.' 

No  more  in  the  cottage  gleams  the  light ; 
Round  and  round  whirls  the  snowdrift  white  ; 
A  shooting  star  falls  with  a  quick,  keen  spark — 
Now  all  is  dark  ! 

O'er  wood  and  meadow  the  sun  upcreeps. 
In  his  bridal  bed  he  so  sweetly  sleeps. 
The  little  maid  trembles,  she  runs  to  the  mill — 
But  the  wheel  stands  still. 

Assuredly  a  fine  little  poem.     One  line  particularly,—- 
'  I  Ringdands  hvirvler  den  hvide  Snee,' 

possesses  a  perfect  music,  which  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
vey in  English.  The  *  Snow-Queen '  is  a  fair  specimen 
of  the  delicate  vein  of  an  author  whose  fairy  tales 
have  lately  made  him  very  popular  in  England.  In 


280  Master-Spirits. 

Denmark  he  is  an  idol ;  and  nothing  evinces  more 
finely  the  reverent  gentleness  of  the  Danish  people 
than  the  fact,  that  whenever  this  poet  passes  through  the 
streets  of  Copenhagen,  the  people  lift  their  hats  to  him, 
murmuring,  '  God  bless  Hans  Christian  Andersen ! ' 
And  Andersen  is  worthy  of  this  homage,  if  only  for 
the  sake  of  the  many  little  faces  which  he  has  lit  up 
with  joy  and  wonder  in  all  parts  of  Europe.  He  is  the 
children's  Santa  Claus — a  magical  fellow !  He  has  only 
to  wave  that  wondrous  wand  of  his,  and  straightway 
pixies,  elves,  mermaids,  and  giants  swarm  in  earth  and 
sea.  He  is  never  very  comical, — what  humour  he  has 
resembles  the  frank,  smiling  manner  of  a  man  who  is 
talking  to  young  people,  and  knows  how  to  please  them. 
Even  in  his  more  ambitious  writings  he  seems  to  be 
addressing  good  little  children,  clever  enough  to  under- 
stand him,  but  only  children  after  all.  This  manner  is 
common  to  most  of  his  fellow  Danish  authors,  though 
Andersen  adopts  it  the  most  successfully.  '  Come  round 
my  knees,  and  promise  all  to  be  very  good,  and  I  will 
tell  you  a  pretty  little  story  ! '  Then,  *  Once  upon  a  time.' 
The  Danes  seem  to  like  to  be  treated  in  this  way. 
They  flock  lovingly  around  the  narrator,  and  listen 
admiringly,  and  shudder  terribly  at  horrors  which  would 
be  considered  very  mild  in  wicked  England. 

These  Danish  romances  abound  in  stories  of  elves,  and 
mermen,  and  other  wonderful  creatures  of  the  earth  and 
deep.  Here  are  Ewald's  '  Liden  Gunver,'  Thiele's 
'  Guldfisken,'  and  Staffeld's  *  Elverpigerne  og  Bornene,' 
— three  poems  which  show  charmingly  the  mild  Danish 
fashion  of  looking  at  the  supernatural : — 


Scandinavian  Studies.  281 


LITTLE  GUNVER. 

Little  Gunver  wander'd  pensive  and  white 

In  the  twilight  cold  ; 
Her  heart  was  wax,  but  her  soul  was  bright 

And  proven  gold. 

0  beware,  my  child,  of  the  false  men-folk  ! 

Little  Gunver  fish'd  at  the  brink  of  the  ocean 

With  a  silken  chain  ; 
The  waters  were  heaved — with  tempestuous  motion 

Trembled  the  main. 

Uprose  from  the  water  a  merman  fair, 

All  with  weeds  behung, 
His  eyes  were  bright,  and  his  voice  was  rare 

As  the  harp's  tongue. 

'  Little  Gunver,  ever  in  love's  keen  fire 

I  am  burning  for  thee ; 
My  heart  grows  weak,  I  faint  and  I  tire — 

O  pity  me  ! 

*  O  reach  me,  O  reach  me,  over  the  shore, 
But  one  arm  of  snow  ; 

1  will  press  it  once  to  my  heart — no  more — 

To  ease  my  woe  ! 

'  Little  Gunver,  my  head  is  mild — despite 

Of  its  shell  forlorn — 
My  name  is  Trusty,  I  love  the  right, 

And  deceit  I  scorn.' 

'  And  here  is  my  arm  to  reward  thy  love, 

And  to  ease  thy  pain  ; 
Beautiful  merman,  reach  up  above, 

And  take  the  twain.' 


282  Master-Spirits. 

He  drew  her  down  from  the  shore,  and  leapt 

Where  no  tempest  groans  j 
Like  the  storm  was  his  laugh,  but  the  fishes  wept 

Over  Gunver's  bones. 
O  beware,  my  child,  of  the  false  men-folk  ! 


THE  GOLD-FISH. 

The  fisher  saddles  his  winged  horse, 
On  the  noisy  ocean  to  take  his  course. 

The  billows  roll  on  the  white  sea  strand, 
As  the  hardy  fisherman  rides  from  land. 

He  pulls  then  up  his  fishing-line, 

By  the  hook  there  dangles  a  gold-fish  fine. 

He  laughs  in  his  sleeve,  crying,  '  Never,  I  wis, 
Saw  I  a  fish  in  gold  raiment  like  this  ! 

'  Had  I  a  piece  for  each  gold-scale  fair, 
'Twere  fortunate  fishing  indeed,  I  swear.' 

The  gold-fish  fluttered  and  leap'd  with  its  fins, 
Dancing  about  round  the  fisherman's  shins. 

'  Softly,  thou  gentleman  wealthy  and  proud, 
Thou  can'st  not  escape,'  quoth  the  fisher,  aloud. 

The  gold-fish  murmur'd,  and  gasp'd  for  breath, 
Then  began  the  oration  that  followeth  : — 

'  Thou  seest  my  wealth,  poor  fisherman ! 
Give  thee  good  fortune  I  will,  and  can  ! 

'  Cast  me  again  in  the  deep  green  sea, 
And  happy  gifts  will  I  give  to  thee. 

'  My  mother,  queen  of  all  fish  below, 
Shall  give  thee  bolsters  and  linen  of  snow. 


Scandinavian  Studies:  283 

'  My  father,  a  king  far  down  in  the  sea, 
Healthy  and  happy  shall  render  thee. 

*  To  my  lover  who  seeks  me  down  in  the  deep, 
Cast  me,  and  still  thou  my  riches  shalt  keep  ! ' 

*  If  I  to  the  oath  of  a  fish  give  heed, 
The  neighbours  will  laugh  at  me  indeed  ! 

'  My  bolsters  and  linen  I  care  not  to  take, 
My  own  good  woman  can  better  make  ! 

'  But  if  to  a  lover  thou  plighted  be, 
Lovers  shall  never  be  sevefd  by  me.' 

He  threw  the  tremulous  fish  in  the  main  : — 

*  Lord,  keep  me  from  such  a  poor  capture  again  ! 

*  If  to-morrow  a  like  should  bite  at  my  line 
I  must  starve,  or  devour  it,  I  opine  ! ' 

In  his  hut  at  night,  with  an  aspect  wan, 
Speechless  and  sad,  sat  the  fisherman. 

On  the  morrow  morning  his  boat  he  took, 
And  warily  baited  his  fishing-hook. 

The  moment  his  line  in  the  sea  he  threw 
The  float  sank  deep  in  the  waters  blue. 

He  quietly  laugh'd  in  his  sleeve,  and  thought, 

*  Once  more  a  gold-jacketed  fish  have  I  caught ! ' 

He  drew  then  up  his  line — behold  ! 

On  the  hook  there  dangled  a  guinea  of  gold. 

Again  and  again  his  line  he  flung, 
Never  a  fish  to  the  hook  there  hung ; 

But  so  oft  as  he  look'd  for  a  fish — behold  ! 
Guinea  on  guinea  of  precious  gold 


284  Master- Spirits. 


THE  ELF-MAIDS  AND  THE  CHILDREN. 

Three  little  ones  sat  in  a  flowery  mead 

In  the  twilight  grey  ; 

At  home  their  mother  is  making  their  bed — 
Where  linger  they  ? 

With  laughing  cheeks  rosy, 
They  skip  to  and  fro 
Where  the  flowers  upgrow, 
Plucking  their  Whitsun  posy. 

Down,  down  the  mountain  three  elf-maids  reel 

From  the  ash-crown'd  height, 
'Mid  mists,  like  the  web  of  a  spinning-wheel, 
Their  raiments  white 

In  the  wind  back-blowing ; 
Each  fairy  shoe 
Just  brushes  the  dew 
From  the  tops  of  flowers  fresh  blowing. 

They  sing  so  sweetly,  they  sing  to  the  three  : — 

*  Hail,  children,  who  play 
With  flowery  toys  and  laugh  in  glee, 
Come  follow  and  stray 

Under  the  mountain  olden, 
And  the  ivory  row 
Of  nine-pins  throw 
Over  with  bowls  pure  golden  ! 

*  Join  ye,  O  join  ye,  us  maidens  three, 

O  join  ye,  and  all 

The  under  blossoms  shall  pluck  and  see 
With  the  song-birds  small, 
Merrily,  merrily  singing, 
Building  their  bowers 
Of  lily  flowers 
And  pearls,  like  seeds,  upflinging.' 


Scandinavian  Studies.  285 

The  little  ones  wax  so  heavy  in  mind, 

Sink  so  dreamily, 

They  are  whirr'd  along  on  the  twilight  wind — 
But  sleep  all  three  ! 

But  the  flowers  deplore  them, 
While  swiftly  they  fall 
To  the  elf-maids'  call, 
And  the  mountain  closes  o'er  them. 

Upon  the  morrow  the  father  runs 

To  the  aspen  hill  j 

*  The  elfins  have  stolen  thy  little  ones, 
And  guard  them  still : 
Green  turfs  are  growing 
O'er  their  heads,  a  stone 
At  their  feet  lies  prone, 
And  these  of  the  elves'  bestowing.' 

In  the  above  pretty  literal  renderings  we  have  fol- 
lowed the  measures  of  the  originals.  There  is  a  droll 
quaintness  about  Herr  Trofast,  or  Trusty,  the  melancholy 
and  deceitful  merman ;  but  he  is  a  hypocrite,  like  all 
the  rest  of  his  tribe.  According  to  the  Danish  notion, 
the  Havmcend  and  Havfruer  are  by  no  means  good 
people.  Like  the  Elverpiger,  their  mission  is  to  lure 
to  death  the  unwary  traveller.  The  sea-ladies  especially 
are  artful  syrens,  like  the  dancing  mermaid  in  the  fol- 
lowing lyric,  by  Ingeman : — 

THE  MERMAID. 

The  moon  shines  red  'mong  her  starry  crew, 
The  mermaid  dances  in  sea-caves  blue, 
The  waves  toss  black  o'er  the  white  sea-sand, 
There  cometh  a  youth  to  the  naked  strand, 
Who  yearns  for  a  blushing  kind  one. 


286  Master-Spirits. 

The  mermaid  smiles  so  wantonly, 
She  seems  so  gentle,  so  fair,  so  free — 

0  beware,  O  youth,  beware  and  depart, 
So  little  dazzles  the  youthful  heart, 

And  the  mists  of  midnight  blind  one  ! 

'  Come  hither,  heart's  queen — oh,  come  hither  to  me, 
Who  danceth,  who  singeth  on  this  wild  sea : 

1  have  wander'd  south,  I  have  wander'd  north, 

I  have  sought  thee  over  the  whole  wide  earth — 
On  earth  I  have  found  thee  never.' 

Wildly  he  danceth,  hand  in  hand, 
With  the  naked  maid,  on  the  white  sea-sand  ; 
The  moon  turns  pale  'mong  her  starry  crew, 
Downward  he  leaps  in  the  waters  blue, 
Which  close  above  him  for  ever. 

After  a  while  these  mermen  and  mermaids  become 
tiresome.  They  are  very  charming  at  first  sight,  from 
the  novelty  of  the  thing ;  but  being,  in  reality,  dull  and 
uninteresting,  one  tires  of  them.  They  swarm  in  the 
Danish  romances, — born  of  the  music  awakened  in  the 
brain  by  the  perpetual  murmur  of  the  ocean  along  the 
Danish  shore. 

It  is  seldom  or  never  that  one  encounters,  in  Danish 
poetry,  any  descriptions  of  external  nature — such  as 
have  been  garnered  in  gorgeous  sheaves  by  the  English 
Muse.  We,  who  have  been  familiar  from  boyhood  with 
the  home-pictures  drawn  by  such  artists  as  Milton  and 
Thompson,  feel  this  want  greatly.  But  it  is  no  fault  of 
the  Danish  poets.  Were  there  anything  to  describe  in 
Danish  scenery,  they  would  picture  it  well ;  but  the  fault 
lies  not  in  themselves,  but  in  the  stars  which  placed  them 


Scandinavian  Studies.  287 

in  so  unpicturesque  a  land.  It  is  to  find  inspiration  in 
nature,  and  to  relieve  their  souls  of  the  dreary  land 
prospect,  that  they  rush  so  frequently  down  to  the  wavy 
shore  and  gaze  seaward.  The  ocean  brims  with  sounds 
and  similes  ;  and  as  a  consequence,  there  is  a  salt-sea 
flavour  about  all  good  Danish  lyrics.  History,  moreover, 
has  made  the  water  sacred.  Long  ago  the  old  Norse 
kings  hoisted  their  sails  of  silk  and  sailed  royally  through 
the  Skaggerack  southward,  and  (as  Ben  Jonson  phrases 
it)  *  the  narrow  seas  were  shady '  with  their  ships.  So 
such  heroes  as  Knud  den  Store  (Canute  the  Great)  and 
Hakon  Jarl,  abound  in  Norwegian  song.  We  regret 
we  cannot  find  space  for  one  of  those  legendary  ballads 
in  which  Oehlenschlager  excels.  We  translate  instead 
the  best  of  his  romantic  poems,  founded  on  the  Scandi- 
navian mythology : — 

THE  GIFT  OF  ^EGIR. 

While  the  high  gods  sported 

Where  the  salt  blue  sea, 
Near  the  isle  of  ^)gir, 

Moan'd  tumultuously, 
^gir,  god  of  ocean, 

Grasp'd  a  drinking  horn, 
Which  a  cunning  artist 

Did  with  power  adorn. 

Never  snail-shell  lying 

In  the  waters  blue, 
Was  so  strangely  fashion'd, 

And  so  fair  of  hue  ; 


288  Master-Spirits. 

Speck'd  with  marvellous  colours, 
Whence  soft  lustres  break, 

And  grotesquely  twisted, 
Like  a  speckled  snake. 

The  red  wound  melting 

In  the  gold  and  white, 
And  the  bowl  within  was 

Spacious  and  bright ; 
In  the  bottom  glitter'd 

A  carbuncle  green, 
And  the  fair  rim  sparkled 

Into  golden  sheen. 

The  goddesses  assembled 

Praised  the  beauteous  cup : 
^Egir  cried,  '  Uove  ! 

Fill  the  beaker  up  ! ' 
•  With  her  hair  rush-plaited 

Stood  the  sea-maid  sweet, 
Blue  her  beauteous  girdle, 

Small  her  tender  feet. 

Followed  by  her  sister, 

While  the  great  gods  smiled, 
With  her  virgin  bosoms 

Swelling  plump  and  mild, 
While  beneath  those  bosoms 

Her  warm  heart  shook, 
Stretching  white  arms  dumbly, 

She  the  snail-horn  took. 

Then  the  young  sea-maiden, 
Blushing  bright  of  hue, 

Like  a  swan  plunged  swiftly 
In  the  waters  blue ; 


Scandinavian  Studies. 

Reappearing  quickly 
She  upheld  the  cup, 

And  with  small  pearls  dewy 
It  was  brimming  up  ! 


289 


great  brown  fingers 

Gripp'd  the  horn  ;  —  quoth  he  : 
'  God  ^Egir  sendeth 

A  gift  from  his  green  sea  ; 
To  the  goddess  only, 

Of  the  beauteous  throng, 
Who  is  mightiest,  greatest, 

Shall  the  horn  belong/ 

Then  the  beech-crown'd  Frigga 

In  her  beauty  rose, 
And  her  heavenly  glances 

Round  the  hall  she  throws  : 
1  Than  the  earth's  fair  mother, 

Odin's  stately  queen, 
Who  is  mightier,  greater, 

In  the  gods'  demesne  ?  ' 

Then  Gesion  stretch'd  snowy 

Hands  towards  the  sea 
(Never  was  a  maiden 

Fruitful-loin'd  as  she  !  )  : 
*  Who  ploughs  the  earth,  and  makes  it 

Fruitful  as  can  be  ? 
Drops  the  rain  pure  golden, 
who  but  me  ?  ' 


Then  rose  Eir,  upholding 
Root  and  glittering  knife 

4  How  have  you  trembled 
For  the  hero's  life  ? 
U 


290  Master-Spirits. 

What  is  land,  what  valour, 
Without  health's  pure  shower  ? 

And  what  gift  can  liken 
With  my  healing  power  ? ' 

Rota,  high  and  mighty, 

Rose  with  stately  glance, — 
All  the  gods  assembled 

Gazed  upon  her  lance  : 
'  Ye  of  life  have  prated, 

Powers  assembled  here ; 
What  stops  life's  strong  action  ? 

Rota's  fatal  spear  ! ' 

Then  smiled  Freya,  tripping 

On  her  feet  snow-white 
To  the  spot  where  ^Egir 

Held  the  goblet  bright : 
'  Give  the  horn  to  Freya  ! 

^gir,  hour  by  hour 
All  the  earth  is  crying, 

"  Love  has  greatest  power." ' 

On  his  knee  she  sat  her, 

With  a  fond  caress, 
From  her  limbs  of  beauty 

Floated  back  her  dress  ; 
Round  his  neck  she  wound  her 

Alabaster  arms, 
Let  him  see  her  bosoms 

In  their  naked  charms. 

^Egir  grasp'd  the  goblet, 
Fill'd  with  flaming  fire, 

When,  hark  !  soft  music 
Broke  from  Bragi's  lyre  ! 


Scandinavian  Studies.  291 

As  the  god  of  ocean 

Listen'd  wondering-eyed, 
Saw  he  gentle  Ydun  l 

At  her  husband's  side. 

f  With  her  crape-bound  forehead, 

And  her  beauteous  waist 
Like  a  slender  tendril, 

Sat  she  dumb  and  chaste  ; 
Brown  her  hair's  rich  brightness, 

In  a  knot  upbound, 
Dewy  azure  pansies 

In  the  tresses  wound. 

She  a  bowl  pure  golden 

Held  in  hand  snow-white. 
For  when  Bragi  playeth 

On  his  harp  strings  bright, 
Hanging  fruit  grows  fragrant, 

Scenting  sea  and  land, 
And  the  fruit  drops  juicy 

Into  Ydun's  hand. 

And  the  mild-eyed  goddess, 

With  her  sweetness  wise, 
Broke  the  spell  of  even 

Freya's  witching  eyes. 
'  Ydun  ! '  cried  ^Egir,  loudly, 

'  To  the  harp  of  gold 
Sing  what  wondrous  treasure 

Thy  pure  bowl  doth  hold ! ' 

With  a  voice  which  murmurs 

Like  the  nightingale, 
When  unseen  it  fluteth 

In  a  leafy  dale, 

1  The  holder  of  the  precious  fruit  whereby  the  gods  continually  renewed 
their  immortality. 


292  Master-Spirits. 

To  the  harp  sang  Ydun, 
At  the  sea-king's  call, 

And  the  wondrous  music 
Witch'd  the  hearts  of  all. 

c  Only  those  small  apples, 

Beautiful  of  hue, 
Fresh  and  sweet  and  juicy, 

May  the  gods  renew  ! 
Drank  they  not  the  juices 

Of  this  fruit  of  gold, 
Odin  would  grow  hoary, 

Freya  worn  and  old  ! 

'  While  the  harp  of  Bragi 

Chimes  melodiously, 
Lo  !  the  ripe  fruit  droppeth 

From  the  holy  tree  ; 
Strength,  and  health,  and  beauty, 

An  immortal  life, 
These  alone  can  give  ye  ! ' 

Thus  sang  Bragi's  wife. 

And  in  awe  and  wonder 

Heark'd  the  gods  the  while  ; 
Then,  behold,  King  ^Egir 

Pour'd,  with  eager  smile, 
In  the  lap  of  Ydun 

All  the  white  pearls  small — 
<  Take  the  gift,  O  Ydun  ! 

Mightiest  of  all ! 

'  And  I  ask  thee  only, 
For  this  gift  I  give, 

But  to  sip  the  juicy 
Fruit  whereby  we  live  ; 


Scandinavian  Studies.  293 

Of  my  deed  and  treasure 

Sing  a  Runic  rhyme, 
Let  it  sound  in  beauty 

Down  the  tracks  of  time.' 

Gentle  Ydun  promised  ; 

With  the  snowy-fair 
Pearls  she  deck'd  the  foreheads 

Of  each  goddess  there  j 
Gave  the  horn  to  Bragi, 

To  be  kept  for  use, 
Wet  the  lips  of^Egir 

With  immortal  juice  ! 

If  thereafter  Loke, 

With  the  heart  of  gall, 
Had  not  stolen  darkly 

On  the  banquet  hall, 
Then  had  minstrel  Scemund 

Sang  this  song  of  mine  j 
But  the  great  theme  perish'd 

In  the  less  divine. 

That  the  wondrous  story 

Should  not  perish  quite, 
Did  my  goddess  bid  me 

Strike  the  gold  harp  bright, 
Mists  of  ages  vanish, 

Valhal's  glories  shine, 
And  the  fruit  of  Ydun 

Giveth  life  divine  ! 

Oehenschlager,  by  the  way,  has  written  a  poem 
about  Shakspeare,  which,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  is  ex- 
ceedingly amusing.  It  commences  thus : —  . 


294  Master- Spirits. 

c  I  Wanvikshire  der  slander  et  Huus, 
Det  truer  med  tit  falde  til  Gruus, 

Til  Bolig  det  ei  kan  gavne  ; 
Men  yndig  sig  stroekker  den  gamle  Muur, 
Omkrandset  af  den  unge  Natur, 

Og  i  Ruden  er  hellige  Navne.' 

It  is  a  ballad  chronicle  of  the  great  poet's  life,  and 
follows  Shakspeare  from  the  period  of  his  deer-shooting 
freaks  up  until  his  play-writing  in  London.  According 
to  Oehlenschlager,  '  William '  is  wandering  in  the  moon- 
light, when  Apollo,  desirous  of  taking  his  favourite 
from  a  weaver's  stool,  instructs  Diana  to  take  the  shape 
of  a  stag  in  a  lonely  path, — '  en  Kronkjort  paa  en 
eensomme  Sti.'  The  stag  is  a  splendid  creature,  and 
'  William '  is  too  much  of  a  sportsman  not  to  long  to  kill 
it.  He  hesitates  for  a  minute  ;  but  at  last,  plaf !  goes 
the  gun,  and  down  falls  the  bleeding  deer.  When  the 
deed  is  done,  the  full  extent  of  his  danger  flashes  on  the 
assassin.  He  must  fly  from  the  vengeance  of  the  lord 
of  the  manor ;  and  he  immediately  departs  for  London, 
hastily  making  what  the  Scotch  call  '  moonlight  flitting.' 
In  the  metropolis  he  falls  into  his  proper  sphere,  and 
Apollo  is  satisfied.  Instead  of  weaving  clothing  on  a 
stool,  he  weaves  tapestries  which  surpass  even  the  master- 
pieces of  Raphael,  and  which  bloom  like  roses  of  eternal 
May.  One  portion  of  this  poem,  in  which  Desdemona  is 
compared  to  the  snow  of  night,  is  exceedingly  pretty. 

The  Danes  seem  to  possess  little  humour  of  the  in- 
tellectual sort ;  yet,  for  what  we  English  know,  there 
may  be  much  mother  wit — or  what  the  Scotch  call '  wut 


Scandinavian  Studies.  295 

— amongst  them.  The  humour  which  appears  in  their 
poetry  is  of  the  schoolboy  sort,  and  turns  a  good  deal 
on  practical  joking — a  sport  which  boys,  and  nations  in 
their  infancy,  are  very  fond  of.  The  two  following  poems 
—the  first  by  J.  Baggesen,  and  the  second  by  Christian 
Winther — are  fair  specimens  of  a  style  of  humorous 
writing  which  is  very  popular  in  Denmark.  The  one 
turns  on  a  very  bold  case  of  practical  joking,  and  the 
other,  for  the  most  part,  is  a  mild  matter  of  verbal 
punning.  We  have  rendered  them  both  as  literally  as 
possible,  though  the  task  has  been  by  no  means  an  easy 
one : — 

RIDDER  RO  AND  RIDDER  RAP. 

There  dwelt  in  Thorsinge  cavaliers  two 

(Who  rode  very  seldom  to  fight ! ), 
If  Thorsinge's  chronicles  be  true, 
The  one,  Herr  Dull,  was  lazy  enew, 

But  one,  like  his  name,  was  Bright. 

They  woo'd  with  gold  and  with  witching  speech 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right !) 
The  lily-white  daughter  of  Overreach, — 
Dull  woo'd  her  with  gold,  Bright  woo'd  her  with  speech  ; 

But  Signe  was  fondest  of  Bright. 

Herr  Overreach  loved  gold-heaps  and  gold 

(Ay,  gold  is  a  tempting  sight  !) ; 
He  knew  Dull's  coffers  bright  guineas  did  hold, 
So  he  scolded  fair  Signe  for  being  so  cold. 

She  wept,  but  abandon'd  Bright.1 

1  Gav  Kurven  til  Rap.     Literally,  gave  Rap  ''the  basket;'  but  Anglirt, 
gave  him  the  '  cold  shoulder.' 


296  Master-Spirits. 

Now  bridegroom  Dull  by  the  ocean  rode 

(They  rode  very  seldom  to  fight) ; 
He  trotted  along  to  his  bride's  abode, — 
Ay,  bridegroom  Dull  to  the  wedding  rode. 
*  I,  too,  ride  thither  ! '  said  Bright. 

Forth  with  the  bride  came  the  bridegroom  proud 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right)  ; 
Through  the  portal  they  join'd  the  wedding  crowd, 
While  the  men  and  the  women  shouted  aloud. 
'  See,  /am  here  ! '  said  Bright. 

To  the  bride-room  wander'd  the  bridal  train 

(She  saw  each  bridal  knight). 
Goblet  on  goblet  they  quaiFd  amain, 
To  the  bridegroom's  joy  and  the  sweet  bride's  pain. 

<  Ay,  tipple  your  fill ! '  said  Bright. 

Dull,  tippling  and  tippling,  sat  on  a  form 

(Ay,  tippling,  the  lazy  wight !), 
Preparing  the  bridal  chamber  warm  ; 
Within  were  maidens,  a  merry  swarm. 

'  Ay,  ye  may  giggle  ! '  said  Bright. 

So  they  carried  the  bride  to  the  bridal  bed 
(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right ! ), 

The  bridegroom  still  muddled  his  lazy  head. 

'  Ay,  sit  you  there  !  tippling,  though  newly  wed  ! 
I'll  take  your  place/  said  Bright. 

He  took  little  Signe's  hand  snow-white 
(They  run  and  embrace  with  delight), 

Then  he  bang'd  the  door  and  fasten'd  it  tight ; 

'  Hi !  boy,  go  wish  Herr  Dull  good  night 
I'm  going  to  sleep  1 '  said  Bright. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  297 

Off  to  Herr  Bridegroom  the  little  boy  sped 

(Ay,  bridegroom — indolent  wight !) ; 
Herr  Bridegroom  !  Herr  Bridegroom  !  lift  up  your  head  ! 
Rap  sits  with  the  bride  on  the  bridal  bed. 

'  I  do  indeed  ! '  said  Bright. 

The  bridegroom  raps  at  the  door  with  a  zest 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right !) ; 
'  Hi !  open  the  door,  you  two — you  had  best ! 
Myself  with  my  bride  will  betake  me  to  rest.1 

'  Ay,  betake  thee  to  rest ! '  said  Bright. 

The  bridegroom  knock'd  on  at  the  door  as  he  spoke, 
And  the  little  boy  added  his  might  : 

*  Come  out,  I  have  now  had  enough  of  the  joke  ; 
Come  out,  Ridder  Rap,  to  the  rest  of  the  folk.' 

1  Ah  !  see  if  I  do  ! '  said  Bright. 

Then  hammer'd  and  hammer'd  the  bridegroom  old, 

Ay,  hammer'd  with  all  his  might ; 
'  If  thou  within  with  my  bride  mak'st  bold, 
I'll  revenge  it — hark  thee — a  thousandfold.7 

'  Go  to  the  devil ! '  said  Bright. 

Fiercely  pale  grew  Herr  Bridegroom's  cheek 
(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right) ; 

*  Quit,  quit  my  bride,  and  thy  foolish  freak, 

Ere  I  fly  to  the  King  and  justice  seek.'  4 

1  Do  as  you  please  ! '  said  Bright. 

Early  at  morn,  'neath  the  breaking  day 

(They  rode  very  seldom  to  fight), 
Dull  saddled  his  horse,  and  gallop'd  away, 
Making  haste  to  the  King  to  say  his  say. 

'  I,  too,  ride  thither  ! '  said  Bright. 


198  Master-Spirits. 

e  Herr  King,  I  married  a  beauteous  bride 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right)  ; 
But  after  the  bridal  this  Ridder  hied 
To  the  bridal  chamber,  and  slept  by  her  side.' 
'  That  did  I,  I  own  ! '  said  Bright. 

'  Since  ye  both  the  maiden  hold  so  dear 

(And  ride  so  seldom  to  fight), 
'Tis  better  to  settle  the  matter  here, 
And  with  one  another  to  break  a  spear.' 

1  Ay  !  that  is  the  best ! '  said  Bright. 

The  very  next  morning,  when  rose  the  sun 
(Ay,  the  sun,  with  his  pleasant  light), 
Dull  mounted  his  charger,  a  pearl  of  a  one, 
And  the  whole  Court  gather'd  to  see  the  fun. 
*  See  !  here  am  I  ! '  said  Bright. 

The  very  first  joust,  while  the  Court  stood  round 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right), 
Bright's  charger  slipp'd  in  the  forward  bound, 
And  slipp'd,  and  fell  to  its  knees  on  the  ground. 
c  Now  help  me,  God  ! '  said  Bright. 

The  second  joust,  as  these  champions  good 

Wax  fiercer  and  fiercer  in  fight, 
From  their  bosoms  trickled  the  red,  red  blood, 
Dull  fell  from  his  horse  to  the  dust  and  mud. 
'There  lies  Herr  Dull  ! '  said  Bright. 

Home  gallop'd  Bright  at  a  mighty  rate, 

In  happy,  victorious  might ; 
And  saw  sweet  Signe  eagerly  wait, 
A  virgin  still,  at  the  castle  gate. 

'  Now  art  thou  mine  ! '  said  Bright. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  299 

Now  Bright  has  gain'd  what  he  loves  the  best 

(By  rent-roll,  by  reason,  by  right) ; 
Now  lies  his  head  upon  Signe's  breast, 
Now  on  his  arm  does  she,  sleeping,  rest. 

'  See  !  all  is  merry  !  '  said  Bright. 


KNIGHT  KALV  (CALF). 

King  Wolmer  sat  surrounded 

By  all  his  captains  tall, 
And  dealt  out  land  and  castles 

At  will  to  each  and  all. 
With  bending  head  above  them 

The  merry  King  did  sit, 
While  guest  and  humorous  banter 

His  face  with  laughter  lit. 

He  gave  them  each  a  portion, 

Adding  his  jest  the  while ; 
Each  took  his  portion  gladly, 

And  thanked  him  with  a  smile. 
The  northern  bit  of  country 

Was  Elske  Brok's  l  good  share  ; 
'  Creep  in  the  sand,'  quoth  Wolmer, 

*  You'll  find  house-shelter  there. 

f  Where  prowl  the  wolves  and  foxes 

The  goose  is  seldom  found  ; 
And  you  shall  settle,  therefore, 

Each  in  appropriate  ground. 
But  little  Morten  Due,2 

He  shall  to  Aalholm  flee, 
There  sit  on  grassy  hillocks, 

Or  build  i'  the  beechen  tree  ! 

Anglid,  badger.  7  Due,  dove. 


3OO  Master -Spirits. 

( Where  shall  we  settle  Galten  ?  l 

In  Krogen  let  him  gnaw  ; 
We  call  you  Hog  with  justice, 

You  have  so  sharp  a  claw ; 
The  sea-gulls  you  can  seize  on, 

That  o'er  the  capes  will  pass. 
On  Kalv  I  settle  Ribe, 

For  it  abounds  in  grass  !  ' 

But  Ridder  Kalv  grew  angry, 

Clench'd  teeth,  and  made  demur ; 
f  That  mouthful  is  too  stringy — 

God's  death  !  am  I  a  cur  ? ' 
He  grasp'd  his  sword  in  anger, 

And  slung  it  on  his  thigh  ; 
*  The  hedge  I  now  spring  over, 

And  to  the  Germans  fly  ! ' 

His  horse  he  fiercely  mounted, 

And  unto  Holstein  flew ; 
All  riding-school  manoeuvres 

He  made  the  beast  go  through. 
Announcing  himself,  with  anger, 

Drunk  as  drunk  might  be  ; 
c  Herr  Earl,  how  dost  thou  value 

My  services  and  me  ? ' 

Rose  from  his  seat  Earl  Gerhard, 

And  to  the  Ridder  ran ; 
And  shook  with  eager  gladness 

The  hand  of  the  Danish  man. 
He  gave  him  two  great  castles, 

And  added  gold  thereto, 
That  the  bold  knight  might  hold  him 

Both  liberal  and  true. 

1   Galten^  the  pig. 


Scandinavian  Studies.  301 

But  discontent  and  anger 

Kalv  troubled  o'er  and  o'er ; 
His  hawking,  hunting,  singing, 

Contented  him  no  more. 
With  wrinkles  on  his  forehead 

The  knight  doth  sit  and  pine  j 
The  very  sun  no  longer 

Shines  as  it  used  to  shine. 

One  evening  in  winter 

King  Wolmer  sat  in  hall, 
And  drain'd  his  golden  goblets 

Among  his  captains  all. 
Then  roar'd  the  guard  full  loudly 

Who  sentinell'd  at  door, 
'  Here  comes,  upon  my  honour, 

Herr  Ridder  Kalv  once  more  ! ' 

In  stepp'd  the  knight  full  slowly, 

With  glances  downward  bent, 
Paler,  gentler,  humbler, 

Calmer  than  when  he  went. 
He  next  with  shameful  tremor 

Did  Wolmer's  slippers  kiss  ; 
He  was  so  sad  of  spirit, 

And  he  was  so  pale,  I  wis  ! 

*  Herr  King,  Herr  King,  forgive  me  ! 

I  knew  not  what  I  did  ; 
I  was  an  angry  donkey, 

And  I  am  fairly  chid  ! 
But  I  have  not  been  sleeping 

In  Holstein  there  so  long— 
I  bring  for  your  acceptance 

Two  castles  great  and  strong.' 


3O2  Master-Spirits. 

His  face  bent  down,  not  angry, 

King  Wolmer  from  his  throne, 
While  jest  and  merry  laughter 

Upon  his  features  shone  ; 
And  the  sweet  cup  of  friendship 

He  gave  with  royal  hand. 
So  rose  he,  smiling  slily 

Upon  the  smiling  band. 

*  And  hear,  beloved  captains, 

What  I  have  got  to  say ; 
This  Kalv  can  add,  my  captains, 

As  well  as  take  away  ! 
As  Calf  his  stall  he  quitted, 

But  as  a  monster  cow, 
He  brings  at  last  returning 

Two  mighty  calves,  I  trow.' 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  303, 


POETS  IN  OBSCURITY. 

I. 

GEORGE    HEATH,   THE  MOORLAND   POET. 

IT  was  one  day  in  the  late  autumn  of  1870,  when  the 
silvern  light  and  the  grey  cloud  were  brooding  over  the 
windless  waters  and  shadowy  moors  of  Lome,  that  we 
leant  over  a  little  rural  bridge  close  to  our  home  in  the 
Highlands,  and  watched  the  running  burn,  where,  in  the 
words  of  Duncan  Ban  of  Glenorchy — 

With  a  splash,  and  a  plunge,  and  a  mountain  murmur, 

The  gurgling  waters  arise  and  leap, 
And  pause  and  hasten,  and  spin  in  circles, 

And  rush  and  loiter,  and  whirl  and  creep  ; 

and  on  that  day,  as  always  when  we  stand  by  running 
water,  we  were  thinking  of  the  author  of  the  '  Luggie,' 
whose  tale  we  have  told  to  the  world  both  in  prose 
and  verse  ;  thinking  of  him  and  wondering  why  the  very 
brightness  of  his  face  seemed  to  have  faded  into  the 
dimness  of  dream,  so  that  we  found  it  almost  difficult  to 
realise  that  David  Grey  had  lived  at  all.  The  fair  shape 
seemed  receding  further  and  further  up  the  mysterious 
vistas,  and  the  time  seemed  near  when  it  would  vanish 


304  Master-Spirits. 

altogether,  and  be  invisible  even  to  the  soul  that  loved 
it  best.  The  thought  was  a  miserable  one.  It  is  so 
hateful  that  grief  should  grow  dull  so  soon  ;  that  the  in- 
consolable should  find  the  fond  habit  of  earthly  percep- 
tion obliterating  memory  ;  that  passionate  regret  should 
first  grow  sweet,  and  then  faint,  and  finally  should  fade 
away  ;  and  that,  until  a  fresh  shock  comes  from  God  to 
galvanise  the  drowsy  consciousness,  the  dead  should  be 
more  or  less  forgotten — the  mother  by  her  child,  the 
mistress  by  her  lover,  the  father  by  his  son,  the  husband 
by  the  wife  ;  and  all  this  though  heaven  might  be 
thronging  with  dead  to  us  invisible,  with  eyes  full  of 
tears  and  straining  back  to  earth,  with  faces  agonised 
beyond  expression  to  see  the  bereft  ones  gradually 
turning  their  looks  earthward,  and  brightening  to  for- 
getfulness  and  peace. 

While  we  were  full  of  such  thoughts,  the  High- 
land postman  passed  and  handed  our  letters,  and  the 
first  packet  we  opened  was  a  little  volume,  '  Memorial 
Edition  of  the  Poems  of  George  Heath,  the  Moorland 
Poet.' l  There  was  a  portrait,  a  memoir,  and  some  two 
hundred  pages  of  verse.  The  portrait  struck  us  first, 
for  about  lips  and  chin  there  was  a  weird  reminiscence  ; 
and  on  the  whole  face,  even  in  the  somewhat  rude  en- 
graving, there  was  a  look  seen  only  on  the  features  of 
certain  women,  and  on  those  of  poets  who  die  young — 
a  look  unknown  to  the  face  of  Milton,  or  of  Wordsworth, 
or  of  Byron,  but  faintly  traceable  in  every  likeness  of 
Shelley  that  we  have  ever  seen,  and  almost  obtrusive  in 

1  London :  Bemrose  and  Sons,  Paternoster  Row. 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  305 

the  one  existing  portrait  of  Keats.  This  look  is  scarcely 
describable — it  may  even  be  a  flash  from  one's  own 
imagination ;  but  it  seems  there,  painful,  spiritual,  a 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  and  land,  quite  as  unmis- 
takable on  poor  Kirke  White's  face  as  on  the  mightier 
lineaments  of  Freidrich  von  Hardenburg.  Next  came 
the  memoir,  and  then  the  verse.  It  was  what  we  antici- 
pated— the  old  story  over  again ;  the  story  of  Keats,  of 
Robert  Nicoll,  of  David  Gray ;  the  old  story  with  the 
old  motto,  '  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young.'  Though 
it  came  like  a  rebuke,  it  illuminated  memory.  What 
had  seemed  to  die  away  and  grow  into  the  common 
daylight  was  again  shining  before  me — the  face  of  the 
dear  boyish  companion  who  had  died,  the  eyes  that  had 
faded  away  in  divine  tears,  the  look  that  had  been 
luminous  there  and  was  now  dimly  repeated  in  the 
little  woodcut  of  George  Heath.  Out  of  almost  the 
same  elements,  nature  had  wrought  another  tragedy, 
and  through  nearly  the  same  process  another  young  soul 
had  been  consecrated  to  the  martyrdom  of  those  who 
sing  and  die. 

Is  it  worth  telling  over  again,  this  tale  that  nature 
repeats  so  often  ?  Is  it  worth  while  tracing  once  more 
the  look  with  which  we  are  so  familiar,  the  consecrated 
expression  Death  puts  upon  the  eyes  and  mouth  of  his 
victims  ?  Is  not  the  world  sad  enough  without  these 
pitiful  reminders  ?  Genius,  music,  disease,  death — the 
old,  weary,  monotonous  tune,  have  we  not  heard  enough 
of  it  ?  Not  yet.  It  will  be  repeated  again  and  again 
and  again,  till  the  whole  world  has  got  it  by  heart,  and 

x 


306  Master- Spirits. 

its  full  beauty  and  significance  are  apprehended  by 
every  woman  that  bears  a  son.  At  the  present  moment 
it  comes  peculiarly  in  season :  for  England  happens  to 
be  infested  at  present  by  a  school  of  poetic  thought 
which  threatens  frightfully  to  corrupt,  demoralise,  and 
render  effeminate  the  rising  generation ;  a  plague  from 
Italy  and  France ;  a  school  aesthetic  without  vitality, 
and  beautiful  without  health ;  a  school  of  falsettoes  in- 
numerable— false  love,  false  picture,  false  patriotism,  false 
religion,  false  life,  false  death,  all  lurking  palpable  or 
disguised  in  the  poisoned  chalice  of  a  false  style. 

Just  when  verse-writers  who  never  lived  are  bitterly 
regretting  that  it  is  necessary  to  die,  and  thinking  the 
best  preparation  is  to  grimace  at  God  and  violate  the 
dead,  it  may  do  us  good  to  read  the  old  story  over 
again,  this  time  in  the  rude  outline  of  a  life  which  was 
even  more' than  ordinarily  conscious  of  poetic  imperfec- 
tion. 

George  Heath  was  born  at  Gratton,  a  hamlet  in  the 
moorlands  of  Staffordshire,  on  March  9,  1844.  He  was 
the  eldest  son  of  poor  parents,  who  lived  in  an  old 
weather-beaten  cottage  in  a  lonely  part  of  the  moors, 
and  farmed  a  small  piece  of  the  adjoining  ground.  At 
the  National  School  of  Horton  he  learned  to  read  and 
write,  but  at  a  very  early  age  he  was  compelled  to  work 
as  a  farm-labourer  in  his  father's  fields.  For  some 
reason  unknown  to  me,  but  most  probably  because  he 
was  somewhat  too  frail  for  hard  work  out-of-doors,  he 
was  afterwards  apprenticed  to  a  carpenter,  '  Mr.  Samuel 
Heath,  of  Gratton,  joiner  and  builder ; '  and  here  some 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  307 

secret  literary  influence  reached  him — '  fancy,'  to  quote 
his  own  words,  <  indulged  in  wildly  beautiful  dreams  to 
the  curl  of  the  shavings  and  rasp  of  the  saw ' — and 
with  that,  awoke  the  delicious  hunger  we  all  remember, 
the  never-satisfied  appetite  for  books.  What  he  read, 
how  and  where  he  read,  how  his  later  thoughts  were 
affected  by  what  he  read,  cannot,  of  course,  be  deter- 
mined by  a  stranger,  though  I  shall  not  be  far  wrong  in 
guessing  that  he  was  quite  as  eager  to  acquire  knowledge 
of  a  useful  sort  as  to  gratify  his  as  yet  faint  poetic  tastes. 
Youths  overdosed  with  school  hate  useful  knowledge, 
but  the  poor  half-starved  ignoramus  devours  it,  and 
finds  it  sweeter  to  his  taste  than  honey.  Heath's  best 
friend  in  those  days,  and  all  days  after,  seems  to  have 
been  a  young  man  named  Foster,  described  in  the 
memoir  '  as  a  young  man  of  like  mind  with  himself — 
one  who  had  received  a  good  education  at  the  old 
grammar  school  of  Alleyne's,  at  Uttoxeter,  and  to  whom 
a  well-stocked  library  at  home  had  always  been  ac- 
cessible.' Foster  could  draw,  and  was  ambitious  to 
distinguish  himself  as  an  artist.  The  portrait  of  Heath 
is  from  his  pencil,  and  is  quite  tenderly  executed.  The 
two  lads  loved  each  other,  influenced  each  other,  in- 
spired each  other,  as  only  two  such  young  souls  can  do, 
and  the  fellowship  existed  till  the  very  last.  Only  a 
few  months  before  his  death  George  Heath  wrote  in 
his  diary,  '  My  dear  old  friend  and  fellow-toiler  came  up 
for  just  an  hour.  He  is  still  as  earnest  and  persevering 
as  ever.  He  and  I  started  together  in  the  life  struggle. 
We  cannot  be  said  to  have  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder, 

x  2 


308  Master-Spirits. 

for  our  paths  have  laid  apart,  and  he,  I  believe,  has, 
through  my  ill-health  and  one  thing  and  another,  gained 
upon  me.  But  we  have  always  been  one  in  heart,  and 
still  we  are  agreed  our  motto  must  be  Steadily  onward! 
The  stranger  who  first  sent  us  George  Heath's  poems, 
with  a  letter  telling  how  tenderly  some  thoughts  of 
ours  had  been  prized  by  the  poor  boy  in  Staffordshire, 
and  how  we  had  been  able  to  influence  him  for  good, 
afterwards  procured,  at  our  particular  request,  the 
'Diary'  from  which  we  have  quoted  above,  and  from 
which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  quote  again  ;  and  it  lies 
now  before  us — four  little  volumes,  purchased  by  Heath 
for  a  few  pence,  filled  with  boyish  handwriting,  in  the 
earlier  portions  clear  and  strong,  but  latterly  nervous 
and  weak,  and  ever  growing  weaker  and  weaker.  Every 
day,  for  four  long  years  of  suffering  and  disease,  George 
Heath  wrote  his  thoughts  down  here.  However  dim 
were  his  eyes  with  pain,  however  his  wasting  hand  shook 
and  failed,  he  managed  to  add  something,  if  only  a 
few  words  ;  and  let  those  who  upbraid  God  for  their 
burdens  read  these  pages,  and  see  how  a  poor  untaught 
soul,  stricken  by  the  most  cruel  of  all  diseases,  and 
tortured  by  the  wretchedest  of  all  disappointments,  could, 
year  after  year,  day  after  day,  hour  after  hour,  collect 
strength  enough  to  say  unfalteringly — *  God,  Thy  will  be 
done,  for  Thou  art  wiser  than  I.'  When  the  hand  is 
too  weak  to  write  more,  a  wild  effort  is  made  to  say 
this  much — '  Another  day  ;  thank  God  !  Oh,  God  is 
good  ! '  There  are  men  in  the  world — gifted  men,  too 
— who  see  no  more  in  this  than  the  submission  of 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  309 

despair ;  but  they  err  from  lack  of  human  knowledge. 
The  gratitude  is  not  that  of  despair,  but  of  hope,  of 
thanks  for  most  heavenly  consecration.  It  is  born  of 
the  strange  sense  of  beatification  which  only  ensues 
after  extreme  physical  pain,  and  still  more,  of  the  quiet 
feeling  of  security  consequent  on  great  spiritual  vitality ; 
both  these  deepening  the  sufferer's  conviction  that  he 
whose  fondest  hope  was  to  sing  living  and  be  the  chosen 
of  man,  may  in  all  happiness  sing  dying  and  become 
the  chosen  of  God.  '  God  has  love,  and  I  have  faith,' 
said  David  Gray,  just  before  the  final  darkness.  '  Thanks 
to  God  for  one  more  day,'  wrote  George  Heath  in  his 
diary  overnight ;  and  he  died  peacefully  in  the  morning. 
There  it  is,  the  one  Word,  the  awful  Mystery.  Why  do 
these  poor  lambs  thank  God  ?  For  what  do  they  thank 
Him  ?  Not  through  fear,  surely,  for  they  are  brave,  more 
fearless  than  any  men  who  fall  in  fight.  Can  it  be  that 
He  communicates  with  them  in  His  own  fashion,  and 
gives  them  the  supreme  assurance  which,  in  us,  causes 
nothing  but  amaze  ?  Poor  lambs !  bleating  to  the 
Shepherd  as  they  die ! 

It  was  while  assisting  at  the  restoration  of  Hendon 
Church,  'just  before  the  close  of  his  apprenticeship  in 
1864,'  that  Heath  caught  the  complaint,  a  consumption 
of  the  lungs,  to  which  he  ultimately  succumbed.  The 
writer  of  the  memoir  adds  that  the  '  sorrow  of  a  broken 
first-love '  had  something  to  do  with  his  disease,  but  the 
inference  is  doubtful.  There  are,  indeed,  clear  evi- 
dences in  the  poems  that  Heath  had  been  passionately 
in  love  with  an  object  he  afterwards  found  to  be  un- 


3 1  o  Master-Spirits. 

worthy.  One  of  his  early  pieces,  entitled  '  The  Discarded/ 
written  on  New- Year's  Eve,  is  addressed  to  the  girl  he 
loved,  after  she  had  played  with  his  heart  and  wounded 
it  cruelly.  It  is  a  boy's  production,  with  a  man's  heart 
in  it — strong,  nervous,  real,  showing  inherent  dignity 
of  nature,  and  full  of  a  firm  voice  that  could  not  whine. 
Those  who  are  now  familiar  with  the  musical  ravings  of 
diseased  animalism  may  find  freshness  even  in  some  of 
these  lines,  bald  as  they  are  in  form  and  cold  in  colour  : — 

Ah  !  but  think  not,  haughty  maiden, 

That  I  envy  thee  thy  power, 
Or  the  grand  and  lofty  beauty 

Which  was  all  thy  virgin  dower ; 
Think  not,  either,  that  I  would  be 

Unconcerned  and  gay  and  free  ; 
Doff  a  love,  and  don  another, 

In  a  twilight  like  to  thee. 
No  !  I  sooner  far  would  suifer 

All  the  agony  of  heart — 
Ay,  an  age  of  desolation — 

Than  be  fickle  as  thou  art ; 
For  it  proves  to  me,  my  spirit 

Has  noc  lost  the  stamp  divine  ; 
That  my  nature  is  not  shallow, 

Is  not  base  and  mean  as  thine. 
Neither  think  thou  that  my  being 

Yearns  towards  thee  even  yet ; 
That  a  smile  of  thine  would  banish 

All  I  never  may  forget ; 
That  a  look  of  thine  would  make  me 

All  I  dreamed  I  once  might  be  ; 
That  one  gleam  of  love  would  chain  me 

Once  again  a  slave  to  thee. 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  311 


Should  the  richest  of  the  carver, 

And  the  fairest  of  the  loom, 
And  the  choice  of  art  and  nature 

Lustre  round  thy  beauties'  bloom  ; 
Ah  !  should  all  the  gifts  and  graces 

Gather  round  thee  and  conspire 
In  thy  form  to  fix  their  essence, 

Flush  thy  face  with  spirit-fire  ; 
Nay  !  shouldst  thou  in  tears,  forgetting 

Beauty-love  is  calm  and  proud, 
Shouldst  thou  humble  thee,  and  bow  thee 

Where  I  once  so  meekly  bowed  : 
Having  once  deceived  me,  never, 

Never  more,  whate'er  thy  mien, 
Couldst  thou  be  to  me  the  being 

That  thou  mightest  once  have  been. 
No,  alas  !  thy  tears  might  give  me 

Less  of  pride,  and  less  of  scorn, 
Deeper  pity,  deeper  shadow, 

Make  me  sadder,  more  forlorn. 

These  were  the  utterances  of  a  lofty  nature,  capable 
of  becoming  a  poet  sooner  or  later ;  already  indeed  a 
poet  in  soul,  but  lacking  as  yet  the  poetic  voice.  That 
voice  never  came  in  full  strength,  but  it  was  gathering, 
and  the  world  would  have  heard  it  if  God  had  not  chosen 
to  reserve  it  for  His  own  ears.  The  stateliness  of  character 
shown  in  this  little  love  affair  was  never  lost  from  that 
moment,  and  is  in  itself  enough  to  awaken  our  deepest 
respect  and  sympathy. 

In  1865  appeared  a  little  volume  by  Heath,  under  the 
title  of  'Preludes,'  consisting  chiefly  of  verses  written 


3 1 2  Master-Spirits. 

during  the  first  year  of  his  illness.  These  poems,  like 
all  he  wrote,  are  most  noteworthy  for  the  invariable 
superiority  of  the  thought  over  the  expression.  They  are 
not  at  all  the  sort  of  verses  written  by  brilliant  young 
men.  Their  subjects  are  local  places,  tales  of  rude 
pathos  like  '  The  Pauper  Child,'  and  religious  sentiment. 
Here,  as  in  the  'Discarded,'  there  is  too  much  of 
the  old  tawdry  metaphor  characteristic  of  the  pre- 
Wordsworthian  lyrists,  and  to  some  extent  of  Words- 
worth himself ;  and  we  read  with  little  pleasure  about 
'  blushing  spring  in  her  robe  of  virgin  pride,'  summer's 
' gushing  tide,'  'Deception's  soulless  smile,'  'flower- 
enamelled  glades,'  and  '  halcyon  glory  ; '  hear  too  many 
allusions  to  the  '  zodiac '  and  the  (most  insufferable) 
'  zephyr,'  and  note  too  many  such  words  as  '  empyrean,' 
*  amaranthine,'  '  lambling,'  '  fledgeling,'  '  glorious,'  '  gor- 
geous/ Nevertheless,  there  is  truth  in  the  verses.  The 
poor  boy  is  not  composing,  but  putting  his  own  ex- 
perience into  the  form  that  seems  beautiful  to  him, 
however  unreal  it  seems  to  us.  He  had  not  read 
widely  enough  to  be  consciously  guilty  of  insincerities 
of  style. 

But  as  he  lingered,  confiding  daily  in  the  little  diary 
as  to  a  friend's  bosom,  George  Heath  read  more.  He 
received  lessons  in  Latin  and  Greek  from  the  Vicar 
(Latin  and  Greek !  for  a  poor  soul  going  to  speak  the 
tongue  of  the  angels  !)  ;  and  as  if  this  was  not  enough, 
he  studied  arithmetic.  It  is  sad  to  think  of  him  greedily 
picking  up  any  crumb  of  knowledge,  and  unconscious 
as  yet  of  his  approaching  doom.  His  pen  was  most 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  313 

busy  all  the  time,  composing  poetry  more  or  less  worthy 
of  preservation.  The  disease  was  doing  its  work  slowly, 
and  the  fated  hand  was  never  at  rest  for  years.  For 
four  years — 1866,  1867,  1868,  1869 — he  kept  his  diary; 
and  even  the  entries  made  when  the  last  hope  had  fled 
are  very  patient. 

Here  are  a  few  extracts  from  the  diary  for  1866  ; 
they  tell  his  story  with  far  more  force  and  tenderness 
than  we  could  hope  to  tell  it : — 

January  1866. — Thus,  with  the  dawn  of  a  new  year,  I 
commence  to  write  down  some  of  the  most  prominent  features 
of  my  every-day  life.  Not  that  I  have  anything  extra  to  write, 
but  this  is  a  critical  period  of  my  life.  I  may  never  live  to 
finish  this  diary.  On  the  other  hand,  should  it  please  God  to 
raise  me  up  again,  it  will  be  a  source  of  pleasure  in  the  future 
to  read  something  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings,  hopes  and 
aspirations,  that  rise  in  the  mind  when  under  the  afflicting  hand 
of  Providence  ;  and  its  experience  will  help  me  to  trust  God 
where  I  cannot  trace  Him. 

Thursday,  January  4. — Still  feeling  very  unwell,  with  a  bad 
cold  and  pain  in  my  side,  pursuing  my  studies  much  as  usual, 
trying  to  get  up  the  Latin  verbs  thoroughly.  I  have  been  my 
usual  walk  twice  per  diem  across  to  Close  Gate.  The  weather 
is  still  very  unfavourable.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  Mrs.  S. 
Heath,  sen.,  is  very  poorly.  I  am  thinking  much  of  a  dear  one 
far  away.  Praise  God,  He  is  good  ! 

Saturday,  January  13. — How  changeable  is  the  weather  : 
yesterday  it  was  fine  and  frosty  ;  to-day  it  is  dark,  damp,  and 
cheerless.  How  like  our  earthly  life  !  Sunshine  and  shadow, 
storm  and  calm, 'all  the  way  through.  I  am  scarcely -so  well  in 
body,  and  somewhat  depressed  in  spirits.  I  have  not  received 
the  letter  that  is  due  to  me,  and  that  I  have  been  looking  so 
anxiously  for,  at  present.  Though  I  have  been  struggling  hard 


Master-Spirits. 

the  past  week,  yet  I  cannot  see  much  that  I  have  done. 
Courage  ! 

Monday,  January  15. — Almost  racked  to  death  with  a 
fearful  cough  and  cold,  but  quite  as  hopeful  as  usual.  To-day 
Miss  D.  Crompton  called  to  see  us,  and  my  very  kind  friend 
Mrs.  Dear  sent  me  a  bottle  of  wine. 

Friday,  Jamtary  19. — I  have  with  great  difficulty  finished 
writing  out  a  poem  of  some  three  hundred  lines  in  length, 
entitled,  '  The  Discarded  :  a  Reverie/  It  is  my  longest,  and 
I  think  it  will  be  almost  my  last. 

Thursday,  January  25. — I  am  feeling  still  better  to-day,  and 
lighter  in  heart.  The  weather  is  fine  and  mild,  and  early  this 
morning  the  birds  chirped  and  sang  just  as  they  do  at  the 
approach  of  spring,  and  the  sun  burst  out  in  all  his  splendour. 
I  could  not  remain  in  the  house,  but  sauntered  round  the  croft 
and  down  the  lane.  I  have  not  yet  heard  from  my  friend. 

Monday,  January  29. — I  have  been  writing  out  a  few  lines 
on  the  '  cattle  plague/  What  an  alarming  visitation  of  Provi- 
dence it  is  !  It  seems  to  be  steadily  on  the  increase.  It  has 
come  within  two  miles  of  here.  I  tremble  to  think  of  the  con- 
sequences should  it  visit  our  home ;  it  would  sweep  away  all 
our  little  subsistence. 

Friday,  March  2. — It  is  a  gloriously  fine  day,  but  keen  and 
frosty.  I  am  feeling  the  benefit  of  the  pure  air.  I  am  grieved 
to  hear  that  Mr.  W.  Heath  has  lost  all  his  milking  cows  through 
the  '  rinderpest/  This  morning  I  received  a  kind  letter  from 
my  friend  Mademoiselle  J.  M.  It  is  a  nice  letter,  but  still 
somehow  it  has  left  a  painful  impression  behind. 

Wednesday,  March  14. — I  am  sitting  by  the  fire-side  dreaming 
strange  fantastic  day-dreams  !  And  why?  I  cannot  tell. 
This  dreaming  seems  to  have  become  a  part  of  my  very  nature. 
Perhaps  it  is  wrong,  but  it  is  so  sweet !  Mother  is  gone  to 
market,  the  orphan  babe  is  in  its  cradle,  all  is  quiet,  and  I  am 
poorly  and  unable  to  study  ;  so  what  can  I  do  but  dream  ? 

Thursday,  April  26. — Still  fine  and  hot.     The   aspect   of 


Poets  in  Obscitrity.  315 

things  is  slowly  but  surely  changing.  Dame  Nature,  'neath  the 
sweet  influences  of  spring,  is  putting  on  her  glorious  mantle  ! 
The  lambs  are  frisking  in  the  fields,  the  birds  unite  in  sending 
forth  one  rich  volume  of  praise  to  God,  myriads  of  insects,  long 
dormant,  are  waking  into  life  !  Praise  God  ! 

Monday,  May  14. — Very  unwell.  The  sombre  goddess 
Melancholy  has  gained  almost  the  mastery  of  me.  I  feel  quite 
alone  in  the  wrorld — a  puerile,  unloved  thing  ;  but  I  think  that 
my  earthly  race  is  almost  at  a  close,  and  then  if  I,  through  the 
blood  and  mediation  of  Christ,  am  enabled  to  reach  that  bright 
land,  0  how  glorious  will  be  the  change  ! 

Monday,  June  4. — A  hot  sultry  day.  I  feel  so  languid  and 
listless ;  but  can  enjoy  to  the  full  the  beautiful  panorama 
spread  out  before  me  :  and,  indeed,  it  is  beautiful !  The  scent 
of  dewy  foliage  and  nectar-filled  flowers  fills  me  with  a  dreamy, 
undefined  pleasure ;  I  love  the  world,  I  love  every  one  in  it, 
and  its  Maker. 

Friday,  June  15. — I  am  very  unwell  and  low-spirited;  the 
house  is  dull  and  gloomy  ;  outside  the  rain  keeps  falling  inces- 
santly. Mother  and  father  are  both  very  poorly.  My  kind 
friend,  Mrs.  B.  Bayley,  has  sent  me  several  books  and  maga- 
zines to  look  over ;  one  especially  interests  me,  '  Punch's  col- 
lection of  Leech's  cuts/ 

Wednesday,  July  4. — Very  wet.  I  am  a  prisoner ;  very 
poorly,  forbidden  by  the  doctor  to  do  any  close  study.  I  am 
sadly  low-spirited.  Grieving  foolishly  enough  that  all  my  cor- 
respondents have  forsaken  me. 

Saturday,  August  4. — Another  week  is  calmly  gliding  away, 
and  strange  to  say  the  period  of  the  year  that  I  dreaded  most 
is  passed  away,  and  I  am  still  alive,  and,  thank  Heaven,  as  well 
as  usual.  Two  years  ago  in  July  I  was  taken  ill,  and  one  year 
since  in  the  same  month  I  had  an  issue  of  blood  from  the  lungs  ; 
but,  praise  God,  I  am  still  alive. 

Thursday,  August  9. — I  have  been  a  walk  to  Close  Gate, 
and  had  a  game  of '  croquet.'  My  spirits  are  better.  There  is 


3 1 6  Master-Spirits. 

a  grand  Choral  Festival  at  Horton  Church— one  hundred  and 
sixty  performers  ;  how  I  should  like  to  hear  them  !  It  would 
waft  me  to  heaven. 

Wednesday ',  August  22. — I  have  been  out  into  the  lanes  and 
fields,  watching  the  'shearers'  with  their  shiny  hooks  gathering 
the  golden  corn  into  sheaves  ;  far  and  near  the  eye  rests  upon 
rich  fields  of  grain,  'white  unto  harvest.' 

Tuesday,  October  2. — I  am  feeling  somewhat  sad-hearted 
to-day.  I  suppose  the  fading  robe  of  nature  affects  me  with 
its  melancholy  ;  yet  it  is  an  exceedingly  fine  and  warm  day  ; 
perhaps  it  is  because  I  have  been  reading  Tennyson,  and  the 
grandeur  of  his  works  disheartens  me,  showing  me  how  low  I 
am. 

Thursday,  November  8. — Silently,  slowly  another  day  is 
gliding  into  eternity  :  wet,  dark,  and  gloomy  !  I  am,  however, 
feeling  somewhat  better  to-day.  Dr.  White  has  been  to  see  me, 
and  informs  me  that  my  poems  have  had  the  honour  of  a  public 
reading  at  Leek,  and  the  knowledge  of  all  this  kindness  has,  in 
spite  of  the  gloomy  weather,  cheered  me  up. 

Monday,  December  17. — A  damp,  foggy,  uncongenial  day. 
I  have  not  been  doing  much  study,  for  I  am  feeling  very  unwell. 
I  have  heard  of  a  terrible  calamity  which  happened  at  Talk-o'- 
the-Hill  on  Thursday  last — an  explosion  of  fire-damp,  by  which 
eighty  lives  were  lost,  leaving  some  sixty  widows  and  one 
hundred  orphans.  I  have  been  round  trying  to  collect  some- 
thing for  them. 

Monday,  December  24. — Bless  God  !  another  year  has  almost 
passed  away,  and  He  has  preserved  me.  Even  while  I  write 
I  hear  the  sound  of '  Christmas  singers,'  and  though  the  sounds 
are  not  very  melodious,  yet  they  are  sweet  to  me,  for  they 
remind  me  of  Christ  my  Saviour,  whom  from  the  earnest 
depths  of  my  soul  I  love  and  bless  to-night.' 

It  would  serve  no  purpose  to  multiply  our  extracts. 
What  does  the  world  care  whether  this  poor  boy  was 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  317 

better  or  worse  on  such  a  day,  whether  the  weather 
was  good  or  bad,  whether  his  sweetheart  was  true  or 
false,  whether  he  himself  lived  or  died.  For  two  more 
complete  years  George  Heath  kept  the  same  simple 
memoranda,  fluctuating  all  the  time  between  hope  and 
despair,  and  suffering  extreme  physical  pain.  The 
most  pregnant  entry  in  the  whole  diary  is  that  made  on 
February  26,  1868:— 

February  26,  1868. — To-day  I  have  brought  down  and 
committed  to  the  flames  a  batch  of  letters  that  I  received  from 
a  love  that  was  once  as  life  to  me — such  letters — yet  the  writer 
in  the  end  deserted  me.  Oh,  the  anguish  I  suffered  !  I  had 
not  looked  at  them  for  three  years,  and  even  to-day,  when  I 
came  and  fingered  them,  and  opened  the  portrait  of  the  woman 
I  loved  so  much,  I  could  scarcely  keep  back  the  bitter  tears. 
Oh,  Jenny  !  the  bitterness  you  caused  me  will  never  be  oblite- 
rated from  my  heart. 

According  to  the  memoir,  nearly  all  the  poems  Heath 
left  in  manuscript  were  written  in  1867  ;  but  after 
that — after  the  miserable  February  26,  1868 — he  wrote 
little,  and  all  he  wrote  was  sad.  The  year  1869  opened 
dark  and  gloomy,  and  Heath  still  lived,  still  sadly  striv- 
ing to  pick  up  knowledge. 

Wednesday,  January  6.—  Have  been  writing  to  my  sister, 
reading  English  history,  &c.,  and  poring  over  the  old,  tough 
Latin  Grammar.  I  have  been  much  interested  with  the  plotting 
and  counter-plotting  for  and  against  the  liberties  of  poor  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  ;  and  now  the  darkness  is  coming  down  over 
valley  and  hill,  and  another  day  has  gone  to  the  eternal. 

Saturday,  January  16. — Still  the  dreary,  dead  damp.  Have 
been  reading  some  of  the  myths  in  Smith's  smaller  Mythological 


3 1 8  Master-Spirits. 

Dictionary — some  of  the  accounts  of  the  heroes  and  demigods. 
Have  been  much  interested  with  Newman  Hall's  paper  in  The 
Broadway,  '  My  Impressions  of  America,'  in  which  he  de- 
scribes some  of  the  most  magnificent  river,  lake,  and  mountain 
scenery. 

Tuesday,  January  26. — The  dense  fog  is  over  all  things. 
I  am  unwell,  having  passed  almost  a  sleepless  night  from 
anxiety  on  account  of  poor  John  ;  for  at  midnight  there  was  an 
alarm  raised.  John  was  taken  suddenly  worse.  They  feared 
he  was  dying.  Our  people  were  sent  for.  But  he  survived, 
thank  God  !  Doing  a  little  light  reading,  a  little  grammar,  &c. 
'  Better  rub  than  rust,'  so  says  Ebenezer  Elliot, 

Friday,  February  5. — Fine  and  mild  as  April.  Have  been 
all  about  the  fields,  and  my  heart  has  been  thrilled  beyond 
measure  by  the  appearance  of  several  beautiful  and  only-just- 
peeping  daisies.  The  hyacinths,  too,  are  actually  springing, 
and  the  celandine  is  out  in  leaf.  How  magnificent  are  the 
snowdrops  !  These  flowers  seem  to  my  barren  and  often  sadly 
yearning  spirit  like  my  own  children — something  I  have  a  right 
to  love  and  cherish. 

Saturday,  February  13. — No  better  inside.  My  chest  feels 
feverishly  hot,  while  cold  shivers  run  all  over  my  exterior.  I 
half  expect  that  some  of  these  attacks  will  prove  too  much  for 
the  force  of  nature.  It  feels  as  though  my  vitality  were  burning 
and  washing  away  within  me.  Ah  !  how  shall  I  support  this 
weary,  fluctuating  life  of  mine  ?  I  feel  almost  a  yearning  to 
fly  away  and  be  at  rest  !  My  Father,  be  still  my  strength  ! 

Thursday,  February  18. — I  am  still  a  prisoner.  The  worry 
and  fret  of  life  and  ambition  seem  quite  to  have  left  me.  I 
have  no  more  a  recognised  hope  of  standing  amongst  the 
glorious,  the  renowned  in  song.  I  have  no  hope  of  winning 
that  for  which  I  have  toiled  all  these  years — a  wide  range  of 
knowledge,  a  mind  imbued  with  great  and  noble  thoughts,  and 
a  grand  power  of  expressing.  I  shall  sing  still,  but 't  will  be  to 
soothe  myself. 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  319 

Thursday,  February  25. — No  better — worse,  if  anything.  I 
can  do  little  but  lay  my  head  down  in  quiet,  or  watch  the 
clouds  gliding  turbulently  over  the  patch  of  sky  seen  through 
the  window,  while  the  trees  rock  their  arms,  toss,  and  gesticu- 
late. I  wonder  what  particular  lessons  I  should  learn  here. 
If  those  of  patience,  trust  and  fortitude  ?  '  Though  He  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him.' 

Tuesday,  March  9. — Here  is  my  birthday  once  more.  My 
twenty-fifth  year  has  passed  of!  into  the  eternity  of  the  past. 
My  twenty-sixth  dawns  over  me.  I  am  filled  with  strange 
thoughts  ;  things  look  very  dark  about  me  now.  My  health 
is  bad.  Shall  I,  as  I  half  expect,  go  down  to  the  grave,  or 
shall  I  again  wake  to  life  and  energy  ?  My  God !  Thou  only 
knowest !  Help  me  to  do  my  duty  well  in  any  case  ! 

Wednesday,  March  10. — Little  Harriet  has  to-day  brought 
into  the  house  a  little  bunch  of  the  celandine  flower.  I  dare 
say  there  are  lots  of  various  sorts  of  flowers  beginning  to  show 
themselves.  The  beautiful  anemones  will  soon  be  out,  and  I 
cannot  go  to  see  them  !  I  seem  to  drift  further  and  further 
down,  am  doing  just  nothing.  A  great  shadow  of  weariness  is 
upon  me.  Sent  a  letter — written  at  a  many  sittings — to  my 
sister  Hannah. 

Tuesday,  March  23. — Most  deeply  ill  all  day — utterly  pros- 
trated in  mind  and  body.  My  affliction  seems  to  have  laid 
hold  of  my  whole  system  with  an  iron  grasp  which  nothing  can 
shake  off.  Have  read  a  very  little  of  English  History.  It 
seems  to  me  there  is  quite  a  danger  of  my  sinking  down  into 
stupor,  if  not  imbecility  even. 

Thursday,  April  8. — To-day  Dr.  Heaton  has  visited  me, 
and,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  has  left  me  without  a  shadow  of 
hope.  I  had  tried  before,  and  believe  I  had  earnestly  said, 
4  My  God,  Thy  will  be  done  ! '  but  when  you  come  to  find  that 
your  doom  is  really  fixed,  the  pang  of  bitterness  is  none  the 
less.  But  the  bitterness  is  past,  and  I  can  trust  in  God. 

Friday,  April  23. — The  day  has   been    a   beautiful    one. 


3  2O  Master-Spirits. 

Outside  the  green  foliage  is  beginning  to  sheet  the  landscape, 
and  some  of  the  trees  are  hung  with  blossoms.  It  has  been  a 
very  quiet  day  with  us,  and  I  am  trying  to  look  homeward. 
How  good  is  the  Lord  ! 

Thursday ',  April  29. — How  beautifully  the  thought  of  my  far- 
off  home — that  home  whose  wonder  none  may  guess — comes  to 
me  through  the  glory  of  the  sun-radiance  that  falls  through  the 
windows  !  The  easterly  wind  is  cold,  and  my  throat  is  worse. 
Bless  God  ! 

Monday,  May  3. — It  is  the  gloomiest  day  there  has  been  for 
some  time  past.  The  rain  is  dripping  down,  doing  wonders  of 
good.  I  am  very  ill — sinking.  My  cough  is  almost  continuous. 
But  in  God  is  my  trust. 

Tuesday,  May  4. — Praise  God  for  one  more  day  ! 

The  whole  story  was  now  complete,  and  the  morning 
after  making  that  last  entry — '  Thank  God  for  another 
day' — Heath  passed  away,  'peacefully/  writes  the 
author  of  the  memoir.  He  was  buried  in  Horton 
church-yard,  and  a  Runic  cross,  designed  by  his  friend 
Foster,  is  about  to  be  raised  over  his  grave,  with  this 
inscription : — 

Erected  in  Memory 
Of  GEORGE  HEATH,  of  Gratton, 

Who,  with  few  aids, 

Developed  in  these  Moorlands 

Poetic  powers  of  great  promise, 

But  who,  stricken  by  consumption, 

After  five  years'  suffering, 

Fell  a  victim  to  that  disease, 

May  5,  1869,  aged  25  years. 


His  life  is  a  fragment — a  broken  clue — 
His  harp  had  a  musical  string  or  two, 


Poets  in  Obsciirity.  321 

The  tension  was  great,  and  they  sprang  and  flew, 
And  a  few  brief  strains — a  scattered  few — 
Are  all  that  remain  to  mortal  view 
Of  the  marvellous  song  the  young  man  knew. 

We  have  left  little  or  no  space  to  speak  of  George 
Heath's  poetry,  the  fragments  of  which  already  given 
were  selected  less  for  their  intrinsic  merit  than  for  their 
value  as  autobiography.  What  struck  us  first  when  we 
read  the  little  book  of  remains  was  the  remarkable 
fortitude  of  style,  fearlessly  developed  in  treating  most 
unpromising  material,  and  the  occasional  intensity  of 
the  flash  of  lyrical  emotion.  There  is  nothing  here  of 
supreme  poetic  workmanship,  perfect  vision  in  perfect 
language,  like  those  four  lines  of  David  Gray  : — 

Come,  when  a  shower  is  pleasant  in  the  falling, 
Stirring  the  still  perfume  that  wakes  around, 

Now  that  doves  mourn,  and  in  the  distance  calling 
The  cuckoo  answers,  with  a  sovereign  sound! 

Nothing  quite  so  overpowering  as  Gray's  passionate 
cry:— 

O  God,  for  one  clear  day  !  a  snowdrop  !  and  sweet  air  ! 

No  description  of  nature  as  loving,  as  beautiful  as  those 
in  the  '  Luggie,'  and  no  music  as  fine  as  the  music  of 
Gray's  songs  and  sonnets.  But  there  is  something  else, 
something  that  David  Gray  did  not  possess,  with  all 
his  marvellous  lyrical  faculty,  and  this  something  is 
great  intellectual  self-possession  combined  with  the 
faculty  of  self-analysis  and  a  growing  power  of  entering 

Y 


322  Master-Spin  ts. 

into  the  minds  of  others.  The  poem  '  Icarus,  or  the 
Singer's  Tale/  though  only  a  fragment,  is  more  re- 
markably original  than  any  published  poem  of  Gray's, 
and  in  grasp  and  scope  of  idea  it  is  worthy  of  any  writer. 
How  the  journal  called  the  'Lynx  '  contained  the  obituary 
notice  of  a  certain  Thomas  String,  '  a  power-spirit 
chained  to  a  spirit  that  broods,'  but  almost  a  beggar  ; 
how  Sir  Hodge  Poyson,  Baronet,  deeply  moved  by  the 
notice  in  the  '  Lynx/  visited  the  room  where  String  had 
lived, — 

In  the  hole  where  he  crept  with  his  pain  and  his  pride, 

Mournful  song-scraps  were  littered  on  every  side  ; 

I  read  the  damp  slips  till  my  eyes  were  tear-blind. 

Near  the  couch  where  he  wrestled  with  hunger  and  died, 

In  a  dirty,  damp  litter  of  mouldering  straw, 

Stood  a  rude  alder  box,  which,  when  opened,  supplied 

Such  proofs  of  a  vastly  superior  mind, 

As  filled  me  with  anguish  and  wonder  and  awe  ; 

and  how  Sir  Hodge  determined  to  bring  out  the  works 
in  two  volumes,  with  a  portrait  and  prefatory  essay, — 
all  this  is  merely  preliminary  to  the  Singer's  own  Tale, 
which  was  to  have  been  recorded  in  a  series  of  wonder- 
fully passionate  lyrics,  ending  with  this  one : — 

Bless  thee,  my  heart,  thou  wert  true  to  me  ever  : 

Soft  while  I  weep  o'er  thee,  kiss  thee,  and  waken 
All  the  sad,  sweet  things  that  murmur  and  quiver  ! 

True  to  me  still,  though  of  all  else  forsaken  ! 
No  more  I  strike  for  the  far  generations, 

Lost  to  the  hope  of  fame,  glory,  or  pelf ; 
And  the  wild  songs  that  I  sang  for  the  nations 

Now  in  my  sadness  I  wail  to  myself. 


Poets  in  Obscurity. 


323 


After  that  women  come  and  find  the  singer  dead,  and 
uplift  him,  saying : — 

Soft — let  us  raise  him,  nor  yield  to  the  shrinking ; 

Ah  !  it  is  sad  to  have  never  a  dear  one ; 
Sad  to  depart  in  the  night,  to  my  thinking, 

Up  in  a  garret,  with  nobody  near  one  ! 
Have  we  no  feelings  as  women  and  mothers  ? 

Aren't  we,  from  Adam,  all  sisters  and  brothers  ? 

*#*#*** 

Stay,  what  is  this  'neath  his  hand  on  his  breast  ? 
How  stiff  the  long  fingers  !     Tis  rumpled  and  creased, 
Long  lines  all  awry,  blotted,  jumbled,  and  stark  ! 
Poor  fellow  !  ay,  true,  it  was  done  in  the  dark : — 
'  Ah  me,  for  a  mother's  fond  hand  for  a  little — 

That  tender  retriever  ! 
Oh,  love,  for  the  soothing  of  woman  to  quiet 

This  burning  and  fever. 
Ah,  dying  is  bitter  in  darkness  and  hunger, 

When  lonely,  I  wis ; 
I  dreamed  not  in  days  that  have  summer'd  and  fallen 

Of  coming  to  this  ! ' 

It  is  impossible  to  represent  this  fragment  by  extracts, 
its  whole  tone  being  most  remarkable.  Of  the  same 
character,  strong,  simple,  and  original,  are  the  love- 
poem  called  '  Edith  : ' 

Her  face  was  soft,  and  fair,  and  delicate, 
And  constantly  reminded  me  of  music  ; 

and  the  wonderful  little  idyl  called  *  How  is  Celia  to- 
day ?'  in  which  a  smart  'sprightly  maiden'  and  a  'thin 
battered  woman '  embrace  passionately  on  the  roadside 
and  soften  each  other.  In  all  these  poems,  and  even  in 

Y2 


324 


Master-Spirits. 


the  '  Country  Woman's  Tale '  (which  should  never  have 
been  published  in  its  present  distorted  shape),  there 
seems  to  us  the  first  tone  of  what  might  become  a  great 
human  voice  ;  and  nothing  is  more  amazing  to  us  than 
to  find  George  Heath,  an  unusually  simple  country 
lad,  marvellously  content  with  the  old  theology  and 
old  forms  of  thought,  flashing  such  deep  glimpses  into 
the  hearts  of  women.  He  had  loved  ;  and  we  suppose 
that  was  his  clue.  The  greatness  he  could  show  in  his 
love  would  have  been  the  precursor,  had  he  lived,  of  a 
corresponding  greatness  in  art.  Both  need  the  same 
qualities  of  self-sacrifice,  fortitude,  and  self-faith. 

We  shall  conclude  this  sketch  with  a  little  piece,  as 
slight  in  subject  as  it  is  tender  in  treatment.  The  readers 
of  George  Heath's  posthumous  book  will  find  many  such 
poems,  and  every  one  they  read,  even  when  it  does  not 
excite  their  admiration  as  art,  will  deepen  their  respect 
for  the  writer's  stateliness  of  character  and  nobility  of 
mind. 


THE  POET'S  MONUMENT. 

Sad  are  the  shivering  dank  dead  leaves 
To  one  who  lost  love  from  his  heart  unweaves, 

Who  dreams  he  has  gathered  his  life's  last  sheaves, 
And  must  find  a  grave  under  wintry  eaves  ! 

Dead  !  dead  !  'mongst  the  winter's  dearth, 
Gone  where  the  shadows  of  all  things  go, 

Stretch  me  full  length  in  the  folding  earth, 
Wind  me  up  in  the  drifting  snow  ; 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  325 

None  of  the  people  will  heed  it  or  say, 

'  He  was  a  singer  who  fainted  there, 
One  who  could  leaven  with  fire,  or  sway 

Men's  hearts  to  trembling  unaware.' 

No  one  will  think  of  the  dream-days  lost, 

Of  the  ardours  fierce  that  were  damped  too  soon  ; 

Of  the  bud  that  was  nipped  by  the  morning's  frost, 
And  shrivelled  to  dust  in  the  sun  ere  noon. 

No  one  will  raise  me  a  marble,  wrought 

With  meaning  symbol,  and  apt  device, 
To  link  my  name  with  a  noble  thought, 

A  generous  deed,  or  a  new-found  voice. 

My  life  will  go  on  to  the  limitless  tides, 

Leaving  no  trace  of  its  current-flow, 
Like  a  stream  that  starts  when  the  tempest  rides. 

And  is  lost  again  in  the  evening's  glow. 

The  glories  will  gather  and  change  as  of  yore, 
And  the  human  currents  pass  panting  by, 

The  ages  will  gather  their  wrinkles  more, 
And  others  will  sing  for  a  day  and  die. 

But  thou,  who  art  dearer  than  words  can  say, 
My  more  than  all  other  of  earth  could  be ; 

Such  a  joy  !  that  the  Giver  I  thank  alway 
With  a  glowing  heart,  that  He  gave  me  thee. 

I  shall  want  thee  to  dream  me  my  dream  all  through,- 

To  think  me  the  gifted,  the  Poet  still, 
To  crown  me,  whatever  the  world  may  do, 

Though  my  songs  die  out  upon  air  and  hill. 

And,  Edith,  come  thou  in  the  blooming  time, — 
Thy  world  will  not  miss  thee  for  just  one  hour  ; — 

I'd  like  it  best  when  the  low  Bells  chime, 
And  the  earth  is  full  of  the  sunset's  power, — 


326  Master-Spirits. 

And  bend  by  the  silently  settling  heap, 

While  the  Nature  we  loved  is  a  May  all  round, 

While  God  broods  low  on  the  blue  arched  sweep, 
And  the  musical  air  is  a-thrill  with  sound  ; 

And  look  in  thy  heart  circled  up  in  the  past, 
And  if  I  am  perfectly  graven  there, 

Unshaded  by  aught,  save  the  anguish  cast 
By  the  parting  clasp,  and  the  death  despair ; 

Encirqued  with  the  light  of  the  pale  regret, 
Of  a  *  might  have  been,7  of  a  day-dream  lent, 

With  a  constant  hope  of  a  meeting  yet, — 
Oh  !  I  shall  not  want  for  a  Monument 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  327 


n. 

THE  LAUREATE  OF  THE  NURSERY. 

IN  an  article  entitled  '  Child-life  as  seen  by  the  Poets,' 
recently  published  in  a  leading  Magazine,  there  appeared 
an  allusion  to  the  Scottish  poet  William  Miller,  whose 
'  Wonderfu'  Wean '  was  printed  in  full  to  justify,  if 
justification  were  needed,  the  high  praise  bestowed  on  its 
writer  as  one  of  the  sweetest  and  truest  lyric  poets 
Scotland  has  ever  produced.  The  eulogy  pronounced 
on  Miller  was,  as  we  happen  to  know,  rather  under  than 
over  coloured.  No  eulogy  can  be  too  high  for  one  who 
has  afforded  such  unmixed  pleasure  to  his  circle  of 
readers  ;  who,  as  a  master  of  the  Scottish  lyrical  dialect, 
may  certainly  be  classed  alongside  of  Burns  and 
Tannahill ;  and  whose  special  claims  to  be  recognised 
as  the  Laureate  of  the  Nursery  have  been  admitted  by 
more  than  one  generation  in  every  part  of  the  world 
where  the  Doric  Scotch  is  understood  and  loved. 
Wherever  Scottish  foot  has  trod,  wherever  Scottish 
child  has  been  born,  the  songs  of  William  Miller  have 
been  sung.  Every  corner  of  the  earth  knows  '  Willie 
Winkie '  and  '  Gree,  Bairnies,  Gree.'  Manitoba  and  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  echo  the  '  Wonderfu'  Wean  '  as 


328  Master-  Sp  irits. 

often  as  do  Kilmarnock  or  the  Goosedubs.  '  Lady 
Summer'  will  sound  as  sweet  in  Rio  Janeiro  as  on 
the  banks  of  the  Clyde.  The  pertinacious  Scotchman 
penetrates  everywhere,  and  carries  everywhere  with  him 
the  memory  of  these  wonderful  songs  of  the  nursery. 
Meantime,  what  of  William  Miller,  the  man  of  genius 
who  made  the  music  and  sent  it  travelling  at  its  own 
sweet  will  over  the  civilised  globe  ?  Something  of  him 
anon.  First,  however,  let  us  look  a  little  closer  at  his 
compositions,  and  see  if  the  public  is  right  or  wrong  in 
loving  them  so  much. 

Having  before  us  as  we  write  a  pretty  considerable 
quota  of  Miller's  writings,  and  reading  them  with  as 
dispassionate  a  sympathy  as  possible,  what  strikes  us 
first  is  their  freedom  from  the  false  and  meretricious, 
simplicity  of  two-thirds  of  the  productions  of  the  Scottish 
rural  Muse.  They  are  as  noticeable  for  outspoken 
naturalness  of  manner  as  for  fineness  of  poetical  insight. 
They  are  such  words  as  a  happy  father  might  say  to  his 
children,  if  he  were,  furthermore,  a  poet,  with  a  fine  eye 
for  imagery,  and  a  singer,  with  a  delicate  ear  for  music. 
They  are  plaintive,  merry,  tender,  imaginative,  poetical, 
just  as  the  light  happens  to  strike  the  hearth  where  the 
poet  sits.  We  find  ourselves  in  a  lowly  Scottish  home 
to  begin  with  ;  it  is  ten  o'clock  at  night,  and  wee  '  Willie 
Winkie,'  a  tricksy  spirit  who  is  supposed  to  run  about 
the  town  ready  to  astonish  any  refractory  child  who 
won't  go  to  sleep,  is  wandering 

Up-stairs  and  down-stairs 
In  his  nicht-gown  ! 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  329 

The  mother  sits  with  the  child,  who  is  preternaturally 
wakeful,  while  Willie  Winkie  screams  through  the  key- 
hole— 

Are  the  weans  in  their  bed  ? 
For  it's  now  ten  o'clock  ! 

One  wean,  at  least,  utterly  refuses  to  sleep,  but  sits 
'  glowrin'  like  the  moon  ; '  rattling  in  an  iron  jug  with 
an  iron  spoon,  rumbling  and  tumbling  about,  crowing 
like  a  cock,  slipping  like  an  eel  out  of  the  mother's  lap, 
crawling  on  the  floor,  and  pulling  the  ears  of  the  cat 
asleep  before  the  fire.  No  touch  is  wanting  to  make 
the  picture  perfect.  The  dog  is  asleep — '  spelder'd 
on  the  floor  ' — and  the  cat  is  '  singing  grey  thrums  ' 
('  three  threads  to  a  thrum,'  as  we  say  in  the  south)  to 
the  *  sleeping  hen.'  The  whole  piece  has  a  drowsy 
picturesqueness  which  raises  it  far  above  the  level  of 
mere  nursery  twaddle  into  the  region  of  true  genre- 
painting.  The  whole  '  interior '  stands  before  us  as  if 
painted  by  the  brush  of  a  Teniers ;  and  melody  is 
superadded,  to  delight  the  ear.  Are  we  in  town  or 
country  ?  It  is  doubtful  which  ;  but  the  picture  will  do 
for  either.  Soon,  however,  there  will  be  no  mistake, 
for  we  are  out  with  '  Lady  Summer '  in  the  green  fields, 
and  the  father  (or  mother)  is  exclaiming — 

Birdie,  birdie,  weet  your  whistle  ! 
Sing  a  sang  to  please  the  wean  ! 

Still  more  unmistakable  is  the  language  of  '  Hairst '  (the 
lovely  Scottish  word  for  Autumn)  :  and  we  quote  the 
poem  in  all  its  loveliness  : — 


3  30  Master-Spirits. 

Tho'  weel  I  lo'e  the  budding  spring, 

I'll  no  misca'  John  Frost, 
Nor  will  I  roose  the  summer  days 

At  gowden  autumn's  cost  ; 
For  a'  the  seasons  in  their  turn 

Some  wished- for  pleasures  bring, 
And  hand  in  hand  they  jink  aboot, 

Like  weans  at  jingo-ring. 

Fu'  weel  I  mind  how  aft  ye  said, 

When  winter  nights  were  lang, 
'  I  weary  for  the  summer  woods, 

The  lintie's  tittering  sang  ; ' 
But  when  the  woods  grew  gay  and  green, 

And  birds  sang  sweet  and  clear, 
It  then  was,  '  When  will  hairst-time  come, 

The  gloaming  o'  the  year  ? 

Oh  !  hairst-time's  like  a  lipping  cup 

That's  gi'en  wi'  furthy  glee  ! 
The  fields  are  fu'  o'  yellow  corn, 

Red  apples  bend  the  tree  ; 
The  genty  air,  sae  ladylike  ! 

Has  on  a  scented  gown, 
And  wi'  an  airy  string  she  leads 

The  thistle-seed  balloon. 

The  yellow  corn  will  porridge  mak', 

The  apples  taste  your  mou', 
And  ower  the  stibble  riggs  I'll  chase 

The  thistle-down  wi'  you  \ 
I'll  pu'  the  haw  frae  aff  the  thorn, 

The  red  hap  frae  the  brier — 
For  wealth  hangs  in  each  tangled  nook 

In  the  gloaming  o'  the  year. 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  331 

Sweet  Hope  !  ye  biggit  ha'e  a  nest 

Within  my  bairnie's  breast — 
Oh  !  may  his  trusting  heart  ne'er  trow 

That  whiles  ye  sing  in  jest; 
Some  coming  joys  are  dancing  aye 

Before  his  langing  een, — 
He  sees  the  flower  that  isna  blawn, 

And  birds  that  ne'er  were  seen  ; — 

The  stibble  rigg  is  aye  ahin', 

The  gowden  grain  afore, 
And  apples  drop  into  his  lap, 

Or  row  in  at  the  door  ! 
Come,  hairst-time,  then,  unto  my  bairn, 

Brest  in  your  gayest  gear, 
Wf  soft  and  winnowing  win's  to  cool 

The  gloaming  oj  the  year  ! 

Is  there  in  any  language  a  sweeter  lyric  of  its  kind  than 
the  above  ?  Not  a  word  is  wasted  ;  not  a  touch  is  false  ; 
and  the  whole  is  irradiated  with  the  strong-pulsing  love 
of  the  human  heart.  It  is  superfluous  to  indicate 
beauties,  where  all  is  beautiful  ;  but  note  the  exquisite 
epithet  at  the  end  of  every  second  stanza,  the  delicious 
picture  of  the  Seasons  dancing  round  and  round  like 
children  playing  at  'jingo-ring,'  and  the  expression  'saft 
and  winnowing  win's '  in  the  last  verse.  Our  acquaintance 
with  Scottish  rural  poetry  is  not  slight ;  but  we  should 
look  in  vain,  out  of  Tannahill,  for  similiar  felicities  of 
mere  expression.  Though  there  is  nothing  in  the  poem 
to  match  the  perfect  imagery  of  '  Gloomy  Winter's  now 
awa','  we  find  here  and  elsewhere  in  Miller's  writings  a 
grace  and  genius  of  style  only  achieved  by  lyrical  poets 


332  M aster-Spirits. 

in  their  highest  and  best  moments  of  inspiration.  As 
to  the  question  of  locality,  we  may  be  still  in  doubt. 
There  is  just  enough  of  nature  to  show  a  mind  familiar 
with  simple  natural  effects,  such  as  may  be  seen  by  any 
artizan  on  the  skirts  of  every  great  city ;  but  not  that 
superabundance  of  natural  detail  which  strikes  us  in 
the  best  poems  of  Burns  and  Clare.  Nor  is  there 
much  more  specifically  of  the  country  in  '  John 
Frost/  It  is  an  address  which  might  be  spoken  by  any 
mother  in  any  place  where  frost  bites  and  snow  falls. 
'  You've  come  early  to  see  us  this  year,  John  Frost ! ' 
Hedge,  river,  and  tree,  as  far  as  eye  can  view,  are  as 
'  white  as  the  bloom  of  the  pear,'  and  every  doorstep  is 
as  '  a  new  linen  sark  '  for  whiteness. 

There  are  some  things  about  ye  I  like,  John  Frost, 
And  ithers  that  aft  gar  me  fyke,  John  Frost ; 

For  the  weans,  wi'  cauld  taes, 

Crying  *  shoon,  stockings,  claes,' 
Keep  us  busy  as  bees  in  the  byke,  John  Frost. 

And  gae  'wa'  wi'  your  lang  slides,  I  beg,  John  Frost  ! 
Bairns'  banes  are  as  bruckle's  an  egg,  John  Frost ; 

For  a  cloit  o'  a  fa' 

Gars  them  hirple  awa', 
Like  a  hen  wi'  a  happity  leg,  John  Frost. 

This  is  the  true  point  of  view  of  maternity  and  poverty. 
'  John  Frost '  may  be  picturesque  enough,  but  the  rascal 
creates  a  demand  for  more  clothing  and  thicker  shoes, 
and  he  lames  and  bruises  the  children  on  the  ice. 
'  Spring '  is  better,  and  furnishes  matter  for  other  verses. 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  333 

The  Spring  comes  linking  and  jinking  through  the  woods, 
Opening  with  gentle  hand  the  bonnie  green  and  yellow  buds, — 
There's  flowers  and  showers,  and  sweet  song  of  little  bird, 
And  the  gowan  wi'  his  red  croon  peeping  through  the  yird. 

But  the  final  consecration,  here  as  before,  is  given  by  the 
Bairns  : — 

'Boon  a'  that's  in  thee,  to  win  me,  sunny  Spring  ! 
Bricht  cluds  and  green  buds,  and  sangs  that  the  birdies  sing ; 
Flower-dappled  hill- side  and  dewy  beech  sae  fresh  at  e'en  ; 
Or  the  tappie-toorie  fir-tree  shining  a'  in  green — 

Bairn ies  bring  treasure  and  pleasure  mair  to  me, 

Stealing  and  speiling  up  to  fondle  on  my  knee  ! 

In  spring-time  the  young  things  are  blooming  sae  fresh  and  fair. 

That  I  canna,  Spring,  but  love  and  bless  thee  evermair. 

The  last  line  of  the  first  verse  is  perfect. 

Such  are  some  of  the  little  green  glimpses  of  nature  to 
be  found  in  Miller's  songs  ;  but  the  interior  glimpses  are 
far  more  numerous,  from  the  picture  of  the  '  Sleepy  wee 
Laddie,'  who  won't  rise  till  his  mother  '  kittles  his  bosie ' 
or  '  pouthers  his  pow  with  a  watering-can,'  down  to  the 
proud  king  of  the  farm-yard,  with  his  coat  of  ruddy 
brown  waved  with  gold,  and  his  crimson  crown  on  his 
head,  *  tuning  his  pipes  to  Cockie-leerie-la ! '  The  whole 
ethical  range  of  these  pictures  is  summed  up  in  such 
pieces  as  '  Gree,  Bairnies,  Gree  ! ' — before  quoting  which 
let  us  take  one  last  glimpse  into  the  Interior,  on  a  frosty 
night,  while  the  father  is  making  '  rabbits  on  the  wall,' 
to  amuse  the  little  ones,  and  others  play  on  the  whistle, 
saddle  and  ride  the  dog,  and  make  a  cart  of  the  kitchen 
ladle.  The  mother  is  the  speaker,  and  the  words  seem 


334  Master-Spirits. 

to  well  up  from  the  fulness  of  her  heart,  as  we  see  her 
looking  on  : — 

OUR  OWN  FIRE-END. 

When  the  frost  is  on  the  grun', 

Keep  your  ain  fire- end, 
For  the  warmth  o'  summer's  sun 

Has  our  ain  fire-end  ; 
When  there's  dubs  ye  might  be  lair'd  in, 
Or  snaw  wreaths  ye  could  be  smoor'd  in, 
The  best  flower  in  the  garden 

Is  our  ain  fire-end. 

You  and  father  are  sic  twa 

Roun'  our  ain  fire-end  ; 
He  mak's  rabbits  on  the  wa', 

At  our  ain  fire- end. 
Then  sic  fun  as  they  are  mumping, 
When  to  touch  them  ye  gae  stumping, 
They're  set  on  your  tap  a-jumping, 

At  our  ain  fire-end. 

Sic  a  bustle  as  ye  keep 

At  our  ain  fire-end, 
When  ye  on  your  whistle  wheep, 

Round  our  ain  fire-end ; 
Now,  the  dog  maun  get  a  saddle, 
Then  a  cart's  made  o'  the  ladle, 
To  please  ye  as  ye  daidle 

Round  our  ain  fire- end. 

When  your  head's  laid  on  my  lap, 

At  our  ain  fire-end, 
Taking  childhood's  dreamless  nap, 

At  our  ain  fire-end ; 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  335 

Then  frae  lug  to  lug  I  kiss  ye, 
An'  wi'  heart  overflowing  bless  ye, 
And  a'  that's  gude  I  wish  ye, 
At  our  ain  fire-end. 

When  ye're  far,  far  frae  the  blink 

O'  our  ain  fire-end, 
Fu'  monie  a  time  ye'll  think 

On  our  ain  fire-end  ; 
On  a'  your  gamesome  ploys, 
On  your  whistle  and  your  toys, 
And  ye'll  think  ye  hear  the  noise 

O'  our  ain  fire-end. 

The  '  best  flower  in  the  garden,'  assuredly,  though  the 
shortest  in  its  bloom,  to  be  remembered  ever  afterwards 
by  the  backward-looking  wistful  eyes  of  mortals  that  are 
children  no  more  !  And  if  ever  there  should  enter  into 
the  hearts  of  such  mortals  those  thoughts  which  wrong 
the  brotherhood  of  nature  and  all  the  kindly  memories 
of  the  hearth,  what  better  reminder  could  be  had  than 
those  words  of  the  toiling,  loving  mother,  seated  in  the 
fire-end,  while  winds  shake  the  windows  and  sound  up 
in  the  chimney  with  an  eerie  roar : — 

GREE,  BAIRNIES,  GREE. 

The  moon  has  rowed  her  in  a  cloud, 

Stravaging  win's  begin 
To  shuggle  and  daud  the  window-brods, 

Like  loons  that  wad  be  in  ! 
Gae  whistle  a  tune  in  the  lum-head, 

Or  craik  in  saughen  tree  ! 
We're  thankfu'  for  a  cozie  hame — 

Sae  gree,  my  bairnies,  gree. 


336  Master-Spirits. 

Though  gurgling  blasts  may  dourly  blaw, 

A  rousing  fire  will  thow 
A  straggler's  taes,  and  keep  fu'  cosh 

My  tousie  taps-o'-tow. 
O  who  would  cule  your  kail,  my  bairns, 

Or  bake  your  bread  like  me  ? 
Ye'd  get  the  bit  frae  out  my  mouth, 

Sae  gree,  my  bairnies,  gree. 

Oh,  never  fling  the  warmsome  boon 

O'  bairnhood's  love  awa' ; 
Mind  how  ye  sleepit,  cheek  to  cheek, 

Between  me  and  the  wa'  ; 
How  ae  kind  arm  was  owre  ye  baith  : 

But,  if  ye  disagree, 
Think  on  the  saft  and  kindly  soun' 

O'  *  Gree,  my  bairnies,  gree.' 

That,  again,  seems  to  us  a  perfect  lyric,  struck  at  once 
in  the  proper  key,  and  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with 
nature.  Perhaps  its  full  flavour  can  only  be  appreciated 
by  those  familiar  with  the  patois  in  which  it  is  written. 

Gae  whistle  a  tune  in  the  lum-head, 
Or  craik  in  saughen  tree  ! 

Music  and  meaning  are  perfectly  interblended. 

If  our  object  in  writing  were  merely  to  demonstrate 
the  poetic  merit  of  William  Miller,  we  might  go  on 
quoting  piece  after  piece,  till  we  had  transcribed  his 
entire  nursery-repertoire.  At  least  ten  of  his  pieces  are 
(to  use  a  phrase  of  Saint-Beuve's)  petits  chefs  d'ceuvre  : 
ten  cabinet  pictures  worthy  of  a  place  in  any  collection. 
Few  poets,  however  prosperous,  are  so  certain  of  their 
immortality.  We  can  scarcely  conceive  a  period  when 


Poets  in  Obscurity. 


337 


William  Miller  will  be  forgotten  ;  certainly  not  until  the 
Doric  Scotch  is  obliterated,  and  the  lowly  nursery 
abolished  for  ever.  His  lyric  note  is  unmistakable: 
true,  deep,  and  sweet.  Speaking  generally,  he  is  a  born 
singer,  worthy  to  rank  with  the  three  or  four  master- 
spirits who  use  the  same  speech ;  and  we  say  this  while 
perfectly  familiar  with  the  lowly  literature  of  Scotland, 
from  Jean  Adams  to  Janet  Hamilton,  from  the  first 
notes  struck  by  Allan  Ramsay  down  to  the  warblings 
of  '  Whistle  Binkie.'  Speaking  specifically,  he  is  (as 
we  have  phrased  it)  the  Laureate  of  the  Nursery  ;  and 
there,  at  least,  he  reigns  supreme  above  all  other  poets, 
monarch  of  all  he  surveys,  and  perfect  master  of  his 
theme.  His  poems,  however,  are  as  distinct  from 
nursery  gibberish  as  the  music  of  Shelley  is  from  the 
jingle  of  Ambrose  Phillips.  They  are  works  of  art, — 
tiny  paintings  on  small  canvas,  limned  with  all  the 
microscopic  care  of  Meissonier.  Possibly,  indeed,  they 
are  not  large  enough  or  ambitious  enough  to  attract 
those  personages  who  are  infected  with  Haydon's 
yearning  for  an  enormous  canvas  and  Gandish's  appre- 
ciation of '  'Igh  Art ; '  yet  it  is  not  improbable  that  it 
required  more  genius  to  produce  them  than  to  mix  up 
Euripides  and  water  into  a  diluted  tipple  for  groggy 
schoolmasters,  or  to  indulge  in  any  amount  of  what 
Professor  Huxley  styles  *  sensual  caterwauling.'  The 
highest  praise  that  can  be  said  of  them  is  that  they  are 
perfect  '  of  their  kind.'  That  kind  is  humble  enough  ; 
but  humility  may  be  very  strong,  as  it  certainly  is  here. 
And  now,  what  of  William  Miller  himself?  Is  he 


338  Master -Spirits. 

living  or  dead,  rich  or  poor,  sickly  or  well,  honoured  or 

neglected  ?     He  is  alive,  certainly  very  poor,  sickly  to 

extremity,  and,  so  far  at  least  as  practical  sympathy  goes, 

neglected  by  the  generation  which  owes  him  so  much. 

Our  informant,  indeed,  describes  him  as  a  '  cripple   for 

life.'     He  resides,  to  his  misfortune,  in  the  depressing 

city  of  Glasgow,  with  its  foul  air,  its  hideous  slums,  and 

its  still  more  hideous  social  life.     Were  our  power  equal 

to  our  will,  this  master  of  the  petit  chef  d'ceztvre  should 

be  transported  forthwith  to  some  green  country  spot, — 

some  happy  Scottish  village,  where,  within  hearing  of 

the  cries  of  children,  he  might  end  his  days  in  peace,  and 

perhaps  sing  us  ere  he  dies  a  few  more  songs  such  as 

'  Hairst '  and  '  Spring.'     Then  might  he  say  again,  as  he 

said  once,  in  his  own  inimitable  manner — 

We  meet  wi'  blithesome  and  lithesome  cheerie  weans, 
Daffing  and  laughing  far  adoun  the  leafy  lanes, 
Wi'  gowans  and  buttercups  busking  the  thorny  wands, 
Sweetly  singing  wi'  the  flower-branch  waving  in  their  hands ! 

There  might  the  Laureate  of  the  Nursery  enjoy  for  a 
little  while  the  feeling  of  real  fame,  hearing  the  cotter's 
wife  rocking  her  child  to  sleep  with  some  song  he  made 
in  an  inspired  moment,  watching  the  little  ones  as  they 
troop  out  of  school  to  the  melody  of  one  or  other  of  his 
lays,  and  feeling  that  he  had  not  lived  in  vain — being 
literally  one  of  those  happy  bards  whose  presence 
'  brightens  the  sunshine.' 

To  honour  a  poet  like  William  Miller  is  not  easy  ;  he 
seizes  rather  than  solicits  our  sympathy  and  admiration  ; 


Poets  in  Obscurity.  339 

but  when  the  thousands  who  love  his  music  hear,  as  we 
have  heard,  that  his  fellow-citizens  are  raising  a  Testi- 
monial in  his  behalf,  to  show  in  some  measure  their 
appreciation  of  his  genius,  help  of  the  most  substantial 
sort  is  certain  to  be  forthcoming  in  abundance.  Wher- 
ever Scottish  speech  is  spoken,  and  wherever  these  words 
penetrate,  there  will  awaken  a  response.  Miller's  claim 
to  the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen  is  unmistakable.  If 
that  claim  were  contested,  every  child's  voice  in  Scotland 
should  be  raised  in  protest,  and  every  Scottish  mother 
and  father  would  be  convicted  of  worse  than  lack  of 
memory — the  lack  of  heart.  For  our  own  part,  after 
having  indicated  very  briefly  how  Miller's  compositions 
affect  us  personally,  and  the  high  poetical  place  we  would 
assign  them  had  we  the  will  or  the  power  to  pronounce 
literary  judgments,  we  can  but  wish  William  Miller  God 
speed,  and  (in  the  words  of  one  of  his  own  songs)  'a 
coggie  weel  fill'd  and  a  clean  fire-end '  so  long  as  he 
lives  to  wear  those  laurels  which  have  been  awarded 
to  him,  north  of  the  Tweed,  by  universal  acclamation.1 

1  Alas  !  since  this  article  was  written,  William  Miller  has  passed  away. 


z  2 


NOTE 

ON    ARTICLE    'JOHN    MORLEY'S    ESSAYS.' 


SINCE  this  article  appeared  in  the  '  Contemporary  Re- 
view/ Mr.  J.  K.  Hunter,  the  local  humourist  alluded 
to  in  a  note,  has  passed  away.  I  subjoin,  as  a  tribute 
to  an  obscure  man  of  genius,  my  review  of  his  '  Retro- 
spect/ published  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  newspaper  for 
February  29,  1868. 

The  Retrospect  of  an  Artisfs  Life;  Memorials  of  West  Country 
Men  and  Manners  of  the  Past  Half  Century.  By  John  Kelso 
Hunter.  (Greenock  :  Orr,  Pollock  &  Co.) 

THIS  book  is  the  legacy — we  trust,  not  quite  the  last — of 
Mr.  J.  K.  Hunter,  better  known  in  the  West  of  Scotland  as 
'  Tammas  Turnip/  who  unites  in  his  own  person  the  craft  of  a 
cobbler  and  the  profession  of  an  artist,  whose  somewhat  dark 
fame  as  a  conversationalist  has  reached  our  ears,  and  whom  we 
have  now  to  recognise  as  an  author  of  singular  vigour  and 
actual  literary  power.  It  is  many  a  long  day  since  we  encoun- 
tered a  work  of  the  kind  so  fresh,  so  honest,  so  full  of  that  clear 
flavour  which  smacks  of  the  sound  mind  and  the  sound  body. 
The  language  is  of  the  simplest, — a  fine  mixture  of  powerful 
English  and  broad  Scotch.  There  is  no  art,  save  that  of  thorough 
artlessness ;  the  manner  is  colloquial,  and  the  transitions  are 


342  Note. 

not  always  clearly  to  be  followed.  But  the  book  will  make  its 
mark  now,  and  live  afterwards, — long  after  posterity  has  for- 
gotten the  critic  who  is  said  to  have  returned  the  proof-sheets 
with  the  solemn — and  true — assertion  that  *  they  contained  a 
great  many  grammatical  blunders  ! '  It  has  only  to  be  known 
to  be  widely  appreciated.  Full  of  picture,  brimful  of  character, 
marked  everywhere  by  sanity  and  sincerity,  it  preserves  for  us 
many  phases  of  life  which  might  otherwise  have  been  forgotten 
or  unknown,  and  it  communicates  them,  moreover,  through  a 
medium  as  quaint  and  characteristic  as  themselves.  Those 
who  like  the  book  will  love  the  man.  On  every  page  we  feel 
the  light  of  a  pleasant  human  face,  the  gleam  of  kindly  eyes, 
and  seem  to  see  the  horny  hand  of  the  cobbler  beating  down 
emphasis  at  the  end  of  periods ;  and  a  broad,  clear,  ringing 
voice  lingers  in  our  ears,  and  we  catch  the  sound  of  distant 
laughter  long  after  the  book  is  closed.  Mr.  Hunter  is  not  a 
profound  reasoner,  nor  a  man  of  mere  literary  disposition.  He 
is  something  higher — a  man  of  character,  a  being  whose  humour 
has  so  individual  a  flavour  that  no  competent  critic,  on  finding 
any  of  his  stories  gone  astray,  could  hesitate  for  a  moment  in 
affirming,  '  This  is,  not  a  Jerrold,  nor  a  Sydney  Smith,  nor  a 
Dean  Ramsay — no,  it  is  a  Tammas  Turnip/  He  apprehends 
character  by  the  pure  sense  of  touch,  as  it  were.  He  sympa- 
thises most  with  what  is  sound  and  true,  though  he  has  a  corner, 
of  his  heart  for  the  gaudriole.  In  a  word,  he  evinces  an  artist's 
sensitiveness  and  a  cobbler's  chattiness ;  and,  whether  as  painter 
or  cobbler,  he  loves  the  race  thoroughly,— he  follows  humanity 
hardily,  through  all  the  vagaries  of  light  and  shadow,  even  in 
such  atmospheres  as  those  of  Glasgow  and  Kilmarnock. 

Hunter's  early  days  were  spent  in  a  little  Ayrshire  village, 
where  everybody  was  very  poor,  and  most  people  were  marked 
by  some  strong  characteristic  idiosyncrasies.  He  began  life  as 
a  ragged  shearer  in  the  fields,  but,  fascinated  at  an  early  age  by 
the  superior  intellectual  resources  of  the  makers  of  shoes,  he 
determined  to  be  a  cobbler.  *  In  1812,'  he  writes,  '  Napoleon 


Note.  343 

Bonaparte  gaed  away  to  Russia,  thinking  to  make  himself 
master  of  the  unwieldy  territory.  That  same  year  the  United 
States  of  America  declared  war  against  Britain  ;  and  next  year, 
in  the  month  of  June,  when  the  sea-fight  between  the  Shannon 
and  the  Chesapeake  took  place,  my  mother  bought  a  bargain 
of  sheep's- wool  and  spun  it  herseP  on  the  muckle  wheel,  and 
John  Wilson  in  the  Hollows  was  trysted  to  weave  it  into  a 
plaidin'  web,  which  was  to  be  dyed  blue,  and  then  I  was  to  be 
dressed  in  a  suit  of  the  same.'  Shortly  after  these  great  events, 
he  became  the  apprentice  of  a  queer  old  shoemaker  in  a  neigh- 
bouring clachan.  Here  his  experience  of  the  great  world 
began ;  and  many  are  the  strange  stories  he  has  to  tell  us 
concerning  those  days — wild  smuggling  episodes,  strange  do- 
mestic experiences,  anecdotes  reeking  of  peat  and  whisky, 
weird  country  superstitions.  Most  of  the  latter  may  be  de- 
scribed, in  a  local  worthy's  words,  as  *  stories  which  tell  better 
over  a  dram  than  sitting  dry-mouth'd  ;  there  is  an  inventive 
power  in  whisky,  whereby  you  can  put  in  more  of  the  horrible 
and  awfu'.'  Here  is  a  wonderful  glimpse  of  character,  in  the 
shape  of  *  auld  Ralston,'  the  governor  of  the  working  depart- 
ment of  a  spinning-factory  : — 

Ralston,  when  young,  married  a  sister  of  his  master,  in  whose 
service  he  had  been  accounted  worthy ;  although  some  said  that 
Mary  wasna  market-rife.  She  had  some  four  of  a  family,  and  then 
fell  into  lingering  trouble.  She  was  bedfast  for  nine  months  ;  and 
it  was  said  that  the  morning  and  evening  inquiry  for  a  period 
before  her  death  was  the  same  question — '  Are  ye  awa'  yet,  Mary  ? ' 
A  woman  was  got  to  keep  her  near  her  end  ;  and  one  night  when 
Ralston  had  reached  near  his  own  door,  or  what  some  sentimentalists 
wad  call  the  house  of  mourning,  the  woman  stood  at  the  door-step,  her 
heart  was  full,  she  burst  into  tears,  and  exclaimed,  'James,  the 
wife's  gone.'  Ralston  looked  at  her  rather  in  astonishment,  and 
said,  'Aweel,  and  what's  the  use  o'  you  snottering  about  that? 
Let's  see  some  pork  and  potatoes,  for  I'm  hungry.'  Being  served 
with  the  desired  meal,  he  ate  with  a  relish  for  a  time,  then  taking 
a  rest,  he  wiped  his  mouth  with  the  sleeve  of  his  coat,  and  said  by 
way  of  soliloquy,  'It's  a  guid  thing  that  she's  awa';  she  was  a 


344 

perfect  waster,  and  wad  soon  hae  herried  me  out  o}  the  door.  She 
ate  a  peck  o'  meal  in  the  week,  drank  a  bottle  o'  whisky,  ate  nine 
tippenny  oranges,  forbye  God  knows  what  in  the  shape  o'  cordials. 
I  must  say  that  I'm  weel  quat  o'  her.  But  it  has  been  a  teugh  job 
though.  My  first  duty  will  be  to  see  and  get  her  decently  buried :' 
which  duty  seemed  to  afford  rather  pleasurable  sensations.  His 
son  Jock  took  an  overgrowth,  springing  up  to  manhood  a  lump  of 
delicacy;  without  any  apparent  disease,  yet  feeling  himself  unwell, 
he  was  unable  to  do  anything  for  some  time.  A  neighbour  said 
one  day  to  Ralston,  '  I  wunner  that  you  wad  keep  a  muclde  idle 
fallow  like  Jock  lying  up  at  hame  when  there  is  evidently  naething 
wrang  wi'  him  but  laziness.'  However,  within  a  week  of  this 
gratuitous  speech  Jock  died,  and,  like  his  mother,  had  a  cheerfu' 
burial.  The  man  wha  made  the  unfeeling  remarks  on  Jock 
shamming  his  trouble  was  at  the  burial,  and  stood  talking  with 
another  man  in  the  kirkyard.  As  soon  as  Jock  was  let  down  into 
the  grave,  his  father  came  to  the  two  as  they  talked  together,  and 
he  who  had  not  insulted  the  feelings  of  the  father  before  now  made 
an  effort  to  sympathise  with  the  bereaved  parent  touching  the 
suddenness  of  Jock's  death,  and  how  unexpected  it  seemed  to  him. 
Ralston,  with  great  satisfaction,  said — '  That's  a'  true ;  but  it's  a 
guid  thing  that  our  Jock  de'ed  at  this  turn.' — '  What  for,  James  ? ' 
quo'  the  astonished  listener. — '  What  way,  or  what  for  ?  Had  he 
no  de'ed  the  folk  wad  ha'e  still  been  sayin'  that  there  was  naething 
wrang  wi'  him.  I  think  he  has  gi'en  the  most  obstinate  o'  them 
evidence  that  there  was  something  the  matter  wi'  him.  It  hasna 
been  a'  a  sham/ 

Elsewhere  the  same  worthy  is  thus  exquisitely  described  : — 

He  had  a  distance  in  his  manner,  a  kind  of  isolated  dignity, 
which  at  no  time  seemed  to  be  the  right  sort  of  metal.  Everything 
he  said  or  did  seemed  spurious.  He  walked  and  talked  at  the  outer 
circle  of  friendship. 

To  complete  (  auld  Ralston's '  outline,  note  the  following  bit 
of  observation — significant,  we  think,  of  the  writer's  peculiar 
insight  : — 

In  the  summer  evenings  at  Dundonald  the  young  men  of  the 
village  used  to  play  at  bowls  and  quoits  at  the  outskirts  by  the 
roadside.  One  night  old  Ralston  made  his  appearance  to  witness 


Note.  345 

a  game  of  quoits.  He  stood  alone  ;  he  spoke  to  no  one ;  he 
watched  every  quoit  as  it  came  up.  I  stood  near  to  him  and  made 
a  study  of  his  face.  His  expression  was  intense  as  he  eyed  the 
quoits  as  they  sailed  through  the  air.  He  looked  cold  at  a  wide 
shot,  as  if  feeling  disappointed ;  but  when  a  close  one  was  played 
he  clapped  his  hands,  exclaiming,  '  There's  a  good  shot ;  aha,  but 
there's  a  better!'  and  he  looked  the  picture  of  delight.  You 
would  have  thought  that  he  had  a  heavy  interest  in  the  matter. 
Charlie  Lockhart  came  close  up  to  him  at  this  moment  of  seeming 
delight.  Charlie  looked  at  the  quoit  and  said  with  great  emphasis, 
'  That's  a  tickler !  wha  played  that  shot,  James  ? '  James  looked 
cold  at  him  and  said,  '  What  ken  I  ?  or  what  care  I  ?  It's  a 
grand  shot,  play't  wha  will.  It's  a'  am  to  me  wha  flings  them 
up ;  iPs  the  quoits  themseVs  that  I  watch  or  feel  ony  pleasure  in 
seeing? 

This  is  but  one  of  many  quaintly  limned  faces,  all  of  which 
imply  that  Mr.  Hunter,  if  he  be  one-half  as  subtle  on  canvas  as 
on  paper,  must  be  an  artist  of  no  ordinary  power  of  touch. 

We  pass  over  much  that  is  good  (noting  in  our  way  the 
thrilling  chapter  containing  the  story  of  Witherington  the 
packman),  in  rader  to  reach  the  beginning  of  our  cobbler's 
career  in  art.  Suspected  of  poaching,  Mr.  Hunter  quitted  his 
native  place  and  settled  in  Kilmarnock,  where  his  ambition 
was  aroused  by  the  sight  of  a  great  local  work  of  art — the 
Royal  Arms,  painted  for  the  Town  Hall.  He  bought  a  box  of 
water  colours  and  a  camel-hair  brush  for  fivepence.  Instead 
of  copying  the  lion  and  unicorn,  however,  he  made  a  *  study ' 
from  nature,  so  barbarous  as  to  disgust  even  his  own  savage 
eye !  His  next  attempt  was  a  small  profile  on  a  card.  He 
drew  an  outline,  dashed  in  colour,  and,  using  red  copiously  on 
the  nose,  made  a  striking  portrait  of  Jock  Steen,  a  dram- 
drinking  acquaintance.  Then,  comparing  his  first  two  pictures, 
he  decided  that  only  one  resembled  the  original ;  and  therefore 
fixed  on  portraiture  as  his  vocation — one  which  he  has  combined 
with  shoemaking  all  his  life,  and  follows  still  in  the  genial 
autumn  of  his  days.  And  a  wondrous  portrait  painter  we  find 
he  is, — at  any  rate  with  pen  and  ink. 


346  Note. 

Every  step  of  our  cobbler's  onward  career  is  fraught  with 
portrait  and  picture.  The  following  is  a  specimen,  not  quite 
so  subtle  as  many,  but  truly  humorous  : — 

No  eclipse,  either  heavenly  or  terrestrial,  settles  into  permanent 
darkness.  The  garret  door  opened  one  day,  and  in  came  a  par- 
ticular acquaintance,  one  who  from  his  heart  wished  me  well.  He 
was  a  calico-printer,  wearing  an  appropriate  and  characteristic 
name,  which  often  brought  him  into  trouble.  He  was  well  known 
over  Scotland,  yet  not  well  understood.  He  had  a  strong  desire 
that  the  world  should  move  in  a  proper  way,  and  gave  advice 
accordingly ;  but  his  theory  and  practice  were  often  antagonistic. 
He  would  fain  be  an  artist,  but  wanted  patience.  He  had  been 
at  college  to  come  out  as  a  doctor,  but  left  short  of  the  mark. 
Volatile  and  unstable,  yet  wishing  to  see  knowledge  flowing  around 
him,  he  was  very  communicative.  He  used  to  declare  that  muscle 
was  with  him  fully  as  sensitive  as  mind,  and  he  had  an  unfortunate 
knack  of  bringing  his  fist  into  contact  with  any  person's  mouth  out 
of  which  impudence  came  directed  to  him.  His  combativeness 
was  great,  and  his  kindness  of  heart  unbounded.  Bob  Clink  was 
the  name  of  the  new  patron.  His  portrait  was  to  be  painted,  and 
in  an  original  style,  both  as  regards  attitude  ancL^xecution.  Bob 
had,  when  in  Glasgow,  studied  the  paintings  when  in  the  Hunterian 
Museum,  visited  fine  art  exhibitions,  been  acquaint  with  artists. 
He  had  good  taste,  and  gave  wholesome  hints  as  to  how  his 
portrait  was  to  be  got  up.  I  was  so  well  pleased  with  his  eccen- 
tricity that  I  agreed  that  the  composition  was  to  be  his  and  the 
execution  mine.  Bob  was  to  be  seated  by  a  table,  as  in  the  act  of 
some  undefined  study.  He  was  to  be  looking  up,  the  left  elbow 
was  to  be  resting  on  the  table  and  the  snuff-box  in  the  left  hand. 
The  right  hand,  between  the  forefinger  and  thumb,  was  to  contain 
a  snuff,  which  was  to  be  arrested  on  the  road  to  the  nose,  which 
was  to  remain  ungratified  till  the  problem  was  solved.  It  was  to 
represent  a  night  study  ;  a  candle  was  to  be  placed  on  the  table 
well  burned  down,  with  a  long  easle  crooked  and  melting  doun  the 
grease  to  show  how  deeply  the  student  had  been  absorbed.  A 
skull  was  to  be  on  the  table  between  the  sitter  and  the  light,  one 
volume  was  to  be  open  on  the  table  with  a  confusion  of  old  authors 
in  mass,  and  a  library  carefully  selected  was  to  fill  the  back- 
ground. Bob  brought  canvas  and  stretcher.  The  canvas  was  fine 


Note.  347 

linen,  such  as  printers  use  to  preserve  their  patterns  at  the  corners 
or  joinings  of  selvages.  It  was  to  be  a  cash  transaction,  and 
half-a-guinea  was  to  be  the  sum  total.  All  this  was  laid  down  by 
Bob. 

At  this  time  Hunter  was  a  member  of  the  Kilmarnock 
drawing  academy,  consisting  of  one  riddle-maker,  two  house- 
painters,  one  cobbler,  one  tailor,  one  confectioner,  one  cabinet- 
maker, one  mason,  one  pattern-designer,  one  currier,  and  two 
young  artists  !  A  motley  crew,  and  doubtless  not  too  highly 
gifted.  Yet,  as  Mr.  Hunter  says,  *  There  is  a  something  lovable 
in  the  naughtiest  abortion  produced  by  the  pencil,  as  it  gene- 
rally is  an  inquiry  after  some  great  hidden,  far-out-of-sight, 
never- to-be-seen  mystery.' 

We  cannot  linger  over  the  interval  from  those  days  to  these. 
The  cobbler's  path  has  been  a  hard,  up-hill  one  ;  but  he  shows 
everywhere  the  firm  footing  of  a  man.  The  father  of  a  huge 
family,  he  had  to  toil  day  and  night,  with  awl  or  brush,  for 
scanty  wage  ;  but  his  heart  never  failed  him  :  he  was  ever 
ready  for  the  world  with  jest  or  criticism,  and  even  in  the  dull 
commonplace%outine  of  small  Scotch  towns  he  was  ever 
conscious  of  the  motion  and  the  colour  of  the  world,  and  of 
the  musical  stir,  under  all  disguises,  of  the  great  human  heart. 
Great  men,  good  men,  droll  men,  mean  men,  had  all  their 
message  to  him  ;  he  slighted  none,  misunderstood  but  few. 

The  style  of  Mr.  Hunter's  book  is  rude  and  unpolished :  but 
it  contains  a  touching  artlessness,  a  sound  idiomatic  force, 
seldom  discovered  in  more  ambitious  styles.  We  are  again 
and  again  struck  by  superb  little  snatches  of  word-painting. 
Subjoined  is  a  string  of  brief  bits  of  quotation,  not  equal  in 
excellence,  but  all  showing  a  vigour  of  style  remarkable  from 
such  a  quarter  : — 

The  first  steamboat  I  saw  was  at  Largs  fair  in  1818.  That  was 
the  first  one  that  I  touched  with  my  finger.  It  was  on  the  day 
the  Rob  Roy  steamer  first  crossed  the  Irish  Channel  to  Belfast. 
From  the  heights  above  Largs  I  witnessed  the  spectacle.  There 


348  Note. 

were  ten  of  us.  I  was  the  only  boy ;  all  the  rest  were  what  in 
common  cant  are  termed  men,  among  whom  a  conversation  sprung 
up  anent  the  presumption  of  man.  Some  held  out  that  the  men 
and  boat  wad  never  come  back ;  ithers  thought  that  they  should 
hae  been  prayed  for  before  they  started.  A  stern  old  farmer 
settled  that  point  in  a  solid  sentence — '  Pray  for  them,  sir !  No 
sensible  man  durst.  Their  conduct  is  an  open  tempting  of  Provi- 
dence. That's  a  thing  no  man  has  a  right  to  do,  and  no  man  dare 
ask  a  blessing  on  such  conduct.' 

A  model  of  patience,  industry,  integrity,  and  every  attribute 
which  makes  a  man  worthy  of  the  name.  John  won,  and  wore 
before  the  world  with  all  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  a  single-hearted 
individuality.  He  was  a  long  thinker,  a  strong  thinker,  a  simple 
yet  determined  thinker.  He  wrought  long  with  his  brother-in-law, 
trying  to  discover  a  system  of  mechanism  for  working  carpets 
without  the  aid  of  draw-boys.  He  felt,  as  it  were,  that  he  had 
been  pursuing  a  phantom,  and  resolved  to  give  up  the  hunt  in  that 
direction.  He  then  turned  his  spare  time  into  a  musical  current, 
and  set  about  making  an  organ,  which  he  finished,  and  which  I 
have  heard  give  forth  serious,  sonorous,  and  joyful  sounds.  The 
step  from  shoemaking  to  that  of  a  coach-builder  was  a  wide  step  ; 
•and  in  the  new  business  were  twelve  different  branches,  every  one 
of  which  he  plodded  through  and  mastered  witrrliis  own  hand. 
He  found  that  in  the  manipulating  intricacy  of  making  a  shoe 
every  feeling  was  present  for  starting,  overcoming,  and  carrying  on 
the  coach-building  to  a  decided  success.  I  often  watched  the 
genius  of  John  as  he  moved  so  earnest,  spoke  so  kindly,  and 
advised  so  fatherly. 

He  had  wrought  on  the  sketch  of  this  picture  for  thirty-two 
years ;  and  but  for  want  of  a  Judas,  he  could  have  had  it  finished 
sooner.  His  Judas  was  an  ill-looking  vagabond,  far  from  being 
like  a  man  that  ony  decent  body  wad  tak'  up  wi'.  /  remarked  that 
had  I  been  painting  a  Judas,  I  would  have  selected  a  thin-lippet, 
smiling,  silly-like,  nice  man. 

When  I  passed  the  Shaw  Brig  on  the  auld  road  to  Stewarton, 
the  clear  morning  was  obscured  by  a  dark  sky  coming  ower  frae 
Arran  airt.  It  had  all  the  appearance  of  a  total  eclipse.  Snow 
came  scowring  through  the  air,  with  a  tremendous  rushing  wind. 
I  sat  down  in  the  ditch  on  the  lee  side  of  the  hedge  ;  and  in  ten 
minutes  the  snow  lay  four  inches  on  the  ground.  I  sat  in  the 


Note.  349 

midst  of  this  upper  gloom  and  white  under-world  with  my  face 
toward  Paisley,  never  once  deigning  to  look  back. 

J.  M.  W.  Turner  had  seven  specimens  of  his  art  on  their  walls. 
Whatever  others  might  or  may  think,  his  pictures  to  me  were  the 
most  marvellous  of  any  in  the  exhibition.  They  were  indications 
of  pictures,  painted  with  the  colours  which  constitute  light — red, 
blue,  and  yellow.  Wind  and  sunlight  moved  among  his  clouds. 
His  water  had  motion.  His  mountains  were  indications  ;  so  was 
everything  else.  He  indicated,  and  you  were  left  at  freedom  to  fill 
up  your  own  picture.  Wherever  form  went,  there  the  prismatic 
rays  went — reddish,  greenish,  bluish,  yellowish,  pinkish,  purplish, 
silvery,  grey,  in  abundance  ;  and,  in  some  spot  of  interest,  the  pure 
power  of  colour,  from  which  everything  else  in  the  picture  fled  to  its 
native  place. 

Here  we  must  conclude.  Comment  and  extract  can  do  no 
justice  to  a  book  like  this ;  it  must  be  read  throughout  to  be 
appreciated.  Its  peculiar  flavour  perhaps  does  not  quite 
satisfy  at  first,  for  it  is  local  and  provincial,  and  grows  upon  the 
reader,  leaving  a  taste  in  the  mouth  like  fine  old  whisky  and 
oatmeal  bannocks. 


BY   THE    SAME    AUTHOP. 


In   the  press,    3  vols.    fcp.    8vo.    price   $s.    each, 

THE      POETICAL     WORKS 

OF 

ROBERT    BUCHANAN. 

VOL.    I.    will    contain    the    '  Ballads    and    Romances '    and   '  Ballads  and 

Poems  of  Life,'  with  a   Portrait  of  the  Author;   VOL.    II.   the 

'Tales'  and    'Lyrical   Poems';  and   VOL.    III.  the 

*  Meditative  and   Religious   Poems. ' 


Also,    2   vols.    uniform   with   the  above, 

MISCELLANEOUS     PROSE    WORKS 

i 
OF 

ROBERT    BUCHANAN. 


HENRY  S.  KING  &  Co., 
65    Cornhill    and    12    Paternoster   Row,   London. 


NOVEMBER,  1873. 


A   CLASSIFIED   CATALOGUE   OF 

HENEY  S.  KING  &  Co;s  PUBLICATIONS, 


CONTENTS. 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY  .  .  i 

VOYAGES  AND  TRAVEL   ...  5 

SCIENCE 7 

ESSAYS,    LECTURES,    AND    COL- 

LECTED  PAPERS     ....  12 

MILITARY  WORKS 15 


PAOB 

INDIA  AND  THE  EAST  ....     19 

BOOKS   FOR  THE  YOUNG,  &C.       ,21 

POETRY 24 

FICTION 26 

THEOLOGICAL 31 

CORNHILL  LIBRARY  OF  FICTION  36 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY. 


THE  NORMAN  PEOPLE,  AND  THEIR  EXISTING  DESCENDANTS  IN  THE 
BRITISH  DOMINIONS  AND  THE   UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA.      One 


handsome  vol.     8vo.     Price  21  s, 

This  work  is  the  result  of  many  years 
of  research  into  the  history  of  the  Norman 
race  in  England.  It  is  generally  supposed 
to  have  become  extinct ;  but  careful  study 
has  shown  that  it  exists  and  forms  a  large 
part  of  the  English  people.  In  the  course 


[/«  the  Press. 

of  the  work  the  «arly  history  of  the  whole 
aristocracy  is  revised,  reconstructed,  and 
very  many  thousands  of  families  are  shown 
to  be  Norman  which  have  never  before 
been  accounted  for. 


A  MEMOIR  OF  THE  LATE  REVEREND  DR.  ROWLAND 
WILLIAMS,  With  selections  from  his  Note- books  and  Correspondence, 
Edited  by  Mrs.  Rowland  Williams.  With  a  Photographic  Portrait. 

[In  the  Press. 

THE  RUSSIANS  IN  CENTRAL  ASIA.  A  Critical  Examination, 
down  to  the  present  time,  of  the  Geography  and  History  of  Central  Asia, 
By  Baron  F.  Von  Hellwald,  Member  of  the  Geographical  Societies 
of  Paris,  Geneva,  Vienna,  &c.,  &c.  Translated  by  Lieut. -Col. 
Theodore  Wir^man,  LL.B.,  late  6th  Inniskilling  Dragoons;  for. 
merly  of  the  Austrian  Service ;  Translator  into  English  verse  of  Schiller's 
"  Wallenstein's  Camp."  {Nearly  ready. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6*  Co., 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY — continued. 

THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  NATIONAL  DEFENCE.  From 
the  3Oth  June  to  the  3ist  October,  1870.  The  Plain  Statement  of  a 
Member.  By  Mons.  Jules  Favre.  i  vol.  Demy  8vo.  ior.  &/. 


BOKHARA  :  ITS  HISTORY  AND  CONQUEST.  By  Professor 
Arminius  Vamb&ry,  of  the  University  of  Pesth,  Author  of  "  Travels 
in  Central  Asia,"  &c.  Demy  8vo.  Price  iSs. 


"  We  conclude  with  a  cordial  recommen- 
dation of  this  valuable  book.  In  the 
present  work  his  moderation,  scholarship, 
insight,  and  occasionally  very  impressive 
style,  have  raised  him  to  the  dignity  of 
an  historian."— Saturday  Review. 


"  Almost  every  page  abounds  with  com- 
position of  peculiar  merit,  as  well  as  with  an 
account  of  some  thrilling  event  more  excit- 
ing than  any  to  be  found  in  an  ordinary 
work  of  fiction." — Morning  Post. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND  :  PRIMITIVE,  PAPAL, 
AND  PROTESTANT;  including  the  Evangelical  Missions,  Catholic  Agitations, 
and  Church  Progress  of  the  last  half  century.  By  James  Godkin,  Author 
of  "Ireland,  her  Churches,"  £c.  I  vol.  8vo.  Price  12s. 


"  For  those  who  shun  blue  books,  and 
yet  desire  some  of  the  information  they 
contain,  these  latter  chapters  on  the  statis- 
tics of  the  various  religious  denominations 
will  be  welcomed." — Evening  Standard. 


"  Mr.  Godkin  writes  with  evident  honesty, 
and  the  topic  on  which  he  writes  is  one 
about  which  an  honest  book  is  greatly 
wanted."— Examiner. 


'I LAM  EN  N  AS.  Historical  Tales  and  Anecdotes  of  the  Times  of  the  Early 
Khalifahs.  Translated  irom  the  Arabic  Originals.  By  Mrs.  Godfrey 
Clerk,  Author  of  "The  Antipodes  and  Round  the  World."  Crown  8vo. 
Price  5. 


"  But  there  is  a  high  tone  about  them, 
a  love  of  justice,  of  truth  and  integrity, 
a  sense  of  honour  and  manliness,  and  a 
simple  devotion  to  religious  duty,  which 
however  mistaken  according  to  our  lights, 
is  deserving  of  every  respect.  The 
translation  is  the  work  of  a  lady,  and  a 
Very  excellent  and  scholar-like  translation 
it  is,  clearly  and  pleasantly  written,  and 


illustrated  and  explained  by  copious  notes, 
indicating  considerable  learning  and  re- 
search." — Saturday  Review. 

"Those  who  like  stories  full  of  the 
genuine  colour  and  fragrance  of  the  East, 
should  by  all  means  read  Mrs.  Godfrey 
Clerk's  volume." — Spectator. 

"  As  full  of  valuable  information  as  it  is 
of  amusing  incident. " — EveningStandard. 


ECHOES  OF  A  FAMOUS  YEAR.  By  Harriet  Parr,  Author  of 
"The  Life  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,"  "In  the  Silver  Age,"  &c.  Crown  8vo. 
Ss.  6d. 


"A  graceful  and  touching,  as  well  as 
truthful  account  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War.  Those  who  are  ii»  the  habit  ol  read- 
ing books  to  children  will  find  this  at 
once  instructive  and  delightful."—./  «Mic 
Opinion. 


"  Miss  Parr  has  the  great  gift  of  charm- 
ing simplicity  of  style  ;  and  if  children  are 
not  interested  in  her  book,  many  of  their 
seniors  will  be. "— British  Quarterly  Re- 
view. 


65,  Cornhill ;   &>  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co., 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY — continued. 


ALEXIS  DE  TOCQUEVILLE.  Correspondence  and  Conversations  with 
X  isSAO  W.  SENIOR  from  1833  to  1859.  Edited  by  Mrs.  M.  C.  M. 
Simpson.  In  2  vols.,  large  post  8vo.  2is. 


"Another  of  those  interesting  journals 
in  which  Mr.  Senior  has,  as  it  were,  crys- 
tallized the  sayings  of  some  of  those  many 
remarkable  men  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact. " — Morning  Post. 


"A  book  replete  with  knowledge  and 
thought."— Quarterly  Review. 

"An  extremely  interesting  book." — 
Saturday  Review. 


JOURNALS  KEPT  IN  FRANCE  AND  ITALY.  From  1848  to  1852. 
With  a  Sketch  of  the  Revolution  of  1848.  By  the  late  Nassau  William 
Senior.  Edited  by  his  Daughter,  M.  C.  M.  Simpson.  In  2  vols., 
post  8vo.  245-. 


"The  book  has  a  genuine  historical 
value." — Saturday  Review. 

"The  present  volume  gives  us  conver- 
sations with  some  of  the  most  prominent 
men  in  the  political  history  of  France  and 
Italy.  .  .  Mr.  Senior  has  the  art  of  inspiring 
all  men  with  frankness,  and  of  persuading 


them  to  put  themselves  unreservedly  in 
his  hands  without  fear  of  private  circula- 
tion. " — A  thftufum. 

"No  better,  more  honest,  and  more  read- 
able view  of  the  state  of  political  society 
during  the  existence  of  the  second  Republic 
could  well  be  looked  for." — Examiner. 


POLITICAL  WOMEN.    By  Sutherland  Menzies.    2  vols.    Post  8vo 
Price  2As. 


"  Has  all  the  information  of  history,  with 
all  the  interest  that  attaches  to  biography." 
— Scotstna  n . 

"A  graceful  contribution  to  the  lighter 
record  of  history." — English  Churchman. 


"  No  author  could  have  stated  the  case 
more  temperately  than  he  has  done,  and 
few  could  have  placed  before  the  reader  so 
graphically  the  story  which  had  to  be  told." 
— Leeds  Mercury. 


SARA  COLERIDGE,  MEMOIR  AND  LETTERS  OF.  Edited 
by  her  Daughters.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  With  2  Portraits.  Price  24^. 
Second  Edition,  Revised  and  Corrected. 


"  We  have  read  these  two  volumes  with 
genuine  gratification." — Hour. 

"We  could  have  wished  to  give  speci- 
mens of  her  very  just,  subtle,  and  concise 
criticisms  on  authors  of  every  sort  and  time 
— poets,  moralists,  historians,  and  philoso- 
phers. Sara  Coleridge,  as  she  is  revealed, 
or  rather  reveals  herself,  in  the  corre- 
spondence, makes  a  brilliant  addition  to 
a  brilliant  family  reputation." — Saturday 
Review. 


"  These  charming  volumes  are  attractive 
in  two  ways :  first,  as  a  memorial  of  a  most 
amiable  woman  of  high  intellectual  mark  ; 
and  secondly,  as  rekindling  recollections, 
and  adding  a  little  to  our  information  re- 
garding the  life  of  Sara  Coleridge's  father, 
the  poet  and  philosopher."— Atheneeum. 

"  An  acceptable  record,  and  present  an 
adequate  image  of  a  mind  of  singular 
beauty  and  no  inconsiderable  power."— 
Examiner. 


PHANTASMION.    A  Fairy  Romance.     By  Sara  Coleridge. 

[In  preparation. 


65,  Cornhilli  &  12,  Paternoster  Roiv,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6°  Co., 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY — continued. 

LEONORA  CHRISTINA,  MEMOIRS  OF,  Daughter  of  Christian  IV. 
of  Denmark :  Written  during  her  Imprisonment  in  the  Blue  Tower  of 
the  Royal  Palace  at  Copenhagen,  1663—1685.  Translated  by  F.  E. 
Bunnett,  Translator  of  Grimm's  "Life  of  Michael  Angelo,"  &c.  With 
an  Autotype  Portrait  of  the  Princess.  Medium  8vo.  I2s.  6d. 

"A   valuable    addition    to    history." —    I    which  we  gratefully  recognize  a  valuable 
Daily  News.  addition  to  the  tragic  romance  of  history." 

"  This    remarkable    autobiography,    in    |    — Spectator. 


THE  LATE  REV.  F.  W.  ROBERTSON,  M.A.,  LIFE  AND 
LETTERS  OF.  Edited  by  Stopford  Brooke,  M.A.,  Chaplain  in 
Ordinary  to  the  Queen.  In  2  vols.,  uniform  with  the  Sermons.  Price 
7s.  6d.  Library  Edition,  in  demy  8vo,  with  Two  Steel  Portraits.  12s.  A 
Popular  Edition,  in  I  vol.  Price  6s. 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE,    A   MEMOIR   OF,  with  Stories  now 
first  published  in  this  country.     By  H.  A.  Page.    Large  post  8vo.  7*.  6d. 


"The  Memoir  is  followed  by  a  criticism 
of  Hawthorne  as  a  writer;  and  the  criticism 
is,  on  the  whole,  very  well  written,  and 
exhibits  a  discriminating  enthusiasm  for 
one  of  the  most  fascinating  of  novelists."— 
Saturday  Review. 

"  Seldom  has  it  been  our  lot  to  meet  with 
a  more  appreciative  delineation  of  character 


than  this  Memoir  of  Hawthorne."— Mom- 
ing  Post. 

"  He  has  done  full  justice  to  the  fine 
character  of  the  author  of  '  The  Scarlet 
Letter.'" — Standard. 

"A  model  of  literary  work  of  art." — 
Edinburgh  Cotirant. 


LIVES   OF   ENGLISH    POPULAR    LEADERS.     No.  i.— STEPHEN 
LANGTON.     By  C.  Edmund  Maurice.     Crown  8vo.     7.?.  6d. 


"Mr.  Maurice  has  written  a  very  inte- 
resting book,  which  may  be  read  with 
equal  pleasure  and  profit." — Morning 
Post. 

"  The  volume  contains  many  interesting 


details,  including  some  important  docu- 
ments. It  will  amply  repay  those  who 
read  it,  whether  as  a  chapter  of  the  consti- 
tutional history  of  England  or  as  the  life  of 
a  great  Englishman."— Spectator. 


CABINET  PORTRAITS.    BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES  OF  LIVING  STATES- 
MEN.   By  T.  Wemyss  Reid,     i  vol.  crown  8vo.     Js.  6d. 


"We  have  never  met  with  a  work 
which  we  can  more  unreservedly  praise. 
The  sketches  are  absolutely  impartial."— 
AthencEum. 


"We  can  heartily  commend  his  work." 
— Standard. 

"The  '  Sketches  of  Statesmen*  are  drawn 
with  a  master  hand." — Yorkshire  Post. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6°  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co., 


VOYAGES  AND   TRAVEL. 


ROUGH  NOTES  OF  A  VISIT  TO  BELGIUM,  SEDAN,  AND 
PARIS,  In  September,  1870—71.  By  John  Ashton.  Crown  8vo, 
bevelled  boards.  Price  3-r.  6d. 

This  little  volume  derives  its  chief  interest  from  the  accurate  descriptions  of  the  scenes 
visited  during  the  recent  struggle  on  the  Continent 

THE  ALPS  OF  ARABIA;  or,  Travels  through  Egypt,  Sinai*  Arabia,  and 
the  Holy  Land.  By  William  Charles  Maughan.  I  vol.  Demy  Svo, 
with  Map.  Price  los.  6d. 

A  volume  of  simple  "  impressions  de  voyage  " — but  written  in  pleasant  and  interesting 
style. 

THE  MISHMEE  HILLS:  an  Account  of  a  Journey  made  in  an  Attempt 
to  Penetrate  Tibet  from  Assam,  to  open  New  Routes  for  Commerce. 
By  T.  T.  Cooper,  author  of  "The  Travels  of  a  Pioneer  of  Commerce." 
Demy  Svo.  Illustrated. 


THE    PEARL    OF    THE    ANTILLES; 
Walter  Goodman.     Crown  Svo.     7.$-. 

"  A  good-sized  volume,  delightfully  vivid 
and  picturesque.  .  .  .  Several  chapters 
devoted  to  the  characteristics  of  the  people 
are  exceedingly  interesting  and  remarkable. 
.  .  .  The  whole  book  deserves  the  heartiest 
commendation  .  .  .  sparkling  and  amusing 
from  beginning  to  end.  Reading  it  is  like 
rambling  about  with  a  companion  who  is 
content  to  loiter,  observing  everything, 
commenting  upon  everything,  turning 


THE  ARTIST  IN  CUBA.    By 


everything  into  a  picture,  with  a  cheerful 
flow  of  spirits,  full  of  fun,  but  far  above 
frivolity. " — Spectator. 

' '  He  writes  very  lightly  and  pleasantly, 
and  brightens  his  pages  with  a  good  deal 
of  humour.  His  experiences  were  varied 
enough,  and  his  book  contains  a  series  of 
vivid  and  miscellaneous  sketches.  We  can 
recommend  his  whole  volume  as  very 
amusing  reading." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


FIELD  AND  FOREST  RAMBLES  OF  A  NATURALIST  IN 
NEW  BRUNSWICK.  With  Notes  and  Observations  on  the  Natural 
History  of  Eastern  Canada.  By  A.  Leith  Adams,  M.A.,  &c.,  Author 
of  "Wanderings  of  a  Naturalist  in  India,"  &c.,  &c.  In  Svo,  cloth. 
Illustrated.  1^. 


"  Will  be  found  interesting  by  those  who 
take  a  pleasure  either  in  sport  or  natural 
history. " — A  thenautn. 

"  The  descriptions  are  clear  and  full  of 
interest,  while  the  book  is  prevented  from 
degenerating  into  a  mere  scientific  cata- 
logue by  many  graphic  sketches  of  the 
rambles." — John  Bull. 

"  To  the  naturalist  the  book  will  be  most 
valuable.  .  .  .  To  the  general  reader  the 


book  will  prove  most  interesting,  for  the 
style  is  pleasant  and  chatty,  and  the  infor- 
mation given  is  so  graphic  and  full,  that 
those  who  care  nothing  for  natural  history 
as  a  pursuit  will  yet  read  these  descriptions 
with  great  interest." — Evening  Standard. 
"  Both  sportsmen  and  naturalists  will 
find  this  work  replete  with  anecdote  and 
carefully-recorded  observation,  which  will 
entertain  them." — Nature. 


TENT.  LIFE  WITH  ENGLISH  GIPSIES  IN  NORWAY.  By 
Hubert  Smith.  In  Svo,  cloth.  Five  full-page  Engravings,  and  31 
smaller  Illustrations,  with  Map  of  the  Country  showing  Routes.  Price  2is. 

"  If  any  of  our  readers  think  of  scraping  |        "  Written  in  a  very  lively  style,  and  has 

an   acquaintance  with  Norway,  let  them  |    throughout  a  smack  of  dry  humour  and 

read  this  book.     The  gypsies,  always  an  I    satiric  reflection  which  shows  the  writer  to 

interesting  study,  become  doubly  interest-  be  a  keen  observer  of  men  and  things.   We 

ing,  when  we  are,  as  in  these  pages,  intro-  hope  that  many  will  read  it  and  find  in  it 

duced   to  them  in  their  daily  walk  and  the    same    amusement   as    ourselves."  — 

conversation. " — Examiner.  Times. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co., 


VOYAGES  AND  TRAVEL — continued. 


FAYOUM  ;  OR,  ARTISTS  IN  EGYPT.     A  Tour  with  M.  Gerome  and  others. 

By  J.  Lenoir.     Crown  8vo,  cloth.  Illustrated.     Js.  6d. 

"A  pleasantly  written  and  very  readable  ever  may  take  it  up  will  find  he  has  with 

book." — Examiner.  him  a  bright  and  pleasant  companion." — 

"  The  book  is  very  amusing.  .  .  .  Who-  Spectator. 

SPITZBERGEN    THE    GATEWAY  TO    THE    POLYNIA;    OR,    A 
VOYAGE  TO    SPITZBERGEN.      By  Captain  John  C.  Wells,   R.N. 

In    8vo,  cloth.     Profusely  Illustrated.  Price  2U. 

"Straightforward    and    clear    in    style,    I  "Blends    pleasantly    science    with    ad- 
securing  our  confidence  by  its  unaffected    |  venture,  picturesque  sketches  of  a  summer 
simplicity    and    good    sense." — Saturday 
Review. 

"A  charming    book,    remarkably   well 
written  and  well  illustrated." — Standard. 


cruise  among  the  wild  sports  and  fantastic 
scenery  of  Spitzbergen,  with  earnest  advo- 
cacy of  Arctic  Exploration." — Graphic. 


AN 


AUTUMN  TOUR  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND 
CANADA.  By  Lieut.  -Colonel  Julius  George  Medley.  Crown 
8vo.  Price  $s. 


"Colonel  Medley's  little  volume  is  a 
pleasantly  written  account  of  a  two-months' 
visit  to  America. " — ffo»r. 


"May  be  recommended  as  manly,  sen- 
sible, and  pleasantly  written." — Globe. 


THE    NILE    WITHOUT    A    DRAGOMAN.      By  Frederic   Eden. 

Second  Edition.     In  one  vol.     Crown  8vo,  cloth.     'js.  6d. 

"  Should  any  of  our  readers  care  to 
imitate  Mr.  Eden's  example,  and  wish  to 
see  things  with  their  own  eyes,  and  shift 
for  themselves,  next  winter  in  Upper  Egypt, 
they  will  find  this  book  a  very  agreeable 
guide." —  Times. 


"  It  is  a  book  to  read  during  an  autumn 
holiday. " — Spectator. 

"Gives,  within  moderate  compass,  a 
suggestive  description  of  the  charms,  cu- 
riosities, dangers,  and  discomforts  of  the 
Nile  voyage." — Saturday  Review. 


ROUND    THE    WORLD    IN    1870.      A  Volume  of  Travels,  with  Maps. 
By  A.  D.  Carlisle,  B.A.,  Trin.  Coll.,  Camb.     Demy  8vo.     i6j. 


"  Makes  one  understand  how  going 
round  the  world  is  to  be  done  in  the 
quickest  and  pleasantest  manner." — Spec- 
tator. 


"  We  can  only  commend,  which  we  do 
very  heartily,  an  eminently  sensible  and 
readable  book." — British  Quarterly  Re- 
view. 


IRELAND    IN    1872.     A  Tour  of  Observation,  with  Remarks  on  Irish  Public 
Questions.     By  Dr.  James  Macaulay.     Crown  8vo.     TS 


A  careful  and  instructive  book.  Full 
of  facts,  full  of  information,  and  full  of 
interest." — L iterary  Churchman. 

"  We  have  rarely  met  a  book  on  Ireland 
which  for  impartiality  of  criticism  and 
general  accuracy  of  information  could  be 


so  well  recommended  to   the  fair-minded 
Irish  reader." — Evening  Standard. 

"A  deeply  interesting  account  of  what 
is  called  a  tour  of  observation,  and  some 
noteworthy  remarks  on  Irish  public  ques- 
tions."— Illustrated  London  Nev.'S. 


OVER    THE    DOVREFJELDS.      By  J.  S.  Shepard,   Author  of  "A 
Ramble  through  Norway,"  &c.     Crown  8vo.     Illustrated.     Price  ^s.  6d. 


"We  have  read  many  books  of  Nor- 
wegian travel,  but  .  .  .  we  have  seen 
none  so  pleasantly  narrative  in  its  style, 
and  so  varied  in  its  subject." — Spectator. 

"  Is  a  well-timed  book." — Echo. 


"As  interesting  a  little  volume  as  could 
be  written  on  the  subject.  So  interesting 
and  shortly  written  that  it  will  commend 
itself  to  all  intending  tourists." — Exa- 
miner. 


A  WINTER   IN   MOROCCO.    By  Amelia  Perrier.    Large  crown  8vo. 
Illustrated.     Price  los.  6d. 

"Well    worth    reading,     and    contains 
several  excellent  illustrations." — Hour. 


"  Miss  Perrier  is  a  very  amusing  writer. 
She  has  a  good  deal  of  humour,  sees  the 


oddity  and  quaintness  of  Oriental  life  with 
a  quick  observant  eye,  and  evidently  turned 
her  opportunities  of  sarcastic  examination 
to  account." — Daily  News. 


65,  Cornhill ;   6°  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co., 


SCIENCE. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  MENTAL  PHYSIOLOGY.  With  their  Applications 
to  the  Training  and  Discipline  of  the  Mind,  and  the  Study  of  its  Morbid 
Conditions.  By  W.  B.  Carpenter,  LL.D.,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  &c. 

8vo.     Illustrated.  {Immediately. 

THE  EXPANSE  OF  HEAVEN.  A  Series  of  Essays  on  the  Wonders  of 
the  Firmament.  By  B.  A.  Proctor,  B.A,,  author  of  "  Other  Worlds," 
&c.  Small  Crown  8vo.  [Shortly. 

STUDIES  OF  BLAST  FURNACE  PHENOMENA.  By  M.  L. 
Gruner,  President  of  the  General  Council  of  Mines  of  France.  Trans- 
lated by  L.  D.  B.  Gordon,  F.R.S.E.,  F.G.S.,  &c.  Demy  8vo. 
Price  7-r.  6d. 

These  are  some  important  practical  studies  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  metallurgical 
authorities  of  the  Continent. 

A  LEGAL  HANDBOOK  FOR  ARCHITECTS.  By  Edward 
Jenkins  and  John  Raymond,  Esqrs.,  Barristers-at-Law.  In  i  vol. 
Price  6s. 


The  Publishers  are  assured  that  this 
book  will  constitute  an  invaluable  and 
necessary  companion  for  every  architect's 
and  builder's  table,  as  well  as  a  useful  in- 


troduction for    architects'  pupils    to    the 
practical  law  of  their  profession. 

Dedicated  by   special  permission  to  the 
Royal  Institution  of  British  Architects. 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLISH  PSYCHOLOGY.  From  the  French  of 
Professor  Th.  Ribot.  An  Analysis  of  the  Views  and  Opinions  of  the 
following  Metaphysicians,  as  expressed  in  their  writings  : — 

JAMES    MILL,    A.    BAIN,    JOHN    STUART    MILL,    GEORGE    H.    LEWES,   HERBERT 
SPENCER,  SAMUEL  BAILEY. 

Large  post  8vo. 

PHYSIOLOGY   FOR    PRACTICAL    USE.     By  various  Eminent  writers. 

Edited  by  James  Hinton.     2  vols.     Crown  8vo.     With  50  illustrations. 

These   Papers  have   been   prepared    at    I    logical  truths  which  are  needful  to  all  who 

great  pains,  and  their  endeavour  is  to  fami-        desire   to  keep   the    body   in  a  state    of 

liarize  the  popular  mind  with  those  physio-    I    health. 

[In  the  Press. 


THE    PLACE    OF    THE    PHYSICIAN.    The  Introductory  Lecture  at 
Guy's  Hospital,  1873-4 ;  to  which  is  added 

ESSAYS  ON  THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  AND  ON  THE  RELATION 
BETWEEN  ORGANIC  AND  INORGANIC  WORLDS. 

By  James  Hinton,  Author  of  "Man  and  His  D  welling-Place. "    Crown 
8vo.     Limp  cloth. 

65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


8 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co., 


SCIENCE — continued. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  NATURAL  CREATION,  Being  a  Series 
of  Popular  Scientific  Lectures  on  the  General  Theory  of  Progression  of 
Species  ;  with  a  Dissertation  on  the  Theories  of  Darwin  and  Goethe  ;  more 
especially  applying  them  to  the  Origin  of  Man,  and  to  other  Fundamental 

'  Questions  of  Natural  Science  connected  therewith.    By  Professor  Ernst 

Heeckel,  of  the  University  of  Jena.     Svo.     With  Woodcuts  and  Plates. 

[In  the  Press. 

Second  Edition. 

CHANGE  OF  AIR  AND  SCENE.  A  Physician's  Hints  about  Doctors, 
Patients,  Hygiene,  and  Society  ;  with  Notes  of  Excursions  for  health  in  the 
Pyrenees,  and  amongst  the  Watering-places  of  France  (Inland  and  Sea- 
ward), Switzerland,  Corsica,  and  the  Mediterranean.  By  Dr.  Alphonse 
Donne.  Large  post  Svo.  Price  gs. 


"A  very  readable  and  serviceable  book. 
.  .  .  The  real  value  of  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  accurate  and  minute  information  given 
with  regard  to  a  large,  number  of  places 
which  have  gained  a  reputation  on  the 


continent  for  their  mineral  waters."— /W/ 
M all  Gazette. 

"A  singularly  pleasant  and  chatty  as 
well  as  instructive  book  about  health."— 
Guardian. 


MISS  YOUMANS'  FIRST  BOOK  OF  BOTANY.  Designed  to 
cultivate  the  observing  powers  of  Children.  From  the  Author's  latest 
Stereotyped  Edition.  New  and  Enlarged  Edition,  with  300  Engravings. 
Crown  Svo.  5^ 


"  It  is  but  rarely  that  a  school-book  ap- 
pears which  is  at  once  so  novel  in  plan,  so 
successful  in  execution,  and  so  suited  to  the 
general  want,  as  to  command  universal  and 
unqualified  approbation,  but  such  has  been 


the  case  with  Miss  Youmans'  First  Book 
of  Botany.  .  .  .  It  has  been  everywhere 
welcomed  as  a  timely  and  invaluable  con- 
tribution to  the  improvement  of  primary 
education." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


AN  ARABIC  AND  ENGLISH  DICTIONARY  OF  THE  KORAN. 
By  Major  J.  Penrice,  B.A.     4to.     Price  2is. 


MODERN      GOTHIC      ARCHITECTURE. 

Crown  Svo.     Price    s. 


By    T.   Gr.  Jackson. 


"  The  reader  will  find  some  of  the  most 
important  doctrines  of  eminent  art  teachers 
practically  applied  in  this  little  book, 
which  is  well  written  and  popular  in 
style. " — Manchester  Examiner. 

"  Much  clearness,  force,  wealth  of  illus- 


tration, and  in  style  of  composition,  which 
tends  to  commend  his  views." — Edinburgh 
Daily  Review. 

"This  thoughtful  little  book  is  worthy 
of  the  perusal  of  all  interested  in  art  or 
architecture.  "—Standard. 


A    TREATISE    ON     RELAPSING    FEVER.      By  B.   T.   Lyons, 

Assistant- Surgeon,  Bengal  Army.     Small  post  Svo.     Js.  6d. 

"A  practical  work  thoroughly  supported  in  its  views  by  a  series   of  remarkable 
cases.  "—Standard. 


65,  Cornhill;  &>  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &>>  Co.,  9 

SCIENCE— continued. 

FOUR    WORKS    BY    DR.    EDWARD    SMITH. 

I.  HEALTH  AND  DISEASE,  as  influenced  by  the  Daily,  Seasonal  and 
other  Cyclical  Changes  in  the  Human  System.     A  New  Edit.     7-r.  6d. 

II.  FOODS.     Second  Edition.     Profusely  Illustrated.     Price  5.?. 

III.  PRACTICAL  DIETARY  FOR  FAMILIES,    SCHOOLS,  AND 

THE  LABOURING  CLASSES;    A  New  Edit.     Price  3*.  6</. 

IV.  CONSUMPTION     IN    ITS     EARLY    AND    REMEDIABLE 

STAGES.     A  New  Edit.     7^.  &/. 


THE  PORT  OF  REFUGE ;  OR,  COUNSEL  AND  AID  TO  SHIPMASTERS 
IN  DIFFICULTY,  DOUBT,  OR  DISTRESS.  By  Manley  Hopkins,  Author 
of  "A  Handbook  of  Average,"  "A  Manual  of  Insurance,"  &c.  Cr.  8vo. 
Price  6s. 

SUBJECTS  :— The  Shipmaster's  Position  and  Duties.— Agents  and  Agency.— Average.— 
Bottomry,  and  other  Means  of  Raising  Money.— The  Charter-Party,  and  Bill-of-Lading. 
Stoppage  in  Transitu;  and  the  Shipowner's  Lien.— Collision. 


''  Combines  in  quite  a  marvellous  manner 
a  fullness  of  information  which  will  make 
it  perfectly  indispensable  in  the  captain's 
bookcase,  and  equally  suitable  to  the  gen- 
tleman's library.  This  synopsis  of  the  law 
of  shipping  in  all  its  multifarious  ramifi- 
cations and  the  hints  he  gives  on  a  variety 
of  topics  must  be  invaluable  to  the  master 


mariner  whenever  he  is  in  doubt,  difficulty, 
and  danger." — Mercantile  Marine  Mag' 
azine. 

"A  truly  excellent  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  our  marine  commerce.  "—Echo. 

"Those  immediately  concerned  will  find 
it  well  worth  while  to  avail  themselves  of 
its  teachings."— Colburris  U.S.  Magazine. 


LOMBARD    STREET.     A  Description  of  the  Money  Market.     By  Walter 
Bagehot.     Large  crown  8vo.     Third  Edition.     Is.  6d. 


"An  acceptable  addition  to  the  litera- 
ture of  finance. " — Stock  Exchange  Review. 

"Mr.  Bagehot  touches  incidentally  a 
hundred  points  connected  with  his  subject, 
and  pours  serene  white  light  upon  them 
a\\."— Spectator. 

"Anybody  who  wishes  to  have  a  clear 
idea  of  the  workings  of  what  is  called  the 
Money  Market  should  procure  a  little 
volume  which  Mr.  Bagehot  has  just  pub- 


lished, and  he  will  there  find  the  whole 
thing  in  a  nut-shell.  .  .  .  The  subject  is 
one,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  on  which 
Mr.  Bagehot  writes  with  the  authority  of  a 
man  who  combines  practical  experience 
with  scientific  study." — Saturday  Review. 
"Besides  its  main  topic,  the  manage- 
ment of  the  reserve  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
it  is  full  of  the  most  interesting  economic 
history."— A  themeitm* 


CHOLERA:     HOW   TO   AVOID   AND   TREAT     IT.     Popular  and 
Practical  Notes  by  Henry  Blanc,  M.D.     Crown  8vo.    4^.  6ct. 


65,  Cornhill;  6-12,  Paternoster  R<nv,  London. 


10 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  e^  Co., 


SCIENCE— continued. 


THE   INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC   SERIES. 

Although  these  Works  are  not  specially  designedTor  the  instruction  of  beginners,  still,  as  they 
are  intended  to  address  the  non-scientific  public,  they  are,  as  far  as  possible,  explanatory  in  cha- 
racter, and  free  from  technicalities  ;  the  object  of  each  author  being  to  bring  his  subject  as  near 
as  he  can  to  the  general  reader. 

The  Volumes  already  Published  are  :— 
Third  Edition. 

THE  FORMS  OF  WATER  IN  RAIN  AND  RIVERS,  ICE 
AND  GLACIERS.  By  J.  Tyndall,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  With  26 
Illustrations.  Crown  8vo.  5-r. 

"  One  of  Professor  Tyndall's  best  scien-  "Before  starting  for  Switzerland  next 

tific  treatises." — Standard.  summer    every   one    should    study    '  The 

"With  the  clearness  and  brilliancy  of  forms  of  water.'" — Globe. 

language  which  have  won  for  him  his  fame,  "  Eloquent  and  instructive  in  an  eminent 

he  considers  the  subject  of  ice,  snow,  and  degree.  "—British  Quarterly. 
glaciers." — Morning  Post, 


Second  Edition. 

PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS;  OR,  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  APPLICATION  OF 
THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  "NATURAL  SELECTION"  AND  "INHERITANCE" 
TO  POLITICAL  SOCIETY.  By  Walter  Bagehot.  Crown  8vo.  4-r. 


"  On  the  whole  we  can  recommend  the 
book  as  well  deserving  to  be  read  by  thought- 
ful students  of  politics."— Saturday  Review. 


"Able  and  ingenious." — Spectator. 
"  A  work  of  really  original  and  interest- 
ing speculation." — Guardian. 


Second  Edition. 

FOODS.     By  Dr.  Edward  Smith.     Profusely  Illustrated.     Price  5-r. 


"A  comprehensive  resume*  of  our  present 
chemical  and  physiological  knowledge  of 
the  various  foods,  solid  and  liquid,  whick 
go  so  far  to  ameliorate  the  troubles  and 
vexations  of  this  anxious  and  wearying 
existence." — Chemist  and  Druggist. 


"Heads  of  households  will  find  it  con- 
siderably to  their  advantage  to  study  its 
contents." — Court  Express. 

"A  very  comprehensive  book.  Every 
page  teems  with  information.  Readable 
throughout." — Church  Herald. 


Second  Edition. 

MIND  AND  BODY:  THE  THEORIES  OF  THEIR  RELATIONS.  By  Alex- 
ander Bain,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Logic  at  the  University  of  Aberdeen. 
Four  Illustrations.  4-r. 

THE  STUDY  OF  SOCIOLOGY.  By  Herbert  Spencer.  Crown  8vo. 
Price  5-r. 

ON  THE  CONSERVATION  OF  ENERGY.  By  Professor  Balfour 
Stewart.  Fourteen  Engravings.  Price  5-r. 

ANIMAL  MECHANICS;  or,  Walking,  Swimming,  and  Flying.  By  Dr. 
J.  B.  Pettigrew,  M.D.,  F.B.S. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6°  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Work*  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co. 


it 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THEIR  BOOKS, 

TO   BE  PUBLISHED  IN  THE 

INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES. 


Dr.  HENRY  MAUDSLEY. 

Responsibility  in  Mental  Disease. 
Prof.  E.  J.  MAREY. 

The  Animal  Frame. 

j  Rev.  M.  J.  BERKELEY,  M.A.,  P.L.S., 
1     and  M.  COOKE,  M.A.,  LL.D. 

Fungi ;  their  Nature,  Influences,  and  Uses. 
Prof.  OSCAR  SCHMIDT, 

(University  of  Strasburg),. 

The  Theory  of  Descent  and  Darwinism. 

Prof,  W.  KINGDOM  CLIFFORD,  M.A. 

The  First  Principles  of  the  Exact  Sciences 

explained  to  the  non-mathematical. 
Prof.  T.  H.  HUXLEY,  LL.D.,  F.R.S, 

Bodily  Motion  and  Consciousness. 

Dr.  W.  B.  CARPENTER,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

The  Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea. 
Prof.  WILLIAM  pDLING,  F.R.S. 

The  New  Chemistry. 

Prof.  SHELDON  AMOS. 
The  Science  of  Law. 

W.  LAUDER  LINDSAY,  M.D.,  P.R.S.E. 

Mind  in  the  Lower  Animals. 
Sir  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart.,  F.R.S. 

The  Antiquity  of  Man. 

Prof.  W.  T.  THISELTON  DYER,  B  A 
B.SC. 

Form  and  Habit  in  Flowering  Plants. 
Mr.  J.  N.  LOCKYER,  F.R.S. 

Spectrum  Analysis. 

Prof.  MICHAEL  FOSTER,  M.D. 
Protoplasm  and  the  Cell  Theory. 

Prof.  W.  STANLEY  JEVONS. 
The  Logic  of  Statistics. 

Dr.  H.  CHARLTON  BAST  IAN,  M.D., 

F.R.  S. 

The  Brain  as  an  Organ  of  Mind. 
Prof.  A.  C.  RAMSAY,  LL.D.,  F.R  S. 

Earth  Sculpture:  Hills,  Valleys,  Moun- 
tains, Plains,  Rivers,  Lakes  ;  how  they 
were  Produced,  and  how  they  have  been 
Destroyed. 

Prof.  RUDOLPH  VIRCHOW, 

(University  of  Berlin). 
Morbid  Physiological  Action. 


Prof.  CLAUDE  BERNARD. 

Physical  and  Metaphysical  Pheuomena  oi 

Life. 
Prof.  A.  QUETELET. 

Social  Physics. 
Prof.  H.  SAINTE- CLAIRE   DEVILLE. 

An  Introduction  to  General  Chemistry. 
Prof.  WURTZ. 

Atoms  and  the  Atomic  Theory. 
Prof.  DE  QUATREFAGES. 

The  Negro  Races. 
Prof.  LACAZE-DUTHIERS. 

Zoology  since  Cuvier. 
Prof.  BERTHELOT. 

Chemical  Synthesis. 
Prof.  J.  ROSENTHAL. 

General  Physiology  of  Muscles  and  Nerves. 
Prof.  JAMES  D.  DANA,  M.A.,  LL.D. 

On  Cephalization ;  or,  Head-Characters  in 

the  Gradation  and  Progress  of  Life. 
Prof.  S.  W.  JOHNSON,  M.A. 

On  the  Nutrition  of  Plants. 
Prof.  AUSTIN  FLINT,  Jr.  M.D. 

The  Nervous  System  and  its  Relation  to 

the  Bodily  Functions. 
Prof.  W.  D.  WHITNEY. 

Modern  Linguistic  Science. 
Prof   BERNSTEIN  (University  of  Halle). 

Physiology  of  the  Senses. 
Prof.  FERDINAND  COHN, 

(University  of  Breslau). 

Thallotyphes  (Algae,  Lichens,  Fungi). 
Prof.  HERMANN  (University  of  Zurich). 

Respiration. 
Prof.  LEUCKART  (University  of  Leipsic). 

Outlines  of  Animal  Organization. 
Prof.  LIEBREICH  (University  of  Berlin). 

Outlines  of  Toxicology. 
Prof.  KUNDT  (University  of  Strasburg). 

On  Sound. 
Prof.  LONMEL  (University  of  Erlangen). 

Optics. 
Prof.  REES  (University  of  Erlangen). 

On  Parasitic  Plants. 
Prof.   STEINTHAL  (University  of  Berlin). 

Outlines  of  the  Science  of  Language. 
Prof.  VOGEL  (Polytechnic  Acad.  of  Berlin). 

The  Chemical  Effects  of  Light. 


65,  Corn-hill:  &>  12,  Paternoster  Roiv>  London. 


12 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6^  Co., 


£SSA  YS,  LECTURES,  AND  COLLECTED  PAPERS. 


IN  STRANGE  COMPANY;  or,  The  Note  Book  of  a  Roving  Correspondent. 
By  James  Greenwood,  "The  Amateur  Casual."    Crown  8 vo.     6s. 

MASTER-SPIRITS.    By  Robert  Buchanan.    Post  8vo.     los.  6d. 

"Good  Books  are  the  precious  life-blood  of  Master-Spirits."— Milton. 


Criticism  as  a  Fine  Art. 

Charles  Dickens. 

Tennyson. 

Browning's  Marteyneco. 

A  Young  English  Positivist. 

Hugo  in  1872. 

Prose  and  Verse. 


Birds  of  the  Hebrides. 
Scandinavian  Studies : — 
z.  A  Morning   in  Copen- 
hagen. 

2.  Bjornsen's  Masterpiece. 

3.  Old    Ballads    of    Den- 

mark. 


4.  Modern  Danish  Ballads. 
Poets  in  Obscurity  : — 

1.  George      Heath,      the 

Moorland  Poet. 

2.  William  Miller. 


These  are  some  of  the  author's  lighter 
and  more  generally  interesting  Essays  on 
literary  topics  of  permanent  interest.  His 


other  prose  contributions,  critical  and 
philosophical,  to  our  literature  are  included 
in  the  collected  editions  of  his  works. 


THEOLOGY  IN  THE  ENGLISH  POETS.  Being  Lectures  delivered 
by  the  Rev.  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen. 

MOUNTAIN,  MEADOW,  AND  MERE;  a  Series  of  Outdoor  Sketches 
of  Sport,  Scenery,  Adventures,  and  Natural  History.  By  G.  Chris- 
topher Davies.  With  16  Illustrations  by  W.  HARCOURT.  Crown  8vo, 
price  6s. 


HOW  TO  AMUSE  AND  EMPLOY  OUR  INVALIDS.     By  Harriet 
Power.     Fcap.  8vo.     Price  2s.  6d. 

What  Invalids  may  do  to  Amuse  Them- 
selves. 

What  Friends  and  Attendants  may  do  for 
them. 

Articles  for  comfort  in  a  Sick  Room. 


Amusement  for  Invalid  Children. 

To  the  Invalid. 

Comforts  and  Employment  for  the  Aged. 

Employment  for  Sunday. 


The  question,  so  often  put  by  invalids,  " 
answered  at  some  length  in  this  little  book, 
upon  in  the  many  manuals  for  nurses. 


Can  you  not  find  me  something  to  do  ? "  is 

which  takes  up  a  subject  but  little  touched 

\_Just  out. 


STUDIES    AND    ROMANCES. 

Crown  8vo.     Price  •js.  6d. 

Shakespeare  in  Blackfriars. 
The  Loves  of  Goethe. 
Romance  of  the  Thames. 
An  Exalted  Horn. 
Two  Sprigs  of  Edelweiss. 
Between  Moor  and  Main. 
An  Episode  of  the  Terror. 

"Vivacious  and  interesting." — Scotsman. 

"  Open  the  book,  however,  at  what  page 
the  reader  may,  he  will  find  something  to 
amuse  and  instruct,  and  he  must  be  very 


By  H.   Schutz  Wilson.      i  vol. 


Harry  Ormond's  Christmas  Dinner. 

Agnes  Bernauerin. 

"Yes"  or  "No"? 

A  Model  Romance. 

The  Story  of  Little  Jenny. 

Dining. 

The  Record  of  a  Vanished  Life. 

hard  to  please  if  he  finds  nothing  to  suit 
him,  either  grave  or  gay,  stirring  or  ro- 
mantic, in  the  capital  stories  collected  in 
this  well-got-up  volume." — John  Bull. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6°  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &>  Co., 


ESSAYS,  LECTURES,  me.— continued. 

SHORT  LECTURES  ON  THE  LAND  LAWS.  Delivered  before  the 
Working  Men's  College.  By  T.  Lean  Wilkinson.  Crown  8vo, 
limp  cloth,  2s. 


"  A  very  handy  and  intelligible  epitome 
of  the  general  principles  of  existing  land 
laws." — Standard.  '  * 

"  A  very  clear  and  lucid  statement  as  to 
the  condition  of  the  present  land  laws 


which  govern  our  country.  These  Lectures 
possess  the  advantage  of  not  being  loaded 
with  superfluous  matter." — Civil  Service 
Gazette, 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  OBSERVING 
POWERS  OF  CHILDREN,  especially  in  connection  with  the  Study 
of  Botany.  By  Eliza  A.  Youmans.  Edited,  with  Notes  and  a 
Supplement,  by  Joseph.  Payne,  F.C.P.,  Author  of  ''Lectures  on  the 
Science  and  Art  of  Education,"  &c.  Crown  8vo.  2s.  6d. 


This  study,  according  to  her  just  notions 
on  the  subject,  is  to  be  fundamentally 
based  on  the  exercise  of  the  pupil's  own 
powers  of  observation.  He  is  to  see  and 


examine  the  properties  of  plants  and 
flowers  at  first  hand,  not  merely  to  be 
informed  of  what  others  have  seen  and 
examined." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


THE  GENIUS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  UNVEILED.  Being  Essays 
by  William  Godwin,  Author  of  "  Political  Justice,"  &c.  Never  before 
published.  I  vol.,  crown  8vo.  >js.  6d. 


"  Few  have  thought  more  clearly  and 
directly  than  William  Godwin,  or  expressed 
their  reflections  with  more  simplicity  and 
unreserve." — Examiner. 


"  The  deliberate  thoughts  of  Godwin 
deserve  to  be  put  before  the  world  for 
reading  and  consideration." — Athenaum. 


THE    PELICAN    PAPERS.     Reminiscences  and  Remains  of  a  Dweller  in 
the  Wilderness.     By  James  Ashcroft  Noble.    Crown  8vo.     6s. 


"  Written  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of 
Mr.  Helps's '  Friends  in  Council.'" — Exa- 
miner. 

"  Will  well  repay  perusal  by  all  thought- 


ful  and   intelligent   readers." — Liverpool 
Leader. 

"The    'Pelican  Papers'   make  a  very 
readable  volume."— Civilian. 


BRIEFS   AND   PAPERS.     Being  Sketches  of  the  Bar  and  the  Press.     By 
Two  Idle  Apprentices.    Crown  8vo.    7-r.  6d. 


"  Written  with  spirit  and  knowledge,  and 
give  some  curious  glimpses  into  what  the 
majority  will  regard  as  strange  and  un- 
known territories." — Daily  News. 


"  This  is  one  of  the  best  books  to  while 
away  an  hour  and  cause  a  generous  laugh 
that  we  have  come  across  for  a  long  time." 
— John  Bull. 


65,  Cornhill ' ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  8.  King  &.  Co., 


ESSAYS,  LECTURES,  ETC. — continued. 


THE    SECRET    OF    LONG    LIFE.    Dedicated  by  Special  Permission  to 
Lord  St.  Leonards.     Third  Edition.    Large  crown  8vo.     5^. 


"  A  charming  little  volume." — Times. 
"A  very  pleasant  little  book,  cheerful, 
genial,  scholarly." — Spectator. 

"  We   should   recommend  our   readers 


to    get    this    book."— British    Quarterly 
Review. 

"  Entitled  to  the  warmest  admiration."— 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


SOLDIERING  AND   SCRIBBLING.     By  Archibald  Forbes,  of  the 

Daily  News,  Author  of  "My  Experience  of  the  War  between  France  and 
Germany."     Crown  8vo.     7-r.  6</. 


"  All  who  open  it  will  be  inclined  to  read 
through  for  the  varied  entertainment  which 
it  affords."— Daily  News. 

"  There  is  a  good  deal  of  instruction  to 


outsiders  touching    military  life,   in   this 
volume." — Evening  Standard. 

"Thoroughly  readable  and  worth  read- 
ing. " — Scotsman. 


THE  ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION.    By  Walter  Bagehot.    A  New 

Edition,  revised  and  corrected,  with  an  Introductory  Dissertation  on  recent 
changes  and  events.     Crown  8vo.     Js.  6d. 


"A  pleasing  and  clever  study  on  the 
department  of  higher  politics." — Guar- 
dian. 

"  No  writer  before  him  had  set  out  so 


clearly  what  the  efficient  part  of  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution  really  is."— /W/  Mall 
Gazette. 
"  Clear  and  practical."— Globe. 


REPUBLICAN  SUPERSTITIONS.  Illustrated  by  the  Political  History 
of  the  United  States.  Including  a  Correspondence  with  M.  Louis  Blanc. 
By  Moncure  D.  Conway.  Crown  8vo.  $s. 


"A  very  able  exposure  of  the  most 
plausible  fallacies  of  Republicanism,  by  a 
writer  of  remarkable  vigour  and  purity  of 
style. " — Standard. 


"  Mr.  Conway  writes  with  ardent  sin- 
cerity. He  gives  us  some  good  anecdotes, 
and  he  is  occasionally  almost  eloquent." — 
Guardian,  July  2,  1873. 


STREAMS    FROM    HIDDEN    SOURCES. 
Ranking.     Crown  8vo.     6s. 


By  B.  Montgomerie 


"  In  point  of  style  it  is  well  executed, 
and  the  prefatoi  V  notices  are  very  good."— 
Spectator. 

"The  effect  oJ  reading  the  seven  tales 
he  presents  to  m\  is  to  make  us  wish  for 
some  seven  more  of  the  same  kind." — Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

"  The  tales  are  given  throughout  in  the 
quaint  version  of  the  earliest  English  trans- 
lators, and  in  the  introduction  to  each  will 


be  found  much  curious  information  as  to 
their  origin,  and  the  fate  which  they  have 
met  at  the  hands  of  later  transcribers  or 
imitators,  and  much  tasteful  appreciation 
of  the  varied  sources  from  whence  they  are 
extracted.  .  .  .  We  doubt  not  that  Mr. 
Ranking's  enthusiasm  will  communicate 
itself  to  many  of  his  readers,  and  induce 
them  in  like  manner  to  follow  back  these 
streamlets  to  their  parent  river." — Graphic. 


65,  Cornhifl;  &•  iz,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 

-' 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6"  Co., 


MILITARY    WORKS. 


THE  GERMAN  ARTILLERY  IN  THE  BATTLES  NEAR  METZ. 
Based  on  the  official  reports  of  the  German  Artillery.  By  Captain 
Hoffbauer,  Instructor  in  the  German  Artillery  and  Engineer  School. 
Translated  by  Capt.  E.  O.  Hollist. 


This  history  gives  a  detailed  account  of 
the  movements  of  the  German  artillery  in 
the  three  days'  fighting  to  the  east  and 
west  of  Metz,  \yhich  resulted  in  paralyzing 
the  army  under  Marshal  Bazaine,  and  its 
subsequent  surrender.  The  action  of  the 
batteries  with  reference  to  the  other  arms 
is  clearly  explained,  and  the  valuable  maps 
show  the  positions  taken  up  by  the  indi- 
vidual, batteries  at  each  stage  of  the  con- 
tests. Tables  are  also  supplied  in  the 


Appendix,  furnishing  full  details  as  to  the 
number  of  killed  and  wounded,  expen- 
diture of  ammunition,  &c.  The  campaign 
of  1870 — 71  having  demonstrated  the  im- 
portance of  artillery  to  an  extent  which 
has  not  previously  been  conceded  to  it, 
this  work  forms  a  valuable  part  of  the 
literature  of  the  campaign,  and  will  be 
read  with  interest  not  only  by  members  of 
the  regular  but  also  by  those  of  the  aux- 
iliary forces. 


THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  ARMY,  UNDER  STEIN- 
METZ.  By  Von  Schell.  Translated  by  Captain  E.  O.  Hollist. 
Demy  8vo.  Uniform  with  the  other  volumes  in  the  Series.  Price  los.  6</. 

THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  BAVARIAN  ARMY  CORPS.  By 
Captain  Hugo  Helvig.  Translated  by  Captain  G-.  S.  Schwabe. 
With  5  large  Maps.  Demy  8vo.  Uniform  with  the  other  Books  in  the 
Series. 

DRILL     REGULATIONS     OF     THE     AUSTRIAN     CAVALRY. 

From  an  Abridged  Edition  compiled  by  CAPTAIN  ILLIA  WORNOVITS,  of 
the  General  Staff,  on  the  Tactical  Regulations  of  the  Austrian  Army,  and 
prefaced  by  a  General  Sketch  of  the  Organisation,  &c.,  of  the  Country. 
Translated  by  Captain  W.  S.  Cooke.  Crown  8vo,  limp  cloth. 

THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  ARMY  UNDER  GEN. 
VON  GOEBEN.  By  Major  Von  Schell.  Translated  by  Col.  C. 
H.  Von  WrighJ.  Four  Maps.  Demy  8vo.  gs. 


History  of  the  Organisation,  Equipment,  and  War  Services  of 

THE  REGIMENT  OF  BENGAL  ARTILLERY.  Compiled  from 
Published  Official  and  other  Records,  and  various  private  sources,  by 
Major  Francis  W.  Stubbs,  Royal  (late  Bengal)  Artillery.  Vol.  I. 
will  contain  WAR  SERVICES.  The  Second  Volume  will  be  published 
separately,  and  will  contain  the  HISTORY  OF  THE  ORGANISATION  AND 
EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  REGIMENT.  In  2  vols.  8vo.  With  Maps  and 
Plans.  [Preparing. 


65,  CornhUl ;  6-12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


i6 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6°  Co., 


MILITARY  WORKS— continued. 

THE  ABOLITION  OF  PURCHASE  AND  THE  ARMY  REGU- 
LATION BILL  OF  1871.  By  Lieut. -Col.  the  Hon.  A.  Alison, 
V.C.,  M.P.  Crown  8vo.  Price  One  Shilling. 


THE    STORY    OF    THE    SUPERSESSIONS.    By  Lieut.-Col.  the 
Hon.  A.  Anson,  V.C.,  M.P,     Crown  8vo.     Price  Sixpence. 


ARMY    RESERVES    AND     MILITIA    REFORMS.      By  Lieut.- 
Col.  the  Hon.  A.  Anson.    Crown  8vo.    Sewed.     Price  One  Shilling. 


VICTORIES  AND  DEFEATS.  An  Attempt  to  explain  the  Causes  which 
have  led  to  them.  An  Officer's  Manual.  By  Col.  B.  P.  Anderson. 
Demy  8vo.  iqs. 


"A  delightful  military  classic,  and  what 
is  more,  a  most  useful  one.  The  young 
officer  should  have  it  always  at  hand  to 
open  anywhere  and  read  a  bit,  and  we 


warrant  him  that  let  that  bit  be  ever  so 
small  it  will  give  him  material  for  an 
hour's  thinking." — United  Service  Gazette. 


THE  FRONTAL  ATTACK  OF  INFANTRY.    By  Capt.  Laymann, 

Instructor  of  Tactics   at  the   Military  College,   Neisse.     Translated    by 
Colonel  Edward  Newdigate.     Crown  8vo,  limp  cloth.     Price  2s.  6d. 

"  This  work  has  met  with  special  attention  in  our  tsatyf—MMtari*  Wochenblatt. 


THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  ARMY  IN  NORTHERN 
FRANCE  AGAINST  FAIDHERBE.  By  Colonel  Count  Her- 
mann Von  Wartensleben,  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the  First  Army. 
Translated  by  Colonel  C.  H.  Von  "Wright.  In  demy  8vo.  Uniform 
with  the  above.  Price  s. 


"  Very  clear,  simple,  yet  eminently  in- 
structive, is  this  history.  It  is  not  over- 
laden with  useless  details,  is  written  in 
good  taste,  and  possesses  the  inestimable 
value  of  being  in  great  measure  the  record 
of  operations  actually  witnessed  by  the 
author,  supplemented  by  official  docu- 
ments."—A  thetueum. 


"The  work  is  based  on  the  official  war 
documents — it  is  especially  valuable — the 
narrative  is  remarkably  vivid  and  interest- 
ing. Two  well-executed  maps  enable  the 
reader  to  trace  out  the  scenes  of  General 
Manteuffel's  operations."  —  Naval  and 
Military  Gazette. 


ELEMENTARY  MILITARY  GEOGRAPHY,  RECONNOITRING, 
AND  SKETCHING.  Compiled  for  Non- Commissioned  Officers  and 
Soldiers  of  all  Arms.  By  Lieut.  C.  E.  H.  Vincent,  Royal  Welsh 
Fusileers.  Small  crown  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

"An  admirable  little  manual  full  of  facts  and  teachings. "—  United  Service  Gazette. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &•  Co., 


MILITARY  WORKS — continued. 


STUDIES  IN  THE  NEW  INFANTRY  TACTICS.  Parts  I.  &  II. 
By  Major  W.  Von  Schereff.  Translated  from  the  German  by  Col. 
Lumley  Graham.  Price  'js.  6d. 


"  Major  Von  Schereff's  '  Studies  in  Tac- 
tics' is  worthy  of  the  perusal— indeed,  of 
the  thoughtful  study — of  every  military 
man.  The  subject  of  the  respective  advan- 
tages of  attack  and  defence,  and  of  the 
methods  in  which  each  form  of  battle 
should  be  carried  out  under  the  fire  of 


modern  arms,  is  exhaustively  and  admir- 
ably treated  ;  indeed,  we  cannot  but  con- 
sider it  to  be  decidedly  superior  to  any 
work  which  has  hitherto  appeared  in  Eng- 
lish-upon  this  all-important  subject."— 
Standard. 


TACTICAL  DEDUCTIONS  FROM  THE  WAR  OF  1870—1.  By 
Captain  A.  Von  Boguslawski.  Translated  by  Colonel  Lumley 
Graham,  late  i8th  (Royal  Irish)  Regiment.  Demy  8vo.  Uniform  with 
the  above.  Price  JS. 

British  Service  ;  and  we  cannot  commence 
the  good  work  too  soon,  or  better,  than  by 
placing  the  two  books  ('  The  Operations  of 
the  German  Armies'  and  'Tactical  Deduc- 
tions') we  have  here  criticised,  in  every 
military  library,  and  introducing  them  as 
class-books  in  every  tactical  school." — 
Unittd  Service  Gazttte. 


"Major  Boguslawski's  tactical  deduc- 
tions from  the  war  are,  that  infantry  still 
preserve  their  superiority  over  cavalry, 
that  open  order  must  henceforth  be  the 
main  principles  of  all  drill,  and  that  the 
chassepot  is  the  best  of  all  small  arms  for 
precision.  .  .  .  We  must,  without  delay, 
impress  brain  and  forethought  into  the 


THE  ARMY  OF  THE  NORTH-GERMAN  CONFEDERATION. 
A  Brief  Description  of  its  Organisation,  of  the  different  Branches  of  the 
Service  and  their  '  Role '  in  War,  of  its  Mode  of  Fighting,  &c.  By  a 
Prussian  General.  Translated  from  the  German  by  Col.  Edward 
Newdigate.  Demy  8vo.  5.5-. 

*»*  The  authorship  of  this  book  was  erroneously  ascribed  to  the  renowned  General  von 
Moltke,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  written  under  his  immediate  inspiration. 


THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  GERMAN  ARMIES  IN  FRANCE, 
FROM  SEDAN  TO  THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1870—1. 
With  Large  Official  Map.  From  the  Journals  of  the  Head-quarters  Staff, 
by  Major  Wm.  Blume.  Translated  by  E.  M.  Jones,  Major  2oth 
Foot,  late  Professor  of  Military  History,  Sandhurst.  Demy  8vo.  Price  ys. 


"The  book  is  of  absolute  necessity  to  the 
military  student.  .  .  .  The  work  is  one 
of  high  merit."—  United  Service  Gazette. 

"The  work  of  translation  has  been  well 
done.  In  notes,  prefaces,  and  introductions, 
much  additional  information  has  been 
given." — A  thencenm. 

"  The  work  of  Major  von  Blume  in  its 
English  dress  forms  the  most  valuable 


addition  to  our  stock  of  works  upon  the 
war  that  our  press  has  put  forth.  Major 
Blume  writes  with  a  clear  conciseness  much 
wanting  in  many  of  his  country's  historians. 
Our  space  forbids  our  doing  more  than 
commending  it  earnestly  as  the  most  au- 
thentic and  instructive  narrative  of  the 
second  section  of  the  war  that  has  yet 
appeared." — Saturday  Review. 


THE  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  SOUTH  ARMY  IN  JANUARY 
AND  FEBRUARY,  1871.  Compiled  from  the  Official  War  Docu- 
ments of  the  Head-quarters  of  the  Southern  Army.  By  Count  Hermann 
Von  Wartensleben,  Colonel  in  the  Prussian  General  Staff.  Translated 
by  Colonel  C.  H.  Von  Wright.  Demy  8vo,  with  Maps.  Uniform 
•with  the  above.  Price  6s. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London, 


i8 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  c^  Co., 


MILITARY  WORKS— continued. 

HASTY    INTRENCHMENTS.     By  Colonel  A.  Brialmont.    Trans- 
lated  by  Lieutenant  Charles  A.  Empson,  R.A.     Demy  8vo.     Nine 


Plates.     Price  6s. 

"  A  valuable  contribution  to  military 
literature." — A  tkenceum. 

"  In  seven  short  chapters  it  gives  plain 
directions  for  forming  shelter  -  trenches, 
with  the  best  method  of  carrying  the  neces- 
sary tools,  and  it  offers  practical  illustrations 
of  the  use  of  hasty  intrenchments  on  the  field 
of  battle. '' — United  Service  Magazine. 

"  It  supplies  that  which  our  own  text- 


books  give  but  imperfectly,  viz.,  hints  as 
to  how  a  position  can  best  be  strengthened 
by  means  ...  of  such  extemporised  ia- 
trenchments  and  batteries  as  can  be  thrown 
up  by  infantry  in  the  space  of  four  or  five 
hours  .  .  .  deserves  to  become  a  standard 
military  work." — Standard. 

"  Clearly  and  critically  written." — Wel- 
lington Gazette. 


STUDIES  IN  LEADING  TROOPS.  By  Colonel  Von  Verdy  Du 
Vernois.  An  authorised  and  accurate  Translation  by  Lieutenant 
H.  J.  T.  Hildyard,  7ist  Foot.  Parts  I.  and  II.  Demy  8vo.  Price  ^s. 

tunately-placed  staff-officer  is  in  a  position 
to  give.  I  have  read  and  re-read  them 
very  carefully,  I  hope  with  profit,  certainly 
with  great  interest,  and  believe  that  prac- 
tice, in  the  sense  of  these  '  Studies,'  would 
be  a  valuable  preparation  for  manoeuvres 
on  a  more  extended  scale." — Berlin,  June, 
1872. 


V*  General  BEAUCHAMP  WALKER  says 
of  this  work: — "I  recommend  the  first 
two  numbers  of  Colonel  von  Verdy's 
'  Studies '  to  the  attentive  perusal  of  my 
brother  officers.  They  supply  a  want 
which  I  have  often  felt  during  my  service 
in  this  country,  namely,  a  minuter  tactical 
detail  of  the  minor  operations  of  the  war 
than  any  but  the  most  observant  and  for- 


THE  SUBSTANTIVE  SENIORITY  ARMY  LIST,  Majors  and 
Captains.  By  Captain  F.  B.  P.  White,  1st  W.  I.  Regiment.  8vo, 
sewed.  2s.  6d. 


CAVALRY  FIELD  DUTY.  By  Major-General  Von  Minis.  Trans- 
lated by  Captain  Frank  S.  Russell,  I4th  (King's)  Hussars.  Crown 
8vo,  limp  cloth.  Js,  6d. 


*»*  This  is  the  text-book  of  instruction 
in  the  German  cavalry,  and  comprises  all 
the  details  connected  with  the  military 
duties  of  cavalry  soldiers  on  service.  The 
translation  is  made  from  a  new  edition, 
which  contains  the  modifications  intro- 


duced consequent  on  the  experiences  of 
the  late  war.  The  great  interest  that  stu- 
dents feel  in  all  the  German  military 
methods,  will,  it  is  believed,  render  this 
book  especially  acceptable  at  the  present 
time. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DRILL.  Four  Lectures  delivered  to  the  London 
Scottish  Rifle  Volunteers.  By  Captain  S.  Flood  Page.  A  New  and 
Cheaper  Edition.  Price  is. 


"  One  of  the  best-known  and  coolest- 
headed  of  the  metropolitan  regiments, 
whose  adjutant  moreover  has  lately  pub- 
lished an  admirable  collection  of  lectures 


addressed  by  him  to  the  men  of  his  corps.' 
— Times. 

"  The  very  useful  and  interesting  work. ' 
— Volunteer  Service  Gazette. 


65,  Cornhill  i  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  Xing  &>  Co., 


INDIA   AND    THE  EAST. 


THE   ORIENTAL   SPORTING    MAGAZINE.    A  Reprint  of  the  first 
5  Volumes,  in  2  Volumes,  demy  8vo.  price  28^. 


These  volumes  contain  many  quaint  and 
clever  papers,  among  which  we  may  men- 
tion the  famous  Sporting  Songs  written  by 
S.  Y.  S.,  of  "The  Boar,  Saddle,  Spur, 
and  Spear,"  &c.,&c.— Capt.  MORRIS,  of  the 
Bombay  Army  ;  as  well  as  descriptions  of 
Hog  Hunts,  Fox  Hunts,  Lion  Hunts, 
Tiger  Hunts,  and  Cheeta  Hunts;  ac- 
counts of  Shooting  Excursions  for  Snipe, 
Partridges,  Quail,  Toucan,  Ortolan,  and 


Wild  Fowl ;  interesting  details  of  Pigeon 
Matches,  Cock  Fights,  Horse,  Tattoo,  and 
Donkey  Races  :  descriptions  of  the  Origin, 
Regulations,  and  Uniforms  of  Hunting 
Clubs;  Natural  History  of  rare  Wild 
Animals  ;  Memoranda  of  Feats  of  Noted 
Horses;  and  Memoirs  and  .Anecdotes  of 
celebrated  Sporting  characters,  &c. ,  &c. 

[Just  out. 


THE  EUROPEAN  IN  INDIA.  A  Hand-book  of  Practical  Information 
for  those  proceeding  to,  or  residing  in,  the  East  Indies,  relating  to  Outfits, 
Routes,  Time  for  Departure,  Indian  Climate,  &c.  By  Edmund  C.  P. 
Hull.  With  a  MEDICAL  GUIDE  FOR  ANGLO-INDIANS.  Being  a  Com- 
pendium of  Advice  to  Europeans  in  India,  relating  to  the  Preservation  and 
Regulation  of  Health.  By  B.  S.  Mair,  M.D.,  F.B.C.S.E.,  Late 
Deputy  Coroner  of  Madras.  In  I  vol.  Post  8vo.  6s. 


"  Full  of  all  sorts  of  useful  information 
to  the  English  settler  or  traveller  in  India." 
— Standard. 

"  One  of  the  most  valuable  books  ever 
published  in  India — valuable  for  its  sound 
information,  its  careful  array  of  pertinent 
facts,  and  its  sterling  common  sense.  It  is 


a  publisher's  as  well  as  an  author's  '  hit,' 
for  it  supplies  a  want  which  few  persons 
may  have  discovered,  but  which  everybody 
will  at  once  recognise  when  once  the  con- 
tents of  the  book  have  been  mastered. 
The  medical  part  of  the  work  is  invalu- 
able."— Calcutta  Guardian. 


THE  MEDICAL  GUIDE  FOR  ANGLO-INDIANS.  Being  a  Com- 
pendium  of  advice  to  Europeans  in  India,  relating  to  the  Preservation 
and  Regulation  of  Health.  By  B.  S.  Mair,  F.B.C.S.E.,  late  Deputy 
Coroner  of  Madras.  Reprinted,  with  numerous  additions  and  corrections, 
from  "The  European  in  India.", 


EASTERN  EXPERIENCES.  By  L.  Bowring,  C.S.I.,  Lord  Canning's 
Private  Secretary,  and  for  many  years  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Mysore 
and  Coorg.  In  I  vol.  Demy  8vo.  i6.r.  Illustrated  with  Maps  and 
Diagrams. 


"An  admirable  and  exhaustive  geo- 
graphical, political,  and  industrial  survey." 
— A  therueum. 

"The  usefulness  of  this  compact  and 
methodical  summary  of  the  most  authentic 
information  relating  to  countries  whose 
welfare  is  intimately  connected  with  our 


own,  should  obtain  for  Mr.  Lewin  Bow- 


ring's  work  a 
of  its  kind." — 


place  among  treatises 
~)aily  News. 
"  Interesting  even  to  the  general  reader, 
but  more  especially  so  to  those  who  may 
have  a  special  concern  in  that  portion  of 
our  Indian  Empire."— Post. 


TAS-HIL  UL  KALAM ;  OR,  HINDUSTANI  MADE  EASY.  By  Captain 
W.  B.  M.  Holroyd,  Bengal  Staff  Corps,  Director  of  Public  Instruction 
Punjab.  Crown  8vo.  Price  5-v. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


20 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co., 


INDIA  AND  THE  EAST — continued. 

WESTERN  INDIA  BEFORE  AND  DURING  THE  MUTINIES. 
Pictures  drawn  from  Life.  By  Major-Gen.  Sir  George  Le  Grand 
Jacob,  K. C.S.I.,  C.B.  In  i  vol.  Crown  8vo.  7-r.  6d. 


'The  most  important  contribution  to 
the  history  of  Western  India  during  the 
Mutinies  which  has  yet,  in  a  popular 
form  been  made  public." — AtJieiuenm. 


"  Few  men  more  competent  than  him- 
self to  speak  authoritatively  concerning 
Indian  affairs." — Standard. 


EDUCATIONAL  COURSE  OF  SECULAR  SCHOOL  BOOKS 
FOR  INDIA.  Edited  by  J.  S.  Laurie,  of  the  Inner  Temple,  Barrister- 
at-Law;  formerly  H.M.  Inspector  of  Schools,  England;  Assistant  Royal 
Commissioner,  Ireland ;  Special  Commissioner,  African  Settlements ; 
Director  of  Public  Instruction,  Ceylon. 


EXTRACT  FROM  PROSPECTUS. 


The  Editor  has  undertaken  to  frame  for 
India, — what  he  has  been  eminently  suc- 
cessful in  doing  for  England  and  her 
colonies, — a  series  of  educational  works, 
which  he  hopes  will  prove  as  suitable  for 
the  peculiar  wants  of  the  country  as  they 
will  be  consistent  with  the  leading  idea 
above  alluded  to.  Like  all  beginnings,  his 
present  instalments  are  necessarily  some- 
what meagre  and  elementary ;  but  he  only 


awaits  official  and  public  approval  to  com- 
plete, within  a  comparatively  brief  period, 
his  contemplated  plan  of  a  specific  and 
fairly  comprehensive  series  of  works  in  the 
various  leading  vernaculars  of  the  Indian 
continent.  Meanwhile,  those  on  his  general 
catalogue  may  be  found  suitable,  in  their 
present  form,  for  use  in  the  Anglo-ver- 
nacular and  English  schools  of  India. 


The  following  Works  are  now  ready:— 


THE  FIRST  HINDUSTANI 
BE  ADEB,  stiff  linen  wrapper  . 

Ditto     ditto     strongly  bound  in  cloth  . 

THE  SECOND  HINDUSTANI 
BE  ADEB,  stiff  linen  wrapper  .  .  u  u 

Ditto     ditto     strongly  bound  in  cloth  .     o    9 


s.  d. 

o  6 

o  9 

o  6 


s.  d. 


GEOGBAPHY  OF  INDIA,  with 
Maps  and  Historical  Appendix, 
tracing  the  growth  of  the  British 
Empire  in  Hindustan.  128  pp. 
Cloth.  .  .16 


In  the  Press. 


ELEMENTARY 
INDIA. 


GEOGRAPHY      OF 


FACTS  AND  FEATURES  OF  INDIAN 
HISTORY,  in  a  series  of  alternating 
Reading  Lessons  and  Memory  Exercises. 


EXCHANGE  TABLES  OF  STERLING  AND  INDIAN  RUPEE 
CURRENCY,  UPON  A  NEW  AND  EXTENDED  SYSTEM,  embracing  Values 
from  One  Farthing  to  One  Hundred  Thousand  Pounds,  and  at  rates  pro- 
gressing, in  Sixteenths  of  a  Penny,  from  u.  gd.  to  2s.  $d.  per  Rupee.  By 
Donald  Eraser,  Accountant  to  the  British  Indian  Steam  Navigation  Co., 
Limited.  Royal  8vo.  icv.  6d. 


"The  calculations  must  have  entailed 
great  labour  on  the  author,  but  the  work 
is  one  which  we  fancy  must  become  a 
standard  one  in  all  business  houses  which 


have  dealings  with  any  country  where  the 
rupee  and  the  English  pound  are  standard 
corns  of  currency." — Inverness  Courier. 


65,  Cornhill ;  &•*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &*  Co.,  21 


BOOKS  FOR    THE    YOUNG  AND  FOR  LENDING 
LIBRARIES. 


LAYS  OF  MANY  LANDS.  By  a  Knight  Errant.  Illustrated.  Crown  8vo. 

Pharaoh  Land.  Wonder  Land. 

Home  Land.  Rhine  Land. 

SEEKING  HIS  FORTUNE,  AND  OTHER  STORIES.     Crown  8vo. 
Four  Illustrations.     Price  3^.  6d. 

CONTENTS.— Seeking  his  Fortune.— Oluf  and  Stephanoff.— What's  in  a  Name?— 
Contrast. — Onesta. 

A  series  of  instructive  and  interesting  stories  for  children  of  both  sexes,  each  one 
enforcing,  indirectly,  a  good  moral  lesson. 

DADDY'S  PET.     By  Mrs.  Ellen  Ross  (Nelsie  Brook).     Square  crown 
8vo,  uniform  with  "  Lost  Gip."     6  Illustrations. 

A  pathetic  story  of  lowly  life,  showing  the  good  influence  of  home  and  of  child-life 
upon  an  uncultivated  but  true-hearted  "navvy." 

THREE  WORKS  BY  MARTHA  FARQUHARSON. 

Each  Story  is  independent  and  complete  in  itself.     They  are  published  in  uniform 
size  and  price,  and  are  elegantly  bound  and  illustrated. 

I.  ELSIE  DINSMORE.     Crown  8vo.     3-r.  6rf. 
II.  ELSIE'S  GIRLHOOD.     Crown  8vo.     3*.  &/. 
III.  ELSIE'S  HOLIDAYS  AT  ROSELANDS.     Crown  8vo.  3*  6J. 

The  Stories  by  this  author  have  a  very  high  reputation  in  America,  and  of  all  her  books 
these  are  the  most  popular  and  widely  circulated.  These  are  the  only  English  editions 
sanctioned  by  the  author,  who  has  a  direct  interest  in  this  English  Edition. 

LOST    GIP.     By  Hesba  Stretton,  Author  of  "Little  Meg,"  "Alone  in 
London."     Square  crown  8vo.     Six  Illustrations.     Price  is.  6d. 

V  A    HANDSOMELY  BOUND   EDITION,    WITH    TWELVE   ILLUSTRA- 
TIONS,  PRICE   HALF-A-CROWN. 


"Thoroughly  enlists  the  sympathies  of 
the  reader." — Church  Review. 

"  Full  of    tender    touches."— Noncon- 


formist. 

"An  exquisitely  touching  little  story.1 
—Church  Herald. 


THE  KING'S  SERVANTS.      By  Hesba  Stretton,   Author  of  "Lost 

Gip."     Square  crown  8vo,  uniform  with   "Lost  Gip."     8  Illustrations. 
Price  is.  bd. 

Part  I.— Faithful  in  Little.  Part  II.— Unfaithful.     Part  III. -Faithful  in  Much. 

AT    SCHOOL    WITH    AN     OLD     DRAGOON.     By  Stephen   J. 
Mac  Kenna.     Crown  8vo.     5^.     With  Six  Illustrations. 


"  At  Ghuznee  Villa." 

Introductory. 

Henry  and  Amy. 

A  Story  of  Canterbury. 

A  Disastrous  Trumpet  Call. 

A  Baptism  of  Fire. 


In  a  Golden  Fort. 
A  Little  Game. 
True  to  his  Salt. 
Mother  Moran's  Enemies. 
Sooka  the  Sycee;  or,    Sea 
Horses  in  Reality. 


A  Baptism  of  Frost. 
Who  Shot  the  Kafirs. 
John    Chinaman    and    the 
Middies. 


A  Series  of  Stories  of  Military  and  Naval  Adventure,  related  by  an  old  Retired  Officer 
of  the  Army. 

65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


22 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co., 


BOOKS  FOR  THE  YOUNG,  ETC. — continued. 

FANTASTIC  STORIES.  Translated  from  the  German  of  Richard 
Leander,  by  Paulina  B.  Granville.  Crown  8vo.  Eight  full-page 
Illustrations. 


The  Wishing  Ring. 

The  Three  Princesses  with 

Hearts  of  Glass. 
The  Old  Bachelor. 
Sepp's  Courtship. 
Heino  in  the  Marsh. 
Unlucky  Dog  and  Fortune's 

Favourite. 


The  Dreaming  Beech. 

The    Little    Hump-Backed 

Maiden. 

Heavenly  Music. 
The  Old  Hair  Trunk. 


The  Magic  Organ. 
The  Invisible  Kingdom. 
The     Knight     who    Grew 

Rusty. 
Of  the  Queen  who  could  not 

make   Gingerbread   Nuts, 

and  of  the  King  who  could 

not  play  the  Jew's  Harp. 

These  are  translations  of  some  of  the  best  of  Richard  Leander's  well-known  stories  for 
children.     The  illustrations  to  this  work  are  of  singular  beauty  and  finish. 


THE  AFRICAN  CRUISER.  A  Midshipman' s  Adventures  on  the  West 
Coast.  A  Book  for  Boys.  By  S.  Whitchurch  Sadler,  R.  N.  Three 
Illustrations.  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

A  book  of  real  adventures  among  slavers  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.     One  chief 
recommendation  is  the  faithfulness  of  the  local  colouring. 

THE    LITTLE    WONDER-HORN. 

Series  of  "Stories  told  to  a  Child, 
y.  6ct. 

"  Full  of  fresh  and  vigorous  fancy  :  it  is 
worthy  of  the  author  of  some  of  the  best  of 
our  modern  verse." — Standard. 


By  Jean  Ingelow.     A  Second 
Fifteen  Illustrations.     Cloth,  gilt. 

"  We  like  all  the  contents  of  the  '  Little 
Wonder-Horn'  very  much." — Athenceum. 

"  We  recommend  it  with  confidence." — 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


Second  Edition. 

BRAVE  MEN'S  FOOTSTEPS.  A  Book  of  Example  and  Anecdote  for 
Young  People.  By  the  Editor  of  "Men  who  have  Risen."  With 
Four  Illustrations.  By  C.  Doyle. 

*'  The  little  volume  is  precisely  of  the 
stamp  to  win  the  favour  of  those  who,  in 


choosing  a  gift  for  a  boy,  would  consult  his 
moral  development  as  well  as  his  temporary 
pleasure." — Daily  Telegraph. 


y.  6<t. 

"A  readable  and  instructive  volume."— 
Examiner. 

"  No  more  welcome  book  for  the  school- 
boy could  be  imagined." — Birmingham 
Daily  Gazette. 


Third  Edition. 


STORIES  IN  PRECIOUS  STONES.  By  Helen  Zimmern.  With 
Six  Illustrations.  Ciown  8vo.  5-r. 
"A  pretty  little  book  which  fanciful 
young  persons  will  appreciate,  and  which 
will  remind  its  readers  of  many  a  legend,  and 
many  an  imaginary  virtue  attached  to  the 
gems  they  are  so  fond  of  wearing.'' — Post. 


"  A  series  of  pretty  talesjvhich  are  half 
fantastic,  half  natural,  and  pleasantly 
quaint,  as  befits  stories  intended  for  the 
young."— Daily  Telegraph. 


Second  Edition. 

GUTTA-PERCHA  WILLIE,  THE  WORKING  GENIUS,  By 
George  Macdonald.  With  Illustrations  by  Arthur  Hughes.  Crown 
8vo.  3-r.  6d. 


"An  amusing  and  instructive  book." — 
Yorkshire  Post.* 

"  One  of  those  charming  books  for  which 
the  author  is  so  well  known.  "—Edinburgh 
Daily  Review. 


"  The  cleverest  child  we  know  assures  us 
she  has  read  this  story  through  five  times. 
Mr.  Macdonald  will,  we  are  convinced, 
accept  that  verdict  upon  his  little  work  as 
final." — Spectator. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6**  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6^  Co., 


BOOKS  FOR  THE  YOUNG,  ETC. — continued. 

THE   TRAVELLING   MENAGERIE.    By  Charles  Camden,  Author 
of  "Hoity  Toity."     Illustrated  by  J.  Mahoney.     Crown  8vo.     $s.  6d. 

"  A  capital  little  book  ....  deserves  a    I        "A    very  attractive    story."  —  Public 
wide  circulation  among  our  boys  and  girls."    I   Opinion* 
— Hour. 


PLUCKY  FELLOWS.    A  Book  for  Boys.    By  Stephen  J.  Mac  Kenna. 

With  Six  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.     Price  3-r.  6d. 


"  This  is  one  of  the  very  best  '  Books  for 
Boys '  which  have  been  issued  this  year."— 
Morning  Advertiser. 


"A  thorough  bdbk  for  boys  .  .  .  written    j    Society. 


throughout  in  a  manly  straightforward 
manner  that  is  sure  to  win  the  hearts  of  the 
children  for  whom  it  is  intended." — London 


THE  GREAT   DUTCH  ADMIRALS.    By  Jacob  de  Liefde.    Crown 
8vo.     Illustrated.     Price    ^. 


"A  really  good  book." — Standard. 

"  May  be  recommended  as  a  wholesome 
present  for  boys.  They  will  find  in  it  nu- 
merous tales  of  adventure."— A  thenceum. 


"  Thoroughly    interesting  and  inspirit- 
ing."— Public  Opinion. 

''A  really  excellent  book." — Spectator. 


New  Edition . 

THE  DESERT  PASTOR,  JEAN  JAROUSSEAU.  Translated  from 
the  French  of  Eugene  Pelletan.  By  Colonel  E.  P.  De  L'Hoste. 
In  fcap.  8vo,  with  an  Engraved  Frontispiece.  Price  3-r.  6d. 


"There  is  a  poetical  simplicity  and  pic- 
turesqueness ;  the  noblest  heroism ;  unpre- 
tentious religion ;  pure  love,  and  the 
spectacle  of  a  household  brought  up  in  the 

fear  of  the  Lord ''—Illustrated 

London  News. 


"This  charming  specimen  of  Eugene 
Pelletan's  tender  grace,  humour,  and  high- 
toned  morality." — Notes  and  Queries. 

"  A  touching  record  of  the  struggles  in 
the  cause  of  religious  liberty  of  a  real 
man. "— -Graphic. 


THE    DESERTED    SHIP.     A  Real  Story  of  the  Atlantic.     By  Cupples 
Howe,  Master  Mariner.     Illustrated  by  Townley  Green.     Crown  8vo. 


"Curious  adventures  with  bears,  seals, 
and  other  Arctic  animals,  and  with  scarcely 
more  human  Esquimaux,  form  the  mass  of 


material  with  which  the  story  deals,  and 
will  much  interest  boys  who  have  a  spice 
of  romance  in  their  composition."— Courant. 


HOITV    TOITY,    THE    GOOD    LITTLE    FELLOW.     By  Charles 

Camden.     Illustrated.     Crown  8vo.  3*.  6d. 

"  Young  folks  may  gather  a  good  deal  of  a  charming  little  fellow  who  meddles  always 

wisdom  from  the   story,   which  is  written  with  a  kindly  disposition  with  other  people's 

in  an   amusing    and    attractive    style." —  affairs  and  helps  them  to  do  right.    JTher 
Courant. 

"  Relates  very  pleasantly  the  history  of 


are  many  shrewd  lessons  to  be  picked  up  in 
this  clever  little  story."— Ptiblic  Opinion. 


65,  Cornhill ;   &  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  cSv  Co., 


POETRY. 


LYRICS  OF  LOVE  FROM  SHAKESPEARE  TO  TENNYSON. 
Selected  and  arranged  by  W.  Davenport  Adams.  Fcap.  8vo,  price 
3-r.  6d. 

"  He  has  the  prettiest  love-songs  for  maids."— Shakespeare. 

DEDICATED  BY  PERMISSION  TO  THE  POET  LAUREATE. 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT'S  POEMS.  Red-line  Edition.  Hand- 
somely  bound.  With  Illustrations  and  Portrait  of  the  Author.  Price  7-r.  6d. 

A  Cheaper  Edition  is  also  published.     Price  3^.  6d. 
These  are  the  only  complete  English  Editions  sanctioned  by  the  A  utJior. 

ENGLISH  SONNETS.  Collected  and  Arranged  by  John  Dennis. 
Small  crown  8vo.  Elegantly  bound,  price  3-r.  6d. 

HOME-SONGS  FOR  QUIET  HOURS.     By  the  Rev.  Canon  R.  H. 
Baynes,  Editor  of  "  English  Lyrics"  and  "Lyra  Anglicana." 
Handsomely  printed  and  bound,  price  3^.  6d. 

THE  DISCIPLES.  A  New  Poem.  By  Harriet  Eleanor  Hamilton 
King.  Crown  8vo.  Js.  6d. 

The  present  work  was  commenced  at 
the  express  instance  of  the  great  Italian 
patriot,  Mazzini,  and  commemorates  some 
of  his  associates  and  fellow-workers — men 
who  looked  up  to  him  as  their  master  and 


teacher.  The  author  enjoyed  the  privilege 
of  Mazzini's  friendship,  and  the  first  part 
of  this  work  was  on  its  way  to  him  when 
tidings  reached  this  country  that  he  had 
passed  away. 


SONGS  FOR  MUSIC.    By  Four  Friends.     Square  crown  8 vo. 

CONTAINING  SONGS   BY 

Reginald  A.  Gatty.  Stephen  H.  Gatty. 

Greville  J.  Chester.  J.  H.  E. 

THE    POETICAL    AND     PROSE    WORKS    OF    ROBERT    BU 
CHAANAN.      Collected  Edition,  in  5  Vols. 


Vol.    I.    Contains.— "  Ballads  and  Ro- 
mances ;"  "  Ballads  and  Poems  of  Life." 
Vol.  II.—"  Ballads  and  Poems  of  Life  ;" 


"Allegories  and  Sonnets." 

Vol.  III.—"  Cruiskeen  Sonnets ; " 
of  Orm  ;"  "  Political  Mystics." 


'Book 


The  Contents  of  the  remaining  Volumes  will  be  duly  announced. 


THOUGHTS  IN  VERSE,  Small  crown  8vo. 

This  is  a  Collection  of  Verses  expressive 
of  religious  feeling,  written  from  a  Theistic 
stand-point. 

COSMOS.    A  Poem.     Small  crown  8vo. 

SUBJECT.— Nature  in  the  Past  and  in  the 
Present.— Man  in  the  Past  and  in  the  Pre- 
sent.—The  Future. 

VIGNETTES  IN  RHYME.  Collected 
Verses.  By  Austin  Dobson.  Crown  8vo. 
Price  5-r. 

A  Collection  of  Vers  de  Societe,  for  the 
most  part  contributed  to  various  magazines. 


NARCISSUS    AND    OTHER    POEMS. 

By  E.  Carpenter.     Small  crown   8vo. 

Price  5*. 
A    TALE    OF    THE    SEA,    SONNETS, 

AND    OTHER   POEMS.      By  James 

Howell.     Crown  8vo,  cloth,  $j. 
IMITATIONS   PROM    THE    GERMAN 

OP    SPITTA    AND    TERSTEGEN. 

By  Lady  Durand.     Crown  8vo.     45. 
"An  acceptable  addition  to  the  religious 

poetry  of  the  day." — Courant. 
METRICAL    TRANSLATIONS    FROM 

THE  GREEK  AND  LATIN  POETS, 

AND  OTHER  POEMS.   By  R.  B. 

Boswell,  M.A.  O.xon.     Crown  8vo. 


65,  Cornhill ;  &  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co., 


ON  VIOL  AND  FLUTE.  A  New  Volume 
of  Poems,  by  Edmund  W.  Gosse.  With 
a  Frontispiece  by  W.  B.  Scott.  Crown 
8vo. 

EASTERN  LEGENDS  AND  STORIES 
IN  ENGLISH  VERSE.  By  Lieu- 
tenant Norton  Powlett,  Royal  Artillery. 
Crown  8vo.  55. 

"  Have  we  at  length  found  a  successor 
to  Thomas  Ingoldsby  ?  We  are  almost 
inclined  to  hope  so  after  reading  '  Eastern 
Legends.'  There  is  a  rollicking  sense  of 
fun  about  the  stories,  joined  to  marvellous 
power  of  rhyming,  and  plenty  of  swing, 
which  irresistibly  reminds  us  of  our  old 
favourite."— Graphic. 

EDITH  ;  OR,  LOVE  AND  LIFE  IN  CHESHIRE. 
By  T.  Ashe,  Author  of  the  "  Sorrows  of 
Hypsipyle,"  etc.  Sewed.  Price  fxi. 

"A  really  fine  poem,  full  of  tender, 
subtle  touches  of  feeling."— Manchester 
News. 

"  Pregnant  from  beginning  to  end  with 
the  results  of  careful  observation  and  ima- 
ginative power." — Chester  Chronicle. 

THE  GALLERY  OP  PIGEONS,  AND 
OTHER  POEMS.  By  Theo.  Mar- 
zials.  Crown  8vo.  4*.  6a. 

"A  conceit  abounding  in  prettiness."— 
Examiner. 

"  Contains  as  clear  evidence  as  a  book 
can  contain  that  its  composition  was  a 
source  of  keen  and  legitimate  enjoyment. 
The  rush  of  fresh,  sparkling  fancies  is  too 
rapid,  too  sustained,  too  abundant,  not  to 
be  spontaneous." — Academy. 

THE  INN  OF  STRANGE  MEETINGS, 
AND  OTHER  POEMS.  By  Mortimer 
Collins.  Crown  8vo.  $s. 

"Abounding  in  quiet  humour,  in  bright 
fancy,  in  sweetness  and  melody  of  expres- 
sion, and,  at  times,  in  the  tenderest  touches 
of  pathos."— Graphic. 

"Mr.  Collins  has  an  undercurrent  of 
chivalry  and  romance  beneath  the  trifling 
vein  of  good-humoured  banter  which  is 
the  special  characteristic  of  his  verse."— 
AtJienfeum. 

EROS  AGONISTES.  ByE.B.D.  Crown 
8vo.  35.  6J. 

"The  author  of  these  verses  has  written 
a  very  touching  story  of  the  human  heart 
in  the  story  he  tells  with  such  pathos  and 
power,  of  an  affection  cherished  so  long 
and  so  secretly.  .  .  .  It  is  not  the 
least  merit  of  these  pages  that  they  are 
everywhere  illumined  with  moral  and  re- 
ligious sentiment  suggested,  not  paraded, 
of  the  brightest,  purest  character."— 
Standard. 


CALDERON'S  DRAMAS. 

THE  PURGATORY  OF  ST.  PATRICK. 
THE  WONDERFUL  MAGICIAN. 
LIFE  is  A  DREAM. 

Translated  from  the  Spanish.  By  Denis 
Florence  MacCartby.  los. 

These  translations  hare  never  before 
been  published.  The  "  Purgatory  of  St. 
Patrick  "  is  a  new  version,  with  new  and 
elaborate  historical  notes. 

SONGS  FOR  SAILORS.  By  Dr.  W.  C. 
Bennett.  Dedicated  by  Special  Request 
to  H.  R.  H.  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh. 
Crown  8vo.  3*.  6d.  With  Steel  Portrait 
and  Illustrations. 

An  Edition  in  Illustrated  paper  Covers. 
Price  is. 

WALLED  IN,  AND  OTHER  POEMS. 
By  the  Rev.  Henry  J.  BuLkeley.  Crown 
Svo.  $s. 

"  A  remarkable  book  of  genuine  poetry." 
— Evening  Standard. 

' '  Genuine  power  displayed. "  —  Exa- 
miner. 

" Poetical  feeling  is  manifest 

here,  and  the  diction  of  the  poem  is  unim- 
peachable. "—Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  He  has  successfully  attempted  what 
has  seldom  before  been  well  done,  viz.,  the 
treatment  of  subjects  not  in  themselves 
poetical  from  a  poetic  point  of  view."— 
Graphic. 

"  Intensity  of  feeling,  a  rugged  pathos, 
robustness  of  tone,  and  a  downrightness  of 
expression  which  does  not  shrink  from  even 
slang  if  it  seem  best  fitted  for  his  purpose." 
— Illustrated  London  News. 

SONGS   OF  LIFE    AND    DEATH.     By 
John    Payne,    Author    of    "  Intaglios, 
"Sonnets,"  "The  Masque  of  Shadows," 
etc.     Crown  Svo.    $s. 

"  The  art  of  ballad-writing  has  long  been 
lost  in  England,  and  Mr.  Payne  may  claim 
to  be  its  restorer.  It  is  a  perfect  delight  to 
meet  with  such  a  ballad  as  '  May  Margaret ' 
in  the  present  volume."  —  Westminster 
Review. 

ASPROMONTE,  AND  OTHER  POEMS. 
Second  Edition,  cloth.  4$.  6d. 

"The  volume  is  anonymous,  but  there 
is  no  reason  for  the  author  to  be  ashamed 
of  it.  The  '  Poems  of  Italy'  are  evidently 
inspired  by  genuine  enthusiasm  in  the 
cause  espoused  ;  and  one  of  them,  '  The 
Execution  of  Felice  Orsini,'  has  much 
poetic  merit,  the  event  celebrated  being 
told  with  dramatic  force." — A  theneeum. 

"The  verse  is  fluent  and  free."— Spec- 
tator. 


65,  Corn/till ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London, 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &*  Co., 


POETRY— continued. 


A  NEW  VOLUME  OF  SONNETS.  By 
the  Bev.  C.  Tennyson  Turner.  Crown 
8vo.  45.  (>ii. 

"Mr.  Turner  is  a  genuine  poet ;  his  song 
is  sweet  and  pure;  beautiful  in  expression, 
and  often  subtle  in  thought."— /W/  Mall 
Gazette. 

' '  The  dominant  charm  of  all  these  sonnets 
is  the  pervading  presence  of  the  writer's 
personality,  never  obtruded  but  always 
impalpably  diffused.  The  light  of  a  devout, 
gentle,  and  kindly  spirit,  a  delicate  and 
graceful  fancy,  a  keen  intelligence  irradiates 
these  thoughts." — Contemporary  Review. 

GOETHE'S  FAUST.  A  New  Translation 
in  Rime.  By  the  Bev.  C.  Kegan  Paul. 
Crown  8vo.  6s. 

"His  translation  is  the  most  minutely 
accurate  that  has  yet  been  produced.  .  .  " 
-—Examiner. 

"  Mr.  Paul  evidently  understands 
'  Faust,'  and  his  translation  is  as  well 
suited  to  convey  its  meaning  to  English 
readers  as  any  we  have  yet  seen." — Edin- 
burgh. Daily  Review. 

"  Mr.  Paul  is  a  zealous  and  a  faithful 
interpreter." — Saturday  Review. 

THE  DBEAM  AND  THE  DEED,  AND 
OTHEB  POEMS.  By  Patrick  Scott, 
Author  of  "  Footpaths  between  Two 
Worlds,"  etc.  Fcap.  8vo,  cloth,  5*. 

"A  bitter  and  able  satire  on  the  vice 
and  follies  of  the  day,  literary,  social,  and 
political." — Standard. 

"  Shows  real  poetic  power  coupled  with 
evidences  of  satirical  energy." — Edinburgh 
Daily  Review. 


SONGS    OF    TWO     WOBLDS.      By    a 

New  Writer.  Fcap.  8vo,  cloth,  55. 
Second  Edition. 

"These  poems  will  assuredly  take  high 
rank  among  the  class  to  which  they  belong." 
—  British  Quarterly  Revinv,  April  \st. 

"  If  these  poems  are  the  mere  preludes 
of  a  mind  growing  in  power  and  in  inclina- 
tion for  verse,  we  have  in  them  the  promise 
of  a  fine  poet."  —  Spectator,  February  ijth. 

"No  extracts  could  do  justice  to  the 
exquisite  tones,  the  felicitous  phrasing  and 
delicately  wrought  harmonies  of  some  of 
these  poems."  —  Nonconformist,  March 


"  It  has  a  purity  and  delicacy  of  feeling 
like  morning  air."  —  Graphic,  March  if>th. 
THE  LEGENDS  OF  ST.  PATBICK 
AND  OTHEB  POEMS.  By  Aubrey 
de  Vere.  Crown  8vo.  s-r. 

"  Mr.  De  Vere's  versification  in  his 
earlier  poems  is  characterised  by  great 
sweetness  and  simplicity.  He  is  master  of 
his  instrument,  and  rarely  offends  the  ear 
with  false  notes.  Poems  such  as  these 
scarcely  admit  of  quotation,  for  their  charm 
is  not,  and  ought  not  to  be,  found  in  isolated 
passages  ;  but  we  can  promise  the  patient 
and  thoughtful  reader  much  pleasure  in  the 
perusal  of  this  volume."  —  Pall  Mall 
Gazette, 

"We  have  marked,  in  almost  every 
page,  excellent  touches  from  which  we 
know  not  how  to  select.  We  have  but 
space  to  commend  the  varied  structure  of 
his  verse,  the  carefulness  of  his  grammar, 
and  his  excellent  English."  —  Saturday 
Review. 


FICTION. 


THE  OWL'S  NEST  IN  THE 
CITY.  In  I  vol.  Cloth,  crown 
8vo. 

TWO  GIRLS.  By  Frederick 
Wedmore,  Author  of  "  A  Snapt 
Gold  Ring."  In  2  vols.  Cloth, 
crown  8vo. 

A  powerful  and  dramatic  story  of  Bo- 
hemian life  in  Paris  and  in  London. 

JUDITH  GWYNNE.  By  Lisle 
Carr.  In  3  vols.  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 


MR.  CARINGTON.  A  Tale  of 
Love  and  Conspiracy.  By  Robert 
Turner  Cotton.  In  3  vols. 
Cloth,  crown  8vo. 

TOO  LATE.  By  Mrs.  Newman. 
Two  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

A  dramatic  love  story. 

LADYMORETOUN'S  DAUGH- 
TER. By  Mrs.  Eiloart.  In 
3  vols.  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 


65,  Cornhill ;  &>  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &  Co., 


27 


FICTION — continued. 


HEATHERGATE.  In  2  vols.  Cr. 
8vo,  cloth.  A  Story  of  Scottish 
Life  and  Character  by  a  new  Author. 


THE  QUEEN'S  SHILLING.  By 
Captain  Arthur  Griffiths, 
Author  of  ' '  Peccavi. "  2  vols. 

"  ....  A  very  lively  and  agreeable 
novel." — Vanity  Fair. 

' '  The  Queen's  Shilling '  is  a  capital 
story,  far  more  interesting  than  the  meagre 
sketch  we  have  given  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
hero  and  heroine  can  suggest.  Every  scene, 
character,  and  incident  of  the  book  are  so 
life-like  that  they  seem  drawn  from  life 
direct."— Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

MIRANDA.  A  Midsummer  Madness. 
By  Mortimer  Collins.  3  vols. 

"  There  is  not  a  dull  page  in  the  whole 
three  volumes." — Standard. 

"  The  work  of  a  man  who  is  at  once  a 
thinker  and  a  poet." — Hour. 

SQUIRE  SILCHESTER'S 
WHIM.  By  Mortimer  Collins, 
Author  of  "  Marquis  and  Mer- 
chant," "The  Princess  Clarice," 
&c.  Crown  8vo.  3  vols. 

"  We  think  it  the  best  (story)  M r.  Collins 
has  yet  written.  Full  of  incident  and 
adventure."— Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  Decidedly  the  best  novel  from  the  pen 
of  Mr.  Mortimer  Collins  that  we  have  yet 
come  across." — Graphic. 

"  So  clever,  so  irritating,  and  so  charm- 
ing a  story."—  Standard. 

THE  PRINCESS  CLARICE. 
A  Story  of  1871.  By  Mortimer 
Collins.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

"Mr.  Collins  has  produced  a  readable 

book,  amusingly  characteristic " — 

Athencfum. 

"Very  readable  and  amusing.  We 
would  especially  give  an  honourable  men- 
tion, to  Mr.  Collins's  '  vers  de  socifti,'  the 
writing  of  which  has  almost  become  a  lost 
*rt."— Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  A  bright,  fresh,  and  original  book." — 
Standard. 

WHAT  'TIS  TO  LOVE.  By  the 
Author  of  "  Flora  Adair,"  «'  The 
Value  of  Fosterstown."  3  vols. 


REGINALD  BRAMBLE,  ACynic 
of  the  I  Qth  Century.  An  Auto- 
biography. One  Volume. 

"There  is  plenty  of  vivacity  in  Mr. 
Bramble's  narrative." — A thenceunt. 

"Written  in  a  lively  and  readable  style." 
— Hour. 

"The  skill  of  the  author  in  the  delinea- 
tion of  the  supposed  chronicler,  and  the 
preservation  of  his  natural  character,  is 
beyond  praise." — Morning  Post. 

EFFIE'S  GAME;  How  SHE  LOST 

AND    HOW   SHE   WON.      By  Cecil 

Clayton.    2  vols. 

"Well  written.  The  characters  move, 
and  act,  and,  above  all,  talk  like  human 
beings,  and  we  have  liked  reading  about 
them.' ' — Sped  a  to  r. 

CHESTERLEIGH.  By  Ansley 
Conyers.  3  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

"We  have  gained  much  enjoyment  from 
the  book."— -Spectator. 

"Will  suit  the  hosts  of  readers  of  the 
higher  class  of  romantic  fiction." — Morn- 
ins  Advertiser. 

BRESSANT.  A  Romance.  By 
Julian  Hawthorne.  2  vols. 
Crown  8vo. 

"  The  sen's  work  we  venture  to  say  is 
worthy  of  the  sire.  .  .  .  The  story  as 
it  stands  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  with 
which  we  are  acquainted." — Times. 

"  Pretty  certain  of  meeting  in  this  country 
a  grateful  and  appreciative  reception." — 
Athen&um. 

"  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne  is  endowed  with 
a  large  share  of  his  father's  pecul iar  genius. " 
— Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"Enough  to  make  us  hopeful  that  we  shall 
once  more  have  reason  to  rejoice  whenever 
we  hear  that  a  new  work  is  coming  out 
written  by  one  who  bears  the  honoured 
name  of  Hawthorne."— Saturday  Review. 

HONOR  BLAKE  :  THE  STORY  OF 
A  PLAIN  WOMAN.  By  Mrs. 
Keatinge,  Author  of  "English 
Homes  in  India,"  &c.  2  vols. 
Crown  8vo. 

"  One  of  the  best  novels  we  have  met 
with  for  some  time."— Morning  Post. 

"  A  story  which  must  do  good  to  all, 
young  and  old,  who  read  it"— Daily  News. 


65,  Cornhill ;  &  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


28 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6°  Co., 


FICTION — contimiea. 


OFF  THE  SKELLIGS.  By  Jean 
Ingelow.  (Her  First  Romance.) 
Crown  8vo.  In  4  vols. 

"  Clever  and  sparkling." — Standard. 

"  We  read  each  succeeding  volume  with 
increasing  interest,  going  almost  to  the 
point  of  wishing  there  was  a  fifth." — 
Athenceum.  _ 

"  The  novel  as  a  whole  is  a  remarkable 
one,  because  it  is  uncompromisingly  true 
to  life."— Daily  News. 

SEETA.  By  Colonel  Meadows 
Taylor,  Author  of  "  Tara," 
"  Ralph  Darnell,"  &c.  Crown 
8vo.  3  vols. 

"The  story  is  well  told,  native  life  is 
admirably  described,  and  the  petty  intrigues 
of  native  rulers,  and  their  hatred  of  the 
English,  mingled  with  fear  lest  the  latter 
should  eventually  prove  the  victors,  are 
cleverly  depicted." — Atheneeum. 

"  We  cannot  speak  too  highly  of  Colonel 
Meadows  Taylor's  book.  .  .  .  We  would 
recommend  all  novel-readers  to  purchase  it 
at  the  earliest  opportunity. " — John  Bull. 

"Thoroughly  interesting  and  enjoyable 
reading. " — Examiner. 

HESTER  MORLEY'S  PRO- 
MISE. By  Hesba  Stretton. 

3  vols. 

"'Hester  Morley's  Promise*  is  much 
better  than  the  average  novel  of  the  day  ; 
it  has  much  more  claim  to  critical  con- 
sideration as  a  piece  of  literary  work, — not 
mere  mechanism.  The  pictures  of  a  narrow 
society — narrow  of  soul  and  intellect — in 
which  the  book  abounds,  are  very  clever." 
— Spectator. 

"Its  charm  lies  not  so  much,  perhaps,  in 
any  special  excellence  in  character,  draw- 
ing, or  construction — though  all  the  cha- 
racters stand  out  clearly  and  are  well 
sustained,  and  the  interest  of  the  story 
never  flags — as  in  general  tone  and  colour- 
ing."— Observer. 

THE  DOCTOR'S  DILEMMA. 
By  Hesba  Stretton,  Author  oi 
"Little  Meg,"  &c.,  &c.  Crown 
8vo.  3  vols. 

"A  fascinating  story  which  scarcely 
flags  in  interest  from  the  first  page  to  the 
last.  It  is  all  story ;  every  page  con- 
tributes something  to  the  result.  —British 
Quarterly  Review. 


THE  ROMANTIC  ANNALS  OF 
A  NAVAL  FAMILY.  By  Mrs. 
Arthur  Traherne.  Crown  8vo. 
los.  6d. 

"A  very  readable  and  interesting  book." 
—  United  Service  Gazette,  June  28,  1873. 

"  Some  interesting  letters  are  introduced, 
amongst  others,  several  from  the  late 
King  William  IV."—  Spectator. 

"Well  and  pleasantly  told.  There  are 
also  some  capital  descriptions  of  English 
country  life  in  the  last  century,  presenting 
a  vivid  picture  of  England  before  the  intro- 
duction of  railways,  and  the  busy  life  ac- 
companying them. " — Evening  Standard. 

JOHANNES  OLAF.  By  E.  de 
Wille .  Translated  by  F.  E .  Bun- 
nett.  Crown  8vo.  3  vols. 

"  The  art  of  description  is  fully  exhibited ; 
perception  of  character  and  capacity  for 
delineating  it  are  obvious ;  while  there  is 
great  breadth  and  comprehensiveness  in 
the  plan  of  the  story." Morning  Post. 

THE  SPINSTERS  OF 
BLATCHINGTON.  By  Mar. 
Travers.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

"  A  pretty  story.  Deserving  of  a  favour- 
able reception." — Graphic. 

"A  book  of  more  than  average  merits, 
worth  reading*." — Examiner. 

A  GOOD  MATCH.  By  Amelia 
Perrier ,  Author  of ' '  Mea  Culpa. " 
2  vols. 

"  Racy  and  lively." — Athenceum. 

"As  pleasant  and  readable  a  novel  as  we 
have  seen  this  season." — Examiner. 

"This  clever  and  amusing  novel." — Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

"  Agreeably  written."— Public  Opinion. 

THOMASINA.     By  the  Author  of 

"Dorothy,"  "  De  Cressy,"  etc. 
2  vols.  Crown  8vo. 

"A  finished  and  delicate  cabinet  picture, 
no  line  is  without  its  purpose,  but  all  con- 
tribute to  the  unity  of  the  work."— Athe- 
tueum. 

"  For  the  delicacies  of  character-drawing, 
for  play  of  incident,  and  for  finish  of  style, 
we  must  refer  our  readers  to  the  story 
itself." — Daily  News. 

"  This  undeniably  pleasing  story." — 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

VANESSA.  By  the  Author  of 
"Thomasina."  2  vols.  Crown 
8vo.  [Shortly. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &>  G?., 


29 


FICTION — continued. 


THE  STORY  OF  SIR  ED- 
WARD'S WIFE.  By  Hamil- 
ton Marshall,  Author  of  "  For 
Very  Life."  I  vol.  Crown  Svo. 

"A  quiet  graceful  little  story."—  Spec- 
tator. 

"There  are  many  clever  conceits  in  it. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Hamilton  Marshall  can  tell  a 
story  closely  and  pleasantly."—  Pall  Mall 
Gazette. 

LINKED  AT  LAST.  By  F.  E. 
Bunnett.  I  vol.  Crown  Svo. 

"  '  Linked  at  Last  '  contains  so  much  of 
pretty  description,  natural  incident,  and 
delicate  portraiture,  that  the  reader  who 
once  takes  it  up  will  not  be  inclined  to  re- 
linquish it  without  concluding  the  volume." 

—  Morning  Post. 

"A  very  charming  story."  —  John 
Bull. 

PERPLEXITY.  By  Sydney 
Mostyn.  3  vols.  Crown  Svo. 

"Shows  much  lucidity  —  much  power  of 
portraiture.  "  —  Examiner. 

"  Written  with  very  considerable  power, 
great  cleverness,  and  sustained  interest." 

—  Standa  rd. 

"  The  literary  workmanship  is  good,  and 
the  story  forcibly  and  graphically  told."  — 
Daily  News. 

MEMOIRS  OF  MRS.  L/ETITIA 
BOOTH  BY.  By  William 
Clark  Bussell,  Author  of  "The 
Book  of  Authors."  Crown  Svo. 


"  Clever  and  ingenious.  "  —  Saturday 
Review. 

"One  of  the  most  delightful  books  I 
have  read  for  a  very  long  while.  .  .  . 
Thoroughly  entertaining  from  the  first  page 
to  the  last."—  Judy. 

"Very  clever  book."  —  Guardian. 

CRUEL  AS  THE  GRAVE.  By 
the  Countess  Von  Bothmer. 
3  vols.  Crown  Svo. 

"  Jealousy  is  cruel  as  the  Grave" 
"  An  interesting,  though  somewhat  tragic 

story."  —  A  thenceum. 

"  An    agreeable,    unaffected,  and  emi- 

nently readable  novel."  —  Daily  News. 


Thirty-Second  Edition. 

GINX'S  BABY;  His  BIRTH  AND 
OTHER  MISFORTUNES.  By  Ed- 
ward Jenkins.  Crown  Svo. 
Price  2s. 

Fourteenth  Thousand. 

LITTLE    HODGE.    A  Christmas 
Country  Carol.  By  Edward  Jen- 
kins, Author  of  "  Ginx's  Baby," 
&c.    Illustrated.    Crown  Svo.    5-r. 
A  Cheap  Edition  in  paper  covers,  price  is. 

"  Wise  and  humorous,  but  yet  most 
pathetic. " — Nonconformist. 

"  The  pathos  of  some  of  the  passages  is 
extremely  touching."  —  Manchester  Ex- 
aminer. 

Sixth  Edition. 

LORD  BANTAM.  By  Edward 
Jenkins,  Author  of  "  Ginx's 
Baby. "  Crown  Svo.  Price  2s. 

LUCHMEE  AND  DILLOO.     A 

Story  of  West  Indian  Life.  By 
Edward  Jenkins,  Author  of 
"Ginx's  Baby,"  "Little  Hodge," 
&c.  Two  vols.  Demy  Svo.  Illus- 
trated. {Preparing. 

HER  TITLE  OF  HONOUR.    By 
Holme  'Lee.     Second  Edition. 
I  vol.     Crown  Svo. 
"  With  the  interest  of  a  pathetic  story  is 
united-  the  value  of  a  definite  and  high 
purpose. " — Spectator. 

"A  most  exquisitely  written  story." — 
Literary  Churchman. 

THE   TASMANIAN    LILY.     By 
James  Bonwick.     Crown  Svo. 
Illustrated.     Price  5-f. 
"The  characters  of  the  story  are  capitally 
conceived,  and  are  full  of  those  touches 
which  give  them  a  natural  appearance." — 
Public  Opinion. 

"An  interesting  and  useful  work."— 
Hour. 

MIKE  HOWE,  THE  BUSH- 
RANGER OF  VAN  DIE- 
MEN'S  LAND.  By  James 
Bonwick,  Author  of  "The  Tas- 
manian  Lily,"  &c.  Crown  Svo. 
With  a  Frontispiece. 


65,  Cornhill ;  6-12,  Paternoster  Row>  London, 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  &>  Co., 


FICT  I  ON — continued. 


Second  Edition. 

SEPTIMIUS.      A     Romance. 
By    Nathaniel    Hawthorne, 

Author  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter," 
"  Transformation,"  &c.  I  vol. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  extra  gilt.  gs. 


says  that  "the  book  is 
full  of  Hawthorne's  most  characteristic 
writing." 

"  One  of  the  best  examples  of  Haw- 
thorne's writing  ;  every  page  is  impressed 
with  his  peculiar  view  of  thought,  conveyed 
in  his  own  familiar  way."  —  Post. 

PANDURANG    HARI;    OR, 

MEMOIRS  OF  A  HINDOO.  A  Tale 
of  Mahratta  Life  sixty  years  ago. 
With  a  Preface,  by  Sir  H.  Bartle 
E.  Frere,  G.  C.S.I.,  &c.  2vols. 
Crown  8vo.  Price  2is. 

"There  is  a  quaintness  and  simplicity  in 
the  roguery  of  the  hero  that  makes  his  life 
as  attractive  as  that  of  Guzman  d'Alfarache 
or  Gil  Bias,  and  so  we  advise  our  readers 
not  to  be  dismayed  at  the  length  of  Pandu- 
rang  Hari,  but  to  read  it  resolutely  through. 
If  they  do  this  they  cannot,  we  think,  fail 
to  be  both  amused  and  interested."  —  Times. 

MADEMOISELLE  JOSE- 
PHINE'S FRIDAYS,  and 
other  Stories.  By  Miss  M. 
Betham  Edwards,  Author  of 
"Kitty,"&c.  [Shortly. 

A  collection  of  Miss  Edwards'  more  im- 
portant contributions  to  periodical  litera- 
ture. 


Second  Edition. 

HERMANN  AGHA.  An  Eastern 
Narrative.  By  W.  Gifford  Pal- 
grave,  Author  of  "  Travels  in 
Central  Arabia,"  £c.  2  vols. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  extra  gilt.  i&s. 

"  Reads  like  a  tale  of  life,  with  all  its 
incidents.  The  young  will  take  to  it  for 
its  love  portions,  the  older  for  its  descrip- 
tions, some  in  this  day  for  its  Arab  philo- 
sophy. " — A  thenceum. 

"  There  isa  positive  fragrance  as  of  newly- 
mown  hay  about  it,  as  compared  with  the 
artificially  perfumed  passions  which  are 
detailed  to  us  with  such  gusto  by  our 
ordinary  novel-writers  in  their  endless 
volumes. " — Observer. 

MARGARET      AND      ELIZA- 
BETH.   A  Story  of  the  Sea.    By 
Katherine  Saunders,  Author 
of  "Gideon's  Rock,"  &c.  In  I  vol. 
-  Cloth,  crown  8vo. 

GIDEON'S      ROCK,      and     other 
Stories.     By  Katherine  Saun- 
ders.    In  one  vol.     Crown  8vo. 
CONTENTS.— Gideon's  Rock.— Old  Mat- 
thew's Puzzle.— Gentle  Jack.— Uncle  Ned. 
— The  Retired  Apothecary. 

JOAN  MERRYWEATHER,  and 
other  Stories.  By  Katherine 
Saunders.  In  one  vol.  Crown 
8vo. 

CONTENTS.— The  Haunted  Crust.— The 
Flower-Girl.— Joan  Merryweather.— The 
Watchman's  Story.- -An  Old  Letter. 


A  New  and  Cheaper  Edition,  in  I  vol.  each,  Illustrated,  price  6s.t  of 

COL,  MEADOWS  TAYLOR'S  INDIAN  TALES  is  preparing  for  pub- 
lication.  The  First  Volume  will  be  "  The  Confessions  of  a  Thug,"  and 
will  be  published  in  December,  to  be  followed  by  "Tara,"  "Ralph 
Darnell,"  "  fippoo  Sultan. " 


65,  Corn  hill ;  and  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6°  Co.,  31 


THEOLOGICAL. 


STUDIES  IN  MODERN  PROBLEMS.     A  Series  of  Essays  by  various 
Writers.     Edited  by  the  Rev.  Orby  Shipley,  M.  A. 

This  project  secures  the  supervision  of  a  small  number  of  Clergy  and  Laity  formed  of 
representative  men  in  London,  at  both  Universities,  and  in  the  Provinces,  who  have 
promised  their  co-operation  editorially,  and  will  act  as  a  Committee  of  Reference.  The 
first  issue  will  consist  of  a  series  of  12  or  13  Tractates,  by  various  writers,  of  48  pages 
each,  in  a  readable  type,  crown  8vo,  at  the  price  of  6d.,  and  will  appear  fortnightly  for 
six  months,  by  way  of  trial. 


A  Single  Copy  sent  post  free  for  jii. \ 

The  Series  of  12  Numbers  sent  post  free  for  7^.,  or  for  7$.  &/.  if  13  > 
Additional  Copies  sent  at  proportionate  rates J 

PROPOSED  SUBJECTS  AND  AUTHORS. 

(AMONGST  OTHERS) 


^repaid. 


SACRAMENTAL  CONFESSION. 


A.  H.  WARD,  M.A. 


RETREATS   FOR  PERSONS    LIVING:        THE  gANCTITy  QF  MAHRIAQE. 


IN  THE  WORLD. 

T.  T.  CARTER,  M.A. 
ABOLITION  OF  THE  ARTICLES. 

NICHOLAS  POCOCK,  M.A. 
CREATION  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE. 
GEORGE  GREENWOOD,  M.A. 
MISSIONS.     J.  EDWARD  VAUX,  M.A. 
CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT. 

EDWARD  L.  BLENKINSOPP,  M.A. 


SOME    PRINCIPLES    OF    CERE- 
MONIAL.     J.  E.   FIELD,  M.A. 


JOHN  WALTER  LEA,  B.A. 

RESERVATION    OF    THE    BLESSED 
SACRAMENT. 

HENRY  HUMBLE,  M.A. 

CATHOLICISM  AND  PROGRESS. 

EDMUND  G.  WOOD,  M.A. 
A  LAYMAN'S  VIEW  OF  CONFESSION. 

J.    DAVID    CHAMBERS,    M.A. 


UNTIL  THE  DAY  DAWN.  Four  Advent  Lectures  delivered  in  the  Epis- 
copal Chapel,  Milverton,  Warwickshire,  on  the  Sunday  evenings  during 
Advent,  1870.  By  the  Rev.  Marmaduke  E.  Browne.  Crown  8vo. 

A  SCOTCH  COMMUNION  SUNDAY.  To  which  are  added  Certain 
Discourses  from  a  University  City.  By  A.  K.  H.  B.,  Author  of  "The 
Recreations  of  a  Country  Parson."  Crown  8vo.  Price  $s. 

CHURCH  THOUGHT  AND  CHURCH  WORK.  Edited  by  the  Rev. 
Chas.  Anderson,  M.  A.,  Editor  of  "Words  and  Works  in  a  London 
Parish."  Demy  8vo.  Pp.  250.  Js.  6d.  Containing  Articles  by  the  Rev. 
J.  LL.  DAVIES,  J.  M.  CAPES,  HARRY  JONES,  BROOKE  LAMBERT,  A.  J. 
Ross,  Professor  CHEETHAM,  the  EDITOR,  and  others. 

WORDS  AND  WORKS  IN  A  LONDON  PARISH.  Edited  by 
the  Rev.  Charles  Anderson,  M.A.  Demy  8vo.  6s. 


"  It  has  an  interest  of  its  own  for  not  a 
few  minds,  to  whom  the  question  '  Is  the 
National  Church  worth  preserving  as 


such,  and  if  so  how  best  increase  its  vital 
power?'  is  of  deep  and  grave  importance." 
— Spectator. 


EVERY  DAY  A  PORTION  :  Adapted  from  the  Bible  and  the  Prayer  Book, 
for  the  Private  Devotions  of  those  living  in  Widowhood.  Collected  and 
Edited  by  the  Lady  Mary  Vyner.  Square  crown  8vo,  printed  on  good 
paper,  elegantly  bound. 

"  Now  she  that  is  a  widow  indeed,  and  desolate,  trusteth  in  God." 

65,   Cornhill ;   6°  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London^ 


32  Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  Xing  &  Co., 


THEOLOGICAL — continued. 

WORDS  OF  HOPE  FROM  THE  PULPIT  OF  THE  TEMPLE 
CHURCH.  By  C.  J.  Vaughan,  D.D.,  Master  of  the  Temple. 

Third  Edition. 

THE  YOUNG  LIFE  EQUIPPING  ITSELF  FOR  GOD'S  SER- 
VICE. Being  Four  Sermons  Preached  before  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge in  November,  1872.  By  the  Rev.  C.  J.  Vaughan,  D.D., 
Master  of  the  Temple.  Crown  8vo.  Price  3-r.  6d. 


"  Has  all  the  writer's  characteristics 
of  devotedness,  purity,  and  high  moral 
tone." — London  Quarterly  Review. 

"  As  earnest,  eloquent,  and  as  liberal  as 


everything  else  that  he  writes."  —  Exa- 


miner. 


"  Earnest  in  tone  and  eloquent  in   en- 
treaty."— Manchester  Examiner. 


A   NEW     VOLUME     OF    ACADEMIA     ESSAYS.      Edited    by    the 
Most  Reverend  Archbishop  Manning.    Demy. 

Christianity  in  relation  to  Society. — The 
Religious  Condition  of  Germany. — The 
Philosophy  of  Bacon.— Catholic  Laymen 
and  Scholastic  Philosophy. 


CONTENTS  :— The 


Philosophy  of  Chris- 
tianity.—  Mystical  Elements  of  Religion. — 
Controversy  with  the  Agnostics. — A  Rea- 
soning Thought. — Darwinism  brought  to 
Book.  -Mr.  Mill  on  Liberty  of  the  Press.— 


WHY  AM  I  A  CHRISTIAN?    By  Viscount  Stratford  de  Redcliffe, 
P.O.,  K.G.,  G.C.B.     Crown  8vo.     3^.     Third  Edition. 

"  Has  a  peculiar  interest,  as  exhibiting  the  convictions  of  an  earnest,  intelligent,  and 
practical  man." — Contemporary  Review. 

THEOLOGY  AND  MORALITY.  Being  Essays  by  the  Rev.  J.Llewellyn 
Davies.     i  vol.  8vo.     Price  7-r.  &/. 

Essays  on  Questions  of  Belief  and  Practice.— The  Debts  of  Theology  to  Secular  Influ- 
ences.—The  Christian  Theory  of  Duty.— Weak  Points  in  Utilitarianism.— Nature  and 
Prayer.— The  Continuity  of  Creation.— The  Beginnings  of  the  Church.— Erastus  and 
Excommunication. — Pauperism  as  produced  by  Wealth. — Combinations  of  Agricultural 
Labourers. — Communism. 

"  There  is  a  good  deal  that  is  well  worth  reading/'—  Church  Times. 

THE     RECONCILIATION     OF      RELIGION     AND     SCIENCE. 
Being  Essays  by  the  Rev.  T.  W.  Fowle,  M.A.    i  vol.,  8vo.    ios.  6d. 

The  Divine  Character  of  Christ. — Science  and  Immortality. — Morality  and  Immortality. 
—  Christianity  and  Immortality.— Religion  and  Fact.— The  Miracles  of  God— The 
Miracles  of  Man. — A  Scientific  Account  of  Inspiration. — The  Inspiration  of  the  Jews. — 
The  Inspiration  of  the  Bible. — The  Divinity  of  Christand  Modern  Thought. — The  Church 
and  the  Working  Classes. 


"A  book  which  requires  and  deserves  the 
respectful  attention  of  all  reflecting  Church- 
men. It  is  earnest,  reverent,  thoughtful, 
and  courageous.  .  .  .  There  is  scarcely  a 


page  in  the  book  which  is  not  equally 
worthy  of  a  thoughtful  pause." — Literary 
Churchman. 


HYMNS    AND    VERSES,    Original  and  Translated.      By  the    Rev. 
Henry  Downton.     Small  crown  8vo,  3^.  6d. 


"  It  is  a  rare  gift  and  very  precious,  and 
we  heartily  commend  this,  its  fruits,  to  the 
pious  in  all  denominations."  —  Church 
Opinion. 

"  Considerable  force  and  beauty  charac- 
terise some  of  these  verses." — Watchman. 

"  Mr.  Downton's  '  Hymns  and  Verses  ' 


are    worthy    of    all    praise."  —  English 
Churchman. 

"  Will,  we  do  not  doubt,  be  welcome  as 
a  permanent  possession  to  those  for  whom 
they  have  been  composed  or  to  whom  they 
have  been  originally  addressed.  "—Church 
Herald. 


65,  Cornhttl;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6-  Co., 


33 


THEOLOGICAL—  continued. 


MISSIONARY    ENTERPRISE     IN     THE    EAST. 
Richard  Collins.     Illustrated.     Cro\vn  8vo.     6s. 


By  the   Rev. 


"A  very  graphic  story  told  in  lucid, 
simple,  and  modest  style."  —  English 
Churchman. 

"  A  readable  and  very  interesting 
volume." — Church  Review. 

"  It  is  a  real  pleasure  to  read  an  honest 
book  on  Missionary  work,  every  word  of 
which  shows  the  writer  to  be  a  man  of  large 


heart,  far-seeing  views,  and  liberal  cultiva- 
tion, and  such  a  book  we  have  now  before 
us." — Mission  Life. 

"We  may  judge  from  our  own  experi- 
ence, no  one  who  takes  up  this  charming 
little  volume  will  lay  it  down  again  till  he 
has  got  to  the  last  word."— John  Bull. 


THE    ETERNAL    LIFE.     Being  Fourteen  Sermons. 
Noble  Bennie,  M.A.     Crown  8vo.     6s. 


By  the  Rev.  Jas. 


1 '  We  recommend  these  sermons  as  whole- 
some Sunday  reading." — English  Church- 
man. 

"Very  chaste  and  pure  in  style."— 
Courant. 


"  The  whole  volume  is  replete  with  matter 
for  thought  and  study." — John  Bull. 

"Mr.  Bennie  preaches  earnestly  and 
well." — Literary  Churchman. 


THE    REALM    OF    TRUTH.     By  Miss  E.  T.  Came.      Crown  8vo. 


$s.  M. 

"A  singularly  calm,  thoughtful,  and 
philosophical  inquiry  into  what  Truth  is, 
and  what  its  authority." — Leeds  Mercury. 

•'  It  tells  the  world  what  it  does  not  like 
to  hear,  but  what  it  cannot  be  told  too  often, 


that  Truth  is  something  stronger  and  more 
enduring  than  our  little  doings,  and 
speakings,  and  actings."  —  Literary 
Churchman. 


LIFE  :   Conferences  delivered  at  Toulouse. 
Crown  8vo.     6s. 

"  Let  the  serious  reader  cast  his  eye 
upon  any  single  page  in  this  volume,  and 
he  will  find  there  words  which  will  arrest 
his  attention  and  give  him  a  desire  to  know 
more  of  the  teachings  of  this  worthy  fol- 
lower of  the  saintly  St.  Dominick." — 
Morning  Post. 


By  the  Rev.  P6re  Lacordaire. 

"  The  book  is  worth  studying  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  way  in  which  an  able  man 
may  be  crippled  by  theological  chains."— 
Examiner. 

"  The  discourses  are  simple,  natural,  and 
unaffectedly  eloquent."— Public  Opinion. 


Fourth  Edition. 


THOUGHTS  FOR  THE  TIMES.  By  the  Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis,  M.A., 
"  Author  of  Music  and  Morals,"  etc.     Crown  8vo.     is.  6d. 


Morals, 

"  Bears  marks  of  much  originality  of 
thought  and  individuality  of  expression." — 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  Mr.  Haweis  writes  not  only  fearlessly, 


but  with  remarkable  freshness  and  vigour. 
In  all  that  he  says  we  perceive  a  trans- 
parent honesty  and  singleness  of  purpose." 
— Saturday  Review. 


SPEECH  IN  SEASON. 
R.  Haweis. 


A  New  Volume  of  Sermons. 


Second  Edition. 


By  the  Rev.  H. 

{Preparing. 


CATHOLICISM  AND  THE  VATICAN.  With  a  Narrative  of  the  Old 
Catholic  Congress  at  Munich.  By  J.  Lowry  Whittle,  A.M.,  Trin. 
Coll.,  Dublin.  Crown  8vo.  4^.  6d. 


"  We  may  cordially  recommend  his  book 
to  all  who  wish  to  follow  the  course  of  the 


Old     Catholic 
Review. 


movement."  —  Saturday 


65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


34 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  Xing  &  Co., 


THEOLOGICAL— continued. 

Second  Edition. 

SCRIPTURE  LANDS  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THEIR  HIS- 
TORY. By  G.  S.  Drew,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  Trinity,  Lambeth,  Author 
of  "  Reasons  of  Faith."  Bevelled  boards,  8vo.  Price  los.  6d. 

"  Mr.  Drew  has  invented  a  new  method  |  nation  from  Abraham  downwards,  with 
of  illustrating  Scripture  history  —  from 
observation  of  the  countries.  Instead  of 
narrating  his  travels,  and  referring  from 
time  to  time  to  the  facts  of  sacred  history 
belonging  to  the  different  countries,  he 
writes  an  outline  history  of  the  Hebrew 


special  reference  to  the  various  points  in 
which  the  geography  illustrates  the  his- 
tory. .  .  He  is  very  successful  in  pic- 
turing to  his  readers  the  scenes  before  his 
own  mind." — Saturday  Review. 


Second  Edition. 
NAZARETH  :     ITS    LIFE    AND    LESSONS.      By  the  Rev.  G.  S. 

Drew,  Vicar  of  Trinity,  Lambeth.    Second  Edition.    In  small  8vo,  cloth.  5-r. 

books  recently  issued  in  the  whole  range  of 


"A  singularly   reverent   and    beautiful 
book."— Daily  Telegraph. 

"  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  remarkable 


English  theology." — Churchman's  Maga- 
zine. 


THE  DIVINE  KINGDOM  ON  EARTH  AS  IT  IS  IN 
HEAVEN.  By  the  Rev.  G.  S.  Drew,  Author  of  "Nazareth:  its 
Life  and  Lessons."  In  demy  8vo,  bound  in  cloth.  Price  IOJ.  6d. 

There  is  no  living  divine  to 

whom  the  authorship  would  not  be  a  credit" 


"  Thoughtful  and  eloquent.  .  .  .  Full 
of  original  thinking  admirably  expressed." 
— British  Quarterly  Review. 

"  Entirely  valuable  and  satisfactory.     . 


— Literary  Churchman. 


SIX    PRIVY    COUNCIL   JUDGMENTS— 1850-1872.     Annotated  by 
W.  G.  Brooke,  M.A.,  Barrister-at-Law.     Crown  8vo.     gs. 

THE    MOST   COMPLETE    HYMN    BOOK    PUBLISHED. 

HYMNS    FOR  THE  CHURCH  AND  HOME.     Selected  and  Edited  by 
the  Rev.  W.  Fleming  Stevenson,  Author  of  "Praying  and  Working." 

The  Hymn-book  consists  of  Three  Parts: — I.  For  Public  Worship. —II.  For  Family 
and  Private  Worship.— III.  For  Children  :  and  contains  Biographical  Notices  of  nearly 
300  Hymn-writers,  with  Notes  upon  their  Hymns. 

***  Published  in  various  forms  and  prices,  the  latter  ranging  from  8tf.  /06s.     Lists  and  full 
particulars  will  be  furnished  on  application  to  the  Publisher. 


WORKS  OF  THE  LATE  REV.  F.  W.  ROBERTSON. 

NEW    AND    CHEAPER    EDITIONS. 

SERMONS. 

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,,     IV.  Small  crown  8vo.  Price  3^.  6d. 

EXPOSITORY    LECTURES    ON     ST.    PAUL'S     EPISTLE     TO 
THE  CORINTHIANS.     Small  crown  8vo.     5*. 

AN    ANALYSIS    OF    MR.    TENNYSON'S    "IN    MEMORIAM." 
(Dedicated  by  permission  to  the  Poet-Laureate.)     Fcap.  8vo.     2s. 

65,  Cornhill;  &  12,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 


Works  Published  by  Henry  S.  King  6*  Co.,  35 

WORKS  OF  THE  LATE  REV.  F.  W.  ROBERTSON — continued. 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE.  Translated  from  the 
German  of  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing.  Fcap.  8vo.  2s.  6al. 

LECTURES  AND  ADDRESSES,  WITH  OTHER  LITERARY 
REMAINS.  By  the  late  Rev.  Fredk.  W.  Robertson.  A  New 
Edition,  including  a  Correspondence  with  Lady  Byron.  With  Introduction 
by  the  Rev.  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  M.A.  In  One  Vol.  Uniform 
with  the  Sermons.  Price  5-5-.  [Preparing. 

A  LECTURE  ON  FRED.  W.  ROBERTSON,  M.A.  By  the  Rev.  F. 
A.  Noble,  delivered  before  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of 
Pittsburgh,  U.S.  u.  6</. 


WORKS  BY  THE  REV.  STOPFORD  A.  BROOKE,  M.A. 

Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

THE  LATE  REV.  F.  W.  ROBERTSON,  M.A.,  LIFE  AND 
LETTERS  OF.  Edited  by  Stopford  Brooke,  MA,  Chaplain  in 
Ordinary  to  the  Queen. 

In  2  vols.,  uniform  with  the  Sermons.     Price  Js.  6d. 
Library  Edition,  in  demy  8vo,  with  Two  Steel  Portraits.     I2J. 
A  Popular  Edition,  in  I  voL     Price  6s. 

THEOLOGY  IN  THE  ENGLISH  POETS.  Being  Lectures  delivered 
by  the  Rev.  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen. 

Third  Edition. 

CHRIST  IN  MODERN  LIFE.  Sermons  Preached  in  St.  James's 
Chapel,  York  Street,  London.  Crown  8vo.  7^.  6d. 

"  Nobly  fearless  and  singularly  strong.     .     .     .     carries  our  admiration  throughout." 
—Britith  Quarterly  Review. 

Second  Edition, 

FREEDOM  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  Six  Sermons 
suggested  by  the  Voysey  Judgment.  In  I  vol.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.  3.$-.  6d. 


"  A  very  fair  statement  of  the  views  in 
respect  to  freedom  of  thought  held  by  the 
liberal  party  in  the  Church  of  England." — 
Blackwood's  Magazine. 


"  Interesting  and  readable,  and  charac- 
terised by  great  clearness  of  thought, 
frankness  of  statement,  and  moderation 
of  tone."— Church  Opinion. 


Seventh  Edition. 

SERMONS  Preached  in  St.  James's  Chapel,  York  Street,   London.     Crown 
8vo.     6s. 


"No  one  who  reads  these  sermons  will 
wonder  that  Mr.  Brooke  is  a  great  power 
in  London,  that  his  chapel  is  thronged, 
and  his  followers  large  and  enthusiastic. 


They  are  fiery,  energetic,  impetuous  ser- 
mons, rich  with  the  treasures  of  a  culti- 
vated imagination."— Guardian. 


THE       LIFE       AND      WORK      OF      FREDERICK       DENISON 
MAURICE:    A  Memorial   Sermon.     Crown  8vo,  sewed,     u. 

65,  Cornhill ;  6*  12,  Pater Jioster  Row,  London. 


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FOR  LACK  OF  GOLD.    By  Charles  Gibbon. 

GOD'S    PROVIDENCE     HOUSE.       By   Mrs.    G.    L. 

Banke. 

ROBIN  GRAY.     By  Charles  Gibbon.    With  a  Frontispiece 
by  Hennessy. 

KITTY.    By  Hiss  M.  Betham-Edwards. 

READY    MONEY    MORTIBOY.      A  Matter-of-Fact  Story. 

HIRELL,    By  John  Saunders.  Author  of  "Abel  Drake's 

Wife." 

ONE   OF  TWO.    By  J,  Hain  FrisweU,  Author  of  "The 

Gentle  Life,"  etc. 

ABEL   DRAKE'S  WIFE.    By  John  Saunders. 
THE    HOUSE  OF   RABY.     By  Mrs.  G.  Hooper, 
A   FIGHT  FOR  LIFE.    By  Moy  Thomas. 

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