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+Project Gutenberg's By-ways in Book-land, by William Davenport Adams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By-ways in Book-land
+       Short Essays on Literary Subjects
+
+Author: William Davenport Adams
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2010 [EBook #31034]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Stephanie Eason, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND.
+
+
+
+
+  BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND
+
+  Short Essays on Literary Subjects
+
+  BY
+  WM. DAVENPORT ADAMS
+  AUTHOR OF 'DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,' ETC.
+
+    '_Excursusque breves tentat._'
+    'GEORGICS,' iv. 194.
+
+  LONDON
+  ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW
+  1888
+
+
+
+
+  TO MY FATHER,
+  W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS,
+  THIS LITTLE VOLUME
+  Is Affectionately Inscribed.
+
+
+
+
+_In the following pages, the writer for the most part deals with small
+subjects in an unelaborate manner. He leaves the highways of literature,
+and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a
+leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore
+with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The
+author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and
+along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing to bear him company._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                 PAGE
+
+  PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES             1
+
+  RUSKIN AS POET                   10
+
+  ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE          19
+
+  FAMILIAR VERSE                   28
+
+  SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND            36
+
+  HEREDITY IN SONG                 44
+
+  STINGS FOR THE STINGY            51
+
+  DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD            59
+
+  SERMONS IN FLOWERS               66
+
+  'DON QUIXOTE' IN ENGLAND         74
+
+  BEDSIDE BOOKS                    83
+
+  THEIR MUCH SPEAKING              91
+
+  PEERS AND POETRY                 99
+
+  THE PRAISE OF THAMES            107
+
+  ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS               114
+
+  THE 'SEASON' IN SONG            123
+
+  THE 'RECESS' IN RHYME           131
+
+  JAQUES IN LOVE                  139
+
+  MOCKING AT MATRIMONY            148
+
+  PARSON POETS                    156
+
+  THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS           164
+
+  THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE          172
+
+  NONSENSE VERSES                 180
+
+  SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS         188
+
+  DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE           196
+
+  PUNS AND PATRONYMICS            203
+
+  'YOURS TRULY'                   209
+
+  POSTSCRIPTS                     217
+
+
+
+
+_BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND_
+
+
+
+
+PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES.
+
+
+One is for ever hearing enough and to spare about old books and those
+who love them. There is a whole literature of the subject. The men
+themselves, from Charles Lamb downwards, have over and over again
+described their ecstasies--with what joy they have pounced upon some
+rare edition, and with what reverence they have ever afterwards regarded
+it. It is some time since Mr. Buchanan drew his quasi-pathetic picture
+of the book-hunter, bargaining for his prize,
+
+  'With the odd sixpence in his hand,
+    And greed in his gray eyes;'
+
+having, moreover, in his mind's eye as he walked
+
+  'Vistas of dusty libraries
+    Prolonged eternally.'
+
+Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has sung to us of the man who 'book-hunts while
+the loungers fly,' who 'book-hunts though December freeze,' for whom
+
+  'Each tract that flutters in the breeze
+    Is charged with hopes and fears,'
+
+while
+
+  'In mouldy novels fancy sees
+    Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.'
+
+There are periodicals which cater solely for old-book adorers; and while
+on the one hand your enthusiast will publish his 'Pleasures' and
+'Diversions,' on the other a contemporary will devote a volume to the
+subjects which attract and interest 'the Book Fancier.'
+
+Meanwhile, is there nothing to be said of, or by, the admirer of new
+books--the man or woman who rejoices in the pleasant act of turning over
+new leaves? At a time when volumes are issuing by the dozen from the
+publishers' counters, shall not something be chronicled of the happiness
+which lies in the contemplation, the perusal, of the literary product
+which comes hot from the press? For, to begin with, the new books have
+at least this great advantage over the old--that they are clean. It is
+not everybody who can wax dithyrambic over the 'dusty' and the 'mouldy.'
+It is possible for a volume to be too 'second-hand.' Your devotee, to be
+sure, thinks fondly of the many hands, dead and gone, through which his
+'find' has passed; he loves to imagine that it may have been held
+between the fingers of some person or persons of distinction; he is in
+the seventh heaven of exaltation if he can be quite certain it has had
+that honour. But suppose this factitious charm is really wanting?
+Suppose a volume is dirty, and ignobly so? Must one necessarily delight
+in dogs' ears, bask in the shadow of beer-stains, and 'chortle' at the
+sign of cheese-marks? Surely it is one of the merits of new leaves that
+they come direct from the printer and the binder, though they, alas!
+may have left occasional impressions of an inky thumb.
+
+It might possibly be argued that a new volume is, if anything, 'too
+bright and good'--too beautiful and too resplendent--for 'base uses.'
+There is undoubtedly an _amari aliquid_ about them. They certainly do
+seem to say that we 'may look but must not touch.' Talk about the awe
+with which your book-hunter gazes upon an ancient or infrequent tome;
+what is it when compared with the respect which another class of
+book-lover feels for a volume which reaches them 'clothed upon with'
+virtual spotlessness? Who can have the heart to impair that innocent
+freshness? Do but handle the book, and the harm is done--unless, indeed,
+the handling be achieved with hands delicately gloved. The touch of the
+finger is, in too many cases, fatal. On the smooth cloth or the vellum
+or the parchment, some mark, alas! must needs be made. The lover of new
+books will hasten, oftentimes, to enshrine them in paper covers; but a
+book in such a guise is, for many, scarcely a book at all; it has lost
+a great deal of its charm. Better, almost, the inevitable tarnishing.
+All that's bright must fade; the new book cannot long maintain its
+lustre. But it has had it, to begin with. And that is much. We feel at
+least the first fine careless rapture. Whatever happens, no one can
+deprive us of that--of the first fond glimpse of the immaculate.
+
+But the matter is not, of course, one of exterior only. Some interest,
+at least, attaches to the contents, however dull the subject, however
+obscure the author. A new book is a new birth, not only to the �sthetic
+but to the literary sense. It contains within it boundless
+possibilities. There are printed volumes which are books only in
+form--which are mere collections of facts or figures, or what not, and
+which do not count. But if a volume be a genuine specimen of the _belles
+lettres_, the imagination loves to play upon it. What will it be like?
+What treasures lie concealed in it? What delights has it in store for
+us? In our curiosity we are like the boy in Mr. Pinero's farcical
+comedy: 'It is the 'orrible uncertainty wot we craves after.' No one can
+tell what may nestle in the recesses of new leaves. Not even in
+reference to well-known writers can we be positively sure. They may
+belie their reputation. The illustrious Smith may make a failure; the
+obscurer Brown may score a hit. For once in a way Robinson may have
+produced something we can read; to everybody's surprise, the great Jones
+has dropped into the direst twaddle. And if this uncertainty exists in
+respect to those we know, how much more auspicious is it in the case of
+those who are quite new to us? What gems of purest ray serene may repose
+within the pages of the unopened book before us!
+
+And, talking of unopened books, how much of the pleasure we derive from
+newly-published volumes lies in the process by which we first make their
+acquaintance. There are those who would have all books issued with the
+edges of the pages cut. The reasons why are obvious. To begin with, some
+labour is thereby saved to the purchaser; a certain measure of time,
+too, is saved. The reviewer, who has no moments to spare, may
+anathematize the leaves he has to separate with the paper-knife; the
+traveller by rail may condemn to Hades the producers of the work which
+he cannot cut open--because he has not the wherewithal about him.
+Everywhere there are eager and hasty readers who chafe at the delay
+which an uncut book imposes upon their impatient spirit. On the other
+hand, your genuine book-adorer, your enthusiast, who loves to extract
+from a volume all which it is capable of yielding, cannot but approve a
+habit which enables him to linger delightedly over his new possession.
+What special sweets may not be hidden within just those very pages which
+are at present closed to him! _Omne ignotum_ is, for him, _pro
+magnifico_--here may be the very cream of the cream. And so the adorer
+dallies with his prize. First he peeps within the leaves, and gleans a
+sentence here and there. And then he begins to use the cutter--slowly,
+slowly--dwelling with enraptured tardiness upon each page which he
+reveals.
+
+Who shall say that new leaves have no drawbacks? Verily, they have them.
+It cannot be supposed, for instance, that they are always wholly
+acceptable to the aforesaid professional censor. The reviewer, sitting
+surrounded by them, tier on tier, may rail at the productiveness of the
+age, and wish that there might not be more than one new book each week.
+And the omnivorous reader, anxious to keep up with the literature of the
+day, might fairly re-echo the aspiration. Who, indeed, can hope to turn
+over a tithe of the new leaves which are issued daily? Nor can an
+unlimited consumption of them be recommended. Mr. Lowell is to a certain
+extent justified when he says that
+
+  'Reading new books is like eating new bread;
+  One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he
+  Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy.'
+
+Assuredly new books are so far like new bread, that we should not
+consume them in too rapid succession. At the same time, let us be
+thankful for them, inasmuch as they have the unquestionable gift of
+novelty. Lord Beaconsfield's Lady Montfort said she preferred a new
+book, even if bad, to a classic. That was a strong saying, but there are
+points of view from which it is perfectly defensible.
+
+
+
+
+RUSKIN AS POET.
+
+
+It was lately rumoured that Mr. Ruskin was about to issue a volume of
+poems, consisting mainly of pieces already published. The statement was
+probably the first intimation received by many that the author of
+'Modern Painters' had ever written anything in the shape of verse. That
+he has always been, like Sidney, a 'warbler of poetic prose,' has lately
+been emphasized by a magazine-writer; but it is not at all universally
+known that between the years 1835 and 1845 Mr. Ruskin figured somewhat
+largely as a poet, in the popular sense of that much abused word. During
+that time he produced a good deal of verse, in addition to the prize
+poem which has always been readily accessible by his admirers.
+
+Even if one had not known, it would not have been difficult to have
+assumed, from the rhythmic character of Mr. Ruskin's prose, that he had
+at one time 'dropped into poetry.' Such a master of rhetoric could
+hardly have gone through life without wooing the Muse of Song, however
+temporarily or unsuccessfully. It would not have been natural for him to
+have done so. And, indeed, it is probable that no great prose
+rhetorician has failed to pay the same homage to the charm of verbal
+melody and cadence. In all the most sonorous prose turned out by English
+authors there will be found a lilt and a swing which would without
+difficulty translate themselves into verse. 'Most wretched men,' says
+Shelley, 'are cradled into poetry by wrong.' Most literary men have been
+cradled into it by their irresistible feeling and aptitude for rhythm,
+together with that general poetic sensibility which is rarely absent
+from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in
+verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work
+in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin's success as prose-producer
+has been owing to his early devotion to the Muse.
+
+He himself tells us, in the course of his tribute to his 'first editor'
+(W. H. Harrison), that
+
+     'A certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all my
+     later writings), and the cheerfulness of a much-protected but not
+     foolishly-indulged childhood, made me early a rhymester.'
+
+And he adds--the tribute was paid in 1878--
+
+     'A shelf of the little cabinet by which I am now writing is loaded
+     with poetical effusions which were the delight of my father and
+     mother, and which I have not got the heart to burn.'
+
+A much fuller account of the poetic stages through which he passed in
+childhood is given by Mr. Ruskin in his 'Pr�terita,' where he tells us
+of the six 'poems' he brought forth in his seventh year (1826), one of
+them being on the subject of the steam-engine, and rejoicing in such
+couplets as:
+
+  'When furious up from mines the water pours,
+  And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.'
+
+Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in
+its tone. Then, when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet
+another effusion, called 'Eudosia;' and when only eleven he began the
+composition of an elaborate 'poetical' description of his various
+journeyings, under the title of 'Iteriad.'
+
+It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was
+fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still
+further increased by the boy's admiration, successively, for Scott and
+Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the
+prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his
+sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to 'Friendship's Offering and
+Winter's Wreath: a Christmas and New Year's Present' for 1835. This was
+the era of the old-fashioned 'annuals,' and 'Friendship's Offering' was
+one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we
+note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among
+the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side of
+really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in
+corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of
+the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin's first published
+verses--'Salzburg' and some 'Fragments' of a poetical journal, kept on
+tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather
+than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:
+
+  'On Salza's quiet tide the westering sun
+  Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun,
+  Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof,
+  Begin to weave fair twilight's mystic woof;
+  Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil,
+  Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.'
+
+A little further on we read:
+
+  'Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza's strand,
+  Though no Arcadian visions grace the land;
+  Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by,
+  While day's last beams upon the landscape die;
+  Low chants the fisher where the waters pour,
+  And murmuring voices melt along the shore;
+  The plash of waves comes softly from the side
+  Of passing barge slow gliding o'er the tide;
+  And there are sounds from city, field, and hill,
+  Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.'
+
+Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which
+the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.
+
+Four years later Mr. Ruskin's initials were to be seen appended to a
+couple of pieces in verse contributed to 'The Amaranth,' an annual of
+much more imposing presence than the 'Offering'--edited by T. K. Hervey,
+admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such
+literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles,
+Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question
+is 'The Wreck,' in which Mr. Ruskin's poetic capability, such as it is,
+is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:
+
+  'The voices of the night are mute
+    Beneath the moon's eclipse;
+  The silence of the fitful flute
+    Is in the dying lips!
+  The silence of my lonely heart
+    Is kept for ever more
+            In the lull
+            Of the waves
+    Of a low lee shore.'
+
+
+To the same year belong contributions to the _London Monthly Miscellany_
+and the prize poem ('Salsette and Elephanta') before-mentioned. In the
+_Miscellany_ appeared some lines which, in certain respects, are a
+species of anticipation of the Swinburnian manner; as, for example:
+
+  'We care not what skies are the clearest,
+    What scenes are the fairest of all;
+  The skies and the scenes that are dearest
+    For ever, are those that recall
+  To the thoughts of the hopelessly-hearted
+    The light of the dreams that deride,
+  With the form of the dear and departed,
+    Their loneliness, weary and wide.'
+
+It may be assumed that 'Salsette and Elephanta' has been read by all who
+care about the undertaking. It was recited in the theatre at Oxford,
+printed in the same year (1839), and reprinted exactly forty years
+afterwards. It is a by no means unattractive piece of rhetoric.
+
+Another of the annuals to which Mr. Ruskin contributed in those days was
+the _Keepsake_, in which he figured in 1845, under the editorship of
+the Countess of Blessington, with Landor, Monckton Milnes, Lord John
+Manners, and the future Lord Beaconsfield as fellow-contributors. He was
+also welcomed to the pages of _Heath's Book of Beauty_. Five years later
+he collected his fugitive pieces, and, adding a few new ones, included
+the whole in a volume privately circulated in 1850. Copies of this book
+are said to have been bought at sales, at different times, for �31 and
+41 guineas. Six years ago, a selection from the 'Annual' verses was
+published, together with the prize poem and other matter, in America.
+
+Glancing through Mr. Ruskin's verse, one is forced to admit that it has
+no special individuality or charm. It deals with conventional subjects
+in a more or less conventional manner. There is a classical element, and
+a flavour of foreign scenery, and an occasional excursion in the
+direction of such topics as 'Spring,' 'The Months,' 'The Old Water
+Wheel,' 'The Old Seaman,' 'Remembrance,' 'The Last Smile,' and the like.
+The rhythm is always regular and flowing, and the descriptive passages
+have light and colour; but the 'lyric cry' has no particular tone that
+could attract the public. The longest piece ever written by Mr. Ruskin
+was, not the prize poem, but that entitled 'The Broken Chain,' with an
+extract from which I may conclude this brief survey of a great
+prose-writer's verse-production:--
+
+  'Where the flower hath fairest hue,
+    Where the breeze hath balmiest breath,
+  Where the dawn hath softest dew,
+  Where the heaven hath deepest blue,
+          There is death.
+
+  'Where the gentle streams of thinking,
+    Through our hearts that flow so free,
+  Have the deepest, softest sinking,
+    And the fullest melody,
+  Where the crown of hope is nearest,
+  Where the voice of joy is clearest,
+  Where the heart of youth is lightest,
+  Where the light of love is brightest,
+          There is death.'
+
+
+
+
+ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE.
+
+
+It is not surprising that Parliamentary contests should have figured
+largely in the English plays, stories, and poems of the past. That they
+will hold so prominent a place in them in future is, of course, by no
+means certain. If elections have been made purer than they were, they
+have been made less picturesque. They have now but little romance about
+them. Nearly everything in them is precise and practical. The literary
+artist, therefore, is likely to find in them few things to attract him,
+and will be, to that extent, at a disadvantage as compared with those
+who have preceded him. There were days when the preliminary canvassing,
+the nomination and the polling days, had features which invited
+treatment on the stage or in print. The whole atmosphere of
+electioneering was different to that which now exists. Those involved in
+it went about their work with a reckless jollity productive of results
+eminently interesting to students of character and manners. A battle at
+the polls brought out all which was most characteristic in the
+Englishmen of the times, and to describe such a conflict was naturally
+the aim of many a man of letters.
+
+Several theatrical pieces have been based almost wholly upon the varied
+incidents of such a contest. There was, for example, that 'musical
+interlude,' 'The Election,' written by Miles Peter Andrews, and produced
+at Drury Lane in 1774. In this, Trusty and Sir Courtly are candidates
+for a seat, and, while one John, a baker, would fain vote for the
+former, his wife is desirous that he should support the latter. As she
+wheedlingly remarks,
+
+  'Sir Courtly says, if you'll but vote for him,
+  He'll fill your pockets to the very brim.'
+
+But John is not to be corrupted:
+
+  'Honest John no bribe can charm;
+  His heart is like his oven, warm;
+        Though poor as Job,
+        He will not rob,
+  Nor sell his truth to fill his fob.'
+
+Nay, not though by so doing he may secure a husband for his daughter
+Sally. He votes for Trusty, and Sally's sweetheart respects him all the
+more for it. As the lover says to the lady:
+
+  'Your father's merit sets him up to view,
+  And more enhances my esteem for you.'
+
+And, in truth, everybody is delighted, for, as they sing in chorus:
+
+  'What to a Briton so grateful can be,
+  As the triumph of Freedom and Virtue to see?'
+
+
+Then there is that forgotten play of Joanna Baillie, also called 'The
+Election,' printed in 1802, and turned into an opera in 1817. Here,
+again, we have two candidates--one Baltimore, of ancient but decayed
+family, and one Freeman, a _nouveau riche_ of equally familiar
+type--neighbours, but not friends, and rivals for the representation of
+the borough of Westown. Of Tom Taylor's 'Contested Election,' produced
+in 1859, most people have heard, if they have not had an opportunity of
+seeing it performed. It gives a fairly faithful picture of the
+unreformed method of carrying on electoral warfare. There is an
+attorney, originally played by Charles Mathews, who undertakes to secure
+the success of Honeybun, and is quite prepared to pay for the votes
+which may be promised to him. There is also one Peekover, President of
+the Blue Lambs, who is equally prepared to accept the proffered payment
+for himself and friends. Honeybun does not get in, but that is hardly
+the fault of his attorney, or due to any general unwillingness to sell
+votes to the highest bidder. Bribery, it will be remembered, is an
+important element in Robertson's 'M.P.,' which dates no further back
+than 1870, though the action of the comedy, if I remember rightly,
+belongs also to pre-reforming times. Cecilia is willing to buy votes for
+Talbot, and three typical electors are willing to dispose of her money
+to the best advantage. The last scene is tolerably exciting. Talbot
+addresses the crowd from his window, and there is much exhilaration
+when the result of the contest is announced. To more recent
+representations of elections on the stage, it is scarcely necessary to
+allude.
+
+Turning from drama to song, one thinks at once of the poem 'in seven
+books' which its author, Carlyle's John Sterling, dubbed 'The Election'
+and published in 1841. Sterling had been anticipated, a few years
+previously--in 1835--by the author of a satire called 'Election Day,'
+which supplied quite an elaborate description of such a day under the
+respective heads of 'The Inn,' 'The Hustings,' 'The Chairing,' and 'The
+Dinner.' 'Although,' said the writer, in his preface, 'there are some
+great improvements in the manner in which elections are now conducted,
+still the immoral and degrading principles that accompany them appear to
+remain nearly the same.' According to this earnest and depressed
+observer--
+
+  'Mud and stones and waving hats,
+  And broken heads and putrid cats,
+  Are offerings made to aid the cause
+  Of order, government, and laws.'
+
+But especially is he struck by the amount of eating and drinking that
+appears inseparable from an election in his time:
+
+  ''Tis strange how much a splendid larder
+  Lights up electioneering ardour;
+  You soon awake to _patri� amor_
+  When stirred about with ale and clamour.'
+
+
+Sterling, though singing of
+
+  'Those high days when Aleborough proudly sent
+  Her man to sit in England's Parliament,'
+
+makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the
+candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to
+solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages
+descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how
+one of the candidates went out to canvass:
+
+  'With smiling look and word, and promise bold,
+  And dainty flatteries meet for young and old,
+  The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed,
+  The glistening ribbon for the maiden's breast,
+  Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives,
+  The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives,
+  The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear,
+  The shake of hands laboriously sincere.'
+
+We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how
+
+  'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues
+  Their floods of moral influence diffuse,
+  And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds
+  To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.'
+
+By-and-by we read:
+
+  'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit
+  Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ.
+  The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down
+  Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.'
+
+
+In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of
+political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a
+fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest
+pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot
+in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The
+nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful
+trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem,
+on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe
+
+     'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting,
+     the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and
+     the soft hits with small jokes.'
+
+Of the polling day, she writes:
+
+     'Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous
+     company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating
+     necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once "the writs
+     were out;" but there was drinking, which did equally well under any
+     name.'
+
+
+This was in 1832. In 1840 there was published at Dublin a tale, entitled
+'The Election,' in which the author bluntly declared that 'bribery and
+perjury are the returning officers.' He was, in truth, a very
+'high-toned' writer, for we find him declaiming vigorously against that
+which Sterling mentions as one of the canvassing weapons of a
+candidate--'the practice of shaking hands with all and every person
+whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance
+of the moment.' There are, we are told, 'cases when such buxom
+familiarity is out of place--when it assumes too much the appearance of
+vulgar cajolery to be received as a compliment.' Elsewhere we come
+across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a
+certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her 'vote and
+interest.' The lady protests that she does not know the difference
+between the Whigs, the Tories, and the Radicals:
+
+     'I know two of them are in the history of England, where they gave
+     trouble enough, whatever they were. But as for the Radicals, it is
+     a newspaper word that I can't say I'm well acquainted with.'
+
+Whereupon the candidate replies that all he can say for the Whigs is
+that
+
+     'they are very fair spoken, when it suits their convenience. But
+     the Radicals are a foul-mouthed race, on all and every occasion,
+     and are the bitter enemies to Church and State.'
+
+
+Nevertheless, the contest (of course an Irish one) which forms the main
+feature of the tale, ends in the return of Sir Andrew Shrivel, the
+Radical, together with Thaddeus O'Sullivan Gaffrey, Esq., representing
+the Nationalists.
+
+
+
+
+FAMILIAR VERSE.
+
+
+There is a species of verse, hitherto not classified distinctively, for
+which it seems desirable to find a name. In the first place, it may be
+necessary, perhaps, to emphasize once more the simple distinction
+between verse and poetry. There are, indeed, excellent and happy people
+for whom there is no difference between the two--for whom all that is
+not prose is poetry, and who recognise no other varieties in literature.
+Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by
+the necessity of distinguishing between this and that--of pronouncing
+upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were
+careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this
+rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it. Unluckily,
+the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse
+of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in
+essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking,
+it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as
+opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling.
+Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The
+one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the
+natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is
+exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of
+verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is
+derivable from their work.
+
+They must not, however, all be grouped together under one embracing
+appellation. If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and
+verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with
+the inferior article. There are many different sorts of verse. There is
+that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly
+comic, and there is that which is something between the two--neither
+over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and
+marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse
+has been given, in general, the name of _vers de soci�t�_ or _vers
+d'occasion_--verse of society or for the moment. Mr. Frederick Locker,
+nearly twenty years ago, thus labelled his volume of 'Lyra
+Elegantiarum'--still, even at this distance of time, the best available
+collection of our lighter verse. But the label is not sufficiently
+distinguishing; it is too haphazard and too narrow. The term _vers de
+soci�t�_ will not include all that is commonly ranged under it. For
+what, in reality, is _vers de soci�t�_? It is what it professes to
+be--it is the verse of society, the verse which deals with the various
+phenomena of the fashionable world. The writers of genuine _vers de
+soci�t�_ have themselves been men and women of society, who had caught
+its tone and could reproduce it in their rhythmic exercises. Mr.
+Locker's 'St. James's Street,' Mr. Dobson's 'Rotten Row,' Prior's lines
+'To a Child of Quality,' and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's 'Ode to Miss
+Harriet Bunbury'--these are the true _vers de soci�t�_, the true
+'poetry' of the ball-room and the _salon_.
+
+What, then, is to become of the large amount of verse which remains
+unaccounted for--which is neither distinctively sentimental nor
+distinctively comic, and yet has no right to the designation of
+society-verse? Well, this is the class of verse which, as we have said,
+has hitherto not been christened, and for which it is desirable to find
+a name. It is a very delightful species of rhythmic work, and deserves a
+denomination of its own. It has the tone, less of society and of the
+Court, than of the familiar intercourse of every day--of the
+intercourse, that is, which goes on between people of ordinary breeding
+and education. It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor
+does it rise to the height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low
+comedy. It is 'familiar, but by no means vulgar.' Its first quality is
+ease--absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a _d�gag�_ air. It is in
+rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is--flowing and
+unpremeditated without slovenliness--having the characteristics of the
+best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its
+second quality is playfulness--a refusal to be too much in earnest in
+any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme.
+It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its
+dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the
+sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes to the humorous; but
+always the style and atmosphere are those of familiar life, of everyday
+reunions; and hence the suggestion that it should be recognised as
+'Familiar Verse.'
+
+I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by
+those who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are
+well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in,
+periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its
+best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our
+literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though
+some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force,
+with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease--with Suckling, whose
+'Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?' is in exactly the right tone; and
+with Dorset, whose 'To all you ladies now on land' is another typical
+specimen. By-and-by Dryden showed how well he could write in the
+familiar style, when he composed the song about fair Iris:
+
+  'She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
+  For I am as false and as fickle as she;
+  We neither believe what either can say,
+  And neither believing, we neither betray.'
+
+Then came the reign of Pope, and Swift, and Prior, and
+Peterborough--Pope, with his truly playful 'What is Prudery?' Swift,
+with his charming lines to Stella; Prior, with his 'Dear Chloe, how
+blubber'd is that pretty face!' and Peterborough, with that masterpiece
+of the familiar _genre_:
+
+  'I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking,
+  Thou wild thing, that always art leaping and aching,
+  What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,
+  By turns has not taught thee this pit-a-pat-ation?'
+
+Then there were the Lady Wortley Montagu, with her lines to Congreve;
+and Chesterfield, with his 'Advice to a Lady in Autumn'; Fielding, with
+his inimitable epistles to Walpole; and Goldsmith, with his incomparable
+'Retaliation.' Later, again, came Cowper, with his 'Nose and Eyes' and
+'Names of Little Note'; Byron, with his verses 'To Tom Moore'; Moore
+himself, with his 'Time I've Lost in Wooing'; Barham, with his 'Lines
+left at Hook's'; Peacock, Canning, James Smith, Praed, and Mahony; and,
+still later, Hood, with his 'Clapham Academy'; Brough, with his
+'Neighbour Nelly'; Mortimer Collins, with his tribute to his 'Old Coat';
+and a hundred others, all of whom could play delightfully on the
+familiar string.
+
+And, happily, the manufacture of familiar verse still goes on
+swimmingly. The Laureate has engaged in it, and even Mr. Browning has
+condescended to it. It has never, in the whole course of its career,
+been written better than by Mr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell, and, among
+ourselves, by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson. No age,
+indeed, was ever more favourable than our own for the composition of
+verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into
+exaggeration--which may have, if it please, a _soup�on_ of wit and
+humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be
+tolerant and urbane.
+
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND.
+
+
+It was with true instinct that one of our most vigorous orators,
+desiring the other day to emphasize by quotation an appeal to the
+patriotic sentiments of his audience, went to a play of Shakespeare's
+for the passage. For the bard of Avon is _par excellence_ the poet of
+England. Keen as, in later years, has been the love of country displayed
+by such men as Thomson, Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson, and Mr. Swinburne, it
+is in the pages of Shakespeare that we find the most magnificent
+outbursts of national feeling. Let it be granted that the poet has not
+hesitated to throw a few satiric pebbles at his countrymen. Everybody
+will recall the amusing colloquy in 'Hamlet,' in which the Gravedigger
+humorously reflects upon the sanity of the English people, declaring
+that, if Hamlet be mad, it will not be noted in England, for there the
+men are as mad as he is. And then there is that other diverting colloquy
+in 'Othello,' wherein Iago stigmatizes Englishmen as 'most potent in
+potting,' asserting that they 'drink with facility your Dane dead
+drunk,' so expert is your Englishman in his drinking.
+
+But these be the gibes of Danes and Italians--not of the man Shakespeare
+or of Englishmen speaking with his voice. True it is that if Shakespeare
+was strongly patriotic, he was so only in common with the Englishmen of
+his day. He lived in an age when the English people were consumed with a
+spirit of burning affection for the isle which they inhabited--when the
+great religious upheaval which we call the Reformation had set the blood
+coursing through their veins, and infused new life into their heart and
+brain--and when the fear of Spanish domination had joined all classes in
+an indissoluble bond of love and loyalty. Probably the English nation
+never was more thoroughly united, more profoundedly in earnest, more
+closely attached to its traditions and its soil, than in those spacious
+times of great Elizabeth. And if Shakespeare produced play after play
+dealing with the history of his country, and presenting on the boards
+many of the most famous Englishmen of the past, he was led to do so, no
+doubt, not only because the topic had attractions for him, but because
+the Englishmen of his day revelled in such reminders of the stirring
+years gone by--of the great soldiers, statesmen, clerics, and the like,
+who had shed lustre on the national name. There must have been a decided
+and continuous demand for these elaborate chronicle-dramas, and it may
+be argued that the poet, in supplying them, did but comply with the call
+made upon him by his public patrons.
+
+The fact, however, that Shakespeare found historical plays a paying
+product will not wholly account for the powerfully patriotic strain in
+which they were composed. It is not only that the long series stretching
+from 'King John' to 'Henry VIII.' pulses from beginning to end with
+love of, and pride in, country; it is not only that the poet makes great
+Englishmen speak greatly--that, placing them in positions in which
+declarations of patriotism are natural and necessary, he makes those
+declarations eloquent and thrilling;--it is that he charges all his
+passages about England and the English with a passion of enthusiasm
+which can be explained only on the hypothesis that he was throwing his
+whole heart into the work, and sympathized deeply with the utterances of
+his creations. There is, for instance, something more than mere
+appropriateness to the character and the occasion in that marvellous
+piece of eulogy of which, in 'Richard II.,' John of Gaunt is made the
+spokesman. The poet seems unable to hold his admiration within bounds:
+
+  'This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
+  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
+  This other Eden--demi-paradise--....
+  This happy breed of men, this little world,
+  This precious stone set in a silver sea,....
+  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
+  This nurse, this teeming womb of Royal Kings...
+  This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
+  Dear for her reputation through the world'--
+
+on what other country has such magnificent praise been poured out by her
+poets? One can see, too, how sincere Shakespeare was in his feelings as
+an Englishman by the phrases and the epithets he everywhere bestows upon
+his fatherland. There is Chorus's famous description of it in 'Henry V.'
+as 'Little body with a mighty heart;' there is the Queen's allusion, in
+'Henry VI.,' to its 'blessed shore.' Now it is called 'fair,' now
+'fertile,' and now 'happy.' 'Dear mother England,' cries the Bastard in
+'King John.' Bolingbroke rejoices that, though banished, he yet can
+boast that he is 'a true-born Englishman;' and elsewhere we read of 'our
+lusty English,' our 'noble English,' our 'hearts of England's
+breed'--Rambures, the Frenchman, admitting that 'that island of England
+breeds very valiant creatures.'
+
+And mark how Shakespeare causes one and all of his patriots to
+congratulate themselves that Britain is an island. Tennyson has called
+upon his countrymen to
+
+  'Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
+  His Briton in blown seas and storming showers;'
+
+and elsewhere has made a 'Tory member's elder son' say--
+
+  'God bless the narrow sea...
+  Which keeps our Britain whole within herself.'
+
+Thomson, too, tells how 'the rushing flood' turned 'this favoured isle'
+'flashing from the continent aside,' 'its guardian she.' But Shakespeare
+had been before both in these expressions of gratitude for our
+insularity. The Archduke of Austria, in 'King John,' speaks of England
+as
+
+              'That pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
+  And coops from other lands her islanders...
+              That England, hedged in with the main,
+  That water-wall�d bulwark, still secure
+  And confident from foreign purposes.'
+
+So, in 'Richard II.,' John of Gaunt describes England as
+
+  'This fortress built by Nature for herself
+  Against infection and the hand of war.
+
+'The silver sea,' he says, serves it
+
+          'In the office of a wall,
+  Or, as a moat, defensive to a house,
+  Against the envy of less happier lands;
+
+while once again he refers to England as
+
+        'Bound in with the triumphant sea,
+  Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
+  Of watery Neptune.'
+
+
+There is one thing, however, without which, in Shakespeare's view, even
+our lucky isolation cannot avail to save us, as a nation, from
+destruction. 'If they (the English) were true within themselves they
+need not to fear, although all nations were set against them.' So wrote
+Andrew Borde, when Henry VIII. was King; and in the old play of 'John,
+King of England' the author made one of his _person�_ say:
+
+  'Let England live but true within itself,
+  And all the world can never wrong her state.'
+
+So Shakespeare, when he came to treat of the same subject, made the
+Bastard declare that
+
+  'This England never did, nor never shall
+  Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
+  But when it first did help to wound itself...
+        Nought shall make us rue,
+  If England to itself do rest but true.'
+
+There is much virtue in an 'if,' and the poet repeats the warning in
+another play. In '3 Henry VI.' Hastings says:
+
+  'Why, knows not Montague that of itself
+  England is safe, if true within itself?'
+
+That, again, which most troubles John of Gaunt, in the passage already
+quoted, is the fact that England, which was wont to conquer others,
+'Hath made a shameful conquest of itself;' while Chorus, in 'Henry V.,'
+laments that France has found in England 'a nest of hollow bosoms, which
+he fills with treacherous crowns,' adding,
+
+  'What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
+  Were all thy children kind and natural?'
+
+Here, then, is a lesson for our times. What Shakespeare felt to be true
+in his own day is equally, nay more, true now--that England, 'set in a
+silver sea,' is safe from all assaults, save those which she may suffer
+at the hands of her own 'degenerate and ingrate' sons.
+
+
+
+
+HEREDITY IN SONG.
+
+
+It is said that the verses in a recent number of _Macmillan's Magazine_,
+entitled 'In Capri,' and signed 'W. Wordsworth,' are from the pen of a
+grandson of the famous author of 'The Excursion.' They are gracefully
+written, in an agreeable rhythm, and with much command of felicitous
+expression. If, therefore, the writer has indeed the relationship to the
+great Wordsworth which rumour assigns him, the fact is interesting, and
+suggests some considerations as to the transmission of the poetic
+faculty from one generation to another.
+
+One might have thought that this transmission would have been tolerably
+common; that the sons at least, if not the grandsons, of a genuine poet
+could scarcely fail to inherit something of their progenitor's peculiar
+powers. One might even have supposed that poetry would run--as other
+things have run--in families, making the 'bards' almost a _gens_, or
+class, by themselves. Poetry, after all, is an affair mainly of the
+temperament--of fancy and imagination, of feeling and passion; and these
+are qualities which one might have imagined would be handed down, not
+greatly impaired, from father to son, and so on, for at least a fairly
+prolonged period.
+
+There have, indeed, been instances in which literary capacity has been a
+special characteristic of persons in close relationship to each other:
+one thinks at once of the Sheridans, the Coleridges, the Wordsworths,
+and others who have been notable for their productiveness in prose and
+verse. But the cases in which the purely poetic gift--the vision and the
+faculty divine--has been inherited and exercised are few indeed. A
+certain intellectual power will mark the members of a family, and
+exhibit itself in various attractive ways, but less in the domain of
+poetry than any other. It would seem that sheer mental force can be
+communicated, but that the higher qualities of the human spirit are not
+so readily transmitted; are, in fact, hardly transmissible, at any rate
+in quite the same degree. Not only are the examples of poetic heredity
+rare, but there are still fewer, certainly in the history of English
+literature, in which the son or the daughter has equalled the parent in
+poetic capacity.
+
+The case of the Colmans and the Dibdins is one of literary rather than
+poetic faculty. In each instance the father and son wrote verse, much of
+it excellent in its way, but assuredly not of the first order. The one
+name will always be associated with admirably humorous performances,
+while the other will continue to shine resplendent on the roll of
+writers of sea-songs. But work of that sort is a matter of knack rather
+than of inspiration, and 'poetry' is a word hardly to be mentioned in
+remote connection with it. Very different are the circumstances when we
+come to the children of Samuel Taylor Coleridge--to Hartley and to
+Sara, and to Hartley in particular. Sara had less than a half share of
+the poetic patrimony. She penned very pleasant rhymes for children, and
+some still linger in the collections; but they are not of singular
+merit. Much better than these are the lyrics which are to be found
+scattered through her prose romance, 'Phantasmion'--lyrics which
+undoubtedly have imaginative value. They are much less known than they
+deserve to be, though a few of them have recently been reprinted. They
+are not, however, to be compared with the best that Hartley furnished.
+Sara had ideas, but her mode of expression inclined to the turgid.
+Hartley was clearer and smoother in his style, and now and then, as in
+some of his sonnets, and especially in the lines beginning,
+
+  'She is not fair to outward view,
+        As many maidens be,'
+
+he actually attained perfection. The last-named gem is likely to last as
+long as anything written by the elder Coleridge.
+
+Mrs. Norton and Lady Dufferin are instances of ability descending from
+grandfather to granddaughters, and of ability, moreover, which, as
+regards poetical writing, grew and improved in the process of descent.
+The author of 'The Duenna' produced a number of neat and lively rhymes,
+but, great as Sheridan was as a dramatist, he was certainly not a poet.
+Now, his granddaughters were really poets, though by no means of the
+front rank. Scarcely any of Mrs. Norton's verse is now habitually read,
+but some of it is well worth reading. On the other hand, Lady Dufferin,
+who published much less than her sister did, is much better remembered,
+if only because she was the author of 'Katie's Letter' and 'The Irish
+Emigrant's Lament.' These pieces are distinguished by true human
+feeling, and hence their continued popularity. Of Adelaide Anne Procter,
+daughter of 'Barry Cornwall,' it is not necessary to say much, for
+certain of her lyrics are familiar (in feminine mouths, at any rate) as
+household words. Everyone, alas! knows 'The Lost Chord;' many of us
+wish that we did not. That the 'Legends and Lyrics' of Adelaide are
+considerably more widely known than anything produced by her father is,
+it is to be feared, only too true; and yet, full as they are of
+tenderness and grace, they have not the claims to attention possessed by
+the songs and dramatic fragments of 'Barry Cornwall.' The latter are
+unduly neglected; while the songs are among the most virile and vigorous
+in the language. The father's was altogether the stronger nature; the
+daughter set an example of gentle lachrymoseness, which has been
+followed, unfortunately, by too many female rhymers.
+
+Of more recent years, several examples of heredity in song have been
+vouchsafed to us. The younger Hood had his father's fluency, but,
+apparently, very little of his imaginative power. Philip Bourke Marston
+was, in the lyric vein, as successful, perhaps, as Dr. Westland Marston
+had been in the dramatic, and it is probable that he will always be more
+largely read, 'sicklied o'er' though his poetic outcome be 'with the
+pale cast of thought.' The works of the present Lord Lytton and of Mr.
+Aubrey de Vere are too well appreciated to need much characterization.
+These writers would no doubt deprecate any comparison of their products
+with those of the first Lord Lytton and Sir Aubrey de Vere, but it is
+one from which, on the score of absolute merit, they would have no
+occasion to shrink. Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Eric Mackay have written
+verse, no doubt, because Lady Wilde and Dr. Charles Mackay wrote verse
+before them; and the Hon. Hallam Tennyson has shown, in a rhythmical
+version of a nursery tale, that some measure of poetic faculty has been
+meted out to him.
+
+
+
+
+STINGS FOR THE STINGY.
+
+
+Few frailties of mankind have been more bitterly scouted than that of
+meanness in money matters. Of the two, prodigality has been thought the
+better. The man who is poor has not been censured for being careful;
+rather has he been praised for not being ashamed to own his poverty. But
+the spectacle of the rich man hoarding his wealth and not living
+according to his means has always excited the displeasure of
+mankind--not only, perhaps, because money kept in store seems for the
+time useless, but because if expended it would be very acceptable to its
+recipients. The world has commended the man who gives out of his
+superfluity, but it has condemned him who keeps too much to himself. All
+literature, from the earliest times, is full of denunciation of such a
+character. The miserly and the stingy have been impaled over and over
+again on the sword of the satirist.
+
+Meanness has not been confined to the obscure; it has had some
+distinguished votaries--as, for example, his Gracious Majesty King James
+I., whose economical propensities were notorious. Of him it was
+admirably written that
+
+  'At Christ Church "Marriage," done before the King,
+  Lest those learn'd mates should want an offering,
+  The King himself did offer--What, I pray?
+  He offer'd, twice or thrice, to go away.'
+
+Take, again, the great Duke of Marlborough, whose two chief qualities of
+mind were very happily hit off in the couplet 'On a High Bridge over a
+Small Stream at Blenheim':
+
+  'The lofty arch his high ambition shows,
+  The stream an emblem of his bounty flows.'
+
+Garrick was accused of money-grubbing, and his weakness in that respect
+was the subject of more than one smart jest by Foote. When somebody,
+_�propos_ of a remark made by Garrick on the parsimony of others,
+asked, 'Why on earth doesn't Garrick take the beam out of his own eye
+before attacking the mote in other people's?'--Foote replied, 'He is not
+sure of selling the timber.' And again, when Garrick, after dropping a
+guinea and failing to find it, said it had 'gone to the devil, he
+thought,' Foote remarked, 'Well, David, let you alone for making a
+guinea go farther than anybody else'--a repartee which was perhaps in
+the mind of Shirley Brooks when, referring to the excellence of Scotch
+shooting at long distances, he wrote:
+
+          'But this we all knew
+          That a Scotchman can do--
+  Make a small piece of metal go awfully far.'
+
+
+Then there was Lord Eldon, whose nearness was proverbial, and whose
+unwillingness to spend displayed itself markedly in his commissariat
+department. An anonymous epigram professed to record an 'Inquest
+Extraordinary':
+
+  'Found dead, a rat--no case could sure be harder:
+  Verdict--Confined a week in Eldon's larder.'
+
+We are also told that, when Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott quarrelled over
+the proper pronunciation of the legal term 'lien'--the former calling it
+'lion,' and the latter 'lean'--Jekyll produced the following:
+
+  'Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean
+  By saying the Chancellor's _lion_ is _lean_?
+  D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that,
+  That nothing within it can ever get fat?'
+
+Of Lord Kenyon, another judge of like inhospitable tendencies, someone
+said that in his house it was always Lent in the kitchen and Passion
+Week in the parlour. On another occasion it was remarked that 'in his
+lordship's kitchen the fire is dull, but the spits are always bright;'
+to which Jekyll, pretending to be angry, replied, 'Spits! in the name of
+common-sense, don't talk about his spits--for nothing turns on them!'
+When his lordship died, the words 'Mors Janua _Vita_' were by an error
+of the undertaker painted on the coffin; but, someone commenting on the
+substitution of 'Vita' for 'Vit�,' Lord Ellenborough protested that
+there was no mistake. Kenyon, he declared, had directed that it should
+be 'Vita,' so that his estate might be saved the expense of a diphthong.
+
+Most people know the story of Foote and Lord Stormont, the latter of
+whom had asked the former to dinner, and had placed before him wine
+served in the smallest of decanters and dispensed in the smallest of
+glasses. The peer enlarged upon the growth and age of the liquor;
+whereupon the player, holding up one of the glasses, demurely said, 'It
+is very little of its age!' This recalls an experience of Theodore Hook,
+when invited to dine with an unnamed nobleman, at the Star and Garter,
+Richmond. There were four of the party, and when covers were removed it
+was found that the fare consisted of four loin chops, four mealy
+potatoes, and a pint of sherry. These things despatched, the peer asked
+Hook for a song, and the wit responded with, of all things in the world,
+the National Anthem, which he gave correctly until, arriving at the line
+'Happy and glorious,' he added--as if under the influence of drink--'A
+pint between four of us--God save the King!' A different form of
+stinginess, it would seem, was shown by Brigham Young, when (if we may
+believe the tale) he gave as a reason for marrying a certain male-garbed
+lady-doctor, that he would be able to have her clothes 'made down' for
+his boys.
+
+The mean host has always been a special target for the scorn of his
+fellows. It was a Greek satirist who related how
+
+  'A miser in his chamber saw a mouse,
+  And cry'd, dismay'd, "What dost thou in my house?"
+  She, with a laugh, "Good landlord, have no fear,
+  'Tis not for board, but lodging, I came here."'
+
+And since then the flood of banter has rolled on. Herrick complains of
+an unknown person that he invited him home to eat, and showed him there
+much plate but little meat. Garrick (who had evidently again forgotten
+the mote and the beam) wrote of a certain nobleman who had built a big
+mansion:
+
+  'A little house would best accord
+  With you, my very little lord!
+  And then exactly matched would be
+  Your house and hospitality!'
+
+Much in the same way, Richard Graves wrote of the master of a house
+which was well kept but not open to company:
+
+  'If one may judge by rooms so neat,
+  It costs you more in mops than meat!'
+
+Note, again, Egerton Warburton's versification of a remark attributed to
+Lord Alvanley. A gentleman had drawn attention to the fact that his
+house was furnished _� la_ Louis Quatorze:
+
+  '"Then I wish," said a guest, "when you ask us to eat,
+  You would furnish your board _� la_ Louis Dixhuit.
+  The eye, can it feast when the stomach is starving?
+  Pray less of your gilding and more of your carving."'
+
+John Headley, describing dinner at one Lady Anne's, tells us that
+
+  'A silver service loads the board,
+  Of eatables a slender hoard;'
+
+and the sarcasm reminds one of the address with which Theodore Hook once
+bore himself under somewhat similar circumstances. Invited to dine with
+an old lady, he was horrified when the servant, lifting the cover,
+displayed a couple of chops. 'Mr. Hook,' said the hostess, 'you see your
+dinner.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' observed Hook; 'but where's yours?'
+
+The niggardliness which displays itself in smaller subscriptions to
+public or private objects than the donor's means will justify has
+naturally met with keen reproach. Herrick has a quatrain directed
+against the failing; and everyone remembers the lines about the man who
+declared that at the sound of woe his hand was always open:
+
+  'Your hand is open, to be sure,
+    But there is nothing in it.'
+
+Perhaps the happiest satire on meanness of this sort is contained in the
+anonymous couplet 'On Close-fist's Subscription':
+
+  'The charity of Close-fist, give to fame:
+  He has at last subscribed--how much?--his name.'
+
+
+
+
+DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+A leading Review lately contained a contribution entitled 'The Old
+School of Classics and the New.' It was, as regards its literary form, a
+'Dialogue of the Dead'--a discussion supposed to take place between the
+famous scholars Bentley and Madvig, with a brief intervention on the
+part of Euripides and Shakespeare. It was written with much smartness,
+and one could wish that such lucubrations were more common nowadays than
+they are. Not that they are by any means rare. It was only the other day
+that Mr. Marion Crawford published a work which had the conventional
+shape of fiction, but which was really little more than a series of
+colloquies in which some famous men of the past took part, talking
+throughout with a characteristic flavour which did the author
+considerable credit. Dialogues of the dead, pure and simple, have also
+been written of recent years by Mr. H. D. Traill, some of the best of
+whose efforts were republished in a volume called 'The New Lucian.'
+
+In the less immediate past, dialogue-writing after the fashion of the
+witty and audacious Syrian was not very frequently adventured. Just
+twenty years ago some writer or writers supplied to a weekly miscellany
+a few imaginative conversations between deceased worthies; but these
+were not particularly brilliant. They were in verse--in the heroic
+couplet, to which a good deal of point might have been imparted; but
+advantage was not taken of the opportunity. There was one 'dialogue' in
+which Shakespeare, Thackeray, and a critic were supposed to be engaged,
+and in the course of which Thackeray was made to say to the critic:
+
+  'Don't crack your jokes, but flit.'
+
+To which the critic:
+
+  'Your pardon, sir; I took you for a wit.'
+
+To which Thackeray again:
+
+  'Did you, indeed? Then, compliments to pass,
+  I took you just for what you are--an ass.'
+
+But this, which one hesitates to pronounce Thackerayan, was surely even
+trite. However, these dialogues at least remind us of what English
+society was saying and doing in the year of grace 1868. Thus, Thackeray
+tells Shakespeare that his dramas are played but scarcely acted:
+
+                    'For I won't deny
+  That people now are tickled through the eye.
+  No one to thought a deep attention lends,
+  And if a play's successful it depends
+  Far less upon the language than the scene.'
+
+Again, in another colloquy, Meyerbeer informs Mozart that
+
+  'The "Traviata" and the "Trovatore"
+  Of "Il Barbiere" have eclipsed the glory.
+  As Margarita Patti fills the stage,
+  And Marta sung by Nilsson is the rage.'
+
+
+He who dips into _Colburn's New Monthly_ for the year 1822 or
+thereabouts will be rewarded (or otherwise) by coming across a
+'Dialogue of the Dead' in prose, and there may be other such fugitive
+lucubrations. But so far as the English literature of the past is
+concerned, 'dialogues of the dead' were written by only two persons
+worthy of celebration--Walter Savage Landor and George, Lord Lyttelton,
+the author of 'Letters from a Persian in England to his friend in
+Ispahan.' Landor's 'Imaginary Conversations' are among those numerous
+works which everybody is supposed to have read, and, having read them,
+to admire. And unfortunate indeed would be he who could not recognise
+and appreciate the varied beauty and charm of these prose masterpieces.
+Here Menelaus and Helen, �sop and Rhodope, Tiberius and Vipsania,
+Leofric and Godiva, Roger Ascham and Jane Grey, and a hundred other
+heroes and heroines of the past, converse not only with dramatic
+appropriateness, but with rhetorical force--with amplitude of thought
+and spontaneity of image. By the side of such a wonderful flower-show
+(as one of our poets said of a selection from a brother poet's lyrics),
+Lyttelton's trim parterre shows, no doubt, but dimly; nevertheless, to
+that accomplished nobleman there is due something more than the small
+credit of having been Landor's predecessor in this form of English
+composition. Of that form Lyttelton says, in the preface to his
+'Dialogues,' that
+
+     'It sets before us the history of all times and all nations,
+     presents to the choice of a writer all characters of remarkable
+     persons which may be best opposed to, or compared with, each other;
+     and is, perhaps, one of the most agreeable methods that can be
+     employed of conveying to the mind any critical, moral, or political
+     observations.'
+
+
+Lyttelton brings together in his work such people as Plato and F�nelon,
+Lucian and Rabelais, Addison and Swift, Boileau and Pope; and, if he
+scarcely has the power to make these masters talk as we know they wrote,
+still he puts into their mouths much which it might be worth the while
+of the modern reader to assimilate.
+
+Early in the eighteenth century there appeared a little _brochure_
+called 'English Lucian,' but it proved to be nothing more edifying than
+a few 'modern dialogues' between a vintner and his wife, between 'a
+reformer of manners,' his wife and a captain of the guards, and between
+a Master of Arts and 'a lady's woman.' Of the humorous satire of Lucian
+himself there was no jot or tittle.
+
+The works of Lucian have, in various ways, found many translators in
+England--notably Dr. Thomas Francklin, who prefaced his version with a
+dialogue (in prose) in which Lucian and Lyttelton, after an exchange of
+compliments, proceed to discuss the writings of the former at some
+length and with much dulness. Dulness is certainly not the
+characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian
+which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century
+under the title of 'Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.' 'We
+bring you here,' said Cotton, 'a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of
+Greece'--'a piece of raillery writ,' as he went on to say, 'when
+Paganism was in fashion':
+
+  'Wherein his meaning further is
+  To take away th' authorities
+  Of lies and fables, which did pigeon
+  The rabble into false religion.'
+
+Herein the mission and the achievement of Lucian--first and greatest of
+the writers of 'Dialogues of the Dead'--are not inaptly stated.
+Fontenelle and F�nelon both derived inspiration for their 'Dialogues'
+from the brilliant pages of the Syrian, and within recent years his
+abounding merits have been sung in eloquent prose by Mr. Froude. There
+is yet room, however, for someone who shall prove himself the 'new
+Lucian' indeed, by writing dialogues in which the illustrious dead shall
+be made to express themselves (as they have not yet been made to do in
+English colloquy) with superlative sarcasm and inimitable scorn.
+
+
+
+
+SERMONS IN FLOWERS.
+
+
+Every year a 'flower-sermon' is preached in London, in accordance with
+an admirable custom; and the orator, we may be sure, has no difficulty
+in 'improving the occasion.' The materials lie rich and ready to his
+hand. The Laureate, indeed, has asked to what uses we shall put the
+wildweed flower which simply blows, and has inquired further if there be
+any moral shut within the bosom of the rose. He was answered long ago by
+Horace Smith:
+
+  'Your voiceless lips, O Flowers! are living preachers,
+      Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book;'
+
+and a living poetess has assured us, likewise, that flowers will preach
+to us if we will hear, the rose telling us that all her loveliness is
+born upon a thorn, and the poppy urging that, though her scarlet head
+is held in scorn,
+
+  'Yet juice of subtle virtues lies
+  Within my cup of curious dyes.'
+
+
+There is one lesson which the flowers have been made to teach with
+rather wearisome iteration. The poets have never been tired of dwelling
+upon their brief existence and seeing in it a reflection of our own.
+This rather trite melody has been sounded from the earliest to the
+latest times. Drummond of Hawthornden draws attention to the flower
+'which lingeringly doth fade,' and sees in it a type of his own life,
+which 'scarce shows now what it hath been.' Herrick, apostrophizing
+blossoms, deduces from them the fact that all things have their end,
+though ne'er so brave. 'Fade, flowers, fade!' cries Waller; ''Tis but
+what we must in our autumn do.' And so Dryden:
+
+  'The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time...
+  Such is your blooming youth, and withering so.'
+
+'Youth's withered flowers' made John Clare sigh to think that in him
+they would never bloom again.
+
+But this, which may be said to be the orthodox teaching of the flowers,
+has found many influential questioners, who have dwelt upon the brighter
+side of the contention. And it is pleasant to listen to their more
+cheerful voices. 'Not an opening blossom breathes in vain,' wrote
+Thomson; and the sentiment is heartily corroborated by Mr. Lowell:
+
+  'There never yet was flower fair in vain;
+  Let classic poets rhyme it as they will.'
+
+If the flowers have a short career, they make no complaint of it, says
+Landor:
+
+  'Fast fall the leaves; this never says
+  To that, "Alas! how brief our days!"
+  All have alike enjoyed the sun,
+  And each repeats, "So much is won."'
+
+They enjoy life, and they help to make it enjoyable for others.
+
+  'Gay without toil and lovely without art,
+  They spring to clear the sense and glad the heart.'
+
+So Mrs. Barbauld; while Mrs. Howitt similarly proclaims it to be their
+business as well as pleasure to minister delight to man, to beautify the
+earth.
+
+The present Lord Lytton has remarked of flowers that their scent
+outlives their bloom, and has expressed the aspiration that, in like
+manner, his mortal hours may 'grow sweeter towards the tomb.' But the
+main point made by the more optimistic observers of Nature is that,
+though blossoms fade, they revive again, in equal beauty, by-and-by. 'Ye
+are to me,' wrote Horace Smith, 'a type of resurrection and second
+birth.' To W. C. Bryant the delicate flower, arising from the shapeless
+mould, seemed
+
+  'An emanation of the indwelling Life,
+  A visible token of the upholding Love,
+  That are the soul of this wide universe.'
+
+Mrs. Hemans--a little unnecessarily, perhaps--dwells upon the fact that
+though the flowers sleep in dust through the wintry hours, they break
+forth in glory in the spring. For Longfellow, as for Horace Smith, they
+are 'emblems of our own great resurrection.' George Morine, in verses
+little known, reminds us that while cities fall away, and arts flourish
+and decay, these 'frailer things' will continue to adorn the world
+'unchangingly the same.' Though covered for a time by 'the wee white
+fairies of the snow,' they come back, says Gerald Massey, 'with their
+fragrant news,' and tell in a thousand hues their dream of beauty. For
+their annual disappearance from our midst, Thomas Westwood gives a
+poetical explanation:
+
+  'Wearied out with shine and shade,
+  It rejoiced them, one and all,
+  To escape from daylight's ken
+  To their chambers subterrain,
+  There to rest awhile, and then
+  Weave them fresh, and weave them fair,
+  And their fragrant spells prepare.'
+
+Alas! there are those who must needs draw a melancholy moral from the
+most consolatory phenomena. And so Charlotte Smith, while admitting that
+
+  'Another May new buds and flowers shall bring,'
+
+must needs exclaim,
+
+  'Ah! why has happiness no second Spring?'
+
+And the dismal reflection finds an echo in the heart of D. M. Moir:
+
+  'Green Spring again shall bid
+    Your boughs with bloom be crown'd;
+        But alas! to Man,
+        In earth's brief span,
+    No second Spring comes round!'
+
+
+The truth is, the imagination derives from Nature precisely what the
+former's capacity and quality admit of. As the Laureate said, years ago,
+any man may find in bud, or blade, or bloom, a meaning suited to his
+mind. Spenser, pondering on the rose and its thorns, and other such
+floral combinations, was led to remark that
+
+  'Every sweet with sour is tempered still.'
+
+Equally impressed was he by the bounteous ease with which Nature
+scatters flowers all over the world. In Barry Cornwall's view, this
+facile profusion is Earth's expression of gratitude for the effulgence
+of the Sun:
+
+  'When on earth he smileth, she bursts forth
+  In beauty like a bride, and gives him back,
+  In sweet repayment for his warm bright love,
+  A world of flowers.'
+
+Beddoes had a quaint and curious fancy that 'when the dead awake or talk
+in sleep' the flowers 'hear their thoughts, and write them on their
+leaves, for heaven to look on.' Campbell seems to have loved flowers
+most for the associations they called up. 'I dote upon you,' he wrote,
+in an address to them, 'for ye waft me to summers of old;'
+
+  'I love you for lulling me back into dreams
+  Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams.'
+
+And we find another Scotchman, William Anderson, giving utterance to a
+similar expression of feeling.
+
+There is a lesson which the flowers have taught to at least two of our
+poets, which, though it may have sympathizers, will scarcely find many
+practical adherents. It is embodied in a little lyric by Mrs. Webster,
+in which that lady, celebrating the beauty of a solitary blossom,
+describes how it is seen and gathered, and adds, ironically:
+
+  'Why should a flower be fair for its own?
+    Choose it, pluck it to die.'
+
+But the moral has been pointed even more effectively by the Rev. Gerard
+Lewis in some excellent verses. 'A gathered flower,' he says, 'is but a
+fading thing':
+
+  'Let woman's beauty wear the sterling gold,
+    The imperishable gem.
+  They give to her a brightness manifold,
+    She adds a charm to them.
+
+  'But flowers that strew the earth with fragrant grace,
+    As stars the welkin fill,
+  Look loveliest, live the longest, in their place;
+    To pluck them is to kill.'
+
+That is true, and yet the gathering of flowers will go on. And, after
+all, what more can a blossom desire than to 'exist beautifully' and
+exhale its sweetness, whether it lies hidden by the wayside hedge, or
+decks the bosom of a woman as sweet and beautiful as itself?
+
+
+
+
+'DON QUIXOTE' IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+The announcement that Mr. W. G. Wills had completed his dramatic version
+of 'Don Quixote' naturally excited much interest, and no doubt set many
+minds at play upon the general subject of the history of 'Don Quixote'
+in this country. That the renowned romance has appeared in many prose
+translations, from that of Shelton in 1620 to that of Mr. Ormsby only
+two or three years ago, is known to most people. It will be remembered
+that an early English version was prepared by the nephew of Milton; the
+once-famous Peter Motteux made himself responsible for one 'by several
+hands'; that by Jarvis, which dates from the middle of last century, has
+lately been reproduced by Professor Morley; and then there are those by
+Smollett, the novelist, and Mr. A. J. Duffield. There is no lack of
+them, any more than there has been of pictorial illustrations. Shelton's
+translation, revised by Stevens, was republished with 'cuts' by Coypel.
+When Lockhart prefixed his well-known essay to Motteux's version, the
+work was accompanied by etchings by De Los Rios. Jarvis's rendering
+exercised successively the skill of Westall, Cruickshank, Johannot,
+Dor�, and Mr. A. B. Houghton; another was illuminated by R. Smirke,
+R.A.; and in later years there have been the drawings contributed by Sir
+John Gilbert and by Kenny Meadows.
+
+So much for the story as it has been read in English and adorned by
+English (and other) artists. But how about Mr. Wills's predecessors? How
+about 'Don Quixote's' previous connection with the English stage? Well,
+it was scarcely to be expected that so popular a tale would never excite
+the attention of the playwright or the musician. Sooner or later,
+everything which has vogue finds its way, somehow, to the boards, and
+it is a little surprising that seventy-four years should have elapsed,
+after the publication of the first English translation, before 'Don
+Quixote' received the distinction of dramatization. Was it, indeed, a
+distinction? There's the rub. The dramatist was Thomas d'Urfey; and what
+could be looked for from that free-speaking worthy? The original is not
+without a certain breadth in certain passages, and what Cervantes made
+broad D'Urfey might be trusted to make broader. That, again, was only
+according to the practice of the day; and if the virtuous Collier
+fulminated against the trilogy which D'Urfey wrought out of the epical
+extravaganza--if some ladies of the time were found to object to the
+coarser humours of Mary the Buxom (a creation on which D'Urfey prided
+himself)--there can be no doubt of the success of the venture. The third
+of the three plays had not, it seems, quite the acceptability of the
+other two, but the author's explanation of its virtual failure--that the
+piece was not adequately presented--was possibly, for once, well
+founded, and the fact that the third play was produced at all speaks
+volumes for the triumphs of its precursors.
+
+A 'Don Quixote'--probably D'Urfey's 'second part'--held the stage, more
+or less firmly, till the eighteenth century was well upon its way; and
+then there suddenly appeared a rival, in the shape of a farce or
+vaudeville by Fielding, entitled 'Don Quixote in England,' and bringing
+both the Don and Sancho upon English soil. The author was well aware of
+his temerity, and, indeed, apologized for it. The piece, he pleaded, was
+
+     'originally writ for his private amusement, as it would, indeed,
+     have been little less than Quixotism itself to hope any other
+     fruits from attempting characters wherein the inimitable Cervantes
+     so far excelled.'
+
+He found it, he says, infinitely more difficult than he imagined to give
+his knight an opportunity of displaying himself in a different manner
+from that wherein he appears in the romance. However, he was induced to
+allow his work to be performed, and then it was seen that he had
+brought the Don and Sancho to an English inn, where the landlord,
+Guzzle, tries in vain to get the former to pay his bill, and whither
+comes one Dorothea Loveland to meet her sweetheart, Fairlove, spending
+the interval between her coming and his arrival in persuading the Don
+that she is a persecuted princess and that her maid Jezebel is Dulcinea.
+Dorothea is promised by her father to one Squire Badger, but the squire
+proves to be a sot, and at the Don's especial request the lady and her
+lover are united. The piece is by no means without humour, and it would
+deserve to live in remembrance if only because it was for 'Don Quixote
+in England' that Fielding wrote the song of 'The Roast Beef of Old
+England,' which consisted of two verses only until Richard Leveridge
+added five more and wrote the music for the whole.
+
+'Don Quixote' has made other appearances on the English boards, but none
+of any very great importance. There was an entertainment written in
+verse, and 'sung at Marybone Gardens,' for which Dr. Arnold wrote the
+music, and in which the Don, Sancho, Nicholas, Teresa, and Maritornes
+figure. There was a pantomime at Covent Garden, 'Harlequin and Quixote;
+or, The Magic Arm,' for which Reeve composed the melodies, and in which
+Harlequin, the son of Inca, carries off Columbine, the daughter of a
+Spanish grandee, to whom Don Quixote is affianced. There was, too, a
+'ballad-farce' called 'Don Quixote in Barcelona; or, The Beautiful
+Moor,' which, however, was never represented; and there were at least
+two other efforts of the kind, an 'opera-comedy' and a 'farce-comedy,'
+which had the illustrious Sancho for their hero, portraying him in the
+character of 'the mock Governor' of Barataria.
+
+It was, no doubt, inevitable that 'Don Quixote,' having been translated
+into English prose, should make its appearance also in English verse.
+And so it did--early in the eighteenth century--in the form of 'The
+Life and Notable Adventures of that Renown'd Knight, Don Quixote de la
+Mancha, Merrily translated into Hudibrastick Verse.' Mr. Edward Ward was
+the perpetrator of this work, in which various episodes of the original
+were reproduced with a vulgarity, not to say a coarseness, not unworthy
+of the great D'Urfey himself. The bard was tolerable enough in such
+passages as this, descriptive of the knight's appearance:
+
+  'The Don himself that rul'd the Roast
+  (Whose Fame we are about to Boast),
+  Did by his solid Looks appear
+  Not much behind his Fiftieth year.
+  In Stature he was Lean and Tall,
+  Big Bon'd, and very Strong withall;
+  Sound Wind and Limb, of healthful Body,
+  Fresh of Complection, somewhat Ruddy;
+  Built for a Champion ev'ry way,
+  But turn'd with Age a little Grey.'
+
+But, as a whole, 'Don Quixote,' as rendered into rhyme by Mr. Ward,
+cannot be recommended for general perusal.
+
+There is, however, a 'Quixote' literature apart from 'Don Quixote'
+itself. The great romance suggested more than one English counterpart,
+such as 'The Spiritual Quixote,' by Richard Graves, and 'The Female
+Quixote,' by Mrs. Lennox. The latter, published in the middle of last
+century, was devoted to the adventures of one Arabella. Of her we read
+that, supposing the fictions of the Scud�ri school to be 'real pictures
+of life,' 'from them she drew all her notions and expectations.' She
+became, in fact, quite a monomaniac upon the subject, and, as a sample,
+is for ever expecting that her lover, Glanville, will speak and act like
+the heroes of her favourite tales. In the end she throws herself into a
+river, gets brain-fever, and is brought back to sanity by a benevolent
+divine. Then there is 'The Amiable Quixote; or, The Enthusiasm of
+Friendship,' a novel issued later in the century, and having for central
+figure a young gentleman named Bruce, who
+
+     'found in the slightest acquaintance some virtue or some
+     recommendation. As soon as the enthusiasm of friendship was
+     excited, it overwhelmed his discretion and clouded his
+     perspicacity.'
+
+But this work owed very little to 'Don Quixote'--not more than did
+'Tarrataria; or, Don Quixote the Second,' a romantic poetical medley in
+two cantos, which appeared in the interval between the two stories just
+noticed. Early in this century there was issued, for a short space, a
+literary miscellany, called _The Knight Errant_, edited by 'Sir Hercules
+Quixote, K.E.,' who, said the prospectus,
+
+     'following the example of his illustrious namesake and ancestor of
+     La Mancha, has, with the assistance of his friends, commenced an
+     era of Civil Knight Errantry, and zealously devoted himself to the
+     comforting of distressed Damsels and disconsolate Widows, the
+     fathering of wronged and destitute Orphans, the promotion of Virtue
+     and chivalrous feeling generally'--
+
+and so on, and so on. To 'Don Quixote,' in some form or other, there
+will, of course, be literary allusions to the end of time.
+
+
+
+
+BEDSIDE BOOKS.
+
+
+To begin with, ought there to be any such things? Ought we to accustom
+ourselves to having books by our bedside? Ought not 'early to bed and
+early to rise' to be the motto of every well-conducted person, and is
+not reading in bed calculated to render the carrying out of that axiom
+virtually impossible? This is the problem we have first to solve, and it
+may be said at once that this discourse does not apply _virginibus
+puerisque_. Girls and boys, young men and young women, are hereby
+solemnly exhorted to abjure all nocturnal or matutinal reading of the
+kind suggested. To them all the lines in the copybooks apply
+unreservedly. Nay, even for those of mature years it may be allowed that
+bed is not the proper place for intellectual study. Let the hours for
+reading and for repose be kept rigidly apart, if the reading is to be
+systematic and prolonged. So far, everybody is agreed. To make a habit
+of perusing books in bed is to encourage laziness, and to encourage
+laziness is (we all know) to sap the foundations of the moral nature.
+That way destruction lies.
+
+And I am bound to say that habitual, sustained reading in bed is quite
+as uncomfortable for the human frame as it is dangerous to the human
+character. It cannot be undertaken with entire success. It looks easy to
+do, but it is not. If you are sceptical, try it. You begin swimmingly
+enough. You lie down, say, on your back, settle your head cosily on to
+the pillow, and perhaps, to start with, hold the book before you in both
+hands: For a time all goes well, but not for long. The position of the
+arms becomes fatiguing. You withdraw one from the book and commence
+again. But the utilized arm speedily grows weary, and the chances are
+that you drop the volume and go off to sleep, leaving gas, lamp, or
+candle alight--which is not very safe and not very healthy--nay, is
+positively unhealthy and unsafe. Perchance you try the effect of
+reclining on one side, leaning on one arm, and holding the book by means
+of the other. That, also, is charming for the moment, but has a similar
+tendency to tire very readily. Your elbow--the one on which your weight
+is thrown--soon gives signs of boredom. 'I don't like this at all,' it
+says virtually; and perhaps you turn round and try the other for a
+spell. But in these matters one elbow is very like its brother, and
+before long you are on the look-out for another attitude.
+
+What may be called the last infirmity of the determined reader in bed is
+his final decision to sit up and read in that fashion. Nothing could be
+better--for a certain more or less brief period. At the expiration of a
+few minutes, you realize that you are getting a sort of cramp in the
+knees; moreover, there is a disagreeable strain on your head; you are
+stooping too much, and bending your spine, and altogether making a toil
+of pleasure. The situation, it need hardly be said, is still less
+attractive when the weather is cold, and the effort to keep warm is
+added to the endeavour to read. You have wrapped yourself up, but
+apparently not to much purpose. You are conscious of growing chillier
+and chillier every moment. And, indeed, a very low temperature is
+usually fatal to the cultivation of bedside books. Even if you lie down,
+and almost smother yourself in the clothes, you are bound to obtrude one
+hand out of shelter, or how is the book to be held up? And how quickly
+that hand gets cold--and how often one's two hands have to be alternated
+for the purpose in view--and what a nuisance it is to have to make the
+continual change! One begins to think that, under the circumstances,
+reading is not so pleasant as one fancied, and that sleep (as the poet
+says) is the only certain knot of peace.
+
+One thing is incontrovertible, and that is, that bedside books, if they
+are to be acceptable, must be, in the first place, small in size and,
+therefore, not very weighty. The hand must be asked to hold as little as
+possible. Bed is not the place for heavy tomes; it is the appropriate
+_locale_ of the duodecimo. And yet the type must not be too small, or
+the eyesight will suffer, unless the reader can command plenty of
+illumination--which is not always the case. And the book must be not
+only fairly diminutive, but bound and stitched in such a way as to allow
+the hand to clutch it and hold it with ease. There must be no
+unnecessary extension of the palm and fingers, for it adds so much to
+the fatigue. Unhappily, every volume does not fulfil this requirement,
+and the requisite selection must be made with care. Moreover, the ideal
+bedside book should be not only small, and light, and agreeable to the
+touch, but distinguished by special internal characteristics. Not only
+must the print be legible; the matter it furnishes must be in brief
+instalments. What is wanted is a series of short somethings which the
+mind can readily grasp and as easily retain. Sustained reading is for
+the library or the study; the last thing at night and the first thing in
+the morning, what you desire is simply a number of brevities, at any one
+of which you can glance with the certainty of being interested.
+
+Wherefore, such works as novels must be discouraged in the bedside
+library. There is nothing to be gained by perusing a romance, by bits,
+in such fragments of time as the intending sleeper is inclined or able
+to accord to it. Keep a novel beside you, if you like, to turn to if the
+night should prove an obstinately sleepless one, and to that end let the
+tale be by 'Miss Braddon or Gaboriau'--one which shall really fix your
+imagination fast, and finish, perhaps, by sending you to rest. But for
+ordinary uses let the book which you take up be one of 'Jewels, five
+words long,' or thereabouts! Let it be a volume of short essays--let it
+be, for instance, Bacon's, or the 'Roundabout Papers,' now accessible in
+a handy form. Let it be a volume of brief verse, such as Mr. Gilbert's
+'Bab Ballads,' or Mr. Lang's 'Ballades in Blue China,' or Calverley's
+immortal 'Fly Leaves;' or let it be a collection of more serious
+lyrics--say, Mr. Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury,' or the selections from
+Lord Tennyson and Mr. Matthew Arnold. Or, if you like, let it be a
+treasury of maxims, such as those by Vauvenargues or Chamfort; or a
+series of select passages, such as those from the works of Lord
+Beaconsfield or Heine: or let it be a casquet of choice anecdotes, of
+which happily the supply is large--that incomparable volume of Dean
+Ramsay's, for example, or even the triter production by Mark Lemon.
+There is a whole world from which to choose.
+
+Only, take care that, whatever the literature is, it is not disturbing.
+The mission of the bedside book is to soothe the mind, not irritate it.
+When one lies down after a hard day's work, one's desire is not that the
+brain should be stimulated, but that it should be refreshed. It needs,
+not exercise, but diversion. It wants to be prepared for sleep. And if a
+book will effect that object, while at the same time adding to the stock
+of one's ideas--humorous or sentimental, it does not matter which--that
+volume is to be thanked and cherished. The difficulty of putting down
+one's book and extinguishing the light before the exposition of sleep
+comes upon one, must be left to be dealt with by the individual man. I
+have heard of a popular vocalist who was wont, when he had read
+sufficiently, to extinguish the candle by plumping down upon it whatever
+book he happened to have in his hand. But this is a rough and ready mode
+which cannot be generally recommended--at any rate, not in those cases
+where the book is one's own! Some other means must be discovered. And
+let them be efficacious, for when any element of danger or unhealthiness
+is allowed to attend the use of bedside books, the sooner that use is
+discontinued the better.
+
+
+
+
+THEIR MUCH SPEAKING.
+
+
+The 'dreary drip of dilatory declamation' to which Lord Salisbury, in
+one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of
+exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has
+followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all
+rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the
+question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show,
+and may present the spectacle of 'a steam Irish Party, an electric
+Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.' It is certain that there never was
+so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also
+certain that the complaint of 'much speaking' has before now been
+frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been
+a wordy race, and many a sharp shaft has been aimed at their besetting
+weakness. A last-century satirist once wrote:
+
+  '"Do this," cries one side of St. Stephen's great hall;
+  "Do just the reverse," the minority bawl....
+  And what is the end of this mighty tongue-war?
+  --Nothing's done for the State till the State is done for!'
+
+And, unfortunately, the quality of the talk has often been as poor as
+the quantity was considerable. It was, we believe, a pre-Victorian pen
+which perpetrated this couplet on the House of Commons:
+
+  'To wonder now at Balaam's ass were weak:
+  Is there a night that asses do not speak?'
+
+
+Fun has constantly been made of the typical drawbacks of political
+oratory--of the dull men, of the heavy, of the shallow, of the
+unintelligible, and what not. We have been told how 'a lord of
+senatorial fame' was known at once by his portrait, because the painter
+had so 'play'd his game' that it 'made one even yawn at sight.' It has
+been said of an M.P., that his speeches 'possessed such remarkable
+weight' that it was 'really a trouble to bear them.' Of a third it was
+written that his discourses had some resemblance to an hour-glass,
+because, the longer time they ran, the shallower they grew. Of yet
+another orator we read that his reasoning was really deep, his argument
+profound, 'for deuce a bit could anybody see the ground.' Nor have
+certain historical personages been able to escape the lash. When Admiral
+Vernon was appointed to take charge of the herring fishery, Horace
+Walpole wrote:
+
+  'Long in the Senate had brave Vernon rail'd,
+  And all mankind with bitter tongue assail'd;
+  Sick of his noise, we wearied Heav'n with pray'r
+  In his own element to place the tar.
+  The gods at length have yielded to our wish,
+  And bade him rule o'er Billingsgate and fish.'
+
+From which it will be gathered anew that a somewhat bitter style of
+debate is no novelty in this country--that strong language has been
+heard in the House of Commons _ante Agamemnona_.
+
+Within living memory a member has dared to suggest that certain of his
+opponents had come into the House not wholly sober. Who does not
+remember the epigrams which were based on Pitt's addiction, real or
+supposed, to intoxicating liquors? Porson is said to have composed one
+hundred such 'paper pellets' in one night, as, for example:
+
+  '"Who's up?" inquired Burke of a friend at the door;
+  "Oh, no one," said Paddy, "tho' Pitt's on the floor."'
+
+After this, most other insinuations become almost harmless; and the
+accusation of mere twaddling, such as that which was brought against Mr.
+Urquhart in the following lines, seems, by comparison, trivial:
+
+  'When Palmerston begins to speak,
+    He moves the House--as facts can prove.
+  Let Urquhart rise, with accents weak,
+    The House itself begins to move.'
+
+By the side of twaddling, again, mere rambling grows venial. One of H.
+J. Byron's burlesque heroes says of Cerberus:
+
+  'My dog, who picks up everything one teaches,
+  Has got "three heads," like Mr. Gladstone's speeches.
+  But, as might naturally be expected,
+  His are considerably more connected.'
+
+
+But it is against Parliamentary long-windedness, in particular, that
+most sarcasm, whether in verse or in prose, has been directed. Everybody
+remembers Moore's comparison of the Lord Castlereagh of his time to a
+pump, which up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
+
+  'And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,
+  In one weak, washy, everlasting flood.'
+
+This has always been a stock quotation to use against oratory of the
+'dreary' and 'dilatory' order. Then, Brougham had the good sense to
+recognise his own sins in respect to 'much speaking.' _Punch_ made
+someone ask himself 'if Brougham thinks as much as he talks;' but the
+Lord Chancellor removed the pungency from gibes of that sort by writing
+his own epitaph, in which he declares that
+
+    'My fate a moral teaches,
+  The ark in which my body lies
+    Would not contain one-half my speeches.'
+
+It was asserted of Lord George Bentinck that true sportsmen 'loved his
+prate,' because his speech recalled the 'four-mile course,' his
+arguments the 'feather-weight.' One is reminded, in this connection, of
+the preacher of whom it was observed that he 'so lengthily his subject
+did pursue,' that it was feared 'he had, indeed, eternity in view.' And,
+perhaps, a long discourse is none the more acceptable when it is
+palpable to the hearers that the discourser has committed it to memory,
+and is bound to go on to the bitter end. Possibly this adds to the
+feeling of exasperation. Nevertheless, there are those who must learn
+their speeches by heart, or else not speak at all. As Luttrell contended
+that Lord Dudley had said of himself:
+
+  'In vain my affections the ladies are seeking;
+  If I give up my heart, there's an end to my speaking.'
+
+
+However, it is, perhaps, scarcely fair of laymen to dwell too sternly on
+the joy which so many legislators seem to feel in hearing their own
+voices. Man is a talking animal, and can 'hold forth' outside the Houses
+of Parliament as well as in. And though in the term 'man' we may include
+woman, let us give no countenance to the old calumny, that the fairer
+and weaker is also the more talkative sex. There are some old lines to
+the effect that Nature wisely forbade a beard to grow on woman's chin,
+
+  'For how could she be shaved, whate'er the skill,
+  Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?'
+
+There is also a certain epitaph on an old maid,
+
+  'Who from her cradle talk'd till death,
+  And ne'er before was out of breath,'
+
+and of whom it was opined that in heaven she'd be unblest, because she
+loathed a place of rest. But these flouts and sneers are as cheap as
+they are venerable. Let the ladies take heart. Men have been censured
+for their 'much speaking' at least as frequently as women. Prior
+declared of one Lysander that he ought to possess the art of talk, if he
+did not, for he practised 'full fourteen hours in four-and-twenty.' And
+we owe to a more recent writer this paraphrase of an epigram by
+Macentinus:
+
+  'Black locks hath Gabriel, beard that's white--
+    The reason, sir, is plain:
+  Gabriel works hard from morn till night,
+    More with his jaw than brain.'
+
+It is well that satire should go that way for a change. All the talking
+is not done by women or by Parliament. There is, at times, as much
+chatter in the smoking-room as in the boudoir and the Senate. Tongues,
+as well as beards, 'wag all,' when we are 'merry in hall.'
+
+
+
+
+PEERS AND POETRY.
+
+
+The succession of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren to the barony of De
+Tabley was something more than a change in the _personnel_ of the House
+of Lords; it amounted to a conspicuous addition to the Chamber's
+intellectual power, and especially to the number of its poetic votaries.
+The author of 'Philoctetes' and 'Orestes,' of 'Rehearsals' and
+'Searching the Net,' is no mere versifier. He has felt the influence of
+the old Greek dramatists, and apparently also that of Mr. Swinburne;
+but, for all that, his work has undoubted individuality, as well as
+solid interest.
+
+It must be admitted that the House of Lords does not at this moment
+contain many hereditary peers who are also poets. Lord Tennyson, of
+course, is an ennobled commoner, and the Bishop of Derry (Dr.
+Alexander), who has written so much excellent verse, both in the
+thoughtful and in the imaginative vein, is no longer one of the
+spiritual lords. But there is Lord Lytton, there is Lord Southesk, and
+there is Lord Rosslyn; and by all of these Lord de Tabley will be
+welcomed as a brother in the literary art. What Lord Lytton has done in
+poetry, need scarcely be recapitulated. He would be remembered as 'Owen
+Meredith' if, since his accession to the peerage, he had not made a new
+reputation as the author of 'Fables in Song,' 'Glenaveril,' and other
+performances. As 'Owen Meredith' he was, no doubt, more fresh and
+spontaneous than he has ever been as Lord Lytton; but his poetic work,
+as a whole, is of good quality, and some of it will find its way down
+the stream of time. Equally certain may we be that the 'Jonas Fisher' of
+Lord Southesk, with its unquestionable vigour, both of satire and of
+sentiment, will remain alive, whatever may be the fate of the author's
+'Greenwood's Farewell' and 'Meda Maiden.' Lord Rosslyn, it will be
+remembered, was one of the most successful of the Jubilee Laureates;
+but, even before that, he had made himself esteemed by many trustworthy
+judges as the producer of numerous good sonnets.
+
+''Tis ridiculous,' says Selden, 'for a lord to print verses; 'tis well
+enough to make them to please himself, but to make them public is
+foolish.' He goes on to add that
+
+     'If a man in his private chamber twists his band-strings, or plays
+     with a rush to please himself, 'tis well enough; but if he should
+     go into Fleet Street, and sit upon a stall, and twist a
+     band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street
+     would laugh at him.'
+
+No doubt they would have done so in Selden's time; and much more readily
+would they do so now. But that is scarcely to the point. _Pace_ Master
+Selden, there is nothing ridiculous in a lord printing his verses--if
+they be but good enough for the process. A peer is not necessarily a
+poet, but a poet is none the worse for being a peer. Nay, there are even
+certain kinds of verse in which a peer may, other things being equal,
+be actually expected to excel. There is nothing to prevent his being--as
+Byron was--a poet of passion; there is every reason why, if he have the
+requisite literary capacity, he should shine in the poetry of the
+library, the _salon_, and the boudoir. He has usually the education for
+the first, and the leisure for the other two. He generally has culture,
+he always has breeding, he often has gallantry; and, with these
+endowments, the poetry _par excellence_ of the peerage is well within
+his reach.
+
+Considerable, indeed, would be the loss to English literature if by any
+chance the productions of our noble poets should disappear. Apart from
+Byron, who, of course, stands a head and shoulders above all his
+brethren, there is that Henry, Earl of Surrey, who ranks highest of all
+poets between Chaucer and Spenser, and who did so much to popularize in
+England both blank verse and the sonnet. But for Surrey both those
+accomplishments, since so popular among us, might have been long in
+establishing themselves in English poetry. The other poet-peers of the
+sixteenth century were admittedly not of the first class. Yet
+Buckhurst's share in 'The Mirror for Magistrates' and in the tragedy of
+'Gorboduc' was of undoubted value, both intrinsic and relative; and the
+world of letters would not willingly let die the work, slight as it was,
+of Lord Vaux, the Earls of Essex and Oxford, the Earls of Ancrum and
+Stirling, Lord Brooke, and Francis Bacon, although the great Chancellor
+wrote but one lyric of any moment--the well-known lines upon 'The
+World.' Lord Vaux's 'Of a Contented Mind,' Lord Essex's 'There is None,
+O None but You,' Lord Oxford's 'If Woman could be Fair and yet not
+Fond,' are among the treasures of our verse; while the tragedies of Lord
+Stirling and Lord Brooke, and the sonnets of Lord Ancrum, are at least
+curious and interesting, if they are not substantively great.
+
+And when we come to the noble poets of the Stuart and the early Georgian
+period, we find that the national indebtedness is not less marked. Who
+would be prepared to surrender the spirited effusions of Montrose? And
+is there not much to be said for the outcome, flimsy and over-free as it
+often was, of that mob of noblemen who wrote with ease--including the
+Earls of Roscommon, Dorset, and Rochester, and the Duke of
+Buckinghamshire? Had these writers not at least the virtues of lightness
+and of brightness? Did not Dorset pen the lines, 'To all you ladies now
+on land?' Did not Buckinghamshire produce 'The Election of the
+Laureat'--the prototype of Leigh Hunt's 'Feast of the Poets,' and of a
+still more recent _jeu d'esprit_ by Mr. Robert Buchanan? The great Lord
+Peterborough is even now less remembered for his military triumphs than
+for his 'Song by a Person of Quality;' while Chesterfield, if thought of
+most frequently in connection with his letters and his essays, still
+lives in poetry as the author of some admirable society verses. Horace
+Walpole claims mention in the list as Earl of Orford, and room must
+fairly be made, too, for Lords Lansdowne, Halifax, Nugent, Lyttelton,
+Egremont, and De la Warre, most of whom left behind them a few fugitive
+pieces which deserve to be embalmed in poetical collections.
+
+The annals of nineteenth-century song will commemorate, besides Byron,
+those agreeable versifiers--Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne, and Lord
+Winchilsea, and those cultured translators--Lord Strangford, Lord
+Ellesmere, and Lord Derby. It would scarcely be fair to include among
+noble poets Lord Macaulay, Lord Houghton, or the first Lord Lytton, for
+they, like Lord Tennyson, were created peers, and won their
+laurel-wreaths in the character of commoners. In the same way, I have
+taken no account of the poetical peeresses, or I should have had to
+dwell upon the achievements of such ladies as Sidney's sister, Lady
+Pembroke; the Duchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Winchilsea, the
+Baroness Nairne, and so on. Enough, indeed, has been said to show how
+prominent a part the peerage has played in the history of English
+poetry--not, indeed, in the front rank, in which (omitting Lord
+Tennyson) it is represented only by Byron, but in the second, where
+Montrose (for example) is eminent, and wherever, in short, the
+rhetorical, the amatory, and the witty elements are in the ascendant.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRAISE OF THAMES.
+
+
+Afluent versifier of to-day has complained that, though many a poet has
+'dearer made the names' of Tweed and Nith and Doon, and what not, no one
+has 'sung our Thames;' and he goes on especially to rate 'green Kent and
+Oxfordshire and Middlesex,' because those counties have offered, he
+says, no rhythmical tribute to our premier stream. Now, the Thames has
+not, perhaps, found many laureates of late. The glories of Henley may be
+celebrated annually in the comic or 'society' press, but in these times
+we hear more, no doubt, of sewage and steam-launches than of any other
+phenomena of the Thames. We are a practical generation, with a keen eye
+to business, and disposed to take not only as read, but as written, the
+praises which might well be bestowed upon the river even as it is.
+
+If, however, the Thames does not often or greatly inspire the rhymers of
+to-day, it cannot, certainly, be described as songless. On the contrary,
+it has received from the poets more magnificent and more frequent
+eulogium than any of its compeers. If one goes back even so far as
+Spenser, one finds that writer picturing it in one poem as 'noble
+Thamis'--a 'lovely bridegroom,' 'full, fresh and jolly,' 'all decked in
+a robe of watchet hew,' and adorned by a coronet 'in which were many
+towres and castels set;' while, in another work from the same hand, it
+figures as a 'gentle river,' is characterized as 'christall Thamis,' and
+is lauded for its 'pure streames' and 'sweete waters.' Chapman, in his
+'Ovid's Banquet of Sense,' discourses eloquently of the 'wanton Thamysis
+that hastes to greet The brackish coast of old Oceanus':
+
+  'And as by London's bosom she doth fleet,
+    Casts herself proudly through the bridge's twists,
+  Where, as she takes again her crystal feet,
+    She curls her silver hair like amourists,
+  Smooths her bright cheeks, adorns her brow with ships,
+  And, empress-like, along the coast she trips'--
+
+a description almost as impressive as the thing described. Among the
+lovers of the Thames must be ranked, too, Herrick, who, in one of his
+pieces, sends to his 'silver-footed Thamasis' his 'supremest kiss.' 'No
+more,' he regrets, will he 'reiterate' its strand, whereon so many
+stately structures stand; no more, in the summer's sweeter evenings,
+will he go to bathe in it, as thousand others do:
+
+  'No more shall I along thy christall glide,
+  The barge with boughes and rushes beautifi'd....
+  To Richmond, Kingstone, and to Hampton Court.
+  Never againe shall I with finnie ore
+  Cut from or draw unto the faithfull shore,
+  And landing here, or safely landing there,
+  Make way to my beloved Westminster.'
+
+
+Milton, in his 'Vacation Exercise,' bestows upon the Thames the epithet
+of 'Royal-towered.' How Denham celebrated it is well known to most. In
+his view it was 'the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,' and he
+commended it especially for its freedom from sudden and impetuous wave,
+from the unexpected inundations which spoil the mower's hopes and mock
+the ploughman's toil.
+
+  'Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
+  Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full'--
+
+such was the famous panegyric he passed upon it. From Denham, too, came
+an early poetical recognition of the growth of London's commerce. The
+Thames, he says, brings home to us, and makes the Indies ours; his fair
+bosom is the world's exchange. To Pope, in his 'Windsor Forest,' the
+Thames appears as the 'great father of the British floods,' on whose
+shores figure future navies.
+
+  'No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
+  No lakes so gentle, and no spring so clear.'
+
+And the poet ends by prophesying the time when 'unbounded Thames shall
+flow for all mankind,' whole nations entering with each swelling tide.
+Elsewhere he assures us that 'blest Thames's shores the brightest
+beauties yield.' Thomson, again, dwells on the extent of the trade
+fostered by the river. Commerce, he says, has chosen for his grand
+resort 'Thy stream, O Thames, large, gentle, deep, majestic, King of
+floods!' And he describes how, on either hand,
+
+  'Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts
+  Shot up their spires.'
+
+Then, as now, 'the sooty hulk steered sluggish on,' while
+
+                  'The splendid barge
+  Row'd, regular, to harmony; around,
+  The boat, light-skimming, stretched its oary wings.'
+
+
+Up to this time, the river had been called 'clear' and 'crystal,' in
+spite of 'sooty hulks;' but, with the advent of Cowper, another note is
+struck. With him the Thames is
+
+        'The finest stream
+  That wavers to the noon-day beam,'
+
+but it is not, alas! absolutely pure:
+
+  'Nor yet, my Delia, to the main
+  Runs the sweet tide without a stain,
+    Unsullied as it seems;
+  The nymphs of many a sable flood
+  Deform with streaks of oozy mud
+    The bosom of the Thames.'
+
+Happily, this is about the only word of depreciation which the poets
+have permitted themselves. Wordsworth, standing on Westminster Bridge in
+1803, notes that 'the river glideth at its own sweet will,' and if his
+olfactory nerves were at all distressed he has not said so in verse. Of
+later singers, none has been more enthusiastic about the Thames than
+Eliza Cook, who has told us that, though it bears no azure wave and
+rejoices in no leaping cascades, yet she ever loved to dwell where she
+heard its gushing swell--in which expression, we may be sure, there is
+no allusion to the British 'dude.' Another lady--Mrs. Isa Craig
+Knox--has supplied a very pretty description of the Thames in its more
+idyllic phases, pointing out how
+
+                        'It glimmers
+    Through the stems of the beeches;
+  Through the screen of the willows it shimmers
+    In long-winding reaches;
+  Flowing so softly that scarcely
+    It seems to be flowing;
+  But the reeds of the low little island
+    Are bent to its going;
+  And soft as the breath of a sleeper
+    Its heaving and sighing,
+  In the coves where the fleets of the lilies
+    At anchor are lying.'
+
+Finally, there is that austere teacher, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, who,
+addressing the Thames, exhorts it to go on soothing,
+
+  'With murmur low and ceaseless cheer,
+  The Imperial City's agitated ear,'
+
+but beseeches it also to add a warning voice, telling her, to whom the
+pomp of gold is dear, of 'Tyre that fell, of Fortune's perfidy.'
+
+Other poetic celebrations--such as those of Mr. Ernest Myers, Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, and 'C. C. R.'--might be recorded; but the above will
+suffice to show how prominent a place the Thames has always held in the
+heart and mind of those poets who have come within the sphere of its
+influence. Even if it were never made the subject of a future song, it
+would still figure largely and conspicuously in the British _corpus
+poetarum_.
+
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS.
+
+
+The student of English poetry must often have been struck by its
+richness in that form of verse which may best be called the
+Epigraph--the brief sententious effort, answering somewhat to the
+epigram as understood and practised by the Greeks, but unlike the Latin,
+French, and English epigram in being sentimental instead of witty, and
+aiming rather at all-round neatness than at pungency or point. Our
+language abounds, of course, in examples of short lyrical compositions,
+such (to name familiar instances) as Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Lay a
+garland on my hearse,' Congreve's 'False though she be to me and love,'
+Goldsmith's 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,' Shelley's 'Music, when
+soft voices die,' and MacDonald's 'Alas, how easily things go
+wrong!'--all of these being only eight lines long. There are, indeed,
+plenty of lyrical performances even more brief than this; such as Mr.
+Marzials' 'tragedy' in quatrain:
+
+  'She reach'd a rosebud from the tree,
+    And bit the tip and threw it by;
+  My little rose, for you and me
+    The worst is over when we die!'
+
+But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of
+reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as
+much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph;
+another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it
+for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance.
+
+The thoroughly successful epitaphs--at once short, and wholly poetical
+in expression--are among the most famous and popular things in
+literature. Who does not remember the admirable tribute to 'Sidney's
+sister, Pembroke's mother'--usually ascribed to Ben Jonson, but
+sometimes attributed to Browne? Jonson penned an epitaph on 'Elizabeth
+L. H.,' which would have been exquisite had it consisted only of the
+following:
+
+  'Underneath this stone doth lie
+  As much beauty as could die;
+  Which, in life, did harbour give
+  To more virtue than doth live.'
+
+Even as they stand, the lines, as a whole, may fairly compare with those
+on Lady Pembroke. How happy Pope was in his epitaphs is familiarly
+known. The art was just that in which he might naturally be expected to
+excel. The time-honoured couplet on Newton need not be quoted: the
+'octave' on Sir Godfrey Kneller is most notable for the final bit of
+hyperbole:
+
+  'Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
+  Her works, and, dying, fears herself may die.'
+
+And, talking of epitaphs, one is reminded of the quaint comment by Sir
+Henry Wotton 'On the Death of Sir A. Morton's Wife':
+
+  'He first deceased; she, for a little, tried
+  To live without him, liked it not, and died'--
+
+surely a piece of work as nearly as possible perfect in its way. In the
+matter of inscriptions, we have, of course, that by Ben Jonson on
+Shakespeare's portrait, and that by Dryden under Milton's picture--the
+last-named being by no means deserving of its reputation. We have also
+the well-known lines by Pope, 'written on glass with Lord Chesterfield's
+diamond pencil;' the equally well-known sentence on Rogers by Lord
+Holland; and the less-hackneyed and even more flattering couplet
+composed by Lord Lyttelton for Lady Suffolk's bust (erected in a wood at
+Stowe):
+
+  'Her wit and beauty for a Court were made,
+  But truth and goodness fit her for a shade.'
+
+
+The writers of verse have naturally shone in such concentrated
+testimonies to the merits of those whom they delighted to honour. Our
+literature is full of eloquent and graceful summaries of individual
+gifts and acquirements, apart altogether from the ordinary inscription
+or epitaph. Pope celebrated Lady Wortley Montagu's beauty in a couple of
+lines too frequently cited to need reproduction. Less often quoted is
+David Graham's concise but sufficient criticism on Richardson's
+'Clarissa':
+
+  'This work is Nature's; every tittle in't
+  She wrote, and gave it Richardson to print.'
+
+James Montgomery, in a well-turned quatrain, said of Burns that he
+'pass'd through life ... a brilliant trembling northern light,' but that
+'thro' years to come' he would shine from far 'a fix'd unsetting polar
+star.' It will be remembered that, in another quatrain, Lord Erskine
+besought his contemporaries to 'mourn not for Anacreon dead,' for they
+rejoiced in the possession of 'an Anacreon Moore.' James Smith wrote of
+Miss Edgeworth that her work could never be anonymous--'Thy writings ...
+must bring forth the name of their author to light.' And so on, and so
+on: the poetry of compliment presents many such conceits.
+
+A treatise, indeed, might be written on the epigraphs in which poets
+have praised their lady-loves or their friends--from Herrick's Julia to,
+say, Tennyson's General Gordon. Rather, however, let us turn to what the
+bards have been at pains to say about themselves, recalling, for
+example, Herrick's 'Jocund his Muse was, but his Life was chaste,' and
+Matthew Prior's triplet 'On Himself.' Colman the Younger wrote:
+
+  'My muse and I, ere youth and spirits fled,
+    Sat up together many a night, no doubt;
+  But now I've sent the poor old lass to bed,
+    Simply because my fire is going out.'
+
+But how inferior is this, both in feeling and in expression, to the
+dignified epigraph in which Landor celebrated the seventy-fifth
+anniversary of his birthday:
+
+  'I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
+    Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art;
+  I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
+    It sinks, and I am ready to depart.'
+
+
+In the couplet and quatrain of pure sentiment and reflection, some of
+the most delightful of our poetry is embodied. Herrick was conspicuously
+fond of this species of verse, and his works abound in gems of style and
+fancy, the difficulty being, not to find them, but to select from them.
+The beauty of one is apt to be rivalled by that of its neighbour. Thus
+we find on one page:
+
+  'When words we want, Love teaches to indite;
+  And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.'
+
+And on another:
+
+  'Love's of itself too sweet; the best of all
+  Is when love's honey has a dash of gall.'
+
+Then there is Lord Lyttelton's distich about 'Love can hope when reason
+would despair;' there are Aaron Hill's famous lines on 'modest ease in
+beauty,' which, though it 'means no mischief, does it all.' There are
+Sir William Jones's 'To an Infant Newly Born;' Wolcot's 'To Sleep;'
+Luttrell's 'On Death;' and many, many others.
+
+Of nineteenth-century writers, the most admirable composer of the
+epigraph has been Landor, who in this, as in some other respects, may be
+placed in the same category with Herrick. What, for instance, could be
+prettier than this?
+
+  'Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,
+    Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever;
+  From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass
+    Like little ripples in a sunny river.'
+
+How well-phrased, again, is this:
+
+  'Various the roads of life; in one
+    All terminate, one lonely way.
+  We go; and "Is he gone?"
+    Is all our best friends say.'
+
+
+Among living authors, Mr. Aubrey de Vere can lay claim to a quatrain
+which is entirely faultless:
+
+  'For me no roseate garlands twine,
+    But wear them, dearest, in my stead;
+  Time has a whiter hand than thine,
+    And lays it on my head.'
+
+To this, Sir Henry Taylor wrote a pendant scarcely less fortunate in
+idea and wording. Lord Tennyson has in his day written several epitaphs,
+inscriptions, and other trifles; but none of them have quite the
+perfection which might have been looked for from so great a master of
+poetic form. Mr. Matthew Arnold produced, with others, this excellent
+epigraph:
+
+  'Though the Muse be gone away,
+  Though she move not earth to-day,
+  Souls erewhile who caught her word,
+  Ah! still harp on what they heard.'
+
+
+Finally, the reader may be recommended to glance at Mr. William
+Allingham's little book of 'Blackberries,' in which they will find a
+large number of such 'snatches of song,' many of them fresh in
+conception and finished in execution.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE 'SEASON' IN SONG.
+
+
+'To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,' and the Season, when
+'dead,' yet speaks to many through the mouths of the men who have given
+it perennial life in verse. Its first laureate, one may say, was
+Mackworth Praed, whose 'Good-night' to it still remains the most
+brilliant epitome of its characteristics ever written. Nothing was
+omitted from that remarkable series of coruscating epigrams. From
+
+  'The breaches and battles and blunders
+    Performed by the Commons and Peers,'
+
+we are taken to 'the pleasures which fashion makes duties'--'the dances,
+the fillings of hot little rooms,' 'the female diplomatists, planners of
+matches for Laura and Jane,' 'the rages, led off by the chiefs of the
+throng,' the ballet, the bazaar, the horticultural f�te, and what not.
+Of later years the Season, as a whole, has been celebrated only by Mr.
+Alfred Austin, who published, more than a quarter of a century ago, a
+satire which was indeed formidable in its tone. Mr. Austin was severe
+about everybody--about the
+
+    'Unmarketable maidens of the mart,
+  Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint,
+  And hide their sins in piety and paint;'
+
+about the Gardens, where
+
+                      'The leafy glade
+  Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed;'
+
+about the ballrooms, where
+
+  'Panting damsels, dancing for their lives,
+  Are only maidens waltzing into wives;'
+
+about the theatre, where
+
+  'Toole or Compton, perfect in his part,
+  Touches each sense, except the head and heart;'
+
+and about a number of other things too censurable to be mentioned here.
+
+And, in truth, when one thinks of the Season in song, one thinks less of
+the satire than of the sarcasm, less of the cynicism than of the
+sympathy, with which it has been treated by its poets. Take, for
+example, that most conspicuous feature of the Season--the walking,
+riding, driving in the Row. It was Tickell who made a woman of fashion
+of his day tell how she
+
+  'Mounted her palfrey as gay as a lark,
+  And, followed by John, took the dust in Hyde Park,'
+
+and how
+
+  'On the way she was met by some smart Macaroni,
+  Who rode by her side on a little bay pony.'
+
+In our own time the glories and the humours of the Row have been
+described with geniality by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Ashby-Sterry,
+with point by Mr. Austin Dobson, and with smartness by H. S. Leigh. Says
+Mr. Locker:
+
+  'Forsooth, and on a livelier spot
+    The sunbeam never shines;
+  Fair ladies here can talk and trot
+    With statesmen and divines.
+
+  'What grooms! what gallant gentlemen!
+    What well-appointed hacks!
+  What glory in their pace, and then,
+    What beauty on their backs!'
+
+Mr. Dobson, in a different mood, assures his Roman prototype that the
+world to-day is very much what it was in the time of 'Q. H. F.':
+
+  'Walk in the Park--you'll seldom fail
+  To find a Sybaris on the rail
+      By Lydia's ponies;
+  Or hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed,
+  Ogling some unsuspecting maid.
+
+  'Fair Neobule, too! Is not
+  One Hebrus here--from Aldershot?
+      Aha, you colour!
+  Be wise. There old Canidia sits;
+  No doubt she's tearing you to bits.'
+
+
+The Eton and Harrow match, like lawn-tennis, _caret vate sacro_; but the
+delights of Henley and Hurlingham have been sung in verse, and the
+Inter-University Boat-race was the subject of some admirable lines by
+Mortimer Collins and G. J. Cayley:
+
+  'Sweet amid lime-trees' blossom, astir with the whispers of springtide,
+  Maiden speech to hear, eloquent murmur and sigh
+  Ah! but the joy of the Thames when, Cam with Isis contending,
+  Up the Imperial stream flash the impetuous Eights!
+  Sweeping and strong is the stroke, as they race from Putney to Mortlake,
+  Shying the Crab Tree bight, shooting through Hammersmith Bridge;
+  Onward elastic they strain to the deep low moan of the rowlock;
+  Louder the cheer from the bank, swifter the flash of the oar!'
+
+Pretty again, in its way, is the better-known 'Boat-race Sketch,' by Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, whose heroine
+
+  'Twines her fair hair with the colours of Isis,
+  Whilst those of the Cam glitter bright in her eyes.'
+
+The joys of Epsom and of Goodwood have not, I believe, been versified by
+any prominent rhymer, and, concerning those of Ascot, I know of but one
+elaborate celebration--that which describes, among other things,
+
+  'Tall bottles passing to and fro,
+  And clear-cut crystal's creamy flow,
+  Where vied with velvet Veuve Clicquot,
+          Mo�t and Chandon;'
+
+as well as
+
+  'The homeward drive that came too soon
+  By parks and lodges bright with June,
+  And how we mocked the afternoon
+          With lazy laughter.'
+
+Nothing, of course, is more peculiar to the Season than the devotion
+displayed by Society at the shrine of Art. The Academy and the Grosvenor
+are institutions without which the Season would not be itself. The
+latter has not figured very conspicuously in song, but at least it has
+managed to creep into one of the Gilbert-Sullivan operas, in the shape
+of a rhyme to 'greenery-yallery.' Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has told us of
+the critic who had
+
+  'Totter'd, since the dawn was red,
+    Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery;'
+
+and, in another of his 'verses vain,' has practically limned the Gallery
+itself under the guise of 'Camelot':
+
+  'In Camelot, how gray and green
+  The damsels dwell, how sad their teen;
+  In Camelot, how green and gray
+  The melancholy poplars sway.
+  I wis I wot not what they mean,
+  Or wherefore, passionate and lean,
+  The maidens mope their loves between.'
+
+The character of Burne-Jonesian art is here very happily hit off. Happy,
+too, is Mr. Lang's sketch of the Philistian features of the Academy:
+
+  'Philistia! Maids in muslin white
+  With flannelled oarsmen oft delight
+  To drift upon thy streams, and float
+  In Salter's most luxurious boat;
+  In buff and boots the cheery knight
+  Returns (quite safe) from Naseby fight.'
+
+But did not Praed long ago address 'The Portrait of a Lady at the
+Exhibition of the Royal Academy'? Has not Mr. Ashby-Sterry addressed
+'Number One' in the said exhibition--also 'the portrait of a lady'? And,
+moreover, has not Mr. Austin Dobson made the Academy the scene of one of
+his brightly-written dialogues?--that in which the lady says:
+
+  'From now until we go in June
+  I shall hear nothing but this tune:
+  Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or
+  Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more;
+  With all that critics, right or wrong,
+  Have said of Leslie or of Long.'
+
+
+Among the events of every season are the fashionable marriages, one of
+which is described for us by Mr. Frederick Locker in his 'St. George's,
+Hanover Square.' On the subject of the belles of the season I need not
+dwell. Praed's 'Belle of the Ballroom' was a provincial beauty; but not
+so, assuredly, was Pope's and Lord Peterborough's Mrs. Howard,
+Congreve's Miss Temple, Lord Chesterfield's Duchess of Richmond, Fox's
+Mrs. Crewe, Lord Lytton's La Marquise, Mr. A�d�'s Beauty Clare, or Mr.
+Austin Dobson's Avice. Of London balls and routs the poets have been
+many, including Edward Fitzgerald, C. S. Calverley, and Mr. Dobson
+again. The opera, so far as I know, has had very few celebrants in
+rhyme. The 'Monday Pops' figure in 'Patience' with the Grosvenor
+Gallery, but have not otherwise, I fancy, been distinguished in song. On
+the whole, however, the Season has received poetic tributes at once
+numerous and interesting.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE 'RECESS' IN RHYME.
+
+
+If the Season has had its laureates, so has the Recess. Why not? Of the
+two, the latter has the more numerous elements of poetry. Town has its
+charms for the versifier; there is much to say about its streets, its
+parks, its belles, its balls, its many diversions. But there is even
+more, surely, to say about the country, with its ancestral halls, its
+watering-places, and its shootings, as well as about the seaside and the
+various attractions _outre-mer_. Surely, of the two, life out of town
+has even more delights, for the poet, at any rate, than life in town.
+Sylvester is reported to have said that people, after tiring in town, go
+to re-tire in the country. But the saying, if epigrammatic, is not
+strictly true. No doubt some of us feel bored, wherever we may go, or
+whatever we may do. But to most people, I imagine, the Recess, if spent
+out of London, is a time of genuine enjoyment, and certainly it is a
+time which deserves to be distinguished in song.
+
+The Recess, as spent in London, has been drawn by the rhymers in
+depressing tints. The picture painted by Haynes Bayly remains--for the
+fashionable world, at least--almost as true as it ever was. As he said:
+
+  'In town, in the month of September,
+    We find neither riches nor rank;
+  In vain we look out for a member
+    To give us a nod or a frank.
+  Each knocker in silence reposes,
+    In every mansion you find
+  One dirty old woman who dozes,
+    Or peeps through the dining-room blind.'
+
+This may be compared with the soliloquy put by H. S. Leigh in the mouth
+of 'the last man' left in London:
+
+  'The Row is dull, as dull can be;
+    Deserted is the Drive;
+  The glass that stood at eighty-three,
+    Now stands at sixty-five.
+  The summer days are over,
+    The town, ah me! has flown,
+  Through Dover, or to clover--
+    And I am all alone.'
+
+It has long been held, among a certain class, that to be seen in town
+during the Recess is to forfeit all pretensions to _haut ton_. And so
+'the last man' of the Season is naturally represented by Bayly as
+somewhat ashamed of himself. 'He'll blush,' we are told, 'if you ask him
+the reason Why he with the rest is not gone':
+
+  'He'll seek you with shame and with sorrow,
+    He'll smile with affected delight;
+  He'll swear he leaves London to-morrow,
+    And only came to it last night!'
+
+He will tell you that he is in general request--that the difficulty is
+to know where not to go:
+
+  'So odd you should happen to meet him;
+    So strange, as he's just passing through.'
+
+
+The Season may be said to go to its grave with parting volleys from the
+sportsmen on the moors. One is fired on 'the Twelfth,' the other on 'the
+First.' The one is associated with grouse, the other with partridges.
+And Haynes Bayly makes his fashionable matron only too conscious of
+these facts. 'Don't talk of September,' she says; 'a lady
+
+    'Must think it of all months the worst;
+  The men are preparing already
+    To take themselves off on the First.'
+
+  'Last month, their attention to quicken,
+    A supper I knew was the thing;
+  But now, from my turkey and chicken,
+    They're tempted by birds on the wing!
+  They shoulder their terrible rifles
+    ('Tis really too much for my nerves!)
+  And, slighting my sweets and my trifles,
+    Prefer my Lord Harry's preserves!'
+
+And she goes on to say:
+
+  'Oh, marriage is hard of digestion,
+    The men are all sparing of words;
+  And now 'stead of popping the question,
+    They set off to pop at the birds.'
+
+
+Life at English country houses has been depicted by more than one poet.
+Pope, for instance, tells us what happened when Miss Blount left
+town--how
+
+  'She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
+  Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks...
+  (To) divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
+  Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire.'
+
+Lord Lyttelton's 'beauty in the country' complains that
+
+  'Now with mamma at tedious whist I play,
+  Now without scandal drink insipid tea;'
+
+while Lady Mary Montagu's 'bride in the country' deplores the fact that
+she is
+
+              'Left in the lurch,
+    Forgot and secluded from view,
+  Unless when some bumpkin at church
+    Stares wistfully over the pew.'
+
+Agreeably descriptive of rural pleasures is Lord Chesterfield's 'Advice
+to a Lady in Autumn.' Of recent years the subject has been treated by a
+versifier who has at least a measure of the neatness of Praed, and who
+enumerates among the typical guests at a country house
+
+  'A sporting parson, good at whist,
+    A preaching sportsman, good at gateways;'
+
+and, again:
+
+  'A lady who once wrote a book,
+    And one of whom a book's been written...
+  One blonde whose fortune is her face,
+    And one whose face caught her a fortune.'
+
+As for the daily round:
+
+  'We dance, we flirt, we shoot, we ride,
+    Our host's a veritable Nimrod:
+  We fish the river's silver tide,'
+
+and so on. There are, of course, the county balls, and the fancy balls,
+and the private theatricals, and what not, all of them celebrated by the
+inevitable Praed. It was at the county ball that he saw 'the belle of
+the ballroom':
+
+  'There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
+    Gave signal sweet in that old hall
+  Of hands across and down the middle.'
+
+It was to the county ball, as well as to the theatricals at Fustian
+Hall, that Praed's 'Clarence' was so prettily invited. As for fancy
+balls:
+
+  'Oh, a fancy ball's a strange affair!
+    Made up of silks and leathers,
+  Light heads, light heels, false hearts, false hair,
+    Pins, paint, and ostrich feathers.'
+
+
+Of inland watering-places, Bath and Cheltenham have been perhaps most
+often poetized. Bath found its _vates sacer_ in the author of the 'New
+Bath Guide'; it has rarely found one since; its glories have virtually
+departed. It was at Cheltenham--
+
+          'Where one drinks one's fill
+  Of folly and cold water'--
+
+that Praed met his 'Partner.' And C. S. Calverley has told us how
+
+  'Year by year do Beauty's daughters
+    In the sweetest gloves and shawls
+  Troop to taste the Chattenham waters,
+    And adorn the Chattenham balls.
+
+  '_Nulla non donanda lauru_
+    Is that city: you could not,
+  Placing England's map before you,
+    Light on a more favoured spot.'
+
+
+Praed has a poem called 'Arrivals at a Watering-Place,' but it is not
+one of the most successful of his efforts. Nor have seaside places in
+general been made the subject of very excellent verse. Brighton is the
+one exception. Of that 'favoured spot,' James Smith, of 'Rejected
+Addresses' fame, was, perhaps, the first to write flatteringly. 'Long,'
+he declared--
+
+  'Long shalt thou laugh thy enemies to scorn,
+    Proud as Phoenicia, queen of watering-places!
+  Boys yet unbreech'd, and virgins yet unborn,
+    On thy bleak downs shall tan their blooming faces.'
+
+The prophecy, one need not say, has been amply fulfilled. And the poets
+still conspire to sing the praises of 'Old Ocean's bauble, glittering
+Brighton.' Everybody remembers the stirring exhortation of Mortimer
+Collins:
+
+  'If you approve of flirtations, good dinners,
+    Seascapes divine, which the merry winds whiten;
+  Nice little saints, and still nicer young sinners,
+                                Winter at Brighton!'
+
+Nor has Mr. Ashby-Sterry proved himself at all less enthusiastic.
+Brighton in November, he says, 'is what one should remember':
+
+              'If spirits you would lighten,
+              Consult good Doctor Brighton,
+  And swallow his prescriptions and abide by his decree;
+              If nerves be weak or shaken,
+              Just try a week with Bacon;
+  His physic soon is taken at our London-by-the-Sea.'
+
+
+Something might be said of the delights of foreign sojourn in the
+Recess; but space fails me. Reference may, however, be made to Mr.
+Locker's graceful 'Invitation to Rome' and 'The Reply' to it, from which
+I take this typical tribute to the Italian capital:
+
+  'Some girls, who love to ride and race,
+    And live for dancing, like the Bruens,
+  Confess that Rome's a charming place--
+    In spite of all the stupid ruins!'
+
+
+
+
+JAQUES IN LOVE.
+
+
+What Jaques is in Shakespeare's pages most people know. In the very
+first reference made to him he is described as 'melancholy,' and as
+'weeping and commenting' upon a stricken deer. He has 'sullen fits,' we
+read. He himself tells us he 'can suck melancholy out of a song.' He
+protests that the banished Duke is 'too disputable' for him--that he
+(Jaques) thinks of as many matters, but makes no boast of them. The
+Duke, on his side, speaks of Jaques as 'compact of jars' (made up of
+discords), and when Jaques offers to 'cleanse the foul body of the
+infected world,' retorts on him that it would be a case of 'most
+mischievous foul sin chiding sin,' Jaques having been himself a
+notorious evil liver. To Orlando Jaques suggests that they should rail
+at the world and their misery, while to Rosalind he confesses that he
+loves melancholy better than laughing. ''Tis good to be sad and say
+nothing.' He has, he says, a melancholy of his own, the result of his
+experience and reflection, which wraps him in a most humorous sadness.
+Jaques, in fact, is a rake turned cynical philosopher. He regards man
+and nature as only so much material for observation and for moralizing.
+
+Such is the Jaques of 'As You Like It'--a purely original creation,
+embodying a familiar type of humanity, but nevertheless not good enough
+for certain of Shakespeare's successors in the dramatic art. Jaques has
+more than once been revised and edited, in common with other characters
+in the sylvan comedy. He did not quite satisfy the fastidious taste of
+Mr. Charles Johnson, the ingenious author of 'The Country Lasses' and
+other pieces, who, as was said with more point than truth, was 'famous
+for writing a play every year and being at Button's coffee-house every
+day.' Still less did Shakespeare's Jaques commend himself to the 'J.
+C.' who was so kind as not merely to adapt 'As You Like It,' but to
+elaborate and paraphrase it. Nor did the 'melancholy' one prove
+acceptable even to the judgment of Georges Sand, when that intellectual
+lady set to work to 'arrange' the play for the French stage.
+Shakespeare, it appeared to all these writers, had perpetrated an
+unaccountable mistake. He had failed to make Jaques pair off with Celia.
+That charming maiden is handed over to the converted Oliver, while
+Jaques goes off to study the humours of the repentant Duke. Happy
+thought! Transform Jaques and Celia into a species of minor Benedick and
+Beatrice, and marry them in the end!
+
+Mr. Charles Johnson adopted this idea almost literally. His 'Love in a
+Forest'--brought out at Drury Lane in 1723--is 'As You Like it' cut down
+and altered, with scraps from 'Much Ado About Nothing,' 'Love's Labour's
+Lost,' and other Shakespearean pieces, introduced at various points, the
+whole welded together by means of wondrous emanations from the
+compiler's fancy. To Jaques are assigned a number of lines spoken
+elsewhere by Benedick or by Biron. We have the well-known gibing scene
+between Jaques and Orlando up to a certain stage, when, commenting on
+Jaques' questions about Rosalind, Orlando says: 'But why are you so
+curious?--you who are an obstinate heretic in the despight of beauty and
+the whole female world?' Then Jaques replies to this speech, which
+belongs to Don Pedro in 'Much Ado,' in the familiar words of Benedick in
+that play, asserting that he will 'live a bachelor,' and that if ever he
+breaks that vow his friends may put round his neck the legend, 'Here you
+may see Jaques, the married man.' At this juncture Rosalind and Celia
+appear, and, while Rosalind as Ganymede has her first colloquy with
+Orlando, 'Jaques talks with Celia--they walk in another glade of the
+forest.' When they return it is at once evident that Jaques' celibate
+intentions have already been shaken. He calls the lady 'destructively
+handsome,' and says his heart 'gallops away in her praise most
+dangerously.' She avers he will be in love if he does not take heed, and
+he says, 'I doubt so--yet I hope not.' A moment or two after, encouraged
+and fired by her words, he asks her plump to marry him, and she promises
+so to do, 'two years hence, if my brother Ganymede consents.' Then he
+admits, in soliloquy, that he is 'in love, horribly in love,' his
+spirits 'caught at last by a pair of bugle eyeballs and a cheek of
+cream.' And then come more quotations from Benedick, as well as an
+annexation of Touchstone's remark about the honourableness of the
+forehead of a married man. Celia by-and-by confesses to Rosalind that
+'her heart doth incline a little to the philosopher,' whose love, she
+allows, 'does not sit easy upon him,' but whose words are 'full of
+sincerity.' Still later Jaques comes to Rosalind for her approval of the
+match, speaking this time in language used by Biron. She, however,
+refuses, declaring that he cannot be polished into a modern husband; and
+he retires disconsolate. But with Orlando he is more successful. He is
+promised that Ganymede shall give way, and that his wedding shall take
+place to-morrow. And so all ends happily.
+
+The 'J. C.' who, in 1739, published 'The Modern Receipt, or a Cure for
+Love,' as 'altered from Shakespeare,' went much farther than Johnson in
+the way of embellishing the unhappy poet. He used his lines
+occasionally, but in general either turned them into prose or expanded
+them beyond all recognition. Virtually he supplies a comedy based, only,
+on 'As You Like It.' Even the names of the characters are changed.
+Jaques now figures as Marcellus, 'a sullen, morose lord, a great
+woman-hater, but at length in love with Julia'--the Julia being, of
+course, Celia. He is described by a shepherd as 'a melancholy sort of
+fellow,' who 'reads much, thinks more, eats little, sleeps little, and
+speaks least of all. And if he sees a woman he runs away, shuts himself
+up in his cave, and prays for an hour or two after.' Julia, hearing
+this, cries: 'Oh, the brute! I'm resolved to take a revenge upon him in
+behalf of the whole sex.' Jaques, on his part, is struck by Julia's
+charms as soon as he beholds them--'What can this mean? I'm wondrous ill
+o' the sudden'--and is fain to sit down, lest he should fall. In the
+scene which follows there is a great war of words. The lady talks,
+purposely, at an agonizing speed, and the gentleman roundly tells her
+that he would rather have her room than her company. At last the wrangle
+is interrupted, and Julia, as a parting shot, calls Marcellus 'a bear in
+breeches.' He himself is inclined, after all, to think her 'something
+more than the rest of her detested sex--some being, perhaps, of a
+superior order.' He praises her gay innocence and noble simplicity.
+Julia, on her side, 'prays Heaven that she is not in love with the
+brute,' but is afraid she must be. Then there is a scene in which, by
+way of drawing him on, she pretends to love him, but afterwards says
+that she was mocking him, and so covers him with confusion.
+Nevertheless, he is not cured. He is still her slave, and, as he says,
+what is love 'but an epidemic disease, and what all the world has, at
+one time or other, been troubled with as well as myself? Why should I
+endeavour to curb a passion the greatest heroes have with pride
+indulged? No.... He alone is wise who nobly loves.' So he returns to the
+charge, makes the lady admit the soft impeachment, and obtains the
+Duke's consent to their union. He says, in the end, that he is afraid he
+makes but an odd sort of figure--that he has acted a little out of
+character, and a great deal below the dignity of a philosopher. But,
+having the aforesaid disease, he has sought the remedy, and has found
+it; for, in his view, 'Marriage is the surest cure of love.'
+
+Georges Sand, in her 'Comme il Vous Plaira'--a comedy in three acts,
+'tir�e de Shakespeare, et arrang�e'--diverges still further from the
+original text. Her work is, even more markedly than 'The Modern
+Receipt,' founded, only, on 'As You Like It.' 'In dealing with this
+uncurbed genius, which owned no restraint,' she thought herself
+justified in 'condensing, abstracting, and modifying' his work. But, as
+a matter of fact, her play is indebted to Shakespeare only in idea.
+Jaques is introduced early in the piece as sent by the banished Duke
+with a message to Rosalind. Of course, he meets Celia, and at first is
+_brusquerie_ itself. But in the second act he comes to think there is
+something in her name 'qui r�sonne autrement que dans tout nature.
+Est-ce une douceur qui charme l'oreille?' Celia for a long time plays
+with him, but in the end they arrive at a mutual declaration of
+affection. 'I have always tenderly loved Jaques,' says Georges Sand in
+her preface, and 'I have taken the great liberty of bringing him back to
+love. Here is my own romance inserted in that of Shakespeare, and,
+although romantic, it is not more improbable than the sudden conversion
+of Oliver.' That may be; and yet one might have thought that Georges
+Sand, of all people, would not have set herself the interesting but
+somewhat futile task of improving upon 'As You Like It.'
+
+
+
+
+MOCKING AT MATRIMONY.
+
+
+The world has reason to be grateful to the writer who lately
+demonstrated the possibility of being happy 'though married.' Some
+exposition of the sort was sadly needed. Hitherto the estate of
+matrimony has met with a long succession of jibes and sneers. It has had
+its apologists, even its prophets and eulogists; but it has had many
+more detractors. There is, indeed, no subject on which the satirists of
+the world, both great and small, have so largely and so persistently
+made merry. It has been a stock subject with them. It is as if they had
+said to themselves, 'When at a loss, revile the connubial condition.'
+Married life has been the sport of every wit, and, sorrowful to relate,
+society has been well content to join in the pastime. There is nothing
+so common as sarcasm on matrimony, and nothing, apparently, so welcome,
+even to the married.
+
+The banter in question has been of all sorts--sometimes vague, sometimes
+particular, in its import. A few censors have confined themselves to
+simple condemnation. 'A fellow that's married's a _felo-de-se_,' wrote
+the late Shirley Brooks; and he had been anticipated in the stricture.
+An anonymous satirist had written:
+
+  '"Wedlock's the end of life," one cried;
+  "Too true, alas!" said Jack, and sigh'd--
+      "'Twill be the end of mine."'
+
+And if matrimony was not suicide, it was ruin. Old Sir Thomas More had
+said of a student who had married that 'in knitting of himself so fast,
+himself he had undone.' And a later rhymer, contrasting wedding with
+hanging, had come to the conclusion that
+
+  'Hanging is better of the twain--
+  Sooner done and shorter pain.'
+
+To the suggestion that a youth should not marry till he has more wisdom,
+the Italian epigrammatist replies that if he waits till he has sense he
+will not wed at all. Marriage, said the famous Marshal Saxe, in effect,
+is a state of penance; Rome declares there are seven sacraments, but
+there are really only six, because penance and matrimony are one.
+
+Hymen, says Chamfort, comes after love, like smoke after flame. It is
+the high sea, observes Heine, for which no compass has yet been
+invented. Its melancholy uncertainty is illustrated by the remark of
+Samuel Rogers, that it does not matter whom you marry--she will be quite
+another woman the next day. It was Rogers, too, who, when he heard of a
+certain person's nuptials, declared that if his friends were pleased his
+enemies were delighted. Selden's complaint against marriage was that it
+is 'a desperate thing,' out of which it is impossible to extract one's
+self; but then he lived before the era of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. And
+the utmost that the conventional detractor will admit is, that the
+institution gives to man two happy hours. 'Cursed be the hour I first
+became your wife,' cries the lady in the well-known quotation; to which
+her spouse replies that--'That's too bad; you've cursed the only happy
+hour we've had.' But Palladas, the Greek, as translated by Mr. J. H.
+Merivale, goes a little farther than this, declaring that
+
+  'All wives are bad; yet two blest hours they give:
+  When first they wed, and when they cease to live.'
+
+
+A favourite notion with the satirists is that marriage is a state of
+mutual recrimination. John Heywood has the couplet:
+
+  '"Wife, I perceive thy tongue was made at Edgware."
+  "Yes, sir, and your's made at Rayly, hard by there."'
+
+And this is typical of many another utterance; for example, this:
+
+  'Know ye not all, the Scripture saith,
+  That man and wife are _one_ till death?
+  But Peter and his scolding wife
+  Wage such an endless war of strife,
+  You'd swear, on passing Peter's door,
+  That man and wife at least were _four_.'
+
+Doctor Johnson, too, draws attention to the fact--if it be one--that all
+the reasons which a man and a woman have for remaining in the estate of
+matrimony, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent
+separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together. Or, as Mr.
+William Allingham has, of recent years, more pithily put it:
+
+  'If any two can live together well,
+  'Tis (and yet such things are) a miracle!'
+
+
+If we are to believe the aforesaid satirists, this is all the fault of
+the wives. Now and again one comes across a jest in which the lady has
+the better of the gentleman, as in the following:
+
+  '"Wife, from all evil, when shalt thou delivered be?"
+  "Sir, when I" (said she) "shall be delivered from thee."'
+
+But such things are rare. Usually the laugh is on the other side. As the
+Frenchman wrote:
+
+  'While Adam slept, Eve from his side arose:
+  Strange! his first sleep should be his last repose!'
+
+Everybody knows the epitaph which Dryden intended for his wife; and side
+by side with it may be placed the lines by an anonymous author:
+
+  'God has to me sufficiently been kind,
+  To take my wife, and leave me here behind.'
+
+So again:
+
+  'Brutus unmoved heard how his Portia fell;
+  Should Jack's wife die, he would behave as well.'
+
+The story of the man who, at his spouse's funeral, deprecated hurry, on
+the ground that one should not make a toil of a pleasure, need only be
+alluded to.
+
+The chief charge against the wives is that they will insist upon being
+the heads of the households. That is the refrain of many a flout hurled
+against them. To marry--such is the moral of some lines by Samuel
+Bishop--is to lose your liberty. The lady will have everything her way:
+
+  'For ne'er heard I of woman, good or ill,
+  But always lov�d best her own sweet will.'
+
+So says a seventeenth-century writer; and the complaint is general.
+
+  'Men, dying, make their wills--why cannot wives?
+  Because wives have their wills during their lives.'
+
+'Here,' wrote Burns--'here lies a man a woman ruled; the Devil ruled
+the woman.' And Landor makes someone say to a scholar about to marry:
+
+  'So wise thou art that I foresee
+  A wife will make a fool of thee.'
+
+That wives are talkative is a venerable commonplace. The historic
+husband thought that the fact of his spouse's likeness not being a
+'speaking' one was its principal merit. And Lessing makes a man excuse
+himself for marrying a deaf woman on the ground that she was also dumb.
+We all remember Hood's particular trouble:
+
+  'A wife who preaches in her gown,
+    And lectures in her night-dress.'
+
+And so with those who are more than merely talkative--who are positively
+scolds; while sometimes the conventional helpmeet is as active with her
+fists as with her tongue--as in the case of the lady whose picture, her
+husband thought, would soon 'strike' him, it was so exceedingly like
+her.
+
+It is, however, unnecessary to carry the tale further. This mocking at
+matrimony has always been a feature of life and literature, and probably
+will always remain so--partly because it is so easy of achievement;
+partly because it is not less easy of comprehension; and also, perhaps,
+because humanity has ever been inclined to chasten that which it loves.
+It rails against marriage, but it marries all the same. Or is it that it
+recognises the wedded life as a necessity, which cannot be put away, but
+which it is a pleasure to ridicule? Perhaps that is the best explanation
+one can offer. All this satire may be mankind's way of revenging itself
+upon one of the laws of nature.
+
+
+
+
+
+PARSON POETS.
+
+
+The publication of a memoir of Archbishop Trench has sufficed to recall
+prominently to the public mind the virtues, endowments, and achievements
+of one of the most notable of latter-day divines. Richard Chenevix
+Trench was one of the most versatile of writers. He discoursed with
+equal knowledge and effect on Biblical and philological topics, and his
+prose work will always be respectfully regarded by the students alike of
+divinity and of language. But though, on these subjects, his
+pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will
+ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most
+thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has
+always had so large and valuable a supply.
+
+There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is
+precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries
+that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For
+what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? In the first
+place, polite learning; in the second, sufficient leisure. It is in the
+atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes
+its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time
+or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays
+have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the
+lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare
+moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning
+and leisure which impel him to the task. There is the nature of his
+profession, with the experience it brings him and the reflections it
+induces. The most unliterary pastor cannot but be a meditative man. The
+literary pastor cannot but be disposed to turn his meditations into
+verse, often finding in that 'mechanic exercise' the means of 'numbing
+pain.'
+
+Other things being equal, the modern cleric would take serious subjects
+for his verse, and it is characteristic of the whole race of parson
+poets that the first poetic effort in English literature should be the
+Scriptural paraphrases supplied by Caedmon, monk of Whitby. But it was
+not in the sphere of Bible history that the immediate successors of
+Caedmon, monks (or friars) like himself, sought to disport themselves
+most largely. Our early clerical versifiers set themselves rather to
+give rhythmical renderings to the romances and chronicles of their time.
+They were the secular as well as sacred teachers of the day; and so we
+find the names of Wace, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne,
+Archdeacon Barbour, Andrew of Wyntoun, and John Lydgate, all associated
+with the recital of the deeds of ancient or modern heroes. Not that the
+claims of religion or morality were forgotten: they were remembered by
+Richard Rolle in his 'Prick of Conscience,' and indirectly recognised by
+Barclay in his 'Ship of Fools.' The interests of the poor were served by
+Langland in his 'Piers the Plowman,' and poetry, pure and simple, had
+its devotees in the persons of the Bishop of Dunkeld and the Franciscan
+friar who produced respectively 'The Palace of Honour' and 'The Golden
+Terge.'
+
+When we come down to more recent times, we find even greater variety
+than this in the writings of the parson poets. But the serious element
+prevails. There have been clerical wits and humorists, but they have
+been, of necessity, in the minority. A large proportion of the verse
+composed by clergymen has been, as one would naturally expect, of a
+distinctly didactic, not to say depressing, tendency. One thinks at once
+of the 'Temple' of George Herbert, the 'Epigrammata Sacra' of Richard
+Crashaw, the 'Night Thoughts' of Young, the 'Grave' of Blair, the
+'Sabbath' of Grahame, the 'Course of Time' of Pollok, the 'Christian
+Year' of Keble; the hymns of Wesley, Alford, and Stanley; the 'Dream of
+Gerontius' of Newman, and a dozen others, differing very much indeed in
+all the qualities of poetry, but alike in the earnestness of their
+intention. Even Herrick, 'jocund' though his muse was, left behind him
+some 'Noble Numbers.' And though clerical satire, as furnished by men
+like John Bramston, Charles Churchill, Samuel Bishop, John Wolcot, and
+Francis Mahoney, has frequently been flippant both in form and phrase,
+it has at other times--and especially in the works of Bishop Hall, of
+Norwich--been very vivid and uncompromising. Hall, indeed, was the
+Juvenal of his century, filled with the spirit of righteous indignation.
+
+From Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, downwards, the clerical singers who have
+not been markedly professional in their outcome have exhibited an
+agreeable freedom from monotony. In Donne himself we see the sad
+perfection of the metaphysic method, mitigated, however, by a few lapses
+into the lucid and the simple. Pomfret gave us in 'The Choice' the
+typical poem of the country parson, sounding the praises of rural scenes
+and lettered ease. In Parnell we have a sample of the pleasing
+versifier, touching nothing which he does not adorn, but making no very
+particular impression. Bishop Percy is less celebrated for the ballads
+which he wrote than for those which he collected. Logan is remembered
+only by his verses on 'The Cuckoo.' To the reverend brothers Warton we
+owe respectively 'The Pleasure of Melancholy' and some lines 'To Fancy';
+while of Thomas Blacklock, alas! the most remarkable feature was his
+blindness. One would like to have forgotten Robert Montgomery, of
+Satanic fame, but Macaulay will not let us do so. Blanco White lives on
+the strength of one good sonnet, Lisle Bowles on that of many good ones;
+and there is no need nowadays to distinguish the work of Crabbe, of
+Moultrie, of John Sterling, and of Charles Kingsley, much as they
+differed from each other. One of the latest additions to this choir of
+voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists,
+belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there
+were no fear of making invidious selection.
+
+There is a certain department of verse-writing in which a cultivated
+class like the clergy would of necessity make its mark--that of
+rhythmical translation. In a body whose members are all more or less
+scholarly, there will always be some, of special scholarship, who will
+endeavour to put works of classic or foreign literature into an English
+mould. Thus we have had Francis Fawkes, with his versions from the
+Greek; Christopher Pitt, with his translation of the '�neid'; H. F.
+Carey, with his Dante in blank verse; and more others than need be
+specified. These clergymen followed the excellent instincts of their
+cloth. But what are we to say of those otherwise estimable parsons who
+have from time to time attempted, and occasionally with success, to win
+fame as the authors of poetical drama? The connection between the
+cassock and the buskin has, to this extent, always been fairly
+intimate--from the time when Bishop Bale wrote mystery plays, to the
+recent years in which Sheridan Knowles, after having been a dramatist
+and an actor, closed his days as a preacher. Shirley, Mason, Home,
+Milman, Croly, Maturin, White--these are names well known in the history
+of the theatre, and they are all names of clerical association. Such has
+been the fascination of the 'boards' even for those whose home has been
+the pulpit and the cloister.
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS.
+
+
+This may fairly be claimed as a popular subject. It is one in which
+nearly everybody--perhaps everybody--is interested. There can surely be
+few, if any, who do not care about the outside of a book. Even if a man
+never opens a volume, he likes its exterior to be pleasing. Nay, there
+are books which may be said to be produced and utilized only for their
+outward garb. How often does one find a volume described as a charming
+one 'for the table'! It is for the table that certain publications are
+destined. Enter a drawing-room, and you will find a few books scattered
+here and there 'with artful care.' I do not say they are intended never
+to be opened, but their primary function is to look nice--to 'set off'
+the table-cloth, and, generally, to give a bright appearance to the
+room. And their adaptability for this purpose is so widely recognised
+that you can scarcely go anywhere without coming across books of this
+complexion. You find them exposed to view in your doctor's or your
+dentist's ante-chamber; you find them placed before you, usually very
+much the worse for wear, in hotel waiting-rooms. And the instinct which
+prompts all this display is genuine enough. It is perfectly true--there
+is no furniture so agreeable to the eye as books. Nothing makes a room
+look at once so picturesque and home-like, if the volumes be but
+sufficiently varied in size and hue.
+
+And that brings us in presence of a point of controversy. Ought there to
+be so much variety in the exteriors of books? Ought they to be 'got up'
+in so many different styles? Some people would answer these questions
+with a decided negative. These are the persons who like uniformity in
+their libraries, who would have one shelf look for all the world like
+the facsimile of the other. These are the persons who, almost as soon as
+they buy a book, are desirous to have it rebound after some fantastic
+notion of their own. There is a class of purchaser which revels in long
+lines of volumes in 'full calf gilt.' You see that sort of thing in most
+old-fashioned collections. And the effect is not bad in some respects.
+The rows look handsome enough. They have solidity and richness. Nor do I
+say that for a certain species of publication 'full calf gilt' is not a
+very judicious form of binding. One likes to see the quarterlies and
+higher-class monthlies done up in that style. It befits the seriousness
+of their contents. But do not let everything be put into 'full calf
+gilt,' solid and rich though it appears. Let us give full play to the
+element of variety. Let every book have an individuality, a character,
+of its own. Let us be able to identify it easily. Let it retain its
+original garb, so that we may always be able to distinguish it. Surely
+it is one of the greatest charms of a row of volumes that each has its
+special features, and can readily be found when wanted.
+
+It may be laid down as a general rule that the binding of a book should
+have a distinct reference to the nature of its contents. It should be
+appropriate to the author and to the subject. One sympathizes with
+Posthumus in the play, when, apostrophizing the volume in his prison, he
+says:
+
+                       'O rare one!
+  Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
+  Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects
+  So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
+  As good as promise.'
+
+Juliet, when she hears that Romeo has slain Tybalt, asks:
+
+  'Was ever book containing such vile matter
+  So fairly bound?'
+
+And in a like spirit Charles Lamb, in his well-known essay, complains of
+the 'things in books' clothing' which, by reason of their inappropriate
+exteriors, afford so much disappointment to the reader. 'To reach down a
+well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it is some kind-hearted
+play-book, then, opening what "seem its leaves," to come bolt upon a
+withering population essay'--'to expect a Steele or a Farquhar, and
+find--Adam Smith'--those, indeed, are doleful and dispiriting
+experiences, to which the unsuspecting student ought not in enlightened
+times to be subjected. If Mr. Gilbert's Mikado be right in the view that
+the punishment ought to 'fit the crime,' so assuredly ought a book's
+binding to fit the matter that is contained within it. It should be the
+outward sign of the inward grace.
+
+I am ready to admit that, as a rule, this is so. In general, it is quite
+easy to tell the nature of a volume from its cover. And for this the
+publishers are greatly to be thanked. An amateur, publishing for
+himself, may every now and then insist upon dressing up the product of
+his brains incongruously; but, for the most part, the booksellers of
+to-day have a very excellent sense of what is fitting. The result is
+that those who care about books can differentiate them at a glance. They
+know what is the approved style and line for biography and history, for
+poetry and fiction, for sermons, for gift-books, and so _ad infinitum_.
+The 'Life' of So-and-so, and the 'Annals' of Such-and-such, are
+unmistakeable; they have respectability written on every corner and
+angle of them. The dull brown or the dull green is sufficiently obvious
+to everyone. And so with poetry. You know minor verse directly you see
+it. It has a _cachet_ concerning which there can be no possible error.
+Happily, a Tennyson, a Browning, or a Swinburne is equally recognisable.
+A novel, of course, bears its character on its face. The three-volume
+form is notorious. But it scarcely matters what shape fiction may take.
+It can be identified by instinct, whether it be in yellow boards or in
+some more quiet habit. Sermons cannot be misapprehended; there is no
+fear of their being taken on a railway journey instead of the latest
+book of memoirs. As for gift-books, whether for boy or girl, adult or
+juvenile, they have their destination marked upon them in all the
+colours of the rainbow. Some complain of this, and call it vulgar. No
+doubt it often is so. But a gift-book is produced for a definite
+purpose, and the public would be surprised, and probably annoyed, if it
+were not as gorgeous in gold and colours as it was expected to be. Gold
+and colours are what are wanted, and the publishers do well to supply
+them.
+
+One thing, perhaps, is too little considered--that a book is, in most
+cases, intended to be read and to be preserved. Certain books are not
+issued for that purpose, but are deliberately manufactured to be thrown
+away when read. The shilling novel, one may presume, is not designed for
+a permanent existence. If it is, why is it so frequently brought out in
+a paper cover, which either comes off altogether, or else curls up at
+the edges in the most irritating fashion? It must be confessed that a
+paper cover is an infliction, demanding the eventual destruction of the
+book or its prompt rebinding in more durable style. But it is not
+sufficient only that a volume should be bound. It should be bound so
+that it can be opened and perused with comfort. It should not be in too
+stiff a cover, or it will be awkward to hold. And the cover should not
+be in white or in too delicate a colour, or one will not care to handle
+it. Nor should a book be bound too limply, for the cover will soon begin
+to look shapeless. A parchment binding is charming to gaze at for a
+time, but how quickly its glory fades! I should say to the ordinary
+bookbuyer, in metaphoric language, Avoid the kickshaws and stick to the
+solids! In other words, leave the delicacies to the connoisseur, and
+give your attention to the books so clothed that you can read and keep
+them as you will.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE.
+
+
+I make no allusion here to the heroine of Mr. Haggard's well-known
+romance. What I am thinking of at the moment is not the impossible 'She'
+of recent fiction, but the 'not impossible She' of Master Richard
+Crashaw--the 'perfect monster,' in female form, who was to 'command his
+heart and him,' and whom he was good enough to sketch for us in advance
+within the limits of some forty verses--the damsel whose beauty was to
+
+         'Owe not all its duty
+  To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye;'
+
+whose face was to be
+
+          'Made up
+  Out of no other shop
+  Than what Nature's white hand sets ope;'
+
+who was to have 'a well-tamed heart,'
+
+  'Sidneian showers
+  Of sweet discourse,'
+
+and so on, and of whom the poet was so kind as to say that, if Time knew
+of anyone who answered the description,
+
+  'Her that dares be
+  What these lines wish to see--
+  I seek no further--it is She.'
+
+
+Master Crashaw is not the only man by many who in the past has been
+seduced into putting into words and verse the aspirations, on this
+subject, which filled his soul. It would probably be found, if anyone
+had the requisite patience to go through with it, that there has been
+scarcely a poet who has not thus given expression to his conception of
+an ideal woman and to his desire for her companionship. Much more
+numerous, to be sure, are the rapturous tributes which have been paid to
+actual persons of the other sex: the poetry of praise, as written by men
+of women, has not yet been exhausted, and probably never will be. But
+the ideal description has generally come first, and very notable it has
+usually been. Sir Thomas Wyatt declared that
+
+  'A face that should content me wondrous well
+    Should not be fair, but lovely to behold;
+  Of lively look, all grief for to repel;
+    With right good grace,'
+
+et c�tera. He further asserted that 'her tress also should be of crisp�d
+gold,' and intimated graciously that
+
+  'With wit, and these, perchance I might be tied,
+  And knit again with knot that should not slide.'
+
+His contemporary, Lord Surrey, included among 'the means to attain happy
+life,' 'the faithful wife, without debate'--that is, I suppose, a lady
+without forty-parson-power of talk--a not impossible, nay, fairly
+common, She.
+
+In a lyric by Beaumont and Fletcher, we find the supposed speaker giving
+utterance to a series of such wishes. 'May I,' he says, 'find a woman
+fair, And her mind as clear as air!'
+
+  'May I find a woman rich,
+  And of not too high a pitch!...
+  May I find a woman wise,
+  And her falsehood not disguise!...
+  May I find a woman kind,
+  And not wavering like the wind!...'
+
+And, in truth, he talks throughout as if he did not expect to discover
+any such rarity. Everyone knows the little poem in which Ben Jonson
+details his preferences in women's dress, declaring that 'a sweet
+disorder' does more bewitch him 'than when art Is too precise in every
+part.' But elsewhere he paints for us, not a perfect feminine attire,
+but the faultless maid herself, as he would have her:
+
+  'I would have her fair and witty,
+  Favouring more of Court than City,
+  A little proud, but full of pity,
+  Light and humorous in her toying,
+  Oft building hopes and soon destroying...
+  Neither too easy nor too hard,
+  All extremes I would have barr'd.'
+
+That, it would seem, was rare Ben's ideal.
+
+Carew, it is notorious, professed to despise 'lovely cheeks or lips or
+eyes,' if they were not combined with 'A smooth and steadfast mind,
+Gentle thoughts, and calm desires.' A rosy cheek, a coral lip, and even
+star-like eyes, as he sagely said, would waste away. And in this
+somewhat priggish, and perhaps not wholly sincere, vein, he finds a
+rival in the anonymous bard who declared that he did not demand
+
+  'A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
+    Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
+  Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair,'
+
+and so on, but instead,
+
+  'A tender heart, a loyal mind,
+    Which with temptation I would trust,
+  Yet never link'd with error find--
+
+  'One in whose gentle bosom I
+    Could pour my secret heart of woes,
+  Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly
+    That hides his murmurs in the rose.'
+
+So Bedingfield, conceding to friend Damon 'the nymph that sparkles in
+her dress,' avows his own fondness for the maid 'whose cheeks the hand
+of Nature paints.' Of this young person he says:
+
+  'No art she knows or seeks to know;
+  No charm to wealthy pride will owe;
+  No gems, no gold she needs to wear;
+  She shines intrinsically fair.'
+
+
+Cowley, it will be remembered, in sketching his notion of true
+happiness, included in it the picture of
+
+  'A mistress moderately fair,
+  And good as guardian angels are,
+  Only beloved and loving me!'
+
+With that 'one dear She'--and a few other things--he thought he could
+get on pretty comfortably. But probably at once the most obliging and
+most exigent of modern lovers was the sentimental gentleman to whose
+feelings Mrs. Bowen-Graves ('Stella') gave appropriate voice in the
+over-familiar 'My Queen.'
+
+  'I will not dream of her tall and stately--
+    She that I love may be fairy light;'
+
+nay, more:
+
+  'I will not say she should walk sedately--
+    Whatever she does, it will sure be right.
+
+  'And she may be humble or proud, my lady,
+    Or that sweet calm which is just between'
+
+(as if anyone could be a 'sweet calm'!); moreover:
+
+  'Whether her birth be noble or lowly,
+    I care no more than the spirit above;'
+
+but there is at least one point upon which this gentleman insists:
+
+  'She must be courteous, she must be holy,
+    Pure in her spirit, that maiden I love'--
+
+and, being that, she may depend upon the stars falling, and the angels
+weeping, ere he ceases to love her, his Queen, his Queen!
+
+Ah! the poets have much to answer for. Here is Mr. Longfellow assuring
+his readers that
+
+  'No one is so utterly desolate,
+  But some heart, though unknown,
+  Responds unto his own;'
+
+and here is Sir Edwin Arnold declaring, with equal confidence, that
+
+  'Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
+    For one lone soul another lonely soul'--
+
+et c�tera, et c�tera. Is it any wonder that, in the face of such
+encouragement, young men go on dreaming, each of the _dimidium su�
+anim�_ whom he is to meet by-and-by, and framing to that end all sorts
+of beautiful ideals? It may be that the Shes thus dreamed of are 'not
+impossible'--they may 'arrive;' but it is as well not to be too
+sanguine. And, above all, it is as well not to draw too extravagant a
+picture, if only because you may not be worthy of the original when you
+see it. Corydon is too disposed to expect in Phyllis charms and virtues
+for which he might find it difficult to show counterparts in himself. If
+the lady is to be the pattern of beauty and of goodness, ought not the
+gentleman to bring an equal amount of capital into the matrimonial firm?
+
+
+
+
+
+NONSENSE VERSES.
+
+
+When Bunthorne has recited his 'wild, weird, fleshly thing,' called 'Oh,
+Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!' the Duke of Dunstable remarks that it seems to
+him to be nonsense. 'Nonsense, perhaps,' replies the Lady Saphir, 'but
+oh, what precious nonsense!' And there really is a sense in which
+nonsense--genuine, diverting nonsense--is precious indeed. There is so
+little of it. The late Edward Lear bubbled over with true whimsicality.
+His 'Book of Nonsense' is what it professes to be--the most delightful
+non-sense possible. But of how much of that sort of thing does English
+literature boast? There is plenty of unconscious nonsense, of course,
+but it is not of the right quality. Dryden said of Shadwell that he
+reigned, 'without dispute, throughout the realms of nonsense
+absolute'--he 'never deviated into sense'--and yet he was the dullest of
+dull dogs. The fact is, that nothing is more difficult than to write
+amusing nonsense, and it is worth noting how few people, comparatively
+speaking, have ever attempted to produce it.
+
+One of the earliest efforts of the kind in the language is a certain
+passage in Udall's 'Ralph Roister Doister,' where Dame Christian
+receives from the hero a letter which seems, on the face of it,
+insulting:
+
+  'Sweete mistresse, where as I love you nothing at all,
+  Regarding your substance and richesse chief of all,
+  To your personage, beauty, demeanour, and wit,
+  I commend me unto you never a whit,'
+
+and so on--the joke lying, of course, in the incorrectness of the
+punctuation adopted. In general, the Elizabethans were too much in
+earnest to write absolute nonsense. Nonsense is to be found in
+Shakespeare, but usually in parody of the euphemists of his time. Some
+of the _person�_ are made to talk sad stuff, but it has not the merit of
+being 'precious' in the Lady Saphir's sense. It is very tedious indeed,
+and one likes to think that Shakespeare, perhaps, did not write it,
+after all. Drummond, in his 'Polemo-Middinia,' gave an early example of
+a kind of _jeu d'esprit_ which has since been frequently imitated--a
+species of dog-Latin _in extremis_:
+
+  'Hic aderunt Geordy Akinhedius and little Johnus,
+  Et Jamy Rich�us, et stout Michel Hendersonus,
+  Qui jolly tryppas ante alios dansare solebat,
+  Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare boneas.'
+
+But though this is not wholly unamusing, it is hardly, as nonsense, up
+to the standard instituted for us by Mr. Lear.
+
+The real thing is more nearly visible in Swift's macaronic lines about
+Molly--'Mollis abuti, Hasan acuti,' etc.--another vein of fun which has
+been exceedingly well worked out by successive writers. But such
+inspirations as these have too much method in them to be quite
+admissible. Much better was Swift's 'Love Song in the Modern Taste,'
+beginning:
+
+  'Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
+    Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart.'
+
+Even this, however, has too much sense for it to pass muster. Nor can
+one receive Johnson's
+
+  'If a man who turnips cries,
+  Cry not when his father dies,'
+
+and so on, as sufficiently nonsensical. It is simply a _jeu de mots_,
+and no more, though funny enough as it stands. One is better satisfied
+when one comes to the 'Tom Thumb' of Henry Fielding and the
+'Chrononhotonthologos' of Henry Carey, though even in those diverting
+squibs it is rarely that the versifier surrenders himself wholly to
+'Divine Nonsensia.' That charming goddess was saluted to more purpose in
+'The Anti-Jacobin,' where she was invoked to make charming fun of 'The
+Loves of the Plants.' In 'The Progress of Man' (in the same delectable
+collection) occurs the inspired passage:
+
+  'Ah, who has seen the mail�d lobster rise,
+  Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies
+  When did the owl, descending from her bower,
+  Crop, 'mid the fleecy flocks, the tender flower?
+  Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,
+  In the salt wave and, fish-like, strive to swim?'
+
+But even this is too consistent in its grotesqueness to be perfect
+nonsense.
+
+One becomes acquainted with better nonsense the nearer one gets to one's
+own times. How clever, for instance, was that well-known 'dream' of
+Planch�'s, in which he fancied that he
+
+            'Was walking with Homer, and talking
+    The very best Greek I was able--was able--
+  When Guy, Earl of Warwick, with Johnson and Garrick,
+    Would dance a Scotch-reel on the table--the table;
+  When Hannibal, rising, declared 'twas surprising
+    That gentlemen made such a riot--a riot--
+  And sent in a bustle to beg Lord John Russell
+    Would hasten and make them all quiet--all quiet.'
+
+It may be that Mr. W. S. Gilbert had this in his mind when, in
+'Patience,' he pictured the processes by which to manufacture a heavy
+dragoon; but here, again, the design is too obvious, the incongruity a
+little too apparent. The late Shirley Brooks extracted much fun out of a
+mosaic of quotations from the poets, beginning:
+
+  'Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
+  That to be hated needs but to be seen,
+  Invites my lay; be present, sylvan maids,
+  And graceful deer reposing in the shades.'
+
+Very good nonsense is this, if not of the best; and it leads us up
+naturally to the more consummate performances of Mr. Calverley, whose
+exquisite mimicry of Mr. Browning and Miss Ingelow, in their most
+incomprehensible or most affected moods, is too well known to need
+description. Favourable mention may also be made of a certain ballad
+composed by the late Professor Palmer, in illustration of his inability
+to master nautical terms, which he furbishes up in mirth-provoking
+fashion.
+
+But, putting aside Mr. Lear, the most successful, the most precious
+nonsense ever written has been supplied by writers still, happily, in
+our midst. And of these, of course, Mr. Lewis Carroll is obviously
+_facile princeps_--not only by reason of the immortal 'Jabberwocky,' but
+by reason, also, of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' in which there are some
+very felicitous passages.
+
+  'They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care,
+    They pursued it with forks and hope;
+  They threatened its life with a railway share;
+    They charmed it with smiles and soap.'
+
+It requires genius, of a kind, to conceive and execute such lines as
+these, easy as (no doubt) it seems to write them. Not that Mr. Carroll
+is unapproachable. There are probably many who think that his
+'Jabberwocky' is at least equalled by Mr. Gilbert's 'Sing for the Garish
+Eye,' in which the invented words are truly 'Carrollian':
+
+  'Sing for the garish eye,
+    When moonless brandlings cling;
+  Let the froddering crooner cry,
+    And the braddled sapster sing!'--
+
+though, to be sure, Mr. Gilbert could hardly be expected to do anything
+better than that lovely quatrain of Bunthorne's about 'The dust of an
+earthy to-day' and 'The earth of a dusty to-morrow.'
+
+The example set by Mr. Lear has been followed by many versifiers, who
+have sought to create their effects after a manner now sufficiently
+familiar. Thus, we have had multitudinous efforts like the following:
+
+  'There was an old priest in Peru
+  Who dreamt he'd converted a Jew:
+    He woke in the night
+    In a deuce of a fright,
+  And found it was perfectly true.'
+
+Performances of that sort are, however, easy; and more merit attaches to
+such studies in unintelligibility as Bret Harte's 'Songs without Sense,'
+of which the 'Swiss Air' is a good example:
+
+  'I'm a gay tra, la, la,
+  With my fal, lal, la, la,
+  And my bright--
+  And my light--
+      Tra, la, le. [_Repeat._]
+  Then laugh, ha, ha, ha,
+  And ring, ting, ling, ling,
+  And sing fal, la, la,
+      La, la, le.' [_Repeat._]
+
+Probably, however, the poetry of pure nonsense has never been better
+represented than in these contemporary verses on the suitable topic of
+'Blue Moonshine':
+
+  'Ay! for ever and for ever
+    Whilst the love-lorn censers sweep,
+  Whilst the jasper winds dissever,
+    Amber-like, the crystal deep;
+  Shall the soul's delirious slumber,
+    Sea-green vengeance of a kiss,
+  Teach despairing crags to number
+    Blue infinities of bliss.'
+
+
+
+
+SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS.
+
+
+Most people have heard of that Mr. Gerard Hamilton who, suddenly and
+unexpectedly making in the House of Commons an oration which 'threw into
+the shade every other orator except Pitt,' was henceforth known by the
+nickname of 'Single-Speech'--not because he never addressed the House
+again, but because those who so nicknamed him chose to regard this
+performance as the distinguishing feature of his career. He continued to
+be known by that one discourse, and it is by virtue of it that he has a
+place in history. The fact is notable, and yet by no means uncommon. The
+world is, and always has been, full of Single-Speech Hamiltons--male and
+female--who have gained and maintained their notoriety by one special
+effort. Human nature is so constituted that the man or woman who is
+unable to produce a series of successes may yet have the capacity to
+compass one--may possess the energy and the ability to make at least one
+strong impression before retiring wholly into the background.
+
+The truth of this is observable, for example, in the sphere of poetry.
+How many are the excellent versifiers whose reputation is based wholly
+upon a solitary effusion! They have been inspired once, and the outcome
+is literary immortality. They cannot always be regarded strictly as
+poets, and yet they have a vogue which any poet might envy. They reign
+and shine by virtue of what may be called a happy accident. Thus, Lady
+Ann Barnard is known, in the world of verse, only by her 'Auld Robin
+Gray,' just as Miss Elliott and Mrs. Cockburn are known only by their
+respective 'Flowers of the Forest.' We remember Oldys merely by his
+'Busy, curious, thirsty fly,' Sir William Jones by his 'What constitutes
+a State?' Blanco White by his one Sonnet upon Night, Charles Wolfe by
+his 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' John Collins by his 'In the Downhill of
+Life,' and Herbert Knowles by his 'Lines in a Churchyard.' As Artemus
+Ward said of the oil-painting achieved by the Old Masters: 'They did
+this, and then they expired.' Some of them wrote other things, but the
+world received them not. It took count only of the single occasion on
+which they had been influenced by the divine _afflatus_--of the one
+thing which they had done 'supremely' well.
+
+Authors themselves are, no doubt, surprised at the caprices of the
+public, and somewhat piqued by the preferences of their patrons. Some
+are Single-Speech Hamiltons only because their readers have taken a
+special fancy to particular performances--not always because the
+achievements were obviously the best, but simply because circumstances
+brought them to the fore. It is, one may assume, to the charm of Haydn's
+musical setting that Mrs. Hunter owes the fame and popularity of 'My
+mother bids me bind my hair': it is to the composer, in that case, that
+the acceptance of the words are owing. Obvious causes, again, have given
+precedence to Heber's 'From Greenland's icy mountains' over all his
+other work in verse; just as the fact of having got into the extract
+books has accorded to Blake's 'Tiger, tiger, burning bright' a
+pre-eminence in the public mind over all his other efforts. In these
+matters the world will have its own way. It still extends recognition to
+Young's 'Night Thoughts,' but is apparently indifferent to his
+'Universal Passion.' It thinks of Bloomfield only in connection with
+'The Farmer's Boy,' and ignores the rest; just as it faintly recollects
+'The Sabbath' of James Grahame, but has forgotten even the titles of
+'Biblical Pictures' and 'The British Georgics.'
+
+This dependence of literary fame upon special public favourites is,
+perhaps, most strikingly represented in the field of fiction and the
+drama. Nothing is more common than that a novelist or a dramatist
+should remain in the popular memory by virtue of a single production.
+Beckford is for most people only the author of 'Vathek'; it is only the
+bibliophile who troubles himself about 'Azemia' or 'The Elegant
+Enthusiast.' Miss Porter is remembered by her 'Scottish
+Chiefs'--scarcely at all, perhaps, by her 'Thaddeus of Warsaw.'
+Everybody knows how strongly 'The Monk' took the fancy of the reading
+world--so strongly that the writer was 'Monk' Lewis, and 'Monk' Lewis
+only, ever after. Mackenzie's 'Man of Feeling' survives, but the 'Man of
+the World' and 'Julia Roubign�' are as if they had never existed. And
+look at the playwrights! 'She Stoops to Conquer' is a classic, but 'The
+Good-Natured Man' is not even good-naturedly tolerated. 'The Road to
+Ruin' has eclipsed 'Duplicity' and 'The Deserted Daughter.' We all know
+'The Honeymoon,' but who has seen, how many have read, 'The Curfew' and
+'The School for Authors'? We flock to 'Wild Oats,' but alas for 'The
+Agreeable Surprise'! 'The Man of the World' keeps Macklin's name before
+us, but we have said good-bye to 'Love � la Mode.'
+
+In truth, it is not a bad thing thus to be associated with one definite,
+unmistakable success. Gerard Hamilton did more for himself by that
+single brilliant speech than if he had delivered a whole multitude of
+less striking orations. There is nothing more fatal to a man than
+middlingness--a sort of dead level of mediocre performance. The world
+loses count of merely respectable outcome. To obtain its regard you must
+take its imagination captive at least once. You may be a very excellent
+person, and do very useful work; but, if you desire to be kept in mind,
+you must achieve something to which your name can be popularly attached.
+It is thus that Beattie and 'The Minstrel,' Green and 'The Spleen,'
+Somerville and 'The Chase,' Blair and 'The Grave,' Falconer and 'The
+Shipwreck,' Pollok and 'The Course of Time'--to name no others--are
+inseparably associated the one with the other. The works in question,
+probably, are rarely opened, but their titles at any rate have stuck in
+the general memory. Even in our own time, for the great majority of
+people, Miss Braddon will always be the author of 'Lady Audley's
+Secret,' Mrs. Oliphant always the author of 'The Chronicles of
+Carlingford,' Mrs. Henry Wood always the author of 'East Lynne'--and so
+on. That is the way in which they are remembered.
+
+Generally speaking, versatility is undesirable when reputation is the
+object aimed at. The world has not a very good memory, or, rather, it
+has so much to think about that it desires not to be more encumbered
+than it can help. Such men as the late Lord Lytton, for example, are, in
+one respect, a nuisance to it. Bulwer was about equally distinguished as
+a novelist, as a dramatist, and as an essayist; and, ever since, the
+average man has been puzzled whether to think of him as the author of
+'Pelham,' the author of 'The Lady of Lyons,' or the author of
+'Caxtoniana.' Bulwer tried hard to establish a position as a poet, but,
+happily, there is no need to trouble one's self greatly about 'King
+Arthur.' As it is, the fame of Bulwer's dramas appears likely,
+by-and-by, to eclipse altogether the fame of his novels. And this, if it
+ever happens, will prove once more that a man can be the worst enemy of
+himself. Single-Speech Hamilton was not satisfied with his big success,
+but spoke again. Nothing could have been more unwise. He should have
+rested on his laurels--unless indeed, he could have been quite sure that
+he would surpass his former triumph. Unless one can be perfectly certain
+of that, it is, best, in general, to let well alone.
+
+
+
+
+DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE.
+
+
+The production on the London stage of a piece called 'The
+Schoolmistress' no doubt caused many lovers and students of the drama to
+consider for a moment whether--and, if so, to what extent--the general
+subject of school-life had been dealt with by preceding playwrights.
+
+Mr. Pinero was fortunate, to begin with, in the fact that he had hit
+upon a title for his piece hitherto unused--so far as I am aware--by any
+dramatist of whom history bears record. And this piece of originality is
+in itself remarkable, seeing that novelty in title is nowadays
+sufficiently rare. There is no official registry of such things, and,
+where so many active pens have been at work, a playwright must be
+self-confident indeed who can be sure that he has alighted upon a name
+which has never been used by any other native dramatist. To give only a
+few instances out of dozens:--Mr. Albery's play of 'The Spendthrift' had
+been anticipated, so far as title was concerned, by 'The Spendthrift' of
+Matthew Draper, acted in 1731, and by 'The Spendthrift' of Dr. Kenrick,
+performed in 1758, to say nothing of two anonymous plays, each called
+'The Spendthrift,' dating from 1680 and 1762 respectively. And to come
+down to quite recent days, the 'Loyal Lovers' played lately at the
+London Vaudeville had had a predecessor, in the matter of name, in the
+'Loyal Lovers,' by Major Manuche, which saw the light so long ago as
+1652. Similarly, the 'Woman of the World,' performed at the Haymarket in
+1886, had had its prototype, so far as the title was concerned, in the
+'Woman of the World' of Nelson Lee and Stirling Coyne.
+
+Exceptionally lucky, indeed, is the dramatic writer who can now discover
+a wholly new name for his production. A wholly fresh subject is, of
+course, even more difficult to achieve. Take what phase of life you
+will--make what use of it you please--you cannot secure absolute
+novelty. You cannot find a piece of ground which has not been trodden,
+however slightly, however differently, by a predecessor. The author of
+'The Schoolmistress' introduces his audiences to a very charming lady
+pupil-teacher, and to three scarcely less charming lady pupils. But one
+thinks at once of the still more delightful bevy of tutors and scholars
+presented to us just nineteen years ago, by T. W. Robertson, who,
+inspired by a German original, gave us not only Bella and Naomi Tighe,
+but a 'rosebud garden of girls,' of which the attraction has by no means
+yet departed. Mr. Ruskin has sneered at Bella as 'an amiable governess
+who, for the general encouragement of virtue in governesses, is rewarded
+by marrying a lord.' But for all that, she is a pleasant figure, and
+Naomi is a piquant one, and the English stage has witnessed few more
+agreeable scenes than those in which Dr. and Mrs. Sutcliffe's young
+ladies take part in the course of 'School.'
+
+As everybody knows, there is an 'angry schoolboy' in 'The Alchemist,'
+who is likely to survive not only in literature, but in history, by
+reason of the effective use which Sheridan once made of him when
+retorting upon Pitt in the House of Commons. Is there not, too, a comedy
+of Brome's--'The Antipodes'--in which the fathers go to school instead
+of their sons, and are made to ape the habits of the youthful scholar?
+Richard Lovelace, we read, wrote a comedy called 'The Scholar,' but it
+was never printed, and probably had reference to the adult rather than
+the juvenile student. In the early years of last century, 'The
+Schoolboy' was the title given to a farce played at Drury Lane, a piece
+of which one Johnny was the hero--a Johnny who had the honour of being
+impersonated by the great Roscius himself, and by actors, too, of the
+calibre of Woodward, Shuter, and J. W. Dodd. Early, again, in the
+present century, 'The Scholar' was the name of a play adapted from the
+French by Buckstone; but in this case, as, no doubt, there was in
+Lovelace's, there is more of the scholastic than of the school. The
+subject and title of 'Schoolfellows' was taken by Douglas Jerrold, the
+schoolfellows in it being, however, no longer under the tutelage of
+their old master. A 'Schoolboy's Masque' was printed in 1742; a 'School
+Moderator' was included in Garrick's collection; a 'School Play,' it is
+recorded, was performed at a private grammar school in Middlesex, in
+1663; and of recent years an extravaganza has been endowed with the
+suggestive title of 'School Bored.'
+
+There is, of course, a sense in which the word 'school' can be used for
+the larger opportunities of education given by contact with the world.
+And in this sense the word has been used by English dramatists with
+remarkable and characteristic frequency. In the second quarter of the
+seventeenth century Shirley printed, as 'the firstfruits of his Muses,'
+his comedy called 'The School of Compliment,' which had been played at
+Drury Lane; and in the list of comedies of the nineteenth century will
+be found 'The School of Reform,' by Thomas Morton, and the 'School of
+Intrigue,' by Mr. Mortimer; the former devoted to instructing ladies
+'how to rule a husband,' and the latter to a fresh treatment of the
+world-famous story of the Count and Countess Almaviva. But the dramatic
+pieces whose titles begin with 'The School of' are few indeed in
+comparison with those whose names begin with 'The School for.' Of the
+latter the most famous is, of course, 'The School for Scandal,' now just
+111 years old. But Sheridan's work had been preceded, in the following
+order, by 'The School for Lovers,' 'The School for Guardians,' 'The
+School for Rakes,' 'The School for Fathers,' and 'The School for Wives.'
+Nor is it surprising that, the fashion having once been set, Sheridan's
+comedy should be followed successively by 'The School for Eloquence,'
+'The School for Ladies,' 'The School for Vanity,' 'The School for
+Greybeards,' 'The School for Widows,' 'The School for Arrogance,' 'The
+School for Prejudice,' 'The School for Friends,' 'The School for
+Authors,' 'The School for Grown Children,' 'The School for Grown
+Gentlemen,' and 'The School for Scheming'--this last being one of the
+numerous performances of Mr. Boucicault.
+
+Nor is this all. History relates that Steele began a comedy named 'The
+School for Action,' and there are records of pieces called 'The School
+for Husbands,' 'The School for Women,' 'The School for Coquettes,' 'The
+School for Daughters,' and 'The School for Tigers.' Probably no word has
+been so often utilized by the dramatists as 'School,' and probably, too,
+no modern playwright would be disposed to add lightly to the number of
+those who have 'annexed' it.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNS AND PATRONYMICS.
+
+
+Probably there are few things more common, and at the same time more
+opposed to good taste, than punning upon people's names. Possibly the
+impertinence of it has some attraction; for, of course, all such
+'witticisms' are impertinent--unless, indeed, a man puns on his own
+name, or, if he puns upon another's, takes care to make the observation
+complimentary. No doubt, neither Mrs. Cuffe nor Mrs. Tighe was very
+offended when Sydney Smith described one as 'the cuff that every one
+would wear,' and the other as 'the tie that no one would loose.' These
+are word-plays of the innocuous sort. Would that all such jests were
+equally inoffensive!
+
+However, it is of little use to complain of a 'stream of tendency' which
+cannot be diverted from its course. The most distinguished people have
+had to tolerate the liberties taken with their names. Even the first of
+men has had to suffer, Hood having long ago said what a pity it was
+that, when Eve offered him the apple, poor Adam was not adam-ant. And
+when one turns to the celebrities of one's own country, one finds that
+many of them have had to endure attentions of the kind. There was, for
+example, that distinguished Marquis of whom it was said on one occasion
+that 'The nation's asleep, and the minister Rockingham.' There was also
+that Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, of whom Byron declared that he
+would return to the Whigs if they would re-Ward him. How hard, again,
+was _Punch_ upon Sir Francis Head, for his well-known apologia for Louis
+Napoleon:
+
+        'He wrote to the _Times_
+        In defence of the crimes
+  Disgraceful to the heart and to the Head, Head, Head.'
+
+Hood pretended that, when he heard 'Those Evening Bells,' they did but
+remind him of the statesman who had invented and established the
+income-tax:
+
+  'Recalling only how a Peel
+    Has taxed the comings-in of Time!'
+
+That Mr. Disraeli's popular diminutive should suggest punning was
+inevitable, and so we find Shirley Brooks proposing, in 1865, that,
+
+  'Having finished his Iliad and ceased to be busy,
+  Lord Derby should try and translate his Odd-Dizzy.'
+
+
+The annals of the Church are no more free from jingles on names than
+those of any other institution. Familiar to many is the laconic epitaph
+on Archbishop Potter:
+
+  'Alack and well-a-day:
+  Potter himself is turned to clay!'
+
+Horace Walpole wrote bitterly of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, that 'His grace signed his own proper name--Thomas _Cant._,'
+which would certainly have read better as 'Thomas Cantuar.' But the
+bishops' signatures have always been regarded as fair game. What puns
+have been made on the unhappy, because so obvious, 'Oxon!' In 1848,
+when Bishop Hampden was accused of heresy by the party headed by the
+Bishop of Oxford, the would-be satirist wrote that
+
+  'As once the Pope with fury full,
+    When Luther laid his heavy knocks on,
+  At the Reformer loosed a Bull--
+    So these at Hampden set an Ox-on.'
+
+Again, when Archdeacon Hale figured prominently in the old churchyard
+controversy, _Punch_ observed:
+
+  'The intramural churchyard's reeking pale
+    Breathes health around it, says a reverend party;
+  But though the spot may keep a parson Hale,
+    Can people who in-hale its fumes be hearty?'
+
+
+Turning to the records of the other professions, one finds a good deal
+of the same sort of thing. Literature affords such examples as those
+which are supplied in the well-known lines by John Henley on William
+Broome and by Lord Byron on Tom Moore ('Now 'tis Moore that's Little').
+There were journal writers before Greville and Carlyle, and, when Lady
+Bury published her 'Diary of the Times of George IV.,' Hood, no doubt,
+was justified in crying, as he did:
+
+  'Oh, may I die without a Diary,
+    And be interred without a Bury-ing!'
+
+In a very different spirit were James Smith's lines on Miss Edgeworth's
+works:
+
+  'Good and bad join in telling the source of their birth;
+  The bad own their _edge_, and the good own their _worth_.'
+
+
+The vocal and histrionic arts have often had their victims. Who can
+possibly have forgotten Luttrell's famous compliment to Miss Tree:
+
+  'On this Tree when a nightingale settles and sings,
+  The Tree will return her as good as she brings.'
+
+Here, if ever, was a pun on a name defensible. Less well known is this
+quatrain on the famous actor, William Farren, who died in 1861:
+
+  'If Farren, cleverest of men,
+    Should go to right-about,
+  What part of town will he be then?
+    Why, "Farren-done-Without"!'
+
+
+Those ladies of beauty and fashion whose names were susceptible at once
+of pun and compliment have naturally inspired the wits of their
+respective days. Thus, it was said of the charming sisters Gunning,
+that Cupid, perceiving that the beaux of the time were proof against his
+darts, had now laid down his bow and conquered by 'gunning.' But perhaps
+the best thing of the sort ever composed was Lord Lyttelton's tribute to
+Lady Brown:
+
+  'When I was young and debonair,
+  The brownest nymph to me was fair;
+  But now I'm old and wiser grown,
+  The fairest nymph to me is Brown.'
+
+
+Other celebrities could be named who came off badly in their encounter
+with the punsters. But, indeed, the list of such jests might be
+indefinitely extended, for the habit of making puns on patronymics has
+always been very widely spread, and has found many a sympathetic
+historian.
+
+
+
+
+
+'YOURS TRULY.'
+
+
+Nobody ever yet found very great difficulty in starting a letter. Young
+lovers may have hesitated from time to time between such modes of
+address as 'Dear,' 'Dearest,' 'Sweetest,' 'Darling,' and the like; but
+only for a moment. Usually, the overburdened heart hits at once upon the
+exact word or phrase which best expresses its ecstatic feeling. And so
+with less impassioned matters. There is a well-recognised gradation in
+the methods of epistolary salutation. The stranger is addressed as
+'Sir,' the person of whom something is known as 'Dear Sir.' 'My Dear
+Sir' accompanies a rather better acquaintance; 'Dear Mr. Brown' marks an
+approach to intimacy; while 'Dear Brown' signifies the acme of
+friendship and of _camaraderie_. Here, again, there may be a temporary
+pause before passing from 'Sir' to 'Dear Sir,' and so forth, but in
+general the transitions are sufficiently well emphasized to be obvious
+to the average intelligence.
+
+Very different is it with the other end of the letter. There we find
+opportunity for the widest divergence. Royal or official, pompous or
+irate, people have been known to finish an epistle, abruptly, with the
+simple appendix of their name; but these are the exceptions which prove
+the rule. And the rule is certainly to preface the name by some
+expression of feeling, however brief and perfunctory. The least you can
+do is to describe yourself as 'yours.' We find Sterne thus describing
+himself to Garrick; while, by way of slight variety, Cowper, writing to
+Joseph Hill, ends with a 'Yours, dear Joe.' Still further variety is
+secured when, as in the case of Lord Eglinton addressing his countess in
+1619, the hackneyed 'I remain, yours' takes the form of 'I rest,
+yours'--a phrase which is not, however, likely to be often used. And let
+it not be supposed that plenty of meaning cannot be thrown into the
+'yours' alone. Take, for instance, the reply made by 'The' Macdonald,
+when Glengarry claimed the chieftainship of the clan. 'As soon,' said
+the former, 'as you can prove yourself my chief I shall be ready to
+acknowledge you as such, but in the meantime I am yours, Macdonald.'
+There, for once in a way, the 'yours' meant something.
+
+When we go farther than the mere 'yours,' the possible variations are,
+of course, endless. There is 'yours truly'--perhaps the most widely used
+of all such combinations; but there are persons who rebel against its
+tyranny, and who with daring originality substitute the heartier and
+less conventional 'very truly,' 'most truly,' or 'right truly.' Second
+only to 'yours truly' come 'yours faithfully' and 'yours sincerely,'
+with their comparative 'very faithfully' and superlative 'most
+sincerely;' and many people are well content to keep within the safe
+borders of these wholly innocent and uncompromising forms. On the other
+hand, less indifferent minds will go farther afield for their
+qualifying adverbs, and say, with Sterne, 'very cordially yours,' or,
+with Father Matthew, 'yours devotedly,' and so on. Whewell, asked once
+for his autograph, signed himself 'yours autographically,' and of such
+deviations there are abundant examples, mostly with a tendency to the
+flippant. 'Yours ever' Byron declared himself to John Murray; 'yours
+ever and evermore,' wrote Cowper to a friend; while Steele, in a letter
+to his wife, protested that he was, with his whole heart, hers for
+ever--which may be pronounced the best of the three.
+
+But there is no reason in the world, to be sure, why we should cling to
+the 'yours' in any shape or modification. There are multitudinous other
+ways of being valedictory with effect. There is the simple word 'Adieu.'
+'And so, my dear madam, adieu,' writes Pepys to a lady. 'With all my
+love, and those sort of pretty things, adieu!' wrote the future Mrs.
+Scott to her sweetheart, the Great Magician. And then there is the
+English equivalent of the word--surely not less available. 'I wish you
+were at the devil,' wrote Sir Philip Francis to Burke, 'for giving me
+all this trouble, and so farewell!' In the old days, as we read in the
+'Paston Letters,' they had a sufficiently formal fashion of concluding
+epistles. 'By your cousin, Dame Elizabeth Brews'--'By your man, Thomas
+Kela;' such are two examples of the custom. 'Written at Norwich, on St.
+Thomas's even, in great haste, by your mother, Agnes Paston'--there is
+another. 'From your Russell,' is the end of a letter from the famous
+Lady Russell to her husband; and it does not read or sound untenderly.
+Junius signed himself to Woodfall, 'your friend.' Less cold was Mrs.
+Maclehose to Burns: 'I may sign, for I am already sealed, your friend,
+Clarinda.'
+
+The elaborate style of description has always largely obtained, as being
+obviously suitable for so many occasions. Thus one is not surprised to
+find the future Charles II. professing to be his father's 'most humble
+and most obedient son and servant,' or to note how that very complete
+letter-writer, James Howell, claimed to be the Countess of Sunderland's
+'most dutiful servant.' Dr. Johnson did well to announce himself
+haughtily as Chesterfield's 'most humble, most obedient servant;' while
+what could Sir Walter Scott be to his Duke of Buccleuch other than 'your
+Grace's truly obliged and grateful'? A similar sense of propriety
+induced Hood, in a certain memorable epistle, to tell Sir Robert Peel
+that he had the honour to be, Sir, his most grateful and obedient
+servant. One cannot object, either, to the 'Your most obliged and
+faithful friend' of Evelyn when addressed to Pepys, or to the 'Your very
+faithful, humble servant' of Bishop Percy, when penned to Boswell. It
+is, however, a little diverting to observe that Sir Simonds d'Ewes,
+after addressing his ladylove as 'Fairest,' concludes with 'Your humble
+servant,' and that the _Tatler_ of his time, rounding off a dedicatory
+letter to his 'Prue,' says: 'I am, Madam, your most obliged husband, and
+most obedient, humble servant, Richard Steele.'
+
+Over and over again have letter-writers made their final description of
+themselves so wholly a part of their last sentence that the former
+cannot be dissociated from the latter. 'I have not room to tell you any
+more,' wrote Stephen Duck to Joseph Spence in 1751, 'than that I am,
+Dear Sir, your most affectionate.' 'These,' said her royal mistress to
+Mrs. Delany in 1785, 'are the true sentiments of my dear Mrs. Delany's
+very affectionate Queen, Charlotte.' Hood once finished a charming
+epistle to a child in this way: 'Give my love to everybody, from
+yourself down to Willy, with which and a kiss, I remain, up hill and
+down dale, your affectionate lover, Thomas Hood.' Most people remember
+the pithy correspondence between Foote and his mother: 'Dear Sam,--I am
+in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother, E.
+Foote.'--'Dear Mother,--So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to
+his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam Foote.' Not everybody,
+however, can wind up a letter so neatly as that. A certain commercial
+house abroad was, perhaps, over-ingenious in its turn of phrase when,
+writing to an English correspondent, and desiring to be very civil to
+him, it said: 'Sugars are falling more and more every day; not so the
+respect and esteem with which we are,' etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPTS.
+
+
+There is, and long has been, a prevalent impression that the penning of
+postscripts is peculiarly characteristic of the feminine letter-writer.
+Cynics have even gone so far as to assert that no woman can indite an
+epistle without the addition of a 'P.S.,' and, in support of this
+grievous aspersion, have been wont to trot out the venerable 'chestnut'
+about the lady who accepted from her husband a bet that she would not
+send him a letter without the inevitable addendum--the result being
+that, after having composed the epistle and signed her name, she
+artlessly appended the observation, 'You see I _have_ written you a
+letter without a postscript,' capping it with 'Who has won the wager,
+you or I?'
+
+It might be argued, even if it could not be proved, that, putting aside
+mere business communications, and confining one's self to ordinary
+social correspondence, men are guilty of as many postscripts as women
+are. But even if the stereotyped charge against the ladies be really
+well-founded, what of it? Does it convey any tangible reproach? What
+harm is there in a 'P.S.,' or a 'P.P.S.'? It may be not only a
+defensible, but positively a praiseworthy, thing. Often it proceeds from
+nothing more condemnable than a genuine overflow of feeling--a stream of
+sentiment which, checked by the signature of the writer, bursts its
+bonds and reasserts its power in a final sentence or two. What could be
+more charming, for example, than the instances of this afforded in so
+many of the heroic Lady Russell's letters to her husband--as in that
+particularly pleasing one in which, after assuring him that all the
+household are well, and that as he is 'the most enduring husband in the
+world,' so she is 'the most grateful wife,' she adds her signature, and
+then recurs to the subject of her children--'Boy is asleep, girls
+singing abed'--telling of the proposed kindness of a neighbour towards
+them.
+
+Note, again, the superabundant playfulness of Cowper in one of his
+epistles to Lady Hesketh, where, after a few lines of personal
+description, he appears to conclude, but returns to the topic with a
+
+     'P.S.--That the view I give you of myself may be complete I add the
+     following items: That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.'
+
+Sometimes there will be pathos in a postscript, as in the case of
+Beethoven's touching communication to his brothers Carl and Johann in
+the matter of his deafness. In the body of the letter he has been
+begging them not to think him hostile, morose, or misanthropical, and
+making clear to them how little they know of the secret cause of his
+apparent indifference. Then, on the outside of the packet, comes this
+last melancholy outpouring:
+
+     'Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness too. The fond
+     hope I brought with me here [to Heiligenstadt] of being to a
+     certain degree cured, now utterly forsakes me. As autumn leaves
+     fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted.'
+
+Of this spontaneous running-over from text into postscript, literature
+has many specimens--none, perhaps, more effective in its way than the
+kindly stanza with which Mr. Bret Harte makes Truthful James bring to a
+close 'His Answer to Her Letter':
+
+  'P.S.--Which this same interfering
+    Into other folks' ways I despise,
+  Yet if it so be I was hearing
+    That it's just empty pockets as lies
+  Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers
+    That, having no family claims,
+  Here's my pile; which it's six hundred dollars,
+    As is yours, with respect, Truthful James.'
+
+
+One might, indeed, say more for postscripts than that they are often
+pardonable; they are often actually useful. They can be bent to the
+service of the writer; and over and over again, I dare say, have been
+appended with careful deliberation. They are invaluable as modes of
+emphasizing matter contained within the limits of the letter proper.
+They form 'last words' which can be charged with any measure of
+significance. Many people remember the case of the sailor who, after
+mentioning thrice in the course of one short epistle the desired
+purchase of some pigtail, felt constrained to add yet another reminder
+in the shape of a 'P.S.--Don't forget the pigtail.' Not less impressive,
+probably, was Sir Hew Dalrymple when, writing in 1775 to a friend to
+exhort him to give preferment to a worthy young cleric, he observed, in
+a postscript:
+
+     'Think what an unspeakable pleasure it will be to look down from
+     heaven and see Rigby, Masterton, all the Campbells and Nabobs,
+     swimming in fire and brimstone, while you are sitting with
+     Whitefield and his old women, looking beautiful, frisking and
+     singing; all which you may have by settling this man!'
+
+There can be no question that a well-planted 'P.S.' is of great utility
+in clinching an argument raised in the main portion of a communication.
+Thus, when Artemus Ward wrote 'to the editor of ----,' asking for a line
+concerning the state of the show business in his locality, he knew what
+he was about. 'I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss,' he observed.
+'Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in flamin' stile.
+Also git up a tremenjus excitement in yr. paper 'bout my onparaleld
+Show. We must fetch the public sumhow.' Then, at the end, came the
+summing-up of the whole transaction: 'P.S.--You scratch my back and Ile
+scratch your back.' There is at least one instance on record in which a
+postscript was made to convey a smart reproof. Talleyrand, having one
+day entrusted a valet with a letter to deliver, happened to look out of
+the window, and saw the man reading the message _en route_. Next day he
+despatched another letter to the same address by the same servant,
+taking care to append to it the following: 'P.S.--You may send a verbal
+answer by the bearer. He is perfectly acquainted with the whole affair,
+having taken the precaution to read this previous to delivery.'
+
+On the whole, whether postscripts are defensible or not, it is clear
+that their history is eminently interesting. Some valuable matter has
+from time to time been put into them. There is at least one letter of
+Thomas Gray's, written in 1764 to the Rev. Norton Nicholls, the 'P.S.'
+of which is worth the whole of the remainder of the communication, so
+charming a bit of descriptive writing is embodied in it. Then, how full
+of good stuff are the epistolary addenda of Charles Lamb, with whom 'the
+cream of the correspondence' (as Tony Lumpkin has it) was very often
+rather in the postscript than in 'the inside of the letter,' in the
+sense of its larger portion. It is in one of these addenda that one
+finds the first record of a well-known sentence: 'Summer, as my friend
+Coleridge waggishly observes, has set in with its usual severity.'
+Elsewhere one comes across such tributes as: 'My friend Hood, a prime
+genius and hearty fellow, brings this.' Always characteristic in thought
+and in expression, Lamb was never more so than in the finales to his
+letters. 'I do not think your handwriting at all like ----'s,' he says
+to Southey; 'I do not think many things I did think.' He winds up a
+dog-Latin epistle to Bernard Barton, in 1831, with: 'P.S.--Perdita in
+toto est Billa Reformatura.' And to Coleridge he says, with delightful
+frankness:
+
+     'Write your German as plain as sunshine, for that must correct
+     itself. You know I am _homo unius lingu�_: in English--illiterate,
+     a dunce, a ninny.'
+
+Sometimes a postscript is unconsciously full of humour, as in the case
+of a note written by a certain Mr. O. to a recent Bishop of Norwich:
+
+     'Mr. O----'s private affairs turn out so sadly that he cannot have
+     the pleasure of waiting upon his lordship at his agreeable house on
+     Monday next.--N.B. His wife is dead.'
+
+
+THE END.
+
+_Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
+both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as
+presented in the original text.
+
+The following misprint has been corrected:
+  "writting" corrected to "writing" (page 221)
+
+Printer's inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of By-Ways in Book-Land, by Wm. Davenport Adams.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's By-ways in Book-land, by William Davenport Adams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By-ways in Book-land
+       Short Essays on Literary Subjects
+
+Author: William Davenport Adams
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2010 [EBook #31034]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Stephanie Eason, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND.</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Short Essays on Literary Subjects</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Wm. Davenport Adams</span></p>
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF &#8216;DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,&#8217; ETC.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">&#8216;<i>Excursusque breves tentat.</i>&#8217;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">&#8216;<span class="smcap">Georgics</span>,&#8217; iv. 194.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">LONDON<br />ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW<br />1888</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">TO MY FATHER,<br />
+W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS,<br />
+THIS LITTLE VOLUME<br />
+Is Affectionately Inscribed.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="dropcap"><i><span class="caps">In</span> the following pages, the writer for the most part deals with small
+subjects in an unelaborate manner. He leaves the highways of literature,
+and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a
+leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore
+with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The
+author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and
+along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing to bear him company.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span></td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td>PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>RUSKIN AS POET</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>FAMILIAR VERSE</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>SHAKESPEARE&#8217;S ENGLAND</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>HEREDITY IN SONG</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>STINGS FOR THE STINGY</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>SERMONS IN FLOWERS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&#8216;DON QUIXOTE&#8217; IN ENGLAND</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>BEDSIDE BOOKS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THEIR MUCH SPEAKING</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>PEERS AND POETRY</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THE PRAISE OF THAMES</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THE &#8216;SEASON&#8217; IN SONG</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THE &#8216;RECESS&#8217; IN RHYME</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>JAQUES IN LOVE</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>MOCKING AT MATRIMONY</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>PARSON POETS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>NONSENSE VERSES</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>PUNS AND PATRONYMICS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&#8216;YOURS TRULY&#8217;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>POSTSCRIPTS</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/goat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1><i>BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND</i></h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/odropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="O" /></span>ne is for ever hearing enough and to spare about old books and those
+who love them. There is a whole literature of the subject. The men
+themselves, from Charles Lamb downwards, have over and over again
+described their ecstasies&mdash;with what joy they have pounced upon some
+rare edition, and with what reverence they have ever afterwards regarded
+it. It is some time since Mr. Buchanan drew his quasi-pathetic picture
+of the book-hunter, bargaining for his prize,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;With the odd sixpence in his hand,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And greed in his gray eyes;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>having, moreover, in his mind&#8217;s eye as he walked</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Vistas of dusty libraries<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prolonged eternally.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has sung to us of the man who &#8216;book-hunts while
+the loungers fly,&#8217; who &#8216;book-hunts though December freeze,&#8217; for whom</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Each tract that flutters in the breeze<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is charged with hopes and fears,&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>while</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;In mouldy novels fancy sees<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>There are periodicals which cater solely for old-book adorers; and while
+on the one hand your enthusiast will publish his &#8216;Pleasures&#8217; and
+&#8216;Diversions,&#8217; on the other a contemporary will devote a volume to the
+subjects which attract and interest &#8216;the Book Fancier.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, is there nothing to be said of, or by, the admirer of new
+books&mdash;the man or woman who rejoices in the pleasant act of turning over
+new leaves? At a time when volumes are issuing by the dozen from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+publishers&#8217; counters, shall not something be chronicled of the happiness
+which lies in the contemplation, the perusal, of the literary product
+which comes hot from the press? For, to begin with, the new books have
+at least this great advantage over the old&mdash;that they are clean. It is
+not everybody who can wax dithyrambic over the &#8216;dusty&#8217; and the &#8216;mouldy.&#8217;
+It is possible for a volume to be too &#8216;second-hand.&#8217; Your devotee, to be
+sure, thinks fondly of the many hands, dead and gone, through which his
+&#8216;find&#8217; has passed; he loves to imagine that it may have been held
+between the fingers of some person or persons of distinction; he is in
+the seventh heaven of exaltation if he can be quite certain it has had
+that honour. But suppose this factitious charm is really wanting?
+Suppose a volume is dirty, and ignobly so? Must one necessarily delight
+in dogs&#8217; ears, bask in the shadow of beer-stains, and &#8216;chortle&#8217; at the
+sign of cheese-marks? Surely it is one of the merits of new leaves that
+they come direct from the printer and the binder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> though they, alas!
+may have left occasional impressions of an inky thumb.</p>
+
+<p>It might possibly be argued that a new volume is, if anything, &#8216;too
+bright and good&#8217;&mdash;too beautiful and too resplendent&mdash;for &#8216;base uses.&#8217;
+There is undoubtedly an <i>amari aliquid</i> about them. They certainly do
+seem to say that we &#8216;may look but must not touch.&#8217; Talk about the awe
+with which your book-hunter gazes upon an ancient or infrequent tome;
+what is it when compared with the respect which another class of
+book-lover feels for a volume which reaches them &#8216;clothed upon with&#8217;
+virtual spotlessness? Who can have the heart to impair that innocent
+freshness? Do but handle the book, and the harm is done&mdash;unless, indeed,
+the handling be achieved with hands delicately gloved. The touch of the
+finger is, in too many cases, fatal. On the smooth cloth or the vellum
+or the parchment, some mark, alas! must needs be made. The lover of new
+books will hasten, oftentimes, to enshrine them in paper covers; but a
+book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> in such a guise is, for many, scarcely a book at all; it has lost
+a great deal of its charm. Better, almost, the inevitable tarnishing.
+All that&#8217;s bright must fade; the new book cannot long maintain its
+lustre. But it has had it, to begin with. And that is much. We feel at
+least the first fine careless rapture. Whatever happens, no one can
+deprive us of that&mdash;of the first fond glimpse of the immaculate.</p>
+
+<p>But the matter is not, of course, one of exterior only. Some interest,
+at least, attaches to the contents, however dull the subject, however
+obscure the author. A new book is a new birth, not only to the &aelig;sthetic
+but to the literary sense. It contains within it boundless
+possibilities. There are printed volumes which are books only in
+form&mdash;which are mere collections of facts or figures, or what not, and
+which do not count. But if a volume be a genuine specimen of the <i>belles
+lettres</i>, the imagination loves to play upon it. What will it be like?
+What treasures lie concealed in it? What delights has it in store for
+us? In our curiosity we are like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the boy in Mr. Pinero&#8217;s farcical
+comedy: &#8216;It is the &#8217;orrible uncertainty wot we craves after.&#8217; No one can
+tell what may nestle in the recesses of new leaves. Not even in
+reference to well-known writers can we be positively sure. They may
+belie their reputation. The illustrious Smith may make a failure; the
+obscurer Brown may score a hit. For once in a way Robinson may have
+produced something we can read; to everybody&#8217;s surprise, the great Jones
+has dropped into the direst twaddle. And if this uncertainty exists in
+respect to those we know, how much more auspicious is it in the case of
+those who are quite new to us? What gems of purest ray serene may repose
+within the pages of the unopened book before us!</p>
+
+<p>And, talking of unopened books, how much of the pleasure we derive from
+newly-published volumes lies in the process by which we first make their
+acquaintance. There are those who would have all books issued with the
+edges of the pages cut. The reasons why are obvious. To begin with, some
+labour is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> thereby saved to the purchaser; a certain measure of time,
+too, is saved. The reviewer, who has no moments to spare, may
+anathematize the leaves he has to separate with the paper-knife; the
+traveller by rail may condemn to Hades the producers of the work which
+he cannot cut open&mdash;because he has not the wherewithal about him.
+Everywhere there are eager and hasty readers who chafe at the delay
+which an uncut book imposes upon their impatient spirit. On the other
+hand, your genuine book-adorer, your enthusiast, who loves to extract
+from a volume all which it is capable of yielding, cannot but approve a
+habit which enables him to linger delightedly over his new possession.
+What special sweets may not be hidden within just those very pages which
+are at present closed to him! <i>Omne ignotum</i> is, for him, <i>pro
+magnifico</i>&mdash;here may be the very cream of the cream. And so the adorer
+dallies with his prize. First he peeps within the leaves, and gleans a
+sentence here and there. And then he begins to use the cutter&mdash;slowly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+slowly&mdash;dwelling with enraptured tardiness upon each page which he reveals.</p>
+
+<p>Who shall say that new leaves have no drawbacks? Verily, they have them.
+It cannot be supposed, for instance, that they are always wholly
+acceptable to the aforesaid professional censor. The reviewer, sitting
+surrounded by them, tier on tier, may rail at the productiveness of the
+age, and wish that there might not be more than one new book each week.
+And the omnivorous reader, anxious to keep up with the literature of the
+day, might fairly re-echo the aspiration. Who, indeed, can hope to turn
+over a tithe of the new leaves which are issued daily? Nor can an
+unlimited consumption of them be recommended. Mr. Lowell is to a certain
+extent justified when he says that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Reading new books is like eating new bread;<br />
+One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he<br />
+Is brought to death&#8217;s door of a mental dyspepsy.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Assuredly new books are so far like new bread, that we should not
+consume them in too rapid succession. At the same time, let<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> us be
+thankful for them, inasmuch as they have the unquestionable gift of
+novelty. Lord Beaconsfield&#8217;s Lady Montfort said she preferred a new
+book, even if bad, to a classic. That was a strong saying, but there are
+points of view from which it is perfectly defensible.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflower.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>RUSKIN AS POET.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span>t was lately rumoured that Mr. Ruskin was about to issue a volume of
+poems, consisting mainly of pieces already published. The statement was
+probably the first intimation received by many that the author of
+&#8216;Modern Painters&#8217; had ever written anything in the shape of verse. That
+he has always been, like Sidney, a &#8216;warbler of poetic prose,&#8217; has lately
+been emphasized by a magazine-writer; but it is not at all universally
+known that between the years 1835 and 1845 Mr. Ruskin figured somewhat
+largely as a poet, in the popular sense of that much abused word. During
+that time he produced a good deal of verse, in addition to the prize
+poem which has always been readily accessible by his admirers.</p>
+
+<p>Even if one had not known, it would not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> have been difficult to have
+assumed, from the rhythmic character of Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s prose, that he had
+at one time &#8216;dropped into poetry.&#8217; Such a master of rhetoric could
+hardly have gone through life without wooing the Muse of Song, however
+temporarily or unsuccessfully. It would not have been natural for him to
+have done so. And, indeed, it is probable that no great prose
+rhetorician has failed to pay the same homage to the charm of verbal
+melody and cadence. In all the most sonorous prose turned out by English
+authors there will be found a lilt and a swing which would without
+difficulty translate themselves into verse. &#8216;Most wretched men,&#8217; says
+Shelley, &#8216;are cradled into poetry by wrong.&#8217; Most literary men have been
+cradled into it by their irresistible feeling and aptitude for rhythm,
+together with that general poetic sensibility which is rarely absent
+from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in
+verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work
+in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s success as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+prose-producer has been owing to his early devotion to the Muse.</p>
+
+<p>He himself tells us, in the course of his tribute to his &#8216;first editor&#8217;
+(W. H. Harrison), that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;A certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all my
+later writings), and the cheerfulness of a much-protected but not
+foolishly-indulged childhood, made me early a rhymester.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>And he adds&mdash;the tribute was paid in 1878&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;A shelf of the little cabinet by which I am now writing is loaded
+with poetical effusions which were the delight of my father and
+mother, and which I have not got the heart to burn.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>A much fuller account of the poetic stages through which he passed in
+childhood is given by Mr. Ruskin in his &#8216;Pr&aelig;terita,&#8217; where he tells us
+of the six &#8216;poems&#8217; he brought forth in his seventh year (1826), one of
+them being on the subject of the steam-engine, and rejoicing in such
+couplets as:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;When furious up from mines the water pours,<br />
+And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in
+its tone. Then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet
+another effusion, called &#8216;Eudosia;&#8217; and when only eleven he began the
+composition of an elaborate &#8216;poetical&#8217; description of his various
+journeyings, under the title of &#8216;Iteriad.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was
+fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still
+further increased by the boy&#8217;s admiration, successively, for Scott and
+Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the
+prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his
+sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to &#8216;Friendship&#8217;s Offering and
+Winter&#8217;s Wreath: a Christmas and New Year&#8217;s Present&#8217; for 1835. This was
+the era of the old-fashioned &#8216;annuals,&#8217; and &#8216;Friendship&#8217;s Offering&#8217; was
+one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we
+note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among
+the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> of
+really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in
+corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of
+the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s first published
+verses&mdash;&#8216;Salzburg&#8217; and some &#8216;Fragments&#8217; of a poetical journal, kept on
+tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather
+than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;On Salza&#8217;s quiet tide the westering sun<br />
+Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun,<br />
+Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof,<br />
+Begin to weave fair twilight&#8217;s mystic woof;<br />
+Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil,<br />
+Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>A little further on we read:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza&#8217;s strand,<br />
+Though no Arcadian visions grace the land;<br />
+Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by,<br />
+While day&#8217;s last beams upon the landscape die;<br />
+Low chants the fisher where the waters pour,<br />
+And murmuring voices melt along the shore;<br />
+The plash of waves comes softly from the side<br />
+Of passing barge slow gliding o&#8217;er the tide;<br />
+And there are sounds from city, field, and hill,<br />
+Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which
+the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.</p>
+
+<p>Four years later Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s initials were to be seen appended to a
+couple of pieces in verse contributed to &#8216;The Amaranth,&#8217; an annual of
+much more imposing presence than the &#8216;Offering&#8217;&mdash;edited by T. K. Hervey,
+admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such
+literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles,
+Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question
+is &#8216;The Wreck,&#8217; in which Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s poetic capability, such as it is,
+is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The voices of the night are mute<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the moon&#8217;s eclipse;</span><br />
+The silence of the fitful flute<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is in the dying lips!</span><br />
+The silence of my lonely heart<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is kept for ever more</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In the lull</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of the waves</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of a low lee shore.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>To the same year belong contributions to the <i>London Monthly Miscellany</i>
+and the prize poem (&#8216;Salsette and Elephanta&#8217;) before-mentioned. In the
+<i>Miscellany</i> appeared some lines which, in certain respects, are a
+species of anticipation of the Swinburnian manner; as, for example:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;We care not what skies are the clearest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What scenes are the fairest of all;</span><br />
+The skies and the scenes that are dearest<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For ever, are those that recall</span><br />
+To the thoughts of the hopelessly-hearted<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The light of the dreams that deride,</span><br />
+With the form of the dear and departed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their loneliness, weary and wide.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>It may be assumed that &#8216;Salsette and Elephanta&#8217; has been read by all who
+care about the undertaking. It was recited in the theatre at Oxford,
+printed in the same year (1839), and reprinted exactly forty years
+afterwards. It is a by no means unattractive piece of rhetoric.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the annuals to which Mr. Ruskin contributed in those days was
+the <i>Keepsake</i>, in which he figured in 1845, under the editorship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> of
+the Countess of Blessington, with Landor, Monckton Milnes, Lord John
+Manners, and the future Lord Beaconsfield as fellow-contributors. He was
+also welcomed to the pages of <i>Heath&#8217;s Book of Beauty</i>. Five years later
+he collected his fugitive pieces, and, adding a few new ones, included
+the whole in a volume privately circulated in 1850. Copies of this book
+are said to have been bought at sales, at different times, for &pound;31 and
+41 guineas. Six years ago, a selection from the &#8216;Annual&#8217; verses was
+published, together with the prize poem and other matter, in America.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing through Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s verse, one is forced to admit that it has
+no special individuality or charm. It deals with conventional subjects
+in a more or less conventional manner. There is a classical element, and
+a flavour of foreign scenery, and an occasional excursion in the
+direction of such topics as &#8216;Spring,&#8217; &#8216;The Months,&#8217; &#8216;The Old Water
+Wheel,&#8217; &#8216;The Old Seaman,&#8217; &#8216;Remembrance,&#8217; &#8216;The Last Smile,&#8217; and the like.
+The rhythm is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> always regular and flowing, and the descriptive passages
+have light and colour; but the &#8216;lyric cry&#8217; has no particular tone that
+could attract the public. The longest piece ever written by Mr. Ruskin
+was, not the prize poem, but that entitled &#8216;The Broken Chain,&#8217; with an
+extract from which I may conclude this brief survey of a great
+prose-writer&#8217;s verse-production:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Where the flower hath fairest hue,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the breeze hath balmiest breath,</span><br />
+Where the dawn hath softest dew,<br />
+Where the heaven hath deepest blue,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">There is death.</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;Where the gentle streams of thinking,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through our hearts that flow so free,</span><br />
+Have the deepest, softest sinking,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the fullest melody,</span><br />
+Where the crown of hope is nearest,<br />
+Where the voice of joy is clearest,<br />
+Where the heart of youth is lightest,<br />
+Where the light of love is brightest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">There is death.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span>t is not surprising that Parliamentary contests should have figured
+largely in the English plays, stories, and poems of the past. That they
+will hold so prominent a place in them in future is, of course, by no
+means certain. If elections have been made purer than they were, they
+have been made less picturesque. They have now but little romance about
+them. Nearly everything in them is precise and practical. The literary
+artist, therefore, is likely to find in them few things to attract him,
+and will be, to that extent, at a disadvantage as compared with those
+who have preceded him. There were days when the preliminary canvassing,
+the nomination and the polling days, had features which invited
+treatment on the stage or in print. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> whole atmosphere of
+electioneering was different to that which now exists. Those involved in
+it went about their work with a reckless jollity productive of results
+eminently interesting to students of character and manners. A battle at
+the polls brought out all which was most characteristic in the
+Englishmen of the times, and to describe such a conflict was naturally
+the aim of many a man of letters.</p>
+
+<p>Several theatrical pieces have been based almost wholly upon the varied
+incidents of such a contest. There was, for example, that &#8216;musical
+interlude,&#8217; &#8216;The Election,&#8217; written by Miles Peter Andrews, and produced
+at Drury Lane in 1774. In this, Trusty and Sir Courtly are candidates
+for a seat, and, while one John, a baker, would fain vote for the
+former, his wife is desirous that he should support the latter. As she
+wheedlingly remarks,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sir Courtly says, if you&#8217;ll but vote for him,<br />
+He&#8217;ll fill your pockets to the very brim.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But John is not to be corrupted:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+&#8216;Honest John no bribe can charm;<br />
+His heart is like his oven, warm;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Though poor as Job,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">He will not rob,</span><br />
+Nor sell his truth to fill his fob.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Nay, not though by so doing he may secure a husband for his daughter
+Sally. He votes for Trusty, and Sally&#8217;s sweetheart respects him all the
+more for it. As the lover says to the lady:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Your father&#8217;s merit sets him up to view,<br />
+And more enhances my esteem for you.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And, in truth, everybody is delighted, for, as they sing in chorus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;What to a Briton so grateful can be,<br />
+As the triumph of Freedom and Virtue to see?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Then there is that forgotten play of Joanna Baillie, also called &#8216;The
+Election,&#8217; printed in 1802, and turned into an opera in 1817. Here,
+again, we have two candidates&mdash;one Baltimore, of ancient but decayed
+family, and one Freeman, a <i>nouveau riche</i> of equally familiar
+type&mdash;neighbours, but not friends, and rivals for the representation of
+the borough of Westown. Of Tom Taylor&#8217;s &#8216;Contested<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Election,&#8217; produced
+in 1859, most people have heard, if they have not had an opportunity of
+seeing it performed. It gives a fairly faithful picture of the
+unreformed method of carrying on electoral warfare. There is an
+attorney, originally played by Charles Mathews, who undertakes to secure
+the success of Honeybun, and is quite prepared to pay for the votes
+which may be promised to him. There is also one Peekover, President of
+the Blue Lambs, who is equally prepared to accept the proffered payment
+for himself and friends. Honeybun does not get in, but that is hardly
+the fault of his attorney, or due to any general unwillingness to sell
+votes to the highest bidder. Bribery, it will be remembered, is an
+important element in Robertson&#8217;s &#8216;M.P.,&#8217; which dates no further back
+than 1870, though the action of the comedy, if I remember rightly,
+belongs also to pre-reforming times. Cecilia is willing to buy votes for
+Talbot, and three typical electors are willing to dispose of her money
+to the best advantage. The last scene is tolerably exciting. Talbot
+addresses the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> crowd from his window, and there is much exhilaration
+when the result of the contest is announced. To more recent
+representations of elections on the stage, it is scarcely necessary to
+allude.</p>
+
+<p>Turning from drama to song, one thinks at once of the poem &#8216;in seven
+books&#8217; which its author, Carlyle&#8217;s John Sterling, dubbed &#8216;The Election&#8217;
+and published in 1841. Sterling had been anticipated, a few years
+previously&mdash;in 1835&mdash;by the author of a satire called &#8216;Election Day,&#8217;
+which supplied quite an elaborate description of such a day under the
+respective heads of &#8216;The Inn,&#8217; &#8216;The Hustings,&#8217; &#8216;The Chairing,&#8217; and &#8216;The
+Dinner.&#8217; &#8216;Although,&#8217; said the writer, in his preface, &#8216;there are some
+great improvements in the manner in which elections are now conducted,
+still the immoral and degrading principles that accompany them appear to
+remain nearly the same.&#8217; According to this earnest and depressed
+observer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Mud and stones and waving hats,<br />
+And broken heads and putrid cats,<br />
+Are offerings made to aid the cause<br />
+Of order, government, and laws.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>But especially is he struck by the amount of eating and drinking that
+appears inseparable from an election in his time:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8217;Tis strange how much a splendid larder<br />
+Lights up electioneering ardour;<br />
+You soon awake to <i>patri&aelig; amor</i><br />
+When stirred about with ale and clamour.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Sterling, though singing of</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Those high days when Aleborough proudly sent<br />
+Her man to sit in England&#8217;s Parliament,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the
+candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to
+solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages
+descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how
+one of the candidates went out to canvass:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;With smiling look and word, and promise bold,<br />
+And dainty flatteries meet for young and old,<br />
+The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed,<br />
+The glistening ribbon for the maiden&#8217;s breast,<br />
+Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives,<br />
+The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives,<br />
+The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear,<br />
+The shake of hands laboriously sincere.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Ten public-houses opening for the Blues<br />
+Their floods of moral influence diffuse,<br />
+And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds<br />
+To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by we read:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;And now the poll begins. The assessors sit<br />
+Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ.<br />
+The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down<br />
+Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of
+political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a
+fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest
+pictured by George Eliot in &#8216;Felix Holt&#8217;&mdash;that which leads to the riot
+in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? &#8216;The
+nomination day,&#8217; says the novelist, &#8216;was a great epoch of successful
+trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem,
+on the part of skilful agents.&#8217; And she goes on to describe</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>&#8216;the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting,
+the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and
+the soft hits with small jokes.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>Of the polling day, she writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous
+company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating
+necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once &#8220;the writs
+were out;&#8221; but there was drinking, which did equally well under any
+name.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>This was in 1832. In 1840 there was published at Dublin a tale, entitled
+&#8216;The Election,&#8217; in which the author bluntly declared that &#8216;bribery and
+perjury are the returning officers.&#8217; He was, in truth, a very
+&#8216;high-toned&#8217; writer, for we find him declaiming vigorously against that
+which Sterling mentions as one of the canvassing weapons of a
+candidate&mdash;&#8216;the practice of shaking hands with all and every person
+whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance
+of the moment.&#8217; There are, we are told, &#8216;cases when such buxom
+familiarity is out of place&mdash;when it assumes too much the appearance of
+vulgar cajolery to be received as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> compliment.&#8217; Elsewhere we come
+across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a
+certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her &#8216;vote and
+interest.&#8217; The lady protests that she does not know the difference
+between the Whigs, the Tories, and the Radicals:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;I know two of them are in the history of England, where they gave
+trouble enough, whatever they were. But as for the Radicals, it is
+a newspaper word that I can&#8217;t say I&#8217;m well acquainted with.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>Whereupon the candidate replies that all he can say for the Whigs is that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;they are very fair spoken, when it suits their convenience. But
+the Radicals are a foul-mouthed race, on all and every occasion,
+and are the bitter enemies to Church and State.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Nevertheless, the contest (of course an Irish one) which forms the main
+feature of the tale, ends in the return of Sir Andrew Shrivel, the
+Radical, together with Thaddeus O&#8217;Sullivan Gaffrey, Esq., representing
+the Nationalists.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vine.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>FAMILIAR VERSE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>here is a species of verse, hitherto not classified distinctively, for
+which it seems desirable to find a name. In the first place, it may be
+necessary, perhaps, to emphasize once more the simple distinction
+between verse and poetry. There are, indeed, excellent and happy people
+for whom there is no difference between the two&mdash;for whom all that is
+not prose is poetry, and who recognise no other varieties in literature.
+Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by
+the necessity of distinguishing between this and that&mdash;of pronouncing
+upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were
+careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this
+rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> Unluckily,
+the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse
+of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in
+essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking,
+it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as
+opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling.
+Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The
+one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the
+natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is
+exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of
+verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is
+derivable from their work.</p>
+
+<p>They must not, however, all be grouped together under one embracing
+appellation. If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and
+verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with
+the inferior article. There are many different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> sorts of verse. There is
+that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly
+comic, and there is that which is something between the two&mdash;neither
+over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and
+marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse
+has been given, in general, the name of <i>vers de soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i> or <i>vers
+d&#8217;occasion</i>&mdash;verse of society or for the moment. Mr. Frederick Locker,
+nearly twenty years ago, thus labelled his volume of &#8216;Lyra
+Elegantiarum&#8217;&mdash;still, even at this distance of time, the best available
+collection of our lighter verse. But the label is not sufficiently
+distinguishing; it is too haphazard and too narrow. The term <i>vers de
+soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i> will not include all that is commonly ranged under it. For
+what, in reality, is <i>vers de soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i>? It is what it professes to
+be&mdash;it is the verse of society, the verse which deals with the various
+phenomena of the fashionable world. The writers of genuine <i>vers de
+soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i> have themselves been men and women of society, who had caught
+its tone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and could reproduce it in their rhythmic exercises. Mr.
+Locker&#8217;s &#8216;St. James&#8217;s Street,&#8217; Mr. Dobson&#8217;s &#8216;Rotten Row,&#8217; Prior&#8217;s lines
+&#8216;To a Child of Quality,&#8217; and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams&#8217;s &#8216;Ode to Miss
+Harriet Bunbury&#8217;&mdash;these are the true <i>vers de soci&eacute;t&eacute;</i>, the true
+&#8216;poetry&#8217; of the ball-room and the <i>salon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is to become of the large amount of verse which remains
+unaccounted for&mdash;which is neither distinctively sentimental nor
+distinctively comic, and yet has no right to the designation of
+society-verse? Well, this is the class of verse which, as we have said,
+has hitherto not been christened, and for which it is desirable to find
+a name. It is a very delightful species of rhythmic work, and deserves a
+denomination of its own. It has the tone, less of society and of the
+Court, than of the familiar intercourse of every day&mdash;of the
+intercourse, that is, which goes on between people of ordinary breeding
+and education. It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor
+does it rise to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low
+comedy. It is &#8216;familiar, but by no means vulgar.&#8217; Its first quality is
+ease&mdash;absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a <i>d&eacute;gag&eacute;</i> air. It is in
+rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is&mdash;flowing and
+unpremeditated without slovenliness&mdash;having the characteristics of the
+best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its
+second quality is playfulness&mdash;a refusal to be too much in earnest in
+any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme.
+It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its
+dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the
+sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes to the humorous; but
+always the style and atmosphere are those of familiar life, of everyday
+reunions; and hence the suggestion that it should be recognised as
+&#8216;Familiar Verse.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by
+those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are
+well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in,
+periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its
+best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our
+literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though
+some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force,
+with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease&mdash;with Suckling, whose
+&#8216;Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?&#8217; is in exactly the right tone; and
+with Dorset, whose &#8216;To all you ladies now on land&#8217; is another typical
+specimen. By-and-by Dryden showed how well he could write in the
+familiar style, when he composed the song about fair Iris:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;She&#8217;s fickle and false, and there we agree,<br />
+For I am as false and as fickle as she;<br />
+We neither believe what either can say,<br />
+And neither believing, we neither betray.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Then came the reign of Pope, and Swift, and Prior, and
+Peterborough&mdash;Pope, with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> truly playful &#8216;What is Prudery?&#8217; Swift,
+with his charming lines to Stella; Prior, with his &#8216;Dear Chloe, how
+blubber&#8217;d is that pretty face!&#8217; and Peterborough, with that masterpiece
+of the familiar <i>genre</i>:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking,<br />
+Thou wild thing, that always art leaping and aching,<br />
+What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,<br />
+By turns has not taught thee this pit-a-pat-ation?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Then there were the Lady Wortley Montagu, with her lines to Congreve;
+and Chesterfield, with his &#8216;Advice to a Lady in Autumn&#8217;; Fielding, with
+his inimitable epistles to Walpole; and Goldsmith, with his incomparable
+&#8216;Retaliation.&#8217; Later, again, came Cowper, with his &#8216;Nose and Eyes&#8217; and
+&#8216;Names of Little Note&#8217;; Byron, with his verses &#8216;To Tom Moore&#8217;; Moore
+himself, with his &#8216;Time I&#8217;ve Lost in Wooing&#8217;; Barham, with his &#8216;Lines
+left at Hook&#8217;s&#8217;; Peacock, Canning, James Smith, Praed, and Mahony; and,
+still later, Hood, with his &#8216;Clapham Academy&#8217;; Brough, with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+&#8216;Neighbour Nelly&#8217;; Mortimer Collins, with his tribute to his &#8216;Old Coat&#8217;;
+and a hundred others, all of whom could play delightfully on the
+familiar string.</p>
+
+<p>And, happily, the manufacture of familiar verse still goes on
+swimmingly. The Laureate has engaged in it, and even Mr. Browning has
+condescended to it. It has never, in the whole course of its career,
+been written better than by Mr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell, and, among
+ourselves, by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson. No age,
+indeed, was ever more favourable than our own for the composition of
+verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into
+exaggeration&mdash;which may have, if it please, a <i>soup&ccedil;on</i> of wit and
+humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be
+tolerant and urbane.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/dragon.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>SHAKESPEARE&#8217;S ENGLAND.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span>t was with true instinct that one of our most vigorous orators,
+desiring the other day to emphasize by quotation an appeal to the
+patriotic sentiments of his audience, went to a play of Shakespeare&#8217;s
+for the passage. For the bard of Avon is <i>par excellence</i> the poet of
+England. Keen as, in later years, has been the love of country displayed
+by such men as Thomson, Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson, and Mr. Swinburne, it
+is in the pages of Shakespeare that we find the most magnificent
+outbursts of national feeling. Let it be granted that the poet has not
+hesitated to throw a few satiric pebbles at his countrymen. Everybody
+will recall the amusing colloquy in &#8216;Hamlet,&#8217; in which the Gravedigger
+humorously reflects upon the sanity of the English people, declaring
+that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> if Hamlet be mad, it will not be noted in England, for there the
+men are as mad as he is. And then there is that other diverting colloquy
+in &#8216;Othello,&#8217; wherein Iago stigmatizes Englishmen as &#8216;most potent in
+potting,&#8217; asserting that they &#8216;drink with facility your Dane dead
+drunk,&#8217; so expert is your Englishman in his drinking.</p>
+
+<p>But these be the gibes of Danes and Italians&mdash;not of the man Shakespeare
+or of Englishmen speaking with his voice. True it is that if Shakespeare
+was strongly patriotic, he was so only in common with the Englishmen of
+his day. He lived in an age when the English people were consumed with a
+spirit of burning affection for the isle which they inhabited&mdash;when the
+great religious upheaval which we call the Reformation had set the blood
+coursing through their veins, and infused new life into their heart and
+brain&mdash;and when the fear of Spanish domination had joined all classes in
+an indissoluble bond of love and loyalty. Probably the English nation
+never was more thoroughly united,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> more profoundedly in earnest, more
+closely attached to its traditions and its soil, than in those spacious
+times of great Elizabeth. And if Shakespeare produced play after play
+dealing with the history of his country, and presenting on the boards
+many of the most famous Englishmen of the past, he was led to do so, no
+doubt, not only because the topic had attractions for him, but because
+the Englishmen of his day revelled in such reminders of the stirring
+years gone by&mdash;of the great soldiers, statesmen, clerics, and the like,
+who had shed lustre on the national name. There must have been a decided
+and continuous demand for these elaborate chronicle-dramas, and it may
+be argued that the poet, in supplying them, did but comply with the call
+made upon him by his public patrons.</p>
+
+<p>The fact, however, that Shakespeare found historical plays a paying
+product will not wholly account for the powerfully patriotic strain in
+which they were composed. It is not only that the long series stretching
+from &#8216;King John&#8217; to &#8216;Henry VIII.&#8217; pulses from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> beginning to end with
+love of, and pride in, country; it is not only that the poet makes great
+Englishmen speak greatly&mdash;that, placing them in positions in which
+declarations of patriotism are natural and necessary, he makes those
+declarations eloquent and thrilling;&mdash;it is that he charges all his
+passages about England and the English with a passion of enthusiasm
+which can be explained only on the hypothesis that he was throwing his
+whole heart into the work, and sympathized deeply with the utterances of
+his creations. There is, for instance, something more than mere
+appropriateness to the character and the occasion in that marvellous
+piece of eulogy of which, in &#8216;Richard II.,&#8217; John of Gaunt is made the
+spokesman. The poet seems unable to hold his admiration within bounds:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&#8216;This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,<br />
+This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,<br />
+This other Eden&mdash;demi-paradise&mdash;....<br />
+This happy breed of men, this little world,<br />
+This precious stone set in a silver sea,....<br />
+This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,<br />
+This nurse, this teeming womb of Royal Kings...<br />
+This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,<br />
+Dear for her reputation through the world&#8217;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>on what other country has such magnificent praise been poured out by her
+poets? One can see, too, how sincere Shakespeare was in his feelings as
+an Englishman by the phrases and the epithets he everywhere bestows upon
+his fatherland. There is Chorus&#8217;s famous description of it in &#8216;Henry V.&#8217;
+as &#8216;Little body with a mighty heart;&#8217; there is the Queen&#8217;s allusion, in
+&#8216;Henry VI.,&#8217; to its &#8216;blessed shore.&#8217; Now it is called &#8216;fair,&#8217; now
+&#8216;fertile,&#8217; and now &#8216;happy.&#8217; &#8216;Dear mother England,&#8217; cries the Bastard in
+&#8216;King John.&#8217; Bolingbroke rejoices that, though banished, he yet can
+boast that he is &#8216;a true-born Englishman;&#8217; and elsewhere we read of &#8216;our
+lusty English,&#8217; our &#8216;noble English,&#8217; our &#8216;hearts of England&#8217;s
+breed&#8217;&mdash;Rambures, the Frenchman, admitting that &#8216;that island of England
+breeds very valiant creatures.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And mark how Shakespeare causes one and all of his patriots to
+congratulate themselves that Britain is an island. Tennyson has called
+upon his countrymen to</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set<br />
+His Briton in blown seas and storming showers;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>and elsewhere has made a &#8216;Tory member&#8217;s elder son&#8217; say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;God bless the narrow sea...<br />
+Which keeps our Britain whole within herself.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Thomson, too, tells how &#8216;the rushing flood&#8217; turned &#8216;this favoured isle&#8217;
+&#8216;flashing from the continent aside,&#8217; &#8216;its guardian she.&#8217; But Shakespeare
+had been before both in these expressions of gratitude for our
+insularity. The Archduke of Austria, in &#8216;King John,&#8217; speaks of England
+as</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8216;That pale, that white-faced shore,</span><br />
+Whose foot spurns back the ocean&#8217;s roaring tides,<br />
+And coops from other lands her islanders...<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">That England, hedged in with the main,</span><br />
+That water-wall&egrave;d bulwark, still secure<br />
+And confident from foreign purposes.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>So, in &#8216;Richard II.,&#8217; John of Gaunt describes England as</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;This fortress built by Nature for herself<br />
+Against infection and the hand of war.</p>
+
+<p>&#8216;The silver sea,&#8217; he says, serves it</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">&#8216;In the office of a wall,</span><br />
+Or, as a moat, defensive to a house,<br />
+Against the envy of less happier lands;</p>
+
+<p>while once again he refers to England as</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8216;Bound in with the triumphant sea,</span><br />
+Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege<br />
+Of watery Neptune.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>There is one thing, however, without which, in Shakespeare&#8217;s view, even
+our lucky isolation cannot avail to save us, as a nation, from
+destruction. &#8216;If they (the English) were true within themselves they
+need not to fear, although all nations were set against them.&#8217; So wrote
+Andrew Borde, when Henry VIII. was King; and in the old play of &#8216;John,
+King of England&#8217; the author made one of his <i>person&aelig;</i> say:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Let England live but true within itself,<br />
+And all the world can never wrong her state.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>So Shakespeare, when he came to treat of the same subject, made the
+Bastard declare that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;This England never did, nor never shall<br />
+Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,<br />
+But when it first did help to wound itself...<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nought shall make us rue,</span><br />
+If England to itself do rest but true.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>There is much virtue in an &#8216;if,&#8217; and the poet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> repeats the warning in
+another play. In &#8216;3 Henry VI.&#8217; Hastings says:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Why, knows not Montague that of itself<br />
+England is safe, if true within itself?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>That, again, which most troubles John of Gaunt, in the passage already
+quoted, is the fact that England, which was wont to conquer others,
+&#8216;Hath made a shameful conquest of itself;&#8217; while Chorus, in &#8216;Henry V.,&#8217;
+laments that France has found in England &#8216;a nest of hollow bosoms, which
+he fills with treacherous crowns,&#8217; adding,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;What might&#8217;st thou do, that honour would thee do,<br />
+Were all thy children kind and natural?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, is a lesson for our times. What Shakespeare felt to be true
+in his own day is equally, nay more, true now&mdash;that England, &#8216;set in a
+silver sea,&#8217; is safe from all assaults, save those which she may suffer
+at the hands of her own &#8216;degenerate and ingrate&#8217; sons.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>HEREDITY IN SONG.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span>t is said that the verses in a recent number of <i>Macmillan&#8217;s Magazine</i>,
+entitled &#8216;In Capri,&#8217; and signed &#8216;W. Wordsworth,&#8217; are from the pen of a
+grandson of the famous author of &#8216;The Excursion.&#8217; They are gracefully
+written, in an agreeable rhythm, and with much command of felicitous
+expression. If, therefore, the writer has indeed the relationship to the
+great Wordsworth which rumour assigns him, the fact is interesting, and
+suggests some considerations as to the transmission of the poetic
+faculty from one generation to another.</p>
+
+<p>One might have thought that this transmission would have been tolerably
+common; that the sons at least, if not the grandsons, of a genuine poet
+could scarcely fail to inherit something of their progenitor&#8217;s peculiar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+powers. One might even have supposed that poetry would run&mdash;as other
+things have run&mdash;in families, making the &#8216;bards&#8217; almost a <i>gens</i>, or
+class, by themselves. Poetry, after all, is an affair mainly of the
+temperament&mdash;of fancy and imagination, of feeling and passion; and these
+are qualities which one might have imagined would be handed down, not
+greatly impaired, from father to son, and so on, for at least a fairly
+prolonged period.</p>
+
+<p>There have, indeed, been instances in which literary capacity has been a
+special characteristic of persons in close relationship to each other:
+one thinks at once of the Sheridans, the Coleridges, the Wordsworths,
+and others who have been notable for their productiveness in prose and
+verse. But the cases in which the purely poetic gift&mdash;the vision and the
+faculty divine&mdash;has been inherited and exercised are few indeed. A
+certain intellectual power will mark the members of a family, and
+exhibit itself in various attractive ways, but less in the domain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> of
+poetry than any other. It would seem that sheer mental force can be
+communicated, but that the higher qualities of the human spirit are not
+so readily transmitted; are, in fact, hardly transmissible, at any rate
+in quite the same degree. Not only are the examples of poetic heredity
+rare, but there are still fewer, certainly in the history of English
+literature, in which the son or the daughter has equalled the parent in
+poetic capacity.</p>
+
+<p>The case of the Colmans and the Dibdins is one of literary rather than
+poetic faculty. In each instance the father and son wrote verse, much of
+it excellent in its way, but assuredly not of the first order. The one
+name will always be associated with admirably humorous performances,
+while the other will continue to shine resplendent on the roll of
+writers of sea-songs. But work of that sort is a matter of knack rather
+than of inspiration, and &#8216;poetry&#8217; is a word hardly to be mentioned in
+remote connection with it. Very different are the circumstances when we
+come to the children of Samuel Taylor Coleridge&mdash;to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Hartley and to
+Sara, and to Hartley in particular. Sara had less than a half share of
+the poetic patrimony. She penned very pleasant rhymes for children, and
+some still linger in the collections; but they are not of singular
+merit. Much better than these are the lyrics which are to be found
+scattered through her prose romance, &#8216;Phantasmion&#8217;&mdash;lyrics which
+undoubtedly have imaginative value. They are much less known than they
+deserve to be, though a few of them have recently been reprinted. They
+are not, however, to be compared with the best that Hartley furnished.
+Sara had ideas, but her mode of expression inclined to the turgid.
+Hartley was clearer and smoother in his style, and now and then, as in
+some of his sonnets, and especially in the lines beginning,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;She is not fair to outward view,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As many maidens be,&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>he actually attained perfection. The last-named gem is likely to last as
+long as anything written by the elder Coleridge.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Mrs. Norton and Lady Dufferin are instances of ability descending from
+grandfather to granddaughters, and of ability, moreover, which, as
+regards poetical writing, grew and improved in the process of descent.
+The author of &#8216;The Duenna&#8217; produced a number of neat and lively rhymes,
+but, great as Sheridan was as a dramatist, he was certainly not a poet.
+Now, his granddaughters were really poets, though by no means of the
+front rank. Scarcely any of Mrs. Norton&#8217;s verse is now habitually read,
+but some of it is well worth reading. On the other hand, Lady Dufferin,
+who published much less than her sister did, is much better remembered,
+if only because she was the author of &#8216;Katie&#8217;s Letter&#8217; and &#8216;The Irish
+Emigrant&#8217;s Lament.&#8217; These pieces are distinguished by true human
+feeling, and hence their continued popularity. Of Adelaide Anne Procter,
+daughter of &#8216;Barry Cornwall,&#8217; it is not necessary to say much, for
+certain of her lyrics are familiar (in feminine mouths, at any rate) as
+household words. Everyone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> alas! knows &#8216;The Lost Chord;&#8217; many of us
+wish that we did not. That the &#8216;Legends and Lyrics&#8217; of Adelaide are
+considerably more widely known than anything produced by her father is,
+it is to be feared, only too true; and yet, full as they are of
+tenderness and grace, they have not the claims to attention possessed by
+the songs and dramatic fragments of &#8216;Barry Cornwall.&#8217; The latter are
+unduly neglected; while the songs are among the most virile and vigorous
+in the language. The father&#8217;s was altogether the stronger nature; the
+daughter set an example of gentle lachrymoseness, which has been
+followed, unfortunately, by too many female rhymers.</p>
+
+<p>Of more recent years, several examples of heredity in song have been
+vouchsafed to us. The younger Hood had his father&#8217;s fluency, but,
+apparently, very little of his imaginative power. Philip Bourke Marston
+was, in the lyric vein, as successful, perhaps, as Dr. Westland Marston
+had been in the dramatic, and it is probable that he will always be more
+largely read, &#8216;sicklied o&#8217;er&#8217; though his poetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> outcome be &#8216;with the
+pale cast of thought.&#8217; The works of the present Lord Lytton and of Mr.
+Aubrey de Vere are too well appreciated to need much characterization.
+These writers would no doubt deprecate any comparison of their products
+with those of the first Lord Lytton and Sir Aubrey de Vere, but it is
+one from which, on the score of absolute merit, they would have no
+occasion to shrink. Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Eric Mackay have written
+verse, no doubt, because Lady Wilde and Dr. Charles Mackay wrote verse
+before them; and the Hon. Hallam Tennyson has shown, in a rhythmical
+version of a nursery tale, that some measure of poetic faculty has been
+meted out to him.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflower.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>STINGS FOR THE STINGY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/fdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="F" /></span>ew frailties of mankind have been more bitterly scouted than that of
+meanness in money matters. Of the two, prodigality has been thought the
+better. The man who is poor has not been censured for being careful;
+rather has he been praised for not being ashamed to own his poverty. But
+the spectacle of the rich man hoarding his wealth and not living
+according to his means has always excited the displeasure of
+mankind&mdash;not only, perhaps, because money kept in store seems for the
+time useless, but because if expended it would be very acceptable to its
+recipients. The world has commended the man who gives out of his
+superfluity, but it has condemned him who keeps too much to himself. All
+literature, from the earliest times, is full of denunciation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> of such a
+character. The miserly and the stingy have been impaled over and over
+again on the sword of the satirist.</p>
+
+<p>Meanness has not been confined to the obscure; it has had some
+distinguished votaries&mdash;as, for example, his Gracious Majesty King James
+I., whose economical propensities were notorious. Of him it was
+admirably written that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;At Christ Church &#8220;Marriage,&#8221; done before the King,<br />
+Lest those learn&#8217;d mates should want an offering,<br />
+The King himself did offer&mdash;What, I pray?<br />
+He offer&#8217;d, twice or thrice, to go away.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Take, again, the great Duke of Marlborough, whose two chief qualities of
+mind were very happily hit off in the couplet &#8216;On a High Bridge over a
+Small Stream at Blenheim&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The lofty arch his high ambition shows,<br />
+The stream an emblem of his bounty flows.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Garrick was accused of money-grubbing, and his weakness in that respect
+was the subject of more than one smart jest by Foote. When somebody,
+<i>&agrave;propos</i> of a remark made by Garrick on the parsimony of others,
+asked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> &#8216;Why on earth doesn&#8217;t Garrick take the beam out of his own eye
+before attacking the mote in other people&#8217;s?&#8217;&mdash;Foote replied, &#8216;He is not
+sure of selling the timber.&#8217; And again, when Garrick, after dropping a
+guinea and failing to find it, said it had &#8216;gone to the devil, he
+thought,&#8217; Foote remarked, &#8216;Well, David, let you alone for making a
+guinea go farther than anybody else&#8217;&mdash;a repartee which was perhaps in
+the mind of Shirley Brooks when, referring to the excellence of Scotch
+shooting at long distances, he wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8216;But this we all knew</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">That a Scotchman can do&mdash;</span><br />
+Make a small piece of metal go awfully far.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Then there was Lord Eldon, whose nearness was proverbial, and whose
+unwillingness to spend displayed itself markedly in his commissariat
+department. An anonymous epigram professed to record an &#8216;Inquest
+Extraordinary&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Found dead, a rat&mdash;no case could sure be harder:<br />
+Verdict&mdash;Confined a week in Eldon&#8217;s larder.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>We are also told that, when Eldon and Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> Arthur Pigott quarrelled over
+the proper pronunciation of the legal term &#8216;lien&#8217;&mdash;the former calling it
+&#8216;lion,&#8217; and the latter &#8216;lean&#8217;&mdash;Jekyll produced the following:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean<br />
+By saying the Chancellor&#8217;s <i>lion</i> is <i>lean</i>?<br />
+D&#8217;ye think that his kitchen&#8217;s so bad as all that,<br />
+That nothing within it can ever get fat?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Of Lord Kenyon, another judge of like inhospitable tendencies, someone
+said that in his house it was always Lent in the kitchen and Passion
+Week in the parlour. On another occasion it was remarked that &#8216;in his
+lordship&#8217;s kitchen the fire is dull, but the spits are always bright;&#8217;
+to which Jekyll, pretending to be angry, replied, &#8216;Spits! in the name of
+common-sense, don&#8217;t talk about his spits&mdash;for nothing turns on them!&#8217;
+When his lordship died, the words &#8216;Mors Janua <i>Vita</i>&#8217; were by an error
+of the undertaker painted on the coffin; but, someone commenting on the
+substitution of &#8216;Vita&#8217; for &#8216;Vit&aelig;,&#8217; Lord Ellenborough protested that
+there was no mistake. Kenyon, he declared, had directed that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> should
+be &#8216;Vita,&#8217; so that his estate might be saved the expense of a diphthong.</p>
+
+<p>Most people know the story of Foote and Lord Stormont, the latter of
+whom had asked the former to dinner, and had placed before him wine
+served in the smallest of decanters and dispensed in the smallest of
+glasses. The peer enlarged upon the growth and age of the liquor;
+whereupon the player, holding up one of the glasses, demurely said, &#8216;It
+is very little of its age!&#8217; This recalls an experience of Theodore Hook,
+when invited to dine with an unnamed nobleman, at the Star and Garter,
+Richmond. There were four of the party, and when covers were removed it
+was found that the fare consisted of four loin chops, four mealy
+potatoes, and a pint of sherry. These things despatched, the peer asked
+Hook for a song, and the wit responded with, of all things in the world,
+the National Anthem, which he gave correctly until, arriving at the line
+&#8216;Happy and glorious,&#8217; he added&mdash;as if under the influence of drink&mdash;&#8216;A
+pint between four of us&mdash;God save the King!&#8217; A different form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> of
+stinginess, it would seem, was shown by Brigham Young, when (if we may
+believe the tale) he gave as a reason for marrying a certain male-garbed
+lady-doctor, that he would be able to have her clothes &#8216;made down&#8217; for
+his boys.</p>
+
+<p>The mean host has always been a special target for the scorn of his
+fellows. It was a Greek satirist who related how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A miser in his chamber saw a mouse,<br />
+And cry&#8217;d, dismay&#8217;d, &#8220;What dost thou in my house?&#8221;<br />
+She, with a laugh, &#8220;Good landlord, have no fear,<br />
+&#8217;Tis not for board, but lodging, I came here.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And since then the flood of banter has rolled on. Herrick complains of
+an unknown person that he invited him home to eat, and showed him there
+much plate but little meat. Garrick (who had evidently again forgotten
+the mote and the beam) wrote of a certain nobleman who had built a big
+mansion:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A little house would best accord<br />
+With you, my very little lord!<br />
+And then exactly matched would be<br />
+Your house and hospitality!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>Much in the same way, Richard Graves wrote of the master of a house
+which was well kept but not open to company:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;If one may judge by rooms so neat,<br />
+It costs you more in mops than meat!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Note, again, Egerton Warburton&#8217;s versification of a remark attributed to
+Lord Alvanley. A gentleman had drawn attention to the fact that his
+house was furnished <i>&agrave; la</i> Louis Quatorze:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Then I wish,&#8221; said a guest, &#8220;when you ask us to eat,<br />
+You would furnish your board <i>&agrave; la</i> Louis Dixhuit.<br />
+The eye, can it feast when the stomach is starving?<br />
+Pray less of your gilding and more of your carving.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>John Headley, describing dinner at one Lady Anne&#8217;s, tells us that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A silver service loads the board,<br />
+Of eatables a slender hoard;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and the sarcasm reminds one of the address with which Theodore Hook once
+bore himself under somewhat similar circumstances. Invited to dine with
+an old lady, he was horrified when the servant, lifting the cover,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+displayed a couple of chops. &#8216;Mr. Hook,&#8217; said the hostess, &#8216;you see your
+dinner.&#8217; &#8216;Thank you, ma&#8217;am,&#8217; observed Hook; &#8216;but where&#8217;s yours?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The niggardliness which displays itself in smaller subscriptions to
+public or private objects than the donor&#8217;s means will justify has
+naturally met with keen reproach. Herrick has a quatrain directed
+against the failing; and everyone remembers the lines about the man who
+declared that at the sound of woe his hand was always open:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Your hand is open, to be sure,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But there is nothing in it.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the happiest satire on meanness of this sort is contained in the
+anonymous couplet &#8216;On Close-fist&#8217;s Subscription&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The charity of Close-fist, give to fame:<br />
+He has at last subscribed&mdash;how much?&mdash;his name.&#8217;</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/goat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/adropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="A" /></span> leading Review lately contained a contribution entitled &#8216;The Old
+School of Classics and the New.&#8217; It was, as regards its literary form, a
+&#8216;Dialogue of the Dead&#8217;&mdash;a discussion supposed to take place between the
+famous scholars Bentley and Madvig, with a brief intervention on the
+part of Euripides and Shakespeare. It was written with much smartness,
+and one could wish that such lucubrations were more common nowadays than
+they are. Not that they are by any means rare. It was only the other day
+that Mr. Marion Crawford published a work which had the conventional
+shape of fiction, but which was really little more than a series of
+colloquies in which some famous men of the past took part, talking
+throughout with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> characteristic flavour which did the author
+considerable credit. Dialogues of the dead, pure and simple, have also
+been written of recent years by Mr. H. D. Traill, some of the best of
+whose efforts were republished in a volume called &#8216;The New Lucian.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>In the less immediate past, dialogue-writing after the fashion of the
+witty and audacious Syrian was not very frequently adventured. Just
+twenty years ago some writer or writers supplied to a weekly miscellany
+a few imaginative conversations between deceased worthies; but these
+were not particularly brilliant. They were in verse&mdash;in the heroic
+couplet, to which a good deal of point might have been imparted; but
+advantage was not taken of the opportunity. There was one &#8216;dialogue&#8217; in
+which Shakespeare, Thackeray, and a critic were supposed to be engaged,
+and in the course of which Thackeray was made to say to the critic:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Don&#8217;t crack your jokes, but flit.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>To which the critic:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+&#8216;Your pardon, sir; I took you for a wit.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>To which Thackeray again:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Did you, indeed? Then, compliments to pass,<br />
+I took you just for what you are&mdash;an ass.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But this, which one hesitates to pronounce Thackerayan, was surely even
+trite. However, these dialogues at least remind us of what English
+society was saying and doing in the year of grace 1868. Thus, Thackeray
+tells Shakespeare that his dramas are played but scarcely acted:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">&#8216;For I won&#8217;t deny</span><br />
+That people now are tickled through the eye.<br />
+No one to thought a deep attention lends,<br />
+And if a play&#8217;s successful it depends<br />
+Far less upon the language than the scene.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Again, in another colloquy, Meyerbeer informs Mozart that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The &#8220;Traviata&#8221; and the &#8220;Trovatore&#8221;<br />
+Of &#8220;Il Barbiere&#8221; have eclipsed the glory.<br />
+As Margarita Patti fills the stage,<br />
+And Marta sung by Nilsson is the rage.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>He who dips into <i>Colburn&#8217;s New Monthly</i> for the year 1822 or
+thereabouts will be rewarded (or otherwise) by coming across a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+&#8216;Dialogue of the Dead&#8217; in prose, and there may be other such fugitive
+lucubrations. But so far as the English literature of the past is
+concerned, &#8216;dialogues of the dead&#8217; were written by only two persons
+worthy of celebration&mdash;Walter Savage Landor and George, Lord Lyttelton,
+the author of &#8216;Letters from a Persian in England to his friend in
+Ispahan.&#8217; Landor&#8217;s &#8216;Imaginary Conversations&#8217; are among those numerous
+works which everybody is supposed to have read, and, having read them,
+to admire. And unfortunate indeed would be he who could not recognise
+and appreciate the varied beauty and charm of these prose masterpieces.
+Here Menelaus and Helen, &AElig;sop and Rhodope, Tiberius and Vipsania,
+Leofric and Godiva, Roger Ascham and Jane Grey, and a hundred other
+heroes and heroines of the past, converse not only with dramatic
+appropriateness, but with rhetorical force&mdash;with amplitude of thought
+and spontaneity of image. By the side of such a wonderful flower-show
+(as one of our poets said of a selection from a brother poet&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> lyrics),
+Lyttelton&#8217;s trim parterre shows, no doubt, but dimly; nevertheless, to
+that accomplished nobleman there is due something more than the small
+credit of having been Landor&#8217;s predecessor in this form of English
+composition. Of that form Lyttelton says, in the preface to his
+&#8216;Dialogues,&#8217; that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;It sets before us the history of all times and all nations,
+presents to the choice of a writer all characters of remarkable
+persons which may be best opposed to, or compared with, each other;
+and is, perhaps, one of the most agreeable methods that can be
+employed of conveying to the mind any critical, moral, or political
+observations.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Lyttelton brings together in his work such people as Plato and F&eacute;nelon,
+Lucian and Rabelais, Addison and Swift, Boileau and Pope; and, if he
+scarcely has the power to make these masters talk as we know they wrote,
+still he puts into their mouths much which it might be worth the while
+of the modern reader to assimilate.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the eighteenth century there appeared a little <i>brochure</i>
+called &#8216;English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Lucian,&#8217; but it proved to be nothing more edifying than
+a few &#8216;modern dialogues&#8217; between a vintner and his wife, between &#8216;a
+reformer of manners,&#8217; his wife and a captain of the guards, and between
+a Master of Arts and &#8216;a lady&#8217;s woman.&#8217; Of the humorous satire of Lucian
+himself there was no jot or tittle.</p>
+
+<p>The works of Lucian have, in various ways, found many translators in
+England&mdash;notably Dr. Thomas Francklin, who prefaced his version with a
+dialogue (in prose) in which Lucian and Lyttelton, after an exchange of
+compliments, proceed to discuss the writings of the former at some
+length and with much dulness. Dulness is certainly not the
+characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian
+which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century
+under the title of &#8216;Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.&#8217; &#8216;We
+bring you here,&#8217; said Cotton, &#8216;a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of
+Greece&#8217;&mdash;&#8216;a piece of raillery writ,&#8217; as he went on to say, &#8216;when
+Paganism was in fashion&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+&#8216;Wherein his meaning further is<br />
+To take away th&#8217; authorities<br />
+Of lies and fables, which did pigeon<br />
+The rabble into false religion.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Herein the mission and the achievement of Lucian&mdash;first and greatest of
+the writers of &#8216;Dialogues of the Dead&#8217;&mdash;are not inaptly stated.
+Fontenelle and F&eacute;nelon both derived inspiration for their &#8216;Dialogues&#8217;
+from the brilliant pages of the Syrian, and within recent years his
+abounding merits have been sung in eloquent prose by Mr. Froude. There
+is yet room, however, for someone who shall prove himself the &#8216;new
+Lucian&#8217; indeed, by writing dialogues in which the illustrious dead shall
+be made to express themselves (as they have not yet been made to do in
+English colloquy) with superlative sarcasm and inimitable scorn.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdleftpoint.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vineflip.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>SERMONS IN FLOWERS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/edropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="E" /></span>very year a &#8216;flower-sermon&#8217; is preached in London, in accordance with
+an admirable custom; and the orator, we may be sure, has no difficulty
+in &#8216;improving the occasion.&#8217; The materials lie rich and ready to his
+hand. The Laureate, indeed, has asked to what uses we shall put the
+wildweed flower which simply blows, and has inquired further if there be
+any moral shut within the bosom of the rose. He was answered long ago by
+Horace Smith:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Your voiceless lips, O Flowers! are living preachers,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>and a living poetess has assured us, likewise, that flowers will preach
+to us if we will hear, the rose telling us that all her loveliness is
+born upon a thorn, and the poppy urging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> that, though her scarlet head
+is held in scorn,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Yet juice of subtle virtues lies<br />
+Within my cup of curious dyes.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>There is one lesson which the flowers have been made to teach with
+rather wearisome iteration. The poets have never been tired of dwelling
+upon their brief existence and seeing in it a reflection of our own.
+This rather trite melody has been sounded from the earliest to the
+latest times. Drummond of Hawthornden draws attention to the flower
+&#8216;which lingeringly doth fade,&#8217; and sees in it a type of his own life,
+which &#8216;scarce shows now what it hath been.&#8217; Herrick, apostrophizing
+blossoms, deduces from them the fact that all things have their end,
+though ne&#8217;er so brave. &#8216;Fade, flowers, fade!&#8217; cries Waller; &#8216;&#8217;Tis but
+what we must in our autumn do.&#8217; And so Dryden:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time...<br />
+Such is your blooming youth, and withering so.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8216;Youth&#8217;s withered flowers&#8217; made John Clare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> sigh to think that in him
+they would never bloom again.</p>
+
+<p>But this, which may be said to be the orthodox teaching of the flowers,
+has found many influential questioners, who have dwelt upon the brighter
+side of the contention. And it is pleasant to listen to their more
+cheerful voices. &#8216;Not an opening blossom breathes in vain,&#8217; wrote
+Thomson; and the sentiment is heartily corroborated by Mr. Lowell:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;There never yet was flower fair in vain;<br />
+Let classic poets rhyme it as they will.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>If the flowers have a short career, they make no complaint of it, says Landor:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Fast fall the leaves; this never says<br />
+To that, &#8220;Alas! how brief our days!&#8221;<br />
+All have alike enjoyed the sun,<br />
+And each repeats, &#8220;So much is won.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>They enjoy life, and they help to make it enjoyable for others.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Gay without toil and lovely without art,<br />
+They spring to clear the sense and glad the heart.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Barbauld; while Mrs. Howitt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> similarly proclaims it to be their
+business as well as pleasure to minister delight to man, to beautify the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The present Lord Lytton has remarked of flowers that their scent
+outlives their bloom, and has expressed the aspiration that, in like
+manner, his mortal hours may &#8216;grow sweeter towards the tomb.&#8217; But the
+main point made by the more optimistic observers of Nature is that,
+though blossoms fade, they revive again, in equal beauty, by-and-by. &#8216;Ye
+are to me,&#8217; wrote Horace Smith, &#8216;a type of resurrection and second
+birth.&#8217; To W. C. Bryant the delicate flower, arising from the shapeless
+mould, seemed</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;An emanation of the indwelling Life,<br />
+A visible token of the upholding Love,<br />
+That are the soul of this wide universe.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hemans&mdash;a little unnecessarily, perhaps&mdash;dwells upon the fact that
+though the flowers sleep in dust through the wintry hours, they break
+forth in glory in the spring. For Longfellow, as for Horace Smith, they
+are &#8216;emblems of our own great resurrection.&#8217;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> George Morine, in verses
+little known, reminds us that while cities fall away, and arts flourish
+and decay, these &#8216;frailer things&#8217; will continue to adorn the world
+&#8216;unchangingly the same.&#8217; Though covered for a time by &#8216;the wee white
+fairies of the snow,&#8217; they come back, says Gerald Massey, &#8216;with their
+fragrant news,&#8217; and tell in a thousand hues their dream of beauty. For
+their annual disappearance from our midst, Thomas Westwood gives a
+poetical explanation:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Wearied out with shine and shade,<br />
+It rejoiced them, one and all,<br />
+To escape from daylight&#8217;s ken<br />
+To their chambers subterrain,<br />
+There to rest awhile, and then<br />
+Weave them fresh, and weave them fair,<br />
+And their fragrant spells prepare.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Alas! there are those who must needs draw a melancholy moral from the
+most consolatory phenomena. And so Charlotte Smith, while admitting that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Another May new buds and flowers shall bring,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>must needs exclaim,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Ah! why has happiness no second Spring?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>And the dismal reflection finds an echo in the heart of D. M. Moir:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Green Spring again shall bid<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your boughs with bloom be crown&#8217;d;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But alas! to Man,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In earth&#8217;s brief span,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No second Spring comes round!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The truth is, the imagination derives from Nature precisely what the
+former&#8217;s capacity and quality admit of. As the Laureate said, years ago,
+any man may find in bud, or blade, or bloom, a meaning suited to his
+mind. Spenser, pondering on the rose and its thorns, and other such
+floral combinations, was led to remark that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Every sweet with sour is tempered still.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Equally impressed was he by the bounteous ease with which Nature
+scatters flowers all over the world. In Barry Cornwall&#8217;s view, this
+facile profusion is Earth&#8217;s expression of gratitude for the effulgence
+of the Sun:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;When on earth he smileth, she bursts forth<br />
+In beauty like a bride, and gives him back,<br />
+In sweet repayment for his warm bright love,<br />
+A world of flowers.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>Beddoes had a quaint and curious fancy that &#8216;when the dead awake or talk
+in sleep&#8217; the flowers &#8216;hear their thoughts, and write them on their
+leaves, for heaven to look on.&#8217; Campbell seems to have loved flowers
+most for the associations they called up. &#8216;I dote upon you,&#8217; he wrote,
+in an address to them, &#8216;for ye waft me to summers of old;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I love you for lulling me back into dreams<br />
+Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And we find another Scotchman, William Anderson, giving utterance to a
+similar expression of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>There is a lesson which the flowers have taught to at least two of our
+poets, which, though it may have sympathizers, will scarcely find many
+practical adherents. It is embodied in a little lyric by Mrs. Webster,
+in which that lady, celebrating the beauty of a solitary blossom,
+describes how it is seen and gathered, and adds, ironically:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Why should a flower be fair for its own?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Choose it, pluck it to die.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>But the moral has been pointed even more effectively by the Rev. Gerard
+Lewis in some excellent verses. &#8216;A gathered flower,&#8217; he says, &#8216;is but a fading thing&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Let woman&#8217;s beauty wear the sterling gold,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The imperishable gem.</span><br />
+They give to her a brightness manifold,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She adds a charm to them.</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;But flowers that strew the earth with fragrant grace,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As stars the welkin fill,</span><br />
+Look loveliest, live the longest, in their place;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pluck them is to kill.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>That is true, and yet the gathering of flowers will go on. And, after
+all, what more can a blossom desire than to &#8216;exist beautifully&#8217; and
+exhale its sweetness, whether it lies hidden by the wayside hedge, or
+decks the bosom of a woman as sweet and beautiful as itself?</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdright.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/dragon.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>&#8216;DON QUIXOTE&#8217; IN ENGLAND.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he announcement that Mr. W. G. Wills had completed his dramatic version
+of &#8216;Don Quixote&#8217; naturally excited much interest, and no doubt set many
+minds at play upon the general subject of the history of &#8216;Don Quixote&#8217;
+in this country. That the renowned romance has appeared in many prose
+translations, from that of Shelton in 1620 to that of Mr. Ormsby only
+two or three years ago, is known to most people. It will be remembered
+that an early English version was prepared by the nephew of Milton; the
+once-famous Peter Motteux made himself responsible for one &#8216;by several
+hands&#8217;; that by Jarvis, which dates from the middle of last century, has
+lately been reproduced by Professor Morley; and then there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> are those by
+Smollett, the novelist, and Mr. A. J. Duffield. There is no lack of
+them, any more than there has been of pictorial illustrations. Shelton&#8217;s
+translation, revised by Stevens, was republished with &#8216;cuts&#8217; by Coypel.
+When Lockhart prefixed his well-known essay to Motteux&#8217;s version, the
+work was accompanied by etchings by De Los Rios. Jarvis&#8217;s rendering
+exercised successively the skill of Westall, Cruickshank, Johannot,
+Dor&eacute;, and Mr. A. B. Houghton; another was illuminated by R. Smirke,
+R.A.; and in later years there have been the drawings contributed by Sir
+John Gilbert and by Kenny Meadows.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the story as it has been read in English and adorned by
+English (and other) artists. But how about Mr. Wills&#8217;s predecessors? How
+about &#8216;Don Quixote&#8217;s&#8217; previous connection with the English stage? Well,
+it was scarcely to be expected that so popular a tale would never excite
+the attention of the playwright or the musician. Sooner or later,
+everything which has vogue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> finds its way, somehow, to the boards, and
+it is a little surprising that seventy-four years should have elapsed,
+after the publication of the first English translation, before &#8216;Don
+Quixote&#8217; received the distinction of dramatization. Was it, indeed, a
+distinction? There&#8217;s the rub. The dramatist was Thomas d&#8217;Urfey; and what
+could be looked for from that free-speaking worthy? The original is not
+without a certain breadth in certain passages, and what Cervantes made
+broad D&#8217;Urfey might be trusted to make broader. That, again, was only
+according to the practice of the day; and if the virtuous Collier
+fulminated against the trilogy which D&#8217;Urfey wrought out of the epical
+extravaganza&mdash;if some ladies of the time were found to object to the
+coarser humours of Mary the Buxom (a creation on which D&#8217;Urfey prided
+himself)&mdash;there can be no doubt of the success of the venture. The third
+of the three plays had not, it seems, quite the acceptability of the
+other two, but the author&#8217;s explanation of its virtual failure&mdash;that the
+piece was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> adequately presented&mdash;was possibly, for once, well
+founded, and the fact that the third play was produced at all speaks
+volumes for the triumphs of its precursors.</p>
+
+<p>A &#8216;Don Quixote&#8217;&mdash;probably D&#8217;Urfey&#8217;s &#8216;second part&#8217;&mdash;held the stage, more
+or less firmly, till the eighteenth century was well upon its way; and
+then there suddenly appeared a rival, in the shape of a farce or
+vaudeville by Fielding, entitled &#8216;Don Quixote in England,&#8217; and bringing
+both the Don and Sancho upon English soil. The author was well aware of
+his temerity, and, indeed, apologized for it. The piece, he pleaded, was</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;originally writ for his private amusement, as it would, indeed,
+have been little less than Quixotism itself to hope any other
+fruits from attempting characters wherein the inimitable Cervantes
+so far excelled.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>He found it, he says, infinitely more difficult than he imagined to give
+his knight an opportunity of displaying himself in a different manner
+from that wherein he appears in the romance. However, he was induced to
+allow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> his work to be performed, and then it was seen that he had
+brought the Don and Sancho to an English inn, where the landlord,
+Guzzle, tries in vain to get the former to pay his bill, and whither
+comes one Dorothea Loveland to meet her sweetheart, Fairlove, spending
+the interval between her coming and his arrival in persuading the Don
+that she is a persecuted princess and that her maid Jezebel is Dulcinea.
+Dorothea is promised by her father to one Squire Badger, but the squire
+proves to be a sot, and at the Don&#8217;s especial request the lady and her
+lover are united. The piece is by no means without humour, and it would
+deserve to live in remembrance if only because it was for &#8216;Don Quixote
+in England&#8217; that Fielding wrote the song of &#8216;The Roast Beef of Old
+England,&#8217; which consisted of two verses only until Richard Leveridge
+added five more and wrote the music for the whole.</p>
+
+<p>&#8216;Don Quixote&#8217; has made other appearances on the English boards, but none
+of any very great importance. There was an entertainment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> written in
+verse, and &#8216;sung at Marybone Gardens,&#8217; for which Dr. Arnold wrote the
+music, and in which the Don, Sancho, Nicholas, Teresa, and Maritornes
+figure. There was a pantomime at Covent Garden, &#8216;Harlequin and Quixote;
+or, The Magic Arm,&#8217; for which Reeve composed the melodies, and in which
+Harlequin, the son of Inca, carries off Columbine, the daughter of a
+Spanish grandee, to whom Don Quixote is affianced. There was, too, a
+&#8216;ballad-farce&#8217; called &#8216;Don Quixote in Barcelona; or, The Beautiful
+Moor,&#8217; which, however, was never represented; and there were at least
+two other efforts of the kind, an &#8216;opera-comedy&#8217; and a &#8216;farce-comedy,&#8217;
+which had the illustrious Sancho for their hero, portraying him in the
+character of &#8216;the mock Governor&#8217; of Barataria.</p>
+
+<p>It was, no doubt, inevitable that &#8216;Don Quixote,&#8217; having been translated
+into English prose, should make its appearance also in English verse.
+And so it did&mdash;early in the eighteenth century&mdash;in the form of &#8216;The
+Life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> and Notable Adventures of that Renown&#8217;d Knight, Don Quixote de la
+Mancha, Merrily translated into Hudibrastick Verse.&#8217; Mr. Edward Ward was
+the perpetrator of this work, in which various episodes of the original
+were reproduced with a vulgarity, not to say a coarseness, not unworthy
+of the great D&#8217;Urfey himself. The bard was tolerable enough in such
+passages as this, descriptive of the knight&#8217;s appearance:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The Don himself that rul&#8217;d the Roast<br />
+(Whose Fame we are about to Boast),<br />
+Did by his solid Looks appear<br />
+Not much behind his Fiftieth year.<br />
+In Stature he was Lean and Tall,<br />
+Big Bon&#8217;d, and very Strong withall;<br />
+Sound Wind and Limb, of healthful Body,<br />
+Fresh of Complection, somewhat Ruddy;<br />
+Built for a Champion ev&#8217;ry way,<br />
+But turn&#8217;d with Age a little Grey.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But, as a whole, &#8216;Don Quixote,&#8217; as rendered into rhyme by Mr. Ward,
+cannot be recommended for general perusal.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a &#8216;Quixote&#8217; literature apart from &#8216;Don Quixote&#8217;
+itself. The great romance suggested more than one English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> counterpart,
+such as &#8216;The Spiritual Quixote,&#8217; by Richard Graves, and &#8216;The Female
+Quixote,&#8217; by Mrs. Lennox. The latter, published in the middle of last
+century, was devoted to the adventures of one Arabella. Of her we read
+that, supposing the fictions of the Scud&eacute;ri school to be &#8216;real pictures
+of life,&#8217; &#8216;from them she drew all her notions and expectations.&#8217; She
+became, in fact, quite a monomaniac upon the subject, and, as a sample,
+is for ever expecting that her lover, Glanville, will speak and act like
+the heroes of her favourite tales. In the end she throws herself into a
+river, gets brain-fever, and is brought back to sanity by a benevolent
+divine. Then there is &#8216;The Amiable Quixote; or, The Enthusiasm of
+Friendship,&#8217; a novel issued later in the century, and having for central
+figure a young gentleman named Bruce, who</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;found in the slightest acquaintance some virtue or some
+recommendation. As soon as the enthusiasm of friendship was
+excited, it overwhelmed his discretion and clouded his
+perspicacity.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>But this work owed very little to &#8216;Don<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Quixote&#8217;&mdash;not more than did
+&#8216;Tarrataria; or, Don Quixote the Second,&#8217; a romantic poetical medley in
+two cantos, which appeared in the interval between the two stories just
+noticed. Early in this century there was issued, for a short space, a
+literary miscellany, called <i>The Knight Errant</i>, edited by &#8216;Sir Hercules
+Quixote, K.E.,&#8217; who, said the prospectus,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;following the example of his illustrious namesake and ancestor of
+La Mancha, has, with the assistance of his friends, commenced an
+era of Civil Knight Errantry, and zealously devoted himself to the
+comforting of distressed Damsels and disconsolate Widows, the
+fathering of wronged and destitute Orphans, the promotion of Virtue
+and chivalrous feeling generally&#8217;&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<p>and so on, and so on. To &#8216;Don Quixote,&#8217; in some form or other, there
+will, of course, be literary allusions to the end of time.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>BEDSIDE BOOKS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>o begin with, ought there to be any such things? Ought we to accustom
+ourselves to having books by our bedside? Ought not &#8216;early to bed and
+early to rise&#8217; to be the motto of every well-conducted person, and is
+not reading in bed calculated to render the carrying out of that axiom
+virtually impossible? This is the problem we have first to solve, and it
+may be said at once that this discourse does not apply <i>virginibus
+puerisque</i>. Girls and boys, young men and young women, are hereby
+solemnly exhorted to abjure all nocturnal or matutinal reading of the
+kind suggested. To them all the lines in the copybooks apply
+unreservedly. Nay, even for those of mature years it may be allowed that
+bed is not the proper place for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> intellectual study. Let the hours for
+reading and for repose be kept rigidly apart, if the reading is to be
+systematic and prolonged. So far, everybody is agreed. To make a habit
+of perusing books in bed is to encourage laziness, and to encourage
+laziness is (we all know) to sap the foundations of the moral nature.
+That way destruction lies.</p>
+
+<p>And I am bound to say that habitual, sustained reading in bed is quite
+as uncomfortable for the human frame as it is dangerous to the human
+character. It cannot be undertaken with entire success. It looks easy to
+do, but it is not. If you are sceptical, try it. You begin swimmingly
+enough. You lie down, say, on your back, settle your head cosily on to
+the pillow, and perhaps, to start with, hold the book before you in both
+hands: For a time all goes well, but not for long. The position of the
+arms becomes fatiguing. You withdraw one from the book and commence
+again. But the utilized arm speedily grows weary, and the chances are
+that you drop the volume and go off to sleep,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> leaving gas, lamp, or
+candle alight&mdash;which is not very safe and not very healthy&mdash;nay, is
+positively unhealthy and unsafe. Perchance you try the effect of
+reclining on one side, leaning on one arm, and holding the book by means
+of the other. That, also, is charming for the moment, but has a similar
+tendency to tire very readily. Your elbow&mdash;the one on which your weight
+is thrown&mdash;soon gives signs of boredom. &#8216;I don&#8217;t like this at all,&#8217; it
+says virtually; and perhaps you turn round and try the other for a
+spell. But in these matters one elbow is very like its brother, and
+before long you are on the look-out for another attitude.</p>
+
+<p>What may be called the last infirmity of the determined reader in bed is
+his final decision to sit up and read in that fashion. Nothing could be
+better&mdash;for a certain more or less brief period. At the expiration of a
+few minutes, you realize that you are getting a sort of cramp in the
+knees; moreover, there is a disagreeable strain on your head; you are
+stooping too much, and bending your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> spine, and altogether making a toil
+of pleasure. The situation, it need hardly be said, is still less
+attractive when the weather is cold, and the effort to keep warm is
+added to the endeavour to read. You have wrapped yourself up, but
+apparently not to much purpose. You are conscious of growing chillier
+and chillier every moment. And, indeed, a very low temperature is
+usually fatal to the cultivation of bedside books. Even if you lie down,
+and almost smother yourself in the clothes, you are bound to obtrude one
+hand out of shelter, or how is the book to be held up? And how quickly
+that hand gets cold&mdash;and how often one&#8217;s two hands have to be alternated
+for the purpose in view&mdash;and what a nuisance it is to have to make the
+continual change! One begins to think that, under the circumstances,
+reading is not so pleasant as one fancied, and that sleep (as the poet
+says) is the only certain knot of peace.</p>
+
+<p>One thing is incontrovertible, and that is, that bedside books, if they
+are to be acceptable, must be, in the first place, small in size<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> and,
+therefore, not very weighty. The hand must be asked to hold as little as
+possible. Bed is not the place for heavy tomes; it is the appropriate
+<i>locale</i> of the duodecimo. And yet the type must not be too small, or
+the eyesight will suffer, unless the reader can command plenty of
+illumination&mdash;which is not always the case. And the book must be not
+only fairly diminutive, but bound and stitched in such a way as to allow
+the hand to clutch it and hold it with ease. There must be no
+unnecessary extension of the palm and fingers, for it adds so much to
+the fatigue. Unhappily, every volume does not fulfil this requirement,
+and the requisite selection must be made with care. Moreover, the ideal
+bedside book should be not only small, and light, and agreeable to the
+touch, but distinguished by special internal characteristics. Not only
+must the print be legible; the matter it furnishes must be in brief
+instalments. What is wanted is a series of short somethings which the
+mind can readily grasp and as easily retain. Sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> reading is for
+the library or the study; the last thing at night and the first thing in
+the morning, what you desire is simply a number of brevities, at any one
+of which you can glance with the certainty of being interested.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, such works as novels must be discouraged in the bedside
+library. There is nothing to be gained by perusing a romance, by bits,
+in such fragments of time as the intending sleeper is inclined or able
+to accord to it. Keep a novel beside you, if you like, to turn to if the
+night should prove an obstinately sleepless one, and to that end let the
+tale be by &#8216;Miss Braddon or Gaboriau&#8217;&mdash;one which shall really fix your
+imagination fast, and finish, perhaps, by sending you to rest. But for
+ordinary uses let the book which you take up be one of &#8216;Jewels, five
+words long,&#8217; or thereabouts! Let it be a volume of short essays&mdash;let it
+be, for instance, Bacon&#8217;s, or the &#8216;Roundabout Papers,&#8217; now accessible in
+a handy form. Let it be a volume of brief verse, such as Mr. Gilbert&#8217;s
+&#8216;Bab Ballads,&#8217; or Mr. Lang&#8217;s &#8216;Ballades in Blue China,&#8217; or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Calverley&#8217;s
+immortal &#8216;Fly Leaves;&#8217; or let it be a collection of more serious
+lyrics&mdash;say, Mr. Palgrave&#8217;s &#8216;Golden Treasury,&#8217; or the selections from
+Lord Tennyson and Mr. Matthew Arnold. Or, if you like, let it be a
+treasury of maxims, such as those by Vauvenargues or Chamfort; or a
+series of select passages, such as those from the works of Lord
+Beaconsfield or Heine: or let it be a casquet of choice anecdotes, of
+which happily the supply is large&mdash;that incomparable volume of Dean
+Ramsay&#8217;s, for example, or even the triter production by Mark Lemon.
+There is a whole world from which to choose.</p>
+
+<p>Only, take care that, whatever the literature is, it is not disturbing.
+The mission of the bedside book is to soothe the mind, not irritate it.
+When one lies down after a hard day&#8217;s work, one&#8217;s desire is not that the
+brain should be stimulated, but that it should be refreshed. It needs,
+not exercise, but diversion. It wants to be prepared for sleep. And if a
+book will effect that object, while at the same time adding to the stock
+of one&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> ideas&mdash;humorous or sentimental, it does not matter which&mdash;that
+volume is to be thanked and cherished. The difficulty of putting down
+one&#8217;s book and extinguishing the light before the exposition of sleep
+comes upon one, must be left to be dealt with by the individual man. I
+have heard of a popular vocalist who was wont, when he had read
+sufficiently, to extinguish the candle by plumping down upon it whatever
+book he happened to have in his hand. But this is a rough and ready mode
+which cannot be generally recommended&mdash;at any rate, not in those cases
+where the book is one&#8217;s own! Some other means must be discovered. And
+let them be efficacious, for when any element of danger or unhealthiness
+is allowed to attend the use of bedside books, the sooner that use is
+discontinued the better.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<h2>THEIR MUCH SPEAKING.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he &#8216;dreary drip of dilatory declamation&#8217; to which Lord Salisbury, in
+one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of
+exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has
+followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all
+rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the
+question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show,
+and may present the spectacle of &#8216;a steam Irish Party, an electric
+Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.&#8217; It is certain that there never was
+so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also
+certain that the complaint of &#8216;much speaking&#8217; has before now been
+frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been
+a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> wordy race, and many a sharp shaft has been aimed at their besetting
+weakness. A last-century satirist once wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Do this,&#8221; cries one side of St. Stephen&#8217;s great hall;<br />
+&#8220;Do just the reverse,&#8221; the minority bawl....<br />
+And what is the end of this mighty tongue-war?<br />
+&mdash;Nothing&#8217;s done for the State till the State is done for!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And, unfortunately, the quality of the talk has often been as poor as
+the quantity was considerable. It was, we believe, a pre-Victorian pen
+which perpetrated this couplet on the House of Commons:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;To wonder now at Balaam&#8217;s ass were weak:<br />
+Is there a night that asses do not speak?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Fun has constantly been made of the typical drawbacks of political
+oratory&mdash;of the dull men, of the heavy, of the shallow, of the
+unintelligible, and what not. We have been told how &#8216;a lord of
+senatorial fame&#8217; was known at once by his portrait, because the painter
+had so &#8216;play&#8217;d his game&#8217; that it &#8216;made one even yawn at sight.&#8217; It has
+been said of an M.P., that his speeches &#8216;possessed such remarkable
+weight&#8217; that it was &#8216;really a trouble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> to bear them.&#8217; Of a third it was
+written that his discourses had some resemblance to an hour-glass,
+because, the longer time they ran, the shallower they grew. Of yet
+another orator we read that his reasoning was really deep, his argument
+profound, &#8216;for deuce a bit could anybody see the ground.&#8217; Nor have
+certain historical personages been able to escape the lash. When Admiral
+Vernon was appointed to take charge of the herring fishery, Horace
+Walpole wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Long in the Senate had brave Vernon rail&#8217;d,<br />
+And all mankind with bitter tongue assail&#8217;d;<br />
+Sick of his noise, we wearied Heav&#8217;n with pray&#8217;r<br />
+In his own element to place the tar.<br />
+The gods at length have yielded to our wish,<br />
+And bade him rule o&#8217;er Billingsgate and fish.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>From which it will be gathered anew that a somewhat bitter style of
+debate is no novelty in this country&mdash;that strong language has been
+heard in the House of Commons <i>ante Agamemnona</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Within living memory a member has dared to suggest that certain of his
+opponents had come into the House not wholly sober. Who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> does not
+remember the epigrams which were based on Pitt&#8217;s addiction, real or
+supposed, to intoxicating liquors? Porson is said to have composed one
+hundred such &#8216;paper pellets&#8217; in one night, as, for example:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Who&#8217;s up?&#8221; inquired Burke of a friend at the door;<br />
+&#8220;Oh, no one,&#8221; said Paddy, &#8220;tho&#8217; Pitt&#8217;s on the floor.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>After this, most other insinuations become almost harmless; and the
+accusation of mere twaddling, such as that which was brought against Mr.
+Urquhart in the following lines, seems, by comparison, trivial:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;When Palmerston begins to speak,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He moves the House&mdash;as facts can prove.</span><br />
+Let Urquhart rise, with accents weak,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The House itself begins to move.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>By the side of twaddling, again, mere rambling grows venial. One of H.
+J. Byron&#8217;s burlesque heroes says of Cerberus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;My dog, who picks up everything one teaches,<br />
+Has got &#8220;three heads,&#8221; like Mr. Gladstone&#8217;s speeches.<br />
+But, as might naturally be expected,<br />
+His are considerably more connected.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>But it is against Parliamentary long-windedness, in particular, that
+most sarcasm, whether in verse or in prose, has been directed. Everybody
+remembers Moore&#8217;s comparison of the Lord Castlereagh of his time to a
+pump, which up and down its awkward arm doth sway,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,<br />
+In one weak, washy, everlasting flood.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>This has always been a stock quotation to use against oratory of the
+&#8216;dreary&#8217; and &#8216;dilatory&#8217; order. Then, Brougham had the good sense to
+recognise his own sins in respect to &#8216;much speaking.&#8217; <i>Punch</i> made
+someone ask himself &#8216;if Brougham thinks as much as he talks;&#8217; but the
+Lord Chancellor removed the pungency from gibes of that sort by writing
+his own epitaph, in which he declares that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8216;My fate a moral teaches,</span><br />
+The ark in which my body lies<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would not contain one-half my speeches.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>It was asserted of Lord George Bentinck that true sportsmen &#8216;loved his
+prate,&#8217; because his speech recalled the &#8216;four-mile course,&#8217; his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+arguments the &#8216;feather-weight.&#8217; One is reminded, in this connection, of
+the preacher of whom it was observed that he &#8216;so lengthily his subject
+did pursue,&#8217; that it was feared &#8216;he had, indeed, eternity in view.&#8217; And,
+perhaps, a long discourse is none the more acceptable when it is
+palpable to the hearers that the discourser has committed it to memory,
+and is bound to go on to the bitter end. Possibly this adds to the
+feeling of exasperation. Nevertheless, there are those who must learn
+their speeches by heart, or else not speak at all. As Luttrell contended
+that Lord Dudley had said of himself:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;In vain my affections the ladies are seeking;<br />
+If I give up my heart, there&#8217;s an end to my speaking.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>However, it is, perhaps, scarcely fair of laymen to dwell too sternly on
+the joy which so many legislators seem to feel in hearing their own
+voices. Man is a talking animal, and can &#8216;hold forth&#8217; outside the Houses
+of Parliament as well as in. And though in the term &#8216;man&#8217; we may include
+woman, let us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> give no countenance to the old calumny, that the fairer
+and weaker is also the more talkative sex. There are some old lines to
+the effect that Nature wisely forbade a beard to grow on woman&#8217;s chin,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;For how could she be shaved, whate&#8217;er the skill,<br />
+Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>There is also a certain epitaph on an old maid,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Who from her cradle talk&#8217;d till death,<br />
+And ne&#8217;er before was out of breath,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and of whom it was opined that in heaven she&#8217;d be unblest, because she
+loathed a place of rest. But these flouts and sneers are as cheap as
+they are venerable. Let the ladies take heart. Men have been censured
+for their &#8216;much speaking&#8217; at least as frequently as women. Prior
+declared of one Lysander that he ought to possess the art of talk, if he
+did not, for he practised &#8216;full fourteen hours in four-and-twenty.&#8217; And
+we owe to a more recent writer this paraphrase of an epigram by
+Macentinus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+&#8216;Black locks hath Gabriel, beard that&#8217;s white&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The reason, sir, is plain:</span><br />
+Gabriel works hard from morn till night,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More with his jaw than brain.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>It is well that satire should go that way for a change. All the talking
+is not done by women or by Parliament. There is, at times, as much
+chatter in the smoking-room as in the boudoir and the Senate. Tongues,
+as well as beards, &#8216;wag all,&#8217; when we are &#8216;merry in hall.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflower.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vine.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>PEERS AND POETRY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he succession of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren to the barony of De
+Tabley was something more than a change in the <i>personnel</i> of the House
+of Lords; it amounted to a conspicuous addition to the Chamber&#8217;s
+intellectual power, and especially to the number of its poetic votaries.
+The author of &#8216;Philoctetes&#8217; and &#8216;Orestes,&#8217; of &#8216;Rehearsals&#8217; and
+&#8216;Searching the Net,&#8217; is no mere versifier. He has felt the influence of
+the old Greek dramatists, and apparently also that of Mr. Swinburne;
+but, for all that, his work has undoubted individuality, as well as
+solid interest.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the House of Lords does not at this moment
+contain many hereditary peers who are also poets. Lord Tennyson, of
+course, is an ennobled commoner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> and the Bishop of Derry (Dr.
+Alexander), who has written so much excellent verse, both in the
+thoughtful and in the imaginative vein, is no longer one of the
+spiritual lords. But there is Lord Lytton, there is Lord Southesk, and
+there is Lord Rosslyn; and by all of these Lord de Tabley will be
+welcomed as a brother in the literary art. What Lord Lytton has done in
+poetry, need scarcely be recapitulated. He would be remembered as &#8216;Owen
+Meredith&#8217; if, since his accession to the peerage, he had not made a new
+reputation as the author of &#8216;Fables in Song,&#8217; &#8216;Glenaveril,&#8217; and other
+performances. As &#8216;Owen Meredith&#8217; he was, no doubt, more fresh and
+spontaneous than he has ever been as Lord Lytton; but his poetic work,
+as a whole, is of good quality, and some of it will find its way down
+the stream of time. Equally certain may we be that the &#8216;Jonas Fisher&#8217; of
+Lord Southesk, with its unquestionable vigour, both of satire and of
+sentiment, will remain alive, whatever may be the fate of the author&#8217;s
+&#8216;Greenwood&#8217;s Farewell&#8217; and &#8216;Meda Maiden.&#8217;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> Lord Rosslyn, it will be
+remembered, was one of the most successful of the Jubilee Laureates;
+but, even before that, he had made himself esteemed by many trustworthy
+judges as the producer of numerous good sonnets.</p>
+
+<p>&#8216;&#8217;Tis ridiculous,&#8217; says Selden, &#8216;for a lord to print verses; &#8217;tis well
+enough to make them to please himself, but to make them public is
+foolish.&#8217; He goes on to add that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;If a man in his private chamber twists his band-strings, or plays
+with a rush to please himself, &#8217;tis well enough; but if he should
+go into Fleet Street, and sit upon a stall, and twist a
+band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street
+would laugh at him.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>No doubt they would have done so in Selden&#8217;s time; and much more readily
+would they do so now. But that is scarcely to the point. <i>Pace</i> Master
+Selden, there is nothing ridiculous in a lord printing his verses&mdash;if
+they be but good enough for the process. A peer is not necessarily a
+poet, but a poet is none the worse for being a peer. Nay, there are even
+certain kinds of verse in which a peer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> may, other things being equal,
+be actually expected to excel. There is nothing to prevent his being&mdash;as
+Byron was&mdash;a poet of passion; there is every reason why, if he have the
+requisite literary capacity, he should shine in the poetry of the
+library, the <i>salon</i>, and the boudoir. He has usually the education for
+the first, and the leisure for the other two. He generally has culture,
+he always has breeding, he often has gallantry; and, with these
+endowments, the poetry <i>par excellence</i> of the peerage is well within
+his reach.</p>
+
+<p>Considerable, indeed, would be the loss to English literature if by any
+chance the productions of our noble poets should disappear. Apart from
+Byron, who, of course, stands a head and shoulders above all his
+brethren, there is that Henry, Earl of Surrey, who ranks highest of all
+poets between Chaucer and Spenser, and who did so much to popularize in
+England both blank verse and the sonnet. But for Surrey both those
+accomplishments, since so popular among us, might have been long in
+establishing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> themselves in English poetry. The other poet-peers of the
+sixteenth century were admittedly not of the first class. Yet
+Buckhurst&#8217;s share in &#8216;The Mirror for Magistrates&#8217; and in the tragedy of
+&#8216;Gorboduc&#8217; was of undoubted value, both intrinsic and relative; and the
+world of letters would not willingly let die the work, slight as it was,
+of Lord Vaux, the Earls of Essex and Oxford, the Earls of Ancrum and
+Stirling, Lord Brooke, and Francis Bacon, although the great Chancellor
+wrote but one lyric of any moment&mdash;the well-known lines upon &#8216;The
+World.&#8217; Lord Vaux&#8217;s &#8216;Of a Contented Mind,&#8217; Lord Essex&#8217;s &#8216;There is None,
+O None but You,&#8217; Lord Oxford&#8217;s &#8216;If Woman could be Fair and yet not
+Fond,&#8217; are among the treasures of our verse; while the tragedies of Lord
+Stirling and Lord Brooke, and the sonnets of Lord Ancrum, are at least
+curious and interesting, if they are not substantively great.</p>
+
+<p>And when we come to the noble poets of the Stuart and the early Georgian
+period, we find that the national indebtedness is not less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> marked. Who
+would be prepared to surrender the spirited effusions of Montrose? And
+is there not much to be said for the outcome, flimsy and over-free as it
+often was, of that mob of noblemen who wrote with ease&mdash;including the
+Earls of Roscommon, Dorset, and Rochester, and the Duke of
+Buckinghamshire? Had these writers not at least the virtues of lightness
+and of brightness? Did not Dorset pen the lines, &#8216;To all you ladies now
+on land?&#8217; Did not Buckinghamshire produce &#8216;The Election of the
+Laureat&#8217;&mdash;the prototype of Leigh Hunt&#8217;s &#8216;Feast of the Poets,&#8217; and of a
+still more recent <i>jeu d&#8217;esprit</i> by Mr. Robert Buchanan? The great Lord
+Peterborough is even now less remembered for his military triumphs than
+for his &#8216;Song by a Person of Quality;&#8217; while Chesterfield, if thought of
+most frequently in connection with his letters and his essays, still
+lives in poetry as the author of some admirable society verses. Horace
+Walpole claims mention in the list as Earl of Orford, and room must
+fairly be made, too, for Lords Lansdowne,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> Halifax, Nugent, Lyttelton,
+Egremont, and De la Warre, most of whom left behind them a few fugitive
+pieces which deserve to be embalmed in poetical collections.</p>
+
+<p>The annals of nineteenth-century song will commemorate, besides Byron,
+those agreeable versifiers&mdash;Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne, and Lord
+Winchilsea, and those cultured translators&mdash;Lord Strangford, Lord
+Ellesmere, and Lord Derby. It would scarcely be fair to include among
+noble poets Lord Macaulay, Lord Houghton, or the first Lord Lytton, for
+they, like Lord Tennyson, were created peers, and won their
+laurel-wreaths in the character of commoners. In the same way, I have
+taken no account of the poetical peeresses, or I should have had to
+dwell upon the achievements of such ladies as Sidney&#8217;s sister, Lady
+Pembroke; the Duchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Winchilsea, the
+Baroness Nairne, and so on. Enough, indeed, has been said to show how
+prominent a part the peerage has played in the history of English
+poetry&mdash;not, indeed, in the front rank, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> which (omitting Lord
+Tennyson) it is represented only by Byron, but in the second, where
+Montrose (for example) is eminent, and wherever, in short, the
+rhetorical, the amatory, and the witty elements are in the ascendant.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdleftflat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/goat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE PRAISE OF THAMES.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/adropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="A" /></span>fluent versifier of to-day has complained that, though many a poet has
+&#8216;dearer made the names&#8217; of Tweed and Nith and Doon, and what not, no one
+has &#8216;sung our Thames;&#8217; and he goes on especially to rate &#8216;green Kent and
+Oxfordshire and Middlesex,&#8217; because those counties have offered, he
+says, no rhythmical tribute to our premier stream. Now, the Thames has
+not, perhaps, found many laureates of late. The glories of Henley may be
+celebrated annually in the comic or &#8216;society&#8217; press, but in these times
+we hear more, no doubt, of sewage and steam-launches than of any other
+phenomena of the Thames. We are a practical generation, with a keen eye
+to business, and disposed to take not only as read, but as written, the
+praises which might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> well be bestowed upon the river even as it is.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, the Thames does not often or greatly inspire the rhymers of
+to-day, it cannot, certainly, be described as songless. On the contrary,
+it has received from the poets more magnificent and more frequent
+eulogium than any of its compeers. If one goes back even so far as
+Spenser, one finds that writer picturing it in one poem as &#8216;noble
+Thamis&#8217;&mdash;a &#8216;lovely bridegroom,&#8217; &#8216;full, fresh and jolly,&#8217; &#8216;all decked in
+a robe of watchet hew,&#8217; and adorned by a coronet &#8216;in which were many
+towres and castels set;&#8217; while, in another work from the same hand, it
+figures as a &#8216;gentle river,&#8217; is characterized as &#8216;christall Thamis,&#8217; and
+is lauded for its &#8216;pure streames&#8217; and &#8216;sweete waters.&#8217; Chapman, in his
+&#8216;Ovid&#8217;s Banquet of Sense,&#8217; discourses eloquently of the &#8216;wanton Thamysis
+that hastes to greet The brackish coast of old Oceanus&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;And as by London&#8217;s bosom she doth fleet,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Casts herself proudly through the bridge&#8217;s twists,</span><br />
+Where, as she takes again her crystal feet,<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">She curls her silver hair like amourists,</span><br />
+Smooths her bright cheeks, adorns her brow with ships,<br />
+And, empress-like, along the coast she trips&#8217;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>a description almost as impressive as the thing described. Among the
+lovers of the Thames must be ranked, too, Herrick, who, in one of his
+pieces, sends to his &#8216;silver-footed Thamasis&#8217; his &#8216;supremest kiss.&#8217; &#8216;No
+more,&#8217; he regrets, will he &#8216;reiterate&#8217; its strand, whereon so many
+stately structures stand; no more, in the summer&#8217;s sweeter evenings,
+will he go to bathe in it, as thousand others do:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;No more shall I along thy christall glide,<br />
+The barge with boughes and rushes beautifi&#8217;d....<br />
+To Richmond, Kingstone, and to Hampton Court.<br />
+Never againe shall I with finnie ore<br />
+Cut from or draw unto the faithfull shore,<br />
+And landing here, or safely landing there,<br />
+Make way to my beloved Westminster.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Milton, in his &#8216;Vacation Exercise,&#8217; bestows upon the Thames the epithet
+of &#8216;Royal-towered.&#8217; How Denham celebrated it is well known to most. In
+his view it was &#8216;the most loved of all the Ocean&#8217;s sons,&#8217; and he
+commended it especially for its freedom from sudden and impetuous wave,
+from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> unexpected inundations which spoil the mower&#8217;s hopes and mock
+the ploughman&#8217;s toil.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,<br />
+Strong without rage, without o&#8217;erflowing full&#8217;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>such was the famous panegyric he passed upon it. From Denham, too, came
+an early poetical recognition of the growth of London&#8217;s commerce. The
+Thames, he says, brings home to us, and makes the Indies ours; his fair
+bosom is the world&#8217;s exchange. To Pope, in his &#8216;Windsor Forest,&#8217; the
+Thames appears as the &#8216;great father of the British floods,&#8217; on whose
+shores figure future navies.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,<br />
+No lakes so gentle, and no spring so clear.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And the poet ends by prophesying the time when &#8216;unbounded Thames shall
+flow for all mankind,&#8217; whole nations entering with each swelling tide.
+Elsewhere he assures us that &#8216;blest Thames&#8217;s shores the brightest
+beauties yield.&#8217; Thomson, again, dwells on the extent of the trade
+fostered by the river. Commerce, he says, has chosen for his grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+resort &#8216;Thy stream, O Thames, large, gentle, deep, majestic, King of
+floods!&#8217; And he describes how, on either hand,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts<br />
+Shot up their spires.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Then, as now, &#8216;the sooty hulk steered sluggish on,&#8217; while</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">&#8216;The splendid barge</span><br />
+Row&#8217;d, regular, to harmony; around,<br />
+The boat, light-skimming, stretched its oary wings.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Up to this time, the river had been called &#8216;clear&#8217; and &#8216;crystal,&#8217; in
+spite of &#8216;sooty hulks;&#8217; but, with the advent of Cowper, another note is
+struck. With him the Thames is</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">&#8216;The finest stream</span><br />
+That wavers to the noon-day beam,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>but it is not, alas! absolutely pure:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Nor yet, my Delia, to the main<br />
+Runs the sweet tide without a stain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unsullied as it seems;</span><br />
+The nymphs of many a sable flood<br />
+Deform with streaks of oozy mud<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The bosom of the Thames.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Happily, this is about the only word of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> depreciation which the poets
+have permitted themselves. Wordsworth, standing on Westminster Bridge in
+1803, notes that &#8216;the river glideth at its own sweet will,&#8217; and if his
+olfactory nerves were at all distressed he has not said so in verse. Of
+later singers, none has been more enthusiastic about the Thames than
+Eliza Cook, who has told us that, though it bears no azure wave and
+rejoices in no leaping cascades, yet she ever loved to dwell where she
+heard its gushing swell&mdash;in which expression, we may be sure, there is
+no allusion to the British &#8216;dude.&#8217; Another lady&mdash;Mrs. Isa Craig
+Knox&mdash;has supplied a very pretty description of the Thames in its more
+idyllic phases, pointing out how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">&#8216;It glimmers</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through the stems of the beeches;</span><br />
+Through the screen of the willows it shimmers<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In long-winding reaches;</span><br />
+Flowing so softly that scarcely<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It seems to be flowing;</span><br />
+But the reeds of the low little island<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are bent to its going;</span><br />
+And soft as the breath of a sleeper<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Its heaving and sighing,</span><br />
+In the coves where the fleets of the lilies<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At anchor are lying.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>Finally, there is that austere teacher, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, who,
+addressing the Thames, exhorts it to go on soothing,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&#8216;With murmur low and ceaseless cheer,<br />
+The Imperial City&#8217;s agitated ear,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>but beseeches it also to add a warning voice, telling her, to whom the
+pomp of gold is dear, of &#8216;Tyre that fell, of Fortune&#8217;s perfidy.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Other poetic celebrations&mdash;such as those of Mr. Ernest Myers, Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, and &#8216;C. C. R.&#8217;&mdash;might be recorded; but the above will
+suffice to show how prominent a place the Thames has always held in the
+heart and mind of those poets who have come within the sphere of its
+influence. Even if it were never made the subject of a future song, it
+would still figure largely and conspicuously in the British <i>corpus
+poetarum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdright.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>
+he student of English poetry must often have been struck by its
+richness in that form of verse which may best be called the
+Epigraph&mdash;the brief sententious effort, answering somewhat to the
+epigram as understood and practised by the Greeks, but unlike the Latin,
+French, and English epigram in being sentimental instead of witty, and
+aiming rather at all-round neatness than at pungency or point. Our
+language abounds, of course, in examples of short lyrical compositions,
+such (to name familiar instances) as Beaumont and Fletcher&#8217;s &#8216;Lay a
+garland on my hearse,&#8217; Congreve&#8217;s &#8216;False though she be to me and love,&#8217;
+Goldsmith&#8217;s &#8216;When lovely woman stoops to folly,&#8217; Shelley&#8217;s &#8216;Music, when
+soft voices die,&#8217; and MacDonald&#8217;s &#8216;Alas, how easily things go
+wrong!&#8217;&mdash;all of these being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> only eight lines long. There are, indeed,
+plenty of lyrical performances even more brief than this; such as Mr.
+Marzials&#8217; &#8216;tragedy&#8217; in quatrain:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;She reach&#8217;d a rosebud from the tree,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bit the tip and threw it by;</span><br />
+My little rose, for you and me<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The worst is over when we die!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of
+reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as
+much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph;
+another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it
+for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance.</p>
+
+<p>The thoroughly successful epitaphs&mdash;at once short, and wholly poetical
+in expression&mdash;are among the most famous and popular things in
+literature. Who does not remember the admirable tribute to &#8216;Sidney&#8217;s
+sister, Pembroke&#8217;s mother&#8217;&mdash;usually ascribed to Ben Jonson, but
+sometimes attributed to Browne?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Jonson penned an epitaph on &#8216;Elizabeth
+L. H.,&#8217; which would have been exquisite had it consisted only of the following:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Underneath this stone doth lie<br />
+As much beauty as could die;<br />
+Which, in life, did harbour give<br />
+To more virtue than doth live.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Even as they stand, the lines, as a whole, may fairly compare with those
+on Lady Pembroke. How happy Pope was in his epitaphs is familiarly
+known. The art was just that in which he might naturally be expected to
+excel. The time-honoured couplet on Newton need not be quoted: the
+&#8216;octave&#8217; on Sir Godfrey Kneller is most notable for the final bit of
+hyperbole:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Living, great Nature fear&#8217;d he might outvie<br />
+Her works, and, dying, fears herself may die.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And, talking of epitaphs, one is reminded of the quaint comment by Sir
+Henry Wotton &#8216;On the Death of Sir A. Morton&#8217;s Wife&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;He first deceased; she, for a little, tried<br />
+To live without him, liked it not, and died&#8217;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>surely a piece of work as nearly as possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> perfect in its way. In the
+matter of inscriptions, we have, of course, that by Ben Jonson on
+Shakespeare&#8217;s portrait, and that by Dryden under Milton&#8217;s picture&mdash;the
+last-named being by no means deserving of its reputation. We have also
+the well-known lines by Pope, &#8216;written on glass with Lord Chesterfield&#8217;s
+diamond pencil;&#8217; the equally well-known sentence on Rogers by Lord
+Holland; and the less-hackneyed and even more flattering couplet
+composed by Lord Lyttelton for Lady Suffolk&#8217;s bust (erected in a wood at
+Stowe):</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Her wit and beauty for a Court were made,<br />
+But truth and goodness fit her for a shade.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The writers of verse have naturally shone in such concentrated
+testimonies to the merits of those whom they delighted to honour. Our
+literature is full of eloquent and graceful summaries of individual
+gifts and acquirements, apart altogether from the ordinary inscription
+or epitaph. Pope celebrated Lady Wortley Montagu&#8217;s beauty in a couple of
+lines too frequently cited to need reproduction. Less often quoted is
+David Graham&#8217;s concise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> but sufficient criticism on Richardson&#8217;s
+&#8216;Clarissa&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;This work is Nature&#8217;s; every tittle in&#8217;t<br />
+She wrote, and gave it Richardson to print.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>James Montgomery, in a well-turned quatrain, said of Burns that he
+&#8216;pass&#8217;d through life ... a brilliant trembling northern light,&#8217; but that
+&#8216;thro&#8217; years to come&#8217; he would shine from far &#8216;a fix&#8217;d unsetting polar
+star.&#8217; It will be remembered that, in another quatrain, Lord Erskine
+besought his contemporaries to &#8216;mourn not for Anacreon dead,&#8217; for they
+rejoiced in the possession of &#8216;an Anacreon Moore.&#8217; James Smith wrote of
+Miss Edgeworth that her work could never be anonymous&mdash;&#8216;Thy writings ...
+must bring forth the name of their author to light.&#8217; And so on, and so
+on: the poetry of compliment presents many such conceits.</p>
+
+<p>A treatise, indeed, might be written on the epigraphs in which poets
+have praised their lady-loves or their friends&mdash;from Herrick&#8217;s Julia to,
+say, Tennyson&#8217;s General Gordon. Rather, however, let us turn to what the
+bards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> have been at pains to say about themselves, recalling, for
+example, Herrick&#8217;s &#8216;Jocund his Muse was, but his Life was chaste,&#8217; and
+Matthew Prior&#8217;s triplet &#8216;On Himself.&#8217; Colman the Younger wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;My muse and I, ere youth and spirits fled,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sat up together many a night, no doubt;</span><br />
+But now I&#8217;ve sent the poor old lass to bed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Simply because my fire is going out.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>But how inferior is this, both in feeling and in expression, to the
+dignified epigraph in which Landor celebrated the seventy-fifth
+anniversary of his birthday:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art;</span><br />
+I warmed both hands before the fire of life;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It sinks, and I am ready to depart.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>In the couplet and quatrain of pure sentiment and reflection, some of
+the most delightful of our poetry is embodied. Herrick was conspicuously
+fond of this species of verse, and his works abound in gems of style and
+fancy, the difficulty being, not to find them, but to select from them.
+The beauty of one is apt to be rivalled by that of its neighbour. Thus
+we find on one page:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+&#8216;When words we want, Love teaches to indite;<br />
+And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And on another:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Love&#8217;s of itself too sweet; the best of all<br />
+Is when love&#8217;s honey has a dash of gall.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Then there is Lord Lyttelton&#8217;s distich about &#8216;Love can hope when reason
+would despair;&#8217; there are Aaron Hill&#8217;s famous lines on &#8216;modest ease in
+beauty,&#8217; which, though it &#8216;means no mischief, does it all.&#8217; There are
+Sir William Jones&#8217;s &#8216;To an Infant Newly Born;&#8217; Wolcot&#8217;s &#8216;To Sleep;&#8217;
+Luttrell&#8217;s &#8216;On Death;&#8217; and many, many others.</p>
+
+<p>Of nineteenth-century writers, the most admirable composer of the
+epigraph has been Landor, who in this, as in some other respects, may be
+placed in the same category with Herrick. What, for instance, could be
+prettier than this?</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever;</span><br />
+From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like little ripples in a sunny river.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>How well-phrased, again, is this:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+&#8216;Various the roads of life; in one<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All terminate, one lonely way.</span><br />
+We go; and &#8220;Is he gone?&#8221;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is all our best friends say.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Among living authors, Mr. Aubrey de Vere can lay claim to a quatrain
+which is entirely faultless:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;For me no roseate garlands twine,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But wear them, dearest, in my stead;</span><br />
+Time has a whiter hand than thine,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lays it on my head.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>To this, Sir Henry Taylor wrote a pendant scarcely less fortunate in
+idea and wording. Lord Tennyson has in his day written several epitaphs,
+inscriptions, and other trifles; but none of them have quite the
+perfection which might have been looked for from so great a master of
+poetic form. Mr. Matthew Arnold produced, with others, this excellent
+epigraph:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Though the Muse be gone away,<br />
+Though she move not earth to-day,<br />
+Souls erewhile who caught her word,<br />
+Ah! still harp on what they heard.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Finally, the reader may be recommended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> to glance at Mr. William
+Allingham&#8217;s little book of &#8216;Blackberries,&#8217; in which they will find a
+large number of such &#8216;snatches of song,&#8217; many of them fresh in
+conception and finished in execution.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/swanish.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE &#8216;SEASON&#8217; IN SONG.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropapos.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="&#8216;T" /></span>o live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,&#8217; and the Season, when
+&#8216;dead,&#8217; yet speaks to many through the mouths of the men who have given
+it perennial life in verse. Its first laureate, one may say, was
+Mackworth Praed, whose &#8216;Good-night&#8217; to it still remains the most
+brilliant epitome of its characteristics ever written. Nothing was
+omitted from that remarkable series of coruscating epigrams. From</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The breaches and battles and blunders<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Performed by the Commons and Peers,&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>we are taken to &#8216;the pleasures which fashion makes duties&#8217;&mdash;&#8216;the dances,
+the fillings of hot little rooms,&#8217; &#8216;the female diplomatists, planners of
+matches for Laura and Jane,&#8217; &#8216;the rages, led off by the chiefs of the
+throng,&#8217; the ballet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the bazaar, the horticultural f&ecirc;te, and what not.
+Of later years the Season, as a whole, has been celebrated only by Mr.
+Alfred Austin, who published, more than a quarter of a century ago, a
+satire which was indeed formidable in its tone. Mr. Austin was severe
+about everybody&mdash;about the</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8216;Unmarketable maidens of the mart,</span><br />
+Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint,<br />
+And hide their sins in piety and paint;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>about the Gardens, where</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&#8216;The leafy glade</span><br />
+Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>about the ballrooms, where</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Panting damsels, dancing for their lives,<br />
+Are only maidens waltzing into wives;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>about the theatre, where</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Toole or Compton, perfect in his part,<br />
+Touches each sense, except the head and heart;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and about a number of other things too censurable to be mentioned here.</p>
+
+<p>And, in truth, when one thinks of the Season in song, one thinks less of
+the satire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> than of the sarcasm, less of the cynicism than of the
+sympathy, with which it has been treated by its poets. Take, for
+example, that most conspicuous feature of the Season&mdash;the walking,
+riding, driving in the Row. It was Tickell who made a woman of fashion
+of his day tell how she</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Mounted her palfrey as gay as a lark,<br />
+And, followed by John, took the dust in Hyde Park,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;On the way she was met by some smart Macaroni,<br />
+Who rode by her side on a little bay pony.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>In our own time the glories and the humours of the Row have been
+described with geniality by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Ashby-Sterry,
+with point by Mr. Austin Dobson, and with smartness by H. S. Leigh. Says
+Mr. Locker:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Forsooth, and on a livelier spot<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sunbeam never shines;</span><br />
+Fair ladies here can talk and trot<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With statesmen and divines.</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;What grooms! what gallant gentlemen!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What well-appointed hacks!</span><br />
+What glory in their pace, and then,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What beauty on their backs!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>Mr. Dobson, in a different mood, assures his Roman prototype that the
+world to-day is very much what it was in the time of &#8216;Q. H. F.&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Walk in the Park&mdash;you&#8217;ll seldom fail<br />
+To find a Sybaris on the rail<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By Lydia&#8217;s ponies;</span><br />
+Or hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed,<br />
+Ogling some unsuspecting maid.<br />
+<br />
+&#8216;Fair Neobule, too! Is not<br />
+One Hebrus here&mdash;from Aldershot?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Aha, you colour!</span><br />
+Be wise. There old Canidia sits;<br />
+No doubt she&#8217;s tearing you to bits.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The Eton and Harrow match, like lawn-tennis, <i>caret vate sacro</i>; but the
+delights of Henley and Hurlingham have been sung in verse, and the
+Inter-University Boat-race was the subject of some admirable lines by
+Mortimer Collins and G. J. Cayley:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sweet amid lime-trees&#8217; blossom, astir with the whispers of springtide,<br />
+Maiden speech to hear, eloquent murmur and sigh<br />
+Ah! but the joy of the Thames when, Cam with Isis contending,<br />
+Up the Imperial stream flash the impetuous Eights!<br />
+Sweeping and strong is the stroke, as they race from Putney to Mortlake,<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>Shying the Crab Tree bight, shooting through Hammersmith Bridge;<br />
+Onward elastic they strain to the deep low moan of the rowlock;<br />
+Louder the cheer from the bank, swifter the flash of the oar!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Pretty again, in its way, is the better-known &#8216;Boat-race Sketch,&#8217; by Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, whose heroine</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Twines her fair hair with the colours of Isis,<br />
+Whilst those of the Cam glitter bright in her eyes.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The joys of Epsom and of Goodwood have not, I believe, been versified by
+any prominent rhymer, and, concerning those of Ascot, I know of but one
+elaborate celebration&mdash;that which describes, among other things,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Tall bottles passing to and fro,<br />
+And clear-cut crystal&#8217;s creamy flow,<br />
+Where vied with velvet Veuve Clicquot,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mo&euml;t and Chandon;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>as well as</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The homeward drive that came too soon<br />
+By parks and lodges bright with June,<br />
+And how we mocked the afternoon<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With lazy laughter.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Nothing, of course, is more peculiar to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> Season than the devotion
+displayed by Society at the shrine of Art. The Academy and the Grosvenor
+are institutions without which the Season would not be itself. The
+latter has not figured very conspicuously in song, but at least it has
+managed to creep into one of the Gilbert-Sullivan operas, in the shape
+of a rhyme to &#8216;greenery-yallery.&#8217; Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has told us of
+the critic who had</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Totter&#8217;d, since the dawn was red,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>and, in another of his &#8216;verses vain,&#8217; has practically limned the Gallery
+itself under the guise of &#8216;Camelot&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;In Camelot, how gray and green<br />
+The damsels dwell, how sad their teen;<br />
+In Camelot, how green and gray<br />
+The melancholy poplars sway.<br />
+I wis I wot not what they mean,<br />
+Or wherefore, passionate and lean,<br />
+The maidens mope their loves between.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The character of Burne-Jonesian art is here very happily hit off. Happy,
+too, is Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Lang&#8217;s sketch of the Philistian features of the Academy:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Philistia! Maids in muslin white<br />
+With flannelled oarsmen oft delight<br />
+To drift upon thy streams, and float<br />
+In Salter&#8217;s most luxurious boat;<br />
+In buff and boots the cheery knight<br />
+Returns (quite safe) from Naseby fight.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But did not Praed long ago address &#8216;The Portrait of a Lady at the
+Exhibition of the Royal Academy&#8217;? Has not Mr. Ashby-Sterry addressed
+&#8216;Number One&#8217; in the said exhibition&mdash;also &#8216;the portrait of a lady&#8217;? And,
+moreover, has not Mr. Austin Dobson made the Academy the scene of one of
+his brightly-written dialogues?&mdash;that in which the lady says:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;From now until we go in June<br />
+I shall hear nothing but this tune:<br />
+Whether I like Long&#8217;s &#8220;Vashti,&#8221; or<br />
+Like Leslie&#8217;s &#8220;Naughty Kitty&#8221; more;<br />
+With all that critics, right or wrong,<br />
+Have said of Leslie or of Long.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Among the events of every season are the fashionable marriages, one of
+which is described for us by Mr. Frederick Locker in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+&#8216;St. George&#8217;s, Hanover Square.&#8217; On the subject of the belles of the season I need not
+dwell. Praed&#8217;s &#8216;Belle of the Ballroom&#8217; was a provincial beauty; but not
+so, assuredly, was Pope&#8217;s and Lord Peterborough&#8217;s Mrs. Howard,
+Congreve&#8217;s Miss Temple, Lord Chesterfield&#8217;s Duchess of Richmond, Fox&#8217;s
+Mrs. Crewe, Lord Lytton&#8217;s La Marquise, Mr. A&iuml;d&egrave;&#8217;s Beauty Clare, or Mr.
+Austin Dobson&#8217;s Avice. Of London balls and routs the poets have been
+many, including Edward Fitzgerald, C. S. Calverley, and Mr. Dobson
+again. The opera, so far as I know, has had very few celebrants in
+rhyme. The &#8216;Monday Pops&#8217; figure in &#8216;Patience&#8217; with the Grosvenor
+Gallery, but have not otherwise, I fancy, been distinguished in song. On
+the whole, however, the Season has received poetic tributes at once
+numerous and interesting.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdleftflat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/dragon.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE &#8216;RECESS&#8217; IN RHYME.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span>f the Season has had its laureates, so has the Recess. Why not? Of the
+two, the latter has the more numerous elements of poetry. Town has its
+charms for the versifier; there is much to say about its streets, its
+parks, its belles, its balls, its many diversions. But there is even
+more, surely, to say about the country, with its ancestral halls, its
+watering-places, and its shootings, as well as about the seaside and the
+various attractions <i>outre-mer</i>. Surely, of the two, life out of town
+has even more delights, for the poet, at any rate, than life in town.
+Sylvester is reported to have said that people, after tiring in town, go
+to re-tire in the country. But the saying, if epigrammatic, is not
+strictly true. No doubt some of us feel bored,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> wherever we may go, or
+whatever we may do. But to most people, I imagine, the Recess, if spent
+out of London, is a time of genuine enjoyment, and certainly it is a
+time which deserves to be distinguished in song.</p>
+
+<p>The Recess, as spent in London, has been drawn by the rhymers in
+depressing tints. The picture painted by Haynes Bayly remains&mdash;for the
+fashionable world, at least&mdash;almost as true as it ever was. As he said:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;In town, in the month of September,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We find neither riches nor rank;</span><br />
+In vain we look out for a member<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To give us a nod or a frank.</span><br />
+Each knocker in silence reposes,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In every mansion you find</span><br />
+One dirty old woman who dozes,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or peeps through the dining-room blind.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>This may be compared with the soliloquy put by H. S. Leigh in the mouth
+of &#8216;the last man&#8217; left in London:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The Row is dull, as dull can be;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deserted is the Drive;</span><br />
+The glass that stood at eighty-three,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now stands at sixty-five.</span><br />
+The summer days are over,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The town, ah me! has flown,</span><br />
+Through Dover, or to clover&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I am all alone.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>It has long been held, among a certain class, that to be seen in town
+during the Recess is to forfeit all pretensions to <i>haut ton</i>. And so
+&#8216;the last man&#8217; of the Season is naturally represented by Bayly as
+somewhat ashamed of himself. &#8216;He&#8217;ll blush,&#8217; we are told, &#8216;if you ask him
+the reason Why he with the rest is not gone&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;He&#8217;ll seek you with shame and with sorrow,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He&#8217;ll smile with affected delight;</span><br />
+He&#8217;ll swear he leaves London to-morrow,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And only came to it last night!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>He will tell you that he is in general request&mdash;that the difficulty is
+to know where not to go:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;So odd you should happen to meet him;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So strange, as he&#8217;s just passing through.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The Season may be said to go to its grave with parting volleys from the
+sportsmen on the moors. One is fired on &#8216;the Twelfth,&#8217; the other on &#8216;the
+First.&#8217; The one is associated with grouse, the other with partridges.
+And Haynes Bayly makes his fashionable matron only too conscious of
+these facts. &#8216;Don&#8217;t talk of September,&#8217; she says; &#8216;a lady</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8216;Must think it of all months the worst;</span><br />
+The men are preparing already<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To take themselves off on the First.&#8217;</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;Last month, their attention to quicken,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A supper I knew was the thing;</span><br />
+But now, from my turkey and chicken,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They&#8217;re tempted by birds on the wing!</span><br />
+They shoulder their terrible rifles<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(&#8217;Tis really too much for my nerves!)</span><br />
+And, slighting my sweets and my trifles,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prefer my Lord Harry&#8217;s preserves!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>And she goes on to say:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Oh, marriage is hard of digestion,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The men are all sparing of words;</span><br />
+And now &#8217;stead of popping the question,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They set off to pop at the birds.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Life at English country houses has been depicted by more than one poet.
+Pope, for instance, tells us what happened when Miss Blount left
+town&mdash;how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,<br />
+Old-fashion&#8217;d halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks...<br />
+(To) divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,<br />
+Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lyttelton&#8217;s &#8216;beauty in the country&#8217; complains that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Now with mamma at tedious whist I play,<br />
+Now without scandal drink insipid tea;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>while Lady Mary Montagu&#8217;s &#8216;bride in the country&#8217; deplores the fact that she is</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&#8216;Left in the lurch,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forgot and secluded from view,</span><br />
+Unless when some bumpkin at church<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stares wistfully over the pew.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Agreeably descriptive of rural pleasures is Lord Chesterfield&#8217;s &#8216;Advice
+to a Lady in Autumn.&#8217; Of recent years the subject has been treated by a
+versifier who has at least a measure of the neatness of Praed, and who
+enumerates among the typical guests at a country house</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A sporting parson, good at whist,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A preaching sportsman, good at gateways;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>and, again:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A lady who once wrote a book,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one of whom a book&#8217;s been written...</span><br />
+One blonde whose fortune is her face,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one whose face caught her a fortune.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>As for the daily round:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;We dance, we flirt, we shoot, we ride,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our host&#8217;s a veritable Nimrod:</span><br />
+We fish the river&#8217;s silver tide,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and so on. There are, of course, the county<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> balls, and the fancy balls,
+and the private theatricals, and what not, all of them celebrated by the
+inevitable Praed. It was at the county ball that he saw &#8216;the belle of
+the ballroom&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gave signal sweet in that old hall</span><br />
+Of hands across and down the middle.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>It was to the county ball, as well as to the theatricals at Fustian
+Hall, that Praed&#8217;s &#8216;Clarence&#8217; was so prettily invited. As for fancy
+balls:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Oh, a fancy ball&#8217;s a strange affair!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Made up of silks and leathers,</span><br />
+Light heads, light heels, false hearts, false hair,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pins, paint, and ostrich feathers.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Of inland watering-places, Bath and Cheltenham have been perhaps most
+often poetized. Bath found its <i>vates sacer</i> in the author of the &#8216;New
+Bath Guide&#8217;; it has rarely found one since; its glories have virtually
+departed. It was at Cheltenham&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8216;Where one drinks one&#8217;s fill</span><br />
+Of folly and cold water&#8217;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>that Praed met his &#8216;Partner.&#8217; And C. S. Calverley has told us how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Year by year do Beauty&#8217;s daughters<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the sweetest gloves and shawls</span><br />
+Troop to taste the Chattenham waters,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And adorn the Chattenham balls.</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;<i>Nulla non donanda lauru</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is that city: you could not,</span><br />
+Placing England&#8217;s map before you,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Light on a more favoured spot.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Praed has a poem called &#8216;Arrivals at a Watering-Place,&#8217; but it is not
+one of the most successful of his efforts. Nor have seaside places in
+general been made the subject of very excellent verse. Brighton is the
+one exception. Of that &#8216;favoured spot,&#8217; James Smith, of &#8216;Rejected
+Addresses&#8217; fame, was, perhaps, the first to write flatteringly. &#8216;Long,&#8217;
+he declared&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Long shalt thou laugh thy enemies to scorn,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Proud as Ph&oelig;nicia, queen of watering-places!</span><br />
+Boys yet unbreech&#8217;d, and virgins yet unborn,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On thy bleak downs shall tan their blooming faces.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>The prophecy, one need not say, has been amply fulfilled. And the poets
+still conspire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> to sing the praises of &#8216;Old Ocean&#8217;s bauble, glittering
+Brighton.&#8217; Everybody remembers the stirring exhortation of Mortimer
+Collins:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;If you approve of flirtations, good dinners,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seascapes divine, which the merry winds whiten;</span><br />
+Nice little saints, and still nicer young sinners,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Winter at Brighton!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Nor has Mr. Ashby-Sterry proved himself at all less enthusiastic.
+Brighton in November, he says, &#8216;is what one should remember&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">&#8216;If spirits you would lighten,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Consult good Doctor Brighton,</span><br />
+And swallow his prescriptions and abide by his decree;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">If nerves be weak or shaken,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Just try a week with Bacon;</span><br />
+His physic soon is taken at our London-by-the-Sea.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Something might be said of the delights of foreign sojourn in the
+Recess; but space fails me. Reference may, however, be made to Mr.
+Locker&#8217;s graceful &#8216;Invitation to Rome&#8217; and &#8216;The Reply&#8217; to it, from which
+I take this typical tribute to the Italian capital:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Some girls, who love to ride and race,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And live for dancing, like the Bruens,</span><br />
+Confess that Rome&#8217;s a charming place&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In spite of all the stupid ruins!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/flowers.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>JAQUES IN LOVE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/wdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="W" /></span>hat Jaques is in Shakespeare&#8217;s pages most people know. In the very
+first reference made to him he is described as &#8216;melancholy,&#8217; and as
+&#8216;weeping and commenting&#8217; upon a stricken deer. He has &#8216;sullen fits,&#8217; we
+read. He himself tells us he &#8216;can suck melancholy out of a song.&#8217; He
+protests that the banished Duke is &#8216;too disputable&#8217; for him&mdash;that he
+(Jaques) thinks of as many matters, but makes no boast of them. The
+Duke, on his side, speaks of Jaques as &#8216;compact of jars&#8217; (made up of
+discords), and when Jaques offers to &#8216;cleanse the foul body of the
+infected world,&#8217; retorts on him that it would be a case of &#8216;most
+mischievous foul sin chiding sin,&#8217; Jaques having been himself a
+notorious evil liver. To Orlando Jaques suggests that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> should rail
+at the world and their misery, while to Rosalind he confesses that he
+loves melancholy better than laughing. &#8216;&#8217;Tis good to be sad and say
+nothing.&#8217; He has, he says, a melancholy of his own, the result of his
+experience and reflection, which wraps him in a most humorous sadness.
+Jaques, in fact, is a rake turned cynical philosopher. He regards man
+and nature as only so much material for observation and for moralizing.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the Jaques of &#8216;As You Like It&#8217;&mdash;a purely original creation,
+embodying a familiar type of humanity, but nevertheless not good enough
+for certain of Shakespeare&#8217;s successors in the dramatic art. Jaques has
+more than once been revised and edited, in common with other characters
+in the sylvan comedy. He did not quite satisfy the fastidious taste of
+Mr. Charles Johnson, the ingenious author of &#8216;The Country Lasses&#8217; and
+other pieces, who, as was said with more point than truth, was &#8216;famous
+for writing a play every year and being at Button&#8217;s coffee-house every
+day.&#8217; Still less did Shakespeare&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Jaques commend himself to the &#8216;J.
+C.&#8217; who was so kind as not merely to adapt &#8216;As You Like It,&#8217; but to
+elaborate and paraphrase it. Nor did the &#8216;melancholy&#8217; one prove
+acceptable even to the judgment of Georges Sand, when that intellectual
+lady set to work to &#8216;arrange&#8217; the play for the French stage.
+Shakespeare, it appeared to all these writers, had perpetrated an
+unaccountable mistake. He had failed to make Jaques pair off with Celia.
+That charming maiden is handed over to the converted Oliver, while
+Jaques goes off to study the humours of the repentant Duke. Happy
+thought! Transform Jaques and Celia into a species of minor Benedick and
+Beatrice, and marry them in the end!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Johnson adopted this idea almost literally. His &#8216;Love in a
+Forest&#8217;&mdash;brought out at Drury Lane in 1723&mdash;is &#8216;As You Like it&#8217; cut down
+and altered, with scraps from &#8216;Much Ado About Nothing,&#8217; &#8216;Love&#8217;s Labour&#8217;s
+Lost,&#8217; and other Shakespearean pieces, introduced at various points, the
+whole welded together by means of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> wondrous emanations from the
+compiler&#8217;s fancy. To Jaques are assigned a number of lines spoken
+elsewhere by Benedick or by Biron. We have the well-known gibing scene
+between Jaques and Orlando up to a certain stage, when, commenting on
+Jaques&#8217; questions about Rosalind, Orlando says: &#8216;But why are you so
+curious?&mdash;you who are an obstinate heretic in the despight of beauty and
+the whole female world?&#8217; Then Jaques replies to this speech, which
+belongs to Don Pedro in &#8216;Much Ado,&#8217; in the familiar words of Benedick in
+that play, asserting that he will &#8216;live a bachelor,&#8217; and that if ever he
+breaks that vow his friends may put round his neck the legend, &#8216;Here you
+may see Jaques, the married man.&#8217; At this juncture Rosalind and Celia
+appear, and, while Rosalind as Ganymede has her first colloquy with
+Orlando, &#8216;Jaques talks with Celia&mdash;they walk in another glade of the
+forest.&#8217; When they return it is at once evident that Jaques&#8217; celibate
+intentions have already been shaken. He calls the lady &#8216;destructively
+handsome,&#8217;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> and says his heart &#8216;gallops away in her praise most
+dangerously.&#8217; She avers he will be in love if he does not take heed, and
+he says, &#8216;I doubt so&mdash;yet I hope not.&#8217; A moment or two after, encouraged
+and fired by her words, he asks her plump to marry him, and she promises
+so to do, &#8216;two years hence, if my brother Ganymede consents.&#8217; Then he
+admits, in soliloquy, that he is &#8216;in love, horribly in love,&#8217; his
+spirits &#8216;caught at last by a pair of bugle eyeballs and a cheek of
+cream.&#8217; And then come more quotations from Benedick, as well as an
+annexation of Touchstone&#8217;s remark about the honourableness of the
+forehead of a married man. Celia by-and-by confesses to Rosalind that
+&#8216;her heart doth incline a little to the philosopher,&#8217; whose love, she
+allows, &#8216;does not sit easy upon him,&#8217; but whose words are &#8216;full of
+sincerity.&#8217; Still later Jaques comes to Rosalind for her approval of the
+match, speaking this time in language used by Biron. She, however,
+refuses, declaring that he cannot be polished into a modern husband; and
+he retires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> disconsolate. But with Orlando he is more successful. He is
+promised that Ganymede shall give way, and that his wedding shall take
+place to-morrow. And so all ends happily.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8216;J. C.&#8217; who, in 1739, published &#8216;The Modern Receipt, or a Cure for
+Love,&#8217; as &#8216;altered from Shakespeare,&#8217; went much farther than Johnson in
+the way of embellishing the unhappy poet. He used his lines
+occasionally, but in general either turned them into prose or expanded
+them beyond all recognition. Virtually he supplies a comedy based, only,
+on &#8216;As You Like It.&#8217; Even the names of the characters are changed.
+Jaques now figures as Marcellus, &#8216;a sullen, morose lord, a great
+woman-hater, but at length in love with Julia&#8217;&mdash;the Julia being, of
+course, Celia. He is described by a shepherd as &#8216;a melancholy sort of
+fellow,&#8217; who &#8216;reads much, thinks more, eats little, sleeps little, and
+speaks least of all. And if he sees a woman he runs away, shuts himself
+up in his cave, and prays for an hour or two after.&#8217; Julia,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> hearing
+this, cries: &#8216;Oh, the brute! I&#8217;m resolved to take a revenge upon him in
+behalf of the whole sex.&#8217; Jaques, on his part, is struck by Julia&#8217;s
+charms as soon as he beholds them&mdash;&#8216;What can this mean? I&#8217;m wondrous ill
+o&#8217; the sudden&#8217;&mdash;and is fain to sit down, lest he should fall. In the
+scene which follows there is a great war of words. The lady talks,
+purposely, at an agonizing speed, and the gentleman roundly tells her
+that he would rather have her room than her company. At last the wrangle
+is interrupted, and Julia, as a parting shot, calls Marcellus &#8216;a bear in
+breeches.&#8217; He himself is inclined, after all, to think her &#8216;something
+more than the rest of her detested sex&mdash;some being, perhaps, of a
+superior order.&#8217; He praises her gay innocence and noble simplicity.
+Julia, on her side, &#8216;prays Heaven that she is not in love with the
+brute,&#8217; but is afraid she must be. Then there is a scene in which, by
+way of drawing him on, she pretends to love him, but afterwards says
+that she was mocking him, and so covers him with confusion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+Nevertheless, he is not cured. He is still her slave, and, as he says,
+what is love &#8216;but an epidemic disease, and what all the world has, at
+one time or other, been troubled with as well as myself? Why should I
+endeavour to curb a passion the greatest heroes have with pride
+indulged? No.... He alone is wise who nobly loves.&#8217; So he returns to the
+charge, makes the lady admit the soft impeachment, and obtains the
+Duke&#8217;s consent to their union. He says, in the end, that he is afraid he
+makes but an odd sort of figure&mdash;that he has acted a little out of
+character, and a great deal below the dignity of a philosopher. But,
+having the aforesaid disease, he has sought the remedy, and has found
+it; for, in his view, &#8216;Marriage is the surest cure of love.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Georges Sand, in her &#8216;Comme il Vous Plaira&#8217;&mdash;a comedy in three acts,
+&#8216;tir&eacute;e de Shakespeare, et arrang&eacute;e&#8217;&mdash;diverges still further from the
+original text. Her work is, even more markedly than &#8216;The Modern
+Receipt,&#8217; founded, only, on &#8216;As You Like It.&#8217; &#8216;In dealing with this
+uncurbed genius, which owned no restraint,&#8217; she thought herself
+justified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> in &#8216;condensing, abstracting, and modifying&#8217; his work. But, as
+a matter of fact, her play is indebted to Shakespeare only in idea.
+Jaques is introduced early in the piece as sent by the banished Duke
+with a message to Rosalind. Of course, he meets Celia, and at first is
+<i>brusquerie</i> itself. But in the second act he comes to think there is
+something in her name &#8216;qui r&eacute;sonne autrement que dans tout nature.
+Est-ce une douceur qui charme l&#8217;oreille?&#8217; Celia for a long time plays
+with him, but in the end they arrive at a mutual declaration of
+affection. &#8216;I have always tenderly loved Jaques,&#8217; says Georges Sand in
+her preface, and &#8216;I have taken the great liberty of bringing him back to
+love. Here is my own romance inserted in that of Shakespeare, and,
+although romantic, it is not more improbable than the sudden conversion
+of Oliver.&#8217; That may be; and yet one might have thought that Georges
+Sand, of all people, would not have set herself the interesting but
+somewhat futile task of improving upon &#8216;As You Like It.&#8217;</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vine.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>MOCKING AT MATRIMONY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he world has reason to be grateful to the writer who lately
+demonstrated the possibility of being happy &#8216;though married.&#8217; Some
+exposition of the sort was sadly needed. Hitherto the estate of
+matrimony has met with a long succession of jibes and sneers. It has had
+its apologists, even its prophets and eulogists; but it has had many
+more detractors. There is, indeed, no subject on which the satirists of
+the world, both great and small, have so largely and so persistently
+made merry. It has been a stock subject with them. It is as if they had
+said to themselves, &#8216;When at a loss, revile the connubial condition.&#8217;
+Married life has been the sport of every wit, and, sorrowful to relate,
+society has been well content to join in the pastime. There is nothing
+so common as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> sarcasm on matrimony, and nothing, apparently, so welcome,
+even to the married.</p>
+
+<p>The banter in question has been of all sorts&mdash;sometimes vague, sometimes
+particular, in its import. A few censors have confined themselves to
+simple condemnation. &#8216;A fellow that&#8217;s married&#8217;s a <i>felo-de-se</i>,&#8217; wrote
+the late Shirley Brooks; and he had been anticipated in the stricture.
+An anonymous satirist had written:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Wedlock&#8217;s the end of life,&#8221; one cried;<br />
+&#8220;Too true, alas!&#8221; said Jack, and sigh&#8217;d&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8220;&#8217;Twill be the end of mine.&#8221;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>And if matrimony was not suicide, it was ruin. Old Sir Thomas More had
+said of a student who had married that &#8216;in knitting of himself so fast,
+himself he had undone.&#8217; And a later rhymer, contrasting wedding with
+hanging, had come to the conclusion that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Hanging is better of the twain&mdash;<br />
+Sooner done and shorter pain.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>To the suggestion that a youth should not marry till he has more wisdom,
+the Italian epigrammatist replies that if he waits till he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> sense he
+will not wed at all. Marriage, said the famous Marshal Saxe, in effect,
+is a state of penance; Rome declares there are seven sacraments, but
+there are really only six, because penance and matrimony are one.</p>
+
+<p>Hymen, says Chamfort, comes after love, like smoke after flame. It is
+the high sea, observes Heine, for which no compass has yet been
+invented. Its melancholy uncertainty is illustrated by the remark of
+Samuel Rogers, that it does not matter whom you marry&mdash;she will be quite
+another woman the next day. It was Rogers, too, who, when he heard of a
+certain person&#8217;s nuptials, declared that if his friends were pleased his
+enemies were delighted. Selden&#8217;s complaint against marriage was that it
+is &#8216;a desperate thing,&#8217; out of which it is impossible to extract one&#8217;s
+self; but then he lived before the era of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. And
+the utmost that the conventional detractor will admit is, that the
+institution gives to man two happy hours. &#8216;Cursed be the hour I first
+became your wife,&#8217; cries the lady in the well-known quotation; to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> which
+her spouse replies that&mdash;&#8216;That&#8217;s too bad; you&#8217;ve cursed the only happy
+hour we&#8217;ve had.&#8217; But Palladas, the Greek, as translated by Mr. J. H.
+Merivale, goes a little farther than this, declaring that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;All wives are bad; yet two blest hours they give:<br />
+When first they wed, and when they cease to live.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>A favourite notion with the satirists is that marriage is a state of
+mutual recrimination. John Heywood has the couplet:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Wife, I perceive thy tongue was made at Edgware.&#8221;<br />
+&#8220;Yes, sir, and your&#8217;s made at Rayly, hard by there.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And this is typical of many another utterance; for example, this:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Know ye not all, the Scripture saith,<br />
+That man and wife are <i>one</i> till death?<br />
+But Peter and his scolding wife<br />
+Wage such an endless war of strife,<br />
+You&#8217;d swear, on passing Peter&#8217;s door,<br />
+That man and wife at least were <i>four</i>.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Johnson, too, draws attention to the fact&mdash;if it be one&mdash;that all
+the reasons which a man and a woman have for remaining in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the estate of
+matrimony, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent
+separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together. Or, as Mr.
+William Allingham has, of recent years, more pithily put it:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;If any two can live together well,<br />
+&#8217;Tis (and yet such things are) a miracle!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>If we are to believe the aforesaid satirists, this is all the fault of
+the wives. Now and again one comes across a jest in which the lady has
+the better of the gentleman, as in the following:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;&#8220;Wife, from all evil, when shalt thou delivered be?&#8221;<br />
+&#8220;Sir, when I&#8221; (said she) &#8220;shall be delivered from thee.&#8221;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But such things are rare. Usually the laugh is on the other side. As the Frenchman wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;While Adam slept, Eve from his side arose:<br />
+Strange! his first sleep should be his last repose!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Everybody knows the epitaph which Dryden intended for his wife; and side
+by side with it may be placed the lines by an anonymous author:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+&#8216;God has to me sufficiently been kind,<br />
+To take my wife, and leave me here behind.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>So again:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Brutus unmoved heard how his Portia fell;<br />
+Should Jack&#8217;s wife die, he would behave as well.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The story of the man who, at his spouse&#8217;s funeral, deprecated hurry, on
+the ground that one should not make a toil of a pleasure, need only be
+alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>The chief charge against the wives is that they will insist upon being
+the heads of the households. That is the refrain of many a flout hurled
+against them. To marry&mdash;such is the moral of some lines by Samuel
+Bishop&mdash;is to lose your liberty. The lady will have everything her way:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;For ne&#8217;er heard I of woman, good or ill,<br />
+But always lov&egrave;d best her own sweet will.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>So says a seventeenth-century writer; and the complaint is general.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Men, dying, make their wills&mdash;why cannot wives?<br />
+Because wives have their wills during their lives.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8216;Here,&#8217; wrote Burns&mdash;&#8216;here lies a man a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> woman ruled; the Devil ruled
+the woman.&#8217; And Landor makes someone say to a scholar about to marry:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;So wise thou art that I foresee<br />
+A wife will make a fool of thee.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>That wives are talkative is a venerable commonplace. The historic
+husband thought that the fact of his spouse&#8217;s likeness not being a
+&#8216;speaking&#8217; one was its principal merit. And Lessing makes a man excuse
+himself for marrying a deaf woman on the ground that she was also dumb.
+We all remember Hood&#8217;s particular trouble:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A wife who preaches in her gown,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lectures in her night-dress.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>And so with those who are more than merely talkative&mdash;who are positively
+scolds; while sometimes the conventional helpmeet is as active with her
+fists as with her tongue&mdash;as in the case of the lady whose picture, her
+husband thought, would soon &#8216;strike&#8217; him, it was so exceedingly like
+her.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, unnecessary to carry the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> tale further. This mocking at
+matrimony has always been a feature of life and literature, and probably
+will always remain so&mdash;partly because it is so easy of achievement;
+partly because it is not less easy of comprehension; and also, perhaps,
+because humanity has ever been inclined to chasten that which it loves.
+It rails against marriage, but it marries all the same. Or is it that it
+recognises the wedded life as a necessity, which cannot be put away, but
+which it is a pleasure to ridicule? Perhaps that is the best explanation
+one can offer. All this satire may be mankind&#8217;s way of revenging itself
+upon one of the laws of nature.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflower.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/goat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>PARSON POETS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he publication of a memoir of Archbishop Trench has sufficed to recall
+prominently to the public mind the virtues, endowments, and achievements
+of one of the most notable of latter-day divines. Richard Chenevix
+Trench was one of the most versatile of writers. He discoursed with
+equal knowledge and effect on Biblical and philological topics, and his
+prose work will always be respectfully regarded by the students alike of
+divinity and of language. But though, on these subjects, his
+pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will
+ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most
+thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has
+always had so large and valuable a supply.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is
+precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries
+that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For
+what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? In the first
+place, polite learning; in the second, sufficient leisure. It is in the
+atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes
+its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time
+or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays
+have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the
+lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare
+moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning
+and leisure which impel him to the task. There is the nature of his
+profession, with the experience it brings him and the reflections it
+induces. The most unliterary pastor cannot but be a meditative man. The
+literary pastor cannot but be disposed to turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> his meditations into
+verse, often finding in that &#8216;mechanic exercise&#8217; the means of &#8216;numbing pain.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Other things being equal, the modern cleric would take serious subjects
+for his verse, and it is characteristic of the whole race of parson
+poets that the first poetic effort in English literature should be the
+Scriptural paraphrases supplied by Caedmon, monk of Whitby. But it was
+not in the sphere of Bible history that the immediate successors of
+Caedmon, monks (or friars) like himself, sought to disport themselves
+most largely. Our early clerical versifiers set themselves rather to
+give rhythmical renderings to the romances and chronicles of their time.
+They were the secular as well as sacred teachers of the day; and so we
+find the names of Wace, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne,
+Archdeacon Barbour, Andrew of Wyntoun, and John Lydgate, all associated
+with the recital of the deeds of ancient or modern heroes. Not that the
+claims of religion or morality were forgotten:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> they were remembered by
+Richard Rolle in his &#8216;Prick of Conscience,&#8217; and indirectly recognised by
+Barclay in his &#8216;Ship of Fools.&#8217; The interests of the poor were served by
+Langland in his &#8216;Piers the Plowman,&#8217; and poetry, pure and simple, had
+its devotees in the persons of the Bishop of Dunkeld and the Franciscan
+friar who produced respectively &#8216;The Palace of Honour&#8217; and &#8216;The Golden
+Terge.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>When we come down to more recent times, we find even greater variety
+than this in the writings of the parson poets. But the serious element
+prevails. There have been clerical wits and humorists, but they have
+been, of necessity, in the minority. A large proportion of the verse
+composed by clergymen has been, as one would naturally expect, of a
+distinctly didactic, not to say depressing, tendency. One thinks at once
+of the &#8216;Temple&#8217; of George Herbert, the &#8216;Epigrammata Sacra&#8217; of Richard
+Crashaw, the &#8216;Night Thoughts&#8217; of Young, the &#8216;Grave&#8217; of Blair, the
+&#8216;Sabbath&#8217; of Grahame, the &#8216;Course of Time&#8217; of Pollok,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+the &#8216;Christian Year&#8217; of Keble; the hymns of Wesley, Alford, and Stanley; the &#8216;Dream of
+Gerontius&#8217; of Newman, and a dozen others, differing very much indeed in
+all the qualities of poetry, but alike in the earnestness of their
+intention. Even Herrick, &#8216;jocund&#8217; though his muse was, left behind him
+some &#8216;Noble Numbers.&#8217; And though clerical satire, as furnished by men
+like John Bramston, Charles Churchill, Samuel Bishop, John Wolcot, and
+Francis Mahoney, has frequently been flippant both in form and phrase,
+it has at other times&mdash;and especially in the works of Bishop Hall, of
+Norwich&mdash;been very vivid and uncompromising. Hall, indeed, was the
+Juvenal of his century, filled with the spirit of righteous indignation.</p>
+
+<p>From Donne, Dean of St. Paul&#8217;s, downwards, the clerical singers who have
+not been markedly professional in their outcome have exhibited an
+agreeable freedom from monotony. In Donne himself we see the sad
+perfection of the metaphysic method, mitigated, however, by a few lapses
+into the lucid and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> simple. Pomfret gave us in &#8216;The Choice&#8217; the
+typical poem of the country parson, sounding the praises of rural scenes
+and lettered ease. In Parnell we have a sample of the pleasing
+versifier, touching nothing which he does not adorn, but making no very
+particular impression. Bishop Percy is less celebrated for the ballads
+which he wrote than for those which he collected. Logan is remembered
+only by his verses on &#8216;The Cuckoo.&#8217; To the reverend brothers Warton we
+owe respectively &#8216;The Pleasure of Melancholy&#8217; and some lines &#8216;To Fancy&#8217;;
+while of Thomas Blacklock, alas! the most remarkable feature was his
+blindness. One would like to have forgotten Robert Montgomery, of
+Satanic fame, but Macaulay will not let us do so. Blanco White lives on
+the strength of one good sonnet, Lisle Bowles on that of many good ones;
+and there is no need nowadays to distinguish the work of Crabbe, of
+Moultrie, of John Sterling, and of Charles Kingsley, much as they
+differed from each other. One of the latest additions to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> this choir of
+voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists,
+belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there
+were no fear of making invidious selection.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain department of verse-writing in which a cultivated
+class like the clergy would of necessity make its mark&mdash;that of
+rhythmical translation. In a body whose members are all more or less
+scholarly, there will always be some, of special scholarship, who will
+endeavour to put works of classic or foreign literature into an English
+mould. Thus we have had Francis Fawkes, with his versions from the
+Greek; Christopher Pitt, with his translation of the &#8216;&AElig;neid&#8217;; H. F.
+Carey, with his Dante in blank verse; and more others than need be
+specified. These clergymen followed the excellent instincts of their
+cloth. But what are we to say of those otherwise estimable parsons who
+have from time to time attempted, and occasionally with success, to win
+fame as the authors of poetical drama? The connection between the
+cassock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> and the buskin has, to this extent, always been fairly
+intimate&mdash;from the time when Bishop Bale wrote mystery plays, to the
+recent years in which Sheridan Knowles, after having been a dramatist
+and an actor, closed his days as a preacher. Shirley, Mason, Home,
+Milman, Croly, Maturin, White&mdash;these are names well known in the history
+of the theatre, and they are all names of clerical association. Such has
+been the fascination of the &#8216;boards&#8217; even for those whose home has been
+the pulpit and the cloister.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/swanish.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>his may fairly be claimed as a popular subject. It is one in which
+nearly everybody&mdash;perhaps everybody&mdash;is interested. There can surely be
+few, if any, who do not care about the outside of a book. Even if a man
+never opens a volume, he likes its exterior to be pleasing. Nay, there
+are books which may be said to be produced and utilized only for their
+outward garb. How often does one find a volume described as a charming
+one &#8216;for the table&#8217;! It is for the table that certain publications are
+destined. Enter a drawing-room, and you will find a few books scattered
+here and there &#8216;with artful care.&#8217; I do not say they are intended never
+to be opened, but their primary function is to look nice&mdash;to &#8216;set off&#8217;
+the table-cloth, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> generally, to give a bright appearance to the
+room. And their adaptability for this purpose is so widely recognised
+that you can scarcely go anywhere without coming across books of this
+complexion. You find them exposed to view in your doctor&#8217;s or your
+dentist&#8217;s ante-chamber; you find them placed before you, usually very
+much the worse for wear, in hotel waiting-rooms. And the instinct which
+prompts all this display is genuine enough. It is perfectly true&mdash;there
+is no furniture so agreeable to the eye as books. Nothing makes a room
+look at once so picturesque and home-like, if the volumes be but
+sufficiently varied in size and hue.</p>
+
+<p>And that brings us in presence of a point of controversy. Ought there to
+be so much variety in the exteriors of books? Ought they to be &#8216;got up&#8217;
+in so many different styles? Some people would answer these questions
+with a decided negative. These are the persons who like uniformity in
+their libraries, who would have one shelf look for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> all the world like
+the facsimile of the other. These are the persons who, almost as soon as
+they buy a book, are desirous to have it rebound after some fantastic
+notion of their own. There is a class of purchaser which revels in long
+lines of volumes in &#8216;full calf gilt.&#8217; You see that sort of thing in most
+old-fashioned collections. And the effect is not bad in some respects.
+The rows look handsome enough. They have solidity and richness. Nor do I
+say that for a certain species of publication &#8216;full calf gilt&#8217; is not a
+very judicious form of binding. One likes to see the quarterlies and
+higher-class monthlies done up in that style. It befits the seriousness
+of their contents. But do not let everything be put into &#8216;full calf
+gilt,&#8217; solid and rich though it appears. Let us give full play to the
+element of variety. Let every book have an individuality, a character,
+of its own. Let us be able to identify it easily. Let it retain its
+original garb, so that we may always be able to distinguish it. Surely
+it is one of the greatest charms of a row of volumes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> that each has its
+special features, and can readily be found when wanted.</p>
+
+<p>It may be laid down as a general rule that the binding of a book should
+have a distinct reference to the nature of its contents. It should be
+appropriate to the author and to the subject. One sympathizes with
+Posthumus in the play, when, apostrophizing the volume in his prison, he
+says:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&#8216;O rare one!</span><br />
+Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment<br />
+Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects<br />
+So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,<br />
+As good as promise.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Juliet, when she hears that Romeo has slain Tybalt, asks:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Was ever book containing such vile matter<br />
+So fairly bound?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And in a like spirit Charles Lamb, in his well-known essay, complains of
+the &#8216;things in books&#8217; clothing&#8217; which, by reason of their inappropriate
+exteriors, afford so much disappointment to the reader. &#8216;To reach down a
+well-bound semblance of a volume, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> hope it is some kind-hearted
+play-book, then, opening what &#8220;seem its leaves,&#8221; to come bolt upon a
+withering population essay&#8217;&mdash;&#8216;to expect a Steele or a Farquhar, and
+find&mdash;Adam Smith&#8217;&mdash;those, indeed, are doleful and dispiriting
+experiences, to which the unsuspecting student ought not in enlightened
+times to be subjected. If Mr. Gilbert&#8217;s Mikado be right in the view that
+the punishment ought to &#8216;fit the crime,&#8217; so assuredly ought a book&#8217;s
+binding to fit the matter that is contained within it. It should be the
+outward sign of the inward grace.</p>
+
+<p>I am ready to admit that, as a rule, this is so. In general, it is quite
+easy to tell the nature of a volume from its cover. And for this the
+publishers are greatly to be thanked. An amateur, publishing for
+himself, may every now and then insist upon dressing up the product of
+his brains incongruously; but, for the most part, the booksellers of
+to-day have a very excellent sense of what is fitting. The result is
+that those who care about books can differentiate them at a glance. They
+know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> what is the approved style and line for biography and history, for
+poetry and fiction, for sermons, for gift-books, and so <i>ad infinitum</i>.
+The &#8216;Life&#8217; of So-and-so, and the &#8216;Annals&#8217; of Such-and-such, are
+unmistakeable; they have respectability written on every corner and
+angle of them. The dull brown or the dull green is sufficiently obvious
+to everyone. And so with poetry. You know minor verse directly you see
+it. It has a <i>cachet</i> concerning which there can be no possible error.
+Happily, a Tennyson, a Browning, or a Swinburne is equally recognisable.
+A novel, of course, bears its character on its face. The three-volume
+form is notorious. But it scarcely matters what shape fiction may take.
+It can be identified by instinct, whether it be in yellow boards or in
+some more quiet habit. Sermons cannot be misapprehended; there is no
+fear of their being taken on a railway journey instead of the latest
+book of memoirs. As for gift-books, whether for boy or girl, adult or
+juvenile, they have their destination marked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> upon them in all the
+colours of the rainbow. Some complain of this, and call it vulgar. No
+doubt it often is so. But a gift-book is produced for a definite
+purpose, and the public would be surprised, and probably annoyed, if it
+were not as gorgeous in gold and colours as it was expected to be. Gold
+and colours are what are wanted, and the publishers do well to supply
+them.</p>
+
+<p>One thing, perhaps, is too little considered&mdash;that a book is, in most
+cases, intended to be read and to be preserved. Certain books are not
+issued for that purpose, but are deliberately manufactured to be thrown
+away when read. The shilling novel, one may presume, is not designed for
+a permanent existence. If it is, why is it so frequently brought out in
+a paper cover, which either comes off altogether, or else curls up at
+the edges in the most irritating fashion? It must be confessed that a
+paper cover is an infliction, demanding the eventual destruction of the
+book or its prompt rebinding in more durable style. But it is not
+sufficient only that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> volume should be bound. It should be bound so
+that it can be opened and perused with comfort. It should not be in too
+stiff a cover, or it will be awkward to hold. And the cover should not
+be in white or in too delicate a colour, or one will not care to handle
+it. Nor should a book be bound too limply, for the cover will soon begin
+to look shapeless. A parchment binding is charming to gaze at for a
+time, but how quickly its glory fades! I should say to the ordinary
+bookbuyer, in metaphoric language, Avoid the kickshaws and stick to the
+solids! In other words, leave the delicacies to the connoisseur, and
+give your attention to the books so clothed that you can read and keep
+them as you will.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdright.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/idropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="I" /></span> make no allusion here to the heroine of Mr. Haggard&#8217;s well-known
+romance. What I am thinking of at the moment is not the impossible &#8216;She&#8217;
+of recent fiction, but the &#8216;not impossible She&#8217; of Master Richard
+Crashaw&mdash;the &#8216;perfect monster,&#8217; in female form, who was to &#8216;command his
+heart and him,&#8217; and whom he was good enough to sketch for us in advance
+within the limits of some forty verses&mdash;the damsel whose beauty was to</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&#8216;Owe not all its duty</span><br />
+To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>whose face was to be</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&#8216;Made up</span><br />
+Out of no other shop<br />
+Than what Nature&#8217;s white hand sets ope;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>who was to have &#8216;a well-tamed heart,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+&#8216;Sidneian showers<br />
+Of sweet discourse,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and so on, and of whom the poet was so kind as to say that, if Time knew
+of anyone who answered the description,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Her that dares be<br />
+What these lines wish to see&mdash;<br />
+I seek no further&mdash;it is She.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Master Crashaw is not the only man by many who in the past has been
+seduced into putting into words and verse the aspirations, on this
+subject, which filled his soul. It would probably be found, if anyone
+had the requisite patience to go through with it, that there has been
+scarcely a poet who has not thus given expression to his conception of
+an ideal woman and to his desire for her companionship. Much more
+numerous, to be sure, are the rapturous tributes which have been paid to
+actual persons of the other sex: the poetry of praise, as written by men
+of women, has not yet been exhausted, and probably never will be. But
+the ideal description has generally come first, and very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> notable it has
+usually been. Sir Thomas Wyatt declared that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A face that should content me wondrous well<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should not be fair, but lovely to behold;</span><br />
+Of lively look, all grief for to repel;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With right good grace,&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>et c&aelig;tera. He further asserted that &#8216;her tress also should be of crisp&egrave;d
+gold,&#8217; and intimated graciously that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;With wit, and these, perchance I might be tied,<br />
+And knit again with knot that should not slide.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>His contemporary, Lord Surrey, included among &#8216;the means to attain happy
+life,&#8217; &#8216;the faithful wife, without debate&#8217;&mdash;that is, I suppose, a lady
+without forty-parson-power of talk&mdash;a not impossible, nay, fairly
+common, She.</p>
+
+<p>In a lyric by Beaumont and Fletcher, we find the supposed speaker giving
+utterance to a series of such wishes. &#8216;May I,&#8217; he says, &#8216;find a woman
+fair, And her mind as clear as air!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;May I find a woman rich,<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>And of not too high a pitch!...<br />
+May I find a woman wise,<br />
+And her falsehood not disguise!...<br />
+May I find a woman kind,<br />
+And not wavering like the wind!...&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>And, in truth, he talks throughout as if he did not expect to discover
+any such rarity. Everyone knows the little poem in which Ben Jonson
+details his preferences in women&#8217;s dress, declaring that &#8216;a sweet
+disorder&#8217; does more bewitch him &#8216;than when art Is too precise in every
+part.&#8217; But elsewhere he paints for us, not a perfect feminine attire,
+but the faultless maid herself, as he would have her:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I would have her fair and witty,<br />
+Favouring more of Court than City,<br />
+A little proud, but full of pity,<br />
+Light and humorous in her toying,<br />
+Oft building hopes and soon destroying...<br />
+Neither too easy nor too hard,<br />
+All extremes I would have barr&#8217;d.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>That, it would seem, was rare Ben&#8217;s ideal.</p>
+
+<p>Carew, it is notorious, professed to despise &#8216;lovely cheeks or lips or
+eyes,&#8217; if they were not combined with &#8216;A smooth and steadfast mind,
+Gentle thoughts, and calm desires.&#8217; A rosy cheek, a coral lip, and even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+star-like eyes, as he sagely said, would waste away. And in this
+somewhat priggish, and perhaps not wholly sincere, vein, he finds a
+rival in the anonymous bard who declared that he did not demand</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A crystal brow, the moon&#8217;s despair,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor the snow&#8217;s daughter, a white hand,</span><br />
+Nor mermaid&#8217;s yellow pride of hair,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and so on, but instead,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A tender heart, a loyal mind,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which with temptation I would trust,</span><br />
+Yet never link&#8217;d with error find&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+&#8216;One in whose gentle bosom I<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Could pour my secret heart of woes,</span><br />
+Like the care-burthen&#8217;d honey-fly<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That hides his murmurs in the rose.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>So Bedingfield, conceding to friend Damon &#8216;the nymph that sparkles in
+her dress,&#8217; avows his own fondness for the maid &#8216;whose cheeks the hand
+of Nature paints.&#8217; Of this young person he says:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;No art she knows or seeks to know;<br />
+No charm to wealthy pride will owe;<br />
+No gems, no gold she needs to wear;<br />
+She shines intrinsically fair.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>Cowley, it will be remembered, in sketching his notion of true
+happiness, included in it the picture of</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;A mistress moderately fair,<br />
+And good as guardian angels are,<br />
+Only beloved and loving me!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>With that &#8216;one dear She&#8217;&mdash;and a few other things&mdash;he thought he could
+get on pretty comfortably. But probably at once the most obliging and
+most exigent of modern lovers was the sentimental gentleman to whose
+feelings Mrs. Bowen-Graves (&#8216;Stella&#8217;) gave appropriate voice in the
+over-familiar &#8216;My Queen.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I will not dream of her tall and stately&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She that I love may be fairy light;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>nay, more:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I will not say she should walk sedately&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever she does, it will sure be right.</span><br />
+<br />
+&#8216;And she may be humble or proud, my lady,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or that sweet calm which is just between&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>(as if anyone could be a &#8216;sweet calm&#8217;!); moreover:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+&#8216;Whether her birth be noble or lowly,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I care no more than the spirit above;&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>but there is at least one point upon which this gentleman insists:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;She must be courteous, she must be holy,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pure in her spirit, that maiden I love&#8217;&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>and, being that, she may depend upon the stars falling, and the angels
+weeping, ere he ceases to love her, his Queen, his Queen!</p>
+
+<p>Ah! the poets have much to answer for. Here is Mr. Longfellow assuring his readers that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;No one is so utterly desolate,<br />
+But some heart, though unknown,<br />
+Responds unto his own;&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and here is Sir Edwin Arnold declaring, with equal confidence, that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For one lone soul another lonely soul&#8217;&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>et c&aelig;tera, et c&aelig;tera. Is it any wonder that, in the face of such
+encouragement, young men go on dreaming, each of the <i>dimidium su&aelig;
+anim&aelig;</i> whom he is to meet by-and-by, and framing to that end all sorts
+of beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> ideals? It may be that the Shes thus dreamed of are &#8216;not
+impossible&#8217;&mdash;they may &#8216;arrive;&#8217; but it is as well not to be too
+sanguine. And, above all, it is as well not to draw too extravagant a
+picture, if only because you may not be worthy of the original when you
+see it. Corydon is too disposed to expect in Phyllis charms and virtues
+for which he might find it difficult to show counterparts in himself. If
+the lady is to be the pattern of beauty and of goodness, ought not the
+gentleman to bring an equal amount of capital into the matrimonial firm?</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflower.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vine.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>NONSENSE VERSES.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/wdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="W" /></span>hen Bunthorne has recited his &#8216;wild, weird, fleshly thing,&#8217; called &#8216;Oh,
+Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!&#8217; the Duke of Dunstable remarks that it seems to
+him to be nonsense. &#8216;Nonsense, perhaps,&#8217; replies the Lady Saphir, &#8216;but
+oh, what precious nonsense!&#8217; And there really is a sense in which
+nonsense&mdash;genuine, diverting nonsense&mdash;is precious indeed. There is so
+little of it. The late Edward Lear bubbled over with true whimsicality.
+His &#8216;Book of Nonsense&#8217; is what it professes to be&mdash;the most delightful
+non-sense possible. But of how much of that sort of thing does English
+literature boast? There is plenty of unconscious nonsense, of course,
+but it is not of the right quality. Dryden said of Shadwell that he
+reigned, &#8216;without dispute, throughout<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> the realms of nonsense
+absolute&#8217;&mdash;he &#8216;never deviated into sense&#8217;&mdash;and yet he was the dullest of
+dull dogs. The fact is, that nothing is more difficult than to write
+amusing nonsense, and it is worth noting how few people, comparatively
+speaking, have ever attempted to produce it.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest efforts of the kind in the language is a certain
+passage in Udall&#8217;s &#8216;Ralph Roister Doister,&#8217; where Dame Christian
+receives from the hero a letter which seems, on the face of it,
+insulting:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sweete mistresse, where as I love you nothing at all,<br />
+Regarding your substance and richesse chief of all,<br />
+To your personage, beauty, demeanour, and wit,<br />
+I commend me unto you never a whit,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and so on&mdash;the joke lying, of course, in the incorrectness of the
+punctuation adopted. In general, the Elizabethans were too much in
+earnest to write absolute nonsense. Nonsense is to be found in
+Shakespeare, but usually in parody of the euphemists of his time. Some
+of the <i>person&aelig;</i> are made to talk sad stuff, but it has not the merit of
+being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> &#8216;precious&#8217; in the Lady Saphir&#8217;s sense. It is very tedious indeed,
+and one likes to think that Shakespeare, perhaps, did not write it,
+after all. Drummond, in his &#8216;Polemo-Middinia,&#8217; gave an early example of
+a kind of <i>jeu d&#8217;esprit</i> which has since been frequently imitated&mdash;a
+species of dog-Latin <i>in extremis</i>:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Hic aderunt Geordy Akinhedius and little Johnus,<br />
+Et Jamy Rich&aelig;us, et stout Michel Hendersonus,<br />
+Qui jolly tryppas ante alios dansare solebat,<br />
+Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare boneas.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>But though this is not wholly unamusing, it is hardly, as nonsense, up
+to the standard instituted for us by Mr. Lear.</p>
+
+<p>The real thing is more nearly visible in Swift&#8217;s macaronic lines about
+Molly&mdash;&#8216;Mollis abuti, Hasan acuti,&#8217; etc.&mdash;another vein of fun which has
+been exceedingly well worked out by successive writers. But such
+inspirations as these have too much method in them to be quite
+admissible. Much better was Swift&#8217;s &#8216;Love Song in the Modern Taste,&#8217;
+beginning:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gentle Cupid, o&#8217;er my heart.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Even this, however, has too much sense for it to pass muster. Nor can
+one receive Johnson&#8217;s</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;If a man who turnips cries,<br />
+Cry not when his father dies,&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>and so on, as sufficiently nonsensical. It is simply a <i>jeu de mots</i>,
+and no more, though funny enough as it stands. One is better satisfied
+when one comes to the &#8216;Tom Thumb&#8217; of Henry Fielding and the
+&#8216;Chrononhotonthologos&#8217; of Henry Carey, though even in those diverting
+squibs it is rarely that the versifier surrenders himself wholly to
+&#8216;Divine Nonsensia.&#8217; That charming goddess was saluted to more purpose in
+&#8216;The Anti-Jacobin,&#8217; where she was invoked to make charming fun of &#8216;The
+Loves of the Plants.&#8217; In &#8216;The Progress of Man&#8217; (in the same delectable
+collection) occurs the inspired passage:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Ah, who has seen the mail&egrave;d lobster rise,<br />
+Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies<br />
+When did the owl, descending from her bower,<br />
+Crop, &#8217;mid the fleecy flocks, the tender flower?<br />
+Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,<br />
+In the salt wave and, fish-like, strive to swim?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>But even this is too consistent in its grotesqueness to be perfect
+nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>One becomes acquainted with better nonsense the nearer one gets to one&#8217;s
+own times. How clever, for instance, was that well-known &#8216;dream&#8217; of
+Planch&eacute;&#8217;s, in which he fancied that he</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">&#8216;Was walking with Homer, and talking</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The very best Greek I was able&mdash;was able&mdash;</span><br />
+When Guy, Earl of Warwick, with Johnson and Garrick,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would dance a Scotch-reel on the table&mdash;the table;</span><br />
+When Hannibal, rising, declared &#8217;twas surprising<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That gentlemen made such a riot&mdash;a riot&mdash;</span><br />
+And sent in a bustle to beg Lord John Russell<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would hasten and make them all quiet&mdash;all quiet.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>It may be that Mr. W. S. Gilbert had this in his mind when, in
+&#8216;Patience,&#8217; he pictured the processes by which to manufacture a heavy
+dragoon; but here, again, the design is too obvious, the incongruity a
+little too apparent. The late Shirley Brooks extracted much fun out of a
+mosaic of quotations from the poets, beginning:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Full many a gem of purest ray serene,<br />
+That to be hated needs but to be seen,<br />
+Invites my lay; be present, sylvan maids,<br />
+And graceful deer reposing in the shades.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>Very good nonsense is this, if not of the best; and it leads us up
+naturally to the more consummate performances of Mr. Calverley, whose
+exquisite mimicry of Mr. Browning and Miss Ingelow, in their most
+incomprehensible or most affected moods, is too well known to need
+description. Favourable mention may also be made of a certain ballad
+composed by the late Professor Palmer, in illustration of his inability
+to master nautical terms, which he furbishes up in mirth-provoking
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>But, putting aside Mr. Lear, the most successful, the most precious
+nonsense ever written has been supplied by writers still, happily, in
+our midst. And of these, of course, Mr. Lewis Carroll is obviously
+<i>facile princeps</i>&mdash;not only by reason of the immortal &#8216;Jabberwocky,&#8217; but
+by reason, also, of &#8216;The Hunting of the Snark,&#8217; in which there are some
+very felicitous passages.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They pursued it with forks and hope;</span><br />
+They threatened its life with a railway share;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They charmed it with smiles and soap.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>It requires genius, of a kind, to conceive and execute such lines as
+these, easy as (no doubt) it seems to write them. Not that Mr. Carroll
+is unapproachable. There are probably many who think that his
+&#8216;Jabberwocky&#8217; is at least equalled by Mr. Gilbert&#8217;s &#8216;Sing for the Garish
+Eye,&#8217; in which the invented words are truly &#8216;Carrollian&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Sing for the garish eye,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When moonless brandlings cling;</span><br />
+Let the froddering crooner cry,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the braddled sapster sing!&#8217;&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>though, to be sure, Mr. Gilbert could hardly be expected to do anything
+better than that lovely quatrain of Bunthorne&#8217;s about &#8216;The dust of an
+earthy to-day&#8217; and &#8216;The earth of a dusty to-morrow.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The example set by Mr. Lear has been followed by many versifiers, who
+have sought to create their effects after a manner now sufficiently
+familiar. Thus, we have had multitudinous efforts like the following:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;There was an old priest in Peru<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>Who dreamt he&#8217;d converted a Jew:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He woke in the night</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a deuce of a fright,</span><br />
+And found it was perfectly true.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Performances of that sort are, however, easy; and more merit attaches to
+such studies in unintelligibility as Bret Harte&#8217;s &#8216;Songs without Sense,&#8217;
+of which the &#8216;Swiss Air&#8217; is a good example:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I&#8217;m a gay tra, la, la,<br />
+With my fal, lal, la, la,<br />
+And my bright&mdash;<br />
+And my light&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tra, la, le. [<i>Repeat.</i>]</span><br />
+Then laugh, ha, ha, ha,<br />
+And ring, ting, ling, ling,<br />
+And sing fal, la, la,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">La, la, le.&#8217; [<i>Repeat.</i>]</span></p>
+
+<p>Probably, however, the poetry of pure nonsense has never been better
+represented than in these contemporary verses on the suitable topic of
+&#8216;Blue Moonshine&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Ay! for ever and for ever<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whilst the love-lorn censers sweep,</span><br />
+Whilst the jasper winds dissever,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Amber-like, the crystal deep;</span><br />
+Shall the soul&#8217;s delirious slumber,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sea-green vengeance of a kiss,</span><br />
+Teach despairing crags to number<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blue infinities of bliss.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/goat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/mdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="M" /></span>ost people have heard of that Mr. Gerard Hamilton who, suddenly and
+unexpectedly making in the House of Commons an oration which &#8216;threw into
+the shade every other orator except Pitt,&#8217; was henceforth known by the
+nickname of &#8216;Single-Speech&#8217;&mdash;not because he never addressed the House
+again, but because those who so nicknamed him chose to regard this
+performance as the distinguishing feature of his career. He continued to
+be known by that one discourse, and it is by virtue of it that he has a
+place in history. The fact is notable, and yet by no means uncommon. The
+world is, and always has been, full of Single-Speech Hamiltons&mdash;male and
+female&mdash;who have gained and maintained their notoriety by one special<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+effort. Human nature is so constituted that the man or woman who is
+unable to produce a series of successes may yet have the capacity to
+compass one&mdash;may possess the energy and the ability to make at least one
+strong impression before retiring wholly into the background.</p>
+
+<p>The truth of this is observable, for example, in the sphere of poetry.
+How many are the excellent versifiers whose reputation is based wholly
+upon a solitary effusion! They have been inspired once, and the outcome
+is literary immortality. They cannot always be regarded strictly as
+poets, and yet they have a vogue which any poet might envy. They reign
+and shine by virtue of what may be called a happy accident. Thus, Lady
+Ann Barnard is known, in the world of verse, only by her &#8216;Auld Robin
+Gray,&#8217; just as Miss Elliott and Mrs. Cockburn are known only by their
+respective &#8216;Flowers of the Forest.&#8217; We remember Oldys merely by his
+&#8216;Busy, curious, thirsty fly,&#8217; Sir William Jones by his &#8216;What constitutes
+a State?&#8217; Blanco White by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> his one Sonnet upon Night, Charles Wolfe by
+his &#8216;Burial of Sir John Moore,&#8217; John Collins by his &#8216;In the Downhill of
+Life,&#8217; and Herbert Knowles by his &#8216;Lines in a Churchyard.&#8217; As Artemus
+Ward said of the oil-painting achieved by the Old Masters: &#8216;They did
+this, and then they expired.&#8217; Some of them wrote other things, but the
+world received them not. It took count only of the single occasion on
+which they had been influenced by the divine <i>afflatus</i>&mdash;of the one
+thing which they had done &#8216;supremely&#8217; well.</p>
+
+<p>Authors themselves are, no doubt, surprised at the caprices of the
+public, and somewhat piqued by the preferences of their patrons. Some
+are Single-Speech Hamiltons only because their readers have taken a
+special fancy to particular performances&mdash;not always because the
+achievements were obviously the best, but simply because circumstances
+brought them to the fore. It is, one may assume, to the charm of Haydn&#8217;s
+musical setting that Mrs. Hunter owes the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> fame and popularity of &#8216;My
+mother bids me bind my hair&#8217;: it is to the composer, in that case, that
+the acceptance of the words are owing. Obvious causes, again, have given
+precedence to Heber&#8217;s &#8216;From Greenland&#8217;s icy mountains&#8217; over all his
+other work in verse; just as the fact of having got into the extract
+books has accorded to Blake&#8217;s &#8216;Tiger, tiger, burning bright&#8217; a
+pre-eminence in the public mind over all his other efforts. In these
+matters the world will have its own way. It still extends recognition to
+Young&#8217;s &#8216;Night Thoughts,&#8217; but is apparently indifferent to his
+&#8216;Universal Passion.&#8217; It thinks of Bloomfield only in connection with
+&#8216;The Farmer&#8217;s Boy,&#8217; and ignores the rest; just as it faintly recollects
+&#8216;The Sabbath&#8217; of James Grahame, but has forgotten even the titles of
+&#8216;Biblical Pictures&#8217; and &#8216;The British Georgics.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>This dependence of literary fame upon special public favourites is,
+perhaps, most strikingly represented in the field of fiction and the
+drama. Nothing is more common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> than that a novelist or a dramatist
+should remain in the popular memory by virtue of a single production.
+Beckford is for most people only the author of &#8216;Vathek&#8217;; it is only the
+bibliophile who troubles himself about &#8216;Azemia&#8217; or &#8216;The Elegant
+Enthusiast.&#8217; Miss Porter is remembered by her &#8216;Scottish
+Chiefs&#8217;&mdash;scarcely at all, perhaps, by her &#8216;Thaddeus of Warsaw.&#8217;
+Everybody knows how strongly &#8216;The Monk&#8217; took the fancy of the reading
+world&mdash;so strongly that the writer was &#8216;Monk&#8217; Lewis, and &#8216;Monk&#8217; Lewis
+only, ever after. Mackenzie&#8217;s &#8216;Man of Feeling&#8217; survives, but the &#8216;Man of
+the World&#8217; and &#8216;Julia Roubign&eacute;&#8217; are as if they had never existed. And
+look at the playwrights! &#8216;She Stoops to Conquer&#8217; is a classic, but &#8216;The
+Good-Natured Man&#8217; is not even good-naturedly tolerated. &#8216;The Road to
+Ruin&#8217; has eclipsed &#8216;Duplicity&#8217; and &#8216;The Deserted Daughter.&#8217; We all know
+&#8216;The Honeymoon,&#8217; but who has seen, how many have read, &#8216;The Curfew&#8217; and
+&#8216;The School for Authors&#8217;? We flock to &#8216;Wild<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> Oats,&#8217; but alas for &#8216;The
+Agreeable Surprise&#8217;! &#8216;The Man of the World&#8217; keeps Macklin&#8217;s name before
+us, but we have said good-bye to &#8216;Love &agrave; la Mode.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>In truth, it is not a bad thing thus to be associated with one definite,
+unmistakable success. Gerard Hamilton did more for himself by that
+single brilliant speech than if he had delivered a whole multitude of
+less striking orations. There is nothing more fatal to a man than
+middlingness&mdash;a sort of dead level of mediocre performance. The world
+loses count of merely respectable outcome. To obtain its regard you must
+take its imagination captive at least once. You may be a very excellent
+person, and do very useful work; but, if you desire to be kept in mind,
+you must achieve something to which your name can be popularly attached.
+It is thus that Beattie and &#8216;The Minstrel,&#8217; Green and &#8216;The Spleen,&#8217;
+Somerville and &#8216;The Chase,&#8217; Blair and &#8216;The Grave,&#8217; Falconer and &#8216;The
+Shipwreck,&#8217; Pollok and &#8216;The Course of Time&#8217;&mdash;to name no others&mdash;are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+inseparably associated the one with the other. The works in question,
+probably, are rarely opened, but their titles at any rate have stuck in
+the general memory. Even in our own time, for the great majority of
+people, Miss Braddon will always be the author of &#8216;Lady Audley&#8217;s
+Secret,&#8217; Mrs. Oliphant always the author of &#8216;The Chronicles of
+Carlingford,&#8217; Mrs. Henry Wood always the author of &#8216;East Lynne&#8217;&mdash;and so
+on. That is the way in which they are remembered.</p>
+
+<p>Generally speaking, versatility is undesirable when reputation is the
+object aimed at. The world has not a very good memory, or, rather, it
+has so much to think about that it desires not to be more encumbered
+than it can help. Such men as the late Lord Lytton, for example, are, in
+one respect, a nuisance to it. Bulwer was about equally distinguished as
+a novelist, as a dramatist, and as an essayist; and, ever since, the
+average man has been puzzled whether to think of him as the author of
+&#8216;Pelham,&#8217; the author of &#8216;The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Lady of Lyons,&#8217; or the author of
+&#8216;Caxtoniana.&#8217; Bulwer tried hard to establish a position as a poet, but,
+happily, there is no need to trouble one&#8217;s self greatly about &#8216;King
+Arthur.&#8217; As it is, the fame of Bulwer&#8217;s dramas appears likely,
+by-and-by, to eclipse altogether the fame of his novels. And this, if it
+ever happens, will prove once more that a man can be the worst enemy of
+himself. Single-Speech Hamilton was not satisfied with his big success,
+but spoke again. Nothing could have been more unwise. He should have
+rested on his laurels&mdash;unless indeed, he could have been quite sure that
+he would surpass his former triumph. Unless one can be perfectly certain
+of that, it is, best, in general, to let well alone.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdleftflat.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdheads.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>he production on the London stage of a piece called &#8216;The
+Schoolmistress&#8217; no doubt caused many lovers and students of the drama to
+consider for a moment whether&mdash;and, if so, to what extent&mdash;the general
+subject of school-life had been dealt with by preceding playwrights.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pinero was fortunate, to begin with, in the fact that he had hit
+upon a title for his piece hitherto unused&mdash;so far as I am aware&mdash;by any
+dramatist of whom history bears record. And this piece of originality is
+in itself remarkable, seeing that novelty in title is nowadays
+sufficiently rare. There is no official registry of such things, and,
+where so many active pens have been at work, a playwright must be
+self-confident indeed who can be sure that he has alighted upon a name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+which has never been used by any other native dramatist. To give only a
+few instances out of dozens:&mdash;Mr. Albery&#8217;s play of &#8216;The Spendthrift&#8217; had
+been anticipated, so far as title was concerned, by &#8216;The Spendthrift&#8217; of
+Matthew Draper, acted in 1731, and by &#8216;The Spendthrift&#8217; of Dr. Kenrick,
+performed in 1758, to say nothing of two anonymous plays, each called
+&#8216;The Spendthrift,&#8217; dating from 1680 and 1762 respectively. And to come
+down to quite recent days, the &#8216;Loyal Lovers&#8217; played lately at the
+London Vaudeville had had a predecessor, in the matter of name, in the
+&#8216;Loyal Lovers,&#8217; by Major Manuche, which saw the light so long ago as
+1652. Similarly, the &#8216;Woman of the World,&#8217; performed at the Haymarket in
+1886, had had its prototype, so far as the title was concerned, in the
+&#8216;Woman of the World&#8217; of Nelson Lee and Stirling Coyne.</p>
+
+<p>Exceptionally lucky, indeed, is the dramatic writer who can now discover
+a wholly new name for his production. A wholly fresh subject is, of
+course, even more difficult to achieve. Take what phase of life you
+will&mdash;make what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> use of it you please&mdash;you cannot secure absolute
+novelty. You cannot find a piece of ground which has not been trodden,
+however slightly, however differently, by a predecessor. The author of
+&#8216;The Schoolmistress&#8217; introduces his audiences to a very charming lady
+pupil-teacher, and to three scarcely less charming lady pupils. But one
+thinks at once of the still more delightful bevy of tutors and scholars
+presented to us just nineteen years ago, by T. W. Robertson, who,
+inspired by a German original, gave us not only Bella and Naomi Tighe,
+but a &#8216;rosebud garden of girls,&#8217; of which the attraction has by no means
+yet departed. Mr. Ruskin has sneered at Bella as &#8216;an amiable governess
+who, for the general encouragement of virtue in governesses, is rewarded
+by marrying a lord.&#8217; But for all that, she is a pleasant figure, and
+Naomi is a piquant one, and the English stage has witnessed few more
+agreeable scenes than those in which Dr. and Mrs. Sutcliffe&#8217;s young
+ladies take part in the course of &#8216;School.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>As everybody knows, there is an &#8216;angry schoolboy&#8217; in &#8216;The Alchemist,&#8217;
+who is likely to survive not only in literature, but in history, by
+reason of the effective use which Sheridan once made of him when
+retorting upon Pitt in the House of Commons. Is there not, too, a comedy
+of Brome&#8217;s&mdash;&#8216;The Antipodes&#8217;&mdash;in which the fathers go to school instead
+of their sons, and are made to ape the habits of the youthful scholar?
+Richard Lovelace, we read, wrote a comedy called &#8216;The Scholar,&#8217; but it
+was never printed, and probably had reference to the adult rather than
+the juvenile student. In the early years of last century, &#8216;The
+Schoolboy&#8217; was the title given to a farce played at Drury Lane, a piece
+of which one Johnny was the hero&mdash;a Johnny who had the honour of being
+impersonated by the great Roscius himself, and by actors, too, of the
+calibre of Woodward, Shuter, and J. W. Dodd. Early, again, in the
+present century, &#8216;The Scholar&#8217; was the name of a play adapted from the
+French by Buckstone; but in this case, as, no doubt, there was in
+Lovelace&#8217;s,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> there is more of the scholastic than of the school. The
+subject and title of &#8216;Schoolfellows&#8217; was taken by Douglas Jerrold, the
+schoolfellows in it being, however, no longer under the tutelage of
+their old master. A &#8216;Schoolboy&#8217;s Masque&#8217; was printed in 1742; a &#8216;School
+Moderator&#8217; was included in Garrick&#8217;s collection; a &#8216;School Play,&#8217; it is
+recorded, was performed at a private grammar school in Middlesex, in
+1663; and of recent years an extravaganza has been endowed with the
+suggestive title of &#8216;School Bored.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>There is, of course, a sense in which the word &#8216;school&#8217; can be used for
+the larger opportunities of education given by contact with the world.
+And in this sense the word has been used by English dramatists with
+remarkable and characteristic frequency. In the second quarter of the
+seventeenth century Shirley printed, as &#8216;the firstfruits of his Muses,&#8217;
+his comedy called &#8216;The School of Compliment,&#8217; which had been played at
+Drury Lane; and in the list of comedies of the nineteenth century will
+be found &#8216;The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> School of Reform,&#8217; by Thomas Morton, and the &#8216;School of
+Intrigue,&#8217; by Mr. Mortimer; the former devoted to instructing ladies
+&#8216;how to rule a husband,&#8217; and the latter to a fresh treatment of the
+world-famous story of the Count and Countess Almaviva. But the dramatic
+pieces whose titles begin with &#8216;The School of&#8217; are few indeed in
+comparison with those whose names begin with &#8216;The School for.&#8217; Of the
+latter the most famous is, of course, &#8216;The School for Scandal,&#8217; now just
+111 years old. But Sheridan&#8217;s work had been preceded, in the following
+order, by &#8216;The School for Lovers,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Guardians,&#8217; &#8216;The
+School for Rakes,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Fathers,&#8217; and &#8216;The School for Wives.&#8217;
+Nor is it surprising that, the fashion having once been set, Sheridan&#8217;s
+comedy should be followed successively by &#8216;The School for Eloquence,&#8217;
+&#8216;The School for Ladies,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Vanity,&#8217; &#8216;The School for
+Greybeards,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Widows,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Arrogance,&#8217; &#8216;The
+School for Prejudice,&#8217; &#8216;The School for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> Friends,&#8217; &#8216;The School for
+Authors,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Grown Children,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Grown
+Gentlemen,&#8217; and &#8216;The School for Scheming&#8217;&mdash;this last being one of the
+numerous performances of Mr. Boucicault.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is this all. History relates that Steele began a comedy named &#8216;The
+School for Action,&#8217; and there are records of pieces called &#8216;The School
+for Husbands,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Women,&#8217; &#8216;The School for Coquettes,&#8217; &#8216;The
+School for Daughters,&#8217; and &#8216;The School for Tigers.&#8217; Probably no word has
+been so often utilized by the dramatists as &#8216;School,&#8217; and probably, too,
+no modern playwright would be disposed to add lightly to the number of
+those who have &#8216;annexed&#8217; it.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/birdright.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/fruit.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>PUNS AND PATRONYMICS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/pdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="P" /></span>robably there are few things more common, and at the same time more
+opposed to good taste, than punning upon people&#8217;s names. Possibly the
+impertinence of it has some attraction; for, of course, all such
+&#8216;witticisms&#8217; are impertinent&mdash;unless, indeed, a man puns on his own
+name, or, if he puns upon another&#8217;s, takes care to make the observation
+complimentary. No doubt, neither Mrs. Cuffe nor Mrs. Tighe was very
+offended when Sydney Smith described one as &#8216;the cuff that every one
+would wear,&#8217; and the other as &#8216;the tie that no one would loose.&#8217; These
+are word-plays of the innocuous sort. Would that all such jests were
+equally inoffensive!</p>
+
+<p>However, it is of little use to complain of a &#8216;stream of tendency&#8217; which
+cannot be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> diverted from its course. The most distinguished people have
+had to tolerate the liberties taken with their names. Even the first of
+men has had to suffer, Hood having long ago said what a pity it was
+that, when Eve offered him the apple, poor Adam was not adam-ant. And
+when one turns to the celebrities of one&#8217;s own country, one finds that
+many of them have had to endure attentions of the kind. There was, for
+example, that distinguished Marquis of whom it was said on one occasion
+that &#8216;The nation&#8217;s asleep, and the minister Rockingham.&#8217; There was also
+that Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, of whom Byron declared that he
+would return to the Whigs if they would re-Ward him. How hard, again,
+was <i>Punch</i> upon Sir Francis Head, for his well-known apologia for Louis
+Napoleon:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">&#8216;He wrote to the <i>Times</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">In defence of the crimes</span><br />
+Disgraceful to the heart and to the Head, Head, Head.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Hood pretended that, when he heard &#8216;Those Evening Bells,&#8217; they did but
+remind him of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> the statesman who had invented and established the
+income-tax:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Recalling only how a Peel<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has taxed the comings-in of Time!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>That Mr. Disraeli&#8217;s popular diminutive should suggest punning was
+inevitable, and so we find Shirley Brooks proposing, in 1865, that,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Having finished his Iliad and ceased to be busy,<br />
+Lord Derby should try and translate his Odd-Dizzy.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The annals of the Church are no more free from jingles on names than
+those of any other institution. Familiar to many is the laconic epitaph
+on Archbishop Potter:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Alack and well-a-day:<br />
+Potter himself is turned to clay!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Horace Walpole wrote bitterly of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, that &#8216;His grace signed his own proper name&mdash;Thomas <i>Cant.</i>,&#8217;
+which would certainly have read better as &#8216;Thomas Cantuar.&#8217; But the
+bishops&#8217; signatures have always been regarded as fair game. What puns
+have been made on the unhappy, because so obvious, &#8216;Oxon!&#8217; In 1848,
+when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Bishop Hampden was accused of heresy by the party headed by the
+Bishop of Oxford, the would-be satirist wrote that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;As once the Pope with fury full,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When Luther laid his heavy knocks on,</span><br />
+At the Reformer loosed a Bull&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So these at Hampden set an Ox-on.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>Again, when Archdeacon Hale figured prominently in the old churchyard
+controversy, <i>Punch</i> observed:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The intramural churchyard&#8217;s reeking pale<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breathes health around it, says a reverend party;</span><br />
+But though the spot may keep a parson Hale,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Can people who in-hale its fumes be hearty?&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Turning to the records of the other professions, one finds a good deal
+of the same sort of thing. Literature affords such examples as those
+which are supplied in the well-known lines by John Henley on William
+Broome and by Lord Byron on Tom Moore (&#8216;Now &#8217;tis Moore that&#8217;s Little&#8217;).
+There were journal writers before Greville and Carlyle, and, when Lady
+Bury published her &#8216;Diary of the Times of George IV.,&#8217; Hood, no doubt,
+was justified in crying, as he did:</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+&#8216;Oh, may I die without a Diary,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And be interred without a Bury-ing!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>In a very different spirit were James Smith&#8217;s lines on Miss Edgeworth&#8217;s works:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Good and bad join in telling the source of their birth;<br />
+The bad own their <i>edge</i>, and the good own their <i>worth</i>.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The vocal and histrionic arts have often had their victims. Who can
+possibly have forgotten Luttrell&#8217;s famous compliment to Miss Tree:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;On this Tree when a nightingale settles and sings,<br />
+The Tree will return her as good as she brings.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Here, if ever, was a pun on a name defensible. Less well known is this
+quatrain on the famous actor, William Farren, who died in 1861:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;If Farren, cleverest of men,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should go to right-about,</span><br />
+What part of town will he be then?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why, &#8220;Farren-done-Without&#8221;!&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Those ladies of beauty and fashion whose names were susceptible at once
+of pun and compliment have naturally inspired the wits of their
+respective days. Thus, it was said of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> the charming sisters Gunning,
+that Cupid, perceiving that the beaux of the time were proof against his
+darts, had now laid down his bow and conquered by &#8216;gunning.&#8217; But perhaps
+the best thing of the sort ever composed was Lord Lyttelton&#8217;s tribute to
+Lady Brown:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;When I was young and debonair,<br />
+The brownest nymph to me was fair;<br />
+But now I&#8217;m old and wiser grown,<br />
+The fairest nymph to me is Brown.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Other celebrities could be named who came off badly in their encounter
+with the punsters. But, indeed, the list of such jests might be
+indefinitely extended, for the habit of making puns on patronymics has
+always been very widely spread, and has found many a sympathetic
+historian.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/swanish.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/vine.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>&#8216;YOURS TRULY.&#8217;</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/ndropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="N" /></span>
+obody ever yet found very great difficulty in starting a letter. Young
+lovers may have hesitated from time to time between such modes of
+address as &#8216;Dear,&#8217; &#8216;Dearest,&#8217; &#8216;Sweetest,&#8217; &#8216;Darling,&#8217; and the like; but
+only for a moment. Usually, the overburdened heart hits at once upon the
+exact word or phrase which best expresses its ecstatic feeling. And so
+with less impassioned matters. There is a well-recognised gradation in
+the methods of epistolary salutation. The stranger is addressed as
+&#8216;Sir,&#8217; the person of whom something is known as &#8216;Dear Sir.&#8217; &#8216;My Dear
+Sir&#8217; accompanies a rather better acquaintance; &#8216;Dear Mr. Brown&#8217; marks an
+approach to intimacy; while &#8216;Dear Brown&#8217; signifies the acme of
+friendship and of <i>camaraderie</i>. Here, again, there may be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> temporary
+pause before passing from &#8216;Sir&#8217; to &#8216;Dear Sir,&#8217; and so forth, but in
+general the transitions are sufficiently well emphasized to be obvious
+to the average intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Very different is it with the other end of the letter. There we find
+opportunity for the widest divergence. Royal or official, pompous or
+irate, people have been known to finish an epistle, abruptly, with the
+simple appendix of their name; but these are the exceptions which prove
+the rule. And the rule is certainly to preface the name by some
+expression of feeling, however brief and perfunctory. The least you can
+do is to describe yourself as &#8216;yours.&#8217; We find Sterne thus describing
+himself to Garrick; while, by way of slight variety, Cowper, writing to
+Joseph Hill, ends with a &#8216;Yours, dear Joe.&#8217; Still further variety is
+secured when, as in the case of Lord Eglinton addressing his countess in
+1619, the hackneyed &#8216;I remain, yours&#8217; takes the form of &#8216;I rest,
+yours&#8217;&mdash;a phrase which is not, however, likely to be often used. And let
+it not be supposed that plenty of meaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> cannot be thrown into the
+&#8216;yours&#8217; alone. Take, for instance, the reply made by &#8216;The&#8217; Macdonald,
+when Glengarry claimed the chieftainship of the clan. &#8216;As soon,&#8217; said
+the former, &#8216;as you can prove yourself my chief I shall be ready to
+acknowledge you as such, but in the meantime I am yours, Macdonald.&#8217;
+There, for once in a way, the &#8216;yours&#8217; meant something.</p>
+
+<p>When we go farther than the mere &#8216;yours,&#8217; the possible variations are,
+of course, endless. There is &#8216;yours truly&#8217;&mdash;perhaps the most widely used
+of all such combinations; but there are persons who rebel against its
+tyranny, and who with daring originality substitute the heartier and
+less conventional &#8216;very truly,&#8217; &#8216;most truly,&#8217; or &#8216;right truly.&#8217; Second
+only to &#8216;yours truly&#8217; come &#8216;yours faithfully&#8217; and &#8216;yours sincerely,&#8217;
+with their comparative &#8216;very faithfully&#8217; and superlative &#8216;most
+sincerely;&#8217; and many people are well content to keep within the safe
+borders of these wholly innocent and uncompromising forms. On the other
+hand, less indifferent minds will go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> farther afield for their
+qualifying adverbs, and say, with Sterne, &#8216;very cordially yours,&#8217; or,
+with Father Matthew, &#8216;yours devotedly,&#8217; and so on. Whewell, asked once
+for his autograph, signed himself &#8216;yours autographically,&#8217; and of such
+deviations there are abundant examples, mostly with a tendency to the
+flippant. &#8216;Yours ever&#8217; Byron declared himself to John Murray; &#8216;yours
+ever and evermore,&#8217; wrote Cowper to a friend; while Steele, in a letter
+to his wife, protested that he was, with his whole heart, hers for
+ever&mdash;which may be pronounced the best of the three.</p>
+
+<p>But there is no reason in the world, to be sure, why we should cling to
+the &#8216;yours&#8217; in any shape or modification. There are multitudinous other
+ways of being valedictory with effect. There is the simple word &#8216;Adieu.&#8217;
+&#8216;And so, my dear madam, adieu,&#8217; writes Pepys to a lady. &#8216;With all my
+love, and those sort of pretty things, adieu!&#8217; wrote the future Mrs.
+Scott to her sweetheart, the Great Magician. And then there is the
+English equivalent of the word&mdash;surely not less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> available. &#8216;I wish you
+were at the devil,&#8217; wrote Sir Philip Francis to Burke, &#8216;for giving me
+all this trouble, and so farewell!&#8217; In the old days, as we read in the
+&#8216;Paston Letters,&#8217; they had a sufficiently formal fashion of concluding
+epistles. &#8216;By your cousin, Dame Elizabeth Brews&#8217;&mdash;&#8216;By your man, Thomas
+Kela;&#8217; such are two examples of the custom. &#8216;Written at Norwich, on St.
+Thomas&#8217;s even, in great haste, by your mother, Agnes Paston&#8217;&mdash;there is
+another. &#8216;From your Russell,&#8217; is the end of a letter from the famous
+Lady Russell to her husband; and it does not read or sound untenderly.
+Junius signed himself to Woodfall, &#8216;your friend.&#8217; Less cold was Mrs.
+Maclehose to Burns: &#8216;I may sign, for I am already sealed, your friend,
+Clarinda.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The elaborate style of description has always largely obtained, as being
+obviously suitable for so many occasions. Thus one is not surprised to
+find the future Charles II. professing to be his father&#8217;s &#8216;most humble
+and most obedient son and servant,&#8217; or to note how that very complete
+letter-writer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> James Howell, claimed to be the Countess of Sunderland&#8217;s
+&#8216;most dutiful servant.&#8217; Dr. Johnson did well to announce himself
+haughtily as Chesterfield&#8217;s &#8216;most humble, most obedient servant;&#8217; while
+what could Sir Walter Scott be to his Duke of Buccleuch other than &#8216;your
+Grace&#8217;s truly obliged and grateful&#8217;? A similar sense of propriety
+induced Hood, in a certain memorable epistle, to tell Sir Robert Peel
+that he had the honour to be, Sir, his most grateful and obedient
+servant. One cannot object, either, to the &#8216;Your most obliged and
+faithful friend&#8217; of Evelyn when addressed to Pepys, or to the &#8216;Your very
+faithful, humble servant&#8217; of Bishop Percy, when penned to Boswell. It
+is, however, a little diverting to observe that Sir Simonds d&#8217;Ewes,
+after addressing his ladylove as &#8216;Fairest,&#8217; concludes with &#8216;Your humble
+servant,&#8217; and that the <i>Tatler</i> of his time, rounding off a dedicatory
+letter to his &#8216;Prue,&#8217; says: &#8216;I am, Madam, your most obliged husband, and
+most obedient, humble servant, Richard Steele.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>Over and over again have letter-writers made their final description of
+themselves so wholly a part of their last sentence that the former
+cannot be dissociated from the latter. &#8216;I have not room to tell you any
+more,&#8217; wrote Stephen Duck to Joseph Spence in 1751, &#8216;than that I am,
+Dear Sir, your most affectionate.&#8217; &#8216;These,&#8217; said her royal mistress to
+Mrs. Delany in 1785, &#8216;are the true sentiments of my dear Mrs. Delany&#8217;s
+very affectionate Queen, Charlotte.&#8217; Hood once finished a charming
+epistle to a child in this way: &#8216;Give my love to everybody, from
+yourself down to Willy, with which and a kiss, I remain, up hill and
+down dale, your affectionate lover, Thomas Hood.&#8217; Most people remember
+the pithy correspondence between Foote and his mother: &#8216;Dear Sam,&mdash;I am
+in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother, E.
+Foote.&#8217;&mdash;&#8216;Dear Mother,&mdash;So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to
+his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam Foote.&#8217; Not everybody,
+however, can wind up a letter so neatly as that. A certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> commercial
+house abroad was, perhaps, over-ingenious in its turn of phrase when,
+writing to an English correspondent, and desiring to be very civil to
+him, it said: &#8216;Sugars are falling more and more every day; not so the
+respect and esteem with which we are,&#8217; etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/triflowerhead.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/dragon.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>POSTSCRIPTS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropfig"><img src="images/tdropcap.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 0.25em;" alt="T" /></span>here is, and long has been, a prevalent impression that the penning of
+postscripts is peculiarly characteristic of the feminine letter-writer.
+Cynics have even gone so far as to assert that no woman can indite an
+epistle without the addition of a &#8216;P.S.,&#8217; and, in support of this
+grievous aspersion, have been wont to trot out the venerable &#8216;chestnut&#8217;
+about the lady who accepted from her husband a bet that she would not
+send him a letter without the inevitable addendum&mdash;the result being
+that, after having composed the epistle and signed her name, she
+artlessly appended the observation, &#8216;You see I <i>have</i> written you a
+letter without a postscript,&#8217; capping it with &#8216;Who has won the wager,
+you or I?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>It might be argued, even if it could not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> proved, that, putting aside
+mere business communications, and confining one&#8217;s self to ordinary
+social correspondence, men are guilty of as many postscripts as women
+are. But even if the stereotyped charge against the ladies be really
+well-founded, what of it? Does it convey any tangible reproach? What
+harm is there in a &#8216;P.S.,&#8217; or a &#8216;P.P.S.&#8217;? It may be not only a
+defensible, but positively a praiseworthy, thing. Often it proceeds from
+nothing more condemnable than a genuine overflow of feeling&mdash;a stream of
+sentiment which, checked by the signature of the writer, bursts its
+bonds and reasserts its power in a final sentence or two. What could be
+more charming, for example, than the instances of this afforded in so
+many of the heroic Lady Russell&#8217;s letters to her husband&mdash;as in that
+particularly pleasing one in which, after assuring him that all the
+household are well, and that as he is &#8216;the most enduring husband in the
+world,&#8217; so she is &#8216;the most grateful wife,&#8217; she adds her signature, and
+then recurs to the subject of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> children&mdash;&#8216;Boy is asleep, girls
+singing abed&#8217;&mdash;telling of the proposed kindness of a neighbour towards them.</p>
+
+<p>Note, again, the superabundant playfulness of Cowper in one of his
+epistles to Lady Hesketh, where, after a few lines of personal
+description, he appears to conclude, but returns to the topic with a</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;P.S.&mdash;That the view I give you of myself may be complete I add the
+following items: That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>Sometimes there will be pathos in a postscript, as in the case of
+Beethoven&#8217;s touching communication to his brothers Carl and Johann in
+the matter of his deafness. In the body of the letter he has been
+begging them not to think him hostile, morose, or misanthropical, and
+making clear to them how little they know of the secret cause of his
+apparent indifference. Then, on the outside of the packet, comes this
+last melancholy outpouring:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness too. The fond
+hope I brought with me here [to Heiligenstadt] of being to a
+certain degree cured,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> now utterly forsakes me. As autumn leaves
+fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>Of this spontaneous running-over from text into postscript, literature
+has many specimens&mdash;none, perhaps, more effective in its way than the
+kindly stanza with which Mr. Bret Harte makes Truthful James bring to a
+close &#8216;His Answer to Her Letter&#8217;:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;P.S.&mdash;Which this same interfering<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into other folks&#8217; ways I despise,</span><br />
+Yet if it so be I was hearing<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That it&#8217;s just empty pockets as lies</span><br />
+Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That, having no family claims,</span><br />
+Here&#8217;s my pile; which it&#8217;s six hundred dollars,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As is yours, with respect, Truthful James.&#8217;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>One might, indeed, say more for postscripts than that they are often
+pardonable; they are often actually useful. They can be bent to the
+service of the writer; and over and over again, I dare say, have been
+appended with careful deliberation. They are invaluable as modes of
+emphasizing matter contained within the limits of the letter proper.
+They form &#8216;last words&#8217; which can be charged with any measure of
+significance. Many people remember the case of the sailor who, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+mentioning thrice in the course of one short epistle the desired
+purchase of some pigtail, felt constrained to add yet another reminder
+in the shape of a &#8216;P.S.&mdash;Don&#8217;t forget the pigtail.&#8217; Not less impressive,
+probably, was Sir Hew Dalrymple when, <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'writting'">writing</ins> in 1775 to a friend to
+exhort him to give preferment to a worthy young cleric, he observed, in
+a postscript:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;Think what an unspeakable pleasure it will be to look down from
+heaven and see Rigby, Masterton, all the Campbells and Nabobs,
+swimming in fire and brimstone, while you are sitting with
+Whitefield and his old women, looking beautiful, frisking and
+singing; all which you may have by settling this man!&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>There can be no question that a well-planted &#8216;P.S.&#8217; is of great utility
+in clinching an argument raised in the main portion of a communication.
+Thus, when Artemus Ward wrote &#8216;to the editor of &mdash;&mdash;,&#8217; asking for a line
+concerning the state of the show business in his locality, he knew what
+he was about. &#8216;I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss,&#8217; he observed.
+&#8216;Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in flamin&#8217;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> stile.
+Also git up a tremenjus excitement in yr. paper &#8217;bout my onparaleld
+Show. We must fetch the public sumhow.&#8217; Then, at the end, came the
+summing-up of the whole transaction: &#8216;P.S.&mdash;You scratch my back and Ile
+scratch your back.&#8217; There is at least one instance on record in which a
+postscript was made to convey a smart reproof. Talleyrand, having one
+day entrusted a valet with a letter to deliver, happened to look out of
+the window, and saw the man reading the message <i>en route</i>. Next day he
+despatched another letter to the same address by the same servant,
+taking care to append to it the following: &#8216;P.S.&mdash;You may send a verbal
+answer by the bearer. He is perfectly acquainted with the whole affair,
+having taken the precaution to read this previous to delivery.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, whether postscripts are defensible or not, it is clear
+that their history is eminently interesting. Some valuable matter has
+from time to time been put into them. There is at least one letter of
+Thomas Gray&#8217;s,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> written in 1764 to the Rev. Norton Nicholls, the &#8216;P.S.&#8217;
+of which is worth the whole of the remainder of the communication, so
+charming a bit of descriptive writing is embodied in it. Then, how full
+of good stuff are the epistolary addenda of Charles Lamb, with whom &#8216;the
+cream of the correspondence&#8217; (as Tony Lumpkin has it) was very often
+rather in the postscript than in &#8216;the inside of the letter,&#8217; in the
+sense of its larger portion. It is in one of these addenda that one
+finds the first record of a well-known sentence: &#8216;Summer, as my friend
+Coleridge waggishly observes, has set in with its usual severity.&#8217;
+Elsewhere one comes across such tributes as: &#8216;My friend Hood, a prime
+genius and hearty fellow, brings this.&#8217; Always characteristic in thought
+and in expression, Lamb was never more so than in the finales to his
+letters. &#8216;I do not think your handwriting at all like &mdash;&mdash;&#8217;s,&#8217; he says
+to Southey; &#8216;I do not think many things I did think.&#8217; He winds up a
+dog-Latin epistle to Bernard Barton, in 1831, with: &#8216;P.S.&mdash;Perdita in
+toto est Billa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> Reformatura.&#8217; And to Coleridge he says, with delightful
+frankness:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;Write your German as plain as sunshine, for that must correct
+itself. You know I am <i>homo unius lingu&aelig;</i>: in English&mdash;illiterate,
+a dunce, a ninny.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>Sometimes a postscript is unconsciously full of humour, as in the case
+of a note written by a certain Mr. O. to a recent Bishop of Norwich:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8216;Mr. O&mdash;&mdash;&#8217;s private affairs turn out so sadly that he cannot have
+the pleasure of waiting upon his lordship at his agreeable house on
+Monday next.&mdash;N.B. His wife is dead.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><i>Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><b>Transcriber&#8217;s Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
+both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text.</p>
+
+<p>Printer&#8217;s inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's By-ways in Book-land, by William Davenport Adams
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+Project Gutenberg's By-ways in Book-land, by William Davenport Adams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By-ways in Book-land
+       Short Essays on Literary Subjects
+
+Author: William Davenport Adams
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2010 [EBook #31034]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Stephanie Eason, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND.
+
+
+
+
+  BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND
+
+  Short Essays on Literary Subjects
+
+  BY
+  WM. DAVENPORT ADAMS
+  AUTHOR OF 'DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,' ETC.
+
+    '_Excursusque breves tentat._'
+    'GEORGICS,' iv. 194.
+
+  LONDON
+  ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW
+  1888
+
+
+
+
+  TO MY FATHER,
+  W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS,
+  THIS LITTLE VOLUME
+  Is Affectionately Inscribed.
+
+
+
+
+_In the following pages, the writer for the most part deals with small
+subjects in an unelaborate manner. He leaves the highways of literature,
+and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a
+leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore
+with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The
+author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and
+along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing to bear him company._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                 PAGE
+
+  PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES             1
+
+  RUSKIN AS POET                   10
+
+  ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE          19
+
+  FAMILIAR VERSE                   28
+
+  SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND            36
+
+  HEREDITY IN SONG                 44
+
+  STINGS FOR THE STINGY            51
+
+  DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD            59
+
+  SERMONS IN FLOWERS               66
+
+  'DON QUIXOTE' IN ENGLAND         74
+
+  BEDSIDE BOOKS                    83
+
+  THEIR MUCH SPEAKING              91
+
+  PEERS AND POETRY                 99
+
+  THE PRAISE OF THAMES            107
+
+  ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS               114
+
+  THE 'SEASON' IN SONG            123
+
+  THE 'RECESS' IN RHYME           131
+
+  JAQUES IN LOVE                  139
+
+  MOCKING AT MATRIMONY            148
+
+  PARSON POETS                    156
+
+  THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS           164
+
+  THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE          172
+
+  NONSENSE VERSES                 180
+
+  SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS         188
+
+  DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE           196
+
+  PUNS AND PATRONYMICS            203
+
+  'YOURS TRULY'                   209
+
+  POSTSCRIPTS                     217
+
+
+
+
+_BY-WAYS IN BOOK-LAND_
+
+
+
+
+PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES.
+
+
+One is for ever hearing enough and to spare about old books and those
+who love them. There is a whole literature of the subject. The men
+themselves, from Charles Lamb downwards, have over and over again
+described their ecstasies--with what joy they have pounced upon some
+rare edition, and with what reverence they have ever afterwards regarded
+it. It is some time since Mr. Buchanan drew his quasi-pathetic picture
+of the book-hunter, bargaining for his prize,
+
+  'With the odd sixpence in his hand,
+    And greed in his gray eyes;'
+
+having, moreover, in his mind's eye as he walked
+
+  'Vistas of dusty libraries
+    Prolonged eternally.'
+
+Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has sung to us of the man who 'book-hunts while
+the loungers fly,' who 'book-hunts though December freeze,' for whom
+
+  'Each tract that flutters in the breeze
+    Is charged with hopes and fears,'
+
+while
+
+  'In mouldy novels fancy sees
+    Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.'
+
+There are periodicals which cater solely for old-book adorers; and while
+on the one hand your enthusiast will publish his 'Pleasures' and
+'Diversions,' on the other a contemporary will devote a volume to the
+subjects which attract and interest 'the Book Fancier.'
+
+Meanwhile, is there nothing to be said of, or by, the admirer of new
+books--the man or woman who rejoices in the pleasant act of turning over
+new leaves? At a time when volumes are issuing by the dozen from the
+publishers' counters, shall not something be chronicled of the happiness
+which lies in the contemplation, the perusal, of the literary product
+which comes hot from the press? For, to begin with, the new books have
+at least this great advantage over the old--that they are clean. It is
+not everybody who can wax dithyrambic over the 'dusty' and the 'mouldy.'
+It is possible for a volume to be too 'second-hand.' Your devotee, to be
+sure, thinks fondly of the many hands, dead and gone, through which his
+'find' has passed; he loves to imagine that it may have been held
+between the fingers of some person or persons of distinction; he is in
+the seventh heaven of exaltation if he can be quite certain it has had
+that honour. But suppose this factitious charm is really wanting?
+Suppose a volume is dirty, and ignobly so? Must one necessarily delight
+in dogs' ears, bask in the shadow of beer-stains, and 'chortle' at the
+sign of cheese-marks? Surely it is one of the merits of new leaves that
+they come direct from the printer and the binder, though they, alas!
+may have left occasional impressions of an inky thumb.
+
+It might possibly be argued that a new volume is, if anything, 'too
+bright and good'--too beautiful and too resplendent--for 'base uses.'
+There is undoubtedly an _amari aliquid_ about them. They certainly do
+seem to say that we 'may look but must not touch.' Talk about the awe
+with which your book-hunter gazes upon an ancient or infrequent tome;
+what is it when compared with the respect which another class of
+book-lover feels for a volume which reaches them 'clothed upon with'
+virtual spotlessness? Who can have the heart to impair that innocent
+freshness? Do but handle the book, and the harm is done--unless, indeed,
+the handling be achieved with hands delicately gloved. The touch of the
+finger is, in too many cases, fatal. On the smooth cloth or the vellum
+or the parchment, some mark, alas! must needs be made. The lover of new
+books will hasten, oftentimes, to enshrine them in paper covers; but a
+book in such a guise is, for many, scarcely a book at all; it has lost
+a great deal of its charm. Better, almost, the inevitable tarnishing.
+All that's bright must fade; the new book cannot long maintain its
+lustre. But it has had it, to begin with. And that is much. We feel at
+least the first fine careless rapture. Whatever happens, no one can
+deprive us of that--of the first fond glimpse of the immaculate.
+
+But the matter is not, of course, one of exterior only. Some interest,
+at least, attaches to the contents, however dull the subject, however
+obscure the author. A new book is a new birth, not only to the aesthetic
+but to the literary sense. It contains within it boundless
+possibilities. There are printed volumes which are books only in
+form--which are mere collections of facts or figures, or what not, and
+which do not count. But if a volume be a genuine specimen of the _belles
+lettres_, the imagination loves to play upon it. What will it be like?
+What treasures lie concealed in it? What delights has it in store for
+us? In our curiosity we are like the boy in Mr. Pinero's farcical
+comedy: 'It is the 'orrible uncertainty wot we craves after.' No one can
+tell what may nestle in the recesses of new leaves. Not even in
+reference to well-known writers can we be positively sure. They may
+belie their reputation. The illustrious Smith may make a failure; the
+obscurer Brown may score a hit. For once in a way Robinson may have
+produced something we can read; to everybody's surprise, the great Jones
+has dropped into the direst twaddle. And if this uncertainty exists in
+respect to those we know, how much more auspicious is it in the case of
+those who are quite new to us? What gems of purest ray serene may repose
+within the pages of the unopened book before us!
+
+And, talking of unopened books, how much of the pleasure we derive from
+newly-published volumes lies in the process by which we first make their
+acquaintance. There are those who would have all books issued with the
+edges of the pages cut. The reasons why are obvious. To begin with, some
+labour is thereby saved to the purchaser; a certain measure of time,
+too, is saved. The reviewer, who has no moments to spare, may
+anathematize the leaves he has to separate with the paper-knife; the
+traveller by rail may condemn to Hades the producers of the work which
+he cannot cut open--because he has not the wherewithal about him.
+Everywhere there are eager and hasty readers who chafe at the delay
+which an uncut book imposes upon their impatient spirit. On the other
+hand, your genuine book-adorer, your enthusiast, who loves to extract
+from a volume all which it is capable of yielding, cannot but approve a
+habit which enables him to linger delightedly over his new possession.
+What special sweets may not be hidden within just those very pages which
+are at present closed to him! _Omne ignotum_ is, for him, _pro
+magnifico_--here may be the very cream of the cream. And so the adorer
+dallies with his prize. First he peeps within the leaves, and gleans a
+sentence here and there. And then he begins to use the cutter--slowly,
+slowly--dwelling with enraptured tardiness upon each page which he
+reveals.
+
+Who shall say that new leaves have no drawbacks? Verily, they have them.
+It cannot be supposed, for instance, that they are always wholly
+acceptable to the aforesaid professional censor. The reviewer, sitting
+surrounded by them, tier on tier, may rail at the productiveness of the
+age, and wish that there might not be more than one new book each week.
+And the omnivorous reader, anxious to keep up with the literature of the
+day, might fairly re-echo the aspiration. Who, indeed, can hope to turn
+over a tithe of the new leaves which are issued daily? Nor can an
+unlimited consumption of them be recommended. Mr. Lowell is to a certain
+extent justified when he says that
+
+  'Reading new books is like eating new bread;
+  One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he
+  Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy.'
+
+Assuredly new books are so far like new bread, that we should not
+consume them in too rapid succession. At the same time, let us be
+thankful for them, inasmuch as they have the unquestionable gift of
+novelty. Lord Beaconsfield's Lady Montfort said she preferred a new
+book, even if bad, to a classic. That was a strong saying, but there are
+points of view from which it is perfectly defensible.
+
+
+
+
+RUSKIN AS POET.
+
+
+It was lately rumoured that Mr. Ruskin was about to issue a volume of
+poems, consisting mainly of pieces already published. The statement was
+probably the first intimation received by many that the author of
+'Modern Painters' had ever written anything in the shape of verse. That
+he has always been, like Sidney, a 'warbler of poetic prose,' has lately
+been emphasized by a magazine-writer; but it is not at all universally
+known that between the years 1835 and 1845 Mr. Ruskin figured somewhat
+largely as a poet, in the popular sense of that much abused word. During
+that time he produced a good deal of verse, in addition to the prize
+poem which has always been readily accessible by his admirers.
+
+Even if one had not known, it would not have been difficult to have
+assumed, from the rhythmic character of Mr. Ruskin's prose, that he had
+at one time 'dropped into poetry.' Such a master of rhetoric could
+hardly have gone through life without wooing the Muse of Song, however
+temporarily or unsuccessfully. It would not have been natural for him to
+have done so. And, indeed, it is probable that no great prose
+rhetorician has failed to pay the same homage to the charm of verbal
+melody and cadence. In all the most sonorous prose turned out by English
+authors there will be found a lilt and a swing which would without
+difficulty translate themselves into verse. 'Most wretched men,' says
+Shelley, 'are cradled into poetry by wrong.' Most literary men have been
+cradled into it by their irresistible feeling and aptitude for rhythm,
+together with that general poetic sensibility which is rarely absent
+from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in
+verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work
+in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin's success as prose-producer
+has been owing to his early devotion to the Muse.
+
+He himself tells us, in the course of his tribute to his 'first editor'
+(W. H. Harrison), that
+
+     'A certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all my
+     later writings), and the cheerfulness of a much-protected but not
+     foolishly-indulged childhood, made me early a rhymester.'
+
+And he adds--the tribute was paid in 1878--
+
+     'A shelf of the little cabinet by which I am now writing is loaded
+     with poetical effusions which were the delight of my father and
+     mother, and which I have not got the heart to burn.'
+
+A much fuller account of the poetic stages through which he passed in
+childhood is given by Mr. Ruskin in his 'Praeterita,' where he tells us
+of the six 'poems' he brought forth in his seventh year (1826), one of
+them being on the subject of the steam-engine, and rejoicing in such
+couplets as:
+
+  'When furious up from mines the water pours,
+  And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.'
+
+Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in
+its tone. Then, when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet
+another effusion, called 'Eudosia;' and when only eleven he began the
+composition of an elaborate 'poetical' description of his various
+journeyings, under the title of 'Iteriad.'
+
+It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was
+fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still
+further increased by the boy's admiration, successively, for Scott and
+Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the
+prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his
+sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to 'Friendship's Offering and
+Winter's Wreath: a Christmas and New Year's Present' for 1835. This was
+the era of the old-fashioned 'annuals,' and 'Friendship's Offering' was
+one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we
+note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among
+the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side of
+really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in
+corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of
+the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin's first published
+verses--'Salzburg' and some 'Fragments' of a poetical journal, kept on
+tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather
+than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:
+
+  'On Salza's quiet tide the westering sun
+  Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun,
+  Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof,
+  Begin to weave fair twilight's mystic woof;
+  Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil,
+  Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.'
+
+A little further on we read:
+
+  'Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza's strand,
+  Though no Arcadian visions grace the land;
+  Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by,
+  While day's last beams upon the landscape die;
+  Low chants the fisher where the waters pour,
+  And murmuring voices melt along the shore;
+  The plash of waves comes softly from the side
+  Of passing barge slow gliding o'er the tide;
+  And there are sounds from city, field, and hill,
+  Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.'
+
+Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which
+the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.
+
+Four years later Mr. Ruskin's initials were to be seen appended to a
+couple of pieces in verse contributed to 'The Amaranth,' an annual of
+much more imposing presence than the 'Offering'--edited by T. K. Hervey,
+admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such
+literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles,
+Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question
+is 'The Wreck,' in which Mr. Ruskin's poetic capability, such as it is,
+is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:
+
+  'The voices of the night are mute
+    Beneath the moon's eclipse;
+  The silence of the fitful flute
+    Is in the dying lips!
+  The silence of my lonely heart
+    Is kept for ever more
+            In the lull
+            Of the waves
+    Of a low lee shore.'
+
+
+To the same year belong contributions to the _London Monthly Miscellany_
+and the prize poem ('Salsette and Elephanta') before-mentioned. In the
+_Miscellany_ appeared some lines which, in certain respects, are a
+species of anticipation of the Swinburnian manner; as, for example:
+
+  'We care not what skies are the clearest,
+    What scenes are the fairest of all;
+  The skies and the scenes that are dearest
+    For ever, are those that recall
+  To the thoughts of the hopelessly-hearted
+    The light of the dreams that deride,
+  With the form of the dear and departed,
+    Their loneliness, weary and wide.'
+
+It may be assumed that 'Salsette and Elephanta' has been read by all who
+care about the undertaking. It was recited in the theatre at Oxford,
+printed in the same year (1839), and reprinted exactly forty years
+afterwards. It is a by no means unattractive piece of rhetoric.
+
+Another of the annuals to which Mr. Ruskin contributed in those days was
+the _Keepsake_, in which he figured in 1845, under the editorship of
+the Countess of Blessington, with Landor, Monckton Milnes, Lord John
+Manners, and the future Lord Beaconsfield as fellow-contributors. He was
+also welcomed to the pages of _Heath's Book of Beauty_. Five years later
+he collected his fugitive pieces, and, adding a few new ones, included
+the whole in a volume privately circulated in 1850. Copies of this book
+are said to have been bought at sales, at different times, for L31 and
+41 guineas. Six years ago, a selection from the 'Annual' verses was
+published, together with the prize poem and other matter, in America.
+
+Glancing through Mr. Ruskin's verse, one is forced to admit that it has
+no special individuality or charm. It deals with conventional subjects
+in a more or less conventional manner. There is a classical element, and
+a flavour of foreign scenery, and an occasional excursion in the
+direction of such topics as 'Spring,' 'The Months,' 'The Old Water
+Wheel,' 'The Old Seaman,' 'Remembrance,' 'The Last Smile,' and the like.
+The rhythm is always regular and flowing, and the descriptive passages
+have light and colour; but the 'lyric cry' has no particular tone that
+could attract the public. The longest piece ever written by Mr. Ruskin
+was, not the prize poem, but that entitled 'The Broken Chain,' with an
+extract from which I may conclude this brief survey of a great
+prose-writer's verse-production:--
+
+  'Where the flower hath fairest hue,
+    Where the breeze hath balmiest breath,
+  Where the dawn hath softest dew,
+  Where the heaven hath deepest blue,
+          There is death.
+
+  'Where the gentle streams of thinking,
+    Through our hearts that flow so free,
+  Have the deepest, softest sinking,
+    And the fullest melody,
+  Where the crown of hope is nearest,
+  Where the voice of joy is clearest,
+  Where the heart of youth is lightest,
+  Where the light of love is brightest,
+          There is death.'
+
+
+
+
+ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE.
+
+
+It is not surprising that Parliamentary contests should have figured
+largely in the English plays, stories, and poems of the past. That they
+will hold so prominent a place in them in future is, of course, by no
+means certain. If elections have been made purer than they were, they
+have been made less picturesque. They have now but little romance about
+them. Nearly everything in them is precise and practical. The literary
+artist, therefore, is likely to find in them few things to attract him,
+and will be, to that extent, at a disadvantage as compared with those
+who have preceded him. There were days when the preliminary canvassing,
+the nomination and the polling days, had features which invited
+treatment on the stage or in print. The whole atmosphere of
+electioneering was different to that which now exists. Those involved in
+it went about their work with a reckless jollity productive of results
+eminently interesting to students of character and manners. A battle at
+the polls brought out all which was most characteristic in the
+Englishmen of the times, and to describe such a conflict was naturally
+the aim of many a man of letters.
+
+Several theatrical pieces have been based almost wholly upon the varied
+incidents of such a contest. There was, for example, that 'musical
+interlude,' 'The Election,' written by Miles Peter Andrews, and produced
+at Drury Lane in 1774. In this, Trusty and Sir Courtly are candidates
+for a seat, and, while one John, a baker, would fain vote for the
+former, his wife is desirous that he should support the latter. As she
+wheedlingly remarks,
+
+  'Sir Courtly says, if you'll but vote for him,
+  He'll fill your pockets to the very brim.'
+
+But John is not to be corrupted:
+
+  'Honest John no bribe can charm;
+  His heart is like his oven, warm;
+        Though poor as Job,
+        He will not rob,
+  Nor sell his truth to fill his fob.'
+
+Nay, not though by so doing he may secure a husband for his daughter
+Sally. He votes for Trusty, and Sally's sweetheart respects him all the
+more for it. As the lover says to the lady:
+
+  'Your father's merit sets him up to view,
+  And more enhances my esteem for you.'
+
+And, in truth, everybody is delighted, for, as they sing in chorus:
+
+  'What to a Briton so grateful can be,
+  As the triumph of Freedom and Virtue to see?'
+
+
+Then there is that forgotten play of Joanna Baillie, also called 'The
+Election,' printed in 1802, and turned into an opera in 1817. Here,
+again, we have two candidates--one Baltimore, of ancient but decayed
+family, and one Freeman, a _nouveau riche_ of equally familiar
+type--neighbours, but not friends, and rivals for the representation of
+the borough of Westown. Of Tom Taylor's 'Contested Election,' produced
+in 1859, most people have heard, if they have not had an opportunity of
+seeing it performed. It gives a fairly faithful picture of the
+unreformed method of carrying on electoral warfare. There is an
+attorney, originally played by Charles Mathews, who undertakes to secure
+the success of Honeybun, and is quite prepared to pay for the votes
+which may be promised to him. There is also one Peekover, President of
+the Blue Lambs, who is equally prepared to accept the proffered payment
+for himself and friends. Honeybun does not get in, but that is hardly
+the fault of his attorney, or due to any general unwillingness to sell
+votes to the highest bidder. Bribery, it will be remembered, is an
+important element in Robertson's 'M.P.,' which dates no further back
+than 1870, though the action of the comedy, if I remember rightly,
+belongs also to pre-reforming times. Cecilia is willing to buy votes for
+Talbot, and three typical electors are willing to dispose of her money
+to the best advantage. The last scene is tolerably exciting. Talbot
+addresses the crowd from his window, and there is much exhilaration
+when the result of the contest is announced. To more recent
+representations of elections on the stage, it is scarcely necessary to
+allude.
+
+Turning from drama to song, one thinks at once of the poem 'in seven
+books' which its author, Carlyle's John Sterling, dubbed 'The Election'
+and published in 1841. Sterling had been anticipated, a few years
+previously--in 1835--by the author of a satire called 'Election Day,'
+which supplied quite an elaborate description of such a day under the
+respective heads of 'The Inn,' 'The Hustings,' 'The Chairing,' and 'The
+Dinner.' 'Although,' said the writer, in his preface, 'there are some
+great improvements in the manner in which elections are now conducted,
+still the immoral and degrading principles that accompany them appear to
+remain nearly the same.' According to this earnest and depressed
+observer--
+
+  'Mud and stones and waving hats,
+  And broken heads and putrid cats,
+  Are offerings made to aid the cause
+  Of order, government, and laws.'
+
+But especially is he struck by the amount of eating and drinking that
+appears inseparable from an election in his time:
+
+  ''Tis strange how much a splendid larder
+  Lights up electioneering ardour;
+  You soon awake to _patriae amor_
+  When stirred about with ale and clamour.'
+
+
+Sterling, though singing of
+
+  'Those high days when Aleborough proudly sent
+  Her man to sit in England's Parliament,'
+
+makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the
+candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to
+solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages
+descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how
+one of the candidates went out to canvass:
+
+  'With smiling look and word, and promise bold,
+  And dainty flatteries meet for young and old,
+  The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed,
+  The glistening ribbon for the maiden's breast,
+  Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives,
+  The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives,
+  The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear,
+  The shake of hands laboriously sincere.'
+
+We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how
+
+  'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues
+  Their floods of moral influence diffuse,
+  And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds
+  To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.'
+
+By-and-by we read:
+
+  'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit
+  Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ.
+  The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down
+  Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.'
+
+
+In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of
+political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a
+fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest
+pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot
+in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The
+nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful
+trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem,
+on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe
+
+     'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting,
+     the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and
+     the soft hits with small jokes.'
+
+Of the polling day, she writes:
+
+     'Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous
+     company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating
+     necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once "the writs
+     were out;" but there was drinking, which did equally well under any
+     name.'
+
+
+This was in 1832. In 1840 there was published at Dublin a tale, entitled
+'The Election,' in which the author bluntly declared that 'bribery and
+perjury are the returning officers.' He was, in truth, a very
+'high-toned' writer, for we find him declaiming vigorously against that
+which Sterling mentions as one of the canvassing weapons of a
+candidate--'the practice of shaking hands with all and every person
+whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance
+of the moment.' There are, we are told, 'cases when such buxom
+familiarity is out of place--when it assumes too much the appearance of
+vulgar cajolery to be received as a compliment.' Elsewhere we come
+across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a
+certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her 'vote and
+interest.' The lady protests that she does not know the difference
+between the Whigs, the Tories, and the Radicals:
+
+     'I know two of them are in the history of England, where they gave
+     trouble enough, whatever they were. But as for the Radicals, it is
+     a newspaper word that I can't say I'm well acquainted with.'
+
+Whereupon the candidate replies that all he can say for the Whigs is
+that
+
+     'they are very fair spoken, when it suits their convenience. But
+     the Radicals are a foul-mouthed race, on all and every occasion,
+     and are the bitter enemies to Church and State.'
+
+
+Nevertheless, the contest (of course an Irish one) which forms the main
+feature of the tale, ends in the return of Sir Andrew Shrivel, the
+Radical, together with Thaddeus O'Sullivan Gaffrey, Esq., representing
+the Nationalists.
+
+
+
+
+FAMILIAR VERSE.
+
+
+There is a species of verse, hitherto not classified distinctively, for
+which it seems desirable to find a name. In the first place, it may be
+necessary, perhaps, to emphasize once more the simple distinction
+between verse and poetry. There are, indeed, excellent and happy people
+for whom there is no difference between the two--for whom all that is
+not prose is poetry, and who recognise no other varieties in literature.
+Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by
+the necessity of distinguishing between this and that--of pronouncing
+upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were
+careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this
+rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it. Unluckily,
+the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse
+of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in
+essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking,
+it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as
+opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling.
+Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The
+one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the
+natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is
+exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of
+verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is
+derivable from their work.
+
+They must not, however, all be grouped together under one embracing
+appellation. If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and
+verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with
+the inferior article. There are many different sorts of verse. There is
+that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly
+comic, and there is that which is something between the two--neither
+over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and
+marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse
+has been given, in general, the name of _vers de societe_ or _vers
+d'occasion_--verse of society or for the moment. Mr. Frederick Locker,
+nearly twenty years ago, thus labelled his volume of 'Lyra
+Elegantiarum'--still, even at this distance of time, the best available
+collection of our lighter verse. But the label is not sufficiently
+distinguishing; it is too haphazard and too narrow. The term _vers de
+societe_ will not include all that is commonly ranged under it. For
+what, in reality, is _vers de societe_? It is what it professes to
+be--it is the verse of society, the verse which deals with the various
+phenomena of the fashionable world. The writers of genuine _vers de
+societe_ have themselves been men and women of society, who had caught
+its tone and could reproduce it in their rhythmic exercises. Mr.
+Locker's 'St. James's Street,' Mr. Dobson's 'Rotten Row,' Prior's lines
+'To a Child of Quality,' and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's 'Ode to Miss
+Harriet Bunbury'--these are the true _vers de societe_, the true
+'poetry' of the ball-room and the _salon_.
+
+What, then, is to become of the large amount of verse which remains
+unaccounted for--which is neither distinctively sentimental nor
+distinctively comic, and yet has no right to the designation of
+society-verse? Well, this is the class of verse which, as we have said,
+has hitherto not been christened, and for which it is desirable to find
+a name. It is a very delightful species of rhythmic work, and deserves a
+denomination of its own. It has the tone, less of society and of the
+Court, than of the familiar intercourse of every day--of the
+intercourse, that is, which goes on between people of ordinary breeding
+and education. It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor
+does it rise to the height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low
+comedy. It is 'familiar, but by no means vulgar.' Its first quality is
+ease--absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a _degage_ air. It is in
+rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is--flowing and
+unpremeditated without slovenliness--having the characteristics of the
+best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its
+second quality is playfulness--a refusal to be too much in earnest in
+any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme.
+It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its
+dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the
+sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes to the humorous; but
+always the style and atmosphere are those of familiar life, of everyday
+reunions; and hence the suggestion that it should be recognised as
+'Familiar Verse.'
+
+I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by
+those who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are
+well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in,
+periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its
+best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our
+literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though
+some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force,
+with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease--with Suckling, whose
+'Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?' is in exactly the right tone; and
+with Dorset, whose 'To all you ladies now on land' is another typical
+specimen. By-and-by Dryden showed how well he could write in the
+familiar style, when he composed the song about fair Iris:
+
+  'She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
+  For I am as false and as fickle as she;
+  We neither believe what either can say,
+  And neither believing, we neither betray.'
+
+Then came the reign of Pope, and Swift, and Prior, and
+Peterborough--Pope, with his truly playful 'What is Prudery?' Swift,
+with his charming lines to Stella; Prior, with his 'Dear Chloe, how
+blubber'd is that pretty face!' and Peterborough, with that masterpiece
+of the familiar _genre_:
+
+  'I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking,
+  Thou wild thing, that always art leaping and aching,
+  What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,
+  By turns has not taught thee this pit-a-pat-ation?'
+
+Then there were the Lady Wortley Montagu, with her lines to Congreve;
+and Chesterfield, with his 'Advice to a Lady in Autumn'; Fielding, with
+his inimitable epistles to Walpole; and Goldsmith, with his incomparable
+'Retaliation.' Later, again, came Cowper, with his 'Nose and Eyes' and
+'Names of Little Note'; Byron, with his verses 'To Tom Moore'; Moore
+himself, with his 'Time I've Lost in Wooing'; Barham, with his 'Lines
+left at Hook's'; Peacock, Canning, James Smith, Praed, and Mahony; and,
+still later, Hood, with his 'Clapham Academy'; Brough, with his
+'Neighbour Nelly'; Mortimer Collins, with his tribute to his 'Old Coat';
+and a hundred others, all of whom could play delightfully on the
+familiar string.
+
+And, happily, the manufacture of familiar verse still goes on
+swimmingly. The Laureate has engaged in it, and even Mr. Browning has
+condescended to it. It has never, in the whole course of its career,
+been written better than by Mr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell, and, among
+ourselves, by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson. No age,
+indeed, was ever more favourable than our own for the composition of
+verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into
+exaggeration--which may have, if it please, a _soupcon_ of wit and
+humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be
+tolerant and urbane.
+
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND.
+
+
+It was with true instinct that one of our most vigorous orators,
+desiring the other day to emphasize by quotation an appeal to the
+patriotic sentiments of his audience, went to a play of Shakespeare's
+for the passage. For the bard of Avon is _par excellence_ the poet of
+England. Keen as, in later years, has been the love of country displayed
+by such men as Thomson, Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson, and Mr. Swinburne, it
+is in the pages of Shakespeare that we find the most magnificent
+outbursts of national feeling. Let it be granted that the poet has not
+hesitated to throw a few satiric pebbles at his countrymen. Everybody
+will recall the amusing colloquy in 'Hamlet,' in which the Gravedigger
+humorously reflects upon the sanity of the English people, declaring
+that, if Hamlet be mad, it will not be noted in England, for there the
+men are as mad as he is. And then there is that other diverting colloquy
+in 'Othello,' wherein Iago stigmatizes Englishmen as 'most potent in
+potting,' asserting that they 'drink with facility your Dane dead
+drunk,' so expert is your Englishman in his drinking.
+
+But these be the gibes of Danes and Italians--not of the man Shakespeare
+or of Englishmen speaking with his voice. True it is that if Shakespeare
+was strongly patriotic, he was so only in common with the Englishmen of
+his day. He lived in an age when the English people were consumed with a
+spirit of burning affection for the isle which they inhabited--when the
+great religious upheaval which we call the Reformation had set the blood
+coursing through their veins, and infused new life into their heart and
+brain--and when the fear of Spanish domination had joined all classes in
+an indissoluble bond of love and loyalty. Probably the English nation
+never was more thoroughly united, more profoundedly in earnest, more
+closely attached to its traditions and its soil, than in those spacious
+times of great Elizabeth. And if Shakespeare produced play after play
+dealing with the history of his country, and presenting on the boards
+many of the most famous Englishmen of the past, he was led to do so, no
+doubt, not only because the topic had attractions for him, but because
+the Englishmen of his day revelled in such reminders of the stirring
+years gone by--of the great soldiers, statesmen, clerics, and the like,
+who had shed lustre on the national name. There must have been a decided
+and continuous demand for these elaborate chronicle-dramas, and it may
+be argued that the poet, in supplying them, did but comply with the call
+made upon him by his public patrons.
+
+The fact, however, that Shakespeare found historical plays a paying
+product will not wholly account for the powerfully patriotic strain in
+which they were composed. It is not only that the long series stretching
+from 'King John' to 'Henry VIII.' pulses from beginning to end with
+love of, and pride in, country; it is not only that the poet makes great
+Englishmen speak greatly--that, placing them in positions in which
+declarations of patriotism are natural and necessary, he makes those
+declarations eloquent and thrilling;--it is that he charges all his
+passages about England and the English with a passion of enthusiasm
+which can be explained only on the hypothesis that he was throwing his
+whole heart into the work, and sympathized deeply with the utterances of
+his creations. There is, for instance, something more than mere
+appropriateness to the character and the occasion in that marvellous
+piece of eulogy of which, in 'Richard II.,' John of Gaunt is made the
+spokesman. The poet seems unable to hold his admiration within bounds:
+
+  'This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
+  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
+  This other Eden--demi-paradise--....
+  This happy breed of men, this little world,
+  This precious stone set in a silver sea,....
+  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
+  This nurse, this teeming womb of Royal Kings...
+  This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
+  Dear for her reputation through the world'--
+
+on what other country has such magnificent praise been poured out by her
+poets? One can see, too, how sincere Shakespeare was in his feelings as
+an Englishman by the phrases and the epithets he everywhere bestows upon
+his fatherland. There is Chorus's famous description of it in 'Henry V.'
+as 'Little body with a mighty heart;' there is the Queen's allusion, in
+'Henry VI.,' to its 'blessed shore.' Now it is called 'fair,' now
+'fertile,' and now 'happy.' 'Dear mother England,' cries the Bastard in
+'King John.' Bolingbroke rejoices that, though banished, he yet can
+boast that he is 'a true-born Englishman;' and elsewhere we read of 'our
+lusty English,' our 'noble English,' our 'hearts of England's
+breed'--Rambures, the Frenchman, admitting that 'that island of England
+breeds very valiant creatures.'
+
+And mark how Shakespeare causes one and all of his patriots to
+congratulate themselves that Britain is an island. Tennyson has called
+upon his countrymen to
+
+  'Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
+  His Briton in blown seas and storming showers;'
+
+and elsewhere has made a 'Tory member's elder son' say--
+
+  'God bless the narrow sea...
+  Which keeps our Britain whole within herself.'
+
+Thomson, too, tells how 'the rushing flood' turned 'this favoured isle'
+'flashing from the continent aside,' 'its guardian she.' But Shakespeare
+had been before both in these expressions of gratitude for our
+insularity. The Archduke of Austria, in 'King John,' speaks of England
+as
+
+              'That pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
+  And coops from other lands her islanders...
+              That England, hedged in with the main,
+  That water-walled bulwark, still secure
+  And confident from foreign purposes.'
+
+So, in 'Richard II.,' John of Gaunt describes England as
+
+  'This fortress built by Nature for herself
+  Against infection and the hand of war.
+
+'The silver sea,' he says, serves it
+
+          'In the office of a wall,
+  Or, as a moat, defensive to a house,
+  Against the envy of less happier lands;
+
+while once again he refers to England as
+
+        'Bound in with the triumphant sea,
+  Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
+  Of watery Neptune.'
+
+
+There is one thing, however, without which, in Shakespeare's view, even
+our lucky isolation cannot avail to save us, as a nation, from
+destruction. 'If they (the English) were true within themselves they
+need not to fear, although all nations were set against them.' So wrote
+Andrew Borde, when Henry VIII. was King; and in the old play of 'John,
+King of England' the author made one of his _personae_ say:
+
+  'Let England live but true within itself,
+  And all the world can never wrong her state.'
+
+So Shakespeare, when he came to treat of the same subject, made the
+Bastard declare that
+
+  'This England never did, nor never shall
+  Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
+  But when it first did help to wound itself...
+        Nought shall make us rue,
+  If England to itself do rest but true.'
+
+There is much virtue in an 'if,' and the poet repeats the warning in
+another play. In '3 Henry VI.' Hastings says:
+
+  'Why, knows not Montague that of itself
+  England is safe, if true within itself?'
+
+That, again, which most troubles John of Gaunt, in the passage already
+quoted, is the fact that England, which was wont to conquer others,
+'Hath made a shameful conquest of itself;' while Chorus, in 'Henry V.,'
+laments that France has found in England 'a nest of hollow bosoms, which
+he fills with treacherous crowns,' adding,
+
+  'What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
+  Were all thy children kind and natural?'
+
+Here, then, is a lesson for our times. What Shakespeare felt to be true
+in his own day is equally, nay more, true now--that England, 'set in a
+silver sea,' is safe from all assaults, save those which she may suffer
+at the hands of her own 'degenerate and ingrate' sons.
+
+
+
+
+HEREDITY IN SONG.
+
+
+It is said that the verses in a recent number of _Macmillan's Magazine_,
+entitled 'In Capri,' and signed 'W. Wordsworth,' are from the pen of a
+grandson of the famous author of 'The Excursion.' They are gracefully
+written, in an agreeable rhythm, and with much command of felicitous
+expression. If, therefore, the writer has indeed the relationship to the
+great Wordsworth which rumour assigns him, the fact is interesting, and
+suggests some considerations as to the transmission of the poetic
+faculty from one generation to another.
+
+One might have thought that this transmission would have been tolerably
+common; that the sons at least, if not the grandsons, of a genuine poet
+could scarcely fail to inherit something of their progenitor's peculiar
+powers. One might even have supposed that poetry would run--as other
+things have run--in families, making the 'bards' almost a _gens_, or
+class, by themselves. Poetry, after all, is an affair mainly of the
+temperament--of fancy and imagination, of feeling and passion; and these
+are qualities which one might have imagined would be handed down, not
+greatly impaired, from father to son, and so on, for at least a fairly
+prolonged period.
+
+There have, indeed, been instances in which literary capacity has been a
+special characteristic of persons in close relationship to each other:
+one thinks at once of the Sheridans, the Coleridges, the Wordsworths,
+and others who have been notable for their productiveness in prose and
+verse. But the cases in which the purely poetic gift--the vision and the
+faculty divine--has been inherited and exercised are few indeed. A
+certain intellectual power will mark the members of a family, and
+exhibit itself in various attractive ways, but less in the domain of
+poetry than any other. It would seem that sheer mental force can be
+communicated, but that the higher qualities of the human spirit are not
+so readily transmitted; are, in fact, hardly transmissible, at any rate
+in quite the same degree. Not only are the examples of poetic heredity
+rare, but there are still fewer, certainly in the history of English
+literature, in which the son or the daughter has equalled the parent in
+poetic capacity.
+
+The case of the Colmans and the Dibdins is one of literary rather than
+poetic faculty. In each instance the father and son wrote verse, much of
+it excellent in its way, but assuredly not of the first order. The one
+name will always be associated with admirably humorous performances,
+while the other will continue to shine resplendent on the roll of
+writers of sea-songs. But work of that sort is a matter of knack rather
+than of inspiration, and 'poetry' is a word hardly to be mentioned in
+remote connection with it. Very different are the circumstances when we
+come to the children of Samuel Taylor Coleridge--to Hartley and to
+Sara, and to Hartley in particular. Sara had less than a half share of
+the poetic patrimony. She penned very pleasant rhymes for children, and
+some still linger in the collections; but they are not of singular
+merit. Much better than these are the lyrics which are to be found
+scattered through her prose romance, 'Phantasmion'--lyrics which
+undoubtedly have imaginative value. They are much less known than they
+deserve to be, though a few of them have recently been reprinted. They
+are not, however, to be compared with the best that Hartley furnished.
+Sara had ideas, but her mode of expression inclined to the turgid.
+Hartley was clearer and smoother in his style, and now and then, as in
+some of his sonnets, and especially in the lines beginning,
+
+  'She is not fair to outward view,
+        As many maidens be,'
+
+he actually attained perfection. The last-named gem is likely to last as
+long as anything written by the elder Coleridge.
+
+Mrs. Norton and Lady Dufferin are instances of ability descending from
+grandfather to granddaughters, and of ability, moreover, which, as
+regards poetical writing, grew and improved in the process of descent.
+The author of 'The Duenna' produced a number of neat and lively rhymes,
+but, great as Sheridan was as a dramatist, he was certainly not a poet.
+Now, his granddaughters were really poets, though by no means of the
+front rank. Scarcely any of Mrs. Norton's verse is now habitually read,
+but some of it is well worth reading. On the other hand, Lady Dufferin,
+who published much less than her sister did, is much better remembered,
+if only because she was the author of 'Katie's Letter' and 'The Irish
+Emigrant's Lament.' These pieces are distinguished by true human
+feeling, and hence their continued popularity. Of Adelaide Anne Procter,
+daughter of 'Barry Cornwall,' it is not necessary to say much, for
+certain of her lyrics are familiar (in feminine mouths, at any rate) as
+household words. Everyone, alas! knows 'The Lost Chord;' many of us
+wish that we did not. That the 'Legends and Lyrics' of Adelaide are
+considerably more widely known than anything produced by her father is,
+it is to be feared, only too true; and yet, full as they are of
+tenderness and grace, they have not the claims to attention possessed by
+the songs and dramatic fragments of 'Barry Cornwall.' The latter are
+unduly neglected; while the songs are among the most virile and vigorous
+in the language. The father's was altogether the stronger nature; the
+daughter set an example of gentle lachrymoseness, which has been
+followed, unfortunately, by too many female rhymers.
+
+Of more recent years, several examples of heredity in song have been
+vouchsafed to us. The younger Hood had his father's fluency, but,
+apparently, very little of his imaginative power. Philip Bourke Marston
+was, in the lyric vein, as successful, perhaps, as Dr. Westland Marston
+had been in the dramatic, and it is probable that he will always be more
+largely read, 'sicklied o'er' though his poetic outcome be 'with the
+pale cast of thought.' The works of the present Lord Lytton and of Mr.
+Aubrey de Vere are too well appreciated to need much characterization.
+These writers would no doubt deprecate any comparison of their products
+with those of the first Lord Lytton and Sir Aubrey de Vere, but it is
+one from which, on the score of absolute merit, they would have no
+occasion to shrink. Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Eric Mackay have written
+verse, no doubt, because Lady Wilde and Dr. Charles Mackay wrote verse
+before them; and the Hon. Hallam Tennyson has shown, in a rhythmical
+version of a nursery tale, that some measure of poetic faculty has been
+meted out to him.
+
+
+
+
+STINGS FOR THE STINGY.
+
+
+Few frailties of mankind have been more bitterly scouted than that of
+meanness in money matters. Of the two, prodigality has been thought the
+better. The man who is poor has not been censured for being careful;
+rather has he been praised for not being ashamed to own his poverty. But
+the spectacle of the rich man hoarding his wealth and not living
+according to his means has always excited the displeasure of
+mankind--not only, perhaps, because money kept in store seems for the
+time useless, but because if expended it would be very acceptable to its
+recipients. The world has commended the man who gives out of his
+superfluity, but it has condemned him who keeps too much to himself. All
+literature, from the earliest times, is full of denunciation of such a
+character. The miserly and the stingy have been impaled over and over
+again on the sword of the satirist.
+
+Meanness has not been confined to the obscure; it has had some
+distinguished votaries--as, for example, his Gracious Majesty King James
+I., whose economical propensities were notorious. Of him it was
+admirably written that
+
+  'At Christ Church "Marriage," done before the King,
+  Lest those learn'd mates should want an offering,
+  The King himself did offer--What, I pray?
+  He offer'd, twice or thrice, to go away.'
+
+Take, again, the great Duke of Marlborough, whose two chief qualities of
+mind were very happily hit off in the couplet 'On a High Bridge over a
+Small Stream at Blenheim':
+
+  'The lofty arch his high ambition shows,
+  The stream an emblem of his bounty flows.'
+
+Garrick was accused of money-grubbing, and his weakness in that respect
+was the subject of more than one smart jest by Foote. When somebody,
+_apropos_ of a remark made by Garrick on the parsimony of others,
+asked, 'Why on earth doesn't Garrick take the beam out of his own eye
+before attacking the mote in other people's?'--Foote replied, 'He is not
+sure of selling the timber.' And again, when Garrick, after dropping a
+guinea and failing to find it, said it had 'gone to the devil, he
+thought,' Foote remarked, 'Well, David, let you alone for making a
+guinea go farther than anybody else'--a repartee which was perhaps in
+the mind of Shirley Brooks when, referring to the excellence of Scotch
+shooting at long distances, he wrote:
+
+          'But this we all knew
+          That a Scotchman can do--
+  Make a small piece of metal go awfully far.'
+
+
+Then there was Lord Eldon, whose nearness was proverbial, and whose
+unwillingness to spend displayed itself markedly in his commissariat
+department. An anonymous epigram professed to record an 'Inquest
+Extraordinary':
+
+  'Found dead, a rat--no case could sure be harder:
+  Verdict--Confined a week in Eldon's larder.'
+
+We are also told that, when Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott quarrelled over
+the proper pronunciation of the legal term 'lien'--the former calling it
+'lion,' and the latter 'lean'--Jekyll produced the following:
+
+  'Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why what do you mean
+  By saying the Chancellor's _lion_ is _lean_?
+  D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that,
+  That nothing within it can ever get fat?'
+
+Of Lord Kenyon, another judge of like inhospitable tendencies, someone
+said that in his house it was always Lent in the kitchen and Passion
+Week in the parlour. On another occasion it was remarked that 'in his
+lordship's kitchen the fire is dull, but the spits are always bright;'
+to which Jekyll, pretending to be angry, replied, 'Spits! in the name of
+common-sense, don't talk about his spits--for nothing turns on them!'
+When his lordship died, the words 'Mors Janua _Vita_' were by an error
+of the undertaker painted on the coffin; but, someone commenting on the
+substitution of 'Vita' for 'Vitae,' Lord Ellenborough protested that
+there was no mistake. Kenyon, he declared, had directed that it should
+be 'Vita,' so that his estate might be saved the expense of a diphthong.
+
+Most people know the story of Foote and Lord Stormont, the latter of
+whom had asked the former to dinner, and had placed before him wine
+served in the smallest of decanters and dispensed in the smallest of
+glasses. The peer enlarged upon the growth and age of the liquor;
+whereupon the player, holding up one of the glasses, demurely said, 'It
+is very little of its age!' This recalls an experience of Theodore Hook,
+when invited to dine with an unnamed nobleman, at the Star and Garter,
+Richmond. There were four of the party, and when covers were removed it
+was found that the fare consisted of four loin chops, four mealy
+potatoes, and a pint of sherry. These things despatched, the peer asked
+Hook for a song, and the wit responded with, of all things in the world,
+the National Anthem, which he gave correctly until, arriving at the line
+'Happy and glorious,' he added--as if under the influence of drink--'A
+pint between four of us--God save the King!' A different form of
+stinginess, it would seem, was shown by Brigham Young, when (if we may
+believe the tale) he gave as a reason for marrying a certain male-garbed
+lady-doctor, that he would be able to have her clothes 'made down' for
+his boys.
+
+The mean host has always been a special target for the scorn of his
+fellows. It was a Greek satirist who related how
+
+  'A miser in his chamber saw a mouse,
+  And cry'd, dismay'd, "What dost thou in my house?"
+  She, with a laugh, "Good landlord, have no fear,
+  'Tis not for board, but lodging, I came here."'
+
+And since then the flood of banter has rolled on. Herrick complains of
+an unknown person that he invited him home to eat, and showed him there
+much plate but little meat. Garrick (who had evidently again forgotten
+the mote and the beam) wrote of a certain nobleman who had built a big
+mansion:
+
+  'A little house would best accord
+  With you, my very little lord!
+  And then exactly matched would be
+  Your house and hospitality!'
+
+Much in the same way, Richard Graves wrote of the master of a house
+which was well kept but not open to company:
+
+  'If one may judge by rooms so neat,
+  It costs you more in mops than meat!'
+
+Note, again, Egerton Warburton's versification of a remark attributed to
+Lord Alvanley. A gentleman had drawn attention to the fact that his
+house was furnished _a la_ Louis Quatorze:
+
+  '"Then I wish," said a guest, "when you ask us to eat,
+  You would furnish your board _a la_ Louis Dixhuit.
+  The eye, can it feast when the stomach is starving?
+  Pray less of your gilding and more of your carving."'
+
+John Headley, describing dinner at one Lady Anne's, tells us that
+
+  'A silver service loads the board,
+  Of eatables a slender hoard;'
+
+and the sarcasm reminds one of the address with which Theodore Hook once
+bore himself under somewhat similar circumstances. Invited to dine with
+an old lady, he was horrified when the servant, lifting the cover,
+displayed a couple of chops. 'Mr. Hook,' said the hostess, 'you see your
+dinner.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' observed Hook; 'but where's yours?'
+
+The niggardliness which displays itself in smaller subscriptions to
+public or private objects than the donor's means will justify has
+naturally met with keen reproach. Herrick has a quatrain directed
+against the failing; and everyone remembers the lines about the man who
+declared that at the sound of woe his hand was always open:
+
+  'Your hand is open, to be sure,
+    But there is nothing in it.'
+
+Perhaps the happiest satire on meanness of this sort is contained in the
+anonymous couplet 'On Close-fist's Subscription':
+
+  'The charity of Close-fist, give to fame:
+  He has at last subscribed--how much?--his name.'
+
+
+
+
+DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+A leading Review lately contained a contribution entitled 'The Old
+School of Classics and the New.' It was, as regards its literary form, a
+'Dialogue of the Dead'--a discussion supposed to take place between the
+famous scholars Bentley and Madvig, with a brief intervention on the
+part of Euripides and Shakespeare. It was written with much smartness,
+and one could wish that such lucubrations were more common nowadays than
+they are. Not that they are by any means rare. It was only the other day
+that Mr. Marion Crawford published a work which had the conventional
+shape of fiction, but which was really little more than a series of
+colloquies in which some famous men of the past took part, talking
+throughout with a characteristic flavour which did the author
+considerable credit. Dialogues of the dead, pure and simple, have also
+been written of recent years by Mr. H. D. Traill, some of the best of
+whose efforts were republished in a volume called 'The New Lucian.'
+
+In the less immediate past, dialogue-writing after the fashion of the
+witty and audacious Syrian was not very frequently adventured. Just
+twenty years ago some writer or writers supplied to a weekly miscellany
+a few imaginative conversations between deceased worthies; but these
+were not particularly brilliant. They were in verse--in the heroic
+couplet, to which a good deal of point might have been imparted; but
+advantage was not taken of the opportunity. There was one 'dialogue' in
+which Shakespeare, Thackeray, and a critic were supposed to be engaged,
+and in the course of which Thackeray was made to say to the critic:
+
+  'Don't crack your jokes, but flit.'
+
+To which the critic:
+
+  'Your pardon, sir; I took you for a wit.'
+
+To which Thackeray again:
+
+  'Did you, indeed? Then, compliments to pass,
+  I took you just for what you are--an ass.'
+
+But this, which one hesitates to pronounce Thackerayan, was surely even
+trite. However, these dialogues at least remind us of what English
+society was saying and doing in the year of grace 1868. Thus, Thackeray
+tells Shakespeare that his dramas are played but scarcely acted:
+
+                    'For I won't deny
+  That people now are tickled through the eye.
+  No one to thought a deep attention lends,
+  And if a play's successful it depends
+  Far less upon the language than the scene.'
+
+Again, in another colloquy, Meyerbeer informs Mozart that
+
+  'The "Traviata" and the "Trovatore"
+  Of "Il Barbiere" have eclipsed the glory.
+  As Margarita Patti fills the stage,
+  And Marta sung by Nilsson is the rage.'
+
+
+He who dips into _Colburn's New Monthly_ for the year 1822 or
+thereabouts will be rewarded (or otherwise) by coming across a
+'Dialogue of the Dead' in prose, and there may be other such fugitive
+lucubrations. But so far as the English literature of the past is
+concerned, 'dialogues of the dead' were written by only two persons
+worthy of celebration--Walter Savage Landor and George, Lord Lyttelton,
+the author of 'Letters from a Persian in England to his friend in
+Ispahan.' Landor's 'Imaginary Conversations' are among those numerous
+works which everybody is supposed to have read, and, having read them,
+to admire. And unfortunate indeed would be he who could not recognise
+and appreciate the varied beauty and charm of these prose masterpieces.
+Here Menelaus and Helen, AEsop and Rhodope, Tiberius and Vipsania,
+Leofric and Godiva, Roger Ascham and Jane Grey, and a hundred other
+heroes and heroines of the past, converse not only with dramatic
+appropriateness, but with rhetorical force--with amplitude of thought
+and spontaneity of image. By the side of such a wonderful flower-show
+(as one of our poets said of a selection from a brother poet's lyrics),
+Lyttelton's trim parterre shows, no doubt, but dimly; nevertheless, to
+that accomplished nobleman there is due something more than the small
+credit of having been Landor's predecessor in this form of English
+composition. Of that form Lyttelton says, in the preface to his
+'Dialogues,' that
+
+     'It sets before us the history of all times and all nations,
+     presents to the choice of a writer all characters of remarkable
+     persons which may be best opposed to, or compared with, each other;
+     and is, perhaps, one of the most agreeable methods that can be
+     employed of conveying to the mind any critical, moral, or political
+     observations.'
+
+
+Lyttelton brings together in his work such people as Plato and Fenelon,
+Lucian and Rabelais, Addison and Swift, Boileau and Pope; and, if he
+scarcely has the power to make these masters talk as we know they wrote,
+still he puts into their mouths much which it might be worth the while
+of the modern reader to assimilate.
+
+Early in the eighteenth century there appeared a little _brochure_
+called 'English Lucian,' but it proved to be nothing more edifying than
+a few 'modern dialogues' between a vintner and his wife, between 'a
+reformer of manners,' his wife and a captain of the guards, and between
+a Master of Arts and 'a lady's woman.' Of the humorous satire of Lucian
+himself there was no jot or tittle.
+
+The works of Lucian have, in various ways, found many translators in
+England--notably Dr. Thomas Francklin, who prefaced his version with a
+dialogue (in prose) in which Lucian and Lyttelton, after an exchange of
+compliments, proceed to discuss the writings of the former at some
+length and with much dulness. Dulness is certainly not the
+characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian
+which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century
+under the title of 'Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.' 'We
+bring you here,' said Cotton, 'a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of
+Greece'--'a piece of raillery writ,' as he went on to say, 'when
+Paganism was in fashion':
+
+  'Wherein his meaning further is
+  To take away th' authorities
+  Of lies and fables, which did pigeon
+  The rabble into false religion.'
+
+Herein the mission and the achievement of Lucian--first and greatest of
+the writers of 'Dialogues of the Dead'--are not inaptly stated.
+Fontenelle and Fenelon both derived inspiration for their 'Dialogues'
+from the brilliant pages of the Syrian, and within recent years his
+abounding merits have been sung in eloquent prose by Mr. Froude. There
+is yet room, however, for someone who shall prove himself the 'new
+Lucian' indeed, by writing dialogues in which the illustrious dead shall
+be made to express themselves (as they have not yet been made to do in
+English colloquy) with superlative sarcasm and inimitable scorn.
+
+
+
+
+SERMONS IN FLOWERS.
+
+
+Every year a 'flower-sermon' is preached in London, in accordance with
+an admirable custom; and the orator, we may be sure, has no difficulty
+in 'improving the occasion.' The materials lie rich and ready to his
+hand. The Laureate, indeed, has asked to what uses we shall put the
+wildweed flower which simply blows, and has inquired further if there be
+any moral shut within the bosom of the rose. He was answered long ago by
+Horace Smith:
+
+  'Your voiceless lips, O Flowers! are living preachers,
+      Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book;'
+
+and a living poetess has assured us, likewise, that flowers will preach
+to us if we will hear, the rose telling us that all her loveliness is
+born upon a thorn, and the poppy urging that, though her scarlet head
+is held in scorn,
+
+  'Yet juice of subtle virtues lies
+  Within my cup of curious dyes.'
+
+
+There is one lesson which the flowers have been made to teach with
+rather wearisome iteration. The poets have never been tired of dwelling
+upon their brief existence and seeing in it a reflection of our own.
+This rather trite melody has been sounded from the earliest to the
+latest times. Drummond of Hawthornden draws attention to the flower
+'which lingeringly doth fade,' and sees in it a type of his own life,
+which 'scarce shows now what it hath been.' Herrick, apostrophizing
+blossoms, deduces from them the fact that all things have their end,
+though ne'er so brave. 'Fade, flowers, fade!' cries Waller; ''Tis but
+what we must in our autumn do.' And so Dryden:
+
+  'The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time...
+  Such is your blooming youth, and withering so.'
+
+'Youth's withered flowers' made John Clare sigh to think that in him
+they would never bloom again.
+
+But this, which may be said to be the orthodox teaching of the flowers,
+has found many influential questioners, who have dwelt upon the brighter
+side of the contention. And it is pleasant to listen to their more
+cheerful voices. 'Not an opening blossom breathes in vain,' wrote
+Thomson; and the sentiment is heartily corroborated by Mr. Lowell:
+
+  'There never yet was flower fair in vain;
+  Let classic poets rhyme it as they will.'
+
+If the flowers have a short career, they make no complaint of it, says
+Landor:
+
+  'Fast fall the leaves; this never says
+  To that, "Alas! how brief our days!"
+  All have alike enjoyed the sun,
+  And each repeats, "So much is won."'
+
+They enjoy life, and they help to make it enjoyable for others.
+
+  'Gay without toil and lovely without art,
+  They spring to clear the sense and glad the heart.'
+
+So Mrs. Barbauld; while Mrs. Howitt similarly proclaims it to be their
+business as well as pleasure to minister delight to man, to beautify the
+earth.
+
+The present Lord Lytton has remarked of flowers that their scent
+outlives their bloom, and has expressed the aspiration that, in like
+manner, his mortal hours may 'grow sweeter towards the tomb.' But the
+main point made by the more optimistic observers of Nature is that,
+though blossoms fade, they revive again, in equal beauty, by-and-by. 'Ye
+are to me,' wrote Horace Smith, 'a type of resurrection and second
+birth.' To W. C. Bryant the delicate flower, arising from the shapeless
+mould, seemed
+
+  'An emanation of the indwelling Life,
+  A visible token of the upholding Love,
+  That are the soul of this wide universe.'
+
+Mrs. Hemans--a little unnecessarily, perhaps--dwells upon the fact that
+though the flowers sleep in dust through the wintry hours, they break
+forth in glory in the spring. For Longfellow, as for Horace Smith, they
+are 'emblems of our own great resurrection.' George Morine, in verses
+little known, reminds us that while cities fall away, and arts flourish
+and decay, these 'frailer things' will continue to adorn the world
+'unchangingly the same.' Though covered for a time by 'the wee white
+fairies of the snow,' they come back, says Gerald Massey, 'with their
+fragrant news,' and tell in a thousand hues their dream of beauty. For
+their annual disappearance from our midst, Thomas Westwood gives a
+poetical explanation:
+
+  'Wearied out with shine and shade,
+  It rejoiced them, one and all,
+  To escape from daylight's ken
+  To their chambers subterrain,
+  There to rest awhile, and then
+  Weave them fresh, and weave them fair,
+  And their fragrant spells prepare.'
+
+Alas! there are those who must needs draw a melancholy moral from the
+most consolatory phenomena. And so Charlotte Smith, while admitting that
+
+  'Another May new buds and flowers shall bring,'
+
+must needs exclaim,
+
+  'Ah! why has happiness no second Spring?'
+
+And the dismal reflection finds an echo in the heart of D. M. Moir:
+
+  'Green Spring again shall bid
+    Your boughs with bloom be crown'd;
+        But alas! to Man,
+        In earth's brief span,
+    No second Spring comes round!'
+
+
+The truth is, the imagination derives from Nature precisely what the
+former's capacity and quality admit of. As the Laureate said, years ago,
+any man may find in bud, or blade, or bloom, a meaning suited to his
+mind. Spenser, pondering on the rose and its thorns, and other such
+floral combinations, was led to remark that
+
+  'Every sweet with sour is tempered still.'
+
+Equally impressed was he by the bounteous ease with which Nature
+scatters flowers all over the world. In Barry Cornwall's view, this
+facile profusion is Earth's expression of gratitude for the effulgence
+of the Sun:
+
+  'When on earth he smileth, she bursts forth
+  In beauty like a bride, and gives him back,
+  In sweet repayment for his warm bright love,
+  A world of flowers.'
+
+Beddoes had a quaint and curious fancy that 'when the dead awake or talk
+in sleep' the flowers 'hear their thoughts, and write them on their
+leaves, for heaven to look on.' Campbell seems to have loved flowers
+most for the associations they called up. 'I dote upon you,' he wrote,
+in an address to them, 'for ye waft me to summers of old;'
+
+  'I love you for lulling me back into dreams
+  Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams.'
+
+And we find another Scotchman, William Anderson, giving utterance to a
+similar expression of feeling.
+
+There is a lesson which the flowers have taught to at least two of our
+poets, which, though it may have sympathizers, will scarcely find many
+practical adherents. It is embodied in a little lyric by Mrs. Webster,
+in which that lady, celebrating the beauty of a solitary blossom,
+describes how it is seen and gathered, and adds, ironically:
+
+  'Why should a flower be fair for its own?
+    Choose it, pluck it to die.'
+
+But the moral has been pointed even more effectively by the Rev. Gerard
+Lewis in some excellent verses. 'A gathered flower,' he says, 'is but a
+fading thing':
+
+  'Let woman's beauty wear the sterling gold,
+    The imperishable gem.
+  They give to her a brightness manifold,
+    She adds a charm to them.
+
+  'But flowers that strew the earth with fragrant grace,
+    As stars the welkin fill,
+  Look loveliest, live the longest, in their place;
+    To pluck them is to kill.'
+
+That is true, and yet the gathering of flowers will go on. And, after
+all, what more can a blossom desire than to 'exist beautifully' and
+exhale its sweetness, whether it lies hidden by the wayside hedge, or
+decks the bosom of a woman as sweet and beautiful as itself?
+
+
+
+
+'DON QUIXOTE' IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+The announcement that Mr. W. G. Wills had completed his dramatic version
+of 'Don Quixote' naturally excited much interest, and no doubt set many
+minds at play upon the general subject of the history of 'Don Quixote'
+in this country. That the renowned romance has appeared in many prose
+translations, from that of Shelton in 1620 to that of Mr. Ormsby only
+two or three years ago, is known to most people. It will be remembered
+that an early English version was prepared by the nephew of Milton; the
+once-famous Peter Motteux made himself responsible for one 'by several
+hands'; that by Jarvis, which dates from the middle of last century, has
+lately been reproduced by Professor Morley; and then there are those by
+Smollett, the novelist, and Mr. A. J. Duffield. There is no lack of
+them, any more than there has been of pictorial illustrations. Shelton's
+translation, revised by Stevens, was republished with 'cuts' by Coypel.
+When Lockhart prefixed his well-known essay to Motteux's version, the
+work was accompanied by etchings by De Los Rios. Jarvis's rendering
+exercised successively the skill of Westall, Cruickshank, Johannot,
+Dore, and Mr. A. B. Houghton; another was illuminated by R. Smirke,
+R.A.; and in later years there have been the drawings contributed by Sir
+John Gilbert and by Kenny Meadows.
+
+So much for the story as it has been read in English and adorned by
+English (and other) artists. But how about Mr. Wills's predecessors? How
+about 'Don Quixote's' previous connection with the English stage? Well,
+it was scarcely to be expected that so popular a tale would never excite
+the attention of the playwright or the musician. Sooner or later,
+everything which has vogue finds its way, somehow, to the boards, and
+it is a little surprising that seventy-four years should have elapsed,
+after the publication of the first English translation, before 'Don
+Quixote' received the distinction of dramatization. Was it, indeed, a
+distinction? There's the rub. The dramatist was Thomas d'Urfey; and what
+could be looked for from that free-speaking worthy? The original is not
+without a certain breadth in certain passages, and what Cervantes made
+broad D'Urfey might be trusted to make broader. That, again, was only
+according to the practice of the day; and if the virtuous Collier
+fulminated against the trilogy which D'Urfey wrought out of the epical
+extravaganza--if some ladies of the time were found to object to the
+coarser humours of Mary the Buxom (a creation on which D'Urfey prided
+himself)--there can be no doubt of the success of the venture. The third
+of the three plays had not, it seems, quite the acceptability of the
+other two, but the author's explanation of its virtual failure--that the
+piece was not adequately presented--was possibly, for once, well
+founded, and the fact that the third play was produced at all speaks
+volumes for the triumphs of its precursors.
+
+A 'Don Quixote'--probably D'Urfey's 'second part'--held the stage, more
+or less firmly, till the eighteenth century was well upon its way; and
+then there suddenly appeared a rival, in the shape of a farce or
+vaudeville by Fielding, entitled 'Don Quixote in England,' and bringing
+both the Don and Sancho upon English soil. The author was well aware of
+his temerity, and, indeed, apologized for it. The piece, he pleaded, was
+
+     'originally writ for his private amusement, as it would, indeed,
+     have been little less than Quixotism itself to hope any other
+     fruits from attempting characters wherein the inimitable Cervantes
+     so far excelled.'
+
+He found it, he says, infinitely more difficult than he imagined to give
+his knight an opportunity of displaying himself in a different manner
+from that wherein he appears in the romance. However, he was induced to
+allow his work to be performed, and then it was seen that he had
+brought the Don and Sancho to an English inn, where the landlord,
+Guzzle, tries in vain to get the former to pay his bill, and whither
+comes one Dorothea Loveland to meet her sweetheart, Fairlove, spending
+the interval between her coming and his arrival in persuading the Don
+that she is a persecuted princess and that her maid Jezebel is Dulcinea.
+Dorothea is promised by her father to one Squire Badger, but the squire
+proves to be a sot, and at the Don's especial request the lady and her
+lover are united. The piece is by no means without humour, and it would
+deserve to live in remembrance if only because it was for 'Don Quixote
+in England' that Fielding wrote the song of 'The Roast Beef of Old
+England,' which consisted of two verses only until Richard Leveridge
+added five more and wrote the music for the whole.
+
+'Don Quixote' has made other appearances on the English boards, but none
+of any very great importance. There was an entertainment written in
+verse, and 'sung at Marybone Gardens,' for which Dr. Arnold wrote the
+music, and in which the Don, Sancho, Nicholas, Teresa, and Maritornes
+figure. There was a pantomime at Covent Garden, 'Harlequin and Quixote;
+or, The Magic Arm,' for which Reeve composed the melodies, and in which
+Harlequin, the son of Inca, carries off Columbine, the daughter of a
+Spanish grandee, to whom Don Quixote is affianced. There was, too, a
+'ballad-farce' called 'Don Quixote in Barcelona; or, The Beautiful
+Moor,' which, however, was never represented; and there were at least
+two other efforts of the kind, an 'opera-comedy' and a 'farce-comedy,'
+which had the illustrious Sancho for their hero, portraying him in the
+character of 'the mock Governor' of Barataria.
+
+It was, no doubt, inevitable that 'Don Quixote,' having been translated
+into English prose, should make its appearance also in English verse.
+And so it did--early in the eighteenth century--in the form of 'The
+Life and Notable Adventures of that Renown'd Knight, Don Quixote de la
+Mancha, Merrily translated into Hudibrastick Verse.' Mr. Edward Ward was
+the perpetrator of this work, in which various episodes of the original
+were reproduced with a vulgarity, not to say a coarseness, not unworthy
+of the great D'Urfey himself. The bard was tolerable enough in such
+passages as this, descriptive of the knight's appearance:
+
+  'The Don himself that rul'd the Roast
+  (Whose Fame we are about to Boast),
+  Did by his solid Looks appear
+  Not much behind his Fiftieth year.
+  In Stature he was Lean and Tall,
+  Big Bon'd, and very Strong withall;
+  Sound Wind and Limb, of healthful Body,
+  Fresh of Complection, somewhat Ruddy;
+  Built for a Champion ev'ry way,
+  But turn'd with Age a little Grey.'
+
+But, as a whole, 'Don Quixote,' as rendered into rhyme by Mr. Ward,
+cannot be recommended for general perusal.
+
+There is, however, a 'Quixote' literature apart from 'Don Quixote'
+itself. The great romance suggested more than one English counterpart,
+such as 'The Spiritual Quixote,' by Richard Graves, and 'The Female
+Quixote,' by Mrs. Lennox. The latter, published in the middle of last
+century, was devoted to the adventures of one Arabella. Of her we read
+that, supposing the fictions of the Scuderi school to be 'real pictures
+of life,' 'from them she drew all her notions and expectations.' She
+became, in fact, quite a monomaniac upon the subject, and, as a sample,
+is for ever expecting that her lover, Glanville, will speak and act like
+the heroes of her favourite tales. In the end she throws herself into a
+river, gets brain-fever, and is brought back to sanity by a benevolent
+divine. Then there is 'The Amiable Quixote; or, The Enthusiasm of
+Friendship,' a novel issued later in the century, and having for central
+figure a young gentleman named Bruce, who
+
+     'found in the slightest acquaintance some virtue or some
+     recommendation. As soon as the enthusiasm of friendship was
+     excited, it overwhelmed his discretion and clouded his
+     perspicacity.'
+
+But this work owed very little to 'Don Quixote'--not more than did
+'Tarrataria; or, Don Quixote the Second,' a romantic poetical medley in
+two cantos, which appeared in the interval between the two stories just
+noticed. Early in this century there was issued, for a short space, a
+literary miscellany, called _The Knight Errant_, edited by 'Sir Hercules
+Quixote, K.E.,' who, said the prospectus,
+
+     'following the example of his illustrious namesake and ancestor of
+     La Mancha, has, with the assistance of his friends, commenced an
+     era of Civil Knight Errantry, and zealously devoted himself to the
+     comforting of distressed Damsels and disconsolate Widows, the
+     fathering of wronged and destitute Orphans, the promotion of Virtue
+     and chivalrous feeling generally'--
+
+and so on, and so on. To 'Don Quixote,' in some form or other, there
+will, of course, be literary allusions to the end of time.
+
+
+
+
+BEDSIDE BOOKS.
+
+
+To begin with, ought there to be any such things? Ought we to accustom
+ourselves to having books by our bedside? Ought not 'early to bed and
+early to rise' to be the motto of every well-conducted person, and is
+not reading in bed calculated to render the carrying out of that axiom
+virtually impossible? This is the problem we have first to solve, and it
+may be said at once that this discourse does not apply _virginibus
+puerisque_. Girls and boys, young men and young women, are hereby
+solemnly exhorted to abjure all nocturnal or matutinal reading of the
+kind suggested. To them all the lines in the copybooks apply
+unreservedly. Nay, even for those of mature years it may be allowed that
+bed is not the proper place for intellectual study. Let the hours for
+reading and for repose be kept rigidly apart, if the reading is to be
+systematic and prolonged. So far, everybody is agreed. To make a habit
+of perusing books in bed is to encourage laziness, and to encourage
+laziness is (we all know) to sap the foundations of the moral nature.
+That way destruction lies.
+
+And I am bound to say that habitual, sustained reading in bed is quite
+as uncomfortable for the human frame as it is dangerous to the human
+character. It cannot be undertaken with entire success. It looks easy to
+do, but it is not. If you are sceptical, try it. You begin swimmingly
+enough. You lie down, say, on your back, settle your head cosily on to
+the pillow, and perhaps, to start with, hold the book before you in both
+hands: For a time all goes well, but not for long. The position of the
+arms becomes fatiguing. You withdraw one from the book and commence
+again. But the utilized arm speedily grows weary, and the chances are
+that you drop the volume and go off to sleep, leaving gas, lamp, or
+candle alight--which is not very safe and not very healthy--nay, is
+positively unhealthy and unsafe. Perchance you try the effect of
+reclining on one side, leaning on one arm, and holding the book by means
+of the other. That, also, is charming for the moment, but has a similar
+tendency to tire very readily. Your elbow--the one on which your weight
+is thrown--soon gives signs of boredom. 'I don't like this at all,' it
+says virtually; and perhaps you turn round and try the other for a
+spell. But in these matters one elbow is very like its brother, and
+before long you are on the look-out for another attitude.
+
+What may be called the last infirmity of the determined reader in bed is
+his final decision to sit up and read in that fashion. Nothing could be
+better--for a certain more or less brief period. At the expiration of a
+few minutes, you realize that you are getting a sort of cramp in the
+knees; moreover, there is a disagreeable strain on your head; you are
+stooping too much, and bending your spine, and altogether making a toil
+of pleasure. The situation, it need hardly be said, is still less
+attractive when the weather is cold, and the effort to keep warm is
+added to the endeavour to read. You have wrapped yourself up, but
+apparently not to much purpose. You are conscious of growing chillier
+and chillier every moment. And, indeed, a very low temperature is
+usually fatal to the cultivation of bedside books. Even if you lie down,
+and almost smother yourself in the clothes, you are bound to obtrude one
+hand out of shelter, or how is the book to be held up? And how quickly
+that hand gets cold--and how often one's two hands have to be alternated
+for the purpose in view--and what a nuisance it is to have to make the
+continual change! One begins to think that, under the circumstances,
+reading is not so pleasant as one fancied, and that sleep (as the poet
+says) is the only certain knot of peace.
+
+One thing is incontrovertible, and that is, that bedside books, if they
+are to be acceptable, must be, in the first place, small in size and,
+therefore, not very weighty. The hand must be asked to hold as little as
+possible. Bed is not the place for heavy tomes; it is the appropriate
+_locale_ of the duodecimo. And yet the type must not be too small, or
+the eyesight will suffer, unless the reader can command plenty of
+illumination--which is not always the case. And the book must be not
+only fairly diminutive, but bound and stitched in such a way as to allow
+the hand to clutch it and hold it with ease. There must be no
+unnecessary extension of the palm and fingers, for it adds so much to
+the fatigue. Unhappily, every volume does not fulfil this requirement,
+and the requisite selection must be made with care. Moreover, the ideal
+bedside book should be not only small, and light, and agreeable to the
+touch, but distinguished by special internal characteristics. Not only
+must the print be legible; the matter it furnishes must be in brief
+instalments. What is wanted is a series of short somethings which the
+mind can readily grasp and as easily retain. Sustained reading is for
+the library or the study; the last thing at night and the first thing in
+the morning, what you desire is simply a number of brevities, at any one
+of which you can glance with the certainty of being interested.
+
+Wherefore, such works as novels must be discouraged in the bedside
+library. There is nothing to be gained by perusing a romance, by bits,
+in such fragments of time as the intending sleeper is inclined or able
+to accord to it. Keep a novel beside you, if you like, to turn to if the
+night should prove an obstinately sleepless one, and to that end let the
+tale be by 'Miss Braddon or Gaboriau'--one which shall really fix your
+imagination fast, and finish, perhaps, by sending you to rest. But for
+ordinary uses let the book which you take up be one of 'Jewels, five
+words long,' or thereabouts! Let it be a volume of short essays--let it
+be, for instance, Bacon's, or the 'Roundabout Papers,' now accessible in
+a handy form. Let it be a volume of brief verse, such as Mr. Gilbert's
+'Bab Ballads,' or Mr. Lang's 'Ballades in Blue China,' or Calverley's
+immortal 'Fly Leaves;' or let it be a collection of more serious
+lyrics--say, Mr. Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury,' or the selections from
+Lord Tennyson and Mr. Matthew Arnold. Or, if you like, let it be a
+treasury of maxims, such as those by Vauvenargues or Chamfort; or a
+series of select passages, such as those from the works of Lord
+Beaconsfield or Heine: or let it be a casquet of choice anecdotes, of
+which happily the supply is large--that incomparable volume of Dean
+Ramsay's, for example, or even the triter production by Mark Lemon.
+There is a whole world from which to choose.
+
+Only, take care that, whatever the literature is, it is not disturbing.
+The mission of the bedside book is to soothe the mind, not irritate it.
+When one lies down after a hard day's work, one's desire is not that the
+brain should be stimulated, but that it should be refreshed. It needs,
+not exercise, but diversion. It wants to be prepared for sleep. And if a
+book will effect that object, while at the same time adding to the stock
+of one's ideas--humorous or sentimental, it does not matter which--that
+volume is to be thanked and cherished. The difficulty of putting down
+one's book and extinguishing the light before the exposition of sleep
+comes upon one, must be left to be dealt with by the individual man. I
+have heard of a popular vocalist who was wont, when he had read
+sufficiently, to extinguish the candle by plumping down upon it whatever
+book he happened to have in his hand. But this is a rough and ready mode
+which cannot be generally recommended--at any rate, not in those cases
+where the book is one's own! Some other means must be discovered. And
+let them be efficacious, for when any element of danger or unhealthiness
+is allowed to attend the use of bedside books, the sooner that use is
+discontinued the better.
+
+
+
+
+THEIR MUCH SPEAKING.
+
+
+The 'dreary drip of dilatory declamation' to which Lord Salisbury, in
+one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of
+exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has
+followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all
+rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the
+question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show,
+and may present the spectacle of 'a steam Irish Party, an electric
+Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.' It is certain that there never was
+so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also
+certain that the complaint of 'much speaking' has before now been
+frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been
+a wordy race, and many a sharp shaft has been aimed at their besetting
+weakness. A last-century satirist once wrote:
+
+  '"Do this," cries one side of St. Stephen's great hall;
+  "Do just the reverse," the minority bawl....
+  And what is the end of this mighty tongue-war?
+  --Nothing's done for the State till the State is done for!'
+
+And, unfortunately, the quality of the talk has often been as poor as
+the quantity was considerable. It was, we believe, a pre-Victorian pen
+which perpetrated this couplet on the House of Commons:
+
+  'To wonder now at Balaam's ass were weak:
+  Is there a night that asses do not speak?'
+
+
+Fun has constantly been made of the typical drawbacks of political
+oratory--of the dull men, of the heavy, of the shallow, of the
+unintelligible, and what not. We have been told how 'a lord of
+senatorial fame' was known at once by his portrait, because the painter
+had so 'play'd his game' that it 'made one even yawn at sight.' It has
+been said of an M.P., that his speeches 'possessed such remarkable
+weight' that it was 'really a trouble to bear them.' Of a third it was
+written that his discourses had some resemblance to an hour-glass,
+because, the longer time they ran, the shallower they grew. Of yet
+another orator we read that his reasoning was really deep, his argument
+profound, 'for deuce a bit could anybody see the ground.' Nor have
+certain historical personages been able to escape the lash. When Admiral
+Vernon was appointed to take charge of the herring fishery, Horace
+Walpole wrote:
+
+  'Long in the Senate had brave Vernon rail'd,
+  And all mankind with bitter tongue assail'd;
+  Sick of his noise, we wearied Heav'n with pray'r
+  In his own element to place the tar.
+  The gods at length have yielded to our wish,
+  And bade him rule o'er Billingsgate and fish.'
+
+From which it will be gathered anew that a somewhat bitter style of
+debate is no novelty in this country--that strong language has been
+heard in the House of Commons _ante Agamemnona_.
+
+Within living memory a member has dared to suggest that certain of his
+opponents had come into the House not wholly sober. Who does not
+remember the epigrams which were based on Pitt's addiction, real or
+supposed, to intoxicating liquors? Porson is said to have composed one
+hundred such 'paper pellets' in one night, as, for example:
+
+  '"Who's up?" inquired Burke of a friend at the door;
+  "Oh, no one," said Paddy, "tho' Pitt's on the floor."'
+
+After this, most other insinuations become almost harmless; and the
+accusation of mere twaddling, such as that which was brought against Mr.
+Urquhart in the following lines, seems, by comparison, trivial:
+
+  'When Palmerston begins to speak,
+    He moves the House--as facts can prove.
+  Let Urquhart rise, with accents weak,
+    The House itself begins to move.'
+
+By the side of twaddling, again, mere rambling grows venial. One of H.
+J. Byron's burlesque heroes says of Cerberus:
+
+  'My dog, who picks up everything one teaches,
+  Has got "three heads," like Mr. Gladstone's speeches.
+  But, as might naturally be expected,
+  His are considerably more connected.'
+
+
+But it is against Parliamentary long-windedness, in particular, that
+most sarcasm, whether in verse or in prose, has been directed. Everybody
+remembers Moore's comparison of the Lord Castlereagh of his time to a
+pump, which up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
+
+  'And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,
+  In one weak, washy, everlasting flood.'
+
+This has always been a stock quotation to use against oratory of the
+'dreary' and 'dilatory' order. Then, Brougham had the good sense to
+recognise his own sins in respect to 'much speaking.' _Punch_ made
+someone ask himself 'if Brougham thinks as much as he talks;' but the
+Lord Chancellor removed the pungency from gibes of that sort by writing
+his own epitaph, in which he declares that
+
+    'My fate a moral teaches,
+  The ark in which my body lies
+    Would not contain one-half my speeches.'
+
+It was asserted of Lord George Bentinck that true sportsmen 'loved his
+prate,' because his speech recalled the 'four-mile course,' his
+arguments the 'feather-weight.' One is reminded, in this connection, of
+the preacher of whom it was observed that he 'so lengthily his subject
+did pursue,' that it was feared 'he had, indeed, eternity in view.' And,
+perhaps, a long discourse is none the more acceptable when it is
+palpable to the hearers that the discourser has committed it to memory,
+and is bound to go on to the bitter end. Possibly this adds to the
+feeling of exasperation. Nevertheless, there are those who must learn
+their speeches by heart, or else not speak at all. As Luttrell contended
+that Lord Dudley had said of himself:
+
+  'In vain my affections the ladies are seeking;
+  If I give up my heart, there's an end to my speaking.'
+
+
+However, it is, perhaps, scarcely fair of laymen to dwell too sternly on
+the joy which so many legislators seem to feel in hearing their own
+voices. Man is a talking animal, and can 'hold forth' outside the Houses
+of Parliament as well as in. And though in the term 'man' we may include
+woman, let us give no countenance to the old calumny, that the fairer
+and weaker is also the more talkative sex. There are some old lines to
+the effect that Nature wisely forbade a beard to grow on woman's chin,
+
+  'For how could she be shaved, whate'er the skill,
+  Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?'
+
+There is also a certain epitaph on an old maid,
+
+  'Who from her cradle talk'd till death,
+  And ne'er before was out of breath,'
+
+and of whom it was opined that in heaven she'd be unblest, because she
+loathed a place of rest. But these flouts and sneers are as cheap as
+they are venerable. Let the ladies take heart. Men have been censured
+for their 'much speaking' at least as frequently as women. Prior
+declared of one Lysander that he ought to possess the art of talk, if he
+did not, for he practised 'full fourteen hours in four-and-twenty.' And
+we owe to a more recent writer this paraphrase of an epigram by
+Macentinus:
+
+  'Black locks hath Gabriel, beard that's white--
+    The reason, sir, is plain:
+  Gabriel works hard from morn till night,
+    More with his jaw than brain.'
+
+It is well that satire should go that way for a change. All the talking
+is not done by women or by Parliament. There is, at times, as much
+chatter in the smoking-room as in the boudoir and the Senate. Tongues,
+as well as beards, 'wag all,' when we are 'merry in hall.'
+
+
+
+
+PEERS AND POETRY.
+
+
+The succession of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren to the barony of De
+Tabley was something more than a change in the _personnel_ of the House
+of Lords; it amounted to a conspicuous addition to the Chamber's
+intellectual power, and especially to the number of its poetic votaries.
+The author of 'Philoctetes' and 'Orestes,' of 'Rehearsals' and
+'Searching the Net,' is no mere versifier. He has felt the influence of
+the old Greek dramatists, and apparently also that of Mr. Swinburne;
+but, for all that, his work has undoubted individuality, as well as
+solid interest.
+
+It must be admitted that the House of Lords does not at this moment
+contain many hereditary peers who are also poets. Lord Tennyson, of
+course, is an ennobled commoner, and the Bishop of Derry (Dr.
+Alexander), who has written so much excellent verse, both in the
+thoughtful and in the imaginative vein, is no longer one of the
+spiritual lords. But there is Lord Lytton, there is Lord Southesk, and
+there is Lord Rosslyn; and by all of these Lord de Tabley will be
+welcomed as a brother in the literary art. What Lord Lytton has done in
+poetry, need scarcely be recapitulated. He would be remembered as 'Owen
+Meredith' if, since his accession to the peerage, he had not made a new
+reputation as the author of 'Fables in Song,' 'Glenaveril,' and other
+performances. As 'Owen Meredith' he was, no doubt, more fresh and
+spontaneous than he has ever been as Lord Lytton; but his poetic work,
+as a whole, is of good quality, and some of it will find its way down
+the stream of time. Equally certain may we be that the 'Jonas Fisher' of
+Lord Southesk, with its unquestionable vigour, both of satire and of
+sentiment, will remain alive, whatever may be the fate of the author's
+'Greenwood's Farewell' and 'Meda Maiden.' Lord Rosslyn, it will be
+remembered, was one of the most successful of the Jubilee Laureates;
+but, even before that, he had made himself esteemed by many trustworthy
+judges as the producer of numerous good sonnets.
+
+''Tis ridiculous,' says Selden, 'for a lord to print verses; 'tis well
+enough to make them to please himself, but to make them public is
+foolish.' He goes on to add that
+
+     'If a man in his private chamber twists his band-strings, or plays
+     with a rush to please himself, 'tis well enough; but if he should
+     go into Fleet Street, and sit upon a stall, and twist a
+     band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street
+     would laugh at him.'
+
+No doubt they would have done so in Selden's time; and much more readily
+would they do so now. But that is scarcely to the point. _Pace_ Master
+Selden, there is nothing ridiculous in a lord printing his verses--if
+they be but good enough for the process. A peer is not necessarily a
+poet, but a poet is none the worse for being a peer. Nay, there are even
+certain kinds of verse in which a peer may, other things being equal,
+be actually expected to excel. There is nothing to prevent his being--as
+Byron was--a poet of passion; there is every reason why, if he have the
+requisite literary capacity, he should shine in the poetry of the
+library, the _salon_, and the boudoir. He has usually the education for
+the first, and the leisure for the other two. He generally has culture,
+he always has breeding, he often has gallantry; and, with these
+endowments, the poetry _par excellence_ of the peerage is well within
+his reach.
+
+Considerable, indeed, would be the loss to English literature if by any
+chance the productions of our noble poets should disappear. Apart from
+Byron, who, of course, stands a head and shoulders above all his
+brethren, there is that Henry, Earl of Surrey, who ranks highest of all
+poets between Chaucer and Spenser, and who did so much to popularize in
+England both blank verse and the sonnet. But for Surrey both those
+accomplishments, since so popular among us, might have been long in
+establishing themselves in English poetry. The other poet-peers of the
+sixteenth century were admittedly not of the first class. Yet
+Buckhurst's share in 'The Mirror for Magistrates' and in the tragedy of
+'Gorboduc' was of undoubted value, both intrinsic and relative; and the
+world of letters would not willingly let die the work, slight as it was,
+of Lord Vaux, the Earls of Essex and Oxford, the Earls of Ancrum and
+Stirling, Lord Brooke, and Francis Bacon, although the great Chancellor
+wrote but one lyric of any moment--the well-known lines upon 'The
+World.' Lord Vaux's 'Of a Contented Mind,' Lord Essex's 'There is None,
+O None but You,' Lord Oxford's 'If Woman could be Fair and yet not
+Fond,' are among the treasures of our verse; while the tragedies of Lord
+Stirling and Lord Brooke, and the sonnets of Lord Ancrum, are at least
+curious and interesting, if they are not substantively great.
+
+And when we come to the noble poets of the Stuart and the early Georgian
+period, we find that the national indebtedness is not less marked. Who
+would be prepared to surrender the spirited effusions of Montrose? And
+is there not much to be said for the outcome, flimsy and over-free as it
+often was, of that mob of noblemen who wrote with ease--including the
+Earls of Roscommon, Dorset, and Rochester, and the Duke of
+Buckinghamshire? Had these writers not at least the virtues of lightness
+and of brightness? Did not Dorset pen the lines, 'To all you ladies now
+on land?' Did not Buckinghamshire produce 'The Election of the
+Laureat'--the prototype of Leigh Hunt's 'Feast of the Poets,' and of a
+still more recent _jeu d'esprit_ by Mr. Robert Buchanan? The great Lord
+Peterborough is even now less remembered for his military triumphs than
+for his 'Song by a Person of Quality;' while Chesterfield, if thought of
+most frequently in connection with his letters and his essays, still
+lives in poetry as the author of some admirable society verses. Horace
+Walpole claims mention in the list as Earl of Orford, and room must
+fairly be made, too, for Lords Lansdowne, Halifax, Nugent, Lyttelton,
+Egremont, and De la Warre, most of whom left behind them a few fugitive
+pieces which deserve to be embalmed in poetical collections.
+
+The annals of nineteenth-century song will commemorate, besides Byron,
+those agreeable versifiers--Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne, and Lord
+Winchilsea, and those cultured translators--Lord Strangford, Lord
+Ellesmere, and Lord Derby. It would scarcely be fair to include among
+noble poets Lord Macaulay, Lord Houghton, or the first Lord Lytton, for
+they, like Lord Tennyson, were created peers, and won their
+laurel-wreaths in the character of commoners. In the same way, I have
+taken no account of the poetical peeresses, or I should have had to
+dwell upon the achievements of such ladies as Sidney's sister, Lady
+Pembroke; the Duchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Winchilsea, the
+Baroness Nairne, and so on. Enough, indeed, has been said to show how
+prominent a part the peerage has played in the history of English
+poetry--not, indeed, in the front rank, in which (omitting Lord
+Tennyson) it is represented only by Byron, but in the second, where
+Montrose (for example) is eminent, and wherever, in short, the
+rhetorical, the amatory, and the witty elements are in the ascendant.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRAISE OF THAMES.
+
+
+Afluent versifier of to-day has complained that, though many a poet has
+'dearer made the names' of Tweed and Nith and Doon, and what not, no one
+has 'sung our Thames;' and he goes on especially to rate 'green Kent and
+Oxfordshire and Middlesex,' because those counties have offered, he
+says, no rhythmical tribute to our premier stream. Now, the Thames has
+not, perhaps, found many laureates of late. The glories of Henley may be
+celebrated annually in the comic or 'society' press, but in these times
+we hear more, no doubt, of sewage and steam-launches than of any other
+phenomena of the Thames. We are a practical generation, with a keen eye
+to business, and disposed to take not only as read, but as written, the
+praises which might well be bestowed upon the river even as it is.
+
+If, however, the Thames does not often or greatly inspire the rhymers of
+to-day, it cannot, certainly, be described as songless. On the contrary,
+it has received from the poets more magnificent and more frequent
+eulogium than any of its compeers. If one goes back even so far as
+Spenser, one finds that writer picturing it in one poem as 'noble
+Thamis'--a 'lovely bridegroom,' 'full, fresh and jolly,' 'all decked in
+a robe of watchet hew,' and adorned by a coronet 'in which were many
+towres and castels set;' while, in another work from the same hand, it
+figures as a 'gentle river,' is characterized as 'christall Thamis,' and
+is lauded for its 'pure streames' and 'sweete waters.' Chapman, in his
+'Ovid's Banquet of Sense,' discourses eloquently of the 'wanton Thamysis
+that hastes to greet The brackish coast of old Oceanus':
+
+  'And as by London's bosom she doth fleet,
+    Casts herself proudly through the bridge's twists,
+  Where, as she takes again her crystal feet,
+    She curls her silver hair like amourists,
+  Smooths her bright cheeks, adorns her brow with ships,
+  And, empress-like, along the coast she trips'--
+
+a description almost as impressive as the thing described. Among the
+lovers of the Thames must be ranked, too, Herrick, who, in one of his
+pieces, sends to his 'silver-footed Thamasis' his 'supremest kiss.' 'No
+more,' he regrets, will he 'reiterate' its strand, whereon so many
+stately structures stand; no more, in the summer's sweeter evenings,
+will he go to bathe in it, as thousand others do:
+
+  'No more shall I along thy christall glide,
+  The barge with boughes and rushes beautifi'd....
+  To Richmond, Kingstone, and to Hampton Court.
+  Never againe shall I with finnie ore
+  Cut from or draw unto the faithfull shore,
+  And landing here, or safely landing there,
+  Make way to my beloved Westminster.'
+
+
+Milton, in his 'Vacation Exercise,' bestows upon the Thames the epithet
+of 'Royal-towered.' How Denham celebrated it is well known to most. In
+his view it was 'the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,' and he
+commended it especially for its freedom from sudden and impetuous wave,
+from the unexpected inundations which spoil the mower's hopes and mock
+the ploughman's toil.
+
+  'Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
+  Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full'--
+
+such was the famous panegyric he passed upon it. From Denham, too, came
+an early poetical recognition of the growth of London's commerce. The
+Thames, he says, brings home to us, and makes the Indies ours; his fair
+bosom is the world's exchange. To Pope, in his 'Windsor Forest,' the
+Thames appears as the 'great father of the British floods,' on whose
+shores figure future navies.
+
+  'No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
+  No lakes so gentle, and no spring so clear.'
+
+And the poet ends by prophesying the time when 'unbounded Thames shall
+flow for all mankind,' whole nations entering with each swelling tide.
+Elsewhere he assures us that 'blest Thames's shores the brightest
+beauties yield.' Thomson, again, dwells on the extent of the trade
+fostered by the river. Commerce, he says, has chosen for his grand
+resort 'Thy stream, O Thames, large, gentle, deep, majestic, King of
+floods!' And he describes how, on either hand,
+
+  'Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts
+  Shot up their spires.'
+
+Then, as now, 'the sooty hulk steered sluggish on,' while
+
+                  'The splendid barge
+  Row'd, regular, to harmony; around,
+  The boat, light-skimming, stretched its oary wings.'
+
+
+Up to this time, the river had been called 'clear' and 'crystal,' in
+spite of 'sooty hulks;' but, with the advent of Cowper, another note is
+struck. With him the Thames is
+
+        'The finest stream
+  That wavers to the noon-day beam,'
+
+but it is not, alas! absolutely pure:
+
+  'Nor yet, my Delia, to the main
+  Runs the sweet tide without a stain,
+    Unsullied as it seems;
+  The nymphs of many a sable flood
+  Deform with streaks of oozy mud
+    The bosom of the Thames.'
+
+Happily, this is about the only word of depreciation which the poets
+have permitted themselves. Wordsworth, standing on Westminster Bridge in
+1803, notes that 'the river glideth at its own sweet will,' and if his
+olfactory nerves were at all distressed he has not said so in verse. Of
+later singers, none has been more enthusiastic about the Thames than
+Eliza Cook, who has told us that, though it bears no azure wave and
+rejoices in no leaping cascades, yet she ever loved to dwell where she
+heard its gushing swell--in which expression, we may be sure, there is
+no allusion to the British 'dude.' Another lady--Mrs. Isa Craig
+Knox--has supplied a very pretty description of the Thames in its more
+idyllic phases, pointing out how
+
+                        'It glimmers
+    Through the stems of the beeches;
+  Through the screen of the willows it shimmers
+    In long-winding reaches;
+  Flowing so softly that scarcely
+    It seems to be flowing;
+  But the reeds of the low little island
+    Are bent to its going;
+  And soft as the breath of a sleeper
+    Its heaving and sighing,
+  In the coves where the fleets of the lilies
+    At anchor are lying.'
+
+Finally, there is that austere teacher, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, who,
+addressing the Thames, exhorts it to go on soothing,
+
+  'With murmur low and ceaseless cheer,
+  The Imperial City's agitated ear,'
+
+but beseeches it also to add a warning voice, telling her, to whom the
+pomp of gold is dear, of 'Tyre that fell, of Fortune's perfidy.'
+
+Other poetic celebrations--such as those of Mr. Ernest Myers, Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, and 'C. C. R.'--might be recorded; but the above will
+suffice to show how prominent a place the Thames has always held in the
+heart and mind of those poets who have come within the sphere of its
+influence. Even if it were never made the subject of a future song, it
+would still figure largely and conspicuously in the British _corpus
+poetarum_.
+
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS.
+
+
+The student of English poetry must often have been struck by its
+richness in that form of verse which may best be called the
+Epigraph--the brief sententious effort, answering somewhat to the
+epigram as understood and practised by the Greeks, but unlike the Latin,
+French, and English epigram in being sentimental instead of witty, and
+aiming rather at all-round neatness than at pungency or point. Our
+language abounds, of course, in examples of short lyrical compositions,
+such (to name familiar instances) as Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Lay a
+garland on my hearse,' Congreve's 'False though she be to me and love,'
+Goldsmith's 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,' Shelley's 'Music, when
+soft voices die,' and MacDonald's 'Alas, how easily things go
+wrong!'--all of these being only eight lines long. There are, indeed,
+plenty of lyrical performances even more brief than this; such as Mr.
+Marzials' 'tragedy' in quatrain:
+
+  'She reach'd a rosebud from the tree,
+    And bit the tip and threw it by;
+  My little rose, for you and me
+    The worst is over when we die!'
+
+But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of
+reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as
+much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph;
+another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it
+for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance.
+
+The thoroughly successful epitaphs--at once short, and wholly poetical
+in expression--are among the most famous and popular things in
+literature. Who does not remember the admirable tribute to 'Sidney's
+sister, Pembroke's mother'--usually ascribed to Ben Jonson, but
+sometimes attributed to Browne? Jonson penned an epitaph on 'Elizabeth
+L. H.,' which would have been exquisite had it consisted only of the
+following:
+
+  'Underneath this stone doth lie
+  As much beauty as could die;
+  Which, in life, did harbour give
+  To more virtue than doth live.'
+
+Even as they stand, the lines, as a whole, may fairly compare with those
+on Lady Pembroke. How happy Pope was in his epitaphs is familiarly
+known. The art was just that in which he might naturally be expected to
+excel. The time-honoured couplet on Newton need not be quoted: the
+'octave' on Sir Godfrey Kneller is most notable for the final bit of
+hyperbole:
+
+  'Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
+  Her works, and, dying, fears herself may die.'
+
+And, talking of epitaphs, one is reminded of the quaint comment by Sir
+Henry Wotton 'On the Death of Sir A. Morton's Wife':
+
+  'He first deceased; she, for a little, tried
+  To live without him, liked it not, and died'--
+
+surely a piece of work as nearly as possible perfect in its way. In the
+matter of inscriptions, we have, of course, that by Ben Jonson on
+Shakespeare's portrait, and that by Dryden under Milton's picture--the
+last-named being by no means deserving of its reputation. We have also
+the well-known lines by Pope, 'written on glass with Lord Chesterfield's
+diamond pencil;' the equally well-known sentence on Rogers by Lord
+Holland; and the less-hackneyed and even more flattering couplet
+composed by Lord Lyttelton for Lady Suffolk's bust (erected in a wood at
+Stowe):
+
+  'Her wit and beauty for a Court were made,
+  But truth and goodness fit her for a shade.'
+
+
+The writers of verse have naturally shone in such concentrated
+testimonies to the merits of those whom they delighted to honour. Our
+literature is full of eloquent and graceful summaries of individual
+gifts and acquirements, apart altogether from the ordinary inscription
+or epitaph. Pope celebrated Lady Wortley Montagu's beauty in a couple of
+lines too frequently cited to need reproduction. Less often quoted is
+David Graham's concise but sufficient criticism on Richardson's
+'Clarissa':
+
+  'This work is Nature's; every tittle in't
+  She wrote, and gave it Richardson to print.'
+
+James Montgomery, in a well-turned quatrain, said of Burns that he
+'pass'd through life ... a brilliant trembling northern light,' but that
+'thro' years to come' he would shine from far 'a fix'd unsetting polar
+star.' It will be remembered that, in another quatrain, Lord Erskine
+besought his contemporaries to 'mourn not for Anacreon dead,' for they
+rejoiced in the possession of 'an Anacreon Moore.' James Smith wrote of
+Miss Edgeworth that her work could never be anonymous--'Thy writings ...
+must bring forth the name of their author to light.' And so on, and so
+on: the poetry of compliment presents many such conceits.
+
+A treatise, indeed, might be written on the epigraphs in which poets
+have praised their lady-loves or their friends--from Herrick's Julia to,
+say, Tennyson's General Gordon. Rather, however, let us turn to what the
+bards have been at pains to say about themselves, recalling, for
+example, Herrick's 'Jocund his Muse was, but his Life was chaste,' and
+Matthew Prior's triplet 'On Himself.' Colman the Younger wrote:
+
+  'My muse and I, ere youth and spirits fled,
+    Sat up together many a night, no doubt;
+  But now I've sent the poor old lass to bed,
+    Simply because my fire is going out.'
+
+But how inferior is this, both in feeling and in expression, to the
+dignified epigraph in which Landor celebrated the seventy-fifth
+anniversary of his birthday:
+
+  'I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
+    Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art;
+  I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
+    It sinks, and I am ready to depart.'
+
+
+In the couplet and quatrain of pure sentiment and reflection, some of
+the most delightful of our poetry is embodied. Herrick was conspicuously
+fond of this species of verse, and his works abound in gems of style and
+fancy, the difficulty being, not to find them, but to select from them.
+The beauty of one is apt to be rivalled by that of its neighbour. Thus
+we find on one page:
+
+  'When words we want, Love teaches to indite;
+  And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.'
+
+And on another:
+
+  'Love's of itself too sweet; the best of all
+  Is when love's honey has a dash of gall.'
+
+Then there is Lord Lyttelton's distich about 'Love can hope when reason
+would despair;' there are Aaron Hill's famous lines on 'modest ease in
+beauty,' which, though it 'means no mischief, does it all.' There are
+Sir William Jones's 'To an Infant Newly Born;' Wolcot's 'To Sleep;'
+Luttrell's 'On Death;' and many, many others.
+
+Of nineteenth-century writers, the most admirable composer of the
+epigraph has been Landor, who in this, as in some other respects, may be
+placed in the same category with Herrick. What, for instance, could be
+prettier than this?
+
+  'Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,
+    Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever;
+  From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass
+    Like little ripples in a sunny river.'
+
+How well-phrased, again, is this:
+
+  'Various the roads of life; in one
+    All terminate, one lonely way.
+  We go; and "Is he gone?"
+    Is all our best friends say.'
+
+
+Among living authors, Mr. Aubrey de Vere can lay claim to a quatrain
+which is entirely faultless:
+
+  'For me no roseate garlands twine,
+    But wear them, dearest, in my stead;
+  Time has a whiter hand than thine,
+    And lays it on my head.'
+
+To this, Sir Henry Taylor wrote a pendant scarcely less fortunate in
+idea and wording. Lord Tennyson has in his day written several epitaphs,
+inscriptions, and other trifles; but none of them have quite the
+perfection which might have been looked for from so great a master of
+poetic form. Mr. Matthew Arnold produced, with others, this excellent
+epigraph:
+
+  'Though the Muse be gone away,
+  Though she move not earth to-day,
+  Souls erewhile who caught her word,
+  Ah! still harp on what they heard.'
+
+
+Finally, the reader may be recommended to glance at Mr. William
+Allingham's little book of 'Blackberries,' in which they will find a
+large number of such 'snatches of song,' many of them fresh in
+conception and finished in execution.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE 'SEASON' IN SONG.
+
+
+'To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,' and the Season, when
+'dead,' yet speaks to many through the mouths of the men who have given
+it perennial life in verse. Its first laureate, one may say, was
+Mackworth Praed, whose 'Good-night' to it still remains the most
+brilliant epitome of its characteristics ever written. Nothing was
+omitted from that remarkable series of coruscating epigrams. From
+
+  'The breaches and battles and blunders
+    Performed by the Commons and Peers,'
+
+we are taken to 'the pleasures which fashion makes duties'--'the dances,
+the fillings of hot little rooms,' 'the female diplomatists, planners of
+matches for Laura and Jane,' 'the rages, led off by the chiefs of the
+throng,' the ballet, the bazaar, the horticultural fete, and what not.
+Of later years the Season, as a whole, has been celebrated only by Mr.
+Alfred Austin, who published, more than a quarter of a century ago, a
+satire which was indeed formidable in its tone. Mr. Austin was severe
+about everybody--about the
+
+    'Unmarketable maidens of the mart,
+  Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint,
+  And hide their sins in piety and paint;'
+
+about the Gardens, where
+
+                      'The leafy glade
+  Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed;'
+
+about the ballrooms, where
+
+  'Panting damsels, dancing for their lives,
+  Are only maidens waltzing into wives;'
+
+about the theatre, where
+
+  'Toole or Compton, perfect in his part,
+  Touches each sense, except the head and heart;'
+
+and about a number of other things too censurable to be mentioned here.
+
+And, in truth, when one thinks of the Season in song, one thinks less of
+the satire than of the sarcasm, less of the cynicism than of the
+sympathy, with which it has been treated by its poets. Take, for
+example, that most conspicuous feature of the Season--the walking,
+riding, driving in the Row. It was Tickell who made a woman of fashion
+of his day tell how she
+
+  'Mounted her palfrey as gay as a lark,
+  And, followed by John, took the dust in Hyde Park,'
+
+and how
+
+  'On the way she was met by some smart Macaroni,
+  Who rode by her side on a little bay pony.'
+
+In our own time the glories and the humours of the Row have been
+described with geniality by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Ashby-Sterry,
+with point by Mr. Austin Dobson, and with smartness by H. S. Leigh. Says
+Mr. Locker:
+
+  'Forsooth, and on a livelier spot
+    The sunbeam never shines;
+  Fair ladies here can talk and trot
+    With statesmen and divines.
+
+  'What grooms! what gallant gentlemen!
+    What well-appointed hacks!
+  What glory in their pace, and then,
+    What beauty on their backs!'
+
+Mr. Dobson, in a different mood, assures his Roman prototype that the
+world to-day is very much what it was in the time of 'Q. H. F.':
+
+  'Walk in the Park--you'll seldom fail
+  To find a Sybaris on the rail
+      By Lydia's ponies;
+  Or hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed,
+  Ogling some unsuspecting maid.
+
+  'Fair Neobule, too! Is not
+  One Hebrus here--from Aldershot?
+      Aha, you colour!
+  Be wise. There old Canidia sits;
+  No doubt she's tearing you to bits.'
+
+
+The Eton and Harrow match, like lawn-tennis, _caret vate sacro_; but the
+delights of Henley and Hurlingham have been sung in verse, and the
+Inter-University Boat-race was the subject of some admirable lines by
+Mortimer Collins and G. J. Cayley:
+
+  'Sweet amid lime-trees' blossom, astir with the whispers of springtide,
+  Maiden speech to hear, eloquent murmur and sigh
+  Ah! but the joy of the Thames when, Cam with Isis contending,
+  Up the Imperial stream flash the impetuous Eights!
+  Sweeping and strong is the stroke, as they race from Putney to Mortlake,
+  Shying the Crab Tree bight, shooting through Hammersmith Bridge;
+  Onward elastic they strain to the deep low moan of the rowlock;
+  Louder the cheer from the bank, swifter the flash of the oar!'
+
+Pretty again, in its way, is the better-known 'Boat-race Sketch,' by Mr.
+Ashby-Sterry, whose heroine
+
+  'Twines her fair hair with the colours of Isis,
+  Whilst those of the Cam glitter bright in her eyes.'
+
+The joys of Epsom and of Goodwood have not, I believe, been versified by
+any prominent rhymer, and, concerning those of Ascot, I know of but one
+elaborate celebration--that which describes, among other things,
+
+  'Tall bottles passing to and fro,
+  And clear-cut crystal's creamy flow,
+  Where vied with velvet Veuve Clicquot,
+          Moet and Chandon;'
+
+as well as
+
+  'The homeward drive that came too soon
+  By parks and lodges bright with June,
+  And how we mocked the afternoon
+          With lazy laughter.'
+
+Nothing, of course, is more peculiar to the Season than the devotion
+displayed by Society at the shrine of Art. The Academy and the Grosvenor
+are institutions without which the Season would not be itself. The
+latter has not figured very conspicuously in song, but at least it has
+managed to creep into one of the Gilbert-Sullivan operas, in the shape
+of a rhyme to 'greenery-yallery.' Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has told us of
+the critic who had
+
+  'Totter'd, since the dawn was red,
+    Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery;'
+
+and, in another of his 'verses vain,' has practically limned the Gallery
+itself under the guise of 'Camelot':
+
+  'In Camelot, how gray and green
+  The damsels dwell, how sad their teen;
+  In Camelot, how green and gray
+  The melancholy poplars sway.
+  I wis I wot not what they mean,
+  Or wherefore, passionate and lean,
+  The maidens mope their loves between.'
+
+The character of Burne-Jonesian art is here very happily hit off. Happy,
+too, is Mr. Lang's sketch of the Philistian features of the Academy:
+
+  'Philistia! Maids in muslin white
+  With flannelled oarsmen oft delight
+  To drift upon thy streams, and float
+  In Salter's most luxurious boat;
+  In buff and boots the cheery knight
+  Returns (quite safe) from Naseby fight.'
+
+But did not Praed long ago address 'The Portrait of a Lady at the
+Exhibition of the Royal Academy'? Has not Mr. Ashby-Sterry addressed
+'Number One' in the said exhibition--also 'the portrait of a lady'? And,
+moreover, has not Mr. Austin Dobson made the Academy the scene of one of
+his brightly-written dialogues?--that in which the lady says:
+
+  'From now until we go in June
+  I shall hear nothing but this tune:
+  Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or
+  Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more;
+  With all that critics, right or wrong,
+  Have said of Leslie or of Long.'
+
+
+Among the events of every season are the fashionable marriages, one of
+which is described for us by Mr. Frederick Locker in his 'St. George's,
+Hanover Square.' On the subject of the belles of the season I need not
+dwell. Praed's 'Belle of the Ballroom' was a provincial beauty; but not
+so, assuredly, was Pope's and Lord Peterborough's Mrs. Howard,
+Congreve's Miss Temple, Lord Chesterfield's Duchess of Richmond, Fox's
+Mrs. Crewe, Lord Lytton's La Marquise, Mr. Aide's Beauty Clare, or Mr.
+Austin Dobson's Avice. Of London balls and routs the poets have been
+many, including Edward Fitzgerald, C. S. Calverley, and Mr. Dobson
+again. The opera, so far as I know, has had very few celebrants in
+rhyme. The 'Monday Pops' figure in 'Patience' with the Grosvenor
+Gallery, but have not otherwise, I fancy, been distinguished in song. On
+the whole, however, the Season has received poetic tributes at once
+numerous and interesting.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE 'RECESS' IN RHYME.
+
+
+If the Season has had its laureates, so has the Recess. Why not? Of the
+two, the latter has the more numerous elements of poetry. Town has its
+charms for the versifier; there is much to say about its streets, its
+parks, its belles, its balls, its many diversions. But there is even
+more, surely, to say about the country, with its ancestral halls, its
+watering-places, and its shootings, as well as about the seaside and the
+various attractions _outre-mer_. Surely, of the two, life out of town
+has even more delights, for the poet, at any rate, than life in town.
+Sylvester is reported to have said that people, after tiring in town, go
+to re-tire in the country. But the saying, if epigrammatic, is not
+strictly true. No doubt some of us feel bored, wherever we may go, or
+whatever we may do. But to most people, I imagine, the Recess, if spent
+out of London, is a time of genuine enjoyment, and certainly it is a
+time which deserves to be distinguished in song.
+
+The Recess, as spent in London, has been drawn by the rhymers in
+depressing tints. The picture painted by Haynes Bayly remains--for the
+fashionable world, at least--almost as true as it ever was. As he said:
+
+  'In town, in the month of September,
+    We find neither riches nor rank;
+  In vain we look out for a member
+    To give us a nod or a frank.
+  Each knocker in silence reposes,
+    In every mansion you find
+  One dirty old woman who dozes,
+    Or peeps through the dining-room blind.'
+
+This may be compared with the soliloquy put by H. S. Leigh in the mouth
+of 'the last man' left in London:
+
+  'The Row is dull, as dull can be;
+    Deserted is the Drive;
+  The glass that stood at eighty-three,
+    Now stands at sixty-five.
+  The summer days are over,
+    The town, ah me! has flown,
+  Through Dover, or to clover--
+    And I am all alone.'
+
+It has long been held, among a certain class, that to be seen in town
+during the Recess is to forfeit all pretensions to _haut ton_. And so
+'the last man' of the Season is naturally represented by Bayly as
+somewhat ashamed of himself. 'He'll blush,' we are told, 'if you ask him
+the reason Why he with the rest is not gone':
+
+  'He'll seek you with shame and with sorrow,
+    He'll smile with affected delight;
+  He'll swear he leaves London to-morrow,
+    And only came to it last night!'
+
+He will tell you that he is in general request--that the difficulty is
+to know where not to go:
+
+  'So odd you should happen to meet him;
+    So strange, as he's just passing through.'
+
+
+The Season may be said to go to its grave with parting volleys from the
+sportsmen on the moors. One is fired on 'the Twelfth,' the other on 'the
+First.' The one is associated with grouse, the other with partridges.
+And Haynes Bayly makes his fashionable matron only too conscious of
+these facts. 'Don't talk of September,' she says; 'a lady
+
+    'Must think it of all months the worst;
+  The men are preparing already
+    To take themselves off on the First.'
+
+  'Last month, their attention to quicken,
+    A supper I knew was the thing;
+  But now, from my turkey and chicken,
+    They're tempted by birds on the wing!
+  They shoulder their terrible rifles
+    ('Tis really too much for my nerves!)
+  And, slighting my sweets and my trifles,
+    Prefer my Lord Harry's preserves!'
+
+And she goes on to say:
+
+  'Oh, marriage is hard of digestion,
+    The men are all sparing of words;
+  And now 'stead of popping the question,
+    They set off to pop at the birds.'
+
+
+Life at English country houses has been depicted by more than one poet.
+Pope, for instance, tells us what happened when Miss Blount left
+town--how
+
+  'She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
+  Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks...
+  (To) divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
+  Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire.'
+
+Lord Lyttelton's 'beauty in the country' complains that
+
+  'Now with mamma at tedious whist I play,
+  Now without scandal drink insipid tea;'
+
+while Lady Mary Montagu's 'bride in the country' deplores the fact that
+she is
+
+              'Left in the lurch,
+    Forgot and secluded from view,
+  Unless when some bumpkin at church
+    Stares wistfully over the pew.'
+
+Agreeably descriptive of rural pleasures is Lord Chesterfield's 'Advice
+to a Lady in Autumn.' Of recent years the subject has been treated by a
+versifier who has at least a measure of the neatness of Praed, and who
+enumerates among the typical guests at a country house
+
+  'A sporting parson, good at whist,
+    A preaching sportsman, good at gateways;'
+
+and, again:
+
+  'A lady who once wrote a book,
+    And one of whom a book's been written...
+  One blonde whose fortune is her face,
+    And one whose face caught her a fortune.'
+
+As for the daily round:
+
+  'We dance, we flirt, we shoot, we ride,
+    Our host's a veritable Nimrod:
+  We fish the river's silver tide,'
+
+and so on. There are, of course, the county balls, and the fancy balls,
+and the private theatricals, and what not, all of them celebrated by the
+inevitable Praed. It was at the county ball that he saw 'the belle of
+the ballroom':
+
+  'There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
+    Gave signal sweet in that old hall
+  Of hands across and down the middle.'
+
+It was to the county ball, as well as to the theatricals at Fustian
+Hall, that Praed's 'Clarence' was so prettily invited. As for fancy
+balls:
+
+  'Oh, a fancy ball's a strange affair!
+    Made up of silks and leathers,
+  Light heads, light heels, false hearts, false hair,
+    Pins, paint, and ostrich feathers.'
+
+
+Of inland watering-places, Bath and Cheltenham have been perhaps most
+often poetized. Bath found its _vates sacer_ in the author of the 'New
+Bath Guide'; it has rarely found one since; its glories have virtually
+departed. It was at Cheltenham--
+
+          'Where one drinks one's fill
+  Of folly and cold water'--
+
+that Praed met his 'Partner.' And C. S. Calverley has told us how
+
+  'Year by year do Beauty's daughters
+    In the sweetest gloves and shawls
+  Troop to taste the Chattenham waters,
+    And adorn the Chattenham balls.
+
+  '_Nulla non donanda lauru_
+    Is that city: you could not,
+  Placing England's map before you,
+    Light on a more favoured spot.'
+
+
+Praed has a poem called 'Arrivals at a Watering-Place,' but it is not
+one of the most successful of his efforts. Nor have seaside places in
+general been made the subject of very excellent verse. Brighton is the
+one exception. Of that 'favoured spot,' James Smith, of 'Rejected
+Addresses' fame, was, perhaps, the first to write flatteringly. 'Long,'
+he declared--
+
+  'Long shalt thou laugh thy enemies to scorn,
+    Proud as Phoenicia, queen of watering-places!
+  Boys yet unbreech'd, and virgins yet unborn,
+    On thy bleak downs shall tan their blooming faces.'
+
+The prophecy, one need not say, has been amply fulfilled. And the poets
+still conspire to sing the praises of 'Old Ocean's bauble, glittering
+Brighton.' Everybody remembers the stirring exhortation of Mortimer
+Collins:
+
+  'If you approve of flirtations, good dinners,
+    Seascapes divine, which the merry winds whiten;
+  Nice little saints, and still nicer young sinners,
+                                Winter at Brighton!'
+
+Nor has Mr. Ashby-Sterry proved himself at all less enthusiastic.
+Brighton in November, he says, 'is what one should remember':
+
+              'If spirits you would lighten,
+              Consult good Doctor Brighton,
+  And swallow his prescriptions and abide by his decree;
+              If nerves be weak or shaken,
+              Just try a week with Bacon;
+  His physic soon is taken at our London-by-the-Sea.'
+
+
+Something might be said of the delights of foreign sojourn in the
+Recess; but space fails me. Reference may, however, be made to Mr.
+Locker's graceful 'Invitation to Rome' and 'The Reply' to it, from which
+I take this typical tribute to the Italian capital:
+
+  'Some girls, who love to ride and race,
+    And live for dancing, like the Bruens,
+  Confess that Rome's a charming place--
+    In spite of all the stupid ruins!'
+
+
+
+
+JAQUES IN LOVE.
+
+
+What Jaques is in Shakespeare's pages most people know. In the very
+first reference made to him he is described as 'melancholy,' and as
+'weeping and commenting' upon a stricken deer. He has 'sullen fits,' we
+read. He himself tells us he 'can suck melancholy out of a song.' He
+protests that the banished Duke is 'too disputable' for him--that he
+(Jaques) thinks of as many matters, but makes no boast of them. The
+Duke, on his side, speaks of Jaques as 'compact of jars' (made up of
+discords), and when Jaques offers to 'cleanse the foul body of the
+infected world,' retorts on him that it would be a case of 'most
+mischievous foul sin chiding sin,' Jaques having been himself a
+notorious evil liver. To Orlando Jaques suggests that they should rail
+at the world and their misery, while to Rosalind he confesses that he
+loves melancholy better than laughing. ''Tis good to be sad and say
+nothing.' He has, he says, a melancholy of his own, the result of his
+experience and reflection, which wraps him in a most humorous sadness.
+Jaques, in fact, is a rake turned cynical philosopher. He regards man
+and nature as only so much material for observation and for moralizing.
+
+Such is the Jaques of 'As You Like It'--a purely original creation,
+embodying a familiar type of humanity, but nevertheless not good enough
+for certain of Shakespeare's successors in the dramatic art. Jaques has
+more than once been revised and edited, in common with other characters
+in the sylvan comedy. He did not quite satisfy the fastidious taste of
+Mr. Charles Johnson, the ingenious author of 'The Country Lasses' and
+other pieces, who, as was said with more point than truth, was 'famous
+for writing a play every year and being at Button's coffee-house every
+day.' Still less did Shakespeare's Jaques commend himself to the 'J.
+C.' who was so kind as not merely to adapt 'As You Like It,' but to
+elaborate and paraphrase it. Nor did the 'melancholy' one prove
+acceptable even to the judgment of Georges Sand, when that intellectual
+lady set to work to 'arrange' the play for the French stage.
+Shakespeare, it appeared to all these writers, had perpetrated an
+unaccountable mistake. He had failed to make Jaques pair off with Celia.
+That charming maiden is handed over to the converted Oliver, while
+Jaques goes off to study the humours of the repentant Duke. Happy
+thought! Transform Jaques and Celia into a species of minor Benedick and
+Beatrice, and marry them in the end!
+
+Mr. Charles Johnson adopted this idea almost literally. His 'Love in a
+Forest'--brought out at Drury Lane in 1723--is 'As You Like it' cut down
+and altered, with scraps from 'Much Ado About Nothing,' 'Love's Labour's
+Lost,' and other Shakespearean pieces, introduced at various points, the
+whole welded together by means of wondrous emanations from the
+compiler's fancy. To Jaques are assigned a number of lines spoken
+elsewhere by Benedick or by Biron. We have the well-known gibing scene
+between Jaques and Orlando up to a certain stage, when, commenting on
+Jaques' questions about Rosalind, Orlando says: 'But why are you so
+curious?--you who are an obstinate heretic in the despight of beauty and
+the whole female world?' Then Jaques replies to this speech, which
+belongs to Don Pedro in 'Much Ado,' in the familiar words of Benedick in
+that play, asserting that he will 'live a bachelor,' and that if ever he
+breaks that vow his friends may put round his neck the legend, 'Here you
+may see Jaques, the married man.' At this juncture Rosalind and Celia
+appear, and, while Rosalind as Ganymede has her first colloquy with
+Orlando, 'Jaques talks with Celia--they walk in another glade of the
+forest.' When they return it is at once evident that Jaques' celibate
+intentions have already been shaken. He calls the lady 'destructively
+handsome,' and says his heart 'gallops away in her praise most
+dangerously.' She avers he will be in love if he does not take heed, and
+he says, 'I doubt so--yet I hope not.' A moment or two after, encouraged
+and fired by her words, he asks her plump to marry him, and she promises
+so to do, 'two years hence, if my brother Ganymede consents.' Then he
+admits, in soliloquy, that he is 'in love, horribly in love,' his
+spirits 'caught at last by a pair of bugle eyeballs and a cheek of
+cream.' And then come more quotations from Benedick, as well as an
+annexation of Touchstone's remark about the honourableness of the
+forehead of a married man. Celia by-and-by confesses to Rosalind that
+'her heart doth incline a little to the philosopher,' whose love, she
+allows, 'does not sit easy upon him,' but whose words are 'full of
+sincerity.' Still later Jaques comes to Rosalind for her approval of the
+match, speaking this time in language used by Biron. She, however,
+refuses, declaring that he cannot be polished into a modern husband; and
+he retires disconsolate. But with Orlando he is more successful. He is
+promised that Ganymede shall give way, and that his wedding shall take
+place to-morrow. And so all ends happily.
+
+The 'J. C.' who, in 1739, published 'The Modern Receipt, or a Cure for
+Love,' as 'altered from Shakespeare,' went much farther than Johnson in
+the way of embellishing the unhappy poet. He used his lines
+occasionally, but in general either turned them into prose or expanded
+them beyond all recognition. Virtually he supplies a comedy based, only,
+on 'As You Like It.' Even the names of the characters are changed.
+Jaques now figures as Marcellus, 'a sullen, morose lord, a great
+woman-hater, but at length in love with Julia'--the Julia being, of
+course, Celia. He is described by a shepherd as 'a melancholy sort of
+fellow,' who 'reads much, thinks more, eats little, sleeps little, and
+speaks least of all. And if he sees a woman he runs away, shuts himself
+up in his cave, and prays for an hour or two after.' Julia, hearing
+this, cries: 'Oh, the brute! I'm resolved to take a revenge upon him in
+behalf of the whole sex.' Jaques, on his part, is struck by Julia's
+charms as soon as he beholds them--'What can this mean? I'm wondrous ill
+o' the sudden'--and is fain to sit down, lest he should fall. In the
+scene which follows there is a great war of words. The lady talks,
+purposely, at an agonizing speed, and the gentleman roundly tells her
+that he would rather have her room than her company. At last the wrangle
+is interrupted, and Julia, as a parting shot, calls Marcellus 'a bear in
+breeches.' He himself is inclined, after all, to think her 'something
+more than the rest of her detested sex--some being, perhaps, of a
+superior order.' He praises her gay innocence and noble simplicity.
+Julia, on her side, 'prays Heaven that she is not in love with the
+brute,' but is afraid she must be. Then there is a scene in which, by
+way of drawing him on, she pretends to love him, but afterwards says
+that she was mocking him, and so covers him with confusion.
+Nevertheless, he is not cured. He is still her slave, and, as he says,
+what is love 'but an epidemic disease, and what all the world has, at
+one time or other, been troubled with as well as myself? Why should I
+endeavour to curb a passion the greatest heroes have with pride
+indulged? No.... He alone is wise who nobly loves.' So he returns to the
+charge, makes the lady admit the soft impeachment, and obtains the
+Duke's consent to their union. He says, in the end, that he is afraid he
+makes but an odd sort of figure--that he has acted a little out of
+character, and a great deal below the dignity of a philosopher. But,
+having the aforesaid disease, he has sought the remedy, and has found
+it; for, in his view, 'Marriage is the surest cure of love.'
+
+Georges Sand, in her 'Comme il Vous Plaira'--a comedy in three acts,
+'tiree de Shakespeare, et arrangee'--diverges still further from the
+original text. Her work is, even more markedly than 'The Modern
+Receipt,' founded, only, on 'As You Like It.' 'In dealing with this
+uncurbed genius, which owned no restraint,' she thought herself
+justified in 'condensing, abstracting, and modifying' his work. But, as
+a matter of fact, her play is indebted to Shakespeare only in idea.
+Jaques is introduced early in the piece as sent by the banished Duke
+with a message to Rosalind. Of course, he meets Celia, and at first is
+_brusquerie_ itself. But in the second act he comes to think there is
+something in her name 'qui resonne autrement que dans tout nature.
+Est-ce une douceur qui charme l'oreille?' Celia for a long time plays
+with him, but in the end they arrive at a mutual declaration of
+affection. 'I have always tenderly loved Jaques,' says Georges Sand in
+her preface, and 'I have taken the great liberty of bringing him back to
+love. Here is my own romance inserted in that of Shakespeare, and,
+although romantic, it is not more improbable than the sudden conversion
+of Oliver.' That may be; and yet one might have thought that Georges
+Sand, of all people, would not have set herself the interesting but
+somewhat futile task of improving upon 'As You Like It.'
+
+
+
+
+MOCKING AT MATRIMONY.
+
+
+The world has reason to be grateful to the writer who lately
+demonstrated the possibility of being happy 'though married.' Some
+exposition of the sort was sadly needed. Hitherto the estate of
+matrimony has met with a long succession of jibes and sneers. It has had
+its apologists, even its prophets and eulogists; but it has had many
+more detractors. There is, indeed, no subject on which the satirists of
+the world, both great and small, have so largely and so persistently
+made merry. It has been a stock subject with them. It is as if they had
+said to themselves, 'When at a loss, revile the connubial condition.'
+Married life has been the sport of every wit, and, sorrowful to relate,
+society has been well content to join in the pastime. There is nothing
+so common as sarcasm on matrimony, and nothing, apparently, so welcome,
+even to the married.
+
+The banter in question has been of all sorts--sometimes vague, sometimes
+particular, in its import. A few censors have confined themselves to
+simple condemnation. 'A fellow that's married's a _felo-de-se_,' wrote
+the late Shirley Brooks; and he had been anticipated in the stricture.
+An anonymous satirist had written:
+
+  '"Wedlock's the end of life," one cried;
+  "Too true, alas!" said Jack, and sigh'd--
+      "'Twill be the end of mine."'
+
+And if matrimony was not suicide, it was ruin. Old Sir Thomas More had
+said of a student who had married that 'in knitting of himself so fast,
+himself he had undone.' And a later rhymer, contrasting wedding with
+hanging, had come to the conclusion that
+
+  'Hanging is better of the twain--
+  Sooner done and shorter pain.'
+
+To the suggestion that a youth should not marry till he has more wisdom,
+the Italian epigrammatist replies that if he waits till he has sense he
+will not wed at all. Marriage, said the famous Marshal Saxe, in effect,
+is a state of penance; Rome declares there are seven sacraments, but
+there are really only six, because penance and matrimony are one.
+
+Hymen, says Chamfort, comes after love, like smoke after flame. It is
+the high sea, observes Heine, for which no compass has yet been
+invented. Its melancholy uncertainty is illustrated by the remark of
+Samuel Rogers, that it does not matter whom you marry--she will be quite
+another woman the next day. It was Rogers, too, who, when he heard of a
+certain person's nuptials, declared that if his friends were pleased his
+enemies were delighted. Selden's complaint against marriage was that it
+is 'a desperate thing,' out of which it is impossible to extract one's
+self; but then he lived before the era of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. And
+the utmost that the conventional detractor will admit is, that the
+institution gives to man two happy hours. 'Cursed be the hour I first
+became your wife,' cries the lady in the well-known quotation; to which
+her spouse replies that--'That's too bad; you've cursed the only happy
+hour we've had.' But Palladas, the Greek, as translated by Mr. J. H.
+Merivale, goes a little farther than this, declaring that
+
+  'All wives are bad; yet two blest hours they give:
+  When first they wed, and when they cease to live.'
+
+
+A favourite notion with the satirists is that marriage is a state of
+mutual recrimination. John Heywood has the couplet:
+
+  '"Wife, I perceive thy tongue was made at Edgware."
+  "Yes, sir, and your's made at Rayly, hard by there."'
+
+And this is typical of many another utterance; for example, this:
+
+  'Know ye not all, the Scripture saith,
+  That man and wife are _one_ till death?
+  But Peter and his scolding wife
+  Wage such an endless war of strife,
+  You'd swear, on passing Peter's door,
+  That man and wife at least were _four_.'
+
+Doctor Johnson, too, draws attention to the fact--if it be one--that all
+the reasons which a man and a woman have for remaining in the estate of
+matrimony, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent
+separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together. Or, as Mr.
+William Allingham has, of recent years, more pithily put it:
+
+  'If any two can live together well,
+  'Tis (and yet such things are) a miracle!'
+
+
+If we are to believe the aforesaid satirists, this is all the fault of
+the wives. Now and again one comes across a jest in which the lady has
+the better of the gentleman, as in the following:
+
+  '"Wife, from all evil, when shalt thou delivered be?"
+  "Sir, when I" (said she) "shall be delivered from thee."'
+
+But such things are rare. Usually the laugh is on the other side. As the
+Frenchman wrote:
+
+  'While Adam slept, Eve from his side arose:
+  Strange! his first sleep should be his last repose!'
+
+Everybody knows the epitaph which Dryden intended for his wife; and side
+by side with it may be placed the lines by an anonymous author:
+
+  'God has to me sufficiently been kind,
+  To take my wife, and leave me here behind.'
+
+So again:
+
+  'Brutus unmoved heard how his Portia fell;
+  Should Jack's wife die, he would behave as well.'
+
+The story of the man who, at his spouse's funeral, deprecated hurry, on
+the ground that one should not make a toil of a pleasure, need only be
+alluded to.
+
+The chief charge against the wives is that they will insist upon being
+the heads of the households. That is the refrain of many a flout hurled
+against them. To marry--such is the moral of some lines by Samuel
+Bishop--is to lose your liberty. The lady will have everything her way:
+
+  'For ne'er heard I of woman, good or ill,
+  But always loved best her own sweet will.'
+
+So says a seventeenth-century writer; and the complaint is general.
+
+  'Men, dying, make their wills--why cannot wives?
+  Because wives have their wills during their lives.'
+
+'Here,' wrote Burns--'here lies a man a woman ruled; the Devil ruled
+the woman.' And Landor makes someone say to a scholar about to marry:
+
+  'So wise thou art that I foresee
+  A wife will make a fool of thee.'
+
+That wives are talkative is a venerable commonplace. The historic
+husband thought that the fact of his spouse's likeness not being a
+'speaking' one was its principal merit. And Lessing makes a man excuse
+himself for marrying a deaf woman on the ground that she was also dumb.
+We all remember Hood's particular trouble:
+
+  'A wife who preaches in her gown,
+    And lectures in her night-dress.'
+
+And so with those who are more than merely talkative--who are positively
+scolds; while sometimes the conventional helpmeet is as active with her
+fists as with her tongue--as in the case of the lady whose picture, her
+husband thought, would soon 'strike' him, it was so exceedingly like
+her.
+
+It is, however, unnecessary to carry the tale further. This mocking at
+matrimony has always been a feature of life and literature, and probably
+will always remain so--partly because it is so easy of achievement;
+partly because it is not less easy of comprehension; and also, perhaps,
+because humanity has ever been inclined to chasten that which it loves.
+It rails against marriage, but it marries all the same. Or is it that it
+recognises the wedded life as a necessity, which cannot be put away, but
+which it is a pleasure to ridicule? Perhaps that is the best explanation
+one can offer. All this satire may be mankind's way of revenging itself
+upon one of the laws of nature.
+
+
+
+
+
+PARSON POETS.
+
+
+The publication of a memoir of Archbishop Trench has sufficed to recall
+prominently to the public mind the virtues, endowments, and achievements
+of one of the most notable of latter-day divines. Richard Chenevix
+Trench was one of the most versatile of writers. He discoursed with
+equal knowledge and effect on Biblical and philological topics, and his
+prose work will always be respectfully regarded by the students alike of
+divinity and of language. But though, on these subjects, his
+pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will
+ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most
+thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has
+always had so large and valuable a supply.
+
+There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is
+precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries
+that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For
+what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? In the first
+place, polite learning; in the second, sufficient leisure. It is in the
+atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes
+its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time
+or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays
+have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the
+lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare
+moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning
+and leisure which impel him to the task. There is the nature of his
+profession, with the experience it brings him and the reflections it
+induces. The most unliterary pastor cannot but be a meditative man. The
+literary pastor cannot but be disposed to turn his meditations into
+verse, often finding in that 'mechanic exercise' the means of 'numbing
+pain.'
+
+Other things being equal, the modern cleric would take serious subjects
+for his verse, and it is characteristic of the whole race of parson
+poets that the first poetic effort in English literature should be the
+Scriptural paraphrases supplied by Caedmon, monk of Whitby. But it was
+not in the sphere of Bible history that the immediate successors of
+Caedmon, monks (or friars) like himself, sought to disport themselves
+most largely. Our early clerical versifiers set themselves rather to
+give rhythmical renderings to the romances and chronicles of their time.
+They were the secular as well as sacred teachers of the day; and so we
+find the names of Wace, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne,
+Archdeacon Barbour, Andrew of Wyntoun, and John Lydgate, all associated
+with the recital of the deeds of ancient or modern heroes. Not that the
+claims of religion or morality were forgotten: they were remembered by
+Richard Rolle in his 'Prick of Conscience,' and indirectly recognised by
+Barclay in his 'Ship of Fools.' The interests of the poor were served by
+Langland in his 'Piers the Plowman,' and poetry, pure and simple, had
+its devotees in the persons of the Bishop of Dunkeld and the Franciscan
+friar who produced respectively 'The Palace of Honour' and 'The Golden
+Terge.'
+
+When we come down to more recent times, we find even greater variety
+than this in the writings of the parson poets. But the serious element
+prevails. There have been clerical wits and humorists, but they have
+been, of necessity, in the minority. A large proportion of the verse
+composed by clergymen has been, as one would naturally expect, of a
+distinctly didactic, not to say depressing, tendency. One thinks at once
+of the 'Temple' of George Herbert, the 'Epigrammata Sacra' of Richard
+Crashaw, the 'Night Thoughts' of Young, the 'Grave' of Blair, the
+'Sabbath' of Grahame, the 'Course of Time' of Pollok, the 'Christian
+Year' of Keble; the hymns of Wesley, Alford, and Stanley; the 'Dream of
+Gerontius' of Newman, and a dozen others, differing very much indeed in
+all the qualities of poetry, but alike in the earnestness of their
+intention. Even Herrick, 'jocund' though his muse was, left behind him
+some 'Noble Numbers.' And though clerical satire, as furnished by men
+like John Bramston, Charles Churchill, Samuel Bishop, John Wolcot, and
+Francis Mahoney, has frequently been flippant both in form and phrase,
+it has at other times--and especially in the works of Bishop Hall, of
+Norwich--been very vivid and uncompromising. Hall, indeed, was the
+Juvenal of his century, filled with the spirit of righteous indignation.
+
+From Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, downwards, the clerical singers who have
+not been markedly professional in their outcome have exhibited an
+agreeable freedom from monotony. In Donne himself we see the sad
+perfection of the metaphysic method, mitigated, however, by a few lapses
+into the lucid and the simple. Pomfret gave us in 'The Choice' the
+typical poem of the country parson, sounding the praises of rural scenes
+and lettered ease. In Parnell we have a sample of the pleasing
+versifier, touching nothing which he does not adorn, but making no very
+particular impression. Bishop Percy is less celebrated for the ballads
+which he wrote than for those which he collected. Logan is remembered
+only by his verses on 'The Cuckoo.' To the reverend brothers Warton we
+owe respectively 'The Pleasure of Melancholy' and some lines 'To Fancy';
+while of Thomas Blacklock, alas! the most remarkable feature was his
+blindness. One would like to have forgotten Robert Montgomery, of
+Satanic fame, but Macaulay will not let us do so. Blanco White lives on
+the strength of one good sonnet, Lisle Bowles on that of many good ones;
+and there is no need nowadays to distinguish the work of Crabbe, of
+Moultrie, of John Sterling, and of Charles Kingsley, much as they
+differed from each other. One of the latest additions to this choir of
+voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists,
+belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there
+were no fear of making invidious selection.
+
+There is a certain department of verse-writing in which a cultivated
+class like the clergy would of necessity make its mark--that of
+rhythmical translation. In a body whose members are all more or less
+scholarly, there will always be some, of special scholarship, who will
+endeavour to put works of classic or foreign literature into an English
+mould. Thus we have had Francis Fawkes, with his versions from the
+Greek; Christopher Pitt, with his translation of the 'AEneid'; H. F.
+Carey, with his Dante in blank verse; and more others than need be
+specified. These clergymen followed the excellent instincts of their
+cloth. But what are we to say of those otherwise estimable parsons who
+have from time to time attempted, and occasionally with success, to win
+fame as the authors of poetical drama? The connection between the
+cassock and the buskin has, to this extent, always been fairly
+intimate--from the time when Bishop Bale wrote mystery plays, to the
+recent years in which Sheridan Knowles, after having been a dramatist
+and an actor, closed his days as a preacher. Shirley, Mason, Home,
+Milman, Croly, Maturin, White--these are names well known in the history
+of the theatre, and they are all names of clerical association. Such has
+been the fascination of the 'boards' even for those whose home has been
+the pulpit and the cloister.
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTSIDES OF BOOKS.
+
+
+This may fairly be claimed as a popular subject. It is one in which
+nearly everybody--perhaps everybody--is interested. There can surely be
+few, if any, who do not care about the outside of a book. Even if a man
+never opens a volume, he likes its exterior to be pleasing. Nay, there
+are books which may be said to be produced and utilized only for their
+outward garb. How often does one find a volume described as a charming
+one 'for the table'! It is for the table that certain publications are
+destined. Enter a drawing-room, and you will find a few books scattered
+here and there 'with artful care.' I do not say they are intended never
+to be opened, but their primary function is to look nice--to 'set off'
+the table-cloth, and, generally, to give a bright appearance to the
+room. And their adaptability for this purpose is so widely recognised
+that you can scarcely go anywhere without coming across books of this
+complexion. You find them exposed to view in your doctor's or your
+dentist's ante-chamber; you find them placed before you, usually very
+much the worse for wear, in hotel waiting-rooms. And the instinct which
+prompts all this display is genuine enough. It is perfectly true--there
+is no furniture so agreeable to the eye as books. Nothing makes a room
+look at once so picturesque and home-like, if the volumes be but
+sufficiently varied in size and hue.
+
+And that brings us in presence of a point of controversy. Ought there to
+be so much variety in the exteriors of books? Ought they to be 'got up'
+in so many different styles? Some people would answer these questions
+with a decided negative. These are the persons who like uniformity in
+their libraries, who would have one shelf look for all the world like
+the facsimile of the other. These are the persons who, almost as soon as
+they buy a book, are desirous to have it rebound after some fantastic
+notion of their own. There is a class of purchaser which revels in long
+lines of volumes in 'full calf gilt.' You see that sort of thing in most
+old-fashioned collections. And the effect is not bad in some respects.
+The rows look handsome enough. They have solidity and richness. Nor do I
+say that for a certain species of publication 'full calf gilt' is not a
+very judicious form of binding. One likes to see the quarterlies and
+higher-class monthlies done up in that style. It befits the seriousness
+of their contents. But do not let everything be put into 'full calf
+gilt,' solid and rich though it appears. Let us give full play to the
+element of variety. Let every book have an individuality, a character,
+of its own. Let us be able to identify it easily. Let it retain its
+original garb, so that we may always be able to distinguish it. Surely
+it is one of the greatest charms of a row of volumes that each has its
+special features, and can readily be found when wanted.
+
+It may be laid down as a general rule that the binding of a book should
+have a distinct reference to the nature of its contents. It should be
+appropriate to the author and to the subject. One sympathizes with
+Posthumus in the play, when, apostrophizing the volume in his prison, he
+says:
+
+                       'O rare one!
+  Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
+  Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects
+  So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
+  As good as promise.'
+
+Juliet, when she hears that Romeo has slain Tybalt, asks:
+
+  'Was ever book containing such vile matter
+  So fairly bound?'
+
+And in a like spirit Charles Lamb, in his well-known essay, complains of
+the 'things in books' clothing' which, by reason of their inappropriate
+exteriors, afford so much disappointment to the reader. 'To reach down a
+well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it is some kind-hearted
+play-book, then, opening what "seem its leaves," to come bolt upon a
+withering population essay'--'to expect a Steele or a Farquhar, and
+find--Adam Smith'--those, indeed, are doleful and dispiriting
+experiences, to which the unsuspecting student ought not in enlightened
+times to be subjected. If Mr. Gilbert's Mikado be right in the view that
+the punishment ought to 'fit the crime,' so assuredly ought a book's
+binding to fit the matter that is contained within it. It should be the
+outward sign of the inward grace.
+
+I am ready to admit that, as a rule, this is so. In general, it is quite
+easy to tell the nature of a volume from its cover. And for this the
+publishers are greatly to be thanked. An amateur, publishing for
+himself, may every now and then insist upon dressing up the product of
+his brains incongruously; but, for the most part, the booksellers of
+to-day have a very excellent sense of what is fitting. The result is
+that those who care about books can differentiate them at a glance. They
+know what is the approved style and line for biography and history, for
+poetry and fiction, for sermons, for gift-books, and so _ad infinitum_.
+The 'Life' of So-and-so, and the 'Annals' of Such-and-such, are
+unmistakeable; they have respectability written on every corner and
+angle of them. The dull brown or the dull green is sufficiently obvious
+to everyone. And so with poetry. You know minor verse directly you see
+it. It has a _cachet_ concerning which there can be no possible error.
+Happily, a Tennyson, a Browning, or a Swinburne is equally recognisable.
+A novel, of course, bears its character on its face. The three-volume
+form is notorious. But it scarcely matters what shape fiction may take.
+It can be identified by instinct, whether it be in yellow boards or in
+some more quiet habit. Sermons cannot be misapprehended; there is no
+fear of their being taken on a railway journey instead of the latest
+book of memoirs. As for gift-books, whether for boy or girl, adult or
+juvenile, they have their destination marked upon them in all the
+colours of the rainbow. Some complain of this, and call it vulgar. No
+doubt it often is so. But a gift-book is produced for a definite
+purpose, and the public would be surprised, and probably annoyed, if it
+were not as gorgeous in gold and colours as it was expected to be. Gold
+and colours are what are wanted, and the publishers do well to supply
+them.
+
+One thing, perhaps, is too little considered--that a book is, in most
+cases, intended to be read and to be preserved. Certain books are not
+issued for that purpose, but are deliberately manufactured to be thrown
+away when read. The shilling novel, one may presume, is not designed for
+a permanent existence. If it is, why is it so frequently brought out in
+a paper cover, which either comes off altogether, or else curls up at
+the edges in the most irritating fashion? It must be confessed that a
+paper cover is an infliction, demanding the eventual destruction of the
+book or its prompt rebinding in more durable style. But it is not
+sufficient only that a volume should be bound. It should be bound so
+that it can be opened and perused with comfort. It should not be in too
+stiff a cover, or it will be awkward to hold. And the cover should not
+be in white or in too delicate a colour, or one will not care to handle
+it. Nor should a book be bound too limply, for the cover will soon begin
+to look shapeless. A parchment binding is charming to gaze at for a
+time, but how quickly its glory fades! I should say to the ordinary
+bookbuyer, in metaphoric language, Avoid the kickshaws and stick to the
+solids! In other words, leave the delicacies to the connoisseur, and
+give your attention to the books so clothed that you can read and keep
+them as you will.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE.
+
+
+I make no allusion here to the heroine of Mr. Haggard's well-known
+romance. What I am thinking of at the moment is not the impossible 'She'
+of recent fiction, but the 'not impossible She' of Master Richard
+Crashaw--the 'perfect monster,' in female form, who was to 'command his
+heart and him,' and whom he was good enough to sketch for us in advance
+within the limits of some forty verses--the damsel whose beauty was to
+
+         'Owe not all its duty
+  To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye;'
+
+whose face was to be
+
+          'Made up
+  Out of no other shop
+  Than what Nature's white hand sets ope;'
+
+who was to have 'a well-tamed heart,'
+
+  'Sidneian showers
+  Of sweet discourse,'
+
+and so on, and of whom the poet was so kind as to say that, if Time knew
+of anyone who answered the description,
+
+  'Her that dares be
+  What these lines wish to see--
+  I seek no further--it is She.'
+
+
+Master Crashaw is not the only man by many who in the past has been
+seduced into putting into words and verse the aspirations, on this
+subject, which filled his soul. It would probably be found, if anyone
+had the requisite patience to go through with it, that there has been
+scarcely a poet who has not thus given expression to his conception of
+an ideal woman and to his desire for her companionship. Much more
+numerous, to be sure, are the rapturous tributes which have been paid to
+actual persons of the other sex: the poetry of praise, as written by men
+of women, has not yet been exhausted, and probably never will be. But
+the ideal description has generally come first, and very notable it has
+usually been. Sir Thomas Wyatt declared that
+
+  'A face that should content me wondrous well
+    Should not be fair, but lovely to behold;
+  Of lively look, all grief for to repel;
+    With right good grace,'
+
+et caetera. He further asserted that 'her tress also should be of crisped
+gold,' and intimated graciously that
+
+  'With wit, and these, perchance I might be tied,
+  And knit again with knot that should not slide.'
+
+His contemporary, Lord Surrey, included among 'the means to attain happy
+life,' 'the faithful wife, without debate'--that is, I suppose, a lady
+without forty-parson-power of talk--a not impossible, nay, fairly
+common, She.
+
+In a lyric by Beaumont and Fletcher, we find the supposed speaker giving
+utterance to a series of such wishes. 'May I,' he says, 'find a woman
+fair, And her mind as clear as air!'
+
+  'May I find a woman rich,
+  And of not too high a pitch!...
+  May I find a woman wise,
+  And her falsehood not disguise!...
+  May I find a woman kind,
+  And not wavering like the wind!...'
+
+And, in truth, he talks throughout as if he did not expect to discover
+any such rarity. Everyone knows the little poem in which Ben Jonson
+details his preferences in women's dress, declaring that 'a sweet
+disorder' does more bewitch him 'than when art Is too precise in every
+part.' But elsewhere he paints for us, not a perfect feminine attire,
+but the faultless maid herself, as he would have her:
+
+  'I would have her fair and witty,
+  Favouring more of Court than City,
+  A little proud, but full of pity,
+  Light and humorous in her toying,
+  Oft building hopes and soon destroying...
+  Neither too easy nor too hard,
+  All extremes I would have barr'd.'
+
+That, it would seem, was rare Ben's ideal.
+
+Carew, it is notorious, professed to despise 'lovely cheeks or lips or
+eyes,' if they were not combined with 'A smooth and steadfast mind,
+Gentle thoughts, and calm desires.' A rosy cheek, a coral lip, and even
+star-like eyes, as he sagely said, would waste away. And in this
+somewhat priggish, and perhaps not wholly sincere, vein, he finds a
+rival in the anonymous bard who declared that he did not demand
+
+  'A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
+    Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
+  Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair,'
+
+and so on, but instead,
+
+  'A tender heart, a loyal mind,
+    Which with temptation I would trust,
+  Yet never link'd with error find--
+
+  'One in whose gentle bosom I
+    Could pour my secret heart of woes,
+  Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly
+    That hides his murmurs in the rose.'
+
+So Bedingfield, conceding to friend Damon 'the nymph that sparkles in
+her dress,' avows his own fondness for the maid 'whose cheeks the hand
+of Nature paints.' Of this young person he says:
+
+  'No art she knows or seeks to know;
+  No charm to wealthy pride will owe;
+  No gems, no gold she needs to wear;
+  She shines intrinsically fair.'
+
+
+Cowley, it will be remembered, in sketching his notion of true
+happiness, included in it the picture of
+
+  'A mistress moderately fair,
+  And good as guardian angels are,
+  Only beloved and loving me!'
+
+With that 'one dear She'--and a few other things--he thought he could
+get on pretty comfortably. But probably at once the most obliging and
+most exigent of modern lovers was the sentimental gentleman to whose
+feelings Mrs. Bowen-Graves ('Stella') gave appropriate voice in the
+over-familiar 'My Queen.'
+
+  'I will not dream of her tall and stately--
+    She that I love may be fairy light;'
+
+nay, more:
+
+  'I will not say she should walk sedately--
+    Whatever she does, it will sure be right.
+
+  'And she may be humble or proud, my lady,
+    Or that sweet calm which is just between'
+
+(as if anyone could be a 'sweet calm'!); moreover:
+
+  'Whether her birth be noble or lowly,
+    I care no more than the spirit above;'
+
+but there is at least one point upon which this gentleman insists:
+
+  'She must be courteous, she must be holy,
+    Pure in her spirit, that maiden I love'--
+
+and, being that, she may depend upon the stars falling, and the angels
+weeping, ere he ceases to love her, his Queen, his Queen!
+
+Ah! the poets have much to answer for. Here is Mr. Longfellow assuring
+his readers that
+
+  'No one is so utterly desolate,
+  But some heart, though unknown,
+  Responds unto his own;'
+
+and here is Sir Edwin Arnold declaring, with equal confidence, that
+
+  'Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
+    For one lone soul another lonely soul'--
+
+et caetera, et caetera. Is it any wonder that, in the face of such
+encouragement, young men go on dreaming, each of the _dimidium suae
+animae_ whom he is to meet by-and-by, and framing to that end all sorts
+of beautiful ideals? It may be that the Shes thus dreamed of are 'not
+impossible'--they may 'arrive;' but it is as well not to be too
+sanguine. And, above all, it is as well not to draw too extravagant a
+picture, if only because you may not be worthy of the original when you
+see it. Corydon is too disposed to expect in Phyllis charms and virtues
+for which he might find it difficult to show counterparts in himself. If
+the lady is to be the pattern of beauty and of goodness, ought not the
+gentleman to bring an equal amount of capital into the matrimonial firm?
+
+
+
+
+
+NONSENSE VERSES.
+
+
+When Bunthorne has recited his 'wild, weird, fleshly thing,' called 'Oh,
+Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!' the Duke of Dunstable remarks that it seems to
+him to be nonsense. 'Nonsense, perhaps,' replies the Lady Saphir, 'but
+oh, what precious nonsense!' And there really is a sense in which
+nonsense--genuine, diverting nonsense--is precious indeed. There is so
+little of it. The late Edward Lear bubbled over with true whimsicality.
+His 'Book of Nonsense' is what it professes to be--the most delightful
+non-sense possible. But of how much of that sort of thing does English
+literature boast? There is plenty of unconscious nonsense, of course,
+but it is not of the right quality. Dryden said of Shadwell that he
+reigned, 'without dispute, throughout the realms of nonsense
+absolute'--he 'never deviated into sense'--and yet he was the dullest of
+dull dogs. The fact is, that nothing is more difficult than to write
+amusing nonsense, and it is worth noting how few people, comparatively
+speaking, have ever attempted to produce it.
+
+One of the earliest efforts of the kind in the language is a certain
+passage in Udall's 'Ralph Roister Doister,' where Dame Christian
+receives from the hero a letter which seems, on the face of it,
+insulting:
+
+  'Sweete mistresse, where as I love you nothing at all,
+  Regarding your substance and richesse chief of all,
+  To your personage, beauty, demeanour, and wit,
+  I commend me unto you never a whit,'
+
+and so on--the joke lying, of course, in the incorrectness of the
+punctuation adopted. In general, the Elizabethans were too much in
+earnest to write absolute nonsense. Nonsense is to be found in
+Shakespeare, but usually in parody of the euphemists of his time. Some
+of the _personae_ are made to talk sad stuff, but it has not the merit of
+being 'precious' in the Lady Saphir's sense. It is very tedious indeed,
+and one likes to think that Shakespeare, perhaps, did not write it,
+after all. Drummond, in his 'Polemo-Middinia,' gave an early example of
+a kind of _jeu d'esprit_ which has since been frequently imitated--a
+species of dog-Latin _in extremis_:
+
+  'Hic aderunt Geordy Akinhedius and little Johnus,
+  Et Jamy Richaeus, et stout Michel Hendersonus,
+  Qui jolly tryppas ante alios dansare solebat,
+  Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare boneas.'
+
+But though this is not wholly unamusing, it is hardly, as nonsense, up
+to the standard instituted for us by Mr. Lear.
+
+The real thing is more nearly visible in Swift's macaronic lines about
+Molly--'Mollis abuti, Hasan acuti,' etc.--another vein of fun which has
+been exceedingly well worked out by successive writers. But such
+inspirations as these have too much method in them to be quite
+admissible. Much better was Swift's 'Love Song in the Modern Taste,'
+beginning:
+
+  'Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
+    Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart.'
+
+Even this, however, has too much sense for it to pass muster. Nor can
+one receive Johnson's
+
+  'If a man who turnips cries,
+  Cry not when his father dies,'
+
+and so on, as sufficiently nonsensical. It is simply a _jeu de mots_,
+and no more, though funny enough as it stands. One is better satisfied
+when one comes to the 'Tom Thumb' of Henry Fielding and the
+'Chrononhotonthologos' of Henry Carey, though even in those diverting
+squibs it is rarely that the versifier surrenders himself wholly to
+'Divine Nonsensia.' That charming goddess was saluted to more purpose in
+'The Anti-Jacobin,' where she was invoked to make charming fun of 'The
+Loves of the Plants.' In 'The Progress of Man' (in the same delectable
+collection) occurs the inspired passage:
+
+  'Ah, who has seen the mailed lobster rise,
+  Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies
+  When did the owl, descending from her bower,
+  Crop, 'mid the fleecy flocks, the tender flower?
+  Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,
+  In the salt wave and, fish-like, strive to swim?'
+
+But even this is too consistent in its grotesqueness to be perfect
+nonsense.
+
+One becomes acquainted with better nonsense the nearer one gets to one's
+own times. How clever, for instance, was that well-known 'dream' of
+Planche's, in which he fancied that he
+
+            'Was walking with Homer, and talking
+    The very best Greek I was able--was able--
+  When Guy, Earl of Warwick, with Johnson and Garrick,
+    Would dance a Scotch-reel on the table--the table;
+  When Hannibal, rising, declared 'twas surprising
+    That gentlemen made such a riot--a riot--
+  And sent in a bustle to beg Lord John Russell
+    Would hasten and make them all quiet--all quiet.'
+
+It may be that Mr. W. S. Gilbert had this in his mind when, in
+'Patience,' he pictured the processes by which to manufacture a heavy
+dragoon; but here, again, the design is too obvious, the incongruity a
+little too apparent. The late Shirley Brooks extracted much fun out of a
+mosaic of quotations from the poets, beginning:
+
+  'Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
+  That to be hated needs but to be seen,
+  Invites my lay; be present, sylvan maids,
+  And graceful deer reposing in the shades.'
+
+Very good nonsense is this, if not of the best; and it leads us up
+naturally to the more consummate performances of Mr. Calverley, whose
+exquisite mimicry of Mr. Browning and Miss Ingelow, in their most
+incomprehensible or most affected moods, is too well known to need
+description. Favourable mention may also be made of a certain ballad
+composed by the late Professor Palmer, in illustration of his inability
+to master nautical terms, which he furbishes up in mirth-provoking
+fashion.
+
+But, putting aside Mr. Lear, the most successful, the most precious
+nonsense ever written has been supplied by writers still, happily, in
+our midst. And of these, of course, Mr. Lewis Carroll is obviously
+_facile princeps_--not only by reason of the immortal 'Jabberwocky,' but
+by reason, also, of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' in which there are some
+very felicitous passages.
+
+  'They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care,
+    They pursued it with forks and hope;
+  They threatened its life with a railway share;
+    They charmed it with smiles and soap.'
+
+It requires genius, of a kind, to conceive and execute such lines as
+these, easy as (no doubt) it seems to write them. Not that Mr. Carroll
+is unapproachable. There are probably many who think that his
+'Jabberwocky' is at least equalled by Mr. Gilbert's 'Sing for the Garish
+Eye,' in which the invented words are truly 'Carrollian':
+
+  'Sing for the garish eye,
+    When moonless brandlings cling;
+  Let the froddering crooner cry,
+    And the braddled sapster sing!'--
+
+though, to be sure, Mr. Gilbert could hardly be expected to do anything
+better than that lovely quatrain of Bunthorne's about 'The dust of an
+earthy to-day' and 'The earth of a dusty to-morrow.'
+
+The example set by Mr. Lear has been followed by many versifiers, who
+have sought to create their effects after a manner now sufficiently
+familiar. Thus, we have had multitudinous efforts like the following:
+
+  'There was an old priest in Peru
+  Who dreamt he'd converted a Jew:
+    He woke in the night
+    In a deuce of a fright,
+  And found it was perfectly true.'
+
+Performances of that sort are, however, easy; and more merit attaches to
+such studies in unintelligibility as Bret Harte's 'Songs without Sense,'
+of which the 'Swiss Air' is a good example:
+
+  'I'm a gay tra, la, la,
+  With my fal, lal, la, la,
+  And my bright--
+  And my light--
+      Tra, la, le. [_Repeat._]
+  Then laugh, ha, ha, ha,
+  And ring, ting, ling, ling,
+  And sing fal, la, la,
+      La, la, le.' [_Repeat._]
+
+Probably, however, the poetry of pure nonsense has never been better
+represented than in these contemporary verses on the suitable topic of
+'Blue Moonshine':
+
+  'Ay! for ever and for ever
+    Whilst the love-lorn censers sweep,
+  Whilst the jasper winds dissever,
+    Amber-like, the crystal deep;
+  Shall the soul's delirious slumber,
+    Sea-green vengeance of a kiss,
+  Teach despairing crags to number
+    Blue infinities of bliss.'
+
+
+
+
+SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS.
+
+
+Most people have heard of that Mr. Gerard Hamilton who, suddenly and
+unexpectedly making in the House of Commons an oration which 'threw into
+the shade every other orator except Pitt,' was henceforth known by the
+nickname of 'Single-Speech'--not because he never addressed the House
+again, but because those who so nicknamed him chose to regard this
+performance as the distinguishing feature of his career. He continued to
+be known by that one discourse, and it is by virtue of it that he has a
+place in history. The fact is notable, and yet by no means uncommon. The
+world is, and always has been, full of Single-Speech Hamiltons--male and
+female--who have gained and maintained their notoriety by one special
+effort. Human nature is so constituted that the man or woman who is
+unable to produce a series of successes may yet have the capacity to
+compass one--may possess the energy and the ability to make at least one
+strong impression before retiring wholly into the background.
+
+The truth of this is observable, for example, in the sphere of poetry.
+How many are the excellent versifiers whose reputation is based wholly
+upon a solitary effusion! They have been inspired once, and the outcome
+is literary immortality. They cannot always be regarded strictly as
+poets, and yet they have a vogue which any poet might envy. They reign
+and shine by virtue of what may be called a happy accident. Thus, Lady
+Ann Barnard is known, in the world of verse, only by her 'Auld Robin
+Gray,' just as Miss Elliott and Mrs. Cockburn are known only by their
+respective 'Flowers of the Forest.' We remember Oldys merely by his
+'Busy, curious, thirsty fly,' Sir William Jones by his 'What constitutes
+a State?' Blanco White by his one Sonnet upon Night, Charles Wolfe by
+his 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' John Collins by his 'In the Downhill of
+Life,' and Herbert Knowles by his 'Lines in a Churchyard.' As Artemus
+Ward said of the oil-painting achieved by the Old Masters: 'They did
+this, and then they expired.' Some of them wrote other things, but the
+world received them not. It took count only of the single occasion on
+which they had been influenced by the divine _afflatus_--of the one
+thing which they had done 'supremely' well.
+
+Authors themselves are, no doubt, surprised at the caprices of the
+public, and somewhat piqued by the preferences of their patrons. Some
+are Single-Speech Hamiltons only because their readers have taken a
+special fancy to particular performances--not always because the
+achievements were obviously the best, but simply because circumstances
+brought them to the fore. It is, one may assume, to the charm of Haydn's
+musical setting that Mrs. Hunter owes the fame and popularity of 'My
+mother bids me bind my hair': it is to the composer, in that case, that
+the acceptance of the words are owing. Obvious causes, again, have given
+precedence to Heber's 'From Greenland's icy mountains' over all his
+other work in verse; just as the fact of having got into the extract
+books has accorded to Blake's 'Tiger, tiger, burning bright' a
+pre-eminence in the public mind over all his other efforts. In these
+matters the world will have its own way. It still extends recognition to
+Young's 'Night Thoughts,' but is apparently indifferent to his
+'Universal Passion.' It thinks of Bloomfield only in connection with
+'The Farmer's Boy,' and ignores the rest; just as it faintly recollects
+'The Sabbath' of James Grahame, but has forgotten even the titles of
+'Biblical Pictures' and 'The British Georgics.'
+
+This dependence of literary fame upon special public favourites is,
+perhaps, most strikingly represented in the field of fiction and the
+drama. Nothing is more common than that a novelist or a dramatist
+should remain in the popular memory by virtue of a single production.
+Beckford is for most people only the author of 'Vathek'; it is only the
+bibliophile who troubles himself about 'Azemia' or 'The Elegant
+Enthusiast.' Miss Porter is remembered by her 'Scottish
+Chiefs'--scarcely at all, perhaps, by her 'Thaddeus of Warsaw.'
+Everybody knows how strongly 'The Monk' took the fancy of the reading
+world--so strongly that the writer was 'Monk' Lewis, and 'Monk' Lewis
+only, ever after. Mackenzie's 'Man of Feeling' survives, but the 'Man of
+the World' and 'Julia Roubigne' are as if they had never existed. And
+look at the playwrights! 'She Stoops to Conquer' is a classic, but 'The
+Good-Natured Man' is not even good-naturedly tolerated. 'The Road to
+Ruin' has eclipsed 'Duplicity' and 'The Deserted Daughter.' We all know
+'The Honeymoon,' but who has seen, how many have read, 'The Curfew' and
+'The School for Authors'? We flock to 'Wild Oats,' but alas for 'The
+Agreeable Surprise'! 'The Man of the World' keeps Macklin's name before
+us, but we have said good-bye to 'Love a la Mode.'
+
+In truth, it is not a bad thing thus to be associated with one definite,
+unmistakable success. Gerard Hamilton did more for himself by that
+single brilliant speech than if he had delivered a whole multitude of
+less striking orations. There is nothing more fatal to a man than
+middlingness--a sort of dead level of mediocre performance. The world
+loses count of merely respectable outcome. To obtain its regard you must
+take its imagination captive at least once. You may be a very excellent
+person, and do very useful work; but, if you desire to be kept in mind,
+you must achieve something to which your name can be popularly attached.
+It is thus that Beattie and 'The Minstrel,' Green and 'The Spleen,'
+Somerville and 'The Chase,' Blair and 'The Grave,' Falconer and 'The
+Shipwreck,' Pollok and 'The Course of Time'--to name no others--are
+inseparably associated the one with the other. The works in question,
+probably, are rarely opened, but their titles at any rate have stuck in
+the general memory. Even in our own time, for the great majority of
+people, Miss Braddon will always be the author of 'Lady Audley's
+Secret,' Mrs. Oliphant always the author of 'The Chronicles of
+Carlingford,' Mrs. Henry Wood always the author of 'East Lynne'--and so
+on. That is the way in which they are remembered.
+
+Generally speaking, versatility is undesirable when reputation is the
+object aimed at. The world has not a very good memory, or, rather, it
+has so much to think about that it desires not to be more encumbered
+than it can help. Such men as the late Lord Lytton, for example, are, in
+one respect, a nuisance to it. Bulwer was about equally distinguished as
+a novelist, as a dramatist, and as an essayist; and, ever since, the
+average man has been puzzled whether to think of him as the author of
+'Pelham,' the author of 'The Lady of Lyons,' or the author of
+'Caxtoniana.' Bulwer tried hard to establish a position as a poet, but,
+happily, there is no need to trouble one's self greatly about 'King
+Arthur.' As it is, the fame of Bulwer's dramas appears likely,
+by-and-by, to eclipse altogether the fame of his novels. And this, if it
+ever happens, will prove once more that a man can be the worst enemy of
+himself. Single-Speech Hamilton was not satisfied with his big success,
+but spoke again. Nothing could have been more unwise. He should have
+rested on his laurels--unless indeed, he could have been quite sure that
+he would surpass his former triumph. Unless one can be perfectly certain
+of that, it is, best, in general, to let well alone.
+
+
+
+
+DRAMATIC NOMENCLATURE.
+
+
+The production on the London stage of a piece called 'The
+Schoolmistress' no doubt caused many lovers and students of the drama to
+consider for a moment whether--and, if so, to what extent--the general
+subject of school-life had been dealt with by preceding playwrights.
+
+Mr. Pinero was fortunate, to begin with, in the fact that he had hit
+upon a title for his piece hitherto unused--so far as I am aware--by any
+dramatist of whom history bears record. And this piece of originality is
+in itself remarkable, seeing that novelty in title is nowadays
+sufficiently rare. There is no official registry of such things, and,
+where so many active pens have been at work, a playwright must be
+self-confident indeed who can be sure that he has alighted upon a name
+which has never been used by any other native dramatist. To give only a
+few instances out of dozens:--Mr. Albery's play of 'The Spendthrift' had
+been anticipated, so far as title was concerned, by 'The Spendthrift' of
+Matthew Draper, acted in 1731, and by 'The Spendthrift' of Dr. Kenrick,
+performed in 1758, to say nothing of two anonymous plays, each called
+'The Spendthrift,' dating from 1680 and 1762 respectively. And to come
+down to quite recent days, the 'Loyal Lovers' played lately at the
+London Vaudeville had had a predecessor, in the matter of name, in the
+'Loyal Lovers,' by Major Manuche, which saw the light so long ago as
+1652. Similarly, the 'Woman of the World,' performed at the Haymarket in
+1886, had had its prototype, so far as the title was concerned, in the
+'Woman of the World' of Nelson Lee and Stirling Coyne.
+
+Exceptionally lucky, indeed, is the dramatic writer who can now discover
+a wholly new name for his production. A wholly fresh subject is, of
+course, even more difficult to achieve. Take what phase of life you
+will--make what use of it you please--you cannot secure absolute
+novelty. You cannot find a piece of ground which has not been trodden,
+however slightly, however differently, by a predecessor. The author of
+'The Schoolmistress' introduces his audiences to a very charming lady
+pupil-teacher, and to three scarcely less charming lady pupils. But one
+thinks at once of the still more delightful bevy of tutors and scholars
+presented to us just nineteen years ago, by T. W. Robertson, who,
+inspired by a German original, gave us not only Bella and Naomi Tighe,
+but a 'rosebud garden of girls,' of which the attraction has by no means
+yet departed. Mr. Ruskin has sneered at Bella as 'an amiable governess
+who, for the general encouragement of virtue in governesses, is rewarded
+by marrying a lord.' But for all that, she is a pleasant figure, and
+Naomi is a piquant one, and the English stage has witnessed few more
+agreeable scenes than those in which Dr. and Mrs. Sutcliffe's young
+ladies take part in the course of 'School.'
+
+As everybody knows, there is an 'angry schoolboy' in 'The Alchemist,'
+who is likely to survive not only in literature, but in history, by
+reason of the effective use which Sheridan once made of him when
+retorting upon Pitt in the House of Commons. Is there not, too, a comedy
+of Brome's--'The Antipodes'--in which the fathers go to school instead
+of their sons, and are made to ape the habits of the youthful scholar?
+Richard Lovelace, we read, wrote a comedy called 'The Scholar,' but it
+was never printed, and probably had reference to the adult rather than
+the juvenile student. In the early years of last century, 'The
+Schoolboy' was the title given to a farce played at Drury Lane, a piece
+of which one Johnny was the hero--a Johnny who had the honour of being
+impersonated by the great Roscius himself, and by actors, too, of the
+calibre of Woodward, Shuter, and J. W. Dodd. Early, again, in the
+present century, 'The Scholar' was the name of a play adapted from the
+French by Buckstone; but in this case, as, no doubt, there was in
+Lovelace's, there is more of the scholastic than of the school. The
+subject and title of 'Schoolfellows' was taken by Douglas Jerrold, the
+schoolfellows in it being, however, no longer under the tutelage of
+their old master. A 'Schoolboy's Masque' was printed in 1742; a 'School
+Moderator' was included in Garrick's collection; a 'School Play,' it is
+recorded, was performed at a private grammar school in Middlesex, in
+1663; and of recent years an extravaganza has been endowed with the
+suggestive title of 'School Bored.'
+
+There is, of course, a sense in which the word 'school' can be used for
+the larger opportunities of education given by contact with the world.
+And in this sense the word has been used by English dramatists with
+remarkable and characteristic frequency. In the second quarter of the
+seventeenth century Shirley printed, as 'the firstfruits of his Muses,'
+his comedy called 'The School of Compliment,' which had been played at
+Drury Lane; and in the list of comedies of the nineteenth century will
+be found 'The School of Reform,' by Thomas Morton, and the 'School of
+Intrigue,' by Mr. Mortimer; the former devoted to instructing ladies
+'how to rule a husband,' and the latter to a fresh treatment of the
+world-famous story of the Count and Countess Almaviva. But the dramatic
+pieces whose titles begin with 'The School of' are few indeed in
+comparison with those whose names begin with 'The School for.' Of the
+latter the most famous is, of course, 'The School for Scandal,' now just
+111 years old. But Sheridan's work had been preceded, in the following
+order, by 'The School for Lovers,' 'The School for Guardians,' 'The
+School for Rakes,' 'The School for Fathers,' and 'The School for Wives.'
+Nor is it surprising that, the fashion having once been set, Sheridan's
+comedy should be followed successively by 'The School for Eloquence,'
+'The School for Ladies,' 'The School for Vanity,' 'The School for
+Greybeards,' 'The School for Widows,' 'The School for Arrogance,' 'The
+School for Prejudice,' 'The School for Friends,' 'The School for
+Authors,' 'The School for Grown Children,' 'The School for Grown
+Gentlemen,' and 'The School for Scheming'--this last being one of the
+numerous performances of Mr. Boucicault.
+
+Nor is this all. History relates that Steele began a comedy named 'The
+School for Action,' and there are records of pieces called 'The School
+for Husbands,' 'The School for Women,' 'The School for Coquettes,' 'The
+School for Daughters,' and 'The School for Tigers.' Probably no word has
+been so often utilized by the dramatists as 'School,' and probably, too,
+no modern playwright would be disposed to add lightly to the number of
+those who have 'annexed' it.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNS AND PATRONYMICS.
+
+
+Probably there are few things more common, and at the same time more
+opposed to good taste, than punning upon people's names. Possibly the
+impertinence of it has some attraction; for, of course, all such
+'witticisms' are impertinent--unless, indeed, a man puns on his own
+name, or, if he puns upon another's, takes care to make the observation
+complimentary. No doubt, neither Mrs. Cuffe nor Mrs. Tighe was very
+offended when Sydney Smith described one as 'the cuff that every one
+would wear,' and the other as 'the tie that no one would loose.' These
+are word-plays of the innocuous sort. Would that all such jests were
+equally inoffensive!
+
+However, it is of little use to complain of a 'stream of tendency' which
+cannot be diverted from its course. The most distinguished people have
+had to tolerate the liberties taken with their names. Even the first of
+men has had to suffer, Hood having long ago said what a pity it was
+that, when Eve offered him the apple, poor Adam was not adam-ant. And
+when one turns to the celebrities of one's own country, one finds that
+many of them have had to endure attentions of the kind. There was, for
+example, that distinguished Marquis of whom it was said on one occasion
+that 'The nation's asleep, and the minister Rockingham.' There was also
+that Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, of whom Byron declared that he
+would return to the Whigs if they would re-Ward him. How hard, again,
+was _Punch_ upon Sir Francis Head, for his well-known apologia for Louis
+Napoleon:
+
+        'He wrote to the _Times_
+        In defence of the crimes
+  Disgraceful to the heart and to the Head, Head, Head.'
+
+Hood pretended that, when he heard 'Those Evening Bells,' they did but
+remind him of the statesman who had invented and established the
+income-tax:
+
+  'Recalling only how a Peel
+    Has taxed the comings-in of Time!'
+
+That Mr. Disraeli's popular diminutive should suggest punning was
+inevitable, and so we find Shirley Brooks proposing, in 1865, that,
+
+  'Having finished his Iliad and ceased to be busy,
+  Lord Derby should try and translate his Odd-Dizzy.'
+
+
+The annals of the Church are no more free from jingles on names than
+those of any other institution. Familiar to many is the laconic epitaph
+on Archbishop Potter:
+
+  'Alack and well-a-day:
+  Potter himself is turned to clay!'
+
+Horace Walpole wrote bitterly of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, that 'His grace signed his own proper name--Thomas _Cant._,'
+which would certainly have read better as 'Thomas Cantuar.' But the
+bishops' signatures have always been regarded as fair game. What puns
+have been made on the unhappy, because so obvious, 'Oxon!' In 1848,
+when Bishop Hampden was accused of heresy by the party headed by the
+Bishop of Oxford, the would-be satirist wrote that
+
+  'As once the Pope with fury full,
+    When Luther laid his heavy knocks on,
+  At the Reformer loosed a Bull--
+    So these at Hampden set an Ox-on.'
+
+Again, when Archdeacon Hale figured prominently in the old churchyard
+controversy, _Punch_ observed:
+
+  'The intramural churchyard's reeking pale
+    Breathes health around it, says a reverend party;
+  But though the spot may keep a parson Hale,
+    Can people who in-hale its fumes be hearty?'
+
+
+Turning to the records of the other professions, one finds a good deal
+of the same sort of thing. Literature affords such examples as those
+which are supplied in the well-known lines by John Henley on William
+Broome and by Lord Byron on Tom Moore ('Now 'tis Moore that's Little').
+There were journal writers before Greville and Carlyle, and, when Lady
+Bury published her 'Diary of the Times of George IV.,' Hood, no doubt,
+was justified in crying, as he did:
+
+  'Oh, may I die without a Diary,
+    And be interred without a Bury-ing!'
+
+In a very different spirit were James Smith's lines on Miss Edgeworth's
+works:
+
+  'Good and bad join in telling the source of their birth;
+  The bad own their _edge_, and the good own their _worth_.'
+
+
+The vocal and histrionic arts have often had their victims. Who can
+possibly have forgotten Luttrell's famous compliment to Miss Tree:
+
+  'On this Tree when a nightingale settles and sings,
+  The Tree will return her as good as she brings.'
+
+Here, if ever, was a pun on a name defensible. Less well known is this
+quatrain on the famous actor, William Farren, who died in 1861:
+
+  'If Farren, cleverest of men,
+    Should go to right-about,
+  What part of town will he be then?
+    Why, "Farren-done-Without"!'
+
+
+Those ladies of beauty and fashion whose names were susceptible at once
+of pun and compliment have naturally inspired the wits of their
+respective days. Thus, it was said of the charming sisters Gunning,
+that Cupid, perceiving that the beaux of the time were proof against his
+darts, had now laid down his bow and conquered by 'gunning.' But perhaps
+the best thing of the sort ever composed was Lord Lyttelton's tribute to
+Lady Brown:
+
+  'When I was young and debonair,
+  The brownest nymph to me was fair;
+  But now I'm old and wiser grown,
+  The fairest nymph to me is Brown.'
+
+
+Other celebrities could be named who came off badly in their encounter
+with the punsters. But, indeed, the list of such jests might be
+indefinitely extended, for the habit of making puns on patronymics has
+always been very widely spread, and has found many a sympathetic
+historian.
+
+
+
+
+
+'YOURS TRULY.'
+
+
+Nobody ever yet found very great difficulty in starting a letter. Young
+lovers may have hesitated from time to time between such modes of
+address as 'Dear,' 'Dearest,' 'Sweetest,' 'Darling,' and the like; but
+only for a moment. Usually, the overburdened heart hits at once upon the
+exact word or phrase which best expresses its ecstatic feeling. And so
+with less impassioned matters. There is a well-recognised gradation in
+the methods of epistolary salutation. The stranger is addressed as
+'Sir,' the person of whom something is known as 'Dear Sir.' 'My Dear
+Sir' accompanies a rather better acquaintance; 'Dear Mr. Brown' marks an
+approach to intimacy; while 'Dear Brown' signifies the acme of
+friendship and of _camaraderie_. Here, again, there may be a temporary
+pause before passing from 'Sir' to 'Dear Sir,' and so forth, but in
+general the transitions are sufficiently well emphasized to be obvious
+to the average intelligence.
+
+Very different is it with the other end of the letter. There we find
+opportunity for the widest divergence. Royal or official, pompous or
+irate, people have been known to finish an epistle, abruptly, with the
+simple appendix of their name; but these are the exceptions which prove
+the rule. And the rule is certainly to preface the name by some
+expression of feeling, however brief and perfunctory. The least you can
+do is to describe yourself as 'yours.' We find Sterne thus describing
+himself to Garrick; while, by way of slight variety, Cowper, writing to
+Joseph Hill, ends with a 'Yours, dear Joe.' Still further variety is
+secured when, as in the case of Lord Eglinton addressing his countess in
+1619, the hackneyed 'I remain, yours' takes the form of 'I rest,
+yours'--a phrase which is not, however, likely to be often used. And let
+it not be supposed that plenty of meaning cannot be thrown into the
+'yours' alone. Take, for instance, the reply made by 'The' Macdonald,
+when Glengarry claimed the chieftainship of the clan. 'As soon,' said
+the former, 'as you can prove yourself my chief I shall be ready to
+acknowledge you as such, but in the meantime I am yours, Macdonald.'
+There, for once in a way, the 'yours' meant something.
+
+When we go farther than the mere 'yours,' the possible variations are,
+of course, endless. There is 'yours truly'--perhaps the most widely used
+of all such combinations; but there are persons who rebel against its
+tyranny, and who with daring originality substitute the heartier and
+less conventional 'very truly,' 'most truly,' or 'right truly.' Second
+only to 'yours truly' come 'yours faithfully' and 'yours sincerely,'
+with their comparative 'very faithfully' and superlative 'most
+sincerely;' and many people are well content to keep within the safe
+borders of these wholly innocent and uncompromising forms. On the other
+hand, less indifferent minds will go farther afield for their
+qualifying adverbs, and say, with Sterne, 'very cordially yours,' or,
+with Father Matthew, 'yours devotedly,' and so on. Whewell, asked once
+for his autograph, signed himself 'yours autographically,' and of such
+deviations there are abundant examples, mostly with a tendency to the
+flippant. 'Yours ever' Byron declared himself to John Murray; 'yours
+ever and evermore,' wrote Cowper to a friend; while Steele, in a letter
+to his wife, protested that he was, with his whole heart, hers for
+ever--which may be pronounced the best of the three.
+
+But there is no reason in the world, to be sure, why we should cling to
+the 'yours' in any shape or modification. There are multitudinous other
+ways of being valedictory with effect. There is the simple word 'Adieu.'
+'And so, my dear madam, adieu,' writes Pepys to a lady. 'With all my
+love, and those sort of pretty things, adieu!' wrote the future Mrs.
+Scott to her sweetheart, the Great Magician. And then there is the
+English equivalent of the word--surely not less available. 'I wish you
+were at the devil,' wrote Sir Philip Francis to Burke, 'for giving me
+all this trouble, and so farewell!' In the old days, as we read in the
+'Paston Letters,' they had a sufficiently formal fashion of concluding
+epistles. 'By your cousin, Dame Elizabeth Brews'--'By your man, Thomas
+Kela;' such are two examples of the custom. 'Written at Norwich, on St.
+Thomas's even, in great haste, by your mother, Agnes Paston'--there is
+another. 'From your Russell,' is the end of a letter from the famous
+Lady Russell to her husband; and it does not read or sound untenderly.
+Junius signed himself to Woodfall, 'your friend.' Less cold was Mrs.
+Maclehose to Burns: 'I may sign, for I am already sealed, your friend,
+Clarinda.'
+
+The elaborate style of description has always largely obtained, as being
+obviously suitable for so many occasions. Thus one is not surprised to
+find the future Charles II. professing to be his father's 'most humble
+and most obedient son and servant,' or to note how that very complete
+letter-writer, James Howell, claimed to be the Countess of Sunderland's
+'most dutiful servant.' Dr. Johnson did well to announce himself
+haughtily as Chesterfield's 'most humble, most obedient servant;' while
+what could Sir Walter Scott be to his Duke of Buccleuch other than 'your
+Grace's truly obliged and grateful'? A similar sense of propriety
+induced Hood, in a certain memorable epistle, to tell Sir Robert Peel
+that he had the honour to be, Sir, his most grateful and obedient
+servant. One cannot object, either, to the 'Your most obliged and
+faithful friend' of Evelyn when addressed to Pepys, or to the 'Your very
+faithful, humble servant' of Bishop Percy, when penned to Boswell. It
+is, however, a little diverting to observe that Sir Simonds d'Ewes,
+after addressing his ladylove as 'Fairest,' concludes with 'Your humble
+servant,' and that the _Tatler_ of his time, rounding off a dedicatory
+letter to his 'Prue,' says: 'I am, Madam, your most obliged husband, and
+most obedient, humble servant, Richard Steele.'
+
+Over and over again have letter-writers made their final description of
+themselves so wholly a part of their last sentence that the former
+cannot be dissociated from the latter. 'I have not room to tell you any
+more,' wrote Stephen Duck to Joseph Spence in 1751, 'than that I am,
+Dear Sir, your most affectionate.' 'These,' said her royal mistress to
+Mrs. Delany in 1785, 'are the true sentiments of my dear Mrs. Delany's
+very affectionate Queen, Charlotte.' Hood once finished a charming
+epistle to a child in this way: 'Give my love to everybody, from
+yourself down to Willy, with which and a kiss, I remain, up hill and
+down dale, your affectionate lover, Thomas Hood.' Most people remember
+the pithy correspondence between Foote and his mother: 'Dear Sam,--I am
+in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother, E.
+Foote.'--'Dear Mother,--So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to
+his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam Foote.' Not everybody,
+however, can wind up a letter so neatly as that. A certain commercial
+house abroad was, perhaps, over-ingenious in its turn of phrase when,
+writing to an English correspondent, and desiring to be very civil to
+him, it said: 'Sugars are falling more and more every day; not so the
+respect and esteem with which we are,' etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPTS.
+
+
+There is, and long has been, a prevalent impression that the penning of
+postscripts is peculiarly characteristic of the feminine letter-writer.
+Cynics have even gone so far as to assert that no woman can indite an
+epistle without the addition of a 'P.S.,' and, in support of this
+grievous aspersion, have been wont to trot out the venerable 'chestnut'
+about the lady who accepted from her husband a bet that she would not
+send him a letter without the inevitable addendum--the result being
+that, after having composed the epistle and signed her name, she
+artlessly appended the observation, 'You see I _have_ written you a
+letter without a postscript,' capping it with 'Who has won the wager,
+you or I?'
+
+It might be argued, even if it could not be proved, that, putting aside
+mere business communications, and confining one's self to ordinary
+social correspondence, men are guilty of as many postscripts as women
+are. But even if the stereotyped charge against the ladies be really
+well-founded, what of it? Does it convey any tangible reproach? What
+harm is there in a 'P.S.,' or a 'P.P.S.'? It may be not only a
+defensible, but positively a praiseworthy, thing. Often it proceeds from
+nothing more condemnable than a genuine overflow of feeling--a stream of
+sentiment which, checked by the signature of the writer, bursts its
+bonds and reasserts its power in a final sentence or two. What could be
+more charming, for example, than the instances of this afforded in so
+many of the heroic Lady Russell's letters to her husband--as in that
+particularly pleasing one in which, after assuring him that all the
+household are well, and that as he is 'the most enduring husband in the
+world,' so she is 'the most grateful wife,' she adds her signature, and
+then recurs to the subject of her children--'Boy is asleep, girls
+singing abed'--telling of the proposed kindness of a neighbour towards
+them.
+
+Note, again, the superabundant playfulness of Cowper in one of his
+epistles to Lady Hesketh, where, after a few lines of personal
+description, he appears to conclude, but returns to the topic with a
+
+     'P.S.--That the view I give you of myself may be complete I add the
+     following items: That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.'
+
+Sometimes there will be pathos in a postscript, as in the case of
+Beethoven's touching communication to his brothers Carl and Johann in
+the matter of his deafness. In the body of the letter he has been
+begging them not to think him hostile, morose, or misanthropical, and
+making clear to them how little they know of the secret cause of his
+apparent indifference. Then, on the outside of the packet, comes this
+last melancholy outpouring:
+
+     'Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness too. The fond
+     hope I brought with me here [to Heiligenstadt] of being to a
+     certain degree cured, now utterly forsakes me. As autumn leaves
+     fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted.'
+
+Of this spontaneous running-over from text into postscript, literature
+has many specimens--none, perhaps, more effective in its way than the
+kindly stanza with which Mr. Bret Harte makes Truthful James bring to a
+close 'His Answer to Her Letter':
+
+  'P.S.--Which this same interfering
+    Into other folks' ways I despise,
+  Yet if it so be I was hearing
+    That it's just empty pockets as lies
+  Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers
+    That, having no family claims,
+  Here's my pile; which it's six hundred dollars,
+    As is yours, with respect, Truthful James.'
+
+
+One might, indeed, say more for postscripts than that they are often
+pardonable; they are often actually useful. They can be bent to the
+service of the writer; and over and over again, I dare say, have been
+appended with careful deliberation. They are invaluable as modes of
+emphasizing matter contained within the limits of the letter proper.
+They form 'last words' which can be charged with any measure of
+significance. Many people remember the case of the sailor who, after
+mentioning thrice in the course of one short epistle the desired
+purchase of some pigtail, felt constrained to add yet another reminder
+in the shape of a 'P.S.--Don't forget the pigtail.' Not less impressive,
+probably, was Sir Hew Dalrymple when, writing in 1775 to a friend to
+exhort him to give preferment to a worthy young cleric, he observed, in
+a postscript:
+
+     'Think what an unspeakable pleasure it will be to look down from
+     heaven and see Rigby, Masterton, all the Campbells and Nabobs,
+     swimming in fire and brimstone, while you are sitting with
+     Whitefield and his old women, looking beautiful, frisking and
+     singing; all which you may have by settling this man!'
+
+There can be no question that a well-planted 'P.S.' is of great utility
+in clinching an argument raised in the main portion of a communication.
+Thus, when Artemus Ward wrote 'to the editor of ----,' asking for a line
+concerning the state of the show business in his locality, he knew what
+he was about. 'I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss,' he observed.
+'Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in flamin' stile.
+Also git up a tremenjus excitement in yr. paper 'bout my onparaleld
+Show. We must fetch the public sumhow.' Then, at the end, came the
+summing-up of the whole transaction: 'P.S.--You scratch my back and Ile
+scratch your back.' There is at least one instance on record in which a
+postscript was made to convey a smart reproof. Talleyrand, having one
+day entrusted a valet with a letter to deliver, happened to look out of
+the window, and saw the man reading the message _en route_. Next day he
+despatched another letter to the same address by the same servant,
+taking care to append to it the following: 'P.S.--You may send a verbal
+answer by the bearer. He is perfectly acquainted with the whole affair,
+having taken the precaution to read this previous to delivery.'
+
+On the whole, whether postscripts are defensible or not, it is clear
+that their history is eminently interesting. Some valuable matter has
+from time to time been put into them. There is at least one letter of
+Thomas Gray's, written in 1764 to the Rev. Norton Nicholls, the 'P.S.'
+of which is worth the whole of the remainder of the communication, so
+charming a bit of descriptive writing is embodied in it. Then, how full
+of good stuff are the epistolary addenda of Charles Lamb, with whom 'the
+cream of the correspondence' (as Tony Lumpkin has it) was very often
+rather in the postscript than in 'the inside of the letter,' in the
+sense of its larger portion. It is in one of these addenda that one
+finds the first record of a well-known sentence: 'Summer, as my friend
+Coleridge waggishly observes, has set in with its usual severity.'
+Elsewhere one comes across such tributes as: 'My friend Hood, a prime
+genius and hearty fellow, brings this.' Always characteristic in thought
+and in expression, Lamb was never more so than in the finales to his
+letters. 'I do not think your handwriting at all like ----'s,' he says
+to Southey; 'I do not think many things I did think.' He winds up a
+dog-Latin epistle to Bernard Barton, in 1831, with: 'P.S.--Perdita in
+toto est Billa Reformatura.' And to Coleridge he says, with delightful
+frankness:
+
+     'Write your German as plain as sunshine, for that must correct
+     itself. You know I am _homo unius linguae_: in English--illiterate,
+     a dunce, a ninny.'
+
+Sometimes a postscript is unconsciously full of humour, as in the case
+of a note written by a certain Mr. O. to a recent Bishop of Norwich:
+
+     'Mr. O----'s private affairs turn out so sadly that he cannot have
+     the pleasure of waiting upon his lordship at his agreeable house on
+     Monday next.--N.B. His wife is dead.'
+
+
+THE END.
+
+_Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
+both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as
+presented in the original text.
+
+The following misprint has been corrected:
+  "writting" corrected to "writing" (page 221)
+
+Printer's inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's By-ways in Book-land, by William Davenport Adams
+
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 19:54:58 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 19:54:58 -0700
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tree	00912c13ffdf017232b2145cc2e015461ae151d1