In 1866, Mr. Gerald Massey published a large volume on the same

subject, with the somewhat pretentious title. _Shakespeare's Sonnets,

never before interpreted; his private friends identified; together with

a recovered likeness of himself_. The first chapter contains a summary

of the opinions of Coleridge, Wordsworth and others upon the Sonnets; a

notice of the theory of Bright and Boaden (_Gentleman's Magazine_,

1832), afterward confirmed by a book written by Charles Armitage Brown

(1838); the theories of Hunter, Hallam, Dyce, Mrs. Jameson, M. Chasles,

Ulrici, Gervinus and many others (most of them, by the way, confirming

the theory originated by Boaden and Bright); and having thus gone over

the work of twenty-five _named_ authors, and a space of time extending

from 1817 to 1866, Mr. Massey begins his second chapter by saying that

as yet there has never been any genuine attempt to interpret the

Sonnets, "nothing having been done except a little surface-work." Mr. C.

Armitage Brown in particular (who, by the way, must not be confounded

with Mr. _Henry Browne_) appears to be Mr. Massey's special aversion.

The very name of Brown irritates him as scarlet does an excitable bull.

Armitage Brown was the intimate friend of Keats and Landor, and, Severn

says, was considered to know more about the Sonnets than any man then

living, while the "personal theory," as Mr. Massey styles it, has had a

far larger number of supporters than any other. Unfortunately, the

opinions of others have not the slightest weight with Mr. Massey, and

words are too weak to express his scorn of this theory and its

supporters. Mr. Brown wraps things in a winding sheet of witless words

(delicious alliteration!); he leaves the subject dark and dubious as

ever; his theory has only served to trouble deep waters, and make them

so muddy that it is impossible to see to the bottom; in short, Mr. Brown

and his fellow thinkers, in the opinion of Mr. Massey, are

arch-deceivers and audacious misinterpreters, and have no more idea of

what Shakespeare meant than they have of telling the truth about it. Why

Mr. Massey should have worked himself into a passion before he

began to write is a mystery darker than any he attempts to solve, but

the intemperate, bitter and self-conceited tone of the whole book is

alone an immense injury to its critical value.

In constructing his elaborate theory of the Sonnets, Mr. Massey has

committed many grave offences against the rules of criticism. He has

gone to his work with the strongest possible prejudices; he has begun it

with certain preconceived ideas of what Shakespeare meant to write; he

has found it necessary to destroy entirely the order of the poems, and

to rearrange them, even sometimes to alter the text, to fit his own

notions; and he has carried his investigations into such puerile and

minute twistings of the text as can only be paralleled by Mr. Page's

quotation in support of his scar. For instance, in Sonnet 78 occur these

lines:

Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Mr. Massey thinks that in this quatrain (which the vulgar mind would

accept as it stands, nor expect to treat as other than figurative)

Shakespeare was passing in review the writers under the patronage of the

earl of Southampton, to whom the sonnet is addressed, and that he can

identify the four personifications! Shakespeare of course is the Dumb

taught to sing by the favor of the earl; resolute John Florio, the

translator of Montaigne, is Heavy Ignorance; Tom Nash is the Learned,

who has had feathers added to his wing; and Marlowe is the Grace to whom

is given a double majesty! Marlowe's chief characteristic was majesty,

says Mr. Massey; therefore, we suppose, he is spoken of as _grace_. The

rest of his "exquisite reasons" may be found at pages 134-143 of the

book.

This is nothing, however, to the feats of which Mr. Massey's subtlety is

capable. Sonnet 38 begins:

How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

That is, kindly explains Mr. Massey--lest we should be tempted to accept

the obvious meaning of the lines, that the poet could not want a

subject while his friend lived, whose worth was too great for every

ordinary writing to celebrate fitly--"that is, the new subject of the

earl's suggesting and the new form of the earl's inventing are too

choice to be committed to _common paper_; which means that Shakespeare

had until then written his personal sonnets on slips of paper provided

by himself, and now the excelling argument of the earl's love is to be

written in Southampton's own book"! Perhaps it means that Shakespeare

had taken to gilt-edged, hot-pressed, double-scented Bath note.

Mr. Massey's ingenuity in getting over a difficulty is as great as his

faculty of construction. Having assumed Lady Rich (that Stella whose

golden hair makes half the glory of Sidney's verse) to be the "black

beauty" of the Sonnets, he finds that Sonnet 130 perversely says, "If

hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head"--a bit of evidence that

would seem to upset this theory. But Mr. Massey is not to be put down so

easily. This is ironical, he says in effect; Shakespeare did not mean

this; "it is a bit of malicious subtlety to call the lady's hair black

wires, which was so often besung as golden hair; and _she had been so

vain of its mellow splendor!_ ... And there is the '_if_' to be

considered--'much virtue in an _if'!_--'_If_ hairs be wires,' says the

speaker, 'black wires grow on her head!' So that the 'black' is only

used conditionally, and the fact remains that 'hairs' are _not_

'wires.'" If we are to interpret Shakespeare in this manner, where is

such foolery to cease?

To sum up the principal facts of Mr. Massey's elaborate theory in a few

words, we find that he considers the Sonnets to be dedicated to William

Herbert, earl of Pembroke, as "their only begetter" (or obtainer) for

the publisher, Mr. Thomas Thorpe; that they consist properly of two

series, the first written for Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton,

the second for the earl of Pembroke; that they begin with the poet's

advice to Southampton to marry; that when the earl fell in love with

Elizabeth Vernon, he suggested a new argument (see Sonnet 38),

wherein is no such thing as a _new_ argument, by the way; and that then

the poet begins to write love-poems in the person of his friend. This

continues up to the year 1603, when the earl of Southampton was released

from prison, the dramatic sonnets being interspersed with personal ones.

These dramatic sonnets also include sonnets written for Elizabeth Vernon

of and to Penelope Lady Rich, of whom she is supposed to be jealous;

sonnets from Southampton to herself upon the lovers' quarrel, and the

desperate flirtation of Elizabeth Vernon to punish her lover (which Mr.

Massey says ensued upon this jealousy); together with various other

sonnets between them, and upon the earl's varying fortunes, his

marriage, imprisonment, etc., which make up the first series. The second

series are love-poems written for William Herbert, and addressed to Lady

Rich, who is supposed by Mr. Massey to be the "black beauty" (or

brunette) of the closing sonnets, although it is well known that Lady

Rich was a golden blonde, with nothing dark about her but her black

eyes. To make out this complicated story, Mr. Massey arranges the

Sonnets in groups to suit his fancy, baptizes them as he chooses, and

does not scruple to vilify the fair name of man or woman in order to

make out his argument and to defend the spotless purity of Shakespeare's

moral character.

_Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems_, by Charles Armitage Brown

(1838), is the book which more than all others on the subject seems to

have excited Mr. Massey's indignation, chiefly because it is the leading

advocate of "the personal theory"--that is, the autobiographical and

non-dramatic character of the poems. This implies an acceptance of the

statement clearly made in the Sonnets of Shakespeare's infidelity to his

wife; and this Mr. Massey pronounces an outrageous and unwarranted

slander. But in order to leave the name of Shakespeare pure from any

stain of mortal imperfection, Mr. Massey arranges a dramatic intention

for the Sonnets which involves, with more or less of light or evil

conduct, no less than four other names--the earl of Southampton and

Elizabeth Vernon (daughter of Sir John Vernon), whom he afterward

married; William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and Lady Rich, for whom Mr.

Massey finds no words too abusive, and whom he considers the "worser

spirit" of the later Sonnets. The history of this lady is sufficiently

well known, and, so far as I can ascertain, there is no historical

warrant for supposing her to have been the mistress of Herbert, or the

beguiler of Southampton into such a lapse of duty to his beloved

Elizabeth Vernon as should inspire the expressions of Sonnets 134, 133,

144, which Mr. Massey says are written in the person of this lady to

Lady Rich. Lady Penelope Devereux, sister of Essex, was born in 1563,

and her father, who died when she was but thirteen, expressed a desire

that she should be married to Sir Philip Sidney. For some unknown reason

the intended match was broken off, and the fair Penelope, who is

described as "a lady in whom lodged all attractive graces of beauty, wit

and sweetness of behavior which might render her the absolute mistress

of all eyes and hearts," was married in 1580 to Lord Rich, a man whom

she detested. Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, a series of one hundred

and eight sonnets and poems addressed to Lady Rich, and celebrating the

strength and the purity of their love for each other, was first printed

in 1591. Sidney had died five years before, and so long as he lived, at

least, no whisper had been breathed against Lady Rich. In 1600 we have

the first notice of her losing the queen's favor from a suspicion of her

infidelity to her husband, and in 1605, having been divorced, her lover,

the earl of Devonshire, formerly Lord Mountjoy, immediately married her.

He defended her in an eloquent _Discourse_ and an _Epistle to the King_,

in which he says: "A lady of great birth and virtue, being in the power

of her friends, was by them married against her will unto one against

whom she did protest at the very solemnity and ever after." Lord Rich

treated her with great brutality, and having ceased to live with her for

twelve years, "did by persuasions and threatenings move her to

consent unto a divorce, and to confess a fault with a nameless

stranger." In spite of Mountjoy's noble pleadings for his wife, the

whole court rose up against his marriage. The earl's sensitive heart was

broken by the disgrace he had brought upon one whom he had loved so

dearly and so long (for he was Sidney's rival in his early youth, and

had been rejected by Lady Penelope's family before her marriage with

Lord Rich), and he died of grief four months after their marriage, April

3, 1606. His countess, "worn out with lamentation," did not long survive

him.

Does that look like the conduct of a light and fickle heart? or was it

likely that so noble a man as Charles Mountjoy would have died of grief

for the disgrace he had brought upon a notoriously bad woman? As to Lord

Southampton's alleged flirtation with Lady Rich, which so excited

Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy, Mr. Massey has not one circumstance in

proof of it but the forced interpretation he chooses to put upon certain

lines of certain sonnets which he has wrested from their proper places,

as well as their proper meaning. After using such sonnets as the 144th

to express this jealousy, he quietly confesses at the end of the chapter

that it could not have gone very deep, as the intimacy of the two fair

cousins (for such was their relationship) continued to be of the

closest--that it was to Lady Rich's house that Elizabeth Vernon retired

after her secret marriage to the earl in 1598, and there her baby was

born, named Penelope after her cousin and friend! There was only matter

enough in it for poetry, Mr. Massey concludes after having upset the

whole order of the Sonnets to prove its reality.

Now, as to the story of Lady Rich's having been the mistress of Herbert,

for whom Mr. Massey says that twenty-four of the Sonnets were written.

William Herbert, afterward earl of Pembroke, was born in 1580. He came

up to London in 1598, being then eighteen years of age, and made the

acquaintance of Shakespeare, who was then thirty-four years old. Lady

Rich, at that time, according to Mr. Massey's own statement, was

"getting on for forty." The fact is that she was just thirty-five,

having been born, as he tells us, in 1563. According to the obvious

meaning of the Sonnets, the lady spoken of is much younger than

Shakespeare, instead of a year older, and, according to Mr. Massey, Lady

Rich was at that time (1597) in the midst of her love-affair with

Mountjoy. The lady of the Sonnets, if we take them literally, could have

borne no such high position as Lady Rich: she seems to have been neither

remarkably beautiful and high-bred, nor virtuous, and was evidently a

married woman of no reputation. (_Sonnets_ 150, 152.)

It is impossible to bring up separately, in a single article, the items

contained in a volume of 603 pages, so we must be content to leave Mr.

Massey's theory with these meagre allusions to its principal statements,

and pass on to that of Mr. Charles Armitage Brown. Upholding the opinion

that the Sonnets are autobiographical, he maintains that they are in

reality not sonnets, but poems in the sonnet stanza, there being but

three sonnets, properly so called, in the series. The poems are six in

number, terminating each with an appropriate _envoi_, and are addressed,

the first five to the poet's friend, "W.H.," and the sixth to his

mistress. That friend must have been very young, very handsome, of high

birth and fortune; and to all this the description of William Herbert

exactly answers. The divisions made by Mr. Brown are as follows: First

poem, 1 to 26--to his friend, persuading him to marry. Second poem, 27

to 55--to his friend, who had robbed the poet of his mistress, forgiving

him. Third poem, 56 to 77--to his friend, complaining of his coldness,

and warning him of life's decay. Fourth poem, 78 to 101--to his friend,

complaining that he prefers another poet's praises, and reproving him

for faults that may injure his character. Fifth poem, 102 to 126--to his

friend, excusing himself for having been some time silent, and

disclaiming the charge of inconstancy. Sixth poem, 127 to 152--to his

mistress, on her infidelity. In this last poem, says Mr. Brown,

we find the whole tenor to be "hate of my sin grounded on sinful

loving." However the poet may waver, and for the moment seem to return

to his former thralldom, indignation at the faithlessness of his

mistress and at her having been, through treachery, the cause of his

estrangement from a friend, at the last completely conquers his sinful

loving. "For myself," continues Mr. Brown, "I confess I have not the

heart to blame him at all, purely because he so keenly reproaches

himself for his own sin and folly. Fascinated as he was, he did not,

like other poets similarly guilty, directly or by implication obtrude

his own passions on the world as reasonable laws. Had such been the

case, he might have merited our censure, possibly our contempt."

Having thus glanced over the work of the principal commentators upon the

Sonnets, let us try the simple plan of reading them as we read

Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, for instance, or the _Sonnets from the

Portuguese_, by Mrs. Browning. In Mr. R.G. White's admirable edition of

Shakespeare he confesses that he has no opinion upon the subject: "Mr.

Thomas Thorpe appears in his dedication as the Sphinx of literature, and

thus far he has not met his Oedipus." But herein have we not the main

difficulty stated? The first great error committed by almost all

students of the Sonnets, if we may be pardoned the opinion, is to take

it for granted that they are a mystery whose key is lost. Just so long

as the Sonnets are considered as a species of enigma they will be

misunderstood and misinterpreted. It was not Shakespeare's habit to talk

in riddles or to propound psychological problems: of all poets except

Chaucer he is the most simple, direct and straightforward.

We have in the _Amoretti_ of Spenser, and in the _Astrophel and Stella_

of Sir Philip Sidney, admirable examples of autobiographical poems

written mostly in sonnet stanza, of irregular and varied construction

and subject, although the general theme is the same. Surely we may bring

to the study of Shakespeare's poems the same simple method used in

reading these. Poets of his own day, and using in their highest flights

the form which was Shakespeare's familiar relaxation, nobody has tried

to ascribe to Sidney and Spenser metaphysical mysteries and

psychological conceits. Let us hope that some day this mistaken idolatry

of Shakespeare, which besmokes his shrine with concealing clouds of

incense, will be done away with, and that we shall be allowed to behold

the simple truth, which never suffers in his case for being naked.

In his 76th Sonnet, Shakespeare says,

Why write I still all one, ever the same.

And keep invention in a noted weed,

_That every word doth almost tell my name_,

_Showing their birth and whence they did proceed_?

Oh know, sweet love, I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument.

With this explicit declaration of Shakespeare, the general character of

the poems, and the similar writings of his friends and contemporaries,

we can but consider the Sonnets as autobiographical poems, written

during a period of time beginning certainly as early as 1598 (when Meres

speaks of Shakespeare's having written sonnets), and ceasing some time

before their first publication in 1609. In the same way were written the

poems composing Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, which, although dedicated to

"A.H.H.," close with a long poem addressed to the poet's sister.

The first and principal series of the Sonnets (divided from the second

in many editions of Shakespeare by a mark of separation) is clearly

addressed to a male friend. The extremely lover-like use of language by

which they are characterized was a common trait of the age; and here

again we see the necessity of thoroughly understanding the atmosphere

that Shakespeare breathed. To us, with our frigid vocabulary of

friendship, such a style sounds unnatural, and undignified perhaps: with

the Elizabethans it was an every-day habit. Lilly, the author of

_Euphues_, says in his _Endymion,_ "The love of men to women is a thing

common and of course; the friendship of man to man, infinite and

immortal." And indeed it is to the influence of the _Euphues_ that much

of the poetic ardor of language characterizing the masculine friendship

of the time was due. A man's beauty was as often the theme of

verse as a woman's, and the endearing terms only associated by us with

the conversation of lovers were used continually among men. The friends

in Shakespeare's plays, as in all the other dramas and novels of the

period, continually address each other as "sweet," and even "sweet love"

and "beloved." Ben Jonson called himself the "lover" of Camden, and

dedicated his eulogistic lines to "my beloved Mr. William Shakespeare."

There is therefore no reason for considering the language of the first

series of Sonnets as necessarily inapplicable to a masculine friend. The

second series, beginning with the 127th Sonnet, is as evidently

addressed, as Mr. Brown says, "to his mistress, on her infidelity;" and

the Sonnets end with two upon "Cupid's Brand," admitted by all to be

separate poems, and wrongfully tacked on to the Sonnets proper.

Taking it for granted, then, from this very literal survey of the text,

that the Sonnets are autobiographical, we find their study divided into

two branches: (1) the story that the poems themselves tell by the most

simple and direct statements; and (2) the conjectural explanation of the

personages of that story, involving a careful historical comparison of

names and dates, but amounting, after all is said that can be said,

simply to conjecture, incapable of direct proof. The first part is to

the real lover of Shakespeare and of poetry the only important one; the

second concerns that which is mortal and has passed away. The first

implies a knowledge of the friendship and the love of Shakespeare; the

second the discovery of the names of his friend, of the poet who was his

rival in the praises of that friend, and of the mistress who was

unworthy of them both; not to mention such other items concerning time

and place as might be ascertained by a persevering antiquarian.

It is impossible, within less than a volume, to quote from the Sonnets

very freely, therefore we shall be compelled to trust to the reader's

recollection of them, assisted by an occasional reference; this

explanation of them being simply a record of the impressions they have

produced upon an unbiased mind reading them as one would read any other

poetry of the same character.

The story unfolded by the Sonnets, then, is this: Shakespeare had an

ardent friendship, made all the livelier by the fervor of the poetic

temperament, for a young man of noble birth and very great personal

beauty, himself a lover of poetry, if not a poet. This youth was very

much younger than Shakespeare, who was already beginning to speak of

himself as past the prime of life, although he was probably not more

than thirty-four. The friend of Shakespeare was almost perfect in

beauty, intellect and disposition, but he had two faults: he was

extremely fond of flattery (Sonnet 84), and he was over-addicted to

pleasure:

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! (95.)

Shakespeare scorned to palter with the truth--"fair, kind and true" he

had called his friend--but he saw his faults with the keen eye of love,

that cannot bear an imperfection in the one who should be all-perfect.

Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized

In true plain words by thy true-telling friend; (82.)

and

I love thee in such sort,

As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report; (36.)

therefore in all love he warns him to take heed.

Such was the character of Shakespeare's friend, to whom he begins by

addressing seventeen sonnets (or poems in the sonnet stanza, which is

the better definition), urging him to marry. He knows the weakness of

his character and the temptations that beset him, and in a strain of

loving persuasion, whose theme bears great resemblance to many passages

in Sidney's _Arcadia_, he beseeches him, now that he stands upon the top

of happy hours,

Make thee another self for love of me.

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

Sonnet 17 in a most beautiful manner sums up the argument and ends the

subject.

The Sonnets from the 18th to the 126th are all addressed to this beloved

friend, who nevertheless, early in the history of their

friendship, inflicted upon the poet a cruel wrong. With the 33d Sonnet

begin the references to this double treachery. It is impossible for an

unprejudiced reader to interpret this and the other poems upon the same

subject in any way but one. The mistress of Shakespeare, fascinated by

the beauty and brilliant qualities of his friend, took advantage of the

poet's absence to win that facile heart, so incapable of resisting the

charms of woman and the tongue of flattery;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed? (41.)

His friend's loss was the greater to the poet, for, although he loved

with passionate strength, it was against his conscience and his reason.

Such a love, he says, is "enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;"

"Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream."

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leadeth to this hell. (129.)

Nor does he mince matters in directly addressing her. She is a brunette,

with black eyes and black hair, yet black in nothing except her deeds,

which have given her an evil reputation. She has sealed false bonds of

love as often as he, and is twice forsworn, having deceived both her

husband and her lover. She is as cruel as if she had that transcendent

beauty which in reality she only possesses in his doting eyes. He knows

that her heart is "a bay where all men ride," and yet love persuades him

to believe her true.

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

She is his "worser spirit," tempting him to ill--his "false plague,"

whom he knows to be "as black as hell, as dark as night," though he has

sworn her fair and true. His friend's name is Will also, and Sonnets

135, 136 contain a play upon their names:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy "Will,"

And "Will" to boot, and "Will" in overplus.

Only love my name, he says to her, and then you will still love me, for

_my_ name too is "Will."

Such are the three actors in this tragedy of sin and sorrow and remorse;

and the more we read these wonderful poems, and perceive the intense

passion that throbs through them, the nearer we seem to get to the great

heart of Shakespeare, the real inner life of that man of whose outer

personality we know so little. We see him wounded to the quick by his

dearest friend, yet weighing the sin of that friend in the balance of

divinest mercy as he acknowledges the strength of the temptation, and,

while he does not extenuate the sin, extends a loving pardon to the

sinner. He knows weakness of his own soul: he himself struggles in the

toils of an unworthy passion, which his reason abhors while his heart is

led captive. His is the battle and the defeat: who is he that he should

judge with indignant virtue the failing of another?--

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. (40.)

He pardons the penitent as freely as only so great and magnanimous a

soul can, but gently reminds him that "though thou repent, yet I have

still the loss:"

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross. (34.)

Hereafter we two must be twain, the poet says, although our undivided

loves are one, for fear thy good report suffer, which is to me as my

own. Do not even remember me after I am dead, if that remembrance cause

you any sorrow, nor rehearse my poor name, but let your love decay with

my life;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

Such is the story of the Sonnets, the saddest of all stories, as it

comes to us from the simple and unbiased reading of the series as it

stands, without alteration or transposition. The meaning is sufficiently

obvious without making any change, although, judging from the purely

eulogistic character of some of the first series of the Sonnets, and the

purely reflective style of others, it seems probable that those which

are more or less reproachful in tone may belong together, nearer the

second series. Still, even to this rearrangement there are objections

when we consider the alternations of feeling and the different

conditions that must have affected the poet during the space of time

covered by these poems. In the 104th Sonnet three years are mentioned as

having elapsed since the friends first met, and the time covered by the

whole series was probably still longer. Conjectural evidence points to

William Herbert as the person to whom the Sonnets are addressed. His

name, his age, his beauty, his rank, all agree with Shakespeare's

description. As for the earl of Southampton, the poet's early patron, to

whom the _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Lucrece_ are dedicated, his name

was Henry; he was but nine years younger than Shakespeare, and therefore

not likely to have been called by him "a sweet boy;" he was a remarkably

plain man, instead of an Adonis, and noted, not for his devotion to

women in general, but for his ardent attachment to Mistress Elizabeth

Vernon, whom he married secretly, in spite of the queen's opposition, in

1598. Now, the earliest mention that we have of Shakespeare's poems is

when Meres speaks of "his sugared sonnets among his private friends."

This was in 1598, and, as Hallam and other critics have argued, is

probably a reference to earlier sonnets which have been lost, not to

those published in 1609. It was in 1598 that William Herbert, a

brilliant and fascinating young man, addicted to pleasure and

susceptible to flattery, but strongly disinclined to marriage, came up

to London to live, having visited the metropolis during the previous

year.

As for Lady Rich, besides the objections already urged on the score of

her personal appearance and her age, Shakespeare would never have dared

to speak of a reigning beauty of the court in the words of Sonnets 137,

144, 152. In fact, Mr. Massey's whole argument upon this head is based

upon his assertion that the poems are dramatic and not personal.

Mr. Massey's conviction that Marlowe is the rival poet of whose "great

verse" Shakespeare was jealous depends upon Southampton, and not

Herbert, being acknowledged to be the friend addressed, for Marlowe died

in 1593, when Herbert was but thirteen years old, and five years before

we have the first mention of Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets.

Certainly, a writer who had died five years before we find any mention

of the Sonnets can hardly be the living poet of whom Shakespeare

distinctly speaks in Sonnets 80 and 86. Also in Sonnet 82 he makes

mention of the "dedicated words" this rival addresses to his friend.

Now, we have no evidence that Marlowe ever dedicated anything to

Southampton, although Mr. Massey tries to bolster up a desperate case by

saying that "there is nothing improbable in supposing that Marlowe's

_Hero and Leander_ was intended to be dedicated to Southampton" had the

poet lived to finish it!

A stronger chain of evidence (still conjectural, it must be remembered)

points to Ben Jonson as this rival poet. His _Epigrams_, which contain a

eulogy upon Pembroke, and his _Catiline_, were both dedicated to this

earl, although neither of them was published till after the Sonnets. We

find the earl of Pembroke's name among the actors in Ben Jonson's

masques, and Falkland's eclogue testifies to their intimacy. And in the

80th Sonnet, Shakespeare uses the same comparison of himself and his

rival, to two ships of different bulk, which Fuller used to describe

Shakespeare and Ben Jonson as they appeared at the Mermaid Tavern.

As for the name of the false woman who ensnared two such noble hearts,

it is lost for ever, let us hope, in a deserved oblivion. The scanty

data that we have given here are about all that can be accepted without

wrenching history and poetry from their proper sphere. But so long as

the spirit is more than the letter, so long will the Sonnets of

Shakespeare be read by all true lovers of true poetry, whether their

historical significance ever be known or not. They are the saddest and

the sweetest story of friendship that we have in all literature; and

while one faithful friend remains possessed of that fine wit that can

"hear with eyes what silent love hath writ," his heart will beat in

answer to the perfect love of the greatest of all poets and the noblest

of all friends.

KATE HILLARD.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

ARTISTS' MODELS IN ROME.

Some visitors to the Eternal City leave it without having found time to

see this one of its wonders, while others are driven by the sad

inelasticity of the hours to leave a different class of objects for

"another time." But it may be safely asserted that none who have been at

Rome for even twenty-four hours ever left it without having had their

attention forcibly arrested by the groups of painters' and sculptors'

models--the former mainly--who haunt the upper part of the great steps

that lead up from the Piazza di Spagna to the Trinità di Monti, and

perhaps even more specially the corner where the Via Sistina falls into

the Piazza Barberini. But very few probably have asked for, and fewer

still obtained, information as to who and what these people are, and

whence they come. Yet to an attentive observer many points about the

appearance of these groups must suggest that a curious interest might

attach itself to the reply to such questions. There are sights in Rome

of grander and greater interest, but there is nothing in all the famous

centre of the Catholic world more distinctively, essentially and

exclusively Roman, more unlike anything that is seen elsewhere, more

instinct with _couleur locale_, than these singularly picturesque groups

of nomads.

Let us, then, take a stroll among them, starting from that bright centre

of the foreigners' quarter of Rome, the Piazza di Spagna. It is a

brilliant January day, and, we will say, ten o'clock in the morning. In

the Via Babuino and the neighboring streets, which the sun has not yet

visited, the morning cold is a little sharp. _Matutina parum cautos jam

frigora mordent_. But the magnificent flight of the great stair--there

are properly eleven flights, divided by as many spacious and handsomely

balustraded landing-places, each flight consisting of twelve steps, and

all of white marble--with its southern exposure has almost the

temperature of a hothouse. There are two or three beggars basking in the

sunshine near the bottom of the steps. But our models do not consort

with these. Not only are they not beggars, but they belong to a

different caste and a different race. We leisurely saunter up the huge

stair, pausing at each landing-place to turn and enjoy the view over the

city, and the gradually rising luminous haze around the cupola of St.

Peter's, and the heights of Monte Mario clear against the brilliant blue

sky. It is not till we are at the topmost flight that we come upon the

objects of our ramble. There we fall in with a group of them, consisting

perhaps of three or four girls, as many children, a man in the prime of

life, and an aged patriarch. There is not the smallest possibility that

we should pass them unobserved. They are far too remarkable and too

unlike anything else around us. Even those who have no eye for the

specialties of type which characterize the human countenance will not

fail to be struck by the peculiarities of the costume of the group of

figures before us. At the first glance the eye is caught by the quantity

of bright color in their dresses. The older women wear the picturesque

white, flatly-folded linen cloth on their heads which is the usual dress

of the _contadine_ women in the neighborhood of Rome. The younger have

their hair ornamented with some huge filagree pin or other device of a

fashion which proclaims itself to the most unskilled eye as that of some

two or three hundred years ago. All have light bodices of bright blue or

red stuff laced in front, and short petticoats of some equally bright

color, not falling below the ankle. But the most singular portion of the

costume is the universally-worn apron. It consists of a piece of very

stout and coarsely-woven wool of the brightest blue, green or yellow,

about twenty inches broad by thirty-three in length, across which, near

the top and near the bottom, run two stripes, each about eight

inches wide, of hand-worked embroidery of the strangest,

old-world-looking patterns and the most brilliant colors. These things

are manufactured by the peasantry of the hill-country in the

neighborhood of San Germano, who grow, shear, spin, weave, dye and

embroider the wool themselves. And being barbarously unsophisticated by

any adulteration of cotton, and in no wise stinted in the quantity of

material, they are wonderfully strong and enduring. The most remarkable

thing about them, however, is the unerring instinct with which these

uneducated manufacturers harmonize the most audaciously violent

contrasts of brilliant color. It is not too much to assert that they are

_never_ at fault in this respect. So much is this the case, and so truly

artistic is this homely peasant manufacture, that there is hardly a

painter's studio in Rome in which two or three of these richly colored

apron-cloths may not be seen covering a sofa or thrown over the back of

a chair. A great part of the singularly picturesque and striking

appearance of the group of figures we are speaking of is due to the

universal use of these aprons by the women. The men also affect an

unusually large amount of bright color in their costume. The waistcoat

is almost always scarlet; the velveteen jacket or short coat generally

blue; the breeches sometimes the same, but often of bright yellow

leather, and the stockings a lighter blue. The men often wear a long

cloak reaching to the heels, always hanging open in front, and generally

lined with bright green baize. They generally, too, have some

bright-colored ribbons around their high-peaked, conical felt hats. But

I must not forget to mention the costume of the children. It consists of

an exact copy in miniature of that of their elders; and the

inconceivable quaintness and queer old-world look produced is not to be

imagined by those who have never witnessed it. Fancy a little imp of six

or seven years old dressed in little blue jacket, bright-yellow leather

breeches, blue stockings, sheepskin sandals on his little bits of feet,

and long bright flaxen curls streaming down from under a gayly-ribboned

brigand's hat!

But if the first glance is given to this singularity of costume, the

second will not fail to take cognizance of the remarkable beauty of

feature to be observed in almost every individual of this race of

models. The men are well grown, almost invariably wear their black hair

streaming over their shoulders, and have generally fine eyes and

picturesquely colored, swarthy red faces. But the beauty of the girls is

in almost every case something quite extraordinary; and the same may be

said of the children. The next thing which the closeness of observation

this unusual degree of beauty is calculated to attract will reveal to

the observer is that all these singularly lovely faces are remarkably

like each other, and at the same time remarkably unlike any of the faces

around them. There is often much beauty among the Roman women of the

lower classes, but it is of an essentially different type. The Roman

beauty is generally large in stature and ample in development, with

features whose tendency to heaviness needs the majestic and Juno-like

style of beauty which the Roman women so frequently have to redeem them.

But the countenances of the women of whom we have been speaking have

nothing at all of this. The features are small, delicately cut, the form

of face generally short, rather than tending to oval, being in this

respect also in marked contrast with the ordinary Roman type. There is a

type of face well known to most English eyes, though less so, I take it,

to those on the western side of the Atlantic, which is strangely

recalled to the memory by these model-girls; and that is the gypsy type.

There is the same Oriental look about them, the same brilliancy of dark

eyes under dark low brows, the same delicately-cut noses and full yet

finely-chiseled lips. They have also almost invariably the same wondrous

wealth of long raven black tresses, glossy but not fine. The complexions

are fresher, more delicate, and with more of bloom, than is often seen

among the gypsies; and this is the principal difference between the two

types. There is also another point of similarity, which, if the

accounts of Eastern travelers may be accepted, seems also to point to an

Oriental origin. I allude to the singular gracefulness of "pose" which

is observable in these people, among the men and women alike. There they

stand and lounge, or sit propped, half recumbent, against a balustrade

in the sun, in all sorts of attitudes, but in all they are graceful.

There is that indefinable simplicity and ease in the natural movement

and disposition of their limbs which tuition can never, and birth in the

purple can so rarely, enable a European to assume. It may perhaps be

supposed that the exigencies of their profession have not been without

influence in producing the effect I am speaking of. But I do not think

that such is the case. In the young and the old, in the children even,

the same thing is observable; and the exceeding difficulty of teaching

it may be accepted, I think, as a guarantee that it has not been taught

in the case of creatures so unteachable as these half-wild sons and

daughters of Nature.

Now, if these people, who for generations past have exercised the

profession of artists' models in Rome, do really belong to a race apart

from the inhabitants of the district around Rome, as I think cannot be

doubted by any one who has carefully observed them, the question

suggests itself, Who and what are they, and whence do they come?

Fortunately, we are not unprovided with an answer, and the answer is

rather a curious one. If the excursionist from Rome to Tivoli will

extend his ramble a little way among the Sabine Mountains which lie

behind it, up the valley through which the Teverone--the _præceps Anio_

of Horace--runs down into the Campagna, he will see on his right hand,

when he has left Tivoli about ten miles behind him, a most romantically

situated little town on the summit of a conically shaped mountain. The

name of it is Saracinesco, and its story is as curious as its situation.

It is said--and the tradition has every appearance of truth--that the

town was founded by a body of Saracens after their defeat by Berengarius

in the ninth century. The spot is just such as might have been selected

for such a purpose. It is difficult of access to an extraordinary

degree, and it is said to be no less than two thousand five hundred feet

above the stream which flows at the base of the rocky hill on which it

is built. Tradition, however, is not the only testimony to the truth of

this account of the origin of the strangely placed little town, for in

many cases the inhabitants have preserved their old Arabic names. It is

from this strange eyrie of Saracinesco that our picturesque and handsome

friends of the Piazzi di Spagna descend to seek a living at Rome from

the profession which they have followed for generations of artists'

models. And this is the explanation of the singular sameness of

beautiful feature, the utterly un-Roman type, the sharply-cut features,

and the admirable grace of movement and of attitude which characterize

these denizens of the steps--if of the steppes no longer.

What a life they lead! From early morn to dewy eve there they lounge, in

every sort of restful attitude, basking in the sun, with nothing on

earth to occupy mind or body save an eternal clatter. On what subjects,

who shall say or attempt to guess? Every now and then one of the tribe

is hired by an artist to go and _pose_ for a Judith, a Lucretia, a

Venus, as the case may be. Some are wanted for an arm, some for a hand,

some for a brow, some for a leg, some for a bust. Some one may have a

special gift for personating an ancient Roman, and another exactly

assume the saintly look of a Madonna or the smile and expression of a

Venus. Their several and special gifts and capacities are all well known

in the world of their patrons, and special reputations are made in the

art-world accordingly. It is a strange life: not probably conducive to a

high development of intellectual and moral excellence, but very much so

to the picturesque peopling of the most magnificent flight of stairs in

Christendom.

T. A. T.

FAUST IN POLAND.

Nowhere do we see the genuine soul and character of a people so

distinctly as in its myths, legends, popular songs and traditions. They

reflect faithfully, though--perhaps we should say,

_because_--unconsciously, the deeds, aspirations and beliefs of the

earlier ages, and not only afford to our own precious material for

philological and ethnological study, but still exert, in many instances

at least, considerable influence over the ideas and feelings of men. The

Faust legend will never lose its mysterious fascination: many poets have

felt it, but Goethe's insight penetrated all its depth of meaning, and

his marvelous poem is for us the supreme expression of it.

But it is interesting to find the same legend in Poland, with

characteristic variations from the German conception, illustrative of

the hospitality and chivalry and the dominant influence of woman which

are such marked features in Polish history. Twardowsky (the Doctor

Faustus of Poland) lived in the sixteenth century, in the time of

Sigismund Augustus. He studied at the University of Cracow, rose to the

rank of doctor, and devoted himself especially to chemistry and physics,

having a secret laboratory in a vast cavern of Mount Krzemionki. Science

in those days was regarded as intimately associated with the black arts,

and it was not surprising that Twardowsky's contemporaries added the

title of sorcerer to those of doctor and professor, supposed he had made

an alliance with Satan, and fancied an army of demons always waiting to

do his bidding. All this did not prevent his enjoyment of the king's

favor. Sigismund had married, against his mother's wish, Barbara

Radziwill, the beautiful daughter of a Polish magnate. The nobles,

probably influenced by Bona, the mother of the king, demanded that

Barbara should be repudiated: he indignantly refused, and shortly

afterward she was poisoned. The grief and rage of Sigismund were

without bounds: he exiled his mother, wore black all the rest of his

life, and had the apartments of his palace hung with it. His melancholy

gave him new interest in the occult sciences, and he became more than

ever intimate with Twardowsky, sometimes visiting him in his cavern,

sometimes receiving him secretly in his palace. At first, he was

satisfied with the chemical experiments which the populace regarded as

supernatural, but after a while he urgently desired Twardowsky to

produce for him a vision of Barbara. Twardowsky appointed a night for

the exhibition of his skill, and after drawing a magic circle and

pronouncing some mysterious words, he called Barbara thrice by name, and

she appeared--not as a spectre risen from the tomb, but in all the

beauty and freshness which had been the king's delight. He fainted at

the sight, and his regard for the magician increased greatly. But one

fatal evening he found the door of the cavern shut. Twardowsky, not

expecting him, was not there. After some delay the door was opened by a

beautiful young woman. "Barbara!" exclaimed Sigismund. "Barbara is my

name, but I am alive, not dead," was her reply. Twardowsky's device was

now exposed. He had created an illusion for the satisfaction of

Sigismund by employing this substitute for his lost Barbara. She was a

girl named Barbara Gisemka, whom Twardowsky had rescued from the hands

of a furious mob, had concealed in his cavern, and initiated into the

sciences to which he devoted himself. She became his adept and his

mistress. But the king, furious at the imposition which had been

practiced upon him, and desirous of making this beautiful creature his

own, had Twardowsky murdered, and gave out that the devil had carried

him off. Barbara Gisemka acquired immense influence over the mind of her

royal lover, which lasted while he lived. When he was ill she suffered

no physician to approach him, and was with him when he died in 1572.

So much for history. Tradition has transformed Twardowsky into a gay and

brilliant gentleman, who, in order to gain all the pleasures of life,

sold his soul to the devil, engaging on his honor to give it up to him

whenever he (the devil) should enter the city of Rome. Twardowsky now

enjoyed to the full his new power, reveling in luxury himself, and

lavishing gifts and banquets on his friends. The populace also

shared his generosity--all the more, too, from the strange manner of it.

On one occasion, we are told, he pierced three holes in a shoemaker's

nose with his own awl, and caused a tun of brandy to flow from it for

the refreshment of the crowd. One day he was informed that a stranger

who was at the inn called the "City of Rome" wished to see him. He went

at once to the place with no misgivings, but on his arrival there found

the devil, who had come to claim the fulfillment of the contract.

Provoked at the quibble, he resolved to employ a ruse himself, and just

as the devil was about to take possession of him he seized the infant

child of the innkeeper from its cradle and held it up before him, its

innocence being a sure defence against Satan's power. He, however,

demanded what had become of his plighted word. The honor of the Polish

gentleman could not resist this appeal. He put down the child and rose

into the air with Satan. But while they were still hovering over Cracow

the sound of church-bells awoke in Twardowsky's recollection a hymn to

the Virgin, which he forthwith sang, and the devil could hold him no

longer. Twardowsky, however, could not get down again, but remains

suspended in the air, only receiving news from the earth by means of a

spider which happened to be on the tail of his coat, and which

occasionally spins a thread and goes down, for a while, returning with

whatever it may have picked up for his information and amusement.

No Polish story would be complete without a woman, and so we find that

Twardowsky had a wife, beautiful, witty and imperious, with all the

fascinations universally conceded to the Polish women. Madame Twardowsky

is said to have ruled her husband just as he ruled the devil during the

time of that personage's subjection; and there is a second version of

the story which makes her too much for Satan himself. According to this

account, Twardowsky was entertaining a number of friends at the "City of

Rome," when suddenly the devil appeared. While Twardowsky, to gain

time, was reading over the compact, his wife, looking over his

shoulder, suddenly laughed, and addressing the devil, told him there

were still three conditions for him to fulfill, on failure of which the

parchment should be torn up, and asked whether she might impose them.

The devil politely replied in the affirmative. "Here, then," said she,

"see this horse painted on the wall of the inn: I wish to mount him, and

you must make me a whip of sand and a staple of walnuts." The devil

bowed, and in a moment the horse was prancing before their eyes. The

lady now had a large tub of holy water brought in, and invited the

devil, as his second task, to plunge into it and refresh his weary

limbs. He coughed, shivered, then went in resolutely, coming out again

as quickly as possible, and shaking himself well. "The third task will

be a pleasant one," said the lady with her most bewitching smile: "The

first year my husband passes in hell you shall spend with me, swearing

to me love, fidelity and implicit obedience. Will you?" The devil rushed

toward the door, but she was too quick for him, and succeeded in locking

it and putting the key into her pocket. Satan, resolved to escape from

the servitude in store for him, could only do so by going through the

keyhole, which has been black ever since.

E. C. R.

A LETTER FROM HAVANA.

HAVANA, Feb. 14, 1875.

It is not a very long sail from home to Cuba--you pass into the Bay of

Havana on the morning of the fifth day, if you have luck--but the sky

and land you left behind at this wintry season at home are very

different from those you find on arriving here. It is a great change in

so short a time from the dun-colored shore and the frozen river to the

waving verdure of the Cuban coast and the sparkling blue and white of

the water. We made the land before daylight, and, the rules forbidding

us to enter the harbor till sunrise, we bobbed up and down for two or

three hours a mile or so outside of the Moro Castle, which guards the

narrow entrance to Havana. The moon was so brilliant that we did not

have to wait for day to enjoy the scene before us: in fact, it could not

have been improved by the sun. The fortress of Moro crouches on a bed of

rock, rearing a tall lighthouse aloft. Its Moorish turrets have a soft

rounded outline, and the undulations of the shore blend with the masonry

of the castle; only a sharp retiring angle here and there gives an

occasional glimpse of a grim purpose. When the Moro light is put out,

ships in the offing may enter the bay. The mouth of the harbor is not

more than half a mile wide, and on the shore opposite to the Moro the

town of Havana comes down to the water's edge, withdrawing up the bay on

one hand, and up the sea-coast on the other. A pilot is not necessary

except for the perquisites of office, but one comes on board, and with

anxious countenance directs the ship straight on through clear water for

a mile, when the anchor is dropped.

Just as day breaks on the high ground on the Moro shore, and the growing

light brings houses and trees and ships into relief, with all their rich

variety of color, the scene is memorable and full of beauty. On the

green slope behind the castle, while the outline of the tropical

vegetation is only stealing into view, there is hid, and yet visible, a

long, low building of yellow columns, blue facade, brown gables and red

tiles: if you shut out the rest of the landscape with your hands, you

would say it was a picture by Fortuny. The expanse of the bay is fine,

and the large fleet at anchor furnishes it but thinly. Townward, as the

sun's rays begin to dissipate the brown shadows and define shape and

color, the city sparkles like a gorgeous mosaic; but in another half

hour, when the sun is higher, the hazy softness has departed and the

city is ablaze with light, so that your eyes can scarcely look at it.

Then, if you have seen it earlier, it loses its charm.

I was jealous of Havana from what I had heard and read of it: if the

shore-line, and the entrance, and the bay, and the scene were finer than

Rio, I was prepared to be angry; but Rio is grand and Havana is pretty,

so that one may like both and not divide his allegiance. A patchwork of

good pictures in the Moorish vein of town, and shore, and water would

reproduce, and yet not copy, all that Havana has to offer; but there is

not a picture in the world that aspires to the grandeur of Rio. But I

won't deny the sparkle and brilliancy of Havana. At this moment the sky

is of a perfect "Himmel-blau." I can see from my window, near the roof,

the rich, harmonious Moorish blending of varied colors in the houses;

and beyond these "the white feet of the wind shine along the sea." A

ship with all sail set is coming into port, the white-capped waves

rolling her along before the stiff sea-breeze. Wind is the bane of the

place. It sets in to blow, as the sailors say, soon after daylight nine

days in ten, and blows all day, and sometimes far into the night. It is

not always the soft, perennial zephyr of tradition, but often chill and

raw, and then there is no escape from it except to shut yourself in your

room; and that means hermetically sealing, for when you close a window

here you close a shutter, and thus, if you shut out the breeze, you shut

the light out also. The doors and windows are not meant to exclude the

air, and so when the breeze gets on a frolic it whirls up stairs and

down--goeth, in fact, where it listeth; and sometimes one feels it going

through him like a knife.

The houses are built in one width of rooms round a hollow square;

consequently, when you put your boots out you put them out of doors. In

the midst of the house, with the sky overhead, the umbrageous palm tree

and banana spread their broad leaves. The rooms are high and white, with

little furniture, and no curtains, with open ceiling of painted rafters,

and iron gratings, like a prison's bars, shutting out the street in the

front of the house. Behind these gratings the passer-by may see the

Cuban family arranged in two prim rows of arm-chairs _vis-à-vis_,

or gathered about the bars as if looking for some means of escape.

Occasionally now in some of the better quarters a child of either sex,

but black as night, disports itself in full view, "covered by the

darkness only." There is an infinite variety of opinion in regard to the

clothing necessary to comfort here. I have often found a light overcoat

comfortable, but there is a tribe or clan from some Spanish province

whose boast it is to wear coat nor vest by day or night. The

representatives of the various provinces maintain their individuality

here, and preserve for festive occasions the costumes which characterize

them in Spain. Some of these are very rich, and many of the men,

especially of the lower orders, being stalwart and handsome, their gala

appearance is decidedly striking. In the fête in honor of Alfonso XII.

there were some beautiful groups of men, women and children in Spanish

costumes, dancing in the procession with silk emblems and flower

wreaths, and singing provincial songs. Others were mounted on the

splendid Andalusian horses, which make one's mouth water with desire to

ride them. They are as beautiful as Fromentin and Gérôme have painted

them--such eyes and nostrils, and such action! It has taken centuries to

produce him, but at last there is a saddle-horse: if only for parade

occasions, that is no matter. He is perfect in his kind. The Arab keeps

his horse in his tent, but the Cuban keeps his in his house. We should

say that the horse-owning Cuban sleeps over a stable, but no doubt to

his mind his stable is merely under his room. A rich gentleman in town

has encased his horses in a beautiful drawing-room of cedar and

satin-wood, and it is rather pleasant than otherwise to pass through it

on the way to the other apartments.

The houses of Havana are low; the streets are narrow; the sidewalks

ditto: there is an occasional plaza of broad, white glare, which must be

intolerable in summer-time. The Prado has trees which are rather Dutch

than tropical; and the Paseo, where the driving is, is quite a fine

avenue. This afternoon, though it is Lent, the Carnival will rage there.

Some people go in masks, but not many; and there are no confetti. It is

mainly a parade--rich people turning out in their best, poor people

making light of their poverty: the rich gorgeous in apparel, and

splendid in equipage, the poor arrayed in some gay, inexpensive motley,

and crowded into miserable vehicles. The particolored costumes give an

aspect of brightness to the street; but it is a solemn sight to see four

Cuban women, of the middle age, drawn by a four-in-hand, arrayed in full

ball-dress, powdered and bejeweled, and passing in review of admiring

mankind.

The ugliness of the women amounts to a vice, and is unredeemed by any

quality such as sometimes palliates plainness of features. I have cried

aloud for the beautiful Cuban, but in vain. I am assured that she

exists, am told, "My dear fellow, you never made a greater mistake in

your life," am poohpoohed in various ways; but I cannot find her. I hear

it said that owing to the political chaos here she has retired from

public view, but it is not denied that she will go to the Carnival and

the opera. I was warned not to expect her at the ball in Alfonso's honor

at the Spanish Club, and certainly it was a timely warning. Fancy a long

hall of colored marble, pillars running the length of it forming

arcades; balconies on both sides hanging over the streets, and full of

young men smoking cigarettes; men parading up and down the hall and

quizzing the women, who were all seated--two rows of them, hundreds all

together--seriously contemplating the male procession: enameled,

powdered, attired in the wealth of the Indies, saying nothing, doing

nothing, not smiling, not blinking, just sitting there, an awful array

of hideousness. After the band struck up and the dancing began, I

remained long enough to lose in the music the horrible impression of,

the opening scene, and then hurried home. At the opera and the Carnival

it is not so positively unendurable, but a handsome face, or a pretty

face, or even an intelligent, expressive face, I have not yet seen in a

woman in Havana; and at this season of the year, if ever, Havana is

Cuba. I don't condemn them--I merely give my luck.

The town is of course full of Spanish military and their accessories,

civil functionaries who are all Spanish, money-makers, adventurers,

shoddy. The Spanish army is at "the front," posted across or partly

across the island on a sort of strong picket-line, fortified by

block-houses, whence watch is kept on the movements of the insurgents,

who seem to come and go as they please in the Spanish front, and cross

the lines with impunity. The Spanish hold the whole seaboard, all

important towns and villages, hold the insurgents practically in check,

so far as the fertile region of the island is concerned, and from year

to year keep military matters just about in _statu quo_. The

insurgents dwell in the wildest portion of the island, often in almost

impenetrable woods, living the life of savages, and depending on the

bounty of Nature for their daily bread.

So the war lingers. It is not what we would call a war: it is a

condition of armed hostility. It is conducted almost wholly at the

expense of Spain in _men_, wholly at the expense of Cuba in

_money_. The Cuban volunteers are a home-guard, but the purse of

the Cubans is open. Spain is not loath to dip into it, and taxation

for carrying on the government and the war has become very

onerous--dreadfully so, in fact, though I believe that the Cubans do not

realize it so fully as strangers do. The government is impoverished; the

war makes no progress; what becomes of the enormous revenue derived from

the taxes? A rich planter said to me dryly, "They are ignorant men: they

make mistakes in applying it." Hard things are openly said of all

Spanish officials; and all officials, from the captain-general to the

harbor pilot, are Spanish. Startling things are heard here every day in

political and military discussions. The people think in classes: there

is the Spanish view, the Creole view, the foreign view--none very

dispassionate, and none very accurate. There is no accepted basis of

fact for anything: nobody believes anybody else, and truth here lies in

a _very_ deep well. But one thing else is clear. Cuba, so gifted by

Nature, is being despoiled by man; and what ought to be a garden will

become overgrown with weeds if there is not a change of fortune. There

is taxation without representation under an iron despotism: there is an

army without war, and the people look on. It is not necessary to find

any new means of going to the bad at a gallop. The rich give practical

support to the Spanish, and moral support to the insurrection; but if

the insurrection should triumph, I can't see how it will benefit the

Creole Cubans of property. I think ideas here are confused on the

subject, and while they are giving hearty encouragement to neither

cause, between the two they are sure to be utterly ruined.

I have spent a week in all on sugar plantations in the interior. I was

delightfully entertained, and reveled in the luxury of soft air and

out-of-door life. I was on horseback a good deal, riding one of the

shuffling little animals they have here, whose gait is so easy that it

doesn't amount to motion. The crops are to a great extent still uncut;

the green cane, which looks like our broom-corn at a distance, waves in

the winds as far as the eye can reach. The country is level, but has a

frame of mountain-land. The woods are festooned with air-plants and

parasites; palm trees dot the landscape in every direction or run in

splendid avenues, sometimes in double rows, alternating with the round,

full mamey tree, whose deep green foliage brings into fine relief the

white stalk of the palm. The breeze rustles through the broad

plantations of bananas and sways the orange groves. The gardens are rich

in flowers of brilliant hues. The fields swarm with negroes and

ox-carts; the ponderous machinery of the boiling-houses maintains a

steady hum; the picturesque buildings are all touched with Fortuny-like

tints: there is much to see and much to tell of, but I must have some

regard for your patience. I have not finished, but I must stop.

F. C. N.

FRENCH SLANG.

Reading the slang of a language is much like seeing the said language in

its intellectual shirt-sleeves, off duty and taking its ease: one feels

sure of detecting some essential characteristics of the people who speak

it, and one turns over the pages of a slang dictionary expecting to

recognize through its corruption and perversions the real nature of the

people who have created it. French slang is no exception to this,

theory: the two hundred and thirty double-columned pages of M. Larcher's

_Dictionnaire historique, etymologique et anecdotique de l'argot

parisien_ tell us that the two grand sources and inspirations of our

American slang are entirely wanting: there is not a humorous word or

phrase from beginning to end; and hardly an instance of that incongruous

exaggeration which is so salient a picture of our best-known and most

original slang phrases. But, on the other hand, there is satire keen and

fine on every page, a reckless, devil-may-care gayety, and throughout

that mocking spirit which is so essentially French, making game alike of

its own pain and that of others, and jeering always at the sight of an

altar, never mind what may chance to be thereon, whether its own sacred

things or those of others. Half the words in the book are quaint,

grotesque phrasings of two ideas--ideas which most people on our side of

the water are hardly inclined to joke about: one is the idea of death,

and the other the frailty or falseness of women. One is specially struck

by the wealth of words and the sameness of ideas, and, above all, by the

quickwittedness that must belong to the people who can all catch a

verbal allusion or suggestion as Anglo-Saxons might a plump, square hit.

Sometimes a little unconscious pathos mingles with the mocking vein, for

courage is moving when it is light-hearted. When a Frenchman tells you

he has eaten nothing for two days, he adds, "Ça, ce n'est pas drôle"

("Now, that's no joke"). "Coeur d'artichaut" (a heart like an artichoke)

is a felicitous expression for a person who has a succession of caprices

and short-lived fancies; and there is something to the point in the

satire which calls a surgical instrument "baume d'acier" (steel balm),

or in the saying which mocks the credulous faith many people vaguely

have in the efficacy of mineral waters: "Croyez cela et buvez de l'eau"

(Believe that and drink water). There is something desperately

significant in a language in which the lover who supports, protects and

is deceived is called "le dessus," and the one who is favored at his

expense "le dessous;" while the words "une femme," a woman, without

qualification, are identical with frailty, and virtue, being the

exception, demands an adjective to identify and proclaim it.

But there is something fine in the old French slang for the beginning of

a war: "La danse va commencer" (The dance is about to begin, or the ball

to open), and this dates from time immemorial: fighting has always been

fun to Frenchmen. And there is something better still in the phrase

which has become an official one, and has a proper technical meaning,

with which the orders of a naval officer when sent on a difficult or

dangerous expedition always end. "Debrouillez vous," meaning simply

"Come well out of it." There must be stuff in men who can be trusted to

always extricate themselves from a tight place with credit to their flag

without more words than that simple exhortation. But one cannot say much

for the morality of a country where, when any one says "la muette" (the

dumb one), it is understood to mean conscience.

The instances are rare of resemblance between our slang phrases and

theirs. Once in a while such a phrase as "Asseyezvous dessus"

(literally, Sit on him) strikes one; but seldom. French slang teems with

words that caricature and satirize personal defects, of which many are

brutally coarse and not quotable. A comical expression for a sumptuous

meal is a "Balthazar" (Belshazzar); and an unpleasant one for a coffin

is a "boite a dominos" (a box of dominoes); a droll phrase for a

plagiarist is "demarqueur de linge" (some one who alters the marking of

another's linen). An interesting fact for the notice of physiologists is

that when the officers of the engineer corps lose a comrade from

insanity, they say, "Il s'est passé au dixième," in allusion to the fact

that their loss in numbers from this cause amounts to practical

decimation. This is attributed to the close study of the exact sciences.

Under "femme du demi-monde" we find the origin of the phrase as created

by A. Dumas fils: "Femme née dans un monde distingué, dont elle conserve

les manières sans en respecter les lois" ("a woman belonging by birth to

the upper class, the manners of which she retains, without respecting

its laws"); but the present meaning is quite different from this, the

phrase being now used as a euphuistic designation of a disreputable

woman. French slang is saturated with irreverence. A common term for an

emaciated-looking man is to call him an "ecce homo," and a "grippe

Jésus" is thieves' slang for a gendarme.

The author of this dictionary evidently sympathizes with modern

romanticists and light literature in general, for we find "académicien"

defined as "littérateur suranné." One is always inclined to suspect sour

grapes of giving the flavor to French sarcasm concerning the Academy,

and is reminded of Piron's epigram in the shape of his own epitaph:

Ci git Piron qui ne fut rien,

Pas même académicien.

He wrote it, however, after his failure to obtain one of the

much-coveted arm-chairs.

Our national vanity might be flattered by hearing that the phrase

"L'oeil Américain" is used to describe an eye whose piercing vision is

escaped by nothing, were we not told that it dates from the translation

of Cooper's Leatherstocking tales into French, and has no reference, as

"Natty Bumpo" would say, to "_white_ gifts."

We find long, elaborate definitions of those much-disputed words,

"chic," "cachet" and "chien," which, after all has been said, seem to

take their meaning from the intention of those who use them and the

perception of those who hear. "Chocnoso" is a delightfully expressive

and absurd onomatopeic word to describe what is brilliant, startling and

remarkable. The most striking feature of this elaborate book is that,

although it contains almost words enough to constitute the vocabulary of

a miniature language, yet the vast majority of these words would be as

unintelligible to an educated Frenchman as to an Englishman. The bulk of

French slang is never heard by the ears of educated people nor uttered

by their lips: it circulates among the classes which create it; and the

size of this dictionary is therefore not necessarily appalling to a

Frenchman's eyes: it does not represent the corruption of the language,

because slang does not taint the speech of those classes who control and

make the standard speech and literature of the nation. If a dictionary

of English slang were published now, how many young ladies and gentlemen

of the educated classes, either in England or America, could profess

honest and absolute ignorance of the meaning of most of the words? The

answer to this question makes the moral of this paper.

F. A.

NOTES.

If it be true, as a writer in the February Gossip says, that "it is what

Mr. Mill has omitted to tell us in his _Autobiography_, quite as much as

what he has there told us, that excites popular curiosity," the

following anecdote told by John Neal, one of Jeremy Bentham's

secretaries, may be found interesting. The father of John Stuart Mill,

it seems, was in the habit of borrowing books of Bentham, and was even

allowed the privilege of carrying them away without asking permission--a

courtesy so well utilized that from five to seven hundred volumes found

their way in time from Bentham's library into the study of the elder

Mill. He was a more conscientious borrower, however, than most of his

class are, for he had a case made for these books, kept them carefully

locked up, and carried the key in his pocket. This put the owner to some

trouble occasionally when he wanted to consult his books. In one

instance he begged Mr. Mill to leave the key when the latter was going

out of town. In vain, however, for Mill marched off to the country

carrying the key with him, and Bentham had to wait a whole month for a

peep at his own books. If we could know all the facts, doubtless it

would be found that Mill knew too well the careless habits of the

philosopher to trust him to such an extent. It is not prudent to

decide until the evidence is all in. It is that these books--two or

three thousand dollars' worth, according to Neal--were, on the death of

Mr. Bentham, all recovered by his heir.

Quarritch, a London bookseller, lately advertised for sale a Chinese

book from the library of the emperor Khang-Hi, bearing the following

title: _Yu Sionan Row-wen youen kien_--that is, "Mirror of the Profound

Resources of Ancient Literature," being extracts from those profound

resources arranged chronologically in the order of their production; but

the singular thing about the book is its typography. It is printed in

inks of four different colors. All the articles dating from the time of

Confucius (B.C. 550) to the Mongol dynasty (A.D. 1260) are printed in

black, with punctuations in red. All names of persons and places are

upon scrolls, to distinguish them from the ordinary text. Observations

upon the emperor Khang-Hi (who annotated the whole book autographically)

are printed in yellow, the color of the reigning dynasty; those upon

scholars and authors living at the time of the publication of the book

are printed in red, the color of the living; those upon persons deceased

in blue, the mourning color of China. The work is in twenty-five

volumes, preserved in four cases. It was printed in 1685.

In the infancy of astronomy the moon and all the planets of our solar

system were supposed to be gliding along over the smooth blue firmament

like a boat upon smooth water or a sleigh upon ice. The blue vault was a

solid substance; hence the word _firm_ament. In this vault were set the

"fixed" stars, and of course the moon or any planet passing across it

might run straight into the constellation Leo or some other dreadful

beast; and this explained why direful things happened to this world,

which was supposed to be the only world in the universe. As the moon has

always been the most observed of all the heavenly bodies, and as she

passes most rapidly across the constellations of the zodiac, it is easy

to understand that her phases should excite profound wonder, and that

strange effects should be predicated upon these phases, called "changes"

from time immemorial. In fact, however, the moon is not "changing" at

one time any more than at another. She is continually passing in and out

of the earth's shadow as she revolves around the earth, and the width of

this shadow, with the state of being in the full light of the sun,

constitutes her phases or changes. She does not "enter" any sign of the

zodiac in the sense of entering, as understood by the illiterate; and if

she did, the signs Cancer, Leo, Virgo, have no comprehensible relation,

to plants or parts of the human body. Again, if the moon or sun, or any

of the planets, are said to "enter" these signs, they are not now the

same as the constellations known as the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin. They

did correspond some two thousand or more years ago, when the zodiacal

belt was divided into twelve parts and named; but at present, on account

of the nutation or gyratory motion of the poles of the earth, the signs

of the zodiac (not the constellations) are drifting westward at the rate

of one degree in about seventy-one years. This movement is known in

astronomy as the precession or recession of the equinoxes. It happens,

therefore, that when the astrologer consults his tables, and finds that,

at, the time of the birth of a person whose horoscope he is going to

cast, Venus was in Cancer--a terrible condition of things for happiness

in love--Venus is in reality passing the constellation Gemini or the

Twins, which ought to make everything all lovely. The development of the

Copernican system did a great deal of damage to the interests of

astrology, but it was not until the discovery of the precession of the

equinoxes that this venerable and pretentious art received its

death-blow. To be sure, "the fools are not all dead yet," for certain

people still pay five dollars to have their horoscopes cast, and not a

few rustics consult the moon or the almanac before planting beans or

weaning calves.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The Romance of the English Stage.

By Percy Fitzgerald.

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott

& Co.

According to Carlyle, the only biographies in the English language worth

reading--of course with implied exceptions--are the lives of players.

Over English biographers in general there hangs, as he says, a

"Damocles' sword of Respectability," forbidding revelations that might

either offend somebody's sensibilities or exhibit the subject in any

other than a dignified attitude and sober light, and, as a consequence,

compelling the suppression of details which were needed to render the

portraiture characteristic and lifelike. Actors being as a class outside

the pale of "respectability," no such sacrifice is demanded in their

case; and whereas in their lifetime they assume many characters, and

though constantly before the public are known to it only in disguised

forms and borrowed attributes, after death their personality is laid

bare, and they are made to contribute once more to the entertainment of

the world by a last appearance in which nothing is unreal and nothing

dissembled or concealed. This, of course, applies far better to a former

period than to the present, as does also the explanation of the same

fact offered by Mr. Fitzgerald--namely, the romantic interest attaching

to the stage and exciting curiosity in regard to those wonderful beings

who appear before us as embodiments of passion and poetry, humor and

whimsicality, transporting us into an ideal world, and leaving us, when

they vanish, in a prosaic one to which they do not seem to belong.

Illusions of this kind are scarcely retained by even the young--perhaps,

indeed, least of all by the young--of our generation. Moreover, the

changes which society has undergone during the last half century have

rubbed out much that was distinctive in the actor's life, and have given

to manners and habits in general a uniformity that leaves little that is

striking and piquant to describe. The adventures and the eccentricities

of actors and actresses of a bygone time were paralleled or exceeded by

those of other classes. At present such sources of interest are rare in

any class, and we are obliged to have recourse to sensational novels or

the records of crime.

Future biographers are no more likely to have such a subject as Samuel

Johnson than such a one as George Frederick Cooke; while both Boswell

and Dunlap, had they written in our day, would probably have been much

more reticent and much less amusing. We cannot therefore agree with Mr.

Fitzgerald in thinking that the colorless character of the few

theatrical biographies that have appeared in recent times is to be

ascribed to the decay of the art of acting and the lack of an ideal

involving a long and arduous struggle in the attainment of eminence. In

France, as he justly observes, the history of the profession has never

possessed the same adventurous interest, the lives of French actors

showing in general a mere record of steady and regular progression, such

as is found in other professions. The stage in France, as in all

Catholic countries, lay under a heavier ban than in England; but on this

very account the actors constituted a separate class, having little

contact with society, receiving few recruits from without, regulated by

fixed usages, and confined to a particular groove. In England, on the

contrary, the stage was an outlet for irregular talent, impatient of

steady labor or severe restrictions, and captivated by the freedom and

diversity of a career which, beginning in vagrancy, might lead at a

single bound to a brilliant and enviable position. Hence the biographies

of English players, taken collectively, offer a vast store of amusing

anecdotes, illustrative not only of the history of the stage, but of

personal character and social manners. Yet books of this kind; though

read with avidity on their first appearance, have naturally fallen into

neglect. Like most other biographies, they are overloaded with details

that have no abiding interest, and few readers of the present day are

tempted to explore the mass for themselves. It was, however, no very

arduous task to sift out the more valuable relics and dispose them in

proper order, and we can only wonder that Mr. Fitzgerald was not

anticipated in the performance of it by some earlier collector. Gait's

_Lives of the Players_ and Dr. Doran's _History of the English

Stage_ have left this particular field almost wholly unworked, and it

is one for which Mr. Fitzgerald was well fitted, both by his previous

labors and knowledge of the soil, and by his practiced dexterity in the

use of the necessary implements. He has accordingly produced a volume

which may either be read consecutively or dipped into at random with the

certainty of entertainment and without risk of tedium. Among the sources

from which his material is drawn he assigns the first place to the

_Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson_ and its sequel, _The Wandering

Patentee_, and the summary which he gives, as far as possible in the

narrator's own language, presents a graphic picture of the provincial

stage at a period when it formed a real nursery of talent for the

metropolitan theatres, enriched with anecdotes of Foote and Garrick as

lively and dramatic as any of the scenes in their own farces, and

affording the strongest confirmation of their protégé's account of his

unrivaled mimicry. The story of George Anne Bellamy, and that of Mrs.

Robinson, the "Perdita" of a somewhat later day, deal with the more

familiar and less obsolete vicissitudes of betrayed beauty, while giving

us glimpses of a social crust that has since been replaced by a more

composite exterior. A deeper and far more pathetic interest attaches to

the brief career of Gerald Griffin, the author of _The Collegians_

and _Gisippus_, who, had he lived in our day, would have been in

danger of having his head turned by premature success, instead of being

heart-sickened by long neglect and coarse rebuffs, and smothering his

aspirations in a convent. In striking contrast with this pale figure is

the portly and imposing one of Robert William Elliston, type of

theatrical charlatans, embodiment of bombast and puffery, monarch over

the realm of pasteboard, immortalized by Lamb, and surely not

undeserving of the honor. With him may be said to have ended the line of

the eccentrics, which fills a large space in Mr. Fitzgerald's volume.

The great actors are comparatively unnoticed, Garrick, Siddons and Kean

being only introduced incidentally, while a whole chapter is given to

"the ill-fated Mossop." This is consistent with the general design of

the book, but there was no good reason for a fresh repetition of the

oft-told tale of the Ireland forgeries. There are, as Mr. Fitzgerald

remarks, many subjects--such as the lives of Macklin and Quin, of Mrs.

Inchbald and Mrs. Jordan--omitted which might fairly have claimed a

place, and which would furnish ample matter for a second and equally

agreeable volume.

Democracy and Monarchy in France from the

Inception of the Great Revolution to the

Overthrow of the Second Empire.

By Charles Kendall Adams, Professor of History

in the University of Michigan.

New York: Henry Holt & Co.

There can be no more fruitful and interesting study than that of the

changes and struggles which have occurred in France since the fall of

the ancient monarchy. But the time has not yet come when a general

survey can be taken of this important epoch, its successive phases seen

in their true relations and proportions, and its character fully and

correctly appreciated. The overthrow of the Second Empire was clearly

not the closing scene of the drama, and even within the last few weeks a

sudden turn in the line of events has awakened curiosity afresh, and

prepared us for the introduction of new elements or new complications,

with results which can only be conjectured. For lack of that key which

the Future still holds in its hand the most acute and comprehensive mind

must be at fault in the endeavor to analyze the workings and appreciate

the significance of the conflicting principles. If Professor Adams has

had no such misgivings, this seems to be accounted for by his ready

acceptance of a theory which has long passed current in England and

America, and which springs from a habit peculiar to the people of these

two countries of regarding the movements of all other nations, when not

on a parallel course, as deviations from a prescribed orbit. According

to this theory, the excesses of the First Revolution, due in part to the

passions engendered by a long course of misgovernment, in part to wild

speculations and experiments, produced an anarchical spirit which has

frustrated every subsequent attempt to establish a solid government of

any form, including the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe,

patterned on the English model--the resemblance being in fact that of a

castle of cards to its Gothic prototype--which offered the proper

compound of liberty and authority in sufficiently balanced proportions.

The French people having thus proved itself incapable of uniting liberty

with order, the one great need is the destruction or suppression of the

revolutionary spirit, to which end a strong government of whatever kind

is the first requisite, and some form of Napoleonism the most available,

it being improbable that the nation would accept permanently anything

better. Such is the view of Professor Adams, one with which all readers

have long been familiar, but which most independent thinkers have come

to reject as shallow and false. However obscure the issue, however

doubtful the solution, it cannot but be apparent to all who, casting

aside prejudices, have studied the history of France in its entirety and

recognized its special character, that its course during the period in

question exhibits no mere series of lawless oscillations, but a process

of development, often checked and retarded, often prematurely hastened,

but passing from stage to stage without suffering itself to be stifled

by factitious aid or crushed by arbitrary repression. What underlies the

history of these events, what distinguishes it from the galvanic

agitations of the torpid Spanish populations in Europe and America, is

the constant presence and activity of ideas, shaping and shaped by

events, hardened or fused by conflict, and preserving through all

vicissitudes and convulsions the incomparable vitality of the nation.

France, more than any other country, is to be studied as a living

spirit, not as an inert mass, and in a study of this kind the

mechanico-philosophical method will not carry us far. It does not appear

to strike Professor Adams as singular that a nation "abandoned for the

last eighty years to the domination of Siva, the fierce god of

destruction," should have all this while been cutting a somewhat

respectable figure in literature, science and the arts, and during most

of that period paid its way in the solid and shining metal considered by

our rulers to have merely a mythical significance. Or rather he seems to

contend that civilization has in fact perished in France, that as "such

a tendency to turbulence is destructive of all healthy national growth,"

the inevitable result has ensued. He admits that there are still some

good scholars in France, but he proves--need we add, by

statistics?--that the illiteracy of the masses is greater than it was

under the _ancien regime_, if not in the reign of Clovis. The

controlling influence of Paris is shown, of course, to have been a prime

source of mischief, and we are asked to "imagine the United States

withdrawing from all interest in political affairs, and saying to New

York City, 'Govern us as you please: we do not care to interfere.'" The

fact, as most people are aware, is not at all as here assumed; but that

aside, is it possible that Professor Adams knows so little of the

difference in the origin and structure of the two nations as not to

perceive that the comparison is ridiculous?

_Books Received_.

Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander.

By Rev. J.P. Mahaffy, M.A.

London: MacMillan & Co.

A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters.

By William Cleaver Wilkinson.

New York: Albert Mason.

The Bewildered Querists and other Nonsense.

By Francis Blake Crofton.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

A Practical Theory of Voussoir Arches.

By Professor William Cain, C.E.

New York: D. Van Nostrand.

On Teaching: Its Ends and Means.

By Henry Calderwood.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Influence of Music on Health and Life.

By Dr. H. Chomet.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Man in the Moon, and Other People.

By R.W. Raymond.

New York: J.B. Ford & Co.

Sowed by the Wind; or, The Poor Boy's Fortune.

By Elijah Kellogg.

Boston: Lee & Shepard.

Religion and Modern Materialism.

By James Martineau.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith.

By Alfred P. Putnam.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Winter Homes for Invalids. By Joseph W. Howe, M.D.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Helps to a Life of Prayer. By Rev. J.M. Manning, D.D.

Boston: Lee & Shepard.

Far from the Madding Crowd. By Thomas Hardy.

New York: Henry Holt & Co.

A Foregone Conclusion. By W.D. Howells.

Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

That Queer Girl. By Virginia F. Townsend.

Illustrated.

Boston: Lee & Shepard.

Magnetism and Electricity. By John Angell.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Estelle: A Novel. By Mrs. Annie Edwards.

New York: Sheldon & Co.

A Rambling Story. By Mary Cowden Clarke.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Life and Times of Sir Philip Sidney.

New York: J.B. Ford & Co.

An Old Sailor's Story. By George Sergeant.

Boston: Henry Hoyt.

Nature and Culture. By Harvey Rice.

Boston: Lee & Shepard.

The Story of Boon. By H.H.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

FOOTNOTES.

[Footnote 001: Another statue to this remarkable woman is now in

progress of execution, and will be soon ready to place on its

pedestal in one of the principal squares of the town.]

[Footnote 002: So complete was the destruction that few persons who

now visit Nice would ever imagine that the hill in its centre, which

is laid out with terraced gardens and used as a public promenade, was

before the siege of 1706 completely covered with houses, churches, an

episcopal palace, a fine cathedral of great antiquity, and an immense

castle, which still gives its name to the fashionable walk, _Le

Château_. Every vestige, save the crumbling walls of the fortress, of

this by far the largest portion of the old town has entirely

disappeared, and picnics are now made under the shade of beautiful

avenues of trees which replace the labyrinthine streets of yore.]

[Footnote 003: Madame Rattazzi is now living in Paris, in the little

palace once inhabited by the duke d'Aquila, in the Cour de la Reine,

where she entertains the literary and artistic world once a week. Her

soirées this year are becoming famous. Recently she acted in

Ponsard's _Horace et Lydie_ and in other little comedies, assisted by

the greatest actors and actresses of Paris including Mesdames Favart

and Roussel, but according to universal testimony her own performance

was by far the finest. Never has Madame Rattazzi been so popular as

at present, and her salon is frequented by all the celebrities of the

French capital, to whom she extends the most charming hospitality.]

[Footnote 004: This refers to the _Gospodi pomiloui_ (the Roman

Catholic _Kyrie eleison_), which perpetually recurs in the Russian

liturgy. Similar discussions about the _Hallelujah_ and other

liturgic forms are met with long before the Raskol broke out.]

[Footnote 005: If we may trust Dmitri of Rostof, a bishop of the last

century, even so early certain sectaries regarded the raising of

Lazarus as not a fact, but a parable: "Lazarus is the human soul, and

his death is sin. His sisters, Martha and Mary, are the body and the

soul. The tomb represents the cares of this life, and his raising

from the dead is conversion. Similarly, Christ's entry into Jerusalem

sitting on an ass is a mere parable."]

[Footnote 006: The analogy must certainly be admitted to lie very far

from the surface.--(_Note of the Translator_.)]

[Footnote 007: The opposition of some of the Raskolniks to this tax

(which has lately been modified) was rendered more determined by the

fact that in the interval between one census and another the tax

continued to be paid for "dead souls." Gogol's novel is founded on

this. From its being nominally levied on the dead, this tax was

regarded by these simple people as a sacrilege.]

[Footnote 008: To combat this notion, an orthodox bishop, Dmitri of

Rostof, wrote a treatise on the image and likeness of God. A

Raskolnik told this prelate, "We would as lief lose our heads as our

beard."--"Will your heads grow again?" was the bishop's retort.]

[Footnote 009: "But here's the joy, my friend and I are one..."]