In dramatic compositions, where language alone can be employed as the

vehicle of thought or sentiment, it is absolutely necessary that the

expression should be bolder, the style more vivid, and the range of

illustration larger than is requisite in the other kind where music is

brought in aid of language, or rather where language is employed to

assist the force of music. It seems therefore preposterous and contrary

to reason, to expect that we should take as much delight or derive as

high intellectual gratification from the bare perusal of a Greek

skeleton play, as must have been felt by an Attic audience who witnessed

its representation as a gorgeous national opera. It is even a greater

artistical mistake to suppose that we should copy it implicitly. Alfieri

indeed did so; but it is impossible to read one of his plays without

experiencing a most chilly sensation. We entirely concur with what Mr

Arnold has said regarding the importance of subject, symmetry, and

design; but we differ from him as to the propriety of adhering to the

nakedness of the Greeks. Let him compare—so far as that can be done with

due allowance for the difference being narrative and dramatic poetry—the

style of his early favourite Homer with that of Sophocles, and we think

he will understand our meaning.

We confess to have been so much pleased with Mr Matthew Arnold’s

preface, that we turned to his poetical performances with no slight

degree of expectation. As we have already hinted, he is an old

acquaintance, for we reviewed him in the Magazine some four or five

years ago, when he appeared in the suspicious character of a _Strayed

Reveller_. We then pointed out what we thought to be his faults, warned

him as strongly as we could against his imitative tendencies, and, we

hope, did justice to the genius which he evidently possessed and

occasionally exhibited. Certainly we did not indulge in ecstasies; but

we believed him capable of producing, through culture and study,

something greatly superior to his early attempts, and we did not

hesitate to say so. Since then, we are given to understand that he has

published another volume of poems, which it was not our fortune to see;

and the present is, with some additions, a collection of those poems

which he considers to be his best, and which were contained in his

earlier volumes. It is a hopeful sign of Mr M. Arnold that he is

amenable to criticism. More than one of the poems which we noticed as

absolutely bad, are omitted from the present collection; and therefore

we are entitled to believe that, on mature consideration, he has

assented to the propriety of our judgment. This is a good feature; for

poets generally seem possessed with a tenfold share of stubbornness,

and, like mothers, who always lavish their affections upon the most

rickety of their offspring, are prompt to defend their worst effusions

with almost superhuman pertinacity. It is because we feel a decided

interest in Mr Arnold’s ultimate success that we again approach his

poetry. We cannot conscientiously congratulate him on a present

triumph—we cannot even say that he has improved upon his earliest

effort; for the “Forsaken Merman,” which we noticed years ago, in terms

of high commendation, is still the one gem of his collection; but we

think that he may improve, and must improve, if he will only abandon all

imitation, whether ancient or modern—identify himself with his

situation—trust to natural impulse—and give art-theories to the winds.

What he has to do is to follow the example of Menander, as quoted by

himself. Let him, by all manner of means, be deliberate in the formation

of his plan—let him fix what he is going to do, before he does

anything—but let him not forget (what we fear he now forgets or does not

know), that, in execution, the artist must beat on his own anvil, sweat

at his own fire, and ply at his own forge. The poem of a master should

bear as distinct and unmistakable marks of the hand that produced it, as

a picture of Titian or Velasquez, a statue of Phidias, an altar-rail of

Quentin Matsys, or a goblet of Benvenuto Cellini. Heaven only knows how

many thousands of imitators have followed in the wake of these and other

great original artists; but who cares for the imitations? No one, unless

they are so good that they can be palmed off on purchasers under cover

of the mighty names. Admit them to be imitations, and the merest tyro

will hesitate to bid for them. It does seem to us that men of letters

are slower than any other description of artists in perceiving the

baneful effects of imitation. They do not appear to see this obvious

truth, that, unless they can transcend their model, they are

deliberately courting an inferior place. If they can transcend it, then

of course they have won the day, but it must be by departing from, not

by adhering to, the peculiarities of the model.

In so far as Mr Matthew Arnold is concerned, we do not intend these

remarks to be applicable to his Greek choric imitations. We spoke of

these before, and are willing to take them as classical experiments.

Goethe, in his old age, was rather fond of this kind of amusement; and

it came gracefully from the octogenarian, who, having won his fame as a

Teuton, might in his latter days be allowed to indulge in any Hellenic

exercitations. And as old age is privileged, so is extreme youth. The

young student, with his head and imagination full of Sophocles and

classical theories, even though he may push the latter beyond the verge

of extravagance, is always an interesting object to the more experienced

man of letters. Enthusiasm is never to be despised. It is the sign of a

high and ardent spirit, and ought not to be met with the drenching

operation of the bucket. But Mr M. Arnold is now considerably past his

teens. He is before the public for the third time, and he still parades

these Greek imitations, as if he were confident of their worth and power

as English poems. So be it. We have nothing in regard to them to add to

what we said before, except that a much higher artist than Mr M. Arnold

must appear, before the British public will be convinced that such

hobbling and unrhymed versification ought to supersede our own

beautifully intoned and indigenous system of prosody.

Of the new poems contained in this collection, the most ambitious is

entitled “Sohrab and Rustum, an Episode.” We like episodes, because they

have the advantage of being short, and, moreover, if well constructed,

are as symmetrical as poems of greater pretension. The story is a simple

one, and yet contains in itself the elements of power. Sohrab, the son

of the great Persian hero Rustum, by a princess of Koordistan, has never

seen his father, but, like Telemachus, is in search of him. Being with

the Tartar army during a campaign against the Persians, he conceives the

idea of challenging the bravest champion of that host to single combat,

in the hope that, if he is victor, Rustum may hear of and acknowledge

him. If slain—

“Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.”

The challenge is given; but Sohrab was already known far and wide as a

handy lad with the scimitar, and a powerful hurler of the spear;

therefore the Persians, with their usual want of pluck, were exceedingly

unwilling to encounter him. We subjoin Mr Arnold’s account of the

panic:—

“But as a troop of pedlars from Cabool

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow,

Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass

Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,

Choked by the air; and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move, and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

And to Ferood his brother chiefs come up

To counsel: Gudurz and Zoarrah came,

And Feraburz, who rul’d the Persian host

Second, and was the uncle of the king.”

Not one of these fellows with the jaw-breaking names could muster

courage to come forth, like Goliath, against the dauntless David of the

Tartars. Gudurz, however, bethinks him that Rustum had arrived in the

camp the evening before, and of course he was the very man for the

occasion; so he visits him immediately after breakfast. All heroes feed,

or ought to feed, voraciously; and judging from appearances, Rustum was

qualified to compete at a game of knife and fork with Achilles.

“And Gudurz entered Rustum’s tent, and found

Rustum: his morning meal was done, but still

The table stood beside him, charged with food;

A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread,

And dark-green melons.”

Possibly from the effects of repletion, Rustum for some time refuses to

accept the championship, but is at last taunted into action and takes

the field, but determines to fight unknown. We ought to mention here

that Rustum, so far from suspecting his relationship with Sohrab, is

unaware that he has any son at all. We must draw on Mr Arnold’s verse

for the exordium to the combat.

“Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,

Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,

By midnight, to a bubbling fountain’s sound—

So slender Sohrab seem’d, so softly rear’d.

And a deep pity entered Rustum’s soul

As he beheld him coming; and he stood,

And beckoned to him with his hand, and said:—

‘O thou young man, the air of heaven is soft,

And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold.

Heaven’s air is better than the dead cold grave.

Behold me: I am vast, and clad in iron,

And tried; and I have stood on many a field

Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe:

Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.

O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?

Be govern’d: quit the Tartar host, and come

To Irun; and be as my son to me,

And fight beneath my banner till I die.

There are no youths in Irun brave as thou.’

“So he spoke mildly: Sohrab heard his voice,

The mighty voice of Rustum; and he saw

His giant figure planted on the sand,

Sole, like some single tower, which a chief

Has builded on the waste in former years

Against the robbers; and he saw that head,

Streak’d with its first grey hairs: hope fill’d his soul;

And he ran forwards, and embrac’d his knees,

And clasp’d his hand within his own and said:—

‘Oh, by thy father’s head! by thine own soul!

Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?’

“But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,

And turn’d away, and spoke to his own soul:—

‘Ah me! I muse what this young fox may mean.

False, wily, boastful are these Tartar boys.

For if I now confess this thing he asks,

And hide it not, but say—_Rustum is here_—

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,

But he will find some pretext not to fight,

And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts—

A belt or sword perhaps—and go his way.

And on a feast-day in Afrasiab’s hall,

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry—

“I challenged once, when the two armies camp’d

Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords

To cope with me in single fight: but they

Shrank; only Rustum dared: then he and I

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.”

So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud.

Then were the chiefs of Irun shamed through me.’

“And then he turn’d, and sternly spake aloud:—

‘Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus

Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call’d

By challenge forth: make good thy vaunt, or yield.

Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?

Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face and flee.’”

Then follows the combat, Homerically intermingled with a great deal of

talk between the champions, until Sohrab falls mortally wounded by his

father’s spear. Then come the explanations, and Rustum knows that he has

slain his son.

“And with a heavy groan, Rustum replied:—

‘Oh that its waves were flowing over me!

Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt

Roll tumbling on the current o’er my head!’

“And with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:

‘Desire not that, my father; we must live.

For some are born to do great deeds, and live,

As some are born to be obscured, and die.

Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,

And reap a second glory in thine age.

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.

But come: thou seest this great host of men

Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these:

Let me entreat for them: what have they done?

They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star.

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,

But carry me with thee to Seistan,

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,

Thou, and the snow-hair’d Zal, and all thy friends.

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above my bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all:

That so the passing horsemen on the waste

May see my tomb a great way off, and say—

_Sohrab, the mighty Rustum’s son, lies there,

Whom his great father did in ignorance kill_—

And I be not forgotten in my grave.’

And with a mournful voice Rustum replied:—

‘Fear not; as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,

So shall it be: for I will burn my tents,

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,

And carry thee away to Seistan,

And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,

With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.

And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above thy bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all;

And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.

And I will spare thy host: yea, let them go:

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

What should I do with slaying any more?’”

Real poetry, we are sorry to say, is now so scarce among us, that we

cannot afford to dismiss any promising aspirant with a sneer. From the

foregoing extracts it will be seen that Mr M. Arnold, in opposition to

the tenets of that school of bardlings so copiously beslavered by

Guffaw, has adopted, in this poem, a simple and even severe method of

expression. He is now writing after Homer—not, indeed, slavishly, but on

the Homeric principle; and the question now arises, whether or not he

has succeeded. Our opinion is that this poem is highly creditable as an

attempt in the right direction—that it is infinitely superior to the

turgid trash with which we have been, of late years, inundated—but that

it has not merit enough to confer lasting distinction on the author. Mr

Arnold, we are aware, has been told the reverse; and as the sugared cup

is always more palatable than that which contains an ingredient of

bitter, he may possibly be inclined to prefer sweet panegyric to sincere

though wholesome criticism. But we are not writing for him alone; we are

attending to the poetical reputation of the age. In this composition, as

it appears to us, Mr Arnold again suffers through imitation. He is

writing, with deliberate intention, Homerically—that is, he has been

keeping Homer in his eye, instead of rivetting it on his subject. Now

this is a great mistake. The peculiar manner of a poet depends upon the

age in which he lives. There is an enormous gap in world-history between

“the blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” and Mr Matthew Arnold, who

dates from “Fox How, Ambleside,” A.D. 1853; and it is a sheer

impossibility that the two can naturally express themselves alike. What

was nature in the one, is affectation in the other. Homer expressed

himself simply, because he was addressing a simple audience; and also

because his hearty, noble, and grand organisation made him superior to

rhetorical conceits or affectation. Arnold also expresses himself

simply; but he does so, not from native impulse or inspiration, but

because he is aware of Homer’s charm. But he frustrates his own

intention by deliberately copying Homer, and making his readers

painfully aware of it. A true, or at all events a very accomplished

poet, would not have committed this error. Let any man, of really

cultivated taste in poetry, read the “Hyperion” of Keats, and the “Morte

D’Arthur” of Tennyson—both of them splendid poems, and distinguished by

severe simplicity of language—and then compare them with this effusion

of Mr Arnold. We cannot for one moment doubt the verdict. Keats and

Tennyson saw the principle, but they kept themselves away from

imitation, gave their genius full play, and achieved magnificent

results. Mr Arnold, recognising the principle, cannot divert his eye

from the model, adopts the peculiarities of that, and fails. In fact,

imitation is his curse. We said so more than four years ago, and we now

repeat it. So strong is his tendency that way, that he cannot, within

the limits of a composition of moderate length, confine himself to the

imitation of a single renowned poet, but makes patchwork by copying the

peculiarities, even though they are acknowledged blemishes, of another.

Thus we find, nearly at the commencement of the poem which we are now

discussing, the following passage:—

“The sun, by this, had risen, and clear’d the fog

From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands:

And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed

Into the open plain; so Haman bade;

Haman, who next to Peran Wisa ruled

The host, and still was in his lusty prime.

From their black tents long files of horse they stream’d:

As when, some grey November morn, the files,

In marching order spread, of long-neck’d cranes,

Stream over Casbin, and the southern slopes

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,

Or some from Caspian reed-bed, southward bound

For the warm Persian sea-board: so they stream’d.

The Tartars of the Oxus, the king’s guard,

First, with black sheepskin caps, and with long spears;

Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come

And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.

Next the more temperate Toorkmans of the south,

The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;

Light men, and on light steeds, who only drink

The acrid milk of camels and their wells.”

The description—or catalogue—is twice as long as the foregoing extract,

but we cannot afford to multiply quotations. The student of Milton will

readily recognise the source of this inspiration, and will regret that

those very passages, which every sound judge (if he be not an arrant

pedant or a schoolmaster) would wish to be excised from the pages of the

“Paradise Lost,” should have been selected for imitation by a young

modern poet.

Further, Mr Arnold errs in being unnecessarily minute. Here again he may

plead the Homeric example; but we reply, as before, that Arnold is not

Homer. That style of description, which Delille happily characterises as

“peindre les ongles,” is not only tedious but puerile, and sometimes has

a ludicrous effect. Take, for example, the following detailed account of

the toilet of an old Tartar gentleman:—

“So said he, and dropp’d Sohrab’s hand, and left

His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay,

And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat

He pass’d, and tied his sandals on his feet,

And threw a white cloak round him, and he took

In his right hand a ruler’s staff, no sword;

And on his head he placed his sheepskin cap,

Black, glossy, curl’d, the fleece of Kara-Kul;

And raised the curtain of his tent, and call’d

His herald to his side, and went abroad.”

Now, supposing that Mr Arnold had to describe the uprising of a modern,

would he consider it necessary to favour us with a description of the

emergence from the blankets, the deposition of the nightcap, the wrestle

into the nether integuments, the shaving-jug, the razor, and all the

rest of it? We beg to assure him that this passage, so far from being

vigorous, is pure slip-slop; and we are convinced that, on reflection,

he will admit the justice of the stricture. For example; how infinitely

more terse and satisfactory is the one line which Shakespeare puts into

the mouth of poor Ophelia—

“Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes!”

What the mischief do we care for the texture of the stockings, or the

peculiar method of investiture? Is it necessary to enter into details

regarding the boots, and to specify whether they were Wellingtons or

Bluchers? That there are, in this episode, some fine, and one or two

noble passages, we are very glad to acknowledge, but it is by no means

perfect as a whole. Indeed, even if the bulk of it had been faultless,

the termination would have spoiled it as a poem; for Mr Arnold has been

induced, through some extraordinary hallucination, to destroy the effect

of the catastrophe, by superadding a needless piece of description. We

sincerely regret this; because the catastrophe, when it does come (and

it ought to have arrived sooner) is very fine; and no artist could have

desired a better termination than the picture of Rustum watching by his

dead son—

“And night came down over the solemn waste,

And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,

And darken’d all; and a cold fog, with night,

Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,

As of a great assembly loosed, and fires

Began to twinkle through the fog: for now

Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal:

The Persians took it on the open sands

Southward; the Tartars by the river marge,

And Rustum and his son were left alone.”

Here the poem ought to have ended; but Mr Arnold wishes to try his hand

at that very ancient and hackneyed subject, the description of the

course of a river; and, the Oxus being conveniently near, he embarks on

a voyage for the Arab Sea.

“But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,

Rejoicing, through the hush’d Chorasmian waste,

Under the solitary moon: he flow’d

Right for the Polar star, past Orgunjè,

Brimming, and bright, and huge: there sands begin

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,

And split his currents; that for many a league

The shorn and parcell’d Oxus strains along

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had

In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,

A foil’d circuitous wanderer:—till at last

The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide

His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath’d stars

Emerge, and shine upon the Arab Sea.”

Not at all bad as a piece of versification, but utterly to be condemned

in the place where it is introduced.

In spite of one or two beautiful passages—the best being the description

of the children at play in the third part—we cannot enthusiastically

admire the poem of “Tristram and Iseult.” It is sickly, feverish, and

withal terribly disjointed—affording no trace of that symmetry of

design, the lack of which in modern poetry Mr Arnold has very justly

deplored. Neither can we say much for the “Church of Brou,” in which, by

the way, Mr Arnold has attempted an elaborate description of a painted

window, very dull of tint, indeed, when we compare it with the gorgeous

masterpiece in “The Eve of St Agnes.” On the whole, we are disappointed

with this volume, because we really think that Mr M. Arnold might have

done much better. That he has the power is quite evident; that many of

the poetical views he enunciates are sound, we have already

acknowledged; but, somehow or other, he neither exerts the power

continuously, nor adheres in practice to his views. We have a strong

impression that he composes too coldly and phlegmatically, and without

allowing the proper scope to his imagination. That is always a bad

method. The inspiration of the poet is not by any means a mere figure of

speech; it must be realised, if great effects are to be produced.

Verses—ay, and good verses too—may be written to almost any extent,

without the composer experiencing anything like a thrill of emotion; but

verses so produced are not of the nature of true poetry. Grand harmonies

suggest and develop themselves only when the mind is in an exalted

state; and at such times the poet cares nothing for the rules of art. If

he stops to consider these, he instantaneously loses the inspiration.

We cannot, as yet, congratulate Mr M. Arnold on high success; but we

augur well of him for the future, and shall be delighted to pay him a

more decided and satisfactory tribute whenever he will allow us to do

so. Come we now to the second Arnold—Edwin, of University College,

Oxford.

Judging from external evidence, we should say that Edwin is some years

younger than Matthew, and he is fortunately, as yet, altogether free

from poetical theories. Song comes to him as naturally as it does to the

bird on the bough. He cannot help expressing his thick-thronging and

always graceful fancies in verse; and he frequently does so with the

true minstrel spirit. That he should be occasionally a little

extravagant is to be expected. All very young poets are so, and we like

them the better for it; for why should they affect the solemn airs and

sententious pomposity of their seniors? Edwin Arnold is just now in the

very parterre of poesy—culling flowers with a liberal hand, and binding

them into a nosegay fit for the acceptance of his lady-love. Our pen

would prove faithless to our fingers should we attempt to disentangle

that pretty posy, which early genius lays at the feet of beauty. Why

should we review his poems, after the manner of the cold critics,

carping at what is enthusiastic, and triumphing over errors, from which

older brethren of the lyre are by no means exempt? If he chooses, in

imitation of “Burleigh Hall,” to renew the story of the Falcon-Feast,

long since told by Boccaccio, and from him dramatised by Barry Cornwall,

why should we point to faults which, in a year or so, he will discover

of his own accord? Never again, we are certain, will he, in a love

story, libel his hero and his heroine as he has done in four lines of

that ballad—

“So for one who loved him never

Slew he what had loved him well:

Giannetta, silent ever,

Feasted till the sunlight fell;”

—thereby implying that the owner of the falcon was a brute, and his

mistress a deliberate _gourmande_, gloating over the trail! The story,

even as told by the Florentine, has always seemed to us hideously

unnatural. The man who could sacrifice, in cold blood, a dumb creature

that loved him, would not hesitate, under temptation, to lay a

sacrilegious hand on the weazand of his father; and we pray Mr Edwin

Arnold to consider what kind of sympathy we should feel for Ulysses, if

his first act, on his return to Ithaca, had been to drive his falchion

into the heart of old Argus, who, for so many years, had been lying

neglected at the gate, pining for his master’s return. Let us rather

give a specimen or so of the better style of our youthful poet. We begin

with the first poem.

“Oh! was there ever tale of human love

Which was not also tale of human tears?

Died not sweet Desdemona? Sorrowed not

Fair, patient Imogene? and she whose name

Lives among lovers, Sappho silver-voiced,

Was not the wailing of her passionate lyre

Ended for ever in the dull, deaf sea?

Must it be thus? Oh! must the cup that holds

The sweetest vintage of the vine of life

Taste bitter at the dregs? Is there no story,

No legend, no love-passage, which shall veil

Even as the bow which God hath bent in heaven

O’er the sad waste of mortal histories,

Promising respite to the rain of tears?”

A very pretty commencement to a pretty poem; the subject of which,

however, must be considered as rather ticklish. It is curious that

Edwin, as well as Matthew, has tried his hand at the painted window,

which we wish he had not done, as the plagiary from Keats is evident:—

“They sleep: the spangled night is melting off,

And still they sleep: the holy moon looks in,

In at the painted window-panes, and flings

Ruby, blue, purple, emerald, amethyst,

Crystal and orange colours on their limbs;

_And round her face a glory of white light,

As one that sins not_; on the tapestries

Gold lights are flashing like the wings of angels,

Bringing these two hearts to be single-hearted.”

O Edwin! what could tempt you to charge your pallet with so many

colours? Don’t you see how ill they assort together, giving the

impression of a mashed rainbow?—and how dreadfully out of place are the

flashing gold lights! They should be “lying,” Edwin, not “flashing;” for

the holy moon is looking in, and all within the chamber should be

repose. Pray you observe the exquisite toning of Keats in that passage

with which you are already familiar, but the extreme beauty of which you

do not yet thoroughly comprehend.

“Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for Heaven’s grace and boon;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory, like a saint:

She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven.—”

Keats gives the colours in which an angel should be painted—yours, Mr

Edwin, are too tawdry even for the coat of Harlequin.

So many of these poems come under the general title of “Occasional,”

that we have some difficulty in finding a proper one for extract. Our

favourite, on the whole, is “Quentin Matsys,” and from it we select a

specimen.

“She was a painter’s daughter,—bold for love

He told his earnest suit, and prayed her hand

In words that his full heart made eloquence.

Silent the father heard; there as he sate

In jewelled silks, and velvets furbelow’d,

With works of mighty masters on the wall,

And all his art’s appliances about him,

A stern smile curled his pale patrician lip,

And cold and slow the cruel sentence came:

‘A painter’s daughter may not wed a smith;

Paint me like this and these, and thou shalt have her.’

Died then his love? Listen! The maiden wept

Such pearly tears, that in his bursting heart

Grew up strange hopes. Alas! to few is given

The magic skill that burns in life-like hues,

A speaking lip, an eye that beams and loves,

A moving majesty like nature’s own,

Save that this may not die: it is a gift

Higher and holier than a common man

May dare to reach at; oh! by what right, then,

Dared he to dream of it? by what right! Love’s!—

The love that lifts a peasant to a king,

The love that knows no doubting! Well he knew—

Too well for his fond hopes—that brawny arms

Guide not the pencil, and that smithy strokes

Fix not the fancies of a painter’s mind;

But still for that. To gaze into the eyes

That sparkled all for him was inspiration

Better than painter’s best: long days and nights

He strove as only lovers strive; at last

The passport to the haven of his hopes

Came in a touch, as if some angel hand

Had dipt his brush in life; and as the form

His fancy pictured, slowly—slowly grew,

And woke into broad being, then at last

He knew that he had won his golden prize—

That she was his for ever.

Antwerp’s bells

Rung out right merrily one sunny day;

Blue kirtles, and bright hose, and brighter faces,

Rhenish and sack, dancing and songs were there,

Feasting and music, and mad revelry,

And all to keep the wedding:—cavaliers

And highborn ladies stood to see them pass,

He, Quentin Matsys, and his blooming bride!”

Well then, after having given these extracts, we may be asked whether we

think that Mr Edwin Arnold is really and truly a poet? Look, our dear

sir, we beseech you, at that splendid gamecock—how glossy in his

plumage, how quick in his eye, how massive in his neck, and how powerful

in his limbs! There he walks, proud as the sultan at the head of his

seraglio, the pride of his master’s heart, the terror of every recreant

dunghill within a circle of a couple of miles. Some few months ago he

was a mere chicken, whom you might have devoured with parsley-sauce

without experiencing a pang of remorse. Before that he lay in an

egg-shell. Now, had you looked either on the egg or on the chicken, you

could not have stated with propriety that either was a gamecock—and yet

there undeniably goes the finest ginger-pile in the parish. So is it

with Mr Edwin Arnold. He may not be entitled yet to the high and sacred

name of a poet—for he is still exercising himself in verse, and has not

attained the possession of a distinguishing style of his own; but he

shows excellent symptoms of breeding, and we doubt not will, in due

time, advance a valid claim to the laurels. This, moreover, is to be

said in his favour, that he is not treading in the footsteps of the

“intense” school, and that he always writes intelligibly—a virtue which

we observe a good many modern poets hold utterly in derision. Let him go

on in his vocation, cultivating his taste, improving his judgment,

observing nature, and eschewing gaudy ornament—and he may hope to win a

name which shall be reverenced, when those of the utterers of fustian

and balderdash, dear to the heart of Guffaw, are either wholly

forgotten, or remembered only with ridicule.

COUNT SIGISMUND’S WILL.

The theatrical season in Paris, now at its height, has not yet been

marked by the production of any particularly successful pieces. At about

this time last year, the clever comedy of _Lady Tartuffe_ afforded

agreeable occupation to the critics, and abundant amusement to the town.

At the Gymnase, the _Fils de Famille_, of which two versions have since

been produced upon the London stage, and _Philiberte_, a sparkling

three-act comedy in verse, full of wit, but rather _Régence_ in its tone

and style, nightly filled the house with select and gratified audiences.

_L’Honneur et l’Argent_, M. Ponsard’s respectable and proper, but, in

our opinion, wearisome play, had a triumphant run at the Odeon; whilst,

at the Vaudeville, the _Lady with the Camelias_, who, objectionable

though she was in some respects, was certainly, as far as talent went,

immeasurably superior to her various imitators and successors, drew all

Paris to her seductive boudoir. This winter no play of decided merit and

importance has been produced at any theatre. In more than one instance,

attempts have been made to proclaim the success of a piece immense, when

in reality it was most moderate; and, at the Gymnase, _Diane de Lys_ has

really had a considerable run; but this has been owing to extraneous

circumstances, and to the excellence of the acting, much more than to

any intrinsic merits of the play, which derived a sort of scandalous

interest from a generally-credited report that the author, Alexander

Dumas the younger, had merely dramatised an adventure of his

own—altering, however, the catastrophe; for the play closes with the

death of the lover, shot by the offended husband. Rumour went so far as

to point to a foreign lady of rank as the original of the _Duchess

Diana_, and the playwright was blamed for his indiscretion. Whether

there were grounds for such censure, or whether the tale was a mere

ingenious invention, industriously circulated by the author’s friends to

give a spurious popularity to a rather amusing but very worthless piece,

it is hard to decide—the one case being quite as probable as the other.

The Gymnase, however, boasts of its _Diana_ as a signal triumph—which

she may be to its treasury, although in other respects she does the

theatre no great credit, beyond displaying an excellent cast and

admirable acting. That agreeable theatre needs something to console it

for the loss of its most valuable and accomplished comedian, Bressant,

summoned by the higher powers from the scene of his numerous triumphs to

the classic boards of the _Française_. There he had the good taste to

make his first appearance in a play of Molière’s in preference to the

less sterling class of comedy with which he is more familiar; and, both

by his acting, and by the enthusiastic greeting he met from a crowded

house, he at once proved himself a valuable accession to the talent and

popularity of the first French theatre. That establishment just now has

greater need of good new plays than of good new actors. It is

unfortunate in its authors, and the drama droops under the imperial

régime. Alexander Dumas—whose outrageous vanity and fanfaronades, daily

displayed in the columns of the new journal, the _Mousquetaire_, which

he owns and edits, have lately made him the laughingstock of

Paris,—after writing two five-act historical plays in about as many days

each, and having them both accepted by the committee, but prohibited

before performance—probably because the authorities did not think the

most important theatre in France a fit stage for such mountebank feats

of rapid writing—has been fain to console himself (supposing his

egregious self-conceit not to have set him above all need of

consolation) by the cordial reception of a one-act comedy called

_Romulus_, which has both humour and character. He has boasted of this

little success almost as much as of the merits of his two great

failures, the interdicted plays; has published the piece (the idea of

which is derived from a passage in one of Auguste La Fontaine’s tales)

in the _feuilleton_ of his paper, where he also printed monstrous

stories about his having written it in some wonderfully short space of

time. But this clever silly man has made himself such a reputation as a

Munchausen that none now believe him; and, moreover, it is very well

known in Paris that the piece in question was planned, and in great part

written, by an accomplished French actor, much esteemed in England, to

whose cultivated taste and extensive reading some of the best dramatists

of the day have on various occasions been indebted for advice and

assistance, which they have not all been so slow as Mr Dumas to

acknowledge.

The expectations of many persons, conversant with the relative merits of

the principal living writers for the French stage, were lately raised

high by the announcement of a five-act comedy from the united pens of

two of the most successful of these, Messrs Emile Augier and Jules

Sandeau. Both of these gentlemen have distinguished themselves as

dramatists, although M. Sandeau is perhaps best known as the author of

some very clever and agreeable novels. Indeed, since the regretted

decease of Charles de Bernard, few have been more successful in that

branch of literature. His style is that in which modern French writers

have best succeeded—the _roman de mœurs_, or novel of society, whose

attraction and interest depend rather upon accurate delineation and

delicate satire of the habits, follies, and foibles of the time, than in

startling situations and complicated intrigues. The late Charles de

Bernard, to whose charming talent we some years ago devoted an article,

and whose collected works have just received the well-deserved honour of

posthumous republication, was an adept in the style, and was also one of

the most inventive writers of his day. Most of his novels and tales

display, in addition to a refined and extensive knowledge of French

society and character, much ingenuity of plot and originality of

incident. Of the same school, Jules Sandeau has more pathos and

sentiment, less originality and wit. Like that of most novelists who are

also dramatists, his dialogue is terse, spirited, and life-like,

although less pointed and sparkling than that of the author of

_Gerfaut_. Occasionally he reminds us of that clever whimsical writer,

Alphonse Karr, but of Karr in his happiest moods, when he abjures

triviality, and produces such novels as _Genevieve_ and _La Famille

Alain_. One of the favourite stock-pieces at the _Comédie Française_,

_Mademoiselle de la Seiglière_, is by Sandeau, founded on his own novel

of the same name. Another of his tales, _La Chasse au Roman_, he

dramatised conjointly with Augier, and the piece brought out the other

day, _La Pierre de Touche_—The Touchstone—is also founded on a novel by

Sandeau, entitled _Un Héritage_. How is it, many have asked, that, with

an excellent subject—that of a highly popular romance—to work upon, M.

Sandeau and the witty and experienced author of _Gabrielle_,

_Philiberte_, and other justly successful plays, have produced a comedy

which has been more or less hissed every night of its performance, and

which, instead of awakening the sympathies or exciting the admiration of

the public, has produced an impression so manifestly unfavourable, that

the authors deemed it necessary to publish a letter in explanation and

vindication—a letter the publishers of the play have reproduced in the

form of a preface? Before replying to this question, or sketching the

plot of the play, we will give a slight outline of the novel on which it

is founded. Our readers will hardly have forgotten another of M.

Sandeau’s novels, _Sacs et Parchemins_, of which we some time ago gave

an account.[4] Those who have read, with the amused interest it could

hardly fail to excite, M. Sandeau’s account of the vaulting ambition of

the retired draper Levrault, and of the desperate and ludicrous

expedients of the ruined Viscount de Montflanquin, in his French Wolf’s

Crag, will not be unwilling to follow the same writer upon German

ground, to the ancient castle of Hildesheim, and into the humble abode

of Franz Müller, the musician of Munich. We will briefly glance at the

spirited and characteristic opening chapters of _Un Héritage_.

It was a great day for Master Gottlieb Kaufmann, notary in the little

German town of Mühlstadt. Count Sigismund Hildesheim was just dead, and

his will was to be opened in presence of his assembled relatives.

Gottlieb, attired in suitable sables, the silver buckles of his shoes

replaced by others of burnished steel, fidgetted to and fro between his

study and his office, his office and his drawing-room, scolding his

clerks, sending away clients, and watching the clock, whose lazy hands,

he thought, crept more slowly than usual round the dial. Noon was the

hour fixed for the reading of the will, and as yet it was but nine. It

was an anxious morning for the worthy notary. The very pig-tail that

dangled from his nape quivered with impatience. The cause of his

excitement was his doubt whether the heir to the castle and fine estate

of Hildesheim would continue to employ him. There were other notaries at

Mühlstadt, and all were eager to secure so rich a client. Master

Gottlieb had spared no pains to retain the lucrative employment. His

drawing-room chairs, stripped of the cases that usually protected them

from the pranks of the flies, were drawn round a table spread with an

old scarlet velvet cover; near this table, another chair, elevated upon

a temporary platform, seemed to preside over the absent assembly. From

time to time, Master Gottlieb seated himself in it, studied his gestures

and attitude, and contemplated his reflection in a glass, endeavouring

to combine regret and obsequiousness in the expression of his habitually

jovial physiognomy. His face was to do double duty—to deplore the

departed and offer his services to the survivors. Further to propitiate

the clients he desired to secure, Master Gottlieb—himself of a convivial

turn, fond of a cool bottle and a merry catch—had prepared, in an

adjoining room, an elegant collation. On a cloth of dazzling whiteness

were temptingly displayed cold meats, fragrant fruits, and antique

flasks, dim with venerable dust. The notary had spared nothing worthily

to honour the memory and regale the heirs of the departed Count.

Count Sigismund Hildesheim had passed, almost from his youth upwards,

for an oddity, an original, slightly crazed, and only just sane enough

to be intrusted with the guidance of himself and his affairs. In reality

he was none of those things, but a misfortune in early life, acting upon

a singularly sensitive and impressionable nature, had decided his whole

destiny. As a youth, at the university of Heidelberg, he shunned the

society of the students, and, of an evening, instead of devoting himself

to beer, tobacco, roaring songs and political theories, he loved to walk

out and watch the sunset from the summit of the beautiful hills that

enclose the valley of the Neckar. Returning home, on a May night, from

one of these solitary rambles, his attention was arrested, as he passed

through the outskirts of the town, by a fresh and melodious voice,

proceeding from a window decked and entwined with flowers. The song was

one of those wild and plaintive ditties, often of great antiquity, heard

in remote mountain districts, seldom written, but orally transmitted

from generation to generation. Surprised and charmed, Sigismund paused

and listened; then he cast a curious glance into the room. A young girl

was seated at a piano, and by the light of a lamp he distinguished her

to be of great beauty. Thenceforward, every evening, on his return from

his walks, the pensive student lingered at that window. He was seldom

disappointed; most evenings the young girl was at her piano; and the

song that at first had fascinated him was evidently her favourite. At

last—how this came about it is immaterial to inquire—instead of pausing

at the window, Sigismund went in at the door, and became a constant

visitor to Michaële and her mother.

The dwelling of the widow and her child was humble, but elegant in its

poverty. War, which had robbed them of a husband and father, had left

them but a scanty pension for their support. Sigismund was as much

attracted by the mother’s kind and graceful manners as he had been

enchanted by the daughter’s bright eyes and sweet voice. He had lost his

own mother when an infant; his father’s harsh and haughty character had

repelled his affection. He found a home, congenial to his tastes and

sympathies, in the secluded cottage in Heidelberg’s suburbs, and there

he and Michaële formed plans of future happiness undisturbed by fear of

obstacles to their union. But Michaële’s mother, who at first partook

their hopes, could not repress forebodings of evil when she remembered

that Sigismund was the heir of an ancient and wealthy family. Her fears

proved too well founded. When Sigismund, on quitting the university,

spoke to his father of his projects, he encountered an insurmountable

opposition, and was compelled to postpone them. As often as he could

escape from Hildesheim he hurried to Heidelberg, to pass a few days of

mingled grief and joy. Michaële never complained; she had always smiles

and loving words to welcome Sigismund, but in his absence and in secret

she pined away. At last his father died. A week after his funeral the

young count was at Heidelberg. It was too late. Michaële was given up by

the physicians; three days afterwards she breathed her last. More than

once, during those three days of cruel anguish, the dying girl made

Sigismund play the melody that had been the origin of their

acquaintance, and which they both passionately loved. Often, in happier

times, they had sung it together, with joy and gratitude in their

hearts. It was an air that Michaële had learned when a child, in the

mountains of the Tyrol. It had fixed itself indelibly in her memory, and

when she died, in Sigismund’s arms, the sweet melody was hovering on her

lips.

There is something rather German than French in the strain of the early

chapters of _Un Héritage_, but they are a mere prologue to the book, and

are unheeded by the dramatist. After the death of his betrothed, Count

Sigismund abandoned himself to the most passionate and despairing grief.

He remained at Heidelberg with Michaële’s mother, who would not quit the

spot where she had dwelt with her daughter. She did not long survive her

bereavement. Sigismund followed her to the grave, and returned to

Hildesheim, where he lived in complete retirement, avoiding intercourse

with his neighbours. He would not be consoled, and lived alone with his

sorrow. When this became calmer, he opened his piano and would have

played the Tyrolese air he and his departed love had so often repeated.

But in vain did he rack his memory and try every note of the instrument.

The melody had fled, and would not return. It had departed with the soul

of her from whom he had learned it. His long paroxysm of grief had

utterly driven it from his recollection.

What does M. Sandeau now, but send his melancholy hero forth, a pilgrim

over hill and dale, in quest of the lost melody so inextricably

intertwined with the memory of her he had so tenderly and deeply loved.

After innumerable efforts to seize the fugitive sounds, after bursts of

impatience, anger, almost of frenzy, the enthusiastic Sigismund

departed, wandering in search of an old song. The idea is fantastical;

it may be deemed far-fetched; but it certainly is not unpoetical.

“He set out for the Tyrol; on the summit of the mountains, in the depths

of the valleys, he listened to the songs of the shepherds: no voice

repeated the air Michaële sung. After traversing Switzerland and Italy

he returned to Germany, and his gentle, touching monomania then assumed

a new form. He travelled on foot, like a poor student, listening to

every fresh young voice that met his ear as he passed through the

villages; in cities, on the public squares, when he saw a crowd gathered

round a band of itinerant singers, he joined it, and stirred not from

the place until the _alfresco_ minstrels had exhausted their musical

store. Whilst thus persisting in the pursuit of this Tyrolese air, which

fled before him as did Ithaca from Ulysses, it will easily be understood

that he paid little attention to the management of his estate. Before

commencing his travels, which had lasted several years, he had installed

in his castle two old cousins of his mother, Hedwige and Ulrica von

Stolzenfels.”

Hereabouts M. Sandeau shelves sentiment and the pathetic, and strikes

into a vein akin to satire, in which, as he showed us in _Sacs et

Parchemins_, and some others of his books, he is by no means less happy.

The two old Stolzenfels are a capital sketch. In the whole course of

their lives, prolonged to a period it would be ungallant to guess at,

they had had but one affection—for a scamp of a nephew, who had ruined

them, but whom they still idolised, although hopeless of his conversion

to better courses. For this handsome, reckless officer, whose

innumerable follies were redeemed, in their partial eyes, by his good

looks and prepossessing manners, they had emptied their purses, sold

their diamonds, and left themselves with an income barely sufficient for

their support. They would not have given a copper to a beggar; for

Captain Frederick they would have stripped themselves of their last

dollar, and have deemed themselves more than repaid by a visit from him

in his fulldress of captain of hussars. When Sigismund offered them

apartments in his castle, they gladly accepted them, at first merely as

a comfortable home free of cost; but when they observed his absence of

mind and his total neglect of his affairs, they formed other projects.

By nature and habit haughty and sour to everybody but their beloved

hussar, they forced themselves to be gentle and humble with Sigismund.

Under pretence of watching over his interests, they gradually assumed

the whole management of his house, and soon it might have been supposed

that he was the guest and that they were his hostesses. When he set out

upon his rambles, Frederick, who was in garrison in a neighbouring town,

installed himself at the castle and disposed of everything as though it

had been his patrimony, keeping horses, dogs, and huntsmen continually

on their legs. The servants, accustomed to obey the two old ladies, and

seeing that they obeyed their nephew, obeyed him likewise. Meanwhile

Hedwige and Ulrica built castles in the air for their darling; or, it

should rather be said, they grasped in imagination the one already built

on the broad domain of Hildesheim. Sigismund, they were convinced, could

not live long, leading the strange, wandering, unhappy life he did. Why

should he not leave part of his property to Frederick? Why not all? How

could it be better bestowed? The hussar, to do him justice, entered into

none of their schemes. He drank Sigismund’s wine, thinned his preserves,

knocked up his horses, and cared for little besides. When Sigismund came

home for a few days, the captain made no change in his habits, and the

count, for his part, in no way interfered with them.

To the infinite consternation of the old maids, there one day arrived at

the castle a distant relative of Sigismund’s father, of whom they had

heard nothing for many years, and whom they sincerely trusted had

departed for a better world. Had a thunderbolt dropped into their aprons

they could hardly have been more thunderstruck. Major Bildmann, who had

always been rather a loose character, had just lost his last ducat at

the gaming-table. In this extremity, Dorothy, his wife, could think of

nothing better than to have recourse to Count Sigismund. She was careful

not to speak to him of her husband’s irregularities, and concocted a

little romance about faithless trustees and insolvent bankers, which

Sigismund implicitly believed. He was touched by the tale of her

misfortunes.

“My mother’s two cousins,” he said, after listening in silence, “occupy

the right wing of the castle; come and install yourself with the major

in the left wing. There will still be plenty of room for me.”

Dorothy took him at his word. A week afterwards she returned with Major

Bildmann, and with little Isaac, an abominable brat whom she had

forgotten to mention. This mattered not. Sigismund had again quitted the

castle in pursuit of his chimera.

The consternation of a pair of magpies, disturbed in the plucking of a

pigeon by the sudden swoop of a leash of sparrow-hawks, may give some

idea of the feelings of Ulrica and Hedwige at this intrusion upon their

territory. There was deadly hatred between the right wing and the left.

When Sigismund returned home he did not observe this. The two maiden

ladies certainly insinuated that the Bildmanns were no better than they

should be; and the Bildmanns scrupled not to declare that the

Stolzenfels were no great things; but Sigismund, whilst they spoke, was

thinking of his Tyrolese air, and when they paused, he thanked them for

having made his house the asylum of every domestic virtue.

Leaving the inmates of Hildesheim to their dissensions and illusions,

and passing over a few chapters, we seek a contrast in an humble

dwelling in Bavaria’s art-loving capital. It is the abode of Franz

Müller, the musician, Edith his wife, and Spiegel their friend. Franz

and Spiegel had been brought up together, and had passed the flower of

their youth in poverty, working and hoping. Franz studied music, Spiegel

was passionately fond of painting; art and friendship scared

discouragement from their doors. For the space of three years they

wandered on foot, knapsack on shoulder and staff in hand, through

Germany and the Tyrol, stopping wherever the beauty of the country

tempted them, and purveying, each in his own manner, for the wants of

the community. Sometimes Spiegel painted a few portraits, at others

Müller gave lessons in singing or on the piano; or when they arrived in

a town on the eve of a great festival, he offered to play the church

organ at the next day’s solemnity. Art and liberty was their motto. In

the course of their wandering existence they visited the most beautiful

valleys, the most picturesque mountains, opulent cities, splendid

picture galleries, and amassed a treasure of reminiscences for future

fireside conversation. They resolved never to marry, lest domestic cares

should interfere with their enthusiastic pursuit of art. Spiegel kept

his word, but Franz, in a little Tyrolese town, saw and loved Edith. In

vain did the painter draw an alarming picture of the inconveniences of

matrimony; Franz married, and thenceforward his friend deemed him lost

to art. It was reserved for the gentle Edith to convince Spiegel of the

contrary, and to tame his somewhat wild and vagabond nature. When first

the newly-married pair settled at Munich, he seldom went to see them,

but gradually his visits became more frequent, until one day, he hardly

knew how, he found himself dwelling under their roof. In a small house

Müller had taken, he had reserved a bedroom and studio for his friend.

In that modest abode, situated outside Munich, between a front court

whose walls disappeared under a drapery of vines and a little garden

crowded with sweet flowers, happy years flew by. Happy, but not

prosperous. At first Spiegel had painted pictures, with two or three of

which he was tolerably satisfied, whilst Franz pronounced them

masterpieces. But they found no purchasers, and the artist, once so

ambitious, cheerfully resigned his hopes of fame, and gave drawing

lessons. Müller had composed sonatas and a symphony; they were as

unsuccessful as Spiegel’s pictures. Vanquished by the innumerable

barriers that interpose between a poor and unknown musician and the

public, he, too, submitted to give lessons. With strict economy they

managed to live, but they laid by nothing; and Müller was often uneasy

when he thought of the future, and of the two beautiful children Edith

had born him.

“One evening, during Spiegel’s absence from Munich, Franz came home with

a more care-laden brow than usual, and Edith sat down to the piano and

sang a favourite air, which had more than once dispelled his momentary

melancholy. The window was open, and her voice, fresh, pure, and

sonorous, was audible outside the house. Franz listened, his gloom

gradually softening into reverie, whilst Herman and Margaret rolled upon

the carpet like kittens at play. That young woman, whose fair hair fell

in abundant tresses upon her bare shoulders—those two fine children,

joyously gambolling—the dreamer, whose hand sustained his thoughtful

brow, composed a charming picture. Suddenly a stranger appeared, and

paused upon the threshold of the apartment. He had entered so gently,

that none had heard his steps or now observed his presence. Edith

continued her song; the intruder listened motionless, and in apparent

ecstasy, whilst silent tears coursed down his pale cheeks prematurely

furrowed by pain or sorrow.”

At the stranger’s entreaty, Edith again and again repeated the song,

which was from her native Tyrol. He listened with deep emotion. By

ordinary persons he might have been deemed mad or intrusive, and

received accordingly; but he had had the good fortune to fall amongst

artists. He passed the evening with them, conversing as kindly and

familiarly as though they had been old friends. He found means to draw

out Franz, to make him speak of himself, his hopes and wishes, his

discouragements and disappointments, his long-cherished desire for fame,

his uneasiness about the prospects of his children. Then he asked him to

play a piece of his own composition. Müller played one of his best

sonatas, to which the stranger listened with the attention of a judge

who will not lightly decide. The piece played out, he seemed thoughtful,

but said nothing. Poor Müller, who had expected applause, consoled

himself by thinking that the eccentric stranger did not understand

music. Instead of praising the fine composition he had just heard, the

unbidden guest, so kindly welcomed, turned to Edith and asked her for a

copy of the Tyrolese air. She had never seen it noted, she said, and

doubted that it ever had been, but Franz would note it for him. “Most

willingly” was the reply of the good-tempered artist, who could not

repress a smile at the ill success of his own performance. In a very few

minutes he had covered a sheet of music-paper with spots and scratches.

Edith graciously offered it to the stranger. He seized it with an

expression of grateful joy, glanced hastily over it, pressed Edith’s

hand to his lips, cast an affectionate glance at the children, and left

the house, as he had entered it, swift and noiseless as a shadow. He had

not mentioned his name; his kind hosts had not inquired it; they never

saw him again.

On a certain evening, Count Sigismund returned to Hildesheim Castle,

after one of his long absences, his countenance lighted up with a

mysterious joy. He spoke to no one, put aside the servants who crowded

round him, and shut himself up in his apartment. Soon his piano was

heard resounding under his fingers; he at last had found the air he so

long had sought. But he did not long enjoy his victory. He had worn

himself out in pursuit of his mania. One morning, subsequent to a night

during great part of which the piano had been continually heard, a

servant entered his room. Sigismund was still seated at the instrument,

one hand resting on the keys, the other hanging by his side, his eyes

closed, his mouth half open and smiling. He seemed to sleep, but he was

dead.

There were present at the reading of Count Sigismund von Hildesheim’s

last will and testament the two ladies Stolzenfels; Major Bildmann, a

brokendown gambler of braggadocio air and vinous aspect; his wife

Dorothy, whose thin pale lips, and sharp, hooked nose, gave her no small

resemblance to a bird of prey; and their son Isaac, a horrible urchin

with the profile of a frog and a head of scrubby white hair, who, having

been ordered by his mother to behave decorously and look sorrowful, had

given his features a sulky twist, which considerably augmented their

naturally evil expression. The opposed camps of Bildmann and Stolzenfels

observed each other with dislike and distrust. After some waiting, the

gallop of a horse was heard, and Captain Frederick entered, whip in

hand, and his boots covered with dust. All who were interested being

thus assembled, Master Gottlieb broke the seals of the will, which the

count had deposited in his keeping a month before his death. Divested of

customary formalities and of preliminary compliments to the family, the

contents of the document were in substance as follows:—

“My mother’s two cousins, Hedwige and Ulrica von Stolzenfels, have at

all times shown me the most disinterested affection. To leave me more

leisure and liberty, they have kindly taken the management of my house,

and have superintended, with unceasing zeal and activity, that of my

estates. Frederick, by his youth and gaiety, has enlivened my dwelling.

To him I am indebted for the only cheerful moments I for many years have

known. Since their establishment under my roof, the Stolzenfels have

proved themselves my affectionate and devoted friends; their conduct has

excited my admiration and respect, and I desire they should know that I

duly appreciate it.”

About this time Hedwige and Ulrica seemed to grow several inches taller,

and cast a triumphant glance at the major and Dorothy. As to Frederick,

who, since the reading began, had been sketching with the point of his

horse-whip, upon the dusty surface of one of his boots, a likeness of

Master Gottlieb, he gave the last touch to his work, and commenced upon

the other foot the portrait of Isaac. The notary continued.

“The straightforward frankness and integrity of Major Bildmann have

been, I here declare, a great consolation to me, after the deceptions of

all kinds that I experienced in my youth. Mrs Bildmann has vied with my

mother’s cousins in zeal and devotedness. The complete absence of all

self-interested views has given a noble and affecting character to their

rivalry. In return for so much attention and care, they neither asked

nor expected other reward than my affection. The Bildmanns have an equal

right with the Stolzenfels to my gratitude.”

This became puzzling. A division of the property was the most natural

inference. Master Gottlieb, dubious where to seek the rising sun, smiled

benignly on all around. Urged by the impatient hussar, he resumed the

reading of the will.

“At Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, lives a young

musician, Franz Müller by name. He has hitherto contrived, by hard work,

by giving lessons, to support his wife and children, who tenderly love

him. But Müller is no ordinary musician; and his genius, to develop

itself, needs but leisure. It is to him, Franz Müller, residing at

Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, that I bequeath my

entire property.”

It is highly improbable that Master Gottlieb’s peaceable parlour had

ever before been the scene of such an uproar as this paragraph of the

will occasioned. The major, Dorothy, and the two old maids, were for

attacking the document on the ground of the testator’s insanity; but

Frederick, who could not restrain his laughter at this eccentric close

to an eccentric life, firmly opposed this, and the bullying major

quailed before his resolute tone and mien. Franz Müller not being

present, Master Gottlieb no longer troubled himself to smile on anybody;

but, in an authoritative tone, called attention to the closing passages

of the will.

“Desiring,” the singular document proceeded, “to insure, after my death,

the welfare of my farmers and servants, which I feel that I have

neglected too much during my life, I make it a condition of my bequest

that Franz Müller shall inhabit the castle for nine months of every

year, and dismiss none of my people. As to my dear relatives, the

Stolzenfels and the Bildmanns, nothing is to be changed in their manner

of life, and they are to inhabit the castle as heretofore. Wishing to

insure their independence, it is my will that Müller shall annually pay

to Ulrica von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Hedwige von

Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Frederick von Stolzenfels one

thousand florins; to Major Bildmann two thousand florins, with

reversion, in case of his death, to Dorothy Bildmann. And that he should

take from his first year’s revenue a sum of ten thousand florins, the

interest on which is to be allowed to accumulate until the majority of

Isaac, to whom interest and capital are then to be paid over.

“I give to Frederick von Stolzenfels the free use of my horses and dogs,

with right of chase over my estates.

“I annex to the present will a Tyrolese air; I desire that it may be

engraved on my tomb and serve as my epitaph.”

After listening to this strange document, which they declared worthy to

have proceeded from a lunatic asylum, the ladies had no appetite for

Master Gottlieb’s collation. The major would gladly have tried the

contents of the cobwebbed bottles, but his wife dragged him away.

Frederick sprang upon his horse and galloped off, taking with him upon

his boots the portraits of Isaac and the notary. This functionary,

finding himself deserted by his guests, called in his head clerk to help

him to drink the health of the absent legatee.

Poor, well-meaning, simple-minded Count Sigismund would have turned in

his grave had he known all the mischief and unhappiness, envy, hatred,

and discord, of which his extraordinary will sowed the seed and gave the

signal. The journey from Munich to Hildesheim was, for Franz and Edith,

a series of enchanting dreams. There was but one drawback to their joy;

Spiegel had refused to accompany them. “No more drudgery, no more

lessons!” Müller had enthusiastically exclaimed, when a letter from

Master Gottlieb, expressing a hope of the continuance of the Hildesheim

patronage, and enclosing a copy of the will, tied with blue ribbons,

confirmed the intimation of good fortune he had already gleaned from a

newspaper paragraph. “The world belongs to us; we are kings of the

earth! You shall paint pictures, I will compose symphonies and operas;

we will fill Germany with our fame.” And he formed innumerable projects.

Their life thenceforward was to be a fairy scene, a delightful and

perpetual alternation of refined enjoyments and artistic toil. Edith

partook her husband’s enthusiasm; Spiegel at first said nothing, and

when he did speak he gave his friends to understand that he could not

share their prosperity. He did not like new faces; he preferred the

cottage at Munich to the abode of a castle, and was proof against all

entreaties. Franz and Edith secretly resolved to buy the little house as

a gift to their friend. In nine months they would return to see him, and

perhaps, when they again set out for Hildesheim, he would consent to

accompany them. Whilst preparing for departure, and burning useless

papers, Franz laid his hand upon the only symphony he had found time to

write. Carefully turning over its leaves, with a disdainful air, he was

about to toss it into the fire, when Spiegel seized his arm and rescued

the composition.

Müller had written to the Hildesheim steward to announce his arrival,

and to forbid all pomp, ceremony, and public rejoicings on the occasion.

He thought his instructions too literally carried out, when, upon

reaching, some hours after nightfall, the huge gates of the castle, all

decorated with stags’ horns, boars’ tusks, and wolves’ heads, he found

no servant to receive him, not a light on the walls or in the windows,

not a torch in the gloomy avenues of the park. After the postilion had

cracked his whip and wound his horn for the better part of half an hour,

a glimmering light appeared, a clanking of keys was heard, and the

gates, slowly opening, disclosed the sour visage of Wurm the steward,

muttering maledictions on the untimely visitors. Upon learning who they

were, and at the rather sharp injunction of Müller, who was exasperated

at the delay, he made what haste he could to awaken the servants, and

ushered his new master and mistress into their apartments—immense rooms,

nearly bare of furniture; for, even during Sigismund’s lifetime, the

Stolzenfels and Bildmann, taking advantage of his frequent absence of

mind, and from the castle, had stripped that part of the edifice he had

reserved for his own use. Edith mentally contrasted the vast gloomy

halls with her snug abode at Munich, and thought it would have been but

kind had the ladies Stolzenfels and Mrs Bildmann been there to receive

her. But a night’s rest, a brilliant morning, and the view of the

immense lawns and rich foliage of the park, effaced the first unpleasant

impression, and, having previously sent to know when they could be

received, she and her husband presented themselves in the apartments of

Hedwige and Ulrica. On their entrance, the two old ladies, who were

seated in the embrasure of a window, half rose from their seats, resumed

them almost immediately, and pointed to chairs with a gesture rather

disdainful than polite. Poor Edith, who, in the innocence of her heart,

had expected smiling countenance and a friendly welcome, felt herself

frozen by their vinegar aspect. She turned red, then pale, and knew not

what to say. Müller, without noticing the ladies’ looks, recited a

little speech he had prepared for the occasion, expressive of his

gratitude to Count Sigismund for having bequeathed him, in addition to

his estates, his amiable family. He begged and insisted that they would

change nothing in their mode of life, &c. &c. Why should they change

anything? was Ulrica’s sharp and haughty reply; the count had left them

by his will what he had given them in his lifetime; they had their

rights and asked nothing beyond them. Hedwige pitched it in rather a

lower key. Their tastes were very simple. They had sought neither

applause nor luxury at Hildesheim. Count Sigismund had always put his

carriage and horses at their disposal. Müller hoped they would continue

to make use of them. They were lovers of solitude, Hedwige continued, of

silence and meditation. With Count Sigismund’s consent they had planted

a quickset hedge round a little corner of the park—not more than two or

three acres. It would pain them, she confessed, to give up this little

enclosure, whither they repaired to indulge their evening reveries.

Franz eagerly assured them that none should disturb them in their

retreat. Having obtained these assurances, and repelled, with chilling

stiffness, Edith’s warm-hearted advances, the amiable spinsters relapsed

into silence, which all their visitors’ efforts were insufficient to

induce them to break, until the upset of a table of old china,

occasioned by the gambols of Herman and a black cat, effectually roused

them from their assumed apathy. The Müllers beat a retreat and went to

call on Major Bildmann and his wife, whom they surprised in the midst of

a domestic squabble—a circumstance of itself sufficient, had others been

wanting, to secure them a surly reception. Franz’s mild and gentle

bearing encouraged the major to assume his most impertinent tone, whilst

his falcon-faced spouse ventured offensive inuendoes as to the real

motives of Count Sigismund’s will—inuendoes whose purport was utterly

unsuspected by the pure-hearted Müllers. Here, too, there was an

enclosure in the case, where the major cultivated the flowers his dear

Dorothy preferred, and where the infant Isaac loved to disport himself.

As an old soldier, Major Bildmann added, he loved the chase, which was

the image of war. The count had allowed him the range of his preserves.

Müller eagerly confirmed him in all his privileges. On quitting the

Bildmann wing he found Wurm waiting for him to pass the servants in

review. He made them an affecting little speech, by which they seemed

very little affected. Then Wurm named them. There were Mrs Bildmann’s

waitingmaid and the major’s valet, the servants of the ladies

Stolzenfels, the cooks of the right and left wings, Isaac’s nurse, Major

Bildmann’s butler, Captain Frederick’s grooms and huntsmen, &c. &c.

Müller inquired for his own servants—those that had been Count

Sigismund’s. They were all before him. The two wings had swallowed up

the body. Wurm felt secretly surprised at a musician’s needing servants

when the count had done without them. Müller dryly informed him that

Count Sigismund’s servants were his, and that he made him responsible

for their attention to his service. He said nothing to Edith of this

strange scene, and tried to dissipate the painful impressions she had

brought away from their two visits, by praising the major’s military

frankness and the aristocratic bearing of the sisters. But he was at a

loss to explain why the apartments of the Stolzenfels and Bildmanns were

richly and sumptuously furnished and decorated, whilst those the owners

of the castle occupied exhibited little beside bare walls. Meanwhile the

right and left wings, between whom there had been a sort of hollow

alliance since the reading of the will, assembled in conclave. Never was

there such a voiding of venom. The self-same idea had occurred to all

these disappointed and charitable relations. Edith’s beauty at once

explained the count’s frequent absence from home and his unjust will.

She was the syren that had led him astray. Little Margaret was his very

image. It was a crying shame, a burning scandal. The old maids clasped

their hands and rolled their eyes. Ulrica was for attacking the will on

the ground of immoral influence and captivation. The major had always

been of the same opinion, but Frederick would not agree, and nothing

should induce the major to fight a member of his family. The fact was,

notwithstanding his Bobadil airs, Major Bildmann had very little fancy

for fighting with anybody. The council broke up, all its members

declaring they would quit the castle sullied by the presence of these

adventurers—all fully resolved to remain and to wait the course of

events.

We must compress into a few lines the leading incidents of the second

half of _Un Héritage_. Müller had not been a month at the castle, when

great annoyances succeeded to the petty disagreeables he had encountered

on his first arrival. Master Wolfgang the Hildesheim lawyer was his evil

genius. There was a certain lawsuit, that had already lasted through

three generations, in which, as Count Sigismund’s heir, he found himself

entangled. The whole matter in dispute was but half an acre of land,

which Müller would gladly have abandoned, but Wolfgang proved to him, as

clear as day, the impropriety of so doing, the disrespect to the memory

of the late count, and so forth—and, the most cogent argument of all, he

exhibited to him the sum total of the costs he would have to pay if he

admitted himself vanquished. It was an alarming figure, and ready money

was not abundant with Müller, whom the Stolzenfels and Bildmanns dunned

for their first year’s annuity and for the legacy to little Isaac; who

had to pay for extensive repairs of the castle, for the costly mausoleum

which, in the first effusion of his gratitude, he had ordered for Count

Sigismund, and various other charges. So the lawsuit went on—the delight

of Master Wolfgang, and a daily drain upon Müller’s purse. The harvest

was bad, the farmers asked for time, and grumbled when worse terms than

their own were proposed to them. Careless Count Sigismund had spoiled

all around him by letting them do as they liked, and Müller’s greater

activity and vigilance, and his attempts to check fraud and peculation,

speedily earned him the ill-will of the whole neighbourhood.

Gentle-hearted Edith, anxious to expend a portion of her sudden wealth

in improving the condition of the poor, was soon disgusted by their

ingratitude, and was utterly at a loss to understand the chilling looks,

ironical smiles, and mysterious whisperings of which she was the object

whenever she went beyond the limits of her own park, to which she soon

confined herself. Her servants showed no sense of the kindness with

which she treated them; they, too, had adopted and spread the vile

rumours first set abroad by the malice of the two vixen spinsters and of

the Bildmanns, with respect to the count’s real motives for bequeathing

his estates to the Müllers. Fortunately it was impossible for Edith, who

was purity itself, ever to suspect the real cause of the ill-will shown

to her. Captain Frederick, when his regimental duties permitted him to

visit the castle, discovered at a first interview, with a rake’s usual

clear-sightedness in such matters, the utter falseness of the injurious

reports in circulation. He became a constant visitor to the Müllers, and

was in fact their only friend and resource in the solitude in which they

lived; for the neighbouring squires, the _hobereaus_ of the country

around, had not returned Müller’s visits, nor taken any notice of him

beyond attacking him at law; some upon a question of water-power, which

he had innocently diminished by winding a stream that ran through his

grounds, others for damage done to their fields, by the trespasses of

the Hildesheim hounds, followed by Captain Frederick and his huntsmen.

Nor was this all—there was discord yet nearer home: Müller’s children,

having trespassed upon the Bildmanns’ private garden, were brutally

ejected by the major, whom Müller angrily reproached. The major bullied

and insisted upon satisfaction, which Franz, exasperated by a long

series of annoyances, was perfectly willing to give him, and a duel

would have ensued had not the major, when he saw that the musician, as

he contemptuously called him, meant to fight, sent an apology. It was

accepted, but next day Müller ordered his three gardeners to root up and

clear away the hedges of the Stolzenfels and Bildmann enclosures. The

knaves remonstrated and finally refused, and, when dismissed, they

refused to go, alleging that the late count’s will deprived Müller of

the power of sending them away. More work for the lawyers. Müller sent

for labourers, and the hedges disappeared. Notices of action from the

ladies Stolzenfels and Major Bildmann. The villain Wolfgang chuckled and

rubbed his hands, upon which he had now six lawsuits for Müller’s

account. In the count’s crack-brained will, drawn up by himself, without

legal advice, the letter was everywhere at variance with the spirit.

Müller’s apartment was encumbered with law papers; he could not sit down

to his piano, to seek oblivion of his cares in his beloved art, without

being interrupted by Wolfgang’s parchment physiognomy. As for

composition, it was out of the question: he had no time for it, nor was

his harassed mind attuned to harmony. He became morose and fanciful,

jealous of the hussar’s attention to Edith, who, for her part, grieved

to see her husband so changed, and sighed for the cottage at Munich,

where Spiegel, meanwhile, had worked hard, had sold some pictures, had

paid the rent that Franz, in the midst of his troubles, had forgotten to

remit to him, and had purchased, with the fruits of his own toil and

talent, the little dwelling of which, when their prosperity first burst

upon them, the Müllers had planned to make him a present. The contrast

was striking between anticipation and realisation.

No schoolboy ever more eagerly longed for “breaking-up” day, than did

Müller for the termination of his nine month’s compulsory abode at

Hildesheim. It came at last, and he and Edith and their children were

free to quit the scene of strife and weariness, and to return to Munich

and to Spiegel. On making up the accounts of the year, Müller found

that, out of the whole princely revenue of the estates, he had but a

thousand florins left. He had lived little better than at Munich (much

less happily), and had committed no extravagance; annuities, legacies,

repairs, monument, did not account for half the sum expended; all the

rest had gone in law expenses. There remained about enough to pay

travelling charges to Munich. Müller sent for Wolfgang, forbade him to

begin any new lawsuit in his absence, and departed. He found a warm

welcome at the cottage. Spiegel received his friends with open arms, and

three happy months passed rapidly away. Upon the last day, when Edith

and Franz were looking ruefully forward to their return to Hildesheim’s

grandeur and countless disagreeables, Spiegel insisted upon their

accompanying him to the performance of a new symphony, concerning which

the musical world of Munich was in a state of considerable excitement.

The piece, it was mysteriously related, was from the pen of a deceased

composer, was of remarkable originality and beauty, and had been

casually discovered amongst a mass of old papers. The concert-room was

crowded. At the first bars of the music, Müller thought he recognised

familiar sounds, and presently every doubt was dissipated. It was his

own composition—the despised symphony he had been about to destroy, but

which Spiegel had rescued. The audience, at the close of each part, were

rapturous in their applause. When the finale had been played, the

composer’s name was called for with acclamations. The leader of the

orchestra advanced, and proclaimed that of Franz Müller.

A few days later, Master Gottlieb the notary received a letter from the

lord of Hildesheim. “According to the stipulations of the will,” Müller

wrote, “I am bound to inhabit the castle of Hildesheim for nine months

in the year. I remain at Munich and forfeit my right to the property.”

Forthwith began a monster lawsuit, one of the finest Master Wolfgang had

known in the whole course of his experience. It was between the

Bildmanns and the Stolzenfels. It lasted ten years. The major and

Dorothy died before it was decided, Isaac fell from a tree, when

stealing fruit, and broke his neck. The Stolzenfels triumphed. The

hussar redoubled his extravagance. The estate, already encumbered with

law expenses, was sold to pay his debts. Ulrica and Hedwige died in

poverty.

It ought surely not to have been difficult for practised dramatists to

construct a pleasant and piquant comedy out of the leading idea and

plentiful incidents of this amusing novel, which is by no means the less

to be esteemed because it boldly deviates from the long-established

routine, which demands a marriage as the wind-up of every book of the

class. It is much more common in France than in England for play-writers

to seek their subjects in novels of the day, and it is then customary,

often indispensable, to take great liberties both with plot and

characters, and sometimes to retain little besides the main idea of the

book. Upon that idea there is of course no prohibition against

improving, but authors who vary it for the worse, manifestly do

themselves a double injury, because the public, familiar with the merits

of the book, are disgusted to find it deteriorated in the play. They

look for something better, not worse, in the second elaboration of the

subject, and certainly they have a right to do so, and to be

dissatisfied when the contrary is the case. In the present instance, a

most unpleasant play has been based upon a good novel. In Emile Augier,

M. Sandeau has taken to himself a dangerous _collaborateur_. He should

have dramatised _Un Héritage_ unassisted—as he dramatised, with such

happy results, his novel of _Mademoiselle de la Seiglière_. That is a

most successful instance of the French style of adaptation to the stage.

There, too, as in the present case, great liberties have been taken. In

two out of the four acts, scarcely anything is to be traced of the

novel, which has as tragical an ending as the comedy has a cheerful and

pleasant one. But the whole tenor of the play was genial and

sympathetic. In the _Pierre de Touche_, as the present comedy is called,

the reverse is the case, and no wonder that its cynical and exaggerated

strain jarred on the feelings of the usually quiet audience at the

_Française_, and elicited hisses rarely heard within those decorous

walls, where silence and empty benches are the only tokens the public

usually give of its disapprobation. From our acquaintance with M.

Sandeau’s writings, we do not think that he would of himself have

perpetrated such a repulsive picture of human nature as he has produced

in combination with M. Augier. They have obliterated or distorted most

of the best features of the novel. In _Un Héritage_, the character of

Franz Müller is at once pleasing and natural. He is not represented as

perfect—he has his failings and weaknesses like any other mortal, and

they are exhibited in the book, although we have not, in the outline we

have traced of it, had occasion to give them prominence. But his heart

is sound to the last. Wealth may momentarily bewilder, but it does not

pervert him. He is true to his affections, and has the sense and courage

to accept honourable toil as preferable to a fortune embittered by

anxiety and dissension. The reader cannot help respecting him, and

feeling pained at his countless vexations and annoyances. No such

sympathy is possible with the Franz of the play, who is the most

contemptible of mortals. A more unpleasant character was probably never

introduced into any book, and it is untrue to nature, for it has not a

single redeeming point. The authors have personified and concentrated in

it the essences of heartlessness, selfishness, and of the most paltry

kind of pride. Somewhat indolent, and with a latent spark of envy in his

nature, the needy artist, converted into a millionaire, suddenly

displays his evil instincts. Their growth is as supernaturally rapid as

that of noxious weeds in a tropical swamp. The play opens in the cottage

at Munich. Edith, Franz’s cousin, is not yet married to him. An orphan,

she had been brought up by his father, at whose death Franz took charge

of her. She was then a child, and Franz and Spiegel hardly perceived

that she had become a woman until they were reminded of it by the

passion with which she inspired both of them. Spiegel, a noble

character, generously sacrifices to his friend’s happiness his own

unsuspected love. Edith (the names are changed in the play, but we

retain them to avoid confusion) is affianced to her cousin, and on the

eve of marriage. Just then comes the fortune. The authors have

substituted for the Bildmanns and Stolzenfels an elderly spendthrift

baron and an intriguing margravine and her pretty daughter. The love

passages in the life of the deceased count are cancelled, and he is

represented as an eccentric old gentleman, passionately fond of music,

and cherishing a great contempt for his very distant relations, to whom

he leaves only a moderate annuity. They have scarcely become acquainted

with Franz when they discern the weak points in his character and

conspire to profit by them. Treated with cutting contempt, as a mere

_parvenu_, by the haughty nobility of Bavaria, Franz’s pride boils over,

and he consents to be adopted by the baron and converted into the

Chevalier de Berghausen, at the immoderate price of the payment of the

old _roué_ nobleman’s debts. He finds Spiegel a wearisome Mentor; to his

diseased vision Edith appears awkward contrasted with the courtly dames

he now encounters. Their marriage is postponed from week to week, by

reason of the journeys and other steps necessary to establish Franz in

the ranks of the nobility of the land. Titled, and with armorial

bearings that date from the crusades, how much more fitting an alliance,

the baron perfidiously suggests, would be that of the margravine, who

graciously condescends to intimate her possible acceptance of him as a

son-in-law. We are shown the gangrene of selfishness and vanity daily

spreading its corruption through his soul. He quarrels with his honest,

generous friend, slights his affianced bride, and finally falls

completely into the clutches of the intriguers who beset him. His very

dog, poor faithful Spark, (his dog and Spiegel’s)—which, as the painter,

with tears in his eyes and a cheek pale with anger and honest

indignation, passionately reminds him—had slept on his feet and been his

comfort and companion in adversity—is killed by his order because he did

not appreciate the difference between castle and cottage, but took his

ease upon the dainty satin sofas at Hildesheim as upon the rush mat at

Munich. Edith, compelled to despise the man she had loved, preserves her

womanly dignity, and breaks off the projected marriage just as the last

glimmer of honour and affection are on the point of being extinguished

in her cousin’s bosom by the dictates of a despicable vanity. The

curtain falls, leaving him in the hands of his hollow friends, and

allowing the spectator to foresee the union of Edith and Spiegel. Not

one kindly touch of natural feeling redeems Franz’s faithlessness to his

friend, and to his love his ingratitude—for he would many a day have

been hungry, if not houseless, but for the generous toil of Spiegel, who

had devoted himself to the drudgery of teaching, that Franz might have

leisure to mature the genius for which his partial friend gave him

exaggerated credit—his false pride and his ridiculous vanity. He is left

rich, but miserable. That which he has wilfully lost can be dispelled

neither by the enjoyments wealth procures, nor by the false friends who

hang on him but to plunder him. In their vindication, the authors insist

on “the terrible morality” of their _denouement_. We admit it, but do

not the less persist in the opinion that their play, although by no

means devoid of wit and talent, leaves a most painful and disagreeable

impression upon the mind. It presents the paradoxical and complicated

phenomenon of a comedy which has been censured by press and public and

yet continues to be performed; which draws tolerably numerous audiences,

and is invariably received with symptoms of disapprobation.

NEWS FROM THE FARM.[5]

“The Ayrshire Ploughman,” glorious Burns, tells us that the muse of his

country found him, as Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her

inspiring mantle over him. Grateful Caledonia sent her inspired child to

an excise office! and in the discriminating patronage the wits of Grub

Street found material for interminable sneers. Did the Southerns,

however, reward the author of the “Farmer’s Boy,” and indicate their

appreciation of the many fine passages that grace his “News from the

Farm,” by a wiser or more generous patronage? The minister of the day

(Lord Sidmouth, if we remember rightly) did bestow upon the poet some

most paltry and ungenial office; but alas! poor Bloomfield died

neglected in the straits of penury, and under the clouds of dejection.

It had been better indeed, in every way, could it have been so arranged

that the marvellous Robin should have been allowed to sing his lyrics

——“in glory and in joy,

Following his plough upon the mountain side,”

and that Bloomfield had been permitted to indite more “News from the

Farm” amid the pleasant rural scenes that nursed his pastoral muse. But

the patronage of genius has never been successful. Unusual peril seems

the heritage of high gifts, and to minister rightly to such a man as

Burns or Bloomfield is no easy task. It is not so with ordinary men,

whose intellectual and imaginative powers harmonise with the common

duties of their station, and raise no splendid incongruities to be

subdued and regulated. But it is not with inspired ploughmen that our

country gentlemen and tenant-farmers are called upon to deal, but with

men of common clay—with the brawny peasants who till their fields and

tend their herds, and whose toil has turned the sterile North into a

garden of Ceres. Have our agricultural labourers been neglected—have

their physical wellbeing and their moral and educational training been

overlooked and left uncared for, while the classes above them and around

them have had their comforts and privileges, moral and social,

infinitely multiplied? This were indeed sad “news from the farm;” but

although this were unhappily proved to be true, we are not then prepared

to pronounce sweeping censure upon the parties apparently most nearly

implicated in the degradation of our rural population. Many, very many,

of the owners and occupants of the soil, we know, are deeply alive to

the duties which they owe to the labouring poor who live under them, and

discharge them to the best of their ability, although not, it may be, to

the extent their benevolent wishes would desire. The question that may

be raised on such a subject is not, Have our rural labourers been left

stationary while the classes above them have all been elevated in their

social condition? but rather, Are they worse off, and do they enjoy

fewer advantages, than those in the same class of life—the industrious

poor who inhabit our large cities and manufacturing towns and villages?

Is the ploughman in his bothy unfurnished with table or chair, and the

peasant in his “clay-built biggin,” damp and smoky though it be, more

miserably accommodated with the comforts and conveniences of life than

the haggard sons of toil, who are doomed to burrow in the murky lanes

and blind alleys of our teeming seats of merchandise? Does the brawny

arm and ruddy complexion of the ploughman bespeak deficient food or

raiment, and manifest such dubious symptoms of health as the pinched

countenance and pallid complexion of the attenuated artisans who live in

“populous city pent?” Yes, responds promptly the inhabitant of the city;

but that robust health is not due to the miserable bothy and the mud

cabin, but to the pure air of the country, and the breezy gales of

incense-breathing morn, and the healthful toil of the open field, which

are the unchartered boons of a gracious Heaven, and in no respect the

gifts of the lords of the soil. In the rejoinder of Mr Urbanus there is

no doubt substantial truth; but that very rejoinder, perhaps, contains

an explanation of the neglect pointed at. The robust health of the

peasant has not admonished the country gentleman of duty neglected, and

no emaciated frame and loopholed raggedness have appealed to his

sympathies and rebuked his indifference. The opulent inhabitants of our

cities have been addressed in a different strain, and the deadly typhus

and the inscrutable plague of Asia have been the stern preachers to

which they have been doomed to listen. If they have led the van in

reformatory and sanitary measures for improving the social condition of

the industrious poor, it is not very evident that their philanthropy has

been quite spontaneous, or that it has been altogether uninfluenced by

considerations suggested by a regard to their own personal safety and

selfish interest. Those who may be disposed to range the country against

the town, or curious to strike the balance of merit in the field of

philanthropic enterprise betwixt our merchant princes and our country

gentlemen, may prosecute such inquiries as have been indicated if they

please; but for ourselves, we have no taste for such unprofitable

investigation, and would rather lend a helping hand to a most

interesting movement that has been lately originated towards improving

the social condition of our agricultural labourers—a most loyal and

peaceful race, forming, upon the whole, the best-conditioned part of the

industrious classes of the kingdom.

Thanks to the Rev. Harry Stuart, of Oathlaw, if not for having

originated the movement, for having at least given it a most

unquestionable impetus, and for indicating the direction which it ought

to take. We have read his _Agricultural Labourers_, &c., with remarkable

interest and pleasure—a pleasure very different, and we believe much

higher, than the most elaborate writing of the most brilliant

pamphleteer could have given us. Mr Stuart, indeed, has nothing of the

_littérateur_ about him, and his style is the very reverse of artistic.

He tells us that his appeal has been “got up in great haste,” but we

scarcely think it could have been better had more time been devoted to

its composition. It had been no improvement, in our estimation, had his

Essay been tricked out in rhetorical embroidery, and been embellished

with well-poised and finely-polished periods. We are quite sick of the

flash and sparkle of the journalists, of their stilted eloquence and

startling antithesis. The editor of every country newspaper writes

nowadays as grandly as Macaulay, and apes to the very life “the

long-resounding march and energy divine” of Burke and Bolingbroke. It is

really a relief in these times to be spoken to in plain, natural,

homespun English. When an honest gentleman has anything of importance to

communicate, for ourselves we are very well pleased that he should use

the vernacular, and address us in simple Anglo-Saxon. This is exactly

what Mr Stuart has done. He writes from a full heart, and is manifestly

so possessed with his theme that he has had no time to think of the

belles-lettres and the art rhetorical. The minister of Oathlaw is

peradventure no popular orator, and has never probably paraded himself

on the platform, and his name is in all likelihood unknown to the

sermon-fanciers of Edinburgh, but nevertheless he is quite a pastor to

our taste. Living without pride amongst his people, going from house to

house, knowing well the trials of every household, a patient listener to

the homely annals of the poor, catechising the young, exhorting the

unruly, helping the aged to trim their lamps and gird up their loins, we

can understand how well and how quietly this worthy clergyman discharges

the duties of the pastorate, reaping a nobler guerdon in the love of

those amongst whom he lives and labours than ever the noisy trump of

fame blew into ambition’s greedy ear. We rejoice to think that there are

many such pastors in our country parishes, who, with their families,

constitute sympathetic links of kindly communication betwixt the rich

and the poor, and from whom, as from centres of civilisation, are shed

on all around the gentle lights of literary refinement and Christian

charity. These are the men who form the strength of our Established

Church, and not her doctors and dignitaries; and, indeed, over our

retired rural parishes it is evident that nothing but an endowed

resident parochial clergy can permanently exert the beneficent influence

of the pastoral office.

The origin of Mr Stuart’s address he states as follows: He became a

member of the Forfarshire Agricultural Association upon the

understanding, that the improvement of the social condition of the

agricultural labourers was to be one of the objects to which the

Association should direct its attention. Such seems to have been the

intention of the society, or at least its committee were so ready to

welcome the idea, that they forthwith asked Mr Stuart to address them

upon the subject, and he did so accordingly. His auditors were so

pleased, and, it may be, so instructed, that they requested the author

to publish his address; and under the auspices of the Forfarshire

Association it has been given to the world.

We have often thought that each of our counties has a distinct character

of its own, and is distinguished by features peculiar to itself. While

the Forfarshire coast has its populous towns, the seats of mercantile

enterprise, and of thriving manufactures, the county has likewise been

long eminent for its agriculture. By the symmetry and beauty of his

Angusshire “doddies,” Hugh Watson of Keillor has made the county famous

for its cattle. In Forfarshire, Henry Stephens practised the art which

he has so admirably illustrated in his book. The son of a small farmer

in this county, while a student at college, invented and elaborated,

without aid or patronage, in a rude workshop, that reaper which American

ambition has now so covered with fame. Forfarshire gentlemen, although

non-resident, are not disposed to forget the claims of their native

county, and by means of “the Angusshire Society” they annually

distribute among its schools numerous prizes, thus countenancing the

cause of education throughout the county, stimulating its ingenious

youth to exertion, and animating its teachers in their honourable toil.

And now the Forfarshire Agricultural Society, under the mild appeals of

the Pastor of Oathlaw, have led the way in organising an association for

raising the social condition of the agricultural labourers of the

kingdom. So all hail to old Angus!—and may her proprietors, pastors, and

tenant-farmers long be eminent in their spheres of duty, and cordially

unite in the field of benevolent enterprise.